The Rabbi King: David of Khazaria

By Monroe S. Kuttner

"The Rabbi King" is a history-based adventure novel that tells the story of David, the fictional last Khagan of a remnant of the historical Jewish Kingdom of Khazaria that may have existed into the early thirteenth century. It was located in the area of the Caucasus that now comprises Dagestan and Chechnya, on the western shore of the Caspian Sea. In the middle of the eighth century the Khazar Khagan (king) and his nobles adopted Judaism as their religion.

In the novel, David, son of the Khagan, is sent from his homeland in the Caucasus to Spain at age seven. There, he studies in the same household with another boy who is later called Maimonides, earning the right to be called Rabbi, a scholar of the laws, scriptures and customs of Judaism.

When the time comes to return home, seventeen-year-old David leaves civilization to rule an untamed country. His Khazaria is sparsely populated by pagan nomads and by the descendants of many Jewish immigrants who fled persecution in Persia and Byzantium and intermarried with Khazar converts. To survive, they must emulate the lifestyle of the nomads.

When Davids father dies, he becomes Khagan and is sworn to keep his homeland safe and under a Jewish sovereign. He faces many difficulties, not the least of which is trying to balance his wish to keep the Jewish laws and customs he learned in Spain against the need to survive in a wild country under attack by barbarian tribes.

In an effort to reverse a betrayal of his people, David of Khazaria undertakes a long journey, both physically and spiritually, to save his kingdom. He meets many important historical personages and plays a role in some of the events that shaped history in the years between 1150 and 1170 C.E.in the Caucasus, Persia, Byzantium and Egypt.

A Review From The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition: Who is a Khazar? By Gabriel A. Sivan February, 20 2002

(February 20)The Rabbi King: David of Khazaria. a Historical Adventure by Monroe S. Kuttner. Xlibris/Random House. 505 pages.

A once-upon-a-time true fable about a Jewish kingdom in south-eastern Russia continues to capture the imagination.

Though a work of fiction, this is one of several books that testify to renewed interest in the Khazars, a formerly nomadic people of Turkish stock whose ruling class embraced Judaism in or around 740 CE and established an empire stretching from the Crimea to the Aral Sea.

By tradition, it was after a debate between representatives of Judaism, Christianity and Islamin which the Jewish arguments proved most convincingthat King Bulan made Khazaria Jewish. The faith that he adopted contained an admixture of paganism, however, and normative rabbinic Judaism was only introduced by his successors.

Khazar merchants traded through_out the Near East; Khazar troops helped the Magyars conquer Hungary and joined the Byzantines in a war against Persia.

Vague accounts of this remote but powerful empire heartened Jewish communities in Western Europe and inspired Judah Halevis famous exposition of Judaism, Sefer ha-Kuzari (see box). Tragically, from 965, the Khazar state declined and eventually collapsed under savage Russian and other attacks.

"However, it is documented that Khazars, and a land called Khazaria, existed well into the early 13th century, probably in the area of Russian Dagestan and Chechnya," writes Monroe Kuttner, author of The Rabbi King, who obviously did a great deal of research.

True enough, Khazars appear to have survived as an ethnic group until the Mongol invasion in 1237, and the last remnants were no doubt absorbed by Jewish, Karaite and Christian populations.

Kuttner evidently believes that there were Khazars among his ancestors in Hungary and Russia. On that basis, he invents a khagan or king named David, Khazarias last rulerduring the years 1150-1170whose empire is limited to what is now Dagestan.

Ordained as a rabbi in Cordova, where young Moshe ben Maimon was a fe

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 30, 2001
• ISBN: 9781462804412

Monroe S. Kuttner

Monroe (Monty) Kuttner was born in New York City, but suspects there are Khazars among his ancestors in Hungary and Russia. His extensive research on Khazaria resulted in The Rabbi King. The nature of the book also required him to study the geography of the Caucasus and Middle Eastern countries and their histories between 1150 and 1170 C.E. He found the investigatory effort as rewarding as the writing. This is Mr. Kuttner’s first novel. Previously, he authored several business books and many articles that were published during his career as a Management Consultant. He has an undergraduate degree in journalism and creative writing and an MBA degree. Between the receipt of the degrees he saw combat service as an Infantry Lieutenant during the Korean War. He later became active in Community Theater, performing locally in a dozen plays over the past twenty-five years.

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Copyright © 2000 by Monroe S. Kuttner.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

FOREWORD

CHAPTER 1: KHAZARIA—1150 C. E.

