Swords From the West (7 page)

Ku Yuan dipped a cup into the pot.

"They are like wolves gathering together. And they are taking the road to Sarai."

"What seek they?"

"What seek the wolves? I have warned thee."

The sorcerer thought for a moment in silence. He was a Mongol from the Gobi, and he served Barka Khan faithfully after his fashion. He knew that Barka Khan, the lord of the Golden Horde, was far to the south with his army. So there would be only a small garrison in Sarai, the khan's city. These Moslems were going there for no good. He had observed that Yashim, the slave merchant, had landed a few days ago with a boatload of White Sheep Turkomans-excellent fighters but no kind of guards for women slaves.

"What hath Shedda to say of Yashim?" he asked finally.

"I sold her to the Bokharian only four days ago. Am I able to change my shape like thee and go among the swords of Turkomans to ask what her ears have heard? Go thou! She may not find it easy to escape again to me."

Mardi Dobro grunted.

"Have I not listened with the ears of a ferret? The men of Islam know not that I understand their talk. Certain ones came from Sarai to sit down with Yashim and Ahmed the Persian, who hath an escort of cavalry. The ones from Sarai bade them make haste before the ice breaks up in the rivers. Others await them in Sarai."

Sipping his greasy tea, Ku Yuan closed his eyes indifferently.

"The camel men in the serais know as much," he said.

"Look upon this." The shaman drew from his girdle sack the white sheep's bone and laid it on his knee. "Today I took the omen of the fire and the bone. This sign is a strange sign. First appeared the mark of water, so large it must be the sea. Then-look upon it-the sign of a sword coming from out the sea. Then here is traced the sign of war."

"Aye," muttered the Chinese, "a sure omen, when thou knowest the armed men are coming in from the sea."

But when Mardi Dobro thrust the bone into his hand, he stared curiously at the network of cracks. No human hand could have traced them.

"But at the end," he whispered, "there is good."

"True." The shaman nodded. "Ignorant ones, knowing naught of the powers of high and unseen places, questioned me. I led them astray. But I went to search out the one who might be the bearer of a sword. For the sword is one, not many." He shook his head moodily. "First I beheld a merchant of the West, a man of authority. I followed him and led him to Shedda, so that she might see him. But then I beheld a young warrior with a sword drawn in his hand."

He replaced the bone in his pouch and crouched over the fire.

"A foal, a colt untried. Still, I watched over him. He hath a lion's head on his shield and he turns his feet toward Sarai. What if he be the one of the omen?"

Ku Yuan only smiled.

"I led him to the merchant so that he should be cared for. This merchant hath many great chests with locks." The shaman's brow furrowed as he pondered. Without another word he departed, and the snarls of the beasts rose from the darkness as he passed.

Within a half hour he was down on all fours upon the ground, a bearskin pulled over his shoulders. Patiently, moving a little at a time, he made his way across the wide enclosure in which Yashim had pitched camp.

Avoiding the tents of the Turkomans, he sought out the great round yurt with sides of white felt bound upon wicker work. After a glance over his shoulder, he scratched gently on the felt.

After a moment slender fingers pried up the edge of the felt, and Mardi Dobro thrust through his hand, touching and recognizing a silver armlet that could only be upon the wrist of Shedda the Circassian, the spy of Barka Khan.

Even after that he whispered cautiously.

"What hath the peregrine falcon seen in the tents of Islam?"

"The Turkomans say there will be steel drawn in Sarai ... Yashim keeps a rein upon his tongue ... One boasted that more than twelve thousand Moslems are ready to arm themselves. The talk is of Barka Khan and the day when the ice will go out of the rivers. They will do nothing in Tana ... I have need of gold."

"As ever!" Mardi Dobro checked a snarl. "Nay, thou-"

"Be still. Yashiro pays little heed to us women, his head being full of other matters. His guards will look the other way for a gold piece, but they spit upon silver. Wilt thou say nay to the bearer of a falcon tablet of the khan?"

The shaman ceased to argue and felt cautiously in his girdle. He selected some coins and passed them under the felt to Shedda, who fingered them and gave them back swiftly.

"I said gold, not dog-dinars."

Pensively Mardi Dobro brought out three coins, smooth and heavy, and this time Shedda accepted them.

