The Towers of Samarcand (27 page)

He lowered his voice to one of hissed menace. ‘And, last of all, tell your master that the only reason his ambassadors return to him with their heads on their shoulders is because Temur
Gurgan wishes them to give this message to him in person. Have you seen my army?’

A translator was working desperately to keep up with this speech and there was some delay before the Ming ambassadors were able to nod.

‘Good. Now go.’

When the Chinese had been lifted from Tamerlane’s presence, he turned again to Clavijo. His voice was calm. ‘The ostrich pleases me better than the gyrfalcon sent by the King of Portugal. How fast does it run?’

‘As fast as a horse, majesty.’

Tamerlane nodded. ‘Then it can chase the Chinese army as it flees. How is my sister Catherine?’

Clavijo again lifted his head. ‘Both of Their Majesties excel, lord. They wish me to convey a message with these gifts, a message which is personal to you.’

Tamerlane nodded. ‘My grandson will read it to me later.’

Clavijo motioned to his colleagues and they began the process of backing away from the imperial presence without looking behind them.

‘Where is my daughter Khan-zada?’ asked Tamerlane.

The Princess stepped forward. She was royal, unafraid and beautiful. All the heads in the garden turned to look at her – all except one. ‘I am here, lord.’

Tamerlane looked up. ‘And where is your husband, the Prince Miran Shah?’

‘He is in Sultaniya, majesty.’

‘Does he know you are here?’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘And does he approve of it?’

‘No, lord.’

‘So why are you here?’

There was no reply.

All of this exchange had taken place in the most civil of tones. Now there was menace in the question repeated. ‘Why are you here, daughter?’

Khan-zada began to walk forward, stepping past the wives on the carpets and the deer drinking from the pool, until she stood directly in front of her father-in-law, less than three feet from his dais. She spoke quietly. ‘What I have to say to you, Father, is for your ears only.’ She paused. ‘It is not seemly that it be heard by others here.’

Tamerlane looked at her for a long time, his pupils moving around the whites of his eyes, trying to focus on her. ‘If you have anything to say against my son, then all should hear it,’ he said evenly. ‘Let us see how my ring likes your tale.’

The Princess breathed in deeply. She lifted her head and spoke loudly and clearly. ‘Your son, the Prince Miran Shah, plots against you, lord.’

Luke glanced at her two sons beside the throne. They were staring at their mother in disbelief. There was complete silence in every part of the garden.

Tamerlane’s big head shook slowly from side to side and he leant back against his cushions. His voice was calm. ‘My son is wayward, nothing more.’ He looked down at his ring. ‘It is true that he has ruled sometimes unwisely, that he has not won every battle. But revolt against his father? Against me?’ He paused. ‘Never.’

Khan-zada glanced at her sons. ‘Will you allow me to read something to you, lord?’ she asked. ‘It is a letter he would have sent you had I not stopped it. May I read it?’

Tamerlane signalled for wine. He gestured to her to begin.
The Princess took a scroll from the sleeve of her tunic. It had a broken seal. She unrolled the paper, glanced once more at her sons and then read:

‘“Certainly through your advanced age and weak constitution and infirmity you are now unequal to raising the standards of empire and sustaining the burdens of leadership and government, and above all things it would befit your condition to sit as a devotee in a corner of the mosque and worship your Lord, until death came to you. There are now men among your sons and grandsons who would suffice to you for ruling your subjects and armies and undertake to guard your kingdoms and territory …”’

‘Enough!’ Tamerlane had wrenched himself to his feet, one hand on the rail. He was shaking with rage. ‘Give me the letter.’ He thrust out his hand for it. ‘He has warned me of this.’ He turned to a grandson. ‘Bring your uncle.’

Pir Mohammed went over to the tent from which Tamerlane had been carried. He pulled back the flap and a man appeared, walking with a stick. As he came closer, Luke could see that he was a younger version of Tamerlane but the face was etched with madness. His long hair and beard were unkempt and still streaked with dust from his ride. He had the blotched cheeks of the drunkard and blooded eyes that roved the room as if seeking a means of escape. They came to rest on Khan-zada and stayed there.

