A Garden to the Eastward

by Harold Lamb

"What do you see?" Vasstan asked expectantly.

  The Pole murmured that it was magnificent work. Michal said, "It would just about fit you, Herr Vasstan."

  The German seemed pleased. Pointing out insignia—tiny eagles and crosses—on the collar strip, he said reverently, "It is fantastic. In your Metropolitan Museum, Captain Ide, you have no armor equal to this. Here, if I am not in error, is the battle armor of our Kaiser Red Beard—Barbarossa, you would say, who died on crusade in the mountains of Anatolia. It should be preserved in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin."

  Jacob felt a quick thrill of excitement. Michal murmured, "If it had been in Berlin, it wouldn't be so well preserved now."

  Vasstan did not speak again until they reached an Italian crossbow with ivory inlay upon its polished wooden shaft. "The weapon that destroyed knighthood," he said curtly. "The bolt from this weapon in the hands of a burgher could pierce the armor of a rider. And with the crossbow came this explosive tool."

  Two heavy tubes of brass, dim with age, leered up at them from a squat wooden stand. Two gaping mouths of inanimate beasts waited impassively for their food of gunpowder to be thrust in. Vasstan described the thing as a twin bombard made in Frankfurt, its advantage being that it could discharge two cannon balls at once.

  To Jacob, these insensate monsters had gained new meaning. He only half attended to the German's words while he sought for that meaning.

  The German was saying that as the crossbow bolt had done away with the charging horseman, this embryo, this clumsy forerunner of the siege gun of Krupp, had doomed the medieval castle and had made fortification unavailing in the ages to come.

  Touching a heavy harquebus, he added, "Here is the little tool that subjected Asia to the Europeans. A kiss of fire to the vent hole, and, pouf, the body of a man is shattered by an iron pellet."

  "Was Asia ever subjected?" Jacob asked.

  With a shrug, as if the question were childish, Vasstan answered, "By Portuguese galleons, by Spanish armadas, by French and then British regiments—yes, and by your Dutch ancestors, Captain Ide. And of course by the tsars and their Cossacks. You don't deny the imperialism that conquered Asia, do you? After the flag, the trade."

  There were battle standards ranged against the wall and crossed French bayonets, and beneath these a pile of rusted iron tubes crudely fastened to stocks. Jacob thought these were trade muskets, made of the cheapest piping and sold wholesale to natives who wanted to buy replicas of the firearms of the invincible European soldiery. Very often these trade muskets burst in the faces of their purchasers.

  Jacob puzzled over them—because he had not expected to see them here—until Vasstan called him. "Now we find products of America, Captain Ide."

  The first product of America proved to be a blued steel rifle with a curious revolving cylinder set in the rear end of the barrel. Such a rifle had not been made for generations. Vasstan said with heavy sarcasm that he believed it to be the product of a most inventive American, a Herr Samuel Colt, although he could not explain how Herr Colt's primitive repeating rifle had reached Asia. "But after, a man who owned one could fire five or six lead bullets by pulling at the trigger, and he became what you call an important person."

  Jacob, who knew much about firearms, reflected that Samuel Colt had traveled to Europe at the start of the Crimean War and had sold his revolving-cylinder rifles to the Sultan of Turkey and then to the Tsar of Russia. The rifle in his hands bore the emblem of a star and crescent worked in gold.

  "This one seems to be nothing inventive, yet it is also American," Vasstan was saying.

  The piece he pointed out, a long rifle with a heavy octagonal barrel, had nothing distinctive about it. After a moment's examination Jacob identified it as a Hall rifle made almost a century before in the United States and little used since. Five of the Hall's rifles had been given by Commodore M. C. Perry to the Mikado of Japan, along with other specimen carbines, sabers, cartridges, compasses, telegraph instruments, and miniature railroad engines. It had been before the start of the Crimean War when Commodore Perry steamed into the port of Yedo in Japan with cannon loaded, to influence the intransigeant Japanese to buy American goods and inventions. In this mission the commodore had succeeded.

