by Harold Lamb
He broke off in confusion, perceiving that the Cathayan prince was listening. Kutsai spoke to a clerk, who bowed thrice and approached them, saying in broken Arabic that cooked food awaited them in the courtyard and it would be well to satisfy their hunger, as they would have to leave Rai at any moment.
“Whither?” Sir Hugh asked himself as they left the hall.
Scores of Mongol officers were seated around fires in the courtyard, fires tended by Muhammadan captives who boiled whole quarters of sheep in great copper pots. Nureddin, after watching the hungry warriors fearfully, approached a pot with Sir Hugh and cut himself off a generous portion of mutton with his dagger as the others did, saying nothing at all about religious scruples.
“Wine!” he whispered, nudging the crusader. “Allah send it be of Shiraz.”
The captives were going about among the warriors filling lacquer bowls with a sizzling white liquid that they poured from goatskins held under their arms. Nureddin held out his bowl eagerly, but his face changed as he sniffed at the bubbling fluid.
“Milk,” he muttered and tasted it warily. “Pfaugh! Mare’s milk—goat’s—camel’s!”
Sir Hugh found the milk fermented, strange to the palate, but refreshing, and he emptied his bowl without complaint, making a hearty repast of the mutton. Barely had he finished when a horseman plunged into the courtyard, scattering the cooks, and leaped down from a sobbing and sweat-soaked pony.
The rider, stumbling on stiffened legs, ran into the hall, holding outstretched a long silver tablet. Instead of armor he wore bands of heavy buckram around chest and loins and forehead, and he was caked with dust and sand from his deer-skin boots to his bloodshot eyes.
Another moment and Kutsai appeared in the door, drawing on a linen cloak. He spoke briefly with the Mongol officers, and nodded to Sir Hugh.
“An order has come from the Eagle,” he said in his measured voice. “I ride to join him. And of thee I have need.”
“Then I am captive—to this Eagle?”
The Cathayan considered, as a philosopher weighs an axiom.
“Is a stag within the hunting lines a captive? Thou art within the power of the great Khan since this dawn. Only the dead are free of the Mongol yoke—the living must serve, each in his own way.”
He swept his long arm around the courtyard.
“From one of the nobles of Rai I have learned thy history—though the Tu-kuie believed thee mad. Thou art a Christian warrior from the Ta tsin, the Western world. The seas and rivers and peoples toward the setting sun are known to thee, and I may have need of thy knowledge.”
“Whither goest thou?”
“Where the Shah rides we follow.”
Sir Hugh’s gray eyes lighted.
“It likes me well.”
Nureddin’s ears had been pricked to catch every syllable, and now the astrologer leaped up gleefully.
“We will not be slain. Ai-a, I am most useful—a hound upon a scent. I know all about the Shah and can interpret omens.”
Gravely the Cathayan surveyed him.
“Jackals also play their part,” he said cryptically.
“O Prince of Cathay,” said the crusader boldly, “in Rai I have a charger beyond others dear to me. By thy leave, I would seek him out.”
“A steed of good blood, fair to see?”
“Ay, a gray kohlani with unclipped tail and mane.”
“Then the Master of Herds will have found him. Come!”
Gathering up his cloak Kutsai strode into the public square where a high-wheeled cart awaited him—a light chariot to which four horses were hitched. Mongols were mounted on the outer horses of the span.
When the Cathayan stepped into the chariot, a patrol of lances trotted around a corner—its officer saluting the prince and dividing his ten men, half before the chariot, half behind.
Thus escorted, the three were whirled through the alleys of Rai, meeting at times other patrols, but never a Muhammadan. Courtyard gates were closed, and window lattices drawn. Sir Hugh, who expected to come upon pillaging and disorder, saw only deserted streets and empty gates when they passed through the wall of Rai on the far side.
It seemed to him that the Mongols could not be a great force—only the indolence and overconfidence of the Kharesmians had enabled the invaders to slip inside the gates. If Muhammad, he thought, had dared make a stand against them, matters would have turned out otherwise.
Outside the gate they came upon something grim and altogether unexpected. Almost covered by crows and flapping vultures and furtive, snarling jackals, the bodies of hundreds of Persian warriors lay in heaps throughout the orange groves and gardens.
