by Harold Lamb
Alacha, sometimes called the Kara, or Black Turkoman, was the landholder of the valley of Badakshan—that wide, fertile valley which was more like a plain, high in the foothills of the Himalayas, wherein were the villages of the Afghans and the Mongol Hazaras and great Balkh, the mother of cities. Alacha was jagirdar, or fief-holder of the Mogul, and his authority over the land was absolute so long as the yearly tax of grain, animals, cloths, and silver was paid by him to the Mogul and judicious presents were sent to the court at the festivals.
Surrounded by his Turkoman, Persian and Uzbek followers, living in his stately, moving camp, the Slayer had well earned the name bestowed on him by the Afghan tribes of the countryside. Perhaps for this reason he had been selected by Jahangir, the Mogul, as a fitting ruler of Badakshan, which was far from peaceful. Once the warriors of Badakshan had aided the Mogul during the stress of battle, but the memory of an emperor is short, and independence is the breath of life to an Afghan.
To resist the authority of Alacha was to strike against the might of the Mogul. To lift weapon against the rulers of the valley was to risk the terrors of fire and pillage. So the mother in her grief had known, and so Chan knew. But the minstrel was great of soul.
Riding swiftly beyond the confines of the village, he passed the last of the tilled land and so came at full gallop to a rise in the trail where, silhouetted against the afterglow of the sky, two riders sat their horses.
They were tall men, fully armed. One by the drape of his turban and his long cloak appeared an Afghan. But Chan made out at his shoulder a small, round shield of a kind worn by followers of the Mogul. The other rider, bearded and wide of shoulder, wore a peculiar sheepskin hat tilted on one side of his shaggy head.
Both sat their horses easily, watching him. Both were powerful men, travel-stained. Neither spoke as he neared them, but he of the turban dressed his shield swiftly, seeing Chan pluck forth an arrow from over his shoulder.
Never doubting that the two were an afterguard of the armed party that had carried off the girl, Chan loosed the arrow. It rang against metal on the chest of the turbaned rider. The next moment Chan was on his foe, discarding his bow for the long Persian dagger in his girdle.
The minstrel struck swiftly, wheeling his pony as the rider maneuvered his own mount readily. Steel clashed against steel as Chan sought to close with his adversary, who faced him silently without giving ground. Momentarily Chan thought to feel the weapon of the other warrior strike his unprotected back. But the tall wearer of the sheepskin hat watched passively, even laughing once deep in his throat.
“Ho, stealer of women!” grunted the minstrel hotly, for it was his fashion to speak aloud while fighting and ever to voice the thought that was in his mind. “Despoiler of a home! Tearer of the veil of a maiden's chastity! Dog—”
Thus addressed, he of the turban caught Chan's wrist with his free hand and with a grip of remorseless fingers loosened the minstrel's hold on the dagger until the weapon clanged to earth.
Unarmed, Chan fronted his foe resolutely, stunned by the swift skill that had overcome him as if he were a child in arms.
“Aye, dog,” he muttered, “for you bear the insignia of shame, being yet an Afghan—” he pointed at the round shield—“for, like a dog you stray about seeking the scraps that fall from the Mogul's table and lick the hand that crushes the life from your race!”
Instead of striking the youth, the warrior of the turban drew a long, hissing breath and peered intently at Chan's face as if to mark his adversary. His own features were veiled by a loosened fold of the turban. And, bending head upon chest, he seemed to draw back into the screening shadows of evening. It was the silent watcher who spoke.
“Stripling, do your arrows burn in their quiver that you loose them thus? We are no takers of women. Some riders passed, at speed, two bow-shots before you, and in the dust of their going
I saw a woman across the saddle-peak of one. Likewise another woman ran after them screaming. If you seek them, go—but look before you loose a second shaft.”
Chan peered from one to the other, bewildered.
“Be you not men of the Mogul?”
“Aye, and—nay. Go!”
