by Harold Lamb
“And have a skiff brought to the garden of this yurta,” added Hugh. “A skiff with two oars.”
“Why?”
“It would not be safe for you to be seen around the rock again. I have watched from the roof. Few go near it. But I will take the skiff and go alone at the same hour.”
“Nay, too many in the place know your face.”
“They knew me before I had this.” The crusader touched the scar on his cheek.
Arslan scrutinized his companion shrewdly. Hugh’s red-gold beard had been shaved and his long hair clipped. His gambeson and mail had been discarded for a wadded robe and a sheepskin shoulder cloak with a hood that could be drawn up over his head, but the poise of the long body, the stride of a man accustomed to spurs and authority, were not to be concealed by the scar of the sword cut that ran from eye to chin.
“Nay,” he said again, “in a boat there is no hiding. Have we come to the Chersonese to free a single woman or to prepare the way for Subotai? It is our task to open a road, and that was the yassa.”
“It is my task to open the gate—yours to obey.”
“That may be—” the broad face of the short Mongol grew stubborn—“but if you are slain, how am I to finish what is barely begun?”
For answer Hugh drew the falcon tablet from the breast of his robe, and Arslan nodded.
“The paizah of authority—ay, so. But it is no part of our duty to go out in a small boat under the eyes of a hundred Greeks for a word with a captive Georgian.”
“Hearken and remember this,” Hugh said quietly. “If Subotai can seize the Chersonese he will have silks and ivory, red leather and precious stones, horses and gold and other things past counting. But I will find Rusudan, and she will be mine.”
Arslan yawned and stretched his arms and looked around for his blankets.
“It is all one to me. But it is useless to try to trick the Greeks. Even an Armenian could not do that.”
CHAPTER XXIX - DUSK
ARSLAN came back from the promontory gate the next day very well pleased with himself and wearing the inquisitive look of a hound that has scented game—though he himself reeked to the evening skies. He had visited a barber in the bathhouse by the square, and his cheeks had been touched up with rice dust, his head drenched with attar of roses.
At the palace he had beheld undreamed-of magnificence and a multitude of human beings that bewildered him. He was thinking of the tales he would tell his men, as he crossed the square again—the open square of the rambling city, called the plaza by the Genoese, who liked to gossip under its poplars.
It was very quiet in the plaza, though groups of seamen and soldiers were thronging around the doors of near-by taverns. Arslan saw a Greek horseman gallop across the garden plots, plying his whip.
As he passed through the alleys leading to the waterfront he noticed that the shop doors were closed and few people were visible, but in the shadow of the warehouses, where the smell of sour wine hung in the air, he observed men in armor and heard the click-click-click of crossbows being wound.
“Eh,” he thought, “such is the custom of this place—all the watchmen assemble in one band and go around with lights and noise so that even the dogs run from them.”
It amused him a little, this need of locks and armed men, for in the Horde the tent dwellings were always open, and thieves unknown.
But here in the city of the Emperor were Goths and Bulgarians of the army who preyed upon the Greeks, and Genoese who exacted usury from all.
When he entered the courtyard of his house Arslan looked up in surprise. His men were sitting around a pot of mutton stew, dipping in with their fingers, obviously in high good-humor. Some were whetting the edges of swords, others sorting arrows and tightening the grips of shields.
“What is this?” he asked.
They wiped their hands on their breeches and crowded around him.
“How are we to know?” one said. “We heard talk of horse herds entering the hills, and surely Subotai Bahadur comes.”
“Ye heard talk!” Arslan echoed grimly. “Not here.”
“In the taverns, where these people go to drink wine, instead of sitting with guests in their yurtas. We were weary of this pen, and we did not go far. Is there word from Subotai the Orluk?”
“Nay, the time is not yet.”
His followers fingered their weapons and muttered. “Then perhaps there is a war among these people.”
“Why?”
