by Harold Lamb
When Ermecin thrust his great body through the tent entrance after the feast Cherla did not give him the nimeleu qatvarkin, the greeting from wife to husband. She sat erect on the bearskins, the head band about her smooth forehead and the silver ornaments in her tresses seeming to mock the ice of disdain in her face
“You are a beast,” she said “You have black bones.”
And the disdain did not pass from her eyes until death came to the yurt.
* * * *
Cherla was not long in the yurt, for she ran away. Angry tears were in her eyes when she ran to the tents of her father and asked him to kill the beast Ermecin.
But when the master of many herds, the strongest of the Buriats, rode up to the tent where Cherla had taken shelter and dismounted without a weapon in his hand, no man drew sword or knife. Ermecin glanced at them all in turn and lifted Cherla in his arms. He flung the girl over the peak of his saddle and leaped behind her.
He rode home as if the foul fiend itself were after his horse. Not once did she cry out from the pain of the jolting or the bruising of the saddle-horn where it tore the skin from her soft flesh.
Ermecin flung her down in his yurt entrance and pointed at the fire.
“My woman,” be said, and his deep voice was not hasty or loud, “I have paid the price of a girl. The birch has been planted in front of my house. I want to have sons so that the fire of my hearth will not go out.”
He pointed in turn to the weapons, the bows and spears on the felt wall of the tent, to the kumiss cask, and the cooking-dishes, to the woolen cloths from which garments were made, and the furs that covered the floor. He told her, as if he was talking to a refractory colt the things she must do for him. (Ermecin, in common with many Tatars, was gentle with horses, and used his voice in training them.)
“You are no better than a big beast,” she said, her chin lifted. “I will never cease to hate you.”
With a peculiar curiosity in his deep-set eyes Ermecin watched the slight form of his wife as she turned to prepare meat and mare’s milk for the evening meal.
“Good,” he muttered to himself at length; “she has mettle. She will bear me a rare son.”
So Cherla was diligent in the care of the yurt, even while her pride was like a veil between them. Ermecin rode by day and sometimes by night over his lands, caring for his growing herds. But more often be was away fighting, or drunk at the festivals.
Among the Buriats, no male member of her family may look into the face of a woman that is married. Cherla sat alone in the tent, and when the match-makeresses gossiped to her about the mighty encounters of her husband her full lips pressed together and her eyes were cold.
Nor did she speak to Ermecin when he galloped up after two days in the saddle, to find a small hut built near his yurt and Cherla lying in pain among the old women who had clustered to a birth.
Custom forbade his going to the hut where Cherla was, but the old hags, after their kind, painted to him the suffering of his woman and said that the evil demon of sickness was within her.
Ermecin did not linger, but took two fresh horses from the group always kept near his yurt and spurred away toward the fastness of the Syansk where the clever witch doctor Botogo had his hut.
Seventy miles he rode before dawn.
“We will take four fresh horses of your herd,” he told Botogo, whose wrinkled face was intent and fearful. “And if you do not ride fast and send away the demon from Cherla, you will make magic for Erlik Khan in the place of the dead. Come!”
Alone among the Buriats, Ermecin did not respect the arts of the witch-doctor who could summon and dismiss the spirits of the sky. On the other hand Botogo was really afraid that his neck would be broken if Cherla should die. He made haste.
Seeing, when he came to the hut, that the woman was in no bad way, he regained much of his authoritative air.
“The demon,” he admitted to Ermecin, “that has entered your woman is a menkva, a dark spirit of the secondary order.”
Furthermore, he explained, to induce the demon to withdraw, it would be necessary to offer it a horse to ride away on, furs to dress in, and boots to cover its feet. Ermecin at once ordered them to be prepared and given to the witch-doctor, who fell to his hideous incantations and the hubbub of brazen gongs that was indeed enough to cure or kill a very sick person.
“The menkva has a brother,” he informed Ermecin after a space, “who is more powerful than he. Three horses and more furs will be needed—”
“That is easily done,” growled the master of the yurt impatiently.
