Читать книгу Tamerlane: The Earth Shaker - Harold Lamb - Страница 7

Table of Contents

At the coming of the Khan, the Tatar amirs drew back before the common peril. Except that Bayazid Jalair, whose city of Khojend was the northern gateway of all their lands and in the path of the invaders, hastened back to his people and offered gifts and submission to the Khan.

Hadji Barlas proved as irresolute as he had been impulsive before. He summoned all the fighting men of the clan from around the Green City and Karshi—upon the death of Taragai he claimed undisputed leadership of the clan. Then he changed his mind about fighting and sent to Timur word that he would withdraw with the people and cattle towards Herat in the south.

But Timur was not willing to leave the Green City masterless in the path of the northerners. “Go whither thou wilt,” he said to his uncle. “I will ride to the court of the Khan.”

He knew that the Khan of the north, lord of the Jat Mongols—the Border Mongols—had come down into the fertile lands of Samarkand to reassert his old rights, but with an inclination to plunder. And Timur meant, somehow, to keep the marauders out of his valley. Aljai and her infant son he sent to the court of her brother who was advancing from the mountains of Kabul. He might have gone with her and found safety in this way. To resist with his few hundreds the army of the Jat Mongols twelve thousand strong would have been idle folly. His father and the Kingmaker had both warned him not to yield to this Khan of the north, who might be expected to put the Tatar princes to death and install his own officers in their place. But after all, the Khan was Timur’s titular prince—the ruler of his ancestors.

There seemed to be nothing that Timur could do. His clan, the chronicler says, was like an eagle without wings. Fear and uncertainty reigned in the Green City. For days warriors fled down the Samarkand road with the best of their horses and their women. Others, who had determined to stay with their possessions, observed that Timur was tranquil and hurried to him to pledge allegiance and so make claim upon his protection.

“The friends of an hour of need are not true friends,” he said. He would have none of that. A motley and numerous following would only have afforded the Khan an excellent reason for attacking him.

Instead, he made certain preparations. With all due honour he placed the body of his father in the burial ground of the holy men at the Green City. He went then to his spiritual counsellor the wise Zain ad-Din, and talked with him through the night. What passed between them we do not know, but Timur began to gather together the best of his movable possessions—horses of a racing breed, silver ornamented saddles, and above all gold and jewels of all kinds. Probably Zain ad-Din opened to him the coffers of the Church, because the northern Khan was the lineal foe of the law and the leaders of Islam.

At once the Jat Mongols appeared. Scouts on shaggy hill ponies rode down the Samarkand road, long tufted lances gleaming on their shoulders, their led ponies already well loaded with loot. Bands of riders followed, moving through the fields of ripe wheat, grazing their horses as they advanced. The officer commanding the scouts made for the white palace, and was astonished when Timur, youthful and undisturbed, greeted him as a guest.

Timur gave a feast for the Jat officer, slaughtering sheep and cattle with a lavish hand. And the officer, reduced to the status of a guest, could only eye longingly the assembled possessions of his young host. He could not allow his men to loot, but he demanded extravagant gifts, and Timur satisfied even his avarice.

Then Timur announced his intention of going to the Khan. With him he took a cavalcade of his own followers in court dress, and all his remaining wealth. Near Samarkand he encountered two other Jat officers with the advance guard of the army. They were both insolent and eager for gold, and Timur gave them more than even their greed had hoped for.

Beyond Samarkand he came to the ordu or royal encampment of the Khan, Tugluk.

Between horse herds and lines of tethered camels, white felt tents covered the plain. The wind stirred the long horsetails of the standards and raised a dust of dried sheep’s droppings. Here the warriors were robed in barbaric splendour, in the flowered satins of China, their high boots resplendent with gold embroidery, and their wooden saddles covered with the softest shagreen. The long lance and the nomad’s bow were their favourite weapons—deadly weapons in their hands.

Tugluk sat on a white felt by his standard—a broad-faced Mongol with high cheek bones and little, shifting eyes, and a thin beard. A suspicious soul, a magnificent plunderer, and a dour fighter. Timur, dismounting in front of the half-circle of Jat nobles, found himself before the likeness of his own ancestors. In due form he went through the karnash, the greeting to his prince.

“O Father, my Khan, Lord of the Ordu,” he said, “I am Timur, chieftain of the Barlas men and of the Green City.”

The Khan was struck by his fearlessness, by the richness of his silver inlaid mail. Timur boasted when he announced himself leader of the Barlas warriors—who were mostly fleeing with Hadji Barlas. But it was no time for half-titles. And his gifts to the Khan were magnificent. It was apparent even to the avaricious nomads that he kept nothing for himself, and the Khan conceived a liking for him.

“I would have had more to lay before thee, O my Father,” Timur asserted boldly, “but three dogs, thy officers, have fed their greed with my goods.”

This was pure inspiration, and Tugluk Khan began to ponder how much wealth had escaped him. He ended by sending couriers in haste to the three offending officers with orders to restore what they had taken from Timur. True, Tugluk bade them send the gifts to Hadji Barlas, but this was because he wanted to claim everything himself from the Hadji—he could not very well take more from Timur.

