by Harold Lamb
The muttering of the lines of bearded faces ceased as if by magic. The Father, their chieftain, had put on his kalpak and lifted his baton, as if the siech were at war. Yet war had not been declared, nor were any foes within sight.
Crashing forth in the semidarkness of the morning, the summons of the drum dispelled their doubts. The drummer, at a sign from the koshe-voi, was beating the alarm with his sticks on the bull's hide, to arouse those who still slept. While men from each squad ran to the barracks for weapons that had been left behind—while the captains formed their companies and the colonels gathered around the chief, the veteran Cossack ordered that Ayub should be cut free of his bonds. This done, he turned to Demid thoughtfully.
"Young sir, you have ransomed Ayub with your sword. But surely you had hatred for Boron to accuse the famous knight in that fashion."
Taking off his cap—for the koshevoi now spoke not as the commander of a camp at peace but as a leader in war—Demid made answer:
"Father, when his blood was hot, when he waged the battle of the chessboard, he let fall a phrase used only by the Turks. Instead of 'checkmate' he cried 'shah ma’at,' the king dies."
"So, it must be that he played the game with the Turks."
The chief raised his head and the doubt passed from his eyes as a warrior spurred a pony between the company lines and reined in sharply— Vladimir, of the river-watch. He was smiling and his eyes were bright.
"Father," he said quickly, "we have seen boats drawing in to the reeds, and in the boats are the white turbans of the sultan's janissaries. Well for the good Cossacks that they are armed and ready. There are many boats, coming to test the hearts of Cossackdom—"
"Colonels," the chief addressed those nearest him, "take your companies in column to the west side of the island. Hold the higher ground, above the rushes."
For the last time he looked at the ring in his hand, and cast it from him.
"It is an evil thing," he remarked quietly to Demid, "when a man sells himself to a master. My eyes are open now. Boron betrayed the position of the siech the last time; in our raid upon the Black Sea he departed from us, going in among the Turks. He pointed out to them the new camp, and, by binding the drummer, he strove to delay our muster. Hai—he played with princes. But now the bandura players will be silent when his name is spoken."
His face lighted as he surveyed the two warriors standing helpless— Ayub too stiff and cramped to walk, and Demid on one leg—before him.
"You have done enough, Zaporogians. We may not carry you with us to the combat. Abide here and lick your hurts, while we deal with the Moslems—thus!"
And he mounted a pony and wheeled away; willfully heedless of Ayub's prayers to be taken along.
Demid looked at his friend.
"Do you bind up my cut, while I rub your joints."
Full day dawned on the almost deserted barracks. And the camp followers, the Jews, the Armenians and the wine-merchants, standing on the mud wall beyond which they never came, listened to the discharge of musketry on the distant bank of the river, hearkening to the far-off shouting. Pleasure and excitement ran high among them, for the savage temper of the Zaporogians was at an end. The warriors were fighting again, which meant that they would be good-humored again by night, and, if fortune decreed it so, owners of rich spoil.
So said the camp followers. But, in the interval, they were staring at something unwonted. On the top of the drum glittered a mass of gold and jewels—apparent to the keen eyes of the hucksters. Beside the drum lay outstretched the body of one of the finest lords of the camp.
Moreover, and this puzzled the onlookers, two Cossacks, one tall and fat and the other young, were limping slowly out of the camp toward the river. While one moved with painful stiffness, the other hobbled beside him on a stick.
The warriors had their swords in their hands, and they were cursing their legs as they headed toward the sound of firing.
1
Literally, "Men from below the rapids."
2
Constantinople.
3
Shah ma’at—sheikh ma’at: "checkmate."
Men from Below
The koshevoi, the chief of all the Cossacks, was troubled. Even though it was a fair, bright day in Autumn of that eventful year i6ii, his spirit was heavy within him. He sat in the threshold of his hut in the siech— the war-encampment of the Cossacks on the river Dnieper—and moodily applied cobwebs to a half-healed gash in his shoulder.
