Authors: Unknown
“Tell me where the Stone is, or I’ll kill him.”
The words were spoken coldly, bluntly and without any shred of a lie.
Will knew that he was beaten. “We were caught,” he said through gritted teeth, “in Mecca. We had no chance to take it.”
“Where are the others from your party?” asked the fat man.
“Dead,” replied Will in a low voice, not taking his eyes off the brawny man, who still had the tip of his sword poised over Robert’s shuddering chest. “Or they soon will be.”
“We’ve got to get it,” said the brawny man, turning to his companions. “We’ve not come all this way for nothing. I’ll not leave without it. We go into Mecca and we take it ourselves!” He lifted his head as a whistle came from the rocks above the track.
Will saw three more figures scrabbling down from a ridge.
“What is it?” shouted the fat man.
“Riders coming out of the city,” panted one of the men, as he jumped the last few feet. “Fast.”
The brawny man swore bitterly. He looked at Will. “Who are they?”
“Mamluks. They are coming for us. If you know about the Stone then you’ll know why. You’ll also know what they’ll do to us, and to you, when they get here.”
The man swore again.
“We have to leave,” said the fat man, going to him. “It’s over.”
The brawny man flicked his sword at Will, who stiffened. His eyes were filled with defeated rage. He swept it back as if to strike.
“Don’t!”
Will looked to the source of the muffled shout and saw that one of the figures had stepped forward. The brawny man glanced around and the figure shook his head. Hissing through his mask, the brawny man sheathed his sword, then turned and ran.
Will slumped to his knees as the man holding him let go and followed the others across the track and up a slope where the mountains sucked themselves back from the road. The men reached a series of stony columns that protruded from the rock face with some sort of trail, just visible, leading behind them. Within a moment, they vanished from sight.
Scrabbling over to Robert, Will touched his clammy brow. “Robert?”
Robert’s eyes drifted open. He groaned through bloodied, swollen lips. To their left, the camel lay snorting in pain. Will staggered to the bottleneck. He could hear hoofbeats. There was nowhere to hide. Two riders were approaching fast. Behind them, in the distance, there were more, dust clouds rising thick around them. Will drew his falchion in desperation. “God, give me strength.”
The first of the riders emerged from the bottleneck. Will stared in disbelief. It was Zaccaria, his face and clothing blood-spattered. Behind him came one of the Shias.
Zaccaria pulled his horse up roughly as he saw Will. “Get on!” he shouted, as the beast reared.
Sheathing his sword, Will ran to Robert and hefted him up. Zaccaria grabbed the half-unconscious knight by his clothes and hauled him over the saddle in front of him, then kicked the beast away as Will vaulted up behind the Shia.
“Kaysan?” shouted Will, grabbing the back of the saddle.
“Dead,” replied the Shia bitterly, slamming his heels into the beast’s flanks. “All dead.”
MECCA, ARABIA, 15 APRIL A.D. 1277
Ishandiyar winced, the sword cut on his leg, close to the old wound he had sustained at al-Bira, stinging hotly. “Well?” he asked of the two Mamluk soldiers who rode up to him.
One of them shook his head. “I’m sorry, Amir, we couldn’t catch them. I left several men in the village searching for them in case they tried to hide there, but I think they must have fled into the hills.”
Ishandiyar’s voice was gruff. “Well, they are dead anyway. If the desert doesn’t kill them, the Bedouin will. Call the others back. We will stay here tonight. But I believe the immediate danger has passed.”
The soldiers bowed and turned their horses away down the street, which was busy with morning traders and workers, many of whom were looking curiously at the group of Mamluks outside the Haram Mosque. Ishandiyar limped back inside the building, away from their inquisitive stares.
The courtyard of the mosque was bathed in sunlight. The sharif of Mecca was there, talking somberly with some of his guards. The bodies of three dead guards and five dead Mamluks were laid carefully in the shadows of the arcade. Close by, unceremoniously dumped, were the corpses of eight of the attackers. Already, flies were making interested passes over the bodies. Ishandiyar looked over at the Ka‘ba. Servants were on their hands and knees around the temple, scrubbing blood from the tiles. His eyes moved to the Black Stone, sitting darkly, silently in its place, and he felt relief like sweetness inside him. He had fulfilled his promise to Kalawun, and to Allah. The Stone remained unharmed. It had been a hard journey and a tense wait, and he and his men had accosted several groups of pilgrims over the last few days in the mosque. But when he had seen the two figures, tall for women, move up to the temple with that pannier, he had known they were the ones.