Botogo wished he had asked for more. He was still afraid, however. Even after a son had been born to the exultant Buriat and the witch-doctor had been sent away many additional presents, Botogo nursed his enmity against Ermecin. He had been frightened, and to frighten some men is to make enemies of them.
No need for him to have been frightened. A Tatar is hospitable, and his guests are looked upon as an honor. Ermecin especially liked to have numbers of visitors in his tents. When a traveler would halt, to explain that some of his horses had been lost, the big Buriat would laugh:
“What! Is that all, good sir? Dismount and drink, and before you have filled your belly I will have your horse here at the yurt. Look and see if I don’t, now.”
With that he would be off, on the first mount to hand. Being a skilled tracker and knowing the plain like a book, he would make good his promise, more often than not. If the stranger’s horse should actually have disappeared, Ermecin would insist on giving another in its place.
“Will I have it said that a man was the loser by riding through my lands!” he would roar. “By the hide of Erlik Khan, I will not have it said! Come now, take your pick of this rotten herd, good sir. They are poor beasts at best.”
Despite the fact that his sword was feared from the Syansk to the Gobi, numbers of poverty-ridden Buriats hung about the quarters of the strong man. They ate of his meat, and laughed with him when he chuckled at the antics of his six-months-old son, when the boy would be brought to the fire by Cherla at his request of an evening.
“Look,” he cried once, “the son of Ermecin can stand. Now we will see!”
With the back of his hand the warrior tapped the child gently on the chest. It fell over backward, bumping its head hard on the earth. But without a whimper it rose dizzily and stood, its sturdy legs planted wide.
“What did I say?” bellowed the delighted father. “It will be a strong one, like me. It has its life from the old buck, my friends, not from the doe.”
And he got himself royally drunk for two days, and slept for a third.
“Eh,” he chuckled when he woke and rose from the skins in his corner, none the worse for the long bout, “that is a boy out of my loins. He will be like his father,—eat me if he isn’t. Come, good sirs, we are getting fat as men of the hat and girdle with all this stuffing and swilling. Let’s mount for the Syansk and a good run after a stag. Or better still, a few good blows at the Torgot Mongols.”
It was noticeable that few of the henchmen who surrounded Ermecin’s fires followed his horse as he galloped off to the hills. They knew that meat was always to be had from his servants, and that when he returned after a scrimmage or so there would be spoil to be gambled for because Ermecin was almost invariably the victor in the clan combats. At the time of his marriage he was in the fullness of strength. He was able to ride in the saddle for two days and a night, eating only a little as he rode. The experience of middle age had begun to cool the headstrong temper of his youth.
He seemed to stay home only to play with his son or to look over his herds. His home was spoken of as the armaci-ralin the “house of the strongest.”
But never when he came home did Cherla say the nimeleu qatvarkin, the “Hail, my husband!”
Sitting by the fire in the fine garments of silk that she made, studded with silver, she would stare into the smoke, her fine eyes half-closed; and only when she nursed the boy did the light of hap
piness come into her eyes.
* * * *
The boundary of the province of Cha-tsong Chien, tao-tai of the Northwestern banners, should have ended before the lands of the Buriats began.
Cha-tsong Chien, being a Manchu, was arrogant; and because a Manchu is of the same blood as the Tatars, he was a hardy person. He had been colonel of a thousand in the Manchu army, and his counsel had resulted in the successful storming of the walled city of Lan-liang when his men had ripped up the houses and the women of a thousand merchants and sent the Mings themselves out of the world headlong, or, to be exact, shortened by a head.
As governor of the Gobi, Cha-tsong Chien pushed his boundaries into the fertile regions of the North, where Tatar horse herds and sheep made the game worth while. He encouraged wandering priests and mountebanks to bring him news of yurts within reach of his province where the plundering was good enough for an exalted person like Cha-tsong Chien.
There was little danger in this for Cha-tsong Chien, because the Tatar clans were so busy fighting each other that they could not unite to defend themselves. And reprisals across the Gobi against the soldiery of the Manchu were not to be thought of.
