Rusudan

Front matter

The Princess of the Steppe and the Mongol Horde

Rusudan

A COMPLETE NOVELETTE

Chapter I

IT WAS Avak the shepherd who first beheld the miracle—Avak and his dog. In that year, the year of Our Lord 1222, the winter was a hard time and snow fell heavily in the higher ranges so that the khodas, or trails, were almost blocked. For this reason Avak kept his fat-tail sheep and goats penned up. Avak had built around his pens a fence of oak limbs, high and sturdy enough to keep out the wolves that sometimes ventured into the street of the village. So he was at liberty to spend most of his days watching for enemies.

His hut was on the outskirts of the village of Nakha in the foothills of the Khaukesh, beneath the ranges that stretched from the Black Sea to the Caspian. Through these ranges ran the highway that led from Asia to the threshold of Europe—though Avak knew or cared little about that matter. To him, the highway was a source of trouble. And he relished fighting.

Avak, being the head of his family, had more than one feud on his hands. In the last harvest-time a Cherkessian horse-trader who had stopped overnight at Nakha had sworn to come back and cut out his heart and other organs. Avak had not stolen the trader's bald-faced Kabarda mare. The shepherd was not clever enough to steal; but he was much too proud to refuse a quarrel when it came his way.

And the four Ermeni—Avak's mild brown eyes glinted when he thought of them. Four ragged and hungry Ermeni who had wandered up the road, one at a time. The first had asked why Avak kept such a starved dog, at the same time pointing out a small sheep that had strayed from the flock. Avak had said that it was a sheep and not a dog. But when two other men had stopped and told him that it was indeed a dog, and an evil looking beast, he had been doubtful. And he had believed the fourth, who swore that the beast had been bewitched by a pagan sorcerer. This fourth Ermeni had carried off the sheep, unharmed.

Avak had bought holy water to sprinkle his flock, and—when he learned that the four wanderers had eaten the sheep in the village—he remembered the saying of his people that two Greeks are a match for a devil, and one Ermeni is a match for two devils.

So he kept an eye out for the four wanderers—himself a Georgian and a sword bearer, and a descendent of the Orphelians who had carried sword and fire over all the Khaukesh in by-gone generations. The evidence of his nobility was the blade itself, a heavy yataghan in a leather sheath hanging from his shoulder by a strap ornamented with all the silver coins Avak had been able to get together.

And, as his father had done before him, Avak watched the mountain road for enemies—his personal adversaries and the foes of the blessed young queen of the Georgians.

The Road of the Warriors, it was called, this narrow track that wound up from the wide steppes into the east. And on this Road of the Warriors Avak had seen all that came out of the east—the laden camels of Bokharians plodding in the dust of midsummer, the donkey trains of purple-clad Jews, the creaking carts of turbaned Hindus. By night he had caught fleeting glimpses of raiding Turkoman horsemen.

But this road that came out of the unknown East had been deserted since the first snow. Until the day of the miracle.

Then Avak, going out to his aerie, had beheld with keen eyes a change in the aspect of the plain beneath. The gray surface of the steppe was covered with round black objects like tiny domes. And between these objects moved specks that were men. Here and there were dark blurs that changed shape as he watched, and he knew instinctively that these must be horse herds, or perhaps cattle.

After a while he reasoned that the black domes must be tents, of a kind he had never beheld. He did not know how to count over a hundred and so he told the priest in Nakha that there were many hundreds of foemen camped on the plain under the mountains of Georgia, and the priest had agreed that this was so.

“Eh, Avak, it is true that last night I saw in the sky a fiery cross. Now it is clear that this was an omen. There will be war in the Khaukesh.”

“In that case,” agreed the shepherd, “crows will eat the flesh of the foemen. Aye, the wolf packs will not go unfed.”

He had heard his father tell how the hosts of Islam had tried to force the mountain rampart in the day of the prophet Muhammad, and how in the end they had failed. He himself had seen armies of the Persian atabegs come up one valley or another, only to draw back licking their wounds.

It was the glory and the pride of the Georgians that they had never submitted, like the Armenians and Circassians, to a monarch of Islam. In their mountain fastness they still worshiped the Cross that had come to them in the days of the apostles, and they were still unconquered.

