Swords From the East (40 page)

"Ashes of Sodom!" muttered the pristof. "The fellow must love trouble." He thought for a moment. "Bring the batko to me."

When Father Obe entered, Kichinskoi bade him close the door and stand against it.

"As soon as Captain Billings returns, take him my compliments and this private word:

"Complaints have reached me that he is holding unauthorized intercourse with the Tatars, especially with one who is called Alashan, the son of the Khan. Alashan is an escaped hostage of the Russian government and the Holy Church. I have proof that Captain Billings aided Alashan to escape our hands. Captain Billings is also charged by worthy persons with possessing a talisman belonging to the pagan sorcerer of the Torguts. He is guilty of a brawl with the worthy ataman; in fact, even I cannot prevent his being taken to Moscow and tried unless he pledges himself to a course of conduct more becoming an employee of the Russian government. Hm-"

He considered.

"Tell him furthermore that I have proof under my hand that he is attempting to incite the Tatars to rebellion. Hint that Governor Beketoff, his patron, is in disfavor at court, whereas my star is rising. In short, batko, point out that if he chooses to escape jail he must show his zeal for the Empress by serving me, in the matter of the map, without any pay-no, without any money other than for his expenses."

Smilingly, Kichinskoi reflected that Billings would know better than to drive a bargain with him again.

Without a word Father Obe rose and left, after murmuring his assent. Whatever thoughts came into his narrow, secretive mind, he kept to himself. After all, there was the belt.

The message was never delivered.

Well pleased with the day's beginning, the pristof was even more delighted when his servant announced the arrival of a delegation from the Torguts.

"Ha-that does not smell of rebellion, on my word. Well, bring my sable coat, and the sword of ceremony. Is that cursed Cossack ataman sober enough to walk without staggering?"

"I think not, excellency."

"Well, order him to become so. Rub snow on his bald pate and scrape some of the filth off him. Hurry. See that the Tatars keep outside the fortress. By the way, who are they?"

"A hideous creature, your highness, and Alashan, the son of the Khan."

"I expected his father. Hm. Alashan!" Kichinskoi looked pleased. "Let me see, the seven infantry regiments of General Traubenberg, and several batteries of cannon-important things, those-are within four days' march, to the west. Then instruct the ataman to turn out the guard, with fixed bayonets. Mind the bayonets!"

Humming to himself, Kichinskoi summoned his valet and was attired in an officer's uniform, freshly polished boots, dress sword, and jeweled decoration at his throat. He took snuff liberally from the imported box until he saw Mitrassof walking stiffly across the parade ground toward him at the head of a squad of Cossacks.

Although a little pale, the big man was none the worse, apparently, for blood-letting or brandy. Kichinskoi allowed him to lead the way until they passed through the gate and saw the Torguts. Then the pristof stepped out in front.

The Torguts were unarmed.

"What is this?"

Kichinskoi pursed his lips and signed to the interpreter.

An old man stepped forward from the small group of Tatars and lifted his hand to his bronze, bossed helmet in greeting. Short, bowed legs sup ported a powerful body clad in a sleeveless fur tunic. His right arm moved with a rhythm of rippling muscles.

I am Norbo, Master of the Horse Herds of the Torguts."

Kichinskoi was looking at the slender youth beside Norbo. Alashan was brave in finery of green nankeen and red silk, of furred khalat and fur-tipped cap. His fine, dark eyes were alight with some kind of inward merriment.

"Great Commissioner," went on Norbo bluntly, "I have been sent to ask whether it is true that the Empress has ordered our sons to be taken away to Russia. I await your word."

To gain time to think, Kichinskoi pretended displeasure and reminded Norho that he should have lifted his hat at mention of the Empress.

According to Mongol custom, it was an unpardonable rudeness to bare the head during a conference of state. Norbo noticed that Kichinskoi's hat remained in place.

"Nay, I shall not do it," he retorted. "The Torguts are free-born. The Khan is no vassal of the Empress."

"The Khan! Your Khan will do what I tell him to. He is no more than a chained bear."

Norbo lowered his eyes and was silent, while Alashan smiled faintly, saying, "What is your word concerning the sons of the Torguts?"

