Read Crusade for Free Online Page A

heads of two lions fashioned from gold.
    Standing with his back to the wall, surrounded by the knot of boys, was a slave, a little older than the youths themselves, maybe sixteen or so. His head was tilted away from the group, eyes fixed on some distant point. His expression was paralyzed in an unreadable mask, and only his unnatural, frozen posture revealed his distress. Baraka was talking animatedly to the others, his face, framed by his black curly hair, split in a broad grin. Kalawun frowned and craned his head to see above the crowds.
    A commander of one of the Mamluk regiments, clad in a yellow cloak, hailed him. “Amir, it was a beautiful ceremony. You must be pleased.”
    Kalawun nodded distractedly. “As pleased as any father could be, Amir Mahmud.”
    Mahmud maneuvered himself in front of Kalawun. “Perhaps, now the festivities are over, we can begin speaking of our strategy for the coming year. I was wondering if you had talked with the sultan? Perhaps you know of his plans?”
    Kalawun noted the predatory look in the young commander’s eyes. “No, Mahmud. My thoughts of late,” he spread a hand to take in the chamber, “have been elsewhere.”
    “I understand,” said Mahmud, touching his heart with false sincerity, “but now there will be less to occupy your thoughts, I thought we might speak to the sultan, arrange a council for—”
    “Excuse me,” said Kalawun, stepping down from the dais and moving past Mahmud, who glared after him. Two of the youths with Baraka had parted. In the gap between them, Kalawun had seen that Baraka had hold of the slave’s tunic. He was lifting it, revealing the scars of the boy’s castration to the others. A couple of the youths were laughing along with Baraka, the rest were staring in appalled fascination at the disfigurement. The slave closed his eyes.
    For men such as Kalawun, the term slave warrior wasn’t just a name. Years ago, he, like many other Mamluks, including Baybars, had been captured by slave traders following the Mongol invasions against the Kipchak Turks around the Black Sea. They were sold in the markets to officers in the Egyptian Army and, taken as prisoners to Cairo in their thousands, were educated as devout Muslims and raised into an elite fighting corps by the former Ayyubid sultans of Egypt. The Ayyubid dynasty had ended twenty-six years ago when the slave warriors overthrew their masters and took control of Egypt.
    The younger boys remembered the parents and siblings they had been separated from. But over time, toughened by the rigorous training and consoled by the camaraderie of the barracks, those memories faded. When they were freed to become soldiers and officers of the Mamluk Army, very few deserted and returned to their families. Kalawun had been twenty when he was captured, old for a slave. He remembered his wife and child, memories that were slow to dissolve. Even now, at fifty-four, with three wives, three children and another on the way, he sometimes wondered whether his first family had survived the Mongols’ attack and were out there somewhere, unaware he was still alive, unaware he was now one of the most powerful men in the East. Baraka, born into a world where the slave warriors were the rulers and resided in grand palaces surrounded by finery, didn’t know the chains his heritage had broken from.
    Generals and officers passed by the group of tormentors, but said nothing. The household slaves who, unlike soldiers, were subjected to castration to protect the harem and to keep the slaves themselves docile, occasionally rose from lowly beginnings to fill offices of high authority under their masters, even being sent as ambassadors to foreign dignitaries or training recruits for the army. But most, although often treated better than servants in Western households, were simply part of the silent, invisible race that thronged the halls and passages of every wealthy residence in Cairo. Baraka was a prince, the eunuch just another