Riders of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  "Eh, that's bad," nodded Ayub seriously. "That's an omen, wench, and not to be spit upon. When your horse stumbles, look out, because you'll meet woe. If you hear vampires crying in the trees a woman will steal your purse or Jews get you in debt. That's the way of it. Well, here's health to the tsar, Ivan the Terrible!"

  Leaning closer, the tavern-keeper clutched at his glass. "Nay, where have you been, good sir, that you do not know? The great Ivan lies in his shroud these long years and Boris Godunov is tsar."

  To Ayub who only knew the tsar as the ruler of the Northern folk— merchants, nobles, and soldiery—this mattered not at all. All his attention was centered in assuaging a month's old thirst, while his two companions were drinking sparingly. For years they had lived in the saddle on the steppes of Asia and they were wary of this great city with its triple walls, its caravan of the dead and its bells that only sounded a dirge, no matter how men pulled at the ropes.

  "Ivan Grodznoi was the friend of the Don Cossacks," assented Ayub presently. "God grant that this son of his, Boris, be the same."

  Hereat, the pinched lips of the woman opened in a sigh. "Along of the new tsar the curse came upon the land. I've heard tell that Boris is not the son of Ivan, only his councilor. Ivan was to him like a father. And then-the old Tsar Ivan had a son, my masters, a strong boy Dmitri. Now Boris Godunov sent the little Dmitri away to live on a distant estate and there a son of one of the okolnitchi slew the prince with a knife. Men say that the death of Dmitri lies at the door of Boris Godunov. But now he is tsar."

  Behind the taproom a tumult arose, and the woman started in sudden dread that changed to relief when she heard snarling, snapping and yelping of dogs and the shouts of men. Ayub's curiosity was aroused and he ceased to think of tsars and the curse that was upon Muscovy. He was lurching to his feet when the woman whispered again:

  "Ai-a, where are the noble lords going? Isn't the brandy good? Few taverns have such brandy, now. Besides, my daughter has not seen the noble lords. She's a fine girl, and I don't allow her to come down here for common folk to gaze on."

  She could not take her eyes from the heavy pouch that swung at Ayub's girdle.

  "Is she pretty, your daughter?" muttered the Zaporogian. "We'll come back and look at her then, the timid flower! Here!"

  He tossed gold ducats down on the table, to the value of several casks of brandy, and strode out the door, his silver heels sinking deep into the sand, and promptly forgot all about the tavern-keeper's girl.

  But the woman was before him at the door, bowing. "Ai-a, the noble princes are strangers—evil will assuredly happen to them if they go out in the streets. Thieves will take the splendid sword of the young hero."

  "God be with you, little mother!" Ayub grinned at the thought of vagabonds attempting to take Kirdy's scimitar, and folded his arms to gaze at the spectacle in the courtyard.

  A small black bear had been chained to a stake and a pack of dogs set on him. Behind the dogs, men lounged against the wagons, urging on the pack with cries, while the bear, growling deep in its throat, swayed from side to side, its muzzle foam-flecked and bloody. As the Cossacks watched, some soldiers appeared and one of them fired two pistols into the animal's head, while the others beat off the frantic dogs with cudgels and spear butts. Then they shouted for servants to skin the bear, and for the tavern people to start a fire going under the pot.

  "These be strange folk," observed Kirdy in his slow fashion when they had left the scene of the bear baiting. "For they will eat what the dogs have touched."

  "When you are made welcome among the Zaporogian Cossacks," growled Ayub, "you, too, will have a bear to deal with, little warrior. Every ouchai— every unfledged manling must do that. You will be given a wooden sword in place of that skull-smasher of yours. If you ask, the bear's claws will be clipped, but only the common sort ask that. You grasp your wooden saber and say a prayer and the bear is let loose. Then—cut, slash! You try to whack him where the spine joins the base of the skull; if you do, that lays him down; if you don't, your brother warriors pull you out feet first and no maiden will ever eat sunflower seeds with you again."

  Kirdy's dark face was impassive. He had been told by his grandfather of the Cossack war camps, where the warriors gave one another nicknames and reveled day and night. There the chosen heroes of the border were to be found—men who had put aside their past and lived only for war, who thought no more of cattle or wives but only of that last inevitable embrace to be bestowed by Mother Death.

