Swords of the Steppes Read online

  The Mongol—this being an excellent place to overhear talk—dropped a coin in the hat and watched gravely when the miniature actors began to dance again on their strings, while a hunchback tortured melody from an ancient fiddle.

  Horses entered the narrow street, and when the crowd turned to stare the sable-clad Mongol glanced sidewise. A party of boyars were escorting a sleigh toward the Kremyl, and in the sleigh was nothing but a long casket-like object wrapped in silk. So solemn the riders, so fantastic the tasseled sleigh with its inanimate burden—the procession seemed to be a ritual of some kind.

  By token of the bossed trappings of the horses, and the cloth-of-gold that covered the wooden saddles, the riders were men of rank. The crowd gave back, bowing, to clear the way, and the leaders were preparing to move on, when a merry chiming of bells sounded, and a three-horse sleigh entered the far end of the street, rounding the corner at a gallop, in a swirl of snow.

  At a cry from the driver the three coal-black Tartar steeds checked and slid to a halt, obedient to the voice rather than to any tug of the reins. The bells jangled and tinkled musically as the horses stood, pawing at the trodden snow, their nostrils steaming. Kirdy eyed them admiringly before he spared a glance for the owner of the flying sleigh.

  Then he lifted his head, forgetting for an instant the part he played, the boyars, and the horses. A girl was in the sleigh, a white bearskin wrapped around her.

  Instead of the silver headgear of a noblewoman, she wore a fur cap, as dark as the eyes that gleamed with suppressed amusement at the cortege her horses had blocked. She sat erect, her silk sarafan shining upon slim shoulders, and all at once she smiled. So unexpectedly friendly was this smile, the men around Kirdy laughed good-naturedly.

  "Ekh!" one muttered "what a splendid beauty—and no one to sit at her side, the divchina!"

  The leader of the boyars motioned at her impatiently.

  "Out of the way, wanton!"

  The girl's smile vanished, and her cheeks became colorless on the instant. She searched the faces of the riders as if they were past all understanding. Kirdy knew that Muscovite women of rank were kept as closely secluded as Mohammedan wives and he suspected that it was unwonted for a young girl to ride through the streets after torchlight.

  But the occupant of the sleigh allowed scant time for thought. Springing to her feet, she snatched the whip from the driver's hand and lashed across the face the boyarin who had spoken to her. It was a long Cossack nagaika, and the flick of it drew blood on the noble's cheek.

  "A thousand devils take you!" he roared drawing back instinctively.

  "Go past!" She pointed with the whip, eyes and lips defiant. "Go, seigneur, and take your grave thieves with you."

  The bearded riders came forward to cluster about the leader and whisper to him. Whether they did not know how to deal with the young woman, or whether they disliked the attention they were attracting, they reined their horses past the sleigh, forcing the crowd still farther back so that their own vehicle could edge by the three blacks.

  But the leader, shaking off his companions, trotted back to the sleigh and bent down to peer at the girl with the whip.

  "I shall look for you," he said calmly, "tomorrow."

  Paying him no further heed, she handed back the whip to the driver, and then glanced with quick interest at Karai. The gaunt wolfhound had come into the street to sniff at the horses' tracks, and approached the sleigh at her call, placing his forepaws on the side of the vehicle. Kirdy strode after him with an exclamation, because the driver had started back and Karai was not tolerant of whips.

  "He is more than half wolf!" the girl said.

  She rubbed her fingers through the shaggy hair of the borzoi's throat, and though Karai's ears went back instinctively, his tongue lolled out pacifically.

  "O Cathayan, have you come to the carnival?" she added with thoughtful, searching eyes on Kirdy.

  He bowed, to imply ignorance of the Muscovite words, and began to slip the leash of his whip around Karai's throat. Then, to his utter astonishment, the girl in the sleigh spoke in fluent Manchu-Tartar that is the dialect of High Asia.

  "O son of white-boned fathers, you are far from the land of many rivers and the heavenly mountains. Surely you are an envoy to the court of the White Emperor."

  Still stooping over the wolfhound, he pondered his reply.

