Swords From the Desert

by Harold Lamb

  In fever or in health Man Singh had a short temper and a shorter purse. The food in his house was no more than fruit and boiled millet flour; yet the sword that hung by his matting was inlaid with gold upon the hilt, with sapphires and turquoise upon the handguard. Truly, like many of the nobles of Ind-and of my land-his wealth was all in his horseflesh and weapons. He did not lack for pride. When I came to bid him farewell upon the third day he praised me, and no word concerning payment was spoken.

  I had returned to the serai with my roan, when Jami, who had been off on business of his own the last days, appeared with two servants of the Rao I had healed.

  The servants brought silver from their lord, in an embroidered silk purse. When I poured the coins from the purse into one hand, I counted them and found them eight silver rupees-little enough for the service I had rendered.

  And this insolent Jami could not contain himself at the sight, crying shame upon the two men for the niggardliness of their lord and whispering to me to toss them back the silver, since it was not sufficient.

  For a moment I pondered. I had no dislike of Man Singh, yet I was in sore need of money, being alone in a land of thieves, priests, and exacting lords.

  "Peace!" I reproved Jami. "It is sufficient." Then to the servants of the Rajput I added, "Indeed it is evident from this that thy master is not yet recovered. If the Rao were not feverish in his mind, he would have sent a greater reward. And I, who have attended greater lords, will accept no reward until the cure is complete."

  So I dropped the coins into the purse and tossed it to them, while they stared, between anger and astonishment. Jami, for once, held his peace and squatted by me when they had gone.

  "Ai!" he said. "There is wisdom in thee, Daril ibn Athir." After awhile he added shrewdly, "Still, I do not think the Rao will send anymore silver."

  Jami had known that I would give him a coin, or perhaps two. He had been waiting for reward. Yet he had been wise enough to keep away from my side in the house of Man Singh, lest I lose honor by the association of a beggar, and he had been willing to sacrifice his little gain because he thought me underpaid. After awhile he could contain his impatience no longer, but must scamper away to learn what was happening at the Rajput's house.

  Lo, it happened as I had foreseen. Before evening prayer, two other servants of the Rao entered the serai and brought me a good Tatar horse with a saddle horn ornamented with ivory, and also a robe of honor of brocade embroidered with silk.

  I thanked them, and barely were they departed before Jami crept out from behind the cactus and stared at the fine robe with shining eyes.

  "Well done, Daril ibn Athir! " he cried. "Oh, what an hour I have spent. Mahahat Khan himself was at the house of the Rao, and the khan laughed until his thighs cracked over the answer thou gayest the men of Man Singh. Eh, the Rao is a favorite officer of the khan, and this horse and robe are from the hand of Mahabat Khan himself, who wished to reward thee for healing his follower."

  Now the servants had said naught of this, and I thought that they had not been willing to admit that their master was too poor to send such gifts.

  "Now, imp of devildom," I asked sternly, "wilt tell me who this khan is?"

  Jami had lost all suspicion of me. Indeed, he had attached himself to me as a stray dog follows a newcomer in the street.

  "Mahabat Khan," he said at once, "is the finest sword from Malabar to the hills. He hath led the imperial standards to victory in all the provinces. Now he returns from whipping the Bengalis."

  In the words of older men-for he was swift to pick up a phrase, and know the nature of the speaker-Jami explained that Mahabat Khan was of Pathan descent, and was well liked by the Rajput chieftains, who commanded the best of the Mogul's cavalry. And Jami dreamed of the day when he should possess a sword and ride in the following of his hero.

  "Go thou," he urged me, "to the camp of the khan and greet him, and thank him for the horse. He will remember thee and may take thee into his service."

  I smiled, because Jami, too, would then be in the camp of this warrior of Ind. But it seemed to me unwise to seek favor by making public the poverty of Man Singh. Besides, I wished to go to the court of the king.

  When I told Jami this, he wriggled his fingers with excitement.

  "To the padishah?"

  "God willing."

  Now this Jami was the most impertinent of mortals; even when he begged, he mocked men. But when I said this, he clutched his shoulders and shivered, looking around as if he meant to run away. For the time that milk takes to boil, he did not speak.