Now, Avak reflected, messengers would be sent forth by the young queen to all the distant clans; the banners would be lifted at Tphilis and trumpets would blare from ridge to ridge.

He was not surprized when Shotha Kupri, a thawad, or prince of the kingdom, came to the frontier village of Nakha with his henchmen to keep watch on the invaders.

Shotha Kupri was a grizzled nobleman, the clasp of his cloak being two bronze eagles, and Avak gave him a fat-tailed sheep without payment, because after all it was a Jew's part in life to haggle, and a Georgian's to bear himself boldly in war. Like the shepherd, Shotha Kupri was astonished when he beheld the thousands of black domes on the plain by the river; but he said nothing.

He sent two men down to spy upon the strange encampment, and the two men did not return.

Then came a storm of wind and snow, and after that days of heavy mist. Avak still went daily to his aerie because he wanted to be the first to see one of the invaders appear out of the mist.

IT WAS late in the afternoon, and Avak, huddled in his sheepskin burka, was drowsing comfortably when his dog growled, and the shepherd got to his feet to peer down the road.

Fog, driven by a fitful wind, hid the tips of the firs and swirled through the gaunt gray limbs of oaks. Wraiths of mist danced up the narrow lane in the forest mesh that was the road. Avak could hear nothing except the rush of the wind, but when the mist lifted for a moment he saw a man coming up the road—a tall man wrapped in a wolf-skin cloak, who strode steadily through the drifts and paused at times to study the tracks upon the trail.

The stranger wore no helm and carried no shield. His right hand grasped a stout staff. And it seemed to Avak as if he bore on his shoulders a cross, because above his black sable cap projected a long and gleaming bar of metal.

Avak could not be certain, in that ever-changing mist, whether the stranger was alone or followed by others. So the shepherd flung back his head and howled like a wolf—a quavering cry that was carried far up-wind. Then he took his dog between his knees and crouched down in the laurel growth that screened him from the road.

When he heard leather-shod feet crunch the hard snow he peered out of his covert and beheld the stranger close at hand. Then Avak knew beyond doubt that this was no Georgian. The man of the wolf-skin cloak was taller than the race of mountaineers, and spare in build. His beard and thick long hair were the hue of red gold.

And what Avak had taken to be a cross was in reality the two-foot hilt and the wide cross-bar of a sword slung in its leather sheath upon his shoulders.

“He carries himself with pride,” thought Avak. “Ai, what a blade. The thawad will rejoice in this captive.”

The stranger had halted for good reason. Out of a mass of young firs appeared five Georgians, come to learn the meaning of Avak's signal that had been heard in the huts of Nakha; four warriors armed with boar spears and simitars, and Shotha Kupri, broad as a bear, with high shoulders and limbs shaped and knotted by climbing cliffs.

Thus reinforced, Avak emerged from hiding, and circled to the back of the stranger, who glanced at him once from bleak gray eyes.

Shotha Kupri advanced to spear's length of the man in the wolfskins, and stopped to chew his mustache in a moment of contemplation.

“Hail!” he cried.

The stranger shook his head, and made answer in another tongue, sonorous and musical:

“Yah kawánnah? What men are ye?”

Only Shotha Kupri understood the words, and he frowned, for the stranger had addressed him in Arabic, the common speech of half Asia.

“Thy masters!”cried the thawad harshly. “What seek ye?”

“A road.”

Shotha Kupri grinned.

“A spy art thou, from the dog-pack below. Throw down thy weapon and yield thee, and by the beard of thy prophet, I will show thee a road! Else wilt thou tread the path to Jehannum.”

The stranger lifted his right hand, as if about to speak again, but the Georgian signed to his men.

“Seize him!”

Avak saw one of the henchmen draw a simitar and flourish it at the stranger's head, while another ran in to grasp his arms. Skilled were they in facing the rush of a wild boar, or in leaping out of cover upon feudal enemies that ventured into the Khaukesh, and Avak thought that the tall man was as good as bound and trussed, for he made no move to draw the long sword at his back.

