Swords From the Desert (46 page)

But Hassan drew his bow from its shoulder quiver and strung it. "Fool!" he muttered, "Think ye to throw dust in our eyes with such talk?"

"Look!" Yarouk whispered urgently. "By Allah-look at the mare, if ye will not turn." Sir Alan did look at the mare, as she flung up her head with ears twitching. If there were foemen among the boulders, screened by the brush, drawing closer while he sat in talk by the well, they would have bows and they would loose their arrows without warning. If he ran to the horses with Hassan, their backs would be turned to Yarouk ...

Suddenly Nadra screamed, "Aida! "

And Hassan dropped to his knees, whining. An arrow in his back, another in his neck. With the snap of the bows a yell burst from the rocks: "Yah ka fir!" Sir Alan threw himself back on the ground, reached for his shield as two more arrows flicked over him. Thrusting his arms through the straps, he sprang up, drawing his sword.

The boulders behind the poplars seemed to be alive with men scrambling forward. Five-six-seven. Instinctively the knight made up his mind.

Instead of standing his ground, he lowered his head, raised his shield and ran toward his foe. An arrow crashed against the iron shield and he leaped high. The first man, running swiftly, was taken by surprise and had no time to swerve. The edge of the shield struck the Moslem's throat and the pommel of Sir Alan's sword smashed down upon his forehead. He was thrown to the ground, unconscious.

"Kerak!" Sir Alan shouted. "Come ye and taste the sword! "

Two of them came-two who wore chain mail and bore leather shields and scimitars. They drew apart and darted in from the sides, the long, curved blades shining in the sun. One slash Sir Alan took upon his shield, the other grated upon the chain mail that sheathed his ribs. And he struck once, with full sweep of arm and sword ...

"Bows!" screamed a voice. "Slay the devil with arrows."

Sir Alan kept his head bent, his shield high and close to him, so that only his eyes could be seen between metal and metal. An arrow whipped between his legs, and he ran forward again so that they would not make a mark of him.

But they had seen him strike once, and they dodged like hunting dogs at the sweep of a bear's paw. A thrown javelin thudded into the iron chains over his chest, the point of it grating against bone. He could not spare a hand to pull it out. A sword-tip raked his thigh and warm blood ran down into his shoe. With his sword he met the slash of a long scimitar and broke it, the steel tip, whirring off.

"Yah Muslimin!" the same voice shouted. "Oh, Moslems!"

It was the one who had thrown the javelin, and he came on now, with a swordsman at either hand. Sir Alan planted his feet, flung up his shield, and struck to the side. His blade caught an uplifted arm and swept on, while the severed forearm, clutching a scimitar, fell to the ground.

But the third man-he of the javelin-was untouched, a stabbing spear gripped in both hands over his head. Fleetingly, Sir Alan glimpsed a jutting gray beard and slavering lips. And then the man stopped, rigid as if turned to stone in the act of slaying. From the gray beard protruded the feathers of an arrow, and Sir Alan saw that these red feathers were Hassan's-the shaft had come from the quiver of his dying sword-bearer. He dared not look behind him.

Another arrow flashed over his shoulder and ripped into the shield of the third Moslem. The man shouted and turned to flee. He was not quick enough. Sir Alan leaped and struck ...

"Div-div!" voices screamed in fear. "A demon-a demon!"

And they fled.

Then Sir Alan went back. Straight to Yarouk, where the young Arab, chanting with excitement, was stripping shield and armor and sword from the body of the graybeard.

"Friend or foe?" Sir Alan asked, sword in hand.

"Look!" cried Yarouk. "Look, it is the king of the vultures, the scavenger of the caravans. He is slain-Ibrahim the sultan, the accursed, who followed after my people this day with his swordsmen. By Allah, this is his sword and now it is mine!"

"Didst thou slay this Ibrahim with an arrow?"

"Nay-" the Arab, in his fever of exultation, hardly heard- "I watched, knife in hand. It was a stray shaft. It was his fate. Ha-there are rubies in this clasp."

