Conqueror

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Yao Shu was filled with strange emotions as he rocked back and forth on the cart taking him into Sung lands. As a young monk, he had known Genghis even before he had become the first khan of the Mongol nation. Yao Shu had put aside the natural course of his life to observe that extraordinary man as he united the tribes and attacked the Chin empire. Even in those days of youth, Yao Shu had hoped to influence the khan, to bring a sense of civilisation to his court.

Somehow, as the years passed, Yao Shu had lost sight of his first ambitions. It was strange how a man could forget himself in the thousand tasks of a day. There was always some new problem to solve, some work that had to be done. Yao Shu had seen his life slip through his fingers, so that he looked up from the details less and less often with each passing year. There had been a time when he could have written his ambitions and desires on a single parchment. He was still not sure whether he had lost the ability to think so clearly, or whether he had just been naive.

Still, he had kept hope alive. When Genghis had died, Yao Shu had worked with Ogedai Khan, then Torogene as regent. He had remained in Karakorum as chancellor during Guyuk’s short and bitter reign. Ogedai had shown promise, he thought, looking back. The third son of Genghis had been a man of great vision, until his heart failed and allowed a weak son to rule the nation. Yao Shu sighed to himself as he stared out at the massed ranks riding all around him. He had grown old in the service of khans.

Mongke’s rise had been a terrible blow. If ever there had been a man in the mould of Genghis, Mongke was the one. Genghis had been ruthless, but then he had been surrounded by enemies bent on his destruction. He had been formed in conflict and spent his entire life at war. Yao Shu smiled ruefully at the memories of the old bastard. The philosophies of Genghis Khan would have shocked his Buddhist teachers, almost to the point of unconsciousness. They had never met anyone like that cheerful destroyer of cities. In Genghis, all things had come together. He had kept his fledgling nation safe by slaughtering their enemies, but enjoyed himself enormously while doing so. Yao Shu remembered how Genghis had addressed a council of Chin lords on the subject of ransom. He had told them solemnly that a captured Mohammedan could buy his freedom for forty gold coins, but the price of a Chin lord was a single donkey.

Yao Shu chuckled to himself. Mongke had not inherited that sense of joy. It had drawn men to Genghis as they sensed a vibrant life in him that Yao Shu had never seen anywhere else. Certainly not in the grandson. In Mongke’s earnest efforts to be a worthy khan, he showed no true understanding. Thinking back through the generations, Yao Shu worried that he had wasted his life, drawn like a moth to a lamp, throwing his years of strength away for nothing.

The lamp had been extinguished when Genghis died. Yao Shu had thought many times since then that he should have gone home at that moment, the dream over. He would have counselled a stranger to do just that. Instead, he had waited to see what would happen, taking tasks upon himself until Ogedai trusted him with everything.

Yao Shu stared out at the massed ranks of horsemen in all directions. He had made the decision at last to leave the court. No, Mongke had made it for him when he whipped Chin scholars out of Karakorum and showed it was no longer a place where civilised men would be welcome. It had been almost a relief to begin his preparations for the long trip home. Yao Shu owned very little and had given most of his wealth away to the poor in Karakorum. He did not need much and he knew there were monasteries which would take him in as a long lost son. The thought of regaling Buddhist monks with stories of his adventures was appealing. He could even read from the Secret History to them and give them a glimpse of a very different world. He doubted they would believe half of what he had seen.

Back in Karakorum, Yao Shu had been looking sadly at his collection of books when a messenger had arrived with news of Kublai’s destination. The old man had smiled then at the vagaries of fate. It had solved his problem of how to travel safely for thousands of miles east. He would go with Kublai to Chin lands and then one night he would get up from a fire and walk away from all his memories. He was not bound by oath to any living man, and there was a kind of balance in having the Mongols take him home, as they had once brought him out of the lands of his birth.

It had not happened. Over the months of conversation and travel, he had become fascinated again by Kublai, his interest sparked by the other man as he toured new estates in Chin lands and talked. Oh, how the man talked! Yao Shu had always known Kublai was intelligent, but his ideas and limitless curiosity had fired Yao Shu’s imagination. Thousands of new farms had been surveyed and marked out in just a few months. Kublai would be a landlord who took only a reasonable share and let his people prosper. Yao Shu hardly dared to believe he had finally found a descendant of Genghis who might love Chin culture as much as he did. On a spring evening, Yao Shu had reached a point where he knew an old monastery was barely thirty miles off the road and yet he had sat on his cart all night and not taken a single step towards it. One more year would not make too much of a difference to his life, he had told himself.

Now he was on the road to Ta-li, a Sung city, and once more, there was hope in his heart. He had seen Kublai spare forty thousand prisoners, and Yao Shu doubted the younger man even understood what an extraordinary event it had been. The orlok, Uriang-Khadai, still sulked in his ger, unable to understand why he had been shamed in front of his men. Yao Shu shook his head in wonder at the thought, desperate not be disappointed once again. Genghis had destroyed cities to send a message to anyone who might resist him. Yao Shu had despaired of finding anyone in his line who did not model themselves on the great khan.

Now he could not leave. He had to see what Kublai would do at the city. For the first time in decades, Yao Shu felt a sense of purpose and excitement. Kublai was a different animal from his brothers Hulegu and Mongke. There was still hope for him.

The region of Yunnan was one of the least populous in Sung lands. Just one city connected the distant territory with the rest of that far-flung nation, supported by a few thousand farms and barely a dozen villages and small towns. There had been no growth there in living memory, perhaps for centuries, and the benefits of peace were obvious. Kublai’s army passed through millions of acres of rich ground, given over to rice paddies or dry crops and a rare breed of long-horned cow that was said to produce the best beef for a thousand miles.

Ta-li city was girded around by high walls and gates, though a suburb of merchant houses gripped the inner city like moss on a stone. That part of Sung territory was a world away from the lands Genghis had conquered. No one there had ever seen a Mongol warrior, or any armed force beyond the soldiers of their own emperor.

Kublai stared across a scene of stillness and tranquillity, his vast army out of place. He could see the smoke of a thousand chimneys over the city, but the farmers had all left their crops and gone to its protection. The fields and outer suburbs lay abandoned, stretching as far as he could see.

The ground was dry and they were close enough to the city for those within to be watching in terrified silence. Kublai spoke an order to Bayar at his side and stayed where he was while it was relayed down the line of authority. The Mongol host dismounted and began to make camp.

Kublai watched his ger being assembled, beginning with the sections of wooden lattice bound together. Everything was done for him by a group of warriors, routine making them quick. They raised a central column and slotted slender roof poles into it, taking lengths of moist sinew from pouches to tie them all off. Finally, thick mats of felt were layered and bound, the small door fitted and a cooking stove carried inside. In just a short time, it was one of thousands appearing on the land, waterproof and warm. Chabi and Zhenjin came trotting up on the same pony, the boy’s arms clasped around his mother. Kublai held his arms wide and Chabi guided the mount close enough for Zhenjin to leap at his father.

Kublai grunted and staggered backwards as he took the boy’s weight.

‘You are getting too big for this,’ he said, holding him for a beat before lowering his son to the ground. Zhenjin already showed signs of his father’s height and his eyes were the same light gold that marked him as the bloodline of Genghis. Zhenjin stretched up to stand as tall as he could, making his father laugh.

‘I have your bow, Zhenjin. Bring it out of the ger and I’ll help you practise.’

Zhenji gave a whoop and disappeared through the door. Kublai let the smile remain. He felt the responsibility of being a father acutely. In time, Zhenjin would be his own man. Yet at that moment he was still a child, long-legged and gangly, with two teeth growing through in the front. Kublai was glad he had brought his family on the campaign. Uriang-Khadai’s wife and children were safe in Karakorum, but Kublai had not wanted to leave Zhenjin to Mongke’s care for so many years. He would have come home to a stranger.

Kublai nodded to the warriors as they bowed and hurried off to complete their own dwellings before dark. As Chabi dismounted and kissed him on the neck, his personal servants went inside with the first armfuls of cooking implements and a large metal pot for tea. Zhenjin could be heard asking them where his quiver was. Kublai ignored the voices, choosing to spend the last moments of daylight staring at the city he must take. His first.

Chabi slipped her arm around his waist. ‘I am pregnant,’ she said.

Kublai turned and held her at arm’s length. His heart leapt and he embraced her. Zhenjin’s older brother had died in infancy and another had been stillborn. It broke his heart to see once more the mingled hope and fear in her eyes.

‘This one will be strong,’ he said. ‘It will be born on campaign! Another boy? I’ll get the shaman to cast the bones. If it is a boy, I have been thinking of names.’

‘Not yet,’ Chabi said, her eyes rimmed with tears. ‘Let it be born first and then we will name it. I do not want to bury another child.’

‘You won’t, woman. That was in Karakorum, where the father was a mere scholar. Now the father is a fearsome general, commanding fire and iron. I will always remember you told me before my first city. I could name him Ta-li, though it sounds like a girl’s …’

Chabi put a hand over his mouth.

‘Hush, husband. No names. Just pray that it lives and I will talk names with you as long as you want.’

He embraced her again and they stood together with the camp all around them. Chabi sensed Kublai’s thoughts settle on the city he must take for the khan.

‘You will do well,’ she murmured, resting her head on his shoulder.

Kublai nodded, but did not reply. He wondered if Genghis had ever felt the same sense of trepidation. Ta-li’s walls looked solid, impregnable.

They were entering the ger when Yao Shu approached. The old man raised a hand in greeting and Kublai copied the gesture. He had known Yao Shu for almost all his life and the monk was always a welcome presence.

‘Will you want me to read to you tonight, my lord?’ he asked.

‘Not tonight … unless of course you have found something worth hearing.’ Kublai could not resist checking. Yao Shu had a talent for unearthing interesting texts, covering all subjects from animal husbandry to soap-making.

The old man shrugged.

‘I have some minor writings on the running of servants in a noble house. They can wait for tomorrow, if you are tired. I … had hoped to talk to you about other matters, my lord.’

Kublai had ridden all day. Though Chabi’s news had lit his blood, the excitement was already fading. He was dropping with weariness, but Yao Shu was not one to bother him with unnecessary details.

‘Come in and eat with us then. I grant you guest rights, old friend.’

They ducked low to pass through the doorway and Kublai took a seat on a bed placed by the curving wall, his armour creaking. He could smell mutton and spices being seared on a wide pan and his mouth watered at the prospect. He kept silent until Chabi had handed over shallow bowls of salt tea. Zhenjin had found his bow and quiver and was waiting with them laid across his knee, fidgeting with impatience. Kublai ignored the stare as he sipped, feeling the hot liquid refresh him.

Yao Shu accepted his own bowl. He was uncomfortable speaking before Kublai’s wife and son. Yet he had to know. At Yao Shu’s age, Kublai was his last student. There would be no others.

‘Why did you spare those men?’ he asked at last.

Kublai lowered his cup, looking strangely at him. Chabi looked up from tending the food and Zhenjin stopped fidgeting, the bow forgotten.

‘An odd question from a Buddhist. You think I should have killed them? Uriang-Khadai certainly did.’

‘Genghis would have argued their deaths would act as a warning to anyone else who might stand against you. He was a man who understood the power of fear.’

Kublai chuckled, but it was a mirthless sound.

‘You forget that Mongke and I travelled with him when we were barely old enough to stay on a horse. I saw the white tent raised before cities.’ He grimaced, glancing at Zhenjin. ‘I saw the red and the black tents and what followed after.’

‘But you spared an army, when they might take arms again.’

Kublai shrugged, but the old man’s gaze did not waver. Under the silent pressure, he spoke again.

‘I am not my grandfather, old man. I do not want to have to fight for each step across this land. The Chin had little loyalty for their leaders. I hope to find the same thing here.’ He paused, unwilling to reveal too much of his hopes. When Yao Shu did not speak, he went on, his voice low.

‘When they face my tumans, they will know surrender is not the end for them. That will help me to win. If they throw down their weapons, I will set them free. In time, they will come to know my word can be trusted.’

‘And the cities?’ Yao Shu said suddenly. ‘The people there are hostages to their leaders. They cannot surrender to you, even if they wanted to.’

‘Then they will be destroyed,’ Kublai replied calmly. ‘I can only do so much.’

‘You would kill thousands for the idiocy of just a few men,’ Yao Shu said. There was sadness in his voice and Kublai stared at him.

‘What choice do I have? They close their gates against me and my brother watches.’

Yao Shu leaned forward, his eyes gleaming.

‘Then show Mongke there is another way. Send envoys into Ta-li. Promise to spare the people. Your concern is with the Sung armies, not merchants and farmers.’

Kublai chuckled. ‘Merchants and farmers will never trust a grandson of Genghis. I carry his shadow over me, Yao Shu. Would you open your gates to a Mongol army? I don’t think I would.’

‘Perhaps they will not. But the next ones will. Just as your freed soldiers will carry the news of your mercy across Sung lands.’ Yao Shu paused to let Kublai think it through before going on. ‘In their own histories, there was a Sung general named Cao Bin, who took the city of Nanjing without the loss of a single life. The next city he came to opened their gates to him, safe in the knowledge that there would be no slaughter. You have a powerful army, Kublai, but the best force is one you do not have to use.’

Kublai sipped his tea, thinking. The idea appealed to some part of him. Part of him yearned to impress Mongke. Would he be comfortable with the sort of slaughter Mongke expected? He shuddered slightly. He would not. He realised the idea of it had been lying across his shoulders, weighing him down like the armour he was forced to wear. Just the chance of another way was like a light in a dark room. He drained his cup and set it aside.

‘What happened to this Cao Bin in the end?’

Yao Shu shrugged. ‘I believe he was betrayed, poisoned by his own men, but that does not lessen what he did. You are not your grandfather, Kublai. Genghis cared nothing for the Chin culture, while you can see its value.’

Kublai thought of the torture devices he had found in abandoned military posts, of the bloodstained streets and the rotting bodies of criminals. He thought of the mass suicide on the walls of Yenking, as sixty thousand girls threw themselves to their deaths rather than see the city fall to Genghis. Yet the world was a harsh place, wherever you went. The Chin were no worse than the portly Christian monks who kept their hearty appetites while heretics were disembowelled in front of them. With Yao Shu’s eyes on him, he thought of the printed works he had seen, the vast collections of letters carved in boxwood and set by mind-numbing labour just to spread the ideas of Chin cities. He thought of their food, their fireworks, paper money, the compass he kept on him that somehow always pointed in the same direction. They were an ingenious people and he loved them dearly.

‘He took a city without a single death?’ he asked softly.

Yao Shu smiled and nodded.

‘I can do that, old man. I can try that, at least. I will send envoys to Ta-li and we will see.’

The following morning, Kublai had his army surround the walled city. They approached Ta-li from four directions in massive columns, joining up just outside the range of cannon. Those within the walls would see there was no escape for them, and if they did not know already, they would realise the emperor’s army would not, or could not, come to their aid. Kublai intended them to see his power before he sent men in to negotiate. Yao Shu wanted to join the small group that would enter the city, but Kublai forbade it.

‘Next time, old man, I promise you. The people of Ta-li may not have heard of Cao Bin.’

The room of administration in Ta-li was a bare place, with no comforts. The walls were white-painted plaster and the floor was of rare zitan hardwood, its surface carved right across the width of the room, so that visitors would walk on a tracery of delicate shapes and patterns as they approached the prefect of the city.

Meng Guang stared up at a small window in the rafters as he waited. He could see a drift of rain high above, almost a mist from grey skies that reflected the mood of the city so perfectly. He wore the regalia of his office, thick cloth heavy with gold stitching over a silk tunic. He took comfort from the weight of it, knowing that the ornate hat and cloak were older than he was and had been worn by better men, or at least luckier men. Once more he glanced around the open room, letting its peace soak into him. The silence was another cloak in a sense, the exact opposite of the Mongols with their childish anger and constant noise. He heard them coming from a long way off, tramping through the corridors of the government buildings with no thought for the dignity or age of their surroundings. Meng Guang gritted his teeth in silence. His awareness was so heightened that he sensed his guards straining to see the intruders, bristling like fierce hounds. He could show none of the same feelings, he counselled himself. The emperor’s army had betrayed them, leaving his city at the mercy of rude and aggressive foreigners. He had readied himself for death, but then the Mongol general had sent a dozen men on foot to the city walls.

