Silk Road

by Falconer, Colin

  After Jebei had left the camp with his father and escort, to return to the frozen wastes of Lake Baikal, the clan decided to rename the defile where Khutelun had won her ride. From that day it was no longer known as the Place Where The Ass Died.

  It became, instead, The Place Where the Ass Was Felled by a Goat.

  IV

  the Templar fortress at Acre

  in the year of the Incarnation of Our Lord 1260

  the Feast of the Epiphany

  JOSSERAN SARRAZINI, ALONE and on his knees. A single oil lamp burned in the pre-dawn darkness of the chapel, its flame reflected in the black and gold image of the Madonna above the altar. This giant with close-cropped chestnut hair bowed his head, lips moving silently in prayer as he asked for absolution for that one sin for which he could not forgive himself.

  In his mind he was far from the dusty streets and olive presses of Palestine; instead he heard the creaking of snow-heavy boughs, the smell of damp furs and the chill of cold stone walls.

  ‘I knew it was wrong but I could not resist,’ he murmured.

  It had happened one morning soon after the feast of the Nativity. She had wanted to go riding in the forest and, at his father’s request, he had agreed to escort her. She rode a chestnut mare, its disposition as haughty and silken as her own. Ever since she had come to live with Josseran and his father at the manor, scarcely a friendly word had passed between them.

  She gave him no outward sign that his presence made any deeper impression on her than did her groomsman’s.

  They rode deep into the forest and her mare found a rabbit’s burrow and stumbled. She fell from her horse and lay still on the frozen ground. He leaped from his own mount, fearing she had broken bones. But as he bent over her, her eyes blinked open, wide and black as sin, and he felt his belly turn to warm grease.

  She smiled. He would never forget it.

  She said that it was just her ankle that was hurt, and commanded him to help her back into the saddle of her horse.

  Was the temptation irresistible or was it simply that he did not resist? Even as his arms went around her he felt the heat of her body and on an impulse he tried to snatch a kiss from her lips. He thought she would push him away, but instead she pulled him on top of her. He groaned, unable to stop himself. His manhood, as yet untried, was hard as oak and the frost-hard ground might as well have been a bearskin rug and a feather bolster.

  Suddenly and to his great astonishment, he was inside her.

  And what did he now remember of their encounter? Just the drumming of blood in his ears, the stamping of the horses as they pawed at the hard ground, the salt taste of her hot tongue in his mouth.

  She racked him on the sweet stretching of her intimate flesh. Her lips were drawn back from her teeth in a grimace that was more pained than pleasured. Like an animal.

  He tried to hold back from the peak but he was swept along with it, cursing his youth and inexperience. He spilled himself quickly, the oily warmth emptying his belly, leaving him hollow and weak.

  She pushed him roughly away and he lay panting on his back, staring at the washed blue sky, feeling the cold frost melting into his cambric shirt. She pulled down her skirts, limped to her horse and remounted, without his assistance. Then she rode away, leaving him there with the juices of their bodies smeared on his thigh.

  If it had been one of the servant girls there would have been no harm in it. But she was not. When he finally dragged himself to his feet he heard the Devil’s laughter ringing in his ears and the weight of guilt had already settled in his belly like an ingot of lead.

  On the way back through the forest he cried for what he had done. Yet within an hour of his return to the castle he was plotting to do the Devil’s work once more.

  V

  WILLIAM OF AUGSBURG had been in the Holy Land for just two days and he was scandalized.

  Acre was part of the Crusader state of Jerusalem and he had come here expecting to find a bastion of piety; instead the knights and lords charged with the protection of this sacred place disported themselves no better than Saracens.

  He had arrived on a Venetian merchant galley a few days before. As he stood on the poop beside the captain, watching the great fortress rise from the sea, he was overcome. Here was Palestine, ‘Outremer’ – ‘Over the Sea’, as the Franks called it – the sacred birthplace of Our Lord. At last he would step in the footprints of the prophets. He gripped the wooden rail, his knuckles white.

