Swords From the West (77 page)

"What would ye, master? Ah, the good Christ aid us!"

For Robert had turned and was walking toward the nearest Mongols, swinging his mace in widening circles.

"'Tis madness for both to die. Bethink ye of the maid Ellen-"

"-who would hold me a caitiff and recreant, to strike you down!"

Robert sprang into the Mongols, who rose to meet him, growling and catching up their weapons. Steel ground against steel, and the great morning star swept clear a space about the knight.

Will Bunsley thrust a quivering hand across his eyes, then leaped after his comrade. His ax smashed down on the iron armor of the scattering Mongols and rose red, to flash down again until he gained Robert's side.

The warriors, who had started back in astonishment as the captives turned on them, closed in swiftly, making a circle about them. But Robert kept moving onward, and ever the iron flail kept clear a space before him, crunching into the heads and breasts of the men who leaped at him.

The knight was making his last stand, and all the power of his long arms went into every sweep of the mace. The ring shifted and changed to a black knot that writhed and twisted and finally came to a halt near the standard, where Will went down voicelessly and disappeared under the stamping feet. A man's spine snapped like a bent branch, and someone cried out:

"Subotai! Way for the Buffalo!"

The knot about Robert fell away as the warriors drew back, glaring and snarling at their victim-as dogs might leave the sight of a stag half pulled to earth. On his pony Genghis Khan had not stirred, although the beast snorted and stamped, a spear's length from the struggle. Only the eyes of the old Mongol followed every move of the men below him.

Robert reeled and steadied himself on his feet against Subotai's rush. His breath was whistling from his lungs; both hands were slashed to the bone, and blood streamed from his forehead into his open mouth. Recognizing the warrior of the buffalo horns as the one who had sought him on the causeway, he swung up the morning star as the giant leaped forward.

Instead of plunging on, Subotai halted, digging his heels into the earth. But Robert did not strike as he had expected, thus leaving himself open to a slash of the massive curved sword of the Mongol. The other warriors stood back to watch the two champions.

This time Subotai rushed in earnest, head up and shield down, his lips snarling and his sword arm swinging at his side. Both struck at once. The knight's mace smashed the Mongol's iron shield, and the sword swept the helm from Robert's head, sending him back, staggering.

"Hai!" Subotai grunted and leaped in, slashing low.

Robert could not parry the blow; instead of trying to do so he stepped forward, into the sweep of the sword. It bit into the mail on his side and thigh, snapping the steel links, and glanced down to the earth.

The spiked knob smashed down on the Mongol's chest, ripping off the iron plates and drawing blood in streams. Before Subotai could leap clear Robert dropped the mace and gripped him about the knees. Gasping with the effort, he put forth all the strength of sinews and back muscles, raising the struggling body of the chieftain to his shoulder, shifting his grasp in a second to throat and belt of his foe, holding Subotai at the full reach of stiffened arms.

No one among the watchers moved to intercept him, and, filling his laboring lungs, he hurled Subotai to the ground. The warrior, striking on head and shoulder, rolled over and was still.

Robert stood looking down at him, swaying the while on his feet from utter weariness. He heard Chepe Noyon call out, and the deep voice of the khan bark a command, and he tried to step toward the place where his mace had fallen, but had no longer strength to move foot or arm. He saw Chepe Noyon running toward him, felt the iron embrace of the Mongol's arms about his bruised ribs and looked up as a shout roared forth from ten thousand throats-

"Ahatou koke Mongku, ho!"

"0 little son," cried the Tiger Lord, "you overthrew the Buffalo! You lifted him in your hands and tossed him down! Hai! I chose well-by the white horse of Kaidu, by the eyes of all the gods-I picked a man!"

He drew back to look into Robert's scarred features.

"Did you hear the salute of the Horde? No man hath overthrown Subotai before. Nay, you know not the words of the Horde. 'Ho, brother, warrior of the Mongols, ho!"'

Genghis Khan spoke again, first to Chepe Noyon, then to a group of swordsmen who ran to the fallen Subotai and stood over him. The Buffalo had opened his eyes; now he shook his head savagely and sprang up. Instantly a score of powerful hands gripped him and held him, while the red glare faded from his eyes and he looked at Robert curiously.