Glancing at the fierce eyes that bored into his from under shaggy brows, Chan stooped to snatch up his dagger without quitting saddle. He gathered up his reins, muttering to himself, “This is no man of human mold—” measuring the long waist, high shoulders and massive thews of the taller warrior—“and verily his mate is a swordsman of the brood of hell—”
“Of the Mogul's bodyguard,” grunted he of the sheepskin hat. “O one of small wit, you have crossed steel with him who is master of the scimitar in all Hindustan. There is another riddle for your addle-pate. Now, go!”
And Chan galloped away, not before his late adversary had checked him long enough to learn his name.
He urged his horse along the grassy trail, peering into the gathering shadows as he went. It was not long before he reined in suddenly, throwing his pony back on its haunches.
Leaping from the saddle, Chan ran to a white huddle that lay across the road. It was the form of a young woman, unveiled. Where throat met breast the hilt of a dagger projected, and under the still head and scattered tresses the earth was damp.
Chan shaded his eyes to search the trail ahead, but saw only a haze of dust at a distant turn.
“Alacha has passed,” he sighed.
Barely could be make out the face of the dead woman— rounded, innocent features, stained with dust, dark eyes that strained wildly up at the empty vault of the skies, a full, young mouth twisted with strange, sudden pain.
He touched the dagger-hilt gently without moving it and found it to be heavily jeweled, of Persian workmanship. Once or twice the minstrel had seen the weapon in the girdle of the Slayer.
“Aye,” he sighed again, “my precious flower of beauty was fair, even as I foreknew. Her cheeks are like the rounded rose-petals, her throat is fair as the soft throat of a pigeon.
“Aie—my fair one, my pearl of love, my bird that fell from the nest! Allah in His wisdom has taken you to His mercy—so Muhammad Asad, the holy man would tell me. I mocked at him, yet can I doubt the meaning of death?”
As if the story were written in the dust of the road, its message was clear for Chan to read. Held upon the saddle-peak of Alacha, the girl had managed to draw his dagger from his girdle unseen in the dim light and had struck, not at her foe but at herself, choosing the surest release from her bondage.
It was like Alacha, the minstrel pondered bitterly, to toss the body aside into the road when he saw that the woman would die. By tomorrow he would have forgotten the incident. Alacha, by nature and political position, was scarcely afraid of consequences.
So Chan, grieving at the death of the woman he had wooed without seeing her face, took up the body in his arms. With some difficulty he mounted, bearing his burden, and set off back along the way he had come, toward the village.
Far overhead on his right the snow peaks were turning from dark crimson to purple. Darkness was in the valley, and a cold wind stirred the dust under the pony's hoofs, wafting a strong, chill scent of willows and aspen from the nearby thickets.
Man and horse moved slowly as if tired. Chan's thoughts were numbed.
“The mountains are red,” he said to himself, “and red is the road. It is the color of blood.”
The muscles of his face moved spasmodically and stiffened. His teeth drew back from set lips.
“In the law of the Prophet is it written; there is the price of blood to be paid. Aye—to be paid.”
II
The Sign at the Crossroads
The light had not failed when the two riders who had recently encountered Chan passed by the village without attracting attention and followed the path as it wound upward along the edge of the forest.
They rode in silence, yet keeping abreast and looking occasionally at each other or at the trail ahead or behind in the fashion of men who hav
e been much together and are accustomed to notice their surroundings with a wariness that is the mark of troubled times.
Here the forest gave back and numerous fields of lush grass appeared cut by ravines, down which unseen streams murmured over worn stones. An owl hooted somewhere in the direction of a bare pine that towered against the darkening sky. And ahead of them a flight of wide-winged birds rose lazily. At the same time a stringent odor came to them on the wind.
The Afghan motioned his companion to halt and pointed out another path running athwart their own. Midway where the two met, a stout stake projected from the ground. A last, lingering vulture flapped away from the stake, rising from the body of a man transfixed by the wooden point.
“This is my homeland,” observed he of the turban slowly, “and I have not slept within its borders since some months before I joined company with you. Behold the sign for the traveler.”
He laughed once shortly, and passed on, his horse shying at the dead body.
“Even so,” remarked the elder rider calmly, “we must sleep and our horses have come far this day from the pass you call the Khyber.”