“A noyott mounted on a white horse of good breed reined into the yard of the wine shop and summoned warriors to him. He gave them money, and they beckoned up others who went with them from the tavern.”
“Dogs!” cried the Mongol. “Could ye not eat and sleep without scratching up an ant-hill?”
Very angry was Arslan, because it seemed to him that his men had brought suspicion on the house.
“The Swooping Hawk will lash ye! He is not as formerly. He does not jest any more, and often he sits thus.”
The Mongol rested his chin on both hands, frowning.
“Kai,” nodded a warrior. “At such times he holds his sword across his knees.”
“When he came to us,” went on Arslan reflectively, “he was seeking a road back to his tribe. He bore the great sword that had prevailed against his enemies. Now he has found the road, and he is at the very door of his country, but he cannot show his face because the lord of these people has put a price on his head.”
“And there is a woman.”
“Truly, a young woman with soft lips and dark eyes. But now she is a favorite of the Greek Emperor.”
Arslan shook his head sagely.
“He has been out on the water a long time,” observed another. “With the two sticks of wood he pushed the little yurta out toward the palace until we could only see a speck under the rock.”
“And then?”
“And then we—we were weary.”
Arslan muttered angrily and went to the flat roof of the house to look for the skiff. The sun had set, and the galleys at the quays and the long promontory itself were a shadowy outline upon the gleam of water. Arslan looked back at the hills before leaving the roof, and uttered an exclamation. He hastened down to the courtyard, his khalat flapping around his short legs.
“The Sign!” he cried. “Look!”
They gathered around him and peered at the line of hills behind the city. A few stars were visible, but within the break of the hills where the highroad lay, three red eyes winked at them, faint and flickering in the near-darkness.
“The signal of Subotai Bahadur,” they assented.
Arslan had instructed them to watch by turns during the nights for the lighting of three fires on the ridge five miles away. This would mean that a detachment of Mongols had come down from the steppes, moving by night until this last day, when the horsemen would press forward, changing from pony to pony, outpacing the news of their coming.
“Ye know the plan,” exclaimed the stout little Mongol. “Subotai Bahadur will gallop down the highroad as a bat flits through darkness. When he sees the first hamlets of the city he will order the drums to sound. Before then we must be at the gate in the wall that defends the neck of land and the castle at the far end.”
“That was the plan. The Swooping Hawk will lead us. We will go by the alleys and gardens—I have marked the way—to the gate and lie hidden until the drums sound. Then we will run forward, and the Swooping Hawk will call out to open the gate—that there is danger. Perhaps they will not open the great doors, but they will let us in through the little door to hear the message. Then must we draw our weapons and drive away the guards—in the mid-watches no more than a score are awake—and open the great doors, holding our ground until the first riders of the Horde come up. After that we will see. I think we can reach the palace itself before the dogs of Greeks are astir.”
It was a hazardous plan, depending on the prompt arrival of the Mongols after the signal, and the tricking of the guards. How long
twelve men could hold the open gate against the swarming Greeks, Arslan did not know. But he had confidence in Sir Hugh, and he knew that the moments between the roll of the drums and the arrival of Subotai’s riders would be few indeed.
Other cities had the Mongols taken in just such fashion, in the darkness.
“If he sees the signal he will return. But if he is taken by the Emperor’s men—” Arslan groaned and clutched his belt, trying to reason out what he should do.
The Mongols, after lighting the fires, would rest an hour, to make sure the signal was seen. In less than another hour they would be in the Chersonese. Arslan wondered how long the fires had been going before he saw them.
“Listen,” one of his men whispered.
Outside the courtyard there was a sound of hurrying feet, and low-pitched voices—a movement of armed men, he knew, by the weight of the tread and the clinking of steel. When the sounds dwindled down the alley he drew a long breath of relief.
But there were other sounds that puzzled him—the galloping of horses hither and yon, a buzz of talk as a door was flung open; somewhere a trumpet blared.
