The Towers of Samarcand

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

ANATOLIA, AUTUMN 1402

It was then that Tamerlane disappeared.

Fifty thousand lay dead on the field of Ankara and long after the crows had picked out their eyes, Tamerlane kept to his tent, refusing access to all but those who provided the necessities for living: food, wine, cool sherbet and water to wash from his body the messy business of love.

Zoe’s talented lips and fingers had managed to do what no other woman had in years: to bring Tamerlane to shuddering climax. And she hadn’t been permitted to step outside the tent while she could bestow such a blessing. Tamerlane was infatuated.

Bibi Khanum was not summoned from Samarcand, as was the custom, and it was the elephants that carried back the news of her husband’s greatest victory, staying on to haul stone for her gigantic mosque. All of them but two.

A message was sent to the army to move to Kutahya and somehow Yakub learnt that he must prepare his palace for Tamerlane’s personal use. So the tents were packed up and put on to the wagons, the siege engines hitched to the oxen and the long, long line of Mongol horsemen, their wives, children and slaves behind them, began to snake its way west into the land of the Germiyans.

But if Yakub had thought that his change of sides would spare the fields and villages of his beylik, he was wrong. The Mongols continued their pilgrimage of rape and murder and the horizon that stretched behind this savage army was black with the smoke of its destruction.

Yakub was beside himself with rage. But Tamerlane was still in his tent at Ankara and Shulen had taken Mohammed Sultan into the fortress there, prepared to use every skill she possessed to heal the man she now called brother. Luke, too, had gone there to recover fully from his head wound. Khan-zada went to nurse them both.

Maria had chosen to go with the army. More accurately, she’d chosen to go with the Castilian Sotomayor to whom she’d become attached. Both thought that their chances of reaching Castile together would be higher the closer they got. Meanwhile, she was appointed handmaiden to Zoe.

*

After a month, Tamerlane emerged from his tent looking happier than he had in years. The pains of age had disappeared and he’d forgotten Shulen and the magic of her lotions. He summoned his courtiers and declared that he would make the journey west to Kutahya by elephant, taking Zoe, her ointments and some poetry along for his entertainment. He set forth in an enormous canopied howdah, reclining with Zoe amidst cushions, porringers of honey and a servant who poured iced sherbet and murmured the sonnets of the Persian Hafiz into his ear. In the second elephant’s howdah rode Shahrukh, Pir Mohammed and Tamerlane’s grandson Ulugh Beg. The boy was Shahrukh’s eight-year-old son and had an interest in astrology; at night, when they camped, he would describe the stars to his grandfather as the old man lay beneath their majesty. Behind the elephants came a jornufa, an ostrich and a cage that contained the Sultan of an empire that no longer existed. Behind them marched a guard of gautchin with three Varangians at their head.

The main army was outside Kutahya and was growing restless. It had secured a great victory, perhaps the greatest ever won, and it wanted to go home. The generals had sent messages to Pir Mohammed urging him to ask his grandfather about his plans. Now the time had come for Pir Mohammed to act.

Zoe was reclining next to Tamerlane on cushions big and soft enough to absorb the elephant’s sway. It was a warm day and she wore a thoub of almost transparent cotton. She had a little lectern poised below her breasts from which she was reading aloud from the Kama Sutra, her left hand turning the pages. Her right hand was invisible beneath Tamerlane’s housecoat. Curtains hung around the howdah and one inside. The servant was, for now, on the other side of this, singing to a stringed instrument.

Tamerlane grunted and lay back against the cushions and Zoe stopped reading and withdrew her hand. It was, she had learnt, a good time to arrange things. ‘We have only three Varangians in our party,’ she said, discreetly wiping her hand on the curtain. ‘I noticed them this morning as we set off. Was there not another?’

Tamerlane’s closed eyes formed small arcs of pleasure and he was breathing quickly, his great chest rising to part and close his housecoat. Small beads of sweat teetered on the banks of his forehead before coursing to his beard. He didn’t seem to have heard her.

