Swords From the West (58 page)

The castellan considered him and saw that he was not afraid, though disarmed. The horse Abdullah bestrode was a remarkably fine one, a black Kabuli stallion.

"When does a minstrel of Islam follow the shadow of a Nazarene?" Sir Robert asked curtly.

The white teeth of the stranger flashed through the black tangle of his beard.

"Wallah! You ride with a loose rein. Surely a penned tiger is kin to the young warrior who is freed from camp. Not otherwise was I, in another day. To a woman or a battle, a man should ride boldly."

"And you?"

"I followed to see your face."

He studied the dark features of the Norman, the thin, down-curving nose and the powerful neck. Sir Robert had his mother's hair of tawny gold that fell to the mail coif on his shoulders. The hot temper of his race was his, yet the quiet, as well, of those who have great physical strength.

"Aye, a woman could summon you across the Orontes," nodded the minstrel, "if you chose to come. A battle is another thing. Are you the paladin of the Franks-the Longsword?"

"Aye, so."

"In the village by the sea a saddlemaker pointed you out and said that you were he, although many thought you dead. So I found my horse and sought you, for company on the road. There is a truce between our peoples."

"So that your spies may enter our walls."

"And your great lords may hawk and dice at leisure. Many things have I seen-your men-at-arms picking their noses, having no better thing to do-your king holding court on an island, because his foes cannot ride over the paths of the sea. Yet I have not seen a leopard change his skin, nor a spy look otherwise than faithless. Allah kerim! Do I look like a pryer?"

Sir Robert thought that the man was bold enough. The horse under his hand might have been the gift of an emir.

"You do not look like a minstrel," he laughed.

The man's words rang unpleasantly true. The Christian barons spent their days in bickering with each other. They were a weaker breed than the first crusaders who had fought their way over the desert to Jerusalem and left their bones in the land they conquered. Venetians, Genoese, Bavarians, and French-the new lords were more apt at gleaning profit from trade than at defending the fiefs they held.

In the last years the men who had been the heroes of Sir Robert's childhood had passed elsewhere, some stricken by the plague, some thrust into the torture chambers of the neighboring Saracens. Others had sailed back to the courts of Europe.

Now the galleys brought to Palestine disorderly throngs of pilgrims who were more than willing to pay a fee to the Saracens to visit the Sepulcher and bear away a palm.

This troubled Sir Robert, who had known no other land, and no fellowship other than that of the Croises.

While he mused, Abdullah had been studying his face. Now the minstrel leaned down swiftly and caught up a fistful of sand.

"My lord," he said, "I can read what passes in your mind. Who can change a book that is written, if that book be fate? No one among the Franks can keep Palestine for long, and your people will go again upon the sea whence they came. And their empire will pass-so!"

He loosed his fingers, letting fall the sand, and the castellan started.

"In the Fiend's name, mummer, did you ride from the sea to tell me this?"

"Nay, am I a fool?" Abdullah's thick chest rumbled with laughter. "I sought the Longsword, and I found a youngling," he added. "Did you, in truth, hold the wall of Antioch against Nasr-ud-deen and his spears?"

"Now that you have found me, seek another with your tricks. I have no largess to give."

Abdullah glanced reflectively at the castellan's faded surcoat and weather-stained shield from which the armorial device had long since been battered out.

"Largess, my lord, awaits me in the hall of Montserrat, whither I think you draw your reins-unless," he added gravely, "you fear to have Abdullah for refik-companion on the road."

Robert frowned and tossed the Moslem his scimitar.

"Go where you will, knave!"

Turning the bay aside, he passed by the minstrel and let his horse go down to the river to drink. Meanwhile his glance swept the Orontes and the bare, red hills that pressed down upon it, for signs of other riders who might have followed Abdullah and lain concealed during the talk.

But the far side of the river, shimmering through the heat haze, was empty of life.

Abdullah had followed his example, and when the stallion had lifted its fine head to let the water run out between its teeth, he turned in the saddle.

"Will the lord grant one boon to his servant? Your word that I shall not be harmed by the Nazarenes at Montserrat?"

Robert shook his head. He had been taught by his father never to break his word, whether given to a Moslem or one of his own peers. Abdullah, however, seemed satisfied with this response, and rode ahead up the trail of his own accord.

