Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures (80 page)

“Give way!” he growled. The boatmen hesitated. Up the street came the clamor of pursuit. Steel clanked and torches tossed.

“Push off!” the boatmen saw the glimmer of naked steel in the knight’s mailed hand. They were unarmed laborers, not fighters. The steersman disengaged the boathook, and thrusting it against the steps, shoved powerfully. The heavy craft swung out into the current, and the rowers bent to their labor. They moved out into the shadowy star-mirroring reaches, and looking back, Sir Roger saw mailed figures racing up and down the piers, seeking a boat. But luck was with him; the wharfs had vanished in the distance before he heard, faintly the clack of oar-locks, and knew that the pursuit had taken to water.

The rowers, eyeing his dripping sword, bent to their oars as strongly as if he had been Alexis himself. The noise of the pursuing boats drew steadily nearer; they dogged his trail throughout that three-mile row, and the last few hundred yards he saw starlight glinting on helmets. But he was still a few score paces ahead when the low prow nudged the Asian shore. Springing to the saddle, he spurred the steed over the side, and plunged into the darkness.

There he had the advantage. His pursuers were not mounted, although it was quite possible that there might be steeds for them in the vicinity. He headed eastward at a long swinging gallop. In the darkness he was aware only of a vague shadowy landscape of low hills and flat stretches, with occasional blurs he took to be herders’ huts. Clouds had again obscured the stars, and the moon had long set. He drew rein, moving along almost at a walk, in the thick darkness, when suddenly he realized that there was a movement about him. He heard the restive stamp of hoofs, and the jingle of trappings. A voice swore in a tongue alien yet hatefully familiar. Turks! He had ridden blindly into them in the darkness. They were all about him, hemming him in. Stealthily he reached for his sword, then a sibilant voice inquired, “Is it you, lord Thorvald?”

“Who else?” growled the knight, striving to assume the harsh accents of the Norseman.

“Strike a light,” muttered another voice. “Best be certain.”

There was the clink of flint on steel, and a tiny flame sprang up, illuminating a ring of bearded hawk-like faces – glinting on polished shoulder-plates, burnished helmets and ring-mail. The tall warrior who held the light leaned forward and eyed Sir Roger intently.

“There is the gold falcon, see?” said the Moslem. “Besides, look at the sword. The face of the Smiter is not so familiar to me that I would know it without the beard, but by Allah, I would recognize that blade anywhere!”

The light went out. Behind them, toward the shore, came a distant murmur as of many men. Torches tossed erratically. Roger felt the warriors about him stiffen suspiciously, and he heard the stir of scimitars in their sheaths.

“Who moves yonder?” asked the tall Moslem.

“Men the emperor sent to see that I got safely across,” answered Sir Roger. “He feared lest the Franks had left spies behind them.” Why do we linger here? It is not long until dawn.”

“True,” muttered the Turk. “And we were better safe in the hills before daylight. You came ahead of time. We were riding to the shore to meet you, when you rode in among us. We were lucky that we did not miss each other in this accursed dark. Ride in the midst of us, my lord.”

They moved off in a canter that grew into an easy swinging gallop that ate up the miles. As dawn rose, the band, like a flying band of desert ghosts, crossed the shoulder of a blue mountain and vanished in the hills beyond.

Daylight showed the night his companions – a score of hawk-like riders in the steel and gold and leather of the Seljuks. They rode like the wind, like men who do not have to spare their mounts, and he guessed that relays awaited them in the hills – for already they were beyond the eastern-most bounds of Alexis’ domain. They had not suspected him, and in that grim masquerade he had made no plans. He had but followed the trend of the tide, caught in the eddy, moving without volition of his own. He knew what he would do if the opportunity rose, but for the moment he was helpless, with only half-facts at his command.

