The Towers of Samarcand

PART FOUR
THE BATTLE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

ANKARA, 27 JULY 1402

The army of two hundred thousand that stood beneath the noonday sun was parched. It had stood for over three hours now, row upon row of heavily armoured men motionless beside their horses, the sweat coming off them in rivers. It was an army thinking of water.

A few had fainted, despite the shame, and even a general had fallen in front of his tumen. Tamerlane had had the man’s head shorn, a dress put on him and rouge painted on his cheeks. Then he’d been made to run barefoot the length of the jeering army. He would open his veins later.

This was an army of many tongues and colours, gathered from the steppes of Turkestan, from Mawarannah, India and Persia. They were armed with the best that money could buy: mail from Georgia, swords from Damascus and bows made from the maple of Kastamonu, their arrow flights feathered by eagles. It was drawn up in eight divisions, each with its tugh, or horse-tail standard, at its front. It looked patiently out across an ochre landscape of baked earth and rugged tufts of grass that sagged in the heat like old men’s hair. It was a country of snakes and animals that cowered beneath a merciless sun without shade, a land of silence broken only by the wind. But today there was no breeze, only the incessant buzz of flies that added to this army’s agony.

Each tarkhan would, eventually, have the honour to greet Tamerlane when he chose to inspect the ranks. They were the men deemed bravest in the division, men who’d proved it often on the battlefield, and their rewards were many: a splendid suit of armour, exemption from all taxes, a place of honour at all feasts and access to their leader whenever they wished it. Best of all, they were decreed free of prosecution for any crime up to the ninth time of committing it. Tamerlane had thought of that himself.

Tamerlane had had these reviews before. Many in the army remembered the one out in the frozen wastes far, far to the north when they were chasing Toktamish. It usually meant that the Emperor wanted to reassure himself of his army’s discipline at a time when it might be in doubt. Since the forced marches west from Sivas along the Kizilirmak River, there had been grumbling in the ranks. And despite three weeks of siege, the castle of Ankara still hadn’t fallen.

Now, while his army awaited him, Tamerlane played chess with a man who didn’t speak his language. They were sitting on stools beneath a bright yellow canopy of silk on either side of a giant board on which camels, jornufas, siege engines and a wooden wazir joined the usual pieces of the game. Between the two men stood Luke and Khan-zada, there to interpret and admire.

The other man playing was the engineer Benedo Barbi, who’d been summoned from Chios on Luke’s advice and presented with an unusual commission. He was wearing a loose cotton shirt open to the waist and white pantaloons against the heat. His chin was resting on his fist and his face was a mask of concentration.

The engineer shook his head and moved a siege engine. He was not enjoying the game and felt uncomfortable beneath the relentless gaze of the eagle that watched him from its perch.

‘You’re as bad at this as Sotomayor,’ growled Tamerlane, leaning forward to inspect the play. ‘I hope your engines work better.’

On his arrival a week before, Barbi had reviewed the siege works at Ankara and recommended the building of long, fire-proofed alleyways that would allow men to get right up to the walls. He had designed giant braziers that could be clamped to the walls so that they became white hot before being cooled by siphons spouting ice-cold vinegar. Then he’d briefed masons on how to split the stones with hammers and chisels so that the whole edifice above would come down. The theory had yet to be tested but Tamerlane had been impressed.

Khan-zada spoke. ‘Lord, the army has stood for three hours.’

Tamerlane didn’t reply but removed his glasses, wiped them on his caftan, and went back to studying the board.

She tried again. ‘Temur Gurgan, will you not go to your soldiers or at least give them water?’

At last he looked up. ‘Do I advise you on your scents, Daughter?’ he replied. He glanced behind him where the first of the divisions stood no more than fifty paces away. He turned back to her. ‘Let me tell you this, woman. Two things bring me victory: cunning and discipline.’ He nodded slowly, tapping his temple with his finger. ‘Think of Baghdad. How did I win? I made our soldiers attack the walls in the heat of the day because I knew something that they didn’t: that the army of Ahmad Jalayrid had its helmets up on sticks! The jackals had gone off to lie in the shade! It was discipline which made them attack in such heat.’

