An arrow struck me on the helm, and it rang with the force of the blow. Stunned, I momentarily fell back. However, Toledo steel was no makeshift stuff, but the best, made by the finest craftsmen, and again it saved my life. The wound in my side opened again and was bleeding. A stone grazed the bridge of my nose, and my eyes were swelling shut because of it.
We fought on the walls, driving them back, holding them. Our horses fled back and forth, mingling with those of fallen Petchenegs, and the scene was one of bloody confusion.
The Hansgraf was here, there, everywhere, never showing fear, never weakness, always in cool command.
The attack broke, and they retreated, tearing down more of our wall as they left. Now they would prepare for the attack that would finish us off.
Many of ours had fallen. Many were wounded. I could treat only those in our island.
A cry went up. “The boats! The boats!”
And they were there, the boats that were to pick up our goods and ourselves.
They were out there, not three hundred yards off, and upon them was escape, on them was safety, on them lay our future, if we could make it.
We would be men on foot, fighting against horsemen, but we had no choice.
Within our fort there were perhaps two hundred men, few of them without wounds. There must be nearly as many in the others. To remain meant death, eventually; yet to go out and face those fiendish horsemen, magnificent fighters, those devil riders from the steppes…
“How many pikes are there?” the Hansgraf demanded. He glanced about, counting them. There were no more than forty. Against horsemen, pikes were the best defense. He lifted a pike to signal the others. In reply the men of Sarzeau lifted a forest of pikes…perhaps sixty. But there were no more than twenty among Flandrin’s men.
Rescue lay off the shore. Rescue, safety, Suzanne.
“We will try. Here all will die, out there some may live.”
The Petchenegs had drawn off, regrouping and preparing another attack. Because of dunes along the shore back where they were, they had not seen the boats.
Suddenly, the walking drum began to beat, and we poured from the forts, surrounded by a wall of pikes. The drum began the beat double-quick, and we started on a trot for the beach, holding our tight formation.
How much distance did we gain? Forty yards? Fifty?
They came like the wind.
Low in their saddles, they threw themselves into our pikes, dying while they drove our men in upon themselves. Men went down and were trampled into earth. An acrobat whom I had known went down, his face obliterated a moment later by the hoof of a charging horse; yet he came up and threw his sword like a spear into the back of the rider.
We fought inch by inch. Men fell; we helped them up, and now the months of working together told, for men fought to save each other as only brothers fight. And we reached the shore.
Dense reeds and brush crowded our right flank, and eagerly we used that flank to aid us.
A shout went up, and we saw more Petchenegs riding in the water, coming to cut us off.
In the wild abandon of that fight I forgot who I was, where I was; thoughts of escape were laid aside. Grasping a heavy pike from the hands of a fallen man, I hurled it into the breast of a charging horseman. My sword cut a swath around me. A hand grasped my leg as an enemy tried to pull me down, and I kicked him viciously. He fell back, his neck broken.
We fought. A body fell from a horse and knocked me flat. Struggling to rise, I glimpsed the Hansgraf surrounded and cut off, laying about him with a falchion, handling the heavy blade with the ease of a dagger.
An arrow took him in the breast, and he wrenched it free and fought on. Lucca went down. Lolyngton I could not see anywhere.
Blood was running into my eyes, and a horseman charged at me, lance at rest. My blade turned his lance and thrust into his side, but the rush of his horse slammed me back and into the water. A horse fell near me, his hooves threshing in agony.
Struggling to rise, I gulped bloody salt water. Somebody struck at me with an ax, but my swinging sword slashed through his ear and deep into the side of his head. He fell into the water, and I put my foot on his chest to pull my sword free.
The drum was still beating, a heavy throb, pounding in my skull. Something struck me, and I fell back into the water. A horse leaped over me, his hooves missing me by inches.
Plunging riders were all about me, as our men fought deeper into the water. Some were already swimming for the boats.
