The Walking Drum

by Louis L'Amour

  Wherever my eyes turned there were beautiful women, fingertips stained with henna, the luster of their eyes heightened with antimony. Many wore a comb at the back of the head attached to a scarf of gauzy material, but all their costumes were striking and beautiful.

  The Prophet forbade the wearing of silk, but he who was a good husband should have understood women better than that. These all wore silk, and many of the men did as well. Silk had come to Spain with the Moors, and by the tenth century was the principal export, ornamental silks and tapestries being shipped to all the ports of the Near East. Until the birth of the silk industry in Spain the Coptic silks of Egypt and the Sassanid silks of Persia had been preferred. Now the Spanish silks superseded all others.

  Almeria was especially known for its turbans for women and damask for drapes. Lightweight, contrasting to the heavier satins, velvet and damasks were made in Catalonia and Valencia. Court robes and vestments for the clergy were ordered from Spain by most of the Christian nations.

  For a moment Valaba and I were alone. "It was gracious of you to invite me here. I have done nothing"—I waved a hand—"to compare with these, although I have ambitions."

  One eyebrow lifted slightly. "I suspect your ambitions, Kerbouchard, and if stories of the Castle of Othman are a criterion, I suspect you would find plenty of cooperation out there."

  She studied the crowd. "Sixty or seventy of the people here might be ranked among the most brilliant in Córdoba, and perhaps twenty more who will be their equal in a year's time, but few of them will be better informed than you."

  She looked directly into my eyes, and hers were very beautiful. "Be sure of this, Kerbouchard. You would not be here unless you belonged here.

  "John of Seville has kept pace with your studies, and only last week Averroes was reading a book on alchemy translated by you from the Persian."

  "Introduce me to your guest, Valaba." The tone was cool. "I do not believe we have met socially." It was Prince Ahmed. His eyes were utterly cold.

  "Prince Ahmed," Valaba said, "my very good friend, Mathurin Kerbouchard!"

  "And my very good friend!" Ya'kub appeared from under the trees where he had been talking with Averroes.

  "Of course, Your Eminence." Prince Ahmed's eyes were bitter. "These are your domains." His pause was brief. "But I understand that Kerbouchard likes to travel."

  "Believe me, Prince Ahmed," I said, smiling, "you must forgive me if I avoid your city. You make a guest almost too welcome!"

  "Without assistance you would still be my guest. Sometime I expect to learn who assisted you."

  "Assisted me? I assure you, sir, I was alone on the face of that rock, very much alone. No one could have helped me in that situation. If you doubt me, try scaling that cliff yourself."

  "I am not a performer."

  "Each of us plays many roles. Some are heroes, some villains, and some merely"—I paused slightly—"mountebanks."

  His face went white under the olive skin, and for an instant I thought he would strike me, but he turned abruptly away. His back was stiff as he walked away, and Ya'kub turned to me. "You make enemies, Kerbouchard."

  "I did not choose him for my enemy, Your Eminence; he chose me. He owes me some months in a dungeon."

  "He has been paid in laughter," Valaba said.

  Then at a signal from Valaba, ibn-Quzman sang, a low, haunting melody, the love song of a desert rider, following it with a wild, fierce song of war and vengeance. Yet I could not lose myself to the music as I wished. There were enemies who might even dare the displeasure of Ya'kub for the pleasure of spilling my blood. Powerful friends could make armor of a word, and from their lips a phrase could be a shield. This had I witnessed tonight.

  Yet I placed less faith in the words of men than in my own hands and the steel behind my sash. That man who is no longer on guard is one who invites death.

  Ibn-Quzman crossed to Valaba as she stood beside me, and I said, "I envy you. You sing more beautifully than any other."

  "You are Kerbouchard? We must talk one day of the Celtic bards and their songs."

  "And you could explain the writings of al-Mausili. I know too little of music to understand all he has written."

  "You know of him? His uncle, Zalzal, they say, played the lute better than anyone."

  We talked idly for a time, and when he had gone on, Valaba put her hand upon my arm. "Ya'kub wishes to make a place for you."

