Riders of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  But no ululation of lament was to be heard. The doors of house walls were closed and within them ten thousand Moslems, men, women and children, awaited with the savage resignation of their race whatever fate would hold in store. Resistance had ceased, because the Turk, once defeated, is abject until the tables are turned. The fronts of the rug sellers' and the goldsmiths' stalls were open and the long coats and the red-topped kal-paks of the Christian warriors were to be seen passing into the shops and coming out laden with plunder.

  No more than a hundred Cossacks kept the saddle, but this hundred, riding through the streets, mocked at the concealed ten thousand, calling on them in vain to come forth with weapons.

  Light of the World was not a Turk but a Persian—mistress of wiles and beguilement, child of passion—one of the favorite slaves of mighty Arap Muhammad Khan, who trusted her so fully that he left her to watch over the treasure, the fruits of years of plundering, the earnings of his sword. Arap Muhammad Khan had taken all his six sons to Khiva, and his mir-zas and begs to watch over them, to be very sure that they did not set about raising hordes of their own and slaying him.

  To have taken his treasure with him to the lower river would have been to tempt his chiefs and his sons too greatly. And then, too, if he had been called upon to mount the saddle of war and strike into the desert to punish or to pillage the roving Tatar khans or the cities of the Persians, he would have had no place to leave his treasure.

  And the riches hidden in the ivory caskets were as his sword-arm to Arap Muhammad Khan, Lion of Islam, the Glory and Protection of the Faithful, the Jewel in the Shield of Allah and many other things.

  The fortress of Urgench had never been taken by the foes of the Turkoman khans. Moreover the khan had left Nur-ed-din to guard his hoard and he trusted her; the mirza in command he trusted less—he of the heron feather—but Arap Muhammad Khan held the only son of the mirza hostage in his own tent.

  All these matters passed through the agile mind of Nur-ed-din as she moved about the fountain room, like a woman bereft of all thought, taking up a wooden henna pencil, and making marks on a bit of rice paper no larger than her tinted thumb-nail.

  She made red scrolls and curlicues that looked aimless but were Turkish words. Tossing away the pointed stick, she crumpled the scrap of paper in her small fist and groaned.

  Dog-Face and Kirdy and a Cossack who had been nicknamed Witless had lingered to look out on the streets. Feeling thirsty, Dog-Face thrust his head into the fountain and drank. His eye lighting on a discarded hammer, he smashed the delicate marble figure of the fountain, and when Nur-ed-din groaned, he stared at her, at first savagely, then admiringly. Demid and the leaders had gone off with the treasure, and Dog-Face was minded to amuse himself. Witless was casting his lariat at the heads of the eunuchs, chuckling when their enormous, high hats fell off.

  "Can you speak with this tiger-eyed lass, Kirdy?" he asked. "Good! Then bid her wait on me, ouchar. Bid her to bring wine at once."

  Nur-ed-din spoke to a woman, and the wine was brought in generous jugs. Dog-Face sniffed at it tentatively.

  "Well, the little father said we were not to guzzle while we were on the march. Devil take me, we've been on the dorogou, on the road for two months." He poured a little expertly into the palm of a callused hand and tried it. "May the dogs bite me if it isn't wine of Shiraz. It's against the law of these accursed Moslems to drink such—the book of their prophet forbids them to take a drop of it. And the sons of jackals pour out a drop from a jug and pour the rest down their gullets saying, by ——, they are not drinking a drop but a jug."

  Witless came over, drawing his cup out of his girdle bag and wiping his mustaches. They drank each other's health, and other toasts until the jar was empty to the dregs. Then, when Dog-Face called for more, Nur-ed-din spoke swiftly.

  "So she will pay us to turn her loose!" muttered the short Cossack, when Kirdy translated. "Well, let's see what she has hidden away first."

  Although she was venturing from the women's quarters, Light of the World did not put on her veil. She led the three Cossacks down to a small court shaded by pomegranate trees and lined with wicker cages and dove cotes.

  At her approach the pigeons fluttered up and circled around her head, and Kirdy saw that they knew her. Going to one of the wicker cages she opened the narrow door and thrust in her arm while Dog-Face and his mate came closer to stare curiously.

