Riders of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  Her tongue was barbed with the caustic wit of the seraglio women, and yet Lali was not a woman in years. Robbed of her dagger, she resorted to her readiest weapon, but even this failed her for very rage when Demid ran his hand over her girdle and dress to satisfy himself that she had not a second weapon concealed about her.

  "You have put your hand upon me, O caphar—O, unbeliever! For that they will draw you on the stake with horses. I have seen it."

  "And what are you?"

  The gray eyes of the Cossack gleamed from his dark face, and Lali caught her breath to study the splendid head of the warrior. He towered over her, unmoving, and unwearied. She had felt the strength of his hands, and now she answered the challenge of the gaze that searched her thoughts.

  "I am the daughter of a cral—a chief."

  "Then you were not born in the seraglio, as your woman said."

  Lali considered for a second or two, which was long for her.

  "Nay, I was born in the mountains, among my father's people, the Armenians. He was killed in a raid, and the Turks carried me off with the other children. But what is that? I say to you that you are a fool, if you spare me, for you will be tortured when the soldiers take you."

  A flash of memory, and she saw how to make the Cossack flinch.

  "Ohai, my captain of rogues, I have seen your warriors in chains in the city of the sultan, aye, and dying on the rowers' benches. Your chief I saw, when Mustapha paraded the captives before the palace. He was like the grandfather of the eagles and his hair was white."

  "Rurik!" cried Demid.

  "So they named the Kazak. They hold him and his comrades for ransom of which the Grand Signior has need—otherwise their Kazak heads would have been salted and set up outside the gates. The shoulders of Rurik were bent by shame and he walked slowly like an ailing ox."

  So said Lali, fiercely, delighting in the shadow that passed over the brow of the young warrior.

  "If you would not share his fate, free me and go back to your fishing boats. There is time."

  "Time," mused Demid. "Aye, but little for what is to be done."

  "Yet enough, O youth," she added softly, "to serve the king of kings, whose memory is long—who can reward you with a province. A thousand emirs ride in his suite, and the Frankish kings bend low their heads to him. Only your cral stands apart from the court," she added, "chained."

  Lali laughed under her breath, seeing Demid turn to a couch and sit down, holding his head in his hands. She was quite surprised when he remarked presently that she should fetch food and set it before him. Even her forehead flushed at the command.

  "I, to serve a boar of the steppe! I, who go to the pasha of a kingdom? What words are these words?"

  "A command, Lali."

  Togrukh or Balaban could have told the girl that the Cossack had a habit of never repeating an order; nor, once given, did he change the order. Experience had taught them the value of obeying Demid at once, and discussing the wherefore later. But Lali had come from a narrow world where her sisters were mistresses of numberless slaves. Slaves themselves, they often ruled the Moslem men through beguilement and flattery.

  In the world of this child, the person of Mustapha and all that belonged to him was sacred. She had her share of the instinctive wisdom of her race and sex where men were concerned, and had decided against flattering Demid. Moreover, she had the pride of her birth.

  "I will not. You will be torn in pieces."

  "First, Lali, bring that tabouret and set out whatsoever you have."

  The girl grew quiet, staring round-eyed at the motionless Cossack.

  "If I do not?"

  Demid looked up.

  "I will bind you, little song-bird, and put you through yonder port. Once the sea embraces you, there will be no more song."

  He meant what he said, Lali decided at once. In her unfledged spirit there was no great fear of death. What was ordained would come to pass, and not even a favorite of the palace could outwit the Severer of Society, the Ender of Days. Even before she had been taught by the instructors of the seraglio to walk with the swaying step of a gazelle, or to sing, lowvoiced, she had seen women led away to be strangled, and once a sultana had been poisoned at her side during a feast. But the sea!

  Lali shivered, and glanced at the curtain behind which she knew the negroes were standing. Little use to call them, now, when the Cossack had his sword. She thrust forward the tabouret with a slippered foot.