  My Lord, my God, let me serve Thee. Let me die for Thee, if it is Thy will.

  The sails whipped in the wind as the helmsman leaned on the long tiller. Sailors clambered up the rigging to their positions on the fore and main masts. As they entered the harbour, he watched the waves send sprays of foam high up the walls of the great fort.

  Beyond the Crusader turrets and barbicans William saw the domes of the Mohammedan mosques and the towers of the minarets. Their presence served as a reminder that even here the Lord was under siege. The Saracen halls had long since been consecrated as Christian churches, but the thick castle walls were all that lay between the pilgrims and the godless hordes. With Jerusalem lost, Acre was a symbol of hope to everyone in Christendom, an outpost of God among the heathen.

  And he was to be its saviour.

  But the heady promise of his arrival had not been fulfilled. Far from being an outpost of the sacred, the city was just another stinking, hot Saracen town. The narrow streets were crowded with heathen, the turbans and chadors of the Jews and Mohammedans bobbing everywhere, the alleys choked with their filth and excrement, the stench that rose from the cobblestone alleys almost tangible. The bazaars were clamorous from dawn to dusk with the jibber-jabber of the hawkers.

  The swarthy, hook-nosed Mohammedans stared back at him from under their keffiyehs, their hawk eyes glittering with venom. He felt sullied by their looks, if not threatened, for the Templar sentries stood watch at every gateway of the city, distinctive in their white surcoats with red cross pattée.

  The number and brazenness of the heathen astonished him. But it was the lords of Acre themselves who confounded him, as they would any good Christian. The palaces in which they lived were decked with marble, the walls furnished with silk carpets and high ceilings. They lived lives of sumptuous decadence, an offence to any God-fearing Christian.

  They had even insulted him on the evening of his arrival by offering him a bath.

  They wore loose silk robes and sometimes even turbans, in imitation of the Saracens. Their wives dressed like Muslims, with veils and jewelled tunics and flowing robes, and they employed kohl and perfumes like the common houris of Damascus.

  It was hardly what he had expected to find when he left Rome.

  The holy cause in Outremer had met with disaster upon disaster over the last two decades. Jerusalem, which had been wrested from the infidel at the urging of the Pope two centuries before, was once more lost to the Saracen, sacked by a horde of Turks in the pay of Sultan Ayub in 1244. It was just a decade ago that Louis IX of France had himself taken up the Cross to save the Holy City from the heathen but his expedition had found disaster in the Nile delta and Louis himself had been taken prisoner and held for ransom.

  William had thought to find those beleaguered garrisons yet in Christian hands – Acre, Antioch, Jaffa, Sidon – expending all their might and energy on the recapture of the Holy City. Instead they seemed more taken with commerce, trading openly with the Saracens and keeping friendly relations with them. The merchants of Genoa, Pisa and Venice even battled with one another over trade routes.

  The great mosque of Acre had been converted, quite properly, into a Christian church, but to William’s horror he discovered a side chapel that had been set aside for the Mohammedans to worship in. He had been further outraged to discover that the mosque at the Oxen’s Well had not been consecrated at all and that the Mohammedans still prayed there openly; there was a Christian altar alongside that of the heathens.

  The city was not the re
pudiation to the Saracen that he had expected to find. There were even prostitutes and vendors of hashish on the streets.

  But he was on the Pope’s special embassy and he could not allow the decadence that had insinuated itself here to deter him from his commission. And judging by the news he had just received, he had not a moment to lose.

  The Kingdom of Jerusalem was governed by a monarch, with the aid of a council made up of the leading barons and churchmen of the realm. But there had been no council for two years, as the Crusader states of Acre and Tyre were at war over the succession.

  For three years now, the Tatar armies had been making their way westwards, had torn down the mountain citadel of the dreaded Hashishim at Alamut, and had then sacked Baghdad, where they had massacred countless tens of thousands, fouling the air so badly with the stench of corpses that even their own soldiers had to withdraw from the city. Now, under their prince, Hülegü, they had reached the gates of Aleppo in Syria.

