Silk Road (62 page)

He watched from the walls of the fort as the caravan snaked its way across the oasis. The camels coughed and complained; the horses held their heads low, beaten by the long crossing of the desert. There were two squadrons of cavalry, their gold helmets reflecting the sun. The green and white standards of the Son of Heaven whipped in the wind.

The wooden gates of the fort were flung open and the vanguard entered, in single file. Behind them came a gilt sedan, bearing the princess, rocking on the back of a wooden cart, followed by two more wagons for her maidservants. When they were safely inside the fort the women climbed down from the wagons and clustered around the princess. He sensed immediately that something was wrong.

A few moments later he saw soldiers carry the princess Miao-yen out of the courtyard on a litter.

He thought of the fragile creature he had walked with in the Garden of the Refreshing Spring. Of course her porcelain loveliness would not withstand the rigours of such a journey. He said a silent prayer for her to a merciful God, if there was such a being.

I
T HAD BEEN
his regime to rise for prime with William, eat a breakfast of pilau and then train at wrestling with Angry Man. The Tatars were very fond of wrestling, and very skilled, and Josseran became an avid student. The exercise helped him regain the strength in his wounded shoulder. He had yet to score a victory over Angry Man but at least the falls had become fewer.

Every morning they practised on the maidan but after a dozen falls Josseran always held up his hands to signify his surrender. But he was determined that one day he would win.

Angry Man – his real name, Josseran had learned, was Yesün – was short, stocky and bow-legged, like many of these Tatars. Most of them had learned to ride even before they could walk and the bones in their legs had grown to accommodate the shape of a horse. Angry Man’s body was fleshy rather than muscled, but when he charged it was like being hit by a small bullock. He wrestled bare-chested, and with his body wreathed in sweat it was like trying to hold on to a greased pig.

Angry Man had showed him many holds, and how to break them; but it was not just a matter of learning holds, the art of the sport was combining many different moves in a blurring of arms and legs, overpowering an opponent with a combination of speed and brute strength and bullying confidence.

One afternoon he finally managed a throw; he took Angry Man off balance for a moment and put him on his back in the dust with spine-jarring force. Josseran was as surprised as his opponent by this development and he hesitated before following through on his success. Before he could pin him to the ground Angry Man held up a hand, his face creased in a grimace of pain.

‘Wait,’ he gasped. ‘My back!’

‘Are you hurt?’

‘You’ve broken my back!’

Josseran hesitated. With one movement Angry Man kicked his legs away and Josseran found himself staring up at the sky, all the breath jarred from his chest. Angry Man jumped on top of him, threw him over and put his knee in the small of his back. He put his hands on either side of his head, and twisted. Josseran heard sinews crack.

Angry Man roared in triumph and jumped to his feet. ‘Never show mercy!’ he shouted. ‘It is another lesson you must learn.’

Josseran would have cursed him but he could not catch his breath.

‘Remember, surprise and feint. Your greatest weapons.’

He walked away, laughing. Josseran spat the dust out of his mouth, his body hammering with pain. It was a lesson well learned. One day he would use it.

The morning after Miao-yen’s arrival they were again in the maidan, at practice. They circled each other in a makeshift ring that Angry Man had marked out in the dirt with a mulberry branch. He made a sudden charge and feint; Josseran reacted too slowly. A blur of movement and he found himself on his back on the hard ground under a stinking press of heaving, sweating Tatar. He had lost again.

Angry Man laughed uproariously and jumped up. ‘If all barbarians are like you we will rule the whole world!’

Josseran grimaced and slowly forced himself upright. Because of his physical size he was unaccustomed to being defeated like this in trials of strength. It had never happened to him in his whole life and regular beatings at the hands of this nuggety Tatar made him seethe.

‘Again,’ he said.

Angry Man circled him and then they came together, their hands on each other’s shoulders, using their legs to try make the fall.

Josseran heard someone calling his name. ‘Barbarian!’

Josseran looked around and Angry Man took advantage of his lapse in concentration to throw him on his back. ‘Will you never learn?’ he hooted.

