Swords From the West (73 page)

She untangled the thread and went to work anew, and he saw that she was embroidering a crimson cross upon a white background.

"Father Evagrius did ask it of me."

"A surcoat? Then the patriarch grows stronger?"

"He doth not mend."

She glanced anxiously toward the door of the other room.

"It was his wish that I make it for you."

Robert thought there was slight chance of his donning the garments of a knight again-or of leaving Bokhara alive. And what chance had the girl?

"See-'tis nearly finished."

She tilted the frame and surveyed it critically.

"The one you wore was sadly stained."

"'Tis a fair gift," he said, surprised that the girl should remember details of this meeting six months ago.

And he listened while she talked lightly of the strange slaves of Bokhara, the pretty garden and the music that she heard upon the river near at hand. Will, she said, had seldom been absent from the house; servants of the priests had brought her all she could wish of fruits and sweetmeats.

"And Will must not leave this place to seek the wall again," responded Robert gravely. "I give you in his charge."

"Nay, tall brother," put in the archer, "'twas she that sent me hence, saying-'Hie thee to my lord, and stand at his back; for he hath many foes, and if harm came to him-"'

"Why, our case would e'en be a hard one," interrupted Ellen swiftly.

Will shook his head doggedly. "By all the saints, thy words were otherwise. I mind-"

"Be still!" The girl's eyes flashed, and the work on the embroidery ceased altogether. "I sent you for tidings of the siege. Will the wall withstand assault, Sir Robert?"

"We will hold it. And the foe must withdraw in three days."

Will Bunsley scratched his head. "Now verily, and by thy leave, lord brother, thou didst hold forth contrariwise upon the rampart. Thou didst swear in good broad words that the Sooltan's men were overconfident, and the Mungals-or howsomever they be called-were brewing trickery for our quaffing-"

Robert reached out his foot under the table and, finding the yeoman's understanding too dense to heed a kick, frowned warningly. "You have quaffed too many cups of Bokharian brewing to remember aught aright, Master Will."

"Nay, by St. Dunstan-"

"Curb thy tongue, rogue, and cool thy head in the garden for awhile."

The archer went out, muttering under his breath, and Ellen laughed merrily.

"You would make light of our peril, Sir Robert. But you cannot silence your eyes, and they were troubled."

She looked at him frankly. "Will hath described the barbarians, and it would seem they fight best upon their horses. If I were leader of the besiegers I would take your wall upon the flank. I have seen a point where horsemen could enter a score abreast without dismounting or unbarring a gate."

Robert did not smile.

"If so-but where?"

"Where you and I entered Bokhara-" she paused to stitch the last thread in the cross-"the foe could swim their horses upon the river through the water gate."

"A chain hath been stretched across and a barrier made against boats, yet the thought is a good one. How came you to hit upon it?"

"When I was a child, messire, my father held command in the stronghold of Carcassonne for the queen, and I remember a siege and seeing the foemen swim their chargers across the moat."

She glanced at his hand where the great sapphire of the shah's ring gleamed. "Is that the talisman bestowed by the paynim king?"

"Lightly given." Robert turned it on his finger, and lifted his head with sudden purpose. "We have shared peril, you and I, and you have a heart for true words. Our chance of winning free from Bokhara with our lives is slight."

The brown eyes searched his without a trace of fear. "Ah, let the archer attend you, messire. If-if harm befall you he should seek me out, for I would then have need of one arrow from his bow."

"You would have need of it." Robert forced himself to speak coldly. Beholding her pride and her trust in him, he clenched his hands and strode the length of the chamber, to pause beside her.

"Nay, I am a wildling and worthless-as the peers of Palestine did maintain," he went on. "Hither came I to loot gold and gear and raise myself to a high place, and this day I plotted how to profit by the treachery of the wazir to his master. When I cast aside my spurs I put aside Iny vows and I have mocked the prayers of good Evagrius-thinking to drown memory of the past in a sea of blood. And this thing is true."

She began to loosen the long surcoat from the embroidery frame so that he could not see her face, and she made answer softly. "Among the peers of Palestine-aye and France-who hath done the deeds of the Longsword? Is life, forsooth, such a little thing that we must spend our years in kitchen and hall, making love to some and quarreling with others?"

Robert frowned down at her, wondering, for this was a maid of many surprises.

