Fire in the Steppe

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  On the broad square around the Sultan's court, which in luxury and wealth reminded the faithful of paradise, stood courts less splendid, but equal to those of kings,—those of the vizir, the ulema, the pasha of Anatolia, and of Kara Mustafa, the young kaimakan, on whom the eyes of the Sultan and all were turned as upon the coming "sun of war."

  Before the tents of the Padishah were to be seen the sacred guard of infantry, with turbans so lofty that the men wearing them seemed giants, They were armed with javelins fixed on long staffs, and short crooked swords. Their linen dwellings touched the dwellings of the Sultan. Farther on were the camps of the formidable janissaries armed with muskets and lances, forming the kernel of the Turkish power. Neither the German emperor nor the French king could boast of infantry equal in number and military accuracy. In wars with the Commonwealth the nations of the Sultan, more enervated in general, could not measure strength with cavalry in equal numbers, and only through an immense numerical preponderance did they crush and conquer. But the janissaries dared to meet even regular squadrons of cavalry. They roused terror in the whole Christian world, and even in Tsargrad itself. Frequently the Sultan trembled before such pretorians, and the chief aga of those "lambs" was one of the most important dignitaries in the Divan.

  After the janissaries came the spahis; after them the regular troops of the pashas, and farther on the common throng. All this camp had been for a number of months near Constantinople, waiting till its power should be completed by legions coming from the remotest parts of the Turkish dominions until the sun of spring should lighten the march to Lehistan by sucking out dampness from the earth.

  The sun, as if subject to the will of the Sultan, had shone brightly. From the beginning of April until May barely a few warm rains had moistened the meadows of Kuchunkaury; for the rest, the blue tent of God hung without a cloud over the tent of the Sultan. The gleams of day played on the white linen, on the turbans, on the many-colored caps, on the points of the helmets and banners and javelins, on the camp and the tents and the people and the herds, drowning all in a sea of bright light. In the evening on a clear sky shone the moon, unhidden by fog, and guarded quietly those thousands who under its emblem were marching to win more and more new lands; then it rose higher in the heaven, and grew pale before the light of the fires. But when the fires were gleaming in the whole immeasurable expanse, when the Arab infantry from Damascus and Aleppo, called "massala djilari," lighted green, red, yellow, and blue lamps at the tents of the Sultan and the vizir, it might seem that a tract of heaven had fallen to the earth, and that those were stars glittering and twinkling on the plain.

  Exemplary order and discipline reigned among those legions. The pashas bent to the will of the Sultan, like a reed in a storm; the army bent before them. Food was not wanting for men and herds. Everything was furnished in superabundance, everything in season. In exemplary order also were passed the hours of military exercise, of refreshment, of devotion. When the muezzins called to prayer from wooden towers, built in haste, the whole army turned to the East, each man stretched before himself a skin or a mat, and the entire army fell on its knees, like one man. At sight of that order and those restraints the hearts rose in the throngs, and their souls were filled with sure hope of victory.

  The Sultan, coming to the camp at the end of April, did not move at once on the march. He waited more than a month, so that the waters might dry; during that time he trained the army to camp life, exercised it, arranged it, received envoys, and dispensed justice under a purple canopy. The kasseka, his chief wife, accompanied him on this expedition, and with her too went a court resembling a dream of paradise.

  A gilded chariot bore the lady under a covering of purple silk; after it came other wagons and white Syrian camels, also covered with purple, bearing packs; houris and bayaderes sang songs to her on the road. When, wearied with the road, she was closing the silky lashes of her eyes, the sweet tones of soft instruments were heard at once, and they lulled her to sleep. During the heat of the day fans of peacock and ostrich feathers waved above her; priceless perfumes of the East burned before her tents in bowls from Hindostan. She was accompanied by all the treasures, wonders, and wealth that the Orient and the power of the Sultan could furnish,—houris, bayaderes, black eunuchs, pages beautiful as angels, Syrian camels, horses from the desert of Arabia; in a word, a whole retinue was glittering with brocade, cloth of silver and gold; it was gleaming like a rainbow from diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires. Nations fell prostrate before it, not daring to look at that face, which the Padishah alone had the right to see; and that retinue seemed to be either a supernatural vision or a reality, transferred by Allah himself from the world of visions and dream-illusions to the earth.

