Swords From the West (48 page)

Gathered about the board were princes of Delhi, emirs of Bokhara, and khans of the White and Black Tatars and the powerful Golden Horde that reached to the shores of the Volga. They were standing under a gigantic pavilion stretched upon supports taller than the masts of ships. Over the head of the conqueror hung silk streamers, swaying in the evening breeze, for the sides of the pavilion were open and the men within could look out from the dais on which they stood, over the tents of the army.

"Summon the Frank ambassadors," ordered Tamerlane.

They came through one of the outer porticos of the purple pavilion- Clavijo and Soranzi and Bembo, each with his arms gripped on either side by a Tatar noble. They were worried and anxious, for they had ridden for six hours through the army that never seemed to have an end.

The custom of holding envoys by the arms seemed to them ominous. Clavijo stared at the kneeling Tatar, noting his big, bent shoulders, his massive length of body, his shaggy brows and hard eyes. Tamerlane, nearly seventy years of age, was near-sighted-a peculiarity that made his naturally fierce stare the more difficult to bear.

Soranzi blinked at the low table of solid gold on which the Tatar leaned and muttered under his breath as he tried to estimate the value of a blue diamond in Tamerlane's plain steel helmet.

"From whom do you bear submission and greetings tome?" demanded the monarch. His speech had to be translated into Persian and then Greek, through two interpreters.

Clavijo's broad brow was damp with perspiration. To gain time to think, he said that he did not understand.

"Then take those dogs of interpreters and lead them through the army by a rope thrust into their noses," commanded the Tatar at once. "Bring others who are wiser."

The two unfortunates threw themselves on their knees, and Clavijo paled. Bembo spoke up, kneeling and crossing his hands on his chest.

"Great khan," he observed in Greek, "their words were clear; it was my companion, the dominus, who was dazed by the splendor of your presence."

This, being interpreted by other mouths, satisfied Tamerlane and he motioned to the interpreters to continue.

"Franks," he resumed, "I have taken your gifts. The cloth-of-silver and gold pleased me. From what king do you come, from the other end of the earth?"

Hereupon Soranzi could not restrain a murmur of anguish. The bales of cloth had been his personal stock in trade, now lost beyond repair. Clavijo bowed and at last found an answer.

"From the King of-of Spain," he replied.

"Good! I have heard of him. How is my son, the King of Spain? Is his health good? Has he much cattle and treasure?"

They stared at Clavijo, these Armenians, Tatars and Chinese. The Europeans were quite a curiosity-petty envoys from a tiny kingdom somewhere at the end of the world.

They had come, so reasoned the Tatars, to bask in the magnificence of the Lord of the East and West.

Clavijo was very much afraid. He would have welcomed the sight of Michael Bearn's cheerful face. But he gathered assurance as he began to describe the splendors of Aragon, enlarging upon the great ships and towns of Spain.

At this, however, Tamerlane began to pay more attention to a topaz ring that he turned and twisted upon a sinewy hand.

Fearing that his tale was lacking fire, Clavijo began to exaggerate as was his want, until he was boasting hugely. Tamerlane scowled under bushy brows, first at the speaker, then at the ring. Finally he held up his hand for the Spaniard to see.

"Behold, Frank, a magician's stone," he said gruffly. "The topaz turns purple when anyone lies to me. I always watch it and it has served me well."

Superstitious, as all men of his time and race, Clavijo stared in dismay. Indeed his round face turned a very good shade of purple. His flow of words dwindled as he scanned the topaz and fancied that it changed color.

This might well have been due to the twilight that was falling upon the great pavilion.

"Frank," observed the conqueror, "you come at a good time. My army is mounted for war against the Sultan Bayezid. He has preyed upon my subjects in lesser Armenia, and I have offered him terms by which he may save his head. We will hear what he will reply."

To hear the sultan who was the scourge of Christendom mentioned as Tamerlane might speak of a slave added fuel to Clavijo's active imagination.

"If there is a battle, you will see a goodly sight," repeated the old conqueror. "Does my son the King of Spain fight battles or is he a dog of a merchant like the Venetians?"

Clavijo essayed a reply, glanced at the topaz ring which seemed to him to be now a deep purple indeed, and the last of his courage oozed from him. Breaking from the Tatar warriors who held his arms, he fell on his knees.

