The Englishman who fought for Genghis Khan
I have a new historical series starting this summer. Templar Traitor will be the first book in a trilogy based on the true story of an English knight who fought for the great Mongol khan in the early 13th century. We don’t know very much about him but he pops up in the medieval chronicler monk Matthew Paris’s Chronica majora and there are various other fragments of information which I have used to piece together his extraordinary story. We know, for example, that he was a former Templar and he was captured near Vienna by the Duke of Austria in the hot summer of 1241, by which time he had been fighting for the Mongols for twenty years . . .
This is the Prologue of Templar Traitor (Mongol Knight 1), which will be published by Canelo in August 2025. Please pre-order if you think this sounds interesting, and feel free to spread the word.
July 1241
Frederick, Duke of Austria, flicked irritably with a mail-covered mitten at the fly dancing around his horse’s neck. It was suffocatingly hot that noon-tide, even in the dappled shade under the elm trees. His lower back ached like the Devil, his padded linen undershirt was soggy with sweat, and he was regretting his decision to have his squire dress him in his full battle-gear that morning, a suit of heavy, iron-link mail that covered him from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. He had been sitting astride his powerful destrier under these tall elms for the past hour and more, waiting, waiting and his famously short stock of patience was very nearly at an end.
“Heinrich,” he snapped at the nearest rider, one of fifty knights and sergeants in a loose, murmuring pack all about him, “is there any fresh word from the scouts?”
The knight, an older man with deep lines of worry carved into his lean cheeks, shook his greying head. The duke grunted with frustration and peered out through the leaves that shielded his company from sight, craning his head to get a better view of the valley below the promontory on which the mass of German horsemen waited.
Below him, a little over a mile to the south, the slow, brown Danube spooled through the landscape. The great river turned south from its eastwards route, down towards the sun, at the hamlet of Korneuburg, off to the duke’s left. The dust-hazed main road followed the river’s course, cutting through broken terrain on the north bank, expanses of boulders and gorse mixed with small, seemingly besieged fields of golden barley. The duke’s castle at Vienna was a mere hour’s ride south of the further bank of the river, perhaps only a scant dozen miles as the eagle flies.
“And you are quite certain of the veracity of the information, Heinrich?” the duke said. “You still believe it to be reliable.”
Heinrich von Leitzdorf straightened his back, looked his liege hard in the eye.
“The son of one of my oldest tenants, a steady, pious boy, not given to flights of fantasy, said he saw a large company of Tartars at Zwettl last night, a little before dusk. More than two score of them, the boy said, a scouting or a foraging party. He watched them advance eastwards along these roads, and then make their rough camp at nightfall in a sheep pasture near his father’s cottage. Unless they have managed to cross the Danube, which seems most unlikely, or have turned back towards the rest of their Satanic horde, which we think is now somewhere north of here, up in the thick woods of Bohemia, these scouts will pass us on this road at some point today. Unless they do not. I cannot see the future, my lord, no man can. It is in the hands of God.”
The young duke nodded sagely and looked round at the mass of brightly coloured, gently stirring, softly chinking Germanic horsemen gathered under the trees, then gestured brusquely for his nearest squire to bring over the wine flask.
He drank deeply and wiped his red, sweating face with his leather-covered palm. If his company departed now, he calculated, they could be back inside the walls of Vienna Castle by the late afternoon – and he might even be able to take a cool dip in the Danube-fed castle moat before supper. That would be delightful, by Christ. Heinrich von Leitzdorf was right, only God knew where these swift-riding fiends from the infernal Realm of Tartarus were to be found on this hellishly hot day.
A vast swarm of these foul creatures had recently erupted out of the East, everyone knew that, and they had crushed the Russian dukedoms one after another. They had cowed the Kingdom of Hungary with their animal ferocity, and destroyed the massed knights of Poland in a great battle at Leignitz a mere three months ago. All of eastern Europe lay supine under the Tartar boot and only little Austria yet stood against them. The princes of France, Germany and England whined and quarrelled – and did nothing. The Pope issued many decrees but dispatched no soldiers. Only Frederic of Austria and his handful of knights defied the mighty heathen army. And they would strike a telling blow for Christ this day against the hated foe. But where were they? Not on the dusty Korneuburg road, that was for sure. The duke made his decision, it was simply too hot. He opened his mouth to give the order – and froze.
“Sire,” said Heinrich, pointing, “look yonder, by that little copse of ash trees.”
Duke Frederick looked westwards at a small cloud of dust moving along the road towards them. As the dust drew nearer – and, by God, they were moving at a blistering pace – he began to make out the hunched shapes of individual riders and their dull iron armour, round shields and pointed helms topped with flowing plumes.
