by Harold Lamb
“Guessing that we fled from a powerful enemy. As for archers, we have seen enough of them, but I have reined my Horse through many lands and have never set eyes upon a dragon.”
While the Arab slept, the crusader kept watch, listening to the snuffling of the horses and the snores of the astrologer. Sitting in the shadow of the packs, his sword across his knees, he meditated.
When he had told Khalil that he meant to leave the Arabs and find his way round the frontiers of the Greek Empire to a Christian land, Khalil had sworn that he would bear him company until they came to a safe road. But even in Bagdad they had met the agents of the Emperor, and Khalil had turned again to the east. Merchants told them of a caravan track that led to the north by the Sea of the Ravens.
Here, at the edge of the salt desert, no one thought of the Emperor. Yet few spoke Arabic, and the country was strange even to Khalil. Without the Arab chieftain, Hugh would be little better than a blind man without his guide…
Sir Hugh roused from his reverie. No sound had disturbed him, but the horses had stopped munching. The moon had come up over the plain, and flooded the caravan serai and the sleeping men with white radiance. Shadows came and vanished, and presently the crusader made out groups of horsemen moving toward him out of the desert.
He touched Khalil on the shoulder, and the Arab sat up, glancing at the horses, then at the sky.
“Ai-a!” A voice wailed suddenly near at hand. “They have come after me. Look! They are the ghils. O brothers of misfortune!”
Nureddin had rolled out of his cloak, and was gathering his pack together with quivering fingers.
“Do the ghils ride camels?” asked Khalil, thrusting forward his sword sling. “Nay, these be men—but what men?”
Camel bells clanked, a horse neighed, and Nureddin ran to the wall.
“Allah be praised! They are not ghils, but they may be Turkomans, come to loot and slay.”
Sir Hugh glanced at Khalil, who shook his head. The riders who had come out of the desert moved with the stumbling gait of utter weariness. The horses were no more than bones and sweating hides. One paced through a break in the wall, and a man swung down stiffly from the saddle, peering into shadows until he saw the well.
“Allah kerim!”
Drawing his scimitar, he took his stand before the well, a lean, pockmarked warrior, his brocade cloak thrown back from a hairy chest. Long-handled daggers filled the front of his girdle, and his slant eyes were baneful as a hawk’s.
Evidently he was feared, because the riders who came in after him did not venture to drink, or to allow their horses within stretch of the well.
“Whence are ye?” cried Khalil.
The warrior who stood guard at the water glanced at the Arab and snarled.
“Kum dan—from the sands.”
Camels padded up, grunting, and knelt complainingly. Dust rose around the forms of the desert riders who soon filled the caravan serai. Someone kindled a horn lantern and hung it from a spear thrust into the ground. Black slaves, glistening with sweat, staggered up, bearing burdens, and after them came a cavalcade of turbaned men, their gaunt ponies decked out in fringed trappings. They were escorting a white camel carrying a carpet shelter. Bells tinkled as the camel knelt, while the men of the cavalcade dismounted and clustered around it.
Standing aloof, Sir Hugh and Khalil saw the carpet shelter quiver and yield up a hooded figure that passed quickly into a silk pavilion, set up by the slaves. At once warriors with drawn swords took post at the pavilion entrance. The dust subsided as the horses were led outside.
The first comer sheathed his blade and filled a water jar at the well, bearing it into the pavilion. Not until then did the others satisfy their thirst.
CHAPTER IX - THE GRAY HORSE
NUREDDIN had departed to ask questions, and he returned full of news to the corner whither Sir Hugh and Khalil had betaken themselves with their belongings and horses.
“They are Kharesmians—men from the Throne of Gold. Around the pavilion are officers and others in robes of honor. I heard talk of the Shah, and surely there is a woman of the imperial household in this serai.”
Khalil nodded at the moon and at the horses of the Kharesmians that were tethered outside the wall.
“It is no more than the fourth hour of the night, yet the steeds be overdriven. Throughout the day—ay, until this hour, they have been ridden. Wallahi! What woman of the Throne of Gold would come so swiftly and so far?”
“Nay, the grandees, the weapon men, the slaves—whom would they escort if not a woman?”