He crossed to where the pannier stood. The stone that had been inside it was on the ground, being studied by two of the mosque’s mullahs. “What is it?” he asked. “Do you know yet?”
One of the mullahs looked up. “A copy, we believe, Amir. Nothing more. Perhaps they planned to put this in place of the real relic that they might escape unnoticed?”
Ishandiyar remained silent. Kalawun had said that the Christian knight who warned him of the theft also had a plan to prevent it. He wondered for a moment if some of the men he had killed were allies, but he didn’t dwell on this. Kalawun was right; it was their responsibility to keep the Stone safe. That they had done so was all that mattered.
Ishandiyar moved over to speak with the sharif, leaving the mullahs to finish their investigations and the servants to wash the rest of the blood from the stones.
After a while, the bodies were taken for burial and the last sign that anything at all had happened disappeared. An hour later, as the chanting calls of the muezzins lifted from the city’s minarets, the gates of the Haram Mosque rolled open and pilgrims, waiting patiently outside, filed in, their faces filled with wonder.
29
Damascus, Syria 9 JUNE A.D. 1277
The growing tremor of the kettledrums could be heard in Damascus sometime before the Mamluks reached it, a thudding wave of sound rolling across the boiling desert to lap against the city walls.
At the head of the army rode Baybars, the Bahri shouting his title in fierce celebration.
“Al-Malik al-Zahir!”
Victorious King.
The blood-red banner with its yellow lion sailed boldly above the vanguard.
Kalawun, riding beside the sultan, felt the soldiers’ roars pounding in his ears. They, at least, were pleased.
A few days after the victory at Albistan, the Mamluks had entered Kayseri, the capital of the Seljuks’ realm, as liberators of the Seljuks’ lands and vanquishers of the Mongol garrison placed over them against their will. In Kayseri, the Muslim Seljuks praised Baybars, minted a new coin in his name and made him heir to the throne of their kingdom. The Mamluks lounged in luxury for several weeks, before Baybars decided to return to Syria. To the soldiers, this was fortunate news. They had fought the Mongols and had beaten them once again, with comparably little loss of life. Their task done, they could return to the comfort of Damascus, where the sultan would no doubt reward them, in plunder and slaves taken from the battlefield. Some of the generals and advisors, however, had taken a different view.
Why, they demanded, as strongly as they dared in the face of the stony-eyed sultan, were they leaving, having only just captured the territory? They should remain behind, strengthen their position, bring in more forces. Hadn’t this been what he wanted? To expand the Mamluk frontier and defeat the Mongols? Baybars countered their arguments staunchly. Scouts had informed him that Abaga, roused by the defeat of his garrison, was leading an army of more than thirty thousand Mongols from Persia into the Seljuk realm to avenge their loss and reclaim the country. Baybars did not have men enough to meet this challenge, nor time to summon more forces, and he told the generals that they were at risk of being cut off from the rest of the army, still in Aleppo, if they remained.
Kalawun, who agreed with the decision, had noticed that Baybars had been growing increasingly weary since they had entered the Seljuk capital. The victory over the Mongols at Albistan appeared to deliver him no real satisfaction; indeed, Kalawun might have said, if it hadn’t sounded so unlikely, that the sultan almost seemed to regret it. It was as if something inside him, which had been withering for some time, had finally died. All the way back from Kayseri to Aleppo, the sultan had hardly uttered a word.
