Swords From the West (49 page)

They nodded assent-sheik, malik, and caliph.

"When he comes to the Khabur," went on Bayezid, "I will have a hunt declared. My troops will aid me in the pursuit of game. That will show the Tatar how much we esteem him."

Some of the councilors looked more than a little startled. It was no light thing to hunt game in the presence of Tamerlane's army. And Bayezid had ordered the Mongol envoys slain, wantonly, as it seemed.

The man who was called the Thunderbolt turned sleepy eyes to the dark face of the Sheik of Rum, in whose country they were encamped.

"Give orders for ten thousand beaters to be mustered from the town. It is my will."

The official prostrated himself and muttered:

"Tamerlane has forty thousand infantry and twice that number of riders, 0 Guardian of the Faith. Will you pursue the beasts of the field when such a host stands across the river?" He plucked up courage from the sultan's silence. "Bethink you, Star of the East, there is but one cloud upon the face of your sky-Tamerlane. You have gained the Danube; Constantinople will be yours as Greece is now-then the rest of Frankistan. And, when Tamerlane falls, Iran, Tatary, and India-"

"Sheik," Bayezid smiled, "have you forgotten my spies in the Tatar camp?"

In this manner was it ordained by the sultan that they should mock Tamerlane. Festival was to be held in the town, even when the Tatar horsemen occupied the opposite bank of the Khabur. The bulk of the Seljuk knights-the pick of the host-was to be kept in its tents by the town.

The councilors, hearing this, wondered whether ceaseless conquests had not affected the mind of Bayezid. But the leaders of the mamelukes and janissaries smiled, saying that they were invincible and-some beasts to be slain must be first trapped.

Michael Bearn, sitting among the cypresses on the farther bank of the lake where there were no guards, watched the feast of Bayezid until dawn reddened the sky across the river and the call of the muezzin floated over the roofs of Angora.

He was studying again the brilliant assemblage of grandees that he had seen at times from a distance during his captivity. He noticed the councilors start up from their cushions. By the fading light of the torches he could see them staring up at the sky.

Almost at the same time he heard a sound-a shrill cry that was more like a scream. It rose from one side of the miniature lake, swelled, and dwindled swiftly.

Michael knew the cry of herons and waterfowl. This was different. It was more like the scream of a horse in pain. Yet it had sounded a hundred feet above the kiosk. A shout reached his ears from the kiosk, a bowshot away.

"The warning of Tamerlane!"

Guards were running here and there about the lake. Torches advanced along the shore toward him from the palace. It was no time to sit wondering about the source of the queer sound in the air. Broad daylight would be upon him in a moment.

Cautiously Michael began to crawl through the willow thickets of the lakeside, toward a gully by which he had gained his point of vantage. The light was strong enough for him to see his way.

He stumbled over something projecting from the ground and found that it was an arrow. With some difficulty he pulled it out, for his curiosity had been aroused by its weight.

Instead of a point, the shaft terminated in a hollow steel cylinder, perforated in the sides. Michael weighed it in his hand and chuckled. Such an arrow as this, sent from a powerful bow, would emit a loud whistling sound when passing through the air. In fact it had been the passage of this shaft that he had just heard.

The arrow was plainly of Tatar make and Michael guessed that some man of Tamerlane's, hidden in the rushes across the lake, had sent it as a warning to Bayezid. He thrust the shaft under his cloak, and, hearing footsteps approaching, made his way down the gully.

For several days thereafter Michael was very busy. He frequented the bazaar, heard the news of the preparation for the sultan's hunt, and out on the plain of Angora behind the town saw regiments of janissaries drilling constantly.

And he noticed another head on the Angora gate-posts-an old Tatar fisherman who had been seen more than once dragging his nets in the river. Under the head a large bow had been placed.

Michael guessed that the man who had fired the whistling arrow would not report his feat to Tamerlane.

He heard great emirs say openly in the town that Bayezid was drunk with power and with wine. Litters of Moslem women and captives from Georgia and Greece were passing constantly through the streets.

The finest cavalry of the sultan was encamped a league behind the town, apart from the rest of the army. Angora was continually a-throng with merrymakers, as if the fast of Ramadan had just been broken.