“They are dogs,” he assented, “but they are my dogs, and by Allah, their greed is like a hair upon my eyeball or a splinter in my flesh.”

Had Machiavelli known these children of the steppes, he might well have written another book. Deception was an accomplishment with them, and intrigue a fine art. They were a fighting race, but so long accustomed to warfare that they only took up weapons as a last resource. Timur made more than a few friends in the encampment of Tugluk.

“The princes of Samarkand,” said the Jats, “are scattered like quail under the shadow of a hawk. Only Timur is here, and he is a man of sense. We should conciliate him and rule through him.”

They did nothing for the moment because the three officers, suspecting that the Khan would strip them of their property by way of punishment, banded together and made off towards their own lands pillaging as they went. Arriving at the northern border, they proceeded to raise armies and stir up strife in the absence of the Khan. Tugluk hesitated and asked advice of Timur, who seemed to be full of resource.

“Go to thy lands,” Timur urged him, with all gravity. “There thou wilt find only one peril. Here, thou wilt find two—one before thee and one behind.”

The Khan withdrew to his own country to punish the rebels. Before doing so he appointed Timur Tuman-bashi—Commander of Ten Thousand—giving him a written authority and a seal. This was the dignity held by Timur’s fathers in the old régime of the Mongols.

Timur had saved his valley and its cities from devastation, and he had now the Khan’s appointment as head of his own clan. And, with the lifting of the mutual peril, the Tatar princes returned to their feuds with alacrity. The next three years are a vista of kaleidoscopic changes.

Hadji Barlas and the Jalair chieftain again joined forces and decided to eliminate Timur by killing him. They invited the young warrior to their pavilions. But when he found armed men sitting with the princes he scented treachery. Pretending that he was troubled with a sudden bleeding of the nose, he went on through the inner compartments until he reached his own followers. They went at once to the horses and made off. Bayazid Jalair afterwards felt ashamed of the plot and expressed regret to Timur. But the Hadji was a dour soul. He marched upon the Green City to take possession of the valley.

Timur was in no mood to give it up, especially now when he had the Khan’s grant in his pocket and several thousand men at his back. He mustered his followers and the armies of nephew and uncle skirmished briefly on the Samarkand road—Hadji Barlas withdrawing suddenly toward the great city. Elated, Timur followed him up. But the next day nearly all his followers deserted him to go over to the Hadji, who had prevailed upon them to join the main body of the clan.

Timur then rode off to ally himself with Amir Hussayn, the brother of Aljai, who had come over with his mountain clans and Afghans from the region of Kabul. This fighting between the clans went on^[1] until Tugluk appeared again, “Like a stone dropping among birds.”

This time his mood was sterner. He had decided to reconquer everything, and he put to death Bayazid Jalair at once. Hadji Barlas fled again with his men to the south but lost his life soon after at the hands of thieves. Amir Hussayn dared meet the Jat horde in the field and was soundly trounced and forced to flee for his life. Timur stood his ground at the Green City.

Tugluk Khan sated with victory left his son Ilias as ruler of the Tatar countries, with the Jat general Bikijuk to see that he was obeyed. The Khan named Timur prince of Samarkand, under the two Jats. This was dignity enough, and a shrewd brain might have found in it opportunity to gain goods and power.

Timur protested against being placed under the authority of the northerners, but the Khan reminded him of the agreement between their ancestors—that the family of Genghis Khan should rule, and the family of the Gurigan should serve. “Thus it was said between thy forefather Kayouli and my ancestor Kabul Khan.” An agreement made by one of his family Timur held to be binding upon himself. Angered, he tried to make the best of things in the Green City.

But the Jat general Bikijuk proceeded to ravage all of Samarkand and Prince Ilias was more than satisfied with plunder. Timur heard that the girl children of Samarkand had been sent off as slaves, with the venerable sayyids as captives. Zain ad-Din, the spokesman of the Church, cried out in wrath, and Timur sent a missive to the Khan complaining of the marauders. This having no effect, he assembled his followers and rode north, setting free by force many of the captives. It was reported to the Khan that Timur had rebelled, and Tugluk gave an order for his death.

Word of this reached Timur. Weary of wrangling and heartsick over the ruin of his country, he consigned diplomacy to the devil, and mounted his horse to go into the desert.

It was a happy choice. As with Bruce of Scotland, outlawry suited him better than conspiracy.

[1] This warfare in the heart of Central Asia is an old story, and is very much the same to-day. On a modern map, the lands of the Tatar princes would include Afghanistan above Kabul and the north-east portion of Persia, all of Bokhara and Transcaucasia and most of Russian Turkestan. At least a hundred thousand men were under arms, but to give details of the strife would require a whole book. Only the thread of Timur’s adventures is followed here. Between 1360 and 1369 he was occupied incessantly in the civil wars of the Tatars.

Couloubow Collection, Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Schulz.]

MONGOL CLANS IN BATTLE.

Early example of the Chino-Persian School of Painting that developed during Timur’s reign.