Sarzeau, Flandrin, and others were bunched together; some were archers, some pikemen. One of the Petchenegs snaked out a loop, catching Sarzeau and jerking him from the crowd. Sarzeau’s knife slashed the rope, and then he threw the knife with such force that it drove to the hilt between his attacker’s eyes. The man and his horse plunged by me, his eyes blazing with fury still, the knife sunk to the hilt above his nose.
A wave of riders swung around and past me, a blow on the helm sent me again into the water. Consciousness ebbed, but I fought like an animal to live. A stirrup struck water near me, and I grasped the stirrup and leg and was pulled up. Dragging the man from the saddle, in the grip of a terrible fury, I charged the nearest horseman, knocking him from his saddle with the power of my momentum. I grasped his sword as it flew from the rider’s hand. A rider was coming at me, and I struck his head from his body with one sweep of my sword.
A cold flash of reason swept over me, and turning, using the thicket for a flank, I rushed back into the water.
If I could just get to the boats! Men were swimming wildly for them; others were being hauled in. I thought I saw Suzanne in one of them. I clapped spurs to my horse, and then suddenly he seemed to trip. I went over his head into the water, and it closed over me as I sank. Coming up, I glimpsed a hole in the wall of the thicket, such a hole as is made by wolves or other game. Desperately, I clawed my way into it and lay gasping.
Such a hole as this had saved me long ago in Armorica, saved me from Taillefeur.
Would I ever see him again?
Suddenly, there was a voice speaking, the voice of Abaka Khan. “Another drink you owe me!” And a wineskin struck the opening of the hole and lay there. Reaching out, I drew it to me.
With the last of my fading consciousness, I crawled deeper into the thicket. A strange hot darkness swept over me, a hot darkness that a long time later was cold…cold…so very, very cold.
Chapter 42
*
A COLD, HEAVY mist hung over the lowland plain, and there was no sound in my thicket but the lap of the sea against my shelving coast.
Over a tiny fire I huddled and shivered, a sick, hurt, almost helpless thing: my clothing in rags, my face overgrown with beard, my hair untrimmed.
Shivering, I stretched my thin hands toward the tiny blaze, for it was cold…cold.
My skull throbbed with an endless ache; my skin was blue where it showed through the rags. I had been ill for a long time, and my wounds had been frightful, far worse than I dreamed during the heat of battle.
How long ago had that been? Wrinkling my brow against the dull ache, I tried to estimate the time.
A month? Two months?
Through long, bitter, pain-wracked nights I had fought for life, struggling to hold the thin line against my wounds, against the cold, against hunger, thirst, and depression.
There had been a gash on my skull, cut to the bone after I lost my helmet, a blow that left me with a severe concussion that undoubtedly contributed to my recurring headaches. There had been two arrow wounds in my side from which I lost much blood and from which poison had gotten into my system. There had been a bad gash on my thigh, and a foot had been stepped on by a horse and almost crushed.
Somehow, between moments of delirium, I contrived to squeeze the moisture from some sphagnum moss and pack it into my wounds. It was a good dressing, and one of the earliest I had learned. My father had told me of it when describing the use of it at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014.
; This saved my life, for it stopped the flow of blood. That and the wineskin dropped by Abaka Khan, who in the fury of battle had seen me crawl into my hole to escape death.
The wine quenched my thirst and enabled me to survive during those first bitter days when I dared not move for fear of being discovered and killed. All around the Petchenegs were looting what remained of our camp, taking the furs we had traded for, taking armor from the dead, and what valuables they possessed. Those found still living were slain.
When at last they rode away, the field was left to wild boars and vultures as well as a multitude of small creatures and insects. For days, scarcely daring to move, wracked with pain and shaking with fever, I could hear the boars rooting and tearing at the bodies that lay on the field, and the shrill cries of the vultures clashing over the flesh of my old companions.
My sword was gone. Only my Damascus dagger remained, and my old belt brought from home, which I never relinquished. Once a wolf prowled into the tunnel where I crouched, and I grasped my knife and awaited him, answering his growls with my own. Finally he backed off, still growling.