  Suddenly drawing out her hand she tossed a splendid blue pigeon into the air. It darted above the trees, circled once, and shot away to the south.

  And as Kirdy watched it, he cried out. "That is a messenger pigeon, sir brothers!"

  "A dove is not a hawk," growled Dog-Face. "What message can it give?"

  At the court of the Moghul Kirdy had seen strong-winged pigeons bred in one place and then carried many days' ride in such wicker cages, and he knew that tiny bits of paper were put into silver tubes on the claws of the birds, so that when they flew back to their home the written message went with them.

  The blue pigeon had darted away toward Khiva and he remembered now that Nur-ed-din had written on paper with a henna pencil.

  When he explained this to Dog-Face the Cossack scratched his head. "What harm, ouchar? Arap Muhammad Khan will know in any case that his nest has been shaken down."

  "Nay, the harm is this. Khiva lies three days' ride to the south. We have guarded the gates and the wall. Some Turkomans have escaped on foot, no doubt. But three or four days must pass before they could reach the khan. This bird will come to earth at Khiva before the sun goes down this day."

  The veteran Cossack was silent a moment; then he groaned and beat clenched fists against his head. "Allah! Then we have but four days and not seven before the Turkomans ride up."

  Kirdy grasped the woman's wrist, and the beat of her pulse was steady under his fingers.

  "Did the pigeon carry thy message, O light-of-tongue?"

  Her shrill laugh taunted him. "Nay, call it back and learn for thyself, O slow-of-wit!"

  For a while Kirdy watched the sky, hoping vainly that the pigeon might circle back to the castle. Dog-Face bowed his head in thought, his gnarled hands gripped in the breast of his coat.

  "Where is the treasure the woman promised us?" asked Witless, who had been wandering around the court.

  "Come!" cried Dog-Face harshly, catching him by the sleeve. "The brothers did not name me well. They should have given me your name. We must go and beat the forehead before the little father."

  "But father Demid has no treasure for us."

  Dog-Face stared at the stupid warrior grimly. "He will have presents for us, no doubt of that. If he does not sharpen a stake he will give us ropes and horses to pull our bones loose. Allah! Nay, do not come with us, Kirdy. This was none of your doing—watch that she-djinn, so that she makes no more enchantment."

  Nur-ed-din saw him point at her and guessed at what he had said. When the older warriors stamped out of the courtyard with the swaying gait of riders more at home in the saddle than on the earth, she came close to Kirdy and smiled up at him.

  "Tamen shad! So it is thy task to take the life of Nur-ed-din?"

  For the youth had drawn the heavy curved blade given him by Khlit, and his lips and eyes were resolute.

  "Is there faith in thee, O warrior of two swords?"

  "Aye," he muttered, stepping back, "Cossack faith, which binds brother to brother, and casts out the traitor and the coward. That is our faith."

  "Surely thou art the son of a chief. Grant to Nur-ed-din a moment for prayer and the last ablution, required by the faithful of Islam."

  "A moment—aye."

  The woman glanced at the courtyard wall where no water jar or even sand was to be found. Obediently she knelt and went through the motions of washing her hands and head—even drawing off her slippers to run her fingers over the slim white feet.

  The sunlight, striking through the trees on her arms, dazzled him as he followed the swift and supple movements.
The growing warmth made him conscious of the rose scent in the woman's mass of dark hair. When her arms fell to her sides and she straightened on her knees the sword trembled in his hand.

  "Strike swiftly, O chief's son," she whispered. "Nay, shall I close my eyes—so?"

  Not without a purpose had Nur-ed-din discarded her veil, and now the long lashes fell on silken cheeks. The black robe had dropped from her shoulders and under the tight velvet vest her breast swelled and sank. Her lips drooped pitifully.

  Kirdy raised the sword that seemed heavy as an iron sledge. Then he thought that if he closed his eyes it would be easier to strike the steel into her. But with his eyes shut he could not use the point of his sword, and the edge might maim instead of killing her—

  Through long lashes the eyes of Nur-ed-din fastened to his tense face, and now she held her breath, white teeth sunk in a crimson lip.