‘The Varangians’ leader,’ she tried again.

‘He’s at Ankara,’ he said. ‘With my grandson.’ Then he remembered something. ‘And his wife.’

‘Except that she’s not his wife,’ Zoe said. ‘He lied to you, lord. They both did.’

Tamerlane opened his eyes to watch Zoe pour them both wine from a pitcher held steady in a clever gimbal by her side. He frowned. ‘How do you know this?’

The truth was she didn’t, for sure. But she’d known Luke from birth and had seen what had happened with Anna. She knew that he and Shulen were a lie.

‘I just know, lord.’

Tamerlane took the wine. ‘Should I torture the Varangians to tell me the truth?’ he asked.

Zoe pretended to consider this. She shook her head. ‘No, they’ve done you no wrong. You should release them from their oaths.’

‘And the other?’

‘He has lied to you. He should explain himself.’

Tamerlane nodded. ‘When he gets here.’ He drank. ‘He wants me to go to Chios.’

Zoe had suspected this. Indeed, she’d hoped to guide the conversation to this very place, pausing only to secure the Varangians’ release. ‘It’s a good idea, lord. It is an island I have long desired to see.’

Tamerlane’s eyes twinkled. His hand pushed aside the lectern and arrived on her breast, squeezing. She gasped convincingly. ‘Desired? Would you like it?’

Zoe stretched like a cat. She placed her hand on his, pressing it down. ‘I deserve no such thing, lord,’ she murmured. ‘Anyway, it’s not yours to give. Yet.’ She moved her hand south.

‘No, too soon. I am old.’

‘Not so old,’ she whispered, turning to his ear. Her hand continued south and its fingers curled around soft flesh. ‘You should summon the Varangian to explain himself,’ she said again. ‘Soon.’

Zoe stroked and pressed and teased and all the while wondered what she was doing. She knew the game her hand played but not her mind. Why did she want Luke back? To share in her triumph? Why had she gone to Allaedin ali-Bey of the Karamanids to get him back for Suleyman? Why had she tried again with the younger di Vetriano, and again with the Mongol envoy? Why had she worked so hard to keep Anna away from him, only arranging for her to go into Constantinople when she’d guessed she might be sent somewhere further?

Her hand rose and dipped in rhythm and her thoughts reached an awful realisation.

I cannot help myself.

The world shifted and her hand lost its grip. Something large had bumped against the side of their elephant. She rolled away and lifted the curtain to see Pir Mohammed leaning out from his howdah.

‘Grandfather,’ he called over her, ‘may I speak with you?’

‘Your grandfather is busy,’ she said, closing the curtain.

Pir Mohammed tried again. ‘Lord, the generals wish to know your plans.’

Zoe glanced at Tamerlane, who was scowling at the wine jug that had left its gimbal and was now resting against his puddled thigh. The servant had dared to draw his curtain and was frantically mopping with his sleeve.

‘Your grandson wants to know where we’re going, lord,’ she said, shooing away the servant and applying her own sleeve to the work. ‘Shall I say Chios? Will you meet the Christian powers there?’

Tamerlane grunted and she rose to her knees and lifted the curtain again.

‘The Lord of the Seven Climes intends to take Smyrna, as he said he would, then go to Chios. He has reflected on the Varangian’s advice and wishes to meet the Emperor Manuel and other Christian kings there. He asks you to arrange it.’

She lowered the curtain too quickly to see the delight on Pir Mohammed’s face. They would make peace with the western Kings and then go home. She didn’t see the Prince turn to his cousin and say: ‘Let’s play chess.’

*

The city of Smyrna was said to be impregnable.

Certainly the defenders thought so. Two hundred Knights Hospitaller under the command of the Aragonese General Iñigo of Alfaro had declined the offer of surrender begged from Tamerlane by his Nestorian advisers. For sixty years their walls had stood firm against every assault by the Turk and they would not open their gates to an illiterate barbarian now. Anyway, they had Greek fire supplied to them by an engineer from Chios who, they’d have been surprised to learn, was somewhere within Tamerlane’s army.