The hair quivered up the back of his neck when he went to the roof again. Unless his eyes deceived him some of the galleys that had been anchored farther out were in motion toward the shore. And from the palace a long line of torches were coming along the ridge, toward the very gate that was to be their object of attack.
Meanwhile the bustle outside the courtyard grew louder. With the darkness, the Chersonese seemed to be astir. Arslan uttered a prayer to long-forgotten gods and thought of the furnaces and irons of the Greek torturer. Then he heard his name called. Sir Hugh was in the courtyard.
The crusader had entered from the alley and was swiftly putting on his mail hauberk, thigh-pieces, and mittens. He drew the coif of ringed steel over his head and belted on his sword, while the Mongols clustered around him silently.
“The Genoese are mustering in their quarter of the town,” he said. “Men under arms hold the plaza.”
“Why?”
Hugh shook his head. He had rowed close to the promontory, until crossbow bolts whizzing past his head had driven him away. The sun was setting then, and he noticed the stir in the city. Heading into one of the quays, he walked through the plaza and noticed bands of men under arms. But he had met with silence rather than outcry.
“We have seen the three fires in the hills,” cried Arslan.
The crusader jerked tight the buckle of his belt, turned to look at the signal that flickered through the darkness. Running to the garden wall, he stared out at the bay—at the torches that were thronging from the castle. The Mongols followed him expectantly, as dogs press close to the heels of their master.
Listening to the tread of feet in the alley, he gripped the hilt of Durandal and tried the blade in its sheath.
“By the splendor of God,” he said laughing, “there will be many to keep us company at the gate.”
He went to the door, flinging it open, and strode into the darkness. The eleven warriors followed him.
CHAPTER XXX - THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE
THE restless stirring of the city had not penetrated to the palace. Late that afternoon the courtiers still sat about the fountain that tossed its scented spray into the hot air of the central enclosure. Some of them diced or gossiped. The yellow marble walls still gave out the heat of the sun’s rays.
Imperial guardsmen in silver scale mail chatted at the foot of the long stairs that led from the court of the fountain to the Emperor’s chambers, which were on the side farthest from the land.
They greeted familiarly the slender figure of the Arab hakim, Abu Bekr, in his immaculate white cotton robe and hood, as he made his way into the presence.
“Thanks to thine arts, the Most Magnificent gains in health.”
The Arab brushed his fingers against his forehead and answered enigmatically.
“What Allah hath done is well done.”
He passed through the outer corridors and salaamed low at the threshold of the chamber that opened upon the balcony over the sea. A glance at his patient showed him that Theodore seemed comfortable.
At that moment the Emperor was talking with several nobles. But he soon tired of that, and Abu Bekr asked them to leave the sick man. Then the physician felt Theodore’s pulse and squatted down on the carpet by the couch, thrusting his hands into his sleeves, dignified and silent.
“Recovery is sure?” questioned the Emperor, who spoke Arabic well.
“What is written may not be changed, O King of the age. But all the signs are favorable.”
“Now am I at ease,” Theodore fingered his thin lips. “Thou, hakim, and the girl Rusudan cause me no anxiety. The others all come to beg for something.”
He gazed at the Georgian captive with pleasure, because he took delight in beauty and knew it when he saw it. Often he had thanked the gods that Choaspes had seen fit to make her a hostage. He did not quite know what Choaspes planned to do with the Georgian, but it was advisable not to have a young woman on the throne of one of the most warlike of the frontier peoples and, besides, he might arrange a marriage for her—with a Greek.
And he wondered what Rusudan could find to think about as she sat by the window of the balcony, watching the water with eager eyes.
“The wine, Rusudan,” he said.
After a moment’s hesitation, she rose and went past the giant Ethiopian who stood, motionless as the onyx pillar of the doorway, with his hands folded on the hilt of a bared scimitar. Whenever anyone entered or left the chamber the Negro moved his head a little and looked at Theodore. But he had grown accustomed to the Georgian, and he did not move as she brushed by him, merely breathing deep, as a dog does when half asleep.
