The Golden Horde (19 page)

“Follow this man,” he said, indicating Guard-Captain Akimov. “He’ll take you to the Council Chamber.”

“Not the Council Chamber,” said Mar’ya Morevna quickly. “The Hall of Audience.”

“Highness? For so few?” The big Cossack was confused. The Hall was perhaps the biggest single open space under the roof of the entire kremlin, able at need to hold more than two thousand people, and Akimov knew well enough that even when the Tsar and his party joined the Tatars, all of them together would rattle around in such a great reverberant emptiness like the last grains of wheat in a barrel.

“Yes.” Mar’ya Morevna’s flat, expressionless voice suggested that any further questioning of her orders would have to be well justified later. “Once there, you will see our, our guests to seats at the centre of the Hall. Under the principal vault.” Then she smiled as she made things clear at last. “After that, open all the doors, post sentries outside them, and make sure the ornamental fountains are running.”

Ivan, Akimov and Amragan
tarkhan
all looked at her with exactly the same expression of respect. In so large an open space, and with guards at every open door, no one could creep close enough to eavesdrop on voices kept cautiously lowered, and any word that travelled further than was intended would be drowned by the hiss and splash from the fountains. Mar’ya Morevna had employed such subterfuges before when consulting with her own group of capable spies, and both she and Ivan had long known that the other Princes of the Rus had spies of their own in the kremlin at Khorlov. Such caution might seem excessive when those other Princes were either dead or fled; but dead men had successors, and those who ran away could come back. If they chanced to learn anything about the meeting about to take place, it wouldn’t be through lack of caution on her part.

Ivan watched as Amragan
tarkhan
and his aromatic entourage tramped off towards the kremlin, then quietly summoned Mar’ya Morevna, Volk Volkovich and First Minister Strel’tsin to attend him.

“Shamans,” said the Grey Wolf, and he managed to growl the word low in his throat. “Call them doctors, or priests, or wizards, they can be any one or all of them together. I’ve seen them before, too many times. They come usually as one of the first envoys, a pagan affront to good Orthodox Christian sensibilities. A deliberate sacrifice, meant to provoke foolish violence and justify reprisals. As if the Tatars need to justify anything of the sort.”

Strel’tsin uttered his little snort that was almost an audible question-mark. “Then why weren’t they with the
tarkhan
from the first?”

Volk Volkovich grinned. “Maybe because they knew that it wasn’t any reason you or the Tsar would use,” he said. “Others perhaps,” he shot a pointed stare at the Metropolitan Patriarch, who was standing with a group of lesser clergy on the far side of the gateway, looking more than ever as if he had a bellyache, “but not the men whose words have power in Khorlov.”

“Um.” Dmitriy Vasil’yevich looked thoughtful, digesting the information that someone in the city actually considered him other than tradition-bound and old-fashioned, never mind capable of sharing the opinions of a Tsar fifty years his junior.

“More than that – these shamans are his defence against
us
,” said Mar’ya Morevna. Ivan had seen that look on her face before, when she emerged dusty-fingered from a stack of ancient books with the scrap of information she’d sought scribbled on a piece of parchment, and decided not to ruin her satisfaction by explaining how the same thought had occurred to him a few minutes before. Instead he remained silent and let her continue uninterrupted for the benefit of the other two. “That’s what’s behind all of this. You’ll see. The Tatars are afraid of Khorlov – because of Khorlov’s sorcerers.” Her gaze slid to Archbishop Levon and rested there a moment, smugly satisfied. “Remind me to tell the old prelate all about this sometime.”

“Not afraid, noble Lady,” the Grey Wolf corrected. “The Tatars are afraid of nothing on the face of Moist-Mother-Earth. But they’re wary. Careful of something they don’t yet know how to deal with.”