“Wallahi!” Nureddin shivered and clutched the rail of the swift moving chariot.
“The guards,” Kutsai said to the crusader, “upon this side of the city surrendered to us when it was known that Muhammad had fled. They were slain.”
Sir Hugh frowned, restraining an angry word. But the Cathayan seemed to read his thoughts.
“It is well to think, and think again before blaming,” he remarked. “I am not a Mongol, yet I understand their code. These Persians were warriors; because of fear they threw down their weapons. When fear had left them they would have fought against us again. It is the order of the Khan to put to death all weapon men who surrender. When a foe is brave enough to stand against us, then quarter is offered him, because such men may be trusted.”
“A strange order,” quoth Sir Hugh.
“It saved thee life.” The Cathayan smiled. “As it did me, for I was faithful to the Golden Dynasty.”
The crusader looked back at the white wall of Rai. “The Persians lacked heart, it is true. Five hundred men-at-arms and archers could have held the city.” Kutsai’s dark eyes were meditative.
“Once in Kambalu, in the imperial city of Cathay, five hundred thousand men-at-arms failed to hold a wall five times the strength of that yonder. I saw it, for I was then an officer of Cathay.”
“How could that be?”
“This astrologer would say ’twas done by magic. I say—otherwise. Look about thee and reflect.”
They were passing at a gallop through an open stretch, thronged with Mongol patrols and Muhammadan merchants. Wheat, rice, and dried dates were being brought in carts and piled in great heaps, while bellowing herds of oxen and flocks of sheep were counted and driven off to the far end of the field.
“Nourishment,” said Kutsai briefly.
“There is gold in Rai,” spoke up Nureddin tentatively, “and many wealthy grandees—”
“But no time to plunder.”
“Muhammad has escaped—gone far away. And his treasure was sent ahead upon fresh camels.”
The Cathayan looked twice at Nureddin.
“Ay, wisely he kept fast horses saddled behind his house. From the men of Rai I learned that he rode with a hundred nobles and followers through the north gate at the time we entered the rigistan. Our scouts sighted him just about here, but his horses were fresh, ours jaded. He fled toward the mountains at first. Then, out of sight of pursuit, he turned west. Our advance riders picked up one of his stragglers.”
“He is safe.” Nureddin wagged his head shrewdly. “At the end of the western road lies Bagdad, with the armed host of the caliphs.”
“A long road.” Kutsai seemed to be weighing the little man’s words. “Have the stars foretold his arrival in Bagdad?”
But Nureddin for once held his tongue. The chariot halted beside a stone wall that served as a corral for a neighing and rearing mass of horseflesh. Some Mongols in sheepskins and leather breeches came out of the dust to salute the prince, and receive his orders. In a little while Sir Hugh shouted with exultation and held out his hand for Khutb’s rein. The gray stallion, already saddled for the road, whinnied and thrust his soft muzzle against his master’s throat.
“Well for thee,” smiled Kutsai, “we came swiftly, for the horse had been groomed and fed for the next courier.”
He himself mounte
d a powerful roan, and Nureddin was given a tough-looking pony with a rolling eye. While their escort of some fifty archers was coming up, the herders handed them saddlebags. Sir Hugh untied the thong and inspected the contents of his with some curiosity. One bag held rice and grapes and sun-dried mutton, with a small jug of the mare’s milk. The other, that served for a feed sack, held grain for the horse.
A smaller wallet was thrust into his belt, and this contained wax and flint and steel, with a needle and whetstone.
“Equipment,” observed the Cathayan, who had been watching him. “There is no knowing where we will halt or when.”
When the escort had changed saddles to fresh mounts, Kutsai lifted his hand, the herders raised a shrill cry that might have been warning or well-wishing, and the Mongols who took the lead trotted across the rice fields and leaped irrigation ditches until they came out on a broad road that ran toward the setting sun.
Then the horses were put to a gallop, the riders easing their weight in the stirrups and slinging their lances over their shoulders. Kutsai glanced over his right shoulder at the mountains they were leaving behind them.