Knowing the inexorable discipline of the Ottoman army and the merciless cunning of Bayezid, Michael doubted the evidence of his senses. This was no idle laxity or sport such as the Thunderbolt was accustomed to use in pleasuring his men.

Even when Tatar horsemen were seen, swooping about the plain across the river, there was no sign of any preparation made to meet Tamerlane.

But when Michael made his way down to the riverbank one cloudy night, he found the boats that were drawn up on shore filled with men, and out in the center of the Khabur he could discern the black bulk of guard ships moving back and forth.

"Bayezid waits!" He laughed silently. "Aye, and thus he waited at Nicopolis! I begin to see the answer to the riddle. And now, for a visit to the sentry post that welcomed me at the jetty. Grant the same two janissaries be on watch; the hour is the same."

Dawn revealed two unexpected things to the officers of the janissaries who commanded the guard at the riverfront.

On a small dock two spearmen lay bound and gagged beside an extinguished lantern. The white woolen turban, the kaftan, and bow of one were gone.

And one of the guard boats reported that its steersman was missing. A janissary, the men of the galley said, had come on board when they were putting out from the shore-a warrior who declared that he knew the river and was skilled in managing a galley. He had carried a bow.

Before an hour had passed, so the tale was repeated, this helmsman had disappeared from the craft, taking with him the steering oar. They had not heard him fall overboard. But at the end of the hour they heard a whistling arrow, shot into the air from the other side.

Michael's penetration of the Ottoman lines had been comparatively simple because the Turk guards-not yet drawn up in battle order-had not looked for a foe from within.

One of the sentries he had found at a distance from the lantern and had stunned with a blow on the forehead. The other, running toward the slight noise, had been easily overcome by the powerful Breton.

Michael exulted in the fact that his right arm was once more serviceable after a fashion. Stripping one of the guards of tunic, cloak, and cap, he had gained access to a galley.

Not trusting as yet to his right arm, he had taken the steering oar with him when he dropped over the stern of the galley to swim to the farther shore.

Here, to disturb further his late companions and to test his arm, he had let fly the cylinder-headed arrow over the river.

Now he began to run up from the bank of the Khabur, casting aside his cloak as he went and unwinding the cumbersome turban. It would not be very long, he knew, before he would encounter Tatar patrols and he did not wish to be cut down as a janissary.

Michael had gained what he had come for. He had guessed the riddle of Bayezid's inaction and the revelry in Angora. An ambush was being prepared for Tamerlane.

The Tatars were to be beguiled into an attack and a trap was to be set for them on the river.

Michael studied the stars overhead and shaped his course by them, shaking his head as he made out a crescent moon on the horizon. He would be late for his rendezvous with Bembo.

Chapter XII

Tamerlane Decides

It was the night set for the Tatar attack. The Lame Conqueror had been riding slowly among his host, listening as was his wont to the talk of the warriors about the campfires. Tamerlane, what with his age and the pain of his old injuries, seldom slept.

When the middle watch had ended and quiet had fallen in some degree on the Mongol army, he retired to his small tent and lay down on the plain mattress that served him for a bed. He read slowly, because of his poor sight, the annals of his ancestors and the tales of past battles written down by the chroniclers.

The plan of attack for the coming day had been decided upon, and every khatun had his orders, which in turn were transmitted to the tumani-the commanders of a thousand and to the khans of the hundreds. Tamerlane, however, was restless. News had reached him from the fisherfolk of the river that the Turkish grandees were at revelry, and Bayezid himself had ordered a hunt, even within sight of the Tatar array.

This puzzled the Conqueror.

Impatiently he ordered his ivory and ebony chessboard set before him, then brushed it aside, for there was no one in attendance who could play the mimic game of warfare as Tamerlane desired. He lifted his broad head and signed to a Mongol archer at the tent's entrance.

"Bring hither the Franks. I will pass judgment upon them."

It would amuse him, perhaps until dawn, to probe the souls of the Christians from the end of the world who had tried to throw dust in the eyes of the Conqueror of the World.

He surveyed them grimly as they knelt before him, their finery rumpled by the confinement of the past few days. Fear was plainly to be read in their white faces-save that of Bembo. The jester was a philosopher.

