by Harold Lamb
Promptly the lad, who might have been Gipsy or Tatar, sheathed his weapon and stood straight and quiet.
“Koshkildui, peace be with you, brother,” said Captain Billings in Russian. “Get up behind me, young man.”
The stripling took his time about answering.
“You are a giaour—an outlander,” he observed slowly, in the southern dialect. “You are no man of Russia—I knew that by your first speech.”
“Indeed!” Billings pulled at his yellow mustache. “Do you wish to follow your horse into the bellies of the wolves who are back yonder?”
“Tchu—I fear no wolves, uncle. You ride from Astrakan, and you have been at the palace of the excellency, Beketoff.”
“The ——,” thought Billings, reining in his uneasy horse, “this fellow is uncommonly particular about whom he joins company with!”
The rapscallion, however, had a certain bravado about him; might be a Gipsy, for all of his smooth, olive skin and large eyes. And he had certainly kept his sword ready to hand until spoken to.
“Uncle,” went on the youth impassively, “if you were a Russian boyar, a noble, you wouldn’t offer to take up a poor Gipsy behind you—now would you? Not when the wolves were afoot.”
“Nephew, I am Captain Minard Billings, cartographer, and I am minded to leave you afoot.”
“Cartographer—what is that?”
“A maker of maps.”
In the moonlight a smile flashed over the face of the native. There was an elusive charm about the boy. Certainly, for all his respect, he did not speak in the manner of a serf or a suppliant son of Egypt.
Billings grunted.
“If you are satisfied, step out!”
With that he put spurs to the pony. The native promptly shed his heavy coat and ran beside, on the hard surface of the crust, clinging to a stirrup.
“How far is it to Zaritzan?” asked Billings.
“Two leagues, good uncle.”
“The black pest on those Russians!”
At this the youth glanced up, startled. Billings had been thinking of the discarded chart.
“Is this the highroad, young man?”
“Nay, the road joined the river bank, well back in the forest. But this track will lead you there.”
Before long they heard a chorus of yelping howls in the distance. The wolf pack had reached the horse. The boy glanced up.
“My pony fell and came up lame. The wolves were near, so I cut its throat. Here we are in the forest again, and we must go swiftly.”
With that he was up behind Billings, his breath warm on the traveler’s neck. To keep his balance, the boy clung to the other’s belt, reaching around to the clasp. Once the belt slipped, and the native tightened it. He had drawn his simitar and held it awkwardly in front of Billings.
“Pardon!” he cried.
The blade, slipping down, had cut the captain slightly across the upper leg. As if ashamed of the mishap he leaped down again, running beside the pony.
Although nothing more was heard of the wolves, they set a good pace until they passed an empty sentry box and, around a turn in the road, sighted the black bulk of a wall behind which rose the thatched roofs of houses, and a watch-tower.
“Zaritzan,” panted the boy, pointing to a light that showed by the stanitza gate.
“Good!” Billings dismounted. “A bowl of hot porridge now, and some steaming brandy!”
“I can not enter Zaritzan.”
“Why not? Where would you go?”
The boy pointed to where the light—a lanthorn in the hand of a soldier, the same who had prudently deserted the sentry box—was moving toward them slowly.
“The wolves I fear are within the gate, uncle.”
“Hum.” Billings wondered what manner of man this was who preferred the black depths of the Volga forest to a town.
“Hulloa—what are you about?”
The native had been whispering under his breath. His expressive eyes were serious. Now he seized the officer’s fingers and lifted their hands in the air, toward the south and the other quarters of the compass. On the back of his wrist was a cut over which the blood had dried.
On Billings’ fingers was the stain of blood from the slight wound over his knee.
“My lord,” whispered the boy, “you have looked in the face of danger for my sake. This night you have saved my life, although you know not how. Now I have made us andas, brothers, as you first named me.”
“And what foolery is that?” Billings pulled his hand away impatiently.
