the Walking Drum (1984) (41 page)

Several thousand of the Petchenegs started for our fort at a fast trot only to pull up or turn sharply away when they saw the plain before our wall. Knowing the skill of their horsemen, I knew that some of them, weaving between the clusters of sticks and caltrops, would get through. From a distance I could recognize the Khan sitting his horse and occasionally standing in his stirrups to study our defenses. How long would it be before he realized we were vulnerable to attack from the sea or the estuaries? A fact in our favor was that the Petchenegs, a steppe people, rarely knew how to swim and feared the water.

Suzanne awaited me at the outer wall of one of the islands of defense. Her face was pale. "Mathurin? How will it be?"

What reply could I make to such a question? Our defenses could be no better, considering the time we had and the situation, yet I was sorely afraid. Nor need she ask, for her experience was no doubt as great as mine in such cases. Her Castle of Saone had often been attacked when she was younger.

Yet it was I who had looked into the Khan's grim old eyes, only I who had seen his men up close, those savage, ill-smelling tigers of the steppe. They lived for war, knew little else.

Nor was I one to shield a woman from truth. Women are neither weaklings nor fools, and they, too, must plan for what is to come. He who does not prepare his woman for disaster is a fool.

"We may win, Suzanne, and we may not. If you are taken, demand to see Abaka Khan. He is a prince, a son of the Khan, and we know each other. Ask to see him; tell him your story. But if you can, escape. I shall try to prepare a way for you."

"And you?"

"Do not think of me. There lies the sea, beyond it is Constantinople where you have friends. Go there, by all means."

"Do you believe they will defeat us?"

"Suzanne, a wise man fights to win, but he is twice a fool who has no plan for possible defeat."

She put her hand on my arm. "Mathurin, I do not want to lose you."

"Nor I, you."

We stood together enjoying the morning sun and looking toward the dark line of Petcheneg horsemen, a cloud on our horizon. A dark and terrible line, they stretched from one side of the neck of land to the other, looking across the plain from the ancient dunes where they waited.

With the immediate rush of work on the defenses past, we rested, gathered our strength, ate, talked, and awaited the attack. Remembering what I had seen, those dark-faced men with their cold jaws and narrow eyes, I shuddered for those about me. The steppe riders hated all places that did not grow grass, cities were an abomination to them. They lived on mare's milk, curds, and blood from the veins of living horses, eating barley and meat when it could be had. Killing was for them a way of life.

"Even if we win," I said, "it will be an end of this, and it is a pity that every beginning should also be an end. I shall miss the walking drum, Suzanne, miss it indeed.

"That drum has been our pulse, and often have I wondered what it is that starts the drum of a man's life to beating? For each of us walks to the beat of our own drum, an unheard rhythm to all our movements and thought.

"Was it my father's disappearance that started me? Or did it begin in some Druid forest long ago when the mistletoe was cut from an oak tree with a golden sickle? Or perhaps it began when the blood of my mother and father joined?"

TheHansgraf came over to us. "A small boat has been found, and it will carry a half-dozen people. There are oars, and there is a sail, and it will not be long before the boats from Constantinople come." He turned his eyes to Suzanne. "The women of our company will go in that boat, and there must be one man." He looked at me. "You are not one of us. You will go."

"I shall remain. Khatib will go."

He did not protest, and I knew he wanted me with him. "Across the estuary is a forest of reeds. Khatib can take you to the boat. You should push off at once. No doubt you will meet the boats upon the sea."

He glanced at Suzanne. "Do you have friends there?"

"And in Antioch."

"Very well, then."

He walked away from us, a commanding presence; he moved with ease and grace despite his great size, yet for the first time I detected a shadow of something that frightened me. He who had seemed invulnerable was no longer sure.

How could he be? How could anybody be?

"Mat ... ?"

They had started ... a long dark line of riders coming at a fast walk.