  "Evil will surely come of that," he said at last. "Still, I will not leave thee, my hakim. We will go together to the Mogul."

  And his sharp little eyes, lined and furtive, glowed in the dusk like the eyes of a cat. Wallah! At the time I thought he was angry at turning his back on the camp of Mahabat Khan. In the days that followed I learned otherwise. The wisdom of the bazaar children is not altogether good; but their friendship is a thing not to be despised.

  Chapter III Two Scimitars

  Though a man choose his own path from the serai of a morning, how may he know what road the night will bring?

  We were of good heart-Jami and I-that hot noon. We were near the end of that long highway leading north into the hills. It ran by a river, and the plumed grass and bamboo of the bank screened us from the sun.

  Before leaving the dust of Lahore, I had given the roan's saddle to its owner-six days since-and now I rode the Tatar steed, having placed a light pack on the pony. Jami trudged at my bridle, his pole on his shoulder.

  He was watching the kingfishers dart through the long leaves of the bamboo and out over the water, when he sighted a throng in the highway. Cartmen and wandering soldiers, village women and dogs were gathered around a single rider.

  "Ohai," laughed Jami. "This is surely a punishment."

  The rider was seated without a saddle, face to tail on a pony that was fit crows' meat. His wrists were tied behind his back and his ankles tied under the bony belly of the horse. Blood dripped from his feet into the dust, and flies swarmed about his bare head.

  A woman held up a bowl of water, and he sucked it in through his lips without a word. The horse was plodding toward us, and we could not see the man's face, but Jami pointed out the tamgha, the brand on the animal's flank, saying that it was the mark of the Mogul, and this stranger must be an offender condemned to ride thus along the highway, it being forbidden to cut him loose until he died or met friends who dared the displeasure of the padishah.

  Bidding Jami hold my horse, I dismounted, to see why the victim's feet were bleeding. I brushed away the flies and felt beneath one, and knew that it had been flayed upon the sole until the flesh was raw.

  At once I drew my knife and cut the cords that held fast his wrists, paying no attention to the warning shouts of the onlookers.

  "Kabardar!" cried Jami, pulling at my sleeve. "Take care, 0 my master! This is forbidden, and we are within a day of the Mogul's camp."

  "Is it forbidden a physician to attend one who is suffering?" I asked.

  "But it will be known, and thou wilt taste shame at the court."

  I cut the cords around the man's ankles and lifted him down, being aided by a pair of soldiers-so I thought that all men were not content with the punishment. Placing the victim in the shade, I cleansed the flesh of his feet as well as I might, and put ointment on before binding up the wounds. Then I bathed the man's head. Jami had become voiceless. He had seen what I had known from the first glance, that this was the Rao called Man Singh.

  By God's will there was no fever in him, though the veins stood out in his forehead and his seared eyes blazed like coals. The flesh had fallen in upon his bones, and it was no wonder Jami had not known him at first.

  I had seen him last at Lahore, calling for his horse and his followers, to ride after the khan. Now he was alone, more dead than alive, and shunned by everyone on the highway.

  "What now?" whispered Ja
mi.

  The voices around me had died away, but the soldiers still watched idly while they ate their rice in the shade.

  "Hast thou strength to sit in the saddle?" I asked Man Singh, and his lips drew back from his white teeth in the snarl of a wounded leopard.

  "As long and as far as need be," he growled, "so it be to Mahabat Khan."

  Jami pricked up his ears and ran to ask the soldiers where the camp of the khan might be, then scampered back to plead for haste. What was Ito do? To leave the Rao lying by the roadside were unkind, since I bestrode the horse that was his gift and had shared his salt. And I doubted whether he could sit in the saddle without help. Jami swore by his gods that the tent of the khan was no more than an hour's ride. I lifted Man Singh into the saddle of the Tatar horse, shifting the load of the pony to make room for myself. When his eye fell upon the animal with the king's brand, he shivered again and again.

  Gripping the rein with numbed fingers, swaying from side to side, he followed us. And Jami, running by my stirrup, whispered the reason of this happening.