“When men become andas, my brother, both have one life; neither abandons the other and each guards the life of his anda. Tonight I have bound the girdles and let flow the blood of both, and made strong our anda.”
A Tatar! Billings remembered the boy had said he came from over the river. A native, Gipsy or Baskir or Tatar, would not go through this mummery of brotherhood without expecting some reward.
A second time the Tatar smiled.
“Give me your horse for this night and you will not lose it.” His eyes flickered from the advancing sentry to Billings’ face.
“Indeed, I will not. The wolves would make marrow paste of the mare.”
“Not they, my lord. The mare will be under your hand within two days. Come, you have given me something already, Captain Beel-ing. Are we not andas?”
The boy stiffened, leaped boldly into the saddle, and was off pelting through the dead bushes.
“Pardon, my lord—brother,” he called back, laughing, over his shoulder.
Billings snatched at his belt and shrugged. Both his pistols were in the saddle holsters. His temper flared as he watched the mare and rider go flitting along the edge of the hemlocks down toward the shining lane that was the moon’s reflection on the river.
It was rather curious, the ease with which the Tatar guided the tired horse away from shelter, riding as if he were one with the mare. There was no help for it. Horse and weapons were gone, and Billings felt the loss of both keenly.
“A witch,” suggested the soldier, who had drawn close and was watching.
Billings reflected that the sentry at the last post had told him to shoot down any Tatar at sight.
“Oh, he bewitched me rarely,” he muttered, disliking the idea of arriving in Zaritzan on foot, like a peasant.
“Of course,” nodded the soldier, holding the lanthorn close to his visitor. “I saw it done. He did it with your hand, sir, like a regular Tatar werewolf, snatching where the blood runs.”
The bearded sergeant was busy making the sign of the cross with his free hand. It was perplexing, after all, that the native had shown so little dread of the wolves.
“The Lord be merciful to us!” The sentry was staring at the cut in Billings’ breeches. “See, there’s where he sipped your blood. They usually take the back of the neck, just behind the ear.”
When Billings looked up, the man was running toward the gate, stumbling over his musket in his haste. Dropping the firearm, he fumbled with the door to shut it. This was a trifle too much for Billings to stomach.
He sprang into the opening, wedged his boot against the door and flung it back on the soldier.
“Hide of Beelzebub—so you would leave a Christian to the cold and the beasts, eh? A sergeant, too, on my word.”
Muttering that he had orders to admit no strangers, the man changed countenance when Billings thrust his musket into his hand, wheeled him about, and requested that he announce to the pristof, Kichinskoi, that Captain Billings was here from Astrakan.
“At once—at once, your excellency. I assure you, captain, the witch robbed me of my senses. Enter, your honor. The Great Commissioner is expecting you, and gave word you were to go direct to his quarters.”
But when Billings was not looking, the soldier backed away making the sign to ward off devils, with fingers crossed.
Billings paid no attention to him. He had just discovered that the purse attached to his belt for safekeeping had disappeared.
* * * *
The moon by now was well overhead, and the whole of Zaritzan was outlined by the etching of shadow. It was one of the forts just completed by order of the Czarina, Catherine the Second of Russia. These forts formed a chain along the western border of the great Tatar steppe.
An earthen rampart, surmounted by a palisade, was pierced for several cannon, all facing toward the river. The center of the place was a square of beaten clay, a drill ground in the corner of which, near the gate, stood wooden stocks, a knout hanging there on by a rusty nail.
On one side of the enclosure ran a line of barracks and stables. Clustered against these as if for protection were the huts of traders, wine sellers and smiths. Behind these sheds a glow dimmed the moonlight and loud voices broke the silence of the night. Groups of coated figures moved between the huts, swaggering out on the square.
Whenever the soldiers came near the gate side of the drill ground they hushed and walked more quickly. Here stood a rude church of logs, with a painting on the planks of the door and a weather-stained cross of silver gilt at the peak. Beside the church and abreast the stocks was the two-storied bulk of the governor’s house, its mica windows tinted with orange light, the watch-tower built up from its roof. A deep voice within roared out a song of the steppe:
“Shen, shen, shivagen,
Seize your horse and spur again.