"Mercy, great lord," he bellowed. "Oh, mercy. Grant me royal clemency if I have offended. Make me a captive, but spare my life!"

This being interpreted, Tamerlane smiled. "Verily," he said shortly, "the Frank is frightened by my face. Nay, Timur the Tatar has harmed no ambassador. Fear not, but join in our feast."

He signed to the men who held the visitors. Soranzi, a-tremble with anxiety, took this to be a signal for their destruction. Without waiting for the speech to be translated, he flung himself at the Tatar's feet, embracing his slippers.

"0 King of Kings," he cried, "my companion has lied, even as your wisdom has suspected. He is naught but a seeker after gold, disguised as an envoy. The gifts that pleased you were mine. I will pay more. Do not believe this traitor when he says that I am a merchant, for he is a liar-"

Surprised by this outburst, Tamerlane turned to the interpreters with a scowl.

"Now the fat is in the fire," sighed Bembo.

Tamerlane pulled at his thin mustache, his small black eyes darting from one to the other. He surveyed his topaz ring and grunted. There was something wolfish now in the stare of the Mongol warriors.

Rudolfo swore under his breath and Soranzi did not cease to moan his fear. Since the attack by the riders at the Gate of Shadows his dread had grown upon him. That afternoon he had seen captives of the khan hauled through the camp in cages, like beasts.

"The gifts were mine," he repeated over and over, holding fast to the Tatar's slipper.

"Then you are not ambassadors sent to Tamerlane?"

"Nay." Clavijo and Soranzi were answering in one breath when Gutchluk knelt and addressed his lord, saying that the Franks had purported to be merchants before their capture.

Tamerlane was a man who never minced words and hated deceit. He was about to speak when there was a bustle in the outer porticos. A man flung himself from an exhausted horse, crying-

"A courier for the khan!"

Those who had crowded about Clavijo and his party gave back at this, opening a lane between Tamerlane and the newcomer, barely visible in the half-light of evening, who bowed thrice and knelt before the dais.

"0 King of Kings," the horseman cried in Arabic, "I have beheld the answer of the sultan. He has struck off the heads of the Tatars' envoys and placed them at the gate of Angora. Thus Bayezid has made answer to you."

The old Tatar's face grew dark and veins stood out on his forehead. He caught his sword from its sheath and swung it over the head of the unfortunate messenger who remained quietly kneeling.

Then the khan checked the sweep of his blade midway and stood staring out into the dusk, his face a mask of anger. Yet when he spoke, his words were measured and deep.

"Aye, there will be a battle." He looked down at the courier. "You are a brave man. Take twenty horses and go, that your face will not remind me of the deed you bespoke."

Replacing his sword, Tamerlane ordered that the army be ready to march on the morrow. For the first time Clavijo noted the great bulk of the Tatar and the fact that he was lame. In his youth, during an affray with the Seljuk Turks, Tamerlane had been beaten from his horse and cast to earth with three ribs broken and a mangled side.

Turning back to his chessboard, he observed the Europeans who still remained held by their guards.

"Come with my court, liars and merchants," he said grimly. "Instead of jugglers and musicians, you will amuse me, for I will pass judgment upon you then."

Chapter XI

The Thunderbolt

Two weeks before Tamerlane's audience with the Christians, the stars traced the outline of the river Khabur in Anatolia, two hundred miles west of Tamerlane's camp. Down the river toward the flat roofs of the town of Angora drifted a small skiff, only half-visible in the glittering light from the stars, which seemed intensified by the heat of the windless July night.

But the stars were eclipsed by the myriad torches and lanterns of Angora and the illumination of ten thousand tents clustered about the Turkish town.

Bayezid, his court, and his army held festival. Angora, an unfortified trading town, yet served admirably for mobilizing the army of the Ottomans and Seljuks. Galleys had come from Greece, where the Crescent ruled, to land their loads of Moslems on the Anatolian shore across from Constantinople; the mamelukes had sent their splendid cavalry hither from Alexandria; the veteran main army of the sultan had been withdrawn temporarily from the conquest of Constantinople.