They had no more than entered the tamarisks again when both reined to a halt, and the horses fidgeted. From up the hill loud voices drew nearer, with a clattering of iron, a yapping of dogs, a braying of asses, and a creaking of wheels that made a small bedlam of the quiet of the valley.

From between the gray bushes emerged a gaunt man, stumbling under the weight of a tall banner of soiled samite upon which was embroidered a crimson cross. On his heels tramped a throng ragged and filthy, living scarecrows with feverish eyes.

Drawing aside from the trail, Robert watched the company pass. Some carried bundles slung to pike or staff-bundles that jingled and clanked, spoil beyond a doubt snatched from some native village. Many lay sick in the lumbering oxcarts, and a leper walked alone at a cart tail, his bell clinking when he stumbled.

In another araba lay a woman, suckling a child scarcely a month old. A lad whose only garment was a torn shirt peered up through the dust at the knight and the minstrel.

"Good my lord, is't far to Jerusalem?"

"Too far for a springald such as you," Robert responded gruffly. "What company is this?"

The boy pointed proudly to the red cross sewn on his shirt.

"Messire," he piped, "I am from Provence, like the demoiselle herself. We heard the blessed de Courcon preach, and we are come to deliver the city of Christ out of paynim duress."

He trotted on, and an English yeoman in green jerkin and feathered hood stopped to scowl blackly at Abdullah, and spit.

"A murrain upon yon infidel! When we set forth we e'en had forty thousand such as that-" nodding after the boy-"and now, by the shadow of we have but two. Aye, he and the lass."

"-'s wounds!" cried Robert. "Was this a crusade of the children?"

"Ah, that it was, tall my lord! Verily the mob did betake itself to divers paths from Byzantium, some adventuring upon the sea-and St. Giles and St. Dunstan ha' mercy on them-some upon the coast, where they did fall to quarreling and warring with the Armenians, and are no better this day than crow's meat, drying i' the wind. Our company was five hundred strong when we left Byzantium behind. And now-" He leaned on his staff and jerked a thumb at the rear of the party. The pilgrims numbered no more than five score.

"A black malison on the infidels, say I."

Robert wondered who the lass of this array might be, but just then some dozen men began to crowd around Abdullah, cursing him and fingering the axes at their belts. Someone flung a stone that made the black horse rear, the minstrel keeping his seat in the saddle with easy grace.

"Salvation awaits him who sheds the blood of a Saracen!" cried a giant with a pocked face.

"Seize his horse for Father Evagrius!" suggested another.

"Send him to pare the 's hoofs!"

Taking up his reins, Robert urged the bay between the angry throng and his companion. Whatever the mission upon which Abdullah of Khar had been sent, the man was of gentle blood, and the nobles of Palestine had sworn a truce with the Moslems, giving hand and glove upon it. This oath Robert felt to be binding unless the enemy broke the truce.

"Back, ribalds," he commanded. "Pass on. This is a minstrel who rides with me."

The mob seemed made up of villains, of commoners, and the knight did not feel called upon to voice reasons for his action to them. As some men in rusty haburgeons drew their swords, he rose in his stirrups to peer through the dust.

"Ho, the leader of this pack! The chief of these rogues, I say-call hence your varlets or it will be the worse for them."

At this the throng parted, and an old priest rode up on a white donkey led by a young girl. Flinging back the hood of her gown, she looked up angrily at Robert.

"Messire! Unsay what you have said, and that without ado."

She took the charger's rein in a gloved hand, and stamped a slender foot angrily and a little awkwardly, for it was clad in an Armenian red leather boot several sizes too large. Robert glimpsed a white face pinched by hunger and eyes shadowed by ripples of hair dark as a raven's wing.

"This is our patriarch, Sir Lout," went on the maid in a clear voice, "and Father Evagrius is blind. Climb down from your big horse and kneel and ask his pardon and blessing."

"Nay, Ellen," put in the patriarch, "it is not seemly that a stranger and a man-at-arms should kneel-"

"I say he shall! Nay, he is no sergeant-at-arms but a spurred lordling. His companion is a black-browed Moslem, and surely that is not seemly."