Ride, ride; speed and turn—
Burn, burn!”
As Zaritzan was on the river route of the Volga, and was the point on the steppe nearest the highway to Moscow, in this building the pristof Kichinskoi had his quarters—Kichinskoi, nominally Great Commissioner of the Tatars, actually surveillant of the frontier for the Empress, an informant who had authority even over the military commanders, and whose word was law on the Volga.
Kichinskoi was in his office when Billings entered—a heavy man, with a smooth pale face and small features. He lay back on a sofa, one foot in a polished boot, on the table in front of him. He paid no attention to the captain after one swift glance, but went on talking to a timid-looking priest who sat on a stool close to the charcoal brazier.
“Old wives’ tales, I tell you, my dear batko. There will be no rising among the Torgut Tatars. I have talked with the Torgut khan and told him a thing or two to put in his ear with the fleas. Pah! Didn’t you see, Father Obe, that the khan was afraid to answer me?”
“Yes, excellency, the khan did not answer.”
“Of course not.”
Thrusting both hands deep into the pockets of a sable-lined overcoat, the pristof yawned and began to pick at his teeth.
“The Tatars are dogs. A little lashing, you know, goes a long way with them. Didn’t they come to the steppe of their own accord several generations ago to beg for lands when they were driven out of China or some such thing? We need them, of course. The ministry wants horses and taxes, and the Torguts can give us both. And their khan raised a levy of forty thousand cavalry in the war with the Sultan—killed a lot of infidels for the glory of God, and we got Azov. Isn’t that true, priest?”
“True,” muttered the small priest, with more assurance this time.
Kichinskoi took snuff from a gilt box. Without offering it to Billings he closed the box and dusted off his chest with a silk kerchief.
“Dogs, or rather wolves,” he resumed, “but we would fight them rather than lose them. I know what is whispered behind the doors of the ministry. Every house has its watchdog, Father Obe. You feed them bones—ha, yes! Our watchdogs are the Cos—”
He glanced toward the door whence came the noise of carousal and the mellow voice of the singer. While he seemed to pay no attention to Billings he was covertly scanning the visitor.
“I was going to say Tatars. Under my advice, they fight the Baskirs, Turks and other accursed savages. Dog eat dog. You take my point. I have my hand on the leash, and they won’t dare to rebel, whatever fools like Governor Beketoff may say—ha, Captain Billings, what does your friend the governor say now about those pagans over the river?”
He turned swiftly on his visitor. Billings had savored how he was being received in the first moment. Instead of standing, or trying to interrupt the self-satisfied official, he had seated himself on the stool opposite the priest, had thrown open his coat and taken out his pipe. After filling this, he took his time about answering, stooping instead to draw a coal from the brazier to light his pipe.
“Beketoff,” he responded calmly, “does not wag his tongue for the sake of hearing it go.”
Kichinskoi brought his boot down from the table with a thump and frowned.
“Confound it, captain, you make yourself fiendishly at home, I must say. You’re sitting down, I must call your attention to that. And am I smoking, pray?”
“No, you took snuff.”
The priest cringed back into the shadows and raised his hands; Kichinskoi stared banefully into the emotionless, leather-like face of the adventurer. Billings’ greenish eyes were frank and not at all cordial. Kichinskoi noted with some interest the smartly cut coat and the embroidered waist coat of the captain.
Kichinskoi was a clever man, but—as is often the case—thought himself cleverer than he was. Already in the third rank of the nobility, he liked to be addressed as of the second. His weakness was vanity. He looked meaningly at Father Obe.
“Do you know, sir,” the priest hastened to say, “that, Captain Billings, you are addressing the pristof himself? His excellency is commissioner over the Torguts, who are the Tatars along the Volga. Governor Beketoff has seen fit to send couriers to St. Petersburg—to high officials—charging that the Torguts are about to take up the sword against Christians. He asked you whether Beketoff still persists in that delusion.