  Where he had his knowledge only the beggars of the highway could say, but he said that Mahabat Khan in some way had displeased NurMahal, the favorite wife of Jahangir, the king. The khan had been ordered back from Bengal. Reaching Lahore, he had sent his cousin, Man Singh, to plead for the favor of the king, that he had so long enjoyed.

  Evidently Man Singh had risen from his sickbed to go to the court. And beyond any doubt he had been bastinadoed and bound to the back of a horse. Since the horse bore the Mogul's brand, this must have been done by command of the Mogul, but why and for what reason Jami knew not. And even Jami dared not ask Man Singh the reason of his disgrace.

  It was three hours later and the sun was setting when we rode into an encampment in a broad meadow. Pavilions and round tents stood in orderly fashion between lines of picketed horses, and at the gate of each section of the camp standards fluttered.

  Mounted warriors, coming in from hunting or games, beheld us with astonishment, and many reined after us-excellent riders, wearing small, knotted turbans with long ends and clad from thighs to wrists in silvered mail. They took the rein of Man Singh's mount and held him by the arms, but he said no word.

  "They are Rajputs," Jami whispered to me, "of his command."

  In the center of the camp we halted at the tent with the main standard before it, and here Mahabat Khan sat on a red cloth, eating fruit and talking with chieftains. Jaini hid himself behind my horse when the khan looked up and saw the Rao.

  He looked for a long moment, Man Singh speaking no word. Other chieftains who had hastened up gazed at the twain, waiting for what would follow.

  Then Mahabat Khan sprang up, his lean face darkening with a rush of blood. He strode to his cousin, who was trying vainly to dismount. Taking him bodily in his arms, Mahabat Khan bore him to his own place and lowered him gently to the ground, kneeling to do so, and then stood with folded arms before the injured man.

  "I cannot stand," said Man Singh, and touched the bloody bandages upon his feet.

  "I do not ask it," responded Mahabat Khan quickly. "Only tell me which of Jahangir's emirs hath dealt with thee thus, and by the threefold oath I swear-"

  Man Singh threw up his hand.

  "Do not swear. It was done by command of Jahangir the Mogul-the bastinado, and-" he gripped his beard with writhing fingers-"the binding upon a horse's rump."

  The officers about them fell silent, so intent on every word that no one thought of us. Mahabat Khan held his head higher and breathed deep through his nostrils.

  "By command of Jahangir! If another had said that-"

  "By now it is known between the rivers."

  Mahabat Khan nodded grimly. By his lean cheeks and the corded muscles of his restless hands, by the way he met the glances of the other officers, swiftly and squarely, I judged him a man who loved deeds better than talk, who was prone to rashness rather than caution. Yet, after his first burst of anger at the shame inflicted upon his kinsman, he seemed bewildered as if a sure-footed horse had sunk beneath him.

  "I should have gone!" he muttered. "The shame is not thine, but mine."

  "If thou hadst gone when the summons came," cried Man Singh, heedless of anything but his agony of mind, "we would have lacked a leader ere now. There is one at Jahangir's side who seeks thy death."

  "Who would dare?"

  "Who persuaded him to shame thy messenger?"

  The two exchanged a long glance, and one of the Rajputs, turning toward me cried out suddenly-

  "He has heard!"

  Grasping the hilt of his curved sword, he strode toward me, motioning back others who were crying eagerly:

  "Strike! Strike!"

  "Nay," quoth the slender swordsman, "this shall be my affair. I will clip his ears for him, and leave his tongue to slaves. Then may he prowl but he will not speak."

  They were in a black mood, having beheld the shame of Man Singh, their blood brother. They thought me perhaps a spy, perhaps a seller of secrets, and for once Jami's tongue could not aid me. The khan and the Rao had observed nothing, nor was I inclined to raise the cry of mercy. I grasped my scimitar sheath and pulled the blade clear.

  "My lord," I said to him in Persian-though I understood the Hindustani, I could not speak it readily-"look to thine own jewels."

  In the lobes of his ears he wore two pearls. Some of his companions who had caught the jest laughed aloud and this angered him the more. He was a slender warrior, richly dressed, with the small mouth and full eyes of a woman, his skin as soft as a child's. Yet there were pale scars upon his cheekbone and chin, and he moved with the swiftness of a mettled horse.