CHAPTER 2: THE WHITE HORSE

CHAPTER 3: KHAGAN

CHAPTER 4: ANOTHER DUTY

CHAPTER 5: BETRAYAL

CHAPTER 6: SAMANDAR

CHAPTER 7: THE ESCAPE

CHAPTER 8: A NEW LIFE

CHAPTER 9: THE GO-BETWEEN

CHAPTER 10: GEGUTI

CHAPTER 11: PRINCESS NINO

CHAPTER 12: THE TYRANT OF SAMANDAR

CHAPTER 13: SOLOMON THE PHYSICIAN

CHAPTER 14: HAVEN

CHAPTER 15: AMBASSADOR

CHAPTER 16: JERUSALEM

CHAPTER 17: ON THE MARCH

CHAPTER 18: MESSIAH

CHAPTER 19: EZRA’S JOURNEY

CHAPTER 20: ASSASSINS

CHAPTER 21: THE CAVE

CHAPTER 22: JEREMIAH

CHAPTER 23: POWERS THAT BE

CHAPTER 24: PHYSICIAN

CHAPTER 25: AN OLD FRIEND

CHAPTER 26: THE LONG VOYAGE

CHAPTER 27: FUSTAT

CHAPTER 28: THE WEDDING

CHAPTER 29: THE VIZIER’S PLOT

CHAPTER 30: DAMIETTA

CHAPTER 31: THE RUS PRINCELING

CHAPTER 32: REUNIONS

CHAPTER 33: DERBENT

CHAPTER 34: TAMAR’S PRINCE

CHAPTER 35: TURTLE COVE

CHAPTER 36: THE ATTACK

CHAPTER 37: JUSTICE

CHAPTER 38: YOM KIPPUR

HISTORICAL AFTERWORD

FOREWORD

History records that in the fifth century C.E. a tribe of Turkic origin called the Khazars moved from the lands east of the Caspian Sea to the area north and west of the Caspian, reaching as far west as the Crimean Peninsula. Many other Turkic tribes did this in the centuries that followed. What is remarkable about the Khazars is that they established a coherent empire and then, at the height of their power in the eighth century, adopted Judaism as their state religion. The rulers and nobles of Khazaria abandoned their pagan religion. They took biblical names and worshipped the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses.

The Jewish Empire of the Khazars lasted as a powerful nation for more than two hundred years. During this time there was a great influx of Jews from Christian Byzantium, Persia and the Muslim lands of the Caliphate, who, being a persecuted minority in many places, fled to Khazaria when it became known that its rulers were Jewish and welcomed all Jews. Intermarriage between the many Jewish immigrants and the fewer Khazar Jewish nobles no doubt followed, legitimizing and strengthening the Judaism of Khazaria’s ruling class.

The Empire of Khazaria crumbled in the late tenth century under attacks from the Polovtsi, another Turkic tribe also known as Cumans or Kipchaks, and the Rus, forebears of the Russians. However, it is documented that Khazars, and a land called Khazaria, existed into the early thirteenth century, probably in the area of Russian Dagestan and Chechnya of recent headlines.

The impact of the Khazars on history may be significant. Some have suggested that most European Jews and their descendants can trace their ancestry to Jews from Khazaria.

What follows is the story of David, a Jewish ruler in that final period of Khazar history. While this is a work of fiction, many of the people, places and events it contains are based on the realities of the Caucasus and Middle East between the years 1140 and 1170, in the early Middle Ages.

This novel would not have been written had not Arthur Koestler’s non-fiction book, The Thirteenth Tribe, been published in 1976. It planted the seed that eventually inspired this book about one of the last Jewish rulers of a forgotten people in a less-studied century. Another non-fiction book about the Khazars that should be read by those interested in this subject is The History of the Jewish Khazars by D. M. Dunlop, published in 1954. The most recent non-fiction book, The Jews of Khazaria, by Kevin Allen Brook, was published in 1999 after the completion of this novel.

One more book must be acknowledged, one actually written at the time of this tale, in the twelfth century, by a man who traveled to many of the places David of Khazaria visits, though he did not visit Khazaria. That man, Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, becomes a character in this novel along with many other historical personages. His book, still available, is entitled The Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela: Travels in the Middle Ages (in a 1987 edition published by Pangloss Press). It describes many Jewish communities of that time about which little is otherwise known.

CHAPTER 1: KHAZARIA—1150 C. E.

As David stood in the square in front of the large but unimposing mud-brick synagogue, he could almost feel the silken noose tightening around his neck. It would happen right here tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow! He was not ready for it. In fact, he didn’t want to do it at all. But tomorrow he would sit on the white horse and his life would be changed.

David’s most vivid early memory was of standing next to Rabbi Ezra as the silken noose was being tightened around his father’s neck. He could see it almost as if it was happening now, in the square before him.

Except for the steam coming from its nostrils into the cold air, the white stallion his father sat upon stood still as if carved from the snow that covered the ground. The Bek, whom David had known as his father’s friend, seemed a leering executioner as he leaned over from his saddle to twist the gold rod that tightened the noose.

David, a child barely five years old at the time, remembered being very frightened. He did not understand what was happening to his father. Rabbi Ezra had taken his hand. Everything will be well, he said. It will soon be over and your father will be Khagan of the Khazars!

In David’s vision of the past, the Bek twisted the rod further. The noose was choking his father. Through the heavy snow falling like a veil between them, David could see him clutching the horse’s reins, trying desperately not to put his hands to his throat, trying to ignore the fact that he could no longer breathe. The Bek then asked his father the traditional question as he was beginning to lose consciousness: Canst thou be our Khagan and rule over Khazaria?

David tensed, seeing again in his mind his father gasping for air as the noose was at last loosened. His father could not speak, but steadied himself on the horse as dizziness left him. The watching members of the royal court nodded in unison. He had passed the test. He did not fall from the horse, intoned the rabbi. He will be a strong Khagan and have a long reign! Everyone cheered, including five-year-old David, though the words had meant little to him.

The seventeen-year-old David shook his head. He could not believe that it had happened a dozen years ago. It was a sad as well as frightening remembrance, for the Khagan, his father, was dead and Shiv’ah, the Jewish week of mourning, had just ended.

There would not be snow this time when he, himself, sat on the white horse. It was too warm. But it was cold enough for David, who had recently returned from Cordova in southern Spain. He shivered in the brisk wind that always blew from the Caspian to cool the village of Samandar.

He felt strange, still, in the clothing he wore. Instead of the black caftan and turban that Jews wore in Moorish Spain, there were baggy trousers, a tunic and a broad-brimmed fur-covered hat that male Khazars favored for outdoor wear.

The only things here that reminded him of Spain were the mountains in the distance. But even they were different. These were the Caucasus, and there was still snow left on the peaks. The foothills were bare in some places, green in others, as the strengthening sun of late spring changed the face of the earth.