  "Nay," he cried hoarsely, "I have never slain a woman. I—"

  Unsteadily, he sheathed his sword and led her into the castle, seeking until he found a tower room that had a door with a lock and a key in the lock. Thrusting her within, he turned the key and put it in his girdle, and as he strode away, angry with himself, he heard Nur-ed-din weeping, whimpering softly like a child that has been harshly used.

  Without heeding the growing stiffness in his side, Kirdy hastened to the courtyard and the main gate where the Cossacks on guard could tell him nothing of Demid except that the ataman was in the saddle. Here he found Dog-Face and Witless awaiting the return of their leader and fortifying themselves with a wine jar against the hour of confession.

  "The little father will be wild," they cried. "Eh, it will go bad with us. We were set as a guard over that houri and she treated us as a fox treats dogs."

  They were fast becoming maudlin, and might fall asleep any moment. They had been without sleep for forty-two hours as had Kirdy himself and he could not remember when Demid had been in his blankets last. So Kirdy resolved to find the ataman and tell him of the message Nur-ed-din had sent.

  He asked for Khlit, and was told that the old Cossack had raided the castle stable and led out three of the khan's best horses. Arabs crossed with the hardy Turkoman stock—desert beasts, fit for a prince! He had been seen at dawn riding out of the southern gate with Shamaki.

  Wandering downhill, Kirdy entered the widest street that ran through the bazaar quarter, and halted at sight of an imposing entourage moving toward him. Four negroes trudged under the burden of an open litter, over which two Moslem slaves held a splendid canopy fringed with peacock plumes. Behind it, their long skirts trailing in the dust, followed two palace eunuchs bearing a mighty sword.

  In the litter on cloth-of-silver pillows reclined Ayub, and Kirdy, in spite of his anxiety, grinned at the sight.

  "What do you say?" growled the big Zaporogian when the boy hastened to tell him of the carrier pigeon and the word that must have gone to Arap Muhammad Khan. "Well, so much the better. Let the khan come—we will cut him open like a hare. His fine horses won't leap these walls."

  More than one cup had Ayub kissed that morning, but in reality he was quite indifferent to the danger from the horde at Khiva, nor did he pause to consider that there were hundreds of armed Moslems within Urgench as well as without.

  "Kirdy, my lad," he said gravely, "they who take up the sword will perish by the sword."

  He did consent to go in search of the ataman but he would not part with his miniature court. Sighting two scowling Usbeks in a gateway, he impressed them as cup-bearers and sent the eunuchs for jars of red wine for them to carry. This accomplished, it suited his pleasure to stop every Moslem he met and force him to drink a cup. Ayub was suffering a bit from his arm, which had been set and bound roughly in splints, but he was bent on enjoying himself.

  "Only listen!" He halted his bearers at the steps of a mosque and nudged Kirdy. "May the dogs bite me if the sir brothers aren't dancing in there. 'Ahoun!" He shouted at his followers to enter the mosque and they did so with an ill grace but with sufficient respect for the brace of long pistols that the Cossack had placed beside him on the litter, ready primed.

  The pillared outer court was empty but in the central chamber a fire had been kindled from the leaves of the reader's Koran, and the carved wooden stand that held it. Around this fire were dancing men who moved clumsily enough until spurred on by a snap of a long Cossack riding whip. They were the Moslem imams or elders, and they were being taught to dance the kosaka.

  "Hi, kunaks," shouted Ayub, well pleased. "Lay on with the whips! Wait, give the old gamesters a chance to wet down their gullets."

  "It's Ayub, the Zaporogian," the warriors exclaimed, and bade the one who held a balalaika cease playing. The tired elders rolled their eyes but Kirdy did not think they were loath to empty the cups that the Usbeks passed around to them.

  "We won't drink with the prophet's dogs!" cried the warriors. "But we'll drink to Ayub and Kirdy. Health to you, kunaks!"

  They seized the jars and took long gulps, and, forgetting their victims, fell to discussing the treasure that had been found in the castle, and to relating their deeds in the assault while Kirdy paced by the entrance restlessly, looking at the towering marble walls, the mosaic dome, and the gold lettering that ran around the base of the dome—at the artistry and splendor of Islam which the other warriors heeded as little as the smoke-blackened wool of a Tatar tent.

