Empire of Silver

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Tsubodai moved slowly west over the following spring and summer. Leaving the Russian principates behind, he reached the limits of his maps. His scouts spread out ahead of the tumans, ranging in unknown territory for months at a time as they sketched valleys and towns and lakes, putting together a picture of the land that lay before him. Those who could read and write made notes on the strength of armies they encountered, or the moving columns of refugees fleeing before them. Those who could not write bound sticks in bundles of ten, with each ten representing a thousand. It was a rough system, but Tsubodai was content to move in summer and fight each winter, playing to the strengths of his people. The lords and nobles of these new lands were made weak by such an approach to war. As yet, they had shown him nothing that could threaten his horse warriors.

Tsubodai assumed he would eventually face armies the equal of those wielded by the chin emperor. At some point, the foreign princes would join forces against the sweep west. He heard rumours of armies like clouds of locusts, but he did not know if it was exaggeration. If the foreign lords did not join together, they would be taken one by one and he would not stop, would not ever stop, until he saw the sea.

He rode to the front of a column of the closest two tumans, checking on the supplies Mongke had promised to send after a lucky find. Just keeping so many in the field forced them to move constantly. The horses needed vast plains of sweet grass and the sheer number of ragged foot soldiers was becoming a greater problem every day. They served a purpose when used ruthlessly. Tsubodai's tumans sent them in first, forcing the enemy to use all their bolts and arrows before they met the main Mongol forces. In that way, they were valuable enough, but anything that lived or moved had to be shot to feed the men – not just herds of cattle and sheep, but foxes, deer, wolves, hares and wild birds, anything they could find. They scoured the land, leaving almost nothing alive behind them. He thought the destruction of villages was something like a mercy. Better a quick death than being left to starve, without grain or meat for the winter to come. Time and again, Tsubodai's tumans had found abandoned villages, places filled with ghosts from years back, when plague or starvation had forced the people to leave. It was no wonder they gathered in great cities. In such places, they could pretend they were safe and find comfort in numbers and high walls. They did not yet know how weak those walls were for his tumans. He had brought down Yenking, with the Chin emperor inside it. Nothing he had seen in the west could match that stone city.

Tsubodai firmed his jaw as he saw Batu in the company of Guyuk yet again. Mongke and Baidur were a hundred miles away, or he thought he might have found them there as well. The four princes had become friends, which could have been useful enough, if Batu had not been the one holding them together. Perhaps because he was the oldest, or because Guyuk followed his lead, Batu seemed to set the tone for the others. He made a great show of respect whenever Tsubodai spoke to him, but always there was the mocking half-smile. It was never so obvious that the orlok could react, but still, it was there. He felt it like a thorn in his back, too far to reach and pluck out.

Tsubodai reined in as he reached the head of the column. Behind him, Batu's tuman rode alongside Guyuk's. There was none of the usual rough competition between those warriors, as if they took their manner from the generals at the head. Tsubodai grunted at the clean lines. He could not fault them, but it rankled to have Guyuk and Batu talking the day away as if they were riding to a marriage feast and not through hostile territory.

Tsubodai was hot and irritable. He had not eaten that day and he had ridden the best part of twenty miles since dawn, checking on the columns as they clawed their way across the earth. He stifled his temper as Batu bowed in the saddle to him.

'Do you have new orders, orlok?' Batu called.

Guyuk looked up as well and Tsubodai brought his horse in closer, matching their pace. He did not bother to answer the pointless question.

'Has the beef herd reached you from Mongke yet?' Tsubodai said. He knew it had, but he needed to broach the subject. Guyuk nodded immediately.

'Just before dawn. Two hundred head and large. We've slaughtered twenty bulls and the rest are in the herds behind.'

'Send sixty more to Kachiun. He has none,' Tsubodai said, curt and stiff with them. He did not like even the appearance of asking for a favour.

'Perhaps because Kachiun sits on a cart, instead of riding out and finding meat,' Batu muttered.

Guyuk almost choked as he tried to smother laughter. Tsubodai stared them both down coldly. If it was not enough to have the khan's own son act the fool, Batu's insolence was something he would have to face and crush eventually. He hoped Batu would step over the line before it became a killing matter. He was young and headstrong. He would make a mistake, Tsubodai was sure.

A scout raced in to report and Tsubodai turned automatically, only to find the man heading across him towards Batu. He took a slow breath as the scout saw him and started, bowing deeply in the saddle.

'The village by the river is coming up, general,' he said to Batu. 'You asked to be told when we were in range.'

'And the river itself?' Batu asked. He knew Tsubodai had scouted it for fords and bridges days before. The half-smile was playing over his mouth again, knowing Tsubodai could hear every word.