He glanced behind him again, then leant forward as if in conspiracy. ‘And these Turks that are coming?’ he whispered. ‘Their janissaries have discipline, certainly, but the bashibozouks?’ He paused and snorted with contempt. ‘And if Bayezid had any cunning, he wouldn’t have abandoned this position three weeks ago.’ He turned to the Italian seated across from him and winked. ‘And what of my cunning now, eh?’

He began to speak again but there were horses approaching. Miran Shah had ridden up with a group of shabbily dressed men who dismounted quickly and threw themselves on the ground before him. His son remained standing, clapping his hands to remove the dust. He was dressed in a coat of mail and carried a long, coiled whip. He bowed stiffly. ‘Father, your kourtchi have returned with news.’

Temur frowned. ‘Speak for them.’

Miran Shah cast a look of disdain over the group. ‘They report that Bayezid will be here tomorrow,’ he said shortly. ‘They say that the Sultan has a great army with him and that it has cannon. The Serb Lazarević marches by his side with a strong force of knights and black-steels who have handguns.’

‘How big is his army?’

‘As big as ours, perhaps bigger,’ he replied. ‘All of the gazi tribes are with him. And it is rumoured that an army from Cairo is marching to support him.’

Tamerlane nodded. ‘Well, certainly the dog has learnt to bark again. He’s sent me more letters. He calls me a plague.’ He grunted. ‘The plague was my friend; it emptied the cities. He is a fool.’

Miran Shah stepped forward. He bent low and whispered into Tamerlane’s ear. ‘Father, we should march away while we still can. If we go north, we can escape him.’

Very slowly, Temur looked up at his son. ‘What did you say?’

Miran Shah blinked. For the first time he looked uncertain and moved the whip from one hand to the other. ‘We can come back with a bigger army, Father,’ he said. ‘We can return when we know we can defeat him.’

Tamerlane looked at him for a long time. There were muscles moving in his neck. ‘Are you one of their kourtchi?’ he asked softly. ‘Has Bayezid bribed you to say this to me?’

Miran Shah laughed but his eyes shone with fear. ‘Father …’

But Tamerlane raised his hand to stop him. ‘Get out of my sight. You are a cowardly dog and you will not command my left wing as I decreed. You will guard the camp at the rear. Your place is with the women.’

For a moment Miran Shah did nothing but stare, wide-eyed, at his father. Then he glanced venomously at Luke and Khan-zada, turned and walked back to his horse.

When he had ridden away and the kourtchi had been dismissed, Khan-zada knelt before her father-in-law. ‘Father,’ she murmured, ‘Shulen and I will be in that camp.’

But Tamerlane wasn’t listening. He shouted at an emir who was standing nearby: ‘Where is Prince Mohammed Sultan?’

‘He is on his way, lord, as you commanded,’ said the man.

Mohammed Sultan had been at Ankara for two weeks, the second spent entirely in the company of the engineer from Chios. Luke had only seen him when they’d discussed sending for Barbi; neither Khan-zada nor Shulen had seen him at all. Now he was before them, his long hair caked in dust, kneeling in front of his grandfather.

Tamerlane looked down on him fondly. ‘The Genoese’ — he waved towards Barbi whose name he’d forgotten — ‘tells me you and he have done what we agreed.’

Mohammed Sultan nodded. ‘We have had the men working day and night to finish it in time.’ He glanced over to where that army stood and then up at the sun. ‘It is hot, Grandfather.’

Tamerlane scratched his knee and waved the flies away from the chess pieces. He grinned. ‘And we will fight tomorrow. Have you heard?’

The Prince looked up. ‘I was told by Miran Shah on my way here,’ he said. He paused and then said quietly: ‘He also told me that you had relieved him of his command.’

‘The answer is no.’

Tamerlane picked up a jornufa from the board and banged it down on a different part of the board. ‘Check.’

‘But who else will command it?’

‘General Kurunduk.’