All this occurred during intervals of delirium, and when at last I became fully conscious, I could not walk, could scarcely move. My foot was horribly swollen, and I had no way to tell if bones had been crushed or broken.
My throat rasped with dryness, now that the last of the wine was gone, and my bones ached from lying on the cold, damp ground. It was then I managed my first fire, hitching myself to an elbow, reaching out with my one useful arm to break twigs and draw nearer the dead brush scattered about.
Flint I always carried, and my knife provided steel. I made a spark that fell into dry leaves and grass, carefully pulled together, then added small sticks. Breaking the sticks enlarged my sleeping quarters, and in scraping together grass for a better bed, I uncovered some small nuts, filberts, that grew on some of the brush. The small effort required to gather and crack the nuts exhausted me. Slowly, I ate the few I had found, then scratched for more.
The fire warmed me, something that felt like life began creeping into my veins, and with it came a raging thirst. My wounds must be bathed, my foot soaked. Also, I must find food.
What a scene of desolation awaited me! Broken pikes, some scattered fragments of armor, a broken sword, the torn and ravaged skeletons of several hundred men, and over all the smell of death, the stench of decay.
Prowling about, I found a dented helmet that would hold water. Near it I put the stub of a sword. The spring inside the fort had been trampled in, but with the point of a pike I dug it out again, and working with my one good hand, pausing frequently to rest, I scraped sand and mud from the hole. Water began to seep in.
Lying close by, I waited for water to gather, occasionally scooping a handful to my lips. Finally, taking a helmet filled with water I crawled back to my den, inching along, fearful of being discovered by wolves or, worse still, a wild boar.
Back in the thicket I heated water, then bathed my swollen foot and ankle. Finally, after finding a few more nuts and eating them, I fell asleep.
During the night I was awakened by the horrible sound of bones crunching in powerful jaws, and the snarling of beasts fighting over the ribs of my old friends…or enemies. Now they were one, nor could any man tell the bones of one from the other.
Those skulls out there, once so hot with anger, with love, with hate or desire or loneliness, they were empty now, playthings of beasts. The passions and dreams were gone now.
Where was all we had worked and bargained for? What profit now from our long trek across Europe? How many had survived? Would even I survive? Was I merely prolonging an inevitable end?
Building my fire higher, yet careful not to allow it to escape its nest and burn my thicket, I sat close to its warmth, feeding small sticks to the flames, pondering upon the strangeness of destiny, thinking back to Córdoba and Valaba, remembering Suzanne…where was she now?
When morning came I bathed my wounds again and made a poultice of agrimony mixed with leaves of dittany, daisy, and wild delphinium, a plant I had seen growing in fields all across Europe. These plants had been used in treating battlefield wounds for many years, and I had read of dittany in the works of Virgil, Theophrastus, and Dioscorides.
When I had rested from searching for herbs, I rigged a snare, using several old bowstrings gleaned from the battlefield. The following morning I found I’d caught a marmot, which I skinned, cleaned, and roasted.
The weather grew increasingly cold, but I still could not walk, so to get around I crawled in the dirt like an animal. Hardest of all was to keep clean, although each day I managed to bathe in the sea.
Two weeks went by slowly, and my wounds showed signs of healing, although I had lost weight until I became a veritable bag of bones. My skin looked old, and I was always chilled. Twice in the early mornings I found the tracks of tarpan, a wild horse native to the country, and once the tracks of a huge bear.
One morning I found a bowstring that had not been cut or broken and kept it with me. Later, finding other pieces, I tied them together into a line all of ten feet long. Splicing another line to it about three feet from the end, I tied each of these ends to a rock, making a crude bola for hunting.
Several times I had seen flocks of bustard, and I kept from sight not to frighten them. When finally some came close, I threw my bola and caught one. Hauling the squawking bird to me, I watched the rest fly off. That night I made a royal meal.
