The Towers of Samarcand (12 page)

It was Khalun behind the mask
.

He heard movement outside his door. A dog probably.

But why? Did they just come for our horses because theirs were sick? Or were they looking for me?

He heard the sound again. It was close to the door. If it was a dog, it was a large one. He felt for his sword and brought it beneath the skin covering him.

Why would the Karamanids attack the people they had just agreed a marriage alliance with?

But if there was an answer to that question, he’d not find it that night. Better to consider what to do now.

Etabul. I must tell Etabul
.

The sound again. This time he knew that it was human. He rose silently from his pallet and tiptoed to the door, his breath suspended. He held the sword tight in his hand, the dragon head staring up at him.

Whoever it was, was standing on the other side of the door, waiting for something. Luke inched his hand along the inside until he found the catch, drawing it back silently. Then he pulled the door open suddenly and stepped backwards, his sword at the ready. Standing there was Khalun’s brother and he looked terrified. Luke lowered the sword. ‘What do you want?’ he asked quietly.

The boy didn’t answer. He was staring at the dragon head. The moon was large behind him and he looked younger than his years.

‘Who sent you? Khalun?’

The boy nodded. Luke stepped away from the door and gestured for him to enter. The boy shook his head.

‘Do you speak?’ asked Luke.

The boy could speak. ‘Come.’

‘No,’ said Luke.

The boy looked nervously around the camp. It was empty; everyone was asleep, many comatose from the drink. A loud snore from the adjacent ger punctured the silence. ‘My sister wants you to come.’

‘Why?’

The boy didn’t answer the question. He glanced again at Luke’s sword. ‘It is safe. Bring your sword if you wish to.’

‘I asked you why she wanted to see me,’ said Luke.

The boy shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Then I will not come.’ Luke began to close the door of his tent. The boy put out his hand.

‘Wait.’ He looked around again. ‘My sister …’ he whispered, ‘my sister wants to speak of who was looking for you.’

‘Who was looking for me? When?’

‘When she came to take your horses,’ said the boy.

Luke looked at the youth. There were sparse hairs above his lip and on his chin that stood out in the moonlight. He had sallow, greasy skin and his nose was pockmarked. His voice was recently broken. ‘How do I know it isn’t a trap?’ he asked. ‘It would suit your sister to have me dead.’

‘If it’s a trap, then bring your sword.’

Luke was thinking hard. The only retinue of Khalun’s he’d seen had been female, apart from the brother. And if she had information about who’d been looking for him that night, he needed to know it. He could always take the sword.

I need to know who’s looking for me
.

‘I’ll come,’ he said.

*

He regretted that decision within a minute of entering Khalun’s ger.

He’d expected the brother to remain. But the moment that Luke’s foot had settled on the carpet, he heard the click of the door closing behind him. It left him in almost total darkness and he wondered if he was alone. He drew his sword from his belt.

‘Khalun?’ he asked into the blackness, turning slowly.

There was no answer beyond the faint rustle of clothing somewhere to his front. He considered escape but knew that the door was locked behind him. He peered around him and
realised that there was, after all, some light in the tent. There was the faintest glow coming from a level lower than himself and, as his eyes adjusted, he saw that it came from a candle beneath a shade of horn. Beside it was a figure.

‘Are you going to kill me with that sword?’

Luke didn’t reply.

‘I don’t think I have much to fear from you. If you’d wanted to kill me, you could have done it on the steppe. Why didn’t you?’

Luke lowered the weapon and looked around the tent. ‘Because I needed your horse,’ he replied. ‘Are we alone?’

‘We are alone,’ answered Khalun and she moved towards the candle, lifting off the horn shade with her shawl. ‘See for yourself.’

Luke looked around the tent and saw that they were indeed alone. Apart from the two of them, the tent contained a bed, a low table of carob wood and a metal vase set with yellow coins of jasper, which held a variety of dried grasses.

Khalun was now visible. She was standing on a dead leopard whose head she was stroking with her bare foot. She was dressed in the same red dress that she’d worn at the feast but now the buttons at its front were undone and the shawl on her shoulders open. Luke glanced down at the curve of her breasts and the shadow in between. He cleared his throat. ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ he said. ‘It’s dangerous for both of us. Your brother said that you had something to tell me.’

