Swords of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  As they drew nearer the glimmer became brighter. Moving lights took shape, and the glow of fires. They heard a murmur of voices and the stir of animals.

  On their side of the canal a street of sorts stretched to the moat—twin lines of mud and thatch buildings that seemed to house the offspring of bedlam. Around the fires men of all races were visible. Ayub saw the thin faces and the ragged kaftans of Jews clustered among the muddy sheepskins of herders, and the striped cloaks of bearded Persians who snarled at all the rest.

  Dogs and children wandered between the fires. A Circassian horseman trotted down the street, singing a high-pitched love song. The air smelled of horses and dung, and the love song was blended with the whistling and bubbling of camels. Here and there the broken stone wall of a caravansary took shape by the fires, with covered carts and lines of rough coated ponies beyond.

  All of the men except the Jews were armed, but the Cossack noticed that no guards had been posted. At the end of the street the fires gleamed in the water of the moat and revealed the shadowy outline of the crenellated wall on the far side. A narrow bridge ran across the moat to the gate of a dark building on the other side. Little could be seen of this, except two slender towers that might have been watchtowers or the minarets of a mosque.

  Ayub stared up at it, fingering his beard.

  "Eh, Little Father, the gate is closed. See, the caravans have taken to shelter for the night. In the morning, perhaps, they will go in."

  "We will go in tonight."

  They had no more food, the horses were nearly done. To beg quarters from the rabble of the serais would be to earn mockery and to lessen their dignity in the eyes of the throng. To sleep in their cloaks in the muddy field would be little better.

  The Cossack nodded slowly.

  "Aye, so. Shall we ride in among the dogs and send a message to the gate?"

  "Nay, we will ride to the bridge. Is the envoy of a king to dismount among herders?"

  He pulled up the head of the piebald charger and trotted forward, Ayub following a little to one side. The Cossack tightened his girdle and drew off his right glove, trying the blade of his yataghan to see if it were free in the sheath. Once within the light of the fires they could not turn back, and there was no guessing how the Moslems would greet them.

  But they entered the head of the street unnoticed, and trotted between the buildings, amid a snarling of dogs, until a boy's shrill cry drew attention to them.

  "Giaours!"

  Then silence fell about the nearest fires. Men rose hastily to stare and to finger their beards in utter amazement. They seemed not to believe their eyes. They would have expected to see the companions of the Prophet himself ride armed among them, more readily than two Christians emerging from the steppe at night, unheralded and palpably without escort. Few of them had ever seen a man like Stuart before, and dark eyes fastened hungrily upon his gray cloak and stained red boots.

  He did not turn his head, and he was halfway down the street when a clamor of excited comment uprose. Then, when it was evident that he would keep on to the bridge, men jostled to hasten after him and the dogs scurried ahead. Swordsmen swung into the saddles of waiting horses and cantered through the herders and slaves who raced afoot. Some snatched up torches and beat a way for themselves.

  Stuart and the Cossack reined in and walked their chargers out on the bridge because it was built of timbers laid loose across the beams, and a gap might have been left for the unwary. But the torches of their escort gave them light, although the throng halted and spread itself expectantly about the end of the bridge.

  From over their heads came a harsh challenge, and when Stuart kept on without heading it, an arrow thudded into the boards by the forefeet of his horse. Ayub looked up at the towers, lifting his arm.

  "Elchi!" he shouted. "An ambassador! O ye men of Krim, send word to the gate."

  A second arrow flashed down, and the Cossack's charger snorted. Voices gibed and mocked from the crowd that jostled beyond the bridge, but the towers were silent. The glow of the torches revealed the face of the fortress clearly—a seemingly solid wall of blackened brick and the lofty pointed doors, strengthened by knobs of iron. Although he strained his eyes upward, Ayub could see nothing moving on the tower summits.

  It was not easy to sit quietly in the saddle beneath bows that could

  slay them unseen, and the watchers from the caravans did not make matters easier.

  "Since when did giaours send ambassadors to the Krim?" a voice taunted.