The Afghan glanced back at the stake and the form over which the carrion birds were assembling, now that the two riders had passed the crossroads.
“Not here, old warrior. Nearby in a ravine should be a holy man, Muhammad Asad, whom I seek. Come!”
Up one of the watercourses which descended from the slopes of the overhanging hills there was a granite cliff bearing certain writings in the Turki tongue, chiseled into the face of the rock. These writings, maxims of the Koran, were laboriously traced by the hermit mullah, Muhammad Asad, whose blindness precluded his writing upon parchment.
Unlike the Hindu fakirs, Muhammad Asad lived not upon mendicant charity, but was supplied with food by the villagers. A thin native boy who had kindled a fire in the mouth of the cliff's base—the abode of the mullah—stared at the two newcomers who walked their horses into the circle of light.
The hermit, a lean man with white beard and skin darkened almost to black by the sun, stood up in his neat cloak and spotless turban and greeted the two, seemingly without surprise.
“It is written,” he cried in a melodious voice, “that guests are a blessing from Allah. Doubly fortunate am I, in this ill-omened year, that I should share my evening meal. Dismount!”
“A true Afghan greeting,” observed the turbaned warrior to his companion, turning his horse loose to graze.
At this the blind mullah lifted his head sharply, as one who hears a familiar note of music.
“A true believer speaks,” he murmured. “Aye, in the hills of Badakshan it is the law that even an enemy may sleep unafraid beneath the roof of an Afghan. Are you friend or enemy?”
His sightless eyes peered in the direction of the two visitors as if seeking out the secrets that were hidden from him. The Afghan strode to the fire.
“A friend, Muhammad Asad,” he responded almost roughly. “Aye, one who rides pursued by sorrow. My companion is a warrior known to many lands and courts, although a caphar— unbeliever. Come, give him food.”
Muhammad Asad still stood as if listening for something he did not hear.
“It is written,” he said again gently, “that he who is pursued by sorrow knows not what the road may bring to him.”
He motioned his guests to the fire, but refused to share their repast, saying that hunger lacked. Then he dismissed the boy and bade them spread blankets by the fire within the shallow cave, which was little except a depression in the face of the cliff.
“Enough to an Afghan,” he observed quietly, “his rug and blanket. Let the hired mercenaries of the World-Gripper1 have their silks and cushions.”
The Afghan warrior looked up sharply, his glance straying to the round shield that rested against his quiver, within arm's reach. In the firelight his hawk-like features stood out clearly, the skin tight upon the bone, his keen eyes quick and clear, his thin-lipped mouth straight as a knife-cut in the dark face.
A man in the prime of life, his bearing and actions suggested a soldier, and a scar running from cheek to eye indicated a severe wound sustained years ago. He ate little, and watched the mullah thoughtfully.
His big-boned, bearded companion, however, made away with enough for two men and looked regretfully at the last remains of the pilau—a dish of rice and mutton, highly seasoned. Then he lay back upon his sheepskin coat, paying little attention to the talk of the other two, for he knew only a smattering of Turki.
“Warrior,” observed the mullah, folding thin arms in his wide sleeves. “You have come far this day. Aye, from the Khyber neck where the guards of Alacha watch the land. You are a soldier of the Mogul, and you have come hither to hear what Muhammad Asad can tell you about the valley.”
The Afghan started and glared at the priest.
“This is sorcery!” he grunted. “You are blind—”
“Sight, Muslim,” smiled Muhammand Asad, “lies inward as well as outward. A lame sense is aided by the crutch of wisdom. Nay—you walk and sit like one who is sore and wearied, as I can hear. Were you not a follower of the World—Gripper—may Allah heap upon him the fruits of his tyranny—Alacha's guards would not lightly let you pass. And since my poor home is hidden from the high road, you have sought me out.”
The other fingered his sword irresolutely.
“On the farther side of the village, O kwajah, we beheld a youth who calls himself Chan, and he rode in pursuit of men who had taken a woman from the village. Know you aught of this?”
“A woman!” Muhammad Asad's thin face darkened. “That is an evil thing. So Alacha has dared openly to pierce the veil of the harem?