"The command was given," explained Chepe Noyon to the knight, "to stay the Buffalo until his anger passed. You and he must pour water on your swords. The Khan is not minded to lose either of you."

Robert lifted his head with a wry smile.

"What mockery is this? I fought against you and slew many. Make an end!"

"Then will I tell you the judgment of the Khan. He said-

"'The two Nazarenes kept faith with each other, and so will they keep faith with all men.'

"If you will ride with us, you will sit in a high place at the feasts and ride the best of the horses and have a great tent. Little son, this battle was a test, even as my offer to you to surrender Bokhara was a test, and in each thing you have stood your ground and held to your faith. We have honor for such a hero, as you will see."

The knight was silent, finding this hard to believe. Yet the warriors he had wounded came to look at him closely and examine the morning star, utterly indifferent to their hurts. Subotai after awhile walked over and took up the mace, whirling it about his head like a sling.

He grunted something, and Chepe Noyon interpreted:

"He says that you are to make him such a weapon and he will go against you or any other three warriors."

Now Robert laughed a little unsteadily.

"Well for me he did not have the mace awhile ago. Nay, spare me another such test."

He remembered Will Bunsley and sought him out, to learn from Chepe Noyon that the Mongols had refrained from slaying the archer and had had him borne away to a tent to mend his wounds. As they talked, Genghis Khan wheeled his horse and made off, a lane opening for him through the Mongol ranks. Robert saw that smoke was rising in dense plumes over the wall of Bokhara, and flames, fanned by a stiffening wind, were leaping through the smoke over the mosques.

"'Tis the end of Bokhara," nodded Chepe Noyon, following his glance. "But the treasure is safe. Come, I have put aside a tent for you, and your share of the treasure awaits you."

As the windstorm lashed the plain and the horse herds of the camp turned their backs to the eddies of dust, the flames raged in Bokhara, and the plumes of smoke grew into great clouds that hid the sun and swirled down on the quivering tents. Robert and Chepe Noyon wrapped their mantles over their arms, and the knight shielded his torn face as best he could from the smarting dust. Coming to the closed flap of a round woolen tent, the Mongol raised it and signed for the crusader to enter.

Still holding his mace, Robert stooped under the pole that served as a lintel and the next instant he was fighting for his life. A scimitar smote his chest, and he warded a blow at his head with the handle of the mace. In the semidarkness of the heavy tent he could make out the figure of a Moslem in armor-a flying cloak and a curved sword that sought vainly for his head.

The figure leaped at him fiercely, and he brushed aside the steel blade with surprising ease and caught his antagonist fast within both arms. As he felt for the Moslem's sword wrist his right hand closed on the warrior's throat, and he was aware of a pulse that throbbed frantically under his fingers. The helm of his adversary fell off, and Robert released his grip.

But only to tighten his arm about the dark tresses that fell about the slender shoulders of Ellen, who stared bewildered into his eyes.

"By the Cross, demoiselle," he laughed out of a full heart, "hast still a mind to war?"

Her hands caught his cheeks and held him with rigid strength, while her warm breath beat against his throat. And he saw that she was pale as the white silk khalat.

"Ellen!" he cried. "Dost not know me-Robert?"

At this her eyes glowed, and she pressed her lips against his, running trembling fingers through his clotted hair, her throat quivering with sounds that made no words. Robert kissed her closed eyes and felt the weariness pass from him. Both flaps of the tent were ripped back, and Chepe Noyon strode in, hand on his sword hilt, looking greatly surprised.

"What-ha! No need to lead thee to the treasure, 0 Nazarene."

Ellen looked up as the light flooded in and brushed a hand across her eyes.

"My lord-I thought you slain when you came-I deemed you a Mongol, and I did not want to be-parted, again. Oh, what have I done?"

Her eyes widened, and she swayed back against his arm.

"What?" Robert smiled.

"Your face-and your armor hacked!" Tears started to the girl's eyes. "And see, your hand is slashed. Nay, I sought only to die, and now I have hurt you sore."

Robert stared for a moment in astonishment and then rocked with laughter.

"Little warrior, these few wounds were dealt me by the men of the Horde. Nay, Ellen, methinks you make a better maid than man-at-arms."

