The Towers of Samarcand (10 page)

‘I would want an exclusive. The status of sole provider for three months. It would be reflected in the price.’

For someone revolted by trade, Plethon had mastered its language surprisingly well. He sounded convincing. The fat man nodded and glanced back at the blackboard. The price was its highest yet. He pressed his hands together. ‘I will do what I can. You would meet with him?’

Plethon shook his head. ‘No, it is better that this transaction is done through intermediaries. The quantities are considerable.’

A light veil of sweat now covered the man’s face. He could no more conceal his excitement than his wife could prevent the child from now giving voice.

*

Twenty minutes later, Plethon was humming as he crossed the Piazza San Marco on his way to meet the Doge. If anything, the day was even hotter and the crowds had abandoned the square
to the pigeons, men in black clinging to its shadowed sides like bats. The philosopher was too absorbed in thought even to shake his customary fist at the bronze horses of the cathedral.

He was wondering whether the ruse would really work. He’d used some of the considerable funds that Luke was amassing in Chios to bribe miners of copper and tin. He’d asked them to create a flawed alloy, one that a colluding gunsmith could make use of. The idea of the exclusive had come to him at the Rialto.

Three more months of delay. It all helps
.

Plethon was humming so hard that he didn’t hear the request from the two
excusati
guarding the entrance to the Doge’s palace. He found himself facing a cross of tasselled halberds. ‘Ah yes. Georgius Gemistus Plethon. I am expected.’

The halberds rose and he entered a large courtyard with an imposing staircase that led up to a loggia. Men in long scarlet robes were walking down it – men of the Grand Council. With them, and in deep conversation, were a covey of cardinals. Red and purple, a pope’s ransom in dye flowed towards him down the marble steps. Two cardinals known to Plethon stopped to talk. Their news from the meeting was not encouraging.

Not long after, Plethon was standing in the Scudo Room where the coat of arms of Antonio Venier, Doge of Venice hung. Unlike Pavlos Mamonas, he’d only met this man before within the confines of his palace. He bowed.

Venier said, ‘You will have been trampled by prelates on your way up. And the cardinals are not light.’

Plethon liked Venier for his ruthless pragmatism. There was never any skirmish to their conversation. ‘Weighted with disappointment it seemed, magnificence,’ he replied.

The Doge went over to an open window and looked down into
the courtyard. The buzz of conversation below rose as a faint music. ‘Yes,’ he murmured. ‘Still …’ He turned and looked at Plethon. There was silence between the two men, broken only by the tide of Plethon’s breathing. The steps had been many and steep. ‘They want me to stop building things for the Turks.’

‘And the Grand Council?’

‘To build faster, of course. They worry about our alum not getting past Constantinople because of the blockade. And they worry about Genoa.’

‘Genoa?’

The Doge turned back to the window. In its frame, he looked like the study of a man bent under the burden of age and cynicism. A little wind ruffled his unruly beard and he put his hand to it. ‘They worry that if we don’t help the Turk, Genoa will, and all the gains of the last many years will be wasted. Genoa controls the alum from Chios, as you know.’

Plethon asked: ‘May I sit?’

Since he’d been doge, this question had seldom been put to Venier but he covered his surprise well. Plethon was already seated at the long table when he came over to join him. ‘Wine? We have it from Monemvasia. Iced.’

Plethon shook his head. The Venetians were said to strengthen their wine in negotiations and he was tired from the heat. He asked: ‘You’ve heard of the French writer Gautier de Coincy? The one who wrote of the Virgin’s miracles?’

The Doge was pouring himself wine and nodding. He hadn’t heard of the writer.

‘Then you will know that there is one in which she rescues a man who makes a bargain with Mephistopheles. The Devil makes him rich and powerful and comes to collect his debt: the man’s soul.’ He paused. ‘The Virgin intercedes.’

The Doge saw where this was leading. He said: ‘You speak of Venice and the Turk. There is a difference.’

Plethon waited.

‘The difference here is that the debt is the other way round. We’ve sold to them and not vice versa.’

‘It is immaterial,’ said Plethon. ‘You’ve made a pact with that which will destroy you. Eventually.’

The Doge sipped his wine and winced as ice touched a hole in his teeth. ‘We disagree. The Turk will need trade to pay for his empire. We will provide it.’