"It was an arrow from Hassan's bow."

"Do the dead bend a bow? What foolish words. Look!"

By the well Hassan's body lay outstretched, a cloak thrown over its head. Beside it sat Nadra, tying up her goats with the rope that had bound her legs. Near at hand a bow lay on the ground. Uneasily she lifted her head as the two men approached.

"0 girl," said the knight curiously, "did thy hand speed the shaft with red feathers that struck the chieftain?"

Her eyes luminous with excitement, she nodded.

"But why? It gave me life."

"Truly, I feared for thee. If they had cut thee down, harm would have come to us."

Leaning on his sword, Sir Alan looked down at her.

"And how," asked the knight softly, "could you come hither and shoot arrows from a bow when you were tied upon the ground beneath yonder trees?"

Nadra shifted uneasily. "Eh, I untied the rope while I played with these little kids, when Yarouk came-"

"What is this?" The Arab gave heed at last. "Thou wert loose and free when we talked? And thou didst not flee? We could have escaped, thou and I."

"I know-but, 0 Yarouk, I longed to hear what thou wouldst say. If thou hadst not valued me more than the gray mare I-I-"

Her voice faltered. Here she stood, the young veiled girl, the voiceless servant of the men of the Banu's Safa, who had sat for hours at the threshold of her father's tent, longing for a single glance from Yarouk. And she had dared speak boldly to Yarouk before a strange infidel lord who was certainly a hero. "I would have gone with this unbeliever," she whispered. "He wanted me."

Yarouk's breath hissed in his teeth. "Thou, Nadra!"

But that day Nadra had been carried off by a man of steel. Yea, more, she had struck him with a dagger, and then had slain her father's foe, the sultan Ibrahim. By reason of her, Yarouk's arms had been loaded with spoil. If she did not speak now, when would she have the courage again? She stamped her foot and tossed back the black mane of her hair. "Yea, I, Nadra!" she cried all in a breath. "By Allah, this one is more of a man than thou-herder of mares. While thou didst stand shouting like a horse boy, he ran against seven. While thou didst sing about that bold heart of thine, he took me in his arms-"

She stopped, panting. And Yarouk stared at the girl he had never seen before-at this new Nadra with a will and a voice and a defiant beauty. Then he stepped forward, his arm went out, and he struck her with his open hand across the face.

His brow dark as if with fever, his eyes burning, Yarouk picked her up and carried her to the gray mare. He flung Nadra over the back of the mare behind the saddle.

"0 girl," he said between set teeth, "be still. Tonight thou shalt be a woman and the wife of Yarouk."

Fleetingly Nadra glanced down at him, and laughed a little from sheer joy. She had seen his eyes. When he turned back for the bundle of armor, she slipped down and retrieved her goats that were tumbling about the cord she had put upon them. With them under her arm she climbed back into her seat.

Sir Alan watched, motionless, leaning upon his sword.

A few moments later Yarouk turned in the saddle to look back at the well where the kites were dropping from the sky toward the bodies, and the solitary crusader, limping about his task, was piling rocks upon the dead Hassan.

"Wallahi-he is a man," Yarouk said.

But Nadra had looked back more than once. Now she tightened her arms about Yarouk's waist and laid her head upon his shoulder.

"But a man of steel unfeeling," she said contentedly. "And thou, 0 warrior, art lord of my heart."

Sakhri was loyal to her lord and, moreover, obedient. She was also lovely, as many Circassian girls are-tall, with a tawny mane of hair and long, drowsy eyes that slant up in the corners, strong-bodied and a little indolent-like healthy animals and still capable of unchanging devotion to the men who buy them.

Not slaves exactly. They used to be that, in the days when the sultans sat behind the Sublime Porte and few wealthy Turks lacked a Circassian girl in their harems. Not wives, as we understand the term. Just the veiled women of the household, the mothers of sons, the most alluring of them being the favorites. They could not read, and they were told that after death they could not share the Paradise of their lords, the men. Still, they knew a lot and the future never seemed to worry them. What was written would come to pass.

