Under his eagle gaze old Habordansky bent his head to hide the sullen rage in his eyes. Nine months before, the general had come to Stamboul representing his master, the Archduke, with proposals for truce and the disposition of the iron crown of Hungary, torn from the dead king Louis’ head on the bloody field of Mohacz, where the Grand Turk’s armies opened the road to Europe. There had been another emissary before him—Jerome Lasczky, the Polish count palatine. Habordansky, with the bluntness of his breed, had claimed the Hungarian crown for his master, rousing Suleyman’s ire. Lasczky had, like a suppliant, asked on his bended knees that crown for his countrymen at Mohacz.
To Lasczky had been given honor, gold and promises of patronage, for which he had paid with pledges abhorrent even to his avaricious soul— selling his ally’s subjects into slavery, and opening the road through the subject territory to the very heart of Christendom.
All this was made known to Habordansky, frothing with fury in the prison to which the arrogant resentment of the Sultan had assigned him. Now Suleyman looked contemptuously at the staunch old general, and dispensed with the usual formality of speaking through the mouthpiece of the Grand Vizier. A royal Turk would not deign to admit knowledge of any Frankish tongue, but Habordansky understood Turki. The Sultan’s remarks were brief and without preamble.
“Say to your master that I now make ready to visit him in his own lands, and that if he fails to meet me at Mohacz or at Pesth, I will meet him beneath the walls of Vienna.”
Habordansky bowed, not trusting himself to speak. At a scornful wave of the imperial hand, an officer of the court came forward and bestowed upon the general a small gilded bag containing two hundred ducats. Each member of his retinue, waiting patiently at the other end of the chamber, under the spears of the Janizaries, was likewise so guerdoned. Habordansky mumbled thanks, his knotty hands clenched about the gift with unnecessary vigor. The Sultan grinned thinly, well aware that the ambassador would have hurled the coins into his face, had he dared. He half-lifted his hand, in token of dismissal, then paused, his eyes resting on the group of men who composed the general’s suite —or rather, on one of these men. This man was the tallest in the room, strongly built, wearing his Turkish gift-garments clumsily. At a gesture from the Sultan he was brought forward in the grasp of the soldiers.
Suleyman stared at him narrowly. The Turkish vest and voluminous khalat could not conceal the lines of massive strength. His tawny hair was close- cropped, his sweeping yellow mustaches drooping below a stubborn chin. His blue eyes seemed strangely clouded; it was as if the man slept on his feet, with his eyes open.
“Do you speak Turki?” The Sultan did the fellow the stupendous honor of addressing him directly. Through all the pomp of the Ottoman court there remained in the Sultan some of the simplicity of Tatar ancestors.
“Yes, your majesty,” answered the Frank.
“Who are you?”
“Men name me Gottfried von Kalmbach.”
Suleyman scowled and unconsciously his fingers wandered to his shoulder, where, under his silken robes, he could feel the outlines of an old scar.
“I do not forget faces. Somewhere I have seen yours—under circumstances that etched it into the back of my mind. But I am unable to recall those circumstances.”
“I was at Rhodes,” offered the German.
“Many men were at Rhodes,” snapped Suleyman.
“Aye.” agreed von Kalmbach tranquilly. “De l’Isle Adam was there.”
Suleyman stiffened and his eyes glittered at the name of the Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John, whose desperate defense of Rhodes had cost the Turk sixty thousand men. He decided, however, that the Frank was not clever enough for the remark to carry any subtle thrust, and dismissed the embassy with a wave. The envoys were backed out of the Presence and the incident was closed. The Franks would be escorted out of Stamboul, and to the nearest boundaries of the empire. The Turk’s warning would be carried posthaste to the Archduke, and soon on the heels of that warning would come the armies of the Sublime Porte. Suleyman’s officers knew that the Grand Turk had more in mind than merely establishing his puppet Zapolya on the conquered Hungarian throne. Suleyman’s ambitions embraced all Europe—that stubborn Frankistan which had for centuries sporadically poured forth hordes chanting and pillaging into the East, whose illogical and wayward peoples had again and again seemed ripe for Moslem conquest, yet who had always emerged, if not victorious, at least unconquered.
