by Harold Lamb
"Health to you, brother," said Ayub. "What company is this?"
Either the sentry did not understand or would not answer. He leaned on his spear, looking up at the Cossack sidewise, so that Ayub did not know if he were friendly or not. But inside the palisade were other men-at-arms and slaves sitting about the fires where quarters of sheep and joints of beef were roasting. Spears were stacked in the corners and rusted iron helmets lay beside some of the warriors. A line of carts, heavily loaded, stood by the stables. Some of the slaves wore wolf skins, but many were nearly naked. All of them stared at the horseman who had appeared in the gate—evidently they had never seen a Zaporogian Cossack in his regalia before.
At the doorway of the main building, a rambling one-story log structure, Ayub dismounted and found that an officer had come out to look at him—a black-browed giant who carried a whip and a battle ax.
"What fellow are you?" demanded the stranger, scowling. "Where are you from?"
Light dawned on Ayub. By his accent the captain of the warriors was a Muscovite, a Moskya in Cossack speech. So this company was from the northern towns, a long journey. What was it doing in the steppe?
"Are you the master here?" retorted Ayub who did not relish the other's surly tone. "Hey, Krivonos—Crooked Nose?"
For a moment the two warriors exchanged glances without the slightest change of expression, the impatient Cossack repressing a broad grin and the stalwart Muscovite wrestling with his own thoughts.
"How could I be master?" he responded. "My lord the prince is within."
Ayub had seen Muscovite merchants before, but never one of the grandees, though he had heard of their growing power. Tempted by curiosity and the smell of roast meats and fragrant wine, he thrust Crooked Nose aside and stalked into the log fortress.
The roof had fallen in long since and trees were growing within the ruins, but the tall grass had been trampled down and the debris of rafters had been heaped on two great fires. Tables had been built out of the timber, and at these tables sat thirty or forty men, some wearing mail that had once been gilded, others in long tabards with painted collars, their armor thrown carelessly underfoot.
Their leader, a young man, sat at the head of the higher table where the firelight struck full on his red-gold hair that hung to his shoulders, and his face as colorless as wax. His head, jutting forward as if he could not manage to hold it erect, was turned toward the Cossack who, cap in hand, bowed low, expecting an invitation to seat himself at one of the tables—perhaps to be offered a goblet of wine by the young lord. Such was the custom and the hospitality of the Zaporogians, who would never suffer a stranger to go unfed at mealtime.
Servitors in long blue coats ornamented with gilt braid, and wearing green slippers, glanced at him apathetically as they hurried about with flagons to fill the cups of the vassals.
A steward who wore a hat trimmed with sable and as high as a mina-ret—as Ayub thought admiringly—and who carried a staff came over to him and announced that His Illustriousness, the Prince Vladimir, was pleased to ask a question of the stranger, and Ayub bowed again, to his girdle, at the bench where the young lord was seated.
"You are wearing a sword, Cossack—such a sword!" observed Vladimir.
"Aye, noble sir," Ayub admitted, scenting a chance to tell one of his stories.
No other Cossack had a sword like this one, for he had taken it from a Walloon, and it was a two-handed affair, as heavy as a sheep and as long as a pike. Only a man of really great strength could make it whistle around his head, and Ayub wore it slung on his back.
"By your top-knot you are a Zaporogian. I warrant you are one of the hero-warriors they call bogatyr."
"Nay, God knows, your highness, no such luck is mine. In our siech only the wisest and most famous knights are given that title."
Ayub stared thoughtfully at the gold goblets on the white cloths, and the steaming platters. Before Vladimir a whole swan had been set, and two of the slaves were hard at work carving it. Many of the vassals had fallen asleep, overcome by the wine that stained their rich linen and damask. In one corner, where the prince's bed had been set up under a canopy, he saw several leather chests, and Ayub wondered what they contained. Either this was a wealthy lord, traveling in state, or a notable brigand. Truly a notable robber because a dozen boyars sat at his table—nobles who did not wear the iron collar of slavery.