For centuries the Circassian families in the mountains sold their girls. When a child was thirteen, fourteen or so, she would be sent off with a merchant-disappearing without trace. That happened to Sakhri, after she had tended the cows for five years and worn the veil for three. The lads of the village used to follow her about, and she would throw stones at them, being a fastidious child. She also carried a curved knife, which she could use very effectively, having been called upon to slaughter lambs frequently when the men were off at war. The night before she went with the merchant she prayed in the stone masjid by the tombs and bathed herself all over. Then she put on her silver armlets and inlaid headband, not forgetting the knife that had an ivory handle. She was sold to one Uzbek Khan, who was fifty-six and already had seven other wives-Sakhri the Circassian being the youngest and the eighth.

Uzbek Khan was a man of note, since he held Al Arak, an almost impregnable tower by the caravan road-impregnable so long as he could pay the two or three hundred unbridled tribesmen who served for a mounted army. An experienced fighter, generous to his women, who had separate rooms and slave girls of their own. With Sakhri he was patient and gentle, smiling at her jealousy of the other women. She paid little attention to the ox-eyed Greek, or to the older ones who had borne children; but she waged a war of her own against Lali, the dancing girl from Isfahan who melodiously sang mocking songs about her. Sakhri, who was not unusually clever, could not think of a retort. But one day, with her knife she cut off half of Lali's dark hair, and when Uzbek Khan was told about this he laughed.

"Eh," he said, "she is a little dove with strong wings."

He loved her passionately because she was no more than a child. Her jealousy of the others and devotion to him pleased the khan, who preferred her fierce love-making to the more languid arts of Lali, who, besides, now lacked half her hair.

And Sakhri thrived under his adoration. She had armlets-silver set with opals, cat's-eyes, turquoise, and moonstones-all the way from slender wrist to shoulder, and she used attar of rose-plundered from Lali-to scent her straw-red mass of hair instead of the musk that had satisfied her until now. She learned to chew mastic and to eat sugared ginger by the handful. When Uzbek Khan and his riders went out to raid, she stood on the arched gate and screamed encouragement after them.

On such occasions the khan always rode a white horse with unclipped mane and tail. He carried a round wooden shield studded with silver bosses, and he wore two knives beside the long yataghan thrust into his waistband. But his pride was the Enfield rifle slung behind his shoulder, the stock ornamented with gold tracery. When he left his women on such occasions for a month or so, he placed no guards over them. Neither eunuchs nor armed slaves. His wives, he believed, would cast their eyes on no other men. Once a young dancing girl had done so, and Uzbek Khan had cut away her nose and ears and had sent her, unveiled and screaming, mounted on a donkey's back, to the other man-a visiting merchant who, upon this apparition of his amorata, had made haste to flee on the first horse ready at hand, taking no thought of his camel string or of the mutilated girl. Uzbek Khan let the man go-knowing the dancing girl, he did not consider the merchant guilty-but he kept the camels in trade.

During his absence with the army, he sent news to his family from time to time. At Al Arak they had a dovecote with trained messenger pigeons. The old Tatar who watched over the khan's falcons took care of the house of the pigeons, as he called it, and put a half dozen of the swift birds into wicker cages to accompany the khan upon a journey. If the khan wished to send word to Al Arak, he would repeat it to his writer, who would copy it down upon a slip of rice paper and put the paper in a tiny silver cylinder, which in turn would be fastened to the wing or claw of the carrier pigeon. When the bird alighted at the dovecote on the roof of Al Arak, the Tatar falconer would remove the cylinder and take it to someone who could read the message-to the old hadji or the mullah. So, those in the palace could hear the message of Uzbek Khan.

It was the only post in this waste of mountains between the snowcap of Ararat -where the people say the remains of the ark of Noah are to be seen, if any human being can scale the mountain-and the salt-encrusted shore of the Caspian. Civilization, with its telegraph wire, its siege gun and cinema, has not yet penetrated this limbo of pine forests that soar upward to bare rock and the eternal snows.