Kalawun glanced at Baybars, whose stare was fixed on the walls of Damascus, getting larger ahead, beyond a fringe of lush orchards. Looking past the sultan, he met the gaze of Khadir. The soothsayer had somehow managed to maneuver himself so that he was riding at Baybars’s left hand, even though he had been specifically positioned several rows behind with Baraka Khan. Khadir had, over the past few weeks, wormed his way back into Baybars’s inner circle, through his persistent forewarnings of a coming lunar eclipse, a bad omen said to herald the death of a great ruler. This prediction had caused the soothsayer to fret and fawn over Baybars, pleading with him to take extra precautions when the time came, warnings Baybars had listened to carefully, though not with undue concern. As Kalawun locked eyes with Khadir, he saw that his ancient face was contorted with hatred and suspicion. The commander had felt that vicious gaze upon him for most of the journey. He was tired of it and, in truth, a little unnerved. It was as if the soothsayer were trying to work some black spell upon him with that constant, hooded glare. Kalawun, his mind on other things, had tried to push his personal feud with Khadir aside during the campaign. But it was almost impossible to forget about him, for he was always there, a malevolent presence on the edge of his vision.
Heralds had been sent to warn Damascus of the army’s arrival and to make sure rooms in the palace were prepared for Baybars and his amirs. The main streets had been cleared for the approaching troops, and citizens lined the route to the palace, eager to welcome their sultan. Flowers were thrown as Baybars and the Mamluks entered, covering the street in a fluttering carpet of color, and the kettledrums’ thunder made babies cry and dogs howl in houses all across the city. Whilst the bulk of the army set up camp on a plain outside the walls, Baybars and the vanguard made their way to the citadel, where they were met by the governor of Damascus.
Kalawun was handing the reins of his horse to one of his squires when a man dressed in the violet livery of a royal messenger approached him.
“Amir Kalawun?”
Kalawun looked around. “Yes?”
The messenger bowed and handed him a scroll. “This arrived at my post five days ago. When I learned that the army was headed for Damascus, I came straight here.”
Kalawun took the scroll and broke the wax seal. He unfurled it to reveal three words in a hand he recognized.
It is safe.
As he saw Ishandiyar’s message, Kalawun felt relief rise like a spring inside him, washing away the troubles that had been clouding his mind since he had left Cairo. But hardly had his worry for the safety of the Stone faded, when he felt a new twinge of concern, as he wondered whether any of Campbell’s men, or even Campbell himself, had been hurt by his actions. Had he been rash to send Ishandiyar? No, he told himself firmly. Campbell’s letter revealed none of his intentions, and all his assurances counted for little in Kalawun’s mind when faced with the possibility of failure. Not only could he allow no harm to come to the Stone, but the threat of war behind the theft had simply been too great for him not to act. But still he remained discomforted by the feeling of betrayal that darkened his mind and the thought that he might have stained his hands with yet more blood in his pursuit of peace.
THE CITADEL, DAMASCUS, 11 JUNE A.D. 1277
After only two days’ rest, the Mamluks gathered to discuss their plans, following the news that Abaga had entered the Seljuks’ realm with his three
toumans
and had set about making swift reprisals upon the Muslims in Anatolia who had welcomed Baybars. Some indication of the ilkhan’s wrath and his capacity for vengeance could be gauged by rumors that the Seljuk
pervaneh
, who fled the battlefield at Albistan after his lackluster involvement, was killed and served up in a stew at a state banquet. Abaga himself was said to have accepted a healthy portion. The ilkhan was now camped out in the realm, glaring at Syria across the Taurus divide. But word was that he had no plans to enter his enemy’s territory, lacking the manpower to attack Baybars on his own ground. The two lions, their prides gathered around them, could only watch each other from afar, both grudgingly accepting of the fact that neither, for the moment, was strong enough to defeat the other.
During the debate, which centered around what the Mamluks’ next move should be, a Bahri warrior entered and crossed to Baybars.
Kalawun glanced over, seeing the sultan lower his head as the soldier moved in close and murmured something.
“Bring him in,” said Baybars, his deep voice cutting across the amirs who were speaking.
“My lord?” questioned Kalawun, as the amirs looked around, wondering who would dare to interrupt their council.
Baybars didn’t respond and, instead, rose to his feet. A few moments later, the Bahri soldier returned, with two others flanking a young man in dirty black robes. The man carried his head high as he entered, his arrogance evident in his bold stance and his keen eyes, which met the sultan’s gaze unflinchingly.
“Sultan Baybars,” he said, not bothering to bow. “I have come to collect the remainder of the money promised to my order for the ransom of your officer, Nasir. We would have delivered him sooner, only we did not realize you had left Cairo. We have been tracking you for some time.”