Swords From the West (51 page)

"Now make what magic ye will, son of Eblis," he chanted, "and the devil take ye, as he will, for his own. Cousin Michael, did the mad Cham outroar you, or are we saved? What's to do?"

"Where are the others?"

Bembo could not forbear a chuckle. "Rest you, good cousin. The master-merchant Soranzi is counting a myriad gold coins for the Tatar wazirs, as the pagans name their money-tenders; Rudolfo is departed with good grace and Gian to be escorted by Tatar children to the river."

"And Clavijo?"

Bembo nodded toward the cage. "With the apes, who love him like a brother. This black giant was to cut off my head-"

"You will be safe with me. Come." Michael smiled. "The Cham, as you call him, has given us some good sport. We will fly pigeons and when that is done, sleep. Then this night will you see a rare jest, my Bembo."

"So said Rudolf o to Gian when they went off. Gian has been grinning like a dog that scents a bone. Two days agone did I ask them what was i' the wind. That was before they knew that you were with us in pagan garb. Rudolfo cursed me, but his henchman, forsooth, muttered that my master was not the only man who could devise a plan."

Michael frowned, but could learn nothing more from the jester, except that Rudolfo had talked at times with a certain wazir who was openhanded with his gold and knew many tongues.

He could not waste time to search into a possible new intrigue on the part of the Italian, for Tamerlane had ordered him to assist in preparing messages to be sent up with carrier pigeons-messages intended to fall into the hands of Bayezid.

In the annals of the Ottoman dynasty it is written that during the space of that day Bayezid, surnamed the Thunderbolt, hunted with falcon and dogs upon the plain of Angora, having in his heart naught but contempt for the Tatars.

With his grandees and picked cavalry the sultan rode from sunrise to sunset, his beaters spread across the steppe, without thought of water or bodily comfort. His men stood under arms all that time. His ships in the river remained at their moorings. His spies reported that Tamerlane was taking more time to muster the Tatar horsemen to cross the river.

But Bayezid had burned and broken down the few bridges on the Khabur, and knew well that, save at Angora, there was no ford. This gave him assurance that Tamerlane could not cross except at the point where the sultan awaited him.

Further assurance came with a carrier pigeon, struck down by one of Bayezid's hawks. From the bird was taken a message addressed to the court of Samarkand, saying that Tamerlane would that night cross the Khabur and crush the Ottoman army.

Whereupon Bayezid retired to the palace by the lake at Angora, hearing fresh news at sunset that the Tatars were assembling in their ranks.

So Bayezid feasted and received praise from the leaders of the Moslem world.

"The beast," he said, "may see the trap; yet, being a beast, he has no wit to do aught but charge upon the bait."

"Nay," amended his advisers, "where else could the Tatar cross the river, having no bridges or boats?"

Well into the night a tumult arose on the shore opposite Angora. Many lights were to be seen in the camp of Tamerlane, and the neighing of horses could be heard clearly across the river. Soon came the ring of weapons and the shout of the Mongols. A line of fire grew along the waiting galleys. Flights of arrows sped into the masses that were moving toward the ford. Bayezid laughed, well content.

Rumors reached him from fishermen that Mongols had been seen far down the river, but Bayezid could see and hear the conflict that was beginning at the ships. Moreover the torches of the Tatar camp were plainly to be seen.

It is written likewise in his annals that at this time a Christian captive, escaping from Tamerlane's camp, swam the river.

This man, who was attended by another Frank of powerful build, was taken captive by guards at the Khabur shore and carried up into the town where the officers of the janissaries had assembled near Bayezid.

The two were Rudolfo and Gian, who had discarded their mail and broken loose from the half-grown Tatars, slaying one with their hands-so stoutly had the boys pestered them with miniature weapons.

Once safely in the town, they made signs that they would be taken to the sultan and offered as proof of the urgency of their mission a ring that bore the signet of a Turkish wazir.

When the litter of the sultan passed, attended by torches and mounted grandees, Rudolfo and Gian knelt. Bayezid halted. He examined the ring and his brows went up. It was the signet of one of his spies.

"Where is the wazir?" he demanded of the Greeks in his retinue who could converse with Rudolfo. The wazir who was the sultan's man had not been able to leave his post in the Horde without discovery and he had sent the ring by Rudolfo, who was prepared to seek reward from Bayezid for information given.

