So amazed, indeed, that he failed to notice that his listener was staring at him rather curiously, as though puzzled about something.
“Your story,” he said, resting his elbow on the table and turning his cigar thoughtfully between his fingers, “is pretty interesting—in a way. But don’t you think it sounds a little fishy? Your language, now—it’s just a little too funny to be natural.”
He leaned suddenly across the table and looked his guest squarely in the eye.
“How long have you been a ’bo?” he asked sharply. “Who are you, anyhow?”
Young Allison turned pale beneath his ragged beard. It was a critical moment. Happily, the waiter saved it by arriving with the dinner-check. The bill amounted to nine dollars and forty cents. As the host handed the servitor a crumpled ten-dollar bill and waved him away, the guest rose hurriedly and put on his hat.
“Well, good-by, cap’n,” he stammered nervously. “I enjoyed de big dine immense. Good-by, good-by!”
He backed away a few steps, then turned and hurried swiftly out of the restaurant.
When he reached the street he stopped and rubbed his cheek thoughtfully.
“Now, who is that chap, I wonder?” he asked himself. “He certainly talked and acted queer. Not been used to money long, that’s plain. I wonder who he is.”
He gave it up, and turned aimlessly into Randolph Street. A light snow was beginning to fall. The theater crowds were arriving. He stopped before one of the playhouses and mingled in the crush around the foyer. Life, color, gaiety, were all round him. But he was an outcast.
An automobile rolled up to the curb, and a man and a woman whom he knew alighted. As they crossed the street he stepped deliberately in front of them. But neither noticed him. He was an outcast.
He walked on down to the corner. A troubled expression clouded his face. Automatically he felt in his coat-pocket for his cigar-case. Then, remembering, laughed shortly and buttoned up his ragged coat.
The snow was growing heavier. Some of it seeped under his collar and trickled down his back. The wind tore at his thin garments angrily. He shivered. The troubled expression deepened. Carriages and autos were now congesting the street. The theater rush was at its height.
Suddenly a change seemed to come over him. He straightened up.
“I guess Bobby’s right,” he muttered aloud. “Yep.” He nodded his head; and, with final conviction: “Yep, he’s right. I’m a coward. I can’t do it.”
He cut across the street to a cab-stand.
The jehu regarded his prospective fare sapiently from his throne.
“Well, not tonight, old skeezicks,” he said good-naturedly. “I’m not running a Hinky Dink charity, line this year. But here’s a dime for you, anyway.”
Young Allison pocketed the dime without smiling. Then he reached inside his waistcoat, ripped out a canvas wallet sewed therein, and took from it a thick sheaf of currency. He gave a five-dollar bill and an address to the cabby, who recovered from his astonishment only enough to drive his strange fare to the north side.
*****
Outside the restaurant, Sammy paused. It was snowing heavily.
The gorgeous door-flunkey approved him with an envious eye; a waiting taxi chauffeur watched him hopefully; an earnest mendicant approached with his plea; and an ambitious policeman, anxious to curry favor, bustled up importantly when Sammy, mindful of his empty pockets, growled a curt refusal.
He watched the beggar slink away before the cop’s threatening baton. Then he, looked down and scratched the back of his neck as though somewhat perplexed.
“Now, I wonder who that guy was,” he murmured. “Not a moodier, and that’s certain. Gee, he was a funny gink!”
Round the corner he reached up, ripped off the high collar which had been torturing him all evening, flung it from him, peeled off his gloves, and cast them after the collar.
A few minutes later the bewhiskered proprietor of one of those wretched, filthy, second-hand clothing shops which infest lower Clark Street was moved to much friction-making with his palms by a fastidious-looking young man who entered the hovel and offered to trade the clothes he wore for some cheap cast-off garments and a cash consideration.
As the odd patron removed his coat and cuff-links and pushed back the sleeves of his shirt, a deep “V”-shaped scar on his right forearm glowed bright red in the light of the sputtering gas-jet.
EVERY MAN A KING, by E. Hoffmann Price
“Do you have to go? At this hour?” Olajai turned from her mirror, but did not leave off unfastening the red velvet hood whose twinkling pendants trailed past her cheeks, and to her shoulders. “Couldn’t it wait till tomorrow?”
