The Grand Cham (Lamb, Adventure magazine)/Chapter 13
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 Rustem, 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 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 realine 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 half-moon to the sound of their horns, Seljuke shouting to Ottoman, Turkoman to Mameluke. He knew the fighting ability of these veterans and was more than a little surprized 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 Janisseries came to them.
Mirza Rustem 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 Janisseries”
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.
Looking into the eyes of Tamerlane's grandson, he found them cold and spiritless. The Breton was flushed and impatient as a hunting-dog held in leash. But there was no fire in the glance of Mirza Rustem who gazed upon the death of thirty thousand men with utter indifference.
“Do you fight for your God?” asked the Tatar.
“As you for your khan.”
Mirza Rustem turned to glance fleetingly at where he could make out the yak-tail standard in the black mass of the Tatar center.
“Aye,” he said slowly, “yet your God is gold, no more. A wazir spy of the sultan confessed before we beheaded him this day that a Christian had gone over to the enemy for gold. That is the word that is ever in the mouths of your breed.”
Michael stiffened, knowing that Rudolfo must have tried to betray the plans of Tamerlane. He thought, too, of the mercenary Comneni, of the grasping emperor and the Venetians who had sent to plunder the khan.
Then there came to his mind the vision of the chivalry of France who had thrown away their lives with reckless bravery in the crusade against Bayezid. And he thought of the Christian graves that marked the cities of Palestine where the knights of the cross had struggled vainly with the conquering Saracen.
This he did not try to explain to the Tatar, knowing that it was useless.
“See,” said the young Tatar again; “the standard advances. The wolf has shaken the dogs from his flanks.”
Michael saw that the masses of Tatars that had been stationary were moving forward now. It was almost imperceptible at first, this hive-like movement of men waiting grimly to slay.
Tamerlane's center had stood fast for three hours. Bayezid's last attack had been broken.
What the chivalry of Europe could not do, the Lame Conqueror and his Horde had done. To Michael this was a strange thing. Where was then the power of God?
Hunger and the nervous suspense of the last hours had made his mind clear and unnaturally alert. He found that he was dwelling upon some words of a woman who had taught him wisdom before he became a man.
“The ways of God are past our knowing,” his mother had said.
He wondered if she were reading from the Book wherein she had found these words, and smiling as she did, alone in her room in the tower of the seacoast. She had smiled like that when his father's ships brought in word of new conquests of the Moslems on the borders of Europe.
It did not seem to Michael to be a strange thing that the strongest faith should be in the hearts of women, who knew nothing of warfare.
This had passed through his thoughts almost subconsciously while he watched the battle. Now the dust curtain thickened, cutting off his view. There was a pounding of hoofs and shapes that looked like birds crossed in front of Mirza Rustem and a man shouted something. Then they were gone, wheeling toward the Mongol right. Michael spoke to a Tatar squatted upon the ground sharpening his sword.
“Beduins—our men,“ he announced to Bembo, a new note of eagerness in his voice. “Be of good cheer, cousin esquire. Five regiments of Sipahis have been surrounded and are doomed in yonder mêlée. The Janisseries are reforming. Presently will we, God willing, bear our hand to the fray.”
“I am well content here,” rejoined Bembo sincerely. “San Marco”
Almost at his ear a hideous clamor of kettle-drums and cymbals broke out. The jester clapped his hands to his head, only to see the standard of Mirza Rustem raised and the masses of Tatar horsemen move forward at a walk.
Michael touched spurs to his pony and Bembo sighed deeply. He looked longingly toward the rear where the leopard had fled, only to see lines of broad grim faces advancing and shaggy horses swarming together like bees.
THE sound of the Tatar nacars throbbed over the plain of Angora, summoning the Mongols to attack.
Whereupon every warrior of Tamerlane who could hold himself upon his feet ran or galloped forward. Some, who could not stand unaided, grasped the stirrups of the riders and struck out with their free arms.
And it was upon the checked and disheartened array of the Janisseries, ordered to charge a second time, that the Horde advanced. Defeated on both flanks, half his men slaughtered, and half of the rest staggering from wounds or thirst, the Thunderbolt ordered the flower of his veteran host to drive again at Tamerlane's center—only to be met by the picked horsemen of the Mongols, held in reserve until then under Mirza Rustem.
The Janisseries, shouting their war-cry, met the oncoming tide, wavered and broke up into scattered squares that melted away into mounds of dying and dead.
Michael, fighting beside the Chatagais, glimpsed the body of Gutchluk outstretched on the earth beside a mangled horse. The long hair of the Tatar was matted with blood and his black eyes stared up blindly at the passing riders.
Then through the dust Michael made out the noyan who had been called a prince of Eblis by Bembo. The armor of the noble was cut and hacked away and one hand held together his nearly severed abdomen. He was seated on a heap of sprawling Sipahis, and he was smiling. The dead lay thick about him, for the Sheikh of Rum had penetrated here into the center of Tamerlane's host.