  Ya'kub overheard the remark and came over to us. "Loyal men are not easily found, Kerbouchard, and there are dangerous days before me. I could make a place for you that would allow leisure for study."

  "I am sorry."

  He was not pleased, and I hastened to explain. "There is no prince I had rather serve, but I have a mission and but lately have received a clue."

  Briefly, I explained. "If my father lives," I added, "I must find him; if he is indeed dead, I must know. Nothing else would keep me from serving you."

  "I had thought of you as commander of my personal bodyguard." He smiled slightly. "Rumor has said you are skilled with a sword."

  "May I suggest a man?"

  "I trust few men, Kerbouchard."

  "This one can be trusted. I would stake my life upon it, and he is here tonight, in command of the guards around these walls. He proved loyal to me in time of trouble."

  "His name?"

  "Haroun el-Zegri."

  "I know the man." He listened to the music, then said, "Come! Let us dine."

  On the table where food awaited us I saw sugar for the first time, white, gleaming crystals. It was something of which we in Christian lands had heard but never seen. We had for sweetening only honey or sweet grasses.

  There were heaps of food in infinite variety. Plates of carra bige, a pastry sausage of chopped almonds and walnuts mixed with sugar and over which melted butter had been poured. This mixture was rolled into a thin pastry and baked for fifteen minutes or so. It was served with a spoonful of natif, a fluffy mix of sugar, egg white, and orange flower water.

  There was rice with sour lemon sauce, pilaf Egyptian, shebach, an Egyptian fritter, green and black olives, brains fried in batter, artichoke hearts also fried in batter and served very hot, and kebaeba, a mixture of red meat, pine nuts, and crushed wheat. There was louzine saparzel, a Syrian dessert of quince, ground almonds, and cardamom seeds served in small squares. There was rose jam, made of rose petals, sugar, and lemon.

  There were skewers of beef, lamb, and veal, smoking hot and ready to be served in a number of sauces and styles. There was wine from Portugal, Italy, and Greece as well as coffee, sweetened with sugar.

  The moon arose, holding its light beyond the minaret of the great mosque, and Valaba said, "Then you will be leaving soon?"

  "At any moment."

  "We have hoped you would remain. Ya'kub is a good man, and the time is near when he will need good men about him."

  "It is well to think of Ya'kub. He is a rarely fine man."

  She turned toward me. "I think of you, too, Kerbouchard. The way you take is filled with risk."

  "Are there other ways?"

  "For some, even for you, perhaps. You are a strange man, Kerbouchard. You are an adventurer yet a scholar."

  "There have been many such, even Alexander, and Julius Caesar. I but dabble in scholarship. Learning to me is a way of life. I do not learn to obtain position or reputation. I want only to know."

  "Is not yours the best way? To learn because one loves learning?"

  "There are places I have not seen, Valaba. I would feel their suns upon my face, the brine of their seas upon my lips. There are too many horizons, and too many dreams of what may lie beyond those horizons."

  "What are you seeking, Kerbouchard?"

  "Must one seek something? I seek to be seeking, as I learn to be learning. Each book is an adventure as is each day's horizon."

  "What of love, Kerbouchard? Did you love Aziza?"

  "Who is to say? What is love? Perhaps for a time I loved her; perha
ps in a way I love her still. Perhaps when a man has held a woman in his arms, there is a little of her with him forever. Who is to say?

  "A ruined castle, an ancient garden, a moon rising over a fountain ... love comes easily at such a time. Perhaps we loved each other then; perhaps we do not love each other now, but we each have a memory.

  "Love is a moment of stillness that sometimes a word can shatter to fragments, or love can be a thing that endures, a rich deep current that flows unending down the years.

  "I do not think one should demand that love be forever. Perhaps it is better that it not be forever. How can one answer for more than the moment? Who knows what strange tides may sweep us away? What depths there may be or twists and turns and shallows? Each life sails a separate course, although sometimes, and this is the best of times, two lives may move along together until the end of time?

