Arcadius had been lifted gently from his camel and carried before them through the streets to the citadel. It was the hour after dawn and they were full of people who’d parted to let pass a man either dead or near to it. Behind him strode a woman, unveiled, recognised by some who nudged their friends to make their reverences. On one side of her was a tall, fair man with a paizi around his neck, on the other a thin beauty dressed as a man. Behind staggered two giants. It was a curious party.
The Ark citadel was a town within a city. It was a jumble of palaces, offices and mosques behind thick, sloping walls which stood like vast ochre teeth in the centre of a sanded registan where executions took place to drumbeats, markets rang with merchants’ prices and teeth were pulled for two dirhams a tooth, or one if people could watch. Within the Ark was a hospital and it was there that Arcadius had been taken, his face ashen and his limbs without movement. He was little changed when Luke visited him the next morning. If anything, he was greyer. Luke lifted his feeble hand from the sheets.
‘I failed you,’ Arcadius breathed, turning to him. ‘You relied on me.’
‘You didn’t fail me,’ said Luke. ‘You lived.’
Arcadius tried to smile but he was full of anger at himself. He’d not be with them when they got to Tamerlane. ‘This will be the biggest game we’ve played yet,’ he said, frowning, ‘and I won’t be there to play it with you.’
Luke smiled. ‘There’ll be plenty still to do when you join us.’ He took the paizi from around his neck. ‘Here, have this. You’ll need it to get to us.’
*
Later, the rest of them prayed in a mosque built at the place where Job had stamped his rod and which Tamerlane had venerated with a new dome. They were praying to the same God in different ways and their prayers were of entreaty. They were safe for now, but their friend was not. Afterwards they sat in a square with a fountain next to a fig tree and Luke asked the question again.
‘Will he live?’
There were men in white caftans who’d come with them from the hospital to pray and who sat across from them, quietly talking. Khan-zada gestured to them.
‘Luke, Bokhara was the home of Ibn Sina, the greatest healer the world has ever seen. He lived here when the Samanids ruled this city four centuries ago but the doctors still practise what he taught. Arcadius will be in good hands.’
Luke looked from Khan-zada to Shulen. The women were curiously alike. Both were healers, intrigued by the alchemy of plants and oils, who’d themselves performed a curious alchemy over the past weeks. He stood. ‘I’ll see to the camels,’ he said. ‘Highness, can we send someone with a paizi back to fetch Eskalon?’
But Eskalon was already on his way.
*
Three Varangians, Shulen and Princess Khan-zada left Bokhara at dawn the next day, taking the road east to Samarcand. The country they rode through was Mawarannahr, the land beyond the river, a rich and fertile place full of beauty, human and otherwise. It was here that another Greek had come long ago to choose Roxanna for his wife. They rode on horses that Khan-zada had commandeered from the imperial stables, just as she’d taken clothes for herself and Shulen from the imperial wardrobes. She was, after all, Temur’s daughter-in-law.
They rode down the valley of the Zarafshan, a route lined with silver poplars beyond which stretched citrus orchards and vineyards and fields where row upon row of cotton fleece hung like iced breath amidst women bent beneath bales. It was land that drank water fed by channels, and wheels pulled by camels; a land of mixed bounty, where cattle meandered next to goats and Karakul sheep, whose infant lambs had the best wool in the world. It was a land of roadside stalls selling gigantic melons, striped like a Venetian’s hose; a land of mud-baked villages and grape-juice sellers and boys with sticks; a land of turbaned men atop donkeys, legs spread out like oars. It was a land of vigour.
The road was a good one, their horses fast, and it was early evening when they came to Samarcand. Ibn Khaldun had called it the ‘Mirror of the World’. But when Khan-zada reined in her mare to gaze at its beauty afloat in a distant wash of gold and blue, she murmured: ‘Behold, the Garden of the Soul.’
Luke, his two friends and Shulen reined in their horses next to her and stood silent in wonder. Enormous domes, towers and minarets soared above a distant mantle of green like a magician’s crown.
‘Where’s the army?’ asked Nikolas.
Luke exchanged glances with Matthew. ‘If it’s not here, then it’s somewhere else. My guess would be on the road to China.’
