by Harold Lamb
The same thunderstorm that so disturbed the young bride of the Rawul caught Khlit and Abdul Dost on the open road.
The warriors had lingered long at the hospitable hut of Bhimal to escape the midday heat. So the sun was slanting over the wheat fields when they trotted toward the castle of Thaneswar. It was twilight when they came upon the crossroads described by the archer, Sawal Das.
Here was a grimy figure squatted upon a ragged carpet, the center of interest of a group of naked children who scampered into the bushes at sight of the riders.
The man was a half-caste Portuguese, hatless and bootless. On the carpet before him were a mariner's compass, much the worse for wear, and one or two tattered books, evidently—as Khlit surmised—European prayer-books. He glanced up covertly at the warriors.
“What manner of man is this?” wondered Abdul Dost aloud in Hindustani.
“An unworthy astrologer, so please you, great sirs,” bowed the half-caste.
He closed both eyes and smiled.
“My mystic instrument of divination—” he pointed to the compass—“and my signs of the Zodiac.”
He showed illuminated parchment pictures of the saints in the prayer-book.
“It is a goodly trade, and the witless ones of this country pay well. My name is Merghu. What can I do for the great sirs?” “Jaisa des waisahi bhes!”—for such a country, such a masquerade—responded the Afghan contemptuously. “Will not the priest of Kukushetra beat your back with bamboos if they find you here at the crossroads?”
Again the man's eyes closed slyly and his sullen face leered. He lifted a corner of his cloak, disclosing a huge, ulcerous sore.
“Nay, noble travelers. They may not touch what is unclean. Besides the festival of Janam approaches, and the priests are busied within the temple—”
“Enough!” growled the Afghan at a sign from Khlit, who had marked a cloud-bank creeping over the moon that was beginning to show between the treetops. “We are belated. We were told to take the upper hill trail to Thaneswar castle, but here be two trails. Which is the one we seek?”
“Yonder,” muttered the astrologer, pointing. “The other leads to the temple.”
Khlit and Abdul Dost spurred up the way he had indicated. Glancing back at the first turn in the trail, the Cossack noticed that the sham astrologer had vanished, with all his stock in trade.
But now wind whipped the treetops that met over the trail. Rain poured down in one of the heavy deluges that precede the wet season in this country.
Khlit rode unheeding, but Abdul Dost swore vehemently as his finery became soaked. He spurred his horse faster into the darkness without noticing where they went save that it was upward, trusting to the instinct of his mount to lead him safely.
So the two came at a round pace to a clearing in the trees. A high, blank wall emerged before them. This they circled until a gate opened and they trotted past a pool of water to a square structure with a high-peaked roof whence came sounds of voices and the clang of cymbals.
“The wedding merriment has begun!” cried Abdul Dost.
He swung down from his horse and beat at a bronze door with fist and sword-hilt. Khlit, from the caution of habit, kept to his saddle. The door swung inward. A glare of light struck into their faces.
“Who comes to the hall of offerings of Jagannath?” cried a voice.
Khlit saw a group of Brahmans at the door. Behind them candles and torches lighted a large room filled with an assemblage of peasants and soldiers who were watching a dance through a wide doorway that seemed to lead into a building beyond.
In this farther space a cluster of young girls moved in time to the music of drums and cymbals, tossing their bare arms and whirling upon their toes so that thin draperies swirled about their half-nude forms.
Abdul Dost, who was a man of single thought, stared at the spectacle in astonishment, his garments dripping and rain beating upon his back.
“Who comes armed to the outer hall of the Lord of the World?” cried a young priest zealously. “Know ye not this is the time of the Janam?”
“I seek Thaneswar castle,” explained the Afghan. “Is it not here? Nay, I am a traveler, not a slave of your god—”
“Be gone then from here,” commanded the young priest. “This is no place for those of—Thaneswar. Be gone, one-without-breeding, low-born—”
“By Allah!” shouted Abdul Dost angrily. “Is this your courtesy to wayfarers in a storm?”