Instead of cannon shot, Meng Guang had received a polite request for an audience. He did not yet know if it was mockery, some Mongol delight in his humiliation. Ta-li could not resist the army that surrounded it in black columns. The prefect was not a man given to fooling himself with false hopes. If the Mongols waited a year, he knew there were armies that could defend Yunnan province, but the distances were great and the smooth flow of days had come to a sudden, jarring stop around his city. It was hard even to express the outrage he felt. He had been prefect for thirty-seven years and in that time his city had worked and slept in peace. Before the Mongols, Meng Guang had been content. His name would not be remembered in history, and the subtlety of that achievement was his favourite boast to his daughters. Now, he suspected he would have a place in the archives, unless future rulers set their scribes to removing his name from the official record.

As the Mongol envoys entered the room, Meng Guang repressed a wince at the thought of their boots damaging the delicate zitan wood. It gleamed in the morning light, dark red and lustrous from centuries of beeswax and labour. To his astonishment, the Mongols brought a stench with them that overcame the scent of polish. His eyes widened as the strength of it assailed his nostrils and it was all he could do to show no sign that he had noticed. The miasma of rotting meat and damp wool was like a physical force in the room. He wondered if they were even aware of it, if they knew the distress their very presence was causing him.

Of the dozen men, ten had the reddish skin and wide bulk he associated with the Mongols, while two of them had more civilised faces, slightly coarsened by mixed blood. He assumed they were from the northern Chin, the weaklings who had lost their lands to Genghis. Both men bowed their heads briefly, watched in blank interest by their Mongol companions. Meng Guang closed his eyes for a moment, steeling himself to endure the insults he would suffer. He did not mind losing his life. A man could choose to throw that away like a tin cup and the gesture would find favour in heaven. His dignity was another matter.

‘Lord prefect,’ one of the Chin began, ‘the name of this humble messenger is Lee Ung. I bring you the words of Kublai Borjigin, grandson to Genghis Khan, brother to Mongke Khan. My master has sent us to discuss the surrender of Ta-li to his army. Before witnesses, he has made oath that not one man, woman or child will be harmed if Ta-li accepts him as its lord and master. I am told to say that the khan claims this city and these lands as his own. He has no interest in seeing the rivers run red. He seeks peace and offers you the chance to save the lives of those who look to you for leadership.’

The blood drained slowly from Meng Guang’s face as Lee Ung spoke his poisonous insolence. The prefect’s guards mirrored his reaction, gripping their sword hilts and straining forward without moving a step. The small Mongol group was not armed and he longed to set his men among them, cutting out their arrogance in swift blows. He saw how the Mongols looked around them, muttering to each other in their barbarous language. Meng Guang felt soiled by their presence and he had to force himself to stillness while he thought. The little Chin traitor was watching him for a response and Meng Guang thought he saw amusement in his eyes. It was too much.

‘What is a city?’ Meng Guang said suddenly with a shrug. ‘We are not foolish Chin peasants, without honour or a place on the wheel of fate. We live at the emperor’s pleasure. We die at his command. Everything you see is his. I cannot surrender what is not mine.’

Lee Ung stood very still and the others listened while his companion translated the words. They shook their heads and more than one growled something unintelligible. Meng Guang stood slowly and at his glance his guards drew their long swords. The Mongols watched the display with supreme indifference.

‘I will take your words to my master, lord prefect,’ Lee Ung said. ‘He will be … disappointed that you refuse his mercy.’

Meng Guang felt rage suffuse him, bringing the flush of blood back to his pale cheeks. The Chin traitor spoke of impossibilities, concepts that had no place in the quiet order of his province. For a moment, Meng Guang could not even express his disdain. It did not matter if there were a million men waiting outside the city. They did not exist, or have any bearing on the fate he chose. If the emperor rescued Ta-li, Meng Guang knew he would be grateful. Yet if the emperor chose to let the city be destroyed, that was its fate. Meng Guang would not raise a hand to save himself. He thought of his wives and daughters and knew they too would prefer death to the dishonour this fool thought he might contemplate. It was no choice at all.

‘Take them and bind them,’ he said at last.

The two Chin translators did not have time to repeat his words and Lee Ung only stared glassily, his mouth opening like a carp. Meng Guang’s guards were moving before he had stopped speaking.

As they came under attack, the Mongols went from bored stillness to mayhem in a heartbeat, punching and kicking in wild flurries of blows, using their boots, elbows, anything. It was more evidence of their uncouth ways and Meng Guang despised them all the more for it. He saw one of his guards stagger backwards as he was punched in the nose and had to look away rather than shame the man further. Meng Guang focused on the high window, with its smoke of moisture coming off the rain. More guards rushed in and he ignored the muffled grunts and shouts until the envoys were silent.

When Meng Guang lowered his upturned head, he saw that three of the group lay unconscious and the rest were panting and straining against their bonds, their teeth bared like the animals they were. He did not smile. He thought of the libraries and archives of Ta-li they threatened and felt only contempt. They would never understand the choices of a civilised man could not include craven surrender, no matter what the consequences. The manner of his death was always and finally a man’s own choice, if he could truly see it.

‘Take them to the public square,’ he said. ‘When I have refreshed myself, I will attend their flogging and executions.’

The smell of them had intensified as they sweated until it filled the room. Meng Guang had to struggle not to retch as he breathed more and more shallowly. He would certainly need to change his clothes before he finished this filthy business. He would order his present garments burnt while he bathed.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The prisoners were bound by their wrists to iron posts in the great square in Ta-li, set into the ground long before to hold condemned criminals. By the time Meng Guang arrived, the sun was high and hot over the city and a huge crowd had gathered, filling the square in all directions. A troop of his guards had to clear the way with wooden staffs for Meng Guang to oversee the punishment, then bring up a comfortable chair for the prefect to rest his old bones. More men erected an awning to keep the sun from his head and he sipped a cool drink as he settled himself. No emotion showed on his face.

When he was finally ready, Meng Guang gestured to the men who stood by the posts, each bearing a heavy flail. The cords were of greased leather, each as thick as a child’s finger, so that they fell on flesh with a dull smack as painful as a blow from a club. He hoped the Mongols would cry out and shame themselves. They were talking to each other, calling out encouragement, Meng Guang assumed. He noticed too that the Chin translators were speaking to the crowd. The little one, Lee Ung, was jerking in his bonds as he ranted at them. Meng Guang shook his head. The traitor would never understand Sung peasants. To them, nobles lived on another plane of existence, so high above them as to be incomprehensible. The prefect watched his docile people staring at the prisoners, their faces blank. One of them even reached down to pick up a stone and threw it hard, making Lee Ung flinch. Meng Guang allowed himself a small smile at that, hidden by his raised cup.

The first strokes began, a regular thumping rhythm. As he had expected, the Chin men wailed and struggled against the bonds, arching their backs and yanking at the iron posts as if they thought they could pull them out. The Mongols endured like mindless bullocks and Meng Guang frowned. He sent one of his guards with an order to work them harder and relaxed back in his chair as the sound and speed intensified. Still they stood there, talking and calling to each other. To his surprise, Meng Guang saw one of them laugh at a comment. He shook his head slightly, but he was a patient man. There were other whips, with teeth of sharp metal sewn into the leather. He would make them sing out with those.

Lee Ung had served Kublai for barely a year. He had signed on with the khan’s brother when the tumans came through northern Chin lands, marking out thousands of farms over a vast area. He had known there were risks in any enterprise, but the pay was good and came regularly and he had always had a gift for languages. He had not expected to be grabbed and tortured by the old fool in charge of Ta-li city.

The pain was unbearable, simply that. He reached the point again and again where he could not stand it any longer, but still it went on. He was bound to the post and there was nowhere to go, no way to make it stop. He wept and pleaded with each stroke, ignoring the Mongols who turned their heads from him in embarrassment. Some of them called for him to stand up, but his legs had no strength and he sagged against the pole, held only by the cords on his wrists. He longed to faint or go insane, anything that would take him away, but his body refused and he stayed alert. If anything, his senses became more acute and the pain worsened until he could not believe anything could hurt more.

He heard the prefect snap an order and across the square the flogging ceased. Lee Ung struggled up again, forcing his knees to lock. He looked around and spat blood from where he had bitten his tongue. The square was part of an ancient marketplace near the city walls. He could see the huge gate that hid Kublai’s army from sight. Lee Ung groaned at the thought that his rescuers were so close, yet blind. He could not die. He was too young and he had not even taken a wife.

He saw the bloody whips being cleansed in buckets, then passed on to other men to oil and wrap in protective cloth. In growing fear, he saw different rolls brought out and laid on the ground. Lee Ung strained, standing on his toes to see what they contained as the soldiers pulled back heavy canvas. The crowd murmured in anticipation and Lee Ung roared at them again, his voice hoarse.

‘Hundreds of cannon lie outside these walls, ready to bring them down in rubble!’ he shouted. ‘A huge army faces you and yet a noble prince has promised to spare every life in Ta-li! He offers you mercy and dignity, but you take his men and break them with whips. How will he react now, when he does not see us return? What will he do then? As our blood is spilt, so yours will follow, every man, every woman, every child in the city. Remember then that you chose it. That you could have opened your gates and lived!’

He saw his tormentor unfold a long whip and broke off in despair as he saw the glint of metal in the strips. Lee Ung had seen a man scourged to death once before, a rapist caught by the authorities in his home city. His mouth went dry at the memories. His bladder would release, his body would become a twitching, spastic thing under that lash. There was no dignity in the death that awaited. In sick horror, he watched the man swirl the whip in circles, freeing the straps. Somewhere distant, Lee Ung heard a low whistling sound. It grew louder and half the crowd jerked out of their reverie as something heavy struck the great gate to the square, the sound echoing across their heads.

‘He comes!’ Lee Ung screeched at them. ‘The destroyer is here. Throw down your masters and live, or the streets will be red by sunset.’

Another thump sounded and then two more as Kublai’s gunners found their range. One ball flew overhead, missing the wall entirely and vanishing to smash a roof right across the square. The crowd flinched after the blur had passed.

‘He comes!’ Lee Ung shouted again, delirious with relief. He heard someone snap an order, but he was still craning his neck to look at the shivering gate when the guard reached him and cut his throat in one swift motion. The Mongols at the posts shouted in rage as his blood spattered the dry ground. They began to heave at the posts, working them back and forth, throwing their full weight against whatever held them. Meng Guang spoke again and more of his soldiers drew blades as the city gate came down with a crash.

In the roll of dust that spread out from the walls, the crowd could see a line of Mongol horsemen, black against the sunlight. They began to stream away, fear filling them as the riders entered the city in perfect ranks.

Meng Guang stood slowly as the square emptied, his face unnaturally pale. He swayed as he came to his feet, his world falling down around him. He had told himself the army outside Ta-li did not exist, that nothing the enemy could do would influence him. Yet they had entered, forcing him to see them. Meng Guang stood rooted in a shock so profound that his mind was completely blank. He was vaguely aware of his guards leaving the bloody whipping posts to protect him, their swords held high. He shook his head in slow denial, as if he could refuse entry to Ta-li even then.

With long silk banners fluttering on his left and right, the enemy rode up in shining armour that glittered in the sun. Meng Guang gaped at Kublai as he halted close to the group of armed men, disdaining their threat. Kublai knew those around him could lace the air with shafts at the first sign of aggression, but Meng Guang’s guards did not. The slow approach unnerved them all, as if he was invulnerable, so far above them in status that they could not possibly threaten him. Under his glare, many of the soldiers looked down, as if the sun itself burned their eyes.

Kublai saw a withered old man in clean robes standing uncertainly before him with empty eyes. The crowds had fled and the square was utterly silent.

In the stillness, one of the bound Mongols managed to wrench his iron post from the stones beneath it. He roared in triumph, taking hold of it like a weapon and advancing on Meng Guang with clear intent. Kublai raised his hand and the man stopped instantly, his chest rising and falling with strong emotion.

‘I said I would spare Ta-li,’ Kublai said in perfect Mandarin. ‘Why did you not listen to me?’

Meng Guang stared into the distance, his mind settling into a cold lump that could not respond. He had lived long and been prefect of the city for decades. It had been a good life. He heard the voice of the enemy as reeds whispering in the darkness, but he did not respond. They could not make him acknowledge them. He prepared himself for death, taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly, so that his racing heart slowed to a steady beat.

Kublai frowned at the lack of reaction. He saw fear in the prefect’s soldiers and rage in the faces of his own men, but the prefect stood and looked out over the city as if he were the only man there. A breeze blew and Kublai shook his head to break the spell. He had seen the body of Lee Ung hanging from its wrists and he made his decision.

‘I am a noble house.’ Kublai said. ‘My lands in the north were once bound to the Sung territories under one emperor. It will be so again. I claim this city as my own, as my right. My protection, my shadow, stands over you all from this moment. Surrender to me and I will show mercy, as a father to his children.’

Meng Guang said nothing, though he raised his eyes at last and met those of Kublai. Almost like a shiver, he shook his head.

‘Very well,’ Kublai said. ‘I see I will have to disappoint a friend. Take this one and hang his body from the walls. The rest will live.’

He watched closely as the Mongol with the iron pole shouldered through the guards and pushed Meng Guang through to the front. The old man went without a protest and his guards did nothing. They did not dare look at each other, understanding at last that their lives hung on a single word from this strange prince who spoke in the language of authority.

‘My word is iron,’ Kublai said to the guards, as Meng Guang was led away. ‘Your people will come to know this, in time.’

Hulegu was panting slightly as he drew to a halt and passed his hunting eagle to its handler. The bird screeched and flapped, but the man knew her well and calmed the bird with a hand on her neck.

General Kitbuqa carried a white-flecked kestrel on his right arm, but he had only two pigeons on his belt and his expression was sour. Hulegu grinned at him as he dismounted and handed over a small deer, its head lolling brokenly. His cook was Persian, a local man who claimed to have once served the caliph himself. When he had been captured on the way back to the city from some distant market, Hulegu had taken him into his staff. It pleased him to eat meals the caliph should have been enjoying, though he made sure to have them tasted first. The dark-skinned man bobbed his head as he took the flopping animal, his gaze bright on the eagle as she fussed. His people loved to hunt the air. Hawks and kestrels were treasures, but the massive eagles were almost unknown in that region. The dark gold bird that settled on the handler’s wrist was worth a fortune.

Hulegu looked to Baghdad, just two miles to the north. His armies surrounded the ancient walled city, even to the point of blocking the Tigris with pontoons they had constructed in his absence. In all directions, he could see the dark smears of his tumans, waiting patiently. The caliph had refused to destroy the walls as an expression of his good faith. Hulegu still had the letter somewhere in his packs. The words were clear enough, but it was still a mystery to him. The man had written of the followers of Mohammed, certain that they would rise up to defend the centre of their faith. Hulegu wondered where they all were as his army settled in around the city. In a previous generation, the caliph might have been right, but Genghis had slaughtered his way across the region, not once but twice. It amused Hulegu to think of the survivors crawling out of rubble, only to encounter Genghis on his way back to the Xi Xia territory on his last campaign. Baghdad did not have the support it had enjoyed in previous centuries, but the caliph seemed almost unaware of his isolation.

Hulegu accepted a drink of orange juice, chilled in the river overnight. He knocked it back and tossed the cup to a servant without looking to see if the man caught it. The people of Baghdad did not share their master’s confidence in God. Every night, they let themselves down by ropes, risking broken bones by scrambling down the rough walls. Hulegu had no idea how many people there were inside, but each dawn found another hundred or so being herded up by his men. It had become almost a game to them. He let his men practise their archery on the groups, giving the men and boys to be slaughtered while the women and girls were handed out to those who had pleased their officers. The caliph had not surrendered. Until he did, their lives were forfeit.