David sighed. He was feeling very much a stranger in his own land as he left the square to meet with the two men who would decide his fate. Tomorrow it would be his turn on the white horse.

As he walked toward the meeting house, one of the few permanent structures in the village, he could see that the number of tents erected around the square had increased dramatically during the past week. Word of the death of the Khagan and the impending ceremony had reached to the farthest corners of Khazaria, and the nobles were gathering.

It was unusual for most of them to be here in Samandar at this time of the year. They lived out on the steppe, and came into the village only on special occasions, or when the Polovtsi were attacking and they needed protection for the women and children while they repelled the raid. Most Khazars—even the Jewish ones—were never able to live in the village. They had to spend much of their lives on their horses, eking out a living from their flocks and herds and from the steppe wilderness that surrounded them. Those who made a home at Samandar were mostly old people and widows with their children. There were also the fishermen.

Samandar was one of two places in the remnant of the Kingdom of Khazaria where more than a few families lived together, the other being Balanjar, to the south. It sat in a depression virtually surrounded by low hills, making it invisible until you were almost upon it. The square that David walked across was bounded by the synagogue, the palace, also of baked mud bricks, the wood meeting house and a large pen in which were kept the horses of all who stayed in the village at any given time. It was the ebb and flow of a sea of tents and yurts surrounding the square on all sides that created the village. It was at high tide for the ceremony—his ceremony.

The meeting house was old, the oldest of the three buildings in Samandar. It had a triangular top formed of heavy beams. They sat on a rectangular chamber with an entrance opening at one end. The interior was bare, except for low wooden platforms along the longer walls that could be used to sit or sleep on.

There were few trees in this area. David had heard that the meeting house had been built over a century earlier by Vikings, using the wreckage of longships. It would stay in place till it burned, collapsed or rotted away.

Isaac, The Bek, and Rabbi Ezra, both older now but still holding their important positions in the community, greeted David as he entered the meeting house. They were seated on an assortment of rugs and animal skins that covered the dirt floor around the fire pit, in the center of the room, that was used to warm the place in the winter. He joined them.

There were serious expressions on the faces of the two men who sat facing the seventeen-year-old David. They remembered him mostly as a seven-year-old boy. It was only months ago that he had returned to them as a young man.

Do you fully understand, said Isaac, the Bek, without prelude, the importance of the ceremony you must go through tomorrow, David? If you fall from the horse, it will be my duty to slit your throat.

The placid expression on David’s youthful features gave way to a mixture of fear and disbelief. He had not fully understood the possible consequences. He looked into the stony gray eyes of Isaac and then at the rabbi, who nodded in agreement.

What? You would take my life? he stammered, still not believing what he had heard. How could you? Why? It would be against the laws of God! Thou shalt not kill!

Isaac, a warrior who had slain many, almost laughed at the change he saw on David’s face. He managed to retain a stern and steely stare as he responded to the frightened young man before him. As Bek I must protect Khazaria! he said. I not only lead our men in battle, but give the commands that make things happen. My most important duty is to protect the Khagan.

How does killing me if I fall from the horse do that? asked David urgently.

It is the position that is important, responded Isaac. I must assure the people that their Khagan is divinely chosen to rule. A candidate, who fails the test, no matter how royal his blood, cannot rule! Nor can he live to challenge the next candidate of royal blood that will follow him onto the ceremonial horse!

But Isaac—Rabbi Ezra! shouted David. He rose to his feet and looked from one man to the other. We are Jews, not savages! All I have learned in Spain about our sacred Laws does not prepare me for such a barbarous outcome!

His mind was whirling. He did not belong here, he thought. He belonged in Spain, in Cordova, where studying the Scriptures—the Torah and Talmud—had been the focus of his life. He should never have come back to Khazaria! The months since his return had been a nightmare. His hands clutched nervously at the beaded tunic he wore. He fought the urge to run from the room. There was no place he could run to!

Rabbi Ezra shifted uncomfortably and clasped his hands before him. The skullcap perched toward the back of his mostly-bald head slipped with his movement and he raised a hand to put it back in place. Ezra’s garments gave no hint to his position as Chief Rabbi, the senior of the two rabbis remaining in Jewish Khazaria. He wore a plain tunic over baggy trousers and high boots made from animal hide. Even the beautifully embroidered skullcap was no different than that often worn by David and many other Jewish Khazars. They were all imported from a Jewish community in Bukhara, east of the Caspian, where making embroidered skullcaps for Jews and Muslims was a source of income.

David noted that Isaac was bareheaded, his long blond hair falling to his shoulders. Even though nothing in the Torah or Talmud required Jews to cover their heads at all times, it had become customary to do so. Here, a skullcap was used indoors and worn under the fur-covered hat used outdoors for warmth. In more temperate Cordova a turban often served both indoors and out. David was not comfortable with the fact that many Jewish Khazar men, including Isaac, did not cover their heads at all times and did not have peoth. Both Ezra and David had peoth, the locks of hair worn by pious Jews near their ears as prescribed in the Torah, in the Book of Leviticus.

This ceremony on the white horse is not part of our Judaism, David, said Rabbi Ezra, breaking the silence. It is an ancestral custom, part of our Khazar heritage, that demands that this ceremonial choosing of our new Khagan continue. We have been Jews for only 400 years. We have been Khazars since time began.

Ezra stood up and paced back and forth as he spoke. When your ancestor, Bulan the Mighty, had his revelation in the year 740, Khazars believed in many different gods, but they all believed in their Khagan. The Khagan is our divine ruler, a descendant of the noblest family in the history of the world, back at the dawn of time. You and the others here of the royal blood are the keepers of that heritage. We must not lose it or we will no longer be Khazars! The acceptance of Judaism by the Khagan and the nobles of our kingdom does not alter who we are. Most of those you will rule over are not Jews!

