Swords From the East (7 page)

Still, a closer inspection disclosed the wooden effigy of Mary beside the skillfully carved cross on which hung the figure of Christ. Untold labor must have gone into the making of it.

Hugo glanced from it to the body of his servant, to the cabin of logs with the thatched roof, made after the fashion of peasants on his old estate. The floor was earth, strewn with pine needles.

He was glad that he had said what he did to the dying man. Probably, he reflected, there were some Christians among the Tatars here. Yes, that old Ostrim, the falconer up the mountain, was one. Well, this was their chapel.

And Aruk had said something about another Frank! That might well have been Paul. What had the Tatar hunter said? An ambassador from God? There was no one here, and the place bore no traces of occupancy.

Suddenly Hugo raised his head and adjusted the pistols in his belt, looked briefly to the priming, and went to the door. He had heard the tread of horses without.

The pine grove was filled with riders. Some wore the skins of beasts over armor. All bore weapons. They sat in their saddles gazing at him curiously. One held the rein of his horse.

"A strange congregation," thought Hugo, freeing his sword in its scabbard, "has come to mass."

For the first time monsieur le comte was face to face with inhabitants of the land in a body. His quick eye ran over the throng, noting the ease with which they sat their ponies, their garments of leather and coarse wool and furs, their wild faces and direct eyes. He picked out two that appeared to have authority-a huge, gray rider with but one eye, and a scrawny figure in a long purple tunic and square, yellow cap. Hugo suspected this last was one of the baksa, the witch-doctors.

This was the one who spoke first.

"I am Gorun," he chanted, "of the baksa of the Altai. I know when a tongue speaks a lie. I can, without touching you, place a serpent in your mouth and summon it forth. If I do not take it out it will sting you to death. Have a care, Frank-" his eyes gleamed shrewdly-"for you have come to the place of the other Frank!"

Hugo did not see fit to answer.

"You are a spy of Galdan Khan," growled Gorun resentfully. "You wear an eagle feather, like his officers."

A smile crossed Hugo's lips. It was like child's play. But, much in this manner, he had heard himself accused by a great cardinal at the court of France. So, he was an exile. What next?

"You came to learn the secrets of the other Frank, who came to spy upon us-and tell them to Galdan Khan," muttered the baksa. "I saw omens in the sky this dawn and said that evil was afoot. It is so. You shall have your skin pulled off and the noble khan of the Altai will take your weapons."

For the first time the one-eyed warrior seemed to take an interest in the words of the baksa. He glanced with interest at the silver-chased pistols and the long sword with its heavy hilt.

Just then a horse pushed forward into the cleared space between Hugo and the khan. Aruk bent down and touched his forehead.

"Grant me speech," he chattered. "May the fires of Yulgen burn me, but this is no spy. He is a falcon, or I am a toad. He is a chief of warriors."

"Proof!" screamed the witch-doctor.

"It is lying in front of Ostrim's yurt, feeding the crows. Aye, with four thrusts of his sword this falcon slew four robbers."

Aruk bethought him of something else.

"Before his coming the omens in the sky were good."

Hugo was surprised that the little hunter seemed to be speaking in his behalf-much of the meaning he lost, being rudely schooled in the chuckling speech of the Tatars. The exile did not know that a few hours ago he had unwittingly saved the life of Yulga, the beloved of Aruk.

At this Cheke Noyon, khan of the Tatars, raised his head and spoke for the first time.

"To the dogs with this squabbling. If this Frank is a chief of warriors, he is not a spy. Then let him use his sword so that we may see the truth with our own eyes. So, let him fight with all his strength. If he conquers our strongest, then he is a falcon and a chief, and no man of mine will raise hand against him."

Ere the last words had left his lips, Cheke Noyon was off his horse. Stalking toward the French noble, Cheke Noyon drew a heavy, curving sword as wide at the head as two hands joined together.

Hugo, hand on hilt, bit at his mustache. This was something of a Gordian knot. If Hugo should by chance strike down the chief of these barbarians, his own life, he thought, would not be worth a broken ducat.