  Almost indifferently Vasstan indicated the last weapon that looked like an oversize rifle. "American also, of the last war."

  This was an automatic rifle, a Browning .30-caliber weapon, capable of firing a hundred to a hundred and fifty bullets a minute.

  "So." Vasstan swung around. "What do you decide to be my Waffe?"

  He spoke of the collection as his. "You found it here, arranged like this?" Jacob asked curiously.

  "Yes. Some I have arranged, as I cleaned them during the last winter. Yet the Waffe were then as they are now, in order of time." He glanced inquiringly at Michal.

  Frowning, she considered. "After all, they aren't very useful now, are they? I mean, without cartridges and things to fire in them." A malicious smile touched her lips. "You might still wear Kaiser Barbarossa's armor and I might swing that crusader's sword, but we couldn't either of us do much damage, could we?"

  "It is a collection—a priceless collection," Vasstan reminded her impatiently.

  Matejko merely said that he had never known so many ancient weapons to be gathered together with modern-type firearms.

  "Of all the machinery made by man," the German corrected, "the tools of war alone survive—always. Human beings die in war-time or they try to forget, saying it will not happen again. Yet always the tools live on and are preserved and others are found to use them. So war itself dies not."

  In the flickering glow of the lamps, the fragments of metal took on a semblance of life. They were extrahuman, monstrous in their significance. "I think it's incredible," Jacob said frankly. "I can't account for their being here."

  "That I am able to do," Vasstan rejoined. "Simply, all these weapons were made by Europeans—that is, by Westerners. What man of Asia would desire to collect them together, especially weapons so varied? So a European must have gathered them together and stored them here in Araman, in a place of safety. He would be a savant, a learned man, and he would have lived here perhaps twenty-five years ago. Not since then. No, there is no weapon here since the American automatic rifle of the last war."

  He looked at Jacob, who said nothing. Then an unpleasant thing happened. Vasstan reached out his hand, freed the small automatic pistol from Matejko's hip, and held it up. "This little one would bring the collection up to now," he said, laughing.

  The Polish officer flushed, snatching at his weapon. The thing at his hip had been a reminder of his rank, and he resented the other's brusque action. For several seconds their hands strained over the weapon. Then Vasstan released it, watching the Pole calmly while he replaced the pistol with a shaking hand.

  It was typical of Vasstan that he remained indifferent to the weapon that might have been used against him, while Matejko had lost control of himself when it was taken from his side. Michal let out a long breath of relief, and Vasstan smiled at her. "In one respect you are right," he said. "For use, that toy is more important than all this armory. Because it has cartridges, it could kill the three of us."

  Jacob thought of the four of them. This Polish soldier whose spirit had been lacerated was least likely to use the pistol.

  When they returned across the plaza after bidding their hosts good night—while Vasstan locked the door of his armory—Michal hummed softly and said, "So ends the jolly evening." After a moment she asked quietly, "What is it, Jacob?"

  "Those weapons—I'd give something to know how they came here."

  Michal laughed. "What really is the matter?"

  When he had pulled the door curtain shut after them—they had hung up a rug to serve as a curtain after the arrival of their neighbors—Jacob put down the lamp he carried and searched the room with his eyes. Michal came over to him quickly. "Now I'm frightened, Jacob. Is that—that arsenal so important?"

 
"Yes, until we find out what it is, and why it is."

  "That junk?"

  "That junk shows a human mind at work, or human minds—or extrahuman mentality. I don't know what." He was still puzzling blindly.

  "Jacob, I've never seen you so bothered. Didn't Vasstan explain it?" She thought for a moment. "Kaiser Red Beard, Barbarossa—didn't he ride into a river and drown himself by the weight of his armor? They did not bring back his body, and I think there's a German myth that he's alive still, asleep in the mountains of Asia until the time comes for him to wake." Pleased with herself, she went on, "Vasstan said some of the other armor belonged to kings. If you want to be fantastic, can you suppose that all of those Western kings disappeared in Asia and their armor turned up here? Is that Gothic enough to suit you?"