"Patience! " he muttered. "Nay, I have no more. Thy fingers would lift the horns from a bull. Now give heed. Thou hast seen the farangi merchant with the red beard. He rides to Sarai, as doth Yashim, with the next caravan. He hath with him only one swordsman, yet he bears heavy chests. He bath talked with Yashim, yet he buys no slaves. Do thou pry out what is in those chests, 0 nimble of fingers and wit!"

"Akh! Is that work for me?"

"On the book of the bakshi it is written that this Tron is a jewel merchant. Still he swears that he hath upon him only precious stones to the worth of a single horse. The chests are locked."

Crawling away from the yurt, Mardi Dobro gained the gate and stood up, chuckling to himself. After a glance at the stars to learn the hour, he retraced his way to Ku Yuan's house and found the Cathayan reading by an oil lamp.

"There is a letter," the shaman said, "to be written to the khan."

He himself could write prayers to sell to the ignorant. But a message to his master was another matter, calling for deft brushwork in the Mongol characters.

"By courier or pigeon?"

"By pigeon. It must go swiftly to the camp."

Ku Yuan brought out a small square of rice paper, a slender brush, and a tablet of ink.

"To the Lord of the West and the East," the shaman dictated, "from the humble reader of omens at the sea gate of Tana, these tidings. The wolves of Islam are gathering in packs about his city of Sarai, and they will hunt before the breaking of the ice. Let the khan turn his eyes to the golden domes of his city. His men there are few, the wolves many. Now, Master Ku, let me see thee make thy mark below."

Mardi Dobro could not read the lines of Mongol characters, but he knew the Cathayan's mark. Satisfied on this point, the shaman snatched up the rice paper, folded it, and rolled it into a tiny silver cylinder. He did not let the cylinder out of his hand until he had fastened it over the claw of a pigeon that he took from a cage hearing a special mark.

Going out into the darkness, he tossed the pigeon up and stood to watch it circle up against the sky. His keen eyes saw it rise and head to the south and west. Then he yawned and bethought him of sleep. Four days later the great caravan from Tana to Sarai was on the road. They had halted for the night in the serai at the beginning of the desert that stretched as far as the rivers of Sarai.

Tron, Nial, and the two followers had quartered their ponies in a corner of the enclosure. They bought hay for the beasts and brush and dried dung for a fire. The merchant, who knew the cold of the snow plain, had secured for Nial and himself two chabans-long sheepskin coats, with hoods that could be drawn over their heads and sleeves that hung down to their knees. Wolfskin caps and boots of soft greased leather kept them warm.

The walls sheltered them from the north wind. A score of fires like their own illumined the dark masses of camels kneeling by their loads, the lines of ponies crowded together, and the throngs of men: helmeted Tatar guards who watched, like the indifferent sentinels of purgatory, over the mingled cattle drivers, merchants, and princely envoys seeking the road to Cathay; blue-cloaked Iranis with towering turbans, shivering in the northern air; sallow Armenians gabbling in a tongue of their own; and the strutting bulk of pockmarked Yashim, the Bokharian slave dealer, who wore three coats and gave commands to a hundred wild Turkoman weapon men who served as guards for his women freight, and who had elbowed a Khotenese jade dealer out of the best place in the serai. Through this encampment moved Mardi Dobro in his red robe, alert as a dog.

After supper, while the Turkomans were noisily making the night prayer and the fires had died down to embers, Tron went over to talk with the Armenians, leaving Nial to watch the packs.

A half moon lighted the serai, and the swordsman retired to the angle of the wall, taking a sheepskin and the jewel sack with him. Here he could stretch out in the darkness and see all who passed in the haze of moonlight.

The Greek servant was snoring among the packs, wrapped up in a rug, and the guide had gone to gossip with friends. For a time Nial watched the bearded faces gathered about the dying fires. A figure would rise, now and then, and cough and come to the well near Nial to drink. Drawing the sheepskin over his legs, he turned over on his back, picking out among the stars the Flying Geese, with the Bear.

How long the figure had been bending over the packs he did not know. Raising himself on an elbow, he watched the prowler examining Tron's chests, and he heard the clink of metal thrust into a lock. The figure wore a hooded chaban like his own.

