Swords From the West (75 page)

"Monseigneur!" cried the girl.

The eyes of the priest held a new light; no longer did they wander or lift viewlessly to the sky. They were fixed on the white wall, where the sunlight struck through a latticed embrasure.

"The mercy of God!"

Evagrius framed the words with difficulty, and then his voice grew clearer.

"I see the light of the sun! 0 blessed and fortunate! Nay, this is no abode of paynims!"

He glanced into the shadows, and Ellen sank on her knees beside him, supporting his shoulders with her arm. The hand of the patriarch felt her mailed throat and the steel head-piece.

"Who attends me? I cannot see you, but surely you must be one of the warriors of the Sepulcher. Behold-" his finger darted at the wall-"the tomb! Aye, the sun is bright on the Via Dolorosa and the walls of the blessed city. I can see the ensign of the Cross-there."

His eyes closed, and Ellen felt under her hand the heat of the fever that had made him delirious. Yet his lips twitched in a ceaseless smile.

"Happy are those who have taken up the Cross!" he cried again, stretching out his thin arms. "They are at home in Jerusalem, and the weary lie here at rest. 0 warrior, will you come with me to the tomb-yonder, a little way?"

"Aye, father," said Ellen, bowing her head.

"And bring the good knight Robert. For the Lord hath called to him the mighty men, and they come from the far places."

"Aye, father."

She eased the patriarch back to his couch and looked steadily into his face. After a moment she bent forward to close the blind man's eyes and to cross his hands on his breast.

"Evagrius hath died," she said to the archer, who had drawn nearer uncertainly.

"Nay," objected Will. "A moment agone he could see. 'Here is a miracle,' said I, and a miracle it was."

"Perchance it was, Master Will," assented the girl. "Now, do you, leave me, for a prayer must be said and candles placed fittingly. And then-what can we do?"

Will sought the garden and halted in his tracks. A dull crashing resounded from the alley, and the outer door quivered back against its bars. The wood splintered, and the head of an ax showed through. Catching up his bow, the archer strung it swiftly. Kneeling in the threshold of the house, he emptied a quiver at his foot and stuck the heads of a score of arrows in the earth in front of him.

"So-ho!" he muttered. "No friend knocks in that fashion."

The door fell into fragments, and the bars were cast aside by a tall Kankali who strode into the garden with drawn scimitar. The light of the afternoon sun was full in the man's eyes, and he saw nothing of the archer until Will's bow snapped and a shaft struck the warrior's throat, knocking him down.

Two others leaped over the dying man and started across the garden. Will sent a shaft fairly between the eyes of the first. The other reached the fountain, where an arrow clanged into the mail above his girdle, and he plunged into the water. An angry shout from the alley showed that the fall of the three had been observed, and the door remained vacant for a moment. Will heard Ellen's step behind him and called over his shoulder.

"We are beset by the paynims. Go thou to the roof with thy bow, but keep below the parapet. Watch lest they climb the wall in the rear."

"Who are they?"

"What matter-ha!"

The yeoman drew a shaft to his ear and paused alertly. Two shields had been thrust across the opening on the alley side, and behind this protection two warriors knelt hastily, bow in hand. They could not see Will, and he waited until they had sped their shafts hurriedly and without harm to him.

The attempt was repeated, more boldly this time, and an arrow thudded into the empty quiver at his foot. Evidently the assailants hoped that they had wounded the archer, because a Kankali ran into the garden, keeping his head down prudently so that the steel helmet protected his face. His round shield he held in front of his body.

Will rose to his feet and loosed an arrow that ripped through the tough hide target and pierced deep into the warrior's chest. The man stumbled and lay where he fell.

"They will eke be wiser now," he muttered, fearful that the Moslems would scatter around the wall and climb it out of his range of vision. "What tidings, my lady?" he called cheerily.

"I can see naught beyond the wall. What happened in the garden?"

"A fat man hath gone to pare the -'s! hoofs! His comrades hang back. Nay, I think they are brewing mischief."

He heard feet running in the alley, and a loud outcry. Then a couple of Kankalis swept past as if the fiend Will had invoked were after them. Ellen appeared at his side, fearful that he had been hurt, and they ventured a few steps into the garden.

