Swords From the East (37 page)

"Take my advice, sir, and hire a troika with three fine horses that will pull you like the wind and a postillion to guide you over the way. Just beyond these windmills a woman and her baby were gobbled up by the cursed wolves. True, I assure you, by the holy pictures. If you lose your way you are done for, quite. Devil take me, sir, it's cold work standing here talking to you-Ah, my grateful thanks, well born!"

Captain Minard Billings, of Edinburgh and late of the high seas, tossed the Russian a silver shilling. It was one of his last, and he had not hired a sledge because the supper had nearly emptied his purse.

"Remember," the man called after him, "keep due north along the right bank of the Volga. On the other bank begins the great steppe where you would lose your way at the first turn. Then the men from over the river would rip you up like a fish and leave you in the snow. Mind my words-" his hoarse voice grew fainter-"if you see a Tatar from over the river, pistol him at once."

Passing the windmills at the end of the hamlet, Captain Billings smiled. A cheerful road this, he reflected.

It would have been better, of course, to have lain the night at the post and gone on by daylight. But Captain Billings had an appointment that evening at Zaritzan and he meant to keep it. There was a commission awaiting him at Zaritzan, and he meant to have it.

Captain Billings had been stranded at Astrakan, after completing a survey of the north coast of the Caspian for Governor Beketoff, of that town. Beketoff had been most polite, but being out of funds and likewise out of favor with the territorial ministry at St. Petersburg, Billings was not paid. Nightly he had played chess with the governor and sampled every vintage of wine the castle boasted.

The wine was not good, and Billings tired of putting Beketoff to bed every evening under the table. So he had borrowed a good pony from the governor, and-since he could not pay for a sledge-had entrusted his luggage to a detail of Cossacks under a sotnik, bound up the ice-coated Volga.

Now this luggage of Captain Billings was very valuable, to himself at least. It was the first time he had parted with it, even for a few days. It was a peculiar thing, that luggage. But the Cossacks traveled more slowly than he, and Billings had sent word ahead by courier that he would be at Zaritzan before midnight. He had a habit of keeping his promises.

From time to time as he rode, he tried to catch a glimpse of the gray sheet of the Volga, somewhere to his right. But the forest had set in again and the spruces made a corridor of the road that was merely a narrow track in the snow.

Already the sun was behind the pines, and a cold wind stirred up the fine snow into a dust that stung his face. He pulled down his sheepskin cap and fell to beating his arms across his chest. And he did not notice that the verst-posts were no longer to be seen. In fact, the trail he followed had narrowed down to the track of a single horse.

"My faith, it's cold as -when the Devil's gone to mass," Captain Billings assured himself. "And not so much as a tavern to break the hedgerows."

His gray-greenish eyes, spaced wide, surveyed the shadows of the forest slowly. His high cheekbones were reddened by long exposure to the sun of the Caspian. Billings was of middle age with a back like a pikestaff and a swagger to his shoulders that concealed his lack of height.

Since boyhood-and a thankless one-he had grown up with weapons, lived by his wits. He wore no wig, and his yellow hair had been bleached by the sun to the color of tow. School had been, for him, the apprenticeship at the table of a master navigator, and the salle d'armes of a French swordsman, now unhappily dead during the vicissitudes of that changeful lady, Paris. He had not always found bread in plenty, but there had been no lack of fighting.

"A pox on these misbegotten Muscovite charts!"

He had noticed the absence of the verst-posts. These, however, had been covered for the most part by drifting snow. The moon had risen on his right, and by its light he scanned the lines of the map of the frontier. According to it he should have been at Zaritzan by now.

Instead, he was off the highroad. He could go back to the last post, or turn out into the river and wait for the sledge which should be along that night. But neither choice was to his liking. He tore up the worthless chart and plied his pony's flanks with the black Cossack whip he carried, resolved to follow the track of the horse in front of him so long as it led to the north.

As if in answer to his decision, the howl of a wolf came up the wind. Billings steadied the pony and settled himself in the saddle. He no longer needed the whip. His eyes narrowed against the cut of the wind, his glance thrusting into the shadows on either hand, to pick out the yellow gleam of eyes.

