Tamerlane's Boys 10

By Pueros

Chapter 10 – Samarkand

(Forests of Rus, Khanate of the Golden Horde, May 1391)

Nicolai’s aspiration to be alongside the conqueror, as he reeked terrible vengeance on the Mongols in the forests of southern Rus, was met. The man could not help but grant the 11 years old his wish as, after all, the lad had sacrificed his testes in the cause. The young Muscovite eunuch thereby became the third of Tamerlane’s current travelling coterie of boys, as his new master also no longer wanted to leave Vissarion and Arman behind at the main base. After what had happened previously to the young Georgian and Armenian there, he preferred to keep them close, now considering them to be as safe with him on campaign as anywhere else.

Nicolai, blinded by the thirst for revenge and immaturely not appreciating the full implications of the loss of his balls, had visited the castrator’s tent, bravely determined to prove to Tamerlane the seriousness of his request. The man had been very surprised to encounter a boy bearing a request from the conqueror to be converted into one of Vissarion’s kind. He had at first been very wary, as the pretty 11 years old was unescorted and carrying the message himself. However, his scepticism was overcome by the young Muscovite’s pretended innocent ignorance of what the instruction actually meant, as well as fear of the possible terrible consequences of querying a command from his leader, no matter how unusually conveyed. He thought that perhaps his master was playing an awful joke on the lad, something less uncommon, and could not conceive of anyone voluntarily offering themselves for castration.

After careful consideration of all these factors, the castrator eventually ordered Nicolai to strip and lie face-up on the heavily bloodstained surgical table on which Vissarion had been the last to lose his testicles several years previously. The man then firmly strapped the now naked, very courageous but naively mistaken young Muscovite in the required spreadeagled position and tied a thin leather cord around the boy’s ball sac. He let the scrotum turn painfully purple before providing the 11 years old with a leather bit to clench his sparkling white teeth on before finally introducing his blade to the lad’s groin.

Nicolai bore the agony of his gelding with tremendous spunk, which the castrator admired enormously. The man had conducted minor surgery on many grown men who had reacted with far less steadfastness. The boy remained still and did not groan at all, as the bloody but skilful incision into his ball sac was made. His fortitude was maintained as first one testicle was quickly exposed and severed to be rapidly followed by the other. The first tears only came to the 11 years old's sensuous blue eye’s when the excruciating stitching of his wound commenced.

It was lucky for the castrator that, after showing the dish containing Nicolai’s testes to the appalled Tamerlane, Vissarion rushed into the conqueror’s tent to convey the terrible news, of which his master was already aware. The horrified young Georgian and Armenian had finally tracked their new younger friend down and discovered him within the surgeon’s own canopy. The young Muscovite was recuperating from his horrific experience, in a corner on some bedding with his wound carefully bandaged, and so Arman had stayed behind to comfort the 11 years old whilst his fellow 14 years old ran to inform their master of the shocking turn of events.

The furious Tamerlane had already withdrawn his sabre to decapitate the castrator but the arrival of Vissarion and the young Georgian’s pleading for the man’s life caused the conqueror to calm and discover instead the full sequence of events. The boy then convinced his master of the surgeon’s innocence of any wrongdoing, as he just thought that he was carrying out orders. It was perhaps ironic that the 14 years old had thereby saved the life of the person who had emasculated him.

Nicolai’s young body quickly healed, helped by being fussed over in Tamerlane’s tent by Vissarion and Arman and the castrator, who was very grateful to be still alive but unsure how long that situation would last if he lost his patient. The conqueror then presented the brave young eunuch with a magnificent horse to match the splendid steeds possessed by the young Georgian and Armenian, on which the 11 years old would accompany his new master and friends on the swift ruthless campaign that would destroy the forest Mongols.

Tamerlane had originally returned to his main base on learning of the earlier abduction of Vissarion and Arman. The absence of his boys had caused the enraged conqueror’s terrible temper to remain unchecked. As a result, he had first acquired awful revenge for the kidnapping of the young Georgian and Armenian on those of his own soldiers who had formed the camp guard on the night in question. All were beheaded.

Tamerlane then remained in his base beside the River Don to co-ordinate the activities of his remaining warriors in the search for his beloved boys. All members of the cavalry patrol that finally found them were enriched with large fortunes of gold by the elated conqueror. However, the Mongols who had been responsible for the abduction of the two 14 years olds were rewarded in a different way. Their encampments were remorselessly hunted down and mercilessly raided. Everyone caught, men, women and children, were brutally killed on the spot.

Tamerlane’s boys did not try to prevent their master or his soldiers, primarily mounted archers, from reeking such sanguine havoc. Nicolai wanted to see it whilst his older friends, although saddened at so much bloodshed, appreciated the strategic necessity. However, the 11 years old was responsible for saving some people from decapitation, as his fellow young Muscovite hostages were rescued and returned to their city.