  Eagerly he awaited the moment when he, who had been born in the steppes of Asia, could ride into the camp of his grandfather's people and try out his strength with the young warriors.

  Khlit, too, looked forward to that moment with all the keen anxiety of the aged. Too old himself to draw his sword with the Cossack brotherhood or to go on the raids across the border, he longed to see Kirdy taken in by his former companions. He hoped that the boy who had in his veins the blood of Mongol khans of the line of the great Genghis would win honor. But of this he said nothing to Ayub, who was a brave and seasoned warrior in spite of his boasting. Only by deeds, not words, could a youth like Kirdy win a nickname and honor among Cossacks.

  They had come north from the frontier at Ayub's request to greet the ataman Demid and his five hundred warriors of the Don. Khlit in his wisdom approved of this, because at Moscow was the tsar, and the Cossacks there might well be sent on an honorable mission, to make war on the Turks or Tatars across the border. And no Cossack youth would be received as an equal by the elder warriors until he had raided across the border.

  "The devil take this city!" grumbled Ayub. "It has not one street but a hundred. Who ever saw such a city!"

  Kirdy and Khlit, who had beheld the palaces of Herat and the great temples and crowded avenues of Delhi, nodded courteously and the three wandered on, going into more than one tavern and stopping before the doors of more than one church, but holding to their course until they came to a high wall of white stone with a serried summit. This they followed until a gate appeared and they learned that they were entering the Kremyl or citadel.

  Here they found no more taverns—only the barred gates of the Court enclosures where soldiers of the Imperial Guard were posted and through which equerries, dragomans and foreign officers came and went. When they asked for the Don Cossacks they were directed to an open space under the white wall.

  "Only think," Ayub grinned, "Demid, the falcon, is perched among the grandees."

  He swaggered off, arm in arm with his companions, taking the center of the passageways and turning the corners wide. At the top of his voice he chanted his favorite catch:

  Ho, my gretchen-girl!

  Hi, my lass!

  Ho, my Pretty pearl—

  Hi—

  He stopped abruptly, and Khlit grunted. They had rounded a turn and come full on the quarters of the Don Cossacks. In the trodden mud of an open square stakes had been driven to form three sides of an enclosure against the wall. The stakes were higher than a man could reach and a bare six inches apart. And the palisade lacked a roof, so that the sun beat down on the throng of men who were penned within it. Sentries bearing arquebuses paced outside the palisade.

  Chapter 2 Demid's Men

  It was true that the Tsar Ivan had taken the Don Cossacks under his protection and they had served well in his wars, though they admitted no chieftain except their own ataman. After Ivan's death the wars ceased and caravans began to appear, making their way beside the river Don to Astrakhan and the markets of Persia and Asia Minor. For a time the Donskoi tribesmen agreed to act as guards to these merchant caravans, but before long the unruly spirits of the Cossacks flared up, and fighting broke out between them and the Muscovites. An army was sent to discipline them and they made a stand against it, cutting up the Muscovites and driving them back.

  Under Boris Godunov a second expedition of picked infantry was sent to the Don and the ataman and five hundred prisoners were brought to Moscow.

 
This was the story Demid told Ayub, hanging his head for shame that he, an ataman of the siech, should be penned with his men like captured beasts for the multitude to stare at.

  "Not yours is the dishonor, Demid, kunak moi!" roared the big Zaporogian. "The dishonor is theirs who quartered you in mud where dogs would not lie down!"

  Demid smiled quizzically, his gray eyes lighting up. He was slighter than the three wanderers, with a down-curved nose that had given him the nickname of The Falcon. One sleeve of his coat hung empty and his injured arm was strapped to his chest by his belt.

  "Nay, do not bellow like a buffalo. In a fortnight my men are to be tortured and beheaded. I am to be hung up with the kuren atamans on hooks from a stake. The stake will be set on a raft and we will float on the river like condemned pirates."

  "By whose command!"

  "By order of Boris Godunov."