  She wondered if she was finding favor in the eyes of the chief. It was possible. So Lali changed visibly. She rolled up sleeves, disclosing slender arms bearing the finest of bracelets, and went briskly to work fetching sugared fruits and rice and saffron and bowls of preserves from the cabinet that served as a larder.

  Demid eyed the array of dishes with disgust, and she made a sign ordering one of the negroes to go for wine.

  "Bid the other," suggested the warrior, "draw back the curtain. Let him summon hither some of my men and also the galley slaves."

  "Fool," she whispered, "would you have them set eyes on me?"

  As Demid made no further remark she concluded reluctantly that he meant what he said.

  In a moment there came trooping to the lattice bearded Cossacks, weapon in hand, and gaunt, shambling figures reeking of sweat and wine. They thrust aside the blacks and pressed close to the openings. As a swift current draws flotsam upon a stream, the singing girl drew their eyes.

  "This captive," said Demid, putting his hand on the girl's arm, "is mine. If any of you venture to the lattice again, a ball in the forehead. Have you heard?"

  "We hear, father!" cried the Cossacks, who stood erect, arms at their side.

  As they were trooping away Ayub came swaggering up, his duties on the upper deck at an end. He sniffed at the negroes; then his glance wandered through the lattice and his jaw dropped when he beheld Demid at ease on the couch, emptying the goblet of wine.

  "Oho!" he roared, thrusting his great head through the aperture, "Sultan Demid, it is! May the-fly away with me, but I thought your sconce

  had been cracked by a scimitar, so long were you below. Aye, that would

  have been better than this, for your wits would not be covered up by a petticoat."

  A smile curved Demid's thin lips. Ayub had a deep conviction that all women were witches—the more beautiful, the more dangerous.

  "You will be safe from my men who have seen that you serve me," he said gravely to the flushed girl. "Meanwhile, consider this, Lali. Our road leads to Aleppo, and thither we will take you. You have a mind to stratagems, so beat your wings against the cage, if you wish, but do not forget that you must please Sidi Ahmad, or the sultan's gift would be vain."

  Lali bowed, deeply puzzled.

  "When will my lord visit his slave again?"

  "When the slave summons the boar of the steppe."

  The curtain fell behind him and though Lali ran to it and listened she could not make out what the Cossacks said to each other. She contemplated the untouched dainties, frowning. Then tripped to an ivory chest and drew out from a pile of garments a mirror of burnished bronze.

  Glancing around to be sure that she was unobserved, she snatched the veil from her cheeks and stared at the image in the mirror—at the delicately moulded cheeks, the fair, white throat and the lips that had been termed rose-petals by her women. She pushed back the strands of dark hair, to see the better.

  Lali had believed in her soul and her women had assured her that the first man to look upon her unveiled would become her slave. And the Cossack had not so much as touched the veil.

  "Have you eaten opium? Has a vampire settled upon you and sucked your brain dry?"

  Ayub walked around his comrade and contemplated him from all sides with the greatest amazement.

  "Did I hear you say you would take that peacock to—Aleppo?"

  "You heard."

  Ayub's head had room within for only one idea at a time. Now he scratched his skull with stubby fingers, caked
with dried blood.

  "With the Don Cossacks? With me?"

  "You will have her under your care, for she is valuable to me."

  The big Cossack crossed himself and breathed heavily.

  "I would rather shepherd yonder turtledoves of the rovers' benches. Nay, kunak, in what way have I crossed you? Has the young witch begun to make play with you already—like a fish on a line? Hearken, Demid,

  I was with Rurik when he stormed a galleon of Constantinople in other days, and when he found a nest of these Turkish girls in the hold, he weighted them down with shot and dropped them over the side. That is the best way."

  "Nay, kunak, she is our passport to Aleppo."

  That night Ayub in common with the other Cossacks drank heavily, for Demid had given leave. But, though he sought enlightenment in wine, he did not grasp what Demid had in mind. How could a woman serve as a safe-conduct? His experience had been otherwise.

  "It cannot be," he remarked after long brooding to Togrukh. "If she had been a horse, that would be well, because a horse can be managed even at sea, and, besides, is worth more than a woman. Even our ataman cannot make any good come out of a woman on a journey."

