Swords From the West (69 page)

Muhammad glanced at the mullah.

"Is it true, 0 hadji, that the imams have asked for a new leader?"

"Protector of the Faith, it is true."

"Then I name the emir of the Franks, the conqueror of the Saracens, commander of the garrison of Bokhara."

A murmur went up at this, and men pushed closer to study the face of Muhammad. Until the shah signed to him Robert did not realize that he was the man in question. Osman for once looked utterly astonished, but the mullah seemed satisfied. When he stood under the elephant Robert saw that the lines of fatigue and worry were strongly marked in Muhammad's broad face, and that he was too restless to keep still for long.

"Will you swear, 0 Nazarene," the mullah asked, "to serve the shah in this thing and to give your utmost to the defense of the city?"

The knight looked up silently at the man in the howdah, who turned impatiently on the officers below.

"What is this? We have escorted this warrior from Syria, and you have failed to give him sword or armor or horse. A robe of honor for his shoulders, and do you, choose a horse from the best."

Several of the imams hurried off to obey, and Robert saw Ahdullah smile. Osman was chewing at a strand of his mustache, his brow unruffled but his eyes dark with anger that heightened when Muhammad loosened the signet ring on his finger and tossed it down to one of the mounted emirs, who pressed it to his forehead and extended it to the knight.

"Do you swear allegiance, Nazarene?" cried the mullah again.

"Tell me first," Robert answered slowly, "what authority goes with the ring?"

The keeper of the mosque opened wide his eyes; and Muhammad, listening, started as if he had set his hand on a scorpion.

"Power of life and death! Bokhara is in the hands of its garrison, and you are the leader of the garrison. My favor is accorded you."

The knight faced Muhammad, and perhaps he was the calmest man of them all because he was skeptical.

"0 king, I have heard. What then of Osman? Can there be two moons in the same night? Is my word to be obeyed over his?"

"Boldly have you spoken, 0 emir."

Muhammad did not seem displeased this time, and he gave the knight the Moslem title.

"Yah khawand, the men of the garrison will obey your commands; a fiirman, a decree, shall be written for their leaders to see. The good wazir has authority in matters of the treasury."

He glanced restlessly at the tall crusader.

"It has been dinned into my ears by my councilors that you are the one man who can defend the wall of Bokhara. Give me your pledge that you will do so!"

"Speak, fool," whispered Abdullah, reining his horse nearer Robert.

"First," observed the knight, "do you, pledge me safety from harm for three persons."

"Allah, what are they?"

"The Nazarene damsel carried from Palestine by Inalzig Khan and her companion the archer, and-" Robert turned to the mullah-"the priest Evagrius."

"They are yours."

Robert bent his head.

"0 king, there be many witnesses to that promise. And to mine. I swear that I will do my utmost to hold Bokhara for you against your foes."

"You have my leave to withdraw."

The man in the howdah turned to speak to the mullah, when a rider passed forward from the rear and rose in his stirrups to exchange a quick word with Muhammad-a word of warning, Robert thought. The shah uttered a sharp command, the mahout tugged at the elephant's neck with his hook and the great beast swayed into a walk, then broke into a long shamble, followed by the others.

The Bokharians were forced to scramble aside, out of the way, and a disorderly horde of infantry flooded the square, pushing after the elephants. The throng on the housetops and about the mosque knew by now-for tidings travel swiftly in a Moslem crowd-that the shah was minded to leave the city with the troops that attended his person, and that he had appointed a captive, an infidel, to take command of the garrison. Even now the crowd, fatalists without the power of acting on their own initiative, made no protest at the departure of their shah. As the glittering elephant swept by, the throngs prostrated themselves; and something like silence settled on the square, where a dozen officers stood about Robert, who was staring at the ring in his palm.

Osman was the first to move forward.

"Salaam, yah khawand. We have heard the word of the lord of Khar, and there is naught but obedience in our hearts. Command, and my men obey."

The mullah came next, followed by the nobles, who bore a shirt of silvered chain mail, a crested helmet and a cloak of black silk. They took off Robert's old khalat and fitted on the mail, slipping the cloak over it and winding his waist with a girdle of cloth of gold. A scimitar of blue steel with a hilt set with glittering gems was offered to the knight, and he took it. Still doubtful of the reality of the honor, he gathered up the reins of a white Arab pony with the mane and head of a king's charger. When he swung into the saddle he flushed with sheer pleasure.