It was the evening of the morning on which the Austrian emissaries departed that Suleyman, brooding on his throne, raised his lean head and beckoned his Grand Vizier Ibrahim, who approached with confidence. The Grand Vizier was always sure of his master’s approbation; was he not cup-companion and boyhood comrade of the Sultan? Ibrahim had but one rival in his master’s favor—the red-haired Russian girl, Khurrem the Joyous, whom Europe knew as Roxelana, whom slavers had dragged from her father’s house in Rogatino to be the Sultan’s harimfavorite.
“I remember the infidel at last,” said Suleyman. “Do you recall the first charge of the knights at Mohacz?”
Ibrahim winced slightly at the allusion.
“Oh, Protector of the Pitiful, is it likely that I should forget an occasion on which the divine blood of my master was spilt by an unbeliever?”
“Then you remember that thirty-two knights, the paladins of the Nazarenes, drove headlong into our array, each having pledged his life to cut down our person. By Allah, they rode like men riding to a wedding, their great horses and long lances overthrowing all who opposed them, and their plate-armor turned the finest steel. Yet they fell as the firelocks spoke until only three were left in the saddle—the knight Marczali and two companions. These paladins cut down my Solaks like ripe grain, but Marczali and one of his companions fell—almost at my feet.
“Yet one knight remained, though his vizored helmet had been torn from his head and blood started from every joint in his armor. He rode full at me, swinging his great two-handed sword, and I swear by the beard of the Prophet, death was so nigh me that I felt the burning breath of Azrael on my neck!
“His sword flashed like lightning in the sky, and glancing from my casque, whereby I was half-stunned so that blood gushed from my nose, rent the mail on my shoulder and gave me this wound, which irks me yet when the rains come. The Janizaries who swarmed around him cut the hocks of his horse, which brought him to earth as it went down, and the remnants of my Solaks bore me back out of the melee. Then the Hungarian host came on, and I saw not what became of the knight. But today I saw him again.”
Ibrahim started with an exclamation of incredulity.
“Nay, I could not mistake those blue eyes. How it is I know not, but the knight that wounded me at Mohacz was this German, Gottfried von Kalmbach.”
“But, Defender of the Faith,” protested Ibrahim, “the heads of those dog- knights were heaped before thy royal pavilion—”
“And I counted them and said nothing at the time, lest men think I held thee in blame,” answered Suleyman. “There were but thirty-one. Most were so mutilated I could tell little of the features. But somehow the infidel escaped, who gave me this blow. I love brave men, but our blood is not so common that an unbeliever may with impunity spill it on the ground for the dogs to lap up. See ye to it.”
Ibrahim salaamed deeply and withdrew. He made his way through broad corridors to a blue-tiled chamber whose gold-arched windows looked out on broad galleries, shaded by cypress and plane-trees, and cooled by the spray of silvery fountains. There at his summons came one Yaruk Khan, a Crim Tatar, a slant-eyed impassive figure in harness of lacquered leather and burnished bronze.
“Dog-brother,” said the Vizier, “did thy koumiss-clouded gaze mark the tall German lord who served the emir Habordansky—the lord whose hair is tawny as a lion’s mane?”
“Aye, noyon, he who is called Gombuk.”
“The same. Take a chambul of thy dog-brothers and go after the Franks. Bring back this man and thou shalt b
e rewarded. The persons of envoys are sacred, but this matter is not official,” he added cynically.
“To hear is to obey!” With a salaam as profound as that accorded to the Sultan himself, Yaruk Khan backed out of the presence of the second man of the empire.
He returned some days later, dusty, travel-stained, and without his prey. On him Ibrahim bent an eye full of menace, and the Tatar prostrated himself before the silken cushions on which the Grand Vizier sat, in the blue chamber with the gold-arched windows.
“Great khan, let not thine anger consume thy slave. The fault was not mine, by the beard of the Prophet.”
“Squat on thy mangy haunches and bay out the tale,” ordered Ibrahim considerately.
“Thus it was, my lord,” began Yaruk Khan. “I rode swiftly, and though the Franks and their escort had a long start, and pushed on through the night without halting, I came up with them the next midday. But lo, Gombuk was not among them, and when I inquired after him, the paladin Habordansky replied only with many great oaths, like to the roaring of a cannon. So I spoke with various of the escort who understood the speech of these infidels, and learned what had come to pass. Yet I would have my lord remember that I only repeat the words of the Spahis of the escort, who are men without honor and lie like—”
“Like a Tatar,” said Ibrahim.