Hulegu heard the sizzle as his cook put fresh-cut venison steaks into a pan of hot fat. The smell was laced with garlic and his mouth watered in anticipation. The man was a marvel. Kitbuqa’s pitiful pigeons would not add much meat to the general’s noon meal, he thought, but then that was the difference between eagles and hawks. His eagle could send even a wolf tumbling. She and Hulegu were the same, he thought complacently. Predators did not need mercy. He could envy the bird its perfect single-minded ruthlessness. It had no doubts or fears, nothing to trouble a mind dedicated only to the kill.

Once more, he looked to Baghdad and his mouth tightened to a thin line. His cannons barely chipped the stones. The city’s defensive walls had been designed with sloping surfaces that sent the balls skipping away with little damage. When the black powder was gone, he would be left with torsion catapults and heavy trebuchets. In time, they would still break the walls, but not with the same roaring terror, not with the same feeling of godlike power. Baghdad was known to have no boulders for miles around it, but his men had planned for that, collecting them in carts as they came south. Eventually, they would run out and he would have to send his tumans to collect more.

Hulegu grimaced to himself, weary of the same thoughts spinning in his head as each slow day passed. He could assault the walls at any time, but they were still strong. Stubborn defenders could take as many as four or five of his men for each one they lost. That was the purpose of castles and walled cities, after all. They would pour naphtha oil and drop rocks on those trying to climb. It would be a bloody business and he did not want to see thousands of his men killed over one city, no matter how much wealth was reputed to lie inside its walls. It would always be better to smash the walls down, or for starvation to bring the caliph to his senses.

‘If you make me wait much longer,’ Hulegu muttered, staring at the distant city, ‘it will go hard with you.’

General Kitbuqa looked up as he spoke and Hulegu realised the man was still hoping for an invitation to share the noon meal. He smiled, recalling the eagle’s stoop. There was too much meat for one man, but he did not offer to share it. Hawks and eagles did not fly together, he reminded himself. They were very different breeds.

Caliph al-Mustasim was a worried man. His ancestors had secured a small empire around Baghdad that had lasted five centuries, with the city as the jewel. It had even survived the ravages of Genghis as he swept through the area decades before. Al-Mustasim liked to believe Allah had made the Mongol khan blind to the city, so that he rode past it without stopping. Perhaps it was even true. Al-Mustasim was not only of the royal Abbasid line, but also the leader of the Moslem faith in the world, his city a light for them all. Surely there were armies on their way to relieve Baghdad? He clasped his hands and felt the sweat on them as his fingers slid together and apart, over and over. The caliph was large of body, his flesh made soft by years of luxury. He felt the clammy perspiration in his armpits and clicked his fingers to have slave girls approach and wipe him with cloths. He did not break off his fearful thoughts as they tended to him, raising his arms and wiping at the smooth brown expanse that was revealed beneath his silks and layers. They had been chosen for their beauty, but he had no eyes for them that day. He barely noticed as one of them fed him sticky sweets from a bowl, pressing them into his mouth as if they fattened a prize bull.

As he lay there, a cluster of laughing children ran into the room and he looked fondly at them. They brought noise and life, enough to pierce the despair that weighed him down.

‘The qamara!’ his son demanded, looking up at him beseechingly. The other children waited in hope to see the marvel and al-Mustasim’s face softened.

‘Very well, just for a little while before you return to your studies,’ he said.

He waved his arm and they scattered before it, whooping in excitement. The device had been built to the specifications of the great Moslem scientist, Ibn al-Haitham. ‘Qamara’ was merely the word for ‘dark room’, but the name had stuck. Only a few servants went with him as he walked along a corridor to the room where it had been constructed. The children ran ahead in their excitement, telling those who had not already seen it everything they could remember.

It was a room in itself, a large structure of black cloth that was as dark as night inside. Al-Mustasim gazed on the black cube fondly, as proud as if he had invented it himself.

‘Which one of you will be first?’ he asked.

They leapt and shouted their names and he picked one of his daughters, a little girl named Suri. She stood shivering with delight as he placed her in the right spot. As the curtain fell, plunging them all into darkness, the children shouted nervously. His servants brought a flame and soon little Suri was lit brightly by shuttered lamps. She preened in the attention and he chuckled to see her.

‘The rest of you go through that partition now. Close your eyes and do not open them until I say.’

They obeyed him, feeling their way through the layer of black cloth by touch.

‘Are you all ready?’ he asked.

The light from the lamps on Suri would pass through a tiny hole in the cloth. He did not fully understand how light could carry her inverted image, but there she would be, inside the room with them in light and shadow. It was a marvel and he smiled as he told them to open their eyes.

He heard them gasp in wonder calling to each other to see.

Before al-Mustasim could organise another to take Suri’s place, he heard the voice of his vizier Ahriman speaking to the servants outside. Al-Mustasim frowned, the moment of simple joy spoiled. The man would not leave him in peace. Al-Mustasim sighed as Ahriman cleared his throat outside the qamara, summoning his attention.

‘I am sorry to disturb you, caliph. I have news you must hear.’

Al-Mustasim left the children to their games, already growing raucous in the dark tent. He blinked as he came back into the sunlit rooms and took a moment to send a couple of his servants inside to make sure the boys did not break anything.

‘Well? Has anything changed since yesterday, or the day before? Are we still surrounded by infidels, by armies?’

‘We are, caliph. At dawn, they sent another flight of arrows over the walls.’

He held one in his hand with the scroll still tight around it. He had already unwrapped another and held it out to be read. Al-Mustasim waved it away as if its touch would corrupt him.

‘Another demand to surrender, I am certain. How many of these have I seen now? He threatens and promises, offers peace and then annihilation. It changes nothing, Ahriman.’

‘In this message he says he will accept tribute, caliph. We cannot continue to ignore him. This Hulegu is already famous for his greed. In every town that he destroys, his men are there, asking: “Where is the gold? Where are the jewels?” He does not care that Baghdad is a sacred city, only that it has treasure rooms filled with metals.’

‘You would have me give the wealth of my line to him?’

‘Or see the city burn? Yes, caliph, I would. He will not leave. He has the scent of blood in his nostrils and the people are afraid. There are rumours everywhere that the Arabs are already dealing with him, telling him about the secret ways into the city.’

‘There are no secret ways,’ al-Mustasim snapped. His voice was high and sounded petulant, even to his own ears. ‘I would know if there were.’

‘Nonetheless, it is what they discuss in the markets. They expect Mongol warriors to come creeping into Baghdad every night we delay. This man wants only gold, they say. Why does the caliph not give the wealth of the world to him, that we may live?’

‘I am waiting, Ahriman. Have I no allies? No friends? Where are they now?’

The vizier shook his head. ‘They remember Genghis, caliph. They will not come to save Baghdad.’

‘I cannot surrender. I am the light of Islam! The libraries alone … My life is not worth a single text. The Mongols will destroy them all if they set foot in my city.’

He felt anger grow at the frown on Ahriman’s face and stepped further away from the qamara so that the children would not hear their discussion. It was infuriating. Ahriman was meant to support his caliph, to plan and defeat his enemies. Yet the vizier could suggest nothing but throwing gold at the wolves.

Ahriman watched his master in frustration. They had known each other for a long time and he understood the man’s fears. They were justified, but it was not a choice between survival and destruction. It was a choice between surrendering and keeping some dignity, or risking the wrath of the most destructive race Ahriman had ever known. There were too many examples in their history to ignore.

‘The Shah of Khwarezm resisted them to the end,’ Ahriman said softly. ‘He was a man among men, a warrior. Where is he now? His cities are black stones, his people are broken: slaves or the dead. You told me always to speak the truth to you. Will you hear it now when I tell you to open the gates and save as many as you can? Each day we make him wait in the heat, his anger grows.’

‘Someone will come to relieve the city. We will show them then,’ Al-Mustasim said plaintively. He did not even believe it himself and Ahriman merely snorted in derision.

Al-Mustasim rose from his couch and walked to the window. He could smell the scented soaps in the market, blocks by the thousand made in workshops in the western quarter. It was a city of towers, of science and wonders, and yet it was threatened by lengths of sharp iron and black powder, by men who would not even understand the things they saw as they smashed them apart. Beyond the walls, he could see the Mongol armies, shifting like black insects. Al-Mustasim could barely speak for grief and tears filled his eyes. He thought of the children, so blissfully unaware of the threat all around them. Despair pressed him down.

‘I will wait another month. If no one comes to aid my home, I will go out to my enemies.’ His throat was thick, choking him as he spoke. ‘I will go out to them and negotiate our surrender.’

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Hulegu watched the gates creak open, pushed by teams of men under the lash. He was sweating already, aware of the sun on his skin even as it grew in intensity. Naturally dark, he had never known sunburn before the endless weeks of siege around Baghdad. Now the first kiss of warmth each day felt like a branding iron held to his flesh. His own sweat stung him, dribbling over his eyebrows and lashes to irritate his eyes and make him blink. He had done his best to keep the tumans fit and alert, but the sheer boredom of a siege was like one of the rashes that spread slowly across the flesh of otherwise healthy men. He scratched his groin at the thought, feeling the cysts there. It was dangerous to allow his shaman to cut them, as infection often followed, but in the privacy of his own ger, Hulegu squeezed the worst of them each night, reducing the hard lumps each time until pain made him stop. The oily white substance remained on his fingers. He could smell its pungency even as he stood there and waited for the caliph.

At least it would soon be over. There had been two attempts to escape his grip around the city, both of them along the river. The first had been in small boats constructed inside the iron river gates. They had been destroyed with naphtha oil, the helpless men in them drenched as clay jugs were thrown from the banks, then set alight with flaming arrows. Hulegu did not know who had died that day. There had been no way to identify the bodies afterwards, even if he had been interested.

The second attempt had been more subtle, just six men with their bodies blackened in soot and oil. They had reached the pontoons his men had built across the Tigris, anchored to heavy trunks jammed into the soft riverbed. The sharp eyes of one of his scouts had seen them sliding through the water and his warriors had unlimbered their bows, taking care with each shot as they laughed and called targets to each other. It may have been the last blow to the caliph’s hopes; Hulegu did not know. He had received word that al-Mustasim would meet him outside the city the following day.

Hulegu frowned as he watched a long retinue stride out of the city. He had demanded surrender once again, but the caliph had not even answered, preferring to wait for the meeting between them. Hulegu counted as the small column lengthened. Two hundred, three, perhaps four. At last it came to an end and the gates closed behind them, leaving the caliph’s soldiers to march their master into Hulegu’s presence.

Hulegu had not been idle the night before. He had no awning large enough to hold the caliph’s retinue, but he had cleared a spot on the stony ground and covered it in thick carpets taken from towns along their route. The edges of the spot were lined with plump cushions and Hulegu had added rough wooden benches, almost like one of the Christian churches he had seen in Russia. There was no altar, only a simple table and two chairs for the leaders to sit. Hulegu’s generals would stand, ready to draw their swords at the first sign of treachery.

Hulegu knew the caliph’s men would have reported his arrangements, viewed from the city walls. The small column made their way to it unerringly, giving Hulegu the chance to smile at the perfect steps of the marching men. He had not limited the numbers of soldiers the caliph could bring. Ten tumans surrounded the city and he made sure the caliph’s route was lined with his own horsemen, heavily armed and scowling. The message would be clear enough.

The man himself was carried in a chariot drawn by two large geldings. Hulegu blinked when he saw the size of the caliph who ruled the city and called himself the light of Islam. No warrior, then, not that one. The hands that held the leading edge of his chariot were swollen and the eyes that searched for Hulegu were almost hidden in bloated flesh. Hulegu said nothing as the caliph was helped down by his servants. General Kitbuqa was there at hand to guide him to his place, while Hulegu thought through what he wanted from the meeting. He chewed the inside of his cheek as the caliph’s men took their seats. The whole thing was a farce, a mask to allow the man some shred of dignity when he deserved none. Even so, Hulegu had not refused the offer, or even quibbled over details. The important thing was that the man would bargain. Only the caliph could do so and Hulegu wondered yet again what vast wealth lay within the city known as the navel of the world. He had heard stories of Baghdad for a thousand miles, tales of ancient jade armour and ivory spears, holy relics and statues of solid gold, taller than three men. He hungered to see such things. He had turned gold into bars and rough coins, but he yearned to find pieces that would impress his brothers, both Mongke and Kublai. He was even tempted to keep the libraries, so that Kublai would know he had them. A man could never have enough wealth, but he could at least have more than his brothers.

As the caliph lowered his bulk to his chair, Hulegu clenched and unclenched his hands, grasping unconsciously at what was owed to him. He took his seat and stared coldly into the watery eyes of al-Mustasim. Hulegu could feel the sun stinging the back of his neck and considered calling for an awning until he saw the full glare was in the caliph’s face. Despite his Persian blood, the fat man was not comfortable in the heat. Hulegu nodded to him.

‘What do you intend to offer me, caliph, for your city and your life?’ he said.

Kublai rode east through thick forest that seemed endless. He knew he did not have to fear an attack. His scouts were out in all directions for thirty miles, yet the trees were thick and made an unnatural darkness that had his horse rearing at shadows. He had been told of a natural clearing ahead, but the sun was setting and he could not yet see the vast boulder or the lake his scouts had described.

General Bayar rode just ahead, a master horseman who made light work of the thick foliage. Kublai lacked the man’s easy touch, but he stayed in sight, his personal guards all around him. At least the forest was empty. He and his men had found one abandoned village deep in thick cover and miles from the nearest road. Whoever had made the wretched houses had vanished long ago.

The ground had been rising gently for half a day and Kublai reached a high ridge as the sun touched the horizon, looking down into a steep valley with a perfect black bowl of water at its foot. His horse whickered gratefully at the sight, as scratched and thirsty as its rider. Kublai let Bayar lead the way, happy to follow the path he chose. Together they guided the horses down the slope, seeing lamps ahead like a host of fireflies.

Bayar did not look as weary as Kublai felt. He was not much younger, though the man was still fitter than Kublai’s life among books in Karakorum had made him. No matter how he worked his body, it never seemed to have the easy endurance of warriors and senior men. Half his tumans had gone before him and many would already be asleep in the close confines of gers, or sleeping out under the stars if there was no place to set up.

Kublai sighed at the thought. He could hardly remember the last time he had slept through the night. He dreamed and woke in fits and starts, his mind whirring away as if it had an independent existence. Chabi would soothe him with a cool hand on his brow, but she fell asleep again quickly, leaving him still awake and thinking. He had been forced to keep a leather book of blank pages close to him, so he could write down the ideas that presented themselves just at the moment he was finally drifting off. In time, he would copy his journal onto better paper, a record of his time among the Sung. It would be worthy of the shelves in Karakorum if it continued as it had begun.

After the city of Ta-li had fallen to him, three others had followed within the month. He had sent scouts far ahead of him, carrying news of his mercy. He made a point of choosing men from the Chin who had joined his tumans over the years. They understood what he wanted and of course they approved, so he did not doubt they spoke well of the Mongol leader who was as much a Chin lord as anyone could be.

There had been a moment in those first months when he was able to dream of sweeping right across the Sung lands, of armies and cities surrendering without a blow being struck, until he stood before the emperor himself. That had lasted just long enough for Uriang-Khadai to approach. Kublai frowned at the memory, certain the older general had enjoyed being the bearer of bad news.

‘The men are not paid,’ Uriang-Khadai had lectured him. ‘You have said they are not allowed to loot and they are becoming angry. I have not seen this level of unrest before, lord. Perhaps you did not realise they would resent the mercy and kindness you have shown to our enemies.’ Kublai remembered how the orlok’s eyes glittered with suppressed anger as he went on. ‘I believe they will become difficult to manage if you continue this policy. They do not understand it. All the men know is that you have taken away their baubles and rewards.’

As he guided his horse down through thick brush, Kublai blew air out slowly. Good decisions were never made in anger. Yao Shu had taught him the truth of that years before. Uriang-Khadai might have enjoyed telling him something so obvious, but the problem was a real one. The tumans gave their lives and strength without question for the khan, or whoever commanded them in his name. In return, they were allowed to take wealth and slaves wherever they found them. Kublai could imagine their greed at the thought of all the fat Sung towns, untouched by war and rich on centuries of trade. Yet he had refused to burn them and barely a dozen city officials had died, just those who refused to surrender. In the last city, the people had brought their prefect out and thrown him down in the dust before Kublai’s men. They had understood the choice he offered - to live and prosper rather than resist and be destroyed.