It was December and the first snows had fallen on the mountains to the north and the gulf on which the city sat was moiling with wind-clipped waves. It had rained without cease since the army had arrived and the Mongols, miserable, wet and cold, were yearning ever more for home. Their only enjoyment had been the daily spectacle of Bayezid dragged out in his cage to watch them attempt what he’d failed to do: wipe this last Christian outpost from the lands of the Prophet.

The city stood high on a rocky outcrop which extended into the gulf and could only be taken by a two-pronged attack by land and sea. Tamerlane soon saw that the walls were weakest on the seaward side and ordered platforms to be built across the water, supported by sunken columns, so cutting off the city from the shore. Benedo Barbi’s covered alleyways, never used at Ankara, were rolled up to the city walls and the fires lit. Meanwhile, the cannon captured from Bayezid were hauled into position on the land side.

After fifteen days, breaches appeared in the walls and they began to fall. The Mongols rushed over them with no thought of mercy in their minds. The men and children of the city were cut down where they stood, the women raped, then slaughtered.

The Hospitallers had sent reinforcements from Rhodes but they’d arrived too late. As the fleet rowed up the gulf, with the city of Smyrna smoking before them, the sky was suddenly filled with comets trailing blood in their wake. A moment later, the two hundred heads of Smyrna’s defenders thudded on to the decks around them. The Hospitallers turned about and rowed for home.

Smyrna had fallen.

*

On Chios, the signori were angry with the Knights.

Dominic de Alamania of their Order had brought his fleet to the island from Rhodes and demanded that the Hospitaller fleet be allowed to revictual there before sailing on to Smyrna. The signori, who now included Dimitri among their number, had had no choice but to agree. So it was in some trepidation that the twelve Genoese and one Greek awaited Tamerlane in the palace of Marchese Longo in the citadel at Chora. The days had been long and nerve-racking and their only relief had been the charm and beauty of their leader’s wife and son.

Giovanni Giustiniani Longo was five years old and had his mother’s hair. He was tall for his age and would be taller than his father. He was an intelligent child who already spoke three languages, could recite Homer and found amusement in mathematics. And in the hours of pacing the long marble corridors of the palace, the signori would distract themselves by trying to satisfy the boy’s endless curiosity.

The signori were further distracted by the arrival on Chios of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos, the philosopher Plethon and King Sigismund of Hungary, who’d brought Anna Laskaris with him. After delivering her letters, Anna had stayed at Sigismund’s court and watched with satisfaction as the letters had done their work: a new crusade had been called with both Popes persuaded to back it.

The King of Hungary, like Manuel, had chosen to obey Tamerlane’s summons, the consequences of refusal outweighing the dangers of acceptance. Their arrivals, and the imminent coming of Tamerlane, had brought about the departure of Fiorenza and Giovanni for their home in Sklavia. It was safer for them there, closer to the port of Limenas. They would be missed.

Now Anna was seated on a balcony that overlooked the big throne room, watching the men below wait for Tamerlane to arrive. Manuel stood next to Plethon who stood next to Sigismund of Hungary. Behind were the signori, each trying to forget the stories of horror that had accompanied every move of the man they were about to meet. At their front was the handsome Marchese Giustiniani Longo, a man she’d met only the day before. She wished she’d met his wife as well, to admire her beauty and thank her for the many kindnesses she’d shown to Luke.

At last there were footsteps on the marble outside, quick footsteps that stopped outside the door. There was a long pause and from far away came the sound of something being dragged. Anna felt cold.

Tamerlane. Temur the Lame.

