The Towers of Samarcand

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

DAMASCUS, JANUARY 1401

Luke looked across the orchards and gardens that led up to the walls of Damascus and saw the shadow of death stretched over them. It was early evening and the winter sun was an orange ball poised above the mountains to the west that rose ten thousand feet before sweeping down into the Middle Sea beyond. To the east, the wastes of the Badiyat ash Sham desert spread out to a desolate horizon. The air was still and held the promise of cold to come.

The walls of Damascus looked red and strong in the evening light; not as impregnable as Constantinople’s perhaps, but robust enough to withstand the Mongol army’s siege engines. From their battlements shone the busy glint of shield and spear, and above, rising into clouds of birds, rose the three minarets of the Umayyad Mosque, noblest building in the province of Islam, matchless in grace and beauty. There flew the green flag of the Prophet.

Luke pulled his cloak tight around his shoulders and wondered if the long line of refugees waiting to enter the city would manage to do so before the gates shut for the night. There were thousands of them, mainly women and children who’d somehow escaped the inferno of Aleppo. They’d tell the story of Tamerlane’s terror far better than any of Tamerlane’s agents could.

He looked behind at his three friends. Matthew was in the centre, carrying the white flag of parley; Arcadius and Nikolas were on either side: three Varangians sworn to a monster that wanted to wash this desert with blood. Beyond them, five miles distant, was the Mongol army, stretched out between mountain and desert in a vast, hundred-mile scythe of destruction. Behind it were ruins and towers of skulls.

Luke leant forward to pat Eskalon. He placed his hand on the dragon head of his sword, enjoying the cool, scaled silver against his palm. He said his first words of the ride: ‘I can’t see it.’

There was no reply from behind, only the shuffle of harness and the snort of horses ridden hard. His friends exchanged glances and Matthew stood in his stirrups and shielded his eyes.

‘It’s out there somewhere, Luke. The patrols said at least fifty thousand.’

Nikolas rode up to Luke’s side. ‘We need to give the city a wide berth. Let’s head out into the desert.’

Luke nodded. He was in no mood to meet a sortie from the city. In fact he was in no mood to meet anyone. The numbness that he’d felt in the ruins of Aleppo had stayed with him every mile of the two hundred they’d ridden to Damascus. On the way, he’d witnessed the obliteration of Hama, Homs, Baalbek, Sidon and Beirut with a sort of dread detachment, as if the horror belonged to a world he didn’t inhabit. His eyes had seen deeds of savagery that his brain would not admit, had witnessed evil that could find no place in his matrix of experience. He’d learnt to withdraw, putting on armour, better than any Varangian mail, to survive this apocalypse. He’d taken refuge in silence.

And throughout it all, he’d clung to one truth that no amount of blood could wash away: Anna was not to marry Suleyman.

But the envoy had told him something else: that Anna believed him married to Shulen. If she thought him married, she would think him lost to her. His first impulse had been to ride west to Edirne as fast as Eskalon would take him. But he was oath-sworn to Tamerlane, as were his friends. And something deep, deep within him knew that he couldn’t ride to her until he’d done what he had to do.

Luke turned Eskalon’s head towards the desert. ‘Follow me.’

*

Half an hour later the four Varangians had arrived at the Mamluk army and were shown into the presence of Ibn Khaldun. As soon as Luke had heard that the Kadi was with the army, he’d volunteered himself for the task of parleying with a man he knew he could trust. He’d gone to Tamerlane and offered himself, not expecting to be accepted. He was.

Now the old historian was before him in a tent full of sculpted armour, sherbet and exquisite creatures who tiptoed around on bare feet. Ibn Khaldun explained: ‘They’re my bodyguard, believe it or not, and it’s their armour around the walls. I’ve never seen them in battle so I don’t know how safe I should feel.’ The old man had risen from a furred divan and placed his hand on his heart. He bowed. ‘May the peace of Allah be upon you, Luke.’ He looked around. ‘And no less upon the rest of you.’ He gestured to one of the creatures. ‘I never got the chance to see you fight in Tabriz. Would one of you like to wrestle now and we can finish this business without further bloodshed?’