"They drink like lords," he thought, admiringly. "Only they don't talk or sing at all—just drop off."
Struck by a sudden impulse, he turned again to the young noble who was watching the carving of the swan.
"Your pardon, kniaz grodny," he muttered, "but this is an ill place to camp for long. The frontier posts are far off—far off. You'll have Tatars around like bees."
One or two of the soberest vassals looked up at him angrily, but Vladimir laughed.
"What a dolt you are, Cossack! There are no Tatars on this bank of the Dnieper."
Ayub fancied that he must be jesting, until he looked into the vacant gray eyes.
"Noble sir, may I roast in a brazen ox, but this is not the river Dnieper. Nay, Father Dnieper lies a hundred leagues to the west. This is the Donetz, beyond the frontier."
One of the boyars, a gentleman in attendance on the prince, rose from his place and struck his fist on the table.
"How could this river be the Donetz?"
"Because it is, noble sir," responded Ayub bluntly. "God be my witness, I have slept in this dvortza many a time after shooting wild ducks in the reeds."
"You dolt!" The boyar ran his words together, being heavy in drink. "We cannot be beyond the frontier, because His Illustriousness, the Prince led us himself, taking no other guide, from his estates near Moscow over the devil knows how much accursed barren plains to this place. Here is the Dnieper, our destination. No doubt other Christians will come to greet us before long."
Ayub shook his head.
"Not other Christians, noble sir, but heretic Mohammedans will greet you. You will hear their shout—ghar-ghar-ghar! Then they will take your horses and cut you up like hares; that is how they will greet you."
The stout boyar blinked his good-natured, watery eyes and thrust both hands into his beard, looking at his lord for support in the argument. Instead, Vladimir saw fit to ask a question.
"You speak of the Tatar hordes, Cossack. Why do you think they will raid this place?"
"Because it is the month for them to come. When the snow melts and the steppe dries out enough for horses, noble sir, the Tatar comes across the line for cattle and prisoners to sell as slaves. You see, after the Winter they need beef and money. Later, when the harvests are being gotten in, we look for him again."
"Gospody batyushka!" said the young prince. "God save us! Would the Tatar hordes, think you, attack a hundred men in a walled place like this?"
"Well, not here perhaps."
The Cossack remembered that the tribesmen avoided the ruined castle.
"Why not here?" Vladimir pressed.
"Because this place—Sirog they call it—has some of their graves in
it."
Vladimir waited until the cup-bearer behind him had filled his goblet with foaming spirits before he answered, the shadow of a smile in his gray eyes:
"This is the Dnieper right enough. They all look alike, the rivers in this wilderness. You've got them mixed, that's all. Ah, what a splendid horse!"
Hearing a scuffling behind him, Ayub glanced over his shoulder. The Kabarda stallion, hungry and restive, had come through the door to look for his master—to be unsaddled and have the bit taken out of his mouth. On the rare occasions when he slept within walls, Ayub permitted the horse to share his quarters, to make sure that the stallion was comfortable and safe from thieves.
Tossing his small, lean head and avoiding the servitors and the fires, the stallion came up to Ayub, snuffling the back of his neck.
"Go along, you devilkin!" grunted Ayub, vastly pleased, nevertheless. "A wolf hunter, this!"<
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The prince had not taken his eyes off the Kabarda, and now he spoke a word to the cup-bearer, who offered Ayub the untasted goblet that had been on the table before Vladimir. Ayub stroked his mustache down, lifted the goblet in both hands and drank the health of the company, while the indolent glance of the prince dwelled on his long sword.
"Now go," said Vladimir, "look at the river again, and tell me if it is not the Dnieper."
After quaffing the heated spirits Ayub swaggered through the gate, accompanied by Crooked Nose. They went out of the palisade and the Cossack stared up at the towers, painted crimson by the glow of firelight. Then he studied the strip of gray that was the distant river.
"That is the Donetz," he observed decidedly. "What kind of a game is the young lord playing, eh, Crooked Nose?"