Kublai dismounted stiffly, nodding to Bayar as the general took the horses away. The night was peaceful, with an owl hooting in warning somewhere nearby, no doubt disturbed by the passage of so many men through its hunting ground. He reached down and scooped up a handful of cold water, rubbing it over his face and neck with a groan of appreciation. He had a solution to the problem. He paid many of the men who accompanied the tumans and he had silver and gold coins by the hundred thousand. He could pay the warriors as well, at least for a time. Kublai grimaced, taking more of the water to slick back his hair. It would empty the shrinking war chest Mongke had given him in just a few months. He would then have no money for bribes and no source of new income. Yao Shu had assured him the farmers on his northern lands would have a crop in the ground, but he could not decide the future on unknown quantities. Armies had to be fed and supplied. Adding silver to that was logical enough, if he could only find enough silver.

Standing there, staring across the water, Kublai grew still, then raised his eyes to heaven and laughed aloud. He was in a land where the soldiers were paid like any other tradesman. He had to find the mines where the ore was dug out. He was tired and hungry, but for the first time that day, he didn’t feel it. A year before, he might have seen it as an impossible task, but since then he had seen Sung cities open their gates and surrender to a Chin lord. By the time Mongke’s silver ran out, he would have taxes coming in from his new lands, even if he failed to find the emperor’s supplies. He could make the cities finance their own conquest!

He didn’t hear Yao Shu come up behind him. Despite his age, the old man could still move silently. Kublai gave a start when he spoke, then smiled.

‘I am glad to see you cheerful,’ Yao Shu said. ‘I would be happier if Bayar had not picked a spot to camp with so many mosquitoes.’

Still caught up in the idea, Kublai explained his thoughts. He spoke at high speed in Mandarin, unaware that his perfect fluency made the old man proud. Yao Shu nodded as he finished.

‘It is a good plan, I think. A silver mine takes many workers. It should not be too hard to find someone who has heard of one, or even worked in one. Better still if we can interrupt the pay for Sung soldiers. As well as finding the coins already made, they would suffer as we benefited and perhaps lose a little faith in the men who pay them.’

‘I will set scouts to the task tomorrow,’ Kublai promised, yawning. ‘Until then, I have enough to pay our men in good Chin coin. Will you work out the amounts for me?’

‘Of course. I will have to find the price of a cheap whore in a small town as my base. I think a man should have to save for a day or two to afford such a luxury. At the very least it will teach them discipline.’ Yao Shu smiled. ‘It is a good plan, Kublai.’

They smiled at each other, aware that Yao Shu only used his personal name when there was no one else to overhear.

‘Go to your wife now,’ Yao Shu said. ‘Eat, make babies or rest. You must stay healthy.’ His stern tone brought back Kublai’s memories of old schoolrooms. ‘Somewhere far from here, the emperor of the Sung is raging as the reports come in. He has lost an army and four cities. He will not wait for you to come to him. Perhaps he hoped your men would exhaust themselves in the trek across his lands, but instead he will hear that you thrive and grow strong, that you eat well and yet are still hungry.’

Kublai grinned at the image.

‘I am too tired to worry about him tonight,’ he said, yawning hugely, so that he could feel his jaw crack. ‘I think for once I might sleep.’

Yao Shu looked sceptical. He rarely slept for more than four hours at a time and regarded any more as appalling slothfulness.

‘Keep your book close by. I enjoy reading the things you write.’

Kublai’s mouth opened in protest. ‘It is a private journal, old man. Did Chabi let you look at it? Is there no respect?’

‘I serve you better when I know your mind, my lord. And I find your observations on Orlok Uriang-Khadai most interesting.’

Kublai snorted at the old monk’s placid expression.

‘You see too much, old friend. Get some rest yourself. Have you considered the Mandarin word for “bank”? It means “silver movement”. We will find where they get it from.’

Hulegu enjoyed the sense of power over the caliph of Baghdad. The older man’s pretensions were torn away during the hours of the morning. Hulegu watched patiently as al-Mustasim spoke to advisers and checked endless tally sheets of fine vellum, making offers and counter-offers, most of which Hulegu simply ignored until the man understood the reality. As the morning wore on, Hulegu had his cannon and catapult teams run through their drills nearby, making the scribes nervous. The caliph stared in distaste at the moving ranks of warriors, at the gers that clustered for miles in all directions. The vast army held his city in a tight grip and he had no force to break the siege, no hope to give him peace. No one was coming to relieve Baghdad. The knowledge showed in his face and the way he sat, his shoulders slumped into the rolls of flesh.

It was intoxicating for Hulegu to have a proud leader reduced to hopelessness, to watch as the caliph slowly realised that everything he valued was in the hands of men who cared nothing for his people or his culture. Hulegu waved away the latest offer. He knew the people of the region loved to bargain, but it was no more than the twitching of a corpse. Everything they could possibly offer was in Baghdad and the city would open its gates to the Mongols. The treasure rooms and temples would be his to plunder. Still he waited for al-Mustasim to give up all hope.

They paused at noon for the caliph’s party to roll out prayer mats and bow their heads, chanting together. Hulegu used the time to stroll across to his senior generals, making sure they were still alert. There could be no surprises, he was certain. If another army moved closer than sixty miles, he would know far faster than hope could rise in the caliph. The man who ruled Baghdad would be killed if such news came, Hulegu had decided. Al-Mustasim was more than a lord to his people, with his spiritual status. He could be a symbol, or even a martyr. Hulegu smiled at the thought. The Moslems and Christians put great stock in their martyrs.

Hearing their droning chant, Hulegu shook his head in amusement. For him the sky father was always above his head, the earth mother at his feet. If they watched at all, they did not interfere with a man’s life. It was true the spirits of the land could be malevolent. Hulegu could not forget his own father’s fate, chosen to replace the life demanded from Ogedai Khan. In the sunshine, he shuddered at the thought of millions of spirits watching him in this place.

He raised his head, refusing to be afraid. They had not troubled Genghis and he had done more than his share of destruction, torn more than most from the sunlit world. If the angry spirits had not dared to touch Genghis, they could have no terrors for his grandson.

The moment he had been waiting for came deep into the afternoon, when even Hulegu had allowed his servants to drape his sunburnt neck in a damp cloth. The caliph’s fine robes were stained in great dark patches and he looked exhausted, though he had only sat and sweated through the long day.

‘I have offered you the riches of Croesus,’ Caliph al-Mustasim said. ‘More than any one man has ever seen. You asked me to value my people, my city, and I have done so. Yet you refuse again? What more would you have from me? Why am I even here, if you will take nothing in exchange?’

His eyes were weak and Hulegu took his seat once more, laying his sword across his thighs and settling himself.

‘I will not be made to look a fool, caliph. I will not take a few cartloads of pretty things and have men say I never knew what else lay within the ancient city. No, you will not laugh when we are gone.’

The caliph looked at him in sheer confusion.

‘You have seen the lists, the official records of the treasury!’

‘Lists your scribes could well have written in the weeks before you came out armed with them. I will choose the tribute from Baghdad. You will not grant it to me.’

‘What …’ The caliph paused and shook his head. Once more he looked at the army around him, stretching into the distance so that they became a shimmering blur. He did not doubt they could destroy the city if he gave them the opportunity. His heart beat painfully in his chest and he could smell his own sweat strongly.

‘I am trying to negotiate a peaceful end to the siege. Tell me what you want and I will begin again.’

Hulegu nodded as if the man had made a good point. He scratched his chin, feeling the bristles growing there.

‘Have your people disarm. Have them throw every sword, every knife, every axe out of the city, so that my men can collect them. You and I will walk together into Baghdad then, with just an honour guard to keep the mob at bay. When that is done, we will talk again.’

Wearily, the caliph heaved himself to his feet. His legs had gone numb and he staggered a step before catching himself.

‘You ask me to leave my people defenceless.’

‘They are already defenceless,’ Hulegu said, with a wave of his hand. He put his boots up on the table and sat back in his chair. ‘Look around you once more, caliph, and tell me it is not so. I am trying to find a way to a peaceful solution. When my men have searched your palaces, I will know there is no trickery. Don’t worry, I will leave you a little gold, enough to buy some new robes at least.’

The men around him chuckled and the caliph stared in impotent fury.

‘I have your word there will be no violence?’

Hulegu shrugged.

‘Unless you force my hand. I have told you the terms, caliph.’

‘Then I will return to the city,’ al-Mustasim said.

Hulegu thought for a moment.

‘You are my guest. Send a man back with the order. You will stay in a ger tonight, to learn our ways. We have Moslems in the camp. Perhaps they will appreciate your guidance.’

They locked gazes and the caliph looked away first. He felt completely without choices, a fish on a line that Hulegu was happy to pull in at his own pace. He could only grasp at the slightest chance to turn the Mongol from Baghdad without blood in the streets. He nodded.

‘I would be honoured,’ he said softly.

CHAPTER TWENTY

It was no simple task to disarm the city of Baghdad. It started well enough, with a populace who could see the vast Mongol army around their walls. The caliph’s heralds read his orders from every street corner and it was not long before the first weapons were being dragged out onto the street for collection. It was common for families to have a sword or spear in their home, relics of an old war, or just to protect the house. Many of them did not want to give up a weapon their father or grandfather had used. It was no easier to make butchers, carpenters and builders give up their precious tools. By the end of the first morning, the mood of the city had become resentful and some weapons were even taken back in before they could be collected. Before sunset, the caliph’s city guards had to face down angry mobs and at one point were almost engulfed in them. Across the city, three thousand guards faced the simmering anger of the citizens, always vastly outnumbered. Groups of the caliph’s men went street by street, trying to bring massive force to bear on a single point and then moving on. As a result, the collection slowed even further. It was not a promising start and the troubles grew as night fell.

The guards had to keep their own weapons to enforce the caliph’s rule, but the sight of them inflamed already dangerous passions. Every father and son feared armed men when they had given up their own weapons. The guards were pelted with roof tiles and rotting vegetables as they checked each street, thrown from above or by darting little boys yelling curses at them.

As the hot days passed, shouting crowds dogged their steps. The guards grew tight-lipped with fury as they continued their work and tried to ignore the sight of people running out of each street with swords and knives as they entered.

On the fourth day, one of the caliph’s men was hit by something foul that slithered wetly down the back of his head. He had been under intense pressure for a long time: called a traitor and a coward, jeered and spat at. He swung round in a rage with his sword drawn and saw a group of teenage boys laughing at him. They scattered, but in his rage he caught one and felled him with a blow. The guard panted as he turned the body over. He had killed the youngest of them, a thin boy who lay with a great red gash across his neck, ugly and wide, so that bone showed. The guard looked up into the faces of the burly men he had paid to carry the blades. One of them dropped his armful with a crash and walked away. Behind him, others pressed forward, calling for still more to come and see what had been done. The anger was growing and the guard knew about rough street justice. His fear showed on his face and he began to back away. He managed to retreat only a few paces before he was tripped and brought down. The crowd fell on him in a rush of fear and rage, tearing with their nails, smashing their fists and shoes into his flesh.

At the end of the street a dozen guards came running. As if at a signal, the crowd suddenly scattered in all directions, running away mindlessly. They left another body with the dead boy, so battered and torn as to be barely human.

The following dawn there were riots across Baghdad. Trapped as he was in the Mongol camp, the caliph lost patience when he was told. It was true that his guards were outnumbered in the teeming city, but he had eight major guard houses built in good stone and three thousand men. He sent new orders, giving his personal permission to kill any malcontents or rioters. He made sure the order was read on every street corner. The guards heard the news with relish and sharpened their swords. One of their own had fallen to the mob and it would not happen again. They moved in groups of two hundred and scoured areas, with hundreds more employed to take the weapons to the walls and drop them over. If anyone protested, the guards used heavy sticks to knock him senseless and threw in a few kicks for good measure. If a blade was drawn in anger against them, they killed quickly and left the bodies where they could be seen. There was no shame or fear in them to spark the revenge heat of a crowd. Instead, the guards stared the citizens down while they went about their work.

The mobs shrank in the face of sanctioned aggression, fading back into the shadows of normal life. They whispered the name of the fallen boy to themselves like a talisman against evil, but the collections went on even so.

After eleven days, Hulegu was at the end of his patience when the message came that the disarming was complete and he could enter and inspect the city. The sheer weight of weapons had been impressive, forcing Hulegu to use a full tuman to cart them away. Most were buried to rust, with just a few choice pieces finding new owners among the Mongol officers. Baghdad waited before him, truly defenceless for the first time in its history. He savoured the thought as he mounted his horse and waited for a minghaan of a thousand to form up around him. At the head, the caliph took his place in his chariot, his clothes filthy and his skin covered in flea bites. Hulegu laughed when he saw the man, then gave the order to go in.

There would still be an element of danger in entering the city, Hulegu was certain. Just a few hidden bows used from roofs as he passed could set off another riot. He wore full armour as well as his helmet, the weight and solidity making him feel invulnerable as he dug in his heels and rode through the gates at last. His tumans were ready to assault the city and he left men to hold the gates open at each point of entry. He hoped he had thought of everything and he was cheerful as he trotted his mount down a main road, empty and echoing.

In just a short time, the outer walls were long behind. The city was predominantly built from a brown baked brick. It reminded Hulegu of the smaller city of Samarra to the north. His tumans had fought a pitched battle there in his absence before looting it. By the time he had come south from the Assassin fortress, Samarra had been sacked, with blood running in the gutters and parts reduced to rubble. That was one reason the caliph’s city would not be relieved. Hulegu’s officers had been thorough.

Baghdad was many times the size of Samarra and the brown buildings were interspersed with highly decorated mosques. Bright blue tiles and extraordinary geometric patterns caught the sunlight, gleaming in the dun roads as splashes of colour. Hulegu knew the Moslems were forbidden from using human forms in their art, so they made patterns of reflected and interwoven shapes. It was said their mathematics had grown out of the art, from men forced to consider angles and symmetry to worship their god. To his surprise, Hulegu found he enjoyed the style far more than the battle scenes Ogedai had commissioned in Karakorum. There was something almost soothing about the repeated shapes and lines that covered vast walls and courtyards. Above the city, minarets and towers loomed, more splashes of colour. When Hulegu looked up, he could see the distant figures of men watching from the heights. No doubt they could see his army outside the city as they stared into the distance.

He passed the famous House of Wisdom and ducked down in his saddle to peer through an archway into the dark blue courtyard there. Nervous scholars peeped out of every window and he recalled that they were said to possess the greatest library in the region. If Kublai had been present, Hulegu knew his brother would have been salivating to get in, but he had other things to see. His minghaan followed a small group of the caliph’s guards through the city, passing over the Tigris at one point on a bridge of white marble. Baghdad was larger than Hulegu had realised, the sheer scale of it only truly visible from inside the walls.

The sun was high by the time he reached the caliph’s gated palace and passed through into sheltered green gardens. Hulegu snorted at the sight of a peacock, running from the armed men with its tail quivering.

Most of the minghaan stayed outside the caliph’s residence, with orders to visit all the banks in the city. Hulegu cared little for what the caliph thought of him. Even as he dismounted, a full tuman of ten thousand was entering the city in slow procession, disciplined men who would seek out its hidden wealth without touching off another riot.

Hulegu was in good spirits as the caliph’s servants led him through cool rooms and down steps to where their master waited. He knew he could be ambushed, but he depended on the threat of his men to keep him safe. The caliph would have to be insane to take him with so many Mongols already in the city - and so few weapons to fight them. Hulegu was certain there were still caches of blades in Baghdad. It was almost impossible to find every knife, sword and bow in a population with basements and hidden rooms. It had been a symbolic act for the most part, though it increased the sense of helplessness in the city as they waited for him to keep his word and leave.