Khalun laughed. She put the shade back over the candle so that it was almost dark again inside the tent. She’d used the shawl to hold the shade but now she let it slide from her shoulders to the ground. She lowered herself on to the leopard skin.

‘Will you sit?’ she asked.

There was something strange in her voice. The words were
too joined, almost slurred. Luke didn’t answer. There was nowhere to sit but the carpet.

‘Well, at least put down that sword,’ she said softly. ‘Can you see the table? Put your sword there. Then we can talk.’

Luke walked slowly over to the table and put down his weapon. He smelt lavender and something else. Airag. She had been drinking.

‘Say what you want to say to me and then I’ll leave,’ he said.

‘So soon?’ She paused and he heard the sound of drink being swallowed. She spoke again. ‘Why are you so frightened? Is it because you’re alone in a dark tent with a woman promised to another man?’

Luke didn’t answer.

‘Gomil didn’t like the way you looked at me tonight. He thinks you desire me. Do you desire me?’

Luke had had enough. He turned.

‘Surely you will want to know why I attacked the camp?’ she asked quickly.

Luke stopped. The girl was no more than five paces from him and he could hear her breathing.

‘Well, I’ll tell you anyway,’ she said. ‘I did it to get out of marrying Gomil. No one was meant to die.’

‘But they did,’ said Luke.

‘Yes, they did,’ she said flatly. ‘That was not my fault. We were joined by others. Men I didn’t know who came out of the darkness at the last moment. They didn’t want the horses, they wanted something else.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes.’

The tent was very quiet. He could feel the dark eyes upon him. She laughed softly in the darkness. He heard the movement of
clothes. He heard something tear. ‘How did it feel?’ she asked softly.

Luke knew what she meant. He couldn’t speak.

‘How did it
feel
’, she said again, ‘to put that arrow into my arm?’

The shape in front of him moved. The body was raised at the hip. He knew what she was doing. He stepped backwards. Towards the door. He heard the call of an owl outside, heard another answer. He’d not heard an owl in the camp before.

Luke peered into the darkness. He knew she was naked on the rug. She laughed.

‘Come to me.’

He turned towards the door. He needed a weapon. He ran forward to the table and seized the sword. Then she screamed. Luke turned and saw the door thrown open and the glare of torches outside. There were the shadows of men at the entrance. And then one stepped in.

It was Gomil. Gomil with a sword in one hand and a torch in the other. Behind him was Khalun’s brother.

A trap
.

The torch lit up the tent. It lit the table and the vase upon it. It lit the dull eyes of the leopard and the soft curves of the woman lying naked upon it. And it flashed upon the blade in Luke’s hand.

‘Kill him!’ screamed Khalun.

Gomil was still drunk but he moved quickly. He lunged at Luke with his sword and almost hit him. He recovered his balance and threw the torch out through the open door. The air was thick with the smell of airag. It was dark and the space within the tent was confined. Luke glanced towards the entrance and saw men still there.

‘Gomil,’ he said, ‘I have not touched her.’

But the chief’s son wasn’t listening. With a roar, he kicked over the table, scattering the candle and the grasses across the carpets. He had been waiting for this moment. He sprang forward, aiming his sword at Luke’s heart. Luke sidestepped, parrying the thrust with his own and pushing his assailant away. Gomil fell and his head hit the table hard.

Khalun screamed again. Gomil rose, put his palm to his temple and wiped the blood from his eyes. He shook his head.

Luke tried again. ‘Gomil, I am not your enemy.’

But he
was
Gomil’s enemy. For two years Luke had humiliated him by his very presence in the camp. Gomil licked blood from his lips, turned his head and spat. When he looked back, there was murder in his eyes. He lifted his sword and charged.

Luke was ready for him. He ducked beneath the first swipe and parried the second. Then, as Gomil raised his arm to deliver the third, Luke struck. It was an upward thrust aimed at the belly but at the last moment Gomil tried to turn. The blade entered the heart. Gomil was dead.