  "That's splendidly Gothic, Michal, and you have a wonderful imagination, but it doesn't suit me at all." Relaxing, he smiled at her appreciatively. "Now you've had enough of arms and men."

  "No, I haven't." She grinned wholeheartedly. "I have braced myself to hear the truth, and you must tell it to me."

  "Vasstan hit on the logical explanation. But no eccentric European exile could assemble all this stuff of three thousand years. No, the natural explanation is the only one, and it's unbelievable."

  "And it is?"

  "All those weapons were brought into Asia by Europeans at one time or another, and they have been gathered and stored here for some purpose. No one is going to use them, but they are here. They've been collected by people in Araman for three millenniums."

  "Isn't that rather fantastic?"

  "Worse than that, they make some kind of crazy sense. The bronze leaf swords date from a world disturbance of peoples in the Homeric age; the Greek stuff from the Greek-Persian world conflict; the Romans were at war long enough in Asia; the crusades mark another upheaval, and so do the medieval European things. The rifles come from the Crimean struggle, when the Indian Mutiny and other disturbances were going on. The Brownings from the next to last world war, which we used to call the first."

  "But what good do they do here?"

  "They might be trophies, or specimens of what's going on outside." Suddenly Jacob laughed. "They might be artifacts, exhibits A, B, and C of our civilization, collected in Araman. I'd give something to know why."

  "I'm more worried about the pistol Colonel Matejko carries." Michal sighed. "He's quite capable of shooting himself, although he says he won't." Of a sudden she brightened. "Jacob, why don't you keep the pistol? Then it wouldn't do any harm."

  Shaking his head, Jacob smiled. No one could take that sidearm from the Polish officer. Still, when he thought about it afterward, he admitted to himself that Michal had been right. Curiously enough the inexplicable collection of weapons had no practical use so long as ammunition lacked for the firearms. The single small pistol possessed by Matejko, that instrument of blued steel weighing less than a pound, had become dangerous in their small group—if Vasstan got really drunk or Matejko despondent. Knowing that he ought to get it into his own hands, he put off doing so.

  This vague sense of danger sharpened to a new anxiety when he sighted the tents. On a day when the cloud wrack cleared from the summit two tents became visible under the tree at the Kurdish shrine below—army tents, not the black skin shelters of the roving tribes. In that camp tiny figures of men moved about. Evidently they were there to stay, at least for the time being, and Jacob judged them to be Vasstan's followers.

  Very soon he had a demonstration of that fact. Three of the men from below materialized, climbing to the summit of the steps—ascending with the skill of mountaineers, in spite of the apparent clumsiness of their figures in coarse civilian clothing. Rifles were slung on their shoulders.

  Jacob observed, too, how the villagers of Araman resented such an approach to the summit. A score of them, children and men and women, lined the ruined wall above the steps and picked up heavy, broken rocks, raising their missiles overhead and crying a warning.

  At this the climbers stopped, not unduly alarmed, but reaching quietly for their rifle slings. Their broad brown faces impassive, they acted in unison, like men accustomed to meet emergencies together. The folk of Araman, holding their missiles poised, seemed just as determined. Apparently they had defended their wall in this fashion—as old as the walls of Jericho—before now.

  Before a rock could be thrown down or a shot fired by the dogged intruders, Jacob stepped between the two parties, descending several steps from the gate. Waving back the climbers, he shouted, "Get out of here, you fools! Back where you came from!"

  He had spoken in English. To his surprise the climbers released their rifles and faced about to descend without argument. After watching for a few minutes, the villagers departed.

  Because the three men had understood English—or the warning of a foreigner speaking English—Jacob guessed what they were: Assyrian ex-soldiers.

  These Assyrians, as they called themselves, were Christian mountaineers who had migrated out of their highlands to fight in the last war under command of the Allies. Courageous peasants, they had made excellent soldiers in the native Levies under British training and pay. A small remnant of the lost peoples of these heights, impoverished, they held together, stoically relying on the promise of British officers that they would be cared for.