“The order was to come to the Eagle,” he said, “and he may be in Bagdad or beyond that snow peak before we reach him.”
Nureddin, bouncing along uncomfortably in the dust at the rear, his long woolen shoe tips flapping in the wind, heard the words and muttered to himself as if he were cherishing a secret grievance known to no other soul.
Nureddin, relieved of the fear of death, was a different person from Nureddin about to die. He kept his eyes about him, noticing the caravan of camels lightly laden that they passed in the first few hours, and listening until he was certain that this was the first unit of the Mongol baggage train. From that—although a man of peace—he deduced correctly that they were drawing near the fighting forces. A courier appeared on the Bagdad road, plying his whip and bending over his pony’s neck when he beheld them.
Kutsai gave an order, and the Mongols divided, drawing to the side of the road. One, on a restive horse, dismounted in the cleared space. The courier, drawing nearer, held up a silver tablet—the Mongol on foot raised his hand, and the courier was in the warrior’s saddle, gripping the reins in a sinewy hand. Flying past Kutsai he shouted a hoarse greeting.
“Ahatou—noyon!”
Again that night when they halted to cook supper and rest the horses where a stone bridge spanned a stream, a dispatch rider came along and commandeered a mount. This time Kutsai halted the man long enough to ask a few questions.
“A message to the Khan,” the Cathayan explained. “The post to Samarkand.”
It seemed to Nureddin that the world was topsy-turvy. Instead of the usual straggle of pilgrims and nobles’ cavalcades on the Bagdad road, they encountered only scattered patrols of the invaders, driving in cattle. Somehow the silence and the unceasing activity that went on in the hours of darkness depressed the astrologer more than all the imagined terrors of actual war.
So he carried his troubles to the crusader, who sat by the fire munching raisins. The Cathayan was sleeping soundly beyond earshot.
“Eh,” pronounced Nureddin, “we are brothers of misfortune.”
Sir Hugh continued to look into the fire.
“Let us flee. I have thought of a way. These devils who carry messages all have a silver tablet with a falcon drawn on it. Let us go away secretly and lie hidden until one comes along. Then, when he dismounts to take thy horse, slay him with that long sword and keep his talsmin. The accursed Mongols honor it more than my people do the Shah’s ring.”
Sir Hugh smiled at the thought of Nureddin ambushing a dispatch rider. As for trying to escape, he had satisfied himself that they had pickets out and that the sentries did not sleep.
“What of the omens, O watcher of the stars?” he asked gravely. “We have found the Archer and the Dragon.”
Torn between professional pride and anxiety, Nureddin twisted the curls of his beard.
“True, and yet—and yet the omens may be of evil, not of good alone. I have been thinking.”
He watched Sir Hugh thrust some more brush on the embers and draw his saddle cloth over his knees to sleep.
And Nureddin crept back to his quilt heartily cursing all men of weapons and the whole race of warriors, including crusaders of past ages and Christians still to be born.
CHAPTER XIII - THE EMPTY TENT
THE next day Kutsai said that Muhammad Shah had been seen in a camp within the foothills far ahead of them. “The Eagle hath flown thither with a chosen detachment,” he explained, “and we must follow.”
That day Sir Hugh had his first sight of the main body of the Horde. Several regiments were moving along the road at a trot. Each man had a led horse, and from time to time a warrior would dismount, run beside the horses, and leap on the bare back of the fresh mount.
“The Kerait clan of the orda,” said Kutsai. “The bodyguard of the Eagle.”
“Who is this leader, the Eagle?”
“The Orluk, the marshal of the army. The Great Khan ordered him to hunt down the Shah and not to turn aside until the hunt was ended. He obeys the Khan, but here—in his division—his commands are law, and life and death hang upon his words. The Mongols spare others no more than themselves. Remember, if ever you stand face to face with the Eagle, bear yourself boldly.”
Sir Hugh nodded, glancing at the horsemen, who kept together, although not in ranks. They wore chain mail and black helmets that, with the wide leather drop, almost hid their faces. Long blue robes covered their knees, which were upthrust in short stirrups—as if the riders squatted in the saddle.