Luke produced a smile, his first in a month. ‘Ibn Khaldun, we’re here to parley, not wrestle your bodyguard.’ He heard a sigh of disappointment from behind him: Nikolas. ‘How big is your army?’

‘As the sands of the desert. Numberless.’ The old man paused while he sat again. ‘Shall we say sixty thousand? With cannon.’

‘So less than half Temur’s.’

The historian arranged the folds of his tunic that swept to the floor in patterned silk. ‘If you say so. But you’re forgetting Bayezid.’

Luke shook his head. ‘Not Bayezid but Mehmed. And he’s stopped at the border.’

The Kadi’s face remained composed. ‘So why are you here? Temur seems to have the advantage. Please sit.’

Four of the bodyguard had appeared with folding chairs. Luke was the first to sit. He leant forward. ‘Ibn Khaldun, I am here to prevent further massacre, if I can. I’ve seen too much these past weeks. I’m tired of blood.’

‘But your master never tires of it,’ said the Kadi. ‘It’s his elixir. It keeps him strong, so they say.’

‘His army is tired. His generals tell him to rest in the mountains of Lebanon. He has no cannon and you have strong walls. He is persuadable.’

‘Because he can see that even if he wins this battle, he’ll be too weak to beat Bayezid as well.’ Ibn Khaldun drank some sherbet and patted the neat beard beneath his smile with a napkin. ‘And, of course, that’s what you want: Tamerlane strong enough to beat Bayezid.’ He put down the cup. ‘But what makes you so sure he’ll go back to Samarcand afterwards?’

‘I’m not,’ admitted Luke. ‘Sometimes I wonder whether Constantinople wouldn’t be better off with Bayezid’s army on its walls.’

‘Ah, but that wouldn’t fit with the plan,’ said Ibn Khaldun. ‘Plethon wants the Roman Empire to recapture its birthright, a re-merger of Greek and Roman culture, as it always was. But at the right time, which isn’t yet.’ The historian joined his hands beneath his chin and looked at Luke, then his friends. ‘But what do you want, all of you?’

Matthew spoke. ‘We want what Luke wants,’ he said. ‘To save our empire from Bayezid. And we want to stop this bloodshed and go home; Luke to Chios, us to Monemvasia. We’re all tired.’

Ibn Khaldun nodded. ‘Very sensible. So how do we achieve this? We have two armies either side of Damascus and some excitable generals. How do we stop them fighting?’

Luke said: ‘With money. One million dinars and he’ll turn round and go away.’

Ibn Khaldun looked surprised. ‘Really? And why would we believe him?’

‘Because Temur may be unpredictable but he’s not stupid. You’ve said it yourself: he doesn’t want to be weakened with an Ottoman army behind him. ‘He paused. ‘And perhaps he thinks Egypt too big a prize just now.’

‘Where will he go to rest?’

‘To Lebanon.’

‘And then?’

‘To Bayezid. He’ll have been persuaded by then.’

Ibn Khaldun was silent for a long time then, seemingly absorbed by the patterns on the sleeves joined in his lap. ‘One million dinars is a lot of money.’

‘Not for Damascus. It’s one of the richest cities on earth. You can find it.’

The old man nodded. Then he rose and clapped his hands. Two of the bodyguard appeared, this time in armour. ‘These ladies will escort you out of our camp. Tell Tamerlane that he will have his money by sundown tomorrow.’

‘And how will it be brought to him?’

‘I will bring it myself. I will go into the city.’

*

The Varangians’ ride back was shorter than the ride out because Tamerlane had moved his army forward into the orchards around the city walls, well out of arrow-range. It had been done, Luke supposed, to concentrate the minds of those collecting the ransom.

The army was a fearsome sight. In the fading light, it seemed that the entire landscape was made up of Mongol horsemen standing stirrup to stirrup. At their centre were the huge hulks of the elephants with towers on their backs and giant scimitars on every tusk. As Luke rode closer, he could see that every Mongol had his four spare mounts tied by his side so that the army seemed, in this light, even bigger than it was. This was a familiar Tamerlane ruse. On the approach to Aleppo, Tamerlane had ordered brooms tied to the horses’ tails so that the dust cloud seen from the city would stretch across every part of the horizon.