Horses trotted up from somewhere and halted outside the wall. Through the door stepped a man who was not a Kankali-a warrior whose long beard swept his bare chest, whose iron helm bore the upper portion of a tiger's head by way of a crest and whose wide shoulders were wrapped in the tigerskin. Will fingered his bow, planting himself before the girl. But Ellen caught his arm with a cry of amazement.

"'Tis Ahdullah, the minstrel!"

Ahdullah, or Chepe Noyon, the Tiger Lord, glanced at them and laughed. Then, while a dozen squat Mongols crowded after him, he began to turn over the bodies in the garden to look into the faces, evidently seeking to identify one of them.

When he reached the last of the Kankalis, who had been smitten through the shield, he bent over and uttered an exclamation of satisfaction. The dead man was Osman, the wazir.

Chepe Noyon signed to one of his followers, who promptly struck off the head of the Moslem minister. Then the Mongols crowded around the two Christians to stare and finger Will's tattered garments. The archer faced them defiantly, while Chepe Noyon studied Ellen curiously. Resistance was useless, and the girl was the first to throw down her weapons.

Chapter XV

The Throne of Gold

Robert had been without sleep for a day and a night and the part of another day, so he had not been an hour in his dungeon before his head sank to the rushes and he fell into a dreamless stupor.

The opening of the door brought him back to consciousness, but his wounds ached and his limbs were stiff. He heard guttural voices that dwindled and left him to sit and to wonder first why he was in the dungeon and then-as the events of the last morning flashed back into his mind-why the door had been opened. The men who had come to his cell had merely glanced in and passed on.

He tried to get up and cursed the massive weight that cramped his arms. Picking up the spiked ball with an effort, he went to the door and thrust it wide.

The sun was setting, and the minarets of Bokhara were touched with the last crimson of the western sky. For awhile he gazed at the courtyard and listened, suspecting some new trick of the wazir's making. Every detail of the place was familiar to him, and yet everything was different. It was the hour of evening prayer, but no call of the muezzin was to be heard; no lights hung in the palace gardens, and no men moved about the courtyard. The gate stood open.

Robert picked up the morning star and walked out into the street, and his eyes puckered thoughtfully. The street was deserted. Opposite him was a potter's bench with a half-formed jar on the stone wheel and water in the bowl beside it. A dog trotted across the alley and entered the door of a shop. Bokhara was wrapped in silence. Although he listened, Robert could not hear even the whine of a beggar or the grunting of a camel. He surveyed the alley reactively, wondering if his senses had not failed him. Then he set out to walk painfully toward the house where he had left Ellen and Will.

At the first crossing, near the righistan, he heard horses approach, and blinked at the glare of torches. Three riders came up and reined in when they saw him-slant-eyed, squat warriors with spears slung at their backs. They wore wolfskin cloaks and rode small, long-haired ponies, and Robert saw that they were Mongols. They exchanged a few words, and one started to draw his sword, when another uttered an exclamation and pointed to the knight's surcoat on which the red cross was still to be made out. Robert caught the word "noyon"-chief-and guessed that the warrior had recognized him as the leader of the garrison.

They stared indifferently at his chains and the iron ball, and motioned him to accompany them, slowing their ponies to a walk to keep about him.

Entering the righistan, they joined other mounted patrols and headed for the Jumma mosque. At the steps two of the warriors took Robert by the arms and rode their ponies up the stair into the pillared transept. Here they dismounted and led him within the mosque itself, where torches glittered on white marble and gold and the great tiles of the flooring. Gathered near the entrance he found groups of the chief imams and khadis. They were holding the bridles of several Mongol ponies. Beside the noblemen were ranged scores of the shah's singing-girls, guarded by armed Mongols. Robert asked the nearest Moslem what had taken place in the city. The man only seized his beard in both hands and bowed his head.

"Hush!" whispered another. "The wrath of God stands near us."

"Where are the people of Bokhara?"

"Where is the snow of last year? Wo! Wo! All were ordered out on the plain save the grandees, and we-we must tend the conqueror's horses, aye, feed them with hay from the Koran boxes. Ai-a-ai-a!"

"How did the Mongols enter the city?"

The khadi glanced fearfully toward the rear of the mosque and tore at his beard. His plump cheeks glistened with sweat.

"How? Allah be compassionate to his servants! They rode in through the gates before sunset, for the keys of Bokhara were rendered up to them."