  But the sun warmed the world more and more, and at last days of heat came. On a certain evening, therefore, the banner was raised on a lofty pole before the Sultan's tent, and a cannon-shot informed the army and the people of the march to Lehistan. The great sacred drum sounded; all the others sounded; the shrill voices of pipes were heard; the pious, half-naked dervishes began to howl, and the river of people moved on in the night, to avoid the heat of the sun during daylight. But the army itself was to march only in a number of hours after the earliest signal. First of all went the tabor, then those pashas who provided food for the troops, then whole legions of handicraftsmen, who had to pitch tents, then herds of pack animals, then herds destined for slaughter. The march was to last six hours of that night and the following nights, and to be made in such order that when soldiers came to a halt they should always find food and a resting-place ready.

  When the time came at last for the army to move, the Sultan rode out on an eminence, so as to embrace with his eyes his whole power, and rejoice at the sight. With him were his vizir, the ulema, the young kaimakan, Kara Mustafa, the "rising sun of war," and a company of the infantry guard. The night was calm and clear; the moon shone brightly; and the Sultan might embrace with the eye all his legions, were it not that no eye of man could take them all in at once,—for on the march, though going closely together, they occupied many miles.

  Still he rejoiced in heart, and passing the beads of odorous sandal-wood through his fingers, raised his eyes to Heaven in thanks to Allah, who had made him lord of so many armies and so many nations. All at once, when the front of the tabor had pushed almost out of sight, he interrupted his prayer, and turning to the young kaimakan, Kara Mustafa, said,—

  "I have forgotten who marches in the vanguard?"

  "Light of paradise!" answered Kara Mustafa, "in the vanguard are the Lithuanian Tartars and the Cheremis; and thy dog Azya, son of Tugai Bey, is leading them."

  CHAPTER XLVII.

  Azya, the son of Tugai Bey, after a long halt on the plain of Kuchunkaury, was really marching with his men at the head of all the Turkish forces toward the boundary of the Commonwealth.

  After the grievous blow which his plans and his person had received from the valiant hand of Basia, a fortunate star seemed to shine on him anew. First of all, he had recovered. His beauty, it is true, was destroyed forever: one eye had trickled out altogether, his nose was mashed, and his face, once like the face of a falcon, had become monstrous and terrible. But just that terror with which it filled people gave him still more consideration among the wild Tartars of the Dobrudja. His arrival made a great noise in the whole camp; his deeds grew in the narratives of men, and became gigantic. It was said that he had brought all the Lithuanian Tartars and Cheremis into the service of the Sultan; that he had outwitted the Poles, as no one had ever outwitted them; that he had burned whole towns along the Dniester, had cut off their garrisons, and had taken great booty. Those who were to march now for the first time to Lehistan; those who, coming from distant corners of the East, had not tried Polish arms hitherto; those whose hearts were alarmed at the thought that they would soon stand eye to eye with the terrible cavalry of the unbeliever,—saw in the young Azya a warrior who had conquered them, and made a fortunate beginning of wa
r. The sight of the "hero" filled their hearts straightway with comfort; besides, as Azya was son of the terrible Tugai Bey, whose name had thundered through the Orient, all eyes were turned on him the more.

  "The Poles reared him," said they; "but he is the son of a lion; he bit them and returned to the Padishah's service."

  The vizir himself wished to see him; and the "rising sun of war," the young kaimakan, Kara Mustafa, enamoured of military glory and wild warriors, fell in love with him. Both inquired diligently of him concerning the Commonwealth, the hetman, the armies, and Kamenyets; they rejoiced at his answers, seeing from them that war would be easy; that to the Sultan it must bring victory, to the Poles defeat, and to them the title of Ghazi (conqueror). Hence Azya had frequent opportunities later to fall on his face to the vizir, to sit at the threshold of the kaimakan's tent, and received from both numerous gifts in camels, horses, and weapons.

