by Harold Lamb
Clavijo and Soranzi argued the matter hotly and finally produced a piece of scarlet cloth and a silver cup. These the Armenian refused angrily, saying that he must have more.
Darkness was falling and a thin rain pierced the garments of the travelers uncomfortably. Soranzi shook his thin fists and chewed at his beard.
“And this dog calls himself a Christian! Well, give him a roll of Phrygian purple velvet from the lot we carry for the great Charm—”
“And a handful of gold from your own fat pouch, Messer Merchant,” snarled Rudolfo, who was both cold and hungry. “A pox on your bartering!”
This brought a wail from Soranzi, but mollified the Armenian, who withdrew up the hillside with his motley army and his spoils. But the Venetians found that the horsemen had not remained at the castle. It was quite empty; moreover every door had been removed from its hinges.
When the beasts had been quartered in the courtyard and Michael with some of the soldiers had succeeded in lighting a fire in the great hall—not without difficulty—and after they had dined on cold mutton, cold bread-cakes and wine, Clavijo, who had been very thoughtful for some time, spoke up—
“My friends, look yonder.”
Rudolfo started nervously and they all stared at a sign on the stone wall of the hall, a cross, obscured by smoke, chiseled into the granite.
“That is a potent symbol of the Cathayans,” nodded Clavijo, “one of the talismans of their alchemists. Aye, this castle bears evidence of their magic. Why is there no castellan? Where be the doors?”
As the men were silent, the snarling cry of a jackal came to their ears from the darkness and rain outside and Soranzi paled.
“Where vanished the knavish riders that we met?” continued Clavijo.
“To their tents, elsewhere,” broke in Michael. “As for the cross, it is Christian in sooth. The doors were doubtless removed by the Turks who, the Armenian said, recently sacked the place and left orders that it was not to be defended again.”
Clavijo shrugged, with a dubious smile. Since learning that Bearn had been a captive of the Moors, as he chose to call them, he had been careful to avoid discussion with the Breton.
“As you wish. But soon we will come upon the piles of human skulls. I suppose you would say there is no danger there.” He shook his head in gentle reproof. “Now, sirs, I have a plan. Messer Soranzi seeks to avoid robbery. Methinks you all would fain live longer. So be it. I, who have mastered the dangers of the mountains and the sands and the Cathayans, I will go ahead from here alone.”
Michael glanced at him searchingly and was silent.
“You will be safe here, sirs,” continued the Spaniard, “under the potent protection of Rudolfo and his men. I have no fear. What I have done once can be accomplished again. Even though I may never return, I would prefer to press on from here alone. A score of swords and halberds will avail us little against the Cathayans. Better one should die than all.”
“If I am not back by the first of Winter, sirs, you can retrace your steps easily to Trebizond. By tying the mules, head to tail, in a fashion I wot well of, I can make shift to bear with me the gifts for the Grand Cham, placed in packs upon the mules.”
Rudolfo, however, voiced a blunt negative.
“By the rood, sir, we have made a bond between us. We will go in a body or not at all.”
This view was shared by Soranzi, who, despite privations and plundering, had hugged to his bosom the dream of fabulous profits promised him by his astrologer in Venice.
“Aye,” put in Bembo seriously; “we will go in our bodies or not at all.”
“I would fain see the bull-stag that you say is to be met with in Cathay,” insisted Michael.
“A most curious beast, Master Bearn,” observed Clavijo mechanically. “It has more hairs on its tail than a lion in its mane. The pagans in Cathay entrap the beast by setting a snare artfully between two trees so that when the taurus—which is the name bestowed upon it by Herodotus—passes between the trees, its tail is caught fast. So tender is the beast of its fine tail that it remains passive lest a hair be pulled out, when the Cathayans may easily make it prisoner.”
“Yet, signor,” added Michael, “they must take care in freeing it, for if they should sever the tail from the body by stroke of sword, the bull-stag would perceive that its valued member was lost beyond repair and would no longer feel constrained to quietude. I fear that many imprudent Cathayans have died unshriven because they cut off the tail of a taurus.”