So he reasoned, not knowing the absolute obedience of these men to the word of a chief, living or dead. Cheke Noyon made no salute with his weapon, or any feint. His first stroke was a swishing lunge that would have cut Hugo to the backbone if that gentleman had not stepped aside.

In so doing he felt the logs of the cabin against his back.

"Horns of Panurge!" he grimaced. "What a duello!"

Well tempered as was his long campaign blade, he could not oppose it squarely to one of the Noyon's cuts without having it break in his hands, so great was the bull-like strength of the old warrior and the weight of his huge sword, which seemed to be designed for two hands rather than one.

Nor could Hugo step back any farther. True, a swift thrust and he could pierce the cordlike throat of the other. But the mail on the chieftain's body made impossible any disabling thrust.

Quickly, as the Tatar lifted his weapon for a second cut, Hugo's blade darted forward and its edge touched the Noyon on the brow over his good eye. Blood ran down into the eye, but Cheke Noyon merely grunted with rage and lashed out again, blindly.

Cleverly the tall Frenchman warded the other's weapon, before the blow had gained force. For all his strength the Tatar was a child before the master of a dozen duels who had learned the tricks of fence as a boy. Hugo's skill was the more in that he never seemed perturbed.

His long blade flashed here and there, and the Tatar's rushes were staved off. The blood in his eye maddened Cheke Noyon. He seized the hilt of his sword in both hands, raised it above his helmet with a roar-and stared about him, dazed, with empty hands.

Hugo had stepped forward and engaged his blade in the other's hilt. The curved weapon of the Tatar lay a dozen feet away on the ground.

"Hai!"

A yell burst from the onlookers.

Cheke Noyon peered at his foe. Then, shaking his brow clear of blood, he caught up his weapon, tossed it in air, snatched it in his left hand, and struck as a wolf leaps.

But the gray eyes of the other had followed his movement, and the blow was parried. There came a clash of steel, a grunt from the Tatar, and his sword lay at his feet again.

Gorun spurred his horse forward with a shrill shout, seeing his opportunity.

"Sorcery!" he asserted. "0 khan, no living man could do this thing to the greatest of the Tatars. A hand from the spirit world has helped him. He has bewitched your sword. How otherwise could he overcome the lion of Tartary? Let him die!"

Hugo stiffened, realizing the danger that lay in the appeal of the wily baksa to the vanity of the old chief. By agreeing with Gorun, the khan could wipe out the stigma of his defeat in the eyes of his followers.

Cheke Noyon puffed out his cheeks, and his bleared eye flamed.

"Dogs!" he bellowed. "Is my word naught but smoke? You heard my pledge. This khan goes free."

He glared at Gorun.

"Liar and toad. That was no witchery. It was the blow of a man who can use a sword."

As the chief mounted, Hugo stepped forward, drawing the Turkish pistols from his belt. He held them out in the palm of his hand to the khan.

"A gift," he said, "to a brave man. In a battle you could strike down four to my one. I know, for I have seen the Cossack fight, and the Ottoman, the janissary, and the Russian hussar."

With a nod the khan took the weapons, looked at them, pleased, and stared at the stranger. He observed the dark face of the Frank, the keen eyes, and the long, muscular arms.

"By the mane of my sire, I will take you to serve under me. You are no nursling in war. Is it done?"

Hugo shook his head with a laugh. To serve under such as that!

The broad face of Cheke Noyon grew black with anger.

"Go your way, Frank, in peace," he growled, "but keep out of my sight. You have made me angry."

Hugo watched the riders trot out of the grove.

"Canaille-dogs," he thought. "Cerberus, it seems, has left offspring on the world. Ah, well, the old chief has good stuff in him."

He looked around.

"Ho. Aruk, you are still here. Tell me, where lives the other Frank who came before me?"

Aruk wiggled his mustache and pointed to the chapel.