For many an hour they sat upon the rugs of the tent and talked, hand in hand, recounting all that had befallen them; and Chepe Noyon, leaning against the pole of the pavilion, took up a lute-for he was well content-and sang again for them the song with which he first greeted Robert. Until Ellen fell silent, her glance ever on the man who sat, chin on hand, looking through the entrance at the swirling sand and the riders that came and went.

"In another day, brave heart," he said, "Bokhara will be no more, and the road will be before us again. Chepe Noyon hath made clear to me the Mongol plans. I told him we would ride with them no-wither save to Palestine. For there is my place-and you did promise the good Father Evagrius to seek Jerusalem."

"Then will we go together, and you shall take Jerusalem," she nodded decidedly.

"Am I an emperor with a host?"

"Aye, so."

"Nay, I think not. Fair heart, our king lies at the island of Cyprus, and there we will seek him if we reach the end of the road. Yet none before us hath returned alive from Khar. These barbarians set out upon a way of peril, for they seek out Muhammad to overthrow his power and will follow him even beyond the Gates, to Baghdad or Byzantium. They would have me strive to aid them at siege and assault upon the great cities. Will you come with me?"

"Aye, so." She bent her head. "If you will have me."

"Then is your promise given." He sprang up, and Chepe Noyon rose. "And I will hold it binding. Aye." He looked at the Mongol, who held up his hand for silence.

From the center of the camp came the mutter of drums and the brazen note of a great gong. Chepe Noyon spoke, and the knight nodded understanding.

"The summons to saddle hath been given," Robert said, and his eyes gleamed with swift joy. "Never a queen shall have her coming heralded as yours, and never a maid shall put such a song upon the lips of the troubadours of Christendom."

Afterword

Six months passed; and John of Brienne, thirteenth King of Jerusalem, and his court rested at Tyre, upon the seacoast, where the barons of the northern provinces had gathered in general council to discuss means of holding their ground against fresh inroads of the Saracens.

The Moslem power had grown during the long truce, and the Croises knew themselves to be unable to stand in battle against the armies of the caliphs and the Sultan of Damascus if these hosts should be launched toward the seacoast.

At this council were gathered the lords of Ascalon and Acre, and the Marquis of Antioch, with their peers, and the leaders of the Genoese and Venetians. And the council came to naught because the young king lacked the personality to hold men united in a cause, and each baron thought for the most part of his own fief. Yet one curious and notable happening marked the assembly of the peers. A caravan entered the east gate of Tyre and passed through the wall coming from the valley of the Orontes.

The leader of this caravan was a strange figure. Garbed in the finest of Persian silks and the brightest of nankeen and cloth-of-gold, he rode a horse with trappings of silvered cloth. He was attended by a score of savage men armed with spears and bows, whose like had never been beheld in Palestine.

He bore with him a certain store of gold which he guarded carefully and was at pains to dispatch by agents of the chief Venetian merchants to Egypt, there to be paid to the Moslem masters of Damietta. This gold amounted to two thousand broad pieces, and the bearer explained that it was the ransom of a knight, one Robert Longsword, so called, who had been thought slain on the border.

As to the messenger himself, when his mission was done he called for the best wine of the taverns and the most skillful of the musicians and held revelry from the Tower of the Sea to the Sign of the Broken Sword in the French quarter. When he drank, his tongue was loosened, and it was learned that he, who had been esteemed a wealthy lord, was merely Will Bunsley, a wandering yeoman.

And when his gold and silver was spent he took service among the archers of the king and in time went from Tyre on a galley to Rhodes and thence to France. Those who had listened at first, drawn by the gold he had in his purse, began to laugh at his tale and call him a lying knave. Some, however, remembered the strange riders who had escorted him to the gate of Tyre.

But these had turned back at once, and few men believed the story of Will Bunsley, of Khar and its treasure, and an emperor of Islam who fled before an unknown conqueror.

Yet in time his narrative returned to the minds of the barons who had been at the council, and chiefly one Hugo of Montserrat, who had held his peace when mention was made of Khar.

This was when tidings came over the border of defeats suffered by the Moslems. Of Herat stormed by a new race of conquerors called the Mongols, and Balkh lost to Islam, and finally Baghdad itself fallen. So it happened that the power of the Saracens was not turned against the crusaders.