  Being angry, he smiled, advancing to within arm's reach of me.

  "So," he cried, "the slaves must bury thee."

  And suddenly he saluted with the sword and struck-once-twice at my side. I circled to the right, warding his blows and making test of his strength. He was light of bone, even more than I, an Arab of the sahra, but the edge of his blade bore down heavily upon mine.

  In that first moment I knew that my danger lay in his quickness of wrist, and I knew also that his blade was like most of the weapons of Ind -thin iron, edged and tipped with steel. Good for parrying, and well shaped for a thrust, but inferior to mine, which could be gripped by hilt and point and bent double, being tempered steel of Damascus.

  He too must have felt this difference. He stepped in closer and thrust again and again for the throat, while his companions shouted and the two blades moved in flashing light.

  Eh, it is good to feel edge grind along edge, and to hear the whistle of the thin blades in the air. We of the sahra may carry spear and bow, yet our love is for the naked steel that leaps in the hand!

  My blood was warming, and I yielded ground no longer. My adversary shouted and bent low, striving to force my weapon up and to thrust under the ribs. He was fearless-aye, he left unguarded his own head-and as swift as a striking snake.

  "Hai!" the watchers cried out.

  He had cut through a fold of my mantle, under the arm, but I knew that I was his master, having the longer arm and the better blade. This angered him the more. In the beginning, he had meant to wound me, or force my weapon from my hand; now he meant to kill if he could, pressing in upon me, and dealing blow after blow.

  Then someone cried out near at hand, and the Rajput sprang back, breathing heavily, never taking his eyes from mine.

  Between us stepped the speaker, Mahabat Khan, in his gold inlaid mail and damask mantle. In truth, he seemed angry.

  "Sheath your swords," he said, and we obeyed. "Have I given permission, Partap Singh," he asked the Rajput, "to bare weapons in my presence?"

  "Nay. This man heard what was not meant for his ears. I would have clipped them."

  Mahabat Khan did not raise his voice or glance at me.

  "This man is an Arab hakim who tended the Rao, my cousin, in his sickness and came hither, having met him upon the road, cutting loose his
bonds and giving him a good horse to ride."

  I thought then that Man Singh had looked up when the sword blades rang together, and had taken my part with Mahabat Khan. He could have done little less. And the noble who was called Partap Singh did a strange thing. He gripped his sheathed sword and held it forth to Mahabat Khan, the hilt forward.

  "I did not know," he said. "If the offense is great, do thou, clear my honor with this blade."

  He had asked the khan to slay him but Mahabat Khan smiled a little in his beard and spoke gravely.

  "Nay, Partap Singh, thy sword hath served me too faithfully, to turn it against thee. I myself will deal with this guest."

  And after the evening meal he sent for me, where I was eating with his Moslem followers and Jami. I was led to the tent of the standard again, and made the salaam of greeting upon entering.

  Mahabat Khan sat alone on a rich carpet, leaning not against a cushion but a saddle. He motioned for me to sit before him, and this I did, while he kept silence. He seemed to be older than his years, for his brow was furrowed and his lips were harsh.

  "0 my guest," he said-and I took notice of the word-"I first saw thee near the blue mosque, and later I heard thy bold answer to my cousin, who is no man to trifle with. Lo, by chance thou hast met with him on the highway. And now thou halt crossed swords with that fire eater, Partap Singh of Malwa. Who art thou?"

  He asked this question swiftly, biting off the words, nor did his eyes leave mine as I told him the story of my wanderings from the sahra to the great sea, and finally, to Ind.

  "For a hakim, thou art rarely skilled at sword work."

  "In my land there are foes to be met."

  His face clouded, as if my words had called up a dark spirit within his mind.

  "For the service rendered to my kinsman, I ask thee to accept a gift, Ibn Athir," he said, and called to one without the tent.

  A Moslem soldier appeared and saluted him, bearing to me a small box or casket of sandal.

  "It is not silver money," Mahabat Khan remarked, smiling, and I knew he was thinking of the purse I had given back to the servants of the Rao.