“Yet it is like to other deeds of the Slayer. He struck down with his sword the child who brought out to him the keys of Balkh—because it was thought he would not strike a child—and laughed, saying that the bandits of the Hindu Kush should taste the power of their emperor.”
He paused, shaking his head.
“My years are many, O honored guest—” the blind man dwelled forcibly on the last two words—“and much have I heard of the warfare of the tribes, sometimes between themselves, for that has been the fate of the Afghan, and more often to defend them from the Uzbek of the West or the Persian of the South. But never before have I heard the name of emperor cried out in the valley of the Hindu Kush that is Badakshan. So I have proclaimed from the minaret of Balkh that this is a year of danger and peril, wherein the evil omens cluster about Badakshan as the vultures sink to the body of the slain messenger on the high road. For that Alacha had the soles of my feet beaten with wands, and I gave thanks to Allah, for I suffered in a just cause.”
“I have been in Hindustan,” said the soldier, “and there also have wars been. I have not heard of these things.”
“Doubtless the emperor of Hindustan has paid you in good gold,” responded the priest. “Watching from our hills, we have seen the armies of the Mogul overrun the province of Kabul, and once our fighting men under our leader Abdul Dost saved the World-Gripper his life. Has Jahangir forgotten that?”
“The court is far from Badakshan, and the revenues from the hills have been scanty, O kwajah. Money is the thews by which the Mogul holds his empire together.”
“Yet Jahangir sent Alacha. Once we dispatched a messenger to complain to the Mogul. When the Slayer learned of this the messenger did not return to us, nor did his word reach farther than one of the lesser ameers.”
And Muhammad Asad, kneeling by the embers of the fire, told of villages stripped of their stores of grain so that hunger walked ominously through the valley, of droves of horses requisitioned for the imperial army, of bakhshis, treasurers, who made a list of the goods of each man and took one-third for Alacha.
He described hunts, ordered for the pleasure of Alacha, in which farmers' crops were trampled by the riders, and of cattle driven off in nightly raids which the jagirdar countenanced.
“It is our fate that this should be la
id upon us. What could we do? The imperial standard is set before the tent of Alacha. Through him the Mogul speaks. There is no one to call him to account. Once when our councilors of Balkh were trying to keep the young men and the wandering Hazaras from revolt, I sent a second messenger, this time to our former leader-in-arms, Abdul Dost. But Alacha is shrewd and the messenger lies on the high road near my abode.”
The Afghan stared into the fire, plucking at his beard.
“Yet, O kwajah, you should be a man of peace and I and our older men fought for Akbar, the father of Jahangir. It was he gave me rank of mansabdar on the battlefield—”
“And now the pay for which you have sold your sword is gleaned from the empty bellies of our tribe. The Mogul is no longer a hill man, and he has forgotten that his grandsire was of Mongol blood. He has turned Hindu, and it is said he eats the drugs of the Persians. The shadow of his hand lies over the land.” “Only in a united India, O kwajah, is there hope of peace. The Mogul's hand binds together the empire.”
“Evil, Muslim, is to be spurned. And Alacha is evil. Doubtless you fear him—”
“Bismillah! I, who have turned my horse from no man, fear the Black Turkoman?”
The mullah smiled a little. “There speaks Abdul Dost.” He nodded as if in confirmation of what he had previously suspected. “Once, Abdul Dost, I heard your voice on the high road, in the year of the Ox. And I do not easily forget.”
At this the Afghan soldier who had taken service with the Mogul fell to stroking his short black beard, as was his habit when disturbed. Since the death of his master, the last Afghan ruler of Badakshan, Abdul Dost had followed the path of war behind the standard of the Mogul, though more often engaged in independent forays with his old companion who now slept profoundly by the fireside, secure in the presence of friends.
Mingled emotions showed in the dark face of the Muslim warrior. He had heard something—for little news drifted south through the mountains save what Alacha chose to send—of the tyranny that had oppressed his people. Yet he had honored the service of Akbar, the Great, father of Jahangir, from childhood, and like the best type of Mohammedan soldier, he was faithful to his leader.