by Harold Lamb
Instead of closing in on him, the Tatars stood rigid in their tracks. Even the Chinese bowmen turned and bent their heads before a man who had entered alone, muddy to the waist, with a white camelskin chaban flung over his wide shoulders. His cheeks were gaunt, and a stain of dried blood ran from his thin lips to his wide chin. But his eyes, restive as a hawk's, fastened instantly upon Nial.
"Throw down thy weapon!" Shedda besought Nial. "The khan-it is death to hold a drawn weapon near him." And as Nial, with set face, clasped his sword grimly, she began to wail. "Ai-a! Fool-bringer of misfortune!"
Nial recognized the khan as the Tatar who had been at bay before six foemen in the alley.
But Shedda flung herself on her knees before the tall master of the Horde, fearing for her life. She had brought the Christian hither, vouching for him at the door, and now he stood armed against the most dreaded soul of the steppes.
"0 lord of the West and the East," she cried, "0 Victorious Lion-"
A gesture from Barka Khan, who understood Arabic, brushed away her praise of him. The girl, however, had thought of a way to clear herself of blame, and her voice shrilled on:
"My Khan, this man is a foe. I drew his secret from him, and kept watch upon him, until I brought him hither to thee. He is a Nazarene from the West like that other, his comrade who lies dead below us, but skilled in swordplay. He changed his shape and came to open the gate to thy foes the Moslems. He carried a shir-paizah-" her quick wit seized upon a faint memory-"which he threw away at the mouth of the dome passage. Now behold him, at thy mercy."
Barka Khan drew the soggy gloves from his hands and let them fall in silence.
"Hast thou a witness?" he asked the girl after a moment.
"Aye, my Khan." Shedda looked up at him reverently. "Mardi Dobro, the reader of omens."
"He is at the gate. Bring him."
When a warrior ran from the chamber to seek Mardi Dobro, the khan took a cup from the hand of a servant and drank a little. Holding the cup, he walked quietly to Nial, even coming within arm's reach although his scimitar was in its sheath at his side.
"Thou hast heard-understood? What word hast thou to say?"
Nial smiled wearily. What could he say? Shedda's betrayal would stand against any denial.
"I came," he said bluntly, "knowing naught of the Moslems. I came to steal the great emerald called the Green Lion for this other man, who was my friend."
For a moment the dark eyes of the Tatar lord met the blue eyes of the crusader's son. Then he turned on his heel to go and stare down the opening at Tron's body.
The color came again into Shedda's cheeks. Even the dead Genoese served to prove her tale, and she relied upon Mardi Dobro's cunning. When the shaman entered, the khan turned upon him instantly.
"What is this man, 0 interpreter of omens, who bath changed his shape and now stands before me with a drawn sword?"
A single glance told Mardi Dobro the story of Nial's set face and the anger of the Tatars. Running forward, he threw himself down before the khan, beating his shaggy head against the floor. His wrinkled face tensed with anxiety, for Barka Khan was the only human being the shaman feared.
"At the Sea Gate," he croaked, "I beheld this youth land from the sea, bearing this sword. In that hour I read the omen of the fire upon bone. Clearly I saw the sign, that this sword was bound up with thy life, as an arrow with its feather."
The listeners edged closer, for this was a strange sign that had proved true. Even Barka Khan was deeply attentive.
"For good or evil?" he asked.
Mardi Dobro's green eyes gleamed shrewdly.
"For evil," he lied. "Behold, I warned thee of perils gathering, rising against thee, and now is this sword come against thee, as the sign foretold."
Nial tightened his muscles, to await the speeding of an arrow from the long bows of the Chinese guards who had drawn near him, weapons in hand. Barka Khan struck his hands together in anger.
"This night," the khan said grimly, "there has been too much changing of shapes. I have listened to words that hide like foxes in tall grass. Thy words-" he turned to Shedda-"were lies. This bearer of a sword was not among the Moslems; he was beside me. And thy sign," he added to the startled shaman, "was false. The sword struck down two of my foemen, giving me life."