  "Listen to the music out there. Is the song less beautiful because it has an end? I believe each of us wishes to find the song that does not end, but for me that time is not now.

  "You see?" I spread wide my hands. "I have nothing. I have no home, no land, no position. I am an empty gourd that must fill itself.

  "I would owe no debts to destiny, Valaba, nor could I exist on the bounty of another. I am not a lapdog to be kept by a woman. I do not know what awaits me out there beyond the rim of things, but destiny calls, and I must go. For you and me, today is all we have; tomorrow is a mirage that may never become reality."

  "You speak well, Kerbouchard. Did you learn that on those bleak northern moors?"

  We were walking slowly through the shadows, away from the crowd, away from the music. There was a dim, unlighted court ahead of us, and through the open gate to that court I could see the lights of the house.

  Two chinar trees leaned their great trunks close above the path, and there were rose bushes beside them. Valaba started to go ahead of me when I heard a sound, a faint chink of metal as a blade brushes against twigs!

  Catching Valaba's arm, I whirled her to one side, and my dagger came from its sheath as men closed around me.

  My life was saved because I did not hesitate or step back as expected. It was ever my way to go toward an enemy, and I went now.

  He stepped from behind a bush and held a sword in his hand.

  23

  HE HELD HIS point low. When he saw me moving toward him, his blade came up, but he moved too slowly, and I was already past the point. Before he could step back, I had put my dagger into his belly. '

  Turning sharply around, I faced three men with drawn swords.

  Valaba screamed, and one of them turned toward her, another swore at him. Outside the garden there were running feet, and the three men moved to kill me.

  These were hired assassins, and neither honor nor glory lay in a victory over them, nor could I defeat them in any way except by surviving.

  Valaba was at the gate, but they would not dare harm such as she. She was safe enough. Feinting a lunge that brought them up short, blades up, I spun around quickly, put my blade between my teeth, jumped, and grasped the top of the wall. With a quick motion I swung my legs over the wall and dropped on the far side. Behind me I heard Haroun and his guards surrounding the garden, but there was nothing further to be gained here. I left the garden and, by a roundabout route, hastened to my quarters.

  On the bed lay a message with but a single word in Persian. Come.

  Safia was waiting, but if she noticed my handsome clothing, she gave no indication. Gesturing to some clothing on a bench, she said, "Change into that. You must disappear."

  "Disappear?"

  "You must not return to your quarters. Whatever you have there will be packaged and sent to the library." She indicated a small pile of gold coins. "Take that. You must go to a place I will designate, and remain there until I call you."

  "The time is near?"

  "You were attacked tonight, were you not?"

  "You knew?"

  "They were not enemies of yours, but of mine."

  When I dressed I resembled one of the many footloose mercenary soldiers ready to sell their services to any cause. Beside the armor was a sword. As I picked it up, my blood surged with excitement. What a blade! The balance was beautiful, the feel of it—I ached for combat.

  The room was small with one door and a window that opened upon a wall that ran for some distance between a double row of trees, shaded and crossed by their branches, creating a leafy tunnel, concealed from both sides. The wall ended at an aqueduct near a street.

  Safia's planning astonished me. The section where I now waited was shabby, inhabited by mercenary soldiers, camp followers. The street near the aqueduct was where our horses were stabled and waiting. Not far from it was a small postern gate.

  Days passed, but there was an ample supply of food; an olla suspended from a ceiling beam contained water. There were books, also.

  I made but one friend. Khatib was a sly man with quick hands and a quicker brain. No longer young, there was little he did not know of the ways of the beggar or the trickster. Squatting on his heels by the doorstep, he regaled me with news from the streets, as well as about our neighbors.

  He had a face of old leather, and an odd way of peering from the corners of his eyes as if to gauge the effect of his comments. He seemed to like me, and I liked him, but I dared trust no one.

  My identity was that of a Frankish soldier and former pirate, something I was qualified to carry off, for aside from my brief experience, I had countless tales from my father and his crew.