“About four dozen of the Hell-spawn, would you say, Hen?” The duke grinned excitedly at his most loyal knight, the ageing constable of his castle. “Few enough for us to challenge, eh?” But Heinrich von Leitzdorf merely grunted in response to his liege. The lord of Austria was bouncing in his saddle with glee, all discomfort gone.
“Yes. Good. We shall take them on. Heinrich – you will take my lord Stephen of Dalmatia and his Hungarians and head out west to cut off their retreat back up the road. We’ll wait for them to see you down there – then the rest of us will go straight in and fall on them. We’ll catch these heathens like a walnut between two rocks.”
The duke made a pinching movement with his left hand, like a crab closing its claw. “You understand me, Heinrich?”
“Indeed, sire. We have discussed this simple manoeuvre at some length.”
“Then, go. Take the Hungarians. May God and the Saints ride with you!”
A little while later, after one third of his command had left the promontory, the duke led his men out of the cover of the trees into the open on to the crest of the hill.
With loud cries of “For God and the Blessed Virgin!” and “Austria for ever!” The thirty-five knights couched their lances under elbows, put back their spurs and clattered down the rock-strewn slope towards the road, in a long, single, raggedy line.
The Tartars were not slow to respond. They had seen the Hungarians burst out on to the road behind them, and now they saw the onslaught of the duke’s knights coming straight down the hillside and, despite being pinned against the river bank to the south, they scattered in almost all directions. Those furthest east, the half a dozen Tartars nearest the hamlet of Korneuburg, galloped onward and escaped into the jumble of thatched huts and barns and kitchen gardens, whipping their ponies into an undignified scramble to escape the pursuing, heavily armoured Christian knights.
Those furthest west turned to face Stephen of Dalmatia’s men, drawing short bows from scabbards on the horses’ withers and loosing shafts at the gallop as they urged their mounts against their oncoming foes. Those in the middle of the Tartar pack, the bulk of them, split apart like a glass bowl dropped on a flag-stone floor, the dagger-like shards splintering out as the charging line of knights swept into them.
Duke Frederick found himself face to face with a scowling devil under a black-plumed iron helm, a flat, pale face with twin spots of scarlet on the cheek, gleaming, deep-sunken black eyes and a feather of moustache above a red, snarling, gap-toothed mouth. The warrior effortlessly drew his short bow and loosed – and the wicked shaft thwacked into the painted leather face of duke’s red-and-white shield, the iron point punching right through and catching in the links of his mailed sleeve on the inside.
An instant later, the duke’s lance took the enemy rider high in the left shoulder and ripped him out of the saddle. The long spear snapped mid-strike and Frederick immediately lost his grip on the wooden shaft. Then fumbling desperately at his left-hand side for his arming sword, he saw with horror one of his knights arch his back in pain as a passing Tartar smacked a shaft into his upper spine from three yards away.
Screaming, “For God and the Virgin”, the duke finally freed his long sword from the scabbard and kneed his destrier towards the nearest living opponent.
A clash of steel, the sparks visible, a glimpse of a dirty, hate-twisted face under a shapeless fur hat, and the duke was past his ferocious opponent, and reining in on the banks of the Danube. He immediately turned his horse, dug in the spurs once more and rode back into the fray. Another hideous foe: an elegant curve of silver catching the sunshine, his own straight blade, up, parrying, catching the weight of the blow. Then the riposte, completely by instinct, the long arming sword battering past the smaller man’s defence and hacking into the side of his neck. Bubbling blood from his mouth, the Tartar slumping down in the saddle. Yet the warrior still had the strength to turn in the saddle and spit defiance at the duke. Frederick closed in again, yelling, and finished him with a sweep of his sword that severed his head from his squat body.
Gulping down air, his own blood fizzing from the heat of the action, Frederick looked about him, turning his head this way and that. His eye was drawn to one of the Tartars, a man taller than the rest, who was exchanging blows with three of the duke’s sergeants at the same time. The Tartar controlled the horse only with his knees and fended off his three attackers with a small steel-plated shield and a slim curved sabre.
The man’s head was covered with a domed helmet, adorned with a jaunty red plume, marking him out from the rest of these hell-spawn riders with their black horsehair top-knots. And he seemed to be a superior kind of warrior, an officer, perhaps. Far more skilled than the rest. As Frederick watched, catching his breath, the Tartar slid under a sword blow from one the sergeants, riposted with a lightning fast slice that ripped opened the Austrian’s throat to the spine. The poor sergeant slid from the saddle gargling blood. Yet the Tartar was still beset by two Christian enemies. He blocked a cut from one of them and forced the other back with a lunge, then chopped his iron shield down on the first sergeants thigh, the rim striking hard and snapping bone. The sergeant screamed, and the Tartar tried to force his horse past him and into open space. But the last sergeant was clubbing at his back, a crunching mace blow that clanged against the Tartar’s iron-strip, lamellar armour making him arch his spine in pain. And the Tartar rounded on him, effortlessly turning his smaller horse and striking the last sergeant in a flurry of sword blows, almost to swift for the eye to see.
