The Towers of Samarcand (The Mistra Chronicles) Read online

  Plethon asked: ‘May I sit?’

  Since he’d been doge, this question had seldom been put to Venier but he covered his surprise well. Plethon was already seated at the long table when he came over to join him. ‘Wine? We have it from Monemvasia. Iced.’

  Plethon shook his head. The Venetians were said to strengthen their wine in negotiations and he was tired from the heat. He asked: ‘You’ve heard of the French writer Gautier de Coincy? The one who wrote of the Virgin’s miracles?’

  The Doge was pouring himself wine and nodding. He hadn’t heard of the writer.

  ‘Then you will know that there is one in which she rescues a man who makes a bargain with Mephistopheles. The Devil makes him rich and powerful and comes to collect his debt: the man’s soul.’ He paused. ‘The Virgin intercedes.’

  The Doge saw where this was leading. He said: ‘You speak of Venice and the Turk. There is a difference.’

  Plethon waited.

  ‘The difference here is that the debt is the other way round. We’ve sold to them and not vice versa.’

  ‘It is immaterial,’ said Plethon. ‘You’ve made a pact with that which will destroy you. Eventually.’

  The Doge sipped his wine and winced as ice touched a hole in his teeth. ‘We disagree. The Turk will need trade to pay for his empire. We will provide it.’

  Both men looked at each other for a while. Both were as clever as their beards were long. There was mutual respect. ‘Anyway,’ said the Doge, ‘the Serenissima has been excommunicated before. I’ll have friends below. We can toast together.’

  Plethon smiled again. He rose from the table and walked to stand beneath the Venier coat of arms. ‘You would give the Turk the Middle Sea for fifty years of gain. No more dreams of Mare Nostrum. What will future Veniers make of you?’

  The Doge shrugged. ‘We Venetians live on water, Plethon. What could be more unstable than that? We move with the tide.’

  Plethon looked up at the shield for a long time before speaking again. He did not turn round. ‘I have two strategies for stopping the Turk from taking all of Christendom. The first is to bring Tamerlane to fight Bayezid.’

  Venier shook his head. ‘He won’t come,’ he said. ‘We have agents in the court in Samarcand. He’s more interested in China.’ He reached for his wine. ‘They tell me he is obsessed with reuniting the four Khanates under one Mongol rule. He’s done three: Chagatai, Persia and the Golden Horde. Now he’s just got the empire won by Kublai Khan to conquer: China. Anyway, Tamerlane might not beat him. Bayezid’s never lost a battle.’ He smiled. ‘What is your second?’

  ‘To forge a union of the Churches which will enable the Pope to send another crusade before the Turk is too strong and it’s too late.’

  ‘But we are blessed with two Popes. Which is it to be, Rome’s or Avignon’s?’

  ‘They can be reunited.’

  The Doge looked sceptical. ‘How?’

  ‘Incentive,’ said the philosopher. ‘I want to talk to men who see advantage in a single Curia. The Medici, for instance. I would like you to arrange a meeting.’

  The Doge frowned. ‘The Catholic Church has been in schism for decades and many reputations have been lost in the attempt to reconcile it. Why will the Medici want to risk theirs?’

  ‘Because they’ve already started. They are grooming Baldassare Cossa for the task. Why else have they bought him his cardinal’s hat? They want the banking of a single Curia. Think of the revenues from all those sees.’

  ‘But what about the two Popes?’

  ‘Ah,’ replied Plethon, leaning forward and dropping his voice to the conspiratorial. ‘For them I have the ultimate incentive.’

  ‘Which is more money? Plethon, something has been puzzling me. Where is all this money coming from? We have the Empress’s jewels here in pawn.’

  Plethon nodded. ‘We have new money.’

  ‘You’ve found your treasure?’

  Plethon blinked. Was there anything this man didn’t know? ‘Possibly. But if I had, it would provide a different kind of incentive, one much more persuasive than money,’ he said. ‘No, this money comes from Chios.’

  ‘From Chios?’ Venier paused. ‘Now, here is irony. Chios is Suleyman’s bait to get us to build cannon for him and it’s also the source of your bribes to prevent it. The island is busy.’ He paused. ‘Wouldn’t it be simpler for you just to give Chios to us?’

