Swords of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  Charny saw the thrust of the knife, felt the steel rip over his shoul-der—and wrenched himself free. Kolmar's cutlass slashed down at him, but struck harmlessly against his side, all the force taken from the blow. For the Cossack's blade got home first on the man's bare head, splitting it above the jaw.

  Kolmar dropped to his knees, when Charny struck again, severing the spine behind the ears, cutting the head from the body.

  "Here's for you, red hands," he called, and caught the smoking head from the boards to hurl it among the Volga man.

  A Kalmuk ran at him, but a stocky figure brushed him aside. Vash fought off the Kalmut, shouting:

  "U-ha!—the Cossacks are dancing. Join in, brothers."

  The rush of the outlaws had been stopped at the spars, while the rest of the crew had had time to come up. Some of the armored Muscovites were down, and the rest were fighting with desperation, seeing death at hand. Sight of their leader's head flying through the air brought the Volga men to a stop, and when Charny and Vash pressed around the end of the spars they gave way.

  "Come on, dog-brothers," Vash urged.

  The curved swords of the Cossacks rose and fell. The outlaws, lead-erless, began to drop into the boats. Some leaped the rail, into the water, and climbed into the saiks, and in a minute they were clear of the deck, except for the groaning wounded who were soon silenced by the axes of the crew. Mercy was unknown on the Volga.

  From the boats the outlaws retreated to the mound, beyond pistol shot.

  Charny was sitting, panting, on an overturned keg, when he saw Fugen-wald striding past and heard a command. With a blinding flash and roar the two carronades were fired, the chain shot and scrap iron sweeping the knoll, scattering the surviving outlaws into the darkness. Only the bodies of three or four men were visible by the fire.

  "Eh—" Vash grinned—"His High Mighty Excellency is starting to fight when everything's over. But it was you, dog-brother, who sent the red hands off howling."

  "The head," Count Fugenwald explained precisely, "of the man Kolmar has been identified as that of a renegade and a river slayer who has shed blood like water in the northern district. From the scene of his crimes he fled into the steppe. He had the wits of a noble and the cruelty of a Kal-muk. It is apparent now that he laid a trap for this ship, dressing up five of his followers—for two women came with him into the steppe—in the garments of others he had put to death. So, by the discipline of my militia and the destructive fire of my two carronades, we are victorious over the notorious Kolmar and his band."

  Approvingly he tapped his eyeglass on the paper in front of him. He was seated on the afterdeck, and the morning mist was clearing away from the Kniaz, still at anchor in the river, gray under the first light.

  Behind him in the place of the dead lieutenant stood the Russian ship's master who translated his Excellency's words to the two Cossacks who stood before him, silent but with restless eyes.

  For an hour the whole ship had been ransacked for the jeweled collar and other valuables of the countess, which had disappeared during the tumult. Nothing had been found.

  "However," went on that count, "you two lads bore yourselves well. I commend you and reward you—so!"

  He picked up the paper that bore his seal and folded it, handing it to Vash.

  "I have written," he explained, "to His Excellency the Governor of Astrakhan to free you, Vash, from patrol duty and bestow upon you the ranking of sergeant in His Excellency's town guard. As for you, Charny, you assured me that you have no duty except that of caring for His Excellency's horses. So I have suggested that you be raised from groom to master of the Zarit stables."

  Vash turned the paper in his hands uneasily and passed it to Charny, who looked at it thoughtfully and tucked it into his belt. Both Cossacks were looking over the side, where a log raft was drifting slowly past the Kniaz. Behind the raft floated a skiff, and on the raft stood two horses, stamping restlessly. One was a black charger, the other a piebald pony, and their saddles had been removed. Charny nudged Vash, who found his tongue at last.

  "We thank your High Well-Born Excellency," he said eagerly, "and we accept the letter joyfully. But we wish to be sent off in a skiff to that raft. Look, our horses are waiting for us there."

  Fugenwald glanced through his glass and nodded amiably. After all, he would come to Astrakhan with a reputation.

  The Cossacks climbed down into the skiff with alacrity. A few moments later they leaped from it to the raft, shouting farewell to the Russian seamen who headed back into the current.

  "Now, you old son of a dog," Vash exclaimed to the anxious Yamalian, "you wanted to get away with our horses."