Yaruk Khan acknowledged the compliment with a wide dog-like grin, and continued. “This they told me. At dawn Gombuk drew horse away from the rest, and the emir Habordansky demanded of him the reason. Then Gombuk laughed in the manner of the Franks—huh! huh! huh!—so. And Gombuk said, ‘The devil of good your service has done me, so I cool my heels for nine months in a Turkish prison. Suleyman has given us safe conduct over the border and I am not compelled to ride with you.’ ‘You dog,’ said the emir, ‘there is war in the wind and the Archduke has need of your sword.’ ‘Devil eat the Archduke,’ answered Gombuk; ‘Zapolya is a dog because he stood aside at Mohacz, and let us, his comrades, be cut to pieces, but Ferdinand is a dog too. When I am penniless I sell him my sword. Now I have two hundred ducats and these robes which I can sell to any Jew for a handful of silver, and may the devil bite me if I draw sword for any man while I have a penny left. I’m for the nearest Christian tavern, and you and the Archduke may go to the devil.’ Then the emir cursed him with many great curses, and Gombuk rode away laughing, huh! huh! huh!, and singing a song about a cockroach named—”
“Enough!” Ibrahim’s features were dark with rage. He plucked savagely at his beard, reflecting that in the allusion to Mohacz, von Kalmbach had practically clinched Suleyman’s suspicion. That matter of thirty-one heads when there should have been thirty-two was something no Turkish sultan would be likely to overlook. Officials had lost positions and their own heads over more trivial matters. The manner in which Suleyman had acted showed his almost incredible fondness and consideration for his Grand Vizier, but Ibrahim, vain though he was, was shrewd and wished no slightest shadow to come between him and his sovereign.
“Could you not have tracked him down, dog?” he demanded.
“By Allah,” swore the uneasy Tatar, “he must have ridden on the wind. He crossed the border hours ahead of me, and I followed him as far as I dared—”
“Enough of excuses,” interrupted Ibrahim. “Send Mikhal Oglu to me.”
The Tatar departed thankfully. Ibrahim was not tolerant of failure in any man.
The Grand Vizier brooded on his silken cushions until the shadow of a pair of vulture wings fell across the marble-tiled floor, and the lean figure he had summoned bowed before him. The man whose very name was a shuddering watchword of horror to all western Asia was soft-spoken and moved with the mincing ease of a cat, but the stark evil of his soul showed in his dark countenance, gleamed in his narrow slit eyes. He was the chief of the Akinji, those wild riders whose raids spread fear and desolation throughout all lands beyond the Grand Turk’s borders. He stood in full armor, a jeweled helmet on his narrow head, the wide vulture wings made fast to the shoulders of his gilded chain-mail hauberk. Those wings spread wide in the wind when he rode, and under their pinions lay the shadows of death and destruction. It was Suleyman’s scimitar-tip, the most noted slayer of a nation of slayers, who stood before the Grand Vizier.
“Soon you will precede the hosts of our master into the lands of the infidel,” said Ibrahim. “It will be your order, as always, to strike and spare not. You will waste the fields and the vineyards of the Caphars, you will burn their villages, you will strike down their men with arrows, and lead away their wenches captive. Lands beyond our line of march will cry out beneath your heel.”
“That is good hearing, Favored of Allah,” answered Mikhal Oglu in his soft courteous voice.
“Yet there is an order within the order,” continued Ibrahim, fixing a piercing eye on the Akinji. “You know the German, von Kalmbach?”
“Aye—Gombuk as the Tatars call him.”
“So. This is my command—whoever fights or flees, lives or dies —this man must not live. Search him out wherever he lies, though the hunt carry you to the very banks of the Rhine. When you bring me his head, your reward shall be thrice its weight in gold.”
“To hear is to obey, my lord. Men say he is the vagabond son of a noble German family, whose ruin has been wine and women. They say he was once a Knight of Saint John, until cast forth for guzzling and—”
“Yet do not underrate him,” answered Ibrahim grimly. “Sot he may be, but if he rode with Marczali, he is not to be despised. See thou to it!”