The Chatagais were galloping now, enveloping and sweeping over detachments of white-capped Janisseries. The remnants of a regiment of Turkomans, kin to the Tatars, threw down their arms and were spared.
“Bayezid is in flight to Angora with his grandees,” cried Mirza Rustem. “We must not return without him.”
The grandson of Tamerlane staggered in his saddle as an arrow embedded itself in his mailed chest. He dropped his shield to break off the end of the shaft. Michael slew the archer who had sent the arrow, and presently found himself riding alone through the dust clouds.
There he turned aside to follow a horseman who had entered a rocky defile at a headlong pace. The aspect of the man was familiar.
“Rudolfo!” he cried.
He had known some hours before that the condottiere had escaped from the guard of Tatar boys, slaying one in his flight to the river. But Michael had not thought until informed by Mirza Rustem that Rudolfo had sought protection and reward from the sultan.
Rudolfo, in fact, had been kept beside the retinue of Bayezid until there were no longer any to guard him. Then with Gian he had circled the remnants of the Turkish regiments to seek safety in flight.
He knew that his life was forfeited to the Tatars. It seemed incomprehensible to him that Bayezid should be routed. It was part of the ill fortune that had dogged him since the Gate of Shadows.
So panic—the panic that had seized him at Nicopolis—claimed him, and he turned into the first ravine that offered shelter. Michael's shout caused him to glance back swiftly.
He saw that the Breton rode alone. In the fear that beset him, Rudolfo felt that his only chance of life lay in slaying Michael. The issue between the two had been long in coming to a head. Now, Rudolfo thought, it was at hand.
The condottiere checked his horse and flung his javelin deftly. The spear missed the Breton but struck his mount, causing the beast to rear and plunge. Michael jumped to earth and hurled his mace.
It crashed against Rudolfo's round shield of rhinoceros hide, and the man winced as he dropped the crushed target from an injured arm.
He reached for his sword, but Michael was on him, had grasped him about the waist and hauled him from his saddle.
“Now may we settle the issue of our duel,” muttered Michael, stepping back and drawing his weapon.
They had, in fact, strange weapons. Both had been deprived of the swords they had brought from Venice. The curved simitars felt strange in their hands. Rudolfo hung back, shaking the sweat from his eyes and gazing sidelong at the rocky defile in which they stood.
“Gian!” he cried. “To me!”
Michael waited for no more but leaped forward, slashing at the other's head. Rudolfo parried skilfully, calling again for his follower.
Out of the corner of his eye Michael saw the tall figure of the man-at-arms on a panting horse. Gian had been following them.
At this Michael set his back to a rock, warding off the counter-thrust of Rudolfo, who pressed the attack, certain now of the presence of his ally. Gian plucked forth a long knife and held it by the tip, reining his horse nearer for an opportunity to cast his favorite weapon.
Michael heard rapid hoof-beats approaching down the ravine. He caught the flash of the dagger as it flew toward him, only to rattle harmlessly off the rock at his back.
Gian grunted and flung up both arms, reeled in the saddle and tumbled to the ground. But Michael had not seen the thing that struck him down.'
“Habet!” a shrill voice chanted. “Goliath is dead! Stand aside, Cousin Michael, and let the other devil have his due.”
By now Michael was aware of Bembo on his mule-ass, waving something about his head.
“Nay,” the Breton growled; “this is my affair.”
The fall of Gian had brought a scowl to Rudolfo's olive face. He pressed Michael desperately, cursing under his breath. The two simitars clashed and the helmet was struck from the Breton's head. Rudolfo, panting, exerted every effort to follow up his success and reach his enemy's bare skull. Michael was taunting him softly.
As Rudolfo's blow fell Michael sprang forward dropping his sword. The other's simitar passed over his shoulder and Michael's powerful left hand caught the other's wrist, pinning it to his side.
At this the Italian grinned maliciously, for, with his enemy's left hand occupied, he fancied that Michael was defenseless. So Rudolfo gripped Michael's throat, bending his head back viciously with his free hand.
Somewhat he wondered at Michael's passivity, not knowing that the Breton's right hand, useful once more, thanks to long and patient practise, was feeling in his own girdle for the dagger Rudolfo carried.
Michael's searching fingers freed the dagger and plunged it into the other's throat, over the mail.
Sword in hand, Rudolfo swayed on his feet, choked and wheeled about as if to run. His knees sank under him and he blundered against a rock, falling heavily upon his back. Both his hands gripped the hilt of the dagger, strained at it and were still.
Bembo, having dismounted, bent over the condottiere and ripped off the bulging pouch that was tied to the dead man's waist. Michael saw for the first time that the jester held a long sling, made of thin strips of leather, a stone ready in the pocket. Catching his glance, the jester laughed.