Khan-zada had started to back away. Her face was white. She hadn’t imagined that her husband would beat her to Temur. She glanced at Miran Shah, then at Mohammed Sultan.

Tamerlane asked: ‘Where are the Greeks?’

Khan-zada’s voice was less certain now. ‘The Greeks have nothing to do with this, lord.’

By now, Miran Shah was leaning on the dais, pushing hair away from his eyes in frenzied movements and staring at Khan-zada in fascination as if he’d never seen her before.

Luke stepped forward. He felt Shulen’s hand on his arm. ‘We are here, lord.’

Tamerlane looked up. ‘Approach.’

Luke walked forward as Khan-zada had done, followed by Matthew and Nikolas. He walked past the gaze of Tamerlane’s eight wives and their children, past the courtiers and grandsons and peacocks. As they approached the dais, the three Varangians stopped and men lifted them the rest of the way.

When they were on their knees, their noses sunk into the soft grass, Tamerlane spoke to them. ‘Greeks, you have corrupted the ears of my daughter.’

Khan-zada was standing next to them. She said: ‘Lord, look to your ring. Ask them to answer this charge and then look to your ring.’

Tamerlane turned his milky eyes to his daughter-in-law. ‘They are Byzantines, daughter,’ he said simply. ‘I do not have to look at my ring to know that Byzantines lie. They forged this letter and they lie.’

Miran Shah laughed and hit the ground with his stick. ‘All Byzantines lie. Ha!’ His voice was shrill. ‘They must die!’

Now Luke dared to speak. ‘We are Varangians, lord,’ he said, looking up. ‘We’ve come from Kutahya. I have lived among the gazis of the Germiyan tribe and think as they do, not as a Byzantine.’ He could hardly breathe for the beating of his heart. But he had nothing to lose: he was about to die. ‘There is someone who can prove it, someone of the Germiyan tribe. May she speak?’

Tamerlane growled, his head sunk deep within his shoulders.
The letter was still in his hand, unread because he couldn’t read and was almost blind. Mohammed Sultan approached the dais and whispered in his grandfather’s ear. There was silence, another growl, and Tamerlane nodded.

Luke turned to Shulen. She had already begun to walk towards the dais. Her red dress had long flared sleeves that swept the grass as she came. Her hair shone like brushed velvet. She swept through the peacocks and pheasants to stand next to Luke. She looked down at him and then, after arranging her skirts, knelt carefully on the ground.

Tamerlane had seen only in the final stages of Shulen’s approach but had heard the whisper around him. Something interesting was happening. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘Can you not see me, lord?’

There were gasps of astonishment from around the throne. No one, ever, had asked that. Tamerlane shook his head in disbelief. ‘You dare to question my eyesight, girl?’

Shulen said nothing. She sat back on her haunches and stayed perfectly still.

Tamerlane spoke again. ‘The Varangian says you will speak for him.’

Shulen seemed to consider this. Then she said: ‘I would rather help you see.’

The silence was deafening. A thousand breaths were suspended. The world paused. Tamerlane frowned and scratched his head. ‘Why do you dare to speak thus?’ he asked quietly.

Shulen took a deep breath. ‘Because if you could see, lord, you would know that the letter you hold was written in the hand of your son.’

Tamerlane was shaking his head in bewilderment. Shulen leant back. ‘I have the means to let you see it.’

She had pulled a casket from her sleeve. It was the one found in the Venetians’ baggage. She opened it and brought out something that caught the light as it turned. She waited.

‘What is it?’ asked Tamerlane, his beard jutting forward in the effort to see.

Shulen did not answer but instead rose and walked up to the dais. She held the object out to the man sitting there. ‘Put them on, lord.’

Tamerlane leant forward to her and examined the two bits of glass joined by metal that were in his hands. Shulen had rested her knee on the front edge of the dais. ‘Here, let me help you.’ She took them from him in both hands and, very gently, put them on his nose.