“His excellency,” he added in a whisper, “has denied to the Empress herself, the viceroy of the Church, that the Tatars would rebel.”
“Then tell his excellency, Father Obe,” said Billings quickly, “if he has brought me from Astrakan merely to repeat the confidences of Governor Beketoff, I shall make haste to return tomorrow morning.”
Father Obe looked at Kichinskoi, who blinked like a disturbed owl. But, having studied the map-maker, he changed his tactics.
“By the ashes of Sodom, my dear captain, you speak our Russian language well. Foi de ma foi! And my inform— I hear from Astrakan that you have completed a splendid chart of the Caspian shore for my friend Governor Beketoff, who did not pay you a copeck. Also, you speak Tatar somewhat. I take it you are versed in—ah, astronomic science, and are—yes, a master hand at making a map.”
Billings bowed without answering.
“Now unfortunately, Captain Billings, our Russian cartographers have given us poor charts of the Volga and the great plain to the east. Vraiment, mon ami! What do you think of those charts of the steppe?”
“Hum!” Billings smiled grimly.
“Exactly. I am commissioned by the Empress herself to prepare a map to present with my report.”
“A map—of what?” Billings asked.
“Ah, you perceive the point. A map, my dear sir, of the great Tatar steppe.” Kichinskoi drew a paper from the pile on his desk and read from it:
“It is desired an officer be commissioned to set out from the river Volga for the river Yaik, and from there to the Torgai. From this point he will journey to the Lake that is called Tengis, or Balkash, and he will complete a true and fine map of this territory.
“He is furthermore instructed to settle by astronomic observation the exact position of the Lake of Balkash, concerning which divers opinions are held. In all instances this officer is to conciliate the natives and confirm them in their favorable opinion of the Russian Government, to which they have recently submitted. By order of the Imperial Society of St. Petersburg.”
“Practically the whole of the Tatar steppe,” assented Billings. “Fifteen hundred miles—five thousand versts. First, plains down below sea level, then a desert—a blank place in your charts, ornamented by a pic
ture of a tribesman sitting in front of his tent. And then—”
He hesitated. An old Armenian merchant at the Astrakan waterfront had sold him a map of the East. The traders of the caravan routes had a good knowledge of the terrane. And the Armenian had tales to tell.
“And then,” prompted Kichinskoi, surprized at his visitor’s knowledge.
“Mountains, pristof, shown on your maps by a pretty sketch of a lion emerging from a cave. But instead of lions—so I have heard—a race of men that are like animals. They bring women to sell as slaves in the bazaars of Tashkent and Bokhara to the south.”
Kichinskoi frowned angrily.
“Tales—tales. My agents have provided against a revolt. Come now, my dear sir, you would be the—ah, avant-coureur upon the steppe that is still a blank space to us. Your name will be known by this map. Will you undertake it?”
He had spoken shrewdly.
“Your terms?” demanded Billings.
“Ah—four rubles a day while you are on your journey. Two hundred rubles when the map is approved by me.”
“Four rubles—to hire horses and caravaneer’s supplies?” Billings flushed.
“My dear captain! You have your own horse; and your outfit—planisphere, compass and spirit level—is coming up the Volga under a Cossack sotnik. Besides, what will you do if you do not accept my offer?”
Indeed there would be nothing for Billings to do but return as best he could to Astrakan and walk the jetties. Kichinskoi had heard that the adventurer was penniless and so the pristof offered less than he had been instructed to pay for the making of the map. It is the way of the world’s officials to drive a hard bargain with him whose purse is empty. Billings had reason to know this.
Some years before he had commanded a Russian sloop that made the voyage from St. Petersburg north along the White Sea, and thence along the edge of what was then called “The Frozen Ocean” to the mouths of the Yenesei, to establish a trading-route for furs with the Mongol-Tatar tribes of the arctic circle.