by Harold Lamb
As it is the first test of his knighthood, the manner of a stripling’s coming to the Siech for the first time, when he is of age, is taken as a measure of his bravery. If he comes gaily appareled and well mounted with a crowd of companions and makes his horse go through feats before the hetmans, he is well received. If he enters camp timidly, or shows any fear, he is held in dishonor by the Cossacks.
“Health to you, Taravitch,” responded Khlit carelessly. “Do you watch when the son of Menelitza, my foster son, comes to the Siech. It will be a sight to brighten your heart. He is the offspring of a bogatyr—bred from a stock that excelled in courage all in our Russian land.”
“Nay, Khlit,” said Taravitch, his eyes narrowing as when he seized an advantage at dice. “The young Cossacks are weaklings. They are schooled in books and weaned by women. There are none in these days to leap their horse over the palisade about the Siech, breaking both their necks as Borodagy did once, or to come bearing a whole cask of wine on their shoulder for the Koshevoi Ataman and the hetmans.”
“We will see, Taravitch,” said Khlit.
“It will be poor sport,” replied the gambler in scorn. “Perchance your Menelitza will have courage enough to ride a horse and make the beast stand on three legs before us. A woman’s feat!”
“The son of Menelitza,” said Khlit slowly, “will come to the Siech as no other before him has come. You will see—”
“Hey!” Taravitch swung round on the spectators, but his glance still measured the old Cossack. “What nonsense are you mouthing? Do you think we are children, to believe that? Your precious Menelitza will come with a crowd, and none can tell him from the others!”
“The father of Menelitza ran his horse through a Tatar camp to fetch me from the grasp of the khan,” said Khlit, unmoved, “and Menelitza will show you a feat of daring that will warm the hearts of the old men.”
“A wager,” cried Taravitch, “that Menelitza, who comes to the Siech at sundown, will not surpass all others in a feat of daring! My Arab stallion against a hundred sequins of gold. Ha, old fox, where is your valor?”
“No man has asked that upon the battlefield, Taravitch,” replied Khlit, “but you shall have your wager. Only it will be a man’s wager, not a child’s plaything.”
He paused and looked up calmly at the circle that pressed about them.
“In my house at Rusk,” he went on, “are fifty goblets of silver and gold taken from the enemies of the Siech, Persian carpets several in number, rare swords from Turkey, four horses of the finest blood. Also Polish trophies and gold-chased armor, with a thousand sequins of gold. All this will I wager against your coin of five thousand sequins and your Arab horses. Come now, are you a staunch wold, Taravitch, or a rabbit that dives into his burrow when he sees a man?”
Taravitch gazed at the Cossack as if fascinated. His eyes narrowed as he wet his lips. The riches Khlit had mentioned, he knew to be in the cottage at Rusk. Also, if Khlit pledged his word before witnesses the promise was good. Yet never had the gambler staked the bulk of his wealth on any one throw. The prospect dazzled him.
“Menelitza comes today, Khlit?” he asked, weighing his words.
“He has promised me,” assented the old man.
“Then it is a wager.” Taravitch turned to the watchers, who gaped at him. “You have heard the terms,” he cried, “and the wager—that Menelitza comes today to the Siech as none other has come before him. The wager is offered and accepted.”
II
The sun, which had been high, was nearing the Russian bank of the Dnieper when the burly Cossack who had been befriended by old Khlit returned to the spot and found his benefactor seated where he had been before. The bright saber still reflected sun’s rays. Khlit glanced up as he approached. The Cossack was again without coat and boots.
“Devil take you,” Khlit said affectionately. “Can’t you keep a coat upon your fat back? But tell me, is there any news of the approach of men from Rusk? It draws near sundown.”
“Hey, old sword-eater,” growled the Cossack, “I have heard of the wager you made. News of it has got from one end of the camp to the other. The noble knights are all watching to see the result. Nay, I gave your coat and boots away to one who needed them.”
“Have the men from Rusk been sighted?”
“Hey? I don’t know. Taravitch was talking about it to the who has charge of the ferry and the good man said he’d be flogged with a saber if the Dnieper wasn’t rising and jumping about with the wind so much that it were a perilous task to take out the boat from shore. Besides, the oars are lost. So the fine fellow who pilots the boat told me.”
