Swords From the West (67 page)

He made out that Osman was the keeper of the shah's treasure, which was kept in Bokhara, where no Moslem band dare venture theft. And that Muhammad knew to a dinar's worth the value of the treasure. Otrar, he suspected, was the northernmost fortress of Khar, and its capture by the new foe from the mountains to the north had impelled Muhammad to collect his army and march thither some months ago.

The chief of the barbarian tribes who had entered Khar was spoken of as the Manslayer.

On a landing-stair of carved marble a throng of Nubian slaves awaited Osman's party with sedan chairs. Link-bearers attended them, and the girl was put into a closed palanquin, Osman riding in a chair close behind. Robert, taking the arm of the blind priest, walked in the center of the company.

From the shadows of the alley ragged shapes emerged like lame crows hopping to a meal. They croaked for alms, and the slaves thrust them back with their long wands, shouting against the outcry of the beggars for a way to be opened for the wazir.

One of the ragged men stumbled against Hassan's chair, and a flood of obscenity welled from the lips of the singer. The beggar crouched, whining, and Robert saw that his cheeks were blotched, the flesh eaten away to the bone.

"A bow!" Hassan commanded one of his followers and snatched the weapon, ready strung.

The leper lifted swollen hands, and Hassan, smiling, ordered two of the slaves to hold him. Shivering, the Nubians sprang to obey. The bow twanged and the arrow shaft plunged into the creature's stomach.

The knight, who had seen many men die, was sickened, and fought down rising nausea.

"Have we come to the prison, my son?" the gentle voice of Evagrius asked.

"Nay, we are within the streets of a great city."

"The sound of it is evil," nodded the priest. "And the smell is foul, both of dirt and incense. So must Babylon have been ere it was cast down."

In spite of the fact that Osman seemed anxious to take dark and unfrequented ways to his destination, Robert was amazed by the size of the walled-in dwellings, the stone towers and marble pools that were glimpsed as they passed. Loitering crowds sighted them and stared at the two Franks, spitting and clenching their hands on perceiving the dark robe of the priest. Robert thought that surely Babylon could not have been a greater place than this.

At a bronze gateway Osman's escort halted, and the master of revelry hastened to his side. The man had sobered perceptibly.

"Lord and hadji," he muttered earnestly, "do not stumble with the foot of recklessness upon the pit of misfortune. The maid was to be sent to the palace of the shah with the other women captives. Will you dare take her within your dwelling?"

"0 small-of-wit," responded the wazir slowly, "if harm came to the Nazarene, who would face the blame?"

"You."

"Most true. And so shall I keep her safe, under my eye, until Muhammad returns. Who else is to be trusted with a pearl such as this, beyond price?"

"It would be better," objected the courtier, "to take under your hand the throne treasure, for safekeeping. That would buy allegiance of a host of chiefs, whereas a fair woman will-"

"Please the eye of Muhammad more than countless swords."

Osman signed for the palanquin hearing the captive girl to be taken to one of the buildings about the central garden, and gave over the knight and the priest to some guards, who led them to a postern door and up a winding stair for so great a distance that Robert knew they must be ascending a tower.

Upon a landing of the stair a narrow door was unbarred, and they were pushed into darkness. Robert bade the priest stand still while he investigated, and discovered that they were in a small, semicircular chamber furnished only with a rug and mattresses to sleep upon. An oval window, barely large enough to admit his head through, enabled him to look out over the garden, and he heard a voice like a nightingale's where lights glowed under the trees beneath the tower-

Wilt to Bokhara? 0 fool for thy pains!

Osman's tower proved to be the highest of the many minarets and cupolas of Bokhara-higher even than the emperor's palace, as Robert observed the next morning. Moreover in the open square and marketplaces near the tower were the tents of several thousand Kankalis-easily distinguished by their black cloaks and trappings.

Beyond the mosques and academies were the tents and picket lines of a host of mounted warriors. Where the caravan roads led into the gates of Bokhara's wall other pavilions were pitched. Although the distance was too great for the knight to be sure of the numbers, he estimated forty thousand men under arms within his range of vision and guessed at as many more elsewhere.