'Two shallow fords in our path, general. The better one is to the north.'

'Very well. That's the one we'll take. Show my bondsmen where it is, then lead us in.'

'Yes, my lord,' the scout replied. He bowed to Batu, then Tsubodai, before kicking in his heels and trotting along the line of moving warriors.

'Was there anything else, orlok?' Batu asked innocently. 'I have things in hand here.'

'Camp as soon as you are over the river, then both of you come and see me at sunset.'

He saw them look at each other and then away before they could laugh. Tsubodai gritted his teeth and left them. He had news of two cities beyond the mountains, cities his scouts said were flooded with refugees running from the Mongol tumans. Yet instead of preparing a campaign against Buda and Pest, he was dealing with generals acting like children. He wondered if he could take Guyuk aside and shame the young man into something resembling duty or dignity. He nodded to himself as he rode. Ever since his charmed strike to the heart of a Russian army, Batu had eaten away at the orlok's authority. If it went on, it would cost lives, perhaps see them all destroyed. It was not too early to grab the problem by the throat, or even the man. There was no place on the march for challenges to his authority, even from the sons and grandsons of khans. The generals rode to Tsubodai's ger as the sun set. The tumans slept around them, an ocean of pale gers as far as the eye could see. Huddled in their midst was a darker mass of fighting men. The vast majority were Russian, either those who had survived the destruction of their towns and cities or a much smaller number who had come for spoils, tracking the army across the valleys and offering their weapons and strength. Most of those were made officers of the rest, as ones who knew one end of a sword from the other. Their equipment was whatever they could scavenge and the best food went to the tumans, so that they were lean and always hungry.

Pavel was one of them, thin as a wild wolf and always bruised or tired from the training. He did not understand half of what he was made to do, but he did it. He ran in the mornings, loping along behind the tumans for ten miles at a time. He had lost his rusty sword in the only battle of his life and come just a hair's breadth from losing his life with it. The blow that had felled him had torn a flap of skin from his scalp, leaving him stunned. When he finally awoke, it was to find the stockade burning and the tumans arrayed in a vast camp. The dead lay where they had been cut down and some of the bodies had been stripped. His face was stiff with his own blood, frozen in layers from his hair to his chin. He had not dared to touch it, though it had closed his right eye in a solid mass.

Pavel might have slunk away then, if it had not been for the man with the rotting teeth, who had walked past him carrying a skin of some bitter fluid. It had made Pavel vomit, but the man only laughed in that unpleasant way of his and said his name was Alexi and that they had stood together. It was Alexi who had walked him through the camp where Mongol warriors lay sprawled and drunken, half of them asleep. He had taken Pavel to a man so badly scarred it made Pavel flinch.

'Polan blood,' Alexi had said. 'Just a farm boy, but he didn't run.'

The scarred man had grunted, then spoken in Russian and told him they could use another sword. Pavel had held up empty hands. He had no idea where his blade had gone by then and the world still swam around him. He remembered the man saying his skull was probably cracked before he passed out.

His new life was hard. Food was scarce, though he had been given a new sword without the flaws and rust of the last one. He ran with the tumans and endured, until the air in his lungs blew hot enough to burn and his heart pounded as if it would burst. He tried not to think of the farm he had left with his mother and grandfather. They would be tending the smallholding, watching the crops grow ready for harvest. He would not be there to help them that year.

Pavel was still awake when he saw three men ride towards the large ger at the centre of the camp. He knew the tall one with the cruel face was Batu, a grandson of Genghis. Pavel learned all the names he could. It was the only way he could draw threads from the new chaos of his life. He did not know the one who grinned foolishly as Batu made some comment. Pavel fingered his sword hilt in the darkness, wishing he had the strength to stride over to them and cut them down. He had not seen the duke killed, though the other men shook their heads and looked away when he asked about it. They did not seem to care as he did.

Unseen, Pavel wandered closer to the ger. He knew the name of their leader, though it was hard to make his mouth say the sound. Tsubodai, they had called him, the man responsible for burning Moscow. Pavel craned for a glimpse of him, but as the three generals dismounted, their horses blocked a view inside the ger. He sighed to himself. He could run further than he would have believed possible just a few months before. It was tempting to escape when there was no moon, though he had seen the fate of a few men who tried it. They had been brought back in pieces and the haunches of meat had been thrown to the others, as an insult. He had not joined in, but he thought his starving companions had eaten the bloody lumps. Hunger made light of squeamish stomachs.

