Swords From the West (66 page)

He coughed-found that he could gulp in air-and moved his limbs feebly to keep afloat. For what seemed an interminable time he swam in a gigantic chasm, conscious of lights above him and-once-of Abdullah, the minstrel, looking down at him calmly. Then water splashed over his face, and the blackness was complete.

Chapter VII

Osman the Wazir

Many things appeared to Robert to take place very rapidly. He felt delightfully at ease, although aware that his body was being jolted, the creaking of leather and the jolting made him think he was riding again, though how he could ride lying down he knew not. Then the sun smote full into his eyes, and somebody shaded them. Robert peered out between two curtains and saw the green expanse of a wide sea with a sail drifting along the horizon. A salty wind caused him to shiver violently, and, still shivering, he dropped back into the inertia.

Again he found himself studying the stars, looking for the Great Bear and recalling that Abdullah had called it jitti karatchi, the Seven Robbers. He could not make out the robbers, and told himself that this was a strange sky as well as a strange sea.

Once he lay on his elbow, looking down at the earth. It was whitish gray. Taking up some in his fingers, he put his tongue to it and found it to be salt. A strange earth. He was bathed in sweat, and a woman came and wiped his face and hands with a cool, moist cloth.

He began talking to the woman, telling her about the changed earth and the remarkable sea that was so cold and so hot. By and by he noticed that the woman was weeping and that she was the Demoiselle d'Ibelin. Henceforth events happened less swiftly and Robert grew irritable with pain, but more often he felt the girl's touch and drank things from her hand.

"Where is that rogue, Abdullah?" he asked, his voice ringing clear.

"He is not here, my lord. Nay, I have not see him since the night in the mountains when he talked with the infidels, and-but, hush, please you, Sir Robert."

"Demoiselle," he remarked with dignity. "I am not Sir Robert of Antioch. I am Robert the Wayfarer; and as every man's hand is against me, so is mine against every man. Where is the lout, Will?"

"The archer is chained-nay, do not miscall him, for he jumped into the gorge and saved you your life many days ago."

"Now that is verily a lie," Robert responded angrily, "for this is but the morrow of that night."

With that he slept, to awaken master of his senses again.

They were in a boat-he and the maid and the priest, and a score of strange warriors. He lay upon a cloak stretched on rushes, with a woven screen over his head.

His first thought was for his sword. It was gone, and he reflected that his horse, also, was lost to him. Then he fumbled about for the chain of rubies and found it not. The mail shirt had been removed, and he was clad in loose cotton, with a light khalat wrapped over him.

When he moved, one shoulder irked him with its stiffness. Further investigation revealed a stubby beard and mustache and a growth of hair on his skull that had been shaven. After considering this he asked Father Evagrius, who sat quietly beside his couch, how long he had lain ill, and how he came to be brought alive through the Gates.

"For ten days the fever was heavy upon you, my son. The maid prayed that you would regain your wit and strength, and her prayers were heard. I could not see what befell in the mountain pass, yet meseems Abdullah did persuade the guards to send you living to the lord of this land."

"Did we pass the border of a sea?"

"Aye, Sir Robert. A week agone I heard the wash of the waves for the last time. Since then we have been placed on camels, and yesterday within this long skiff."

Robert thought this over. They must then have left the Caspian behind them, and by now should be near to the main cities of Khar. So Abdullah had outlined the journey to him. He asked Father Evagrius to call for Ellen, and the priest shook his head, saying that the maid was kept within the after part of the boat, guarded by Ethiopians. The Kankalis, the priest explained, had permitted her to nurse him during the height of his fever, while he was being carried in a horse litter; but now the Moslems took care to keep her apart. Of Will Bunsley he knew little, save that the archer had survived the gorge of the Sialak and his voice had been heard at times thereafter, complaining bitterly of his chains and a diet of rice and sour wine.

Unable to sit or stand, Robert was fain to be content with this. He could not see over the side wall of the boat, nor could Evagrius see anything at all, and neither of them might speak with Ellen.