He swung back into his saddle, drawing his sword swiftly. Khlit, lest he should ride his horse into the throng, laid firm hand on the arm of the irate Muslim. They caught a passing glimpse of the dancing women staring at them, and the crowd. Then the door swung to in their faces with a clang.
“'Low-born,' they said, in my teeth!” stormed the Afghan. “Base mouthers of indecency! Mockers of true men! Saw you the temple harlots offering their bodies to feast the eyes of the throng? Saw you the faithless priest offering food to the sculptured images of their armless gods—”
“Peace,” whispered Khlit. “Here is an ill place for such words.” “Why laid you hand on my rein?” fumed Abdul Dost. “If you had fear in your heart for such as these—offscourings of thrice-defiled dirt—why did you not flee? I would have barbered the head of yon shaven villain with my sword. Eh—I am not an old woman who shivers at hard words and sword-strokes—”
Khlit's grasp on his arm tightened.
“The rain is ceasing,” growled the Cossack. “I can see the lights of Kukushetra village through the farther gate in the temple wall. Many men are afoot. Come. Thaneswar is a better place than this.”
While the Cossack eyed the surroundings of the temple enclosure curiously, Abdul Dost shrugged his shoulders.
“Age has sapped your courage, Khlit,” muttered the mansabdar. “Verily, I heard tales of your daring from the Chinese merchants and the Tatars. Yet you draw back before the insult of a stripling priest.”
Khlit wheeled his horse toward the gate jerking the bridle of the Afghan's mount.
“Aye, I am old,” he said, half to himself. “And I have seen before this the loom of a man-trap. Come.”
Sullenly the other trotted after him. Back on the trail, the moon, breaking from the clouds by degrees, cast a network of shadows before them. The two rode in silence until Abdul Dost quickened his pace to take the lead.
“Perchance,” he observed grimly, “that miscreant astrologer abides yet at the crossroads. The flat of my sword laid to his belly will teach him not to guide better men than he astray.”
Khlit lifted his head.
“Aye, the astrologer,” he meditated aloud. “Surely he must have known the way to Thaneswar, as well as the temple path. It would be well, Abdul Dost, to watch better our path. Why did he speak us false? That is a horse will need grooming.”
“Aye, with a sword.”
The mansabdar rode heedlessly forward until they had gained the main road. Khlit, looking shrewdly on all sides, thought that he saw a figure move in the thicket at the side of the path. He checked his horse with a low warning to his companion.
But Abdul Dost, lusting for reprisal, slipped down from his saddle and advanced weapon in hand to the edge of the brush, peering into the shadows under the trees, which were so dense that the rain could barely have penetrated beneath their branches. Standing so, he was clearly outlined in the moonlight.
“Come forth, O skulker of the shadows!” he called. “Hither, false reader of the stars. I have a word for your ears—Bismillah!”
A dozen armed figures leaped from the bush in front of him. Something struck the mail on his chest with a ringing clang, and a spear dropped at his feet. Another whizzed past his head.
Abdul Dost gave back a pace, warding off the sword-blades that searched for his throat. Excellent swordsman that he was, he was hard-pressed by the number of his assailants. A sweeping blow of his scimitar half-severed the head of the nearest man, but another weapon bit into his leg over the knee, and his startled h
orse reared back, making him half-lose his balance.
At this point Khlit spurred his horse at the foes of Abdul Dost, riding down one and forcing the others back.
“Mount!” he cried over his shoulder to the Afghan.
Abdul Dost's high-strung Arab, however, had been grazed by a spear and was temporarily unmanageable. Khlit covered his companion, avoiding the blows of the attackers cleverly. They pressed their onset savagely.
Abdul Dost, cursing his injured leg, tossed aside the reins of his useless mount and stepped forward to Khlit's side, his sword poised.
Then, while the two faced the ten during one of those involuntary pauses that occur in hand-to-hand fights, a new element entered into the conflict at the crossroads.
There was a sharp twang, a whistling hum in the air, and one of the assailants flung up his arms with a grunt. In the half-light Khlit saw that an arrow had transfixed the man's head, its feathered end sticking grotesquely from his cheek.