  Minutes passed, and the crowd grew more vociferous. Evidently it dared not come upon the bridge, but it made no secret of its hatred of unbelievers, and prophecies were bandied back and forth in shrill speculation as to the fate that awaited the Christians.

  "O ye without wit," one proclaimed. "O blind dogs, wearers of hats, eaters of filth, know ye not the gate is closed between sun and sun?"

  Ayub gritted his teeth in a rage because he could not retort, because their lot would be no enviable one if they had to turn back now. But Stuart became impatient and, ignoring the threat of the arrow, reined his horse forward, drew his sword and smote the timbers of the door with the pommel. Echoes answered from within, and the caravan men ceased their shouting to listen.

  Whether the watchers above had sent tidings of the strangers, or the Scot's tattoo roused the guards within, the great doors creaked and swung outward. A man strode through the opening. By his green turban and the robe thrown over one shoulder, Ayub recognized a mullah who had visited Mecca. With a thin arm he lifted the lantern he carried and looked

  briefly at the Cossack and searchingly at the officer.

  "What seek ye?" he cried.

  Ayub answered—

  "To be taken to the khan."

  "Whence come ye?"

  "From his Majesty, the King of Poland."

  "There is no majesty save that of Allah and no power save of his bestowing. What token was given thee?"

  "The letter that will be placed at the feet of the khan."

  "Hai!" The gaunt mullah threw back his head and laughed. "What words are these? No word hath reached this place of the coming ambassadors. Nay, they have never come in my time or my father's time from the Franks. Who led thee hither, and where are thy men?"

  Sensing the mood of the mullah, the crowd howled and began to push forward upon the bridge. To show Stuart's missive now would be to yield to the mullah, and the least sign of weakness would be fatal. Ayub edged his horse close to the bearded servant of Islam.

  "We will ask of the khan, 'Where are our companions?' Forty and two were beset and slain by the tribes on the road hither, and we alone may tell the tale of it. Give us safe escort to the khan, or thy head will lack ears and thy mouth a tongue!"

  The dark eyes of the mullah moved restlessly, and he motioned back the listeners who had edged forward.

  "Think well," he said, "if thy words be true. If not—" he laughed soundlessly and turned, throwing his robe back upon his arm—"come, if ye dare!"

  Stuart reined his horse forward, and the two passed through the open doors into a stone passage where the flicker of the lantern fell upon narrow embrasures and round holes high overhead. This part of the fortress seemed to be older than the rest, and had been built in the days when bows and liquid fire were the weapons of defense.

  They crossed an open courtyard and here their guide bade them dismount. Throwing open the door of a bare chamber and pointing to a fine carpet, he said:

  "Tomorrow ye shall mount for the ride to the khan. Meat and wine shall be brought, for ye are infidels. May Allah direct your steps aright."

  They did not see the mullah again. When the sun was high the next day

  a Tartar mirza appeared and bade them make ready for the road, since he would conduct them to the khan. He was a dark, diminutive figure, clad in crimson and gold, and his horse was a blood Arab of price. He seemed astonished that the Christians had no goods or gear with them, and he exclaimed admiringly at sight o
f the piebald charger. He led them at a trot through the crowded courtyard and out to a highway where the earth was dry and free from snow.

  Then the mirza let his Arab gallop. The four warriors who attended him fell in behind the Christians, and they thundered past the caravans that had set out before them, taking not the slightest trouble to turn aside for man or beast. The mule trains were hurried to the side of the road by anxious owners, and the slaves scuttled into the muddy ditch, to stare fearfully at the flashing robes and the tufted spears of the Tartars.

  When he had scattered the foremost string of beasts, and had left an echo of mournful profanity in the air behind him, the little mirza looked around with satisfaction and reined in to a more sensible pace, motioning Ayub to ride abreast him.

  For the rest of the morning they talked, and when they dismounted at noon to let the horses graze, the Cossack sought out Stuart and flung himself down in the brown grass.

