by Dan Davis
Indeed, we all had to endure extreme hardships. Oft times the horses were tired out before we had reached the staging place and we had to beat and whip them, change our saddle horses for pack horses, and sometimes even two of us would ride one horse.
Times out of number we were hungered and athirst, cold and wearied. They only gave us real food in the evening. In the morning we had something to drink or millet gruel while in the evening they gave us meat, a shoulder and ribs of mutton, and some pot liquor. When we had our fill of such meat broth, we felt greatly invigorated, for it seemed to me a most delicious drink and most nourishing.
On Fridays the monks fasted without drinking anything till evening when they were obliged, though it distressed them sorely, to eat meat. Sometimes we had to eat half-cooked or nearly raw meat, not having fuel to cook it. This happened when we reached camp after dark, and we could not see to pick up ox or horse dung for the fires. We rarely found any other fuel, save occasionally a few briars. In a few spots along the banks of some of the streams were woods, but such spots were rare.
At first, our guide showed profound contempt for us and was disgusted at having to guide such poor folk but after a while, when he began to know us better, he would every so often take us to the gers of rich Mongols along the way, where the monks had to pray for them. The Mongols were never Christian themselves but sought out and accepted blessings from any and all religions.
Their great king Chinggis, the first Khan, had four sons, whose descendants were very numerous and all of them had a strong ordus. More than this, these offspring multiplied daily and were scattered all over that vast sea-like desert. Our guide took us to many of these, and they would wonder greatly at us and where we had come from. They enquired also of the great Pope; if he were as old as they had heard.
“What does he mean, as old as he has heard?” I asked Abdullah when this question was relayed to us within the shelter of the chief’s ger.
“He has heard that the Pope is five hundred years old.”
I laughed and received very hard looks in turn, so I controlled myself.
“I believe,” Stephen said, because he could not help to impose his opinion at every opportunity, “that they are confusing the immortal title with the name of a single man. Tell them, Abdullah, that the man we call the Pope is a temporary bearer of that title. Just as their own leader is always the Great Khan.”
They babbled back and forth for an age and I am certain they went away convinced we were ruled by an immortal king named Pope Khan.
These descendants of Chinggis probed us with endless questions about our countries, such as if there were many sheep, cattle, and horses. How many men could fight. Whether the women were strong.
“If you tell them anything about Christendom,” I said to Abdullah the first time, “I will cut out your tongue.”
“We must not offend them,” Friar William had said, fretting.
“Tell them our lands are nothing but mountains, woodland, and swamp,” I said. “Horses die there. And our women are dreadfully thin and worthless.”
When we told them that beyond our lands was the Ocean, they were quite unable to understand that it was endless and without bounds. Their refusal to accept the truth that there was nothing to the west of Christendom was a clear sign of both their immense arrogance and their profound ignorance. It was more than two centuries before I discovered that they were, in fact, quite correct in their assertions but that was pure luck on their part and I give them no credit for that whatsoever.
After travelling east for three months, we left that road to turn due south and made our way over mountains that were like the alps continually for eight days. In that desert, I saw many asses called culam, and they greatly resemble mules. Our guides chased the creatures a great deal but without getting one, on account of their prodigious fleetness. The seventh day we began to see to the south some very high mountains, and we entered a plain irrigated like a garden, and here we found cultivated land. After that, we entered a town of damned Saracens called Kenjek, and its governor came out of the town to meet our guides with a false smile on his face bearing ale and cups, for they were subject to Mongke Khan. If the Saracens did not make a show of hospitality, they would surely be punished with extermination, for the Mongols would happily cut off a source of riches in order to make a point. And that was a lucky thing for us because the Saracens in that town looked at us Christians with murder in their eyes from the moment we arrived until we disappeared over the horizon.
I could see why they had settled there. In all that harsh land, that plain where the city lay was sheltered by the mountains around them. And there came a big river down from the mountains which irrigated the whole country wherever they wanted to lead the water, and it flowed not into any sea but was absorbed in the ground, forming many marshes. There at Kenjek, I saw vines, and twice we drank real wine, though it was sharp as vinegar.
We heard that there was a village of Teutons out there in the vastness, six days or so through the mountains out of our way so we never came across them in person but I was assured they were indeed there. It was a startling thought and only later did I learn that Mongke had transported these Teutons, with Batu's permission, so very far from their homeland. I should have known that they were not there of their own free will. The Mongols had no arts of their own, save those concerning the horse and other animals, so they pressed civilised men into service for them. And so it was with those poor Teutons, who were set to work digging for gold and manufacturing arms for their masters. Friar William did everything he could to persuade our guides to divert to them for a time so that he could pray with them, administer rites and do whatever else he could for their souls and so ease their hearts while they delved and travailed in a hollow existence. The monk was greatly anguished when they denied him, and he drew into himself further for many days as his mind dwelled on the suffering Teutons so close by.