In front of the army sat Tamerlane with his sons and grandsons beneath the various flags and skulls that told of God and superstition. A shaman was mounted to the rear. Luke and his companions rode over to Tamerlane, dismounted and prostrated themselves in the sand.

‘What did they say?’

Luke looked up. Tamerlane was mounted next to Mohammed Sultan with Shulen on his other side patting a pretty palfrey that looked out of place in this army. She smiled at him.

‘They will pay you one million dinars by this time tomorrow,’ said Luke. ‘It will be brought out to you by the Kadi himself. He has gone into the city to collect it.’

Tamerlane grunted. He had his eagle on the arm that still bore the scars from its talons. He tickled the top of its head with his gloved finger.

‘That is a pity. They are cowards.’

Mohammed Sultan coughed. ‘Father, it is a fabulous sum. Enough to clad the Bibi Khanum’s dome in gold. We can rest for the winter, then come back later in the year.’

Tamerlane nodded slowly. He took a lump of offal from the pocket of his deel and fed it to the bird. He grunted again. ‘Very well. Turn the army around.’

*

Tamerlane had retired his army partly because he’d apparently accepted the Mamluk agreement and partly because he didn’t want the ruse of the riderless horses to be seen by the light of day. The citizens of Damascus saw the manoeuvre very differently.

Ibn Khaldun had entered Damascus to find its people more belligerent than he’d hoped. He’d ridden straight to the citadel to meet the governor, a man of ninety who had none of the wisdom of age. With him were the leaders of the city’s garrison, merchants and clergy. The imams had just arrived from the Umayyad Mosque where they’d been seeking the guidance of Allah. The words ‘Ain Jalut’ were, in Ibn Khaldun’s opinion, on too many lips.

‘One million dinars!’ said a fat merchant, trembling with outrage. ‘It’s an extortionate sum.’

‘Extortion is what Temur does,’ said the historian calmly. ‘The alternative is worse.’

‘But we have the sultan’s army behind us,’ said the governor, ‘and Bayezid’s coming. We just have to wait.’

Ibn Khaldun shook his head. ‘Bayezid has sent only half his army with his second son who is currently sitting on the border and doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to cross it. I expect Tamerlane has made a separate agreement.’

It was late evening and they were standing in a room high in the citadel tower. Through opposite windows they could see the shapes of two armies, one much larger than the other. The sun had set and soon it would be dark. A slave had just entered with a taper to light the torches on the walls.

‘Don’t light them,’ said Ibn Khaldun to the man. ‘These gentlemen need to see the armies outside.’

‘We have our own garrison as well,’ said a general. ‘Twenty thousand at least.’ He turned to the governor. ‘We should strike now while they’re tired. They’ve had nothing but forced marches since leaving Sivas.’

Someone else agreed. ‘If we let them rest the winter in Lebanon, they’ll just return stronger in the spring.’

‘But you might have a proper army sent from Cairo by then,’ said Ibn Khaldun.

‘They have no cannon and our walls are strong.’ The governor turned to the imams. ‘What does Allah tell us to do?’

A man with a voluminous beard, eyebrows and a look of religious ferocity spoke. ‘He tells us to wait. Not pay this ransom and wait.’

This was what might have happened if, at that moment, a merchant standing by one of the windows hadn’t seen something extraordinary. His back was to the meeting and he was looking out to the north.

‘The Mongol army is marching away,’ he said.

*

It was nearly dawn and Luke was walking with Shulen among the elephants, all of which were standing, for elephants sleep standing up. Their mahouts slept beside them, well within trampling distance of their chained feet. It was this mutual trust that had brought Luke here every night when he couldn’t sleep. In a world that had been lost to evil, it reminded him that humanity still existed somewhere, even if not within humans.

The mahouts, one to each elephant, had come with them from Delhi and were suffering from the winter cold of the desert. Shulen had found furred deels to give them.

‘Are they all boys?’ she whispered as she laid a deel over a sleeping mahout. ‘Why not girls?’

Luke shrugged. ‘The elephants are all male so I suppose their keepers have to be male.’

