James Heneage - The Towers of Samarcand

‘No,’ said Fiorenza. ‘I should go since I arranged the loan. In six months, God willing, I will be well enough to travel.’

Marchese Longo might have argued the point had not exhaustion broken over him so that he had to put his hand out to the balustrade. Anyway, six months was a long way away.

After Giovanni has come into our world .

*

Some time later, in Bayezid’s capital of Edirne, when the harem was awakening from its afternoon rest and applying mastic to its many mouths and the fires were being lit in the palace kitchens, Zoe was sitting beneath an orange tree in a little courtyard outside the harem walls. Fruit hung above her head like planets. She was thinking about Luke.

She’d not seen him since before Nicopolis, almost a year ago. She knew that he was somewhere in Yakub’s beylik and had a plan for discovering where. But was she bringing him back for Suleyman or for herself? She frowned.

For Suleyman, of course .

Surely, whatever attachment had come from growing up with Luke in Monemvasia had disappeared, if it could ever be said to have existed. He’d been her servant, after all. And it had surely vanished, at least on his part, when she’d lied about Damian’s accident all those years back. Did she mind? Why was she bringing him back?

For me?

She heard someone clear their throat behind her and turned. Pavlos Mamonas was standing there, more supplicant than father. He was dressed, as always, in Venetian black, and wore long riding boots turned down at the top. His hair was darker than she’d remembered it and she wondered, fleetingly, if he’d resorted to dye. He held his hat in his hands.

‘I’m not disturbing you?’

Zoe would have preferred some warning. ‘Of course not, Father. Come and sit.’

Pavlos Mamonas sat. He put his hat on his knees and looked at his daughter. ‘You look well. Mistra suited you?’

Zoe turned to him, irritated. ‘I was imprisoned. It was tolerable.’

‘Why were you there at all?’

This was why she’d have liked some notice. She thought hard. ‘To accompany Anna to her father’s funeral. Someone from our family had to go and it was hardly going to be Damian.’

Father and daughter were silent, both contemplating the feebleness of the lie. Pavlos said: ‘You have some influence over Prince Suleyman.’

Zoe remained silent.

‘He is not in favour.’

‘Which is why you now prefer to run errands for his father?’

Zoe looked back at the tree. Pavlos Mamonas put his hand on his daughter’s. ‘The family is in a difficult situation, Zoe. Venice still wants Chios. Bayezid has forbidden any further attacks on the island because its mastic stops his toothache. Suleyman’s last attempt was repulsed. He’s unlikely to try again. Difficult.’

‘So Venice gives Suleyman the cannon to take Constantinople. Byzantium falls and Suleyman gives Chios to Venice. It seems simple.’

Mamonas sighed. ‘The Doge is disinclined to supply the cannon just now.’

‘And Suleyman is disinclined to go back to Chios.’ She paused. ‘Again, difficult.’

Zoe looked down at her father’s hand still covering hers and removed it. Then she stood and walked over to a column as if a message had appeared on its fluted sides. She looked up at it. ‘Father, why should I help you?’

Pavlos Mamonas shook his head slowly. ‘Zoe, your brother …’

‘My brother is more competent drunk than sober.’

Her father remained silent. Zoe was stroking a ridge in the pillar with her fingertips. She said, ‘If Suleyman gets Chios for Venice against his father’s wishes, it will be risky for him … for me. I’ll want a reward appropriate to the risk.’

Pavlos waited. He was watching her carefully. He wondered, as he often did, about what might have occurred between her and the Varangian, the one he’d punished for letting the horse trample Damian. He wondered whether it was the bitter residue of loss that had created such ambition within his daughter.

Then she turned and smiled. ‘Your empire. I want your empire when you die.’

ANATOLIA, SPRING 1398

Luke’s second spring with the tribe came in a rush. The thaw was sudden and the air crackled with storms that arrived with no warning. Feet sank to the ankle in plushy ground and the frozen river bubbled off its ice, then rose to a torrent.

The grass on the valley sides grew at a speed that astonished him. First came a brown stubble which overnight became green. Then a carpet of flowers rose from the ground, turning shy, insect-hazed heads towards the sun. At night the valley sang a strange, whispered song, lulling the tribe into sleep beneath a giant moon, poised on its rim before beginning its journey through the stars.

Every day, birds flew over in ever-larger formations: geese and duck and ptarmigan homing back to the warm lakes of the south where the carp and perch were already beginning to spawn. The air was full of the shrill cries of their travel, and the shriller cries of animal birthing. On all sides was the sound of forest awakening, of trees released from their blanket of snow, of the creak and crack of stretching limbs, the hiss of sap rising.

It was a time of birth but also a time of burial. Many of the tribe’s old had died in the winter, their bodies placed out in the freezing snow. Now the dead men’s horses were slain and their bodies put next to them in their graves. Their saddles, bows and bridles straddled them both, bonding man to rider in their journey into an easier world. A few of the horses had succumbed to the cold and their flesh lay drying in the sun and the wind. What couldn’t be ridden or honoured would be eaten.

The tribe wouldn’t move to its summer pastures out on the steppe until the birthing and the first shearing were done. Until then, the shepherds out on the hills would be midwives as well as watchmen. Luke’s daily task was to carry great bales of fleece to the women, who laid them out on the felting mats, beating them hard while the children ran back and forth from the river to fetch water to sprinkle over them. Then the fleece would be layered and tied on to skins stretched between poles and thrashed until a single mat of perfectly smooth felt had been created.

It was tedious work and Luke longed to ride but Gomil had prevented his every attempt to get on a horse. Now there was an expedition gathered to hunt Chukar partridge with hawks around the southern lakes. They would bring back fish glue for the bows and goose feathers for the arrows. Gomil was to lead it. But first he had to bid farewell to his father in his ger.

Luke was helping Arkal tie her younger brother to a pony. The boy had recovered from his burns and it was time for him to learn to ride He’d be tied to the saddle until he became part of the horse; until he became a centaur.

‘Lug!’ shouted one of the expedition. ‘Does he have a name yet?’

Luke looked around, shielding his eyes from the glare of the morning sun. The dew was still on the ground and a low mist rose around the horses as they stamped. The man was grinning.

‘His name is Tsaurig,’ said Luke, glancing at Arkal, ‘And today’s his first ride.’

‘Will you teach him?’

‘I will teach him. With Arkal.’

There was laughter amongst the men on horseback. ‘But, Lug,’ one called out, ‘you cannot ride!’

Luke looked away. ‘I will teach him on the rein,’ he said, yanking the string too hard.

The sound of argument came from the chief’s tent. The riders fell silent and Luke leant into the boy’s saddle, pulling the girth tight. ‘There, Tsaurig, you’ll ride like your father now. And soon’ — he nodded in the direction of the hunting party — ‘you’ll be bringing fat partridge back from the plains.’