The Towers of Samarcand (38 page)

Ain Jalut
.

He said: ‘You will take half the army and march to our borders and wait. We’ll see if this young Sultan will choose to defend Syria or remain in Cairo.’

‘And what do we tell Temur’s envoy?’

‘We tell him that Temur will get Ahmed and the others when we’ve seen him return to Samarcand. Not a moment before.’

*

Zoe was standing at the entrance of Suleyman’s tent, her fingers pulling aside the tent-flap enough to see the Mongol envoy emerge from his audience with Bayezid and walk towards his horse. She was frowning.

It was evening by now and the shadows were lengthening. The rain had come and gone and the work of the siege was dying with the day. From every direction came the pinpricks of twenty thousand fires being lit and the murmur of an army sitting down to eat. The air smelt of wet earth and leather and canvas and soon it would smell of food.

Zoe narrowed her eyes. The horse was familiar. It was large and richly caparisoned and, without any doubt, was Eskalon. It made sense. The Mongol horses were small, shaggy creatures, ill fitted to diplomacy. Eskalon would impress. But why was the envoy here at all? Was it to make peace with Bayezid so that
Tamerlane could plunder the riches of Egypt unhindered? And if so, where did that leave Suleyman?

Zoe had not enjoyed her time at the siege. First had come the news of Damian’s death. It seemed her twin brother fallen from the Goulas after some fight with her father. He’d been drunk. She remembered a man standing before her in this very tent telling her how it had happened: a smaller, older, frailer man than her father, yet her father nonetheless. He’d not looked at her when he’d spoken.

‘It was an accident. He was drunk and he slipped.’

It was a lie but what was the truth? Had her father killed him? Had that been the only way for Zoe to inherit? She’d felt sick every time she’d considered the question since.

She’d not seen her father from that day. They said he never left his palace in Venice these days, had handed all business over to his lieutenants. Zoe wondered sometimes what sort of business she would inherit at the end of it all.

Worst of all, Suleyman had not yet proposed marriage to her and seemed to spend more and more time at Edirne. There, Zoe had heard, he rode out with Anna, even though she was supposed to be imprisoned.

Then there was the problem of Suleyman. His absences from the siege had been noticed by Bayezid. If Tamerlane wasn’t coming, then Constantinople would surely be taken by Mehmed who would reap all the glory.

And what would Suleyman reap?

Now she watched the envoy approach Eskalon and pat his neck. The horse dipped his head twice and snorted through the silk. Zoe thought of Luke. How could she persuade him to come and take Anna away from Suleyman?

He won’t know that Anna thinks him married. What if he did?

She wasn’t sure herself. She’d doubted the Venetians’ story even as she’d enjoyed telling it to Anna. But then the man from Castile had arrived to confirm it. It hardly mattered.

If he learns that Anna thinks him married, he might come and get her. Especially if he also knows she’s free of Suleyman.

Would he? Yes. Zoe stepped from the tent and, as she did so, Eskalon’s head turned. The envoy watched her approach, bowing and then straightening up. He was a man of middle years with a small, intelligent mouth beneath a beard streaked with grey. Zoe arrived beside the horse. She ran her fingers through his mane.

‘Eskalon.’

The envoy nodded. ‘You know the horse?’

‘I know his master.’ She looked at the Mongol. ‘Not you.’

The envoy smiled. ‘No, not I. One who has found favour with my master.’

‘One who is a Varangian.’ She paused. ‘I hear he is married. To the woman called Shulen.’

The man remained silent.

‘Will you give him a message?’

The envoy frowned. Then he nodded.

‘Please tell him that Anna has heard of his marriage to the girl Shulen and is greatly distressed. Tell him that she was engaged to be married to the Prince Suleyman but is now released. But she is his prisoner.’ She paused and put her hand on the envoy’s arm. ‘He will want to know this.’

The envoy had gathered his reins, perhaps thinking that he had more important business to attend to. He put his foot into the stirrup and pulled himself high into the saddle. He took the reins. ‘And who should I say has sent this message?’

‘A friend.’

Luke looked across the orchards and gardens that led up to the walls of Damascus and saw the shadow of death stretched over them. It was early evening and the winter sun was an orange ball poised above the mountains to the west that rose ten thousand feet before sweeping down into the Middle Sea beyond. To the east, the wastes of the Badiyat ash Sham desert spread out to a desolate horizon. The air was still and held the promise of cold to come.