‘But why must the elephants be male? Are men so much fiercer?’

Luke knew the answer to this. ‘In battle, the she-elephant will run from the male. A mahout told me this.’

Shulen thought about this. It seemed strange. She looked down at the sleeping boy lying in the night-shadow of his colossal friend. ‘It’s a curious friendship,’ she murmured. ‘What’s that by his side?’

‘The bag? Inside is a chisel-blade and hammer. If the mahout gets hurt in battle, the elephant will run amok. Those will cut through its spinal cord and kill it instantly.’

Shulen shivered. She straightened up and the two of them walked beyond the elephants to look south towards the city. They could hear the sounds of the camp followers and baggage train still coming in. It took a long time for this army to turn around. She looked across at Luke and saw the strain on his face. He’ll come tomorrow.’

Luke shook his head. ‘He said tonight. There’s been a problem.’

Shulen put her hand on his arm. ‘A million dinars is a big sum to raise,’ she said. ‘Imagine all the camels needed to carry that amount of gold.’

‘If it was taking time, he’d have sent word.’

Shulen regarded him in silence. Luke had changed so much over the past months. Ever since the Georgia campaign, he’d been subdued, lost in his thoughts. Shulen had learnt one reason for it from Matthew.

‘She can’t leave Edirne, Luke,’ she said softly. ‘She’s a prisoner.’ She looked away. ‘She’ll still be there when you arrive.’

‘She thinks we’re married.’

‘Well, she’ll learn differently. When you arrive.’

Luke turned to her. ‘And when might that be, Shulen?’ he asked, the bitterness giving edge to his voice. ‘We thought he’d go to Bayezid but he came south instead. Who’s to say he won’t come back here in the spring when he’s rested the army? He never does what we expect.’

Shulen had probably spent more time with Tamerlane than anyone else in the army. Her salves for his joints were becoming indispensable and were required daily. When she wasn’t talking to him, she was listening to Mohammed Sultan talking to him. She was as mystified by Tamerlane as she was scared of him. ‘I think he’s had his fill of blood,’ she said quietly. ‘After the winter, he’ll fight Bayezid and then go home. It’s what Mohammed Sultan is telling him to do.’

Luke looked away. There were noises in the distance: shouts and screams. They were coming from the baggage train. Then there was an explosion. ‘Oh my God,’ he whispered.

‘What’s happening?’

Luke was shaking his head in disbelief. ‘They’re attacking us. The fools are committing suicide.’ Then he was running in the direction of his tent.

*

When he got there, he found his friends awake and putting on their armour. The Varangians’ tent was among those of the gautchin, Tamerlane’s bodyguard, who were already armed and ready to ride, each man standing next to his horse. A general, known to Luke, was preparing to mount, his foot in the stirrup. Luke ran up to him and put his hand on his shoulder. ‘Do you remember what I showed you in Georgia, Torchin? The arrowhead?’

The man nodded. He had a hideous silver face-mask angled to his helmet whose vacant eyes stared up at the sky.

‘We Varangians will be the point. You gautchin must follow us as fast as you can. Can you do that?’

The man nodded again and pulled himself into the saddle. He shouted commands to his men and lowered his mask.

Luke heard more explosions from the baggage train. He turned to Matthew. ‘We’re going to need lances.’

‘We’ve got them. They’re coming up with the horses.’ Matthew helped Luke to tighten his cuirass straps. ‘Here’s your sword.’

Then the neck of the dragon was in Luke’s hand and he felt a charge of excitement flash through him. He looked down at those ruby eyes and at Plethon’s ring on his finger. He kissed it. He heard a neigh behind him and turned to see Eskalon with a groom. He went up and took the horse’s head in his hands. ‘Today you’ll be a destrier, old friend,’ he whispered. ‘As you were born to be.’

Luke put on his helmet, mounted and took the lance. He turned to the other three, who were already on their horses. ‘Let’s go.’

There was confusion in the direction they were riding and it became worse the closer they got to the enemy. First it was men scrambling to find their horses and weapons, then it was camp followers: old men, women and children, running to escape whatever was behind them, some hideously burnt. There were more explosions and flashes from in front. Luke kicked Eskalon, shouting at those in their way. They rode on until they could see the attackers.