Nicolai did not follow. He did not want his family to know that he had become a eunuch and so sent word to them that he was alive and well but had chosen to serve the dreaded Tamerlane. His decision was also very much affected by the thorough excitement and enjoyment he had experienced during the recent fighting. Although originally a sensitive boy before becoming a hostage, his captivity, and particularly his whipping, had caused vengeful bloodlust to develop within his character. The highlight of the campaign for him had been to see a certain scar-faced man in his early forties with long drooping moustache and his no-longer smirking interpreter tortured horribly, with many cuts, whilst suspended side-by-side from a certain sturdy branch of a particular punishment tree. Amongst these rents were ones that severed their genitalia. The victims had been allowed to enjoy the agony from the bloody wounds inflicted for a while afterwards before being released so that their detached heads could join a growing tower of skulls.

Vissarion and Arman were also happy that the pair of adult Mongols had been executed, if only to prevent the men from terrorising any more of their master’s subjects, but they did not have the stomach to watch the whole slow event unfold, unlike Nicolai. The latter’s parents and siblings were distraught at hearing the boy’s message and thought that he must have been coerced by the dreaded Tamerlane into service. However, they also knew there was even less that they could do to save the 11 tears old from the clutch of the conqueror than even the grip of the Mongols. They therefore sent him a return communication, reminding him of their love, wishing him well and expressing the hope that they would all meet again in this life.

Nicolai’s gorgeous blue eyes became lachrymose when he eventually read this letter and considered changing his mind. However, this possible alteration in attitude quickly disappeared when Vissarion and Arman, observing their new friend’s sudden melancholy whilst they sat together in Tamerlane’s tent, invited him to go hunting deer with them. The exhilaration of this pastime, conducted in the company of the boys’ returned loyal bodyguards and whilst their master was conferring with his generals about mopping up the last vestiges of Mongol resistance, soon dismissed the idea of a return to Moscow from the 11 years old’s thoughts. He knew that he now could not live without such friends and excitement.

Nicolai’s outlook did eventually adjust but his return to his homeland was only temporary and took place many years later, when he was a very rich monarch of a faraway land. The journey was conducted to meet, on one last occasion, his, by then, aged parents and adult brothers and sisters and their offspring. By this time, he was no longer worried about explaining why he could not also have children who were the product of his own loins. He was content instead to introduce to his closest relations, delighted at seeing the long-lost son once again, his twelve adopted and adorable princes and princesses, of varying ages and races, originally garnered as endangered poor orphans from different parts of Tamerlane’s vast empire.

(Forests of Rus, Khanate of the Golden Horde, August 1391)

The terrible vengeance of Tamerlane on the Mongols of southern Rus eventually concluded. It had been impossible to locate and confront all of the enemy amidst the vast forests but most had been found and eliminated and the conqueror now wanted to withdraw from the country before the onset of the cruel winter.

Tamerlane had previously enjoyed being snowbound with Vissarion and Arman but he now realised that there was a need to return to his distant capital at Samarkand in order to update himself on, and resolve, other matters of state relating to his enormous empire. His attitude was compounded by the facts that his men needed rest and reinforcements and that his army was in possession of so much rich booty that it was a serious hindrance to further campaigning. The conqueror therefore felt compelled to travel with the vast plunder, guarded by all of his forces, back to his homeland.

Tamerlane left behind a Rus that would never be the same again, even though he did not now attack the main Mongol cities of Sarai Berke and Astrakhan in the east. Mongol dominance had been further damaged, even though substantial forces would return to the forests of the west to resume the rewarding cowering of the native populace. Gradually over many years, the local Princes would throw off their fealty to the weakened invaders and the great state called Russia would emerge.

During the long journey to Tamerlane’s homeland, Nicolai had felt left out by being supplied with his own well-equipped cosy tent, with a servant to take care of his every need, whilst Vissarion and Arman stayed overnight in the conqueror’s tent. This caused the boy, increasingly conversant with the Turkish dialect spoken, to ask, with potentially perilous boldness, his new leader the reason for his exile, already knowing the answer. The young Georgian and Armenian had advised the young Muscovite plainly that their master was blaming himself for the 11 years old’s gelding and did not want to be the cause of any more distress by taking him into his bed as well.

Tamerlane patiently gave different unconvincing reasons to the beautiful Nicolai. However, in the end, the needs of the man’s cock overrode his sense of guilt and he succumbed to the young Muscovite’s heart-rendering entreaties to be allowed to become, in all senses, one of his boys.

Nicolai was returned to Tamerlane’s tent and on the first night lost his anal virginity first to Arman, a kindness granted by his now eager master to ease the way for a much bigger penile intruder. As with his castration, the boy proved very brave when the agony of the conqueror’s invasion of Muscovite territory finally arrived. However, the 11 years old considered it a small price to pay to be back living with his closest friends, amongst whom he now included a 55 years old man.

(Samarkand, October 1391)

‘You can travel through the whole world, have a look at the Pyramids and admire the smile of the Sphinx; you can listen to the soft singing of the wind at the Adriatic Sea and kneel down reverently at the ruins of the Acropolis, be dazzled by Rome with its Forum and Coliseum, be charmed by Notre Dame in Paris or by old domes of Milan; but, if you have seen the buildings of Samarkand, you will be enchanted by its magic forever!’ (An ancient poet)

‘I heard that the city was beautiful but never thought that it could be so beautiful and majestic!’ (Alexander the Great when he first saw Samarkand, then in Sogdia and known as ‘Maracanda’, in 329 B.C.)