Drawing off a glove, his numbed fingers felt of the priming of the long pistols in the saddle holsters; the snow had dampened the powder.

Now the trees were thinning; curling wraiths of snow danced in the shifting moonlight as the wind came with a sweep across the dunes of the open. A moment later he drew in his horse. Beside the trail a figure appeared, standing over a dead pony.

"Zounds!" cried Billings under his breath. "Here's a merry go."

The other, in a long kaftan and a tall sheepskin hat too large for him, seemed to be no more than a boy, a swarthy boy with eyes like black jewels. He held a scimitar that dripped blood upon the white surface of the snow. Billings observed that the throat of the horse had been cut.

Promptly the lad, who might have been Gipsy or Tatar, sheathed his weapon and stood straight and quiet.

"Koshkildui, peace be with you, brother," said Captain Billings in Russian. "Get up behind me, young man."

The stripling took his time about answering.

"You are a giaour-an outlander," he observed slowly, in the southern dialect. "You are no man of Russia-I knew that by your first speech."

"Indeed!" Billings pulled at his yellow mustache. "Do you wish to follow your horse into the bellies of the wolves who are back yonder?"

"Tchu-I fear no wolves, uncle. You ride from Astrakan, and you have been at the palace of the excellency, Beketoff."

"The ," thought Billings, reining in his uneasy horse, "this fellow is uncommonly particular about whom he joins company with!"

The rapscallion, however, had a certain bravado about him; might be a Gipsy, for all of his smooth, olive skin and large eyes. And he had certainly kept his sword ready to hand until spoken to.

"Uncle," went on the youth impassively, "if you were a Russian boyar, a noble, you wouldn't offer to take up a poor Gipsy behind you-now would you? Not when the wolves were afoot."

"Nephew, I am Captain Minard Billings, cartographer, and I am minded to leave you afoot."

"Cartographer-what is that?"

"A maker of maps."

In the moonlight a smile flashed over the face of the native. There was an elusive charm about the boy. Certainly, for all his respect, he did not speak in the manner of a serf or a suppliant son of Egypt.

Billings grunted.

"If you are satisfied, step out!"

With that he put spurs to the pony. The native promptly shed his heavy coat and ran beside, on the hard surface of the crust, clinging to a stirrup.

"How far is it to Zaritzan?" asked Billings.

"Two leagues, good uncle."

"The black pest on those Russians!"

At this the youth glanced up, startled. Billings had been thinking of the discarded chart.

"Is this the highroad, young man?"

"Nay, the road joined the riverbank, well back in the forest. But this track will lead you there."

Before long they heard a chorus of yelping howls in the distance. The wolf pack had reached the horse. The boy glanced up.

"My pony fell and came up lame. The wolves were near, so I cut its throat. Here we are in the forest again, and we must go swiftly."

With that he was up behind Billings, his breath warm on the traveler's neck. To keep his balance, the boy clung to the other's belt, reaching around to the clasp. Once the belt slipped and the native tightened it. He had drawn his scimitar and held it awkwardly in front of Billings.

"Pardon!" he cried.

The blade, slipping down, had cut the captain slightly across the upper leg. As if ashamed of the mishap he leaped down again, running beside the pony.

Although nothing more was heard of the wolves, they set a good pace until they passed an empty sentry box and, around a turn in the road, sighted the black bulk of a wall behind which rose the thatched roofs of houses, and a watch-tower.

"Zaritzan," panted the boy, pointing to a light that showed by the stan- itza gate.

"Good!" Billings dismounted. "A bowl of hot porridge now, and some steaming brandy!"

"I cannot enter Zaritzan."

"Why not? Where would you go?"

The boy pointed to where the light-a lanthorn in the hand of a soldier, the same who had prudently deserted the sentry box-was moving toward them slowly.

"The wolves I fear are within the gate, uncle."

"Hum." Billings wondered what manner of man this was who preferred the black depths of the Volga forest to a town. "Hulloa-what are you about?"