"Salaam, bahator," his companions saluted him.

Robert raised his sword and took up his rein.

Abdullah came to his side. "A slave's greetings to Iskander," he cried. "May the road of your namesake be open before you."

Chapter IX

Will Finds a Bow

With some ten thousand staring at him, the new Emir of Bokhara issued his first commands and watched without seeming to do so to see if each were acknowledged-Abdullah finding great amusement thereby.

Robert appointed a conference for the chiefs of the various tribes in the courtyard of the shah's palace two hours hence. He called the several atabegs within view to him, and sent one to take immediate charge at every gate of the city. The imams he requested to draw up lists of the amount of food in the granaries and the total of the weapons stored in the armories.

From the crowd he picked out the Turkoman beg who had talked about killing him, and the man knelt with quivering cheeks, evidently expecting that he would be given over to torture. Instead he was bade to select a hundred riders and set out to the east to establish an advanced post beyond sight of the city. Other detachments were ordered off, to patrol the river and caravan tracks beyond the walls.

His commands were received with the deepest respect and executed at once. Robert, aware of the mullah at his elbow, turned in his saddle.

"0 hadji, is it fitting that the leader of your warriors should stretch his cloak in an alley and have the sky for a roof?"

The keeper of the temple started, eyed the knight keenly a moment and nodded gravely.

"True. A house shall be made ready in the garden quarter by the river, and slaves-"

"To this house," Robert suggested to Osman, "the blind priest and the archer can be sent before the hour is ended."

The wazir bowed in silence.

"And the Nazarene maid."

Their eyes met, and the minister of the shah twisted his fingers in the pearls that hung from his throat.

"Yah khawand! What words are these? In this place? To name a woman before listeners is to shame a follower of the Prophet!"

"Yet, 0 wazir, I am a Nazarene and a man of my word. If the maid is not placed in this dwelling, unharmed, before the sands have run from the hour-glass I shall open your gate with a thousand spears."

Osman exchanged glances with the mullah and extended both hands open before him.

"Who am I but the slave of him who has honored you? It shall be as you have said."

Robert watched him out of sight, well aware that he had made at least one bitter enemy. Turning the long ring on his finger, he studied the massive sapphire, cut in the form of a seal, in the gold setting. Then he raised his head and smiled.

"Here is a riddle, and I would know the answer in true words."

"Command me," suggested Abdullah promptly, but Robert shook his head.

"Hadji," he asked of the mullah, "have you in your house a hamman, a bath where the bathmen are discreet? Then may I be your guest for onehalf of the hour?"

Surprised, the mullah signed for him to ride to the rear of the mosque, and Abdullah stared after the two thoughtfully. The boy Hassan approached his horse and peered up mockingly.

"Lick thy palm, 0 teller of tales. The cup-companion is the favorite of a day and then-the dust of the rose petal remains to the seller of perfume."

Having launched this shaft the boy darted away and overtook Osman's palanquin at the gate of the wazir's palace, hearkening with interest to the low-voiced exclamations of his patron.

"0 dog of a mongrel pack! 0 eater of filth! To claim with a loud tongue what was mine! Son of dishonor and father foulness! To speak of the maid that would have been mine-aye, before a multitude! 0 fool and madman-Nazarene, prince of unbelievers-thy grave will be dug by jackals, and dogs will tear it loose again. May the bones of thy mother and thy father's father suffer a like fate."

Perceiving Hassan awaiting him, Osman mastered his rage somewhat and ordered the singer to run to the dwelling that was being prepared for the Frank, and stint not gold among the slaves selected by the imams for his service. Having confidently expected this command, Hassan made off blithely, for here was a matter dear to his heart, and a quarrel out of which a song might be made to quiet his master in another, more fortunate hour.

Robert understood the Turkish character well enough to be quite sure that the shah's ring and the imperial decree would not serve to keep him his command if he failed to enforce his authority by his personality. He did not wish to appear before the chiefs in council until he had learned something about them and the situation in general. To talk with Abdullah would be a mistake, because the Bokharians would conclude that he relied greatly on the minstrel.