The Tartar was magnificent. Hell-spawn or not, Frederick thought, he fought like a lion, with a chilly ferocity, a merciless precision that was simply astonishing.
The Duke of Austria collected himself. He put back his spurs and his destrier leapt forward. “For God and Saint Mary!” he yelled, as he closed on the Tartar and the sergeant, who was now battling desperately for his life. The duke swung his long sword hard at the Tartar’s lamellar neck armour, and the duke was aware that, even as he made his cut, the Tartar officer was hacking across the space between him and the sergeant and into the Austrian man’s unguarded side. The Tartar’s lateral blow landed an instant before Frederick’s own strike – which clanged against the back of the tall man’s scarlet plumed helmet just above the neck rim at the level of his right ear.
Frederick saw the Tartar’s head jerk back from the impact of the sword blow but, remarkably, he did not fall. In an extraordinary feat of horsemanship, he turned his pony on a nail-head and came barrelling back directly at the duke. As he came on, one of the dismounted, wounded sergeants hacked wildly at the Tartar’s passing leg – missed and the sword thwacked into the man’s saddle flap, severing various straps.
The Tartar stood in the saddle to hammer a sword blow at the duke’s head, and as he stood, his right stirrup strap snapped with a loud crack, and the tall man was dumped back against his high cantle. And as the duke struck his own sword blow, desperately blocked by the off-balance man’s small round iron shield, the Tartar was hurled from the saddle by the impact of the young Austrian’s strike and his awkward stirrup-less seat. The duke’s enemy spilled untidily from the saddle and thumped down into the dust of the road – and lay there in a crumpled heap, stunned and still.
Frederick left the man to his dismounted sergeants, to kill or capture. He turned his own destrier and looked for more mounted enemies to slay. Yet by now the fight was clearly over. The Christian knights were victorious – that was clear from their noisy exultations. And his Germans were scattered all over the road, most of them with bloody swords in their hands. The Tartar force had been utterly vanquished – the enemy saddles were all empty, the riders now lying prone in the dust, or fleeing for their lives on their swift little ponies. One of the fiends was gamely trying to swim his frightened horse across half a mile of swift brown river.
Frederick’s breathing became calmer, he felt the hot glow of victory in his belly, and a slight feeling of nausea at the necessary carnage. The duke saw his constable Heinrich, trotting along the road towards him. He seemed to be unharmed but he had a short black arrow tangled in his cloak-hem which he seemed not to have noticed.
“We did it, old friend. We did it. We struck a blow for Christ today,” he said.
“Yes, sire. We did indeed.” But Heinrich seemed to be a little distracted; he was looking beyond his liege. A knot of bloody captives was kneeling in the dirt, hands held up high in surrender, with dismounted German knights and sergeants herding them into a line, with swords lofted, ready to strike down any who refused to obey.
“I regret to say, sire, that Otto von Lichtenberg has fallen,” the constable said. “He is with God and the angels. Count Siegfried, too, is wounded – shaft in the ribs.”
“Still, it was a noble victory, eh, Hen?”
“Indeed, sire. We must have dispatched two dozen of the devils between us.”
“Austria has stemmed the tide of evil, Hen. We can be proud of our arms today.”
“Hmm, if you say so, my lord. If you say so. But what, may I ask, sire, do you intend to do with them?” He pointed over at the forlorn line of kneeling prisoners.
The duke turned to look. “Them? No idea. Hang them all without delay, I suppose. As a fitting punishment and warning to the rest of their Hell-born breed.”
“Perhaps it might be wise to put them to the question first, sire. To gain a little intelligence. If we can find a good Christian who can speak their accursed tongue.”
“You take charge, Hen, will you? There’s a good fellow. They are all yours. Do what you will. Hang them, question them, chop out their black hearts. I care not.”
But Heinrich was already stepping down from his horse, oblivious of his lord.
He walked towards the nearest Tartar prisoner, and stopped before him, standing over the kneeling man and looking intently into his upturned face.
“Take off your helmet,” he said, in his native German.
The Tartar prisoner looked up at the German knight out of eyes the blue of cornflowers. He was a man of about fifty years of age, square jawed, lean, strong-looking. He looked slightly dazed. His head swayed a little on his neck and he blinked several times. Then he reached up and began to untie the leather straps that secured his helm. The steel helmet, with a short brim and cheek and neck flaps, was adorned on a scarlet plume, the only badge of its kind in that line of Tartar wretches.
“You understand me? My tongue?” Heinrich could not hide his astonishment.
The man pulled the pointed iron helmet off his head to release a mass of long, grey-streaked, sweat-matted but clearly once bright blond hair.
