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 from 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."
Once on my feet I tried to get the sack to my shoulder but could not. He approached, and careful to avoid my one good hand, he placed the sack on my shoulder. Weak as I was, I almost fell under its weight, but finally I managed to take a step. He started on, only occasionally glancing back.
I could move but slowly, and finally he returned. "You are no good!" He spat in my face. "You are no good!"
Suddenly, he leaped at me and began striking and pounding me with his stick. Desperately, I lunged at him, but he sprang back and began dancing about me, striking and thrusting. Finally, I fell, and then he really attacked, beating me unmercifully with his stick, trying to throw dirt in my eyes. He was a madman. Yet if I could only get him close enough I had my knife.
At last he tired of beating me and built a small fire and began to prepare a meal. Once he came at me with a burning brand, poking it at my eyes. He burned my chin, and one ear was singed, but when I swung my crutch and tripped him, he fell into the fire. He screamed and rolled away from the fire, but while he cursed me, he stayed out of reach.
Something moved in the shadows beyond the fire. Firelight flickered on a silken flank. "Ayesha!" The name burst involuntarily from my lips, and I saw her head go up, her ears prick at the familiar name.
My tormentor at the fire turned as if stung, and then he saw the mare. He leaped to his feet, staring at her and panting audibly.
"It is your horse?" His beady eyes shined with malice. "Call it. Call it over, and you shall have this!" He held up a filthy bone I would not have given to a dog.
To think of my mare in the hands of this fiend was frightening, but Ayesha, spirited though she was, could be caught when I was around. Unless something was done, he would have not only me to torture but the mare also.
"I can bring her to me, but she is frightened of strangers." Slowly, carefully, I shifted my sitting position. My fingers felt for the bola with its twin rocks, and the bowstrings. "I can catch her," I said, "but there is but one way."
Seated on the ground my hand was free. How far away was he? Six feet? "Come, Ayesha," I said, "come to me!"
She was not sure. She lifted her dainty nostrils to sniff in my direction and stamped the earth, not liking the smell. Little could I blame her, for between my captor and me the odor must have been frightful. "Ayesha," I pleaded. "Come!"
She came a step nearer, then another. "Now, Ayesha! Come!"
He had taken a step forward, hardly able to restrain his eagerness, his attention upon her. My hand shot out in a swift, darting motion shooting the rocks past his neck. The weight of the rocks did as they were designed to do and wrapped around his scrawny neck. With a jerk, I snapped him toward me.
He fell, and heedless of my injuries, I threw myself atop him, holding tight to the line with my bad hand and grasping my dagger with the other.
He fought like the madman he was, scratching and clawing, righting to be free of the strangling noose. He kicked viciously at my injured foot, and the agony was like a bolt of lightning. The pain left me gasping and weak. My dagger came up and drove at him, and he took a good inch of the blade before it struck bone.
He screamed and exploded into violent action. Tearing loose from my bad hand, he sprang erect, but all thought of hurt or danger was gone from me. I must kill! Kill!
He must die or I must, and I dared not fail and leave Ayesha to him. Throwing myself at him, I stepped for an instant on my injured foot and pain shot through me. He tried to spring back but fell on his back in the fire, and before he could move or rise I fell atop him stabbing and thrusting.
He screamed and screamed again, and then his struggles ceased, and his teeth were bared to the sky, his eyes wide. I fell away from him, nauseated, and crawled away from the fire.
A long time later, when I opened my eyes, Ayesha stood over me.
43
EVIL COMES OFTEN to a man with money; tyranny comes surely to him without it.
I say this, who am Mathurin Kerbouchard, a homeless wanderer upon the earth's far roads. I speak as one who has known hunger and feast, poverty and riches, the glory of the sword and the humility of the defenseless.
It was without money that I arrived in
Constantinople.
Hunger inspires no talent, and carried too far, it deadens the faculties and destroys initiative, and I was hungry, although not yet starving. Women have treated me well, bless their souls, and it has occurred to me that a man need know but two sentences to survive. The first to ask for food, the second to tell a woman he loves her. If he must dispense with one or the other, by all means let it be the first. For surely, if you tell a woman you love her, she will feed you.
At least, such has been my limited experience.
