As they reached the stone bench, Sorhatani stood rooted, letting Torogene cross the last few steps to her husband. The Guards stood in mute anger, unable to see an enemy, but consumed with the failure of their office.
Ogedai had been turned to face the sky by whoever had found him. His eyes had been closed and he lay in the perfect stillness of death, his flesh as white as if he had no blood in him. Sorhatani rubbed tears from her eyes as Torogene knelt at his side and brushed his hair back with her hand. She did not speak, or weep. Instead, she sat on her heels and looked down at him for a long time. The breeze passed through them all and the gardens rustled. Somewhere close, a bird called, but Torogene did not look up or move from the spot.
Yao Shu arrived in the silence, still in his sleeping robe and with a face almost as pale as his master's. He seemed to age and shrink as he looked on the fallen khan. He did not speak. The silence was too deep for that. In misery, he stood as one of the sentinel shadows in the garden. The sun rose slowly and more than one man looked at it almost in hatred, as if its light and life were not welcome there.
As the morning light turned the city a bloody gold, Sorhatani stepped forward at last and took Torogene gently by the arm.
'Come away now,' she murmured. 'Let them take him to be laid out.'
Torogene shook her head and Sorhatani bent closer to her, whispering into her ear.
'Put aside your pain for today. You must think of your son, Guyuk. You hear me, Torogene? You must be strong. You must shed your tears for Ogedai another day if your son is to survive.'
Torogene blinked slowly and began to shake her head, once, then twice, as she listened. Tears came from under her closed eyelids and she reached down and kissed Ogedai on the lips, shuddering under Sorhatani's hand at the terrible coldness of him. She would never feel his warmth, his arms around her again. She reached out to touch the hands, rubbing her fingers over the fresh calluses there. They would not heal now. Then she stood.
'Come with me,' Sorhatani said softly, as if to a frightened animal. 'I will make you tea and find you something to eat. You must keep up your strength, Torogene.'
Torogene nodded and Sorhatani led her back through the cloister to her own rooms. She looked back almost at every step, until the garden hid her view of Ogedai. The servants ran ahead to have tea ready as they arrived.
The two women swept into Sorhatani's rooms. Sorhatani saw the Guards were taking positions on her door and realised they too were without direction. The death of the khan had taken away the established order and they seemed almost lost.
'I have orders for you,' she said on impulse. The men straightened. 'Send a runner to your commander, Alkhun. Tell him to come to these rooms immediately.'
'Your will, mistress,' the Guard said, bowing his head. He set off and Sorhatani told her servants to leave. The tea urn was already beginning to steam and she needed to be alone with Ogedai's wife.
As she closed the doors, Sorhatani saw how Torogene sat staring, stunned with grief. She bustled about, deliberately making noise with the cups. The tea was not fully hot, but it would have to do. She hated herself for intruding on a private grief, but there was no help for it. Her mind had been throwing sparks from the moment she had woken to find Kublai standing beside her. Some part of her had known even before he spoke.
'Torogene? I have sent a runner to Guyuk. Are you listening? I am truly sorry for what has happened. Ogedai…' She choked off as her own grief threatened to overwhelm her. She too had loved the khan, but she forced the sadness away once again, pressing it into a closed part of her mind so that she could go on.
'He was a good man, Torogene. My son Kublai has sent a letter to Guyuk, with the yam riders. He says it will not reach him for months. I do not suppose Guyuk will return as quickly.'
Torogene looked up suddenly. Her eyes were terrible.
'Why would he not come home, to me?' she said, her voice raw.
'Because by then he will know that his uncle Chagatai could be in the city with his tumans, Torogene. Chagatai will hear the news faster and he is far closer than Tsubodai's armies. By the time Guyuk returns, Chagatai could be khan. No, listen to me now. At that point, I would not give a copper coin for your son's life. Those are the stakes, Torogene. Put aside your grief now and listen to counsel.'
The sound of boots on the stones outside made them both look up. The senior minghaan of the khan's Guards entered the room in full armour. He bowed briefly to the two women, unable to hide his irritation at such a summons. Sorhatani glanced at him without warmth. Alkhun may not have realised how power had shifted in the palace since dawn, but she had.