  "As God lives, I heard you were dead."

  "In a sow's ear, we were. Makara saw us on our legs."

  "But the shore, my Falcon, it was aswarm with outlaws. Truly, I saved the horses for you."

  Vash grunted and turned to confront the Gypsy girl, who would come out of the thatch cabin to look at Charny.

  "Eh, little hawk, where have you hidden the pearls you snatched from that Russian dove?"

  Indifferently Makara glanced at him: but her dark eyes glowed as she stepped before Charny, the wind whipping her dark hair about her throat.

  "Will you take—pearls?" she whispered.

  Charny smiled down at her.

  "Nay, keep the pearls, little Makara. Pearls for a sword. Now I have had enough of the water. My road is on the land. Swing over, Yamalian, swing east."

  When they had saddled the horses, and Charny had landed at a point on the east bank of the Volga, Vash followed him, leading the piebald pony.

  "How will you get back again?" Charny asked.

  The stocky Cossack pulled at his mustache reflectively.

  "Then you're not going to Zarit—" he grinned—"to be master of the stables?"

  Charny shook his head and drew Fugenwald's letter from his belt, handing it to his companion.

  "Not I. You take it."

  "I'm not going back. Too many lords and officers. I'll draw my rein with yours, you brother of a dog." Vash stepped to the river's edge and tore the seal from the paper. Then he tore the paper into pieces and scattered them over the water. "Now they can't make me sergeant of the militia."

  Charny laughed joyously.

  1

  The trampled earth in front of a tavern door where Cossacks were likely to be found asleep in the morning.

  Witch Woman

  Beyond doubt, something troubled the girl Ivga. Like a shadow she appeared in the corners of the rooms where Sergei sat; at times, when he looked at her, she smiled suddenly; at times, she wore her sable coat with the white shoulder knot of the unmarried woman.

  Sergei did not notice that. He read much by candlelight, pronouncing the words aloud. And once he found Ivga curled up on the Bokhara rug beyond the light. He asked her why she did not go away.

  "Because I like to hear the words read," Ivga explained quickly, "and you are the only one who can read them."

  "Do you understand them, Ivga, girl?"

  "No, but they sound nice—about the heroes and devils and saints."

  Pop Opanas, the priest doctor who wore chains under his cassock, understood women much better than the young Sergei Stroganoff. They became hysterical sometimes, the young ones did, he explained, from loneliness. When Ivga's father had died on the frontier, she had come back with a load of furs and two silent Mordva servants, coming down the river to Chusavaya. Instead of going on to Moskva, she had stayed like a shadow in the rooms.

  Thinking about that, Sergei shook his head. "If she is lonely, it would be better for her to go to Moskva."

  Pop Opanas agreed. He did not want the fur trader's girl at Chusavaya. When she went out at night to the ploctyad—the shrine with the great cross of Siberian marble—he followed her. When she came to the lighted candles under the sheltering roof, she did not kneel down to pray. Instead, she looked at the shrine and touched the cat's skull, which was a talisman to aid women i
n having sons. Standing so near the candles, her face shone white, as if drained of blood. After she had touched the cat's skull, she went away soundlessly.

  "My son," Pop Opanas remarked to Sergei after that, "I have had experience at exorcising devils and watching women. And now I have a mind to warn you, to whom I am beholden for my bread and salt. At times forest spirits take human form, and when they take the shape of a young woman, they are apt to be lieshy—marsh spirits. The lieshy beckon to men, and they are so lovely that ignorant men pant after them to lay hand on them. These marsh girls flit away, shining with white light, and the men who follow, seeing only the light, are drowned in the marshes. So," said Pop Opanas, sniffing among the cups for the strongest brandy, "if the girl Ivga beckons you in the forest, spit three times and cross yourself before you take a step after her."

  Ivga heard him say that, as she heard everything. But Sergei Stroganoff only smiled. Of some things he was afraid, yet not of witch women whom he had never seen. He was afraid of the blood that had dried in the ground of Chusavaya estate, because it had been shed by his fathers in making the Stroganoff estate so wide that in his boyhood he had never ridden over land that did not belong to them. Before the Stroganoffs came with a grant of settlement from the Grand Duke of Moskva, who was now called Tsar of All the Russias, this land and these forests had been the hunting ground of the Mordva, the people of the forests.