David was aware that many of the strange customs of his people were not the Jewish customs he had learned in Spain, but he had paid little attention to them in the short time since his return. He could not, however, ignore a custom that called for cold-blooded murder!

But Rabbi, what if the two heritages conflict? Does not Jewish Law take precedence? Here in Samandar we are no longer the barbarians our ancestors were!

That, said the Rabbi, is why the Chief Rabbi of Khazaria has always been a true Khazar and not one of the Jewish teachers brought here from other places in the past. It remains my responsibility to reconcile the two when a new conflict arises. But this ceremony is not a new conflict. I must tell you that in the 400 years of choosing a Jewish Khagan, no candidate has fallen from his horse. Therefore the custom has not been changed. But should you be the first to fall, I assure you I will decide for your death—and Isaac will execute you. Then we will consider if the custom should be changed.

* * *

David left the meeting house, shaken, and Isaac and Ezra remained behind, each wrapped in his own thoughts. Isaac, the Bek, had watched the boy—David–walk away. And for Isaac, that was exactly the problem. At seventeen, David seemed very much a boy—not yet a man. At fourteen, Isaac had already killed his first Polovtsi invader in defense of Khazaria. At eighteen he was in command of the northern defense perimeter. At 22, he had been elevated to Bek—commander of all the Khazar forces and more.

David, on the other hand, had spent his growing-up years in synagogues and rabbis’ studies as a student of what Isaac considered subjects of very limited usefulness—the Torah and the Talmud. And David clearly looked it. He was thin and pale.

Isaac smiled. He was forgetting that David’s father, Khagan Joseph, who had been his friend as well as Khagan, was also of smaller and thinner stature than himself.

Like other Khazar nobles, Joseph had borne some physical characteristics of his Turkic ancestors. It was only some because most Jewish Khazars were also the product of intermarriages with Jews who had come to Khazaria from Byzantium and the Muslim lands after the conversion to Judaism. Isaac was surprised that the boy did not favor his mother more, for she was blond and blue eyed and must have Rus ancestors—Vikings—, as did Isaac himself. But here was the boy David, neither Turkic nor Rus in appearance, with prominent cheek bones, light-brown hair, gray-blue eyes, slightly darker skin than Isaac himself, and four inches shorter.

At age thirty-two, it seemed to Isaac that a boy of seventeen should not be Khagan of the Khazars unless he showed the strength that would be needed to lead the people in these difficult times. So far, he had seen no signs of strength in David. Perhaps he would fail the test on the white horse, Isaac thought.

Rabbi Ezra had also watched David walking away. What he saw was entirely different. Here in David, at last, he saw a Khagan who would be a truly religious Jew. David, at seventeen, was already more knowledgeable about Jewish Laws and ceremonies than he himself. His own knowledge of the Laws and liturgy had come from his father, who had been taught by his father. No Jewish scholars had come to what was left of Khazaria since the fall of Itil. And he had no son to follow him as Chief Rabbi.

He smiled as he remembered how difficult it had been to convince Khagan Joseph to send his youngest son to get a religious education in Cordova. Now, wonder of wonders, David would become the first Khagan of the Khazars who would be a rabbi—a man learned in the Laws and rites of Rabbinical Judaism. A true leader—one, he hoped, who would finally convince the Karaite Jews and non-religious Jews of Khazaria to accept the Talmud as well as the Torah. And he, Rabbi Ezra, as Chief Rabbi, would be at David’s side to make sure that what David commanded would not impede the Khazars’ survival in this wilderness that was so different from the city of Cordova in Spain.

The two men somehow realized their opinions of the boy differed greatly. Isaac spoke first.

He is too immature to be Khagan. We need a strong man if we are to keep what’s left of Khazaria together. Someone the people will respect and follow. And he is a stranger.

Ezra nodded. That is true. But time will cure those problems. We have little choice. He is the rightful heir.

Only because his older brothers are dead! It is a disaster!

Ezra nodded again. Before the fall of Itil there were many princes ready to sit on the white horse if their turn came. Now, for some reason only God knows, even with four wives there are few children for those of the royal blood. And many die young, not to mention those killed by the Polovtsi in battle.

I could not save Samuel! said Isaac, defensively.

No one is blaming you, said Ezra. But David must be the next Khagan.

What about Daniel? Isaac asked. He is Joseph’s brother and would have sat on the white horse but for David’s return.

No! I would have sent for David! While he lives he is the heir.

Perhaps, said Isaac.

* * *

When David left the meeting house, his thoughts were chaotic. Suddenly, he was among barbarians! He looked at his people and his village as through different eyes.

The village of Samandar was small enough so that one could walk to anywhere within it. It had, he knew, served as the capital of what remained of the Kingdom of the Khazars since the fall of Itil on the Volga almost 200 years earlier. It was surrounded by fortified hills meant to hide it and to protect it from attack from the Polovtsi whom often sent raiding parties across the Kuma River in search of slaves and plunder. There were some that always lived in the village. The other Khazar noble families were assigned a place around the square where their tents or yurts would be erected when they were in residence. The most common reason for coming to the village was to attend services at the synagogue on holidays and weddings. Prominent families had specific sites for their tents near the synagogue, locations that had been passed down from generation to generation.

The village had two main trails that led through the surrounding hills: the sea trail, which led down to the shore of the Caspian where the fishermen moored their boats, and the mountain trail, through which traders from Balanjar and further south would come. To the north was the Kuma River, the first line of defense against the Polovtsi raiders.

