by Harold Lamb
“Bah, Sparrow,” Khlit yawned sleepily, “you are tiresome. I want sleep, not words. In the morning—”
“We will be gone from Astrakhan.” Berca held up the sapphire. “You must listen, Cossack. I told Kiragai Khan my mission, for there were no others to speak, and opened the box in the hands of the attendant. The jewels were poor pearls and no gold was in the box. Then Kiragai Khan, before whom I had unveiled my face, laughed and said that he had not sent for me. At first it came to my mind that it was because the jewels were worthless. But it was the truth.”
“Aye,” said Toctamish suddenly, “it was the truth.”
“I went quickly from the country of Kiragai, Khan, aided by Toctamish, who pitied me when others tried to sell me as a slave—of a race that are not slaves. At Astrakhan we learned the whole truth, for here word came to us that the one who sent me in marriage had killed my father. I was sent to be out of the way, for it would not do to sell one of my blood as slave. Such is not the law. He who killed my father heeds no law, yet he is crafty.”
“Then,” inquired Khlit, “you would slay him? Give Toctamish a dagger and a dark night and it is done.”
Berca shook her head scornfully.
“No dagger could come near this man,” she said bitterly. “And he is beyond our reach. He has many thousand hidden daggers at his call. His empire is from Samarkand to Aleppo, and from Tatary to the Indian Sea. He is more feared than Tal Taulai Khan, of the Horde.”
“Then he must be a great sheik,” yawned Khlit.
“He is not a sheik,” protested Berca, and her eyes widened. “And his stronghold is under the ground, not on it. Men say his power lies in his will to break all laws, for he has made his followers free from all law. What he wants, he takes from others. And he is glad when blood is shed. Do you know of him?”
“Aye,” said Khlit, grinning, “the steppe fox.”
“They call you the Wolf,” pleaded Berca, “and I need your counsel and wisdom. This man I am seeking has a name no one makes a jest of—twice. He is called by some the arch prophet, by others the Old Man of the Mountain, and by others the Shadna of the Refik folk. He is the head of an empire that lays tribute on every city in Persia, Kurdistan, Khorassan, Syria and Anatolia. If Allah decreed that I should be his death I should be content.”
“More likely dead,” responded Khlit. “Truly, if these are not lies, your Old Man of the Mountain must be a good fighter and I would cross swords with him. Can you show him to me?”
“Aye, Khlit,” said Berca eagerly, “if you come with me. There is the sapphire if you will come to Rudbar with me.”
Khlit stretched his tall bulk lazily.
“One way is as good as the other to me, if there is fighting,” he muttered sleepily. “Only talk not of rewards, for a Cossack takes his pay from the bodies of enemies. I will kill this Master of the Mountain for you. Let me sleep now, for your voice is shrill.”
When Toctamish and Berca had left the shop of the armorer, the former to seek a shed outside, and the Persian girl to sleep in her recess, Khlit’s snores matched those of the Syrian shopkeeper in volume. For a while only. Then it happened that the snores of the Syrian ceased.
Without disturbing Khlit who was stretched full length on the floor, the Syrian silently pushed past the hangings over the door. Once outside he broke into a trot, his slippers pad-padding the dark street. Nor did he soon slacken his pace.
III
Khlit and Toctamish did not make the best of bed-fellows. Berca, however, was careful to see that no serious quarrel broke out between the two. In a bark that went from Astrakhan, the day after their meeting, to the south shore of the Sea of Khozar, the two warriors of different races occupied a small cupboard which adjoined the cabin of the sheik’s daughter.
Khlit had embarked not altogether willingly. When the fumes of arak had cleared from his head the next morning, he had half-repented of his bargain. Curiosity to see the other side of the salt tea, which he had known as the Caspian, rather than the pleadings of Berca, finally brought him aboard the bark with his horse from which he refused to be separated.
The girl had bought their passage with the last of her pearls, and some gold of Toctamish’s, and had remained in her cabin since, to which Toctamish brought food. The Cossack, after a survey of the small vessel which disclosed his fellow-voyagers as some few Syrian silk-merchants, with the Tatar crew, took possession of a nook in the high poop deck, and kept a keen lookout for the islands and other vessels they passed, and for Bab-al-abuab, the lofty gate of gates as the ship made its way southward. Toctamish, who had not set foot on a ship before, was very ill, to Khlit’s silent satisfaction.