  After Aleppo, the Holy Land lay open to them.

  Perhaps that would get the barons of Jerusalem out of their baths.

  VI

  A MARBLE CHAMBER with vaulted ceilings, the walls hung with silk carpets. It opened on to a shaded courtyard with a fountain bubbling at its centre. On the other side there was a fine view of the winter sea. An onshore breeze raised whitecaps under a washed blue sky. In Rome there would be snow on the fir trees and ice in the wells.

  The barons sprawled on divans, in their Saracen robes, while olive-skinned women in silk qamis, their wrists and ankles adorned with gold bangles, served them sherbets from silver jugs. There were little tables with copper salvers of melons and figs for their further refreshment. Other Saracens played drums and lutes in a corner of the room.

  They all watched William stamp across the room, every inch a Dominican in his black and white habit and tonsured blond head.

  ‘Brother William,’ one of the them said, after his commission from the Pope had been read, ‘I am sorry we are not properly ready to receive you. We have no bed of nails prepared, just these soft cushions, I fear.’

  There was a bubble of laughter.

  William ignored the jibe. In the last few days he had come to expect no less from this rabble, despite their noble birth. He looked around at the great gathering: counts and constables, bailos and barons, a handful of Venetian merchants – fops and sodomites the lot of them – as well as the patriarch of Jerusalem, Reynald.

  A surfeit of jewels and indolence. Only one sober presence, that of Thomas Bérard, the Englishman, Grand Master of the Knights Templar. He had with him an escort of ten soldiers, who waited, a silent but ominous presence, by the door, distinctive in their white surcoats with the splayed red cross pattée on the left breast. They had cropped hair and wore beards, in contrast to the long hair and clean-shaven faces of the other nobles.

  The Templars were the best soldiers in Christendom. Unlike the other knights and lords they owed their loyalty to no king; they were answerable only to the Pope himself. Yet because service in the Order guaranteed remission for all sins, the Templars also attracted rapists, heretics, even murderers to their ranks.

  Malcontents and assassins. He didn’t trust any of them.

  Especially that giant with the chestnut beard, lounging against the wall, his face creased in a smile of detached amusement. William detested him instantly.

  Geoffrey of Sargina, the bailo, brought the meeting to order. He described the latest news from the East and the sweeping gains the Tatars had made in the last few months.

  ‘The question that faces us,’ he concluded, ‘is whether we confront these Tatars as a threat to our own sovereignty in these lands, or embrace them as allies in our fight against the Saracen.’

  ‘Perhaps we are a little tardy,’ one of the barons said, sucking on a fig. ‘Bohemond of Antioch has already rushed to submit to this Hülegü like a dog begging for scraps.’

  Hugues de Pleissy, Bohemond’s representative at the meeting reacted angrily. ‘It is a prudent alliance, no more! In return for his cooperation Hülegü has offered to march with him to retake Jerusalem!’

  ‘Retake it, yes. But will he let us keep it?’

  Count Julian was their host here in Acre. It appeared to William he spent more time fighting to stay awake than fighting for God. He lounged on the divan and offered them all an unctuous smile. ‘Bohemond got what he wanted. Hülegü has granted him extra territories.’

  ‘Which the Tatars have looted and burned just the same.’

  ‘The Tatars claim their khan has the right to universal domination!’ another of the barons shouted. ‘It is blasphemous! It is as much an affront to the Christian Church as the presence of the Saracen in the Holy Sepulchre!’

  Thomas Bérard, the Templar, was the voice of sweet reason itself. ‘Our position here is not strong. If we treat with them we may yet turn the tables on the Saracens.’

  ‘Treat with them?’ one of the barons shouted. ‘Are we to forget what they did in Poland and Hungary? It is only two decades since they laid waste half of Christendom and burned and raped their way almost to the gates of Vienna. And you say treat with them? It is like getting rid of an unwanted dog by inviting a bear into your house!’