“My weapon,” he said proudly. “Gian's thick head was cracked like a hen's egg. Gian's thick purse was full of gold trinkets, plundered, methinks, from the slain. So I would fain crack open his master's nest-egg”
From Rudolfo's pouch a stream of Turkish gold bezants poured forth.
“Consummatum est,” murmured Bembo. “It is finished. Gian's spoil will pay me for saving your life, coz. These belong to you.”
As Michael shook his head, the jester, nothing loath, poured the coins into his goatskin, after emptying out the remaining stones.
Breathing deeply from his effort, Michael gazed around at the shadows of the ravine and listened in vain for the war-cry of the Tatars.
“You will not hear it, coz,” remarked Bembo. “What is left of the grandees is flying toward Angora with worthy Mirza Rustem in hot pursuit. The victory is ours, as I prayed San Marco it should be.”
He tied up the sack and surveyed Rudolfo philosophically.
“Cousin Michael,” he declared thoughtfully, “you are a wise man. In Venice did you assert that a man follows his bent. And here is Rudolfo, a noble seller of himself, a condottiere to the king's taste. He sold himself to Genoa, then Venice, then back to himself again. Last night he traded him to the sultan, and now methinks he has gone to purgatory to sell his soul to the devil.”
Out on the plain of Angora the sun had set over the red mist and the red dust where the bodies of fifty thousand men lay motionless.
It was night when Michael and his follower sought Mirza Rustem and Tamerlane in the town of Angora. They knew that where the khan was, the sultan would be. Men had told them that Bayezid had been taken before he could leave the field and that a hundred of his grandees had died around him before he could be taken.
Torches borne by the Tatars and the glare of building tents revealed to Michael a strange sight. Tamerlane sat his horse at the entrance to the pleasure lake of the palace. Mirza Rustem in bloodied armor and the scarred, dust-coated noyans attended him.
Huddled groups of women and slaves stared in a kind of fascination at what stood before the old Tatar. Pushing past the onlookers to the side of Mirza Rustem, Michael saw the great bulk of Bayezid kneeling in front of Tamerlane's horse.
The sultan wore his embroidered cap with the blood-colored ruby, and his tunic of cloth-of-gold. His head swayed on his shoulders and his eyes were half-closed. His glance went from one to another of the noyans and finally rested on Michael.
The black eyes of the defeated monarch widened as he recognized the Christian who had been his slave. His lips twisted as he half-made a gesture of appeal, and then drew back before the passionless scrutiny of the Tatars.
Michael folded his arms and waited, to hear Tamerlane's word that would speak the fate of the man who was called the Thunderbolt.
“Live—if you can,” said the old Conqueror gruffly.
He signed to a group of his followers who brought out a cage that had held one of Tamerlane's leopards.
In this cage Bayezid was placed and the door locked. He could no longer look into the eyes of the watchers as he was picked up, with his prison, and carried through the flame-ridden streets of Angora.
Somewhere in the huddle of captives a woman screamed and the other Moslems took up the wail of lament.[1]
NEWS of what had come to pass in Asia spread to the world of Christendom. The wave of Ottoman invasion had been broken. In his marble palace standing over the dark waters of the Golden Gate, the Byzantine Emperor held revelry to celebrate the delivery of Constantinople.
The crusaders of Saint John took new heart; the pilgrim galleys that sailed from Venice were filled with new voyagers to the Holy Land. Te Deum was sung in the cathedrals of France. But no mention reached France of the share in the victory of Angora that belonged to an obscure voyager of Brittany. Nor did the mother of Michael Bearn hear the name of her son in the mouths of pilgrims.
The Maritime Council of Venice planned new inroads into the field of Oriental trade, and wrote off the moneys advanced to Signor Clavijo and his party as a total loss. In fact it was recorded in the annals of the council that Clavijo and all those with him were lost.
This, however, was not the case. Clavijo lived—outside the knowledge of the council that he dreaded—in Spain and wrote a book of his travels that was filled with most marvelous tales.
And Tamerlane rewarded Michael Bearn. The Tatar monarch bestowed on him a khanate in northern Persia—Fars, with its palace and riches.
But Michael did not accept it for himself, giving it, instead, to a friend. He turned his back on the East to seek a galley bound for the Brittany he had not seen for ten years and the castle where his mother waited.
So it happened that the bailios of Contarini and the Maritime Council of the Signory of Venice reported a curious thing.
In the heart of Tatary, they said, sometimes called the land of Gog and Magog, not far from the Salt Sea, there was a fine palace in fair groves of date and cypress trees.
The ruler of this palace of Fars was a weird man, with emerald rings on his toes and cloth-of-gold on his broken body. He called himself sometimes the Grand Cham or Khan, and sometimes Bembo the First.
- ↑ Some misplaced paragraphs here have been moved to the end. (But Michael did not accept it for himself…)