Crusade (6 page)

“Amir?” questioned Nasir, studying the commander’s face, which was tight with concern. He followed Kalawun’s stare and saw Baraka laughing with the group of boys. “He will make a fine son,” he commented.

“But will he make a fine husband?” murmured Kalawun. He met Nasir’s gaze. “A fine sultan? Sometimes, I think he ignores everything I have tried to teach him.”

“You have guided him well, Amir. I have seen how you have instructed him so patiently, as if he were your own.” Nasir lowered his voice. “You have given him more than his own father has.”

“Sultan Baybars has not had the time to train him,” answered Kalawun. But they both knew this wasn’t true.

Baybars had ignored Baraka for most of the boy’s early life, saying that he belonged with his mother in the harem until he was old enough to be trained as a warrior. When he finally felt Baraka was of an age suitable for training, he handed him over to a tutor and, for a brief time, took a real interest, even pleasure, in his eldest son. But then Omar, his closest comrade, was killed by an Assassin’s blade that had been meant for him, and following that death Baybars hadn’t taken much interest in anything.

Nasir shook his head. “Still, it amazes me how much you have given of yourself to the boy.”

“I want him to lead his people well.”

“And he will. He may have become a man today, but in his heart he is still a boy, and boys of his age sometimes believe they are better than their masters.” Nasir met Kalawun’s eyes. “We all have.”

Kalawun put a hand on his shoulder. “You are right. It is just that sometimes I feel as if I am trying to mold clay that has already been fired. I worry, Nasir, that he is ...” His next words were cut off as a girl’s voice called across to him.

“Father!”

Kalawun turned to see Aisha, his fourteen-year-old daughter, weaving through the throng. Her black
hijab
, threaded with gold, was dangerously close to sliding off her head and uncovering her sleek dark hair. On her shoulder, its claws making little nicks in her black gown, was a tiny, amber-eyed monkey. It had a jewel-studded collar, from which hung a leather leash that Aisha had twined around one long finger. In her other hand was a fistful of dates.

“Look, Father!” she said, tossing up one of the fruits. The monkey reached out and snatched it out of the air. With little jerking movements it grasped the date and chewed, looking around inquisitively.

“I see you have been training him,” said Kalawun, cupping his daughter’s face in his large, callused hands and kissing her brow. He tugged her
hijab
over the line of hair that had been revealed, making her frown. “You haven’t let him out of your sight.” Kalawun smiled at Nasir. “If I had known such a gift would have preoccupied her so, I would have given one to her years ago.”

Aisha ignored the comment. “I still cannot think what to name him.”

“I thought you had called him Fakir?”

Aisha rolled her eyes. “That was last week. I don’t like that name anymore. I told you that.”

Kalawun touched his daughter’s cheek. “I think now is not the time to concern yourself with this. It has been a long day and you must prepare yourself for the night to come.” His smile faded as she shrugged away from him, obviously discomforted.

Kalawun felt a wrench in his gut at the thought that he had put his daughter’s happiness in the balance to secure his position with Baraka. She felt like a sacrifice. He supposed most fathers giving away their daughters into marriage must feel something like this, but the thought didn’t comfort him. He had bought her the monkey to alleviate his guilt. It had worked for a few days as he watched her delight over the creature. But after what he had witnessed with the slave, he felt troubled again. “You are a woman now, Aisha,” he told her, trying to sound firm. “You must be modest in your worldly appearance and obey and support your husband. You cannot run wild around the palace halls anymore or play with the servants or wade in the fish pool. Not as a woman. Not as a wife. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Father,” murmured Aisha.

“Go now, await your husband.”

The part of Kalawun that wasn’t bound by duty or custom, the part of him that was all father, was secretly glad to see that none of the defiant sparkle had left her eyes as she moved off.