Against the crowd of grease- and vermin-ridden men the slight figure of the maid stood out in bold relief. The pulse throbbed in her delicate throat, and the circles darkened under her eyes that blazed with the tensity of long suffering. Abdullah glanced from her to Robert with some amusement.

"Father Evagrius," observed the knight, "if you are verily the leader of this company you do ill to turn your back on the castle of Montserrat. The river is scarce a safe abiding-place."

"Messire," responded the maid Ellen quickly, "the lord of Montserrat hath seen fit to order us away from his hold to the river."

"How? His Grace, the marquis-"

"-doth lack of courtesy, even as you. Perchance he feared lest the ribalds trample his coverts or disturb the sleep of his hunting hounds."

"Demoiselle," explained Robert calmly, "I am the vassal of Hugo of Montserrat, and even now I seek his hold, above in the border mountain chain. And I do maintain that he would not send a Christian company into hazard of their lives."

"Sir Stiff-and-Stuffy, I do maintain that your Hugo hath turned us off."

While Robert stared at her perplexed, yet finding an unexpected pleasure in meeting the glance of a girl of his own race after years spent without sight of a woman, he heard the gentle voice of the priest.

"The good marquis hath given his word that he will protect us against all foes upon his marches. And the Orontes, where we will pass the night, doth lie within his border."

"Then are you safe," nodded Robert. "Montserrat, having given his pledge, will keep it."

"And now, Sir Vassal," added the girl, Ellen, "do you kneel to the patriarch. Ah, he is a very saint, and his spirit dwells near to the throne of God-whom you miscalled a moment ago."

Robert, looking down upon her youthful rage-the maid scarce numbered more than fifteen years-tried in vain to stifle a hearty laugh. At this she flushed from throat to eyes and slipped off the hawking gauntlet upon her hand. Standing on her toes, she struck him swiftly across the lips.

The force of the blow knocked the glove from her grasp. Robert swung down from his stirrup and picked it up. When he stepped toward her she did not draw back, but clenched thin hands and stood her ground. Her followers, who had time to take in Robert's spread of shoulder and the length of his sword, made no move to molest him-though he paid no heed to them.

"I give you back your glove, demoiselle," he said, smiling at her boldness. "And I would that you and the good father would turn back with me to Montserrat."

"You mock us! Never-we would never go with you."

"By the saints! I meant no ill to you or the blind priest," denied the knight gravely.

"Come, Ellen," said Evagrius, "you have delayed our march, and I feel that the sun is sinking near the earth. A week from this hour we shall bathe in the Jordan, and you shall see the Mount of Olives."

His lined face was lighted by inward rejoicing as he felt for the donkey's halter. But the girl bent her head, and Robert heard her sob as she moved away. Frowning, he watched them pass into the dust cloud.

Why, he wondered, had the maid wept? Surely there was pride in her, and gentleness, for she tended the helpless Evagrius.

"Yah re flk," observed Abdullah, "You know little of a woman's spirit. That was a comely child and-I had fancied, lord, that you rode in such haste to meet with a woman."

"There are none in the castle we seek."

"Wallah! Can it be?"

He looked more than a little skeptical, yet the other's response appeared to give him satisfaction. As they passed up into the rocky gorges of the foothills Abdullah swung his lute around to his saddle peak and began to sweep his fingers across the strings, chanting in his fine voice.

He sang of the joy of racing the stag over the hills, and of watching the falcon stoop, and of wandering under the dome of the stars. Robert, hearkening despite himself, felt the magic of the other's gift of song. In his mind's vision he went back to boyhood, riding with his father over the desert floor, calling to staghounds. He knew again the thrill of loosing a hawk against the midday sky, and the cheer of the fire when the hunt was done and the wine cup made the rounds.

Abdullah sang on, and Robert's memory changed to the days of stark hunger when a Moslem city was beleaguered; he watched the men fashioning great mangonels and massive siege towers-for he had been taught the arts of the siege engines when most boys were playing at jousting.

Lean years thronged into his mind. Years spent in the saddle with the nucleus of the mailed host that had struggled to keep the banner of the Croises upon the walls of Jerusalem. Days of hideous din, when streets under the eyes of the lad had run with blood until the very bodies were washed into the gutters.