‘He is not of your family.’

‘He is not my heir. My heir stays by my side. My heir survives me, is that clear?’ Tamerlane was frowning now and the stubborn will that had made men march in snow or stand under a midday sun was not to be moved. For a while neither of them spoke. Then Mohammed Sultan changed the subject.

‘The Lady Shulen, has she arrived at the camp?’

Luke glanced at Khan-zada, who was looking down at her hands, her shoulders stiff with unease.

‘So she is in the camp,’ said the Prince. He was frowning slightly. ‘Where might I find her, Mother?’

Khan-zada looked up then. ‘She doesn’t want to see you.’

Mohammed Sultan looked bewildered. ‘Of course she wants to see me.’ He turned to his grandfather. ‘Temur Gurgan has given permission for our marriage.’

Khan-zada began to say something but Temur interrupted. ‘I cannot make her see you if she’s changed her mind.’

Mohammed Sultan was silent for some time, frowning at the ground. Then he turned to Luke. ‘Is this of your doing?’ he asked softly. He was nodding slowly, his eyes fixed on Luke. ‘Yes, of course. You have decided that you want her after all,’ he whispered.

Khan-zada came forward. ‘Luke has nothing to do with this.’

She tried to take her son’s hand but he snatched it away. He stared at her. ‘How could you deny me the same happiness that you had?’ he asked. He turned to leave. ‘I’m going to find her.’

No one stopped him. Luke and Khan-zada watched him go while Tamerlane rose to his feet. He laughed. ‘He’ll calm down once we put a Persian whore to him. It’s time to dismiss the army. They’ve stood long enough.’

*

Bayezid was in an unpredictable mood. Having marched without break from Ankara to Sivas and then back to Ankara, his army was exhausted. And they were thirsty since Tamerlane had poisoned all the wells on their route.

They had finally found a well with fresh water. It was low and there would be little to go round, but it was water. Now the decision had to be made whether to stay the night there and rest the army or push on the few miles to the Cubuk Creek where there would be water in abundance.

In the tent were Bayezid, his three sons, Yakub Bey, Prince Lazarević of Serbia and the general Evrenos Bey, and they were all bent over a map spread out on a table. It was still light outside and the tent door was tied back so that the noise and smells of the vast army were amongst them.

Bayezid had turned to Evrenos Bey. ‘What do the scouts say?’

‘Temur’s army is a mile upstream of the Cubukcay,’ said the general, untying the straps of his armour. The tent was hot and the awning admitted no breeze.

‘A mile upstream?’ said Bayezid delightedly. ‘The fool! He could have put his army between us and the river.’

‘He chooses to stay on the high ground, lord,’ said Lazarević.

Bayezid turned to him. ‘Will your men march tonight?’

Lazarević passed a hand through his hair. He was as tired as all of them. ‘If it is asked of them, lord. But would it not be better to rest the army here tonight? We can send forward a small force to the river. They can tell us if Temur makes a move. We would be safe here and the men are tired.’

‘And he would hardly abandon his high ground to attack us,’ said Mehmed. ‘I think we should stay here.’

Bayezid turned to his eldest son. ‘And you, Prince Suleyman? What would you advise?’

Suleyman was still angry that, against all advice, Bayezid had chosen to abandon his position at Ankara three weeks ago to go chasing after Tamerlane. Now they were back at Ankara with Temur occupying their old position. He bent over the map, running his finger up the line of the Cubuk Creek until it reached the little blocks of wood that were the Mongol army.

‘We know this land well, Father, because we have so recently been here,’ he said quietly.

There was shocked silence at the insult. But Suleyman went on: ‘Temur occupies a good position. But our army has always been victorious when we have defended rather than attacked. It was so at Nicopolis.’ He paused and looked round at the other men. Mehmed was watching him intently. ‘I think we should wait for him to come to us. Stay where we are and bring water from the Cubukcay. Sooner or later he must attack.’

The Sultan was staring at his son. ‘You think we cannot defeat these dogs if we attack them?’ he asked quietly.