Indeed, the whole course of his life had lain along those lines, he thought morosely, to the tune of the drumming hoofs. Born in castle built up out of the ruins of a Saxon keep, almost exactly a year after the Battle of Hastings, Sir Roger’s impulses and instincts had led him into such a tangle of affairs that he himself despaired of unravelling it. So, he departed from the land of his birth, not much in advance of soldiers sent by the exasperated king. Resentment toward his leige led him into the service of Duke Robert of Normandy, who was continually at logger-heads with his fox-like brother, but Roger’s impatient spirit could not endure the procrastinating and wine-guzzling habits of the Duke, however generous and good-natured, and presently he found himself in the kingdom Norman swords had carved in southern Italy. He had ridden beside Tancred and shared the yellow fighting-cock’s adventures, but Bohemund’s everlasting ambition had palled on the English knight. The scene shifted to the Rhineland, where he was a participant in the gory climax of Duke Godfrey’s feud with Rudolph of Swabia. Then came the dawn of the Crusades, Urban’s trumpet-like invocation, and men selling their lands to buy horses to carry them eastward to salvation and the slaughter of the heathen.

The barons were gathering, but to the more penniless, they moved too slowly. Besides, there was an unexpressed doubt that there would be enough plunder to go around, once the great lords took the field. A horde of ploughmen, beggars and vagabonds rallied around Peter the Hermit, kissing the ground on which he walked, and getting their brains kicked out by his pessimistic jackass when they tried to pluck out the animal’s grey hairs for holy relics. Peter emulated Urban and great was his magnetic power. To the gaunt fanatic likewise came a sprinkling of poverty-ridden knights and nobles, and the motley horde moved eastward down the Danube, singing hosannas and stealing pigs.

Among these poverty-ridden knights were Roger de Cogan and his brother-at-arms, Gautier sans Avoir – the Penniless. They tried to herd the horde, but they might as well have tried to herd the vultures of the Carpathians. The ravenous pilgrims, some eighty thousand strong, passed like a famine through the land of the Hungarians, fought with Alexis’ outpost, fell on their knees to greet the spires of Constantinople, and settled themselves down, apparently, to devour all the food in the empire.

When they began to hack sheets of lead from the cathedral roofs to sell in the market place, Alexis in despair had them ferried across the Bosphorus, and there herds of them straggled away into the hills and managed to get themselves butchered by a raiding band of Turks. Gautier and his comrades, with more valor than discretion, sallied forth to rescue the miserable wretches, and ran into a veritable army of chanting heron-feathered riders. There died Gautier, on a heap of Turkish corpses, with his mad and gallant gentlemen, and Sir Roger, recovering his senses after a battle-axe, shattering on his casque, had dashed him into darkness, found himself bound with chains along with the remnant of his band, and being marched to Nicea, where he was sold to a tall lean vulture in steel and gold – the Arab Yusef ibn Zalim. His lean ship cruised the shores of the Black Sea, and up and down the Bosphorus from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and Roger saw sights both in the belly of the galley, and on the blood-stained deck, which haunted his dreams for the rest of his life. Yet these red visions were not able to dim one scene of horror and madness – his comrade Gautier, dying among the dead, and a lean scornful horseman in gilded mail and heron-feathered helmet, rearing his horse to bring down the hoofs crashing in the blood-stained dying face.

“Thus Othman, son of Kilidg Arslan, deals with infidels!” The scornful words rang in Roger de Cogan’s ears above the wash of waves, the splintering of the oars, and the red clamor of battle.

Now the English knight found himself galloping in company with Turkish reavers, in a grim masquerade, bound for a destination of which he knew nothing, save that it would doubtless bring him face to face with Prince Othman and his grim sire. He kept looking back for signs of pursuit; but if Alexis’ soldiers had followed, they had missed the trail.

At noon the riders came upon a squat tower in the hills, where food and drink, and fresh horses awaited them. They were in the outlying domain of Kilidg Arslan, the Red Lion of Islam, but as yet they had seen no villages, and only ruins, relics of ancient Roman rule. They spent scant time at their meal, but swung to the saddle and spurred up their mounts again.

And all through the hot dry summer afternoon they swung through the rugged hills at a gallop, pushing their horses unmercifully. Roger had kept his eyes open for out-riders of the Crusaders, or signs of their march, but he realized that they must be riding to the north of the Cross Wearers line of march. He asked no questions, nor did Ortuk Khan vouch-safe any information; he rode along humming a song about a warrior whose skill at racing had gained for him the name of the Rider of the Wind. Roger sensed that this matter was the Seljuk’s one weakness and vanity.

At moonrise they came again upon a relay of fresh horses in the hills, and again when the moon had set with a dusty courier, with whom Ortuk Khan talked long. Then he seated himself cross-legged on the ground, and signed for the men to prepare the meal.