Caliph al-Mustasim was waiting at the bottom of a flight of stone steps that led on from two more above it, so that the treasure rooms were deep into the bedrock and lit only by lamps. No sunlight reached so far down, but it was dusty and cool rather than damp. Even in his soiled clothes, the leader of the city looked far more confident than he had in the Mongol camp. Hulegu watched for some sign of deceit as the caliph’s guards removed a heavy locking bar, a piece of iron so massive that two of them could barely lift it out of its brackets. Al-Mustasim then stepped in and pressed his hands on the doors, heaving at them until they swung open noiselessly. Unable to help himself, Hulegu edged forward to the threshold to get the first sight of what lay within. He was watched in turn by the caliph, who saw greed kindle in his eyes.

The treasure rooms must once have been a natural cave under the city. The walls were still rough in places, stretching far away. The servants of the caliph had obviously gone in before, as the place was well lit with lamps hanging from the ceiling. Hulegu smiled as he realised the grand opening of the doors had been staged for his benefit alone.

It had been worth the wait. Gold gleamed its unique colour in stacks of bars as thick as a man’s finger, but that was just a small part of the whole. Hulegu swallowed drily as he saw the extent of the cave, every corner of it packed with statuary and shelves. He could not help but wonder how much had been removed before that day. The caliph would want to keep some portion of his wealth back and Hulegu knew he would have a struggle finding the other rooms and chests, wherever they were hidden. Still, it was an impressive sight. Just that one room was equal to or greater than all Mongke’s vaults. Though Hulegu knew he would have to hand over at least half of it to his brother, he realised that at a stroke he had become one of the richest men in the world. He laughed as he stood there, seeing the wealth of ancient nations.

The caliph smiled nervously at the sound.

‘When you check the lists I gave you, you will see I have accounted for it all. I have dealt honourably for my city.’

Hulegu turned to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. One of the caliph’s guards bristled and found a sword laid across his throat in an instant. Hulegu ignored them.

‘You have shown me the visible treasures, yes. They are magnificent. Now show me the rest, the true wealth of Baghdad.’

The caliph looked at the smiling man in horror. He shook his head wordlessly.

‘Please, there is nothing else.’

Hulegu reached out and took a firm grip on one of the caliph’s jowls, shaking him gently.

‘Are you certain?’ he asked.

‘I swear it,’ the caliph responded. He stepped away from the insulting grip as Hulegu spoke again to one of the Mongol warriors.

‘Tell General Kitbuqa to begin burning the city,’ he said. The man ran back up the steps and al-Mustasim watched him go, his face twisting in panic.

‘No! Very well, there is a store of gold hidden in the garden ponds. That is all. I give you my word.’

‘It is too late for that now,’ Hulegu said regretfully. ‘I asked you to make an accurate tally of the tribute and you did not. You have brought this on yourself, O caliph, and upon your city.’

The caliph drew a dagger from the folds of his robe and tried to attack, but Hulegu merely stepped aside and let his guards intervene, knocking the weapon from the man’s fleshy fingers. Hulegu picked it up, nodding to himself.

‘I asked you to disarm and you did not,’ he said. ‘Take him to a small room and keep him prisoner while we work. I am tired of his wind and promises.’

It was no easy task to drag the caliph’s bulk up the stairs, so Hulegu left his guards to it while he walked inside the vault to inspect what he had won. Kitbuqa knew what to do. He and Hulegu had set their plans weeks before. The only difficulty had been in securing Baghdad’s treasures before they destroyed the city.

The winter was mild in that region and Kublai’s tumans settled in around their new lands, secure in their gers. From records of Tsubodai’s Russian campaigns, Kublai knew winter was the best time to launch an attack, but so far to the south the natural Mongol advantage in cold-weather fighting was almost nullified. Armies still moved through the cold seasons and he could not be assured of a respite from warfare. His enemies must have known the same discomfort. The Mongols had entered their lands and no one knew where they would strike next.

Kublai had expected to fight for every step across Sung territory, but after the first battle, it almost seemed as if he were being ignored. Kunming city had opened its gates to him without a struggle, then Qujing and Qianxinan. He wondered if a sense of shock and effrontery had paralysed the Sung emperor. It had been centuries since anyone had last launched a conquest of their lands, but the lessons of the Chin would surely have been hard to ignore. If Kublai had been in power, he would have armed his entire population for all-out war, forcing millions of men against the Mongol war machine until it was ground down to nothing. He still feared exactly that. His only comfort was that the Yunnan region was isolated by a vast range of hills and mountains from the rest of Sung territory. To reach a major Sung city, his maps revealed broken land for two hundred miles, with no detail. Kublai fretted at every passing week as he sent men and money to locate the silver mines of the Sung emperor. It took far longer than he had hoped. Many of his scouts came in empty-handed, or with false leads that wasted time and energy. As two months passed without success, he was forced to head east into the first hills, leaving small groups of warriors in his pacified cities to ensure supplies continued to flow.

Ten tumans and his host of camp followers moved slowly across the land. Kublai had given Uriang-Khadai standing orders to buy food rather than take it, but the result was that his small treasury dwindled visibly. The orlok had insisted on a meeting to point out the idiocy in leaving Chin silver with peasant villages, but Kublai refused to discuss it and sent him back to the tumans without satisfaction. He knew he took too much pleasure in baiting the older man, but he would not explain himself to one who would never understand what he was trying to do. Mountain towns large and small were left intact behind the Mongol ranks and the coins had begun to flow month by month, so that the lowest unranked warrior could be heard to jingle when he trotted his mount. They carried the Chin coins on leather thongs around their necks or hanging from their belts like ornaments. The novelty of it had kept them quiet while they waited to see what such coins would buy them in the Sung cities. Only Uriang-Khadai refused his monthly payment, saying that Kublai would not make a merchant of him, not while he kept his rank. Under the orlok’s angry stare, Kublai had been tempted to strip that rank from him, but he had resisted, knowing it would have been from spite. Uriang-Khadai was a competent commander and Kublai needed all the ones he had.

The going was slow, though there were paths through the hills. There were no great mountains, just a distant horizon of peaks and troughs made green with heavy rain. The drizzle lasted for days at a time, turning the clay into sticky clods that slowed them all further and bogged down the carts. They trudged and rode onwards, the women and children growing thin as the herds were butchered to keep the men strong. The grazing was the only good thing about the trek and Kublai spent his evenings in a leaking ger with Chabi and Zhenjin, listening to Yao Shu reading aloud from the poetry of Omar Khayyam. At every town, Kublai asked for news of soldiers or mines. Such remote places rarely had anyone who had been to the cities and he was relieved when his scouts called him to the farm of a retired Sung soldier named Ong Chiang. Faced with armed warriors, Ong Chiang had discovered he knew a great deal. The ex-soldier told Kublai of the city of Guiyang, which was barely forty miles from an imperial barracks and a silver mine. It was not a coincidence that the two things went together, he said. A thousand soldiers lived and worked in a town which existed only to support the local mines. Ong Chiang had been stationed there for part of his career and he spoke with relish of the harsh discipline, showing them a hand with just two fingers and thumb left on it to make his point. To be born in the towns around Guiyang was to die in the mines, he said. It was a poor place to live, but it produced great wealth. It was just possible that in all his life Ong Chiang had never had such an attentive audience. He settled back in his small home, while Kublai listened to every word.

‘You saw the soil being brought to the surface, then heated?’

‘In huge furnaces,’ Ong Chiang replied, lighting his pipe as he spoke and sucking appreciatively at the long stem. ‘Furnaces that roar all day so that the workers go deaf after just a few years. I never wanted to get close to those things, but I was just there to guard them.’

‘And you said they dig up lead …’

‘Lead ore, mixed with the silver. They’re found together, though I don’t know why. The silver is a pure metal and the lead can be melted off. I saw them pouring ingots of silver at the site and we had to work to make sure the miners didn’t steal even a few shavings of it.’

He launched into an anecdote about a man trying to swallow sharp pieces of silver that made Kublai feel ill. He suspected the Sung veteran knew little more than he did himself about the actual process, but in his rambling speech, he gave away many useful details. The mine at Guiyang was clearly a massive undertaking, a town that existed only for the purpose of digging ore. Kublai had been imagining something on a smaller scale, but Ong Chiang talked of thousands of workers, hammering and shovelling day and night to feed the emperor’s coffers. He boasted of at least seven other mines in Sung lands, which Kublai had to dismiss as fantasy. His own people worked two rich seams, but Kublai had never visited the sites. To think of eight of them being hollowed out, their ores made into precious coins, was a vision of wealth and power he could hardly take in.

At last the man ran out of wind and settled into silence, made all the more comfortable by a flask of airag Kublai had produced from his deel robe. He rose and Ong Chiang smiled toothlessly at him.

‘You have silver enough to pay a guide?’ he said. Kublai nodded and the man rose with him, reaching out to jerk his arm up and down. ‘I’ll do it then. You won’t find the mine without a guide.’

‘What about your farm, your family?’ Kublai said.

‘The land is shit here and they know it. Nothing but chalk and stones. A man has to earn money and I can smell it on you.’

Ong Chiang’s gaze travelled up and down Kublai’s clean deel robe and his mutilated hand twitched as if he wanted to touch the finely woven cloth. Kublai was amused despite himself. He became aware of the farmer’s wife glowering at him from the doorway. Kublai met her eyes for a moment and she looked down immediately, terrified of the armed men around her home.

‘How will I know if I can trust you?’ Kublai said.

‘I am Ong Chiang the farmer now, but I was once Ong Chiang the officer in charge of eight men, before I lost my fingers to some fool with a spade. They told me to hand back my armour and my sword and they gave me my pay, then that was it. Twenty years and I was sent away with nothing. Don’t think I’ll cause you any trouble. I can’t hold a sword, but I will show you the way. I’d like to see their faces when they see your men riding in.’ Ong began to cackle and wheeze and he sucked on his pipe again, like a teat that gave him comfort. His wheezing became gurgles and finally settled, leaving him red-faced.

‘I pay my men four silver pieces a month,’ Kublai said. ‘You will earn an extra payment when you find me a silver mine.’

Ong Chiang’s face lit up. ‘Four! For that much, I’ll walk night and day, anywhere you want.’

Kublai hoped Yao Shu hadn’t overdone his estimates of a soldier’s pay. It was one area where the Buddhist monk lacked experience. Kublai was losing half a million silver coins each month from his campaign funds and though Mongke had been more than generous, he had at best six months before the problem of looting was back. Kublai was still struggling to understand the impact of such a simple decision, but he had a vision of his men descending on a peaceful city with too much wealth in their pouches. Prices would soar. They would drink it dry, argue over the local whores and then fight until they were unconscious.

He winced at the thought. Far to the north, Xanadu was being built by Chin workers who assumed he would return with their back pay. The new capital he imagined would be left as ruins if he didn’t find a new source of silver.

‘Very well. From this day, you are Ong Chiang the guide. Do I need to warn you what will happen if you lead us wrong?’

‘I don’t think you do,’ the man said, showing his withered gums again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The caliph wept as the House of Wisdom burned. The science and philosophy of ages had been tinder dry and the flames spread with a whoosh, quickly becoming an inferno and spreading to the close-packed buildings around it. His Mongol guards had left him alone, keen to take part in the looting of the ancient city. Al-Mustasim had waited for a time, then walked out of his palace, stepping over bodies and past the pools in the courtyards, where bars of gold had been hidden in the mud. The pools were brown and the fish all dead, choked in filth or speared for fun as the bars were dragged out.

He walked on, through streets that were marked with spattered blood trails. More than once, some Mongol warrior came charging out of a side street with a red sword. They recognised his bulk and ignored him, lending an odd feeling of nightmare to his progress. No one would touch the caliph, on Hulegu’s orders. The rest of the city did not enjoy the same protection and he began to weep as he saw the dead and smelled the smoke on the breeze. The House of Wisdom was only one of many fires, though he lingered there for a time, his eyes red in the bitter smoke.

Perhaps a million people lived in Baghdad at the time Hulegu’s tumans had surrounded it. There were whole districts devoted to perfumes, others to alchemy and artisans of a thousand different kinds. One area had been built around dye baths large enough for men to stand in and plunge their feet into the bright coloured liquids. Flames had burnt out there and Al-Mustasim stood for a time looking over hundreds of the stone bowls. Some of them contained drowned men and women, their faces stained by the dyes, their eyes still open. The caliph walked on, his mind numb. He tried to accept the will of Allah; he knew that men with free will could cause great evil, but the reality of it, the sheer scale, rendered him mute and blank, like a staggering beggar in his own streets. The dead were everywhere, the stench of blood and fire mingling across the city. Still there was screaming: it was not over. He could not imagine the mind of a man like Hulegu, who could order the slaughter of a city with no feeling of shame. Al-Mustasim knew by then that Hulegu had intended the destruction from the beginning, that all their negotiations had been just a game to him. It was an evil so colossal that the caliph could not take it in. He stumbled for miles across the city, losing his sandals as he climbed a pile of bodies and going on barefoot. As the day wore on, he saw so many scenes of pain and torture that he thought he was in hell. His feet were bloody and torn from sharp stones, but he could not feel the pain. The words of the Koran came to him then: ‘Garments of fire have been prepared for the unbelievers. Scalding water shall be poured on their heads, melting their skins and that which is in their bellies. They shall be lashed with rods of iron.’ The Mongols were neither Christian, Hindu nor Jew, but they too would suffer in time, as the people of his city had suffered. It was his only comfort.

On a bridge of white marble, al-Mustasim looked down on the river that ran through the city. He rested his arms on the stone and saw hundreds of bodies tumbling past, locked together in the red water, their mouths open like fish as they were washed away. Their suffering was at an end, but his anguish only intensified until he thought his heart would burst in his chest.

He was still there as the sun set, locked in his despair, so that General Kitbuqa had to shake him to bring him back to understanding. Al-Mustasim stared blearily into the eyes of the Mongol officer. He could not understand his words, but the gestures were clear as Kitbuqa tugged him into movement. They headed back to the palace, where lamps had been lit. Al-Mustasim wished only for death to take him. He dared not think of the women of his harem, or his children. The smell of blood grew stronger in the air and, without warning, he bent over and vomited a flood of water. He was prodded on, his feet leaving bloody prints on the marble floor.

Hulegu was in a main chamber, drinking from a gold cup. Some of the caliph’s slaves were attending him, their faces growing pale as they recognised the man who had been their master.

‘I told you to stay in the palace … and you did not,’ Hulegu said, shaking his head. ‘I will enter your harem tonight. I am told the door to that part of the palace is known as the gate of pleasure.’

Al-Mustasim looked up dully. His wives and children still lived and hope kindled in him.

‘Please,’ he said softly. ‘Please let them live.’

‘How many women are there?’ Hulegu said with interest. His men had begun the labour of emptying the vaulted basement, stacking artwork like firewood alongside treasures of the ages. Beyond that, the main palace had been left untouched.

‘Seven hundred women, many of them mothers, or with child,’ al-Mustasim replied.

Hulegu thought for a time.

‘You may keep a hundred of the women. The rest will be given to my officers. They have worked hard and they deserve a reward.’

The men around Hulegu looked pleased and their master stood up, throwing the cup of wine to the ground so that it clattered noisily.

Hulegu led the way through corridors and halls, coming finally to the locked door that hid the gardens of the harem from view. He looked expectantly at al-Mustasim but the caliph no longer had the key, or knew where it was. Hulegu gestured to the door and in moments his men had kicked it in.

‘Just a hundred, caliph. It is too generous, but I am in a fine mood tonight.’

Al-Mustasim hardened his soul, blinking back the tears that threatened. The women screamed when they saw who had come into the private gardens, but the caliph calmed them. They stood with their heads bowed and Hulegu inspected their lines like cattle, enjoying himself. He allowed al-Mustasim to pick a hundred of the weeping women, then sent the others out to his waiting men, who greeted them with cries of excitement. The children remained behind, clinging to women they knew, or wailing as their mothers were taken away.

Hulegu nodded to al-Mustasim.

‘You have made some fine choices. I will take this hundred as my own. I do not need the children.’

He spoke in his guttural language to the guards and they began to pull the women out of the gardens one by one, knocking the children down if they tried to hang on. Al-Mustasim cringed at this final betrayal, though part of him had expected it. He called out words from the Koran to his wives and children. He could not look at them, but he promised them all a place in heaven, with the prophet and the love of Allah for all eternity.

Hulegu waited until he was finished.

‘There is nothing more here. Take the fat man out and hang him.’