"'Tis a queer world," Hugo ruminated, leaning on his sword and looking at the wide vista of the mountain slope that already cast its shadow on the grove. "Here in the place of the giants-or dwarfs-ruled by a bloodlusting Oedipus-why, he must have been a Mongol, a misanthrope, or a madman to come here. Paul-would he have come here?"

To Aruk he added-

"Did the Frank wear a long, black robe, and have a shaven poll?"

"Aye, my falcon! He was an envoy from God."

"His name?"

"Paul, it was," said the hunter carelessly, "and something else I cannot remember."

"Paul!"

Hugo lifted his head.

"Paul-of Hainault. Of Grav?"

Aruk rubbed his chin and yawned.

"Perhaps. How do I know? Yulga said it is written in the book of the Frank, under the altar."

Hugo disappeared into the chapel. Feeling in the darkness under the rude altar, his hand came upon crisp parchment. Drawing the sheaf from its resting-place, he shook off the dust and opened the goatskin cover.

On the parchment fly-leaf was the seal of a Carmelite and the name, neatly written in Latin-

Well did Hugo know that writing.

Paul, who had spent his youth shut up with books of the Latins and Greeks; who had pored over the journals of the Fras Rubruquis, Carpini, and the Nestorians who carried the torch of Christianity into Asia six hundred years before. He had come hither alone.

While Hugo had become notorious among the gallants of the court, Paul had given his life to priesthood. Paul had never been as strong as his brother, but he had the great stubbornness of the Hainaults. They had quarreled. Hugo remembered how the pale cheeks of his brother had flushed.

"So," Hugo had said bitterly, "you go the way of the coward to pray for your soul. I go the way of the damned. The world is wide; one road to you, another to me."

"Our roads will meet. Until then, I shall pray for you, Hugo."

And now, Hugo reflected, they had come to the same spot on the earth; and such a place. It seemed, then, that he had wronged Paul. The youngster-Hugo always thought of him as that-had courage. If he had come here alone he was no coward.

All at once he was filled with a longing to see the yellow hair of his brother, to hear his low voice. They would talk of the wide, sweet fields of southern France, and the high castle from which one could see the river-

And then Hugo remembered that there had been dust on the Bible.

"Where is the other Frank?" he asked Aruk, who was watching curiously.

"Under your feet, my falcon. Ostrim buried him beneath this yurt when the snow came last."

Hugo's mustache twitched and an ache came into his throat. He questioned the hunter and learned that Paul had died of sickness; his body was not strong. Yes, he had made only a few Krits out of the people of the Al- tai-Ostrim, Yulga, and two or three more.

"Leave me now," said Hugo after a while. "I have something to think upon."

"Will you stay here?" Aruk asked. "I like you, my falcon. But you have made old Cheke Noyon angry, and he is like a bear with a thorn in its paw. Come, and share my yurt; then he will not see you and bite you because of his anger."

Hugo waved his hand impatiently.

"I stay here."

During that afternoon, when they had buried Pierre, Hugo walked moodily among the pines, twisting his hands behind his back. The words of Paul had come true. Their paths had met. But now Hugo could not say to Paul that he had wronged him-could not delight again in the gentle companionship of the boy with whom he had played in what seemed a far-off age.

"I am an exile," he thought. "There was no roof where I might lay my head. So, I came here, where no one knows my name. But Paul, why must he come to this place of desolation?"

From the log hut came the murmur of a low voice. Hugo moved to one side and saw, through the door, that the candles were lighted on the altar. With a sudden leap to his blood, he made out a figure covered by what seemed a white veil, kneeling, between the candles.

Straining his ears to catch the words that were neither French nor Tatar, he at last made them out-for the murmur was only two or three sentences repeated over and over: "Requiem aeternam dona ei Domine-grant him the peace everlasting, 0 Lord," he repeated.

Now the figure stood up to leave the chapel, and he saw it was Yulga, a clean white hood over her long hair. She left the grove without seeing him. Hugo reflected that she must be repeating the ritual she had heard Paul say many times, without understanding its full meaning.