Swords From the Sea

by Harold Lamb

  The man from the sea was high in favor at court because he was to be sent down through the steppe to the far-off Black Sea, to take command of the Russian fleet and pound to pieces the fleet of the sultan who was at war with the Empress.

  John Paul had pounded the English ships, and burnt them; afterward he had been given a gold sword for bravery for other deeds by the hetman of the French; so the Empress had called him and he had come. Time pressed, for he was needed by the Muscovites, who were expecting an attack by the ships of the Turks, down where Father Dnieper loses himself in the Black Sea.

  This pleased me because it meant that we would soon show our heels to the accursed city of fogs and snow. Edwards gave orders to get together a half-dozen horses, with two Tatars to act as followers, and the necessary highway passes and order for post horses. He was to be John Paul's aidede-camp and he told me to go to Strelsky for the passes.

  I found the ensign of the Guards sitting in his quarters by a tile stove, with his fur greatcoat thrown open and a glass of brandy near his hand. When he saw me he told me to close the door; then he took a pinch of snuff and dusted it off his silk neck-cloth.

  "You start at dawn tomorrow, Ivak. This order is for yamshiks-the pick of the post horses."

  He sharpened a quill pen and cleaned his teeth with it while I drew a wooden splinter from the stove and lighted my pipe.

  "You're a golden fellow, Ivak. I warrant you've stolen Tatar horses from across the border. They tell me you can use a sword, too. Well, you're lucky."

  "Allah birdui," I responded. God gives.

  "Well, you're no skirted choir singer, blast me if you are. I like your sort, Ivak. You have a head on you as well as a sword hand. Tch-tch!" He shook his head admiringly. "Have you got together enough men and horses for the journey? Sometimes your Father Dnieper-that cursedly treacherous river-is a stepfather? Eh? Pirates and roving Tatars swarm like bees around a clover patch."

  "We have a change of mounts and two Talmak Tatars for dragomen," I answered. "How large will the escort of soldiers be?"

  Strelsky looked over at a high lacquer screen that stood in one corner of the chamber and wiped the brown dust again from his chin.

  "No other escort goes with you, Ivak. Haste is imperative, and you must not spare the horses. A great number of followers would delay the march."

  I bent my head as if that were most true. Instead, I was wondering why not even a vedette of hussars accompanied us. John Paul was high in favor with her Majesty, and surely the Empress would not let him ride forth without a retinue. But so it was.

  Strelsky pushed the flagon of brandy toward me, and we looked at the bottom of the glasses several times, each busied with his own thoughts,

  "You Cossack chaps like to go and warm up in the taverns on the road," he said after a while. "How would you like a hundred rix-dollars to weight down your wallet-eh?"

  "Allah birdui!"

  Without getting up he opened the lid of a box on the table and motioned for me to take what was inside. It was a sack of silver coins of the kind Edwards had used to pay his bet. I put it in my belt and the ensign nodded.

  "Harken, Ivak," he went on in a lower voice, "we understand each other, I think. There is more to the order, about your journey, and it is secret. You serve the Empress?"

  "We have taken her bread and salt."

  "And silver. Good! Well, John Paul must not reach the Black Sea."

  "How-not reach the Black Sea?"

  For a long moment he stared at the painting on the screen, and I noticed the toes of a pair of boots showing underneath the screen.

  "Do not our ships there wait for him to take command, aye, to show the gunners how to point the cannon, and the sailors how to guide the ships without running aground?" I asked.

  "We have Muscovite commanders -better ones."

  Strelsky scowled, because more than once the Moskyas had lost their vessels because they could not manage the sails and because the rigging was stiff. On the other hand the Turks were good seamen, and they were helped by the corsairs from the Barbary Coast.

  "John Paul is a hireling; he would betray us. Why do you bother your head about such things, Ivak? When you have spent the rix-dollars and come back to the Winter Palace, I swear that you will have the rank of colonel and be at the head of the Don regiment. Your ataman, your colonel is a bad one, a wine swiller. He will lose his baton."