'I do not wish to intrude on your grief,' Alkhun said. 'You will both understand that my place is with the Guard tuman, keeping order. Who knows how the city will react when the news spreads. There could be riots. If you will excuse me…'
'Be silent!' Sorhatani snapped. Alkhun froze in amazement, but she did not give him time to think and realise his error. 'Would you walk in on the khan without so much as a knock on the door? Then why show less honour to us? How dare you interrupt?'
'I was…summoned,' Alkhun stammered, his face flushing. It was many years since anyone had raised a voice to him in anger. Sheer surprise made him hesitate.
Sorhatani spoke slowly, with complete confidence.
'I have title to the ancestral lands, minghaan. There is but one in the nation senior to me. She sits here.' Sorhatani saw Torogene was staring at her in bewilderment, but went on. 'Until Guyuk arrives in Karakorum, his mother is regent. If it is not obvious to even the least of men, I decree it from this moment.'
'I…' Alkhun began, then fell silent as he considered. Sorhatani was willing to wait and she poured more tea, hoping that neither one noticed the way her shaking hands made the cups clink together.
'You are correct, of course,' Alkhun said, almost with relief. 'I am sorry to have disturbed you, mistress. My lady.' He bowed again to Torogene, this time much deeper.
'I will have your head if you displease me again, Alkhun,' Sorhatani continued. 'For the time being, secure the city as you say. I will let you know details of the funeral as I have them.'
'Yes, my lady,' Alkhun replied. The world had ceased spinning wildly, at least in those rooms. He did not know if the sense of chaos would return outside them.
'Bring your nine minghaan officers to the main audience chamber at sunset. I will have further orders for you by then. I do not doubt Chagatai Khan will be considering an assault on Karakorum, Alkhun. He must not set one foot in this city, do you understand?'
'I do,' Alkhun replied.
'Then leave us,' Sorhatani said, waving her hand to dismiss him. He closed the door carefully behind him and Sorhatani let out a huge breath. Torogene was watching her with wide eyes.
'May all our battles go so smoothly,' Sorhatani said grimly. Baidur rode north with a fierce pride in his heart, leaving Tsubodai and Batu behind. He suspected that Ilugei would report back his every action, but he was not daunted by thought of close scrutiny. His father Chagatai had trained him in every discipline and tactic – and his father was a son of Genghis Khan. Baidur had not gone into the wilderness unprepared. He just hoped he would have the chance to use some of the things he had packed onto spare horses. Tsubodai had given his approval to leave carts behind. The vast herd of ponies that travelled with a tuman could carry almost anything except the spars of heavy catapults.
It was difficult to smother his visible joy as he rode with two tumans through lands he had never imagined. They covered around sixty miles a day, by the best reckoning. Speed was important, Tsubodai had made that clear enough, but Baidur could not leave armies in his wake. That was why he had taken a path almost true north of the Carpathian mountains. Once he was in position, he would drive west in concert with Tsubodai, breaking anything that stood in his way. His men had begun to scour the land clear as they reached a position with Krakow to the west and the city of Lublin ahead of them.
As Baidur rei
ned in, he stared at the walls of Lublin with a sour expression. The land around him was barren in winter, the fields black and bare. He dismounted to feel the soil, crumbling the black muck in his hands before moving on. It was good land. Only rich earth and horses could excite a real greed in him. Gold and palaces meant nothing at all; his father had taught him that much. Baidur had never heard of Krakow until Tsubodai had given him the name, but he hungered to claim the Polish principalities for the khan. It was even possible that Ogedai would reward a successful general with a khanate of his own. Stranger things had happened.
Tsubodai had given him vellum skins with all he knew about the land ahead, but he had not yet had a chance to read them. It did not matter. No matter who he faced, they would be as wheat.
He mounted again and rode closer to the city. It was not long till sunset and the gates were closed against him. As he approached, he saw the walls were shored up, showing the patches and marks of generations of poor repairs. In places, there was little more than a barrier of piled wood and stone. He smiled. Tsubodai expected speed and destruction.
He turned to Ilugei, who sat his mount and watched with an impassive expression.