  The grand vizir gave him a kaftan of silver brocade, the possession of which raised him in the eyes of all Lithuanian Tartars and Cheremis. Krychinski, Adurovich, Moravski, Groholski, Tarasovski, Aleksandrovich,—in a word, all those captains who had once dwelt in the Commonwealth and served it, but now returned to the Sultan,—placed themselves without a question under the command of Tugai Bey's son, honoring in him both the prince by descent and the warrior who had received a kaftan. He became, therefore, a notable murza; and more than two thousand warriors, incomparably better than the usual Tartars, obeyed his nod. The approaching war, in which it was easier for the young murza to distinguish himself than for any one else, might carry him high; he might find in it dignities, renown, power.

  But still Azya bore poison in his soul. To begin with, it pricked his pride that the Tartars, in comparison with the Turks themselves, especially the janissaries and spahis, had little more significance than dogs compared with hunters. He had significance himself, but the Tartars in general were considered worthless cavalry. The Turk used them, at times he feared them, but in the camp he despised them, Azya, noticing this, kept his men apart from the general Tartar mass, as if they formed a separate, a better kind of army; but with this he brought on himself straightway the indignation of the Dobrudja and Belgrod murzas, and was not able to convince various Turkish officers that the Lithuanian Tartars were really better in any way than chambuls of the horde. On the other hand, reared in a Christian country, among nobles and knights, he could not inure himself to the manners of the East. In the Commonwealth he was only an ordinary officer and of the last arm of the service; but still, when meeting superiors or even the hetman, he was not obliged to humble himself as here, where he was a murza and the leader of all the companies of Lithuanian Tartars. Here he had to fall on his face before the vizir; he had to touch the ground with his forehead in the friendly tent of the kaimakan; he had to prostrate himself before the pashas, before the ulema, before the chief aga of the janissaries. Azya was not accustomed to this. He remembered that he was the son of a hero; he had a wild soul full of pride, aiming high, as eagles aim; hence he suffered sorely.

  But the recollection of Basia burned him with fire most of all. He cared not that one weak hand had hurled from his horse him who at Bratslav, at Kalnik, and a hundred other places had challenged to combat and stretched in death the most terrible skirmishers of the Zaporojia; he cared not for the shame, the disgrace! But he loved that woman beyond measure and thought; he wanted her in his tent, to look at her, to beat her, to kiss her. If it were in his choice to be Padishah and rule half the world, or to take her in his arms, feel with his heart the warmth of her blood, the breath of her face, her lips with his lips, he would prefer her to Tsargrad, to the Bosphorus, to the title of Khalif. He wanted her because he loved her; he wanted her because he hated her. The more she was foreign to him, the more he wanted her; the more she was pure, faithful, untainted, the more he wanted her. More than once when he remembered in his tent that he had kissed those eyes one time in his life, in the ravine after the battle with Azba Bey, and that at Rashkoff he had felt her breast on his, the madness of desire carried him away. He knew not what had become of her, whether she had perished on the road or not. At times he found solace in the thought that she had died. At times he thought, "It had been better not to carry her away, not to burn Rashkoff, not to come to the service of the Sultan, but to stay in Hreptyoff, and even look at her."

  But the unfortunate Zosia Boski was in his tent. Her life passed in low service, in shame and continual terror, for in Azya's heart there was not a drop of pity for her. He simply tormented her because she was not Basia. She had, however, the sweetness and charm of a field flower; she had youth and beauty: therefore he sated himself with that beauty; but he kicked her for any cause, or flogged her white body with rods. In a worse hell she could not be, for she lived without hope. Her life had begun to bloom in Rashkoff, to bloom like spring with the flower of love for Pan Adam. She loved him with her whole soul; she loved that knightly, noble, and honest nature with all her faculties; and now she was the plaything and the captive of that one-eyed monster. She had to crawl at his feet and tremble like a beaten dog, look into his face, look at his hands to see if they were not about to seize a club or a whip; she had to hold back her breath and her tears.