Both men looked at each other for a while. Both were as clever as their beards were long. There was mutual respect. ‘Anyway,’ said the Doge, ‘the Serenissima has been excommunicated before. I’ll have friends below. We can toast together.’

Plethon smiled again. He rose from the table and walked to stand beneath the Venier coat of arms. ‘You would give the Turk the Middle Sea for fifty years of gain. No more dreams of
Mare Nostrum
. What will future Veniers make of you?’

The Doge shrugged. ‘We Venetians live on water, Plethon. What could be more unstable than that? We move with the tide.’

Plethon looked up at the shield for a long time before speaking again. He did not turn round. ‘I have two strategies for stopping the Turk from taking all of Christendom. The first is to bring Tamerlane to fight Bayezid.’

Venier shook his head. ‘He won’t come,’ he said. ‘We have agents in the court in Samarcand. He’s more interested in China.’ He reached for his wine. ‘They tell me he is obsessed with reuniting the four Khanates under one Mongol rule. He’s done three: Chagatai, Persia and the Golden Horde. Now he’s just got the empire won by Kublai Khan to conquer: China.
Anyway, Tamerlane might not beat him. Bayezid’s never lost a battle.’ He smiled. ‘What is your second?’

‘To forge a union of the Churches which will enable the Pope to send another crusade before the Turk is too strong and it’s too late.’

‘But we are blessed with two Popes. Which is it to be, Rome’s or Avignon’s?’

‘They can be reunited.’

The Doge looked sceptical. ‘How?’

‘Incentive,’ said the philosopher. ‘I want to talk to men who see advantage in a single Curia. The Medici, for instance. I would like you to arrange a meeting.’

The Doge frowned. ‘The Catholic Church has been in schism for decades and many reputations have been lost in the attempt to reconcile it. Why will the Medici want to risk theirs?’

‘Because they’ve already started. They are grooming Baldassare Cossa for the task. Why else have they bought him his cardinal’s hat? They want the banking of a single Curia. Think of the revenues from all those sees.’

‘But what about the two Popes?’

‘Ah,’ replied Plethon, leaning forward and dropping his voice to the conspiratorial. ‘For them I have the ultimate incentive.’

‘Which is more money? Plethon, something has been puzzling me. Where is all this money coming from? We have the Empress’s jewels here in pawn.’

Plethon nodded. ‘We have new money.’

‘You’ve found your treasure?’

Plethon blinked. Was there anything this man didn’t know? ‘Possibly. But if I had, it would provide a different kind of incentive, one much more persuasive than money,’ he said. ‘No, this money comes from Chios.’

‘From Chios?’ Venier paused. ‘Now, here is irony. Chios is Suleyman’s bait to get us to build cannon for him and it’s also the source of your bribes to prevent it. The island is busy.’ He paused. ‘Wouldn’t it be simpler for you just to give Chios to us?’

Plethon shook his head. ‘We do not abandon our friends so easily.’ He looked hard at the other man. ‘Anyway, now you know that mastic doesn’t cure the plague, why is it still important? Is it just to deny Genoa?’

The Doge shook his head. ‘No, pleasant though it is to deny anything to Genoa. We want Chios because, with it and the trade from Trebizond, we’d have the monopoly for alum. We could price as we wish.’

Plethon considered this. At Christmas, Benedo Barbi had told him that the thriving market for alum and mastic, as well as the Medici loan, had built new villages to strengthen the island’s defence. He’d heard that the last Turkish assault had been disastrous.

He said: ‘You know, of course, that Bayezid has forbidden further attacks on Chios? After the failure of the last one, I doubt Suleyman will have the nerve to try again. I suspect that is why you allow me to go on bribing your man from Ragusa.’

The Doge looked up. ‘You are a cynic, Plethon. But you may judge for yourself how hard I might find it to continue blocking the cannon if Chios once more came into play. The signori of Venice are much taken with the prospect of the alum monopoly.’ He paused. ‘There is also the question of which Mamonas to deal with. The father is understandably cautious, given the Sultan’s injunction. The daughter, who is Suleyman’s lover, is more reckless.’

Plethon looked down at his hands. He was suddenly very tired. He began the business of gathering the folds of his toga.
He looked up. There was a smile hidden somewhere deep within the bush of beard across from him. The Doge leant forward.