  "God knows where the ataman is," an essaul assured him, "but I saw Makshim in the hammam."

  "In the bath?" Ayub laughed. "That will be worth seeing. Come, ye tigers of Urgench—to the hammam!"

  Here in a building not less splendid than the mosque, they searched through vacant, tiled chambers, until the air grew suddenly warmer and they came upon the shirt of the kuren ataman hung up to dry, and a moment later Makshim himself seated on a stone bench in a marble room where a tank of warm water gleamed under a lofty dome of colored glass.

  The squadron leader was stripped except for a single towel and he held his sword across his knees. Behind him a Cossack warrior leaned on a lance, looking disgusted with the proceedings.

  A black slave was shaving the kuren ataman, while another washed his feet in an alabaster basin. Both were trembling, and Kirdy saw under the clear water of the tank the body of a third.

  When they had exchanged greetings, Ayub asked how Makshim liked the bath—whether it had been painful or pleasant.

  "Both, Ayub. I have not their speech, so I made signs that they should do with me as with the Turkish princes who come to this place. These black dogs took off my clothes and one washed my shirt, which was all very well. They poured jars of hot and cold water over me, and then the one that lies down there took my arms and legs and cracked the joints. Hai-a—I swore at him but he did not understand. He stretched me out on the marble and, by the saints, he began to dance on me with his bare feet. The jackal, here, pushed him into the pool with a spear. But for the rest, 'tis pleasant enough."

  "Hard to believe!" Ayub shook his head in wonderment. "That the dogs of Moslems wash their skins in a place finer than the church of Saint Vasili the Blessed. That their princes permit these slaves to stamp on them. But put on your shirt, Makshim. A plunge in a foaming river is a bath good enough even for the ataman of all the Cossacks—and you ought to go and find Demid. Kirdy has some news for him."

  "A carrier pigeon was tossed up from the castle and flew south at dawn!" cried the young warrior.

  Makshim's brows drew down and he gripped his sword tightly. "Then we have not a day to waste!" He shrugged powerful shoulders and the familiar, mocking smile touched his lips. "Eh, fledgling, my counsel was best, after all. We are trapped in Urgench."

  He pointed his sword tip at the black body under the green water. "Soon we shall be no more than that. Why is it so? Nay, the Donskoi are reveling—they have not their fill of spoil—and two days must pass before they are ready for the road, or the horses are fit to go into the desert."

  "Yei Bogu," grunted the
big Zaporogian, "by-the brothers will not

  flee from any khan."

  Makshim merely raised his dark brows, and began to hum a Polish love song under his breath.

  From the bath Kirdy ran to the castle, the blood throbbing in his temples from weariness. The Cossacks on guard told him that Demid had just come in and had thrown himself down to sleep at once. Kirdy pushed past them and found the young ataman stretched out in his shirtsleeves on a tiger skin under a round window where a breath of air relieved the intolerable heat between walls.

  Demid opened his eyes when the boy knelt beside him, and listened without change of expression while Kirdy poured out the story of the pigeon.

  "No blame to you," he said at last. "The other two had orders to guard the woman."

  "Nay, they knew not that carrier pigeons could bear a message from the castle."

  Locking his hands beneath his head, Demid smiled and his gray eyes were friendly. "And did they know the trickery that lies in a woman's tongue? Did you? What now?"

  "Little father, I am troubled. The kuren ataman, Makshim, said that two days must pass before the Cossacks and their horses can take the road. We will be caught in Urgench, and the Moslems within the walls will rise against us—"

  Demid ceased smiling and looked at the boy gravely. "Some day, little brother, you will be the leader, not of a squadron but of a horde. You are fearless and your thoughts go out to the dangers that lie ahead. But before that day comes you will see many things. Now, sleep!"

  He turned on his side, adding: "Khlit is in command of the outposts; his quarters are in the red stone house nearest the bazaar gate. Ivashka watches the treasure—go there."

  With the last word he was breathing deeply again, and Kirdy felt that his trouble had been lightened. Moving away quietly he walked through the torrid glare of the street to the small house where he saw some fine black ponies tethered and Ivashko with several others sitting smoking.