Ancient Arab manuscripts refer to Samarkand, almost 2000 years old in the 14th century, as the ‘Gem of the East’. Vissarion, Arman and Nicolai were prompted to agree when, mounted on their splendid steeds, the city’s multitude of domes, many turquoise in colour and glistening in the sunlight, first came into view in the distance. It was an opinion that the three boys, destined to be very well travelled, would never alter. As the resplendently attired young trio entered Tamerlane’s capital for the first time, immediately behind their master at the van of his elite forces, to raucous cheering from the huge crowds who lined the beautiful wide boulevards, they realised that they had never before seen such a magnificent metropolis. Their own homes, Tiflis, Erivan and Moscow respectively, paled in comparison. The new young newcomers’ astonishment at their surroundings was increased when their master’s entourage entered the central square, lined by large sparkling turquoise-tiled buildings, which amazingly would later be demolished by the conqueror’s successors and be replaced by even more remarkable constructions.

Samarkand is situated at an oasis in the valley of the River Zarafshan, historically the most fertile and populous in the region and a key crossroads for many central Asia trade routes. The Zarafshan is fed from the mountains to the south and east and eventually flows into the Oxus [now the Amu Darya], which in turn proceeds through marshes to the Aral Sea. The city had actually been badly damaged when Genghis Khan had invaded the area in 1220.

Many other similarly affected major central Asian cities had quickly recovered from the Mongol invasion. However, the real rebuilding of Samarkand as a great metropolis had to await the decision of Tamerlane at the beginning of the 1370s to make the place not only the capital of Transoxonia but also hopefully the world.

The Spanish ambassador to Tamerlane's court, Clavijo, describes how the conqueror “gave orders that a street should be built to pass right through Samarqand [sic], which should have shops opened on either side of it in which every kind of merchandise should be sold, and this new street was to go from one side of the city through to the other side, traversing the heart of the township.” The ruler apparently wanted results immediately and those assigned to the task, with their lives at stake, “began at speed, causing all the houses to be thrown down along the line that his Highness had indicated for the passage of the new street. No heed was paid to the complaint of persons to whom the property here might belong, and those whose houses thus were demolished suddenly had to quit with no warning, carrying away with them their goods and chattels as best they might. No sooner had all the houses been thrown down than the master builders came and laid out the broad new street, erecting shops on the one side and opposite, placing before each a high stone bench that was topped with white slabs. Each shop had two chambers, front and back, and the street way was arched over with a domed roof in which were windows to let the light through. At intervals down the street were erected water fountains.”

Tamerlane’s razing of the properties along the new central thoroughfare, evicting residents without notice and sending them scurrying with whatever of their possessions they could carry, was an urban renewal project as callous as any experienced today. Nevertheless, it seemed to produce the desired result. According to Clavijo, the main roadway was constructed in 20 days.

Tamerlane’s Samarkand was being restored to former splendour with the help of tens of thousands of architects and craftsmen captured during his conquests, including ultimately sculptors, stonemasons and stucco workers from Persia and India, mosaic workers from Shiraz and glass blowers and potters from Damascus. However, he additionally brought back makers of armour and weaponry, as he also always wanted to improve his military capabilities as well as glorify his capital. The majolica-tiled mosques, schools and other public buildings they built, and the later structures modelled on them, are truly amongst the most magnificently decorated ever constructed.

The Registan, which the 19th/20th century British traveller and statesman George Curzon called ‘the noblest public square in the world’, is the centre of the old city, and the most spectacular architectural complex still standing in central Asia. Tamerlane originally planned it as a grand covered bazaar, with six main roads leading out to six city gates and thence to the rest of the known world, namely India, China, Siberia, Russia, Persia and the Mediterranean. However, the conqueror’s immediate descendants, the other Timurid leaders, were also enthusiastic builders. His grandson, the learned scientist-ruler Ulugh Beg, especially undertook many extravagant urban projects, including a resplendent madrassah. This was a seminary for students studying both science and Islam and was finished in 1420. It is now the earliest of the trio of beautifully restored buildings, constructed from glazed brick, carved marble and mosaic, and packed with the finest Moslem art, that now adorn three sides of the Registan.

The journey of Tamerlane and his boys did not finish in the square but instead at the conqueror’s nearby opulent palace, sadly now gone. The ruler of much of the known world was greeted by Shadi Mulk Aka, his Eldest Queen or ‘Bibi Khanum’, whom he had not seen for four years. The middle-aged woman’s face dropped at the sight of the three beautiful boys accompanying their master.

Tamerlane had always been very discreet about his young male catamites when within one of his many palaces, not wanting to upset his many wives by flaunting his well-known sexual preferences. However, his attachment to Vissarion, Arman and Nicolai was such that he now disregarded this sensible practice. As a result, his boys were to suffer considerably during their stay in Samarkand.

(To be continued in chapter 11 – ‘Jealousies’)