Timur frowned, which made it all the more certain that the King Maker’s granddaughter had not married him for his looks. He snatched a shirt of link mail from a hook, and as he worked it down over his broad shoulders, he grumbled, “One of Bikijek’s pets, and he’s got the king’s seal. Either be a good dog, or run out and join your brother at Saghej Well!”
Olajai said, wistfully, as she wiped off the last bit of dead-white makeup, “And I thought it’d be lovely, living in Samarkand.”
Olajai was shapely of body, and exquisite of face; the Turki heritage, showing in the peach blow tinge of her cheeks, gave features whose every line was sharp and clean and delicate in its drawing. This was Timur’s first and only wife, and thus far, he was glad that there were no others.
Though not quite twenty-seven, he looked older, for mountain blizzards and desert blasts had weathered his flat face. Wind blown sand and storm driven sleet had set the Mongol slant of his eyes in a permanent squint; and for all the blue Zaytuni silk tunic he put on over his shirt of linked mail, and his gold embroidery boots, and plumed pork pie hat, he seemed out of place in a palace.
“I’ll get away as soon as I can,” he promised, and limped out.
Bow legged, and never built for walking, he was further handicapped by an ankle which had stopped a well-aimed arrow. In the tiled reception room, he said to the waiting official, “Something important going on?”
The square-rigged Kipchak did not answer; he merely tapped the big four-cornered seal. In the court, a sleepy groom held his horse, and Timur’s.
They skirted the plaza of splendid Samarkand. The bitter clear moon brought out the blue of tile-fronted palaces, and the golden crests of tall minarets. Samarkand, the jewel of the Jagatai Empire, was now the prize of the Kipchak Horde who had overrun the land: and Timur was weary of serving invaders. But for luck, and a friend at Elias Koja’s court, he might be an exile, like Olajai’s brother, Mir Hussein. Yet, though his position as administrator of affairs gave plenty of enemies and little satisfaction, it at least enabled him to stand between Bikijek’s rapacious clique of nobles, and his own conquered neighbors.
Timur trailed the official, instead of riding boot to boot. There was more than just the matter of rank involved. Then, wary ever since that first strange warning, he noted the stirring in the shadows of the archway to the left. Here the street was narrow; here he and his guide faced a cold, white moon.
A bowstring twanged, the strident note of a horseman’s bow. Timur ducked. His sword was half unsheathed when the arrow thumped home, nailing the Kipchak squarely in the throat. The fellow made a choking sound, and lurched from the saddle.
Timur wheeled, chin in, and crouching low, so that there was hardly a vulnerable spot exposed. The Ferghana stallion stretched out in a great bound; hooves struck fire. When things happened too fast for thought, Timur Bek was driven by the instinct to close in, to cut down.
Then a man came out, barefoot, and bearded. “Go home, Timur Bek. There was no other way to warn you.”
The face was in shadow, but Timur recognized the voice and the figure. “Good shooting, for a scholar! Why?”
“Allah will enlighten you. Also, the man you were following won’t be able to tell anyone you’ve been enlightened.�
��
“What is this, Kaboul?”
“If all is well with your family, then this is a mistake. And the peace upon you.”
Kaboul the Darvish turned into the shadows of the archway. On the ground, Timur saw a horseman’s bow, but neither quiver nor arrows.
“One man one arrow.”
And now Kaboul was going back to his cubicle to write a Persian quatrain, or an ode in Turki!
Timur, retracing his course, held his horse to a walk, for in spite of the menace which threatened Olajai he could not risk the sound of galloping. When he finally reached the wicket which gave entrance to the rear court of his house, he hitched himself up and stood in the saddle. Then, catching the crown of the wall, he swung himself to the top, and dropped to the grass inside. His first move was to unbolt the little gate, and lead his horse in, for he dreaded the helplessness of being afoot.
His felt boots made no sound. As he hurried past the servants’ quarters and down a hallway, he heard voices, in front: a challenge as of a drowsy porter, then brusque answer, and a scuffle which ended in a groan.
There was time. He hurried back, mounted up, and again felt complete. He nudged the stallion with his boot, and stroked the sleek neck, wheedling the bewildered beast into the tiled passageway.