The walls of Damascus looked red and strong in the evening light; not as impregnable as Constantinople’s perhaps, but robust enough to withstand the Mongol army’s siege engines. From their battlements shone the busy glint of shield and spear, and above, rising into clouds of birds, rose the three minarets of the Umayyad Mosque, noblest building in the province of Islam, matchless in grace and beauty. There flew the green flag of the Prophet.

Luke pulled his cloak tight around his shoulders and wondered if the long line of refugees waiting to enter the city would manage to do so before the gates shut for the night. There were thousands of them, mainly women and children
who’d somehow escaped the inferno of Aleppo. They’d tell the story of Tamerlane’s terror far better than any of Tamerlane’s agents could.

He looked behind at his three friends. Matthew was in the centre, carrying the white flag of parley; Arcadius and Nikolas were on either side: three Varangians sworn to a monster that wanted to wash this desert with blood. Beyond them, five miles distant, was the Mongol army, stretched out between mountain and desert in a vast, hundred-mile scythe of destruction. Behind it were ruins and towers of skulls.

Luke leant forward to pat Eskalon. He placed his hand on the dragon head of his sword, enjoying the cool, scaled silver against his palm. He said his first words of the ride: ‘I can’t see it.’

There was no reply from behind, only the shuffle of harness and the snort of horses ridden hard. His friends exchanged glances and Matthew stood in his stirrups and shielded his eyes.

‘It’s out there somewhere, Luke. The patrols said at least fifty thousand.’

Nikolas rode up to Luke’s side. ‘We need to give the city a wide berth. Let’s head out into the desert.’

Luke nodded. He was in no mood to meet a sortie from the city. In fact he was in no mood to meet anyone. The numbness that he’d felt in the ruins of Aleppo had stayed with him every mile of the two hundred they’d ridden to Damascus. On the way, he’d witnessed the obliteration of Hama, Homs, Baalbek, Sidon and Beirut with a sort of dread detachment, as if the horror belonged to a world he didn’t inhabit. His eyes had seen deeds of savagery that his brain would not admit, had witnessed evil that could find no place in his matrix of
experience. He’d learnt to withdraw, putting on armour, better than any Varangian mail, to survive this apocalypse. He’d taken refuge in silence.

And throughout it all, he’d clung to one truth that no amount of blood could wash away: Anna was not to marry Suleyman.

But the envoy had told him something else: that Anna believed
him
married to Shulen. If she thought him married, she would think him lost to her. His first impulse had been to ride west to Edirne as fast as Eskalon would take him. But he was oath-sworn to Tamerlane, as were his friends. And something deep, deep within him knew that he couldn’t ride to her until he’d done what he had to do.

Luke turned Eskalon’s head towards the desert. ‘Follow me.’

*

Half an hour later the four Varangians had arrived at the Mamluk army and were shown into the presence of Ibn Khaldun. As soon as Luke had heard that the Kadi was with the army, he’d volunteered himself for the task of parleying with a man he knew he could trust. He’d gone to Tamerlane and offered himself, not expecting to be accepted. He was.

Now the old historian was before him in a tent full of sculpted armour, sherbet and exquisite creatures who tiptoed around on bare feet. Ibn Khaldun explained: ‘They’re my bodyguard, believe it or not, and it’s their armour around the walls. I’ve never seen them in battle so I don’t know how safe I should feel.’ The old man had risen from a furred divan and placed his hand on his heart. He bowed. ‘May the peace of Allah be upon you, Luke.’ He looked around. ‘And no less upon the rest of you.’ He gestured to one of the creatures. ‘I never got the chance to see you fight in Tabriz. Would one of you
like to wrestle now and we can finish this business without further bloodshed?’

Luke produced a smile, his first in a month. ‘Ibn Khaldun, we’re here to parley, not wrestle your bodyguard.’ He heard a sigh of disappointment from behind him: Nikolas. ‘How big is your army?’

‘As the sands of the desert. Numberless.’ The old man paused while he sat again. ‘Shall we say sixty thousand? With cannon.’

‘So less than half Temur’s.’

The historian arranged the folds of his tunic that swept to the floor in patterned silk. ‘If you say so. But you’re forgetting Bayezid.’

Luke shook his head. ‘Not Bayezid but Mehmed. And he’s stopped at the border.’