Receiving no answer, Nureddin went to lead his ass from the caravan serai before anyone should notice that he had not done so and should kick him. If indeed an amir of Kharesmia were in the pavilion, no animals would be permitted to remain within the wall.
Khalil squatted down where he was partly in shadow, and motioned his friend to do likewise. For a while he watched the men of the caravan, trying to understand their talk.
“They are indeed Kharesmians,” he whispered presently, “lords of Islam, and uncurried devils. O my brother, they have no love for an unbeliever, and their mood is one of little patience. Put on thy hauberk and helm. We will lead out the horses.”
Without questioning, the crusader drew his mail from one of the packs and put it on, while the Arab roped the packs together. They were saddling the horses when a tall warrior strode up and stood between them—the same Kharesmian who had taken charge of the well and its water.
“The hour of your going is not yet,” he snarled.
Coming up to the horses, he looked them over with an experienced eye, especially the gray stallion of the Arab.
Khalil, thrusting the bit between the charger’s teeth, made no answer. The beasts of the Kharesmians were done up, and it was likely that the pockmarked warrior would wish to trade or buy one of the pack horses. Other men of the caravan approached, staring at the tall form of the crusader.
“This is the following of the Amir Omar,” quoth he of the necklace. “Make now the earth-kissing salaam, for he draws near.”
But Khalil only bent his head and touched his breast as an elder Muhammadan came through the throng, a man who carried himself well in spite of years, who was clad in a flowered silk khalat girdled with a green sash. The face of the Amir Omar was gaunt and lined, the eyebrows gray, and the thin beard below the slit of a mouth stained brilliant henna-red.
“What men are ye?” asked the Kharesmian lord.
“From Jerusalem, O Khoudsarma.”
“And he? Verily, he is an unbeliever, an accursed!”
In the glow of the horn lantern the tawny hair of the crusader had caught the attention of the amir, who glanced curiously at the long sword and the plain steel basinet.
“Ay, an unbeliever,” Khalil replied boldly. “A chieftain of Frankistan5 who hath performed a pilgrimage to the shrine of his prophet. Now he seeks the road to his own land. There is a truce between his people and mine.”
“And yet—” Omar fingered his red beard reflectively—“this warrior is an infidel from the tribe of the Cross. And thou art his brother.”
“Ay, his rafik, his brother of the road! We have shared the salt.”
“Ha! This, thy horse, pleases me. He is fine in the limb, and there is courage in his eye. Surely Allah hath made him swift of foot.”
Khalil’s jaw thrust out, and his hand tightened on the bridle of the stallion. Omar was asking—after the manner of princes—that the gray horse Khutb be given him. To ask an Arab of birth to sell his saddle horse would have been an insult unforgivable. Khutb was Khalil’s most prized possession—as much a part of him as his right arm.
“He is Khutb,” Khalil said quietly. “Between sunup and sundown he could carry me to Rai.”
The amir stepped forward to stroke the soft muzzle of the stallion and run his fingers through the long mane.
“My steed is foundered,” he said. “Give me thine, and thou shalt not go unrewarded.”
This was sheer arrogance, for no man would willingly give up his horse in the desert. And Khalil, his arm across the shoulder of the stallion, shook his head, smiling.
“May Allah forgive thee!” he responded.
Still fondling the charger’s mane, Omar lifted his hand. Sir Hugh heard breath indrawn, and saw the dagger in the hand. Steel flickered, and Khalil staggered back against Khutb, the blade of a long, curved kindjhal buried under his heart.
The Arab stretched to his full height and grasped at the hilt of his scimitar. He drew the sword, and lifted his arm, when his body swayed, and he cried out:
“Ho, brother—go, with Khutb! Take him!”
An arrow crashed against the mailed chest of the crusader. Men closed in on him, and swords grated from sheaths. Sir Hugh could not draw his long blade in time to meet the onset.
So sudden had been the attack, so wanton the knifing of Khalil, that Sir Hugh acted by instinct—striking out with his mailed fist. He smashed two of the Kharesmians to the ground and caught the blade of another in his mittened fingers, pulling the man to one side. Something thudded against his light steel helm and red flashes veiled his sight.