Bembo was thinking that Clavijo's Grand Cham had proved to be a strange sort of monarch indeed. Steel and wool that clad Tamerlane's long body were hardly the silks and chrysoliths about which the Spaniard had boasted.

The brazen city of Cathay had become a city of tents. The gold house of the khan was constructed, so Bembo perceived, of bull's hide. And instead of winning wealth, joined with perpetual life, they had been deprived of their own goods-or rather Soranzi had-and bade fair to earn a swift death.

The others had not failed to remind Bembo that Michael Bearn had not appeared as he had promised. To this the jester returned only a wink.

He had recognized Michael in the courier who had come in native attire from Angora. He knew that Michael was in the camp and would seek him out.

The moon was already five days old.

"Does this Frank," Tamerlane observed to the interpreters, indicating Soranzi, "confess that he is a merchant and a thief?"

At this Soranzi, reading Tamerlane's harsh countenance, broke forth into feverish words, which the interpreters explained to their lord.

"Aye, sire. 0 Great Khan. Splendor of the World! 0 monument of mercy and essence of forgiveness! 0 Conqueror of Asia. Grant but one small iota of mercy to your slave."

Tamerlane nodded, unsmiling.

"I will. See yonder weapons?"

"Aye my lord." Soranzi's eyes widened at sight of jewel-inlaid scimitars and gold-chased helmets and silver camails hung upon the walls of the tent.

"They were taken from my enemies, merchant-thief. It will now be the duty of your life to furnish and cleanse the spoil that I shall take. Dog, do you understand? You may smell of the riches you may not taste. Pocket but one zecchin of this store and your bowels shall be let out with a knife. Go, to your work."

Soranzi trembled and could not refrain from a frantic plea.

"But my goods?"

"Begin by writing down an account of them-for me."

The Tatar was not lacking in a rough sense of humor. He was naturally merciless, yet he had no love of torture. A man without a god, a man fash ioned for dealing destruction, he could still tolerate another man's faith in God, and he admired courage.

"You say that you are a warrior." He addressed Rudolfo, who was watching him in sullen dread. "Good. You have seen my ranks and the camp of my foe the sultan. Tell me how your Frankish would plan the battle."

Rudolfo licked his lips and tried to speak out clearly, but his voice quivered. He described the order of battle of the Italian mercenaries-skirmishing by irregulars, the entrenchment of pikemen behind abatis, the feints and countermarches that produced the bloodless battles of his knowledge.

This recital Tamerlane ended with a grunt of anger.

"I did not ask you how your children played. I will have you placed with the Tatar boys and girls tomorrow by the river, where you may see a battle."

Glancing contemptuously over Clavijo, he stared at Bembo's sad face and gay attire.

"What kind of man is this?"

The jester rose and bowed ceremoniously.

"I am your cousin, 0 King," he stated cheerily.

Tamerlane frowned, puzzled.

"Because," pointed out the jester, "I am maimed for the fight, whereas you are lame for the flight."

"If you are maimed, you are useless and need not live."

"So be it," agreed Bembo. "I am not afraid. Nevertheless, I would fain set eyes upon my other cousin who is only maimed in the arm."

"Who is that?" asked the matter-of-fact khan.

"A wiser man, Messer Tamerlane, than all of us put together."

Tamerlane looked around as if to mark this other Frank. He noticed a helmeted emir who salaamed within the entrance of the tent.

"The other Frank," announced the newcomer, as Tamerlane signed for him to speak, "seeks admittance to the presence of the Lord of the East and West."

Two archers of the guard held Michael Bearn by the arms. Bembo and Rudolfo-Soranzi and the Spaniard had been dismissed-stared at him in surprise.

He had grown leaner, his face blackened by the sun. Around his shoulders was a rich fur kaftan and silk trousers covered the tattered bindings of his legs.

The emir who had announced him bowed again before Tamerlane.

"0 Kha Khan, we know not this man. Yet, because of his claim, we could not refuse him admittance." The officer glanced at the silent khan and pointed to Michael. "He claims that he is to play with you at chess-as you play it."