Kichinskoi hesitated, for he had received as yet no authority from the ministry to act as he had suggested. He was thinking quickly, and thinking of a new decoration, prestige, influence at Court-if he guessed aright the secret plans of the great Catherine.

He made his decision and with it cast into the scales the lives of two hundred thousand human beings.

"This is my answer," he said, and ordered the Cossacks to seize Alashan. Mitrassof grew red and muttered that envoys were privileged.

"Bah!" whispered the pristof. "It is only an escaped student. I did not invite him here. Are you going to obey my order?"

"Am I going to obey an order?"

The colonel pulled at his mustache and looked up at the sky thoughtfully.

"When my Empress, the great Catherine, says 'Ataman, there is work to be done, or a good blow to be struck'; why, then I tell my children and lead them, and, God willing, they die. That is right and as it should be. When the batko says to me, 'Colonel, that son of a pig, the Sultan, has been tearing down Christian churches again, or roasting worthy priests of the steppe/ I get Iny horse, turn out my barracks and polish up the frontier a bit. My turn will come. That is as it should be.

"But when you say to these Tatar chiefs, 'Come and hold council with me,' and then order them to be trussed up and carted off, that is a different thing entirely. Give that old bull yonder, who calls himself Norbo, a sword and, if it is your wish, I will stretch him out on the ground for you in a twinkling, although I am somewhat stiff this morning. But if you want to pluck the young envoy I'll send a man to call your Polish guards to do it. That's all I will do, by the holy Faith!"

Kichinskoi looked black, but there was no help for it. He fancied that the Tatar who had named himself the son of the Khan was laughing at him. No sooner had the Polish dragoons come up and secured Alashan than Mitrassof gave an order to his men and marched off.

To the surprise of all the Russians, Norbo and the other Tatars offered no resistance as Alashan was hurried to the gate.

"The son of the Khan is the first," explained Kichinskoi to Norbo. "Later the eldest boy of each family must come to us-"

Here, to the pristof's chagrin, Norbo, followed by the other Torguts, turned on his heel and walked off without any leave taking. The Russian's last words had given him the answer he sought to his question, and, being a Tatar, he did not see the need of more words. So Kichinskoi was left without an audience, although he never felt more like making a speech in his life.

He was conscious of a shrewd exultation, a conviction of his own power. Had not the Tatars accepted his mandate without resistance? He felt sure that he, Kichinskoi, was playing at the regal game of empire and deciding the destiny of a people. And so he was.

It was near to the hour of sunset when Billings rode a steaming horse into the river gate of the fort and asked for Mitrassof. Learning that the ataman was out with the mounted patrols that kept watch on the western bank of the Volga, he turned over his pony to a serf from the stables and began to walk toward the commissioner's house.

He was thoughtful, because he had had his first glimpse of the Tatar steppe, the wide plain that began at the tip of the Caspian where it was below the level of the sea, and extended to the mountains that separated China from the western world. From dawn until dark he had seen not so much as a hillock in the white expanse of snow save where the native villages huddled in the hollows protected from the wind by clumps of willows or oaks.

Billings knew that like all desert areas the plain, now ice-coated, would be blazing hot in the summer months. Yet it was fertile, and the fine grazing was much coveted by the Torguts, who seemed indifferent to weather.

Reflecting upon the actions of Alashan, he saw now that the boy must have had urgent need of a horse the night before. And he believed-correctly, as he afterward discovered-that the exchange of belts formed part of the Tatar ritual of anda. He was rather skeptical, however, about the tie of brotherhood that the boy had knit between them.

As he passed the door of the church, Father Obe came out, locking it after him. Shivering, even in his heavy cassock, the priest hurried to join Billings.

"I tried to find the colonel, Father Obe," observed Billings seriously, "but I think you-as Kichinskoi's adviser-should hear my word. I have just come in from the plain. It's true as Holy Writ that the native clans are gathering. The cattle herds are being driven in from the villages to the center of each urdus-clan. Supplies are being packed into wagons. Yet I saw no signs of mobilization, nor any cannon.

"It is curious," he added.