'We will wait for darkness. One jagun of a hundred men will climb the walls on the other side, drawing their guards to them. Another hundred will go in and open the gates from inside. I want this place burning by sunrise.'
'It will be done,' Ilugei said, riding away to pass on the orders of the younger man.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Baidur and Ilugei moved at blistering speed across the landscape. No sooner had Lublin fallen than Baidur was urging the tumans onwards to the cities of Sandomir and Krakow. At such a pace, the tumans came across columns of men marching to relieve cities already taken. Again and again, Baidur was able to surprise the nobles in the area, his twenty thousand routing smaller forces, then hunting them down piecemeal. It was the sort of campaign Baidur's grandfather had relished and his father Chagatai recounted in detail. The enemy were sluggish and slow to react against a knife thrust across their lands. Baidur knew there would be no mercy if he failed, from his own people or those he faced. Given the chance, the Poles would wipe out his tumans to the last man. It made sense not to meet them on their own terms, or fight to their strengths. He had no reinforcements to call on and he husbanded his tumans carefully, knowing he had to keep them intact, even if it meant refusing to engage.
He did not know the name of the man who led out the regiments of bright knights and foot soldiers against him near Krakow. Baidur's scouts reported an army of around fifty thousand and Baidur swore to himself when he heard. He knew what Tsubodai would want him to do, but he had never seen the race across the north as suicide. At least the Polish noble hadn't retreated behind thick walls and dared them to take the city. Krakow was as open as Moscow and as hard to defend. Its strength lay in the massive army that gathered before it, waiting in camp for the Mongol tumans to attack.
Baidur rode dangerously close to the city with his senior minghaans, observing the formations of soldiers and the lie of the land. He had no idea whether the Poles presented a threat to Tsubodai, but it was for exactly this task that he had been sent north. Such an army could not be allowed to join forces with those in Hungary, but it was not enough to pin them down around Krakow. Baidur's task was to tear a strip right through the country, to make sure that no armed force could consider moving south in support, not with such a wolf loose among their own people. Apart from anything else, Tsubodai would have his ears if Baidur ignored those orders.
Baidur rode to a small hill and stared at the sea of men and horses revealed to him. In the distance, he could see his presence had been marked. Polish scouts were already galloping closer, their weapons drawn in clear threat. Other men were mounting on the outskirts, ready to defend or attack, whatever his presence called for. What would his father do? What would his grandfather have done against so many?
'That city must be rich to have so many men guarding it,' Ilugei muttered at his shoulder.
Baidur smiled, making a quick decision. His men had almost sixty thousand horses with them, a herd so vast it could never remain in one place for more than a day. The horses stripped the grass like locusts, just as the tumans ate anything that moved. Yet each spare mount carried bows and shafts, pots, food and a hundred other items the men needed for the campaign, even the wicker and felt for gers. Tsubodai had sent him well equipped, at least.
'I think you are right, Ilugei,' Baidur said, weighing his chances. 'They want to protect their precious city, so they cluster around it, waiting for us.' He grinned. 'If they are kind enough to stay in one place, our arrows will speak for us.'
He turned his pony and rode back, ignoring the enemy scouts who had come close while he sat and observed. As one of them darted in, Baidur drew an arrow smoothly, fitting it to his bowstring and loosing in one movement. It was a fine shot and the scout went tumbling. A good omen, he hoped.
Baidur left their shouts and jeers behind him, knowing the scouts would not dare to follow. His mind was already busy. With the stores on the spare horses, he still had almost two million shafts – each a piece of straight birch, well fletched – bundled in quivers of thirty or sixty. Even with such abundance, he had been careful to retrieve and repair as many as he could from the battles. They were perhaps his most precious resource, after the horses themselves. He looked at the sun and nodded. It was still early. He would not waste the day. King Boleslav, Grand Duke of Krakow, drummed his gauntlet on the leather pommel of his saddle as he watched the vast cloud of dust that marked the movements of the approaching Mongol horde. He sat a massive grey charger, a beast of the breed that could pull a plough through the black earth all day without tiring. Eleven thousand knights stood ready to destroy the invader once and for all. To his left, the French Knights Templar stood ready in their livery of red and white over steel. Boleslav could hear their voices raised in prayer. He had archers by the thousand and, most importantly of all, he had pikemen who could stand against a charge with lances. It was an army to inspire confidence, and he kept his messengers close by, ready to ride to his cousin in Liegnitz with news of the victory. Perhaps when he had saved them all, his family would finally recognise him as the rightful ruler of Poland.