The first Mamluks were mounted on small, quick ponies and carried naft grenades of baked clay, which they were hurling into the wagons of the baggage train. There were flames everywhere. These jandars were dressed in tunics lined with fire-proof talc and had hoods to protect their heads. Some were swinging the grenades in slings above their heads.

‘Greek fire!’ yelled Luke over his shoulder. ‘Close up!’

Behind the grenade-throwers were thousands of Bedouin ashir auxiliaries who were firing arrows over the heads of the jandars. The ground was strewn with Mongol dead and dying: men, women, mules, dogs; it was a scene from hell.

‘Close up!’ Luke shouted again and he slowed Eskalon to allow his three friends to form up on either side of him. Arrows were landing on his helmet and shoulders. ‘Lances down!’

They hit the jandars at terrifying speed. Eskalon was twice the size of the Mamluk ponies and tore into them, butting and biting like a huge, rabid dog. The jandar soldiers had small shields strapped to their upper arms, expecting arrows. Instead they got armoured knights at full charge. They were lifted from their saddles by the impact, grenades flying from their hands to explode amongst the ashirs behind them. Now the sounds were of the screams of men.

The Varangian arrowhead drove deep into the Mamluk ranks, cutting a swathe of destruction as it went. The four were too close for the Mamluk arrows to harm them and the lances kept their swords at bay. Jandars and ashirs fell before them by the score and the momentum of the Mamluk attack was stopped, then turned. But the Varangians couldn’t keep up their charge forever. They began to slow. They threw down their lances, lifting swords and axes instead. Now they were fighting hand to hand and the Bedouin auxiliaries were all around them, closing in. Luke glanced behind him.

Where are the gautchin?

He swung the dragon sword again and again, slashing with its blade and smashing with its pommel. He had the advantage of height and he used it to cut down on his enemy from above, fighting on one side because Matthew was protecting his other. Meanwhile, Eskalon tore chunks of flesh from the Bedouin ponies on every side.

‘Where are the gautchin?’ Matthew’s voice echoed from inside his helmet. ‘Nikolas has been hurt.’

Luke glanced to where Nikolas was fighting. He had decapitated a grenade-thrower but there was blood running down his arm. It was coming from his neck. ‘We’ll have to break out!’ shouted Luke. ‘Follow me.’

He turned Eskalon back towards the Mongol camp, dropping an enemy as he did so. From in front he heard shouts and the clash of steel. The men before him were looking over their shoulders.

The gautchin.

‘They’re here!’ he yelled and thrust Eskalon into the confusion. Suddenly he felt exhilaration where there’d been exhaustion. They were winning and they would survive. He lifted his dragon sword and took the bow-arm from a man with a giant swing.

He heard a cry to his left. Nikolas was on the ground and a Mamluk was lifting his sword to strike him. Luke heaved at his rein and Eskalon turned. The man was too far away. He lifted the dragon sword and threw it. It turned once in the air before embedding itself in the man’s back. Luke kicked Eskalon’s flanks and held out his arm to his friend. ‘Get on!’

Nikolas had removed his helmet. He was grey with loss of blood. He took Luke’s hand and was pulled on to the back of the horse. Luke bent low to recover his sword. He yelled: ‘Hold on!’

Matthew and Arcadius had seen what had happened and had fallen back to protect their friends. But the Mamluks were already in retreat. The shouts of the gautchin were louder now and getting nearer and behind them would come the whole army. Then the Varangians were through the last of the fleeing Mamluks and the gautchin were charging past them with their terrifying masks and howls of the hunt. The Varangians reined in their horses. Men appeared and Nikolas was taken from Eskalon’s back and Luke watched him carried away in a cloak.

Matthew said: ‘He’ll live. It wasn’t so bad.’

Arcadius had come up beside them. ‘Shall we go back to the battle?’

Luke felt his horse move beneath him. Eskalon wanted to go back, but the battle seemed to be moving away fast, the Mamluk force in full retreat. They’d have to ride hard to catch it up. He kicked Eskalon.

