Caprice and Rondo (50 page)

And he had crossed it, he believed. The music which might have been insupportable was not. Here, surrounded by Arab voices, Muslim practices, it seemed just and true, its meaning common to all. His hearers, clasping him in drunken embrace at the end, were moved by the nobility of the cadences and not by the words, for the liturgy of the Latin church was foreign to them. Or to all but one of them. Mengli-Girey, wet-eyed, took him by the hand, but he saw the Circassian staring.

In the end, uncertainly upright and fondly accompanied, he was introduced to the house he was to have, and dropped to his mattress as he was, waking to find the place attended by soft-footed servants, all at his personal disposal. Despite the tenderness in his skull, he was reasonably pleased. The Patriarch had said it would be simple. It was not. But at least he was here. All he had to do was leave as successfully, when his task was done. And since he did not intend to stay long, he reviewed his objectives and set out to achieve them. It took him two weeks.

The business for Anna was easiest. Julius had never been an innovator, and Anna, though wiser and subtler by far, lacked experience. Posing as her representative in Caffa, Nicholas had found little trouble in identifying the merchandise which would fit into a trade such as theirs, and the conditions required to make it profitable. Here, he found his counterpart in the Tartar secretary of the Khan: the monosyllabic, quizzical Karaï Mirza whose magical ability to emerge unimpaired from the most catastrophic night of heavy drinking impressed Nicholas hardly less than his grasp of the hard facts of trade. From the moment that his trials of initiation ceased, which was not at once, Nicholas was careful to cultivate the man. Then, when the time seemed right, he made his wants known.

The interview took place in one of the other buildings in that part of the citadel where the Khan held audiences, and where his palace and harem were situated, together with his kennels and mews and the offices of his scribes and chief secretary. Nicholas had never penetrated beyond the high walls which cut it off from the rest of the fortress, but he had climbed unimpeded to the roof of his lodging and had seen, as he was meant to see, the sheer plunge on each side; the impregnability of the eyrie of the Crim Tartar Horde. But of the garrison, the stables, the arsenal, the stores of food and of water, the accommodation for people and beasts, he knew nothing as yet. The answers lay beyond the high walls. Hence, when his talk with Karaï Mirza, succinct, business-like, came
to a halt, he expected the other man to say, as he did, ‘I can see that the trade you propose will produce revenue, but to us, not to you. All your profit depends, it seems to me, on our willingness to reconsider our tax. But where, then, would be the advantage to us?’

‘There are invisible taxes, and invisible payments,’ Nicholas said. He sat cross-legged as the other man did, his skirts spread about him, a cup of
qumiz
in his hands. The mare’s milk was fermented here, but the cup was Syrian-made, its lotus motifs from Cathay. He continued without haste. ‘The Genoese contracted Michelozzi to work on their fortifications in the island of Chios. The Grand Duke of Moscow has bought the military engineer Fioravanti, they say, and the Italian who rebuilt the defences of Caffa no doubt contributed to these walls.’

‘You are an engineer, an architect?’ the Tartar said. His tone was polite.

‘I have access to such,’ Nicholas said. ‘I know the worth of the mercenaries who were once in my employ, and their guns. I have had some success, myself, in the field of infiltration and battle strategy. On the other hand, the Khan’s present dispositions may be more than adequate. I have no means of judging.’

The half-closed eyes twinkled. ‘It is perhaps your skills in infiltration which have denied you the means,’ said Karaï Mirza. ‘As you will have noticed, one blindfolds a cheetah when hunting.’

‘On the road, to be sure. But in the field, one must release and then trust him. Will the great Mengli-Girey allow me to survey his citadel?’ Nicholas said.

‘I shall ask,’ the other man said. The meeting broke up, and he left. Very much later, he returned. ‘The Khan understands your dislike of confinement. He invites you to hunt for a day or two with him. The deer season has opened, and he would also wish to try his new hawks. You have heard of them?’

Everyone had. Caffa sent fifty white falcons to Constantinople each year, as part of its other, Ottoman tribute. Occasionally, the Golden Horde got a sweetener, too. Running a trading colony in the Levant came expensive.