"'Tis small gain I seek from the Thunderbolt," he assured the Greeks. "Some gold and goods of mine taken from me by Tamerlane, who is a foul fiend. Lists have been prepared of the stuff and when the sultan overwhelms the camp of the Horde I will point it out. For this small gear I have tidings for the ear of the sultan."

Meanwhile up from the riverfront came the clash of steel and the shouting of men. Bayezid, never impatient, scanned Rudolfo's face and observed that the man did not meet his eye. "More like," he whispered to the Sheik of Rum, "that this Frank has had the slaying of my spy and has come to beguile me with words of Tamerlane's. Promise him his gold and get his news."

Rudolfo's message caused a stir throughout the grandees.

Tamerlane, he said, had left the camp across the river at dusk with the bulk of his cavalry, which meant the bulk of his army. The demonstration at the ford was being made by old men and boys-slaves and horseherders. The array of fires that winked at Angora from the other shore had been lighted to deceive the sultan into thinking that the mass of the Horde was still there.

As he spoke the tumult seemed to dwindle, and for a second, doubt was written on the hard face of the Thunderbolt.

"If the Tatar has tricked me-" He thought of his preparations to defend Angora on the river side and the men he had thrown into ships and trenches on the shore.

"But there are no bridges and no fords," his councilors pointed out. "Where else could Tamerlane cross the Khabur? Perhaps he was fleeing with his army."

Bayezid had never met defeat. Astrologers had assured him that the greatest event of his destiny was to come to pass. He felt sure of his plan and of himself. Had not his hunters' falcons struck down a carrier pigeon that day with news of Tamerlane's purpose to attack?

So Bayezid laughed and questioned Rudolf o lightly as to which way the Tatar riders had passed from the camp. When Rudolfo replied that they had headed down the river, the sultan gave orders that a detachment of mamelukes should ride down the Angora side of the Khabur and report if they sighted any Tatars. Meanwhile the two Franks were to be kept in attendance on him, for they would be useful.

The scouts never returned. Quiet settled upon the Khabur.

Some hours after dawn a Turkish war galley was sent down the river to reconnoiter. So it was after midday that the vessel arrived at a point a dozen miles down the river and learned that here during the night the Horde had crossed the Khabur to the Angora side-the Tatars swimming their horses and the foot soldiers holding to the beasts' tails.

Tamerlane, in fact, was now drawn up on the Angora plain with all his strength.

Chapter XIII

The Conqueror

Bembo had secured for himself one of those animals of the Kallmark Tatars, a beast that was neither horse nor mule nor ass. This steed he had caparisoned gaily. Thus mounted, he trotted at Michael's side, discoursing cheerfully.

"A fair day, my cousin, and a goodly steed between my knees-albeit it savors not of bull-stag or cameleopard. Alack, my wooden sword is broken; yet I have got me another weapon which is a favorite among these barbarians."

Michael, clad in a mail shirt with a Tatar helmet on his head and mace and sword at his belt, glanced down inquiringly. He did not see that Bembo carried any weapon.

"Nay, it is invisible, good my cousin," chattered the jester. "I learned its use in the Venetian fields and it likes me well because it avails best at a distance from my foe-ha! Are devils loosed on the plain yonder?"

A distant clamor of horns and drums came to their ears. Michael had taken his position among a regiment of Chatagai horse commanded by Mirza Rurtem, the grandson of Tamerlane-a strong-bodied youth in rich armor. Directly behind them the standard of the Genghis family was raised, the yak-tail standard of the Mongols.

"The Ottoman attacks," explained Michael, rising in his short stirrups. "Bayezid has been maneuvering throughout the morning, and now his front ranks advance upon the Horde."

The plateau of Angora was nearly flat. The field favored neither Tatar nor Turk, except that Tamerlane had his left flank upon the river. Michael could see the masses of Moslem spearmen that had acted as beaters the day before, and other brilliant groups of irregulars-archers on either flank. Behind these, almost concealed in the dust that floated up from the hard clay, were mamelukes, closely packed, and beside them the glint of lances of the sipahis.

