the Walking Drum (1984) (44 page)

She came a step nearer, then another. "Now, Ayesha! Come!"

He had taken a step forward, hardly able to restrain his eagerness, his attention upon her. My hand shot out in a swift, darting motion shooting the rocks past his neck. The weight of the rocks did as they were designed to do and wrapped around his scrawny neck. With a jerk, I snapped him toward me.

He fell, and heedless of my injuries, I threw myself atop him, holding tight to the line with my bad hand and grasping my dagger with the other.

He fought like the madman he was, scratching and clawing, righting to be free of the strangling noose. He kicked viciously at my injured foot, and the agony was like a bolt of lightning. The pain left me gasping and weak. My dagger came up and drove at him, and he took a good inch of the blade before it struck bone.

He screamed and exploded into violent action. Tearing loose from my bad hand, he sprang erect, but all thought of hurt or danger was gone from me. I must kill!Kill!

He must die or I must, and I dared not fail and leave Ayesha to him. Throwing myself at him, I stepped for an instant on my injured foot and pain shot through me. He tried to spring back but fell on his back in the fire, and before he could move or rise I fell atop him stabbing and thrusting.

He screamed and screamed again, and then his struggles ceased, and his teeth were bared to the sky, his eyes wide. I fell away from him, nauseated, and crawled away from the fire.

A long time later, when I opened my eyes, Ayesha stood over me.

Chapter
43

Evil comes often to a man with money; tyranny comes surely to him without it.

I say this, who am Mathurin Kerbouchard, a homeless wanderer upon the earth's far roads. I speak as one who has known hunger and feast, poverty and riches, the glory of the sword and the humility of the defenseless.

It was without money that I arrived in Constantinople.

Hunger inspires no talent, and carried too far, it deadens the faculties and destroys initiative, and I was hungry, although not yet starving. Women have treated me well, bless their souls, and it has occurred to me that a man need know but two sentences to survive. The first to ask for food, the second to tell a woman he loves her. If he must dispense with one or the other, by all means let it be the first. For surely, if you tell a woman you love her, she will feed you.

At least, such has been my limited experience.

Yet such a solution was beyond me, for my rags lacked gallantry, and rags without firm, exciting flesh beneath them excite little compassion and no passion. A woman who will gather a stray dog into her arms will call the watch if approached by a stray man, unless he is very handsome, but not often even then, for there remains an occasional feminine mind of such a caliber that she might suspect him of more interest in her money than more intimate possibilities.

Now I was footloose in Constantinople, a ragged, penniless vagabond amid the glories of the Byzantine Empire. Around me were wealth, luxury, and decadence. The two former I did not share, but decadence is the one attribute of the very rich to which the poor have equal access.

Decadence is available to all; only with the rich it is better fed, better clothed, better bedded. Cities were built for conquest, and I, a vagabond, must conquer this one with what weapons experience had provided.

To a man without money, for I could not call myself a poor man, the obvious way to riches was theft. Thievery, however, is a crime only for the very ignorant, in which only the most stupid would indulge. There is a crass vulgarity in theft, an indication that one lacks wit, and the penalties far outweigh the possible gain.

To a man in rags all doors are closed. In my present circumstances only the humbler occupations would be open. I, son of Kerbouchard the Corsair, a seafaring man, a swordsman, a merchant, a scholar, a linguist, a physician, and even an alchemist of sorts, had the possibilities of being an acrobat or a magician, but what trade is beyond a man with wit?

Of what use are abilities if they are unknown? To make them known, and myself, was now my problem. My health and physique were now too poor to be an acrobat. As a magician I must fall far below the average in such a city. As a mercenary soldier the way to wealth was too long, and I had a father to find and, once found, to rescue.

Lacking the necessary clothing, I could not be a physician, for a ragged, ill-dressed physician inspires no confidence. A storyteller, perhaps? A weaver of tales? Thus far my flights of fancy had been reserved for the ears of women, for long since I had observed that masculine beauty as an enticer of the female is much overrated. Women are led to the boudoir by the ears. For one who talks well, with a little but not too much wit, it is no problem.