So Cha-tsong Chien was pleased one day in late Spring after the freshets of the Tatar mountains had abated, when he heard of a horse festival of the rival clans the Torgots and Buriats near Ubsa Lake. He headed there at once, taking in his haste only a half-dozen bowmen and a lesser number of servants.
He knew that by playing his role of governor and setting one clan against the other he could exact a goodly tribute of horseflesh without danger of armed conflict. If he brought more men, the Tatars might take it into their thick heads to withdraw to their home yurts. So Cha-tsong Chien was riding toward Ubsa Nor when he met a solitary witch doctor who saluted him servilely and fell into talk. This witch doctor was Botogo, and he held the attention even of the exalted personage at his side when he related that the yurt and cattle of a wealthy Tatar were scarce a day’s ride to the North, some distance from the Ubsa festival.
“O my honorable father and mother,” said Botogo—ex officio the Manchu governor was a magistrate, and the witch doctor addressed him with the requisite title—“the Tatar is a thief and a murderer, and the men of his clan live in fear of him. He has raped women from the tents of his neighbors. He has angered the good spirits of the air.”
Cha-tsong Chien merely grunted and asked again the size of the Tatar’s herds and the name of the man.
“On his lands are as many head of horses and cattle as at the Ubsa festival, O Exalted Son of Benevolence and justice. His name is Ermecin.”
Seeing a flash in the black eyes of his superior, the witch doctor hastened to say—“Ermecin is at Ubsa Lake and by now is as drunk as a fish that lies on the land.”
When, that night, Cha-tsong Chien drove the camels and travelers out of an inn, so his nostrils should not be polluted by the smell, he made much of Botogo and weighed silently in his mind the tales he had heard about the prowess of the strong warrior Ermecin against the veracity of Botogo, who said the Tatar was absent and drunk.
Dawn found Cha-tsong Chien riding fast with his men to the North, still silent, but wishing for a greater retinue. Then Botogo would have made excuses and left the cavalcade, but the tao-tai was no man’s fool and kept him at his stirrup.
“If Ermecin and his riders are at the yurt, we will pay him out of our benevolence a visit of felicitation on the birth of his son.”
Cha-tsong Chien knew the law of Tatar hospitality.
“And I will have heated mercury poured into your mouth to kill the devil of lies in your throat. If Ermecin is indeed at Ubsa, then your two claws will have cool silver poured into them—”
The round face of the governor broke into a smile. He liked his jest. And he smiled the more when he found the yurt of Ermecin deserted by all but a brace of herders and one or two hangers-on who fled at the first glimpse of the embroidered coat of Cha-tsong Chien. One herder was off like an arrow; the other died fighting.
Cha-tsong Chien walked into the yurt of Ermecin. A servant woman groveled, and he kicked her out and peered into the shadows where a comely girl nursed a six-months-old child.
He watched while Cherla covered her breast and rose to stand before him. Cha-tsong Chien was even taller than Ermecin, though not so massive in shoulder and arm.
“Welcome to the yurt of Ermecin, tao-tai,” she said in blundering Manchu. “I am of the blood of your august fathers, and I can try to serve the guest fittingly. Will you be pleased to sit until Ermecin can be sent for?”
Cherla’s heart was pounding under the embroidered silk of her tunic. She had often thought with reverence of the governor across the border. He was of the white-boned caste, and the splendors of his palace must be beyond telling.
But his moist eyes seemed to her like the eyes of a fish. Why had the soldiers of the governor struck down the herder? Cherla did not understand; she only knew that she was Ermecin’s wife and must extend the hospitality of Ermecin’s ill-suited tents to the august visitor.
The glance of Cha-tsong Chien ran around the weapons on the walls and came back to the woman as a group of his men clustered in the yurt entrance.
“Break those bows and spears,” he commanded at length. “Fetch in the cattle and horses to the last one. Not until then can you have this woman for your sport. Make haste!”
Now as the men were tearing down the weapons from the felt sides of the tent one of them stepped upon the child, which began to cry Indifferently the soldier picked it up and tossed it to earth to silence it.