He strode to Nial and touched his arm.
"The khan does not turn his face from one who has shed blood for him. I know naught of what is behind thee. It is like a mist over the water. Now sheath thy sword and fear not. Thou hast taken the shape of a gur-khan of my guard. Be one. But-" he smiled slightly-"do not change thy shape again."
Shedda tried to touch the edge of his chaban, and Mardi Dobro muttered frantically, but Barka Khan heeded them no more than the stones of the floor. He had been six days and almost as many nights in the saddle; he had cut his way through the streets of Sarai to get here. He had been wounded more than once, and had hours of fighting ahead before he could rest.
"Come to me," he said over his shoulder to Nial, "after the time water takes to boil."
One of the officers brought a cup of spiced wine to Nial, and another asked if he would accept a horse, a Kabarda.
Nial sheathed his sword, emptied the cup and drew a long breath.
"Aye," he said.
With the noyons of the khan, he went from the chamber under the dome. Gray light filtered through the embrasures, and sunlight flashed upon a distant snowy peak. The giant Chinese resumed their vigil, and quiet settled down upon the House of Gold. Shedda clutched her cloak about her, shivering. She lived, but she had been scorned by Barka Khan, who had not even troubled to slay her; and Nial no longer had eyes for her beauty.
"Fool, and son of a witless dog," she whispered at the shaman, "to lie to thy lord. He spoke the truth."
But Mardi Dobro did not hear her. In stricken silence he was turning over between his fingers the shoulder bone of a sheep that had prevailed against the power of armed men and his own cunning.
It was a time of hunger in the dry lands. When the Yamanite rode in with a bit of news, he bargained for it shrewdly, being hungry himself.
"Six riding camels they have, and twenty good horses," he said. And he watched the gray eyes of the man sitting above him in a chair. But the eyes told him nothing. "Aye, tents in the baggage, and women slaves," he added, for good measure.
"It is more likely," put in Khalil from across the table, "that thou art lying."
"Nay, I saw them. I counted them." The lean Arab from Yaman bent closer to the chair of the lord of the castle and whispered, "Yah khawand, it is truly an escort. It is not a raiding party. Perhaps they are escorting the family of an emir of the Hauran. That would he good plunder for thee, 0 my master."
"Where," asked Khalil again, "is this notable caravan?"
"In the valley-" began the Arab, and remembered to guard his secret. He thrust thin arms from his rags. "Is it not enough that I have sworn upon the Koran? Now-listen, ye Christian folk-I swear by the oath of the divorce. If this thing that I say be not true, may my wives be divorced."
Khalil laughed, but the man in the chair stirred his long length.
"How many men?" he asked briefly.
Swiftly the Arab counted upon his fingers.
"More than thirty, 0 my lord, and less than forty, good and bad. But the horses are worth a risk."
Sir John drew patterns in the spilled wine on the table. The hall in which the three were sitting-he, Khalil, his friend, and the strange Arab-had nothing to cover its bare stones, stained with smoke. The carpets under his feet were loot taken from Moslem caravans. The big chest behind him held nothing within it, more than a few sword blades and silver cups. Money he had not, that was certain.
"And what is to be the payment," he observed to the desert man, "for thy news?"
"I will guide thee to the halting place of the caravan, and a fifth of everything taken is my just due."
"Y'allah!" cried Khalil. "0 God!"
"However," s
aid the Arab, "I will leave the small matter of payment to the measure of my lord. Men say that the Long Sword hath a generous hand."
Sir John, whose name among the Arabs was the Long Sword, glanced out of the narrow arrow slit into the midday glare of the courtyard. Gray lizards scurried about the cracks in the stones, and black goats nosed in the shadows for the grass that had been plentiful enough after the last rains, but which was now an idle dream. He had been obliged to send his cattle to a distant valley, trusting to Providence that his Moslem neighbors would not discover the herd. His sheep were scattered all through the wadis, keeping alive somehow or other.