“Lost!”” Khlit’s glance flickered over the Cossack. “Devil take the rascal, has he but the one boat? Where are the others?”
“Away up the river, Khlit,” responded the big warrior with a hearty laugh at the discomfiture of his friend, “and old Father Dnieper is growling to himself and gnashing his white teeth at the wind. Did Menelitza swear he would be in camp this day?”
“He swore it on a holy image, Waggle-Tongue,” Khlit made reply, inspecting his sword. “And Menelitza does not waste his words for love of hearing himself bray. He will come at sundown.”
The Cossack gazed at Khlit’s shiny black boots admiringly.
“So you say, Khlit, bogatyr,” he mused, “and the noble sirs maintain that good sharp sword, or well-loaded pistol. Still, how can the son of your comrade arrive here when the ferryman has drunk two dozen glasses of corn brandy with that slimy lizard of a Taravitch, and Father Dnieper is shaking his hair in anger?”
“Did Taravitch make the ferryman drunk?” demanded Khlit thoughtfully.
“Aye, with corn brandy. And the oars are not to be found—”
“Did Taravitch hide them?”
“Hey? Most like. If a warrior will do one mischief he will not hold his hand at two. He has you by the scalp lock, Khlit, and your riches are as good as in his pocket.”
“It is not sundown.”
“Nay, but the sun kisses his bed behind the mountains. Already the crowd of noble sirs who have gathered in the center of the Siech to watch for the fulfillment of your wager say that you have lost. Talk turns to the rumors of a Tatar khan seen near Rusk. Hey, but that is good news.”
“Then we will hear it,” declared Khlit.
Sheathing his sword, he tightened his belt and strode along by the giant, his gray eyes almost hidden under shaggy brows, his hands thrust idly in his pockets. As he went, Cossacks turned to look after him, for tidings of the great wager had stirred the interest of the Siech. Groups gathered in the center square of the Siech made way for him until the pair stood within arm’s reach of the Koshevoi Ataman and the hetmans who were discussing the appearance of the Tatars in the Ukraine.
“The khan has spread his wings near Rusk, Khlit,” said one of the hetmans. “The Tatar dogs took a batko of the Orthodox Church and burned him for the village to see. That was an ill deed. They have also burned our churches. The Zaporogian Siech girds itself for war.”
Khlit tugged at his mustache with pleasure.
“That is a good word in my ears, noble sir,” he grinned. “Are all the worthy knights in favor of setting out?”
“Nay, Khlit,” the hetman shook his shaggy head, “there are many who say the burning of one batko is not enough to make the Siech set out. Methinks they are the dogs who like to lie in the sun and scratch. They say the messenger who brought the tidings lies, and that it is a plot of those who want war.”
“Who is the messenger?” demanded Khlit, frowning.
“Yon fellow in the big cloak and new boots. He came to the camp in sore plight. He swears the Khan is near Rusk.”
Khlit’s gaze fell on a slender Cossack, dark-skinned, who stood quietly before the Koshevoi Ataman, watching the warriors around him curiously. The stranger seemed not to interest Khlit.
“Hey,” said the giant, “he is the vagabond I gave my coat and boots to. He came to me near the ferry—”
He was silenced by murmurs from a group of Cossacks who stood near, and who began to address the Koshevoi Ataman. One of their number thrust through the crowd hastily and Khlit pulled at his mustache as he recognized Taravitch.
“A word to the Koshevoi Ataman,” cried Taravitch in a loud voice. “This man who says that he comes from Rusk this afternoon lies, for no man has come from the shore to the island.”
“How is that, Taravitch?” asked Khlit quickly.
“It is true,” persisted the gambler. “I know, for early in the afternoon I saw the ferryman asleep by the shore, so filled with wine he could not stand. And there are no other boats. So no one could come from shore across Father Dnieper. Look!”