Cherla’s heart stood still. But the son of Ermecin wriggled about on the furs where he had fallen and stood up, his fat legs planted wide.
“A strong boy!” exclaimed Cha-tsong Chien in surprise. “Aye, and there may be Manchu blood somewhere in his veins. We will take him with us.”
With a scream Cherla cast herself over the boy, hugging him to her. Two bowmen tried to drag her away from the child. In her slender body was a surprising strength.
It was minutes before they had beaten her unconscious with the butts of their weapons. They tore the silver ornaments from her silk garment and in so doing ripped the tunic from her.
Cha-tsong Chien jerked them back angrily.
“Dogs—get you to the herds. We must be off at once. Give the child to a coolie to tie to his horse.”
* * * *
Botogo had spoken the truth, yet not quite all the truth. Ermecin was at the horse festival; but he was not drunk. In fact drink never kept him off his feet, and just then he was watching the horse races with critical appreciation.
When the herder from his yurt galloped up on a steaming beast and shouted to Ermecin, the big Tatar became dead sober in that moment. In the next he was on his horse and off, over the plain.
The burning stacks of hay, the broken corrals and the tumbled huts of his followers he took in with a glance. Passing by a group of curious and silent Buriats he strode into his yurt, now empty of skins and ivory and ornaments and filled with broken weapons.
“Where is the son of Ermecin?” he asked his wife, scarcely noticing her torn clothes and the sweat on her disordered hair.
His deep voice was slow as if it had been dragged forth from his chest. His veined hands clasped and unclasped on his belt. Only his eyes glowed as if from a fire within.
“They have taken him away from you,” she wailed. “They have taken him from me and put him on a horse while you were drunk at the festival. Oh, you are a beast, you are a beast!”
“They threw him on the ground,” she cried, pointing to the spot. “But he did not die, because he is strong, strong. And they have taken him away from you, you—”
Ermecin had passed from the yurt. Cherla dragged herself to the entrance in time to see him go to the best of the horses that the Buriats had ridden up—the Buriats who had been his guests. As she watched the big, stooped figure gallop off alone after circling the yurt, there was a curious f
ire in her dark eyes. Her lips moved as if she was praying.
* * * *
When the outpost that Cha-tsong Chien had stationed in the rear of his caravan of animals rode up to report a single horseman coming over the long slopes in the plain where the plain is like the waves of the sea, meeting the sand of the Gobi, Cha-tsong Chien smiled for the first time in some hours.
It was then nearly dusk. The one rider, so reasoned the tao-tai, could be disposed of by his bowmen. Then night would fall.
Their course across the northern corner of the Gobi would be undisturbed, and by dawn they would be beyond reach of any really formidable pursuit.
So he called in three of his bowmen, and then a fourth, from the herd. The two other bowmen and all the servants but one that carried Cha-tsong Chien’s sword were needed to drive the uneasy animals.
The Tatar, Cha-tsong Chien mused, would rush up like an angered ox and would be stuck full of arrows in a trice.
The six men sat their horses with bowstrings taut and arrows fitted, while the pursuer galloped up over a rise and gave a shout at seeing them
“Wait until he is close,” ordered the tao-tai. “The light is bad.”
Actually he was willing that one or two of his men should be shot down—he knew the skill of a Tatar archer—in order that the others should make sure of their kill. As for Cha-tsong Chien, he had a breastplate of Turkish steel under his robe. He had inherited it from his fathers and found it useful at times like this.
The rider headed toward them, and they saw a short, massive bow gripped in his left hand.
“Wait,” counseled Cha-tsong Chien as his men stirred, “another spear’s throw.”
But then the rider swerved and began to circle the group at the full speed of his horse. As the herds with their guards had passed on, the plain about the Chinese was clear.
“Hai!” he shouted. “Hai—hai!”
With each cry he loosed an arrow. The shafts came as if expelled from a siege engine. One of the bowmen was knocked to earth, transfixed. The horse of another screamed and went to its knees.