Quickly, I kissed her. "Inside," I said, "until you leave with Khatib. Remember, he is an old reprobate, but you can trust him. If I live, I shall come to you at Saone."

How easily, at such a time, are promises made! And how vain the promises when destiny hangs in the balance!

My blade came easily from the scabbard, and I strode forward. My hand touched the shoulder of Khatib. "Go to Madame, thou evil-smelling one! Thou pirate! Thou thief! Go to her, and guard her well for me. See her into the boat that is waiting, then to Constantinople and Saone! See to her, Khatib, for she holds my heart in her hand!"

"A boat, O Mighty One! There is a boat, and you hold a sword? What madness! What folly! A beautiful woman, a wide sea, and a boat? And you choose a sword?"

"I have my honor, O Father of Lice! I have my honor, and I am a warrior!"

His evil old eyes twinkled. "Praise be to Allah that I am but a thief and a philosopher! I choose the boat!"

He paused, his eyes suddenly grave as he looked at me over his scrawny shoulder. "Do not forget this, Mighty One. He is a wise man who can choose the moment. It is not necessary to die to prove you are brave.

"Think well of the enemy, and of your brothers in arms, but when your moment comes, remember your horse! Remember Ayesha, that slim-legged beauty with her flower of a nose! When it is futile to blood thy sword more, mount and ride!"

Lolyngton walked to join me. His smile held grave amusement. "I am afraid, my friend, that in this play my part will not carry over to the last act. What a role for a mountebank!"

"And a soldier."

"Think you so? I have been called many things, but ... a soldier? It has a sound to it, Kerbouchard."

They were coming now, trotting their horses, sitting high in their saddles, a black line of death riding. Then they charged!

They reached the caltrops; a horse reared and screamed in pain, another swung away, and our archers unleashed a flight of arrows. Horses reared and plunged; men fell, and arrows dropped among us, too.

We waited; our time was not yet. "What are you glad for, Kerbouchard?" Lolyngton asked. "You have lived ... what have you loved?"

"What is it that has made me happy? A deck beneath my feet, a horse between my knees, a sword in my hand, or a girl in my arms! These I have loved, and the horizon yonder, beyond which there is the unknown.

"What else have I loved? The mist of morning, the rose of evening, a wet breeze upon my cheek, and my father's hand upon my shoulder.

"And as for women? I have loved, in their own time, Aziza, Sharasa, Valaba, and Suzanne. For the moment I loved them, and for the moment, no doubt, they loved me, and who can say how long such moments can last? I drink the wine and put aside the glass, but the taste lingers, Lolyngton, the taste lingers!

"Who can forget a horse ridden, a boat sailed, a far coast seen in the morning's first light, a battle fought, or a woman loved? He who can forget any one of them is no man at all.

"Come, Lolyngton, they near the outer wall. Let us see what the future holds."

We walked together to the outer wall, and shoulder to shoulder we waited. We could see their faces now, waiting in line again, just out of bowshot, and they were going to charge, weaving through the sharpened sticks, weaving in their fine arabesques among the teeth of death. Oh, it was a fine sight! The sunlight on their sharpened blades!

"What are you proud of?"

"There is so little, Lolyngton, so very little. There has not been time, that remorseless word. What have I done? Nothing! Oh, I have dreamed great dreams; I have moved across the land; I have learned so very little, but yes, I am proud that I hold a blade well; I am proud that I have read, and yes, that I am the son of Kerbouchard!"

They came then, a pageant of martial beauty in the stillness of morning; they came mincing their horses through the dagger-sticks, weaving and changing as though to some strange drill or unheard music, and we let them come.

One hundred archers crouched below the barricade; one hundred men with slings crouched among them, and back by the secondary defenses one hundred horsemen waited in reserve. Along the wall were pikemen and swordsmen and some with battle-axes. There was no fear, I think, but only waiting, and then the explosion of the charge, the horses suddenly gathering speed, the men hurling themselves at our wall!