Kalawun heard doors opening and turned to see four gold-cloaked warriors of the Bahri regiment, the Royal Guard, entering the hall. Behind, standing several inches taller than the soldiers, came Baybars Bundukdari, the Crossbow, sultan of Egypt and Syria, with whose sword the Ayyubid dynasty had ended in blood and the reign of the Mamluks had begun. He wore a heavy, fur-lined cloak of gold silk, embroidered with inscriptions from the Koran. Black bands of cloth on his upper arms displayed his rank and title. His tanned face was stony and his eyes, with the star-shaped defect in his left pupil that turned a simple gaze into a piercing glare, were as blue and fathomless as the Nile. At Baybars’s side were three military governors, including Mahmud and a fifth man dressed in the violet cloak of a royal messenger, one of the men who worked the posting houses through which information was relayed by horse across the empire. The messenger’s cloak was dust-stained, his face weary. It looked as if he had been on the road for some time. Baybars said something to him and he bowed and moved off. The sultan’s eyes swept the crowd and came to rest on Kalawun. He beckoned sharply. Leaving Nasir with a nod, Kalawun followed as Baybars left the hall.

Together, the governors and their sultan headed up to the quieter second story of the palace, leaving the music and crowds behind. Here, the Bahris pushed open a set of ivory-paneled doors, which led out onto a wide balcony. The guards remained by the doors whilst Baybars and the governors moved out into the sunlight. It was a cool day with a strong breeze that plucked at their cloaks. The afternoon sky was a wide, flat blue without a trace of haze, and in the far distance, southwest of the city, they could see the Great Pyramids rising from the desert. The citadel, built by Saladin, was situated at the highest part of the city, just below the Muqattam Hills, and the view from the balcony was spectacular.

Below them sprawled Cairo, whose name,
al-Qahira
, meant the conqueror. Minarets spiraled into the sky over the domes of mosques and palaces adorned with glass and mother-of-pearl that glittered in the sun. Woven in between these majestic edifices was a tight jumble of houses and shops that formed a complex warren of narrow streets and covered souks, in places so dark and airless it was like passing through caves.

Camel and horse markets, madrassas and mausoleums all jostled for space in this cramped arena, where districts for the Greeks, the blacks, the Turks and others were crowded around the newer quarters of the city to the north, established by the former Fatimid dynasty. Here, the al-Azhar mosque, with its adjoining university, had stood for three centuries and was now the highest seat of learning in the Islamic world. Part of the building was still shrouded by scaffolding from the repairs Baybars had ordered begun several years earlier. The smooth white limestone that clad the new side had been taken from the Pyramids and the many Crusader castles in Palestine the sultan had spent the sixteen years of his reign demolishing. The old part of Cairo, Fustat Misr, was located south of the citadel, opposite an island in the Nile. On the island was a palace erected by the Mamluks’ former Ayyubid master, the towers of which Baybars had given to Kalawun and the Mansuriyya Regiment as barracks. Between the sand-blown city and the hostile expanses of the desert, the Nile, the city’s life-blood, flowed endlessly.

Baybars turned to Kalawun with a smile, the expression not quite reflected in his wintry eyes. “We have been comrades for more than half our lives, my brother,” he said, kissing the commander’s cheeks. “Now we are family.”

“It is an honor I cherish, my Lord Sultan,” replied Kalawun.

“But now the wedding of our children is over, we must turn our eye to matters abroad.” Baybars’s manner was instantly all business. “A messenger has come bearing news from our northern territories. The Ilkhan has assembled an army. The Mongols are on the move.”

“How large an army?” questioned Kalawun, the sultan’s words causing the familiar ripple of concern to spread through him, as it always did whenever news came in to inform them that their calm was about to be shattered; that battle and death might be just around the corner.

“Thirty thousand, made up of Mongols from the Ilkhan’s Anatolian garrison and Seljuk soldiers under the command of their pervaneh.”

“Do we know where they are headed?” asked Kalawun, surprised that the Seljuk
pervaneh
was leading his men alongside the Mongols. It was rumored that the
pervaneh
, who acted as regent for the boy sultan of the Seljuk realm of Anatolia, was unhappy with the Mongols’ occupation of his lands. His relationship with his overlord, Abaga, Ilkhan of Persia and great-grandson of Genghis Khan, was said to be strained.

“One of our patrols on the Euphrates frontier captured a Mongol scout. They were able to extract the information from him. The Mongols plan to attack al-Bira.”

Kalawun, glancing at the other amirs, saw by their faces that they had already heard this news. “Do we know when, my lord?”