It was the same day I began working on a crutch. Using part of an old pike pole, I took another section for a crosspiece and lashed it in place with a bit of bowstring. After three weeks of crawling, I was able to get to my feet at last.
And now I would start for Constantinople!
Ragged, dirty, emaciated, I was a far different creature from the man who only a few weeks before had been the lover of the Comtesse de Malcrais.
To Constantinople it was several hundred miles, I believed, but less than that by sea. But I did not have a boat, or even food, or anything in which to carry water.
Turning west I began to walk. Each step I counted, and when I had traveled one hundred steps, I paused to rest. With me I carried my stub of broken sword and the helmet.
At the day’s end I huddled under some black poplars and looked back at the dark blotch beside the sea that was the thicket where so long I had huddled. Throughout the long day I had struggled, falling twice, but each time moving on. I had counted only three hundred steps.
Constantinople was going to be a long way off.
When day came I saw the tracks of horses. They were the clumsy, untrimmed hooves of the tarpan, but among them were the small, dainty hooves of Ayesha.
Should I whistle? She had been trained to come to my whistle, but who else might hear? Were the Petchenegs all gone? Nonetheless, I whistled shrilly, whistled, then whistled again.
A long time I waited…nothing.
It might be some other horse. Some of the horses in the pack train had small hooves, and some of the Petcheneg horses had, also.
Slowly, painfully, I started on.
This time I must have covered at least a mile before I stopped, and again I whistled.
For several minutes I sat waiting, and then started to rise. Only I did not rise. I sat very still looking across the small clearing at a man opposite me.
He had emerged from the woods, a thin, scrawny man with a queer face. Indescribably filthy, he carried a sack over his shoulder, and in his hand, a stout staff. On his other shoulder were a quiver of arrows and a bow.
For several minutes he watched me, and at last I called out to him in Arabic. There was no response, and I began to grow worried. There was that about him that filled me with unease. He was little enough of a man, but crippled as I was, I was less of one.
With the wound in my side I could lift but one arm, and that with difficulty. My left leg and foot were still in very bad shape, and I could hobble only using the crutch. With my right hand out of action fr
om the wounds and my left occupied with the crutch, I was virtually defenseless.
Calling out in the Frankish tongue, I struggled to my feet. Painfully balancing there, I waited while he crossed toward me, pausing about ten feet away. There was an evil amusement in his glance that filled me with horror. Suddenly, he took a step forward, and before I could guess his intention, he put the end of his staff against my chest and pushed.
The push thrust me off-balance, and I fell, striking my injured foot, which made me cry out in agony.
He came to stand over me then, and as if it amused him, he kicked me in the face. Not hard—I had been struck harder many times—but it filled me with fear. What sort of monster was this?
He sat down where I had been seated and stared at me, and then he said, in a kind of bastard Arabic, “You will be my slave.”
Taking up his stick, he deliberately poked me in the mouth with the end of it, and he laughed when I made a feeble attempt to grasp the stick.
For upwards of an hour he sat there, poking me with the stick, occasionally striking me with it. At last he got up.
“Why did you whistle?”
This man was an evil creature, scarcely human. What he intended for me I did not know, and I lacked the strength to overcome even his weakness. Did I also lack the wit?
“A djinn,” I said, “I whistled for a djinn.”
The smile vanished, but a sort of crafty humor remained. “A djinn? You? Get up! You are my slave. Get up and carry my sack, or I shall set you afire. Yes, that is what I shall do! I shall set you afire!”
Carefully, I struggled to get my crutch in position, and he watched my every move, perhaps the better to cope with me.
After several minutes of struggling, I got to my feet. “The sack”—he pointed—“bring it.”
“Take me to Constantinople,” I said, “and you will be paid.”
He gave me a scornful look. “You think me a fool, but I shall show you. You are my slave. If you do not obey, I shall hit you. I shall beat you or burn you.”
Novel 1984 - The Walking Drum (v5.0) Page 32