The hunt, as might be guessed, was both a test and a chance to display the Khan’s riches and vigour. Five hundred men and eighty couples of greyhounds went with them, with wagons carrying food and bedding, tents and furnishings. The Khan, wearing his spired helm and cuirass, killed his animals
jirgeh
-style, with the beasts rounded up and driven towards him. He took a boar, though, himself, and another nearly took Nicholas. Abdan Khan, who was meant to be his partner, did nothing to save him. Since their initial encounter, the Circassian from Mánkup had been little seen, and seldom deigned to address the Khan’s guest. In the
hunting-ground, they were occasionally paired, but did not meet for the most part until the tents were raised in the evening, when the uproarious drinking and dancing began, and Abdan Khan would initiate some contest for Mengli-Girey’s amusement.

Nicholas, prayerfully steering a course designed to earn him neither death nor contempt, refused some of the invitations tauntingly put in his way, and accepted others. He was becoming increasingly irritated. It was unfortunate, therefore, that on the last day, already ruffled if not otherwise damaged by the episode of the boar, Nicholas found himself rallied for his continued refusal to gamble.

The reason was simple enough: he could not afford to. The Khan had seized all he had, and the rest was in Caffa and sacrosanct. Lastly, he suspected that Abdan Khan could cheat as deftly as he could. Cairo was a great teacher.

‘So what shall we do?’ the big man exclaimed in mock despair. ‘A contest for the best wrestler? But I don’t suppose Niccolò the non-Venetian can wrestle?’

‘Why not?’ said Nicholas agreeably. It was, of course, an invitation to a duel. Tough though the Tartars might be, they were men of low height, and wrestling was a sport where reach could make a difference. Circassians were tall and good-looking and strong: it was why their men flourished in Egypt as Mamelukes, and their girls commanded such a punishing tariff as slaves. Abdan Khan would win all his bouts, and so, very likely, would Nicholas.

It did not take long: the amount of
buza
everyone had drunk saw to that. A space was cleared, and the contestants assembled, already stripped of all but their breeches. Then they opposed each other, two at a time. The man who ended dead or unconscious had lost. There were no other rules.

In a perverted way, it riled Nicholas to be fighting half-sober and therefore unfairly. Height and reach could be counteracted by endurance and skill, and the Crim Tartars had both of these. He did not underestimate them — the state of his body proved how right he was in that —but he faced his real opponent in the end, as he knew he would, regretting that the way should have been paved with disappointment and loss of face for those who had not been born Circassian. And the man’s air of ineffable superiority was due to more than that, as he now knew. Abdan Khan was related to one sultan at least: his father had fled when Khushcadam had become ruler of Egypt, and Abdan had ended, a highly trained Mameluke, commanding the army of the ruler of Gothia, that strange, mixed community that survived in the Crimea at Mánkup.

It made no sense, this aggravation between them. Caffa and Gothia were in equal need of help against Turkey, as was the Crimean Horde.
They needed each other. That was why a highly trained commander like Abdan Khan was here, teaching his skills to the armies of Qirq-yer as well as Mánkup. This hostility made as much sense as the useless quarrel in Caffa over who the next Tartar governor ought to be. Facing the other man now, his hands spread, his bare feet planting themselves on worn grass, Nicholas decided to concentrate.

They had a manner of wrestling in Iceland which he had seen, and which he had had described to him exactly. It was not unlike the kind he had just experienced. Through the years, he had experimented with other styles, too, as anyone would, in a war camp with time to put off. He also knew a great deal about the principles of leverage, as imparted to him impatiently by a brilliant engineer. The engineer whom Abdan Khan might hope to have at his side, if he would bloody cease trying to kill his intermediary.

Except that, of course, if Nicholas sent for him, the same engineer would refuse.

He got thrown, then. It was extremely painful, and taught him to keep his mind on his work. It also made him nearly as angry as the Circassian was.

The Khan, observing the fall, was moved to question his adviser in the subsequent roar, which almost extinguished the din of the field-drums. ‘Was this contest wise?’

‘I have tried reasoned argument,’ said Karaï Mirza. ‘It is better that one man or the other is out of the way.’ He spoke with regret, for he could see the good and the bad in most men, and did not like waste. The Khan said, ‘Their hâkim, it is true, will not mind if this man dies. The imam will be angry.’

‘It is my belief,’ said Karaï Mirza, ‘that the Patriarch also has gambled, and will abide by the result. We should have to pay compensation. He may even be counting on that.’

‘The non-Venetian knows a great many holds,’ said the Khan, with some interest. ‘It is not Rustam against Puladvand, but it is well enough. Tell them to bring up more torches.’