He could smell tea and roasting lamb on the breeze and his mouth filled with saliva. He had been hungry since leaving the farm, but there would be nothing until the morning and only then after he had run and loaded carts until his arms and shoulders burned. He rubbed a spot on his back at the thought, feeling the new muscle there. He wasn't large, just hard from work. Silently, in the darkness, he told himself he might run at the next new moon. If they caught him, at least he would have tried, but they'd have to ride fast and hard to do it. Batu ducked his head to enter the ger, straightening up as he greeted those inside. He had brought Guyuk and Baidur with him and he was pleased to see Mongke already there. Batu nodded to him, but Mongke merely glanced over and then went back to filling his mouth with hot mutton. Batu reminded himself that Mongke too had lost a father. It was a way in, perhaps, to share that grief. The fact that he felt only hatred for his own father was no obstacle if he handled the younger man carefully. They were all princes of the nation, with blood ties to Genghis that Tsubodai could never claim. Batu enjoyed the idea, the sense of identity it gave him to know he was part of that group. No, that they were his group, to lead. He was the eldest of them, though Mongke had the build and dour manner of an experienced man, heavy with muscle. He would be the hardest to influence, Batu thought. Guyuk and Baidur were just boys in comparison, young and enthusiastic about everything. It was easy to imagine ruling an empire with them.

Before he sat down, he acknowledged Kachiun, Jebe and Chulgetei, bowing briefly. More old men. He noticed Kachiun's thigh was hugely swollen, far worse than before. The general sat on a low pallet with the distended leg stretched out before him. A quick glance at Kachiun's face showed tired eyes and skin a deep yellow from sickness. Batu thought his great-uncle would not survive the winter to come, but that was the way of things. The old died to give way to the young. He did not let it trouble him.

Tsubodai was watching, his eyes cold as he waited for Batu to speak first. Batu made a point of smiling widely, his thoughts making him mellow.

'It is a fine night, orlok,' he said. 'My men say this is the best grassland they have seen since home. The horses have put on a layer of fat you wouldn't believe.'

'Sit, Batu. You are welcome here,' Tsubodai replied curtly. 'Guyuk, Baidur, there is tea in the kettle. There are no servants tonight, so pour your own.'

The two younger men set to the task, with clinking and chuckles as they poured boiling tea from a huge iron urn on the stove at the centre of the ger, under the smoke hole. Tsubodai watched as Baidur handed Batu a cup of the steaming salt liquid. It was natural enough, but such small things were always to do with power. In just a short time, it seemed Batu had found himself another follower. Tsubodai might have admired Batu's gift for leadership, if it had not interfered with his own control of the army. His father Jochi had had the same talent. Tsubodai had heard the name Batu had given the army. It would have been hard not to hear it. Over the years of campaign, the 'Golden Horde' had almost passed into common use, as such things will. Half the men seemed to think Batu was in overall command and he did nothing to dispel their belief. Tsubodai clenched his jaw at the thought.

Ogedai had honoured Jochi's bastard with titles and authority, making a point of it, in the face of Tsubodai's objections. In fact, Batu had not disgraced himself, far from it. His tuman was well organised, his officers carefully chosen. Some men could inspire loyalty and others could only demand it. It was strangely galling to see Batu was one of the first kind. Such men were always dangerous. The difficulty lay in handling them, directing their energies, if it was not already too late.

'The Magyars of Hungary are horsemen,' Tsubodai began, his voice deliberately low so that they had to lean in to listen. 'They have vast herds and they use the central plains much as we do. They are not nomads, however. They have built two cities on the banks of the river Danube. Pest and Buda are the names. Neither is well defended, though Buda rests on hills. Pest stands on a plain.'

He paused for questions.

'Defences?' Batu said immediately. 'Walls? Weapons? Supply lines?'

'Pest has no walls. The scouts report a stone palace on one of the hills by Buda, perhaps the residence of their king. His name…'

'Is not important,' Batu went on. 'It does not sound like such a task to take these cities. Why even wait for winter?'

'His name is Bela the fourth,' Tsubodai replied, his eyes dark with anger. 'We will wait for winter because the river can be crossed when it freezes. As with Moscow, it gives us a road between the cities, right into their heart.'

Guyuk sensed the tension between the two men and put a hand on Batu's arm. He shook it off irritably.

'My tuman is ready to ride today, orlok,' Batu continued. 'My scouts tell me the mountains to the west are passable before winter. We could be in these cities before the first snow. You are the one who said speed was important, or is it caution that is important now?'

'Keep your arrogance in your mouth, lad,' Jebe snapped suddenly.

Batu's gaze flickered over the older man. Jebe had ridden with Genghis through the Afghan hills. He was dark and lean, his face seamed with years and experience. Batu snorted in contempt.