The muscles of his arm were lean, his drooping mustache that hung to his bare chest was gray. Old was the koshevoi. His one good eye gleamed, as if it beheld not the log barracks and dusty figures of the camp, but the tossing deck of a war galley.
In fact the eye of the koshevoi saw not the brown grass of the steppe, but the waste of the Black Sea, the gleaming palaces of the sultan. Aye, the koshevoi was old, and the old have their dreams.
His hand closed around the goblet at his knee, and he tossed off the brandy and gunpowder, mixed as a remedy for his wound.
In all his days he had known no day like this.
In the siech there was not powder enough to fill a pair of riding boots. That was his trouble. He was chief of the Cossacks from the Urals to Poland, keeper of the frontier, along the river Dnieper.
Yet the Cossacks had no more powder than would suffice for a single discharge of their carriage-guns, firelocks and hand-guns.
If the sultan should come to know this, the Moslems would rejoice in their hearts. They would carry fire and devastation across the border. Already they held the shores of the Black Sea, and the saltpeter fields necessary for the making of powder. The tide of white-capped Janissaries was rising toward the cities of Europe, upon which the Grand Siegnieur was looking with covetous eyes.
Why not? When Dutch and English emissaries at the court of the Grand Turk gave him placating gifts of money and arms, seasoned with apologies? And why not, when up behind the frontier the Poles made war on the Muscovites, and the Muscovites made war on each other, boyar fighting peasant? The whole Christian world, as far as the chief of the Cossacks reeked of it, was burning up powder and shouting for more.
So it happened that not a grain of it was to be had down below, on the frontier. Even the Jews would not sell it on the steppe because they could not get it.
Two months ago the Cossack commander had bought a shipload of powder from a merchant in Kiev, and paid for it out of the treasury of the siech. It had been loaded on a bark and sent down the Dnieper. River pirates had boarded the bark and gutted it.
Word of the loss of this shipment had just come in, and the koshevoi pondered the matter grimly. More than anything else in the world, he wanted that powder. The first thing he did was to send out detachments of young warriors to the steppe where outposts of the Turks could see them. He had ordered the Cossacks to shoot off their firelocks at flying geese, at marks on the prairie, into the air—to waste powder as if it were of no value to them.
But he could not throw dust in the eyes of the Turks much longer. The score to be settled between them was too heavy. Especially now, when the Cossacks stood on the Christian side of the frontier, the Moslems would strike them as a hawk pounces upon a pigeon.
The koshevoi pulled a scarlet svitza over his bare shoulders and rose, stepping from his hut.
On the hard-packed clay between the barracks the warriors of the siech diced and drank, and smoked and slept. Long-limbed and sun-scorched they were, armed for the most part with Turkish scimitars, and Damascus maces, spoil taken from the Moslems. The commander noticed that they had discarded the pistols from their belts and not an arquebus was to be seen.
His men did not worry over the lack of powder as long as they had steel ready to hand. But the koshevoi knew that if they went up against the firelocks of the sultan's infantry with swords, they would be food for the kites, and the jackals would fatten from their bodies. What then of Cossack glory? What of the Cossack souls, his children?
They
were licking their wounds after the last battle, and the high boots of soft leather were stained and ripped, and the long coats bore dark brown spots. A colonel who had lost an arm was dancing the hopak and trepak to the sound of the guitars, to show how little he esteemed his hurts.
They were men who had left families and villages to join the siech, wanderers and masterless men from all the corners of the great steppe. Entering the siech, they thought no more of women, and even dropped their names for the nicknames given by their kunaks, their comrades. Except that each Cossack looked forward to the inevitable rendezvous with that dark mistress of theirs whose name was Death.
The eye of the koshevoi ran over the groups of the various regiments. He could not spare a regiment to comb the upper river for his powder—
A shout of laughter went up from several who had been listening to the tales of a stout warrior seated on an empty wine keg.
"The forehead1 to you, Ayub! With the forehead, I say! Prince of liars and father of falsehoods!"