‘And the children, lord?’ one of his men asked.

Hulegu looked at the caliph.

‘I asked you to surrender and you did not,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I would have been merciful then. Kill the children first, then hang him. I have squeezed Baghdad dry. There is nothing more worth having.’

Kublai lay on his stomach and cursed softly to himself. He had sent out his scouts looking for silver, paying men for information for hundreds of miles, without considering that the Sung emperor would eventually hear of his interest and respond. It was an error and, though he could curse his own naivety, he could not wish away the army encamped around the Guiyang mines. His own tumans were still twenty miles or more to the west and he had come forward with just Ong Chiang, the newly fledged guide, and two scouts to see the details. Kublai grimaced as he kept low and stared across the hills at the mass of men and machines. This was no guard regiment sent to protect the silver, but a massive force, complete with cannon and pike, lancers and crossbowmen by the tens of thousand. They could not be surprised or ambushed and yet he still needed the silver that lay at the heart of them all. Even then, Kublai doubted the emperor had left much of value beyond the raw ore. He considered abandoning the attack, and only the thought that Mongke would eventually hear he had retreated kept him planning.

The mine was in a shallow valley, which would lend speed to his charging warriors. His cannon teams would be firing down, if they could get their weapons to the edge, whereas the Sung soldiers would have to fire upwards into them. No advantage was too small to consider against so many. Kublai stared with a surveyor’s intensity, taking in every feature of the terrain that he might use. The cannon would be crucial, he realised. He had never yet seen them used in a fixed battle, at least in daylight, but the Sung commanders would surely have more experience of that than he had. He could not assume the officers had won their commissions with connections to the imperial court, or in examinations, no matter what he had heard. He thought back over everything he had read of Sung warfare, how even more than the Chin, battles took place in a ritualistic fashion, with strike and counter-strike. They rarely fought to annihilation, only until one side was satisfied. That too would be an advantage. His tumans fought to destroy, to shatter and break the will of an enemy until he was dust under their feet.

Kublai looked across the thick grass at Ong Chiang, who had been staring down at the Sung lines with just as much intensity. When the farmer felt Kublai’s gaze on him, he looked up and shrugged.

‘There was talk of an extra payment when I found the mine, my lord,’ he said. As he spoke, he began to search his pockets for his pipe and Kublai reached across and stopped his hand. It would not do to have a thin trail of smoke rising from their position.

‘I have a battle to plan, Ong the suddenly wealthy,’ Kublai whispered to him. ‘See me after that and I’ll give you a token to take to my quartermaster.’

Ong Chiang looked once again at the massive camp around the mining town and chewed his lips a little, wishing for his pipe.

‘I think I would prefer it before the battle, my lord. In case it does not go so well for you.’ He saw Kublai’s expression and carried on quickly. ‘I’m sure it will go well, but if you could let me take my payment now, I’ll start back to my family.’

Kublai raised his eyes for a moment. With Ong Chiang and the scouts, he crept back on his stomach until he was sure none of the Sung scouts could see them. He had not spotted any watchers during his careful approach and he did not know if that was because they had not been placed, or because they were simply much better than he was at remaining unseen. He wore no signs of rank, knowing that if they recognised him for who he was, they would hunt him down. Just riding the twenty miles to the site had been a risk, but he had needed to see.

When he returned to the tumans, Kublai paid Ong Chiang well, giving him a fat pouch of silver that had the man beaming. The farmer used two of the coins to buy the old mare he had been lent and was soon on his way, without looking back. Kublai smiled as he watched him go. The silver was an investment that would repay itself many times over, if he could win the mine.

The morning was fine and clear as he gathered his generals. Uriang-Khadai had lost some of his usual sourness at the prospect of a battle. Bayar too was pleased, hanging on every word Kublai uttered as he described the scene in incredible detail.

‘So many soldiers must be fed,’ Kublai said, ‘and the farms in the area cannot possibly support such an army. Bayar, send a minghaan out in a wide line around the site. Find their supply line, or wherever they cache their food. Destroy it all. They will not fight so well on an empty stomach.’

Bayar nodded, but stayed where he was.

‘They outnumber us,’ Kublai went on, ‘but if they have been told to protect the mine, they will fight defensively, rather than coming out when they are attacked. That is to our advantage. Uriang-Khadai, you will place our cannon in tight ranks, to pour fire into them. Begin with a ranging shot from the ridge, then move the cannon quickly to where we can reach their position. If anyone comes against our cannon, they must be destroyed. It will allow me to remove almost all the men behind and use them to charge the flanks.’

Uriang-Khadai nodded grudgingly. ‘How many horsemen do they have?’ he asked.

‘I saw at least ten thousand horses. I do not know how many were remounts. It could be five thousand cavalry. They must not be allowed to pin us from the sides, but we have enough good archers to keep them back.’ Kublai took a deep breath, feeling his stomach tighten in anticipation and nervousness.

‘Remember that they have not known war for generations, whereas our warriors have fought all their lives. That will make a difference. For now, your task is to get the tumans into strike range as quickly as possible, bringing the cannons up as fast as we have ever moved them before. The families will remain here with heavy carts and supplies. I need rapid movement, to appear against them before they know we are coming. I need that solid front if I am to hammer them on the wing.’ He looked at his two most senior men and knew they were both different characters, but men on whom he could depend. ‘I will give you new orders as we engage. Until then, pray it does not rain.’

As one, they looked up, but there were few clouds and those were high above, white wisps in a spring sky.

Mongke threw a sheaf of reports onto a pile almost as large as his chair and rubbed his eyes wearily. He had put on weight since becoming khan and he knew he was no longer as fit as he had once been. For years he had taken his body’s massive strength for granted, but time stole away all things, changing men in such small ways that they hardly noticed until it was too late. He pulled in his stomach as he sat there, telling himself for the hundredth time that he would have to practise more with the sword and bow if he were not to lose all traces of his strength and vitality.

The problems of a vast khanate were nothing like those he had known as an officer. The Great Trek west with Tsubodai had been a simpler life, with more basic obstacles to overcome. He could not have dreamed back then that he would be trying to settle a complicated dispute between the Taoists and Buddhists, or that silver coins would become such an important part of his life. The yam lines kept him informed in a flood of information that almost overwhelmed him, despite the cadre of Mongol scribes who worked in the city. Mongke would deal with a hundred small problems each morning and read as many reports, making decisions that would affect the lives of men he would never see or know. In the sheaf he had thrown down was a request from Arik-Boke for funds, a few million silver coins that had to be dug out and smelted from the mines. Mongke might envy his youngest brother the simple life in the homeland, but the truth he had discovered about himself was that he loved the work. It was satisfying to solve problems for other men, to be the one they came to with their questions and catastrophes. As far away as Syria and Korea, they looked to Karakorum, as Ogedai Khan had once hoped they would. Bankers could cash drafts for silver in different countries because of the peace Mongke had fostered. If there were bandits or thieves, he had a wide net to catch them, thousands of families devoted to running the khan’s lands, in his name, with his authority backing them. He patted his stomach ruefully. As with all things, peace had its price.

His knees cracked as he stood up. He groaned softly as his chief adviser, Urigh, came trotting in with more papers.

‘It is almost noon. I will see those when I have eaten,’ Mongke said. He would enjoy an hour with his children when they had run home from their school in the city. They would speak Mandarin and Persian as well as their own language. He would see his sons as khans when they were grown, just as his mother had worked to raise her eldest over the rest.

Urigh put down most of the papers he carried, a bundle of scrolls bound in twine. He held just one and Mongke sighed, knowing the man too well.

‘All right, tell me, but be quick.’

‘It is a report from your brother Kublai’s domain in Chin lands,’ Urigh said. ‘The costs of his new city have become immense. I have the figures here.’ He handed over the scroll and Mongke sat down again to read it, frowning to himself.

‘When he runs out of money, he will have to stop,’ he said with a shrug.

Urigh looked uncomfortable discussing the brother of the khan. Mongke’s feelings for Hulegu, Arik-Boke and Kublai were complex and no man wanted to come between them, no matter how Mongke complained.

‘You can see he has spent almost all you gave him for the campaign, my lord. I have reports that he has been seeking out silver mines on Sung land. Could he have found one and not declared it to you?’

‘I would know,’ Mongke said. ‘I have men close to him who report every movement. The last message was a week ago on the yam lines and he had not found a mine yet. It cannot be that. What about these new farms of his? He leased thousands of plots two years ago. They will have been ploughed and planted twice by now, more if they are growing rice in the flood plains. In Chin markets, that will have brought in enough silver to keep building his palaces.’ Mongke frowned as he considered his own words, checking through the details of the accounting in Xanadu. Huge stocks of marble had been ordered, enough to build a palace to equal his own in Karakorum. He felt a seed of distrust grow in him.

‘I have not interfered with his campaign, or Hulegu’s.’

‘Hulegu has sent back vast revenues, my lord. Baghdad alone has brought in gold and silver to keep Karakorum for a century.’

‘And how much have we had from Kublai?’ Mongke asked.

Urigh bit his lip. ‘Nothing so far, my lord. I assumed it was with your permission that he put the funds into his new city.’

‘I did not forbid it,’ Mongke conceded. ‘But the Sung lands are wealthy. Perhaps he has forgotten he acts for the khan.’

‘I am sure that is not true, my lord,’ Urigh said, trying to walk a careful line. He could not criticise the khan’s brother, but the lack of proper accounting from Sung lands had troubled him for months.

‘Perhaps I should see this Xanadu myself, Urigh. I have grown fat in peace and it may be my brothers have grown too sure of themselves without feeling my eye on them. Kublai has done enough, I think.’ He fell silent and thought for a time. ‘No, that is unfair. He has done well with what I gave him, better than I dared to hope. By now, he will have discovered he needs me to finish the Sung. He may even have learned a little humility, a little of what it takes to lead tumans into battle. I have been patient, Urigh, but perhaps it is time for the khan to take the field.’ He patted his belly with a rueful smile. ‘Send your men to me when they come back with their report. It will do me good to ride again.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Kublai watched as the Chin regiments ran from their tents, forming up into well-disciplined lines. He could still hardly believe how close his tumans had got to the mine before the alarm horns sounded. At less than two miles, a distant blare of brass had begun to wail, muffled by the fall of the land. The Sung officer should have had more scouts further out, regularly relieved by men from the main camp. Kublai prayed silently for it to be the first of many mistakes they would make.

Kublai took strength from the long line of horsemen on either side of him as they trotted forward. Bayar’s minghaan had cut the Sung supply lines four days before, then waited to ambush whoever they sent. Not a single man of a hundred had made it back to the Sung camp. Kublai hoped they were getting hungry. He needed every edge he could find.

The bowl of land that led down to the mine ended on a flat field some miles across. Kublai tried to put himself in the place of the Sung general. The site was not a good one for a defensive battle. No leader would choose a spot where he could not command the closest heights. Yet it was exactly the sort of battle that came when an emperor thousands of miles away ordered one of his senior men to hold a position, no matter who came against it or how strong they were. There would be no retreat, Kublai was certain. He raised his fist and the Mongol ranks halted, curving slightly as they met the line of the valley ridge. The sun was high above them and the day was warm. He could see a long way, beyond the mine itself to the shantytown that fed it with workers each morning. The air itself shimmered over part of the sprawling site, revealing the location of the smelting furnaces. Kublai took heart from the fact that they were still working. Perhaps there would be silver in the warehouses after all. He could see a stream of workers leaving the site and as he waited for his cannons to come up, the distant shimmering ceased. The mine shut down and the air was very still.

Behind him, the cannon teams whipped horses dragging the heavy cannon, straining for the last burst of speed up the ridge. Kublai and Bayar had experimented with oxen and horses, even camels, trying to find the best combination of speed and stamina. Oxen were painfully slow, so he had left them in camp with the families and used teams of four horses. Once the guns were rolling, they could triple the speed to the front, though the cost in horses was enormous. Hundreds of them would be lame or have had their wind broken pulling the guns, as well as the carts full of shot and gunpowder.

Kublai readied his orders in his head. The Sung had formed quickly on the valley plain and he saw the dark shapes of their own cannons dragged to the front, ready with braziers to light the black powder. To charge that camp would be to ride through a hail of shot, and Kublai felt his gut tighten in fear at the thought. He scowled as he saw that the Sung regiments were holding their ground, certain that he had to come to them.

Kublai sent single warriors out ahead of the tumans. Thousands of eyes on both sides watched them walk their mounts down the gentle slope. The Mongol warriors waited to see if they found hidden trenches or spikes in the grass, while the Sung regiments tensed at what could have been the first outriders of a suicidal charge. The braziers by the Sung cannon smoked furiously as their tenders fed in fresh coal, keeping them hot. Kublai could feel his heart thumping as he waited for one of the riders to fall. His emotions were mixed when they reached the bottom safely and rode on to the edge of arrow range. They were young men and he was not surprised when they stopped to jeer at the enemy. It was more worrying that the Sung commander had not set traps. The man wanted them to ride in fast and hard, where he could destroy them. It was either justified confidence or complete foolishness and Kublai sweated without knowing which. His riders returned to the ranks amidst shouts and laughter from those that knew them. The tension had been unbearable, but with a glance Kublai saw four of his own cannon were ready, their braziers lit and smoking, well clear of the piles of powder bags and shot balls. The rest were still hitched to the teams that dragged them, poised to move closer once they saw the range. He told himself the Sung could not have expected so many of the heavy weapons.

He still hoped to surprise them. The Persian chemists working in Karakorum had produced a finer powder, with more saltpetre than the Chin mixture. Kublai understood little of the science, but smaller grains burned faster and threw the ball with more force. The concept was clear enough to anyone who had ever fried a slab of meat, or seen it cut into small pieces for cooking. He watched anxiously as the four cannon were hammered loose from their mountings and fresh wooden blocks put in to raise the black muzzles to the maximum elevation. The blocks often shattered on firing and the teams drew them from sacks of spares, each one hand-cut from birch. Powder bags were shoved down the iron tubes and on each team a powerfully built man lifted a stone ball, straddling it as if he were giving birth. With a massive heave, the balls were raised to the lip and another of the team made sure it did not fall back. For an instant, Kublai had almost ordered a second powder bag, but he dared not risk the guns exploding as they fired. He would need every one.

Three-quarters of a mile below and across the valley floor, the Sung regiments waited in perfect, shining ranks. They could see what was happening on the ridge, but they stood like statues, their flags and banners flapping. Kublai heard his gun teams shout instructions, using those same flags to judge the wind. They began to chant, with an emphasis on the fourth beat. Almost as one, the iron weapons were heaved around, lifted by main force and groaning men. The shots would fire straight until the wind changed.

Kublai raised his hand and four tapers were lit and shielded from the breeze as the officers readied themselves to touch the reed filled with the same black powder, the spark that pierced the bag within and slammed the balls out into the air.

Kublai dropped his arm, almost flinching in anticipation. The sound that followed had no comparisons. Even thunder seemed less terrible. Smoke and flame spurted from each of the iron holes and blurs vanished upwards. Kublai could see the curving lines and his heart raced faster as he saw they would surely reach the Sung. His mouth fell open as the cannonballs soared over the regiments, striking too far back for their damage to be seen.

There was a moment of stillness, then every man who could see suddenly roared and the rest of the cannon teams lashed their horses with fresh urgency, bringing them up. They could hit the enemy. Either the Sung had misjudged the benefit of the ridge, or the Mongol gunpowder was much better than their own.

Kublai shouted fresh orders, overcome with a sense of urgency to use his sudden advantage. He watched the painfully slow adjustment as the teams grabbed up heavy hammers and began to bang out the blocks while others lifted the iron barrels to make a space.

On the valley floor, horns wailed and conflicting orders were given in sudden confusion. Kublai could see that some of the Sung officers thought they merely had to pull back closer to the mine. Others who had seen the balls pass right overhead were shouting angrily and pointing up at the ridge. There was no safe spot for them to stand. They would either have to attack or abandon the mine and move out of range, in which case Kublai decided he would take the tumans in quickly and capture their guns. He tensed as his gun teams readied all the cannon for a massive volley.

