Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures (85 page)

And there were those who delt in human flesh. On the auction block in the center of the crowded market place stood a little clump of figures, chained and nearly naked, who looked out at the milling buyers with the patience and lethargy of oxen.

Recap of Harold Lamb’s “The Wolf Chaser”

Aruk would have held the Gate of the Winds against Galdan Khan but shall a dwarf halt a giant? So the Frank Hu-Go built a fortress in the pass and manned it with twice a hundred Buriats and for three days he held it against the Kalmucks but on the fourth day Galdan Khan brought up his cannon and, not wishing to die like a rat in cask, and mindful of his promise to Galdan Khan, Hu-Go led his swordsmen against the Turkish camp and they met but Galdan Khan fled like the coward he was and commanded his archers to shoot at the Frank from afar for no man dared to face him in fair combat. His sword was as the blade of twenty men. So Hu-go died like a hero and his soul passed through the Gate in the Skies. Galdan Khan lost two thousand men before the Gate of the Winds and of the defenders there remained only Aruk the Short, nor was it cowardice that saved him. But Galdan Khan was halted and the beams of the rising sun showed the banners of Ukaba Khan coming over the mountain of Otz.

Untitled Fragment

The Persians had all fled and the Kalmuks were all dead but the remnants of the Torguts and the Mongols rallied around thier khan in a solid ring of steel against which the wild charges of the Turks crashed and shattered like sea spray against a great rock. The turbaned forms ringed the circle of the defenders in waist high piles. But not all the still forms were Turks. The Tatars were falling fast. Great gaps appeared in the circle and seeing this, Galdan Khan drew off the light armed troops and while the light Kirghiz horsemen harried the Tatars, the Great Khan formed his heavily armed squadrons, the Janizzaries, and hurled them against his dauntless foes. Like a mighty tidal wave of steel the savage warriors swept across the gory field upon the Unbelievers. The shout of, “Allah il Allah – ras-soul-il-allaho!” rose to the skies and drowned the yells of the Kirghiz and the battle-cry of the Tatars. The Tatar formation was shattered and the warriors of the North were scattered like chaff before a whirlwind. But the battle was not over. Borak still lived and Alashan and Cheke Noyon and Ukaba Khan and some nine hundred Tatar warriors. Until a Tatar’s head is off never say that his fighting is over.

All over the field handfuls of Tatars stood back to back and plied their deadly blades. Some strove to keep with their king but that was impossible. Not for Borak Khan a back-to-back defense. He ranged that sea of whirling swords like a wolf in a sheepfold. Since noon when he had seen the Crescent banner come over the mountain pass he had known his great army was doomed and he had planned like a devil and fought like a wild beast to snatch vivtory from ruin. In vain. In scores, in hundreds and in squadrons his men had fallen and he had seen his khans, his chiefs and his councillors go down one by one. Now his spirit was not that of a king striving to save a great people but the spirit of a man gone mad with hate and the lust of slaughter. He fought like a – a barbarian king, like a man who’s standards are down and who has lost a kingdom. He had emptied his quiver, thrown his javelin, broken his spear, shattered his battle axe and now his gripped a long sword that was bathed in blood from point to hilt. That sword was like the hammer of Thor. In the hand of the devil incarnate that wielded it, it was a living flame. It cleft skulls, severed breasts, shore off heads and ripped up bellies. Borak had become in truth, the Wolf. Only four of his warriors could keep within calling distance of him as he hacked his way from one side of the field to the other, seeking Galdan Khan. These four were Cheke Noyan, Alshan, Ukaba Khan and Atai, chief of the Mongols.

In a space where the dead men were piled high and where no living man remained, the four paused for breath.

“Ai,” gasped Alshan, “the khan is as one possessed. Erlik, what a warrior! A falcon!”

Ukaba Khan smiled. “He is selling his life dearly for he is mad with defeat. That is all that is left to us. The Northern kingdom is no more. Hark, the Janizzaries raise already the cry of triumph. But let them not rejoice until they have the head of Borak Khan. For myself I wish only to die by my chief with my saber red with Turkish blood.”

Alashan sighed. “I should like to see Aina before I die.”

“If I can but face Zemal Noyan for a moment,” said Adai grimly, “I will be content to pass through the Gate In The Skies.”

Cheke Noyon said nothing. He flung his great, curved sword high in the air and caught it. His grizzled, lionlike head went back and from his lips came the terrible quavering yell – the battle-cry of the Grey Wolf Tatars. Swinging his heavy blade he hurled himself into the midst of the battle. The others followed.