  Plethon shook his head. ‘We do not abandon our friends so easily.’ He looked hard at the other man. ‘Anyway, now you know that mastic doesn’t cure the plague, why is it still important? Is it just to deny Genoa?’

  The Doge shook his head. ‘No, pleasant though it is to deny anything to Genoa. We want Chios because, with it and the trade from Trebizond, we’d have the monopoly for alum. We could price as we wish.’

  Plethon considered this. At Christmas, Benedo Barbi had told him that the thriving market for alum and mastic, as well as the Medici loan, had built new villages to strengthen the island’s defence. He’d heard that the last Turkish assault had been disastrous.

  He said: ‘You know, of course, that Bayezid has forbidden further attacks on Chios? After the failure of the last one, I doubt Suleyman will have the nerve to try again. I suspect that is why you allow me to go on bribing your man from Ragusa.’

  The Doge looked up. ‘You are a cynic, Plethon. But you may judge for yourself how hard I might find it to continue blocking the cannon if Chios once more came into play. The signori of Venice are much taken with the prospect of the alum monopoly.’ He paused. ‘There is also the question of which Mamonas to deal with. The father is understandably cautious, given the Sultan’s injunction. The daughter, who is Suleyman’s lover, is more reckless.’

  Plethon looked down at his hands. He was suddenly very tired. He began the business of gathering the folds of his toga. He looked up. There was a smile hidden somewhere deep within the bush of beard across from him. The Doge leant forward.

  ‘Don’t worry, Plethon,’ he said, sotto voce, ‘I’ll let you go on bribing my gunsmith a little while longer. We Venetians are, after all, Christians.’ He paused. ‘And I’ll see what can be done about a meeting with de’ Medici.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ANATOLIA, SUMMER 1398

  The days were long and full of dust. Every day, a relentless sun blazed down on the scorched grass of the steppe from the same indigo sky and the rivers began to run dry. It was poor grazing for the herds and the animals had to be taken further and further to find food.

  Vast game drives were organised with local tribes across the steppe. Three camps beat the animals to a killing ground in the hills where a fourth would be waiting in ambush among the juniper trees, their bows poised.

  There were snakes everywhere. Careless children were bitten and one died. Shulen was out daily with her forked stick, silently looking for them around the camp and bringing them back to make antidotes from their poison. Their patterned skins hung like sullen bunting outside her tent. Luke had not spoken to her since the storm.

  He was as happy as he’d ever been in his life. As his reward for saving the tribe’s horses, he’d been given one. By day, he rode where he wanted and thrilled to the challenge of mastering this small, quick animal that could turn on a florin and show bursts of speed beyond anything he’d seen. He taught himself to ride with his legs, to command with his knees, to understand this tough little cousin of Eskalon as once he’d understood Eskalon.

  At night, he ate mutton beneath the stars and drank airag. In the early hours, he’d lie awake and listen to the wind outside singing its same, whispered song of distance and freedom. The sound of the camp awakening would comfort him as his mother Rachel had once done in Monemvasia and he’d watch the gathering light seep through the roof above him and think of the day to come. He was, bit by bit, becoming a gazi.

  Gomil was his only worry. Luke could feel him watching his every move, the heat of his rage on his neck as he mounted every horse and pulled ever
y rein. He saw how Gomil’s hatred for him was turning into something worse.

  One morning, Torguk was waiting for him outside his tent, his daughter Arkal standing next to him.

  ‘Lug,’ he said as Luke emerged from the ger to wash, ‘I have something for you.’

  He was standing awkwardly, his deel wrapped close against the morning chill and his hat in his hands. Arkal was holding something wrapped in lynx-skin and tied up with horsehair. She was flushed with the anticipation of giving pleasure and hopped from good leg to bad.

  ‘Here!’ said Arkal, thrusting the present into Luke’s arms. ‘Open it.’

  Luke glanced down at the parcel. He heard a shout to his right and looked up to see Tsaurig running towards them, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Arkal frowned.

  ‘Open it!’ she commanded, patting the skin.