A woman cried out, more in wrath and indignation than in fright. “Father of pigs! Get out of here or I will have you skinned alive.”
“That’s her, Olajai Turcan Aga!”
“Come down, khanoum; we won’t hurt you.”
“So you do know that this is Timur’s house. You know, and come in?”
They laughed at the threat. “And we know where Timur is.”
That was when the lame rider’s scowl became a grin. “Come down, Olajai!” he called. “We’re leaving town!”
The deep-chested hail made the men at arms whirl about. They had curved swords, they had maces; they wore peaked helmets, and armor of overlapping plates sewed on leather, but they were afoot, and they were surprised.
The stallion snorted. He quivered, then leaped as Timur’s legs tightened. The heavy blade licked out, finding the gap between neck-guard and hauberk. As the stroke bit home, Timur traversed, so that the wall covered his left. He swayed in the saddle; a spike-headed “morning star” ripped his tunic, exposing the link mail beneath, and then his blade flickered, slashing the man’s forehead.
Blood blinded; that one was out of action.
“Come down; we’re riding!” Timur shouted.
Some were scrambling now to get to the front court, and their waiting horses; several tried to close in with swords. Blades clanged. Timur hewed down, slicing off plates of armor.
Olajai snatched a tall Chinese vase from the landing and heaved it on the head of the rearmost. While his helmet saved him from a smashed skull, the impact dropped him in his tracks. She dashed down the stairs, and plucked the fellow’s helmet from his head.
“Put it on!” she cried, crowding up on Timur’s left.
“Grab a horse!” he answered, and booted the stallion after the handful who had raced for their mounts.
And when his horse got firm footing on the hard-packed earth, Timur charged with effect.
Olajai followed. She was not dressed for riding, but the ripping of her gown took care of that. And she picked a good mount.
Two of the raiders galloped across the square. Two others fled afoot. Timur snatched the bow whose case hung from the saddle of Olajai’s horse. As he strung it, she passed him an arrow.
The hindmost of the footmen pitched on his face.
Timur grinned. “Good bow. Now keep behind me; there’ll be the devil to pay at the gate.”
There was, but it did not last long.
Guardsmen were turning out. The two surviving horsemen had attended to that. But the moon was bright, and Timur’s bowstring twanged, once, twice, thrice: the deadly Turki arrows, released at a dead run, cleared a path. Then a whirl of steel, and the fugitives went pelting down one of the lanes which threaded the orchard girdle of Samarkand.
CHAPTER II: THE BEGGAR
Once a bend in the lane furnished momentary cover, Timur pulled up. “Get Eltchi Bahadur and as many others as you can, and ride direct for Saghej Well. I’ll keep the Kipchaks off your heels, and I’ll meet you later.”
Olajai had long since learned to think quickly, and to move while thinking; she waved, reined her horse down a cross lane, and galloped to notify the chief of Timur’s fifty picked fighting men who had followed him from his home in Kesh. And since they lived outside the city walls, Olajai’s task was safe enough.
Her brother, Mir Hussein, was at Saghej Well with forty odd retainers. They had outraced the Kipchaks to find refuge in the wastelands, and their heads apparently were not considered worth the cost in horseflesh.
Timur dismounted. When he heard the approach of the pursuers, he pretended to be picking a stone from his horse’s hoof. In a moment they came into view, and in the full moon, they saw him. Olajai could not be far away. The horsemen reined in. It was over, they thought.
The fugitive, having the advantage of the moon, fired from his own shadow. A man toppled. Timur swung into the saddle, and the Ferghana stallion took off in a falcon swoop.
He twisted, shooting as he rode. And this was not his second choice horse!
They would stick. Speed was not the essence of this chase, since he had neither rations nor water nor a spare mount. As he gained a lead, he reined in a little, holding the distance just beyond arrow range. For all they knew, Olajai was ahead of him, just beyond sight.
Timur now had time to ponder on the reasons behind the raid on his house. Bikijek’s resentment at a man who spent too much time blocking the sale of justice, blocking the extortion of doubled taxes, and the making of false returns: that was one fair guess. The other, plain court jealousy. Though the attempt to kidnap Olajai suggested a third answer—a blow at her exiled brother, or a stranglehold on Timur himself.