The mother church would still stand in his way, he thought sourly. They preferred the princes of Poland to waste their strength in squabbles and assassinations, leaving the church to grow fat and wealthy. Only the month before, his cousin Henry had sponsored a monastery for the new order of Dominicans, paying for it all in good silver. Boleslav winced at the thought of the benefices and indulgences Henry had earned as a result. It was the talk of the family.
In his silent thoughts, Boleslav offered up a prayer of his own.
'Lord, if I see victory today, I will found a convent in my city. I will set a chalice of gold on the altar of the chapel and I will find a relic to bring pilgrims from a thousand miles. I will have a Mass offered for all those who lose their lives. I give you my oath, Lord, my troth. Allow me your victory and I will have your name sung across Krakow.'
He swallowed drily and reached for a small bottle of water on a thong hanging from his saddle. He hated the waiting and he still feared that the reports of his scouts were true. He knew they were prone to exaggerate, but more than one had come back with tales of a horde twice the size of his fifty thousand, a great ocean of uncountable horses and terrible invaders, carrying bows and lances like the trees of a forest. His bladder made itself felt and Boleslav winced irritably. Let the damned dogs come, he told himself. God would speak and they would learn the strength of his right hand.
Boleslav could see the dark mass of the enemy as they rode closer. They poured across the ground, too many to count, though he did not think it was the vast army his scouts had described. That thought brought the worry that there might be more out of sight. He had only one report from Russia, but it warned they were fiends for trickery, in love with the ambush and th
e flanking blow. None of that was in evidence as his pikemen held their position. The Mongol warriors were riding straight at his lines as if they intended to gallop through them. Boleslav began to sweat, fearing he had missed something in the battle plans. He saw the Knights Templar ready themselves to counter-charge, safe for the moment behind the ranks of stolid pikemen. Boleslav watched intently as the pikes came down, the butts firmly grounded in the earth. They would stop anything, gut anyone, no matter how fast or fierce they were.
The Mongols came in a wide line, no more than fifty deep. As Boleslav stared, they bent bows and released. Thousands of shafts rose in the air above his pikemen and Boleslav knew a moment of horror. They had shields, but they had thrown them down to hold the pikes against a charge.
The sound of arrows striking men clattered across the field, followed by screaming. Hundreds fell and the arrows kept coming. Boleslav counted twelve heartbeats between each colossal strike, though his heart was racing and he could not calm himself. His own archers replied with volleys and he tensed in anticipation, only to see the shafts fall short of the Mongol horsemen. How could they have such a range? His bowmen were good, he was certain, but if they could not reach the enemy, they were useless to him.
Orders snapped up and down the lines as officers tried to respond. Many of the pikemen dropped the massive weapons. Some reached for their shields, while others tried to balance shield and pike together, neither one serving its purpose. Boleslav cursed, looking over their heads to the commander of the Templars. The man was like a dog straining on a leash. They were ready to ride, but by the pikemen were still blocking the Templars' path into the enemy. There could be no smooth manoeuvre as the foot soldiers pulled aside and let the Templars thunder through. Instead, they lay in tangled heaps of men and pikes like thorns, cowering under their shields as the arrows flew and thumped into them.
Boleslav swore, his voice cracking. His messengers looked up, but he had not spoken for them. He had seen armies all his life. He owed his power to the battles he had fought and won, but what he was seeing made a mockery of everything he had learned. The Mongols seemed to have no directing structure. There was no calm centre to order their movements. That would have been something Boleslav could have countered. Yet neither were they a rabble, with each man acting on his own. Instead, they moved and attacked as if a thousand guiding hands were over them, as if each group was completely independent. It was insane, but they shifted and struck like wasps, responding instantly together to any threat.
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