The Towers of Samarcand (45 page)

Now Plethon was seated in the palace library with a letter he’d written on the table before him. The library was a circular room with bookcases spreading out to its perimeter and a long
table at its centre. On every shelf was a jewel. The illiterate crusaders had been uninterested in learning when they’d come two centuries earlier and much had survived their onslaught. Now the manuscripts were all gathered in a place deemed safer than most. Here were treasures from Jerusalem, Damascus, Baghdad and many cities besides, probably the greatest amalgamation of human writing outside Cairo. It was to this room that Plethon had welcomed scholars from Florence, Sienna and Ferrara these past years, men of curiosity who’d come to Byzantium to find ancient reason to underpin new thinking.

Plethon was humming quietly to himself and scratching his ear with the end of the goose feather. He stared at the letter. It was written to the only other person in the world who knew what was in the casket at Mistra. He rolled up the vellum, sealed it and looked up at a window, seeing that there was now some light in the sky. Dawn. Surely the Turks must attack now?

The candle flame rose as a draught entered the room and he heard the sound of a door closing and heavy footsteps approaching. The Emperor was standing in front of him wearing armour. He was pale and his eyes were ringed with shadow. He looked exhausted. ‘I think you’d better come to the walls,’ he said.

Plethon had been expecting this. He’d stated his intention to die defending the city and now he was being summoned to do so. He nodded and rose, placing the scroll in his sleeve. He wondered what he was expected to fight with.

The two men walked in silence from the library and through the halls and corridors of the empty palace, the only sounds the squeak of the marble beneath their feet. There were braziers lit beneath pillars, each creating an island of shifting flame, and
Plethon thought of the fire that would soon consume the city. Would the library survive again? He thought not.

They came to a tower and a spiral staircase that would take them up to the walls. The Emperor stood to one side to let him pass and by the time he’d reached the top and walked out on to the battlements, Plethon was out of breath.

How can I hope to fight the Turks?

Dawn was breaking in the east and the world was strangely silent. He straightened up to look over the walls.

Bayezid’s army had vanished. Where yesterday there were men manning the trenches and palisades, now there were none. The siege engines, battering rams, ballistas: all had gone. In the uncertain light of a new day, Plethon could see that the only thing still standing was a solitary tent on the hill of Maltepe and beside it a drum, abandoned.

Plethon looked along the battlements. They were slowly filling with people: soldiers holding their helmets, mothers holding children, priests holding relics that had done their work at last. There was no sound beyond the rustle of the dawn breeze on clothing, a sound that passed through the silent watchers like a sigh.

Then a thousand faces turned from the empty plain and were raised to greet a new sun that was rising behind them; rising over a sea on which no Ottoman galleys floated; rising far in the east where an old man, cured from illness, was at last marching to fight Bayezid.

And with the sun came joy. First one, then ten, then a thousand bells began to peal from the towers of the city’s churches, close and far, spreading the news and scattering the silence and causing the people on the walls to blink, then smile, then embrace each other in joy and relief.

Plethon let out a long sigh. He reached into his sleeve and brought out the scroll. He broke the seal, unrolled the paper and read what he’d written. Then he tore it into little pieces which he let drift, like cinders, to the ground below the Christian walls of Constantinople.

The army of two hundred thousand that stood beneath the noonday sun was parched. It had stood for over three hours now, row upon row of heavily armoured men motionless beside their horses, the sweat coming off them in rivers. It was an army thinking of water.

A few had fainted, despite the shame, and even a general had fallen in front of his
tumen
. Tamerlane had had the man’s head shorn, a dress put on him and rouge painted on his cheeks. Then he’d been made to run barefoot the length of the jeering army. He would open his veins later.