It began to rain, but no one heeded wind or wet. When they had passed the Keraits, Kutsai pressed forward more rapidly, until, after nightfall, he was halted by a patrol with lanterns. Other lights flickered beside the road.
“Here is the pavilion of the Shah,” said Kutsai. “It was empty when our men discovered it. Muhammad has vanished. Look!”
Sitting upon a brocade couch the tall Cathayan pointed at some objects on the carpet that covered this inner chamber of the great toph that had been prepared for the Shah by his people. Near the teak pole of the pavilion lay a satin tunic and a fine khalat of cloth-of-gold, wet and splashed with mud. Thrown down haphazard were silk trousers and pearl-sewn slippers, and the unmistakable green turban with the emerald crest.
“These scimitars were his,” went on the Cathayan philosopher, brushing his long fingers through the tip of his beard.
Sir Hugh, working off his mail with the help of a Mongol warrior, shook his head. Kutsai dipped an exploring finger into an ivory jar and sniffed the brown powder dubiously.
“This stuff breeds dreams. Muhammad may have sought forgetfulness, and that means he was afraid. He would be, I think. Here he changed his garments in haste and separated from his men. Perhaps he has made himself a pilgrim, or even an astrologer.”
Sir Hugh looked down in surprise, but the wide brown eyes of the prince were thoughtful.
“The power of T’ien, of Heaven, is illimitable, but upon the earth the Khan is master of all men. Alas that I, a former servant of the Golden Dynasty, should say this—the princes of Cathay were unworthy and he cast them down. And Prester John of Asia in like manner. The Muhammadans cry that Heaven’s wrath is visited upon them. Can this be so? Perhaps there are times when earth’s rulers grow false and weak, and at such times a barbarian is sent with a sword out of the desert.” Arms folded in his sleeves the Cathayan meditated. “Since my youth I have been the councilor of Genghis Khan, and he is no more than a barbarian chieftain wiser than other rulers in the art of war. He is like tempered steel, unswerving and unbreakable. Those who serve him he spares not, and yet upon those who are faithful in all things he bestows power vaster than that of your Cæsars.”
“Wherein lies the power of this Khan?”
Kutsai smiled, and answered promptly.
“Obedience! One who is infallible inspires respect. One who seek
s no gain for himself inspires reverence. Every Mongol from here to Kambalu lives only to serve the Khan. And,” he added with a smile, “he is aided by the wisdom of Cathay.”
“The Muhammadans say thou art a magician.”
“It was said also of Prester John, the Christian. When men do not understand a thing they say it is witchcraft.”
Kutsai withdrew a hand from his sleeve and showed in his palm a round box of bamboo. The cover of the box was transparent crystal, a silk thread suspended from its center. At the end of the thread hung a long splinter of steel, so balanced that it quivered and turned slowly from side to side.
“The blue tip of the needle,” the Cathayan explained, “points always to the south. It hath been touched by a lodestone. This needle would guide thee on a straight path in the darkest night.”
Sir Hugh looked at it curiously. Indeed, no matter how the Cathayan moved the box, one end of the needle turned ever toward the tent pole.
“Without this,” the philosopher added, “we could not cross the deserts. Only the commanders of a tuman and the higher officers are allowed to possess the southpointing boxes.”
“Nureddin said you broke down the strong walls of cities by enchantment.”
“By mixing saltpeter with a little sulphur and clay we have made what we call pao, a blasting fire. By penning the pao within large bamboos and stopping the ends with iron, and then touching it with fire, we have found that the blast will shatter a gate or uproot a tower.”
In silence the crusader pondered this until it was clear in his mind.
“In my land we would call thee an alchemist, and doubtless we would set thee to making gold, so that merchants and princes would profit. I have been reared in the use of weapons, and my knowledge is no more than that.”
Kutsai replaced his south-pointing box in his sleeve and smiled a little.
“Subotai—the Eagle is like to thee.”
Above the lash of rain on the pavilion top the slapping of hoofs in mud could be heard, the jangle of bit chains and the muffled clash of steel, echoed by deep-throated laughter and shouts of greeting. Kutsai stepped to the silk partition, listened, and hastened back to his companion.