The colors of the spring wildflowers covering the surrounding hills were at their peak, but David did not notice. Nor did the grandeur of the distant mountain peaks impinge upon his thoughts. He was thinking only of his beloved Cordova, a most civilized place. There, for ten years, he had studied the Torah and Talmud and learned the Laws that were, perhaps, the most civilized guides for living that existed in his time. Now, he knew, he would have to learn to cope with his barbarian heritage.

On his way to his yurt, David had to walk through the square in front of the synagogue again. He was lost in thought when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Well, David, said a voice he could not place. Are you ready for tomorrow?

Turning his head, David saw another of the few faces in Samandar that had become familiar, though the man’s voice had sounded strangely different. It was his Uncle Daniel, his father’s younger brother. The man reminded him of his father, dark hair, and dark, piercing eyes. But there was something about the way the man looked at him.

Daniel. Yes. I’m—I’m thinking about tomorrow. Isaac and Rabbi Ezra explained things to me.

To sit on the white horse at your age will not be an easy thing, David.

I will not fall off!

I wasn’t talking about that. The ceremony is easy. What comes after it is hard. And for you, it may be too hard.

David sensed that there was an inner anger in the man. What do you mean by that? he shot back.

You have been away a long time—perhaps too long to be Khagan. You do not know your own people. You do not know them as I do!

David paused. Even at seventeen he was a good judge of men and their motives. He understood. Daniel was next in line to sit on the white horse. He wanted to be Khagan.

Perhaps that is true, Daniel. I will remember to seek your counsel when I need to understand the people better.

Daniel frowned. He had not expected such a mature response.

I must go now, said David. But I’m sure we will see much of each other, Uncle.

* * *

David’s yurt was certainly not like his room in the house near the Guadalquivir River in Cordova, but it was much better than the spaces he had slept in on the ships that returned him from Spain. The felt covering stretched over the bent saplings kept out the rain and cold quite well, and many of those living around him in tents would have traded places with him in a moment. It was a splendid yurt. He was, after all, the son of the Khagan and the likely future Khagan.

His father had ordered the yurt built for him near the palace soon after he arrived. He could not stay in the palace itself without seriously restricting the movement of his father’s wives, who, with the exception of his mother, he could not look upon unless they were veiled from head to toe.

David had watched in fascination as the yurt was put together. First a piece of ground was leveled. His yurt was to be a large one, about twenty feet in diameter. Then the split willow poles were formed into a lattice and bound, where they crossed, with a length of rawhide. Lattices were the key structural element of a yurt and could be compressed for easy transport. When they were joined into a circular lattice wall, they supported the bent willow poles that made up the domed roof of the yurt.

The lattice walls were then attached to a wooden door-frame to complete the circle. A strong, woven, tension band was put into place encircling the lattices near their tops to hold the walls in place. At the center of the domed roof was an opening through which smoke from the hearth within the yurt could escape.

Once the frame was in place, it was covered with layers of felt, which had been made by the women. Wool was fluffed, spread out on a reed mat, moistened, rolled and beaten repeatedly until the fibers matted together. Eight layers of felt covered his yurt, and the top layer was oiled to make the rain run off. It was a fine home.

David entered the yurt and was greeted by Ruth, his servant. She was perhaps forty years old and had been ordered by his father to tend to him. Like many other women named Ruth in Khazaria, she was a former slave who had converted to Judaism. It was a tradition to name them after the Ruth in the Bible, a notable Convert. Once they converted, the Jewish Laws decreed they must be freed. Many remained with their former masters as servants, for they had no place else to go, and continued to serve in return for food and shelter. They were no longer property, however, and could not be legally sold. Mostly women converted. Male slaves were often daunted by the prospect of circumcision.

Those who came into the community as slaves either were sold to a master by relatives when young, or sold themselves to repay some debt. Many eventually converted and thereby gained their freedom, but remained servants. They were usually treated as part of the family.

Ruth was busy at the churn on her side—the women’s side—of the yurt, where all the items used by a woman were kept. On the men’s side, weapons were kept. A curtain separated the two sides so that the women of the family could remain unseen at their work while the man of the family had male visitors. There was a similar arrangement for those who lived in tents. The entrance opened into the men’s side of the dwelling.

David’s mind returned to Spain, taking him far from the yurt. No one understands what it was like there, he thought. How could he even begin to explain it to them? They were all born here in this wilderness and had never left it. He, instead, had seen so much in ten years. Great ships and small ships. Wonderful buildings and works of art. Cities!

* * *

It had been quite a trip for a seven-year-old boy, and David remembered it vividly even though ten years had passed. He remembered the caravan journey from Samandar to the ruins of the Khazar capital of Itil, at the mouth of the Volga. At seven, David was already well acquainted with the history of his people. The son of the Khagan could not be ignorant like the herdsman! But seeing the ruins of Itil was a blow. The glories of the Khazar capital, and the great brick palace that his great-great grandfather, Joseph, had lived in when he was David’s age, were enshrined in his mind from hearing tales passed down from father to son. It was almost as if he had experienced the Itil of two hundred years ago: the Itil that had ruled the Khazar empire and the nine cities that were its core; the Itil that had greeted emissaries paying tribute from even great Byzantium; the Itil whose military might had made the Khazars an enemy to fear and an ally to covet.

But time had weakened the empire. And then came the Rus out of the west and the Polovtsi from the east. Itil was leveled, rebuilt and leveled again. His grandfather and all his remaining kin and followers had retreated to Samandar and a much different life. Jewish Khazars still lived in other places in the old empire, particularly Kherson, in the Crimea, but none ruled their own land. They had been conquered. But those in Samandar remembered Itil, and descriptions of it, and stories about it, were what he had been weaned on. And to see the little that remained of it had made him cry.