  "Daughter of distinction I have no honor here. In the city of the Ta-jen I am no more than a wanderer without servants or friends."

  If his ready answer surprised her, she gave scant sign of it.

  "You wear no sword, O wanderer!"

  Sweeping his long arm toward the throng, as if to indicate the uselessness of a solitary weapon among so many strangers, he would have withdrawn but the girl was not yet satisfied.

  "Friends! Surely in this place a man has need of friends. Come with me. We shall talk together, you and I—for I am of the Altyn-juz, the Golden Horde."

  Kirdy regarded her calmly. This girl did not appear to be a Muscovite. And he knew that no European woman would speak the language of the Altyn-juz, which was the great horde that ruled the pastures of High Asia between Cathay and the farthest posts of Muscovy. Her eyes were dark enough, but her skin much too clear for a native woman—and certainly no woman of the tribes would dare ride alone and whip a boyarin.

  He assured himself that this must be a girl of the half-world, a spoiled mistress of some lord of the frontier who owned the three horses and the sleigh. It would be better not to accompany her.

  "I am Nada," she said gravely, as if she had followed his thoughts. "My house is near the Kremyl wall."

  Hitherto, Kirdy had not pondered the matter of a name. It would not do to hesitate in naming himself to this girl, and he did some quick thinking. The garments he wore were those of a prince of the Altyn-juz, the Golden Horde. But the girl had just claimed this people for her own. She might possibly know the names of the reigning families—among the nomad chivalry of High Asia the family ties are strict and descent a matter of pride and knowledge of twenty generations. And Kirdy was not apt at lies.

  "I am Ak-Sokol of the Sha-mo," he said calmly.

  He had told the exact truth. He was the White Falcon of the Sandy Desert that was called the Gobi. He did not add that Cossacks and not Mongols had given him this name—the same in both languages. And he had been born in the Gobi.

  "From where, in the Sha-mo?" she asked instantly.

  Now the Gobi is a vast deal of land, including such things as rolling prairies and burning basins of land—rivers and barren mountain ranges.

  "From the place of shifting sands where the sun rises beyond the Mountains of the Eagles," he responded, again taking refuge in the truth. He knew the Gobi.

  Nada's dark eyes gleamed with inward excitement or amusement. Clapping her hands suddenly, she laughed.

  "O White Falcon, you please me. You have said well."

  The laugh itself was mockery and the words hinted at unbelief. Because a Mongol prince is not supposed to endure ridicule, Kirdy saw that a chance was open to him to withdraw. He glanced up and down the street and stepped back, drawing Karai with him and silently cursing the dog's unwillingness to leave the sleigh.

  "The way to your house is open, daughter of unwisdom," he assured Nada.

  "And you will come—if you are not afraid of me. Kai, my lord of the Black Tents, prince of swords—now I know of a surety that you are the envoy sent to this court by my people. On the steppe I heard a tale that you were frozen to death, at the border river. My heart is glad that you live. Why do you take another name? Come and tell me!"

  Kirdy wished that he could read Nada's thoughts as she seemed able to read his. Swift reflection gave him little comfort, because he understood that she must have known the envoy who was killed by the bitter cold down the Volga—as Yusyski the Jew had assured him. Now he wore the garments of the dead—who had borne another name.

  So he did the simplest thing and seated himself beside he
r in the narrow sleigh. The hunchback by the fire took up his fiddle again, and the mountebank the strings of his marionettes. The crowd settled down to watch the play of the miniature actors, and the sleigh sped away while the bells chimed cheerily and Karai, his tongue hanging out on one side, trotted along behind looking every bit as wise and satisfied as Mephis-topheles himself.

  "I bid you to my bread and salt."

  Nada, from between the two candles at the table's end, inclined her head to her guest. Kirdy took in his hand the cup offered to him by one of her servitors and bowed—a little stiffly by reason of the heavy sword slung within his fur mantle. Then before drinking he was careful to pour a driblet to the four quarters of the winds, as a Mongol should.

  "Paniha-boumbi—my thanks to you!"

