Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures (15 page)

And I took up my journey again, wondering; for in the light of the torch I had seen the unveiled face of the girl in the wagon, and she was a Frank, and one of great beauty. What was the meaning of Seljuks on the road from Edessa, commanded by a Persian nobleman, and guarding a girl of the Nazarenes? I concluded that these Turks had captured her in a raid on Edessa or the kingdom of Jerusalem and were taking her to Kizilshehr or Shiraz to sell to some emir, and so dismissed the matter from my mind.

The bay was fresh and I had a mind to put a long way between me and the Persian army, so I rode slowly but steadily all night. And in the first white blaze of dawn, I met a horseman riding hard out of the west.

His steed was a long limbed roan that reeled from fatigue. The rider was an iron man – clad in close meshed mail from head to foot, with a heavy vizorless helmet on his head. And I spurred my steed to a gallop for this was a Frank – and he was alone and on a tired horse.

He saw me coming and he cast his long lance into the sand and drew his sword, for he knew his steed was too weary to charge. And as I swooped down as a hawk swoops on its prey, I suddenly gave a shout and lowering my blade, set my steed back on his haunches, almost beside the Frank.

“Now by the beard of the Prophet,” said I, “we are well met, Sir Eric de Cogan!”

He gazed at me in surprize. He was no older than I, broad shouldered, long limbed and yellow haired. Now his face was haggard and weary as if he had ridden hard without sleep, but it was the face of a warrior, as his body was that of a warrior. I lack but an inch and a fraction of six feet in height as the Franks reckon a man’s stature, but Sir Eric was half a head taller.

“You know me,” said he, “but I do not remember you.”

“Ha!” quoth I, “we Saracens look all alike to you Franks! But I remember you, by Allah! Sir Eric, do you not remember the taking of Jerusalem and the Moslem boy you protected from your own warriors?”

Aye, I remembered! I was but a youth, newly come to Palestine, and I slipped through the besieging armies into the city the very dawn it fell. I was not used to street fighting. The noise, the shouting and the crashing of the shattered gates bewildered me, the dust and the foul smells of the strange city stifled me and maddened me. The Franks came over the walls and red Purgatory broke in the streets of Jerusalem. Their iron horsemen rode over the ruins of the gates and their horses tramped fetlock deep in blood. The Crusaders shouted hosannas and slew like blood-mad tigers and the mangled bodies of the Faithful choked the streets.

In a blind red whirl and chaos of destruction and delirium, I found myself slashing vainly against giants who seemed built of solid iron. Slipping in the filth of a blood-running gutter I hacked blindly in the dust and smoke and then the horsemen rode me down and trampled me. As I staggered up, bloody and dazed, a great bellowing monster of a man strode on foot out of the carnage swinging an iron mace. I had never fought Franks and did not then know the power of the terrible blows they deal in hand-to-hand fighting. In my youth and pride and inexperience I stood my ground and sought to match blows with the Frank, but that whistling mace shivered my sword to bits, shattered my shoulder-bone and dashed me half dead into the blood-stained dust.

Then the giant bestrode me, and as he swung up his mace to dash out my brains, the bitterness of death took me by the throat. For I was young and in one blinding instant I saw again the sweet upland grass and the blue of the desert sky, and the tents of my tribe by the blue Oxus. Aye – life is sweet to the young.

Then out of the whirling smoke came another – a golden haired youth of my own age, but taller. His sword was red to the hilt, but his eyes were haunted. He cried out to the great Frank, and though I could not understand, I knew, vaguely, as one knows in a dream, that the youth asked that my life be spared – for his soul was sick with the slaughter. But the giant foamed at the mouth and roared like a beast, as he again raised his mace – and the youth leaped like a panther and thrust his long straight sword through his throat, so the giant fell down and died in the dust beside me.

Then the youth knelt at my side and made to staunch my wounds, speaking to me in halting Arabic. But I mumbled: “This is no place for a Chagatai to die. Set me on a horse and let me go. These walls shut out the sun and the dust of the streets chokes me. Let me die with the wind and the sun in my face.”

We were nigh the outer wall and all gates had been shattered. The youth caught one of the riderless horses which raced through the streets, and lifted me into the saddle. And I let the reins lie along the horse’s neck and he went from the city as an arrow goes from a bow, for he too was desert bred and he yearned for the open lands. I rode as a man rides in a dream, clinging to the saddle, and knowing only that the walls and the dust and the blood of the city no longer stifled me, and that I would die in the desert after all, which is the place for a Chagatai to die. And so I rode until all knowledge went from me.

