Tamburlaine's Elephants by Geraldine McCaughrean

Author:Geraldine McCaughrean
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Usborne Publishing
Published: 2013-11-25T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

WARRIOR BOY

It was true: even the Mongol Horde did not wander about perpetually, aimlessly, like leaves blowing in the wind. The Gungal Emir, Timur the Lame, Lord of the Fortunate Conjunction, was turning towards Samarqand, capital city of his Empire and a place of fabled magnificence. There had to be some spot on the rolling earth where ambassadors could seek audience with him; somewhere to house the chronicles of his daring exploits; somewhere for him to display the works of art he had looted and the presents he had been given by captured cities begging for mercy. There had to be somewhere for his Royal Zoo. Somewhere to sell captives to slavers, or put them to work building endless walls or canals. Somewhere to share out the Empire among his sons.

The Horde headed eagerly for Samarqand as if, like tajiks, they would be happy to get home where they belonged. In fact it was more like a holiday destination, where they would spend a season trading, drinking, bragging, sleeping and getting bored enough to leave again. But after the hardships of this particular campaign, no one was complaining as the Horde flocked northwards towards Samarqand.

Rusti had been there just three times in his short life. He remembered its marvels – squares and streets and brick buildings three storeys high – its mosques and mosaics and the white horses who grazed the peculiarly perfect meadows outside its walls. Best among his memories were the sweet-sellers in the market, their wares set out at eye level (well, it had been a while now), all crawling in flies and a perfume that set his spit running. Worst among his memories was watching his father Baliq die in bed – somewhere indoors – of a rat bite that had turned gangrenous. His last words to Cokas and Borte had been a simple instruction, easily obeyed he supposed: “Keep your oath to me,” Baliq had said. But his words to Rusti had left the little boy weeping, powerless to obey. “Take off the ceiling, son. I want to see the stars.” Even standing on a chair, the four-year-old Rusti had not been able to perform his father’s dying wish. So Rusti had mixed feelings about Samarqand. It spoke to him of failure and ghosts.

And the route home did take them through Zubihat.

Well, they could have skirted by it, of course: taken a different route. But Tamburlaine liked to revisit the scenes of his victories. He liked to make sure that the cities he had captured remembered who had spared their miserable lives, who had broken their pride and rubbed their noses in the dirt. Twelve years was a long time, but Timur had made certain the people of Zubihat would never forget him.

Sitting one night eating his dinner, Rusti heard two old men talking outside the kibitki:

“Two days to Zubihat, by my reckoning.”

“…remember that name…forget why.”

“The place where we built that tower, yes? For the women, yes? Waste of women, to my way of thinking.

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