Where women are concerned it is the sound of the voice, the words that are spoken, and the skill with which they are said, especially when combined with a little, but not too much, humility. A few coins, just a few paltry dirhems, these I needed; so I would become a weaver of tales, since most who practiced that skill dressed in rags, anyway. By such means I would inform my listeners, if such there were to be, what manner of man I was.

Ayesha, drawn by some internal magic of her own, had brought me to the edge of a bazaar, and in the shadow of a great old building there was shade, and in the shade, a stone. A stone polished, no doubt, by the posteriors of the idle poor. With the stone came inspiration. Tying Ayesha in the shade where she might poach a few leaves, I seated myself on the stone and looked about at the passersby and the loiterers.

Before I could open my mouth to speak there came a frantic roar, and a great, bearded booby of a man came rushing upon me, shouting and expostulating. "Away! Be gone, vagabond! Do you not know that you have taken the seat of Abdullah, the storyteller?" He loomed over me, his beard quivering with rage, his eyes bulging, his vast stomach agitated.

"I do not doubt," I replied coolly, "that others have taken your seat, but I am not one of them. If it is this stone to which you refer, I found it unoccupied. Now, Father of Vermin, Son of Iniquity, begone! I am about to regale these gentlemen"-my gesture included the growing crowd of amused bystanders-"with the harrowing tale of a thief and the daughter of a sultan, a thief who crept into her bedchamber."

"What?"He fairly screamed. "Nay! None shall tell stories upon this spot but Abdullah! Away, or I shall have out my sword!"

"Insect! You are too clumsy to hold a sword and too fat in the belly to see its point!"

The fat graybeard grasped his sword hilt threateningly. "Away! Or I shall have out thy heart! Draw your sword!"

"My mind is my sword," I replied, "and if you linger you shall feel its edge."

A crowd had gathered, eager as always to enjoy any argument or scuffle, and from their expressions they were pleased to see the pompous old storyteller getting the worst of it. My eyes swept the crowd. Beggars and loiterers, but a few shopkeepers and artisans, also.

"What stories can you tell?" I scoffed. "You, who have done nothing but polish this stone with your fat behind? And I? What sea has not known my ship? What road has not left its dust upon my feet?"

He blustered and ranted and grasped his sword again, glaring wildly.

"Draw the sword," I invited, "and I shall spank you with your own blade, or pluck your beard, hair by hair!

"Look upon him!" I gestured toward the huge stomach. "Is this bloated thing a teller of tales, or a concealer of wealth? It has been said that Abdullah the storyteller is really Abdullah the Tale-Bearer, receiving rewards for information."

Leaning toward the crowd, with a wink to show I was not serious, I said, "Do you think that monstrous swelling is astomach? If you do, you are fools. It is a huge sack in which he carries his wealth!"

Pointing at the huge stomach, I said, "I wonder how much wealth he conceals in that huge sack? Shall we open it and see?"

"No!" Abdullah shouted. "This man is a-!" Drawing my dagger, I tested its edge with my thumb. "Come! Let us open this bag to see if I am mistaken or not. If I am wrong"-I threw my palms wide-"I will admit my mistake and apologize.

"Perhaps," I said deprecatingly, "it is only wind! But let us see. Come, Abdullah! A fair test! Let us open the bag!" I glanced around at the crowd. "I will wager this bag is filled with coins! Who will take my wager?"

The crowd joined in, amused at Abdullah's angry astonishment, an astonishment rapidly changing to protest and the beginnings of fear. A huge-shouldered man with an exposed, hairy chest pushed through the crowd. "I wager it is nothing but wind! There are no coins there! I accept your challenge! Open it up!"

"Come, Abdullah, you are a sportsman! Help us to settle our wager!" I reached for his sash with my left hand, the dagger in my right.

He sprang back with amazing agility for such a huge man, but in so doing, he stumbled and fell into a pile of camel dung. "Come!" I protested. "Do not hide down there! I shall have your sack open in an instant!"