"Now!"shouted theHansgraf, and his raised arm came down, and the archers arose as one man and shot their arrows into the teeming mass. They shot at riders, for no man willingly would kill a horse.

"Now!"Again the command, and the slingers arose and hurled their stones, and then there were no more commands for each knew what to do. Around us were downed men and charging horses, arrows and stones flying, a crash and clash of weapons upon the wall. A horse screamed, and a man went flying and was impaled like a bug on a pin, arms and legs flailing against the death that came too soon.

A dark rider leaped his horse at the wall and came down beside me, and I swung at his face with my blade and felt the edge bite through his nose-bridge, and the man fell toward me, dagger in hand. Stepping back, I ran him through. An arrow tore through my clothes, and then all incident was lost, and there were only the terrible screams of battle, cries of agony, shouts, the clash of blade on blade, the whiplike sound of arrows.

They came and they came again, and there was no surcease. We fought and fought. My blade crossed steel with a dozen blades. Arrows whipped close; one stabbed my side, but ripping it loose, I fought on, all unaware.

They charged, retreated, then charged again. Some got into our circle, and died there. Many fell by the wall. We drove them back and pursued them with arrows, we hurled stones and threw Greek fire among them, but still they came. They fought like snarling dogs and died with teeth bared and blades still moving in the awful reflexes of muscles commanded by a mind now gone.

A man lunged at me with a sword who had cheered me a few days ago, and I thrust at his throat, and he yelled, recognizing me, "Yol bolsun!"

"This is your road!" I shouted, and ran a yard of steel through his chest, and his eyes flared, close to mine. He tried to stab me with a shortened sword, but I pushed him off. Knocked to my knees by a horse that leaped the barrier, I glimpsed an acrobat take a flying leap and land astride the rider's shoulders and go careening off across the field, the rider atop the horse, the acrobat atop the rider, cutting and slashing.

Johannes died beside me, and I killed the man who slew him. Guido fell, choking on his own blood. Lucca, grim and terrible, fell back and fought beside me, and together we drove a dozen riders back from the barricades.

And then the attack broke, and it was over ... for the time.

Chapter
41

Some sat down where we stood, and some went for water, others to have wounds bandaged. I myself treated the worst of these. We had a dozen killed, twice that many wounded, and some horses were dead.

When there was breathing space I leaned on the barricade and rested my head on my arms. We had killed them well, but they died hard, and we knew what had happened was a mere skirmish that hurt them little, although they had lost four times our losses.

Suzanne brought a wineskin. The Petchenegs had come so quickly the women could not get away in the boat. "You are bleeding," she said as I drank.

Remembrance came to me, and I put my hand to my side, but the blood had already dried. There was a place where my hauberk was slit so I could ride, and when it was hiked up an arrow had hit me, but not hard. A glancing blow, no doubt. Later my side might stiffen, but there was no time to do more now, for they would be coming once more.

"It is bad, isn't it, Mathurin?" She had taken to calling me that, a name my mother had used for me.

"It is very bad," I agreed.

Several men were throwing caltrops out on the grass, but nobody was talking except in commonplaces, for there was nothing to talk about. The acrobat, a dwarf, who had been carried away on the shoulders of an enemy, had returned. He had a nasty cut on his foot, which I treated, but he had killed his man.

The sun was high; a light breeze ruffled the water; a fish splashed, and a Calandra lark sang in the meadow where death lay, oblivious of the corpses.

"Mathurin ... look." Suzanne pointed upward, and my eye followed her finger to a great circling column that must have reached thousands of feet into the air, a column of pelicans flying, their white wings catching the sunlight. It was a lovely, peaceful sight.

"It is better than war," I said.

We stood together, holding hands, and I felt the sweat drying on my body and wondered if I would outlive the day. It was very good to live, to feel her hand in mine. A steppe eagle circled nervously overhead. Perhaps its nest was out there in the thicket.