This was an army of many tongues and colours, gathered from the steppes of Turkestan, from Mawarannah, India and Persia. They were armed with the best that money could buy: mail from Georgia, swords from Damascus and bows made from the maple of Kastamonu, their arrow flights feathered by eagles. It was drawn up in eight divisions, each with its
tugh
, or horse-tail standard, at its front. It looked patiently out across an ochre landscape of baked earth and rugged tufts of grass that sagged in the heat like old men’s hair. It was a country of snakes and animals that cowered beneath a merciless sun
without shade, a land of silence broken only by the wind. But today there was no breeze, only the incessant buzz of flies that added to this army’s agony.

Each
tarkhan
would, eventually, have the honour to greet Tamerlane when he chose to inspect the ranks. They were the men deemed bravest in the division, men who’d proved it often on the battlefield, and their rewards were many: a splendid suit of armour, exemption from all taxes, a place of honour at all feasts and access to their leader whenever they wished it. Best of all, they were decreed free of prosecution for any crime up to the ninth time of committing it. Tamerlane had thought of that himself.

Tamerlane had had these reviews before. Many in the army remembered the one out in the frozen wastes far, far to the north when they were chasing Toktamish. It usually meant that the Emperor wanted to reassure himself of his army’s discipline at a time when it might be in doubt. Since the forced marches west from Sivas along the Kizilirmak River, there had been grumbling in the ranks. And despite three weeks of siege, the castle of Ankara still hadn’t fallen.

Now, while his army awaited him, Tamerlane played chess with a man who didn’t speak his language. They were sitting on stools beneath a bright yellow canopy of silk on either side of a giant board on which camels, jornufas, siege engines and a wooden
wazir
joined the usual pieces of the game. Between the two men stood Luke and Khan-zada, there to interpret and admire.

The other man playing was the engineer Benedo Barbi, who’d been summoned from Chios on Luke’s advice and presented with an unusual commission. He was wearing a loose cotton shirt open to the waist and white pantaloons against the heat.
His chin was resting on his fist and his face was a mask of concentration.

The engineer shook his head and moved a siege engine. He was not enjoying the game and felt uncomfortable beneath the relentless gaze of the eagle that watched him from its perch.

‘You’re as bad at this as Sotomayor,’ growled Tamerlane, leaning forward to inspect the play. ‘I hope your engines work better.’

On his arrival a week before, Barbi had reviewed the siege works at Ankara and recommended the building of long, fire-proofed alleyways that would allow men to get right up to the walls. He had designed giant braziers that could be clamped to the walls so that they became white hot before being cooled by siphons spouting ice-cold vinegar. Then he’d briefed masons on how to split the stones with hammers and chisels so that the whole edifice above would come down. The theory had yet to be tested but Tamerlane had been impressed.

Khan-zada spoke. ‘Lord, the army has stood for three hours.’

Tamerlane didn’t reply but removed his glasses, wiped them on his caftan, and went back to studying the board.

She tried again. ‘Temur Gurgan, will you not go to your soldiers or at least give them water?’

At last he looked up. ‘Do I advise you on your scents, Daughter?’ he replied. He glanced behind him where the first of the divisions stood no more than fifty paces away. He turned back to her. ‘Let me tell you this, woman. Two things bring me victory: cunning and discipline.’ He nodded slowly, tapping his temple with his finger. ‘Think of Baghdad. How did I win? I made our soldiers attack the walls in the heat of the day because I knew something that they didn’t: that the army of Ahmad Jalayrid had its helmets up on sticks! The jackals had
gone off to lie in the shade! It was discipline which made them attack in such heat.’

He glanced behind him again, then leant forward as if in conspiracy. ‘And these Turks that are coming?’ he whispered. ‘Their janissaries have discipline, certainly, but the bashibozouks?’ He paused and snorted with contempt. ‘And if Bayezid had any cunning, he wouldn’t have abandoned this position three weeks ago.’ He turned to the Italian seated across from him and winked. ‘And what of my cunning now, eh?’