Instead, he dropped his right hand to his staff. Stepping back a pace, he thrust the blunt end of the staff into the stalwart throat of the warrior who leaped to grapple him. Then, slipping both hands to the end of the pole, he brought it swiftly against the simitar blade near the hilt.

The blade snapped and with a strident whirr the point shot into the snow. Avak yelped with surprize, because he knew well how to handle a cudgel, but until now he had never seen the play of a long quarterstaff. The next moment the shepherd lay prone beside the warrior, who coughed and fingered his throat tenderly. The man in the wolf-skins had turned and whirled his oaken weapon down on Avak's temple. A light blow, but it drew blood and the trees and the men merged together in the mist before Avak's eyes.

Then the stranger laughed.

“O ye men of the mountain, this is no time for the sword!”

But the muscles tensed in Shotha Kupri's broad face, and he drew from his belt a heavy ax.

“Whoso thou art, draw thy sword ere I strike thee down!”

The thawad motioned back the three warriors who had started forward at the first blows. His anger was roused and he meant to try the stranger with edged steel. His left hand slipped down to his boot-top and gripped a curved knife. Holding both weapons close to his sides, he bent his head.

Before he could rush in, Avak cried out—

“'Ware, my Lord!”

Out of the veil of mist a dozen riders were urging their horses at a plunging gallop up the road. Avak glanced at them again, and rolled over, gaining his feet at the side of his prince, where the Georgians had gathered in a knot.

In all his days Avak had never seen horsemen like these, who were garbed in dark leather, shining with lacquer, under long loose khalats or fur surtouts—tigerskins, sable, and silver and black fox. Their helmets were bronze or polished Damascus-work, crested with red horse hair. Their high-peaked saddles gleamed with silver-work, and the horses were utterly unlike the bony little beasts of the Khaukesh—jet black Kabardas, mottled gray Arabs, splendid mounts that would have made the Circassian traders finger their wallet strings. And the riders were fitting arrows to string as they reined in by the man of the wolf-skin.

“Go back, my Lord!” Avak cried to the thawad. “We will stand against them.”

“Nay,” growled Shotha Kupri, gripping his ax.

But no arrows smote the Georgians. The tall stranger spoke a brief word to the riders and they slipped their shafts back into the quivers, gazing at the mountaineers with slant eyes expressionless as those of the horses they bestrode. The man of the broadsword mounted a led horse, a powerful gray stallion, and gathered up his reins.

He glanced up the road at the thatched roofs of Nakha from which other Georgians were beginning to throng.

“Say, now,” he asked bluntly, “thou of the ax—to what country leads this road?”

Old Shotha Kupri was no man to do another's bidding. Fearless and untamed was he, as the eagles of the higher ranges.

“To purgatory—for an infidel!”

And he spat into the trampled snow. The gray eyes of the stranger dwelt upon the grim Georgian an instant.

“A vain word,” he made answer quietly, “avails not. Go, with thy life, and by that same token bear this message to thy people: There is one at your gate who heeds not God or Satan or any power of earth!”

II. The Envoy

CHAPTER II

THE ENVOY

THE one of whom the stranger spoke was a Mongol. This invader from the far east resembled Shotha Kupri in body, having high shoulders and the barrel of a bear. But there the resemblance ceased. Subotai, the Mongol, was long of body and his short legs curved inward as if the years he had spent in the saddle of a horse had shaped them so. His bony, weather-beaten head was massive, and his greenish eyes gleamed with good humor that changed in an instant to anger.

Earlier that afternoon, before the stranger had appeared to Avak out of the fog, Subotai might have been seen as he talked with his officers in the Mongol camp. Subotai Bahadur, surnamed Orluk and leader of a Horde, sat at ease in his tent, having before his eyes all that he considered pleasant, even luxurious.

On the great teak pole of the pavilion were hung the banners of the princes he had overthrown and put to death in the last two years—eventful years, even for the Orluk, who was the favorite of that scourge of Asia, Genghis Khan. He counted two Persian banners, richly gilded, and the horned standard of the erstwhile Lord of Islam, Muhammad Shah. He had chased Muhammad across half Asia, and it always amused the veteran Mongol that the Lion of Islam had died of fright in a fishing boat and had been buried in his shirt for a shroud.