Sartaq ran over. Josseran sensed something was terribly wrong.

‘Where is your companion?’

‘Most surely on his knees somewhere. What is amiss?’

‘It is Princess Miao-yen. On the way across the desert she sickened with some malady and now she will not wake.’

Josseran had heard much whispering among the maidservants and officers who attended her quarters outside the western tower. He had asked to see her but had been refused without explanation. He had not known until now the severity of her illness.

‘I am distressed to hear this news,’ he said. ‘But what does it have to do with our good friar?’

‘The shamans who accompanied her on this journey have done all they can. I thought perhaps your holy man . . .’

‘William?’

‘After all, he made you well.’

‘William has no power to heal. God alone performs such miracles.’

‘I do not care who cures her, whether it is your god or theirs. But she must not die. She is under my jurisdiction now and I would be blamed.’

Josseran shrugged his shoulders. It could no harm, he supposed, though he also doubted that it would do any good. He could persuade William to say a few prayers, at least. ‘I shall ask him to assist you, if that is your wish.’

‘Fetch him to me as soon as you can,’ Sartaq said. ‘Without her, there is no alliance with Alghu and then perhaps we will not leave Kashgar before our hair turns white!’

Fergana Valley

Smoke rose from the yurts scattered across the valley. The Roof of the World was hushed with snow.

The three riders rode slowly past the shocked faces of their clansmen. Their scalps and parts of their faces were scorched and blackened; glistening white bone was visible through the charred flesh. One had lost his eye, another a good part of his nose. It was all they could do to remain upright in their saddles but they did not fall until they reached the door of the khan’s yurt where one of them finally slipped from his horse and lay unmoving in the snow.

‘It was Ariq Böke himself who helped put Alghu on the throne in Bukhara. And as our Great Khan wished, I sent a delegation to him to ask for a share of his taxes to buy our Khaghan’s army supplies for the fight against the traitor, Khubilai. And what does he do? He says he will pay his share in precious metals and has molten gold poured on the heads of our envoys.’

Qaidu was in his yurt, his sons on his right, his favourite wife and his daughter, Khutelun, on his left. Blue smoke drifted lazily from the fire through the hole in the roof.

‘We should withdraw further into the mountains,’ Tekudai said. ‘Alghu has one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers at his back.’

‘Withdraw?’ Qaidu muttered. He turned to Gerel. ‘Do you agree with your brother?’

Gerel did not have time to answer for Khutelun could not keep her peace any longer. ‘If we run now, we run forever, and we will never see our fields and pastures again!’

‘So what would you have us do?’

‘We cannot defeat Alghu on the battlefield. But we can strike when he least expects and hide in the mountains before he has the chance to retaliate. When he turns his back we can strike again. We should never give him a moment’s peace. We will wear him down like a wolf with a bear, nip at his heels moon after moon, year after year, until he is hamstrung and exhausted. One day, when we have gathered other wolves like ourselves, then we can take him down.’

Qaidu smiled. His daughter, the warrior, the shaman; Chinggis Khan returned in the body of a mare. The spirits had toyed with him in his life and their joke had been to make his greatest son a woman.

He considered a moment. Finally, he said: ‘I agree with Khutelun. It suits my temperament rather better to be a wolf than a sheep. But we must first seek the wisdom of the gods to know their wishes. Khutelun, you must meet the spirits and know their counsel. Then, and only then, shall we decide.’

Kashgar

Through an iron-bossed doorway, studded with brass, along a narrow walled courtyard where roses climbed the brickwork; under an arch with a broken Kufic frieze, grape blue on white. Finally, up narrow, century-worn steps to a tower.

It was a strange delegation that made its way down the dark corridor of the western barbican. The Tatar lieutenant in his gold-winged helmet led the way, behind him a sallow-faced man in a black-cowled robe and behind him a bearded giant in the
del
and stubby boots of a Tatar. At the summit of the tower they stopped outside one of the chambers. A bevy of Chinese maidservants hovered outside a carved walnut door, their heads lowered.