The native had been whispering under his breath. His expressive eyes were serious. Now he seized the officer's fingers and lifted their hands in the air, toward the south and the other quarters of the compass. On the back of his wrist was a cut over which the blood had dried.

On Billings's fingers was the stain of blood from the slight wound over his knee.

"My lord," whispered the boy, "you have looked in the face of danger for my sake. This night you have saved my life, although you know not how. Now I have made us andas, brothers, as you first named me."

"And what foolery is that?" Billings pulled his hand away impatiently.

"When men become andas, my brother, both have one life; neither abandons the other, and each guards the life of his anda. Tonight I have bound the girdles and let flow the blood of both, and made strong our anda."

A Tatar! Billings remembered the boy had said he came from over the river. A native, Gipsy or Baskir or Tatar, would not go through this mummery of brotherhood without expecting some reward.

A second time the Tatar smiled.

"Give me your horse for this night and you will not lose it." His eyes flickered from the advancing sentry to Billings's face.

"Indeed, I will not. The wolves would make marrow paste of the mare."

"Not they, my lord. The mare will be under your hand within two days. Come, you have given me something already, Captain Beel-ing. Are we not andas?"

The boy stiffened, leaped boldly into the saddle, and was off pelting through the dead bushes.

"Pardon, my lord brother," he called back, laughing, over his shoulder.

Billings snatched at his belt and shrugged. Both his pistols were in the saddle holsters. His temper flared as he watched the mare and rider go flitting along the edge of the hemlocks down toward the shining lane that was the moon's reflection on the river.

It was rather curious, the ease with which the Tatar guided the tired horse away from shelter, riding as if he were one with the mare. There was no help for it. Horse and weapons were gone, and Billings felt the loss of both keenly.

"A witch," suggested the soldier, who had drawn close and was watching.

Billings reflected that the sentry at the last post had told him to shoot down any Tatar at sight.

"Oh, he bewitched me rarely," he muttered, disliking the idea of arriving in Zaritzan on foot, like a peasant.

"Of course," nodded the soldier, holding the lanthorn close to his visi tor. "I saw it done. He did it with your hand, sir, like a regular Tatar werewolf, snatching where the blood runs."

The bearded sergeant was busy making the sign of the cross with his free hand. It was perplexing, after all, that the native had shown so little dread of the wolves.

"The Lord be merciful to us! " The sentry was staring at the cut in Billings's breeches. "See, there's where he sipped your blood. They usually take the back of the neck, just behind the ear."

When Billings looked up, the man was running toward the gate, stumbling over his musket in his haste. Dropping the firearm, he fumbled with the door to shut it. This was a trifle too much for Billings to stomach.

He sprang into the opening, wedged his boot against the door, and flung it back on the soldier.

"Hide of Beelzebub-so you would leave a Christian to the cold and the beasts, eh? A sergeant, too, on my word."

Muttering that he had orders to admit no strangers, the man changed countenance when Billings thrust his musket into his hand, wheeled him about, and requested that he announce to the pristof, Kichinskoi, that Captain Billings was here from Astrakan.

"At once-at once, your excellency. I assure you, captain, the witch robbed me of my senses. Enter, your honor. The Great Commissioner is expecting you, and gave word you were to go direct to his quarters."

But when Billings was not looking, the soldier backed away making the sign to ward off devils, with fingers crossed.

Billings paid no attention to him. He had just discovered that the purse attached to his belt for safekeeping had disappeared.

The moon by now was well overhead, and the whole of Zaritzan was outlined by the etching of shadow.

It was one of the forts just completed by order of the Czarina, Catherine the Second of Russia. These forts formed a chain along the western border of the great Tatar steppe.

An earthen rampart, surmounted by a palisade, was pierced for several cannon, all facing toward the river. The center of the place was a square of beaten clay, a drill ground in the corner of which, near the gate, stood wooden stocks, a knout hanging thereon by a rusty nail.

On one side of the enclosure ran a line of barracks and stables. Clustered against these as if for protection were the huts of traders, wine-sell ers, and smiths. Behind these sheds a glow dimmed the moonlight, and loud voices broke the silence of the night. Groups of coated figures moved between the huts, swaggering out on the square.