Conn Iggulden - Conqueror (2011)

Ong Chiang’s gaze travelled up and down Kublai’s clean deel robe and his mutilated hand twitched as if he wanted to touch the finely woven cloth. Kublai was amused despite himself. He became aware of the farmer’s wife glowering at him from the doorway. Kublai met her eyes for a moment and she looked down immediately, terrified of the armed men around her home.

‘How will I know if I can trust you?’ Kublai said.

‘I am Ong Chiang the farmer now, but I was once Ong Chiang the officer in charge of eight men, before I lost my fingers to some fool with a spade. They told me to hand back my armour and my sword and they gave me my pay, then that was it. Twenty years and I was sent away with nothing. Don’t think I’ll cause you any trouble. I can’t hold a sword, but I will show you the way. I’d like to see their faces when they see your men riding in.’ Ong began to cackle and wheeze and he sucked on his pipe again, like a teat that gave him comfort. His wheezing became gurgles and finally settled, leaving him red-faced.

‘I pay my men four silver pieces a month,’ Kublai said. ‘You will earn an extra payment when you find me a silver mine.’

Ong Chiang’s face lit up. ‘Four! For that much, I’ll walk night and day, anywhere you want.’

Kublai hoped Yao Shu hadn’t overdone his estimates of a soldier’s pay. It was one area where the Buddhist monk lacked experience. Kublai was losing half a million silver coins each month from his campaign funds and though Mongke had been more than generous, he had at best six months before the problem of looting was back. Kublai was still struggling to understand the impact of such a simple decision, but he had a vision of his men descending on a peaceful city with too much wealth in their pouches. Prices would soar. They would drink it dry, argue over the local whores and then fight until they were unconscious.

He winced at the thought. Far to the north, Xanadu was being built by Chin workers who assumed he would return with their back pay. The new capital he imagined would be left as ruins if he didn’t find a new source of silver.

‘Very well. From this day, you are Ong Chiang the guide. Do I need to warn you what will happen if you lead us wrong?’

‘I don’t think you do,’ the man said, showing his withered gums again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The caliph wept as the House of Wisdom burned. The science and philosophy of ages had been tinder dry and the flames spread with a whoosh, quickly becoming an inferno and spreading to the close-packed buildings around it. His Mongol guards had left him alone, keen to take part in the looting of the ancient city. Al-Mustasim had waited for a time, then walked out of his palace, stepping over bodies and past the pools in the courtyards, where bars of gold had been hidden in the mud. The pools were brown and the fish all dead, choked in filth or speared for fun as the bars were dragged out.

He walked on, through streets that were marked with spattered blood trails. More than once, some Mongol warrior came charging out of a side street with a red sword. They recognised his bulk and ignored him, lending an odd feeling of nightmare to his progress. No one would touch the caliph, on Hulegu’s orders. The rest of the city did not enjoy the same protection and he began to weep as he saw the dead and smelled the smoke on the breeze. The House of Wisdom was only one of many fires, though he lingered there for a time, his eyes red in the bitter smoke.

Perhaps a million people lived in Baghdad at the time Hulegu’s tumans had surrounded it. There were whole districts devoted to perfumes, others to alchemy and artisans of a thousand different kinds. One area had been built around dye baths large enough for men to stand in and plunge their feet into the bright coloured liquids. Flames had burnt out there and Al-Mustasim stood for a time looking over hundreds of the stone bowls. Some of them contained drowned men and women, their faces stained by the dyes, their eyes still open. The caliph walked on, his mind numb. He tried to accept the will of Allah; he knew that men with free will could cause great evil, but the reality of it, the sheer scale, rendered him mute and blank, like a staggering beggar in his own streets. The dead were everywhere, the stench of blood and fire mingling across the city. Still there was screaming: it was not over. He could not imagine the mind of a man like Hulegu, who could order the slaughter of a city with no feeling of shame. Al-Mustasim knew by then that Hulegu had intended the destruction from the beginning, that all their negotiations had been just a game to him. It was an evil so colossal that the caliph could not take it in. He stumbled for miles across the city, losing his sandals as he climbed a pile of bodies and going on barefoot. As the day wore on, he saw so many scenes of pain and torture that he thought he was in hell. His feet were bloody and torn from sharp stones, but he could not feel the pain. The words of the Koran came to him then: ‘Garments of fire have been prepared for the unbelievers. Scalding water shall be poured on their heads, melting their skins and that which is in their bellies. They shall be lashed with rods of iron.’ The Mongols were neither Christian, Hindu nor Jew, but they too would suffer in time, as the people of his city had suffered. It was his only comfort.

On a bridge of white marble, al-Mustasim looked down on the river that ran through the city. He rested his arms on the stone and saw hundreds of bodies tumbling past, locked together in the red water, their mouths open like fish as they were washed away. Their suffering was at an end, but his anguish only intensified until he thought his heart would burst in his chest.

He was still there as the sun set, locked in his despair, so that General Kitbuqa had to shake him to bring him back to understanding. Al-Mustasim stared blearily into the eyes of the Mongol officer. He could not understand his words, but the gestures were clear as Kitbuqa tugged him into movement. They headed back to the palace, where lamps had been lit. Al-Mustasim wished only for death to take him. He dared not think of the women of his harem, or his children. The smell of blood grew stronger in the air and, without warning, he bent over and vomited a flood of water. He was prodded on, his feet leaving bloody prints on the marble floor.

Hulegu was in a main chamber, drinking from a gold cup. Some of the caliph’s slaves were attending him, their faces growing pale as they recognised the man who had been their master.

‘I told you to stay in the palace … and you did not,’ Hulegu said, shaking his head. ‘I will enter your harem tonight. I am told the door to that part of the palace is known as the gate of pleasure.’

Al-Mustasim looked up dully. His wives and children still lived and hope kindled in him.

‘Please,’ he said softly. ‘Please let them live.’

‘How many women are there?’ Hulegu said with interest. His men had begun the labour of emptying the vaulted basement, stacking artwork like firewood alongside treasures of the ages. Beyond that, the main palace had been left untouched.

‘Seven hundred women, many of them mothers, or with child,’ al-Mustasim replied.

Hulegu thought for a time.

‘You may keep a hundred of the women. The rest will be given to my officers. They have worked hard and they deserve a reward.’

The men around Hulegu looked pleased and their master stood up, throwing the cup of wine to the ground so that it clattered noisily.

Hulegu led the way through corridors and halls, coming finally to the locked door that hid the gardens of the harem from view. He looked expectantly at al-Mustasim but the caliph no longer had the key, or knew where it was. Hulegu gestured to the door and in moments his men had kicked it in.