They rode on, marvelling at the scale of the city they were approaching, bigger than anything they’d ever seen. As they drew closer, they saw that it was ringed by immense gardens.
‘They say he rarely goes into the city these days,’ said Khan-zada as she rode up beside Luke. ‘And when he does it’s to throw meat and money to the masons building his wife Bibi Khanum’s mosque.’
‘The one without foundations?’
‘Indeed,’ smiled the Princess, turning to him. ‘Temur belongs to the steppe. He prowls around the city, moving from garden to garden as if not trusting to touch the monuments he’s creating. I’m told he’s currently holding court in the Garden of Heart’s Delight, which is just outside Cairo.’
‘Cairo?’
‘He’s given all the new suburbs the names of the greatest cities on earth to prove that Samarcand is the greatest of them all. So we have Cairo, Baghdad, Damascus, Sultaniya and Delhi.’
‘And is it the greatest?’
‘When it’s finally finished, perhaps. It’s certainly had the finest artists brought in to work on it. Here you’ll find the world’s best architects, masons, glaziers, scientists, astronomers, calligraphers, silk-weavers …’ She ticked them off on her fingers, one by one.
They had come to the top of a rise and beyond it was an immense walled garden with a small city of tents within it. Around the tents were meadows and trees and water with animals in between. The scent of flowers wafted up to meet them. They were looking into the Garden of Eden.
Khan-zada was pointing. ‘That’s Temur’s tent,’ she said, indicating a pavilion in the centre that was built as a castle, with turrets and battlements of silk. To either side of its entrance stood caparisoned and painted elephants with towers on their backs. ‘They say he has three obsessions these days: China, Samarcand and those elephants. He got them from Delhi. He loves each and every one of them.’
Luke looked at her, remembering something. ‘Tell us about Delhi.’
‘Delhi?’ said Khan-zada quietly. ‘It was very terrible. More than a million slaughtered.’
The shock took his breath away. It was an unimaginable number. ‘A million?’
‘So I’m told,’ she replied. ‘Temur marched an army of a hundred thousand over the mountains and up to the gates of Delhi. Nasir ud-din brought out his elephants, ninety of them with poisoned scimitars on their tusks and flame-throwers on their backs. Do you know what Temur did? He had his men dig trenches and tethered camels to the front of them with dried grass on their backs. When the elephants charged, Temur’s men set light to the camels’ backs and the animals rushed forward in their panic. The elephants were terrified. They turned and charged back into the Indian troops, trampling them. The battle was won.’
‘What happened then?’ asked Matthew.
‘He entered the city in triumph and the elephants were made to kneel before him and he chose thirty for his army. Then he stayed in the city to celebrate his victory with an enormous banquet, leaving orders that his army be left out on the plain.’ She paused. ‘But there was an incident. His wives wished to see the city and had left the gates open. Some of Temur’s army entered and began to loot. Then the whole Mongol army rushed in and so began three days of murder, rape and destruction.’
The Varangians looked down on a paradise that held, within it, a man more terrifying than any they’d heard of. None of them could find anything to say. So Khan-zada continued, nodding towards the crowds
of people moving between the elephant sentinels: ‘He’s holding audience. We should go down and make ourselves known.’
The Varangians rode behind Khan-zada and Shulen. They were dressed as gazis and held pennanted spears aloft as would a bodyguard. Khan-zada wore a tunic of dazzling silver and had a gold band around her head while Shulen was dressed in blood-red. They looked a magnificent pair.
When they reached the gate of the garden, Khan-zada called out to the men guarding it: ‘I am the Princess Khan-zada and I wish to see my father-in-law immediately.’ She removed a ring from her finger and gave it to their captain. The man took it, bowed and disappeared. Luke wondered if his friends’ hearts were tapping out the same frenzied tempo as his own. He wiped the palms of his hands on his deel.
Nikolas, who was by his side, whispered: ‘I’ve just remembered something: the omen.’
‘What omen?’ whispered Matthew, who was on Luke’s other side.
‘That Temur was born with blood in his hands. Did you know that?’
Luke, looking directly ahead, whispered: ‘How exactly does it help us to mention that now, Nikki?’