Taravitch pointed, and the Cossacks looked out over the river. The red glow of sunset flamed on the tossing crest of the waves, with here and there a white fleck of foam. The wind from the west slapped their faces and pulled at their beards. Truly, Father Dnieper was in no gentle mood. Taravitch, who loved better the tranquillity of the Siech than the hardships of war, smiled as he felt the amazement and concern of the gathering at his words. He had made his point. Already he had won, he felt, a huge wager from the wise Khlit, and now he went on to drive home his plan to discredit the messenger.
The giant Cossack stepped forward, but Taravitch was before him.
“You can see for yourselves, noble sirs,” he said eagerly, “that not even one favored by God could cross these waters. No man has ever done that of himself. And it is known that the ferry has not been used—”
“You hear, noble sirs,” the deep voice of Khlit broke in, “what he said. No man has ever done that. You have heard the words of Taravitch.”
“Aye, it is the truth”—the gambler shot a puzzled glance at the warrior—“and so the man who says he comes from Rusk lies—”
“Not so, Taravitch,” Khlit cried again. “Listen to me, noble sirs. The messenger tells the truth. He is a man of honor, and he is of Rusk.”
He strode forward and clapped his hand on the young Cossack’s coat. With a twist he flung it from the other’s shoulders. The undergarment of the messenger showed strangely dark and heavy, and Khlit with another wrench wrung a stream of water from his sleeve.
“This is Menelitza, noble sirs, son of the bogatyr,” he cried. “He has brought you tidings of war from Rusk. When there was no boat to bring him to the Siech, he swam through the waves. Many saw him swim ashore, and gave him coat and boots.”
The young Cossack’s face flushed red with the gaze of the throng and he would have stepped back, but Khlit held him firmly, searching the crowd with his gray eyes.
“This is Menelitza,” he said again, “who has come to the Siech as none other before him. Is there any Cossack now who would speak of lies?”
Silence greeted him, until broken by the Koshevoi Ataman, who announced that the Zaporogian Siech smelled war and that the swords of the knights would no longer be rusted.
That is all of the tale of the coming of Menelitza to the Siech, save perhaps for the word of the giant Cossack, who repeated afterward that that night, when the Siech was in slumber, he, being one of the watchmen, saw Khlit drag a pair of oars in the Siech—belonging to the ferry.
Khlit glanced around and, seeing no one near him in the gloom, carefully replaced some furs which had concealed the oars from discovery during the day. Following him, the Cossack saw Khlit carry the oars to the ferry, which lay on the shore, and place them inside.
When the noble sirs heard that, they laughed and told the big Cossack he had been drinking corn brandy, and when they asked Khlit, he also laughed and said the man had been drinking corn brandy.
WOLF’S WAR (1918)
Khlit was angry. Very angry was Khlit, he surnamed the Wolf, and the Cossack of the Curved Saber by his enemies, Tatars and Turks. Khan Mirai Tkha would set extra watchmen about his herd of cattle at night, if word had come to him that Khlit was gripped so hard by the little devil of rage.
For no one in the Zaporogian Siech, the war encampment of the Cossacks along the bank of Father Dnieper, not even the Koshevoi Ataman himself, was better known to Khan Mirai Tkha than Khlit, the Wolf. And what the Tatar chief had learned, he had learned too late, to his cost, for it was the way of the Cossack to strike without warning. Wherefore Khan Mirai waited with patience for the time when Khlit should strike too soon or too late and the ancient score would be wiped out.
For no khan of the sixteenth century had more spear points at his call than Mirai Khan, great-grandson of the leader of the Golden Horde, not Yussaf himself, who was called prince of princes.
Now that Khlit’s mustache was white and the muscles on his arm lean, the Cossack knew that the score between him and the Tatar had grown to the point where, on either side, it must be wiped out. Wherefore he was angry. For against his wishes the entire body of the Zaporogian Siech had departed to fight the Poles to the west, and with them had gone Menelitza, his foster son who had come to the Siech to win place as a warrior.
The Poles, Khlit considered, were less worthy foes for Menelitza than the Tatars, so when he was overruled by the atamans, he felt that it was a mistake the Siech would pay dearly for, and for the first time he sulked at home when the Cossacks set out.