  William had been just a child when these events had taken place, but he had heard the stories. The Tatar hordes had appeared without warning in the East, cutting a swathe through vast tracts of Russia, laying whole cities to waste and slaughtering tens of thousands. They took Moscow, Rostov and Kiev, and then decimated the armies of Poland and Silesia. At the battle of Liegnitz they had cut an ear from every corpse and worn them as necklaces as they rampaged on through Hungary and Dalmatia.

  A plague of black rats followed the Tatars into Europe. It was said at the time that the devil horsemen had sprung from Hades itself, to punish those who had not been faithful to Christ. Everyone in his home town of Augsburg had taken sanctuary in the church, thinking it was the time of the final judgement.

  But just as suddenly the Tatars disappeared, riding back the way they had come.

  ‘These Tatars are not men,’ one of the Venetians was saying. ‘They eat their prisoners. The women they ravish until they die and then they cut off their breasts as dainties. They eat snakes and drink human blood.’

  ‘Did you hear what they did at Maiyafaqin?’ another said. ‘They took the emir as their prisoner and cut pieces of his flesh away, toasted them over a slow fire and forced them down his throat. It took him hours to die.’

  ‘Of course we have never stooped to such barbarous acts in Outremer,’ the giant with the chestnut hair said.

  The conversation stopped for a moment and the others stared at him, unsettled by this pricking of their own consciences. But Bérard did not reprimand him. Instead he smiled indulgently into his beard. ‘They also say that this Hülegü’s general is a descendant of one of the Three Kings who brought gifts to Our Saviour. Indeed, did not William of Rubruck report that Hülegü’s own wife was Christian?’

  William remembered this Rubruck, a Franciscan monk who had been sent as emissary to the Tatars by King Louis. He had travelled through Russia to the Tatar capital some five years before and returned with tales of Christians living among the barbarians.

  What credence could be given to his claims was another matter.

  Anno von Sangerhausen, Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, spoke next. He had no love of the Templars but on this point at least they were of one mind. He slapped his leather gauntlets into the palm of his hand impatiently. ‘I say we offer them a parlay.’

  Geoffrey of Sargina stroked his chin, disturbed by the clear divisions among them. ‘Before we decide on this, I must tell you all some further news. We have received, under flag of truce, a message from the Saracens, from their prince, Baybars. He wishes to offer us an alliance against the Tatars.’

  ‘Of course he wishes it,’ Bérard exploded, laughing. ‘He doesn’t want his ear on a Tatar belt!’

  ‘I say we do not m
ake alliance with either of them,’ Count Julian said. ‘Let their two armies fight each other. When they are both exhausted we may think again. Side with the victor if he is yet strong; crush him if he is weak. Then, whatever happens, we cannot lose.’

  And so it went on, hour after hour, until the shadows crept across the courtyard and the first bright stars appeared on the velvet horizon. William felt his frustration growing. Privately, he agreed with those that said that the Tatars were as much an abomination as the Saracens. But he had his sacred commission from the Pope himself and, regardless of the outcome of this meeting, he must see it through.

  ‘So, what say you, William?’ Geoffrey of Sargina said at last, appearing physically exhausted by the arguments that had raged around him for the last two hours.

  ‘My opinion in this is of no account,’ he said. ‘I am not here to sanction your actions. I have on my person a letter from the Pontiff for the prince of the Tatars, to be delivered by my hand.’

  ‘And what does it say?’ Geoffrey demanded.

  ‘I have been charged to bring the letter to the Tatar prince, not to the bailo of Jerusalem. It is also my trust to bring the reply direct to the Holy Father in person. Further than that, I cannot say.’ William was delighted to see the anger and dismay on the faces of the nobles around him. ‘The Holy Father has also charged me with preaching the doctrine of our faith to the Tatars,’ he went on, ‘and he has given me the authority to establish churches and ordain priests among them.’

  ‘The Pope thinks he can convert the Tatars?’ Count Julian said, his voice choked with disbelief.

  ‘I do not deem to know the mind of the Holy Father. But, like you, he has received reports that there are Christians among them and feels that it is time to exercise God’s will and bring all believers into the arms of the Holy Mother Church.’