No rain had fallen that season in the desert beyond the river Jordan, and his wheat had dried in the earth. A month ago he had gone to Jerusalem to try to sell his sheep, without avail. He had gone to the abbot of Mount Sion to borrow a sum of money until the next rains, but the abbot would not lend to any one who held a castle on the border, beyond Jordan. The risk was too great. And Sir John of the Mount knew himself poverty-ridden at last.
True, he had the Mount, a tawny mass of stones upon the limestone butte above the sycamore grove. A fair, strong castle, it was-the stones cracked by siege and by sun, yet still intact. His father, coming overseas in the crusade, had built it and now lay buried beside his mother under the stone flags of the chapel.
The Mount was manor of a thousand acres. Without rain, the land yielded nothing, and the granary held only dust. The Moslems had cut down his orchards in the last raid at harvest time, and the olive groves belonged to his Arab villagers whose domed huts clustered by the sycamores and the well below the Mount. The young Lord of the Mount lived alone-so lonely that no priest cared to keep up the service of his little chapel.
Sir John, being noted for his skill with the sword, might have gained gear and gold and men to follow him, if he sold his sword to one of the great princes of Antioch or Acre.
But this was his manor and his birthplace. He had learned to cling to the back of his pony here not so many years ago; he had led his dogs in the hunt through the shrub pines by the high road from Damascus. And John of the Mount came from a breed of men who do not leave their land.
He needed sorely those twenty horses and anything else the caravan might have. But it puzzled him. Good horses, pavilions, slaves, a strong escort-that might mean a woman. Yet why had the escort halted within his lands, even for the noon rest?
Silently he summed up the chances. He thought the Yamanite was speaking the truth. If the Arab had offered to lead them to the caravan without reward he would have suspected a trick. The trouble was, he had not men enough-even to garrison the Mount properly. If he left old Renald and five archers to watch the castle, he would have Khalil and six men-at-arms, mounted, with the usual volunteers among the Arab swordsmen of the village, who would pillage with a will but would not stand to fight. Not enough to overpower the caravan escort. And yet, Sir John had no mind to let a chance slip by.
"We will go and see if thou art lying," he said to the strange Arab. "Khalil, let him eat first."
"And my reward, 0 Master of the Long Sword?"
"Thou wilt come with us," said Sir John. "And thy reward will be as God wills."
For leagues around the Mount the surface of the earth was gashed by rocky ravines known as wadis, through which ran streams in a time of rains. But now the wadis were dry and empty. On the plateau above them the intolerable midafternoon sun glowed against the white limestone and yellow clay. Sir John wore the native khou fie over his light steel helm, and over his shoulders a heavy black cloak to shield his mail from the sun's touch.
Under the drapery, his face was lined and somber, his harsh lips unsmiling. He watched for his sheep and saw nothing of them, and knew that they had been driven off by raiders, or by his own shepherds. When he came to the deep ravine the Arab pointed out he rode slowly and drew rein at its edge. For a moment the men from the Mount stared down into the shimmering glare and the dense shadows.
"What is thy name?" Khalil asked the ragged tribesman.
The Yamanite responded absently:
"Malik ibn malik, Ibrahim ibn Sulaiman al Akabi."
"Son of Solomon thou mayest be, 0 Ibrahim," murmured Khalil, "but thou art a very father of lies. The caravan is not here."
"It was here-yonder in the shadow by the well that is the Well of Moses."
"Then it must have grown wings like the angels and flown elsewhere. Thou hast brought us to the wrong wadi-"
"Am I a fat sheep, not to know one place from another? Go and look at the dung of the beasts-"
"And am I a blind she-dog, to put my nose into a trap-"
"Peace, ye addleheads!" said Sir John, who had satisfied himself that the valley was empty. "We will go over and look at the road."
He was thinking of his sheep as he led the way along a cattle path that kept clear of the heights without descending into the gullies where they might have been set upon by the unseen Moslems. The path ended upon the shoulder of a hill and the young knight uttered an exclamation.
"Yonder is the caravan."
