Bikijek’s troops were soon in motion. First, they were going to withdraw; second, they were going to make the best disposition after what they considered a thorough outmaneuvering.
Then came Timur’s charge: not from the distant line of the past night’s campfires, but from the forest at the foot of the hills. Either too early, or too late, it could not have succeeded, despite the advantage of surprise; but Timur’s lightning slash was timed to the second. He caught the Kipchaks when they were neither set for defense, nor fully committed to withdrawal.
Some tried to rush the bridge. Other hazaras fled along the bank. Those who tried to reform and fight it out were blocked by disorganized units. And Timur’s troops picked the heart of the opposition: Bikijek’s touman, and the force led by Tokatmur.
Elias Koja’s standard went down before the rush. Tokatmur, second in command to Bikijek, fell under the fury of swords which followed the final flight of arrows. And it was like the moves of a chess game long reasoned out in advance: one-two-three, and checkmate.
The apprentice king escaped, and so did Bikijek, one leaving behind him a throne, the other losing an army. And when the trumpets sounded recall from cutting down the fugitives, Timur formed his troops and raced on to Samarkand.
As he rode back through the city from which he and Olajai had so narrowly escaped, the citizens who crowded the streets and packed the housetops, began to shout, “Sahib Karan! Lord of the Age!”
He had conquered a city by dust, and he had triumphed over an army by fire: and Olajai said, “When the Jagatai princes meet they’ll make you Grand Khan of Samarkand.”
She was right. Hussein had said as much; and the Barlas clan, Timur’s uncle’s kinsmen, were behind him. But as he rode toward the palace vacated forever by Elias Koja, Timur made plans of his own.
That night, serving men dragged monstrous trays into the banquet hall: camels roasted entire, and sheep; and there was horseflesh, and leather trays heaped with rice and millet. Others set out jars of wine, and jars of fermented mare’s milk, and flagons that only a Mongol could drain.
Eltchi Bahadur was there, roaring as on the battlefield; Hussein, sleek and smooth and handsome as a panther; and the Barlas clan, flat-faced, grim and slant-eyed; Turki and Mongol in silken tunic and silken khalat. Though Togluk Khan the tyrant had died a natural death, horsemen still raced northward to deny his son any chance of an equally quiet end.
It was complete; complete, except for two things: Timur Bek was not present, and the grand khan’s dais at the head of the great hall was empty. Lords and captains, beks and emirs, ranged in rank on either side, with that one high place vacant: election day in Samarkand.
Some laughed. Some muttered. Ali sniffed the savor of roasted meat, and wine ready for the drinking. But Timur, Sahib Karan, the Lord of the times, was late.
Then the drums rolled and the long trumpets brayed. Guards marched in, escorting a horse tail standard. In the courtyard soldiers shouted, “Hai, Bahadur! Sahib Karan, Timur, Grand Khan of Samarkand, Khan of the Jagatai!”
The uproar of the rank and file told the emirs and the beks how they had better vote; and they knew that wholesale desertions would follow an unpopular choice. Most of the Jagatai princes agreed with their men; but some scowled. For Timur to make a point of delaying his entry until all the others had arrived was laying it on too heavily; and for him to have the horse tail standard carried before him was taking too much for granted.
But the shouts from the court gave the lords no choice.
Then they saw who preceded Timur: a bearded man in the ragged robe of a darvish; a man who protested, a man who, though handled with respect, was being hustled into the hall, and toward the vacant high place.
At the foot of the dais, Timur halted with his barefooted companion. He raised his hand and the shouting ceased.
“O Men! In the days of your grandfathers, Kazagan Khan the Turk could have taken the throne of Samarkand but this he did not do; instead, he set up one of the blood of Genghis Khan, the Master of All Mankind, and used all his force to maintain one whom no one would deny or envy!
“Here is the darvish, here is the Guest of Allah, here is Kaboul Shah Aglen, directly descended from Genghis Khan’s son Jagatai! Here is one who cares so little for power that he turns his back on thrones, and contemplates the splendor of Allah! Here is one with wisdom, not pride.
“Where we have each been kings, there has been no strength, and from too much freedom, we had an invader on our necks! So let this man be Grand Khan, for there is not one of us too proud to serve him!”
The shouting drowned the protests of the darvish. He could not deny his duty. They put an embroidered khalat over his ragged gown; they made him ascend the dais, and each prince in turn bowed nine times before him, as the ancient custom prescribed.
And when the banquet ended, the following noon, Timur Bek went to his own house, where Olajai waited.
“So you gave away a throne? After the Presence that came to you on the hill at Kivak?”
Timur was a little drunk, and he was tired, and he was hoarse from song and shouting. “He is the ninth generation, and all things go in nines with the race of Genghis Khan. Your brother and the others would soon turn against me—yet I can hold them together, serving him. And we won’t have too many kings.”
She looked up, smiling; her disappointment was gone. “The Presence will return to you, Timur.” Then, just in the interests of discipline: “Allah, but you’ve slopped wine all over yourself, you’re an awful looking mess for a King-Maker, you’re as bad as my grandfather. You’re ready to fall on your face!”
PEARL HUNGER, by Albert Richard Wetjen
CHAPTER I
Captain James Travers roused himself with a mighty effort. He sat upright in his bunk sucking at the listless draught of hot air that drifted through the open porthole at his side. The sweat streamed from him in rivulets, his pajamas clinging to the flesh as the bathing suit clings to a swimmer just emerged from the water. Propping himself up with one trembling arm, the captain ran his hand across his forehead, and wiped the salty drops from his eyes. His head was swimming, and the aching at his temples made him almost scream. But driven by a spasm of fierce energy, he struggled upright from the bunk. Once on the carpeted deck, he groped through the darkness. Across the cabin, in the draw of a tiny writing desk, was a blue-steel automatic—and the captain wanted that weapon.
The touch of the cool metal seemed to revive the captain somewhat. He breathed deeply and started for the door.
The dull hum from the jungle that fringed the shores of the great bay came rifting down through the open skylight to the ears of the sick man. He heard, too, snatches of song, the tinkling of lazy guitars and bursts of drunken laughter from the direction of the Plaza of Lorenço Marques, a riot of color and hectic pleasure under the sullen tropic stars. The dockside lay in the shadows of the cranes and the cargo sheds, lit only by a solitary hurricane lamp glimmering from the head of the ship’s gangway.
The captain flung back the half-open door and swayed into the saloon. He was forced to lean against the bulkhead as his heart commenced its passionate thumping again, and his eyes burned and throbbed. He could vaguely see the stars through the open skylight overhead, and even the dim tracery of the mizzen rigging outlined against the sky.
There was a blaze of light in the dark saloon as a door was flung violently open and a burly, white-suited man came forth, his head turned over his shoulder. A shining nickel-steel revolver twinkled from his right hand, while his left tucked under his arm a black tin ditty box, The low-brimmed sun-helmet the man wore obscured his face. Then the door slammed shut, and the man was gone, walking with stealthy haste up the companion to the poop deck, and so down the gangway to the wharf, where