  Luke sat on the ground, shooing away a dog that had come to investigate. He drew his knife, cut the horsehair and opened the skin. Inside was a bow. It was about the length of Luke’s outstretched arm and its limbs were bent into two deep and graceful curves that ended in ears of horn, angled forward. Its outside was covered in birch bark and had been oiled to a dark and stubbled sheen. It smelt strongly of fish. It was beautiful.

  ‘Torguk,’ said Luke softly, ‘no.’

  Luke knew this bow. Ever since the expedition had returned last year from the southern lakes, Torguk had been working on it. He’d taken two lengths of well-grained maple, steamed them into shape and joined them to a belly of cow-horn, using sinew and glue made from the swim bladders of perch. Luke had watched him score the horn and wooden stave before adding the fish glue and binding them tightly together with waxed intestine. Then he’d watched him set aside the bow for the year it would take for the glue to fully cure, taking it out from time to time to admire it and test its strength and flexibility. It was, as he’d often told him, the best bow he’d ever made. Now Luke had it in his hands and was staring at the man who had made it.

  ‘Torguk,’ he said, ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Lug,’ replied the man gruffly, not looking at him, ‘you have saved my family and my tribe. It’s not much in return.’

  Arkal stopped hopping and now stepped forward and pushed the bow further up Luke’s arms. ‘Take it, Lug,’ she said quietly. ‘It will make him happy.’

  Luke picked it up by its middle, feeling the ribs of hardened sinew beneath his palm. He lifted it and turned it into the light of the new day. The sun threw its first rays high into a violet sky and the curve of the bow glowed in its light.

  ‘It’s perfect, Torguk.’

  ‘Then you’ll take it?’ He looked up from his boots, his wide face wreathed in smile.

  ‘I will take it, Torguk,’ said Luke, ‘but only on one condition. That it is you who teaches me to use it.’

  And so Luke’s teaching began and never were teacher and pupil better suited. In his time, Torguk had been not just the tribe’s best bowyer and fletcher but also its best shot. In the annual gatherings of the tribes, no man had yet to beat the Mongol archer Esukhei’s distance of 335 ald, but Torguk had come close. And at 40 ald, he could hit an acorn.

  Every morning, Luke would awake at dawn to the banging of his ger door and find Arkal outside it, grinning above a bowl of hot gruel. He would eat and wash and dress and tie up his hair. He’d then strap thick hides to the inside of his legs to stop the chafing of a day in the saddle. Soon afterwards, he’d be riding with Torguk by his side and Arkal not far behind, galloping and whooping over the steppe to the place of his morning lesson.

  Torguk began by getting Luke to practise again and again the drawing of the bow until he was able to pull it as far back as his chest and then past his ear. Because Luke was strong, he learnt quickly and what would have taken some men a year took Luke less than a month. Torguk taught him to shoot high into the air and judge, to a distance of three ald, where the arrow would land. Then he taught him how to fire with accuracy, how to keep both eyes open in the aim and to see the target not the arrow, even when it was too distant to see.

  Torguk would carry a target on these rides, a piece of wood with something drawn on its front by Arkal, quite often Tsaurig’s face. These got smaller as the days went on and still Luke hit them. He was a Varangian. He had the blood of men who fought for a living in his veins and he’d spent much of his childhood being trained in the use of arms. He took to this new weapon quickly and with a skill that astonished his teacher.

  And Arkal sat on her little pony, watching and smiling and glowing with pride for them both.

  Soon Luke was shooting at Arkal’s funny faces from the saddle, gripping and steering the pony with his knees while he drew the bow, aimed and fired. The experienced gazi warrior could fire twelve arrows in a minute, the thumb-draw critical to the feat. Within a month, Luke had mastered the thumb-draw and was firing ten. He could fire at the trot, at the gallop and behind him like the Parthians.

  One day, when the three of them were resting beneath the shade of their hobbled horses, Torguk paid Luke his first compliment. ‘I have never taught anyone better,’ he said, smiling, cutting a ball of dried curd in two with his knife. ‘You have great talent.’

  ‘Better than Gomil,’ giggled Arkal, her mouth full of bread.

  Luke reached for the gourd of water. The sun was high in the sky but the leather was still cool to the touch. ‘Torguk, it’s the bow that is good,’ he said. ‘It’s better than any weapon I’ve ever used. In Greece, we have a longbow, over six feet in length and made from a single piece of yew. It came over from a country called England, the land of my ancestors. Their archers are trained to draw them from childhood, but their bow is not as good as yours.’