  He thought of this blood, drying under the earth like seed, to fertilize someday and bring forth evil. From the rivers the Stroganoff family had taken gold, from the forests they had drawn animal fur and timber for Chusavaya town. Chusavaya castle was no more than a log fort. They had taken wool from the herds of sheep that grazed where the forest mesh had been cleared; they were mining silver in the hills. Tatar merchants journeyed to Chusavaya gate to trade; burlaki, watermen, flocked in from the Volga, to log along the new river. And Sergei Stroganoff, now heir to the lands, was afraid of blood.

  Never willingly did he enter the forest to hunt. He had to do it, because his liege men expected it, and they needed meat. By choice, he kept among his books, for he had no company then except the icons blazing on the silk-hung wall. No loud voices disturbed him. When the Tatars drank and bargained, he called for the stewards to settle prices; when the stewards came to him with accounts, he bade them do as they pleased. In this way he bought himself a time of quiet, shrinking from trouble.

  He had little weight in his body, and he stooped from sitting long over books. "The life of the old buck is not in him," the Chusavaya stewards said of the young lord. And they whispered that a weakling would not endure long in Chusavaya, where so many vultures came to roost.

  Masterless men and others escaping from debt came to the frontier, and stayed on, eating the food of Chusavaya. Sergei had no mind to send them away. He knew it was time to clear the Mordva people from the nearer woodlands, because their trapping thinned out the game, and he imagined himself driving them off, but he could not bring himself to do it.

  The night when he found Ivga astray in the forest, he was hunting deer and boar for meat, with the men of Chusavaya driving the animals down to the river where the archers could kill them. The swift water ran with blood in the evening half-light under the tree mesh, and Ivga appeared at his side, riding one of the best Kabardas, sitting astride the birch saddle like a man. He had not noticed her leaving the stables.

  "Ride faster!" she cried at him, touching the Kabarda with the whip. The scarf had slipped from her long hair that streamed behind her as she dodged branches, pressing close to him, her thin face shining with joy.

  And Sergei rode faster, although there was no road. Nor did he remember to spit three times and cross himself. The mist of the long evening lay around them, and he felt free to leave the hunt to ride with her, wondering, however, why she had come.

  Abruptly they came upon a cluster of bark and thatch huts hidden in the bare birch groves—huts where the Mordva people took shelter from the snow. And Sergei caught her rein, pulling in sharply, saying, "It is dangerous here."

  Nothing could be seen of the forest folk, who must have hidden themselves at the sound of horses.

  "What is dangerous, Sergei?" Ivga cried.

  "The arrows from hidden bows."

  Ivga shook her head, the dark hair twisting around her throat. "They will not hurt you here. Nay, at Chusavaya is the danger." Her gray eyes seemed to slant as she looked at him. "Will you protect me, Sergei, from everything?"

  Sergei felt like saying yes, of course; but he began to think, and he said, "You are alone, girl, and, as you say, Chusavaya is no fit place for you. It seems to me better that you should go to Moskva."

  "It seems to you—" Her eyes fastened upon his. "Do you want me to go?"

  Then he felt that he did not want her to go. He said, trying to think about it, "But isn't it better?"

  Ivga looked down at her hands. "Was that written in the books you read, my lord of Chusavaya? I am only a girl, I do not know."

  When he pulled irresolutely at the Kabarda's rein, she struck his hand with her whip. "You wear more chains than Pop Opanas," she whispered. "Ai, I hear them clank and grind."

  Twisting the horse's head, she turned and rode away, using the whip, merging into the gray twilight of the forest. Sergei Stroganoff wanted to ride after her, to hear her voice again, and to make certain she was not hurt riding back to the settlement. Instead, because it was near dark, he turned aside to the river to fetch back the huntsmen and the game.

  Before the girl Ivga could leave Chusavaya, Irmak came that night. Sergei heard his shout, "Light up, house dogs! Light up, and break open the wine kegs, for Irmak, the son of the Don, is here!"

  In truth, Timofeivitch Irmak brought sunlight and sound with him into the log walls of Chusavaya. For he shone like a sun in the honored guest place under the icons.