Closer it came, agonisingly slowly. Anna stared at the doors and the Genoese at each other, every man searching for reassurance or just memorising a face they might not see again. The doors were flung open by two soldiers of the gautchin, their pigtails swinging above golden cuirasses as they knelt. As Tamerlane entered, thirty knees hit the marble floor as one. Only the Emperor Manuel and King Sigismund remained standing.

Tamerlane was wearing a tall, pumpkin-domed hat with a heron feather clasped to it and a short-sleeved tunic of brushed silk gathered at the waist by several belts. Above was an over-garment edged in ermine and below short riding boots with mud on them. On his hands were hawking gloves covered with filth. His clothes were wet with rain and the smell of damp came with him.

‘You would not kneel?’ he asked, approaching the Byzantine Emperor.

Manuel inclined his head. ‘We are both emperors, lord. And I am not yet your vassal.’

Tamerlane looked at him for a moment, then glanced at Sigismund, breathing deeply. He was not wearing his glasses and the men before him were vague. He turned to the rest of the room. ‘Which of you dogs sent the fleet to relieve the crusaders at Smyrna? I know it sailed from here.’

Marchese Longo answered him. ‘The fleet came from Rhodes, lord. It took on provisions at our harbour against our wishes.’

Tamerlane limped over to him. ‘Indeed?’ he asked, his face bent close to Longo’s and his rancid breath between them. ‘And you did not think to stop it? Are you not part of the Byzantine Empire which allied itself to me against Bayezid?’

Anna looked down on a room full of men, not one of whom expected to see sunset. The man who had reduced cities to rubble was walking among them talking of betrayal. Tamerlane stepped back from Longo and clapped his hands. There were more footsteps from the corridor and two men came in, each carrying a chair. Tamerlane sat, lifted a hand, and one of the gautchin drew his sword, walked forward, and gave it to him.

Above them, Anna gasped. Zoe had walked into the room. She was dressed as a Mongol princess in a high-collared silk tunic of red, her hair plaited. She looked neither to left nor right but went straight to the other chair and sat down. Tamerlane took her hand.

Anna felt faint. Zoe here? She was supposed to be in Edirne, but she was below her holding the hand of a monster. She heard Tamerlane speaking again and forced herself to listen.

‘I have heard what Bayezid did after Nicopolis,’ he was saying. ‘Blind old men with swords.’ He paused. ‘Thanks to you Italians, I can now see.’ He took his glasses from a sleeve and put them on. ‘Now, who is to be first?’

Marchese Longo rose to his feet. ‘If anyone here is to die, it should be I,’ he said quietly. ‘I alone bear responsibility for the revictualling of the Hospitaller fleet. The rest are innocent.’

Tamerlane stared at him. Then he leant forward in his chair, still holding Zoe’s hand. He said: ‘Did you know my mother was a Christian, Genoese? Of the Nestorian persuasion?’

Anna’s hands were holding the balcony and they were trembling. This was the man who had had his cavalry ride down Christian children before Damascus when they’d come out to plead for their lives. And beside him sat the most evil woman she knew. She drew back so as not to be seen.

‘There is no mercy in Islam,’ Tamerlane continued, shaking his head. He brushed dirt from his glove. ‘But in Jesus Christ …’ He leant forward again and blew his nose to the floor through finger and thumb, covering the effect with his boot. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and clicked his fingers. ‘In Jesus Christ there is mercy.’ He made the sign of the cross with his gloved hand and frowned. ‘Anyway, it pleases me to be merciful. Especially since men from your island have done me some service. The three Varangians who are with me and the engineer are released from their oath.’ He let go of Zoe’s hand and rose to his feet. ‘I have decided to give you the monopoly to sell mastic throughout my empire. So you have it. Get up.’

The signori did nothing at first, too stunned to move. Then, one by one, they rose.

‘And alum,’ went on Tamerlane. ‘You can have that too.’