There was a sound behind him and Luke turned. Etabul was standing in the doorway, his sword drawn. He looked dishevelled. ‘What have you done?’

On the floor of the ger, amidst the broken table and scattered candles, lay Gomil: an island of spent flesh in a sea of blood. Khalun was the first to speak. ‘He tried to rape me.’ She pointed at Luke, pulling the shawl up her body with her other hand. ‘He killed Gomil.’

Etabul was staring at the body of his son, the sword slack in his hand. A slight frown contoured his brow. His eyes were blank. ‘What have you done?’ This time it was a whisper.

Luke was shaking his head. He couldn’t speak. The girl
shrieked, ‘Look at the sword. Look at the sack of airag. He made me drink it.’

For a moment Luke was in another place at another time. He was in a palace in Monemvasia standing before its archon and another girl was telling lies that would change his life. Now it was Khalun and she was shouting at Etabul. ‘What are you waiting for? Why don’t you kill him?’

Etabul didn’t move. For a long time he looked at the girl and then at the sack of airag and the candle on the floor, and he looked at the red robe strewn across the rug which had been ripped at the front. Finally, his gaze travelled to Luke. ‘You killed my son.’

Luke began to speak but Etabul raised his hand and turned to the men behind him. ‘Bring him.’

Luke waited until he was through the door, a guard on either side, one carrying his sword. There was a crowd of people around the entrance, some with torches. He tried to remember which of the two horse pens was nearer.

He struck to left and right with elbow and fist, bringing both men down. He picked up his sword, lowered his head and charged in the direction of the nearest pen. People scattered as he came, falling over each other. Then he was there and over the fence and a knot of mane was in his hand and he was vaulting on to a back that was already moving. There were shouts behind him and the hiss of an arrow. He was bent over the pony’s neck, his mouth as close to the ear as he could make it. Then he was jumping the fence and before him were gers and open country and escape. He dug his heels into the sides of the horse beneath him.

*

So it was that Luke found himself riding towards the dazzle of a rising sun, alone and with no idea where he was going.
The steppe was turning to furred gold and dew was rising in the finest of mists that hung above it like incense. The calls of carrion birds were loud above him as they began their search for what hadn’t survived the night. Hills rose in the distance.

He’d ridden hard at first, assuming pursuit, but none had come. He’d stopped in the darkness again and again, turning his head to listen for the sound of hooves on the hard ground. There’d been none. By dawn he knew he wasn’t being followed. But where to go now?

East. To Tamerlane. But first, some answers
.

Once again he stopped his horse and turned in the saddle. He’d heard something. There was a cloud of dust in the distance. Someone was following him.

He wondered if he should ride on for the hills, to find the cover of trees. But if his pursuers meant him harm, why had they alerted him? Besides, it was at least a day’s ride to the hills. Luke saw that it was just one person riding towards him. He wondered why he’d ever imagined that she wouldn’t come.

Shulen
.

She rode up to him, her little pony turning as she hauled on the reins. She was dressed for a long ride, with chaps strapped to her bare legs and provisions behind her on her saddle.

For a while they sat on their horses and just looked at each other. Then Luke spoke. ‘Are you finally going to speak to me?’

Her face remained impassive. She looked from him to the distant hills and then up at the sun. ‘Where were you thinking of going?’ she asked.

Luke looked around him at the emptiness that was the steppe. A light wind blew dust into the furred gold that hovered above it. Faraway, a bird called. Further, there might be answers.

‘To Yakub. I’m going to Kutahya.’

The season was changing from yellow to gold and Anna was taking her ease among falling leaves in the harem garden of the palace at Edirne. It was almost two years since she’d come here and the passage of time had been made bearable by the discovery of new friends. She was with them now, watching a strange animal that had the mouth of a camel, the body of a horse and the eyelashes of a courtesan. Its forelegs were longer than its hind and its hooves were like a bullock’s. Its belly was white and its body gold and covered by large white rings. But those were not its most extraordinary feature.

‘The neck!’ cried Angelina, leaning over the pavilion’s balustrade, her hand to her mouth. ‘Have you ever seen anything like it?’