Hourly long lines of camels threaded through the gates and pushed into the already crowded marketplaces. Passing along the alleys beneath him, he made out throngs of mullahs, followed by their disciples, jostled by swaggering Turkomans and pushed aside by the riders that were continually entering and leaving Osman's palace.

And four times a day there floated out over the humming confusion of alley and bazaar the musical call of the summoner to prayer.

"Allah akbar! God is great ... There is no God but God ... Pray ye! Prayer is good, and the hour of prayer is at hand!"

The gigantic concourse, the uproar of voices, the smells-that rose even to the tower-wrought upon the senses of the watcher even as Osman's music and incense had failed to do and brought home to him the power of the stronghold of Islam. It was during the first dawn prayer, when the light was strong enough to read by, that he took out Abdullah's scroll and scanned it in the window niche where the guards in the outer corridor could not see him through the aperture in the door that served to pass in food and enable them to spy upon the prisoners. The letter began abruptly.

Salaam, yah ahmak-greeting, 0 fool! I have brought you to Bokhara, in spite of your folly which nearly made the Gate the end of the road.

Have you never learned that one rider can pass where four may not go abreast? Why then strive to befriend three others, and two of them weaklings?

But what is done is done, and what will be, will be. I have claimed on your behalf that you are the greatest of all the Franks, and it is well that the name of Longsword has penetrated even to the borders of Khar. The shah will desire to see you, and until his arrival you are safe, for I swore on the Koran that your disguise was needed to take you through the desert tribes.

l also swore that you had been cast out by your peers of Palestine and sought the service of Muhammad, for that also was necessary to keep you from being put into a shroud by the followers of Inalzig.

Your sword is more eloquent than your tongue; keep silence and listen, for Bokhara breeds more gossip than a dunghill vermin. Take these matters to heart, chiefly: Osman is only lip-loyal to the shah. The treasurer is the companion of Muhammad's mother, Turkhan khatun, who holds the allegiance of the Kankalis, who in turn are the backbone of the Kharesmian host. Osman secretly poisoned the emir who commanded the garrison of Bokhara, and would do away with the council of the imams, who are the Moslem elders. The shah fears him, the imams hate him. If he could lay hand on the throne treasure he would be master of Khar.

Ponder these matters and gather your strength again, for you will have need of wit and daring when I seek you. Bahator, a new path will be opened up by the next moon, and we will ride again.

Three times Robert pored through the delicate Arabic scroll writing and then thrust it into a crack between the bricks outside the window, wondering more than a little what manner of man might be Abdullah, who seemed to go freely wherever he willed and to judge any situation with a clear mind. The crusader was beholden to him for his life, and yet could not be sure Abdullah was his friend.

For days he paced the chamber, or slept heavily as they sleep who are casting off the inertia of sickness. And though he often pondered Abdullah's message, he could make little of it. He had come among men who learned to plot before they were weaned, who built mosques that outrivaled the Temple of Solomon, who could fashion weapons that made the clumsy arms of the crusaders look like flails and scythes. Without a weapon in his hand and a horse between his knees, he was restless; and often he found himself thinking of the girl who had come with the pilgrims to seek the Holy Sepulcher and had been led to Bokhara. Father Evagrius talked of her after his fashion, blaming no one for her fate.

"When all is told," the knight observed thoughtfully, "is not her state better here than on the roads of Palestine?"

"Is yours?"

"Nay, my case is different."

"You, my lord, have achieved much against the paynims. Will you swear to me that you will strive to speak again with Ellen d'Ibelin and ransom her from this infidel king?"

Robert frowned, chin on hand.

"Nay, that will I not. What ransom would suffice him who sits on the Throne of Gold? What have I?"

"My son, in this life we serve not ourselves. Not long ago the good yeoman leaped into the pool of the gorge and saved you from drowning, and thereafter the maiden tended you when the fever ran in your veins. What will you do for them?"

Glancing from the embrasure, Robert shook his head.