  Ayub beat his fists against his temples and ground his teeth, cursing his drunkenness and his long wandering in the steppe that had kept him in ignorance of the fate of his dearest friend. Kirdy stared at the Donskoi with puzzled eagerness. They were slender men for the most part, taller than the Muscovites and more restless. Many of them were wounded and some lay on cots improvised out of coats slung between logs. Others had their heads bandaged, and the shirts that had been used for bandages were black with hardened blood and dirt.

  But traces of plunder—whether from the caravans or across the bor-der—were visible in their long green sashes, and the gold brocade and sable trimming of their coats. Two were casting dice between the outstretched legs of one of the sleepers on the cots, and another with a burned stick was tracing on the white wall the words Ta nitchdgo—"It does not matter!"

  Ayub sighed heavily and bethought him of Khlit. "Here is the Wolf, who was Koshevoi Ataman before our mothers suckled us, Demid. I came upon him in the steppe, and as God sees me, we came hither in a dark hour."

  The wounded ataman flushed as he gripped Khlit's hand in the aperture between the stakes. "Health to you, brother," he said. "You can do no good here—though the minstrels have told many a time of the deeds you performed in other days. The tsar has ordered our death."

  "It is not an honorable death," growled Khlit.

  "We were born in pain," acknowledged Demid, "and we can face it again. But go hence with Ayub. You are not of the Donskoi, but you are a Cossack."

  Khlit's gray eyes peered at Ayub under his thatch of heavy brows and the Zaporogian shook his head.

  "That is impossible. You and the boy ride hence. I"—he thought for a moment with bent head—"I shall ask justice of the tsar."

  "But the tsar has already given justice," said Demid quickly.

  Ayub began to breathe heavily. "Then—the foul fiend take me—let us draw our blades and cut down the sentries."

  The Don Cossacks who had pressed close to greet the wanderers and to listen, shook their heads although their eyes glistened. "No such thing, Ayub—Would you then cut down these stakes?—Will you give us wings to fly over the three walls?—Will you sing, so that the Muscovite soldiery will be enraptured and forget that you are a Cossack?"

  "May the dogs bite you!" growled Ayub. "I've got out of worse places than this!"

  "The forehead to you, Ayub!" laughed a warrior with only one good eye. "Then you must have changed into a snake and crawled out. Go and tell the tsar one of your tales and he won't know what is true and what is false any longer. Only bring us brandy, if you can. And look out or the sentries will have you on this side of the stakes."

  In fact the arquebusiers were beginning to draw closer and an officer, aroused by the laughter, was approaching. The Don warrior who was writing on the wall, finished his Ta nitchdgo, and turned to say farewell. "It doesn't matter, sir brothers. Go with God."

  "With God!" echoed deep voices as the three wanderers made off before the Muscovites. They returned to the Kremyl gate and by mutual consent sought out the scanty plane trees of a monastery garden, deserted at this hour of sunset when the bells of Moscow echoed from the lofty towers. As the tavern woman had prophesied, the anthem of the bells was solemn, but they were not as grievous as the groans of the big Zaporogian.

  Demid, he said, was the falcon of the Cossacks; the young ataman had performed many a deed of glory, and once he had led a raid across the Black Sea and had entered the castle of Aleppo, bearing away with him the treasure of a sultan. Suddenly he smote the jingling purse at his hip and whispered to Khlit. "We have some gold left, old wolf. Let us go with it to the castle of the tsar and make presents to the guards and the nobles. The Muscovites love gold as swine love corn—thus we may gain audience with Boris Godunov."

  Hearing this, Kirdy glanced expectantly at his grandfather, who was no stranger to stratagems. The young warrior had nothing to propose himself. On the steppe, within sight of a foeman, his blood would quicken and his thoughts would be quick and keen; but he did not see how sword-strokes would avail to release the Don Cossacks, and he listened quietly to the discussion of the two older men.

  For a moment Khlit occupied himself with his pipe and his tobacco pouch. "The Muscovites are not our people, Ayub," he said bluntly.

  "But the gold—"

  "Is not enough. I have watched men come to the seat of kings, and those who came to ask favors were given little, while others who came to offer service were made welcome."