The Varangian shrugged. ‘I just thought of it, that’s all.’
Khan-zada and Shulen were looking up at the elephants. Their faces were painted in stripes of green and henna and their eyes had crude eyelashes etched like sunrises into their foreheads. They looked like elephant courtesans. The towers on their backs were of intricately carved wood and had velvet draped from their sides. Inside them musicians played.
After some time, the captain returned. He was a handsome man, now out of breath. ‘The Emir is seeing the ambassadors from China and Castile, highness. He asks that you enter and await his pleasure. Your guard and the woman will remain here.’
‘No, they will accompany me,’ Khan-zada said in a voice that did not expect the conversation to continue. She dismounted and handed her reins to a guard. ‘My guard will deliver their weapons to you and they will enter the garden behind me.’
The captain glanced at the three Varangians, seeing their long, fair hair above gazi clothes. His eyes travelled down to Luke’s sword and then back to Khan-zada. ‘Of course, highness.’
They walked through the gate and into the garden and soon were within the maze of lesser tents that surrounded Tamerlane’s. Khan-zada walked fast, her head erect, ignoring the stares and bows of the men they passed. Then they entered Tamerlane’s tent.
Inside was a universe of silk which stretched around them in imitation of the world outside. Above, it was a summer’s day with feathered clouds spread across an acre of blue silk. Holding it up were tent poles the size of trees and painted as such, with green foliage spreading at their tops to support the weight of the ceiling. The tent was filled with Mongols and they parted to let Khan-zada and Shulen pass, bowing deeply as they did so. The men were short and broad and their narrow eyes narrowed further to study the tall, fair strangers that came behind.
Khan-zada led them through to the other side where the tent opened on to a garden of fruit trees and shade amidst which walked deer, peacocks and pheasants. There was a pool at its centre where lotus leaves stroked the water’s surface. Carpets were spread out by its banks on which women lay against cushions. A gentle slope rose on the other side and at its top stood a wooden dais surrounded by richly dressed men and a group of boys of various ages. The dais was of carved mulberry wood and had a low rail around its sides. It was empty save for some cushions and a folding lectern bearing an open Koran. Above it was a canopy of white silk, held up by tasselled poles, on which inscriptions had been painted in the shape of birds around a ship in sail. In front of it, on a low table, was a chessboard.
Khan-zada led them to the shade of a tree where they could see without being seen. ‘He has yet to arrive,’ she whispered. ‘But his family is here. The women on the carpets are his wives and sisters. The man next to the throne is Shahrukh, his third son who was born during a game of chess. His name means “king-knight”.’
Luke looked at the chessboard. Its pieces were made of jade and exquisitely carved but there were too many of them. ‘What sort of chess does he play?’
‘His own kind. He’s invented a new version which he calls “the Great Game”. It’s played with more pieces over a hundred squares. He plays it with my sons.’
‘Which are your sons?’
‘Next to Shahrukh.’ She was pointing. ‘That is Mohammed Sultan and that Pir Mohammed. Are they not handsome?’
Luke looked at the brothers. They were certainly handsome. They wore richly embroidered deels that ended above boots of red leather. Jewelled swords hung low by their sides, their scabbard tips resting on the ground. Both were bearded and had long ponytails. Mohammed Sultan was the taller and had the bearing of one who expected to rule. He held his head high like his mother.
Luke saw several younger versions beside them looking up with reverence. ‘And the boys beside them, who are they?’
‘His great-grandsons. The younger ones he lets read the messages from the ambassadors. You will see.’
‘Who are the other men?’ he asked. ‘The men around the throne?’
Khan-zada raised herself on tiptoe to take them all in. Then she spoke: ‘The one in the green turban is Mir Sayid Barakah, Temur’s spiritual adviser; on his right is his greatest general Burunduk and beside him the genius Omar Aqta. He is the court calligrapher and five years ago he set all of the Koran on to a signet ring and gave it to Temur. Is that not wonderful? The others are astronomers, scholars, generals and viziers. I forget their names.’
Luke touched the ring on his own finger, feeling the tiny indentation of script beneath his thumb. He wondered again why Plethon had given it to him.