Clavijo pulled at his beard—a habit when he was dubious.
“Most true, Master Bearn. Only one such as I who have knowledge of the wiles of the Cathayan beasts may cope with them. I remember a mighty serpent that I set out to slay. I found the serpent engaged in a monstrous struggle with a dragon before its cave.”
“Saint Bacchus preserve us!” Bembo glanced fearfully at the shadows in the corners of the damp, leaf-strewn hall. Several of the men-at-arms who were listening from their fire drew nearer and gaped.
“The dragon is the mightiest monster of Cathay,” resumed Clavijo more readily. “It has a lance at the end of its armored tail that can strike through the stoutest mail. Signori, I carefully avoided the sweep of the deadly tail and waited. As God willed, the dragon seized the serpent by the head. Both pulled mightily, and when their necks were taut I stepped nearer and smote with my sword, severing the Medusa-like head of the dragon from its shoulders.”
“Well struck!” approved Michael. “And the serpent?”
“Alas, that was a most fearsome beast. For days I awaited an opportunity to slay it. Before long it transpired that the foul beast came from its lair to attack a passing lion. Verily, signori, it twined about the king of beasts and swallowed its victim hindquarters first. Forsooth, that was my chance. Rushing forward, I swung my sword upon its neck as it lay sluggish. When the head of the serpent fell to earth the head of the lion fell off with that of its conqueror, and I rode back with double booty to the city of the Cham.”
Michael was rolling himself in his cloak on a table for the night when Bembo approached.
“Master,” whispered the jester, “verily just now I looked without the castle and saw two spirits.”
“Bah! Your own fears you saw.”
“Nay, they had two great heads. Gian, the big lieutenant of Rudolfo, was with me and we both said a pater noster. Then Gian, being a braver man than I and somewhat the better for wine, crept closer and cast his knife at one of the two. Whereupon they disappeared.”
This incident Michael did not permit to disturb his slumbers. He, as well as Clavijo, had noticed that the Armenians—the chief of Cabasica, the castle without doors—had left riders to spy upon them. The turbans of the watchers had served, doubtless, to make Clavijo exaggerate the size of their heads.
He was well aware that the Spaniard was caught between two fires. Beheading was the penalty that the Maritime Council would inflict on Clavijo if his deceit were discovered and Venetian officials should lay hand on him. So, Michael reasoned, Clavijo, possibly through Rudolfo’s agency, had arranged for the mock attack by the pirates on the Nauplia, hoping to be taken prisoner and robbed by friendly hands.
But the galliot, owing to Michael’s warning and the skill of the Venetian captain, had been able to offer unexpected resistance. Clavijo, if he had thought to have himself and his companions captured by a convenient foe, had been disappointed.
Mocenigo, a well-known Venetian and hence dangerous to Clavijo, had been persuaded, not with great difficulty, to fall behind at Constantinople. And the life of Michael—another dangerous member—had been attempted during the sham attack on the galliot. This puzzled the Breton more than a little, because he did not think that Clavijo was the type to turn so quickly to assassination.
Thinking over the situation drowsily, Michael remembered that Bembo had just said something about a man who cast a knife. What knife? Rudolfo had thrown the silver-chased Weapon into the sea! Rudolfo—a knife.…
Hereupon Michael slumbered fitfully, dreaming that Clavijo had taken the form of a dragon with a man’s head and that flames and smoke were spouting from his nostrils. He imagined that he was bound and helpless and the monster that was Clavijo came nearer until the flames touched his face…
At this point Michael jerked into wakefulness and perceived that Bembo had heaped fresh brush on the fire which had blazed up nearby. Soranzi, his cloak wrapped closely about him, sat hunched by the flames, shivering and grunting in his sleep, looking for all the world like an old and dingy vulture with an overlarge belly and bald head.
Rudolfo and Gian were standing, fully clad, in a corner of the hall and both were looking at him.
Sleep had refreshed Michael’s brain. It struck him that Gian had been the man who cast the knife at him.