Bareheaded—for the blow of a mace had knocked off the basinet—he staggered back. Khutb reared and snorted beside him, and he turned swiftly, leaping into the saddle of the stallion.
This gained for him a moment of respite. Khutb, wise in battle, reared again, lashing out with his forefeet. Sir Hugh found the stirrups barely in time to keep his seat, and by then his sight had cleared enough for him to make out Khalil kneeling and watching.
Bringing down the horse, Sir Hugh quickly warded off a scimitar blow with his arm, and reached down to pull the Arab to the saddle.
But Khalil, dying, a smile on his drawn lips, flung himself back under the weapons of his foes, out of the reach of his comrade’s hand. In his fading consciousness one thing was clear: his own hour was at hand; for him, the end of the road.
Neighing, Khutb reared again, and the on-pressing Kharesmians gave back hastily. One of them thrust his scimitar through Khalil’s throat, shouting savagely. Upon this warrior Sir Hugh wheeled the frantic horse. Lashing hoofs struck the man down, and he rolled over.
Sir Hugh had seen the death stroke given Khalil, and knew in that instant there was no mortal aid for his companion of the road.
Tightening the rein, he struck spurs into Khutb’s flanks and plunged through the Muhammadans. Once clear of the corner, he turned sharply and galloped toward the entrance. Men stood in his path, but none ventured to seize the rein of the gray horse. Javelins whistled past him, but the moonlight was elusive and Khutb’s swift turn disconcerting.
Passing the silk pavilion, a flicker of lights caught the eye of the crusader. The opening flap had been thrown back, and he beheld a shimmering carpet that stretched to a couch, and on the couch a man who had risen to his elbow to peer out.
A stout figure, at once powerful and indolent, a broad pale face with a heavy jowl and restless brown eyes, a turban of green silk, close wrapped and falling at the end over a massive chest, and in the turban a crest of precious stones that reflected the gleam of the pavilion lamps—all this Sir Hugh saw clearly.
Then he vanished through the caravan serai gate. No one rode in pursuit because the horses of the Kharesmians were spent, and the Amir Omar claimed the big bay charger of the crusader for his own.
CHAPTER X - SIR HUGH RIDES ALONE
SIR HUGH drew rein and turned in the saddle. No one had followed him from the serai—probably because their tired horses could not keep pace with Khutb. The gray charger whinnied, stretching out its neck, and the crusader leaned forward to rub the twitching ears.
“Nay, lad,” he murmured, “you’ll not see your master again.”
Khalil had died because he would not give up his horse to the strangers, and deep anger ran through Sir Hugh’s veins when he thought of the wanton murder—the knife off the Amir Omar and the broad face that peered from the pavilion.
With his friend, he had lost the other horses, his headgear, and all his provisions. He knew better than to expect to find anything in the serai after the Kharesmians had departed the next day. In this country a man took what he could lay his hand on. Their law was the law of the wolf pack.
And now at last the crusader was cast out among them. He did not know the caravan tracks nor where the towns lay. Khalil had told him that the Sea of the Ravens was to the north, but it would not do, in this wasteland, to ride in any direction haphazard. Sir Hugh thought it all over, stroking the damp neck of the horse.
“Eh, Khutb,” he said, “we will e’en let our foemen show us the way. And it may be that we shall give back to them the blow that made an end of Khalil.”
The next morning the caravan of the Kharesmians left the serai and turned north along the foothills. It entered a long gully between volcanic ledges where the sand was streaked with gray salt. Among the slaves rode Nureddin on his bald-faced donkey.
And an hour after the caravan had passed, Sir Hugh emerged from a cross-gully, under a clump of poplars, and followed in its track.
For the rest of the day he trailed the Kharesmians, sometimes seeing them in the distance through the heat haze in which brown figures of men and beasts danced grotesquely. At night the caravan halted at a stream, and Sir Hugh, waiting until the dark hour before moon-rise, rode up the stream to a wooded spot where he could get clear water to drink and Khutb could find some grazing. But he had no food.