Ayub stood up, a full six foot six, and two hundred and fifty pounds in his boots; yet the gold armlet on his biceps pressed hard sinew, and his broad, good-natured face was muscular. He had been into and out of more scrapes than the koshevoi himself, and was a general favorite. It was said in the camp that Ayub would never be killed, because the good Saint Peter would then be obliged to tear down the golden gates to pass his bulky body through.
"On your faces, dog-brothers," he grinned. "You are looking at a man.
I tell you such deeds are a small matter in my life. Ekh! When I was born my mother salted me down. As I live, sir brothers, it was so. How many of you have smoked your Cossack pipes in the mosques across the Black Sea? Not many. The minstrels of the steppe say that after my raids on the palace of the Grand Siegnieur at Bagche Serai (Pigs' Camp) the women of the sultan's seraglio looked at me twice, I assure you. But as to that—"
A roar of laughter interrupted him.
"The colonels say we lack powder," cried a warrior, waving the tarred stump of an arm, "very well. We can grind Ayub up between the millstones. We will have sulfur and brimstone enough out of him to supply all the siech with powder."
"To the-with sulfur and brimstone," retorted Ayub. "The koshe-
voi will get us powder in time."
Hearing this, the commander stared at the big warrior reflectively.
"Ayub!" His voice carried across the square, and silence fell on the noisy groups. "Where is your comrade, Demid?"
"Here, Father."
Ayub pointed without looking around, to the nearest armorer's shed. Against the wall in the sun was seated a young Cossack half a head shorter than Ayub. With a piece of tallow he was stroking the blade of a long scimitar across his knee. Wrapped high around his thighs was a green silk scarf, worn in despite of Moslems.2 At his side lay a light shirt of Damascus mail, carefully polished.
Demid's eyes, slanting a little, and his dark skin marked him among the other Cossacks. Thin, distended nostrils, and firmly set lips bespoke moodiness and temper, the heritage of the hot-blooded Ukraine. Demid was from the Don country, beyond the frontier, where the men did not take kindly to discipline. He had already earned the title of bogatyr—hero. The other Cossacks, remembering that he had slain the first swordsmen of the camp when he came to the siech, let him go his own way, which seemed to suit him.
"To my hut!" ordered the koshevoi. "I have work for you, both."
Seating himself on a bearskin and laying aside his red topped hat—a sign that he spoke not as the chieftain, but as an elder Cossack—the commander related to the two warriors the loss of the powder.
"The Jews say that the shipment went past Kudak in an Armenian bark. It anchored the first night after that about sixty versts down the river. Two hundred kegs of powder were in the hold, marked with the mark of the merchant who sold to us. In the morning the bark was seen drifting down the Dnieper in flames. The thieves had made away with the crew and our kegs."
"How, made away?" demanded Ayub.
"The crew of the bark were not seen again. The powder was taken out because there was no explosion. Demid, you came to the siech from the river patrol. What have you learned of these pirates of the Dnieper?"
Demid considered, and explained slowly. He was not a talkative man.
The river-thieves had grown in numbers and boldness since the wars in the upper country began. Now that the only law in the land was the whim of a boyar, outlaw bands were many on the steppe. Possibly some nobles, turned renegade, took this means to recover lost fortunes.
The Dnieper, from the Cossack camp up to Kiev, was bordered by almost unbroken forests or the wilderness of the steppe. The pirates had hiding places, which they changed constantly. If pursued, they retired into the waste lands. One band, the largest, had been driven over the border, where the thieves—plundering soldiers, vassals, criminals escaped from dungeons in the Russian cities—had turned Mohammedan, and had been protected by the Turks. This had not ended the raids, however.
Of late the river-bands had been sallying out in their long skiffs at night, when the trading-craft were forced to anchor. If the crew defended themselves, they were cut down without exception. The burlaks, the Russian watermen, feared the pirates wholeheartedly, and saved their lives by throwing themselves on their faces when an attack was made, to avoid recognizing any of the assailants. So the identity of the leaders remained hidden.
The thieves had rich pickings, because much of the overland trade from Persia and Arabia to northern Europe came up the Dnieper.
The koshevoi nodded and spat thoughtfully.