One day, when the wind was too high for comfort on deck, the Cossack sought Toctamish in the cupboard where the latter lay, ill at ease on some skins.
“Hey, Flat-Face,” Khlit greeted him, sitting opposite against the side of the dark recess, “you look as if the devil himself was chewing at your entrails. Can you speak as well as you grunt? I have a word for you. Where is the little Berca?”
“In her cabin, oh, dog without breeding,” snarled the Tatar, who was less disposed to speak, even, than usual, “looking at silks of a Syrian robber. This sickness of the sea is a great sickness, for I am not accustomed.”
“You will not die.” Khlit stroked his saber thoughtfully across his boots. “Toctamish, gully-jackal, and dog of an unbelieving race, you have been a fool. Perhaps a greater one than I. How did it happen that you became the follower of the little Berca? Has she bewitched you with her smooth skin and dark eyes?”
“Nay, that is not so,” Toctamish growled. “She has told you her story. It is true that Kiragai Khan, my master, did not know of her coming. Her attendant and slaves ran away and she felt great shame. Yet she did not lose courage. When her shame was the greatest she begged me to take her to Astrakhan, saying that I should be head of her army. She did not say her army was beyond the Salt Sea. Then she made me promise to take her to her people. As you know, her tongue is golden.”
“Aye,” said Khlit. “Then you are even a greater fool than I had thought. Have you heard of this emperor she is taking us to?”
Toctamish rolled his eyes, and shook his head vaguely.
“His name is not known in our countries. Mongol Tatars say that their great-grandfathers who followed the banners of Hulagu Khan made war on one calling himself the Old Man of the Mountain and slew many thousands with much booty, beside burning the citadel of Alamut, which was his stronghold. They gave me a dagger which came from Alamut. It is a strange shape.”
“If the power of the Old Man of the Mountain was broken in the time of Hulagu Khan,” said Khlit idly, “how can it exist now? Have you the dagger?”
The Tatar motioned to his belt with a groan, and Khlit drew from it a long blade with heavy handle. The dagger was of tempered steel, curved like a tongue of fire. On it were inscribed some characters which were meaningless to Khlit. He balanced it curiously in his bony hand.
“I have seen the like, Flat-Face,” he meditated idly. “It could strike a good blow. Hey, I remember where I have seen others like it. In the shop of the Syrian armorer, at Astrakhan. Who brought you to the shop?”
“We came, dog of a Cossack. The Syrian bade us stay, charging nothing for our beds, only for food.”
“Does he understand Tatar language?”
“Nay, Berca spoke with him in her own tongue.”
“Aye. Did she speak with you of this Old Man of the Mountain?”
“Once. She said that her people had come under the power of the Old Man of the Mountain. Also that her home was near to Alamut.” Toctamish hesitated. “One thing more she said.”
“Well, God has given you a tongue to speak.”
“She said that your curved sword was useless against him who is called the Old Man of the Mountain.”
With this the Tatar rolled over in his skins and kept silence. Wearying of questioning him, Khlit rose, and went to the door of Berca�
�s cabin. Toctamish, he meditated, was not one who could invent answers to questions out of his own wit. Either he spoke the truth, or he had been carefully taught what to say. Khlit was half-satisfied that the girl’s and the Tatar’s story was true in all its details, strange as it seemed. Yet he was wise, with the wisdom of years, and certain things troubled him.
It was not customary for a Tatar of rank to follow the leadership of a woman. Also, it was not clear why Berca should have been so eager for the services of Khlit, the Wolf. Again, she had declared that the Old Man of the Mountain was not to be met with, yet, apparently, she sought him.
Pondering these things, Khlit tapped lightly on the door of the girl’s cabin. There was no response and he listened. From within he could hear the quiet breathing of a person in sleep.
He had come to speak with Berca, and he was loath to turn back. Pushing open the door he was about to step inside, when he paused.