So for days the knight was constrained to lie gazing at the roofed-in afterdeck where the slender form of the maid of Ibelin sometimes appeared, heavily veiled. At such moments her eyes would seek him out, and she stood where he was visible until one of the guards signed for her to enter the hangings that separated her from the men.

Father Evagrius spent his time in contemplation, eating slowly when food was brought and fingering the cross that hung from a cord about his lean throat. Robert, waxing more irritable with the confinement and the odors of the boat, marveled at the grave quietude of the priest who was preparing himself to meet death at the hands of the Moslem tormentors.

There came an evening when he could stand and look out from the boat, as the Moslems were at the evening prayer.

The river proved to be broad, and thronged with other craft. Gardens, divided off by lines of flowering trees, lined the bank, and Robert observed at once two marble pillars downstream. These rose from the dark mass of a wall, and until they drifted through the water gate he would not believe that he had judged truly the height of the wall.

Within it he saw the glimmer of lighted pavilions close to the water, and black spires rearing against sunset over domes that gleamed purple and crimson. Straight down upon their boat rowed a barge, draped in black silk and driven by a score of slaves.

On the raised platform behind the rowers a half-dozen men, turbaned and robed in many-colored silks, leaned on brocade cushions and stared down at the smaller craft and its crew.

"Ho, Moslems!" A tall man in the bow of the barge challenged them. "Who enters the water gate after nightfall?"

Robert could not understand the reply of his captors, but presently a command issued from the barge and the sailing skiff was brought alongside, the rowers lifting their oars. The same speaker, who seemed to be overseer of the slaves, ordered the warriors to send up their prisoners and the woman of the Franks. When Robert's guards argued, a mellow voice called out from the stern in liquid Arabic.

"Surety? Am I not Osman the Hadji, Wazir of the Throne and master of Bokhara? I will be surety to the shah, and that will suffice thee. Jackals-sons of jackals and sires of dissension! Yield up the Franks and seek thy pay in the appointed day and place! Am I a hireling to be affronted by slaves in the hour that Allah decreed for pleasuring?"

To a man the soldiers in the boat cast themselves on their knees and beat their foreheads against the planks. Yet Robert heard one murmur to another that the wazir had kept in his own purse the pay that had been promised them. The negroes ushered Ellen forward, through the waist of the boat, and in the deep shadow under the side of the barge she stumbled.

"AUdullah's word to you, my lord!" she whispered quickly. "Hide it!"

He heard the rustle of paper sliding over the reeds of the deck, and leaned forward.

"And what of you, demoiselle?"

"Father Evagrius hath prayed. Tend him-let no injury be done to him."

One of the negroes thrust Robert back, and steel gleamed in the shadow. The girl was lifted to the barge, and he took advantage of the respite to search for and find a narrow roll of parchment that lay near his feet. Putting this in his girdle, he helped the patriarch out of the boat and followed, rendered dizzy by the sudden movement but finding his limbs steadier than he had thought.

"So this is the champion of the Franks," observed one of the Moslems about Osman, "who named himself the Lion and clawed Inalzig, the bahator, to death with a score of warriors at the Gates. Shall we match the lion with a man-eating tiger?"

"Nay, 'twould take an elephant to crush his bones," responded another lightly. "He is greater in bulk than the tallest of the Ethiopians."

"You are both wrong, my cup-companions," put in a third. "The Frank, like the maid, is to be kept alive against the coming of the shah."

Osman, who had been staring at the girl, frowned at this, and a slender boy with insolent eyes ceased tuning a lute long enough to murmur:

"Allah la yebarak fili! May Allah not prosper his coming!"

"What words are these words, 0 Hassan?" reproved the wazir. "Am I not the slave of Muhammad, and was not he-"

"A slave himself, 0 most generous of lords," quoth Hassan, bending ear to lute again, "when he was my age and caught the eye of a woman."

