Writing this is like the story of a woman train passenger who witnessed Salvador Dali sketch a remarkable portrait. When she expressed surprise and amazement at how quickly he had drawn it, he remarked that while it was true that it had only taken him two minutes, it was equally true that it had taken him his whole life. In other words, you can say such-and-such happened on a certain date, but that event had a whole history of its arising.
Another way of looking at history is like this. You might have seen a Virginia Creeper – that’s a climbing plant – that snakes its way up walls of houses and churches, clinging to it with its feelers. The analogy with history is that what we see happening today – they’re the ends of each of the strands of that Virginia Creeper. But those tips are the terminal points of long tentacles that stretch into the ground, and whose origins are hidden beneath the soil, in the mists of history. So, we might admire the end results of history, but do we know its genesis?
Having made these qualifying remarks about a five-minute history post, here it is:
The immediate backstory to the novel is this.
1206 A.D. Genghis Khan is declared supreme ruler of the Mongol tribes. Remember, these are a bunch of illiterate, nomadic shepherds, who are united by Genghis’ vision to bring together the whole world under their god, Tengri, who resides in the eternal blue sky.
1209-1215 Genghis Khan’s army invades China, which was weakened by having been split in two: the Jin in the north and the Song in the South.
1218-1221 Genghis Khan invades Central Asia. Otrar, Samarkand and Bukhara all fall. The area is renamed Moghulistan (NB ‘Stan’ is Persian for ‘land’). The Mongols open up the Silk Road for travellers and trade. They form the world’s first postal system, a series of staging posts called the Yam, where riders can get fresh horses, and cover up to 200 miles in a day.
The history behind the novel itself is as follows.
July 1338 – The Chinese Astrological Year of the Tiger – the first case of the Black Plague occurs in the Chuy Valley, Moghulistan. The people of the time have no idea how it spreads. Some like Karia, the heroine of the novel, flee the area by joining a caravan heading west along the Silk Road. The governing influences of the time are deeply religious and so many people believe the plague is a punishment from God.
Spring 1339 – The plague reaches Tashkent, the City of Stones. Karia is forced to flee, joining the next caravan heading west.
May 1340 – The plague, carried by fleas on rats, encroaches into Samarkand, the City of Oases.
September 1340 – The plague reaches the Ark of Bukhara, aka God’s Fascination, and home to the Whirling Dervishes, an esoteric Islamic sect famous for their spiritual dancing.
March 1341 – The plague hits the City of Āmul.
July 1341 – The walls of Khiva and Ichon-Qala, its inner city, are breached by the plague.
July 1342 – Then it arrives in Little Saray on the delta of the Ural River.
August 1342 – And then onto Old Saray on the Volga River, where Öz Beg is the Khan of the Golden Horde, the western wing of the Mongol Empire.
September 1343 –An incident with a Mongol notary in Tanais on the Don River has fatal repercussions.
August 1346 - The battle of Crecy is fought between King Edward III’s English troops and King Philip VI’s French troops.
Autumn 1346 – The Crimean port of Kaffa on the Black Sea is besieged by the Mongol army, who eventually retreat when the plague ravages their numbers.
August 1347 – The English siege of the French port of Calais finally succeeds.
October 1347 – The plague reaches the Sicilian port of Messina.
Winter 1347 – The French port of Bordeaux is breached by the plague.
23 April 1348 – King Edward III institutes the prestigious chivalric Order of the Garter.
24 June 1348 – In the Chinese Astrological Year of the Rat (it had to be, didn’t it?) – the plague arrives on a ship from Gascony at the port of Melcombe Regis, near Weymouth.
July 1348 – Because the cemetery is full, the clergy direct the villagers to dig plague pits and erect Posy Trees. The pestilence devastates the towns and villages, fields and meadows of the land.
The map shows its spread along the Silk Road, across the Caspian and the Mediterranean
Seas, to England.
Justin Newland
3rd July, 2026.
