Swords From the West

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Swords From the West Page 11

by Harold Lamb


  For awhile she did not move, and perhaps she pondered the strange, hard land, the gnarled olive trees and the distant patches of grazing cattle-the heights of Moab, beyond the Promised Land. Only when a mailed tread grated on the stair she turned quickly.

  A tall and grizzled man in a stained native cloak emerged from the stair and bade her a gruff good morning. This was old Renald-she knew him to be captain of the men-at-arms-and when he had scrutinized the camp under the sycamores she decided to make him talk.

  "It was ill done," she observed, "to open the gate at vespers yesterday."

  Renald grunted.

  "'Twas Sir John's doing."

  "But why?"

  The old Norman turned upon her, scowling.

  "Why, my lady? We ha' fourteen men, and they ha' near a hundred. If they had scattered around the wall we could not hold them off. So Sir John says, 'We will invite them in at the door,' and they had many a woundy knock from our bolts and bows. Fourteen men!" He shook his head gloomily.

  "It was a sore and bloody onset," the girl sighed. "But it was Sir John's doing. Is he friend to Sir Reginald of Kerak?"

  "Aye," Renald muttered.

  "Then you have sent a rider to Kerak, for aid?"

  "Belike. An Arab went off that way last night."

  It seemed to the girl that the Norman captain had not answered frankly.

  "Of course," she said, "you are safe now, within this wall, until aid comes."

  "Wi' fourteen men? Nay, Kerak lieth distant three days' ride, and the castle lacks food for two days."

  "Then you must make terms with the Mocenigos."

  "Terms? Not Sir John. Not wi' yonder parings of the devil's hoofs. The Mount will make no composition wi' blethering slave sellers."

  "But they are honorable merchants and men of property in the cities."

  "I doubt it not. There's a-many cattle thieves and slave traders who are men of property, my lady." He nodded sagely. "If they were true men, would ye be here, my lady?"

  Marguerite told herself that this man had not seen her carried off from the tent the day before. But she could not help understanding that Renald and the men of the Mount felt that this siege was her fault, and she thought for a moment, twisting within her fingers the strands of her heavy hair.

  "Will you tell your lord that I would like to-to speak with him?"

  She waited in her cell, until Khalil appeared in the door and made signs to indicate that Sir John slept. She did not know that both men had been afoot during the night, and she sat in the dark chamber until sunset, when the impassive Arab girl came with her tray. Marguerite did not try to talk to her. She was weary of the silence and doubt, and she wondered if the Lord of the Mount had been hurt in the fighting. The thought frightened her. At least the knight was master here and would let no other hand harm her. If he were dead ...

  Straightaway she slipped out into the stair and felt her way down through the darkness. At the first turning she stopped, hearing men in talk within the hall below, and the familiar ringing voice of the knight. But they were speaking Arabic and the strange sound of it held no reassurance for her. Nor would she go down to be stared at by the men-at-arms.

  Instead, she went back to her room. She had sent for the knight, and no doubt he would come after the meeting in the hall. Or at least send her a candle to light the room. But he did not come, and the tired girl felt hot tears upon her eyes. She threw herself down on the bed and cried herself to sleep.

  And in utter darkness, late in the night, she was roused by a distant tumult. She ran to the embrasure, listening. Somewhere swords clashed and brush crackled. Torches flickered through the olive trees, and the darkness was astir with moving figures. Above the tumult rang out a battle shout that she knew well.

  "Chatillon! Chatillon!" And again, "Kerak to the rescue!"

  With a cry of delight she drew the hood of her robe over her head and ran down the stair.

  Before evening of that day Khalil had forgotten all about the girl in the tower-even that Renald had asked him to tell Sir John that she wished to speak with him. While the crusader ate a hasty supper, the two talked earnestly, and at the end the Kurd threw up his hands.

  "Art thou weary of life?" he wondered.

  "Aye, weary of sitting here until we are beset," Sir John said grimly. "Hast thou any love for the Italian crossbows?"

  "Nay, certainly." Khalil shook his dark head emphatically.