Full length on the floor lay Berca, on the blue cloak she always wore. Her black curls flowed over a silk pillow on which her head rested. Her eyes were closed and her face so white that Khlit wondered it had ever been pink.
What drew the Cossack’s gaze were two objects on the floor beside her. Khlit saw, so close that some of the dark hairs were caught in them, two daggers sticking upright on either side of the girl’s head. The daggers were curved, like a tongue of fire.
Khlit’s glance, roaming quickly about the cabin, told him that no one else was there. Berca had not carried two weapons of such size. Another had placed them there. As he noticed the silk cushion, he remembered the Syrian silk-merchant who had been with Berca.
With a muttered curse of surprise, Khlit stepped forward, treading lightly in his heavy boots. Leaning over the girl he scanned her closely. Her breathing was quiet and regular, and her clothing undisturbed. Seeing that she was asleep, the Cossack turned his attention to the weapons.
Drawing the latter softly from the wood, he retreated to the door. Closing this, he climbed to the deck and scanned it for the Syrian merchant. Almost within reach he saw the one he sought, in a group of several ragged traders, squatting by the rail of the ship. No one noticed him, their black sheepskin hats bent together in earnest conversation.
With the daggers under his arm, Khlit swaggered over to the group, the men looking up silently at his approach.
“Hey, infidel dogs,” he greeted them, “here is a pair of good daggers I found lying by the steps. Who owns them? Speak!”
His eye traveled swiftly over the brown faces. None of the group showed interest beyond a curl of the lips at his words. If he had expected the owner to claim his property, he was disappointed. The Syrians resumed their talk together.
“So be it,” said Khlit loudly. “They are useless to me. Away with them.”
Balancing the weapons, he hurled them along the deck. As he did so, he glanced at the traders. Their conversation was uninterrupted. Yet Khlit saw one of the group look hastily after the flying daggers. It was only a flash of white eyeballs in a lean face, but Khlit stared closer at the fellow, who avoided his eye.
Something in the man’s face was familiar to the Cossack. Khlit searched his memory and smiled to himself. The man who had watched the fate of the daggers Khlit had seen in Astrakhan. The man had changed his style of garments, but Khlit was reasonably sure that he was no other than the Syrian armorer who had offered his shop to Berca and Toctamish.
Fingering his sword, the Cossack hesitated. It was in his mind to ask at the sword’s point what the other had been doing in Berca’s cabin. Yet, if the fellow admitted he had left the daggers by the girl, and Khlit did not kill him, the Syrian would be free to work other mischief. And Khlit, careless as he was of life, could see no just reason for killing the Syrian. Better to let the man go, he thought, unaware that he was suspected, and watch.
As an afterthought, Khlit went to where the twisted daggers lay on the deck and threw them over the side.
IV
In the year of the lion, there was a drouth around the Sea of Khozar, and the salt fields of its south shore whitened in the sun. Where the caravan route from Samarkand to Bagdad crossed the salt fields, the watering-places were dry, all save a very few.
The sun was reflected in burning waves from the crusted salt, from which a rock cropped out occasionally, and the wind from the sea did not serve to cool the air. In the annals of Abulghazi, it is written that men and camels of the caravans thirsted in this year, the year in which the waters of Shahrud, by the citadel of Alamut, were to be red with blood.
At one of the few watering-places near the shore, Berca’s party of three, with a pack-donkey came to a halt, at the same time that a caravan, coming from the east stopped to refresh the animals.
The Persian girl watched the Kurdish camel-drivers lead their beasts to kneel by the well silently. Khlit, beside her, gazed attentively, although with apparent indifference at the mixed throng of white-and-brown-robed traders with their escort of mounted Kurds. Many looked at Berca, who was heavily veiled, but kept their distance at sight of Khlit.
“It is written, Abulfetah Harb Issa, Father of Battles,” spoke the girl softly, “that a man must be crafty and wise when peril is ’round his road; else is his labor vain, he follows a luck that flees. Truly there is no luck, for Allah has traced our lives in the divining sands, and we follow our paths as water follows its course. Are you as wise as the masters of evil, oh, Cossack?”
The words were mocking, and Khlit laughed.