The three rode towards Damascus, trampling the Mamluk dead and wounded as they went. The Mongol army was now all around them, some only half dressed, some women, all chasing the enemy in every way they could. By now, the day was almost with them and, as the walls of the city drew closer, Luke could see that its giant gates were being slowly closed. Thousands of the city’s garrison were still outside but the gates were closing.

The Mongols riding beside them could see it too and roars of anger turned to roars of joy as the prospect of new slaughter presented itself. Luke could see that some of the Mamluks had turned to fight, fitting arrows to bowstrings. Some had fallen to their knees and were tearing their hair. Others ran on.

The Varangians pulled up their horses. They’d seen the way this army did its slaughter and had no desire to get closer. They saw the Mongols fall upon the thousands stranded outside the gates and butcher them with a speed and efficiency that meant that, in less than an hour, it was all over and the vultures could begin their work. Then the Mongols swept back to their broken camp, past the three Varangians who sat in silence on their horses, looking at a field of ten thousand dead. Luke was the first to speak.

‘The fools,’ he whispered. ‘The utter, utter fools. They’ve given Tamerlane the excuse he was looking for.’

Matthew asked: ‘Is that why he pulled back, do you think?’

Luke nodded. ‘He must have known what might happen.’ He looked at his best friend. ‘After all, the gautchin were waiting.’

*

The following night, Tamerlane moved his siege engines within range of the walls of Damascus. They were huge machines, captured from a dozen armies, capable of hurling fireballs into the city at a terrible rate. Meanwhile the elephants dragged battering rams forward to the beat of a drum, the mahouts, deel-clad, on their heads. The army settled down in an arc that covered the landscape and its fires reflected the stars in the sky.

The next morning, Luke, Matthew and Arcadius were summoned to Tamerlane’s tent. Nikolas was still in theirs, bandaged and sleeping. They found the Emir seated on a plain chair with his foot raised on a footstool. With him were his two grandsons, Khan-zada and Shulen. The air smelt of herbs and Shulen had oil on her hands. The Varangians prostrated themselves on the carpet. Tamerlane was smiling.

‘You Greeks were brave last night,’ he said. ‘I’m told you led the army.’

Luke spoke from the carpet, ‘I was awake when the Mamluks came, lord.’ He paused. ‘As were the gautchin.’

Tamerlane grunted. ‘They’re always awake. They guard me. They caught the dervish.’

Three nights past, a Mamluk assassin had stolen into the camp disguised as a dervish dancer. The gautchin had found knives on him and sent him back with no ears or nose.

Tamerlane continued: ‘They’ve sent someone over to parley. The one you talked to. He’s waiting outside.’ He leant forward. ‘You told me to trust him and they attacked us. And where are my million dinars? Why don’t I cut off this one’s head and send it back?’

Inspiration came to Luke. He said: ‘The man who waits outside is a great historian, lord. His writings will be read for centuries. Surely such a man should write of you?’

Tamerlane considered this. His eyes gleamed from behind his glasses. He nodded. ‘Show him in.’

Two guards opened the tent doors and Ibn Khaldun walked through them, his hands tied together, He looked tired and dishevelled. He dropped to his knees.

‘How did you get here?’ Tamerlane blew his nose into his hand and shook it away.

‘I was lowered down the walls in a basket, lord,’ replied Ibn Khaldun. ‘The city is in turmoil. It was not safe to leave by the gate.’

Tamerlane laughed and gestured to Luke. ‘That’s what he does with my army,’ he said, slapping the arm of his chair. ‘He lowers them in baskets. In Georgia. You should put it in your histories.’

Ibn Khaldun bowed from the waist, his head to the carpet. He murmured: ‘As you desire, lord.’

Tamerlane leant forward and peered at him. ‘I’ve long wanted to meet you,’ he said. ‘I’ve had your histories read to me.’

This was a surprise to everyone but Shulen. Ibn Khaldun looked up. ‘I am gratified, lord.’

‘They’re good but they don’t include me. You write of empires’ rise and fall. Will mine fall?’

Ibn Khaldun paused for only a heartbeat. ‘Inevitably, lord.’