  These powerful weapons, that drove their bolts through shield and armor, were heartily disliked by the Moslem warriors.

  "Well, at night such bows avail not at all, and a sword is the best weapon. And thou knowest the Damascus men will flee if the Italians give way."

  "That is true. But cattle and torches and these Arab sons of sloth are no fit weapons."

  The crusader laughed, for he meant to press everything into service if only Khalil would agree to act with him.

  "Thy people say," he suggested "'At night a dog may be a lion.' And our cattle may become something else. Khalil, the Franks outside offered me, before the fight at the gate, two thousand pieces of gold to give up the woman. Has it never befallen thee to know a girl more precious than two thousand byzants?"

  "No," responded the Kurd, "never."

  "It has befallen me." Sir John's eyes softened. "No hand but mine will be laid upon the girl I have brought hither, and the sons she will bear will be my sons."

  Khalil nodded, intent on a calculation of his own.

  "If the Franks offered two thousand pieces, they must have that and more in their chests, and the escort from Damascus will have much more. The spoil would be a good spoil. As thou sayest, it is better to go out than to sit here."

  "Much better," agreed the knight. "Now I will go first, for the cattle and the herders wait. Ibrahim warned them, and Renald saw them at sunset from the tower."

  Again the Kurd nodded.

  "My part is easier than thine. But fail not to come, or we will be taken like sheep." He stood up and stretched lean arms with a smile. "It is written, and we may not read what is written."

  So they went out together into the courtyard. And when Sir John's horse was led up, he glanced at the dark tower, thinking that he would like to have a word with his captive before setting out. But the women told him that she was asleep, and already he had delayed to argue with Khalil. He mounted to the saddle, spoke briefly with Renald, who was to hold the castle gate with one man and the village folk, and then rode from the narrow postern through which Ibrahim had slipped the night before.

  For awhile the courtyard was astir. Khalil counted off the ten men-atarms who remained to accompany him, and he selected as many of the Arab youths, making certain that each one had arms and a horse. Then he waited patiently until Renald called to him that the tally candle showed an hour elapsed.

  With his twenty following in file, Khalil left the postern and turned in the direction opposite that taken by the knight. Although the castle was between him and the camp, he led his horse carefully into the darkness, into a gully where the starlight did not penetrate.

  The gully turned away from the castle, but Khalil and his men knew every rock of the path, and presently they assembled on rising ground that overlooked the distant embers of the besiegers' fires and the gloom of the sycamore grove.

  Khalil peered down uneasily. He did not know how many men might be awake down there in the gloom under the trees, and besides, he could see almost nothing at all because he had Sir John's heavy battle casque on his head. And his left arm was already weary with the weight of Sir John's long kite shield. From side to side he turned his head like an uneasy wolf, seeing only the red glimmer of campfires and the yellow points of stars overhead.

  "May Allah confound this steel pot!" he swore.

  "What sayest thou, Lord Khalil? " a man-at-arms asked anxiously. "Yonder come the torches."

  It had taken Sir John a good hour's persuasion to induce the wary Kurd to put the great helm on his head, but having given
his promise to lead the attack, Khalil would not hold back. With a shout he spurred his horse and dashed down the slope.

  "The Mount!" cried his men-at-arms. "The Mount!"

  And they followed with a clatter of hoofs and jangle of mail, while the Arabs behind them gave tongue. A wailing cry greeted them from the darkness, and arrows whipped by them. They were entering the camp of the Damascus men, and the sentries were wide awake. Cymbals clashed by the tents and an Italian horn echoed the clash.

  Khalil swerved past patches of brush and pulled his horse out of a long stumble. He rode down a dark figure that seemed to spring out of the ground, and he careened into a tent. The pole of the tent swayed and came down upon other figures that struggled beneath the cloth, while Khalil's horse reared frantically and its master cursed anew.

  Something crashed against the steel at his ear, and he beheld clearly enough the red flames that sprang before his eyes. An arrow ripped the mail links from his shoulder, and he lifted his shield in time to ward the smashing blow of a war club. Then his horse jumped clear of the tangle and, because the cressets hanging about the camp had been lighted, he saw that the warriors of Damascus were swarming out like bees, sword in hand.