For Subotai, whose name was whispered in terror by Moslem lips from Delhi to Jerusalem, enjoyed a jest. Born in the bleak Gobi desert, he had herded horses through blizzards and hunted tigers afoot in the barrens; the thews of his body were like steel. He could keep the saddle of a horse for three days without dismounting, save to open a vein in his mount and slake his hunger with warm blood. And he who had hunted in childhood the beasts of the northland now hunted down men with keener zest.

He had learned the craft of war from Genghis Khan; he had reined his horse over the battlefields of Cathay, and had coursed a Gur-khan across the Roof of the World. It did not enter his head to wonder why the Mongols had been able to conquer half the world. God ruled supreme in the sky, he knew, and the Kha Khan of the Mongols upon earth.

No more than twenty thousand Mongols were encamped around Subotai's yurta, but these were veteran cavalry, the survivors of twenty campaigns and a hundred battles. Some of their officers were seated on the benches by the yurta entrance—broad-faced, scarred Mongols, regimental commanders, tall princes of Cathay in wadded silks embroidered with the dragon, hawk-eyed nomad chieftains of the steppes.

To one of these Subotai spoke in his deep drawl—

“Il-khan, what thing upon earth can give the utmost pleasure?”

The officer addressed folded his arms, meditated and replied with a Mongol's brevity—

“A fine horse under you, a strong-winged hawk on the wrist and a clear field for the sport.”

With this a Cathayan disagreed courteously—

“O Khan, that is true; yet it is likewise true that the greatest delight is to gaze upon a conquered foe, choosing the fairest of the girls for slaves and harkening to the lamentation of the women.”

“Not so,” Subotai remarked. “It is best to outwit and break the strength of an enemy, as the wind presses down the high grass.”

The Cathayan, who had been overcome in very much that fashion in his day, made response swiftly and boldly, as he had learned to do since he became a warrior of the Horde.

“Subotai may say that, but I, an unworthy servant, am not a Subotai.”

The Eagle, not ill-pleased, fell silent. Seldom did he indulge in such lengthy conversation. He liked praise, but was savagely impatient of deceit. And in the words spoken by this Mongol Orluk rested the fate of nations and the survival of human races—upon the will of this commander of the advance of Genghis Khan.

Subotai had chosen for winter quarters a wide plain that was sheltered on the west and north by lofty mountain ranges. He had provided his men with cattle, with fodder for the horse herds, with captives to serve them. With the first coming of grass he meant to ride to the west, to invade and crush a place called Europe.

His thoughts took another turn. Arms folded on his knees, he glanced at the man who sat nearest him on the carpet by the yurta fire—a dark and wistful Syrian, a physician and sage.

“Rabban Simeon,” he said, “who is the lord of the Christians that dwell under the setting sun?”

The Syrian's knowledge of the unknown world in the west as much as his skill at healing had won him the respect of the Mongols, and he reflected while he chose words to make the matter clear to the leader of the Horde.

“Mighty Lord,” he vouchsafed at length, “there are two rulers of the Christians. One is the Il-khan of their church who is called Pope and sends his orders to kings by barefoot priests—though he is very rich—”

“Of what use are many precious stones and gold that is hoarded in cellars? Can men become hardier by wearing the jewels or their children sturdier by gold?”

Rabban Simeon waived the question.

“The other ruler is the emperor of the Greeks. His is the throne, of the Cæsars in the great city of Constantinople.”

“Can there be two suns in the sky, or two khans in the same pasture-land? Kai! They must strive, one with the other, for mastery.”

“Indeed it is as your Mightiness says. The one called the Pope has warred with the emperor for many ages of men.”

“Hai! Then there has been a great slaying and a driving forth of cattle and a wailing of women when the flames roar.”

The gentle Syrian pondered, fingering his beard. He dreaded the hour when the invincible Mongols should enter the fertile valleys of Armenia and the ancient cities of the Greeks.

“O Khan,” quoth he, “the custom of these rulers is otherwise. When they make war they buy barbarian soldiery with gold; they seize the ships that go upon the seas; they send spies to learn the secrets of the other, and by fair promises they seek to lead their enemy into a trap. Above all, they strive to draw into their hand the fruits of commerce—grain and rice and oil and wine and the silks of Cathay and the fine weapons of Damascus. For by commerce gold is got, and gold gives to these rulers their power.”