Taking his sheathed sword in one hand, Nial got to his knees and leaped forward silently. The figure in the white chaban started back, but Nial's free hand closed on the visitor's arm.

"Hai, thief!" he grunted.

A knife flickered under his eyes, and he bent his body aside swiftly as the blade ripped into the folds of his heavy coat. He did not loose his hold of the intruder and, before the knife could strike again, he swept the heavy hilt of his sword down on the other's wrist. With a sharp moan of pain his antagonist let the dagger fall.

Taking the other's wrists in his right hand-for the slender strength of the thief was no match for his own-Nial thrust the hood of the chaban back. He looked down upon a woman's heavy hair, bound by a silver band, and a young face, tensed in pain. Tears trickled from the closed eyes.

"Yah bint," he cried softly. "0 girl, what is this?"

From half-closed lids her eyes searched his face. Nial was aware of the scent of jessamine oil. He had not seen her before, upon the road or in the serai, and certainly he had seen none so fair as she.

Instinctively he relaxed his grasp, knowing that he must be hurting her, although her heavy sleeve had broken the force of his blow. He wondered what she might be and whether she understood Arabic.

"Who art thou," he asked again, "to steal in a corner?"

This time she answered swiftly-

"Hush, thou!" And then, imploringly, "0 my lord, master of swordsmen, I did not steal. Nay, I was looking only at the strange boxes."

"And their locks," said Nial, who had met other thieves upon other roads.

He set his foot upon the dagger, but he wondered again what girl of the steppes could have hair like that, and how she came to be loose, unveiled.

Most of the travelers in the serai were Moslems, and even Yashim, the slave dealer, carried his women in camel hampers.

"Nothing is harmed, my lord," she whispered, "and it would shame me to be dragged before the guards."

"What is thy name?"

She glanced from right to left.

"Shedda it is, and my lord hath hurt my arm."

Bending down, Nial pushed the sleeve back from her slender wrist, finding upon it a heavy band of silver. There was writing upon the silver of a kind unknown to him. As he peered at it the girl Shedda suddenly wrenched her arm free. Before he could seize her again she had darted among the piled-up bales between the fires. He heard a low laugh in the shadows.

Nial knew better than to try to follow; for a woman like Shedda would have men within call, and the men would have arms. And he had a mind to let her go. He picked up the dagger, and then remembered the jewel sack he had left in the corner.

Hastily he went and felt in the sheepskin. The sack with its barley and precious stones was gone.

Nial drew a long breath and silently cursed himself as he listened and heard only the steady snoring of the Greek. So the girl had tricked him, drawing him out of his covert while another, who must have known what to look for, had carried off the sack. But then, why had she struck at him with a knife? For he who drew steel in a serai must be ready for steel in return. Nial turned away and sought Tron among the blanketed traders.

"I have lost the sack, your sack," he said bluntly.

With a cry the Genoese sprang up and hastened back to their corner.

"Now tell me-" he whispered. "Ah, what in Satan's name?"

Upon the topmost pack of their baggage lay the leather sack, tied as usual. Tron snatched it up and thrust his hand within it. Then he shrugged his shoulders. The barley was there but every jewel had been taken out. He listened intently to Nial's account of the theft.

"Shedda!" he muttered. "Who moves like a panther and hath fire-red hair?"

"Red or gold."

"Yashim's slave." Tron remembered the courtyard in Tana. "A Circassian wench who will serve one man faithfully and draw blood or gold from all others. Eh, she led you about like a sheep. And this is your skill, to be plucked by caravan thieves."

"The fault is mine," Nial agreed quietly. "And if I can, I will make it good."

"A lordly pledge from a beggar."

"Yet," Nial added, "will I listen to no abuse."

The Genoese snarled, but put a rein upon his tongue and sought his sleeping furs. Both of them knew it would be useless to complain to the Tatar guards of the serai without witnesses to back their tale. A dagger gave no proof, and Shedda had not carried off the sack. To go to Yashim would be worse than useless. Only Tron knew the amount of his loss.

But within the week he discovered that the young swordsman, who had been tricked by a girl, could hold his own against men.

They were passing over a bare hollow, where a stagnant salt lake was bordered by white crustations, and the wind and the sun had swept the sand clear of snow. Red sandstone buttes towered over the hollow.