  "Not good, Little Father!" He shook his head and sighed, and the Scot waited in silence for him to relate his tidings in his own way. "May the devil take the sultan and all the Turks, and these wasps of Tartars, too! May the foul fiends sit upon them. May their hides be made into dog whips!"

  The Turks, he said, were already at the Krim court. A wazir had arrived in the last moon with a galley load of gifts, and an army corps had followed him—eleven thousand janissaries and sipahis who were to march under the standard of the khan, up into the steppes and into Christian lands. They were preparing to take the field already, while the snow was still on the plains, before the Spring rains made a marsh of the grasslands.

  This was bad news and Stuart considered it gravely. If the sultan had sent such a strong division out to the Krim peninsula for a flank movement, the Ottomans must be preparing to move with their full strength against Poland. There were fortresses along the southern frontier that could hold the main army of the Mohammedans in check—for a time. But Stuart, a cavalry officer himself, appreciated the havoc that would be wrought by this detached army, and especially by the fine Tartar cavalry of the Horde.

  As usual, the Polish ministers had blundered. They had sent an ill assorted mission into the steppes, and it had been sent too late. The Turks were first in the field, and the tidings of the massacre of Prince Paul and the chancellor's party would only make the khan contemptuous of the fighting qualities of the Poles. And Stuart had seen enough of the steppe-dwellers to understand that a hint of weakness would draw the Tartars out of their fastness with fire and sword.

  "Even the gold will work ill," he said to himself, thinking of the Nogai women who would soon be wearing His Majesty's gold thalers.

  Better if it had never been sent. And noblewomen had brought their jewel caskets, and churches their candlesticks to make up the treasure.

  "Is this true?" he asked Ayub.

  "The red mirza is still rubbing his belly because he ate sugared mastic in the booths of the janissaries."

  "Has the khan sworn to support the Turkish envoy?"

  "Satan knows—at least they were hunting together. They have left Bagche Serai. Eh, no good ever came of trying to wear another man's boots. We are not ambassadors, and they will plant us on stakes for the sport of the women."

  "Aida—aida! Hasten—hasten!" cried the mirza of the red khalat, swinging into his stirrups again.

  He cried out impatiently, because Stuart took his time, and he seemed to look upon his charges more as captives than envoys. He set out again at the same breakneck pace, although he must have seen that the horses of the strangers were tired. He rode with the short stirrups of the Mongol and the easy, swaying seat of the Arab, and he did not draw rein until they had left the sun-warmed fields and plunged into a forest of dwarf oaks.

  Here the trail narrowed and—because the oaks were still in leaf—they rode in shadow, sometimes stooping to pass under a gnarled branch. Presently the mirza dropped back until he could touch Ayub's arm.

  "Look, caphar, yonder are some of the sultan's men."

  Ayub had seen them already, a dozen horsemen who had been sitting by a stream, and who now were climbing into the saddle hastily. Their officer was an agha, by token of his white and gold mace. They were bigger men than the Tartars, clad in heavy garments and riding slippers. They had no shields or spears but carried long pistols in saddle holsters. Ayub knew they were Turks.

  The agha made quite a fuss about drawing up his men as the Tartar detachment came up to him, and he called out to the red mirza the usual "Salaam aleikoum!"

  The mirza, too, was inclined to be friendly.

  "I greet thee, O companion of the road," he made response, his hand on his hip, and the head of his pacer pulled well up.

  The Turk turned in his saddle, smiling, and suddenly snatched a pistol from its sheath. Ayub saw the hammer fall, and then smoke beat against his eyes, while his ears rang from the explosion.

  The weapon had been thrust almost into the mirza's side, and the little Tartar swayed, catching at his saddle horn. He reached for his sword hilt with a quivering hand and half drew the blade. Then he groaned and fell forward upon the neck of his horse. Other pistols roared, and Ayub drew his yataghan, shouting with surprise and anger. But he made no other movement.

  One of the Turks ran up and gripped the rein of his charger, and another pointed a pistol at his head. The Cossack saw that Stuart, just behind him, was caught in the same fashion. Through the haze of white smoke he made out the Tartars of the escort fighting savagely. The agha and eight men had closed in around them, and one of them had fallen.