  Well aware that he was being tested—though Nada gave no sign of it— he selected his food frugally. It was as natural that she should offer him refreshment in her house as that he should accept. The tea was seasoned with mutton fat, and he smacked his lips noisily over it; and he grunted loudly when he had eaten meat, to show a Mongol's appreciation of good things.

  Meanwhile he took account of his surroundings—a dim hall with almost no furniture save the long table and benches, a roaring fire close at hand and straw underfoot. The wind whistled through cracks in the walls of hewn pine logs, and Kirdy had a curious impression that he was sitting within a forest rather than in a dwelling. The arched ceiling was barely visible, and the servitors of the place were certainly tribesmen. He did not think they were slaves.

  There were no more than two—gnome-like old men, with hoods on their gray felt coats and horsehide boots on their warped legs. Even their swords were round and short, resembling hunting blades. He knew they came from the wastes of Asia beyond the frontier, and he believed they had served Nada for many years. No other woman was to be seen.

  The very smell of the prairies had penetrated this room. Wooden saddles and sleeping-skins were flung against the wall. A hooded peregrine falcon screamed fitfully on its ring. The cups from which he drank were fashioned of birch.

  "O my guest," Nada ventured when the last plate was pushed aside, "why did you lie to me?"

  Kirdy looked up calmly.

  "I have not lied to you."

  "Are you really called the White Falcon?"

  "Aye, so."

  "No man of the Sha-mo ever came to the city of the White Walls before now."

  "Then I am the first."

  Kirdy turned toward the fire so that he would not look at Nada but could watch the two armed servitors who remained squatting in the shadows.

  "O mistress of the house, you said that I was an ambassador. That is not the truth. Since when does a tablet-bearing prince of the Hordes come across the border without a swordsman at his back? I am no more than a wanderer, but in your thoughts—who am I?"

  Above all things he wished to leave Nada without suspicion or doubt of him. And he knew by her silence that she was puzzled.

  "You wear the garments of a prince of the Altyn-juz," she said, almost to herself. Kirdy smiled, and took refuge in a parable of the steppes.

  "Because a goshawk wears the plumage of a brown eagle, is he an eagle?"

  "Nay, but when a hawk soars like an eagle, the quail scatter on the ground. I think you are a spy, and I shall send word to the tsar's officers to take you."

  Not long since, Kirdy had dared the Jews to give him up, but he suspected that Nada would dare do anything. She might well be a spy of the Poles and the Poles were in power for the moment. Leaning forward, he held his hands to the fire and made no answer, judging that if she threatened him she could not be sure of her own mind.

  "Have you naught to say, O my guest?"

  "This I would say: You spoke of the need of a friend; yet you will make of me an enemy."

  From between the candles Nada glanced at him curiously. It was clear to Kirdy that the tribesmen might well have named her so—the Lily. Because her hair, streaming over her shoulders from the narrow pearl-sewn filet on her forehead, was light as ripe straw.

  Upon this lightness of loose hair and the fair forehead of the girl the candle flames glowed, flickering when the wind swept the hall in tiny gusts. It was as if the splendid head of Nada were a moon, shedding light into the dim room. When Kirdy looked at her, he was troubled; the skin of his head and shoulders tingled, and words left his lips. In all his life he had not beheld a girl like this.

  "Toghrul," she said clearly to one of her followers, "bind me this—foe-man. Take him and bind him."

  The two tribesmen drew their short hangers and came at Kirdy from either side, the one called Toghrul loosing a coil of woven horsehide at his girdle.

  "O Ak-Sokol," he began persuasively, "thou hast heard the command. Hold forth thine arms and be bound."

  Kirdy had risen from his bench, and after a swift glance at the youth's face Toghrul wasted no more words but cast a loop of the coil at his head. He saw that their distinguished guest did not intend to let himself be taken. Kirdy slipped aside from the rope and struck the tribesman in the chest, so that Toghrul stumbled and staggered back, barely saving himself from falling into the fire.

  Meanwhile Kirdy had wheeled toward the door, only to find the other leaping at him. Again he dodged, but this time the flat of a heavy blade struck him over the ear, and he saw red. The dim room swayed, the firelight filled the air, and the whisper of the wind became a roar. Ripping open his mantle, he drew his long saber—that had been hidden until now— with a sharp slithering of steel.