  Sir John's men had followed his example, and a half dozen tents had been overturned, while horses and running men leaped about the confusion like minions of purgatory welcoming a new host of the damned. Khalil cut the turban from the head of a passerby, and peered about, sawing at the rein of his maddened charger. A scimitar blade smote the mail upon his shoulders and he wheeled and slashed behind him, his sword sweeping vainly through the air.

  Then the clatter of steel dwindled, and he saw the Moslems peering behind them. A greater sound filled the night, a stamping of reckless hoofs, a tearing of brush and a roar as of a freshet coming down a mountain. A black mass swayed and bore down upon the far side of the camp and on a knoll above it a strange trumpet resounded.

  "Kerak!" A clear voice shouted. "Chatillon! Kerak to the rescue!"

  Torches flickered on the knoll, disclosing a horseman in full armor, a light steel cap on his dark head, a drawn sword in his hand. For an instant he halted there, and then repeated his battle shout and galloped down to the mass that was moving on the camp.

  And Khalil laughed.

  All this the Mocenigos had seen, when they were roused from sleep, and ran out to stare and listen. They were men of nimble mind, and when they heard the cry of Kerak both thought of the same thing-of a rope dangling from the bough of a tree and their own bodies dangling from the rope. For Reginald of Chatillon would do no less than that to any merchants who made shift to sell his niece as a slave.

  Although not accustomed to war, they were equally swift to act. They hastened to their horses and, finding them saddled, called to the nearest Venetians. And with some dozen riders they galloped from the camp as if the foul fiend had been at their heels.

  Khalil saw them and spurred toward them.

  "The Mount!" he cried, and men-at-arms hurried toward him.

  The Mocenigos veered off, and Khalil went after them, wresting vainly with the lashes that bound the intolerable casque upon him.

  But other Venetians and Moslems had beheld the flight of their leaders. While the Damascus men hesitated, the black wave smote the camp and resolved into a bellowing and trampling herd of cattle that bore down the remaining tents and sent the frightened horses plunging into the brush. The men of Damascus had come hither to escort a lady and not to fight. When a strange knight charged at them with a strange war shout, and torches waved triumphantly upon the wall of the Mount, they took thought for themselves and vanished.

  Only here and there did men stand against the lances of the riders from the Mount and the young Arabs, who were delirious now with the prospect of slaughter and loot together. And the gates of the Mount burst open. A stream of old Arabs and women and boys emerged and bore down upon the fallen tents, to pillage in their turn. The remaining Venetians threw down their arms.

  Marguerite of Chatillon hastened through the uproar, looking about her in vain for a familiar face. Stumbling over ropes and dodging frightened cattle, she made her way to where Renald had taken his stand by the Mocenigos' pavilion and her own, warding off with the help of some spearmen from the Mount the attempts of the Arabs to snatch away the spoils of the pavilions. But before she could reach him, a horse came up behind her, and she turned as Sir John leaped from the saddle to the ground. She drew a quick breath of relief and looked up into his brown face.

  Strangely, he was flushed, and his shoulders shook and tears dripped from his eyes. And he spoke no word to her.

  "Thou art hurt!" she cried, reaching out her hands to him.

  He caught them and kissed them and found his voice.

  "I am near perishing-"

  "You are not!" she pulled away indignantly. "You are laughing, and there is no mark on your sword. Now, take me to my uncle."

  "Demoiselle," he sighed and wiped his eyes with a scarred hand. "I am Reginald of Chatillon, and Khalil is John of the Mount, and-oh, if you could have seen the Mocenigos flee in their shirts-while the cattle butted-"

  He gazed around at the confusion and, seeing that the fighting was at an end, wiped his eyes again.

  "But I heard my uncle's shout!"

  "And have I not gone on raid and foray with Chatillon, not to know his shout? Oh, it was a notable and mighty charge we made, I and the cattle. We have captured your pavilion."