Under their feet wound the narrow high road and, beyond it, in the shadow of a cliff, stood two silk pavilions. Horses-a score of them-were tethered beneath some olive trees. Men walked about idly, or stretched out in the sand. But the men wore cloaks and hose, and crossbows and spears were stacked by the baggage. Ibrahim squinted at them and shook his gray head.
"Nay, my lord, this is another caravan. Certainly these are Franks."`
"Merchants," added Khalil, eagerly. "By the Lord, those are princely tents. Let us cross the road at another place and drop down upon them from the height."
Nothing would have suited him better, for Khalil was a Kurd of the north, with all the courtesy and the predatory instinct of his people. He had lingered at the Mount as a guest and he knew that the Christian barons of Jerusalem were not reluctant to glean plunder from passing merchants. But Sir John cantered down to the road.
The men in the camp took notice, running out and snatching up shield and bow, while a slender figure in black emerged from one of the pavilions beneath a parasol held by a slave.
"Who comes?" the man in black hailed the horsemen in Arabic.
"John of the Mount of Moab, vassal of the King of Jerusalem."
"Then throw back your pagan hood," the voice responded in Norman French. "And bid your children yonder keep their distance."
But the Arabs who had followed Sir John lingered down the road of their own accord. He did not dismount, although he pulled his horse into a walk, and the men from the castle did likewise. For the youth in black seemed half minded to greet them with crossbow bolts. He stood his ground, staring at them coolly, clad in immaculate velvet, a heavy silver chain at his bare throat. An older man, even more richly dressed, had come out and seated himself in an armchair. Sir John knew them to be Venetians from the coast cities.
"The Lord of Mocenigo," said the youth of the chain briefly, "Comptore of Acre, and my father. What is your wish, Sir John?"
He spoke with the harsh accent of an Italian, and the careless arrogance of a Venetian who knew himself superior in wealth and culture to the rude crusaders.
The elder Mocenigo leaned on his staff, without words. But Sir John's eyes were upon the other pavilion.
The girl who stood there under the entrance canopy might have come from paradise itself. Not in all his years had the knight of Moab land seen such red-gold hair, shimmering against the blue of her robe. The young Mocenigo glanced over his shoulder and smiled-
"It is evident, good sir, you are not blind."
But the girl spoke impatiently.
"Is this the escort? Now by my faith, they are infidels and I like them not."
"Infidels they may be, my lady-" the younger Mocenigo bowed-"but escort of yours they are not. You will not find us so lacking in courtesy or care of you."
John of the Mount felt his cheeks grow warm. He had no skill in such polite phrases of cultured folk. He kneed
his horse forward-he had not been invited to join the strangers, even to have a cup of wine. And still he stared down at the girl of the red-gold hair. Surely, so clear was her skin, she must be a newcomer in Palestine. He had not heard such a voice in all Jerusalem. And, with her eyes upon him, he felt himself grimy and ill at ease, and he did not wonder that his men seemed to her no better than a Moslem crew.
"Where i' God's name are you going?" he asked bluntly.
"To my uncle at Kerak," she said, "if it please you."
And he thought that she had no liking for his words. So he turned to the younger Italian.
"Then have you come upon the wrong road. Kerak castle lieth behind you." And when they were silent, he added, "It were best to take shelter at the Mount for the night."
"We give you thanks," said the young Mocenigo, "but we are camped here; and as for the road, we follow our own."
"Under whose safeguard?"
The Italian shrugged impatiently.
"This lady hath need of no safeguard where Christians hold the land, and my father is known from Aleppo to the desert. We need not Michael the archangel, nor his flaming sword."
And it seemed to the knight that he was being mocked. Again he dared question the fair girl who stood before the two older women-servants by the look of them.
"This uncle of yours, demoiselle-how is he named?"
"You should know well his name," she replied instantly with a toss of her small head, "for he is the Lord of Kerak, and I have come from Chatillon to take shelter in his great hall."
The Venetian had spoken truly. Reginald of Chatillon was the most powerful of the barons who held the frontier, and more than once John of the Mount had gone with him on foray or battle quest.
"Is it your way, messire," she went on, "to ask such questions of those who fare past your hold?"