For the remainder of the night Michael kept awake.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SITTING-DOWN BEAST
Messer Ruy de Gonzales Clavijo was a man of many cares. His expedition made slow and weary progress among the mountain-passes, guides could not be hired, food was scanty, hardships many. Yet they advanced to the South all too quickly for him.
For he could not turn back. Soranzi and Rudolfo and Michael Bearn would not hear of it. Nor could he confess that he did not know where he was going.
Once he tried losing his way. But Michael promptly rode ahead through the rain and found a fresh trail of many horses going in their direction. This new route took them out of the rocky hillocks down into more fertile fields.
“A fairer country,” announced Michael, as the rain cleared, “with vineyards and date groves. On, to the Grand Cham!”
Looking back, Clavijo beheld a majestic summit, snow-crowned, with bare slopes rising to the height of the Alps.
“The Holy Mount Ararat,” he said bravely, and crossed himself. “Forward, signori—if you have heart to face the dangers that beset that other mountain of skulls.”
Their followers were not overeager. Some of the few servants were sick. Rudolfo’s men-at-arms, accustomed to the machinelike wars of Italy, where an army marched but a league a day and where every hillside had its village and food and women, and the peasants had to bear the burden of both armies—Rudolfo’s men muttered and sulked, except the lieutenant Gian.
Some whispered that the party was followed, that the spirits of the castle kept at their heels. Others pointed to distant bands of horsemen on the plain, bands that Clavijo declared were Moors and pagans and Michael asserted to be Turks.
One night Gian and several men stole away, to rifle houses in a village. They returned with poor spoil but many tales. Bembo, who had slipped off to accompany them, stoutly asserted that he had beheld a monster walking among the houses of the Moors or Saracens or whatever the heathens might be.
He thought at first the animal had been sitting down, until it had moved off at the approach of the men.
“Signori,” he protested, “it was still sitting down, yet it ran. It had the body of a horse, spotted like a snake, the legs of a deer and the head of a stag. And its neck! Beshrew me, signori, may I never eat pudding again if its neck did not rise up from its body like Gian’s spear when he lances an apple from a peasant’s tree. Nay, it was as tall as the mast of a ship, for the monster stopped and smelled of fruit over a garden wall that was too high for us to climb.”
Bembo had seen a giraffe.
This interested Michael, for he had never heard of such animals in Asia Minor.
After this inroad upon the inhabitants, the Venetians were shunned more than ever. A hot sun beat upon their heavy garments. The road they followed was no more than a track of deep mud.
Clavijo was very unhappy. For, in spite of his brave tale, he had never before been farther east than Constantinople. And the last thing he wished was to return, a prisoner, into the Venetian power that stretched even to Trebizond.
And then came the night when, encamped at a short distance from the road, they were awakened during the last hour of darkness by the rushing sound of horses’ hoofs passing by along the road.
They saw nothing of the riders, only heard the horses sweeping past with incredible speed. Clavijo wondered fearfully what kind of men could ride at that pace in the darkness.
Dawn revealed the bodies of three of his servants, their throats cut, lying by the ashes of the camp-fire.
“It was the spirits of the waste!” cried Soranzi. “We must hasten; we are near the city in the sands.”
The merchant pointed to thin traces of sand in the earth. But when they looked for footprints of the assassins approaching their camp they found nothing. Nothing, that is, except the hoof-marks that were quite fresh in the road nearby. Michael, however, knew that Gian’s excursion into the village had brought the pursuers upon their tracks.
Clavijo was more than a little superstitious. He fancied that the phantoms he had summoned up by his words had pursued their steps. The spirits that he had invoked had taken form. In his tale he had said that his servants met death.
“Hasten!” he cried. “Away from here!”
The three bodies were buried in a shallow grave. There were now only eight attendants—Bembo, a sick servant of Clavijo who was carried in a litter, Gian and his four men and Soranzi’s servant.
When the pack-animals were loaded and trudging forward, Michael reined his horse in beside the Spaniard.
“Signor Clavijo,” he said softly. “You have left the path that we were following. By the sun, unless I am blind, you are taking us in a circle. Wherefore?”