A silence fell upon the garden broken only by the peacocks. Heads had turned towards the other side of the garden where another tent opened on to it. Then there were two drumbeats and everyone fell to their knees.
Eight men of identical height appeared carrying between them a carpet. On it sat an old man and, beside him, a monumental turban. The garden had gone very still and the carpet seemed to float the distance to the throne. Then, on a nod, the old man was lowered on to the dais and the cushions, lectern and turban set beside him.
Temur, Sword of Islam, Lord of the Celestial Conjunction, Conqueror of the World, was among them.
Tamerlane.
At last.
Luke stared at the man. He stared at a face that was scarred by time and battle and burnt by countless seasons. He looked into cold, milky eyes, half-closed beneath eyebrows thickened with paint, which stared straight ahead of him. He looked at a beard that was cut short and streaked with grey and stood proud from a neck knotted with ancient muscle. He looked at shoulders that were broad, at immense forearms, spotted with age, that bulged forth from his tunic. Here, before him, was the terror of the world and he was old and nearly blind.
Tamerlane lay back against the cushions, his hands folded at his groin. On his fingers were rings, one larger than the rest.
‘Is he blind?’ whispered Luke.
Khan-zada nodded. ‘Almost. But you’ll see him look often at that ring. When it clouds, he believes that the man before him is telling lies.’
Luke looked at the ring, a colossal amethyst that rested in Tamerlane’s lap like a giant tear.
Tamerlane was dressed in a long belted tunic with short sleeves and peacock fans traced in silk across its red surface. He wore a cloak swept over his shoulders that was clasped at the neck with the three circles of his earthly kingdoms worked in gold. On his head was a domed crown from which sprang a horsetail fashioned out of strands of silk.
Nikolas let out a low whistle. ‘Look at the size of that ruby.’ He was looking at the jewel set into the turban beside Tamerlane.
Khan-zada whispered: ‘It’s from the King of Ceylon, the one his ancestor wouldn’t sell to Kublai Khan. The turban is also his shroud. It is sixty feet long and goes everywhere with him in case he dies while travellin
g.’
One of the grandchildren, a boy of perhaps twelve, had walked to the front of the dais and knelt down on one knee. He opened a scroll and read. ‘The ambassadors from the Sultan in Cairo and the King of Castile bring you gifts, lord.’
Temur beckoned the boy to come closer. ‘And the Chinese? What does the Ming Emperor bring me?’ he asked, peering at his grandson. He was smelling him too, his lips working as his nostrils dilated, an old animal testing his senses. His voice was like raked gravel, deep and dry and cracked with use.
The boy glanced at the older men beside the throne. When he spoke again, his voice was clear. ‘They bring you a demand. The Ming Emperor demands that you acknowledge vassalage to him.’
For a time, no one spoke and even the peacocks seemed to wait.
Then Tamerlane laughed, a terrible sound rising from deep inside him. ‘Bring all the ambassadors in.’
The gifts arrived first. A jornufa from the Sultan of Cairo, perhaps brother to Bayezid’s, and an ostrich from the court of Castile, both led by grooms carrying chests. Behind them came the ambassadors in the finery of their nations, each man carried at his armpits by two guards as was the custom for all foreigners approaching the throne. The watching Mongols laughed.
‘Why do they laugh?’ whispered Shulen.
‘Do you see that man there amongst the Spanish envoys, that one of our race who is dressed in the fashion of Castile?’
Shulen nodded.
‘His name is Mohammed al-Cazi and he was sent back to Spain to learn their ways three years past. It seems he has learnt too well. He looks ridiculous.’
The ambassadors were set down in front of the throne and had begun to arrange themselves. The envoy al-Cazi was looking at the ground, his face crimson. Tamerlane was shaking his head. He grunted: ‘You are all the wrong way round.’ He lifted a hand, its back a mosaic of veins. ‘Where are the knights Clavijo and Sotomayor from Castile?’
One of the Spaniards stepped forward and sank to his knees. He was dressed in a pourpoint of black double-cut velvet and around his neck hung a chain of gold with a unicorn at its end.
The Towers of Samarcand (The Mistra Chronicles) Page 20