Subotai grunted.

“Athor,” he made answer, “O healer, when fertile earth is overgrown with weeds it bears no good grass, but when hot fire scorches it the grass is good.”

Rabban Simeon shivered, but the Mongol's curiosity had been aroused.

“Tell me this—”he went on. “Are the Pope and emperor Nazarenes—Christians, men of the Cross?”

“Aye, my Lord.”

“How can that be? I have seen a Christian. When he is angry he growls like thunder, he bites like a camel.”

“If your Mightiness speaks of the warrior, the Swooping Hawk, he is a barbarian, a man without learning, bred to the sword.”

“He has kept faith; his word is not smoke.”

“That is to be seen,” observed Rabban Simeon shrewdly. “Is he not captive, though unchained, in the Horde? A captive's word is more often given than kept.”

Subotai considered this in silence.

“The Swooping Hawk has sworn vengeance against this khan of the Greeks, whose empire lies in the path I will follow.”

Wrapping his cloak about him, the troubled Syrian drew closer to the fire of glowing dung and dried moss that filled the pavilion with pungent smoke. Above all things he wished to turn the thoughts of the Mongol chieftain from invasion of the Greek empire, upon the outskirts of which clustered the remnants of his people, and the Hebrews and Armenians who had escaped the terrors of Moslem conquest.

“Ai, my Lord, has the Swooping Hawk blinded you with the beating of his wings? Surely he would lead the Horde to destruction. Already he has drawn the sword—a vassal!—against his emperor. Such treachery is a mortal sin. Now he has sworn obedience to the greatest of emperors, Genghis Khan, and he is making ready a trap for the Horde. Even now he has gone beyond your sight to make the trap—”

Subotai's green eyes gleamed, and the stout sandalwood chair creaked under his weight as he signed to the officer nearest the yurta entrance.

“To the commander of the horse herds, my order is this: Send a ten of riders to track down the Swooping Hawk and bring him to my yurta.”

When he had heard the thud of hoofs on muddy snow, Subotai fixed his eyes on the pallid Syrian. The Mongol was a figure to inspire dread in any captive, looming gigantic in the firelight, his long red hair bound in two braids on his high shoulders, his body clad in soft shagreen, his stubby hands projecting from wide sleeves of black silk.

“Speak,” he commanded, “and forget not that death is the punishment for false testimony as well as treachery.”

And Rabban Simeon spoke of the peril that lay before the Horde. Well he knew that the terrible Orluk weighed every word. First he pointed toward the western wall of the pavilion, hung with woven Persian tapestry.

“Your eyes, O Lord of the East, have beheld yonder ramparts of the mountains. Beyond are still greater ranges whose summits enter the clouds, where snow lies always. Now the higher passes are snow-filled, and in summer the heat and the rush of the torrents makes the way impassible for armies.

“Aye, your cavalry would be stripped of its power in the gorges of the Khaukesh. In other days Arab and Seljuk Turk entered the gorges, and few rode back whence they came. Know, O Khan, that the warlike people of the Khaukesh have keen weapons and stout hearts. They will make a stand on every crag of this valley of the Kur that is the gateway to their city.”

Subotai nodded.

“And beyond the ranges—what?”

“The sea! The Negropont or Black Sea—the heart of the Greek empire. The ships that go upon this sea are the Greeks'. The Horde can not catch the ships with its lariats, or sail them.”

Again Subotai signified assent by silence. His Mongols were neither river-men nor mariners.

“And know, my Lord,” went on the Syrian, raising lean hands over his silk skull-cap, “that the ruling cities of the emperor lie at the far end of this sea—Constantinople and the Golden Chersonese.”

The Mongol looked inquisitive and Rabban Simeon hastened to explain.

“The summer pleasure palace of the emperor that glows like fire upon the sea, being neither island nor mainland, but an edifice of dead kings; shining alabaster and marble, surmounted with gardens wherein the trees are of silver and the very song-birds are fashioned of gold and precious stones.”