“We are within striking distance of our objective,” said he to Roger. “We have covered in hours what took the Cross Wearers days to traverse. We are now but three hours riding from the camp of the infidels. At dawn we will go forward, and join in the battle.”

Roger had been puzzling in his mind as to how Alexis meant to wipe out Bohemund without destroying the rest of the Crusaders, and he ventured a question. “Repeat to me the trap the Red Lion has set for the Cross Wearers.”

“Thus it is,” answered Ortuk Khan readily. “Maimoun – Bohemund – and his people march ahead of the main body of the infidels. This night they lie in camp where the hills slope down into the plain of Doryleum, awaiting the coming up of Senjhil – St. Gilles – and the rest.

“But Alexis has given these others a guide to lead them astray. You see yonder peak which stands up in the moonlight above the other hills? Were you to ride due south on a straight line from that peak for five hours, you would come upon their camp.

“At dawn the Red Lion will ride in from the east, and crushed Maimoun and his iron men between his hands. Then he will move on Senjhil and the others and sweep them from the earth.”

So Alexis was hand-and-glove with the Seljuk, as far as destroying Bohemund went; it had been obvious from the beginning. The traitorous guide mentioned by Ortuk Khan must be Theodore Butumites. Alexis had said the Greek was with St. Gilles. Roger looked long at the peak pointed out to him by the Turk, and fixed the land marks of the country firmly in his mind. Doryleum was three hours ride to the east; the camp of the others five hours ride to the south. On the eastern hills was crawling the first faint whitening of dawn. The Turks were bestirring themselves, saddling their horses and buckling their armor.

“Ortuk Khan,” said Sir Roger casually, rising and laying his hand on the mane of the lean Turkoman steed which had been given him, “dawn is lifting and we must quickly be on our way to join the Red Lion. But to breathe our steeds, I will race you to yonder knoll.”

The Turk smiled. “It is still three hours hard riding to Doryleum, my lord, and our steeds will have much work to do after we reach the field.”

“It is only a few hundred paces to the knoll,” answered Sir Roger. “I have heard much of your skill at racing, and wished to have the honor of striving against you. Of course, there are many stones and boulders, and the footing is perilous. If you fear the attempt – ”

Ortuk Khan’s face darkened.

“That was ill said, oh man men call the Smiter. The folly of one makes fools of wise men. Yet mount, and I will do this childish thing.”

They swung to their saddles, reined back their mounts even with each other, then at a word were off like bolts from a crossbow. The steel-clad warriors watched the race with interest.

“The footing is not so unstable as the Frank said,” quoth one. “Look, their flight is as that of falcons. Ortuk Khan draws ahead.”

“But the Smiter is close on his heels!” exclaimed another. “Look, they near the knoll – what is this? The Franks has drawn his sword! It flashes in the dawn-light – Allah!”

A yell of astounded fury rose from the lean warriors. Riding hard, the Norman had disappeared around the knoll; behind him a riderless horse raced away from the still form which lay in a crimson pool among the rocks. The Rider of the Wind had ridden his last race.

Shaking the red drops from his blade, Sir Roger gave the Turkoman horse the rein. He did not look back, though he strained his ears for the drum of pursuing hoofs. Guiding his course by the peak, he passed through the hills like a flying ghost. A short time after sunrise he crossed a broad track, with marks of broad wagon-wheels and the print of myriad feet and hoofs. The road of Bohemund. Among these prints were fresher hoof-prints, unshod, smaller. The prints of Turkish steeds. So the scouts of the Seljuks dogged the Norman column closely.

It was past the middle of the morning when Roger rode into the vast wide-flung camp of the Crusaders. His none too tender heart warmed at the familiar sights – knights with falcons on their wrists and giant hounds trailing them; yellow-haired women laughing under canopied pavilions; young esquires burnishing the armor of their lords. It was like a bit of Europe transferred to the bleak hills of Asia Minor. Two hundred thousand people camped here, their fires and tents spreading out over the valley. Some of the pavilions had been taken down, some of the oxen harnessed to the wagons, but there was an air of waiting. Men-at-arms leaned on their pikes, pages wandered through the low bushes, whistling to their hounds. It was as if all the west had streamed eastward. Roger saw flaxen-haired Rhinelanders, black-bearded Spaniards and Provencals – French, Germans, Austrians. The clatter of a score of different tongues reached him.