Читать книгу Tamerlane: The Earth Shaker - Harold Lamb - Страница 10

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There was need of Timur in the north. Hussayn, over-confident, had engaged the nearest host of the Jats and had been trounced, his men scattered. This was against Timur’s advice, and the Tatar was angered. It meant that he must turn aside to the mountain clans to rally Hussayn’s followers and gain new men. And his hand was not yet healed, so that he could not manage the reins and his weapons at the same time.

In a grim mood he rode with his small band, killing game for food. He was camped near the upper Amu, waiting for Hussayn, when he was discovered. The chronicle gives us a clear picture of this incident.

Timur’s tents were at the edge of a stream, under the bank of a ridge. After several days of waiting, his impatience would not let him sleep. The night was clear, the moon bright, and he paced along the stream—his new habit of forcing himself to walk upon the foot that never would be quite healed. He could not grow accustomed to this wound.

When he returned to the hill the moon was dim, and the eastern sky streaked with yellow light. Timur knelt to make the dawn prayer, and when he rose he saw armed men riding past on the other side of the ridge, an arrow’s flight away. They were coming from the direction of Balkh, now a Jat stronghold, and Timur went down at once to his tents, rousing his men and calling for his horse.

Alone he rode out to challenge the strangers. When they saw him they halted and for a moment stared at him in the dim light.

“Whence come ye?” he called to them. “And whither go ye?”

“We are the servants of Lord Timur,” someone answered, “and have come out in search of him. We cannot find him, although we heard he left Kumrud and came to this valley.”

Timur did not know the voice, nor could he distinguish anything of the warriors. “I also am one of the amir’s servants,” he responded. “If it is your wish, I will lead you to him.”

A rider detached himself from the column and galloped up to where its leaders waited, listening. “We have found a guide,” Timur heard him say, “who will take us to the amir.”

He rode forward then, slowly, until he could make out the faces of the officers. They were three chieftains of the Barlas clan and they had with them three troops of horsemen. They called to the strange guide to come nearer, but when they recognized Timur they alighted from their horses, bent their knees and kissed his stirrup.

Timur also dismounted and could not restrain himself from making gifts to them at once—his helmet to one, his girdle to another, and his coat to a third. They sat down together and game was brought in and a feast prepared on the spot. They shared the salt and Timur soon had proof of their loyalty. He sent a scout from their ranks over the river to discover what the Jats were doing. The warrior tried to swim the Amu; his horse went down and was drowned, but he himself reached a sand bar and gained the far bank. He returned with word that a Jat army some twenty thousand strong was on the road from the Green City and was laying waste the country.

The man himself had passed near his home, but had not stopped, although it lay in the path of the foragers.

“Nay,” he said, “when my Lord has no home, how should I go to mine?”

The news put Timur into a fever of impatience. Up to their old tricks the Jats were pillaging, now that a force was in the field against them; he knew that the clans across the river would resent this instantly and would side with him. Meanwhile, his strength was less than a quarter of the Jat general’s—Bikijuk’s. The old Mongol was a master at this kind of warfare, and he moved his forces on the north bank to cover all the fords.

To attempt to force a crossing in the face of such strength was a task beyond even Timur’s desperation. But he did get across.

For a month he led Bikijuk upstream, until the Amu narrowed and became shallow. Here at a stone bridge he halted. The Jats, having all the advantage, were not disposed to push over the bridge, and Timur went into camp ostentatiously. That night he told off five hundred men and placed them under the orders of Mouava, an officer who could be depended upon, and Amir Musa, the ablest of Hussayn’s lieutenants.

He left the five hundred to hold the camp and the bridge, himself riding off with the bulk of his forces. Close to the Jat camp he crossed the river, going on without stopping into the hills beyond that formed a rude half-circle facing the stream.

Promptly the next day the Jat scouts found his tracks, and it was clear to Bikijuk that a strong division had crossed. Apparently, the numbers in Timur’s old camp were still undiminished. If Bikijuk attacked the bridge, Mouava and Amir Musa were to resist and hold on, while Timur charged the rear of the Mongols.

But sagacious Bikijuk scented danger and remained quiet during the day. That night Timur scattered his men through the hills with orders to light any number of fires on three sides of the hostile camp.

Sight of these fires was too much for the cautious northerners and they left their position hurriedly before dawn, Timur collecting his men and charging into their line of march. The Jats broke and fled, Timur pursuing relentlessly.

Amir Hussayn, who had taken no part in the battle of the river, now rejoined Timur with a strong following, more than ready to offer advice.

“It is a bad plan,” he said, “to pursue defeated troops.”

“They are not yet defeated,” Timur replied, and kept on. He greeted the clans who came out from hiding, the warriors circling their horses in joy, the women waving their loose sleeves. He slept little, because it was his task to appoint new leaders of his yet-to-be-formed army, he must conciliate old feuds, apportion the spoil gleaned from the Jats, pay compensation to the families of the slain and an allowance to the wounded. All the while he was in the saddle directing the movements of his cavalry columns northward, hastening to any point of resistance.

With such a scorching at their heels the Jat armies evacuated the country between the Amu and the Syr. Prince Ilias, assembling his divisions in the northern plain, was approached by two riders from his homeland beyond the mountains. They dismounted, and saluted him as Khan, saying that his father Tugluk had left the land of the living and had gone beyond, into the spirit world of the sky. Then they took the reins of his horse and led him back to his tent.

Perforce Ilias Khan rode off to Almalyk, his city on the road to Cathay. Bikijuk and two other Mongol generals had been taken captive by Timur in a personal encounter—a swift flurry of weapons and hard-lashed ponies—and the new lord of Beyond the River was tremendously content. He ordered a feast for the veteran officers in his tent—praised them for their fidelity to the salt of the Khan, and asked curiously what they wished him to do with them.

“It is for thee to decide,” they answered him calmly. “If we are put to death, many will seek revenge; if we are permitted to live, many will befriend thee. It is all one to us—when we girded our loins and put on our armour we looked for death to come.”

Amir Hussayn cautioned Timur that it would be a mistake to spare a captured enemy, but it pleased the young victor, having taken the Mongols with his own hand and feasted them, to give them horses and set them free.

Meanwhile, he had retaken his Green City by a trick he had learned from the desert men. Coming within sight of the walls, he had scattered his men over the countryside, ordering them to ride in all directions. Some, becoming enthusiastic, had cut branches from the poplar groves, and a prodigious dust arose. The Jat garrison, beholding all the indications of scouts and foragers in advance of a strong column, retreated at once, and the Green City was spared a siege.

One of Timur’s chroniclers pauses to remark that “The Lord Timur, always fortunate in war, in this year defeated an army by fire and captured a city by dust.”

Success, as always with the restless Tatars, became more trying than adversity. Hussayn, resentful of Timur’s impetuosity, exacted money and privileges by way of compensation, and Timur, moody, led the prince of Kabul to a shrine and made him swear to remain faithful to his comradeship. This Hussayn did, but he resented being asked to give the oath. Both were over-weary, and oppressed by their responsibilities and the quarrelling of their followers.

The chronicle adds that “To their camp came the illustrious princess Aljai, who nursed the sick lords.”

Martin.]

CAPTIVE MONGOL KHAN IN SHOULDER YOKE.

A Contemporary Painting showing the High-heeled Riding Boot and Girdle Weapons of the Northerners.