Swords of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  The tribesmen had nailed a small beam athwart the tree and had bound his bleeding arms to this cross-piece and his ankles to the trunk of the poplar. They tied me to a tree just opposite him, not on a cross, but sitting on the earth, my back against the trunk, saying:

  "Agha ckapir! Be seated, your Excellency!"

  When they told me that the khaghan karauli, the governor, had ordered all Cossacks found within the walls to be tortured, I knew that there was little hope for the Zaporogian or for me. The young warrior cried out again for spirits to help him endure the torments. A throng of Muscovite soldiers off duty and townspeople had come into the grove to watch, but no one brought a pitcher of brandy. Aye, there were ladies at the back of the crowd, leaning on the arms of gentlemen merchants.

  When the Kalmuks took off the Zaporogian's boots and began to strip the skin from his instep with their long knives these ladies screamed and put their fans before their faces. One of them fainted, but the others did not go away. It was hard to understand.

  The Zaporogian warrior had a horned soul in him. The pain did not make him whine.

  "When Stenka Razin comes, you will remember me," he shouted at the watchers. "The little father will make a torch out of your town. Death to you, dog-brothers!"

  Some of the Muscovite soldiers went away, murmuring when the tribesmen reached the Zaporogian's ankles. The Kalmuks relished their work, and the sight was not a pretty one. If only I had had some silver or a weapon! But I had left all in the hut because I was playing the part of a servant.

  And when the Kalmuks had finished with the Zaporogian, they would begin with me. I called to the Muscovites, saying that I was the servant of an officer of the governor's, and they gave me only kicks for an answer. Mark had come to Astrakhan only the day before and his face was not known in the city.

  So no one went to seek him, and after a while I grew ashamed of shouting when the Zaporogian was dying without a groan. If it was written that I should be flayed alive by Kalmuks in this place, how could it be otherwise? And after all, Mark was no more than a wanderer from the sea who had taken service with the Muscovites. How was he to countermand an order of the governor?

  But it was not written that I should die then. There was a stir in the crowd and Mark pushed his stocky form through the inner ring. Eh, it was a joyful thing to see his broad, lined face and his big boots that flopped when he walked. Another officer was with him—a young ensign who wore a fine new uniform of white damask, the breastplate silvered and the iron headpiece crested with plumes. Mark had seen me tied to the tree when he was inspecting the palisade gate, and had come to investigate.

  When he saw the Zaporogian, he started, and the ensign grew white all at once in the face. Then Mark pointed to me and spoke to the young Muscovite, who shrugged his shoulders and gave an order to the Kalmuks, and they cast off my cords and set me free.

  "Eh, Mark," I told him, "that poor devil on the tree wants brandy to help him out of his skin. Have you any more money?"

  Mark turned to the ensign and they talked in a language I did not know. I learned afterward that Mark conversed with the Muscovite officers in French, a dialect of Frankistan that is well known in the northern cities. And I learned, too, what passed between him and the ensign.

  First, Mark asked why the prisoner was being tortured, and the ensign said it was the order of the governor who wished to teach the rebels a lesson.

  "His own men may profit more by the lesson than the Cossacks," Mark pointed out. And it happened that the tormenting of the young warrior did stir up uncertainty among the soldiers of the garrison. Because they knew that Stenka Razin would hear of it and, when he did, every Muscovite in Astrakhan might have reason to regret his mother had given him birth.

  "An order," said the ensign, "is an order."

  Mark asked if the order was that the Zaporogian should be killed, and the ensign said this was so. Then Mark took a long pistol from his belt and powdered the pan without pointing the muzzle at any one. Turning suddenly on his heel, he raised the pistol and fired and the Zaporogian's head dropped at once on his chest. He had been shot through the brain, but so great had been his suffering that the sweat still ran from his mustaches and chin, although he was dead in a few seconds.

  "Now," Mark assured the ensign, "the savages can skin the prisoner."

  The crowd went away, and the ensign and the Kalmuks looked bewildered, but it could not be said that Mark had countermanded the order.