“Little Sparrow,” he said, “I have seen ever so much evil, and there was none that did not fade when a good sword was waved in front of it. Yet never have I followed a woman.”
“You will not follow me much further, Cossack. I will leave you at the foothills to go among my people, the hillmen, where I shall be safe. You and Toctamish will go alone the rest of the way. My face is known to the people of Alamut, who suppose that I am dead or a slave. In time they shall see me, but not yet. Meanwhile it is my wish that you and Toctamish seek the citadel of Alamut, which lies a two days’ journey into the interior.”
Khlit shaded his eyes with a lean hand and gazed inland. Above the plain of salt levels he could see a nest of barren foothills which surrounded mountains of great size and height.
“Where lies the path to this Alamut—” he had begun, when Berca shook his arm angrily.
“Not so loud, fool of the steppe! Do you think we are still by the Volga? We are already in the territory of the Old Man of the Mountain. Listen, to what I have already told Toctamish. Two days’ travel to the south will bring you to the district of Rudbar. You will find yourself near the River Shahrud which flows from the mountains. There will be hillmen about who do not love the Old Man of the Mountain.
“So do not speak his name, until you come to a bend in the Shahrud where the river doubles on itself, so, like a twisted snake. Across the river will be a mountain of rock which will appear to be a dog kneeling, facing you. Remain there until armed men ride up and question you. Then say you are come to join the ranks of Sheik Halen ibn Shadaah, who is the Old Man of the Mountain.”
Khlit shook his head and tapped his sword thoughtfully.
“Nay, little Berca,” he said reproachfully, “you have told me lies. You said it was your wish to slay one who had slain your father. And because it was a just quarrel and I was hungry for sight of the world below the Salt Sea, I came to aid you. Are you one, oh, Sparrow, to fight alone against a powerful chief? Where are your men that you told Toctamish of. Devil take me, if I’ll put my head in the stronghold of any sheik, as you call him.”
Berca bent nearer, rising on tiptoe so her breath was warm in his ear.
“My men are hillmen who will not attack until they see an enemy flee. Also, they have seen men who opposed Halen ibn Shaddah set over a fire, with the skin of their feet torn off. The master of Alamut is all powerful here. Are you afraid, whom they call the Wolf?”
“Nay, little Sparrow, how should I be afraid of women�
��s tales and a mysterious name? Tell me your plan, and I will consider it. How can this sheik be reached?”
“Halen ibn Shaddah is safe from the swords of his enemies. Yet there is a way to reach him, in Alamut. The time will come when you and Toctamish will find yourselves at the head of many swords. How can I tell you, who are a fool in our way of fighting, and know not Alamut, what is in my mind? I swear that soon Halen ibn Shaddah will be attacked. Do you believe my word?”
“Wherefore should I?”
Khlit tugged at his mustache moodily. He was accustomed to settle his quarrels alone, and he liked little to move in the dark. Yet the woman spoke as one having authority, and Toctamish believed in her blindly.
“If this Sheik Halen is powerful and crafty—”
“Still, I am a woman, and wronged by a great wrong. I was sent to offer myself unveiled to a man who had not sought me; and at the same time my father was murdered, so that the hillmen, of whom he was sheik, might come under the shadow of Alamut.” The girl’s voice was low, but the words trembled with passion and the dark eyes that peered at the Cossack over her veil were dry as with fever, and burning. “Halen ibn Shaddah shall pay for his evil; for he is cursed in the sight of Allah. Wicked—wicked beyond telling is Alamut and therefore cursed.”
“Chirp shrilly, little Sparrow,” laughed Khlit, “while your white throat is still unslit. This Sheik Halen has no love for you, for one of his men on the bark placed two daggers, one on each side of your black head. Devil take me, if I did not think you would never chirp again. It was the Syrian who took you in for so little pay at Astrakhan—”
“Fool! Stupid Cossack!” Berca’s eyes suddenly swam with laughter, “did you think I was asleep when you tiptoed in like a bear treading nettles? Or that I did not see the dirty Syrian, who thought to catch me asleep? Look among the men of the caravan, and tell me if you see the Syrian?”