Suleyman straightened. ‘I didn’t say that, Father.’

There were veins at Bayezid’s temples. He held the side of the table with his fingers pressed hard to the wood, his nails white. His eyes were wide, their pupils vast, and small beads of sweat were gathered on his brow. Suleyman stood very still before him. Little by little, the Sultan gathered himself, exhaling great breaths in the effort. He addressed the men.

‘We will rest here the night,’ he said. ‘Send out a force to the Cubukcay and tell them to warn us if Temur moves so much as a hair of his Mongol arm. We will need that water tomorrow.’

*

Tomorrow dawned with blood dripping from the heavens.

A small storm in the night had gathered up the ruined crust of this land and hurled it into the sky where it was slowly falling to earth through a sun that had risen like a shield drawn from a furnace. If either army had wanted an omen, then this was the omen they’d feared.

It will be a day of blood.

Luke, Matthew, Nikolas and Arcadius were riding hard, their armour aflame and their long hair streaming behind them. Luke was on Eskalon and far out in front and his shoulders rose and fell as he urged more speed from the horse.

The country south of the fortress of Ankara was formed of low, undulating hills. Its ground was hard and fractured, full of rock and brittle grass and one long sliver of life called the Cubukcay. The creek was away to their right, invisible beneath its steep banks: a single twisting vein within a body exhausted by nature. It was the liquid hope towards which the Ottoman army was marching.

That morning, when Luke had risen, Tamerlane had summoned him to his tent and talked of the Horns of Hattin. It was a place in the Holy Land where, two hundred years past, a crusader army had been defeated by thirst. It was where an invincible army, deprived of water, had sunk to its knees and died in the desert.

‘Today we will give them another Hattin,’ Tamerlane had whispered, sitting on the side of a bed in which a magnificent creature the colour of ebony still slept. ‘Ride out with your Varangians and tell me what you see when they get to the creek.’

And now they were there. The four of them had arrived at the crest of a hill that overlooked the road to the Cubukcay from the east and below them was the Ottoman army. It was in good order, the Serbian heavy cavalry and regiments of sipahis in front, the solid blocks of the janissaries behind and the long tail of the bashibozouks strung out as far as the eye could see. In the early sunshine, the army resembled an endless, jewelled caterpillar flashing its winding way through clouds of dust to the beat of drum and the clash of cymbal. The army was vast.

‘When is it to happen?’ asked Arcadius.

Luke looked at the sun, measuring the time. ‘It’s already happened,’ he said. ‘Watch.’

The army beneath them had broken its line of march and was running towards the riverbank, men dismounting and leaving their horses and racing each other to get to the water. Soldiers were disappearing into the shadow of the creek, their helmets glinting in the sunlight as they tore them off to gather what they could to drink.

Then the silence that had been broken only by the drum and cymbal was filled with shouts of anger and despair, with the cries of men deprived of what they’d been promised.

The creek was dry.

The engineer from Genoa had served Tamerlane well. For a week past the Mongol army had stripped itself to the waist to build the canals, dams and reservoirs that would divert the Cubukcay waters from their natural flow. For a week, Tamerlane’s beloved elephants had discarded their castles to haul earth and stones to bring into being his most ambitious piece of cunning yet. The Sultan’s army had been led into a trap. It had been given just enough water from the one unpoisoned well to make it come to battle. Now Tamerlane had closed the breach in the dam upstream and the water had stopped.

The Sultan’s army would have to fight without water.

Below them was pandemonium. Men were fighting each other to reach the trickle that was still in the creek and the long tail of the army was pressing forward to join the frenzy. Janissaries were beating the bashibozouks back with the flats of their swords, forming lines to prevent them stampeding the men in front. If the drums were still beating, their sound was smothered by the parched cries of desperate men whose throats were swollen with thirst.

Luke turned to his friends. ‘We’ve seen enough,’ he said. ‘And it isn’t pretty. Let’s get back to the army.’

They turned and dug their heels into their horses’ sides and Luke looked up at the sun.

It will be a day of blood.