II

Shall the grey wolf slink at the mastiff’s heel?
    Shall the ties of blood grow weak and dim? –
By smoke and slaughter, by fire and steel,
    He is my brother – I ride with him.

Now as I gazed into the clear grey eyes of the Frank, all this came back to me and my heart was glad.

“What!” said he. “Are you that one whom I set on a horse and saw ride out of the city gate to die in the desert?”

“I am he – Kosru Malik,” said I. “I did not die – we Turks are harder than cats to kill. The good steed, running at random, brought me into an Arab camp and they dressed my wounds and cared for me through the months I lay helpless of my wounds. Aye – I was more than half dead when you lifted me on the Arab horse, and the shrieks and red sights of the butchered city swam before me like a dim nightmare. But I remembered your face and the lion on your shield.

“When I might ride again, I asked men of the Frankish youth who bore the lion-shield and they told me it was Sir Eric de Cogan of that part of Frankistan that is called England, newly come to the East but already a knight. Ten years have passed since that crimson day, Sir Eric. Since then I have had fleeting glances of your shield gleaming like a star in the mist, in the forefront of battle, or glittering on the walls of towns we besieged, but until now I have not met you face to face.

“And my heart is glad for I would pay you the debt I owe you.”

His face was shadowed. “Aye – I remember it all. You are in truth that youth. I was sick – sick – triply sick of bloodshed. The Crusaders went mad once they were within the walls. When I saw you, a lad of my own age, about to be butchered in cold blood by one I knew to be a brute and a vandal, a swine and a desecrator of the Cross he wore, my brain snapped.”

“And you slew one of your own race to save a Saracen,” said I. “Aye – my blade has drunk deep in Frankish blood since that day, my brother, but I can remember a friend as well as an enemy. Whither do you ride? To seek a vengeance? I will ride with you.”

“I ride against your own people, Kosru Malik,” he warned.

“My people? Bah! Are Persians my people? The blood of a Kurd is scarcely dry on my scimitar. And I am no Seljuk.”

“Aye,” he agreed, “I have heard that you are a Chagatai.”

“Aye, so,” said I. “By the beard of the Prophet, on whom peace, Tashkend and Samarcand and Khiva and Bokhara are more to me than Trebizond and Shiraz and Antioch. You let blood of your breed to succor me – am I a dog that I should shirk my obligations? Nay, brother, I ride with thee!”

“Then turn your steed on the track you have come and let us be on,” he said, as one who is consumed with wild impatience. “I will tell you the whole tale, and a foul tale it is and one which I shame to tell, for the disgrace it puts on a man who wears the Cross of Holy Crusade.

“Know then, that in Edessa dwells one William de Brose, Seneschal to the Count of Edessa. To him lately has come from France his young niece Ettaire. Now harken, Kosru Malik, to the tale of man’s unspeakable infamy! The girl vanished and her uncle would give me no answer as to her whereabouts. In desperation I sought to gain entrance to his castle, which lies in the disputed land beyond Edessa’s south-eastern border, but was apprehended by a man-at-arms close in the council of de Brose. To this man I gave a death wound, and as he died, fearful of damnation, he gasped out the whole vile plot.

“William de Brose plots to wrest Edessa from his lord and to this end has received secret envoys from Muhammad Khan, sultan of Kizilshehr. The Persian has promised to come to the aid of the rebels when the time comes. Edessa will become part of the Kizilshehr sultanate and de Brose will rule there as a sort of satrap.

“Doubtless each plans to trick the other eventually – Muhammad demanded from de Brose a sign of good faith. And de Brose, the beast unspeakable, as a token of good will sends Ettaire to the sultan!”

Sir Eric’s iron hand was knotted in his horse’s mane and his eyes gleamed like a roused tiger’s.

“Such was the dying soldier’s tale,” he continued. “Already Ettaire had been sent away with an escort of Seljuks – with whom de Brose intrigues as well. Since I learned this I have ridden hard – by the saints, you would swear I lied were I to tell you how swiftly I have covered the long weary miles between this spot and Edessa! Days and nights have merged into one dim maze, so I hardly remember myself how I have fed myself and my steed, how or when I have snatched brief moments of sleep, or how I have eluded or fought my way through hostile lands. This steed I took from a wandering Arab when my own fell from exhaustion – surely Ettaire and her captives cannot be far ahead of me.”