From there on, we went eastward again staying close to the mountains. We had entered the lands of the direct subjects of Mongke Khan, who everywhere sang and clapped their hands before our guides because they were envoys of the great lord Batu, who was considered second only to Mongke in all the world. A few days later we entered more alp-like mountains and there we found a great river which we had to pass in a boat.
“They say that if any of us should fall in,” Abdullah said, “the water is so cold that we will die immediately, even if we were pulled to the bank downstream.”
I gripped the side of the boat so hard I swear my fingers marked the wood.
After that, we entered a valley where we saw a ruined fort whose walls were nothing but mud but the soil was cultivated there. No doubt the people had fallen foul of the Mongols and all their efforts to tame that land was slowly being undone by the elements. Days later we found a goodly town, called Equius, in which were Saracens speaking Persian, though they were a very long way off from Persia. Unlike the village of Teutons, these people were there by choice because they were all merchants who profited from the goods moving up to the royal road from their own lands in Persia. The Mongols were greedy for Saracen goods, and the merchants of Equius lived in relative luxury despite the harshness of the jagged landscape all about them.
Descending from the mountains we entered a beautiful plain with high mountains to the right, and a sea or lake which was twenty-five days in circumference. All of the plain was well watered by the streams which came down from the mountains, and all of which flowed into that sea.
Such a fruitful land was like an island of fertility in the desert. In that plain, there used to be many towns but they were destroyed so that the Mongols could graze there, for there were most excellent pasturages in that country. They had allowed a single town called Qayaligh to survive under the yoke because the Mongols valued the market there and many traders frequented it to take advantage of the Mongol’s wealth.
Here we rested twelve days, waiting for a certain secretary of Batu, who was to be associated wit
h our guide in the matters to be settled at Mongke's ordus. It was there that I first saw idolaters, who were properly called Buddhists, of whom I was told there were many sects in the east.
Even amongst such a diversity of people, our company was very much outside of the norm in those parts and we were regarded with suspicion and hostility.
“We must stay all together,” I said to my people. “All of the time.”
Bertrand scoffed. “I am not afraid of these weaklings. They are no more than dogs. I could slay a dozen at once.”
“And how many dogs does it take to bring down a bear?” I asked. “No matter how strong you are, sir, we are outnumbered more than a hundred to one. If they decided to rob us of our belongings, who would we go to for justice? Our guides?” He had no answer. “We stay together, in pairs at the least, and in as large a group as possible. And keep your hands on your valuables. Weapons and armour especially. Nikolas, you will not leave my sight, do you hear me? Any one of these Saracens would snatch you up and take you home as soon as look at you.”
There was never a restful moment, for me at least, as I stood watch over the company and turned away many a hostile ne'er-do-well and would-be pilferer with no more than my gaze and an occasional kick to the guts.
In November we left the city, passing after three days a vast sea, which was called Lake Ala Kol, east of Lake Balkhash, which seemed as tempestuous as the Ocean beyond Bordeaux in winter, though they swore it was indeed a lake. I stomped down to the shore across the frozen mud and moistened a cloth in it to taste the water, which was brackish though drinkable. And it was as cold as ice.
The cold in those regions was savagely penetrating, and from the time it began freezing in the fall, it never thawed until after the month of May. And even then, there was frost every morning, though during the day the sun's rays melted it. But in winter it never thawed, and with every wind it continued to freeze further, covering everything with an ever-increasing thickness of ice as hard as rock. And with the ceaseless wind, nothing could live there and we barely survived wrapped in furs and carrying all our food and fuel with us as we rode. Every once in a while, a terrible gale arises and blows hard enough to stagger a man, if he be unbraced or weakened. Bartholomew was blown from his horse and fell on the ice so that his arm needed splinting and he grew a lump over his eye as large as a goose egg. Little Nikolas was once blown a hundred yards down a slight hill and so I tied him to his horse for a while and later I took to holding him before me as I rode. His bones were so sharp that I had to feed him from my own rations to fatten him up, for the sake of my own comfort.
“You cannot fatten a boy’s elbows,” Eva said when she caught me as if she had not been secretly feeding him also, which she had and far more than I.
We crossed a valley heading north towards great mountains covered with deep snow, which soon covered the ground on which we travelled. In December we began greatly accelerating our speed for we already found no one other than those Mongol men who are stationed a day apart to look after ambassadors. In many places in the mountains the road was narrow and the grazing very bad, so that from dawn to night we would cover the distance of two stages, thus making two days’ distance in one and we travelled more by the light of the moon than by day. I thought I had known bitter cold before but I was wrong. We would all certainly have perished had the Mongols not cared for us as if we were children or fools and they allowed us the use of their sheepskins and furs, which we all took most gratefully.