Another reason for his ill temper was a woman. Menelitza, instead of knightly fame for the joy of good blows struck and received and the hot smell of battle, had told him that he planned to return an approved knight of the Siech to win a woman for wife. Women Khlit regarded as part of the baggage of Poles and Turks, useful otherwise in making and serving wine and in cooking food.
He had offered to get Menelitza a half-dozen Tatar women to cook and prepare wine for him but the boy had persisted in his plan to win a certain woman of a nearby village, one Alevna. When Khlit asked Menelitza, in deep sorrow, why he wanted a girl instead of himself, the Wolf, for comrade, the boy could give no other reason than that Alevna had black hair and curling lips. Wherefore was Khlit now sitting, to his deep disgust, on his horse at the threshold of the sloboda of Garniv, where Alevna lived. He had come to see with his own eyes what manner of person was Alevna, the black-haired beauty, and to satisfy his curiosity as to why Menelitza favored her, above six others.
It was doubly offensive to Khlit to seek out a woman and to ask questions in a village where he was little known. But he sat his sheepskin hat on the side of his head, lit his long-stemmed pipe, and, with his knee carelessly crossed in front of him, trotted into the village street. As he went, his gray eyes under shaggy brows searched out the women for a possible Alevna.
He drew rein before a group of girls chattering in front of a cottage, on the doors of which were painted pictures of the good saints driving devils into purgatory. This, Khlit judged, was the house of a worthy Christian. A slender, dark-haired girl in a blue dress with gold ornaments and a necklace of silver coins had already caught his eye.
She was not as large as her companions, who had coarser features and hands—evidently maidservants—but she ordered them about with great dignity, flashing a delighted smile as she did so and pushing back her mass of black hair. She glanced long and curiously at the dusty Cossack sitting on his horse by the cottage gate.
“Which one of you sparrows,” said Khlit gruffly, “is the beauty, Alevna?” The maids were silent with sheer surprise, but Alevna ran to the gate, opened it, and confronted Khlit with flushed cheeks.
“Old man,” she cried, stamping a booted foot, “are you blind with dust that you cannot see me?”
“I saw you,” growled Khlit, puffing at his pipe. “Can you tell me which is Alevna, the black-haired beauty?”
The girl came near to the horse with knitted brows.
“What do you want of Alevna?” she asked angrily. “That is my name. I never saw you before, old man.”
“You see me now, little wren,” answered the Cossack. “I am the foster father of Menelitza, the young Cossack who swam the Dnieper to come to the Zaporogian Siech, and who desires
you.”
Alevna did not appear to take kindly to this speech, which Khlit had taken pains to make mild and conciliatory because he wanted to watch the girl, not frighten her away.
“Then you are Khlit,” she said quickly. “I know about you. The Cossacks went away and you stayed behind to sleep on your stove, for fear of the Poles. Or it may be just because you are old, and the young men are better fighters. Menelitza has chosen badly when he made you come wooing for him.”
The Cossack’s pipe slipped in his teeth from surprise. He, Khlit, to come wooing a girl for another man! He to be accused of sleeping when the Siech marched! But Alevna was taking revenge for his early remark. Warrior as he was, Khlit was not skilled in word battle, being content to let one word do the work of two.
“The women of the village are talking about you,” continued Alevna, hopping on one foot in delight, “and they said how you talked against the Koshevoi Ataman himself when he ordered war against the Poles—”
“Bah!” Khlit’s voice took a lower note. “The Poles are but meant for the swords of the Siech to sharpen upon. They are like sheep. The real foe of the Ukraine is there, across Father Dnieper.”
Two dimples showed in Alevna’s red cheeks.
“So that is why you sit in your house on the hill looking across Father Dnieper, old man, to see if you can find any enemies. That is all you are good for, now, isn’t it—that and to come paying suit to young girls—”
A titter of laughter broke from the maids at the gate. Khlit shook his head like a wolfhound that is bitten about the ears.
“My house on the hill has much booty in it,” he growled, “from my enemies. And the Tatars know the name of Khlit so well they come not near it, though there is the ransom of ten hetmans inside.”
“You need more than money, old man,” said Alevna mockingly, as she stroked his horse’s neck, “if you want to woo a girl, with your face. I had heard that Khlit was a mighty warrior. I am disappointed.”