The man from the north seemed to be enveloped in impenetrable silence. Leaning on his battle ax, he loomed over the powerful frontiersman, his small eyes shifting from one thing to another.
"My name," he growled at length, "is not Crooked Nose. They call me Durak, the Idiot."
"They named you well," acknowledged Ayub, striding back to the fort. As he drew near the entrance he shouted suddenly:
"Look out for his heels—keep your hands off him, fools! Stand back!"
Some of the servitors who wore the iron collars about their necks had attempted to take the saddle off the stallion within the blockhouse. The horse was tossing his head and circling, and when his leather-shod hoofs lashed out, a luckless slave was knocked prone, his ribs crushed.
"Out of the way!" Ayub repeated impatiently to the dozen men-at-arms who had taken position in front of the door. Instead of stepping aside, they unsheathed their swords and lifted their shields. Stopping in his tracks, Ayub grunted and shaded his eyes to look into their faces.
"You may not go back," Durak cautioned him. "The lord prince has taken a fancy to your nag. Half a verst away is a settlement of your fellow Cossacks. Go thither and give thanks to the Saints that your skin hasn't been slit."
It did not enter his head to take the Muscovite's advice. Quick-tempered as the Kabarda that had carried him over the steppe trails for half a dozen years, Ayub was gripped by hot anger that left him quivering and snorting. His horse could be taken from him in only one fashion.
Reaching back over his right shoulder with both hands, he gripped the hilt of the heavy sword and pulled it clear. With the blade swinging in front of him in glittering circles he stepped forward. Two shields splintered under the edge of the sword and the Muscovites slipped apart, to run at him from the side.
But Ayub had been at hand blows too many times to be cut down in this fashion. Leaping to the right he knocked a man prone with the flat of the blade, and whistled shrilly.
The Kabarda answered the whistle instantly. Rearing and avoiding the hands that clutched at the rein, the horse galloped through the entrance, and no Muscovite had hardihood to stand in his way. With a final flourish of the long sword Ayub ran to the stallion, gripping the saddle horn with his left hand.
He crouched for the leap into the saddle, and something crashed down on his skull. Flames spread before his eyes, and he pitched forward. Nor did he feel the earth upon which he sprawled without consciousness. Durak had picked up a small log and had thrown it with all his strength at the Cossack.
II
Ayub was not long in coming to himself, because the blood on his neck had not dried yet. It was still dripping from his broken scalp, and he sat up, spitting it out savagely. His head hurt him and he swallowed a groan when he stood up, leaning on the sword that was still fast in one fist.
To take a man's horse—to set him afoot in that part of the steppe—was something beyond belief. To take a horse like the Kabarda stallion was a blacker crime, to Ayub's way of thinking, than to strip him naked. They had carried him a good way from the palisade. Possibly they had meant to toss him into the river but had found him too heavy to carry.
Better for them, perhaps, if they had. Because the Cossack had no intention of leaving Sirog until he had recovered his horse or settled the account.
He remembered that the man-at-arms, Durak, had said something about a camp near at hand, and he could see, in the half-light of a quarter moon, a road leading from the blockhouse off into the tall grass. Sheathing his sword, he began to walk away, cursing the weight of the heavy blade, his silver heels that were made to grip the stirrup, not the earth, and all Muscovites of past and future generations.
In a little while he came to the lights of a village. A cluster of wattle and daub huts stood around a log kortchma, a tavern, and a half-finished church. Farther off were sheep folds and cattle pens. It was plainly a frontier settlement, like a thousand others that had crawled out into the plain protected by Cossack outposts. But he did not understand what it was doing on the Donetz.
When he kicked open the tavern door a half dozen men stared at him apathetically. They had long, unkempt hair and hollow cheeks and were smaller in build than the Zaporogians. One wore the leather apron of a smith, and another, seated by the fire, was making a pair of shoes out of a strip of horsehide.
"Give me corn brandy—food—anything," he cried, and, seeing a bucket of water standing near the door, emptied it over his head. Wiping his eyes clear with his sleeve he moved toward the fire, noticing that a young fellow in a white svitza rose to make way for him.