Longo spoke. ‘Lord, your generosity-’

But Tamerlane suddenly wanted to be somewhere else. He leant forward and tapped Longo on the head with his finger. ‘Stop. I have honey enough in my tent.’ He straightened and addressed the men in the room. ‘There is a condition. I give your island to the woman who will be my next wife.’ He turned and gestured to Zoe, still seated. ‘She knows trade and will be a wise ruler. She will come to rule over you when I am dead.’

The signori exchanged glances but none of them spoke. Was Chios now his island? The Emperor Manuel and Sigismund were still standing. ‘What of us, majesty?’ asked the Emperor. ‘King Sigismund and I have come far to hear your plans. Have you nothing to tell us?’

Tamerlane thought for a while. Then he said to Manuel: ‘It pleases me to marry this lady in your Church of Holy Wisdom in the city of Constantinople. I shall enter with a guard and depart when it is over, leaving you in peace. You and Hungary are invited to attend.’ He paused and looked around the room. ‘In fact you will all come. You can ride with me to Constantinople and get to know your new ruler.’ He went over to Zoe and offered her his arm. She rose. ‘And after the marriage we will return to Samarcand.’

*

A little later, after the signori had retired, Manuel remained with Plethon and Anna. Matthew, Nikolas and Arcadius were with them, freed now from Tamerlane’s retinue. Their reunion with Anna had been tempered by the news of the wedding in Constantinople.

‘He was supposed to stop at Ankara, Plethon,’ Manuel was saying. ‘We cannot let him enter Constantinople. What has gone wrong?’

Matthew spoke. ‘It is the Mamonas girl, majesty. She has bewitched him. He does what she tells him to.’

‘Including destroying her own empire?’ Manuel’s voice was rising.

Plethon shook his head. ‘She is ruthless, highness. And she wants more than Chios.’

Anna glanced at the philosopher. ‘Perhaps she wants the treasure and Constantinople is her price.’

Plethon said nothing. Manuel had begun to pace. ‘So what do we do? Can we defend ourselves? What of Sigismund? Is his crusade credible?’

Anna said: ‘It has Medici money and the blessing of two Popes. But it will take too long to come.’

Manuel grunted. ‘What about Suleyman? He still has half of Bayezid’s army in Rumelia. He could join with a Hungarian army.’

Plethon had already registered his dismay that Manuel had thought to ferry Suleyman’s fleeing army across to Europe. That had not been part of his plan. Manuel had wanted another ally should Tamerlane threaten Constantinople but it was hardly likely that Suleyman would find common ground with Sigismund.

Manuel had stopped pacing and was looking out at the evening sky, an eruption of pinks and mauves over the hills to the west. There was a light breeze and his long silver hair moved with it. ‘Could we poison him?’ he asked. ‘That’s what stopped them last time: the death of the Khan.’

Matthew spoke again. ‘Impossible, highness. Zoe is with him at all times.’

There was silence in the room and the wind played cool fingers over its taut strings. Plethon came and stood behind his emperor. ‘There is another way, lord,’ he said quietly. ‘The Varangians have told me that his grandson, Mohammed Sultan, has influence over him. He was wounded in the battle and rests at Ankara. We could send for him.’

‘But why would he come?’

‘Because the Varangian Luke Magoris is with him there. They have become friends. He could bring him.’

Manuel considered this. ‘But who would go to them?’

Matthew said: ‘We would, majesty. The three of us.’

‘You?’ This was Anna. ‘Three fair-haired giants riding through a sea of Mongols? You’d not get past Smyrna. I should go.’

Matthew snorted. ‘It’s too dangerous.’

Anna turned on him. ‘More dangerous than here? How safe will I be on Chios once Zoe knows that I’m here?’

She was right. Zoe’s implacable hatred of Anna would seal her death sentence once she’d learnt of her presence.

Nikolas said. ‘She could take the paizi. We still have it from the ride to Samarcand. If she was properly disguised, no one would dare stop her. And she’d get new horses at every yam.’

Matthew shot him a glance. But it made sense. Anna had to escape Chios, so she might as well escape to Ankara. She came forward to stand with Plethon, placing her hand on his arm. ‘I’m going,’ she said quietly.