  She knew well that there was not and could not be mercy for her; for though a miracle were to wrest her from those terrible hands, she was no longer that former Zosia, white as the first snows, and able to repay love with a clean heart. All that had passed beyond recovery. But since the dreadful disgrace in which she was living was not due to the least fault of hers,—on the contrary, she had been hitherto a maiden stainless as a lamb, innocent as a dove, trusting as a child, simple, loving,—she did not understand why this fearful injustice was wrought on her, an injustice which could not be recompensed; why such inexorable anger of God was weighing upon her; and this mental discord increased her pain, her despair. And so days, weeks, and months passed. Azya came to the plain of Kuchunkaury in winter, and the march to the boundary of the Commonwealth began only in June. All this time passed for Zosia in shame, in torment, in toil. For Azya, in spite of her beauty and sweetness, and though he kept her in his tent, not only did not love her, but rather he hated her because she was not Basia. He looked on her as a common captive; therefore she had to work like a captive. She watered his horses and camels from the river; she carried water for his ablutions, wood for the fire; she spread the skins for his bed; she cooked his food. In other divisions of the Turkish armies women did not go out of the tents through fear of the janissaries, or through custom; but the camp of the Lithuanian Tartars stood apart, and the custom of hiding women was not common among them, for having lived formerly in the Commonwealth, they had grown used to something different. The captives of common soldiers, in so far as soldiers had captives, did not even cover their faces with veils. It is true that women were not free to go beyond the boundaries of the square, for beyond those boundaries they would have been carried off surely; but on the square itself they could go everywhere safely, and occupy themselves with camp housekeeping.

  Notwithstanding the heavy toil, there was for Zosia even a certain solace in going for wood, or to the river to water the horses and camels; for she feared to cry in the tent, and on the road she could give vent to her tears with impunity. Once, while going with arms full of wood, she met her mother, whom Azya had given to Halim. They fell into each other's arms, and it was necessary to pull them apart; and though Azya flogged Zosia afterward, not sparing even blows of rods on her head, still the meeting was dear to her. Another time, while washing handkerchiefs and foot-cloths for Azya at the ford, Zosia saw Eva at a distance going with pails of water. Eva was groaning under the weight of the pails; her form had changed greatly and grown heavier, but her features, though shaded with a veil, reminded Zosia of Adam, and such pain seized her heart that consciousness left her for the moment. Still, they did not speak to each other from fear.

  That fear stifled and mastered gradually all Zosia's feelings, t
ill at last it stood alone in place of her desires, hopes, and memory. Not to be beaten had become for her an object. Basia in her place would have killed Azya with his own knife on the first day, without thinking of what might come afterwards; but the timid Zosia, half a child yet, had not Basia's daring. And it came at last to this, that she considered it fondness if the terrible Azya, under the influence of momentary desire, put his deformed face near her lips. Sitting in the tent, she did not take her eyes from him, wishing to learn whether he was angry or not, following his movements, striving to divine his wishes.

  When she foresaw evil, and when from under his mustaches, as in the case of Tugai Bey, the teeth began to glitter, she crept to his feet almost senseless from terror, pressed her pale lips to them, embracing convulsively his knees and crying like an afflicted child,—

  "Do not beat me, Azya! forgive me; do not beat!"

  He forgave her almost never; he gloated over her, not only because she was not Basia, but because she had been the betrothed of Novoveski. Azya had a fearless soul; yet so awful were the accounts between him and Pan Adam that at thought of that giant, with vengeance hardened in his heart, a certain disquiet seized the young Tartar. There was to be war; they might meet, and it was likely that they would meet. Azya was not able to avoid thinking of this; and because these thoughts came to him at sight of Zosia, he took vengeance on her, as if he wished to drive away his own alarm with blows of rods.