A second shaft and a third sped swiftly, each finding its mark on their foes. One man dropped silently to earth, clutching his chest; a second turned and spun dizzily backward into the bush.
One of the surviving few flung up his shield fearfully in time to have an arrow pierce it cleanly and plant itself in his shoulder.
There was something inexorable and deadly in the silent flight of arrows. Those who could stand, in the group of raiders, turned and leaped into the protecting shadows.
Khlit and Abdul Dost heard them running, breaking through the vines. They stared curiously at the five forms outstretched in the road. On the forehead of one who faced the moon, a shaft through his breast, they saw the white caste-mark of Jagannath.
Already the five had ceased moving.
“Come into the shadow, O heedless riders of the North,” called a stalwart voice.
Khlit turned his horse, and was followed by Abdul Dost, who by this time had recovered his mount.
Under the trees on the farther side of the road they found Sawal Das, chuckling. The archer surveyed them, his small head on one side.
“Horses and sword-blades are an ill protection against the spears that fly in the dark,” he remarked reprovingly.
“How came you here?” muttered Abdul Dost, who was in an ill humor, what with his hurt and the events of the night.
“Ohe—Oho!” Sawal Das laughed. “Am I not the right-hand man of my lord, the Rawul? Does he not ride hither with his bride tomorrow? Thus, I watch the road.
“A short space ago when the rain ceased I heard an ill-omened group talking at the crossroads. There was a half-caste feringha who said that the two riders would return to seek the Thaneswar path—”
“The astrologer!” muttered Abdul Dost, binding his girdle over his thigh.
“Even so, my lord. Who is he but a spy of the temple? Ah, my bold swordsman, there be jewels in your turban and sword-hilt.
“Likewise—so Bhimal whispered—the low-born followers of the temple have orders to keep armed men from Thaneswar gate. I know not. But I waited with bow strung, believing that there would be sport—
“Bravely and well have you aided us,” said Khlit shortly in his broken Mogholi. “I saw others moving in the bush—”
“Perchance the evil-faced Kurral and his friends,” assented Sawal Das, who understood.
“I will not forget,” grunted the Cossack “Nay.”
The archer took his rein in hand.
“This is no spot for our talk. I will lead you to Thaneswar, where you may sleep in peace.”
He led them forward, humming softly to himself.
“Men of Jagannath have been slain,” he murmured over his shoulder. “That will rouse the anger of the priests. Already the hot blood is in their foreheads at thought of the honor and wealth of my lord the Rawul. We will not speak of this, lest a cloud sully the bride-bringing of my lord.
“Verily,” he said more softly, “did Perwan Singh, the chanter of epics, say that before long this place will be as it was in the days of the Pandas and the higher gods. Aye, Perwan Singh sang that blood would cover the mountains and bones will fill the valleys. Death will walk in the shadows of the men of Thaneswar.”
Now, after they had gone, a form scurried from the thicket down the muddy highway, a heavy pack on its back. It paused not, nor looked behind. Merghu, the astrologer, was leaving Kukushetra.
III
There is One who knows the place of the birds who fly through the sky; who perceives what has been and what will be; who knows the track of the wind
He is named by many names; yet he is but one.
Hymn to Vishnu
Khlit was disappointed in the sight of Thaneswar castle. On the day following the affray of the crossroads the Cossack was early afoot, and as the retainers were busied in preparing for the coming of their lord, he was able to make the rounds of the place undisturbed save by a few curious glances.
The abode of Rawul Matap Rao was not a castle in the true sense of the word. In the midst of the wheat fields of the province of Kukushetra a low wall of dried mud framed an enclosure of several buildings. The enclosure was beaten smooth by the feet of many animals, and against the wall were the stables, the elephant-stockade, the granaries, and the quarters of the stable-servants and the mahouts.
In the center of the site grew the garden of Thaneswar, a jumble of wild flowers, fern trees and miniature deodars cleverly cultivated by gardeners whose hereditary task it was to tend the spot and keep clean the paths through the verdure, artfully designed to appear as if a haphazard growth of nature.