When he had emptied the last bowl of gruel and had downed his fourth cup, he stretched his arms, rubbed his head and spread his legs out to the fire.
"Well, forgive me. God be with you, brothers, Cossacks! I had a little
rap on the dome up there at the castle—but who are you and what the-
are you doing in this place?"
To this the tavern-keeper, a dour man, and heavily bearded, made answer slowly.
"We saw that you had met with misfortune, good sir, but that is nothing strange in this country. Are you a Zaporogian?"
Ayub wrung the water out of his mustaches, and from the long scalp lock that hung down one shoulder.
"Don't you know a Zaporogian when you see one? Then you must have been born in a Jew's backyard—that's certain."
The tavern-keeper fingered his beard, and the others nodded understandingly.
"Aye, it's true that this fine knight is a Zaporogian. That's the way the warriors talk, on the border."
"We are town Cossacks," explained one. "From up Moscow way,-
knows how far. We built cottages there and worked at trades, near the castles of the great lords."
"Shapoval," thought Ayub, "workmen who take their hats off to everybody." Aloud he asked, with growing curiosity: "What are you doing here?"
The tavern-keeper, who was called Kukubenko by the others, sat down on a log and spat into the flames.
"We're here along of Prince Vladimir, noble knight. It happened like this: The illustrious prince was in disgrace at court because he angered the emperor himself in some way or other. So said the priest who is with us here. That is why the prince has let his hair grow long, to show he is in disgrace. Such is the custom up there. But Vladimir fears no man and even his wolfpack—for that is how he calls his boyars—take pains not to taunt him to his face."
"But what has that to do with you?"
"Ekh—the boyars up there and the emperor said that villages must be sent to settle on the border. Out on the plain here there are not enough villages, nor men to tend cattle and raise wheat. So the priest told us. And sure enough, we were ordered out into the steppe—all of our village. And His Illustriousness, the Prince, was ordered by the emperor, because of the crime he committed, to take his boyars and his vassals and go and protect us. Aye, to go into exile and not to show himself again until our village was settled."
"It angered him," spoke up another. "It's God's truth that he has been severe with us. We lost half the cattle on the way and the wolves took many of the sheep."
Ayub had heard of these colonists who were being sent out by the Mu
scovites to claim the new lands along the rivers, and had no great love for them. They turned the open steppe of the Cossacks into tilled land and grazing ground for their cattle.
"Do you know where you are?" he asked.
"Nay," responded Kukubenko. "This river is the Dnieper, isn't it?"
"Who told you that?"
"Durak, good sir."
"May the foul fiend fly away with Durak!" growled Ayub, clenching his hands on his knees.
Kukubenko glanced at the door in alarm, and hastened to talk of something else.
"This youth who crossed the river a little while ago says it is the Donetz. But after all, what does it matter. We are here."
"What youth?" demanded Ayub, and saw at once who they meant.
In the far corner was the boy who had given up his place at the fire to the warrior. He sat against the wall, Tatar fashion, a bandura—a three-stringed guitar—across his knees.
His white svitza was clean camel's hair, and his slender chest was covered with an embroidered vest. A wide, black velvet sash bound his middle from loins to upper ribs. But what drew Ayub's scrutiny was the boy's pantaloons, tucked into high slippers of soft leather. They were green.
Now green, among the Moslems, was a color only to be worn by the hadjis. A Christian having any green upon his person would, if he were captured by the Moslems on the border, be immediately tortured in a peculiarly unpleasant way. Ayub knew of one Cossack who had flaunted the forbidden color until he fell into the hands of the Tatars, who stripped the skin from his legs and feet and turned him loose on the steppe.
And Ayub thought that this stripling had donned green either because he was ignorant and reckless, or because he was at heart a Moslem, and if so, he was here for no good. Certainly the boy did not belong to the village. Even the Cossack maidens, who loved bright colors, did not wear green.
"You minstrel," he cried, "you with the guitar, what's your name?"
"Kirdy," the youth answered at once, without ceasing to run his fingers over the strings of the bandura.