Nur-Anim, the mullah, was a man wise beyond his years and a shrewd schemer, with the fire of fanaticism behind his close-set eyes. Robert had reasoned that he was the second most influential leader of the Bokharians; and he wished to question the mullah before Osman could talk with him, knowing well that he would be answered with half-truths and lies, out of which he might put together some guess as to why the sword and the ring had been bestowed upon him.

"Little time have we, Nur-Anim," he observed, refusing the offer of sweetmeats and fruit and a seat on the mullah's carpet, "to sit on the carpet of counsel. Is it not true that Muhammad was overthrown in the battle at the Takh-i-suleiman and lost half his men? And that his foes the Mongols are pursuing him apace? Nay, they are not fifty leagues behind."

He had reasoned this out in the bath, judging that no one not harassed by pursuit would appoint a commander in the great city of Bokhara in such haste. Nur-Anim inclined his head.

"The Mongols are horsemen and ride swiftly," went on Robert, who had remembered what his guards gossiped, but chose to let Nur-Anim think he was well informed. "And they number full as many as the warriors within Bokhara."

"Nay, the sum of their strength-may Allah not prosper it-is somewhat greater than one hundred thousand."

The mullah considered.

"We have twenty thousand more under your orders, and the slaves besides."

"Who are the most experienced atabegs?"

"Kutchluk Khan, the Uzbek."

The mullah pronounced the name with distaste.

"Leader of the horsemen of Turan-a one-eyed wolf who can scent plunder farther than a vulture can see a dead horse. And next to him Jahan Khan, chief of the Kankalis, who can cut a sheep in halves with a scimitar stroke. Sixty thousand follow them, and their pay takes the revenues of one-tenth Bokhara's trade."

There were others-the captain of the Persian mailed archers, and only one a noble of Khar. Robert began to see light. These leaders of the tribes were hired retainers. Gold was the tie that bound them-for the most part-to Muhammad, who had much gold. Their homes were elsewhere, and they lost little chance to quarrel and plot against each other.

If Muhammad had chosen one of them for emir the jealousy of the others would have flared up, and the leader would have had his hands full with the pack. Whereas, led by a stranger, they might fight well; at least until the fighting around Bokhara was at an end, and Robert was glad to learn that he had such men among the garrison.

When he asked about the Mongols and the Manslayer, Nur-Anim could say only that the foes of Khar were wild tribesmen, infidels, who had emerged from the Himalayas, coming down from the Roof of the World like a black storm. Ignorant of the strength of Bokhara, and lacking siege engines, they would be crippled under the wall and cut up by Muhammad when the shah raised a fresh army in the south.

"Where does Osman keep the treasure of the throne?" Robert asked suddenly.

He knew that the treasure was in the city, and that the shah had not taken it away.

Nur-Aniin started and suppressed a smile.

"Would Muhammad entrust the treasure of Khar to a wazir whose palace was surrounded by wolves like Kutchluk Khan?"

"Yet Osman knows the place of its hiding-as you do! "

"Am I a servant of the shah-that I should keep the keys? Nay, I serve the mosque."

He glanced contemptuously at the Nazarene who could be foolish enough to ask such questions.

"What if the Mongols take the city? The wealth of Khar would fall into their hands."

"They would not find it. Not if they tore down the dungeons and let the water out of the tanks."

This explained somewhat the readiness with which Muhammad left his personal hoard of riches behind. And Robert fancied that if he had tried to bear off the treasure the atabegs and the garrison would have made trouble. Pretending disbelief, he asked if a guard should not be set about the place where the treasure was kept.

Nur-Anim turned aside to take up some sugared fruit.

"There be watchers that stand over the Throne of Gold. For a hundred moons they have watched, and not Osman himself would dare draw sword against them."

"With Allah are the keys of-the unseen."

Robert took his leave and went out, the mullah staring after him a long time and wondering whether the new emir was really as simple as he seemed, for Nur-Anim was shrewder than others. The knight circled the precincts of the mosque, within which he was forbidden to set foot. He found an escort of a score of Kankalis and its many lean Turkomans awaiting him.