Читать книгу Tamerlane: The Earth Shaker - Harold Lamb - Страница 4

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The valley and all in it was the heritage of the Barlas clan. It could not be said they owned it. The right of grazing and cultivating land, with its fat cattle, and vineyards and pastures was theirs so long as they could keep it. The Khan beyond the mountains had given it to their ancestors long since, and they held it as the clans of Scotland held their lands, by virtue of their swords and the craft and dignity of their chieftains. They were Tatars, long of limb and big of bone. Bearded, sun-scorched, they walked—when it was necessary to walk at all—with a swagger and without turning aside for anyone, unless a Tatar greater than they.

They all kept strings of horses, rangy and long enduring, accustomed to the hills. Only a few were fortunate enough to own mounts of a swift-footed racing breed, or ponies trained on the polo field. Their reins were heavy with silver work and they had a liking for embroidered silk to cover the saddles. The poorest of these Tatars^[1] would not have thought of going from his tent to the mosque without mounting his horse.

They held to their tents by choice, and by custom, and they said, “A coward builds a tower to hide in.” But their tents were domes of white felt or carpeted pavilions, and many of them had a residence of some kind in the city, where guests could be entertained or their women sheltered at need. A century ago the Tatars had been nomads in truth, searching the desert for pasturage. War had made their ancestors masters of most of Asia, and these men were children of war. They knew the truth of the saying:

“The sand of the desert is lightly blown away by a breath; still more lightly is the fortune of man destroyed.”

Hugely they feasted, weeping over the wine cup, but they laughed in battle. Few of them did not have upon them the white scars of wounds. And few of them died under a roof. As a matter of course they went about in light armour—linked steel mail under flowing surcoats of striped silk. The instinct of the desert warfare was still in them.

Hunting was their passion, in the intervals of quiet, and they would part with their sheep and cattle for the trained falcons that the hillmen brought down to sell to them. A good hawk added to a man’s dignity, but a golden eagle that could be flown at stag gave honour to a whole family. Some had hunted leopards that were carried blindfold upon the crupper of a saddle and loosed to stalk deer while the riders watched.

With the long, heavy bow they were expert, bringing down birds with double headed arrows,^[2] and going on foot against tigers. When they knelt on the carpet to eat, they dipped their fingers into a common pot, and their dogs sat behind them, while the hawks screamed from the perches. Game was their favourite dish, and horseflesh, and they had a weakness for the fare of the Arabs, the haunch of a camel.

They admired the chivalry of the Arabs, and like these nomads of the dry lands they were restless unless they were in the saddle, to raid or hunt or to join the standards of war. They spent most of their time away at the court of the Kingmaker.

The pride of the Barks men was the pride of a military caste. Theirs was the aristocracy of the sword. To intermarry with Iranian merchants and farmers was to lose their race. As a consequence, being poor men of business, they were on the road to ruin.

They were unreasonably generous and equally unreasonably headstrong and cruel. Property they gave away or pawned, to pay for their banquets. Hospitality was their obligation, and their courtyards were packed with wayfarers, while their sheep progressed steadily into the pot.

Other men than the Barlas Tatars fared better in the valley of the Green City. Iranian peasants moved patiently between their irrigation ditches; Sarts, city dwellers, sat in the stalls of the market place; Persian nobles gambled and built pleasure gardens, and listened to the readers of the Koran. These wearers of the turban followed the law of the Koran, while the helmeted men still adhered to the law of Genghis Khan.

And the lot of the Barlas clan was all the worse because it had no chieftain. Taragai, once head of the clan, was a mild man full of his dignity. He had listened to the expounders of the law of Islam, and had withdrawn to a monastery to meditate—Taragai the father of Tamerlane. No one lived in the white clay palace outside the Green City.

“The world,” Taragai told his son, “is no better than a golden vase filled with scorpions and serpents. I am tired of it.”

Like many other fathers, he lectured to his son upon the glory and worth of his ancestors, who had been masters of the mountain ranges far in the north, above the Gobi desert. These were rare tales of pagan days, and Taragai in spite of his renunciation of the world seemed to enjoy the telling. He described hosts of riders living with their cattle, migrating with the snows, lying in wait along the caravan routes, and marching behind their horned standard to harry Cathay—tribal hunts that lasted for two or three moons, over five hundred miles of prairie. He told of the sacrifice of white horses at a chieftain’s grave, and how the horses went through the gate of the sky—where the northern lights flamed—to serve the spirits in the world beyond the sky.

He named princesses of Cathay who were sent as brides to the desert Khans, with wagon-loads of silk and carved ivory, and he described how victorious Khans drank mare’s milk from the skull of their enemies plated with gold.

“So it was, my son,” he explained often, “until the day when Genghis Khan led his Mongols to the conquest of the world. It was written that this should be. And when the dark angel stood over Genghis Khan and he died, he divided the world into four empires among his sons and the son of his eldest who died before him.

“To his son Chagatai he gave the empire of this part, where we dwell. But the children of Chagatai gave themselves to wine and hunting. In time they withdrew to the mountains of the north. And there, now, the Khan, the tura, feasts and hunts, leaving the government of Samarkand and all Beyond the River to the lord who is called the Kingmaker. The rest thou knowest.

“But, O my son,” he ended, sadly shaking his head, “I would not have thee depart from the path of the law of God, whose messenger is Muhammad (upon whom and on his posterity be the peace). Respect the learned sayyids, ask blessing of the dervishes. Be strengthened by the four pillars of the law, prayer, fasting, pilgrimage and alms.”

Taragai left his son to his own devices, but the men of the monastery had taken notice of the boy, and a grey-haired sayyid who found Tamerlane sitting in a corner of the hall reading a chapter of the Koran asked his name.

“Timur^[3] am I,” the boy responded, rising.

The descendant of the prophet looked at the chapter and reflected. “Support the faith of Islam, and thou wilt be protected.”

Timur considered the promise earnestly, and for a while gave up playing polo and chess, his favourite diversion. When he encountered a dervish squatting in the shade by the road, he dismounted and begged a blessing. He could not read very easily, so he confined himself, apparently, to that one chapter until he knew it well.

In these days when he was about seventeen he liked to go to the mosque courtyards where sat the imams, the leaders of Islam. He took his place behind the listeners, where the slippers were discarded, and it is related that a certain Zain ad-Din saw him there and called the boy to him, giving Timur his own cap and shawl, girdle and a ring set with cornelian. Zain ad-Din had a keen mind, was worldly wise, and a true leader. And Timur remembered his intent eyes and grave voice, and perhaps also the gift.

The only leader of the Barlas clan was Hadji Barlas, the uncle of Timur, who was seldom at the Green City. The Hadji, who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca, had no interest at all in Timur. He was suspicious and impetuous and gloomy, and under him the fortunes of the clan went from bad to worse.

Most of the nobles and warriors drifted away to serve the Kingmaker. And there also Timur went, on his father’s advice.

[1] Tamerlane’s clansmen were called many things, including devils and mighty men of war. By common consent they are most often called Tatars, and the earliest of their chroniclers describes them so. They were one of the clans of high Asia that were named Scythians in the elder days, and sometimes Turks. With the Mongol Horde they had come from the northern plains to this fertile mountain land.

[2] See Note II, p. 241.

[3] Tamerlane is the European rendering of Timur-i-lang—Timur the Limper. Timur means Iron, and this alone was his name until his foot was injured by an arrow and he was not able to walk without limping. The historians of Asia speak of him as Amir Timur Gurigan—Lord Timur, the Splendid—and only as Timur-i-lang in the way of vituperation.