  Word of what he had done was taken to the governor's house and, before long a Polish colonel came to us on the ramparts—from that time a flea did not stick to a dog as close as I did to my kunak, Mark—and began to blow out his cheeks and talk angrily.

  He had a red face, that colonel, and a fine kaftan, embroidered with gold thread and a splendid ivory baton. He was so fat that he panted when he climbed the steps to the rampart, yet he was the officer commanding the garrison. A group of underofficers walked behind him and, whenever the colonel would speak, one of them would come forward and bow and smile. When the Polish colonel frowned at Mark, they all scowled and fingered their mustaches.

  "Eh, Lieutenant—" this is what I heard of the colonel's talk from a cannoneer—"it has been reported to me that you have changed the loading of the guns. As you are a civilian without experience in the arts of war, you have not known better than to put wadding in upon the powder without balls. It is reported to me that you have done so, or perhaps have put the wadding behind the powder charge and the ball, which amounts to the same thing."

  Ekh moi! What had happened was that some soldiers had related how Mark had put the prisoner out of pain and others had repeated that he sympathized with the Cossacks, and the people in the governor's house had passed on the story that Mark was a traitor who, no doubt, was charging the guns so they would not go off. And the colonel had heard that Mark had changed the charges in the cannon. That is how a rumor grows in such times!

  As for Mark, he did not look at all uneasy or angry. He asked the colonel's permission to discharge one of the guns and the colonel agreed. So a slow match was brought and Mark himself trained the gun-carriage to bear on a sandbar in the middle of the river. Then the match was touched to the breech and there was a great roar and billows of smoke, and the sand out on the shallows sprang up like mad.

  They all saw that nothing was wrong with the charge; but Mark went on to the next cannon, and the fat colonel had to go with him to each gun until all were fired off.

  The Polish colonel grunted, and looked at Mark a long time. Then he swore at the underofficers and stamped off, pausing at the steps to speak under his breath to a German lieutenant who wore a black coat with red ornaments and had a habit of brushing his mustaches to make them stand up like bristles instead of hanging down as God ordained.

  This lieutenant waited until the Pole and his staff had disappeared, then he walked up to where Mark was showing his men how to load the guns quickly. Mark was not sitting on the stove any longer. He showed the Muscovites himself just how everything was done, and then the lunkheads would get matters mixed. They were surly and slow, and I saw that Mark was studying them as he explained things through a sergeant who acted as interpreter. He was very patient and, before that morning had ended, the Muscovites had learned that they must do what he said, swiftly, without muddling. For four hours he made them load and draw the charges from the guns, and they were very weary. I think they expected to be flogged, but Mark had his own way of doing things.

  This had not pleased the German, who only watched a few minutes before he took his stand where he was in the way of the cannoneers.

  "Please to stand aside, barin," the sergeant urged.

  "I am on duty," replied the German who was called a Walloon, rumbling in his throat and brushing up his bristles. "The hochwohlgeborener, the high well-born, has said that this is not the time for adventurers to seek promotion in the garrison."

  He meant the fat colonel, and he intended to cast a slur at Mark. N
ow Mark had told his name to the governor and favor had been shown him, so the foreign officers of the garrison were jealous of him. And the Muscovite officers were sulking because the governor had given the important posts of command to the foreigners. He trusted them more than he did the Muscovites.

  "It is a time," repeated the lieutenant, "when we should think only of the defense of the city, not of personal advancement by intrigue."

  And he looked hard at Mark, who had taken off his coat and was working in his shirtsleeves among the men.

  "Stand back, Rudolph," he said. "You are in the way."

  The men began to look up from their tasks and the drill came to a stop. The eyes of the lieutenant, Rudolph, began to glitter and he put a gloved hand on the hilt of his long rapier.

  "My dear sir, do not shout at me. I am on duty."

  Mark had not raised his voice to the officer, and now he made a fine bow.

  "My dear lieutenant," he whispered, "kindly go to the-."

  "Achtingkrist!" roared Rudolph. "You threaten me? We will have a word or two about that. We will have a meeting, Master Nameless, before night. Will you choose rapiers or barkers, sir?"