"Could you see the vast city and its wall, twice the height of Jerusalem's-aye, and the array of Moslems passing in and out upon the roads, you would not talk of hope. We have been brought hither like beasts for the eyes of the emperor to scan. Nay, Evagrius, 'twere folly to deceive ourselves. If the maid and the yeoman were free, and I, and we had horses-could we ride over these walls? And, even so, could we achieve a passage through five hundred leagues of Moslem lands?"

He laughed without merriment.

"Nay, Abdullah spoke truth to Montserrat. Whosoever enters Khar returns not."

The priest smiled.

"My blind eyes have seen more than that. The Red Sea dividing its waters, so that the Christian host passed through. Aye, and water issuing from a rock in the desert."

Evagrius nodded gently and sank into one of his long musing spells. Robert leaned back against the door, where he could listen to the talk of the guards in the corridor, and presently both were aware of a change in the sounds that drifted up from the alleys and gardens below.

The hum of talk had died away, although it was past the hour of evening prayer for the Moslems. In the water garden of the palace the companions of the wazir were sitting about their cups, and Hassan's clear voice rose in mockery above their laughter. Somewhere a woman began wailing, and slippered feet pattered along a corridor. A horse galloped furiously along the palace wall, and presently the hum of talk arose again in the alleys.

"What do the warriors, our warders, argue?" asked Evagrius, for the voices were louder than usual outside the door.

"They are disputing about the war. Otrar, one of the cities of Khar, fifty leagues from here, has fallen into the hands of the barbarians. There has been a battle between the host of the shah and the barbarian chief who is called the Manslayer."

Robert listened with rising interest.

"They say that Otrar was taken in a week, and ten thousand Moslems slain. A short siege, forsooth. Before that there was a battle in the northern mountains. One man claims that the shah overthrew his foes; another that he lost half his warriors-a hundred thousand."

"Who is this foe?"

"They name him now the Great Khan, which is to say Genghis Khan, and his tribe are called Mongols."

Chapter VIII

Not by the robe of honor on his shoulders, not by the sword on his hip, not by the words on his lips is a man to be judged.

When a friend calls for aid-then is the warrior weighed in the balance. And by his deeds, not by his promises, is the bahator judged.

The next morning the talk of the warders was that Muhammad was approaching Bokhara with his army and there was rejoicing in the bazaars. Carpets were hung out on the balconies overlooking the wide street that led from the Otrar gate through the righistan-the central square on which the great Jumma mosque was situated-past the two palaces of the shah and Osman, over the bridge that spanned the canal, to the western gate.

All this Robert observed, for his embrasure faced the east and north; but he saw too that while the Bokharians prepared a triumphal entry for the shah, many caravans came out of the east and passed by the city while none went the other way. He reflected that if the shah had overthrown his foes, merchants would not be bearing away their goods.

While he was watching, visitors came to his door, and he beheld bearded faces topped by huge turbans peering in at him. A low-voiced argument between the owners of the turbans and Osman's guards followed, until the door was flung open for the first time since his entry and a stout man with worried, sunken eyes walked in.

"This is the mullah," announced one of the spearmen, "who has in his keeping the Jumma mosque, and Allah alone knows why he is bearing you hence for a day, 0 dog of an unbeliever," he grumbled.

The mullah drew up the skirts of his silk robe as he passed Father Evagrius, and stared for a full moment at Robert.

"Are you verily the infidel bahator who withstood Nasr-ud-deen at Antioch and broached the wall of Damietta?" he asked in scholarly Arabic.

Robert bent his head to conceal his surprise, but the Bokharian guessed his thought.

"We of Khar are conversant with the events of the borderland of Islam, for this is the heart of Islam. The heart would not beat as high if a vein in one finger were opened. Speak, 0 caphar, for Abdullah sang your praises and made known to us that you are acquainted with our speech."

"True, 0 hadji."

For the mullah wore the green turban cloth that showed he had performed the pilgrimage to Mecca.

With another scornful glance at the impassive blind man the mullah signed for Robert to follow and led the way down the tower stair. In the street they were joined by a half-dozen dignitaries of the town, imams and kadis-hawk-faced Turkomans and stalwart Uzbeks, all looking more than a little troubled and all armed. They took the shortest way-as Robert knew from his study of the streets-to the canal and the wall beyond the bridge.