‘Don’t worry, Plethon,’ he said, sotto voce, ‘I’ll let you go on bribing my gunsmith a little while longer. We Venetians are, after all, Christians.’ He paused. ‘And I’ll see what can be done about a meeting with de’ Medici.’

The days were long and full of dust. Every day, a relentless sun blazed down on the scorched grass of the steppe from the same indigo sky and the rivers began to run dry. It was poor grazing for the herds and the animals had to be taken further and further to find food.

Vast game drives were organised with local tribes across the steppe. Three camps beat the animals to a killing ground in the hills where a fourth would be waiting in ambush among the juniper trees, their bows poised.

There were snakes everywhere. Careless children were bitten and one died. Shulen was out daily with her forked stick, silently looking for them around the camp and bringing them back to make antidotes from their poison. Their patterned skins hung like sullen bunting outside her tent. Luke had not spoken to her since the storm.

He was as happy as he’d ever been in his life. As his reward for saving the tribe’s horses, he’d been given one. By day, he rode where he wanted and thrilled to the challenge of mastering this small, quick animal that could turn on a florin and show bursts of speed beyond anything he’d seen. He taught himself to ride
with his legs, to command with his knees, to understand this tough little cousin of Eskalon as once he’d understood Eskalon.

At night, he ate mutton beneath the stars and drank airag. In the early hours, he’d lie awake and listen to the wind outside singing its same, whispered song of distance and freedom. The sound of the camp awakening would comfort him as his mother Rachel had once done in Monemvasia and he’d watch the gathering light seep through the roof above him and think of the day to come. He was, bit by bit, becoming a gazi.

Gomil was his only worry. Luke could feel him watching his every move, the heat of his rage on his neck as he mounted every horse and pulled every rein. He saw how Gomil’s hatred for him was turning into something worse.

One morning, Torguk was waiting for him outside his tent, his daughter Arkal standing next to him.

‘Lug,’ he said as Luke emerged from the ger to wash, ‘I have something for you.’

He was standing awkwardly, his deel wrapped close against the morning chill and his hat in his hands. Arkal was holding something wrapped in lynx-skin and tied up with horsehair. She was flushed with the anticipation of giving pleasure and hopped from good leg to bad.

‘Here!’ said Arkal, thrusting the present into Luke’s arms. ‘Open it.’

Luke glanced down at the parcel. He heard a shout to his right and looked up to see Tsaurig running towards them, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Arkal frowned.

‘Open it!’ she commanded, patting the skin.

Luke sat on the ground, shooing away a dog that had come to investigate. He drew his knife, cut the horsehair and opened the skin. Inside was a bow. It was about the length of Luke’s
outstretched arm and its limbs were bent into two deep and graceful curves that ended in ears of horn, angled forward. Its outside was covered in birch bark and had been oiled to a dark and stubbled sheen. It smelt strongly of fish. It was beautiful.

‘Torguk,’ said Luke softly, ‘no.’

Luke knew this bow. Ever since the expedition had returned last year from the southern lakes, Torguk had been working on it. He’d taken two lengths of well-grained maple, steamed them into shape and joined them to a belly of cow-horn, using sinew and glue made from the swim bladders of perch. Luke had watched him score the horn and wooden stave before adding the fish glue and binding them tightly together with waxed intestine. Then he’d watched him set aside the bow for the year it would take for the glue to fully cure, taking it out from time to time to admire it and test its strength and flexibility. It was, as he’d often told him, the best bow he’d ever made. Now Luke had it in his hands and was staring at the man who had made it.

‘Torguk,’ he said, ‘I can’t.’

‘Lug,’ replied the man gruffly, not looking at him, ‘you have saved my family and my tribe. It’s not much in return.’

Arkal stopped hopping and now stepped forward and pushed the bow further up Luke’s arms. ‘Take it, Lug,’ she said quietly. ‘It will make him happy.’

Luke picked it up by its middle, feeling the ribs of hardened sinew beneath his palm. He lifted it and turned it into the light of the new day. The sun threw its first rays high into a violet sky and the curve of the bow glowed in its light.

‘It’s perfect, Torguk.’

‘Then you’ll take it?’ He looked up from his boots, his wide face wreathed in smile.

‘I will take it, Torguk,’ said Luke, ‘but only on one condition. That it is you who teaches me to use it.’