The Spaniard pointed toward the site of the distant camp.
“Death is upon us. We are in the land of Gog and Magog, where djins pursue Christian travelers. Oh, it is an evil day!”
“Do djins cast a dagger, a heavy poniard, with bronze hilt overlaid in silver, at a Christian’s back? On shipboard?”
The black eyes of Clavijo widened.
“Nay, forsooth! You describe the dagger once owned by Gian. I have not seen it since—”
“Rudolfo, your friend, threw it into the sea. Come, signor, here is need of truth.”
“As God is my witness, I have spoken the truth.”
“About Cathay? And the Grand Cham?”
Clavijo was silent, sullen almost.
“Signor, the death of your men ends all buffoonery. You were their master—”
“Por Dios!” Clavijo’s full face went livid. “Do you suspect me of that? I did not do it. Nor do I know aught of the dagger cast at you.”
Michael glanced at him thoughtfully. “Then confess to me, signor, that you never saw the court of the Grand Cham.”
“Master Bearn—” Clavijo started, and drew a long breath. “You heard what I told the council. Have you not believed?
“Have you not seen the holy Mount Ararat and heard Bembo relate the aspect of the strange beast of”—he lifted his head stubbornly—“Cathay?”
Michael laughed shortly. “Faith, signor, it would take a magician of Cathay himself to tell what is true and what is false.” He checked the other’s exclamation. “Nay, listen. I have sounded the bottom of your tale. You were in Constantinople, not Cathay. Your wonders were garbled stories of travelers picked up on the jetties and in the markets. Your city—an illusion of the sands that some call by a strange name—a mirage. Your tower of skulls—a heap of stones.”
“The Grand Cham—”
“Of him will we soon learn.”
Claviijo shrugged.
“You heard the emperor at Trebizond speak of a great Tatar king.”
At this Michael smiled.
“Man, you are wonderful. You pulled wool over the sharp eyes of the Signory, and beguiled two emperors. It has been a rare jest, this voyage. I could love you for that. Nay, I can not think that you wished to stick me in the back, or to slay those poor fools.”
He nodded thoughtfully.
“If a man’s child could tell when you lied and when not, I would be your friend, Gonzales. This much I wil
l do for you. You can not turn back. Soranzi’s greed is fired by the strange sights he has seen and yearns for his promised profits. Rudolfo will not give in to you, unless he is in your confidence—”
“God forbid!”
“That had the ring of truth. Well, by my reckoning we are near the Tatar tribes. Now that death dogs our steps we can not push on blindly. We are followed, without doubt. I shall strike back along our track and seek to take captive one of the riders, whether Armenian or djin, and make him tell us where we are and what is in store for us and why we are followed. Do you call a halt to rest the beasts and await my coming. Do you agree?”
Clavijo chewed his beard, and flushed.
“As you will, Master Bearn. We will wait.”
It is more than possible if Michael Bearn could have had his way that Clavijo and those with him, who were yet alive and well, might have returned in safety to Trebizond.
The Breton was barely gone, however, when events took another turn. Rudolfo had been more silent than his wont that morning and now he dismounted, nodded to Gian, and strode to Clavijo’s side.
“Signor, your sword and dagger.”
The Spaniard drew back, surprised. Whereupon Rudolfo reached out and secured the weapons for himself without trouble. Gian and another soldier took spear and poniard from Soranzi’s servant. Seeing this, Rudolfo turned to the merchant, who was armed only with a knife.
“Messer Soranzi, an unpleasant duty has fallen upon me. Since leaving Venice I have suspected this Spaniard of deceit. By the Rood, it is plain that he knows not the way he follows. Just now he has doubled on his tracks. I think his tale was but a pretext to get money from the honorable council.”
Soranzi’s little eyes narrowed and his thin face darkened. He cast a venomous look at the unhappy Spaniard.
“Witness, Messer Soranzi,” continued the condottiere, “that this deceiver can not speak the language of the country he claims to have traveled. He would have left us at Cabasica and taken the Cham’s presents with him.”
Conviction leaped into the twisted face of the merchant and he shook with rage.