“Are its walls high?”

“What need, my Lord?” The Syrian, gaining confidence, smiled in his beard. “Aye, they were built by Mithridates, a monarch who fought with the Roman Cæsars. And the Greeks guard it with their cursed fire that came, assuredly, from Eblis, because it can be made to fly through the air and may not be quenched. But how can the Golden Chersonese be approached save by sea? The Greeks number more thousands than you have hundreds.”

For a moment the destroyer of men and nations gazed into the eyes of the healer.

“It was the yassa,” responded the nomad chieftain, “the order of the Kha Khan, to rein our horses to the west so that we shall return and tell him what manner of people and lands lie under the setting sun.”

Rabban Simeon clutched his beard and moaned, for the yassa of Genghis Khan was the unalterable law of the warriors of the horde.

“Ai! My Khan, you will not return!” He sought inwardly for a reason and found one. “God Himself has raised these barriers against your host—the mountains and the sea.”

“The strength of Heaven,” assented Subotai, “is greater than the largest rocks or the deepest waters. I have seen its fires in the sky.” And he added calmly, “Without this strength how could the Kha Khan have plucked out the Moslem empires like rotting herbs from the ground?”

Into the agile brain of the physician flashed the outcry of stricken Islam.

“Verily,” he made answer, “the sins of the Moslems were many and God sent upon them a scourge.”

Subotai looked down at his sword that lay in its polished ivory sheath upon his broad knees, a blade that could cut through the frail body of Rabban Simeon at a single sweep.

“Upon this side the mountains,” he asked, “or that?”

Not for the first time, the savant was at loss to reply to the nomad. So, as all philosophers had done since the day of Peter the Apostle, he made a distinction.

“Upon the Moslems.”

“And not upon the Christians beyond the mountains?”

“God's will be done!”

The green eyes of the Mongol glowed with anger or inward amusement.

“Athor, your words are foxes that run first one way then another. When the pyramids of the dead are heaped, and they who yet live take the saddles from their ponies, we shall know the will of Heaven.”

And Rabban Simeon shivered, drawing closer to the smoldering dung.

“And of the Swooping Hawk,” Subotai demanded, “what is your word?”

“O Khan, he is a warrior of the Cross. Now he is hooded and chained, but when he finds himself among his Christian folk he will escape and betray the Horde. Why not? Instead of sitting in the yurta of the standards, he goes forth afoot and in secret. Never can you make of him a Mongol; he longs for his own land.”

“He has sworn obedience to the Kha Khan.” Subotai considered. “Kai, we will try his faith! If his word is no more than smoke, he will vanish, like an arrow shot into thick rushes. I have talked enough.”

And Rabban Simeon, touching his fingers to his forehead, lips and breast, withdrew from the pavilion of the Eagle.

THE embers of the yurt fire still glowed, and Subotai slept not when the entrance flap was lifted and the tall warrior of the wolf-skins stood before the Mongol. His deep-throated salutation roused the chieftains who were slumbering on the benches.

“Ahatou!”

His long sword had been left without the pavilion, as the law of the Horde ordained, but when he lifted his arm, the wolf-skin fell away and revealed the chain hauberk, and loose coif of a crusader, and the broad leather belt, set with silver plates, of a knight.

Subotai motioned him to approach, and looked full into the gray eyes of the stranger.

“Hugh,” he said, and spoke the name as if it were the whirring of wings, “you were not at my side. You were not in the orda. What then did you seek?”

“A road.”

Subotai nodded, and waited.

“A road leads,” explained the crusader, “from the Kur to the mountain villages. It was told me that we may go by this road to the summit of the pass.”

“Have you spoken with the men of these hills?”

“Aye, one knew the speech of the Arabs.”

“Good!”

Subotai scanned the lean face of the man called Hugh—the corded throat, the strongly marked jaw and forehead—with appreciation. There was beauty in the dark countenance framed in its mane of tawny hair, and pride in the poise of the head, but the Mongol weighed only the direct glance of the eyes, the strength of mighty arms. He drew from his girdle a tablet a little smaller than his hand, a silver plaque on which was etched a falcon and a few words of Chinese writing.