So saying, I grasped him by the beard, a deadly insult in any Moslem country, and held the point of my dagger at his fat belly. Turning my hand, I struck him lightly in the belly with the fist that held the knife. "Here?" I asked the crowd. "Or shall we open it here?" And I struck him lightly in the side.

"Try it there!" The big-shouldered man pointed with a toe at a spot just below the wide sash. "Perfect!" Releasing my grip upon his beard, I lifted the dagger. "Now-!"

He shot from under my dagger like an eel from a greased hand, lunged to his feet, half fell against the building, and then fled, followed by the laughter of the crowd.

Some of the people began to drift off, but many remained. "There!" A Greek pointed to the rock. "You have dethroned the king, do you take his place and tell us a story!"

This Greek was a slender, graceful man in a rich semicircular cloak of maroon, decorated at the collar and lower hem with a richly jeweled band of embroidery. The jewels were pearls and garnets. Under it was a tunic that came almost to the knees. His legs were cross-gartered.

He gestured to Ayesha. "Your mare is of the blood. Such a mare would be the pride of a king."

"There are kings and kings," I said, "and the mare is mine."

From his sash he took a coin and tossed it to me with a careless gesture. It winked gold in the sunlight as I took it deftly from the air. "Come, Teller of Tales, let us hear what you can do."

Bowing low, I spoke mockingly. "O Mighty One! What is your desire? Would you have a tale of the Caliph of Baghdad? Or from the siege of Troy? A reading from Aristophanes? From Firdausi? Or would you hear of far seas and lands unknown to the Byzantines?"

"Can there be such?" He lifted a supercilious eyebrow. "Byzantium is the center of the world!"

"Ah ... ?"

"You doubt it, vagabond?"

"I was remembering Rome, Carthage, Babylon, Nineveh ... each in its time the center of the world, all ruins now."

He was amused. "Do you imagine this city will be as those? You jest."

"Had I asked in any of those cities, would anyone have believed they someday would lie in ruins? Each age is an age that is passing, and cities, my friend, are transitory things. Each is born from the dust; each matures, grows older, then it fades and dies. A passing traveler looks at a mound of sand and broken stones and asks 'What was here?' and his answer is only an echo or a wind drifting sand."

Bowing again I said gently, "Perhaps your city will draw new life from the steppes, new blood." I looked into his eyes and said, "Perhaps the blood here is thinning now, and perfume appreciated more than sweat."

"You spoke of Troy? What know you of Troy?"

"Perhaps no more than Virgil knew, or Homer. Yet perhaps something more, for I myself have pulled an oar in a galley."

"A slave? I suspected it."

"Are we not all slaves, occasionally? To custom? To a situation? To an idea? Who among us is truly free, Byzantine? Yes, I have been a slave, but other things also, and a sailor upon Homer's wine dark seas, as well as those unknown to Byzantines."

"That again. What seas?"

"Have you read Pytheas? Or Scylax? Eudoxus? I have sailed seas Pytheas sailed. Shall I speak of them?"

"We would be diverted." The Byzantine did not like me. "Tell us, vagabond, and if the tale be good you shall have another coin."

"Know then"-I crossed my legs upon the polished stone-"that far to the west a cold finger of land thrusts into the dark waters of the sea called Atlantic. Strange and rockbound is that coast, and along its shores live a hardy folk who from ancient times have taken their living from the sea. From a time beyond memory they have quested far a-sea in search of fish.

"Know then, Byzantine, that long ago these men built great, oak-hulled ships that towered above the galleys of Rome; great ships they were with leathern sails and no oars. Within these ships men sailed to far lands, breasting the cold green seas to follow the trail of the great gray geese, which each year fly westward over colder and colder waters.

"They sailed to Iceland, Greenland, even to the shores beyond."

"Beyond?"

"There are always the shores beyond, for this have the gods given to men: that we shall always have those farther shores, always a dream to follow, always a sea for questing. For in this only is man great, that he must seek what lies beyond the horizons, and there is an infinity of horizons that lie ever waiting. Only in seeking is man important, seeking for answers, and in the shadow he leaves upon the land."