  Torguk nodded. He’d heard of the English longbow. ‘Perhaps that’s why we win our battles,’ he said equably. ‘Gomil thinks so.’

  Luke thought of a battle at a place called Nicopolis and of the rain of arrows that had fallen on the lumbering knights of Burgundy. He thought of a hillside strewn with the flower of Western chivalry. This, thought Luke, was a new kind of warfare, one that was faster, more flexible and, in their pride and stupidity, the Princes of Christendom had not understood it. Nor, it seemed, did they know how to stop it. Luke fingered the goose feathers of the arrow in his lap. He decided to change the subject.

  ‘When do we move to our winter pastures, Torguk?’ he asked, putting the arrow back in its quiver.

  ‘Earlier than last year, I hope.’ Torguk broke off some bread. ‘Soon after Gomil’s bride arrives, I should think.’

  The tribe had been waiting for her to arrive for the past week. She was late and some thought it rude, possibly deliberately so. The marriage was not popular in the camp.

  ‘Perhaps she is there now,’ he said, rising stiffly to his feet. ‘We should return.’

  *

  It was the smell of roasting mutton that told them that Gomil’s bride had arrived, and they lifted their heads to it in pleasure. The sun was low in the sky and poppy-red and touched by wisps of broken cloud.

  There was a light canopy of smoke above the gers that spoke of a feast in preparation and birds of prey circled high above it in hope. As they drew closer, they saw that a second pen, safely distant from the camp, now contained horses.

  They rode in and it was Berta they saw first: Berta washed and shiny-skinned in the deel she wore to Friday prayers. She gestured to them to dismount. ‘Quick!’ she hissed, holding Torguk’s stirrup as he climbed down. ‘The woman has arrived and we are to feast at sundown. You stink of horse.’

  ‘Does she have a name?’ asked her husband, tethering his horse to a post.

  His wife was now fussing over Arkal, looking with disapproval at the matted mess of her hair. ‘Of course she has a name!’ she retorted. ‘Her name is Khalun.’

  ‘Is she pretty?’ asked Arkal.

  ‘Pretty enough,’ said her mother. ‘But she’s not happy. I’ve never seen such a face!’

  Then Luke saw Gomil and he, too, looked far
from happy. Dressed in his best deel and wearing high boots of red leather, the chief’s son was standing outside his tent staring at a new ger that had been erected outside the camp and around which stood about a dozen supercilious camels. There were garlands of flowers hanging around the tent door. Gomil’s hands were behind his back. Torguk spat.

  ‘This match is a mistake, Lug,’ he said quietly. ‘Karamanids feasting at our fire? I never heard of such a thing!’

  *

  They weren’t to see the Karaminids until night had fallen and the tribe had gathered around a huge fire. As was usual, the men sat on one side, the women across from them. Luke, with his intermediate status, sat with the children in between. This gave him the advantage of having Arkal close to his ear to explain what was happening.

  Several spits had been erected next to the fire and the sheep were being slowly turned and sprinkled with herbs and oils by women who sat back on their heels and used their free hand to swat away the insects of dusk. The smells of mutton and sage and oregano and rosemary hung in the still air and overwhelmed the familiar stench of the camp. Dogs, tied to the ropes of tents, barked and whined but the people were silent in expectation.

  Then there was the sound of bells, tiny bells shaken by women’s fingers, and into the light of the fire wobbled a richly harnessed camel. Behind it came a little tented cart. Leading the camel was a small boy of perhaps fourteen, who threw dark looks to left and right as he walked. He had a jewelled dagger tucked into his belt. Around the camel and cart were perhaps a dozen women of all ages.

  ‘The bride’s eldest brother,’ whispered Arkal, ‘and her mother, sisters and aunts. They don’t look happy.’

  They did not. The women had put up a kind of keening which Luke had last heard at a burial. Each of them wore a shawl and a cape that covered most of their faces and they carried bells at the end of heavily ringed fingers. Even the dogs fell quiet. ‘Where is the bride?’ he asked.

  ‘In the cart,’ replied Arkal. ‘Gomil will draw back the curtains when she comes to him.’