The old chroniclers tell of that battle better than my feeble pen can narrate. They tell how the surviving Tatars rangen the field like hungry wolves. Of how Galdan Khan’s three sons and ten of his khans died by the hands of the Tatar chief and his four followers. And of how the four fell one by one. Alashan fell first, guarding his chiefs back. Then Atai bleeding from a hundred wounds, came face to face with Zemal Noyan and the traitor died beneath a Mongol sword and Atai died above him.

The Sign of the Sickle

Flashing sickle and falling grain
Witness the glory of Tamerlane.
The nations stood up, ripe and tall;
He was the sickle that reaped them all.
Red the reaping and sharp the blows,
Deserts stretched where the cities rose.
The sands lay bare to the night wind’s croon,
For the Sign of the Sickle hung over the moon.
Yet the sickle splintered and left no trace,
And the grain grows green on the desert’s face.

Mistress of Death

Ahead of me in the dark alley steel clashed and a man cried out as men cry only when death-stricken. Around a corner of the winding way three mantled shapes came running, blindly, as men run in panic and terror. I drew back against the wall to let them go past, and two crowded by me without even seeing me, breathing in hysterical gasps; but the third, running with his chin on his shoulder, blundered full against me.

He shrieked like a damned soul, and evidently deeming himself attacked, grappled me wildly, tearing at me with his teeth like a mad dog. With a curse I broke his grasp and flung him from me against the wall, but the violence of my exertion caused my foot to slip in a puddle on the stones, and I stumbled and went to my knee.

He fled screaming on up the alley, but as I rose, a tall figure loomed above me, like a phantom out of the deeper darkness. The light of a distant cresset gleamed dully on his morion and the sword lifted above my head. I barely had time to parry the stroke; sparks flew as our steel met, and I returned the stroke with a thrust of such violence that my point drove through teeth and neck and rang against the lining of his steel head-piece.

Who my attackers were I knew not, but there was no time for parley or explanation. Dim figures were upon me in the semi-darkness and blades whickered about my head. A stroke that clanged full on my morion filled my eyes with sparks of fire, and abandoning the point in my extremity I hewed right and left and heard men grunt and curse as my edge gashed them. Then, as I stepped back to avoid a swiping cut, my foot caught in the cloak of the man I had killed, and I fell sprawling over the corpse.

There was a fierce cry of triumph, and one sprang forward, sword lifted – but ere he could strike or I could lift my blade above my head, a quick step sounded behind me, a dim figure loomed in the uncertain light, and the downward sweeping blade rang on a sword in mid-air.

“Dog!” quoth the stranger with a curious accent. “Will you strike a fallen man?”

The other roared and cut at him madly, but by that time I was on my feet again, and as the others pressed in, I met them with point and edge, thrusting and slashing like a demon, for I was wild with fury at having been in such a plight as the stranger rescued me from. A side-long glance showed me the latter driving his sword through the body of the man who opposed him, and at this, and as I pressed them, drawing blood at each stroke, the rogues gave way and fled fleetly down the alley.

I turned then to my unknown friend, and saw a lithe, compactly-built man but little taller than myself. The glare of the distant cresset fell dimly upon him, and I saw that he was clad in fine Cordovan boots and velvet doublet, beneath which I glimpsed a glint of fine mesh-mail. A fine crimson cloak was flung over his shoulder, a feathered cap on his head, and beneath this his eyes, cold and light, danced restlessly. His face was clean-shaven and brown, with high cheek bones and thin lips, and there were scars that hinted of an adventurous career. He bore himself with something of a swagger, and his every action betokened steel-spring muscles and the co-ordination of a swordsman.

“I thank you, my friend,” quoth I. “Well for me that you came at the moment which you did.”

“Zounds!” cried he. “Think naught of it. ’Twas no more than I’d have done for any man – Saint Andrew! It’s a woman!”

There being no reply to that, I cleaned my blade and sheathed it, while he gaped at me open-mouthed.

“Agnes de La Fere!” he said slowly, at length. “It can be no other. I have heard of you, even in Scotland. Your hand, girl! I have long yearned to meet you. Nor is it an unworthy thing even for Dark Agnes to shake the hand of John Stuart.”

I grasped his hand, though in sooth, I had never heard of him, feeling steely thews in his fingers and a quick nervous grip that told me of a passionate, hair-trigger nature.