She filled the Emperor’s goblet from a jar brought by a little deaf-mute girl, and at the same time the domastikos, who was the chamberlain of the palace, offered her the tray with Theodore’s supper. The sick man had asked for seasoned food, and the tray held a dish of rice curry.
Rusudan smiled, because the domastikos, in his high cap of cloth-of-silver and his curls glistening with oil, always amused her. Since she had the favor of the sick Emperor, the officials of the palace always bowed profoundly to her and addressed her as Kyria.
“It is a wonder,” murmured the Greek, “that any woman should have such color without henna stain, and such clear eyes as the most fortunate Kyria.”
Rusudan looked at him without answering, and the Greek seemed uncomfortable, perhaps because she gave the silver tray to the little girl to hold. While she knelt by the couch beside the deaf-mute slave Rusudan’s thoughts went out to the water. She did not taste the wine as she usually did before the Emperor drank of it. And as soon as he had emptied the goblet she hastened to the window.
For an hour that afternoon she had watched Hugh in his skiff, not daring to go to the balcony while the eyes of the Greeks were on her. His face had changed, and in his sheepskins he must have looked to the guards like a fisherman.
But Rusudan knew him by the turn of his head, the thrust of his powerful arms, and his way of lifting his chin. Not many rowers dared come near the palace, and no fisherman would have sat calmly when a crossbow bolt whipped past. Rusudan hardly breathed until he had drifted out from the rocks.
Even then she fastened her eyes on the skiff, noting greedily every swing of the man’s shoulders, every slight motion that might mean he had seen her, though he could not have done so within the chamber, at such a height.
Since she had been brought to the court she had heard the story of the crusader who defied the Emperor, and whenever she saw the Genoese, Trevisani, she thought with dismay how she had urged Sir Hugh to seek safety among the Greeks. She understood now that this man would not turn aside from peril, and she told herself that he had come to the Chersonese to seek her.
At times her veins were chilled by the fear that he might be recognized and given to the hands of the silent and beast-like torturers who awaited th
e summons of Theodore in the passages below the palace. She had seen captive women who screamed at the sight of these men.
But now she quivered with exultation, and her heart sent the blood beating through her body; she could rejoice in his daring, and it seemed to her as if all the men in the chamber must guess her secret—that she had seen the man she loved, and that somehow he would come near her and she would hear his voice.
Now the skiff was no longer visible, and all the shore was veiled in ruddy twilight. Rusudan rested her head on her arms, her lips half smiling. And then she caught her breath, hearing close behind her a groan that seemed to have come from an animal rather than a human being.
She looked around. The deaf mute still knelt by the couch holding the tray on her arms, but the eyes of the Negro were rolling wildly, and on the couch Theodore lay, tearing at his body with quivering fingers.
“Poison!” he grunted. “It is burning me!”
He flung himself over on his side, coughing and retching and crying for Abu Bekr.
Rusudan stood by the couch, voiceless. The Arab leaned over the Emperor, one knee on the couch, and touched his throat. He seized the chin of the struggling man and looked swiftly into the contorted face. Then he stepped back, glancing at the empty golden dish that had held the rice curry, and at the Georgian girl.
“No man may escape his fate,” he said calmly. “For him it is the hour appointed, and for thee and me—the All-Wise knoweth.”
“You must save him!” the girl cried. “Bring wine.”
But Abu Bekr merely shook his head. He turned and went to the other end of the carpet and knelt, bending his head and stretching forth his hands, palm down.
“Haram dar pishat,” he said under his breath. “The sanctuary is before thee, and lo, there comes a day of days when the believers shall count their joys.”
He was facing toward the south, preparing to meet the end of life and oblivious of other matters. Into the chamber thronged the domastikos, the captain of the guards, and frightened slaves.