I told him of the caravan I had seen in the night and he cried out with fierce eagerness but I caught his rein. “Wait, my brother,” I said, “your steed is exhausted. Besides now the maid is already with Muhammad Khan.”

Sir Eric groaned.

“But how can that be? Surely they cannot yet have reached Kizilshehr.”

“They will come to Muhammad ere they come to Kizilshehr,” I answered. “The sultan is out with his hawks and they are camped on the road to the city. I was in their camp last night.”

Sir Eric’s eyes were grim. “Then all the more reason for haste. Ettaire shall not bide in the clutches of the paynim while I live – ”

“Wait!” I repeated. “Muhammad Khan will not harm her. He may keep her in the camp with him, or he may send her on to Kizilshehr. But for the time being she is safe. Muhammad is out on sterner business than love making. Have you wondered why he is encamped with his slayers?”

Sir Eric shook his head.

“I supposed the Kharesmians were moving against him.”

“Nay, since Muhammad tore Kizilshehr from the empire, the Shah has not dared attack him, for he has turned Sunnite and claimed protection of the Caliphate. And for this reason many Seljuks and Kurds flock to him. He has high ambitions. He sees himself the Lion of Islam. And this is but the beginning. He may yet revive the powers of Islam with himself at the head.

“But now he waits the coming of Ali bin Sulieman, who has ridden up from Araby with five hundred desert hawks and swept a raid far into the borders of the sultanate. Ali is a thorn in Muhammad’s flesh, but now he has the Arab in a trap. He has been outlawed by the Caliphs – if he rides to the west their warriors will cut him to pieces. A single rider, like yourself, might get through; not five hundred men. Ali must ride south to gain Arabia – and Muhammad is between with a thousand men. While the Arabs were looting and burning on the borders, the Persians cut in behind them with swift marches.

“Now let me venture to advise you, my brother. Your horse has done all he may, nor will it aid us or the girl to go riding into Muhammad’s camp and be cut down. But less than a league yonder lies a village where we can eat and rest our horses. Then when your steed is fit for the road again, we will ride to the Persian camp and steal the girl from under Muhammad’s nose.”

Sir Eric saw the wisdom of my words, though he chafed fiercely at the delay, as is the manner of Franks, who can endure any hardship but that of waiting and who have learned all things but patience.

But we rode to the village, a squalid, miserable cluster of huts, whose people had been oppressed by so many different conquerors that they no longer knew what blood they were. Seeing the unusual sight of Frank and Saracen riding together, they at once assumed that the two conquering nations had combined to plunder them. Such being the nature of humans, who would think it strange to see wolf and wildcat combine to loot the rabbit’s den.

When they realized we were not about to cut their throats they almost died of gratitude and immediately brought us of food their best – and sorry stuff it was – and cared for our steeds as we directed. As we ate we conversed; I had heard much of Sir Eric de Cogan, for his name is known to every man in Outremer, as the Franks call it, whether Caphar or Believer, and the name of Kosru Malik is not smoke for the wind to blow from men’s ears. He knew me by reputation though he had never linked the name with the lad he saved from his people when Jerusalem was sacked.

We had no difficulty in understanding each other now, for he spoke Turki like a Seljuk, and I had long learned the speech of the Franks, especially the tongue of those Franks who are called Normans. These are the leaders and the strongest of the Franks – the craftiest, fiercest and most cruel of all the Nazarenes. Of such was Sir Eric, though he differed from most of them in many ways. When I spoke of this he said it was because he was half Saxon. This people, he said, once ruled the isle of England, that lies west of Frankistan, and the Normans had come from a land called France, and conquered them, as the Seljuks conquered the Arabs, nearly half a century before. They had intermarried with the conquered, said Sir Eric, and he was the son of a Saxon princess and a knight who rode with William the Conqueror, the emir of the Normans.

He told me – and from weariness fell asleep in the telling – of the great battle which the Normans call Senlac and the Saxons Hastings, in which the emir William overcame his foes, and deeply did I wish that I had been there, for there is no fairer sight to me than to see Franks cutting each other’s throats.