To her surprise Plethon nodded. Then he took her to one side, out of earshot of the others. ‘Yes, you should go.’ His voice had dropped to a whisper. ‘The ring you gave to Luke: I need it back. If Zoe wants to bargain for the treasure then the ring is an important part of it, you know that.’ He looked over her head to make sure they weren’t being overheard. ‘Perhaps I was wrong, Anna. Perhaps this is the way the treasure is to be used to save the Empire.’

*

So it was that five days later Anna was looking up at the sandstone walls of Ankara Castle. The sun was setting and the stone above her glowed in the last of the heat, the shadow of her horse stretching out in front like a grave. She had ridden as a boy-messenger, veiled against the dust, and not once had her paizi been questioned. She was on her sixth horse and the animal was tired.

The ride had been uneventful, which had suited a traveller who’d wanted to think. She’d last seen Luke at Kutahya when she’d also met Shulen. That had been at the start of Luke’s voyage to Tamerlane, a voyage that must have taken him and Shulen to the very frontiers of life and death, of mutual dependence. Was it so very surprising that they’d fallen in love along the way? But Anna remembered a night in a cave long ago and a promise that had been made.

I will love you wherever you are and wherever I am.

The words had stayed with her through every moment of her life in the harem in Edirne. On the rides with Suleyman, she’d meant to scatter them into the air but they’d always come back to her. Luke might be married to Shulen but he still loved her. She was certain of it.

But she was afraid too, and the closer she got to Ankara, the more afraid she became. What if she was wrong? What if Luke also loved Shulen? Was she going to be humiliated at Ankara? Should she turn back?

She’d not turned back and now it was too late. The vast studded doors were closing behind her and she was inside the castle. She was still veiled and a Mongol officer was approaching her.

‘Your message?’

‘Is for the eyes of Prince Mohammed Sultan only,’ said Anna as she dismounted. She handed her reins to a waiting groom. ‘I must take it to him in person.’ The paizi around her neck glowed in the waning sunlight.

The man nodded and turned. ‘This way.’

They entered the keep and crossed a big hall with a long table in the centre, piled high with food and jugs of wine. There was armour on the walls and crossed weapons. They went through an arch and into a tower and began to climb steps. At last they reached a door and the soldier knocked.

A voice told them to enter. Not Luke’s but a woman’s. Anna’s heart was beating harder than she’d ever known it to do. She took the deepest of breaths and lifted the veil to her eyes. The door opened. Inside were three people, two of them sitting at a table, the other asleep in a large bed. Luke and Shulen were playing chess. Luke was staring at the board while Shulen glanced up.

‘A message from Temur Gurgan?’

Anna waited for the soldier to close the door behind her. ‘A message for the Varangian,’ she said, her voice muffled by the veil and as deep as she could make it. ‘For him to read here. I am to know his reply.’

Luke was still staring at the game. He had a castle in one hand that hovered above a knight. Anna saw that there were strange pieces on the board and that it was bigger than ones she’d played on. Luke held up a hand for the letter and Anna looked at the hand. Then she produced one of two letters on her person.

Luke took the scroll, broke the seal and unrolled the vellum. It contained a simple message: ‘You promised only to ever remove the ring when you stopped loving me. You wear it still.’

Luke dropped the castle. He turned and rose too quickly and the chair clattered to the ground. ‘Anna.’

He ran to her as she pulled down the veil. Then she was within arms that held her so hard that the paizi dug into her breast. ‘Stop,’ she said. ‘The paizi.’ She drew away, holding him at arm’s length, breathing hard. ‘And you are married.’

‘Married? To whom?’

Anna looked into a face wide with joy, astonishment, bewilderment. It was a face with no trace of a lie in it. She nearly faltered.

‘To her.’ She nodded towards the table.

‘To Shulen?’

Anna nodded. ‘It happened in the caravan. We heard.’

