260 chapter four
strength and they set out to do battle with tunghuz and taz son of Mun-
juk. they met, and they fought. chaka won, and took back his lands. his
sister tughulja also took part in the battle. Defeated, her husband and
those who were with him wrote to toqta for aid, who sent his army under
his brother Bürlük, son of Möngke temür. When he had come to their
aid and the war began again, chaka could no longer resist and fled to the
romanian lands,471 where the king and ruler were his kinfolk by marriage.
chaka took shelter here, but the governors told [the tsar], ‘he is toqta’s
enemy and we cannot rule out that he will find out that he has fled here,
and come upon us unexpectedly with his army, and we will be unable to
resist him.’ then [the tsar captured him, shut him up in a fortress named
tarnovo and told toqta what he had done. [the khan] ordered that he
should be killed this year, that is to say in 700.472 thus toqta’s kingdom
was relieved of its great trouble.”473
the details of the Mamluk source are confirmed by the Byzantine
pachymeres, who offers some further information: “at this time, tuktais
[= toqta] triumphant, took the throne of the tartar lands under his lord-
ship, with only a few tartars remaining with Noghai’s son by alakka,
named chaka: he had put his trust in them when he invaded the land
of the Bulgarians. Because terteres,474 fleeing from the threat of Noghai,
had turned to the emperor 475 and was living somewhere near adrianople,
because the emperor had refused his pleas [for help], for fear that he might
be sent for if he, the emperor, had received him kindly, as is right with
one seeking refuge, which would stir Noghai’s anger. as for his son chaka,
after Noghai’s death, trusting in his strength and his men, he attacked
the Bulgarians, not without reason for he had the daughter of terteres
for his wife. and he also brought with him from his lands her brother
osphendislavos,476 and wanted to rule over the Bulgarians with him. he
however, being poor, met with a man called pantaleon,477 who had grown
rich in business, though he was of good birth and of the imperial stock, for
love of wealth he married into the family of the afore-mentioned and of
471 bilād ūlāq can only be the empire of the asen dynasty, since the capital is men-
tioned as t.r.n.w., ‘tarnovoʼ (ciocîltan, “componenta,” p. 1113).
472 16th September 1300–6th September 1301.
473 al-Nuwayrī/tiesenhausen, Sbornik, I, pp. 138–139.
474 George I terter, Bulgarian tsar (1280–1292).
475 andronikos II palaiologos (1282–1328).
476 theodore Svetoslav, Bulgarian tsar (1301–1322).
477 probably pantaleo de Vecina, whom Brătianu, Vicina, p. 48, sees as more likely to
have been Greek than Italian, given the name.