  Although wounded by pistol balls, the others clung to their seats, wielding their short sabers, and snarling defiance. One of them, beset by three men, slid under his horse, stabbed a Turk's charger from beneath and emerged on foot on the other side—grappled with another adversary and pulled him to the ground, under the wounded horse that reared frantically. When Ayub looked that way again, they were both dead, the Tartar warrior's head crushed and his hands locked around the hilt of a curved knife that he had pulled from the Turk's girdle and driven under his ribs.

  The other three fought without asking or giving mercy, and without any thought of flight. One of them was hacked with scimitars until the blood, draining over his horse, made the animal rear and throw him. The last survivor held off his foes and plunged from the road, to the rocks of the stream, where he made good his ground with saber and shield until he fell with a pistol ball in his head.

  When the smoke drifted away between the trees, three of the Turks were dead and as many badly wounded in the body. The seven who were still unhurt gathered around the captives. They took Ayub's and Stuart's sword and pistol and brought them to the agha, who was nursing the sliced flesh

  on his jaw where a Tartar sword had grazed him.

  He motioned for the saddlebags to be taken from the Christians and he seemed astonished when he found nothing but food and the Cossack's kit.

  "Eh," he said in broken Nogai dialect, "where is the rest—the baggage?"

  "Ask the wolves!" retorted the Cossack.

  "Where are the others of thy band?"

  Ayub pointed at the bodies on the ground, and the officer stroked his jaw in silence.

  "Art thou indeed from the king of Poland?" he asked presently.

  "They could have told thee!" Ayub motioned toward the dead.

  "Thou wilt be like that, soon," the agha muttered, "thou and the young Frank."

  And then, because his jaw pained him, he spat suddenly into the Cossack's face. Ayub lunged toward him, but the officer's baton smashed against his forehead and he reeled back in the saddle. Stuart pushed his horse forward, and the Turks ran up, but Ayub gripped his friend's arm.

  "Do not strike, Little Father."

  At a sign from the agha the soldiers tied the feet of the captives—an-kle knotted to ankle beneath the horse's belly. Ayub watched from beneath shaggy brows, while his captors dragged the bodies of the Krim men into the trees. He heard shovels striking into earth;
then the saddles were taken from the Tartar ponies, and the agha had his own saddle changed to the white pacer that had belonged to the mirza. He mounted clumsily, and the high-strung horse, excited by the conflict and the smell of blood, sidled and half reared. The wounded officer struck him over the head with the heavy baton.

  Because the young horse was restless, or because his men delayed over the work of burial, the leader of the Turks called to two of his men to mount. He signed to Stuart and Ayub to follow, and set out, whipping the white Arab into a gallop before the swift-paced horse had time to find its gait. The two soldiers closed in behind the captives and when Ayub glanced back at them, one fingered his long pistol meaningly.

  The agha seemed both anxious and in haste. When they came out of the wood into a rolling plain that stretched to the blue line of distant hills, he looked around on all sides—at the distant tents of herders and the road ahead of him. Then he turned off into a narrow trail and settled down into a steady trot.

  Duncan Stuart, with his ankles aching from the ropes and his shoulders and thighs stiff from long hours in the saddle, was almost happy, although he looked utterly indifferent. He had slept through the night, although the Turks had given him no better food than barley soaked in water and had bedded him down in the dirty straw behind the horses. They had passed the night in a hut where the trail entered a ravine, and the Turks had taken some pains to hide the glow of their fire.

  It was clear that the agha did not wish his captives to be seen. The treacherous attack upon the Tartars could have only one cause. The sultan's men had been sent to intercept the ambassadors and to do it secretly. How word of their presence had reached the Turks, he did not know. Perhaps there had been spies at the gate of the caravans. Perhaps the Tartars had sent one of their riders ahead.

  But surely the envoy from Constantinople could not have bound the khan to an alliance, since the Turks had hunted down the Christian envoys. And, for some reason, the Turks must find his presence dangerous if they risked discovery in this manner.