And as he rode, his memory reached back to that night when he had drunk his guests off their feet; it all came back, that survey at sunrise, of his littered banquet room.
He recalled the drums which had rolled and thundered across the broad median. They blotted out the muezzin’s call to prayer. From a high window he could see the horsetail standards at Bikijek’s door. The puppet king, Elias Koja, old Togluk Khan’s son, let Bikijek play with the tokens of royalty, instead of setting to work with a running noose.
It would not, it could not last long, and when it ended, the Golden Horde of the Kipchak would restore order.
Order; herds eaten by Kipchak soldiers, granaries emptied by Kipchak officers, towns and farmsteads burned, and all Timur’s broad acres in Kesh devastated with the rest. All because Bikijek, chief lord of the young king’s court, had drums beaten five times daily before his palace.
Ten or a dozen local emirs, so busy battling each other that they had not stopped Elias Koja when his father sent him south to be Grand Khan of the Jagatai; that was the trouble. Rugged individualists, every man a king, and so now they had the Horde on their necks, and now their lands were the proving ground of an apprentice whose father had handed him the entire Jagatai heritage in which to learn the trade of kingship.
Timur had laughed aloud, for wine and fermented mare’s milk had made him see the truth with a bitter clarity which his sober and busy days had never permitted. “First I fought Uncle Hadji, after Uncle Hadji and I drove Beyan Selduz out of town. Then they murdered Uncle Hadji, and I got an army to avenge him, and then the army divided into three parts and we had a war to settle the dividing of the booty. Every man a king. Allah! What we need is one king, and that one home grown. Too bad Mir Hussein’s grandfather isn’t alive.”
He had smiled, in half drunken grimness and regret, thinking of the King Maker and the King Maker’s grandson, handsome, hard fighting, Mir Hussein, fickle, crackbrained, unpredictable Hussein who had the loveliest sister in th
e world.
“Allah curse Bikijek, Allah curse every man who does not curse Bikijek’s religion and his father and his grandfather!”
He had spoken aloud. A grave voice had made him turn. There, in the arched doorway stood a ragged man with a snarled beard; the slanting rays kept his face from being any too clear.
“Who asks Allah to curse the religion of another true believer?”
Timur snorted. “I’m talking to myself. Only way to do, if you want to hear sense for a change.”
Then his eyes became used to the glare: he saw the grimy khelat, the greasy skullcap, the girdle of frayed rope, the dirty hands which fingered a wooden bowl. Dirty hands, this beggar had, but fine and long, made for good penmanship. And he wore a writing case at his girdle and a scroll carefully wrapped in a clean red silk scarf.
‘Well, darvish!’ Timur found a gold piece. “Guest of Allah, and a lot more welcome than these Kipchak pigs!”
Only then had his eyes a chance to focus sharply on the seamed face, shrewd, ironic, kindly; somewhat of a dish face, with broad, flat nose, Mongol features and melon head like Timur’s own.
And Timur knelt on the littered tiles, catching the beggar’s hand, too swiftly for any evasion; he kissed it.
“By the Splendor! I’d heard—I didn’t recognize—”
The darvish freed his hand, made a gesture to decline the reverence “Kaboul Shah Aglen, now the Guest of God and the least of the slaves.” Timur Bek had risen, to step back, entirely bewildered. Kaboul Shah Aglen, eighth in direct descent from Genghis Khan’s son, Jagatai, begging his bread, and for shoes, growing calluses on his feet!
Kaboul smiled, “The darvish robe would fit you, Timur Bek. Last night’s friends are this day’s enemies. Become intoxicated by the splendor of Allah, and become His Guest, and the peace will be with you.”
Outside, just then, horses had begun to squeal and snort; saddle drums rolled, for Bikijek was riding to the mosque. As the lordly sounds died out, Kaboul Aglen went on, “When Togluk Khan comes south to cure the disease which his son ignores, your palace becomes a mirage, and you’ll be stealing sheep again. Get out, while you still can leave without killing too many horses.
Adventure Tales, Volume 4 Page 5