"Some days ago," observed the priest, "one of my converts, a fisherman, told me that the anti-Christ across the river-the witch or fiend that wears a mask-had called together the Torgut council and urged the Khan to take up the torch and sword and lay to waste all the Russian hamlets from Astrakan to Orenburg."

"Hum. And the Khan?"

"Refused. But there is evil stirring, and you do wrong to wear the sign of the fiend."

Billings fingered the leather girdle and smiled.

"If someone will be so good as to give me another belt-" He shrugged. "I'm beginning to think the road across the steppe will not be without thorns. You wished to speak to me, Father Obe?"

"I have been told-" the priest began.

"What is that?"

The moon was coming up over the walls of Zaritzan. It outlined before the Englishman the shape of a prisoner in the stocks. A big Cossack was bent nearly double, his head and arms thrust through the holes of a heavy plank.

The lower part of the man's face was stained black and glistened in the faint radiance from the sky. Billings saw that he was in his shirt, his heavy svitza, or woolen coat, thrown on the ground under his nose. The fellow was shivering, his eyes fixed so that Billings suspected the lids were frozen.

"A sentry," the priest explained, "who let a prisoner slip through his fingers last night, when you, captain, reached Zaritzan. This afternoon his excellency the pristof condemned him to have his nostrils torn and to be locked in the stocks for twelve hours without a coat."

Bending closer, Billings recognized the Cossack who had first greeted him at the gate of the fort. Even if he had retained vitality enough to speak, the frozen blood that coated his lips would have rendered the soldier dumb.

Billings would have walked on, when his own words, spoken that last night came into his mind-

"You would leave a Christian to the cold and wolves."

Billings never wasted time in cogitation. He caught up the man's heavy sheepskin coat, flung it over his back, tying the sleeves under his throat and buttoning the lower part around his hips. The stiffened eyes turned toward him gratefully.

"Tell the commissioner about this, if you want to," he growled to Father Obe. "If he objects, present my compliments, and remind him that I do not happen to be his vassal."

Father Obe glanced at the mapmaker curiously.

"I shall say nothing, my son. The pristof gave me a message for you. You are a brave man, even if you hold commerce with the pagans. I-I shall let him deliver his message himself."

But Billings did not see Kichinskoi at dinner. Going from there to his room, or rather the one he shared with Mitrassof-for the castle was very crowded-he was surprised to find a sentry with a musket at the door. The door, too, was bolted on the outside. When Billings shot back the bolt and would have entered, the soldier motioned him back.

"I come from Colonel Mitrassof," Billings said, thinking the man was some guard of Mitrassof's.

Indeed, at the name of the officer the soldier fell back respectfully.

Yawning, Billings was preparing to take off his shoes and coat and throw himself on the cot, when he saw that it was already occupied. Alashan was surveying him with considerable amusement.

"Bless my eyes and blood!"

Captain Minard Billings seated himself on the three-legged stool by the bed. He sat very straight, muscular arms crossed, two fingers tugging at the end of a well-waxed mustache.

"You are the infernal scoundrel I've been looking for all day!"

"Where?"

"Across the river." This, Billings noticed, caused the boy to start. "Where is my pony?"

"Soon you will bestride her."

"Hum. And my luggage, pray? I have learned that the youth who rode my mare attacked the Cossacks who were with the sledge, and that Tatars shed Christian blood." The gray-green eyes of the mapmaker grew cold. "Look here my bopobka, my little elf, I have had my fill of mummery. Tell a plain tale, now, and no tricks."

"Nay, Captain Beel-ing-" Alashan could never compass the other's name-"I did not attack the Cossack guard."

The brown eyes of the youth were wide and clear. His small mouth was gentle and quick to speak. Scanning the boy's olive countenance, Billings wondered if there were not Persian blood in him. At any rate it seemed that Alashan, although Tatars were usually blunt and ill-schooled at deceit, could lie like a Baskir or Persian.

"My lord brother-" Alashan had read his thoughts-"you are my anda. My life for yours, and one pledge for the two of us. The tie was made fast when our girdles were exchanged. My tongue speaks no false words to you. Some things I may not tell as yet. Do but have patience."

"Patience!" Billings folded his arms. "Well, my prince brother, by our anda, let me know this one thing. What manner of a plot are you hatching against the pristof, out on the steppe?"