  It was all plainly to be seen. The Polish colonel and the Dutch and German officers disliked Mark, who had only the English colonel for his friend. They had selected the man Rudolph to quarrel with him so that a duel would be fought. It seems that Rudolph was a good man with weapons, a veteran of a great war that they called the War of Thirty Years in Frankistan. Nor did he lack courage. Like a boar, he bristled and roared.

  Mark looked at him intently for a moment, and his gray eyes twinkled.

  "Sir," he said gravely, "is not this a time when we should think only of the defense of the city, not of personal quarrels, especially of intrigue? Astrakhan, I fear me, would be lost without Lieutenant Rudolph."

  The Walloon brushed up his mustaches fiercely and opened his mouth twice to reply, without finding words. Then he remembered his mission.

  "Akh, I understand." He scowled and rumbled again in his throat. "You lack courage. In short, sir, you are a coward."

  And he turned his back to await Mark's reply.

  But Mark was engaged in teaching the men again. He had seen through the lieutenant with the eyes of his mind, and wasted no more words on him except to send the sergeant who acted as interpreter after Rudolph to remind him that when the siege was over, he would be at his service, and that he preferred pistols to swords.

  I had seen Mark turn on his heel and fire a bullet into the brain of the Cossack prisoner, twenty paces away, and I knew that he was a match for the man called Rudolph. That evening at dinner, the governor, who was a just man, explained to the officers that Mark had refused a commission in the emperor's service.

  The governor was very polite to Mark, and when the other officers learned that he had seen service in America, they became civil, and the Polish colonel urged him again to accept a lieutenant's commission. But Mark would not and in the end this was a good thing.

  Many bottles were opened at the table, and all were in good spirits. That afternoon they had seen Stenka Razin's fleet.

  It came, the Cossack fleet, sailing down the Volga, with the men singing and the minstrels playing. Aye, it was a strange attack. I counted fifty-two vessels and about seven thousand warriors.

  When we expected them to land below the island, they turned and rowed back around a bend in the river. They came so near we could hear their laughter and the words of their song. They were big men, some in rags, some in Persian finery.

  The governor and his officers did not know what to make of this. Some said Stenka Razin had lost heart when the moment came to attack the shore; others believed that he wanted to scout around the city. But all agreed that he had gone off without trying to get a foothold anywhere.

  Then the governor asked for advice, and they held a council when the ladies had left the table, as on the previous evening. Some of the Muscovite women were dark-browed and beautiful, but all were painted red and white, and this is not the way of our Cossack maids.

  The Polish colonel was all for crossing to the mainland and moving to attack Razin with the Circassians and the Tatars, saying that we had nine thousand Muscovite infantry, as many hundred Poles and Swedes and four thousand native cavalry. But the governor said his duty was to defend the city, and we did not know where to find Razin and his men.

  To this the Muscovite officers assented, but insisted that the Nogais should be sent to harass Razin.

  When Mark was asked his opinion, he said that he had just come to Astrakhan and knew little of the situation, but it seemed to him that the governor should offer amnesty to all who had joined the Cossacks and forgiveness for past offences to make sure of those who were wavering between him and Razin.

  All except the Roundhead English colonel shook their heads, and the young ensign, who shone like a bride in his new uniform, swore that he would rather die than lower himself to treat with pirates.

  So the governor did nothing, except a little of many things. He did not advance on the Cossacks, but he sent the Nogais, and Koum Agha vanished like a bat into the night and was not seen again. Nay, he fled into the steppe, as I would have done in his place. And the governor issued casks of tabak and mead to the garrison and promised them a month's pay— who had not seen a kopek for a year. Surely the kopeks had gone into the governor's wallet, because the feast that night was a great feast. The table was covered with gold and silver plate, and the serving knaves carried stuffed quail and sturgeon and mutton in great platters.

  And at the end of the feast came two envoys from Stenka Razin—a gray-haired ataman and a priest.

  They offered the governor the lives of all within Astrakhan if he would surrender to Stenka Razin.