He began to speak again but there were horses approaching. Miran Shah had ridden up with a group of shabbily dressed men who dismounted quickly and threw themselves on the ground before him. His son remained standing, clapping his hands to remove the dust. He was dressed in a coat of mail and carried a long, coiled whip. He bowed stiffly. ‘Father, your
kourtchi
have returned with news.’

Temur frowned. ‘Speak for them.’

Miran Shah cast a look of disdain over the group. ‘They report that Bayezid will be here tomorrow,’ he said shortly. ‘They say that the Sultan has a great army with him and that it has cannon. The Serb Lazarević marches by his side with a strong force of knights and black-steels who have handguns.’

‘How big is his army?’

‘As big as ours, perhaps bigger,’ he replied. ‘All of the gazi tribes are with him. And it is rumoured that an army from Cairo is marching to support him.’

Tamerlane nodded. ‘Well, certainly the dog has learnt to bark again. He’s sent me more letters. He calls me a plague.’ He grunted. ‘The plague was my friend; it emptied the cities. He is a fool.’

Miran Shah stepped forward. He bent low and whispered
into Tamerlane’s ear. ‘Father, we should march away while we still can. If we go north, we can escape him.’

Very slowly, Temur looked up at his son. ‘What did you say?’

Miran Shah blinked. For the first time he looked uncertain and moved the whip from one hand to the other. ‘We can come back with a bigger army, Father,’ he said. ‘We can return when we know we can defeat him.’

Tamerlane looked at him for a long time. There were muscles moving in his neck. ‘Are you one of their kourtchi?’ he asked softly. ‘Has Bayezid bribed you to say this to me?’

Miran Shah laughed but his eyes shone with fear. ‘Father …’

But Tamerlane raised his hand to stop him. ‘Get out of my sight. You are a cowardly dog and you will not command my left wing as I decreed. You will guard the camp at the rear. Your place is with the women.’

For a moment Miran Shah did nothing but stare, wide-eyed, at his father. Then he glanced venomously at Luke and Khan-zada, turned and walked back to his horse.

When he had ridden away and the kourtchi had been dismissed, Khan-zada knelt before her father-in-law. ‘Father,’ she murmured, ‘Shulen and I will be in that camp.’

But Tamerlane wasn’t listening. He shouted at an emir who was standing nearby: ‘Where is Prince Mohammed Sultan?’

‘He is on his way, lord, as you commanded,’ said the man.

Mohammed Sultan had been at Ankara for two weeks, the second spent entirely in the company of the engineer from Chios. Luke had only seen him when they’d discussed sending for Barbi; neither Khan-zada nor Shulen had seen him at all. Now he was before them, his long hair caked in dust, kneeling in front of his grandfather.

Tamerlane looked down on him fondly. ‘The Genoese’ – he
waved towards Barbi whose name he’d forgotten – ‘tells me you and he have done what we agreed.’

Mohammed Sultan nodded. ‘We have had the men working day and night to finish it in time.’ He glanced over to where that army stood and then up at the sun. ‘It is hot, Grandfather.’

Tamerlane scratched his knee and waved the flies away from the chess pieces. He grinned. ‘And we will fight tomorrow. Have you heard?’

The Prince looked up. ‘I was told by Miran Shah on my way here,’ he said. He paused and then said quietly: ‘He also told me that you had relieved him of his command.’

‘The answer is no.’

Tamerlane picked up a jornufa from the board and banged it down on a different part of the board. ‘Check.’

‘But who else will command it?’

‘General Kurunduk.’

‘He is not of your family.’

‘He is not my heir. My heir stays by my side. My heir survives me, is that clear?’ Tamerlane was frowning now and the stubborn will that had made men march in snow or stand under a midday sun was not to be moved. For a while neither of them spoke. Then Mohammed Sultan changed the subject.

‘The Lady Shulen, has she arrived at the camp?’

Luke glanced at Khan-zada, who was looking down at her hands, her shoulders stiff with unease.