From Itil’s ruins the journey had proceeded along the famed Khazarian Way, a water route for trade that went up the Volga from its mouth at the Caspian Sea to where it was but a short portage to the waters of that other mighty river, the Don. The Don flowed to the Azov Sea, past the ruins of the former Khazar fortress at Sarkel, and the Azov Sea gave access to the Black Sea, the Aegean and the Mediterranean. The journey by ship to Spain from the former Khazar port at Kherson had taken only weeks, requiring a changing of vessels at Constantinople.

Spain had been like another world to him at first. The city of Cordova, with its Moorish mosques and palaces, and its many synagogues, soon made even the remembered glories of Itil pale in comparison. He learned from the citizens of Cordova that the city represented civilization at its zenith, and he believed it.

* * *

David shook his head to clear it of past images and bring himself back to the reality of Samandar and Khazaria. He knew he must try to forget Spain. Most of what he had learned there would be useless here, he realized, and his ignorance of how things were in Khazaria might cost him his life! He felt as the ancient Hebrews must have when they left the Pharaoh’s city to wander in the wilderness. True, there was danger in the city, but they had familiar surroundings and familiar daily living which provided at least some sense of security and continuity. In the wilderness—in Khazaria—these would be gone—only danger would remain.

The early years in Cordova had formed David’s character. He had become a good student. He learned quickly, and he had enjoyed learning. Now he must use the intelligence that God had given him. Lying on the furs of his yurt, he began a calm analysis of his situation. He would not allow fear to guide his actions.

To begin with, he had fled from Spain to escape the Almohades’ persecution of Jews. He could not return there. Here, he was about to face a test to succeed his father and become the ruler of what remained of the Khazar empire: a mixture of Jews, a few Muslims, and many pagans, the pure Khazar nomads. The latter made up the largest segment of the sparse population of the territory running north from the slopes of the Caucasus to the shores of the Kuma River.

Of what remained of the Jewish Kingdom of Khazaria, the core was some two hundred nobles and their families who were long committed to Judaism. But most knew little about the Oral Laws that had been derived from the Torah and finally documented in the Talmud by the great rabbis some seven hundred years earlier in Babylonia. Samandar and Balanjar, he knew, were the only places where enough people gathered to be called villages. They contained the only synagogues. The rest of the population was spread over thousands of square miles of steppe lands, following their herds and flocks.

He had been told, however, that at many places throughout the land there were stations, each manned at all times by the family of a Jewish Khazar noble, where the post-riders, the communications links of the Kingdom, could stop and change horses and have a meal. The stations were also the warning network that had allowed the Khazars to repel countless Polovtsi raids.

To the south, along the shore of the Caspian, lay the lands under the control of the Seljuks and other Muslims. To the north were the Polovtsi. He had learned something of them on his voyage home. In Constantinople they were called Cumans. They were pagans and Turks, like his own Khazar ancestors. There were few Christians until further south in Armenia, or west, and through the Darial Pass to the Christian Kingdom of Georgia.

David was perplexed when he tried to think about what else he knew about Khazaria. Then he remembered what Daniel had said to him, and, sadly, he had to agree. He really knew very little about his own country. He wondered whether he would be up to the challenge that would face him if he did not fall from the white horse. Would they follow someone who was a stranger to them and knew little of their ways? Perhaps, he thought, it might be best for everyone if he changed his mind and refused to mount the horse tomorrow. He did not want to be the Khagan. He wanted to study and to learn.

The felt curtain covering the square wooden entrance to the yurt was suddenly raised and Rabbi Ezra entered. David looked at the small, bearded man who made him feel very uncomfortable. He was nothing like Rabbi Maimon or any other rabbi he had known in Spain. Rabbi Maimon had been concerned with teaching him how to think. Rabbi Ezra seemed more concerned with telling him what to think and what to do. He didn’t like it.

I think you should see your mother before the ceremony tomorrow, David, said Ezra. I’m sure she is worried about you.

Of course, Rabbi. My mind has been occupied with other things. Please sit down. Before I go to her, I must speak to you.

If you wish, David, said Ezra, lowering himself carefully to the rug-covered earthen floor. I saw that you were disturbed about the ceremony. That’s why I have come to you.

It is not just the ceremony. It is the idea of becoming Khagan. I want to continue my studies! Adjusting to life here these past months has been difficult. And now, with my father dead… .

"You must be Khagan, David! You have no living brothers, and if it is not you, the other nobles may fight over the succession! If that happens, even this remnant of Khazaria will disappear."

I know, Rabbi. And I have agreed to sit upon the ceremonial horse. But I cannot be the Khagan my father was. I am not sure I am the one to keep the kingdom together.

Do not worry about that, Rabbi Ezra argued. To the two hundred noble families and all others living here, Jew and gentile, you will be our divine ruler. As Khagan, there is little you can do to make Khazaria weaker. It is the Bek who is our defender. It is his duty to protect you and to lead our people in battle. Your task will be to teach and inspire us and to make us stronger as a people—just as your father, and his father before him, did. We are fewer now. Our lands are small. No one pays us tribute. But we survive! You will be a great Khagan, Rabbi David!

Ezra smiled as the final words left his lips. A rabbi would soon be Khagan! His dream would be fulfilled. He was pleased to see David return his smile; sure that he understood the significance of his use of both titles. Now, go to your mother.

The rabbi was gone before David could respond. Soon he, too, left the yurt, and made his way to a mud-brick building that was a smaller copy of the destroyed palace in Itil. It had been constructed to house the Khagan and his wives. With his father’s death, one surviving wife had been returned to her family. Only his mother, Rebecca, mother of the probable Khagan-to-be, had remained in the palace with her servants.