"In my father's castle, messire, were many who painted their shields brightly and made a song of each slight dent won in the pleasant jousts. Faith, they tested their skill at romaunts and gestes in the banquet-hall, and they were bold in the hunt-and the war of words."

She smiled wistfully. "My father was otherwise, and many a time did he tell me of the brave days of Richard of England. When he died I took the Cross, being heavy with grief, and now am I in a paynim hold, long leagues from Jerusalem."

She stood up, tossing back her dark hair. "I would not have it otherwise. For now, messire, perchance, I share the last hours of a brave knight and true."

"0 maid," Robert replied gruffly, being stirred by her bold words, "this is no fit place for a child of d'Ibelin to end her days."

"Then forsooth and verily," she cried, her mood changing lightly, "let us adventure forth and win us honor. Nay, the troubadours shall yet make a tale of us, and we will yet see Jerusalem. Master Will hath planned a plan for me whereby I may go forth when the time comes. 'Tis but a makeshift of a plan, and yet-"

Ellen turned and disappeared into her sleeping -chamber and emerged with her arms full of garments.

"-and yet'twill make a man of a maid."

Her dark tresses were hidden by a light helmet of silvered steel, and a cotton drop that fell to her boyish shoulders. "Well for me," she said gravely, "the Moslems of this quarter are slender men, for Will bath looted shamefully."

She held out a finely wrought haburgeon of delicate chain mail with a silk girdle, and wide damask pantaloons with embroidered slippers, and-smiling merrily-a long khalat of the richest purple.

"Ha, Master Robert," quoth the bowman, who had come in when he heard his name called, "she hath the hearing of a likely esquire-at-arms and a temper to boot. I have found for her a small shield and a bow suitable for her hand-"

"Yah khawand," interrupted Ellen blithely, "wilt take me for a companion upon your road-your road of peril?"

"Aye, verily," smiled the knight. "Yet no khawand am I, for that is 'lord and master."'

"Lord and master," she whispered; and there was no mockery in her eager eyes.

"Hearken," said Robert suddenly.

A sound as of a multitude of bees came through the open embrasures. The two men glanced at each other. To their trained ears the distant hum resolved itself into the mutter of kettle-drums and the clashing of cymbals mingled with the uproar of human voices. Robert picked up his sword belt and helm.

"That would be a bruit upon the wall."

Swiftly he girdled on the long scimitar he had chosen for lack of a better weapon of the size and weight to which he was accustomed. Ellen dropped her belongings and caught up the white surcoat.

"Wear this, my lord, for the sake of-of Evagrius, who hath blessed it."

Skillfully she slipped off the khalat that covered his mail and thrust the mantle over his shoulders, fastening his belt upon the outside. As he strode toward the garden he gripped her hand, and she skipped beside him to the outer gate.

"Fare you well-the good angels fight at your side!"

"Brave heart!" cried the knight. "Keep hidden until I return."

The alley door flew open, and a bearded Kankali peered within and saluted Robert as Will ran up with the saddled charger.

"Will the lord grant his servant permission-"

"Speak!"

"The barbarians have bridged the gap between the wall and the causeway. Aye, they have launched a storm, and Allah hath caused a battle to be."

Heedless of Robert's last advice, Ellen watched him ride away from the gate and waved farewell as he reached the turn in the alley.

"A fine mark hath thy mantle made of him," grumbled the archer, who was disappointed at being left behind. "Ah, for the shafts of the foe-Why, lass-why, as St. Dunstan hears me, thou art weeping!"

Chapter XIII

The Storm

As they trotted out of the alley Robert signed to the messenger to come up with him, and sent the man to command Kutchluk Khan to saddle his ponies and hold his men ready to ride. He pressed forward alone, seeking the shortest way to the wall. Here the alleys, odorous with fish and wool and stagnant water, twisted and turned, and his horse was forced to pick a way among heaps of refuse. White walls loomed out of the darkness and voices flung hearty curses after him in many languages.

He turned aside into a quarter where the wooden barrier was let down, and lights gleamed from lattices and the scent of incense and aloes was in the air. In gateways under great lanterns the tinted faces of women peered at him, and from a roof nearly over his head came the high-pitched song of a Circassian girl with the monotonous accompaniment of a lute. In the labyrinth of the alleys the dwellers of Bokhara had come forth after the heat of the day and Robert wondered whether in truth there could be fighting on the wall.