When it came, the balls of polished stone skipped and bounced their way through the Sung ranks. Horses and men crumpled as if a point of hot iron had been laid onto them. Two of the Sung cannon were struck, flipping over and crushing men underneath. Kublai exulted and his teams worked on, pouring with sweat.

The shots came faster, rippling along the line as they sought to outdo each other. Kublai looked round in shock when one of the iron weapons burst its barrel, killing the men at the muzzle. Another man was killed when his companion failed to cool the barrel quickly enough with the long rammer and sponge. The powder bag went up while he was still pushing it down, tearing it open in his enthusiasm. The rush of flame could only find a path past him and he burned in an instant. The mad pace slackened slightly after that, the lesson not lost on the other teams.

Kublai was too far away to see Bayar’s expression, though he could imagine it. He had weapons designed to pulverise a city wall and the chance to use them against standing enemy ranks. The warriors around him were still stunned by the damage the cannons could inflict and Kublai wondered if they would be as fast to ride against the Sung weapons, now that they had seen in daylight what cannons could do.

The Sung lines re-formed over their dead, but Kublai did not think they would stand for long in the face of such murderous fire. He did not envy the Sung commander, whoever he was. He waited for the Sung to pull back, but they stood their ground while red claws sank into their ranks. Kublai glanced at the pile of stone balls nearest to him and bit his lip as he saw it was down to barely a dozen. Sheer weight made it as difficult to move the shot as the guns themselves and some of the carts had broken on the trip. He watched almost mesmerised as the pile dwindled until the final ball lay on its own. The barrel was sponged out for the last time. A billow of steam hissed and crackled over the men around them, part of a greater cloud that hid the entire ridge. It irritated Kublai by drifting across his sight, making him blind for long moments until the air cleared. He heard the cannon team fire the last shot, and by then most of the thundering guns had fallen silent, their teams standing proudly to attention. A few more shots sounded from slower teams and they were done at last, suddenly useless after the carnage and destruction.

Kublai felt the wrench to his emotions as his power to reach out and strike suddenly vanished. The air was thick with sulphur and steam and he had to wait while the breeze tore it into wisps and he could see again.

When they were revealed, the Sung regiments had taken a vicious battering. Thousands of men were clearing the dead and the officers rode up and down the lines, exhorting them, pointing up to the ridge and no doubt shouting that the worst was already over. Kublai swallowed drily. They had not broken. As he stared into the distance, he saw their own cannon teams swarm around their weapons. Time slowed down for him and he could hear every beat of his heart as he raised his hand. His men had to cross half a mile of land, one hundred and twenty to one hundred and eighty heartbeats. He would feel every one of them. He roared the orders and his tumans came over the ridge, kicking their mounts into a gallop. Kublai remained still as they flowed past him, knowing he had to be the calm centre, the eye above them that could read the battle and react to it, as the men below could not.

They poured down towards the Sung lines and a great shout of anger and challenge went up from those who had been forced to stand through the most terrifying moments of their lives. Kublai barked at his bannermen and they raised the flags that would send Uriang-Khadai and Bayar out wide against the flanks.

He could not trust his heartbeat to judge the time. When he held a finger to his neck, he could not find it at first, then felt such a rapid pulse that he gave up. The tumans hit full gallop on the short plain below the bowl and he could see the black needles of arrows fly before them, a different kind of terror for those Sung who still stood and dared them to come in close.

He winced as the first Sung cannons fired. Below, he could see the paths of the balls, chopping through the galloping ranks. The tumans covered the ground at reckless speed and as the Sung teams reloaded, his men sent arrow shafts whining in among them, so that the Sung gunners fell faster than they could be replaced. On the wings, Uriang-Khadai and Bayar had ridden in close, then halted at two hundred paces. From each ten thousand, arrows soared, punched out from bows too strong for other men to draw. There were no cannons on the wings, but most of Kublai’s archers could hit an egg at fifty paces. They could hit a man at two hundred and the very best of them could pick the spot.

On the ridge, thousands of warriors still poured past him. An entire tuman was pressing on, desperate not to be left out of the battle. The resting gun teams shouted encouragement, knowing they could play no further part. Kublai found himself trembling as the last warrior rode over the ridge. He had a mere twenty men left as a personal guard and a drummer boy on a camel to give signals. Every officer below could see him and he was the only one able to judge the entire battlefield. He wrestled with the urge to give new orders, but at that point it would have been more likely to hamper his officers.

For a time, he raised himself up, standing on his saddle so that he could see exactly what was happening. His mind still ticked away with ideas and plans and he knew he would have to set forges to make iron balls for the cannons. It was difficult work to make a true sphere with no imperfections that might snag on a barrel and burst it or send the ball slicing off in the wrong direction. Iron had to be heated until it ran like water, and the temperatures were far beyond the portable forges he had. Lead balls were a possibility, but the soft metal was too prone to becoming misshapen. Kublai wondered for a moment if the smelter of the mine could be used. It was far easier to polish stone, but the labour took weeks and, as he had seen, he could lose the best part of a year’s supplies in a morning.

He shook his head to clear it of the endless spinning thoughts. The Sung regiments were falling back on themselves, assaulted on all sides. More than half their number lay dead and anyone with an officer’s armour was already cold, fat with arrows. As Kublai watched, his two wings used the last of their shafts. The rear ranks passed lances forward and they kicked into a gallop, lowering the long weapons to open holes into the enemy that they could follow. Those behind drew swords and even at a distance Kublai could hear their battle cry.

Hulegu was tired. In the months since he had burnt Baghdad, he had been busy with the administration of a vast area. He had entered Syria and taken the city of Aleppo, smashing a small army and slaughtering three tribes of Kurds who preyed on the local towns as bandits. The nobles of Damascus had come to him long before he attacked their city. The example of Baghdad had not been lost on them and they surrendered before they could even be threatened. He had a new governor there in his name, and beyond a few token executions, the city lay untouched.

He had been surprised to learn that Kitbuqa was a Christian, though it seemed not to blunt his righteous rage against the Moslem cities. Kitbuqa had begun holding Mass in captured mosques before burning them, a deliberate insult. Hulegu smiled at the memory. Together, they had captured more wealth than Tsubodai, Genghis or Ogedai had ever seen, sending much of it back to his brother in Karakorum. More was used to rebuild the cities he had taken under new governors. Hulegu shook his head in amusement at the thought, still surprised that he could earn gratitude in such a way. Memories were short, or perhaps it worked because he had killed everyone who might object. Baghdad was being rebuilt with a tiny part of the caliph’s own treasury, made new under a Mongol governor. Merchant families came in daily to find homes in the city, where land and houses were suddenly cheap. Business was already growing and the first taxes were being collected, though the city was not a fraction yet of what it had been.

Hulegu rested for that night in a roadside inn, chewing his food slowly and wishing only that the Moslems would turn their considerable ingenuity to alcohol. He had tasted their coffee and found it bitter in comparison, not a drink for a man at all. His stocks of wine and airag had long gone and until they found a new supply, his army was running dry, making the men irritable and short-tempered. Hulegu knew he would have to import a few hundred families to make the fiery spirit he had enjoyed from childhood. With that small reservation, he was pleased with the lands he had won for himself. His sons would have a khanate and Mongke would honour him. Hulegu chuckled wearily to himself as he ate. It was strange how he still looked for Mongke’s approval. At their age, a difference of just a few years should not have mattered, but somehow it did. He emptied a glass of some fruit drink, grimacing at the sickly sweetness, with an aftertaste of metal.

‘A little more, master?’ the servant asked, holding up a jug.

Hulegu waved him away, trying not to think of how good airag would cut the sweetness and make his throat burn. He felt an ache begin in his abdomen and he massaged it with short, blunt fingers. He strained for a time, but there was no wind and the pain increased, sweat breaking out on his face.

‘Bring me water,’ he said, scowling.

The servant smiled. ‘It is too late for that, master. Instead, I have brought you a greeting from Alamut and a peace you surely do not deserve.’

Hulegu gaped at him, then tried to rise. His legs felt weak and he staggered, but he had the strength to shout.

‘Guards! To me!’

He slumped against the table. The door slammed open and two of his men entered with their swords drawn.

‘Hold him,’ Hulegu snarled.

A wave of weakness washed over him and he slid to his knees, pushing two of his fingers deep into his throat. As his men watched in horrified confusion, Hulegu vomited up the contents of his stomach in a great flood. He had eaten well and he heaved again and again, the bitter smell filling the room. Still the pain increased, but his head cleared a little. The servant had not resisted and merely stood between the warriors, watching closely with a worried frown.

Hulegu was a bull of a man, but his heart was pounding and his face poured with sweat as if he had run all day. It dripped off his nose onto the wooden floor as he sagged.

‘Charcoal,’ he growled. ‘Grind up as much as you can find … in water. Take it from the fireplaces. Fetch my shaman …’ He struggled through a wave of dizziness before he could speak again. ‘If I pass out, force charcoal slurry into me, as much as you can.’ He saw the guards hesitate, neither man willing to let go of the servant. Hulegu snapped, anger rising in him with the pain.

‘Kill him and go,’ he shouted, falling back.

He heard a choking sound as they cut the man’s throat and then raced out of the room. Hulegu tried to vomit again, but his stomach was empty and every dry heave made lights flash before his eyes. His head felt enormous, fat with pounding blood. His heart was racing too fast, making him dizzy and weak. He was dimly aware of men clattering into the room and a wooden bowl being pressed to his lips, full of swirling blackness that he took in and immediately vomited in a gritty flood over his clothes. He forced himself to drink again, bowl after bowl until he felt his stomach would burst. His teeth grated against each other as he tried to clear his mouth and throat, gasping between gulps. There were a dozen men in the room by then, all working to reduce chips of charred wood to dust with any tool they could find. After a time, he fell into blackness, covered in his own bitter acids.

When he woke again, it was dark. His eyes were covered in something, so that his eyelids stuck together. He reached up and rubbed one of them, feeling his eyelashes tear away. The gesture was noticed and voices called that he was awake. Hulegu groaned, but the biting pain was gone from his stomach. His mouth felt raw and he could still feel the grit between his teeth from the charcoal that had saved him. The same filth had once saved Genghis and Hulegu gave silent thanks to the old man’s spirit for lending him the knowledge he needed. The Assassin had been confident at first, he recalled. It would have been a close thing, a certain death without the charcoal to soak it up. If the man had kept silent, Hulegu would have died without knowing why.

He could not believe how weak he felt. General Kitbuqa was looming over him, but Hulegu could not rise. He felt himself lifted up and saw he was in another room of the roadhouse, propped up on thick blankets under his head and shoulders.

‘You were lucky,’ Kitbuqa said.

Hulegu grunted, unwilling even to think back to the appalling moments before unconsciousness. It had come so suddenly: from eating a good meal to fighting for his life with his killer watching him complacently. He thought his hands were still trembling and he bunched his massive fists in the blankets so that Kitbuqa would not see.

‘The charcoal worked, then,’ he muttered.

‘You are too stubborn to die, I think,’ Kitbuqa said. ‘Your shaman tells me you will be shitting black for a few days, but, yes, you gave the right orders.’

‘Have you been praying for me?’

Kitbuqa heard the mockery and ignored it.

‘I have, of course. You are alive, are you not?’

Hulegu tried again to sit up straight, his thoughts suddenly sharpening.

‘You must warn my brothers, especially Mongke. Send a dozen fast scouts along the yam lines.’

‘They have already gone,’ Kitbuqa said. ‘It happened yesterday, my lord. You have slept since then.’

Hulegu slumped back. The effort of rising and thinking had exhausted him, but he was alive and he had expected death. He shuddered as he lay there, flashing memories disturbing his peace. Had the leader in Alamut sent men to kill him even before he saw the fortress? It was possible. Yet it was more likely that he had men out already doing their work, men who would have returned to Alamut and found it in ruins. Hulegu could imagine them swearing vengeance against those who had broken their sect and killed its leaders. He closed his eyes, feeling sleep come swiftly. How many more could there be? Perhaps there was only one, now just another corpse in the road.

Kitbuqa looked down, pleased to see some colour return to his friend’s face. He could only hope that the attack had been the last spasm of a dying clan. Even so, he knew it would be years before Hulegu went anywhere without a troop of guards around him. If even one Assassin still survived, there would always be danger. Kitbuqa only wished the poisoner had lived, so that he could have taken him out into the woods and questioned him with fire and iron.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Kublai had given strict orders that the workers in the mine town were not to be touched. For once, Uriang-Khadai had nothing to say on the subject. Someone had to continue to drag the ore out of the ground and none of Kublai’s men understood the processes involved, even when they had seen the smelters and the sacks of strange powders in the buildings around it. A huge heap of black lead and slag metal was part of the sprawling site and the smell of bitter chemicals was always in the air, somehow drying the throat so that warriors coughed and spat as they searched it.

Bayar brought the news himself when they found the silver ready to be taken out. Kublai had seen from his face that it had been worthwhile and the reality astonished him. Refined metal filled a long stone building, behind an iron door that had to be broken in when no one could find the key. Inside, slender bars were set out on trestle tables, black with tarnish and ready to be loaded into carts and taken to the emperor’s capital city.

Bayar had not even counted them and Kublai had the pleasure of making the first estimate. He counted two hundred and forty on a table, then multiplied it by eighty tables to reach a total that was dizzying. Each bar could be melted and pressed into at least five hundred small coins if he found the right equipment. For a time, Kublai just stood in the silent room, then a smile appeared and Bayar laughed. The contents of the room came to almost ten million coins, enough to pay his army at their current rate for two years in the field. He frowned at the thought of sending a tithe back to Mongke in Karakorum, but it was long overdue. Bearing in mind Ong Chiang’s response to his offer, Kublai wondered if there was a way of reducing the monthly pay without losing the trust of his men. He could hardly claim hardship after such a find. The news would already be winging its way around the camp.

‘Find the most senior man in the town, whoever runs the mine,’ he said to Bayar. ‘I need to know if this is the product of a month or a year. I’ll need to leave men to defend this place and keep it working.’

‘The emperor will fight to get the mine back, if it’s worth this much,’ Bayar replied, still looking around him in a kind of awe.

‘I hope so. I want him to send his best, general. At the rate I’ve been going, I’ll be an old man by the time I reach his capital. Let them come and we will add rich new lands to the khanate.’

For a moment, he felt a pang that everything he won, everything he accomplished, would be for the glory of Mongke in Karakorum, but he stifled the thought. Mongke had been generous: with men, with his generals, with cannon and even with lands. Kublai realised he no longer missed the life of a scholar in Karakorum. Mongke had set out to change him and in one important way he had been successful. Kublai could not go back to the man he had been. He had even grown used to the scale armour. He found he looked forward to the battles to come, the tests and trials that he would face with the elite tumans of his nation. Kublai clapped Bayar on the shoulder.

‘A mining town will have something to drink, I am certain. We had better move quickly before the men run it dry.’

‘I put guards on the inns in town, first thing,’ Bayar said.

Kublai grinned at him. ‘Of course you did. Very well, show me.’

Both men turned at the sound of running footsteps. Kublai felt his mouth go dry at the sight of one of his scouts, sweat-stained and dusty. The man was close to collapse and he leaned on one of the tables, barely noticing the wealth it held as he gasped out his message.

‘There is a Sung army, my lord, force-marching in this direction.’ He went white for a moment as if he might vomit. Kublai gripped him by the shoulder.

‘How far away?’ he demanded.

The scout took gulping breaths, his body shuddering under Kublai’s touch.

‘Maybe fifty miles, maybe less. I did it in one long reach.’

‘How many?’

‘More than the tumans. I don’t know for certain. I caught sight of them and then rode clear as fast as I could.’ His eyes looked for approval, worried that he should have stayed longer.

‘You did well,’ Kublai assured him. ‘Get yourself food and find a place on a cart to sleep. We won’t be staying here.’ He turned to Bayar, all the lightness gone from his manner. ‘It won’t stop now, general. I’d hoped for a little more time, but we have stuck a hand into the wasp nest and they will throw everything they have at us, every army they can raise and march.’

‘We’ll destroy them,’ Bayar said.

Kublai nodded, but his eyes were shadowed. ‘We have to win every battle. They only have to win one.’