The Kadi’s face remained composed. ‘So why are you here? Temur seems to have the advantage. Please sit.’

Four of the bodyguard had appeared with folding chairs. Luke was the first to sit. He leant forward. ‘Ibn Khaldun, I am here to prevent further massacre, if I can. I’ve seen too much these past weeks. I’m tired of blood.’

‘But your master never tires of it,’ said the Kadi. ‘It’s his elixir. It keeps him strong, so they say.’

‘His army is tired. His generals tell him to rest in the mountains of Lebanon. He has no cannon and you have strong walls. He is persuadable.’

‘Because he can see that even if he wins this battle, he’ll be too weak to beat Bayezid as well.’ Ibn Khaldun drank some sherbet and patted the neat beard beneath his smile with a napkin. ‘And, of course, that’s what you want: Tamerlane strong enough to beat Bayezid.’ He put down the cup. ‘But what makes you so sure he’ll go back to Samarcand afterwards?’

‘I’m not,’ admitted Luke. ‘Sometimes I wonder whether Constantinople wouldn’t be better off with Bayezid’s army on its walls.’

‘Ah, but that wouldn’t fit with the plan,’ said Ibn Khaldun. ‘Plethon wants the Roman Empire to recapture its birthright, a re-merger of Greek and Roman culture, as it always was. But at the right time, which isn’t yet.’ The historian joined his hands beneath his chin and looked at Luke, then his friends. ‘But what do
you
want, all of you?’

Matthew spoke. ‘We want what Luke wants,’ he said. ‘To save our empire from Bayezid. And we want to stop this bloodshed and go home; Luke to Chios, us to Monemvasia. We’re all tired.’

Ibn Khaldun nodded. ‘Very sensible. So how do we achieve this? We have two armies either side of Damascus and some excitable generals. How do we stop them fighting?’

Luke said: ‘With money. One million dinars and he’ll turn round and go away.’

Ibn Khaldun looked surprised. ‘Really? And why would we believe him?’

‘Because Temur may be unpredictable but he’s not stupid. You’ve said it yourself: he doesn’t want to be weakened with an Ottoman army behind him. ‘He paused. ‘And perhaps he thinks Egypt too big a prize just now.’

‘Where will he go to rest?’

‘To Lebanon.’

‘And then?’

‘To Bayezid. He’ll have been persuaded by then.’

Ibn Khaldun was silent for a long time then, seemingly absorbed by the patterns on the sleeves joined in his lap. ‘One million dinars is a lot of money.’

‘Not for Damascus. It’s one of the richest cities on earth. You can find it.’

The old man nodded. Then he rose and clapped his hands. Two of the bodyguard appeared, this time in armour. ‘These ladies will escort you out of our camp. Tell Tamerlane that he will have his money by sundown tomorrow.’

‘And how will it be brought to him?’

‘I will bring it myself. I will go into the city.’

*

The Varangians’ ride back was shorter than the ride out because Tamerlane had moved his army forward into the orchards around the city walls, well out of arrow-range. It had been done, Luke supposed, to concentrate the minds of those collecting the ransom.

The army was a fearsome sight. In the fading light, it seemed that the entire landscape was made up of Mongol horsemen standing stirrup to stirrup. At their centre were the huge hulks of the elephants with towers on their backs and giant scimitars on every tusk. As Luke rode closer, he could see that every Mongol had his four spare mounts tied by his side so that the army seemed, in this light, even bigger than it was. This was a familiar Tamerlane ruse. On the approach to Aleppo, Tamerlane had ordered brooms tied to the horses’ tails so that the dust cloud seen from the city would stretch across every part of the horizon.

In front of the army sat Tamerlane with his sons and grandsons beneath the various flags and skulls that told of God and superstition. A shaman was mounted to the rear. Luke and his companions rode over to Tamerlane, dismounted and prostrated themselves in the sand.

‘What did they say?’

Luke looked up. Tamerlane was mounted next to Mohammed
Sultan with Shulen on his other side patting a pretty palfrey that looked out of place in this army. She smiled at him.

‘They will pay you one million dinars by this time tomorrow,’ said Luke. ‘It will be brought out to you by the Kadi himself. He has gone into the city to collect it.’

Tamerlane grunted. He had his eagle on the arm that still bore the scars from its talons. He tickled the top of its head with his gloved finger.