“Soon. That is all they were able to ascertain. But it was almost five weeks ago that our garrison at al-Bira received this information. The attack could have already occurred. The message went by way of Aleppo. My governor there was sending seven thousand troops to help fortify the city. He also planned to raise a levy of Bedouin. But we all know how unpredictable mercenaries can prove,” Baybars added.

“Then we have need of haste.”

Baybars gestured to one of the amirs, a dusky-skinned man of his and Kalawun’s age. “Amir Ishandiyar will lead his regiment to al-Bira, along with two other commanders. They leave tomorrow. If the Mongols have not yet attacked, our forces will remain to reinforce the city. If they have . . .” Baybars paused. “Ishandiyar will deal with them.”

“If we ride swiftly, we can reach Aleppo within thirty-six days,” said Ishandiyar. “We can collect fresh supplies and any auxiliary forces available to us, then continue to al-Bira. It is only a two-day march from there.”

“We have to hope that will be enough time,” said Kalawun. “The city will not keep out a determined force indefinitely. The Mongols managed to take it before.”

The other governors nodded. The city of al-Bira was their first line of defense on the Euphrates frontier. If the Mongols took it, they could use it as a staging post from which to launch further attacks on Mamluk territories in Syria. Five years ago, under orders of Abaga, the Mongols had crossed the Euphrates and raided down to Aleppo, but they had caused only minimal damage. The Mamluks had been lucky. With a stronger force, they would have been deadly. The bones of eighty thousand Muslims buried beneath the dust of Baghdad were testament to that.

Baybars looked to Ishandiyar. “I am counting on you.”

“I will not fail you, my lord.”

“Make sure of it. I do not want the Mongols to hold any position that could threaten my rear when I continue my campaign north. Abaga is no fool. He will be aware that my raid in Cilicia last year was a prelude to an invasion of Anatolia. He knows I seek to expand my empire. And with the Seljuks reportedly growing restless with his rule, his position has weakened. I knew he would flex his muscles sooner or later. But if he takes al-Bira, my plans for expansion in Anatolia will be gravely hampered.”

“My Lord Sultan,” Mahmud cut in quickly, “you have not yet discussed those plans with us. Before the messenger brought this news to you, I was going to ask if we might now speak of your strategy for the coming year. As you must be aware, there is some dispute over which of our enemies requires our attention first.”

“Yes, Amir Mahmud, I am well aware of what goes on within my own court.” Baybars smiled humorlessly. “But perhaps you would like to inform me further?” He moved to the balcony ledge and leaned against it.

Mahmud answered, unabashed. “My lord, of all the sultans of Egypt who have warred against the Franks, you have delivered the most victories to our people. Of their once great empire, the Western Christians hold just a few scattered cities on the coast of Palestine. You have destroyed the castles of their knights, driven fat barons out of towns once inhabited by Muslims, returned to us mosques that were turned into churches, slaughtered the infidel in their thousands.” Mahmud’s voice rose in passion as he spoke.

Baybars didn’t look impressed. “What is your point?”

“There are those within your court who believe it is time to finish what you started when you proclaimed the jihad against the Christians sixteen years ago. They believe it is time to erase the Franks in Acre and Tripoli and the other strongholds they possess, time to drive them once and for all from our shores.”

“They?” said Baybars dryly.

“I will admit, my lord, this is something I personally hope for. But so do many here.”

The fourth amir, an old Mamluk veteran called Yusuf, who had so far been silent, was nodding in time with Mahmud’s words. Ishandiyar looked thoughtful.

“You agree with this?” Baybars asked them.

“The truce we signed with the Franks was, by your own admission, my lord, only meant to be temporary,” said Yusuf in his scratchy, ancient voice. “Reports from our spies in Acre say their pope has been in council with rulers of the West to discuss a Crusade. Why give them time to launch another? I say we end them now.”

“I would counsel caution,” said Ishandiyar slowly. “Let us first deal with the Mongols at al-Bira before making any firm plans. We may need to put all our resources into that.”

“I agree,” said Mahmud swiftly as Baybars nodded, “we need to safeguard the city, of course. But if we are victorious, then let us at least speak of our concerns over the Franks before any campaign against the Mongols in Anatolia is launched.”

“What do you say, Amir Kalawun?” asked Ishandiyar.

“I have already spoken to the sultan of my thoughts,” replied Kalawun. He ignored the affront in Mahmud’s face.