  He parried the second cut of the agile gnome and locked hilts. A second later the hooked scimitar flashed into the straw, and the man caught at his wrist with a groan. Upon the other servitor Kirdy leaped, and held his hand because Nada stood between them, her arms outstretched.

  "Hai-a, my Cossack!" she cried softly: "The sword reveals the man. So does a Cossack leap and strike."

  She came forward to look closely at the blue steel blade with its halfeffaced inscription, and a word sent her two followers back into their shadow.

  "I thought that you were a Cossack when you came to the sleigh, because you walked with a long stride. And your whip! Here, at the table, I doubted; but now there is no doubt. Can you use a sword?"

  Without replying, Kirdy slipped the weapon back in its scabbard, which he held ready for use.

  "You can!" Nada's lips trembled in a smile. "I prayed to the holy angels that they would send me a sword. I will not give you up to the Muscovites but you must serve me."

  "O divchina, I am neither spy nor servitor. As you say, I am of the siech, free-born. I came to the city of the White Walls to slay a traitor. An oath has been sworn."

  For a moment she pondered.

  "And when you have slain this man? Kai, that is like a young warrior of the south—to follow a feud blindly, like a falcon that takes no notice of anything except its quarry."

  "Then I go upon the snow road again, to the south."

  Nada drew a bench to the fire and seated herself, leaning chin on hand, frowning a little.

  "You said you came from the Sha-mo! I know it is true—you have no skill at lying."

  "Aye, so. My grandmother on my mother's side was a princess of the Yakka Mongols, of the line from Genghis Khan. There was I born. But now I go to the Cossack siech."

  "Then you will need wings, O White Falcon. Because at midnight the city gates were closed, and now are guarded. None is suffered to pass out. So my men tell me."

  Kirdy nodded without excitement. He never bothered his head about future difficulties, and he only wondered whether he could trust Nada to keep his secret.

  "We have shared bread and salt," she said, as if answering his thought. "We are people of the steppe, and this is not our place. I do not know if we will pass again, alive, through the gates." Her eyes, wide and brooding, were bent on the fire. "O White Falcon, have you ever felt the storm wind rising far off, on the plains, when the black clouds mount up against the sun and the
cattle become mad with fear? Kai, that has come upon me."

  A breath of cold air stirred, and one of the candles went out, and Nada, glancing over her shoulder, gave a soft exclamation of dismay. Her hand went to her throat, and for the first time Kirdy saw that she wore a miniature icon, bearing a beautifully painted picture of an old man leaning on a wooden staff beside a wolf. He searched his memory and knew this for Saint Ulass of the wolves.

  "A trap is set!" Nada began again, slowly, as if trying to see into the future. "For whom, for what? Toghrul, come here!"

  The old tribesman came and squatted in the straw at her feet, like a dog.

  "Didst thou see, Toghrul, the horses snort and rear when the boyars and their sleigh drew nigh us? Was that a sign?"

  "Aye, Nada, they were afraid."

  "But why?"

  The lined face of the servitor puckered.

  "Why not? There was a smell of the dead, of graves. It came from the sleigh."

  "The casket in the red cloth was not a coffin—surely it was too small."

  "I know not. The horses snorted and would have broken away had I not spoken to them."

  "What else hast thou to say?"

  "There is a yang, yang seme—a ringing of the bells. Even now it began, and the end is not yet."

  "Nay, this is a festival night."

  Toghrul considered and shook his head, speaking out with the boldness of one who knew his words were not idle.

  "Not a festival, this! The Ta-jen with the little gods and the fiddle was merry in the street, yet the voice of the bells is otherwise. It is a voice raised to drive a devil away in the night, or to mourn because of bloodshed."

  "I would have left the city, White Falcon, but the gates are shut and the order against leaving has gone forth. Is it not a trap? My fear is for you. If an oath has been sworn, you will not ride from Moscow until a man has died—but what if the trap is set for you?"