There was silence for a time while Tamerlane inspected his fingernails. Then he chuckled. ‘You’re brave,’ he said. ‘What of the Mamluks? Will the Mamluk dogs rule longer than the Mongols?’

‘Not unless they relearn how to fight. They have abandoned us.’

Tamerlane knew this. His spies had come in just after dawn to report that the Mamluk army had melted away into the desert.

‘They have abandoned you,’ said Tamerlane. ‘They sent you into the city to get the money, then fled back to Cairo. What is the mood inside the city now, historian?’

Ibn Khaldun said: ‘Realistic, lord. They’ve lost an army and half their garrison. They are assembling gold.’

‘Ah, but how much? One million dinars is no longer enough. I’ve lost men.’

The old man chose not to answer. Instead, he kept his brow to the carpet.

Tamerlane asked: ‘Did you come alone?’

‘I brought a servant, lord.’ He paused. ‘Let down in a smaller basket.’

Tamerlane threw back his head and roared, keeping the glasses to his nose with a finger. His vast ring flashed in the light that fell through the toghona. ‘I like you, historian. Your servant can return to the city to tell them that the price for their lives has gone up to ten million dinars.’ He leant forward to scratch his bandaged foot. ‘As for you, I desire that you stay here and write for me a description of the whole country of the Maghreb, detailing its distant and nearby parts, its mountains and its rivers, its villages and cities — in such a manner that I might seem actually to see it.’

*

Ibn Khaldun stayed in the Mongol camp for a month, first writing of the Maghreb with questionable accuracy, then discussing it with Tamerlane. The Lord of the Celestial Conjunction was obsessed by the rhythm of empires: how they rise and fall, and why. His empire would last, he declared, because Allah was with him. Ibn Khaldun was wise and gracious and often silent and Tamerlane liked him more and more.

Luke watched all this with mounting horror. If Tamerlane was asking for a map of the Maghreb, it was because he was planning to go there next, not to Bayezid. He raised the question with Mohammed Sultan one evening when they were walking with Shulen.

‘He doesn’t tell me anything,’ said the Prince. ‘Since Georgia, he’s kept his plans to himself even more than usual. I don’t know where he’ll go next, truly.’

Shulen said: ‘And he changes the subject when I give him his oils. His spies come in and I am dismissed.’

Meanwhile, the terrified citizens of Damascus sat within their walls with Tamerlane’s horde camped in a menacing circle around them and no Egyptian — or Ottoman — army in prospect. Every now and then, the Mongol siege engines hurled balls of fire among them to hurry the process of surrender and eventually it came. The gates opened and a long line of soldiers, priests and merchants filed out ahead of mules bearing gold. It wasn’t ten million dinars but it was as much as they could find. Or so they said.

Tamerlane received the men and the gold and the city’s surrender and promised to keep his army outside the walls if the remainder of the garrison were delivered to him. The men duly marched out to the sound of the drum and formed up in front of the victor, laying their weapons on the ground before prostrating themselves.

Their commander begged for the lives of his men but Tamerlane was deaf to mercy. He impaled them, all eight thousand, one by one. It happened through the night, and the screams of agony rose over the city and into the houses and through the trembling flesh of a million hands pressed to ears. The next morning, those few citizens who’d managed to sleep awoke to an army of bloody scarecrows staring sightlessly up at the walls. Only these ones didn’t scare away the birds.

By midday, the city had opened its gates and Tamerlane, his usual retinue and a bodyguard of gautchin had ridden through. Accompanying him were the Varangians, Shulen and Ibn Khaldun. The city within made a curious sight. The streets were empty of people and six weeks of siege had transferred most animals from street to cooking-pot. Everywhere were broken doors and the contents of houses thrown outside. It was as if the city had already been sacked.

Mohammed Sultan was riding next to Luke. ‘It seems they’ve tried hard to find the ten million dinars,’ he said.

They rode through the streets to the Umayyad Mosque where Tamerlane dismounted and went in to pray. Luke stayed outside in the courtyard, looking up at the fabulous vision of heaven that crowded its walls. His eyes swept up minarets that seemed to pierce the very belly of paradise, pouring green, blue and gold mosaic over a desert city rich enough to have raised them. He was overwhelmed by its beauty.