  He shone with white silk kaftan and gold-chased breastplate and pigskin boots, when he sprawled at the table, laughing at his own great deeds in the far northeast. "For I am lord of the sun's rising place," he chuckled, "lord of Sibir, where the white lights dance in the Winter's sky."

  "Ay, the bears are white there, and the women are black," his atamans—officers—echoed, drinking. These atamans and a hundred riders had come with Irmak convoying wagon trains of sable and ermine skins, gold and jade and silks from Cathay, as a gift to the tsar in Moskva. They had come back, they said, because they had no more powder. And how could they rule the new empire of Sibir without gunpowder, from the blasting of which the natives ran away like sheep—Tatars and conjurers, reindeer folk and black people of Cathay?

  "There is powder in the arsenal here," Sergei put in. "Take what you need, noble sir, for I have need of little, except for hunting."

  Big Irmak lifted his eyes and crossed himself. "God gives such an answer to my prayer, Sergei Stroganoff. Give us that powder and ask what you will in payment . . . except the gifts that are for the tsar's majesty," he added quickly.

  "We will serve Sergei Stroganoff!" shouted the atamans.

  Irmak had not taken off his breastplate. It had a double-headed eagle chased upon it in gold. "For the soothsayers of Cathay consulted the stars and swore that I would meet death only from a two-headed eagle. And such a bird is not in the sky."

  He did not add that the steel armor kept him safe from an assassin's knife. An outlaw he had been, with his band, before they ventured east of Chusavaya, to conquer Sibir. And Timofeivitch Irmak, who swore that he had never known his own father, had a quick, hard cunning in him. Always he kept near his hand the long steel kisten, or war club, with a spiked ball and chain at the end, that he carried instead of a sword.

  "With this steel staff I slew Kuchum Khan," he explained. "So I am lord of his lands. I keep it with me for luck, Sergei Stroganoff."

  Sergei's curved saber hung on the wall, and he took it down seldom.

  "Aye, it is settled here." The bearded Siberian nodded understanding. "You are settled, with sheep and fisher
ies and mills. But where are the women?" he added, laughing.

  His atamans said their eyes had beheld no white woman for five years.

  "By right, a woman should pour the wine," Irmak pointed out. "You have the name of a good host, Sergei Stroganoff, yet you have had no woman pour the wine."

  Sergei explained that he had no women except the housemaids, who were in their barred room.

  "You have Ivga," put in Pop Opanas.

  When Ivga was called in, she came with a pearl-sewn net of ceremony over her head, and she greeted the noble guests with a clear voice.

  Then, in silence, she poured corn brandy into the beakers held out by Sergei and by Irmak, who stared at her hungrily. "Oh, my," he shouted, "a beauty, a dove!"

  And the young master of Chusavaya, hearing this said, knew it was true. As soon as Ivga had gone, the Siberian nudged him, smiling. "It feels good in her arms, hey? Have you a son by her yet?"

  When Sergei did not answer, Pop Opanas, well sluiced with brandy, leaned over to whisper to the big Irmak, who emptied his beaker in silence.

  If he had come like the sun, Timofeivitch Irmak stayed in the house like a storm cloud. Massive and sure of himself, he gave orders and the watermen jumped to obey. Here was a man who could kill with the beat of his arm, and could reward on an impulse. Here was a true leader of men, Sergei thought, when he tried to read in the solitude of his candlelit chamber. To honor his guest, he had given Irmak the great sleeping chamber with the Venetian glass, from which a hidden stairway led down to the stables.

  Even when he buried himself in the chronicles of forgotten men, he could hear Irmak's ringing laugh, and the buzz of answering voices. For Irmak stayed, and Ivga stayed, keeping out of the Don Cossack's way like a shadow with veiled face. Often Pop Opanas held the Siberian conquistador in low talk, and Irmak listened, rubbing his beard.

  Here, Sergei thought, is a hard man who knows his own mind, and is a fit lord of Chusavaya with its masterless men. Irmak took most of the stored-up gunpowder; he bargained with the Tatar merchants for their brocades and rugs, and got a low price for Sergei from them. "They know I will nail to the door the skin of a man who cheats me," he laughed, white teeth showing in the tangle of his beard. When he rode over the home pastures, his eyes took in everything. When Ivga poured the wine now, he was silent.