  Now some of them discharged from their service seemed to have attached themselves to Vasstan. Jacob wondered how many others might obey the German's orders, and if more of the human flotsam of the war, Red Army deserters or landless Armenians, might serve the adventurer. Vasstan had mentioned his Landsknecht.

  The incident gave Jacob further food for thought. When the Assyrians had come up bearing the luggage of the foreigners, they had been admitted to Araman; when they appeared alone, carrying rifles, they had been warned off in no uncertain fashion. The people of Araman might or might not realize that rifles were deadly weapons; more certainly, they appeared willing to admit foreigners, while they barred out other strangers and armed men. Why they should act in this fashion Jacob could not conjecture, unless the people here believed that Europeans were in some manner kin to themselves, or were expected to enter.

  At the same time the summit of Araman took on a new aspect. The great winds of the equinox had driven south the warm air of the lower valleys and had drawn in the cold of the immeasurable ranges to the north. When openings appeared in the cloud wrack, Jacob beheld the white line of snow creeping down the outer ridges to the valley floor.

  Watching this invasion of the elements, he had an odd impression. The surface of the cloud banks flowing down the valley took on the semblance of a moving flood, driven by the anger of the elements. Upon this flood the crest of Araman floated like a solitary ship with a small and helpless crew. The altar height with its passive instruments and perpetual flame might have been the bridge of the ship, where at the height of the storm some skipper might take command.

  That was pure fantasy, he told himself—the result of watching too long while the world of the sky moved around him. It meant only in reality that any day now ice and snow might close the approaches to Araman, as the German had prophesied.

  But would that happen? There must be paths leading out of the valley other than the chasm up which he and Michal had climbed. For one thing, Father Hyacinth appeared to use another track to the monastery, and the silent priest had disappeared immediately after the arrival of the German and the Pole. Daoud must have approached Araman by another route. Vasstan had been too emphatic when he argued that snow would shut them in like wintering beasts.

  The snow would be deep at this altitude, yet for that very reason it would be passable on skis. Rude skis could be made, and with a guide like Badr an able-bodied person might get out. Michal, who had had experience with skis, might do so. But with his lame leg, Jacob would be helpless in deep snow.

  The hard truth of it was that the first heavy snowfall would pen him in Araman for six months or so, while the others, including Michal,
might leave at any time.

  When he told her the result of his brooding, Michal laughed, saying that her only worry was to get in enough wood for the coming winter cold and silk cloth to close the apertures, and wool to make some heavy socks for Jacob, who had none.

  As far as Michal was concerned, that seemed to settle the problem of the future. Her high spirits and the gaiety of Imanya mystified Jacob but did not appear at all strange to Michal, who tried to explain.

  "You grew up without benefit of a sister, Jacob, and so you don't understand women very well. I'm just as glad, because I can impose on you to my heart's content. Imanya and I simply do not worry about firearms or what the United Nations are failing to do, or what this Kurdish war is doing. We have meat in the flock of sheep and milk in the goat herd, and we have our homes comfortably heated, and, most vital of all, we have our menfolk present or accounted for. We know very well what they are doing. We're much like cows in that we can't see or understand danger outside our own pens; we rely on our men as indicators of things to come. The minute you feel unquiet, I'll begin to worry and nag." Thoughtfully, Michal eyed him. "I think that's all you need know about the women group for the present, Jacob. Oh, there's another thing, and it's important. If once you should decide to move out of Araman and bid us forsake our homes, then you would find us up in arms. There's no prospect of that, is there? Is there?"

  "No," Jacob assured her. "You are pretending beautifully, Michal, that you're not anxious."

  "I'm not pretending at all. I'm telling you the simple facts of a woman's life to add to your store of philosophy." Then she laughed at herself. "But it's quite all right for you to be anxious about me, Jacob."

  After that Jacob made a practice of wandering out to a point on the wall where he had a good view down the gradients of the steps when the weather was clear, when the people of Araman watched for any intruders. The first time he sighted three figures climbing very slowly around the shoulder far up the slope late one afternoon, he decided to call the German. The leader and the last of the climbers bore packs and all three looked vaguely familiar. Vasstan had a good pair of field glasses.