  Now the governor was no coward; he was bold enough, and foolish. Pride made him foolish. He hung the Cossack colonel to a tree and cut off the head of the little father, the priest.

  But I did not see this. Mark and the English colonel were walking on the wall, inspecting all things and moving their regiment to the south side of the town, which was the weakest because it faced the length of the island. See—the island is long and covered in places with woods. Without this south side of the city wall are the quarters of the Armenians and the others. On the other three sides the wall presses close to the river, within pistol shot of the shore.

  And here at the end is the governor's house where it overlooks the river to the north.

  Mark and the Roundhead agreed that the city with its high stone wall and great towers could stand off an attack by a hundred thousand men. The cannon of the Muscovites were splendid, shooting balls as big as a man's head, and there was powder enough to last for years. If Stenka Ra-zin's boats approached the shore they would be blown out of the water. If he landed below Astrakhan and tried to storm the south wall he would be advancing up a narrow strip of land under heavy fire. His cannon were small brass falconets, firing a ball no bigger than a man's fist. Such cannon could not make a breach in our wall.

  And Stenka Razin's followers were not as many as the soldiers of the garrison.

  "What do you think, Uncle Kosta," Mark asked, "of the Muscovite soldiery? Will they stand?"

  "Eh kunak," I said, "the Muscovite is like no other man. It is hard to make him angry, but when he is angry it is just as hard to make him laugh again. They will grumble for ten days, then they will rebel if God wills. If Stenka Razin had attacked this afternoon they would have fired off the guns and stirred up their blood. Then they would have fought well enough behind a wall. As it is, I do not know. The governor has been a hard master."

  This Mark repeated to the Roundhead colonel, who shrugged his shoulders.

  "If the men do turn against us, God help the women!"

  They both glanced back at the governor's great house where the Muscovite noblewomen were all quartered. The officers in the banquet hall had fetched in some Gypsies, and a likely looking lass was dancing the chapak for them on
the long table, while Rudolph and the Polish colonel were beating time with their swords.

  "Listen, effendi," I said to Mark.

  Somewhere in the town men were singing.

  In years gone by,

  Trai-rai-ta-ra-tai!

  The peasant was a huntsman.

  Trai-rai-ra-ta-tai!

  And then, as if some devil in the air had drawn a shroud over everything, the damp river mist drifted up and settled around the wall, hiding the lights in the great house, the watch fires and even changing the moon into a round silvery lantern.

  "Listen, effendi!"

  It was late, late when I warned Mark thus for the second time.

  The round lantern of the moon was a lantern no longer; only a spot of silver in the mist. The camp fires were embers. Only the government house blazed with candles.

  Bending over the wall, I heard jackals yelping down by the shore and the hooting of an owl in the shadows of the Armenian serai. By and by wolves began howling down the island.

  Mark and the Roundhead colonel looked at me, and after a moment they remembered what I knew very well, that there were no wolves or jackals on the island.

  "What is it, Barbakosta?"

  When I heard the keels of boats grating on the small stones of the shore— my ears are sharp, like a dog's, to hear sounds at night—and the trampling of heavy feet in the Tatar town, I went close to them and whispered.

  "Effendi, it is death."

  Mark, too, had heard the sounds of men moving in the mist, and he became aware that the Muscovite sentries were not giving the alarm. Sentries? The Circassians should have been watching the shore and we had outposts in the Tatar town. The yelping of jackals had been the Cossacks of Stenka Razin calling to scouts who had gone ahead to talk to the Muscovite soldiers in the outposts, and the hooting of the owl was the reply.

  The Cossacks were coming up from their boats to the wall of Astrakhan. Eh, had I not gone with them in their skiffs when I was a boy to steal horses from the auls along the Persian shore? That was how they did things. I wanted to go down with Mark to a small postern door beside the great Motsagolski gate, so that we could hear them talking and find out where they would attack, but the officers had no thought except to muster their men. It seemed as if the Cossacks were moving toward the Vos-nasinski gate where the Roundhead colonel had his headquarters, and he went off that direction.