After the mosque, they rode up to the citadel where the city’s leaders awaited their fate. Tamerlane quickly made it plain. ‘I want all of your wealth,’ he said. ‘Since you have chosen not to give me what I’ve asked for, now it will be everything. Every dress, every jewel, every plate, every cup. Everything.’

The word went round the city as word does and they rode back through streets now filled with people. They’d come to the doors and roofs of their buildings in their thousands and they were silent and sullen. They were people with nothing more to lose.

When they got back to the Mongol camp, Ibn Khaldun came to Tamerlane. He’d seen the way things were going. He wanted to go home but had one last request. ‘The officials who came with me into Damascus, also abandoned by the Sultan of Egypt, are capable administrators who can do you good service in your vast empire.’

‘What do you wish for them?’ asked Tamerlane.

‘A letter of security, signed by yourself, lord, which will allow them to leave the city and join your army.’

Not only did Tamerlane agree to this, but he allowed Ibn Khaldun to take his mule and leave the camp as soon as he might wish. There were things to come, perhaps, that Tamerlane did not wish the historian to see.

Tamerlane had posted guards at the city gates with instructions not to allow any part of the army to enter. But the Mongols were tired and bored and some of them found a way inside the walls. They began to plunder and were set upon by the citizens. A thousand Mongols died. Luke was outside Tamerlane’s tent when the news arrived. He was with Mohammed Sultan. The Prince was shaking his head.

Luke looked at the Prince, dread in his heart. ‘Was this meant to happen?’ he asked quietly. ‘Did Temur ever intend to spare this city?’

Mohammed Sultan didn’t answer. Instead he looked towards Tamerlane’s tent where the black flag was already being raised. The storm was about to be unleashed. They heard the cheers of men who saw the flag. They saw the koumis passed from mouth to mouth by men gathering the will to do things that no human should do to another.

And so it began. The Mongol army poured into the city and began to slaughter every living thing within its walls. Fired with koumis, they outdid each other in the ingenuity of their torture so that people begged not to live but to die quickly. To start with, the tide of death was slow, the Mongols wanting plunder more than blood. But once the wagons had been piled with treasure, the mules weighed down with booty and every camel within fifty miles of the city gathered to carry what it could, then the killing began in earnest.

Luke, the other Varangians and Shulen stayed in the camp and wished themselves deaf. From across the gardens and orchards came the dark music of pain. For three days and nights, the screams continued until the sound of fire took over. Having taken everything they could, the Mongols set light to the city. A wind rose up from far into the desert and blew west towards the mountains, bringing the apocalypse on its back. The wind swept over the city walls and fanned the flames so that they leapt from house to house, garden to garden, mosque to mosque, faster and faster until they reached the heart of the city. The Umayyad Mosque sat on a hill and by the time that the fire reached it, the heat was so great that the lead on its dome began to melt. Soon the roof fell in and the fire rose up to devour the beauty it found within. By morning, the greatest building in Islam was no more.

Throughout it all, Tamerlane was deaf to entreaty. Mohammed Sultan, Pir Mohammed, even Shulen tried in vain to reason with him, reminding him that he was the Sword of Islam, but the madness of destruction was upon him and he was consumed by it. He sat outside his tent and drank wine as wagons filed past, some filled with the riches of Damascus piled high, some with heads to build the biggest towers yet.

When it was over, when the city had been levelled and its walls pulled down, Tamerlane ordered the black flag lowered and the army made ready to march away. A quarter of it was sent back to Samarcand with the plunder, and the caravan that carried it was the longest the world had ever seen. The entire contents of Syria were on the move, displaced from a smoking, ruined landscape, to embellish the new centre of the world. Luke and his friends watched it go in silence and thought of Constantinople.

‘He can’t stop himself,’ said Matthew eventually.

‘No,’ agreed Luke.

‘Should we go back to Plethon? He should know of this.’

Luke shook his head. ‘We go to Lebanon with the army for the rest of the winter and then see where he takes us next. We have no choice. We are oath-bound.’ He paused. ‘And we have our empire to save.’