There were flowers growing in the palace courtyard, planted there to supply the Khagan’s wives with blossoms for their chambers. A manservant opened the great wooden doors, covered with carved figures, that had been brought to Samandar from Itil aboard the ships that had carried the refugee Khagan and his nobles to safety. David admired the doors and often stopped to look at them closely. There was little in the way of works of art in Samandar. He longed for the beautiful things that had surrounded him in Cordova.

Inside the doors was a large chamber, with hanging rugs of many colors and designs decorating the mud-brick walls. Several corridors led from the chamber. To the right was the throne room where the Khagan received homage from visiting nobles and others. To the left were the private chambers. He waited while a female servant went to tell his mother he had come to see her. Minutes later, she returned and he followed her into one of the corridors.

The woman was wearing the customary tunic and baggy pants that differ little from what the Khazar men wore and she was not veiled, being a servant. No one took much notice of such people, be they slaves or servants.

Rebecca was seated in the central room in the wives’ quarters when he found her, surrounded by colorful rugs and pillows. Her garments were of the quality and style of those worn by the principal wife in an Emir’s harem, the clothing having been obtained through barter with the Muslims and the Armenians to the south.

She seemed confused as to whether she should rise or remain seated. Finally, her small feet, shod in embroidered red leather slippers, were bringing her up from her pillows to stand erect before her only surviving child and the future Khagan. Her heavy silver bracelets clinked as she stretched out her arms to greet him. Her trousers, which were flowered and worn loosely, were visible below a full-skirted, tight-wasted surcoat with wide, flowing, sleeves and elaborate silver-braided fastenings. Many gold and silver coins hung from the long blond braids into which her hair was divided. Fine muslin veils and colored silk handkerchiefs were wound around her head even though the man she had expected was her own son. Resting on a chest was the headdress she wore on gala occasions, from which more veils flowed. On a peg nearby hung an embroidered felt coat lined with sable skins.

Ten years has not changed her very much, David thought. The scent that filled the room was as familiar to him as the air, having smelled it first when he nuzzled at her breast. She was only thirteen years his senior, since she married at the age of twelve, when his father was already thirty-three, and gave birth to him less than a year later. She had become the Khatoun, the principal wife, when she became the only wife with a surviving son. There were no surviving daughters from any of Joseph’s four wives, of whom she had been the youngest.

She was not at all withered at age thirty. Noble women, including the Khatoun, were well shielded from work, worry and weather. Her yellow hair and fair skin harked back to her Viking Rus ancestors, who had intermarried with the Slavs, who had intermarried with the Khazars, who had intermarried with Jews from the south. Seeing them together, it was clear that David took after his father in many respects though he had not entirely inherited the darker hair, eyes and skin of the Turkic tribes who had come from the east centuries earlier to settle in the lands northwest of the Caspian.

Sit David she said, placing a cushion next to her own. We must talk. I will not have this chance again.

What?

To speak to you as a mother.

You will still be my mother.

No. I will be your subject. Just as I was your father’s subject.

But you were Khatoun!

You think that changed anything? I am only a woman.

"Of course. But you were the woman among women."

Rebecca laughed. You have such strange ideas! But you will think differently when you are Khagan.

Mother, I will be the same person I am now.

"You will be different! You must be different! The power of life or death and having everyone obedient to your every wish will make you different!"

But not to you, Mother, not to you. For the ten years I was in Cordova I was without you. I will not lose you again.

Rebecca paused and looked closely into the face of the stranger who was her son. She saw there a resemblance to her beloved husband, Khagan Joseph. But this man—this boy—spoke to her as Joseph had never done. He spoke to her as her father had never done. She was only a woman, after all. It was not the custom to pay women much attention, except in the bedchamber.

I see that men must think differently about women in Spain. Here, in Khazaria, a grown man of seventeen years would not say such a thing. What is so different in Spain? It must be a wonderful place. Can you tell me about it?

I cannot begin to explain Cordova to you, Mother. There are not even words in our language that will allow me to describe what I saw there in a way that you could picture it. The palace has many beautiful flowers growing in the courtyard, but compared to Cordova, they are as untended wild patches. The gardens of Cordova are mixed with marvelous, huge stone and wood buildings decorated with beautiful, intricate designs and with fountains, for which there is no word in our language. They are man-made things that spurt water, which does not sound very splendid, but somehow, fountains are beautiful too.

I am sorry I will not see these things. But tell me about the people. Are they truly different?

There are all kinds of people in Spain, Mother. But I was fortunate to live among some of the wisest, kindest people in the world.

Did you ever meet the man whose letter convinced your father to send you to Cordova to be educated? I remember the man had discovered some letters that passed between an earlier Khagan Joseph, centuries ago, and a man in Spain. He wasn’t even sure Khazaria still existed until a Jewish trader told him about us. That’s when he gave the trader that letter that took you from me. I never forgave your father.

That was Judah Halevi! said David. "I knew him only briefly, for he left for Jerusalem a month after I reached him in Cordova. Years later I read his wonderful writings—poems, which are something like the sagas told by our storytellers. Also, a book of philosophy which tells about our people and our conversion to Judaism! Things he learned from those old letters. It was he who arranged for me to live with Rabbi Maimon ben Joseph; a wise and wonderful man who treated me as he treated his own sons.

We lived in a big stone house overlooking the Guadalquivir River where there is a Roman bridge built almost a thousand years ago. The roof of our house was made of tiles—another word you can’t understand, and there was a small balcony over the front entrance from which you could watch everyone who passed through the Jewish Quarter.

Jewish Quarter? Couldn’t Jews live where they wished, asked Rebecca.