At dawn the Kharesmians were off again, and the crusader thought they were making a forced march. He passed dying horses, and more than once had to make a wide circle to avoid stragglers. He had fashioned a kind of headcloth out of the saddle cover, so that his yellow hair was hidden.
He saw the white walls of villages here and there. Women and donkeys nearly buried under burdens passed him on the trail, staring at his tall figure and strange mail. They must have taken him for some warrior lagging behind the caravan. Sir Hugh suspected that no Christian had come so far into the East before now.
The men stared covetously at Khutb, and sometimes they shouted at him. When he passed a throng of them he gave them the greeting of Islam.
“May the Peace be upon ye.”
They answered him, wondering. Perhaps he seemed to them to be some giant from India or Cathay. When he topped a ridge and saw below and ahead of him a city with its domed tombs and flat roofs, he asked, “What place is this?”
And a horseman, passing at a gallop, flung back an answer in Arabic. “Who art thou, not to know? It is Rai.”
It lay like a walled garden in the middle of a green valley, for here the desert ended, and poplars bordered the road, and water glinted in the twilight. Toward it small groups of riders were hastening—some of them nobles in silk and shagreen, their reins heavy with silver, their horses caparisoned with damask. Slaves ran before them with torches, and warriors attended them.
Sir Hugh thought that it must be a feast night, and he trotted forward, keeping his distance from the torches and speaking to no one, until he reached an arched gate where spearmen loitered, listening to a hubbub of voices within. Riding through the gate at a trot, Sir Hugh turned blindly into the darkest alley, and Khutb picked his way through piles of refuse and packs of snarling dogs until they came to a street covered with matting that smelled of broiling mutton and rice and oil.
It was part of the bazaar, where food was sold to the hungry. Sir Hugh dismounted at the first likely looking stall and bought a twist of garlic, a round loaf of bread, and a handful of pieces of mutton. With these in his fists he sat down on his heels in the shadow of the stall with Khutb’s rein over his arm. He was ravenous, and he cared not what happened until he was fed. From time to time he would hold up a bit of bread to Khutb.
Lanterns swung past, and bare feet pattered by. Once a camel slouched by with its load, forcing Khutb up against the stall. Voices argued and shouted in a dozen tongues, and somewhere a drum muttered. All Rai
seemed to be awake and astir.
When he had satisfied his hunger, the crusader bought grapes from the man in the stall. He still had a few gold coins and some silver in his wallet—gleanings from his forays with Khalil.
“Hast thou a boy?” he asked the shopkeeper.
“Have I a tooth that aches? Verily I have a brat that is fellow to a ghil”
“Then let him come here.” The crusader knew that every man in the bazaar had an urchin to run errands and watch for thieves, and when presently an excited brown lad slipped out between the sacks of barley and olives, Sir Hugh held up a dirhem.
“Knowest thou the serais?”
The boy nodded, staring at Khutb’s fine Arab saddle.
“I seek a man who rode in with a caravan of Kharesmians after the evening prayer. He rode a bald-faced donkey, and his name is Nureddin, the star gazer.” Again the boy nodded, reaching out for the coins. “Bid him come to me here, saying that one awaits him who will pay well for—for a reading of the stars. But he must make haste.”
“Wallahi, thou hast not the speech of a true Arab. What man art thou, O impatient one?”
“I am a man with a sword from Marghrab,” responded Sir Hugh, thinking that few in the bazaar would have talked with travelers from Marghrab—Africa. “By Allah, thou hast too long a tongue, and I will find—”
“Nay, my lord!” The boy snatched the coins and darted off. “I go—I go!”
But the bazaar had ears for every whisper. The seller of food ceased haggling over a handful of too-ripe figs and leaned forth to stare down, like a bald vulture from its eyrie, at the dim figure of the crusader. “May Allah shield thee—art thou a man of the Amir Omar?”
Sir Hugh had learned to guard his tongue. He spat out the grape seeds and grunted. “Hast thou not seen?”
“Ay, verily, Lord. I have seen thee pay with silver for worthless things such as bread—and toss dirhems to a boy. Surely thou art a swordsman with a fat wallet, in the service of a great one. And if thou knowest the men with the Amir Omar, thou art in his service.”