Bayezid, taken in flank by the swift move of the Tatar Horde, had been compelled to realign his troops that morning and draw out of Angora, away from his galleys and trenches, to give battle. He had no other course open to him except to retire since Tamerlane refused to advance from the river.

There was no outcry from the Tatars. They waited as they stood. They flooded the yellow plain like bees clustered upon a board. And like an army of locusts was the advancing host of the sultan, fatigued by continuous marching, and tormented by thirst, but high-spirited and conscious of a hundred victories.

Michael's dark face was grave as he scanned their ranks-a hundred thousand souls, hitherto invincible, moving forward in the shape of a halfmoon to the sound of their horns, Seljuk shouting to Ottoman, Turko man to mameluke. He knew the fighting ability of these veterans and was more than a little surprised at the calm alertness of the Tatars, not knowing that every Mongol shared the reckless spirit of Tamerlane and would rather fight than eat.

"A thirsty sight," murmured Bembo, quaffing heartily of one of his skins of water. The day before, Tamerlane had ordered that each man be supplied with two such skins of water.

Emptying the goat's hide, Bembo dismounted to pluck stones from the ground, surveying each with care and throwing away all that were not round and of a certain size.

Michael looked up as arrows began to fly in dense clouds from the sultan's skirmishers. The front ranks of the Tatars took this punishment without cry or movement. By now the Turkish regiments of mailed horsemen could be plainly seen, moving forward at a trot.

Then the sun glinted on ten thousand arrows loosed at the same moment by the Mongol archers who shot three times while one shaft was in the air. The clamor among the Turks shrilled with shouts of pain and anger. Horses broke from the front lines, and the curtain of dust swelled so that it covered the scene of the battle from view from the rear where Michael and the Chatagais stood with picked regiments of Iran and the Tatar steppe.

The roar of voices merged with a pandemonium of clashing steel and thud of horses' hoofs. The tumult swelled until they could no longer hear their own voices.

Stationary at first, the brunt of the battle began to move onward toward the waiting masses of Tamerlane's horse, under Mahmoud Khan and the Lame Conqueror himself-the center of the army that was between the foot soldiers and the cavalry in reserve, where Michael was.

"Bayezid's mongrel skirmishers have been killed off," he mused, "and his sipahis are at work."

Even Bembo looked a trifle downcast. He glanced at the glittering figure of Mirza Rustem seated on a black stallion near them. The grandson of Tamerlane was chewing dates.

Plucking up his spirits at this sight, the jester took some fruit from his girdle and tried to follow the mirza's example. But he gagged and coughed up the food, thereby raising a laugh from Michael and the nearest Tatars.

A hot wind tossed the dust clouds high overhead and the glare of the sun pierced sullenly through the murk.

"Hai-Allah-hai!" the deep shout of the janissaries came to them.

Mirza Rustein finished his dates and began to eat dried meat that he pulled from under his saddle where the heat and the chafing of the leather had softened the stiffened meat. Bembo, watching in fascination, found the sight too much for his stomach and turned to look at the masses of Tatars before them.

Tamerlane, his standard, and Mahmoud Khan were no longer to be seen.

The red ball of the sun, high overhead when the conflict began, was lowering to the west.

A leaping, furtive form passed the jester's vision, like an incarnation of evil. One of Tamerlane's hunting leopards had escaped from its cage. No one paid heed to it.

Bembo began to tremble, and found that the perspiration that soaked his garments was cold. The hideous din in front of him had dwindled for a space and now swelled again until it seemed to embrace the horizon.

He looked for captives to be led back, but none came. Surely, he thought, there would be wounded Tatars running from the front, and others not wounded who had escaped the eye of their leaders. That had been a familiar sight in the orderly battles of Europe.

"The Mongols fight each man for himself," grunted Michael impatiently. "They do not keep lines as we do; that is why Bayezid has not broken their center yet. Tamerlane's cavalry met the charge of the janissaries-"

He rose in his stirrups, looking eagerly over the field. He could make out that the two armies were engaged from wing to wing. The Turkish half-moon was no longer clearly drawn and the bodies of reserve cavalry behind the half-moon had been brought up into the line of battle.

Unconsciously Michael had edged his horse up abreast of the stocky pony of Mirza Rustem. Now he felt an iron hand seize his bridle and draw it back.