"Do you know who the leaders are?"
Demid shook his head.
"Well, they are dogs, that is certain," meditated the chieftain. "They have not crossed our path until now. Our need is great. We must seek out these bands, and set our feet in the trail of our powder. If I send a company of Cossacks, it would only frighten off the men we seek. So I will send two."
"It is a cold trail," responded Demid. "We will go, Father."
"If you need aid, send word. I will give you a bag of gold. One thing will aid you. Your best plan is to ride to Kudak. The starosta, the governor, is known to be a foe of the pirates, and he is a man with a heavy hand. I have prepared a passport, to take you to him, claiming protection on your mission and warning him of the danger from the Turks. Use your ears and your brains and keep a rein on your temper, Demid. The Muscovites will pick quarrels with you if given the chance."
Demid took the paper his chief gave him and bowed.
"In two weeks," added the koshevoi moodily, "ice will close the upper Dnieper to navigation. Your time is short. Choose good horses, and beware of the vampires that call to travelers in the steppe, especially such as take the form of women. If you see a werewolf, raise the hilt of your sword, like a cross, and he will howl and flee. Go with God!"
II
What Was Seen on the River
For several days Demid and Ayub made their way north along the river. They did not take a boat for two good reasons. Being Cossacks, they did not like to leave their saddles; being experienced in border warfare, they knew that they would see more from the ridges that ran beside the Dnieper than from the water.
Somewhere in the two hundred-odd miles that separated the camp they had left from the frontier fortress of Kudak the river pirates had their retreats. Perhaps in a wooded inlet, perhaps in a rock-bound arm of the river, perhaps in the wide expanses of great reeds.
This stretch of the river was in the heart of the Ukraine. For miles the two riders passed under the dark canopy of oaks, already shedding their leaves. Sometimes they pushed on at night, where a clear stretch of prairie was ahead, listening to the clamor of waterfowl on the banks, and watching for the glimmer of fires.
But the only habitations were deserted posts of the Cossacks, and frontier hamlets. Close to the few thatched roofs pressed the vast level of grass, the Cossack steppe.
Such was the country ca
lled by the townspeople of Muscovy the Wilderness.
Ayub, well-pleased to be mounted again, with a mission in hand, still was irritated by their lack of success. The only rivercraft they saw were fishing-smacks, and flyboats with leather sails, or—rarely—the oared galleys of the Armenians, and the tub-like barks of the Muscovites bearing the loads of caravans from China or Isphahan.
"The burlaks, the dogs of watermen," he grumbled, "swear by their heads that they reck not of thieves. The fishermen look the other way and say that pirates may be elsewhere on the Dnieper but not here or at Kudak."
He felt moodily in his saddlebags for barley cakes. The Cossacks only halted to cook one meal, and then at evening, after they had brought down some game. Handing one of the hard cakes to his comrade, Ayub broke the other over his heel and, after breathing a prayer, fell to munching it.
"They lie, the sons of Turkish bath-tenders!"
Demid hooked one leg over his saddle peak, and smiled.
"A comet is in the sky, kunak. It means that death will walk over the steppe. Aye, so."
"True," nodded the big warrior seriously, "the river-folk tell of many omens. Was not a fiery cross seen in the sky over Kudak in the last moon? Then, too, they heard bells tolling under the water, at night."
Quickly Demid looked up.
"Many times or few?"
"The cross was beheld once, and the next day a galley, bound for the Black Sea was taken by the pirates. The bell sounds when the wind blows— often. It bodes no good to Christian folk."
Cheering himself with this remark, Ayub spurred ahead, for he liked not a hard pace. Demid followed, watching the dark line of reeds at the edge of the gray water. They were passing over rolling grassland, and except for a handful of huts abreast them, no sign of human life met his eye. Above a clump of willows by the huts several hawks and vultures were circling lazily.
Ayub would have passed by the shacks, but the Don Cossack called his attention to the hovering birds and headed down the slope toward the bank. The huts, on closer view, seemed without inhabitants. From the willows, however, came a penetrating odor that made the ponies uneasy.