"Why?

Now the man looked at Robert and knew him.

"It happened thus, 0 captain of many. Osman and Jahan Khan decided on a sortie of the garrison, for the Mongols seemed to be withdrawing in confusion. Nay, it was a trick. When the warriors of Islam rode forth they were cut to pieces as a hare is torn by dogs. The plain is covered with the bodies of the Kankalis and Persians, and Jahan Khan fled toward Herat like a leaf before the wind. Then we within the city gave up the keys on promise of our lives."

Robert started and gripped the man's shoulder.

"What of the other Franks?"

The khadi moaned.

"What of one bird in a storm? Ask of him if you dare!"

A solitary rider sat in the saddle of a white horse under the colored dome of the mosque, apart from the captives. He wore no armor or insignia of rank. In the shadows at the rear of the edifice he might have been a statue cast out of iron. Even the white horse was motionless on the black marble flooring.

"Who is he?" Robert asked.

"He is the scourge that has come out of the desert. Aye, the Great Khan, Genghis Khan."

The crusader glanced with quick interest at the conqueror, measuring the spread of the high shoulders and the sinews of wrist and forearm. Only the keen black eyes of the Mongol moved, and Robert fancied they glinted with amusement when they lingered on the grandees holding the horses.

A touch on his arm made him turn, and he saw Chepe Noyon standing beside him; but a Chepe Noyon that no longer resembled Abdullah, the teller of tales. The chieftain had cast back upon his shoulders the tiger muzzle, and Robert noticed that the hair on his head had been shaved except for a long scalp-lock that fell from his skull to the tigerskin.

"Where are the Nazarene maid and the archer?" Robert asked him.

Chepe Noyon chewed his lip reflectively, glancing from Genghis Khan to the imams who were tending the ponies. Throughout the mosque there was only to be heard the snapping of the torches and the munching of the horses that were feeding from the Koran boxes.

"From that high place Nur-Anim was accustomed to read the book of the Moslems."

Chepe Noyon nodded at a miniature tower, some dozen feet in height, that rose behind Genghis Khan. It was shaped like a minaret with a platform and cupola in which rested on a sandalwood stand a massive Koran.

"There is the book that no one but Nur-Anim might touch."

He looked at Robert reflectively.

"Your archer slew Osman, which was a good deed. I have him and the maid in man's attire, in my tent. I came upon them when I followed the wazir. But Nur-Anim I have not yet unearthed. In all Bokhara there is no trace of his passing, yet he must have fled from the city."

He snarled in sudden anger.

"What avails the capture of the city without Nur-Anim?"

"The mullah? Nay, he is harmless-"

"As the fangs of an adder! You were slow to see the evil in these servants of the shah. Osman was no more than a cup-shot fool, and he died like one, striving to put his hand on a woman. Nur-Anim used him for a moment, no more. The mullah was the true master of Bokhara, for he had the treasure in his hands."

Chepe Noyon laughed grimly. "The mullah persuaded the shah to leave the treasure in the hands of their god, Allah. I have spoken with one or two of his priests with a dagger in my hand, and I know that Nur-Anim wanted you to be emir because he feared Kutchluk Khan, who was a wolf. Then he overthrew you and whispered to Osman and Jahan Khan to lead forth the army, and they knew no better."

He made a gesture as of gathering up sand in his fist and casting it into the air.

"A little trick served to break their formation, and then the Horde rode them down."

"But why did Nur-Anim-"

"0 little son, you held the wall like a man and a noyon. But you know not the ways of snakes. Muhammad is already shaken, and his power grows less; Bokhara will be razed to the plain, yet the treasure is hidden beneath it, and Nur-Anim knows the hiding place. When we have passed on he will come out and dig it up again. A hundred thousand have died that he might do this thing."

A warrior spoke to the chief, who took Robert's arm.

"Genghis Khan summons you."

Robert took up his shackles and stepped forward at once, Chepe Noyon walking at his side.

"I cannot aid you now. Speak boldly!"

A sigh of relief went up from the Moslems as Robert was singled out to face the man on the white horse, but he himself was too weary to feel either excitement or fear. For several moments he waited by the muzzle of the Khan's pony, while the eyes of Genghis rested on him. Chepe Noyon, after making his salutation, stood to one side to act as interpreter.