The extra light, to Nicholas, was not an advantage. It aborted a sequence of moves for which darkness was preferable, and allowed his opponent a sight of the red and blue swellings, the raw and ripped patches of flesh on which he might profitably concentrate. And if the Circassian’s eyes were truly sharp, he would notice the shape of one wrist, which was not as it should be. It had started to swell since their last harsh, twisting struggle and, sprained or snapped, was now useless. His chances, therefore, were not good — but they hadn’t been good, either, on the raft, when he and Benecke had had their slight disagreement. Suddenly cheered, for no reason whatever, Nicholas decided he ought to fix
this bastard, too. Ramming his right arm violently under Abdan’s left shoulder so that he inadvertently turned, Nicholas thrust out his right leg and, meeting hard flesh and bone, drove Abdan’s left leg so high that both his feet flailed and he crashed breathlessly to the ground with Nicholas fully on top. Then Nicholas took him by the throat.

He had, however, the use of only one hand. Abdan, half concussed, opened his eyes and, baring his teeth, gripped and wrung — not the hand at his throat, but the grotesque, swollen wrist of the other. Nicholas grunted. Despite himself, his throttling hand slackened, and, kicking, the Circassian wrenched himself free, rolled apart and sprang to his feet, scooping up something as he did so. When Nicholas rose, swearing fluently, Abdan was approaching him, a stone in either hand.

Nicholas viewed him. They had not, he was conscious, been following any laws of tradition or chivalry: Firdawsi would have been disappointed. But out-and-out hooliganism offered, refreshingly, a new form of licence. As Abdan Khan lifted his arm to throw, or to beat, Nicholas snatched a torch and calmly set fire to him. The Circassian bellowed, flailing and dropping the stones. The spectators screamed. Nicholas, drawing back his good hand, knocked Abdan Khan down and helpfully sat on him, smothering the incandescent breeches and flicking a motherly hand at his smouldering top-knot. Even bald, he was an extraordinarily handsome young man, and could have taught Benecke a thing or two about fighting. He opened his eyes and lay still.

Nicholas said, ‘You didn’t need the stones, you were winning. I don’t know what this is all about, but I don’t bear a grudge. Will you drink with me?’

‘The winner!’ said the Khan’s voice at his side.

Nicholas got up. Abdan Khan, blinking, attempted to sit. The Khan said, ‘Be at ease. You fought well, but the Frank here was more cunning. What does he wish for his prize?’

‘The Khan’s trust,’ Nicholas said.

‘An excellent answer,’ said the Khan. ‘But what of your conquest tonight? What do you demand of Abdan Khan?’

Dust and sweat plastered his body; his gashes stung, his wrist throbbed like the wrestling-drums. Nicholas said, ‘A game of chess, when we have returned to the citadel. If, that is, the commander agrees.’

‘He must agree,’ the Khan said. ‘He has lost.’

They returned to Qirq-yer the following day, Nicholas with his wrist in a sling, and the Circassian riding apart, but glancing at him now and then. Soon after they arrived, the man came to his door and was admitted. He carried a box and board in his hands, and his face, stiff with bruises, was unsmiling. From beneath the snowy turban, the perfect tunic and leggings, there emerged a faint smell of singeing. Nicholas
said, ‘Will you sit and drink with me first? It was good sport. Where did you learn?’

The other man hesitated, then setting down what he carried, took the stool and the cup he was given. He said, ‘From my father. And in Cairo, under the Sultan Inal, a kinsman. The students wrestled.’

‘In al-Azhar the Resplendent,’ Nicholas said. ‘I was there, briefly, in the time of the present honoured Sultan, Qayt Bey’

‘And went to the Greeks’ church in Sinai, I heard. Your Arabic is good for a Frank, but strangely mixed: sometimes classical, sometimes Maghgribian.’

‘I have been in Timbuktu,’ Nicholas said. ‘I bought gold. I studied with many wise men who died when war came. The Patriarch will confirm it. He sent me here to prove that I am not a spy. So say to me what you wish.’

‘War came to Trebizond,’ the man said. ‘You were there too. Buying jewels. Studying, perhaps. They talk of you in Mánkup.’

‘In Mánkup?’ The cliff-fortress of the rulers of Gothia attracted many races, most of them Christian, and all of them practised in war, so that the Khan of the Crimean Tartars found them an asset, as he did the Genoese. Once, Mánkup, Gazaria, and the Crimea had been subject to Trebizond; had shared some of its luxuries, and its decadence. He had tasted candied fruits here which he had only come across once before.