The kneeling prisoner replied slowly: “I do . . . my lord,” in that same language. “Also French, Italian, Latin, Turkish, Arabic, Persian and other tongues besides . . .”
“Sire!” called Heinrich. “Come here, I beg you – come look at this one. Sire!”
The constable felt the presence of his young liege lord looming at his shoulder.
“God’s blood,” spluttered the duke. “I saw this one fight. He took on three of our sergeants – a veritable Trojan with a blade – three men defeated, before I felled him myself. But he is no Tartar. Surely not. Look at his eyes, Hen – at his hair. Who are you? Tell me this instant, man. Be you heathen dog or honest Christian? Speak up!”
“Jesus Christ is my Lord and Saviour,” said the man, making the sign of the cross with his hand, forehead to heart, left shoulder to right. “God chose me as his servant. I have never denied my Faith – and I never shall, even unto Death itself.”
“Why then do you ride with these fiends from Satan’s realm?” asked Heinrich.
The prisoner shook his head very slightly, winced and said no more.
“Why do you keep company with the Devil’s horsemen?” said the duke, shoving the kneeling man’s shoulder hard. “Tell me, man!”
One of the other prisoners spoke then, the words harsh, as alien as the barking of a hound to the duke’s ears. To his surprise, the blond man answered him in that same hideous tongue. He appeared to be commanding the other prisoner to remain silent.
“Speak like a proper Christian – and answer me. Why are you with them?” The duke was growing impatient. The prisoner simply shook his grey-blond head again.
“Heinrich, seize that fellow!” The duke pointed at the kneeling Tartar who had just spoken with the strange captive. The older knight moved smartly to obey.
“Tell me,” said the duke, “or I shall order your comrade’s throat to be opened.”
“We are your prisoners – we have yielded to you. If you kill us, it runs contrary to all the laws of God and Man. It would be nothing less than cold-blooded murder.”
The duke stared at the prisoner. He felt the stirrings of anger. He was not used to being gainsaid. “Answer my question, then,” the duke growled. “Why do you – who claim to be a Christian – ride with these Devil-spawn from the bowels of Tartarus?”
The strange blue-eyed Tartar merely closed his eyes and began to mumble something, the familiar Latin words: “Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum . . .”
“Talk to me – or I shall end your friend’s existence this instant!” The duke could feel the hot fury rising in him, like a cook-pot coming up to the boil on the campfire.
“Kill him, Heinrich.” The duke nodded at the old knight, who ripped his dagger across the Tartar’s throat.
The blond man ignored the sputtering blood and continued with his prayer.
“Speak up – or you are next,” said the duke through his gritted teeth.
The kneeling man shook his head again. The familiar Latin prayer droned on.
“Heinrich!”
“Wait, sire! Look again at his face. I know this man. I have seen him before.”
The duke stared at the prisoner. He frowned. “What? What do you mean . . .”
“In Pest, in the court of King Béla. In the spring. With the Tartar ambassador.”
“God’s blood, you’re right, Hen. He was with their ambassador; he was the English translator with the Tartars when they demanded the submission of Hungary.”
Frederick seized the prisoner by the chin and forced his face upwards.
“You are the Englishman,” he said. “You are the traitor to Christendom!”
Chapter one
Father Ivo of Narbonne strode through the gates of Vienna Castle, nodding amiably at the men-at-arms on guard duty, who knew him, making for the stone tower on the western side. His robe swished around his ankles, revealing his hairy, sandalled feet.
He was in a fine mood this morning and whistled a jaunty tune to himself as he walked. Even the sight of the scaffold to his left in the castle courtyard, and its seven, dangling, half-rotted bodies, could not sour his buoyant mood this fine summer’s day.
He had been assigned a difficult new task by his lord, and that assignment itself signalled forgiveness for past transgressions. A remission of sins, you might even say. In his strong, black-haired hands he clutched a fat sheaf of parchments, a vellum scroll and a little portable writing set – several snowy goose quills, a pen-knife, ink pot and a silver sander – all encased in a wallet of kidskin, and secured with a thong. Father Ivo also bore a bulging leather satchel hanging from his brawny right shoulder.
“Has he said anything yet to his interrogators?” Father Ivo said to Gutto, the gaoler, at the door of the castle keep that led down to the cells, where local miscreants were imprisoned until meeting their fate. Gutto, a hunched, creeping old man, small but very powerfully built, shook his scabby, shaven head.
“Not a peep?” said Father Ivo. “Not even after Heinrich von Leitzdorf’s men put the hot irons to his flesh? Not after a month of rotting here? That, I believe, tells us something, does it not, Gutto? That he is a man with an uncommon strength of will.”
End of extract
You can pre-order your copy of Templar Traitor (Mongol Knight 1) here. It will be out in August 2025
How is your new Robin Hood novel coming along?