“Who were these rogues who sought your life?” he asked.

“I have many enemies,” I answered, “but I think these were mere skulking rogues, robbers and murderers. They were pursuing three men, and I think tried to cut my throat to hush my tongue.”

“Likely enough,” quoth he. “I saw three men in black mantles flee out of the alley mouth as though Satan were at their heels, which aroused my curiosity, so I came to see what was forward, especially as I heard the rattle of steel. Saint Andrew! Men said your sword-play was like summer lightning, and it is even as they said! But let us see if the rogues have indeed fled, or are merely lurking beyond that crook to stab us in the back as we depart.”

He stepped cautiously around the crook, and swore under his breath.

“They are gone, in sooth, but I see something lying in the alley. I think it is a dead man.”

Then I remembered the cry I had heard, and I joined him. A few moments later we were bending over two forms that lay sprawled in the mud of the alley. One was a small man, mantled like the three who had fled, with a deep gash in his breast that had let out his life. But as I spoke to Stuart on the matter, he swore suddenly. He had turned the other man on his back, and was staring at him in surprize.

“This man has been dead for hours,” quoth he. “Moreover he died not by sword or pistol. Look! See his features how they are swollen and purple? It is the mark of the gallows! And he is clad still in the gibbet-shirt. By Saint Andrew, Agnes, do you know who this is?” And when I shook my head, “It is Costranno, the Italian sorcerer, who was hanged at dawn this morning on the gibbet outside the walls, for practising the black arts. He it was who poisoned the son of the Duke of Tours and caused the blame to be laid upon an innocent man, but Francoise de Bretagny, suspecting the truth, trapped him into a confession to her, and laid the facts before the authorities.”

“I had heard something of this matter,” quoth I. “But I have been in Chartres only a matter of a week.”

“It is Costranno, well enough,” said Stuart, shaking his head. “His features are so distorted I would not have known him, save that the middle finger of his left hand is missing. And this other is Jacques Pelligny, his pupil in the black arts; sentence of death was passed on him, likewise, but he had fled and could not be found. Well, his art did not save him from a footpad’s sword. Costranno’s followers have cut him down from the gibbet – but why should they have brought the body back into the city?”

“There is something in Pelligny’s hand,” I said, prying the dead fingers apart. It was as if, even in death, they gripped what they held. It was a fragment of gold chain, and fastened to it a most curious red jewel that gleamed in the darkness like an angry eye.

“Saint Andrew!” muttered Stuart. “A rare stone, i’faith – hark!” he started to his feet. “The watch! We must not be found by these corpses!”

Far down the alley I saw the glow of moving lanthorns and heard the tramp of mailed feet. As I scrambled up, the jewel and chain slipped from my fingers – it was almost as if they were snatched from my hand – and fell full on the breast of the dead sorcerer. I did not wish to take the time to retrieve it, so I hurried up the alley after Stuart, and glancing back, I saw the jewel glittering like a crimson star on the dead man’s bosom.

Emerging from the alley into a narrow winding street, scarcely better lighted, we hurried along it until we came to an inn, and entered it. Then, seating ourselves at a table somewhat apart from the others who wrangled and cast dice on the wine-stained boards, we called for wine and the host brought us two great jacks.

“To our better acquaintance,” quoth John Stuart, lifting his tankard. “By Saint Andrew, now that I see you in the light, I admire you the more. You are a fine, tall woman, but even in morion, doublet, trunk-hose and boots none could mistake you for a man. Well are you called Dark Agnes. For all your red hair and fair skin there is something strange and dark about you. Men say you move through life like one of the Fates, unmoved, unchangeable, potent with tragedy and doom, and that the men who ride with you do not live long. Tell me, girl, why did you don breeks and take the road of men?”

I shook my head, unable to say myself, but as he urged me to tell him something of myself, I said: “My name is Agnes de Chastillon, and I was born in the village of La Fere, in Normandy. My father is the bastard son of the Duc de Chastillon and a peasant woman – a mercenary soldier of the Free Companies until he grew too old to march and fight. If I had not been tougher than most he would have killed me with his beating before I was grown. When at last he sought to marry me to a man I hated, I killed that man, and fled from the village. One Ettienne Villiers befriended me, but also taught me that a helpless woman is fair play to all men, and when I bested him in even fight, I learned that I was strong as most men, and quicker.