  Marguerite looked at him curiously, beholding for the first time the youth and the laughter of the man who had seemed unbending as iron.

  "Then you did not send the messenger to Kerak!"

  "Nay, I sent off Ibrahim with a letter, to fetch a gray priest from Jerusalem."

  "Sir John," she said slowly, "I have mistaken you, and now I think that you have risked yourself and this castle to aid me, and-and I will thank you, if I may. And now you will take me to Kerak."

  The dark face of the knight fell serious.

  "I shall not give up Marguerite of Chatillon to any man. And if Sir Reginald will have you, he must even take the castle, for you will be my wife, and he will need be a bold man to lift hand or eye to my wife."

  Now Marguerite glanced up at him, incredulous, and the dark blood surged into her throat and brow.

  "You dare? You would dare!"

  And her eyes wavered, and then turning swiftly, she fled-ran like a shadow through the torchlight, up to the open gate of the Mount. Without heeding the din around him, the knight strode after her, into the courtyard and the hall.

  Sir John was in time to see the flicker of a candle vanish up the winding stair, and with his foot on the first step, he hesitated. The exultation of the fighting throbbed in him, but now fear came upon him. Up there Marguerite had fled, and he was afraid of the darkness in her eyes and the blood that stained her throat. Surely he had frightened her, at whose feet he had laid his love-and surely now she lay stricken, fearing him. He dared not go up, to feel her eyes upon him and hear her weep, or scorn him.

  But then he heard her clap her hands three times, and the Arab woman, thus summoned, brushed past him. So he paced the length of the hall, wondering how Marguerite would try to speak to the girl. And when the Arab came down and would have left the hall, he stopped her.

  "Speak thou! Is my lady weeping, and what doth she seek of thee?"

  "Thus, 0 my lord, she doeth." And the girl held up her open hands together, first against one side of her face, then against the other, staring at them. "She must have-" the girl smiled-"a mirror."

  That cold April afternoon Brother Clement felt an ache in his heart. He expected to see Satan running over the roofs of the hamlet of Limoges, vanishing with the chimney smoke and the damp mist. Brother Clement even glanced at the ground near his sandals to see if the mark of the cloven hoof did not show in the gray snow.

  "There is so much of evil afoot," he said to himself.

  And he counted the evils on his fingers as if they ha
d been the beads of a rosary. "War." Limoges lay within the frontier zone, in France. "Avarice." )Yes, Achard, lord of Chalus, bos sous.) "Rapine."

  That very morning after matins some of the shepherds had lingered at the church door to tell Brother Clement that Cadoc's men had been along the road. These men, routiers-fighters for whoever paid them and spoilers on their own account-were more dangerous than a wolf pack. Cadoc himself, a noble by birth and a mercenary by trade, boasted that no man could stand up to him and live.

  "And sickness." Moodily the young friar ended his check of the evils around him. He was thinking of the girl Marie, the serf girl who embroidered in Limoges castle because she was too thin and weak to do outdoor labor. The mark of the white death was on her, though she was no more than sixteen years of age. Still, she could laugh, and her eyes had a way of slanting up at him.

  Because he was thinking of her, the friar strode through the stubble of wheat to the field gate of the castle where she was apt to appear at this hour of the afternoon.

  Almost at once he saw her, running toward the gate. She barely paused to glance at the geese in their pen-the geese for which Brother Clement knew she was responsible. With the mist sparkling in her loose hair and her cheeks flushed, the little Marie looked lovely as an elf. "My stint of work on the loom is finished," she cried when she saw the friar waiting. "The chatelaine bade me go-"

  To feed the geese, Brother Clement thought, and she had not fed them. The girl drew her wide wool mantle closer about her throat uneasily, pulling it over the chunk of bread under her arm. But not before he had seen the slice of cheese thrust into the bread. The castle folk at Limoges allowed the serfs to take bread at will. The cheese she must have stolen. And she must have stolen it for Peter, to whom she was hurrying now.

  "Take warning-" he began, and changed his words. "Cadoc's routiers are on the roads. You should not go forth, Marie."

 

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