A woman's form, veiled and sinuous, moved toward him in the swaying walk of the Bokharian slave. Her henna-tinted hands drew back the veil, and he looked down into a face thin yet beautiful, and saw in the half-light of the stars eyes, darkened with kohl, wise with the unhallowed wisdom of Egypt.

Anklets tinkled as other girls fled with ripples of laughter from his horse. In his path a handsome boy caressed a lute, singing with a full throat, his head thrown back to the stars.

"Time passes and no man may stay it. This hour alone is thine. Turn not from the rose and its fairness, for thorns lie thick on the pathway!"

Robert reined in his horse and gripped the singer's shoulder.

"Where lies the wall?"

"I am Hassan," the boy responded with the gravity of the intoxicated. "Lo, the wall is not here, for this is the street of delightful hours."

He laughed at the set face of the crusader, and Robert loosed him, setting spurs to the charger. The spring of the horse sent the boy rolling in the dust that eddied up from the plunging hoofs.

Hassan sat up, muttering, and a veiled woman ran to his side from the deep shadow of a wall.

"The moon hath come down from the sky," cried the boy. "Ah-"

A thin length of steel darted into his side and was withdrawn. The woman's hand felt for his purse, which had jingled when he fell, and slipped it from his girdle. Then she merged again into the shadow.

Rising to his knees, Hassan felt about in the dust as if for something he had lost. Suddenly he screamed, and the song of the Circassian on the roof above ceased for a moment.

Robert rode over the bridge that spanned the river, and glanced to either side. Although the tumult on the wall was nearer, pleasure barges drifted along the banks, and Bokharian nobles made wagers as to the length of the fighting. Passing through the gardens at a gallop, he began to hear the ululation of the Kankalis and the clashing of weapons. Dismounting among the tents behind the wall, he climbed a stairway to a tower and found the beg he had left in charge.

"Yah khawand," the man greeted him, "you are in good time. Watch."

The causeway was crowded with packed masses of Mongols, and more were moving up on foot from the lines of the camp where the drums and nakars kept up their clamor. At the head of the earth mound, beams had been thrust across the gap by the besiegers and hastily covered with spears, planks, and hides. Over this bridge warriors were rushing the rampart, climbing upon the bodies of the slain.

They were half-naked, and those who had shields hurled them at the Moslems. Then they ran forward, stooping and smiting with axes and heavy, curved swords. Most of them fell under the arrows of the Kankalis, who shot from the wall and the nearest towers. The survivors were hurled back by spears and maces in the hands of the mailed defenders.

"Twice have we hewn down their bridge! " exclaimed the captain. "See where our stone-casters thin the numbers in the rear! Allah send victory!"

"But, do you, send for reinforcements from the palace," retorted Robert, watching two human tides beat against each other and a sprinkling of dark bodies, outflung from the press, drop into the beds of jasmine and roses underneath.

After awhile he picked up his shield and ran down the stairs toward the wall. Greater weight of metal and steadiness of foot was needed here.

Thrusting through the struggling Moslems, he whipped out his sword, hewing his way well in among the Mongols without waiting to see if any of his own men followed. A mace crashed against his helmet, blurring his sight; a spear clanged on his shield. All around him there was a tearing, sobbing sound of tired men striving to rend each other, a snapping of wood and the moaning of the wounded underfoot, Moslems for the most part. The short, grim men who surged at him fought in silence.

Robert thrust the hilt of his sword into a snarling face, swept clear the space before him with his blade, and felt himself caught about the legs. Stumbling, he dropped his sword, and his mailed mitten grasped a short battle-ax on the stone surface of the wall. With this he smashed free of those who grappled him and gained his feet-a thing that few did who went down.

Now as he stood his ground he felt that shafts flew past him. A giant who rushed at him with open hands was transfixed by a long arrow and fell upon his feet. Another was pierced through the throat, so that the blow he aimed at Robert fell feebly against the steel casque. He could see, through the eyeslits of his visor, the black mantles of the Kankalis on either hand, and the flash of their scimitars. So in time he rested against the broken rampart and the bodies that lay upon it, panting, while the Mongol tide receded down the mole.