David smiled. I suppose they could. But Jews need to live near the synagogues, so they end up living close together.

Are the synagogues like ours?

They are bigger, much bigger. There is a separate balcony—a place above the main floor—for women, and many women come to services!

How can there be a floor above the floor! What holds it up?

There are things called arches upon which the balcony rests. It is hard to describe. The ones in our synagogue are shaped like the ones used by the Moors in their Great Mosque, which also stands nearby, overlooking the river and the bridge. The mosque’s walls are even decorated on the outside of the building! They are beautiful designs made by using small bits of colored stones and gold. I wish you could see them! They are beautiful!

Your father never spoke of things being beautiful.

Did he not tell you that you are beautiful, Mother?

Ah! said Rebecca, her face lighting up in a smile. "That I can remember. Tell me more about your life in Spain—it sounds so different."

Mother, I had the most wonderful friend, Rabbi Maimon’s son, Moses, who was two years younger than me, but who already knew far more about everything than I did. I never caught up to him. Why, before he turned thirteen he was already lecturing on the Talmud and was wiser than many rabbis! He also had a younger brother whose name was David! When the rabbi would call for David we would both come running. There were sisters too, so I had friends, and my ten years in the rabbi’s home were not all spent with my nose in the scrolls.

Did you study the Scriptures all the time?

One does not learn such things quickly, Mother. But the rabbi was wise in the ways of the world as well as the Holy Scriptures. He was a merchant who bought and sold the most beautiful jewels! And he taught me Arabic, Greek and Latin, as well as Hebrew, so I could read his books about astronomy, mathematics and medicine. Mother—I miss him. I miss my friend Moses. I miss reading books. I miss Cordova!

David! That part of your life is over. You must assume your rightful place as Khagan.

I know, Mother. And I could not go back if I wished to. The Cordova I knew is no more. The Almohades burned all the synagogues and houses of study. Many people I knew were put to the sword or forced to convert to Islam. Thank the Lord that Rabbi Maimon and his family escaped with me to Almeria! It was terrible. I do not understand how people do such things to others who are not hurting them.

Rebecca paused once more. This was indeed a boy and not a man who sat next to her. Those of his age in Khazaria would have seen a great deal of bloodshed and torture in the constant battle to preserve Khazaria and repel the Polovtsi raids. Her husband and Isaac had often discussed such matters where she could overhear them. They seemed to enjoy discussing battles. And Isaac—Isaac loved to describe in detail how he slew the enemy.

David, David,—you have much to learn about life and about people, she said. There is always death and destruction! Our people have done the same in our time. Now we can only hope to defend what little is left of our community. Now go get some sleep. Tomorrow you mount the white horse!

* * *

Isaac sat on a sheepskin on the earthen floor in his spartan yurt and contemplated his future and the future of Khazaria with a new Khagan who was a stranger to his people. His hand massaged the shoulder where a Polovtsi saber strike had left a vivid scar. David, he thought, will not fall from the horse unless I cause it to happen, which I can easily accomplish. But after I slit his throat, who will be Khagan?

It was difficult for Isaac to contemplate how it would be to serve another Khagan. He had grown up with Joseph’s father as Khagan. Joseph had first come to know him when he became Bek. Soon after that, Joseph had become Khagan. They had worked well together after that. There had been none of the antipathy and power struggles that had often occurred between previous Khagans and their Beks throughout Khazar history.

Isaac did not relish the power he had over others except on the battlefield. He was a warrior, pure and simple. He enjoyed combat, the hunt, and an occasional woman between battles. But he would rather be fighting.

This Talmud that David has studied, he thought, will not help me defend Khazaria. It may upset many people. Bulan gave us the Scriptures, and we accepted them because they told of a people who had become warriors like ourselves and who defeated many enemies to attain the Promised Land and build a kingdom. The Talmud, he believed, was written by, and for, a conquered people. The Talmud was not the word of God as given to Moses, but the work of rabbis who interpreted the Holy Laws.

Isaac’s mother had been the source of this belief. She was a Karaite Jew, descended, as were many Khazars, from members of that sect who had fled to Khazaria from the Caliphate in the early tenth century before the fall of Itil. Karaites rejected the Oral Law as set forth in the Talmud. Only the five books of Moses were to be a source of religious law.

Most Khazars, he knew, and certainly those like himself who have fought the Polovtsi, pay no attention to the rabbis’ rituals and restrictions. When one lives in the countryside or leaves Samandar to fight the Polovtsi, one must hunt for food, he thought to himself. Ritual killing to make meat kosher? Pah! He would not eat pig, but he would hunt, for out on the steppe that is often the only source of food!

Isaac picked up his bow and ran his hands over the curved wood that could hurl an arrow with enough force to drive it through a sapling. A man’s bow was the most precious belonging of any warrior of the steppe. One could always get another horse, but a good bow took years to make. His had been crafted by a bowmaster who no longer lived. Joseph gave it to him after Isaac had successfully turned back a Polovtsi attack.

The bows of steppe warriors were designed for use on horseback. Isaac’s bow, some forty inches in length when unstrung, was half a foot longer than the bows of most Khazars because of Isaac’s height.

It was a compound bow, composed of three separate sections. Isaac never stopped admiring the work of the great craftsman who had created it. The sections above and below the handle-space were reflexed, curving out from the archer’s body. When strung, the curves in the arms of the bow would flatten, so there was tension even before the bowstring was drawn. When the string was released, the arms would spring back toward their normal position, driving the string, and the arrow nocked on the string, forward with greater thrust than a non-reflexed bow. The bow’s core was wood, but it was backed with sinews and bellied with pieces of horn and bone. It