  The sergeant sighed and moistened his mustache in a nuggin of mead. He was a melancholy man, and he had troubles enough, at present.

  "If the Father says she will be a passport, she will be."

  "A passport to purgatory!" Ayub snorted. "Your horse has more intelligence than you, Togrukh, because he shies at a petticoat. I say the girl is a witch! If you say otherwise I will pound you."

  Togrukh sighed again.

  "Then, ataman, let us drink to the witch."

  "Well, this is rare good mead: there is sense in you, sergeant, if a man digs enough to get at it. Let us drink to the witch."

  1

  To make the salaam, in oriental fashion.

  V

  The ways of the sea are blind ways; whosoever follows them knoweth not the end of the road.

  The caravansary of the sea is a place of sleep; whosoever sleepeth within it is not seen again of his fellows.

  Arab proverb

  The Cossacks had learned by long experience on the road to make the most of whatever came to hand. Being skilled carpenters, they were able to remove the central bridge and build horse-pens around the main mast, sufficient for two dozen ponies. This done, they set up larger water-butts at the break of the poop.

  Embarking the horses was a problem. Ayub built with the timbers taken from the galley a narrow jetty at the deepest point of the shore and the vessel was brought up to this during a calm.

  The rowers' benches were rearranged—half a dozen before the horses, as many behind. Three men were put to an oar instead of two, the captured janissaries near the poop on which the Don Cossacks quartered themselves.

  Balaban shook his head.

  "If we run into a storm, the horses will break loose and bring terror among the rowers. The galley will steer badly, and how is the sail to be lowered?"

  "That is your affair," pointed out Ayub. "What would we do without horses when we set foot in Asia?"

  "They will die of thirst before then, because the water will suffice only for a week. Your chief has ordered me to strike out across the main sea instead of coasting. It is a hundred leagues to the southern shore—eight days sailing if the wind holds fair. But what if we have a bonanza, a dead calm? Take thought of this: the oars will not drive the galley against a head wind, nay, nor a crosswind."

  Fortunately the galley was well stocked with foodstuffs, and in the sleeping compartment of the dead reis they found an astrolabe, and an old Venetian compass. No charts, however, were discovered and when they shipped the anchor and set out from the half-moon bay, they were forced to rely on Ayub's knowledge of the coast line, and Balaban's reckoning.

  The surviving Christian captives—Greeks, Genoese, Spaniards, with a smattering of French and Dutch—pulled willingly, for Demid had promised that once the Asian shore was reached, the galley and all in it would belong to them. They preferred to take their chances in some trading port of the southern shore, rather than land on the bleak Tatar steppe off which the fight had taken place. Moreover their toil was lightened because now they rowed in shifts, and as they labored, their eyes dwelt gleefully on the naked backs of the janissaries once their masters, now chained to the benches.

  In such fashion did El Riman, the swift galley, set out to sea.

  "Faith," grinned Michael, casting his eye down the deck, "'tis Jason and his Argonauts, come to life again."

  Leaning his weight on one of the long steering-oars—he and Ostrog shared this duty with Ayub who alone of the Cossacks had voyaged on a galley—he bethought him of the saga of Jason and his men, the first of the adventurers of the sea.

  Surely, the Argonauts had been the first to come into this sea, and they, too, had steered for Asia and the court of an unknown king.

  "If we had a Medea aboard, now," Michael meditated, following his whim, "the company would be complete. Aye, we have no sorceress."

  Now it happened then, the day being fair, and the sun warm, Lali in her cabin below was minded to song. The thin note of her guitar seemed to come from the water itself, and the voice of the girl rose clearly to the listening men.

  It was a love song of Persia, wild and plaintive. Hearing it, the man who had been sounding the drum to time the stroke of the oars ceased his efforts, and the Cossacks who had been washing out their wounds with salt water lifted their heads.

  The rush of water and the creaking of the oars did not drown the voice of Lali. The song deepened, sounding the ring of weapons, the thudding of horses' hoofs, and mellowed to a note of grief, dwindling so that long after she had ceased the warriors strained their ears to catch her voice.