An open courtyard ornamented by a great pool of water shadowed by cypresses fronted the garden. At the rear of the courtyard, it was true, a solid granite building stood—the hall of the Rawul.
Pillars of the same stone, however, supported a thatched roof, under which ran layers of cane. Numerous openings in the granite wall provided sleeping-terraces.
The inner partitions were mainly latticework, and only one ceiling—that of the main hall—was of stronger material than the thatch. This was of cedar, inlaid with ivory and mosaic, and brightly painted.
To Khlit, accustomed to the rugged stone structures of Central Asia, the small palace was but a poor fortress. He had no eye for the throng of diligent servants who were spreading clean cotton cloths over the floor mattresses or placing flowers in the latticework.
“The temple of the hill god, yonder,” he muttered to Sawal Das, who had joined him, “was stronger.”
The archer fingered his mustache.
“Aye,” he admitted restlessly. “I would that the Rawul had kept the heavy taxes upon the peasants, so that the armed retainers of Thaneswar would be more numerous and better equipped. I have scarce two-score able men under me. And my lord has not many more men-at-arms to attend him. He would give the very gold of his treasury to the peasants, if need be.
“When I say that we should have more swords—when yonder eagle—” he pointed to the glittering dome of the temple—“cries out in greed—he laughs and swears that a word will rouse the peasantry and villagers of Kukushetra on our behalf. But I know not.”
He shrugged his shoulders and dismissed his forebodings.
“Ah, well, warrior, who would dare to lift hand against Rawul Matap Rao, the last of the Thaneswar clan? Come, here is the choicest defender of Thaneswar, with his companions.”
Sawal Das pointed to the stockade in one corner of the great enclosure. Here a half-dozen elephants were being groomed for the reception of the chieftain and his bride.
It was the first time that Khlit had seen the beasts nearby and he strode over to gaze at them. Seeing his absorption in the sight, the archer left to attend to his own affairs.
First the elephants were washed down well in a muddy pool outside the enclosure, reached by a wide gate through the wall. Then their heads, trunks and ears were painted a vivid orange, shaded off to green at the tips of the flapping ears and at the end of the trunk.
Then crimson silk clot
hs were hung over their barrels, and a triangular piece of green velvet was placed over their heads between the eyes. This done, silk cords with silver bells attached were thrown about their massive necks.
The largest of the huge animals, however, was attired in full war panoply. Bhimal, who had come with several of the household to gaze at the sight, touched Khlit's elbow.
“Behold Asil Rumi,” he said in Mogholi.
Khlit and Abdul Dost had treated the lame peasant kindly— something rare in his experience—and he was grateful.
“The favorite elephant. He was a gift to the grandfather of the Rawul from a raja of Rinthambur. He has not his match for strength in this land. He is mightier than the storm-wind, which is the breath of the angry gods, for he can break down with his head a tree as big as my body.”
The peasant sighed.
“Oftentimes, when the Rawul hunted tiger toward Rintham-bur, Asil Rumi has trod down my wheat. But always the Rawul flung me silver to pay for the damage. A just man.”
Khlit glanced at the old peasant.
“Have you left your farm?”
“Is it not Jagannath's? I would not dishonor the faith of my dead brother. See!” he cried.
Asil Rumi, with a thunderous internal rumbling, had planted his trunk against a post of the stockade a few yards from them. The elephant wore his battle armor—a bronze plate, heavily bossed, over his skull, stout leather sheets down either side, and twin sword-blades tied to his curving tusks.
Under the impact of the elephant's bulk the post creaked. Khlit saw it bend and heard it crack. The house servants ran back.
Asil Rumi leaned farther forward and the post—a good yard thick—gave as easily before him as an aspen. Then his mahout ran up. Khlit was surprised to hear the man talk to the beast urgently. The mahout held a silver prong, but this he did not use. Asil Rumi drew back.
At a second word from his master, the elephant coiled his trunk about the post and straightened it. Then he stood tranquil, his huge ears shaking, muttering to himself.
“How is it,” asked Khlit, “that a small man such as that can command a beast like Asil Rumi? The beast could slay him with a touch of the tusk.”