‘I’ve known worse situations,’ Bayar said with a shrug.

Kublai blinked at him and then laughed, some of the tension going out of him.

‘We have entered the heartland of the Sung, Bayar. You have not known worse situations.’

‘Our people beat the Chin emperor,’ Bayar replied, unabashed. ‘City by city, army by army. Have faith in your men, my lord. We will not let you down.’

For a moment, Kublai was unable to speak. He had led the tumans at first as an intellectual exercise, enjoying the challenge of manoeuvres and tactics, of finding ways to confound his enemies. Bayar’s words made him think it all through again. He would ask them to die for him, for his family. It was madness of a sort that they would follow him at all. Kublai found himself touched by what he saw in the faces of Bayar and the scout. He stopped himself from explaining, remembering almost too late that he had to keep a distance. He had not yet managed to codify the skill of leading men. It happened around him like a strange form of alchemy. It was more than rank or discipline, more than the structure of the army his family had built, more even than the legend of his grandfather. Some of them followed for those things, or just because they enjoyed the life of the tumans. Others, the best of them, would risk it all for Kublai because they knew him. They had measured him and gave their lives freely into his hands. For once, Kublai was unable to express what it meant to him and he chose refuge in gruff orders.

‘Get the silver packed up, general. I will send scouts back to the camp to let them know they are on their own for a while longer. Have your men find a good place for us to stand and face these Sung. We will walk over them all.’

Bayar grinned, seeing the fire kindle in Kublai once again.

Chabi was outside her ger as Kublai came riding in. She put down the goatskins she had been cutting and sewing when she saw him. Zhenjin spotted his father at the same moment and darted to the wall of the ger, where he had placed a stool. As Kublai reined in and dismounted, his son climbed onto the felt roof and clung precariously over the door. All around them, women were gathering for news. They would not interrupt the khan’s brother, but Chabi knew they would press in with questions the moment he left.

‘Another army on the way,’ Kublai said. He was panting slightly as she handed him a skin of airag and he took a long pull at it. ‘I need to change clothes and it’s time to break camp.’

‘There’s a threat to us?’ Chabi asked, trying to remain calm. Kublai shook his head.

‘Not so far, but if the tumans have to move fast, I don’t want to leave you vulnerable. I must keep the families in range.’

Chabi looked up as a ger suddenly collapsed nearby, going from a home to spars and felt rolls in an instant. Kublai had not come in alone and she could hear shouts all over the camp as it went from peaceful stillness to rapid dismantling. Everything was designed to be moved quickly and she had servants for the task. She saw two of them coming with reins and harness over their shoulders for the ox-cart.

‘Come down, Zhenjin,’ Kublai called to his son. He knew the boy had been waiting to jump on him as he passed, but there was no time for games. Zhenjin scowled at him, but clambered down.

‘You look worried,’ Chabi said softly.

Kublai shrugged and smiled at her.

‘We have better men, but the numbers, Chabi! If the Sung lords band together, they can put an army in the field that makes mine look like a raiding group.’

‘They don’t have anyone like you,’ she said. He nodded.

‘There is that,’ he replied with a smile. ‘I am an unusual man.’

Chabi could sense his distraction as Kublai’s gaze flickered around the camp, taking in every detail.

‘You don’t have to worry about us,’ she said.

Kublai turned slowly, trying to listen to his wife at the same time as solving some other problem and failing at both.

‘Hmm?’

‘We are not defenceless, Kublai. There are, what, three hundred thousand in the camp? It’s a city, Kublai, and everyone is armed.’ She drew a long blade from her belt. ‘Including me. There must be enough maimed men to make a few tumans more. Many of them can still ride or use a bow.’

Kublai dragged his attention back to his wife. He saw she was trying to ease his mind and stifled his irritable impulse to describe the savage terror of an attack on a camp. It would do no good to make her afraid. Thousands of lives rested on his ability to protect them. Words and promises meant nothing in the face of such a burden. In the end, he just nodded and she seemed relieved.

‘There’s cold mutton and some spring onions in the pot. I’ll cut you some slices. I have flatbread you can use to wrap it and eat it as you go.’

‘And garlic,’ he said.

‘I’ll get it, while you talk to your son. He’s been waiting to jump on you for three days. A man can’t ride past the ger without him scampering up the roof to be ready.’

Kublai sighed.

‘Zhenjin! Come out here.’

The boy reappeared, still sulking. Kublai gestured at the ger.

‘Go on then, I don’t have long.’

Chabi snorted with laughter as Zhenjin’s face lit up. The boy scrambled up the felt wall and once again waited like a spider above the door.

‘I thought I could see my son,’ Kublai said. ‘Perhaps he is inside.’ He ducked to enter and Zhenjin leapt at him, his weight sending Kublai staggering backwards as Kublai roared in mock surprise. After a moment, he let the boy down to the ground.

‘That’s enough now. Help your mother and the servants. We’re moving camp.’

‘Can I come with you?’ Zhenjin asked.

‘Not this time. When you’re older, I promise.’

‘I’m older now.’

‘That’s true, but older still.’

Zhenjin began to complain in a high voice as Chabi came out with two wrapped packages of food. In the time since his arrival, hundreds of gers had come down and been loaded onto carts, as far as they could see in any direction.

‘You will beat them all, Kublai. I know it. You will show your brother he was right to send you against the Sung.’ She reached up and kissed her husband on the neck.

Kublai watched in strained silence as his tumans formed up ahead of him. The Sung would seek him out wherever he chose to stand, so he picked a grassy plain overlooked by a small hill and watched the gleaming regiments crawl across the land towards his men. Every one of his warriors knew he was there, the hand that held a sword over them. They would fight well in his sight.

The sun was shining, but his mood remained sour. He could not fathom the enemy tactics. His scouts reported more than one army heading towards his main camp, but they did not join together. Each one came in as if they were not part of a greater nation. He thanked the sky father for it, even as he cursed the numbers they could bring against him.

Kublai nodded to a boy seated on a camel near him, watching as the lad raised a long brass horn to his lips and blew a wailing note. It was answered by Bayar and Uriang-Khadai, taking four tumans each and advancing on the enemy squares. Twenty thousand men remained behind as the reserve, mounted and patient as they strained their eyes into the distance. Kublai took a stone from his pocket and rubbed his thumb along the curved lines. Yao Shu had said it would relax him.

His generals split up to ride along the flanks of the Sung force, finding the perfect distance just outside the range of crossbows. As Kublai watched, a sudden blur of shafts crossed the open air between the forces, like a cloud shadow moving across the open land.

The first arrows were followed by crushing volleys, loosed every six or eight heartbeats. The Sung foot soldiers compressed as their flanks jerked inwards. The pace slowed and they left a trail of screaming men and the dead as they marched. They could not answer the tumans and Kublai clenched his fists as he saw sword regiments try to push through the terrible thorns that came punching into their shields and armour. Uriang-Khadai drew back as they charged, but the arrow-storm didn’t falter and the rush of swordsmen collapsed. The orlok’s tumans came back into a straight firing line.

Kublai waited, his heart thumping. The last few shafts soared into the Chin and almost before the final one had landed, they were kicking their mounts into a gallop. Lances came down, but the Sung lowered their pikes and jammed the butts into the ground. The tumans hit like closing jaws, mirrored in Bayar’s men on the other flank. Kublai shook his head at the thought of men and horses running onto the vicious metal weapons, but there seemed to be no hesitation. They were close enough by then for him to see bright red slashes as horses and men were impaled.

‘Send in the reserve,’ he said clearly.

The drummer boy was staring at the battle with his mouth open and Kublai had to repeat the order before he raised his horn once again. Two more tumans began to trot and then canter towards the enemy. The lances worked well against the pikes bristling along the Sung front line, but Kublai had to struggle not to flinch in anticipation. He did not envy his men at that moment.

From the small hill, he saw the Sung regiments boxed in, still held on the flanks as their forward progress was halted by the new attack. He could not see as far as their rear, but he hoped some of them would be streaming away in terror.

He looked round at the sound of horses and his eyes widened. Some forty horsemen came galloping out of the woods at the bottom of the hill. He could see the heads of the animals lunging as they thundered up the gentle rise.

His guards were not idle. Before Kublai could give the order, all twenty of them were racing to meet the threat, galloping down the slope with bows bending as they went. Kublai jerked around in the saddle, looking for other threats. The battle went on ahead of him, barely eight hundred paces from his position, but he was suddenly alone with the drummer boy, who had gone as white as new felt. Kublai drew his sword, furious with himself for not scouting the copse. Humiliation burned in him as he thought of his confidence that morning, picking the best spot to secure a good view. Some Sung officer had guessed where he would stand and hidden men to wait for the right moment. Kublai flushed to have been out-thought in such a way. He saw the first arrows soar, many of them caught on shields by the Sung horsemen. Even so, three of the horses fell in a spasm of kicking hooves, whinnying in pain.

The Mongol guards heaved back again, sending more of the Sung crashing down. They had left it late and barely had time to throw down the bows and draw swords before they were together, their speed combining so that men and animals crunched and fell stunned or dead. Kublai could hear high screams and fresh sweat broke out on him. He glanced at the battle still going on, but there was no signal to call reinforcements to his own position.

Barely a hundred paces along the slope, his guards were fighting like maniacs to stop the enemy getting closer. Kublai swallowed, feeling a heaviness in his limbs. It was fear, he realised. The Sung commander would have sent the best he had for such a task. They did not expect to live through it, but they would reach him.

His guards were swordsmen and archers from boyhood and they did not fall easily. Kublai stared as five of the enemy broke around his men and kicked their mounts on. Their swords were bloody and they yelled at the sight of him on his horse, with just one camel boy.

One of the guards threw his sword with vicious strength. It plunged into a Sung back, making the man cry out in agony. He fell with his arms tight in the reins, bringing the mount down with him. Kublai saw the guard cut down, suddenly defenceless. He had given his life by the act, but it would not be enough. Four Sung horsemen reached the crest and accelerated, holding their blades ready for the strike that would take his head. Kublai watched them, terror making him numb. He could not run. Some part of him knew his best chance of survival was to gallop away from them, but he would never recover from it. Cowardice was the least forgivable sin and if he ran he knew he would never command tumans again.

Some of his guards were still struggling with the enemy below, but two of them had seen the threat to him and cut their way free. Kublai saw them surging up the hill after the four enemy soldiers. He could feel every heartbeat as his mind worked clearly, assessing the chances. He shook his head, seeing his own death in the men who were coming for him. He raised his sword and the fear suddenly vanished, leaving him almost dizzy. He breathed again, aware only then that he had been holding it. It was almost a moment of joy to have the crippling terror leave him. He could move and the sound of the battle came back to him as his senses woke.

The four horsemen bore down on him and the drummer boy suddenly moved, yelling and digging in his heels. The camel lurched forward with a groaning bray of sound, directly into the path of the enemy. With a thump, the man in the lead struck the shaggy side of the animal and went flying over the boy. His horse smashed the camel to its knees and it bellowed, stretching its neck as it fell.

The men on Kublai’s left yanked their reins savagely, cursing as they missed the chance to strike. Kublai faced only one and his arm moved without thought to meet the blade he saw as a grey blur coming at his face. There was a clang as the man galloped past and Kublai felt the shock of it ripple up into his shoulder. Whoever the man was, he kept control of his snorting mount, reining in fast and turning to hack down in a wild blow. Kublai met it calmly. He was strong and his senses were all burning, giving him speed. It was not a conscious decision to counter, but his body moved from thousands of hours of training. As soon as the blades touched, he knew instinctively to slide the blade into a straight lunge. The Sung soldier jerked as the tip of Kublai’s blade sank into his throat and snagged on the cartilage. Blood sprayed and Kublai blinked through the sting.

The camel lurched to its feet with an unearthly noise, kicking out in panic and making Kublai’s horse skitter sideways. Another of the riders came in as the first slumped and slid away. Kublai felt his confidence swell as he turned a lunge to the side and reached out as Yao Shu had once taught him, half-opening his sword hand to grab the man’s sleeve and yank him off balance.

His horse moved at the wrong moment then, walking backwards as Kublai pulled. Instead of landing a punch on the exposed chin as the soldier’s head came forward, Kublai could only hang on and pull the man free of his saddle. He saw the man’s foot caught in a stirrup and as Kublai let go, the leg twisted and snapped. The soldier screamed and flailed as he hung helplessly with his head close to the ground, every movement wrenching the splintered bone.

Kublai grunted in pain as something striped his arm and he turned to see the one who had struck the camel’s shaggy side raising his sword for another blow. The man’s face was a bloody mess from hitting the ground and he staggered as he drew back. Kublai took his feet from the stirrups and kicked out, hitting the man in the jaw. As he moved, he felt a thump across his chest armour as someone strained to reach him. Kublai reeled in the saddle, swinging his sword desperately. He had a glimpse of his attacker snatched away as someone on the ground dragged him down and Kublai stared as one of his guards smashed savagely with his boots, over and over until the man’s ribs gave way.

Panting as if he had run for miles, Kublai met the eyes of the guard. The man nodded to him, not as a warrior to his officer, but as two men who had just survived a fight. Kublai blew air out slowly, looking around him. The Sung were all dead, but just four of his guards were still on their feet. Three of them stalked among the bodies down the hill, bringing their swords down in sharp blows at the slightest movement of wounded men. They were still raging and Kublai was alone with the last one standing, the man who had saved him.

The camel bellowed again in pain and Kublai saw its leg was broken, hanging as if only stretching skin kept it attached. His mind cleared and he looked around for the drummer boy who had thrown himself at the attackers. Kublai closed his eyes for a moment as he saw a sprawled figure on the ground. He dismounted, growling as his bruises made themselves known. The cut on his arm would have to be stitched. He could feel something dripping from his fingers and he raised his hand in surprise to look. There should have been more pain to produce so much bright red blood.

The boy had been knocked senseless, a large lump visible on his forehead. Kublai opened one of his eyes with a rough thumb and saw it twitch at the light. He was about to speak when he froze and remembered the battle he was meant to be commanding. His legs and back protested as he stood again. He did not try to mount, instead shading his eyes as he stared out.

The Sung had broken. Thousands of them stood in dejected silence, holding their hands up to show they had laid down their weapons. Many of them had already been bound and knelt with their head down in exhaustion. In the distance, a few were racing away from the bloody field, hunted down in twos or threes by Mongol warriors. Kublai let go of his held breath, desperately relieved. The boy groaned and Kublai went back to him as he stirred.

‘What is your name?’ Kublai asked. He should have known it, but his mind felt thick and slow.

‘Beran, my lord,’ the boy replied, his voice weak. One of his eyes was red as blood seeped into it, but he would live.

‘Your bravery saved me. I will not forget it. When you are old enough, come to me and I will give you command of a hundred men.’

The boy blinked through his pain and a smile began to spread before he turned to one side and vomited onto the grass.

Kublai helped him up and watched as Beran staggered to the camel, the boy’s swollen face distraught at what he saw.

‘I will find you another mount, lad. That one is finished.’

The boy winced, though he understood. For a moment, Kublai met the gaze of the guard standing near him, the man’s expression somehow out of place. He too had been battered in the fight and Kublai could hardly find words to express his thanks. He wanted to reward him, but at the same time, the man had done nothing more than his duty.

‘Come and find me tonight, in my ger,’ Kublai said. ‘I think I have a sword you’ll like. Something to remember our little fight on the hill.’

The guard grinned at him, revealing a bloody mouth and more than one missing tooth.

‘Thank you, my lord. With your permission, I’d like to take my son back to his mother. She’ll be worrying.’

Kublai nodded stiffly, his mouth slightly open in surprise as the guard tapped the staggering drummer boy on the shoulder and walked him away down the hill. He could not help wonder if the man would have fought with such berserk energy if he had not seen his son knocked down, but it did not matter. Alone, Kublai sagged against the flank of his horse. He had survived. His hands began to shake and he held them up, seeing the sword calluses that ridged each finger of his bloody right hand. They were no longer ink-stained. For the first time, Kublai felt truly comfortable in the armour that had certainly saved his life. He began to laugh as he leaned against his mount, reaching out to rub its muzzle and leaving a bright smear of blood that the animal licked away.