Somebody mouthed a gibe about the eyes of women, and the assemblage laughed. Osman struck upon a silver gong that hung by his side; and the overseer of the slaves bellowed to the rowers, who brought the barge about and headed down the river into the heart of the lighted city.

Robert, utterly unnoticed, studied Osman curiously. It was the first time he had seen a Kharesmian of the higher classes, and it was difficult to believe that this was not the shah himself. Osman had pallid, weakmuscled cheeks, surrounded by a narrow beard, and his jeweled turban would have bought a castle in Palestine. His dark lips curved like a girl's, and his fine brown eyes had the blank stare of a dreamer or a user of drugs. From the instant that the demoiselle of Ibelin was seated at his side he did not cease to pay her attention.

"Let my counsel be as earrings in thy pretty ears, 0 damsel. Incline to me, and I will robe thee in samite and cloth of gold, and scent thy eyebrows with attar of rose-so that the shah himself shall fall bewildered by thy beauty."

He seemed loath to believe that the captive did not understand his praise, but when it was clear that she knew no Arabic the courtiers launched re marks that made the knight turn away so that they could not observe his eyes. It was wiser that they should not be aware that he could follow what was said.

"To the seller of perfume," smiled the boy with the lute, "what remains save the dust of the rose petal? How long, 0 treasurer, wilt thou labor to keep safe the treasure of the slave who claims to be thy master?"

Osman glanced at him warningly, yet seemed to find food for thought in the idle words. He lifted a drinking cup of pure jade, and from the waist of the barge cymbals and drums resounded as he drank.

"Nay, Osman," called out a stout man in purple silk who was being fanned by a Nubian slave girl. "Am I not crowned king of the hour of pleasure? What royal honors are accorded me when I lift my cup?"

"The dogs bay."

Hassan displayed white teeth.

"And spent hags pluck thy purse away-"

"Out upon thee. Pfagh-you are rank of the dunghill that bred thee. Who but I bore to our master, this excellent fellow Osman, the news of the taking of Otrar by the barbarians?"

"The tidings that sent Muhammad to the northern border," nodded one who had something of the warrior about him. "It was three moons ago that the Manslayer took Otrar into his maw and sent the head of its governor to the shah. Allah, he was angered! "

"And I made a song about it," quoth Hassan.

"The imams and kadis wagged their beards and fouled the carpet of counsel with the spittle of quarrels," nodded the wine-bibber unsteadily.

"And I made a song about that, too."

"Yet the news was good for us because it gave the reins of government in Bokhara to our lord, Osman."

"0 sharp-of-wit, canst thou truly see an anthill when the ants bite thy toes?"

"The chief of the Kankalis who was leader of the garrison could not," put in the warrior, signing for a slave to fill his cup again. "At least he drank too much opium by mistake-"

"Thy tongue wags!" whispered one of the courtiers.

"Nay, he was a fine sight in his shroud. By Allah, it came to my ears that his favorite singing-girl slew herself with a dagger-"

"And that was not so fine a sight," broke in Hassan, "because a shroud was an ill garment for so fair a wench."

He glanced from under kohl-darkened lashes at the Nazarene maid and swept delicate fingers over the strings of his lute, singing under his breath:

The river became narrower and darker where high walls of palaces and mosques lined the banks, but Osman's barge kept to midcurrent, and Robert noticed that the other craft got out of its way hastily and other pleasureseekers knelt as the wazir passed. But Osman had eyes only for the Nazarene maid, and Hassan, perceiving the mood of his master, sang of love and the beauties of women in a voice that was softer than a silver flute. A brazier, burning in the prow, cast a scent of aloes and musk incense into the air, and at command of the leader of the revels, different powders were put into the wine cups by slaves-hashish, opium, and bhang. Robert, feigning exhausted sleep, heard other references to the Manslayer, to Otrar, and the treasure of Muhammad Shah, as the tongues of the drinkers were loosened.