So Angora was filled with the warriors of a dozen kingdoms. Forbidden wine flowed freely and revelry held the courtyards and roofs. The sultan knew how to hold the loyalty of his men by pleasure and by generous pay, which reinforced the natural fanaticism of the Moslems and the devotion of the janissaries-that formidable mass of soldiery recruited from Christian child slaves raised by Moslem teachers.

The skiff drifted with the current of the river to the jetties of the town, already crowded with native craft. Michael Bearn raised himself cautiously, clutched the side of a fishing-boat, and climbed to the jetty.

"Who comes?"

A sharp challenge rang from a pair of spearmen standing at the shore end of the dock. Michael stiffened, then advanced carelessly.

"A sailor," he made answer in his good Arabic, "from the Byzantine coast. I have heard that the great sultan is here and I have come to look upon his face."

A lantern was brought from an adjoining hut and the two spearmen looked him over casually. Michael's skin was burned a deep brown by the sun and he had secured a short cloak that concealed the outlines of his stalwart body. His leather tunic and bare knees bore out the identity he claimed.

"Does a son of a dog think to look upon the favored of Allah?" gibed one of the Moslems. "Stay-you have been a slave on the galleys."

The soldier's sharp glance had noted the scars on Michael's wrists where the irons had pressed.

"Aye," assented the Breton; "a galley slave." He tapped his stiffened arm. "But useless, my lord warrior. I have been freed in a battle."

His pulse quickened, for he knew the strict discipline of Bayezid's army-despite the appearance of revelry-and was aware that every precaution was being taken, now that the battle with Tamerlane was impending.

"You are no true follower of the prophet," said the sentry sharply. Michael's curls, escaping from under his loose cap, revealed that he was not one of the orthodox Moslem peoples.

"Your wisdom is fine as a rare gem," acknowledged he. "I am a Christian who has not seen his own country for many years. My lord warrior, I pray you let me pass into the town where there is wine to be given away and sweets made of grapes and flour and butter. I have not eaten for two days."

This was strictly true. Michael's tone was that of the hopeless slave addressing his guards. The sentry sneered and ran his hand under Michael's cloak to make sure that he held no weapon, and then fell to cursing his own fate that kept him from the feasting. Michael made off.

At the river gate of the town he was confronted by the head of a Mongol-one of the envoys from Tamerlane-caked with dried blood, stuck upright upon a spear. The crowd of soldiery and townspeople surging through the gate paused to spit at the wax-like features and to heap insults on the Tatars.

Michael was carried in with the throng, but now his eyes held a new light and his lips were hard with purpose. He knew for the first time the certainty of conflict between the sultan and the khan.

At the river's edge, upstream, he had bought his new cloak with a few silver pieces and the cap to match. He had cast away his sword to carry out his character of freed galley slave.

Now Michael was among the alleys of Angora over which the crescent standard hung. He glanced indifferently at the lighted balconies where costly rugs were hung and at the magic lantern pictures that Arabs were displaying in darkened corners. He heard the distant chant of fanatical imams, exhorting the Moslems in the mosques.

Asking his way from a drunken sipahi, he approached the walled gardens where Bayezid and his court held feast.

The heat grew instead of lessening that night. The glimmer of heat lightning more than once darkened the gleam of the stars. This the imams, crying from balcony and courtyard, announced as a good omen.

"The Thunderbolt will strike!" they said. "The world trembles."

The heat impelled Bayezid and his divan-the councilors who feasted with him-to leave the torrid rooms of the house, where they were guarded by a double line of Ottoman infantry, and to seek the gardens where an artificial lake shaded by cypresses offered moderate comfort.

On this lake was a floating kiosk of teakwood inlaid with mother-ofpearl, its roof fragrant with flowers, with curtains drawn back to allow free passage to the air.

Bayezid, flushed with the stimulus of bhang and opium, lay back on his cushions, idly watching the play of torchlight reflected in the lake. The grandees were intent on a spectacle of women and boys who danced in iridescent garments of moghrebin and chrysoliths at the edge of the garden by the kiosk.

These feasts had been ordered by Bayezid, who felt himself at the summit of his power. Now he surveyed the splendor around him through halfclosed eyes.

"We will make a welcome," he murmured, "for the Tatar boor. News has come to me that he advances with his power upon the Khabur."