Shulen had risen. She was very different from when Anna had seen her last. Now she was smiling. ‘Ah, you heard.’ She laughed. ‘From Venetians perhaps? Or even from the court of Tamerlane?’ She came up to them. ‘Anna, I invented the marriage to try and save us from a madman — two madmen.’ She pointed towards the bed where Mohammed Sultan lay. ‘The only man I have ever come close to marrying lies in that bed.’

Anna nearly sank to her knees with the relief. It was as if a giant vine that had grown around her, that had squeezed the life from her existence, had been cut at its roots. She rose, took a long breath and grasped Shulen’s hand. She said: ‘Thank you.’

Luke had been watching her throughout the exchange, slowly shaking his head in disbelief. A moment that he’d dreamt of for so long had arrived. He felt weak with joy. But why was she here? And how had she got here? ‘Anna …’

But she had turned and was walking over to the bed, partly to hide the tears of happiness that were washing her eyes. She stopped and looked down at the sleeping Prince. ‘Is he too sick to travel?’ she asked.

Shulen followed and stood on the other side of the bed. ‘The wound was very deep. He mustn’t be moved.’

Luke came to stand next to Anna and took her hand. He looked down at the Prince, whose only movement was the rise and fall of his bandaged chest. ‘Where must he travel to?’

Anna said: ‘Tamerlane wants to marry Zoe in the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Everyone believes that it’s an excuse to put the city to the sword. Only Mohammed Sultan can stop him.’

It was said quietly but it caused the man below them to stir. He opened his eyes and blinked twice. He turned his head towards Shulen and took her hand. ‘I can be moved,’ he said.

Shulen shook her head, kissing each of his fingers as she did so. ‘It will kill you.’ She looked up at Anna, then Luke. ‘There must be another way.’

Anna turned to Luke. ‘Plethon wants the ring I gave you. It’s possible that Zoe can be persuaded to stop Tamerlane but he needs the ring to do it. Whatever happens with Mohammed Sultan, we must bring the ring to Plethon.’

Luke nodded. ‘We should leave immediately, then.’ He knelt down so that his head was level with the Prince’s. ‘And you should obey Shulen. You’re too weak to go to Tamerlane.’

Mohammed Sultan nodded slowly. ‘I am too weak to go with you but I will come on behind, with Shulen and my mother.’ His face wrinkled. Speaking was painful. ‘You’ll need me.’

Shulen began to say something but stopped herself. The Prince continued: ‘Do you remember in the church, when you thought Shulen was Cybele?’ The words were slow, mostly breath. He was trying to smile. ‘I told you that I’d believed what you’d said about the west, about what was happening there.’ He closed his eyes and took several slow breaths. ‘Temur must not destroy it.’

Luke remembered something that had been said and not said. The Mongol army would go home on the death of its khan as it always had. But how? He looked down at a face drained of blood, at eyes lying too deep in shadow. He’d come to love this man and he didn’t know if he’d see him alive again. Luke nodded, uncertain, if he spoke, whether he would be able to finish a sentence. He bent forward and kissed the forehead, cold as ice. He got to his feet and turned to Anna. ‘We should go.’

*

Anna had ridden five days without sleep and was exhausted beyond reason. But there was no time to sleep now and she had to dig her nails deep into her palms to keep in the saddle. Luke was in front, joined to the back of Eskalon as if the animal were part of him. They hadn’t spoken since leaving Ankara and the night was loud beneath her: the pounding of hoof on solid earth, the rhythmic squeak of leather in motion, the staccato panting of an animal doing its best to keep up with one much bigger. She felt so tired.

On the ride to Ankara, the agony of apprehension had kept her awake but now, with the relief of knowing that Luke was unmarried, something had been released and she thought she could sleep for a thousand years. She felt rain on her brow and looked up. The night seemed blacker above her and there was a tension in the air that spoke of storm. She kicked her horse.