  "Devil take it! How could we serve this tsar?" Ayub had room in his mind for no more than one idea at a time.

  "With kings, favor is to be gained by pleasing them," went on the old Cossack. "Torture is a hard death and this must be a stern king."

  "What would you do?"

  "Nay, what can be done? Demid and his men are doomed, and yet"— Khlit glanced at the white wall of the citadel, gleaming softly red with the failing light. "Never have I seen an ataman perish in such fashion. Divide the ducats, take half to the palace if you will but give me the other half for brandy."

  For the next few hours Kirdy was left to himself and he squatted under the tree as motionless as one of the painted figures on the door of the monastery behind him. Hidden by the deep shadows of the garden, he watched the Muscovites change guard at the Kremyl gate. He saw the nobles come out, escorted by link-bearers and gaunt wolfhounds. He listened to the long-robed priests who, in their high hats, chatted and laughed very much as ordinary mortals after dinner. Kirdy had had no dinner, but his patience was limitless, and he felt more at ease out under the stars than penned within the walls of a building, for the Mongol strain in him made him shun houses.

  It was long after evening prayer when Ayub appeared, snorting and muttering.

  He had bribed a sentry at one of the entrances to let him inside the palace, only to find that he was in the kitchen. And he had handed over the rest of his gold to a man in a splendid uniform who proved to be a heyduke or officers' servant and had taunted him saying that all Cossacks were outlaws and masterless men and if one were found in the palace with a sword he would be chained to a stake; but in Ayub's case they would let him go free. And then the servants of the boyar had hustled him out.

  "Where the-is Khlit?" Ayub growled.

  "After the candles were lighted he came back from the bazaar. He had a jug and a new white shirt with embroidery on it, and a fine sash as long as a lariat. He left his sheepskin here and took with him only the jug and a new satin cloak."

  "Then the old dog has been drinking! He's been licking the jug as well as carrying it."

  "His beard was combed," Kirdy reported, "and smelled of musk."

  "He must be drunk. Some woman has been playing tricks with him. Well, no matter. The devil himself couldn't get into that palace through the chimney."

  Thoroughly disgruntled, Ayub wrapped himself up in Khlit's svitza and sprawled out to sleep, while Kirdy kept his silent watch, poking the big Zaporogian when men passed near enough to hear the warrior's vibrating snores.

  Chapter 3 The City on the Golden Sands

  When the last guests
had left the banquet hall of the Terem, Kholop the dwarf made the rounds of the tables, emptying down his capacious throat of the wine and mead that still remained in some of the goblets. More than once he stumbled over the form of a boyar who had rolled under the table, and then he bent down and grimaced until the servitors who lingered to watch him roared with laughter.

  One, who had been on duty at the outer door, approached the dwarf and bowed gravely. "Long life to you, Prince Kholop. 'Tis a pity your serene mightiness must drink your own health. So, here is long life to you."

  The palace attendant picked up a slender silver cup and tossed it off with a quirk of his lips, while the dwarf blinked at him.

  "Nay, here is a riddle, O most wise Prince Kholop. A batyushka—a grandfather has been hanging around the door asking which of the storytellers and buffoons is closest to the heart of the tsar."

  "I am!" replied Kholop instantly, straightening his white bearskin kaftan on his hunched shoulders, and spreading his stubby legs wide. "I am the favorite of Uncle Boris, and that is no riddle at all, but a fool's question."

  The servant wiped his lips, glanced around, and lowered his voice to a whisper. "Nay, your Uncle Boris seldom crosses your palm with silver. But the grandfather will give you a gold ducat if you will let him look at you."

  He did not add that he himself had been promised a full jug of brandy for his trouble. The dwarf followed him willingly enough and gazed expectantly at the tall man with the white beard who carried a staff as if more inclined to use it on other peoples' shoulders than to lean on it himself. "Now you've looked at me, grandfather, give me the ducat."

  Khlit surveyed the favorite of the tsar grimly and fumbled in his girdle. "You can have another, cousin, if you take me to your master."

  Kholop put his shaggy head on one side shrewdly and wrestled with temptation.

  "You look like a minstrel, batyushka," he said in his shrill voice, "but you are not blind. Let me see the coin."