  The eyes of the ataman, Demid, sweeping the stretch of gray water, were moody. He was thinking of the steppe, the homeland of the Cossacks, and of another voice. So Ileana, the granddaughter of Rurik, had sung to him when he was weary.

  Michael, who alone of the ship's company had known nothing of Lali, gripped his oar hard.

  "Medea! Child of Aetes, and mistress of the black arts! By the blessed saints, what other woman aboard this vessel would have a song in her heart?"

  The whim seized him again. Here were the Argonauts and he was one of them. They were in search of the Golden Fleece. He wondered what they would find.

  "In the name of the Horned One!" The harsh voice of Balaban bellowed at him. "Would you drive us upon the rocks?"

  Glancing over the rail, Michael thrust on the sweep, straightening the galley on its course. The drum resumed its beat, but the older Cossacks shook their heads sagely. This singing girl to them was an omen of evil fortune.

  During the next week their uneasiness grew. While Balaban was clearly heading south by southeast—between the signs of Sirocco and Levant on the ancient compass—they raised land continually on the port bow. When they should have been, to the best of their knowledge, out in the

  open sea, they encountered numerous sails passing along the bare headlands of this strange coast.

  The aspect of it was not familiar to Ayub, but Balaban, after questioning some of the Genoese, announced that they were passing along the peninsular of the Krim Tatars.1 Several of the passing vessels were flying the Turkish colors, but Demid kept his distance from them, and no effort was made to speak the galley. He made several attempts to find water along the coast, and was at last successful.

  This replenished the water-butts, and Balaban assured them that only some seventy leagues remained to be covered, across the main sea. Ostrog pointed to the sunset that evening—a red glow, centered in drifting cloud banks.

  "A wind on the morrow," he said to Balaban.

  "Aye, wind."

  "Surely we must put in to shore and drop anchor."

  "Nay, the Falcon will not." Balaban shrugged.

  "A falcon is at home on the land; he is not a gull. Bah!"

  Oaths flowed from t
he thick lips of the seaman.

  "Aye, pray if you will. It is the hour of the namaz gar, the evening prayer."

  Balaban pointed to the rows of Moslem warriors who were kneeling, facing the east, and going through the motions of washing.

  "The wench brings us ill fortune."

  "What will be, will be. My luck still holds."

  The Levantine gave the order to pull away from the lee shore. Two men were sent up the mast to the spar, and the great triangular sail loosed its folds for the first time. But Balaban did not yet make fast the lower corner, to which the sheet was attached.

  Clouds rose higher against the stars. The glow of a lanthorn fell on the bronze disc of the compass, over which, in the shadows, Demid stood. The surface of the waters was dull and oily, and the galley rolled, so that the Cossacks could not sleep.

  Still the oars creaked, as exhausted men pulled in time to the monotone of the drum. It was hard work, for the swells were running strong,

  but the slaves knew the danger of a lee shore. From time to time a cold breath of air came from the northwest.

  "The sea is restless," muttered the Cossacks.

  "Soon it will begin to prance and then you will know sorrow," spoke up Ayub from the darkness.

  Suddenly the sail snapped, as if a giant had cracked invisible fingers. The stays hummed, and the galley leaned to port, ceasing its rolling. Bal-aban had made the sheet fast.

  "Lash the oars with the blades aft!" he shouted.

  The slaves, expecting this command, hastened to obey, and shouted with relief when the two banks of oars were secured and their labor at an end.

  The bonanza had ceased and the wind had come. The galley, deep of keel and slender of beam, rushed ahead through the darkness like a fish-hawk, skimming the surface of the waters, ready to rise into the air.

  By the next evening the wind had risen to a gale. Balaban, glancing to the north with the last of the light, ordered the oars inboard and lashed to the rail. White gleamed on the crest of the swells, and a roaring was in the air. Foam flecked the faces of the men and spray, dashed up by the prow, drenched the chilled bodies of the rowers, stretched on their benches.