Yet such a solution was beyond me, for my rags lacked gallantry, and rags without firm, exciting flesh beneath them excite little compassion and no passion. A woman who will gather a stray dog into her arms will call the watch if approached by a stray man, unless he is very handsome, but not often even then, for there remains an occasional feminine mind of such a caliber that she might suspect him of more interest in her money than more intimate possibilities.
Now I was footloose in Constantinople, a ragged, penniless vagabond amid the glories of the Byzantine Empire. Around me were wealth, luxury, and decadence. The two former I did not share, but decadence is the one attribute of the very rich to which the poor have equal access.
Decadence is available to all; only with the rich it is better fed, better clothed, better bedded. Cities were built for conquest, and I, a vagabond, must conquer this one with what weapons experience had provided.
To a man without money, for I could not call myself a poor man, the obvious way to riches was theft. Thievery, however, is a crime only for the very ignorant, in which only the most stupid would indulge. There is a crass vulgarity in theft, an indication that one lacks wit, and the penalties far outweigh the possible gain.
To a man in rags all doors are closed. In my present circumstances only the humbler occupations would be open. I, son of Kerbouchard the Corsair, a seafaring man, a swordsman, a merchant, a scholar, a linguist, a physician, and even an alchemist of sorts, had the possibilities of being an acrobat or a magician, but what trade is beyond a man with wit?
Of what use are abilities if they are unknown? To make them known, and myself, was now my problem. My health and physique were now too poor to be an acrobat. As a magician I must fall far below the average in such a city. As a mercenary soldier the way to wealth was too long, and I had a father to find and, once found, to rescue.
Lacking the necessary clothing, I could not be a physician, for a ragged, ill-dressed physician inspires no confidence. A storyteller, perhaps? A weaver of tales? Thus far my flights of fancy had been reserved for the ears of women, for long since I had observed that masculine beauty as an enticer of the female is much overrated. Women are led to the boudoir by the ears. For one who talks well, with a little but not too much wit, it is no problem.
Where women are concerned it is the sound of the voice, the words that are spoken, and the skill with which they are said, especially when combined with a little, but not too much, humility. A few coins, just a few paltry dirhems, these I needed; so I would become a weaver of tales, since most who practiced that skill dressed in rags, anyway. By such means I would inform my listeners, if such there were to be, what manner of man I was.
Ayesha, drawn by some internal magic of her own, had brought me to the edge of a bazaar, and in the shadow of a great old building there was shade, and in the shade, a stone. A stone polished, no doubt, by the posteriors of the idle poor. With the stone came inspiration. Tying Ayesha in the shade where she might poach a few leaves, I seated myself on the stone and looked about at the passersby and the loiterers.
Before I could open my mouth to speak there came a frantic roar, and a great, bearded booby of a man came rushing upon me, shouting and expostulating. "Away! Be gone, vagabond! Do you not know that you have taken the seat of Abdullah, the storyteller?" He loomed over me, his beard quivering with rage, his eyes bulging, his vast stomach agitated.
"I do not doubt," I replied coolly, "that others have taken your seat, but I am not one of them. If it is this stone to which you refer, I found it unoccupied. Now, Father of Vermin, Son of Iniquity, begone! I am about to regale these gentlemen"—my gesture included the growing crowd of amused bystanders—"with the harrowing tale of a thief and the daughter of a sultan, a thief who crept into her bedchamber."
"What?" He fairly screamed. "Nay! None shall tell stories upon this spot but Abdullah! Away, or I shall have out my sword!"
"Insect! You are too clumsy to hold a sword and too fat in the belly to see its point!"
The fat graybeard grasped his sword hilt threateningly. "Away! Or I shall have out thy heart! Draw your sword!"
"My mind is my sword," I replied, "and if you linger you shall feel its edge."
A crowd had gathered, eager as always to enjoy any argument or scuffle, and from their expressions they were pleased to see the pompous old storyteller getting the worst of it. My eyes swept the crowd. Beggars and loiterers, but a few shopkeepers and artisans, also.
"What stories can you tell?" I scoffed. "You, who have done nothing but polish this stone with your fat behind? And I? What sea has not known my ship? What road has not left its dust upon my feet?"
He blustered and ranted and grasped his sword again, glaring wildly.
"Draw the sword," I invited, "and I shall spank you with your own blade, or pluck your beard, hair by hair!
"Look upon him!" I gestured toward the huge stomach. "Is this bloated thing a teller of tales, or a concealer of wealth? It has been said that Abdullah the storyteller is really Abdullah the Tale-Bearer, receiving rewards for information."