Ivan looked down at his hands, then wiggled his fingers, interlaced them and cracked his knuckles thoughtfully. “Whatever they are, I prefer them like this. Better wary and polite than arrogant and grasping. Or afraid. That would be worse still; when people are afraid of something, they resort to violence, and we all know how the Tatars employ violence as a matter of policy …” He let the others think about that for a few seconds. “At least with their envoy in his present mood, I think we might well be able to come to an accommodation with more honour in it than I was expecting. Something that might even keep the Council happy.”

“You mean conquering back all the lands the Tatars have seized in the past twenty years?” mocked Mar’ya Morevna gently. “That’s the only thing that would satisfy your councillors – and even then they would complain about why you hadn’t done it sooner.”

*

“So why,” said Ivan Aleksandrovich, “have you and your Tatars come to Khorlov, if not for the customary demands of tribute and surrender?” The shamans muttered amongst themselves at such forthright speech that threatened almost to spill over into arrogance.
A
tone
and
an
attitude
, Ivan thought,
that
you’re
not
accustomed
to
.
And
one
which
has
at
least
told
me
that
you
all
understand
Russian
.

“Hear me,” said Amragan
tarkhan
formally. “I speak with the voice of the Ilkhan Batu of the Golden Horde, who speaks with the voice of the Khakhan Ogotai, Khan of all Khans of the Mongols, who speaks with the voice of the god Tengri of the Everlasting Blue Sky.”

“An interesting chain of command,” said Mar’ya Morevna. “Since you’re obviously on such close terms, how
is
God nowadays? Healthy and well, I trust?” She smiled at the Turkic envoy, daring him to take exception to her words.

Amragan did not. He returned the smile – or rather, his drooping moustaches moved in something that might have been a smile, had the lips beneath not stayed as thin as a razor-cut.

“I cannot say, lady,” he said. “For had you listened with greater care, you would know that I,
I
, speak with the voice of men.”

“And of angels?” Ivan wondered behind his raised hand, then waved that hand to dismiss the comment as though the words were no more than smoke on the air. However Amragan
tarkhan
had sharp ears and wasn’t about to let it go so easily.

“You are pleased to make play with the words of your holy book,” he said. Ivan kept surprise off his face. He hadn’t expected a pagan Turk and a Tatar envoy to recognize the phrase, and hastily revised his opinion of the man’s education. “That you are pleased with such jests does not concern me, save that it proves how much your religion is weaker than ours.”

“How so?”

“No man of the Great Horde or the White Horde or the Golden Horde would dare to make a joke from worship words.”

“Because your god Tengri doesn’t have a sense of humour?”

“Because the Everlasting Blue Sky has greater dignity than that. And the shaman priests would slay any man who used the words without respect.”

“Ah.” Ivan glanced at the five shamans who glowered back at him with as much disapproval as the entire College of Cardinals and, despite the discomfort of the carvings, settled himself more firmly into the Chair of State. It was one of those times in such a mannered, artificial conversation when settling back was what one of the parties had to do, and the role had fallen to him. “The Romans do that too. They have a special band of holy fathers, the Inquisition, who do nothing else.”

“Then the Romans are wiser than the Great Khan Ogotai has given them credit. If a man is not afraid of his god, then it goes without saying he will not be afraid of his overlord.”

“Unless that overlord is more terrible than any god created by a priest to scare his worshippers into good behaviour,” said Mar’ya Morevna.

Amragan
tarkhan
looked at her for several seconds, his face bland and blank, until finally Tsar Ivan said, “Yes?” in a tone that demanded some sort of reply.

“Your wife, Lord of Khorlov,” said the Turk, “is like a Tatar woman.” Then he grinned and held up one open hand as though to turn aside the offence he saw flare up on Ivan’s face. “That was not an insult, as she well knows.” It was true: Mar’ya Morevna wore an expression more of amusement than anger, half-hidden by the pretence of rubbing an itch at the end of her nose. “She speaks without deferring to the men’s side.” Amragan looked at her again then shrugged. “Sometimes that is a good thing. At other times, not. You know your lady best.”