Two enormous eyes blinked from behind the pieces of glass. Tamerlane’s hands rose to adjust the metal that bridged them across his nose and fed back to behind his ears. His head was moving from side to side, his mouth agape. He was breathing deeply and quickly.

‘What magic is this?’ he whispered. ‘What have you done?’

Shulen smiled. ‘I have made you see, lord.’

Tamerlane looked down at his ring. He spread out his hand and examined his fingers, one by one.

‘Are you a witch?’

Miran Shah had sprung forward. ‘They send a witch to you, Father!’ he cried. ‘She is a witch and her potions will kill you if that thing you wear doesn’t. Give her to me!’

But Tamerlane was smiling now and the huge eyes were turned to Shulen, seeing her for the first time. ‘These are for me?’

She bowed. ‘For you, lord.’

Luke had watched this with relief. It had all gone to plan. He
saw Mohammed Sultan, Tamerlane’s heir, shaking his head in disbelief, a strange smile on his lips. He was staring at Shulen.

In front of them, Miran Shah was now pleading. ‘Father, give her to me. I will punish her for her sorcery.’

Tamerlane stayed looking at Shulen for a long time, turning his head from side to side to take in details of her face, her dress and of the garden around. The smile remained on his face throughout. Then he turned back to his son and his voice was low. ‘You will do nothing. You will place a rope around your neck and go to my tent to await my pleasure.’ He lifted the letter and thrust it towards his son. ‘This is your handwriting.’

Luke let out a long sigh. He looked at Mohammed Sultan. Tamerlane’s heir had not taken his eyes from Shulen.

Without Shulen, Luke, Matthew and Nikolas were removed from the Garden of Heart’s Delight. Lost behind the magnified wonder of Shulen’s glasses, the Conqueror of the World had immediately forgotten the Varangians’ existence and it was left to his heir, Mohammed Sultan, to slip them discreetly from the tent and take them into Samarcand.

On their way into the city, they passed through the gardens of Paradise and Model of the World, through orchards and vineyards and a suburb called Delhi, until they reached a city under construction. For Luke, it was the opposite of Constantinople. The sun was setting and the workers gone, leaving behind a landscape crenellated with unfinished building, its gleaming stone fresh from the quarry, its mortar still wet to the touch. He thought of the dust that hung over Constantinople’s crumbling masonry and of what Ibn Khaldun had said about the rise and fall of empires.

Not yet
.

As they came into the centre of the city, riding down a wide boulevard bordered by young plane trees and palms fronting shops selling an empire’s produce and pillage, the buildings
turned from large to enormous, and stone became majolica. A sea of blue and gold broke over them from every direction, dome climbing on dome, minaret on minaret, and they rode on in silent stupefaction.

They were housed in a building that had been furnished for ambassadors. There were bedrooms and bathrooms and rooms with rich tapestries and pools where red apples bobbed beneath little fountains. They were given food and wine and the stuff to wash themselves and servants to attend them. But when they tried to leave, their Mongol guards shook their heads solemnly.

‘We are prisoners,’ said Matthew. ‘I had hoped for some sightseeing.’

They spent a week seeing Samarcand from a window, watching slaves from a hundred countries toil beneath the whip to create beauty on a scale unimaginable to men born in a small city on the edge of the sea.

With nothing to do but talk, they talked and wondered what had happened to Khan-zada and Shulen. Any question they’d had about Shulen’s contribution to their cause had disappeared with her performance in the Garden of Heart’s Delight. She’d given Tamerlane the gift of sight and his gratitude had saved them all. But they’d also witnessed the precarious nature of survival in the court of the Celestial Conjunction. Where was Shulen now? Was she safe from those new-seeing eyes?

As to their future, it was as opaque as it had ever been. They were in Samarcand but inside a gilded cage whose doors were locked. Would they still be there when Tamerlane marched north into China? Or would they be dead?