Leaning toward the crowd, with a wink to show I was not serious, I said, "Do you think that monstrous swelling is a stomach? If you do, you are fools. It is a huge sack in which he carries his wealth!"
Pointing at the huge stomach, I said, "I wonder how much wealth he conceals in that huge sack? Shall we open it and see?"
"No!" Abdullah shouted. "This man is a—!" Drawing my dagger, I tested its edge with my thumb. "Come! Let us open this bag to see if I am mistaken or not. If I am wrong"—I threw my palms wide—"I will admit my mistake and apologize.
"Perhaps," I said deprecatingly, "it is only wind! But let us see. Come, Abdullah! A fair test! Let us open the bag!" I glanced around at the crowd. "I will wager this bag is filled with coins! Who will take my wager?"
The crowd joined in, amused at Abdullah's angry astonishment, an astonishment rapidly changing to protest and the beginnings of fear. A huge-shouldered man with an exposed, hairy chest pushed through the crowd. "I wager it is nothing but wind! There are no coins there! I accept your challenge! Open it up!"
"Come, Abdullah, you are a sportsman! Help us to settle our wager!" I reached for his sash with my left hand, the dagger in my right.
He sprang back with amazing agility for such a huge man, but in so doing, he stumbled and fell into a pile of camel dung. "Come!" I protested. "Do not hide down there! I shall have your sack open in an instant!"
So saying, I grasped him by the beard, a deadly insult in any Moslem country, and held the point of my dagger at his fat belly. Turning my hand, I struck him lightly in the belly with the fist that held the knife. "Here?" I asked the crowd. "Or shall we open it here?" And I struck him lightly in the side.
"Try it there!" The big-shouldered man pointed with a toe at a spot just below the wide sash. "Perfect!" Releasing my grip upon his beard, I lifted the dagger. "Now—!"
He shot from under my dagger like an eel from a greased hand, lunged to his feet, half fell against the building, and then fled, followed by the laughter of the crowd.
Some of the people began to drift off, but many remained. "There!" A Greek pointed to the rock. "You have dethroned the king, do you take his place and tell us a story!"
This Greek was a slender, graceful man in a rich semicircular cloak of maroon, decorated at the collar and lower hem with a richly jeweled band of embroidery. The jewels were pearls and garnets. Under it was a tunic that came almost to the k
nees. His legs were cross-gartered.
He gestured to Ayesha. "Your mare is of the blood. Such a mare would be the pride of a king."
"There are kings and kings," I said, "and the mare is mine."
From his sash he took a coin and tossed it to me with a careless gesture. It winked gold in the sunlight as I took it deftly from the air. "Come, Teller of Tales, let us hear what you can do."
Bowing low, I spoke mockingly. "O Mighty One! What is your desire? Would you have a tale of the Caliph of Baghdad? Or from the siege of Troy? A reading from Aristophanes? From Firdausi? Or would you hear of far seas and lands unknown to the Byzantines?"
"Can there be such?" He lifted a supercilious eyebrow. "Byzantium is the center of the world!"
"Ah ... ?"
"You doubt it, vagabond?"
"I was remembering Rome, Carthage, Babylon, Nineveh ... each in its time the center of the world, all ruins now."
He was amused. "Do you imagine this city will be as those? You jest."
"Had I asked in any of those cities, would anyone have believed they someday would lie in ruins? Each age is an age that is passing, and cities, my friend, are transitory things. Each is born from the dust; each matures, grows older, then it fades and dies. A passing traveler looks at a mound of sand and broken stones and asks 'What was here?' and his answer is only an echo or a wind drifting sand."
Bowing again I said gently, "Perhaps your city will draw new life from the steppes, new blood." I looked into his eyes and said, "Perhaps the blood here is thinning now, and perfume appreciated more than sweat."
"You spoke of Troy? What know you of Troy?"
"Perhaps no more than Virgil knew, or Homer. Yet perhaps something more, for I myself have pulled an oar in a galley."
"A slave? I suspected it."
"Are we not all slaves, occasionally? To custom? To a situation? To an idea? Who among us is truly free, Byzantine? Yes, I have been a slave, but other things also, and a sailor upon Homer's wine dark seas, as well as those unknown to Byzantines."
"That again. What seas?"
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