  From Khatib I learned tricks of the hand and juggling, for he had once traveled with a company of tumblers and jugglers, some of whom were thieves. My reading was done only at night and behind closed doors. To be able to read marked a man, and there is always gossip.

  It was at this time that I read The Ring of the Dove, by a young Spaniard of Moorish extraction who devoted his time to an exploration of amorous play and its accompanying phenomena. It struck me as an intriguing area for study.

  Khatib was another sort of book, one I never tired of reading. Within that cunning, fertile, amoral mind lay all the devious tricks and devices men have learned over thousands of years, or so it seemed. He also possessed qualities of dignity and loyalty that would have been a lesson to any Christian or Moslem.

  With Khatib I often went to a room in an ancient ruin where tumblers and jugglers gathered to practice their arts or to acquire new tricks. Ever athletic and handling my body with ease, I took part in their training, to learn their somersaults, flips, and cartwheels. Some of these I had learned as a boy from others of my age, but now I became an adept.

  Nearby was the Street of the Booksellers where over one hundred dealers gathered along one street. They had been established there since the time of the Abbasids. Al-Ya'qubi states that in his time, about 891 in the Christian calendar, these shops were already here. Many of the keepers of the shops were letter writers for pay, authors of books, and literati of various sorts. The shops not only were where books were sold but were centers of intellectual discussion.

  Several times I bought copies of ancient manuscripts, smuggling them to my room under my robes. One of these was from the private collection of the great Egyptian physician Imhotep, and it concerned treatments for diseases of the eyes, the skin, and the extremities.

  Around the bookshops I never tired of loitering, listening to discussions, examining Egyptian papyruses, Chinese paper, scrolls, or parchment. Córdoba manufactured its own paper and had its own printers.

  Chinese prisoners had, in 751, introduced into the far-off city of Samarkand, the art of making paper from rags or linen, flax or hemp. A paper mill was established in Baghdad in 794, and paper replaced parchment in all government offices. By the tenth century paper was readily available in the Moslem world, and with the advent of paper, books became plentiful.

  Idling along the streets of the bazaar, I talked with the weavers and their masters, fascinated by their skills. By their feeding, the
peculiar worms who spin the silk a variety of shades had been created. White cocoons came from white mulberry leaves, but if the worms were fed the dwarf mulberry, the cocoons were of yellow, and fawn cocoons came when the worms were fed from the castor bean plant. These secrets were known to few outside the trade, and not to all who worked with silk. The Arabs, who were master weavers, experimented with many kinds of leaves, and it was whispered to me that one had devised a silk that would poison the wearer because the leaves fed to the worms were poisonous to humans but not to them.

  This silk was extremely rare, and robes or drawers were sold only to a few secret customers. Robes were rarely made of this material, as it was most effective when in contact with the skin. Often the buyers were women of the harem who wished to do away with some rival, or the sons of kings, eager for power.

  Drawers, shirts, or turbans were the garments most often made of this material where the poison was made more effective by the body's heat. The wearer would die, often in a fit of madness, but with no indication of poisoning. One Arab was reported to be feeding his worms a special formula made from leaves of the Indian trumpet vine so the worms would produce a scarlet silk. This was, however, only a rumor.

  Fine dyes were available, the best red coming from an insect associated with oak trees, an insect called kennes by the Arabs.

  Restlessness sat heavily upon me, yet I could not be long absent from my quarters, for when Safia needed me, it would be suddenly and desperately. She had provided food, shelter, and clothing when needed, and more than that, if anyone could discover where my father now was, it would be she. That she was in mortal danger, I knew.

  Sometimes I suspected her of dealing in magic, yet none of the signs were there, and reared as I had been in the old knowledge that is never written, the signs would be obvious enough. Had not each of my grandparents been buried with the oak and the mistletoe?

  Our family memories went back to the time when a Druid temple topped the isle of Mont-Saint-Michel, long before any Christians came to build there. Had my ancestors not studied in the secret temples of the lost city of Tolente, destroyed by the Normans in 875? Had I not myself been consecrated times over? The first at Men Marz, a tall gray stone near Brignogan on the coast where I was born?