The amusement on Mar’ya Morevna’s face curdled like vinegar in new milk, and suddenly it was Ivan’s turn to hide his face behind a thoughtful gesture. He’d been prepared to hate this envoy and, until he found out more about him, there was still little to like about the man – but his quickness of wit was appealing as he slid deftly between political observation and delicate social insult. If Amragan
tarkhan
had been a jester, Ivan would have rewarded him well. As it was, being the representative of both the Ilkhan of the Golden Horde and of the Great Khan of all Khans, with two hundred horsemen encamped beyond the kremlin gates, he was a man to watch.

And listen to. Especially that.

“How can you speak with the voice of the Khan Ogotai,” he asked, “when he’s been dead these two years past?” His tone was simple interest, so much that the
tarkhan
answered without suspicion of hidden insult.

“No new Khakhan has yet been chosen by the
kuriltai
,” he replied. “His
suldë
, his spirit-strength, remains with us until that time. It goes before us in the
tuk
standard of nine tails and gives us power. It will be so until the new Khan takes his place in Karakorum.”

“And for the present, each Ilkhan rules as he sees fit?” said Mar’ya Morevna. It was more of a speculation voiced aloud than a question, unless Amragan chose to treat it as such. The envoy said nothing, and his hard face remained devoid of expression as Mar’ya Morevna went on. “So I wonder if the Ilkhan Batu is endeavouring to consolidate his position in Russia while there’s no superior authority to order otherwise.” Still none of the Tatars gave anything away, even when she said flatly, “After all, he was at pains not to go to Karakorum for the
kuriltai
. Gout, wasn’t it?”

“Mar’yushka!” Ivan was shocked; if this was diplomacy, it was a rougher brand than he’d been expecting. The silence deepened, and Tsar Ivan wondered if he was the only person present grateful for a sword still scabbarded at his hip.

Then Amragan
tarkhan
threw back his head and laughed, a great bark of mirth that shattered the stillness as suddenly and loudly as a hammer against a pottery jar. The shamans – and not just the shamans – were astonished. But shattered at the same time was that slowly increasing tension, like a bowstring drawn back until it had to be released or break the bow. Either way would have caused harm, but this easing of the pressure hurt no one – except for the Rus, who could hardly accept that a Tatar could laugh at anything but destruction.

“Gout perhaps,” said Amragan once he controlled himself enough to speak clearly. “But also knowing that where he was, the only Lord of Sarai in the sea of grass you call the Kipchaq Steppe, was a better place than being one among many in a dead Khakhan’s court. So now you know a thing which is secret to most others. Is this not trust?”

Ivan glanced quickly at the other three faces, and saw only surprise. It was trust indeed, but to a Tatar envoy with such authority, the betrayal of secrets could quickly be concealed by fire and the edge of the sword.

“Also,” said the Turk, “when the
Sain
Khan Batu advised me that Khorlov was different to other cities of the Rus, I thought he meant only by your use of
kara
-
sechun
, the Shadow Wisdom. So I brought all of these,” he jerked a thumb at the shamans, “to protect me. But it is also because you speak plain, and do not shroud your meanings behind a fog of words like the Chin of Kithai.”

“We can do that when we must, Amragan
tarkhan
,” said Ivan. “But then, having seen the fate of other cities, what good would fair words have done?”

The Turk grinned, not pleasantly. “None at all. Nor would speaking plain have helped, had you said what she did. From the lord of a city that would have been insult, and I would have burned this place around your ears. I would have burned it long ago in any case, since you did not bow to me as you came in.”

Mar’ya Morevna’s mouth compressed as if she’d just drunk vinegar, and Ivan could hear a faint, high whistling in his ears as though his blood was moving too fast through his veins. To have come so close to destruction was an ugly shock. They’d both been fooled into thinking this Turk could be reasoned with as though he was a Rus just because he reacted well, or at least not badly, to some jokes. Only Strel’tsin and Volk Volkovich controlled their features, and that only through long practice in concealing what they really thought – or what they really were.