'There is no need to leave the major targets to winter, general, as I'm sure the orlok knows. Some of us would like to see an end to the conquests before we are old men. For others, of course, it is already too late for that.'

Jebe surged to his feet, but Tsubodai raised a hand across him and he did not move from the spot. Batu chuckled.

'I have carried out all of Tsubodai's orders,' he said. He looked around as he spoke, deliberately including the princes. 'I have taken cities and towns because the great strategist said "Go here. Go there." I have not questioned a single command.' He paused and the ger was very still. No one else would speak if Tsubodai did not and he remained silent. Batu shrugged as if it was nothing and went on.

'Yet I do not forget that the khan himself raised me, not the orlok. I am the khan's man first, as are we all. More than that, I am of the blood, in the line of Genghis, as are Guyuk, Baidur and Mongke. It is not enough to follow blindly and hope that it is right. We are the ones who lead, who question the orders given, is that not right, Orlok Tsubodai?'

'No,' Tsubodai said. 'It is not right. You obey orders because if you do not, you cannot expect the same from your men. You are part of the wolf, not the whole wolf. I would have thought you had learned that when you were a boy, but it is not the case. A wolf cannot have more than one head, general, or it tears itself apart.'

He took a deep breath, thinking deeply. Batu had chosen the wrong moment to assert himself, Tsubodai could feel it. The older men were shocked at his words, while the princes were nowhere near ready to overthrow Tsubodai Bahadur, not this season. With hidden satisfaction, he spoke again.

'You have displeased me, Batu. Leave us. I will have fresh orders for you in the morning.'

Batu turned to Guyuk, looking for support. He felt his stomach drop away as the khan's son would not meet his eyes. Batu winced then and nodded.

'Very well, orlok,' he said stiffly. No one spoke as he left.

In the silence, Tsubodai refilled his cup and sipped at the hot tea.

'The mountains ahead are more than just a ridge or a few peaks,' he said. 'My scouts tell me we will have to cross sixty or seventy miles of crags. My scouts have made it through, but without local men, we cannot know the major passes. I could force a few minghaans through to map the valleys, without carts or supplies beyond a few weeks. For the rest, the siege machines, the carts, the families and injured, it will be slow and difficult. We need to know where the passes are, to survive. We may have to build ramps or bridges. Even so, we have to make good speed or we will lose many when winter comes in. We cannot be in the highlands then. There is no grazing up there.'

Tsubodai looked around at the assembled generals. There was one man he needed to make strong, to separate from the rest, but it was not Batu.

'Guyuk. You will go first. Leave tomorrow with two minghaans. Take tools to cut a path, timber, anything you might need. Make a way through that will be suitable for the heavy carts. Stay in contact with scouts and guide us in.'

The play of authority over Batu had not been wasted on Guyuk. He did not hesitate.

'Your will, orlok,' he said, bowing his head. He was pleased at the responsibility, knowing that the survival of the rest depended on finding a good path. At the same time, it would be grim work and every dead end or false opening would be his to find and mark.

'My scouts say open land lies beyond those mountains,' Tsubodai said. 'They could not see an end to it. We will force the peoples there to meet us in the field. For the khan, we will take their cities, their women and their lands. This is the great raid, the furthest strike in the history of the nation of Genghis. We will not be stopped.'

Jebe grunted in pleasure and hefted a skin of airag, throwing it to Tsubodai, who scored his throat with the liquid. The ger stank of wet wool and mutton, a sweet smell that he had known all his life. Guyuk and Baidur exchanged glances at seeing the orlok so animated, so confident. Mongke watched them all, his face unreadable. Pavel ran, as fast as he had ever run in his life. The dim lights of Mongol fires faded on the horizon behind him. He fell more than once and the third time winded him badly enough to make him limp. He had struck his head hard on something in the darkness, but the pain was nothing to what the Mongols would do if they caught him.

He was alone in the night, with neither the sound of pursuing horses, nor any companion. Many of the other men had lost their homes in the years of war. Some of them could barely remember another life, but Pavel had not lost his memory. Somewhere to the north, he hoped his grandfather and mother still tended their little farm. He would be safe once he reached them and he told himself that he would never leave again. As he ran, he imagined the other young men looking on him with envy in their eyes for the things he had seen. The village girls would see him as a hardened soldier, something different from the country boys around them. He would never tell them about the bodies heaped like straw bales, or the hot release as his bladder unclenched in fear. He would not mention those things. His sword was heavy and he knew it slowed him down, but he could not bring himself to throw it away. He would walk into the yard and his mother would surely weep to see him return from the wars. He would make it home. The sword tripped him, and as he stumbled, he let it fall and hesitated before going on. He felt much lighter without it.