“There is no den where he can hide from me, oh Favored of Allah,” declared Mikhal Oglu, “no night dark enough to conceal him, no forest thick enough. If I bring you not his head, I give him leave to send you mine.”
“Enough!” Ibrahim grinned and tugged at his beard, well pleased. “You have my leave to go.”
The sinister vulture-winged figure went springily and silently from the blue chamber, nor could Ibrahim guess that he was taking the first steps in a feud which should spread over years and far lands, swirling in dark tides to draw in thrones and kingdoms and red-haired women more beautiful than the flames of hell.
* * *
CHAPTER 2
IN A SMALL thatched hut in a village not far from the Danube, lusty snores resounded where a figure reclined in state on a ragged cloak thrown over a heap of straw. It was the paladin Gottfried von Kalmbach who slept the sleep of innocence and ale. The velvet vest, voluminous silken trousers, khalat and shagreen boots, gifts from a contemptuous sultan, were nowhere in evidence. The paladin was clad in worn leather and rusty mail. Hands tugged at him, breaking his sleep, and he swore drowsily.
“Wake up, my lord! Oh, wake, good knight—good pig—good dog-soul—will you wake, then?”
“Fill my flagon, host,” mumbled the slumberer. “Who?—what? May the dogs bite you, Ivga! I’ve not another asper—not a penny. Go off like a good lass and let me sleep.”
The girl renewed her tugging and shaking.
“Oh dolt! Rise! Gird on your spit! There are happenings forward!”
“Ivga,” muttered Gottfried, pulling away from her attack, “take my burganet to the Jew. He’ll give you enough for it to get drunk again.”
“Fool!” she cried in despair. “It isn’t money I want! The whole east is aflame, and none knows the reason thereof!”
“Has the rain ceased?” asked von Kalmbach, taking some interest in the proceedings at last.
“The rain ceased hours ago. You can only hear the drip from the thatch. Put on your sword and come out into the street. The men of the village are all drunk on your last silver, and the women know not what to think or do. Ah!”
The exclamation was broken from her by the sudden upleaping of a weird illumination which shone through the crevices of the hut. The German got unsteadily to his feet, quickly girt on the great two-handed sword and stuck his dented burganet on his cropped locks. Then he followed the girl into the straggling street. She was a slender young thing,
barefooted, clad only in a short tunic-like garment, through the wide rents of which gleamed generous expanses of white flesh.
There seemed no life or movement in the village. Nowhere showed a light. Water dripped steadily from the eaves of the thatched roofs. Puddles in the muddy streets gleamed black. Wind sighed and moaned eerily through the black sodden branches of the trees which pressed in bulwarks of darkness about the little village, and in the southeast, towering higher into the leaden sky, rose the lurid crimson glow that set the dank clouds to smoldering. The girl Ivga cringed close to the tall German, whimpering.
“I’ll tell you what it is, my girl,” said he, scanning the glow. “It’s Suleyman’s devils. They’ve crossed the river and they’re burning the villages. Aye, I’ve seen glares like that in the sky before. I’ve expected him before now, but these cursed rains we’ve had for weeks must have held him back. Aye, it’s the Akinji, right enough, and they won’t stop this side of Vienna. Look you, my girl, go quickly and quietly to the stable behind the hut and bring me my gray stallion. We’ll slip out like mice from between the devil’s fingers. The stallion will carry us both, easily.”
“But the people of the village!” she sobbed, wringing her hands.
“Eh, well,” he said, “God rest them; the men have drunk my ale valiantly and the women have been kind—but horns of Satan, girl, the gray nag won’t carry a whole village!”
“Go you!” she returned. “I’ll stay and die with my people!”
“The Turks won’t kill you,” he answered. “They’ll sell you to a fat old Stamboul merchant who’ll beat you. I won’t stay to be cut open, and neither shall you—”
A terrible scream from the girl cut him short and he wheeled at the awful terror in her flaring eyes. Even as he did so, a hut at the lower end of the village sprang into flames, the sodden material burning slowly. A medley of screams and maddened yells followed the cry of the girl. In the sluggish light figures danced and capered wildly. Gottfried, straining his eyes in the shadows, saw shapes swarming over the low mud wall which drunkenness and negligence had left unguarded.
Historical Adventures Page 17