One evening we passed through a certain place amidst most terrible rocks. The pass we climbed had grown narrower and sharper, even as it grew colder, and the jagged rocks, dark but streaked with red, stretched up like walls sculpted by the hands of a vengeful God. Our guides stopped, though there was a wind that howled through us like a storm of ghosts tugging at our clothes, and they sent word through Abdullah, begging the monks to say some prayers by which the devils of that cursed place could be put to flight.
“What heathen nonsense is this?” Friar William said, his teeth gritted against the cold.
Abdullah had always been as thin as a spear shaft but he had shrunk on the journey so that he appeared to be a skeleton with skin stretched across it and when he spoke, his voice was flat. The dead voice, I always called it, the voice of a man who has no hope in his heart. “They say that in this gorge there are devils. The devils will suddenly bear men off. You will turn to speak to the man behind you and he will be gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?” William said, warily. He had lost much of his fat by that time and looked like a different man.
The Mongols babbled, their eyes darting about, and Abdullah related it to us while the wind tugged at his words. “Sometimes they seize the horse and leave the rider. Sometimes they tear out the man's bowels and leave the body on the horse. These things happen on every journey through. They say we should expect to lose at least one man.”
“They cannot give us commands,” Bertrand said, bundled up in the best furs, which he had claimed for himself. His bulk had reduced but he had coped with the hardships with surprising determination. Then again, the man had been to war before. And it felt very much as though we were at war with the land all around, and with the sky above.
Friar Bartholomew roused himself enough to provide us with his learned opinion. “Heathen fools. God will protect us. Onward with you.”
He was ignored.
“It may be a ruse,” Stephen Gosset called out. The young monk had never faced such difficulties, nor anything approaching it. He had withdrawn into himself and his rosy cheeks had faded first into grey and then into a wind and cold-blasted rawness. He did not look so young as he had. “A ruse, so that they may kill one of us and then blame it on the demons.”
None knew what to think about that. When one is cold, thinking clearly is a great challenge and brave men become cowards. Energetic men grow idle.
“For the love of God,” I said, raising my voice above the wind and their prattling so that the sound echoed off the rocks and made the Mongols wince. “Will you monks just chant some prayers so we may get moving again.”
We proceeded through the pass while the monks all chanted, in loud voice, Credo in Unum Deum. The three monks, frozen as they were, gave full-throated conviction to their singing. It lacked the finesse of monks raising their voices to God in their own chapels but our three had to contend with the howling wind and the echoes of the iron-hard rocks all around. That far-off, God-forsaken heathen pass resounded to the beautiful, clear voices of those men of Christ. For the Mongols, it was no more than a spell of protection, and they would have been as contented with Buddhists, Mohammedans, or their own shamans. Yet it seemed to me that Christendom had conquered that pass. That we had left a mark upon it, though the voices echoed into nothingness. My companions were confused by my joy, for it was a terrible place, but the voices of those monks warmed my heart, and my body, too.
By the mercy of God, the whole of our company passed through.
Again, we ascended mountains, going always in a northerly direction. Finally, at the end of December we entered a plain vast as a sea, in which there was seen no hillock, and the following day, we arrived at the ordus of the great emperor, Mongke Khan, lord of all Asia from the ocean of the east, to the Black Sea in the west, king of all Tartar devils that rode upon the Earth. It may be true to say that there was no man richer than he in all the world at that time, for his armies and those of his grandfather, had stolen the wealth of uncounted millions and brought it back home so that even the lowliest in Karakorum wore silk from head to toe beneath his furs.
I was far from impressed.
“What town is this?” I asked our guides, through chattering teeth, when I saw it with my own eyes, looking down on it from the hills.
Abdullah was horrified. “This is Karakorum, lord.”
“Dear God,” I said. “What a pigsty.”
***
Perhaps I was overly quick to judgement. But after such a jour
ney, I was deeply disappointed by the place. Of the city of Karakorum, other than the palace quarter of the Khan, it was not even as big as the village of Saint-Denis outside Paris. And the monastery of Saint-Denis was ten times larger than the Khan’s palace.
There was a rectangular wall enclosing it, with two roads running right through to make a cross in the centre where most buildings were, and one corner was taken up by the palace and associated buildings. Dotted here and there about the city were a number of smaller enclosures, each surrounding a temple of some kind.
The important buildings, such as palaces and holy places, were of stone and timber and the houses in the centre, clustered along the crossroads, were two-storey homes for the most eminent inhabitants. But the majority of the people, and the visitors of a lower standing, lived in gers packed very close together within one quarter where all the ground was churned mud, frozen into rock-hardness.
There were two non-Mongol quarters in the city, one of which was inhabited by the Saracens, where all the markets were. I was full of contempt for the steppe nomads’ inability to learn to operate something so simple as a marketplace. A great many Tartars of all sorts gathered in the Saracen quarter to do business, as the Great Khan was never far from the city and so it was always full with ambassadors from every place on Earth. These visitors frequented the Saracen markets in huge numbers, buying and selling goods from everywhere that there were people.