The first clap of thunder was not much more than a rumble, the heavens clearing their throat. The second brought her to the ground. It was louder than any she’d ever heard and its effect on her horse was dramatic: it stopped, reared and threw Anna from its back. She landed badly and for a while feared that she’d be trampled. She rolled away and waited for the horse to calm. Then another thunderclap.

‘Anna!’ Luke had turned Eskalon on the first roar and ridden back. He jumped to the ground and ran to her. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘Only my pride,’ she laughed, the rain splashing her face. Anything could happen and she didn’t care. She was alive and here and so was Luke. And he loved her. ‘I’m so tired.’

‘Of course.’ He looked up. The steppe stretched all around and the rain was drilling into the ground. ‘We must find shelter and you must sleep.’

‘But …’

‘No, you must sleep and then we’ll go on. There are hills ahead. We can find shelter there.’ He lifted her in his arms and walked over to Eskalon. ‘We’ll ride together.’ He put her on to his horse and then went to hers. He gathered its reins and tied them to his saddle. Then he mounted Eskalon behind her. ‘Hold on to me.’

And, in a dream, she did. She cradled herself in his arms and felt the warm, strong embrace that she’d felt in a cave on the Goulas of Monemvasia long ago. She wanted so badly to stay awake, to live this moment of pure, rain-soaked joy for eternity. She drifted into sleep thinking of a runaway horse and the moment when he’d held her for the first time. She felt the comfortable rhythm of power beneath her and against her and she fell asleep, smiling.

When she awoke, it was daylight and she was lying on the ground beneath an overhang of rock. She was in dry clothes, warm and covered by blankets. Beside her was Luke. ‘How long have I slept?’

He smiled. ‘A night. You talked a bit.’

‘About you?’

‘Mainly me.’ He kissed her. ‘Others too.’ He looked at her for a long time and she looked back. So much time had passed since they’d last met. He dared ask the question. ‘Did he hurt you?’

‘Suleyman? No. I don’t think he would ever hurt me.’

Luke raised himself to his elbow. ‘Why didn’t he marry you?’

Anna pulled the blanket higher, enjoying the soft wool on her cheek. ‘I kept finding reasons for delay. Then I used his seal without his knowledge and Bayezid found out. He forbade the marriage after that.’

‘And yet you have your annulment.’

‘I have it but don’t need it,’ she replied. ‘Damian’s dead. He fell off the Goulas when he was drunk.’

Luke had not heard. He shook his head, surprised at the pain of the news. Flashes of long-ago memory came to him: Damian, Zoe, him on a donkey led by his mother; the three of them looking for kermes outside Monemvasia. They’d been the best of friends once. Then Eskalon had charged and Damian had been in the way and he’d not forgiven Luke or his horse. Now he was dead.

Anna leant forward. She put her hand to his cheek, hoping to draw some of the sorrow. ‘We can marry, Luke,’ she said softly. ‘You are a hero.’

Luke frowned. ‘On Chios perhaps. But what will I be when Tamerlane sacks Constantinople?’

Anna said: ‘Shulen will bring Mohammed Sultan. He’ll stop Tamerlane.’

‘No he won’t. He didn’t stop him at Aleppo or Damascus. Tamerlane cannot be stopped by anyone.’

‘Except, perhaps, by Zoe. Show me the ring.’

Luke raised his hand and turned it so that Anna could see the ring. It was of gold and pitted with age, its edges worn. On it was some ancient script.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she murmured. ‘What’s written on it?’

Luke shrugged. ‘I showed it to Ibn Khaldun once. He said it was ancient Hebrew. I don’t know what it says. A name perhaps.’

They both examined it in silence. The wind over the steppe made a strange, keening sound as it parted the grass. There was low cloud and the sun was warming some other landscape. Eskalon neighed.

‘We should go,’ said Luke at last.

Anna leant back and stretched. Then she rolled herself towards him so that they were face to face. She kissed him. ‘Not yet, tarkhan.’