  "Is the order about Paul Jones written and signed?" I asked, pretending to be pleased with all he said.

  "Nay-deuce take you, Ivak. Are such things to be written on paper?"

  I scratched my head, the way, my children, the warriors do when they are puzzled. Now we Cossacks weigh down a horse a bit, but because a buffalo is fat it does not mean he is a fool. Nay, the weasel is the greatest of all fools because bloodlust crazes him and he thinks only of killing, and the weasel is thin and sharp enough. Strelsky made me think of a weasel. I began to smell so much smoke that the fire could not be far away.

  Strelsky was a fool. He thought to please me by promising me the promotion to colonel in place of our ataman. As God lives I would have liked to be colonel and hold an ivory baton on my hip, but our officer was our little father. Why should he not drink when there was nothing else to do in this city that smelled of the sea?

  "True," I nodded again. "An order is an order. God keep and reward you, Ensign-I must look to the horses."

  He stared and said farewell doubtfully, and I went out, taking pains not to close the door tight. I walked down the hall, thumping my boots, and came back again, moving gently, like a cat.

  Without asking permission I pushed open the door. The screen had been moved and a man in a very fine silver coat was standing by the table, yawning. On his breast was the badge of the Order of St. Anne, and some others. He had very tight pantaloons and polished Hessian boots, the kind that Edwards wore.

  Strelsky was speaking, and once he called the other "mon Prince." When they saw me they looked angry, and the pockmarked face of the prince grew dark.

  When I took my kalpak in hand and bowed several times to the girdle as if greatly confused by sight of such a great noble, he swore in a language I did not know.

  "Pardon, Excellencies," I muttered, "but I came back to ask again about the order. Is it the command of the Empress that Pavel-Paul Jones-is to be slain on the road to the Black Sea?"

  Neither answered, and the full red lips of the prince-lips like a woman's they were-drew together as if he were hiring them. Strelsky began to curse, then he laughed.

  "Can't you see beyond your horse's ears, sotnik? Haven't you silver in your wallet? See to it that the river brigands or a band of Tatars seizes the American and rubs him out of the world. If this happens you will be colonel of the Don regiment; if not, you would better flee to the Turks, to keep from being flayed. Do you understand now, you dolt?"

  But the prince seemed thoughtful, and it was clear that he was not a fool like Strelsky. Taking out a lace kerchief, scented like a woman's hair, he waved it in the air and held it to his nose as if my sheepskins annoyed him. So it was difficult to get a good sight of his face again.

  "If a word of this order passes beyond your lips, Ivak," he warned in broken Russian, "you will wake up with a pistol ball in your brain."

  "Ekh!" I lifted the bag of silver and tossed it on the table. "Then I beg your Excellency to keep the money for me. A dead man can't spend anything, even a copeck."

  The smoke had cleared away enough for me to know that the Empress had not issued the order, or the Moskyas would have been bolder with their words. Someone else had a quarrel with Paul Jones, and I thought of the English officers who loved him only as dogs love wolves, and whose ships he had burned, besides taking from their grasp a high command in the Russian service. Before his coming the Empress had listened to the advice of the English colonels of the sea when she wanted to make war with her ships.

  Why did I return the money? Well, it weighed on my spirit. Better if I had kept it-muc
h better. I saw the watery eyes of the prince blink as if something had come up out of the ground under his nose. And when I went out into the hall I heard the door close, tight this time.

  At John Paul's lodging all was quiet; the two Tatars were snoring in the stable, the boxes of luggage were packed in the courtyard, and John Paul was writing a letter in his room upstairs. He was always writing letters, though none were ever delivered to him. He had no body servant in Russia, and so, the door being open and unguarded, I sat down on the sill to smoke my pipe and regret that the rix-dollars were no longer mine.

  Presently to the door came two women, one old and bundled up and the other straight and young. She had a thin face, pale under the paint that the Moskya women use, and her hood was thrown hack to show coils of black hair.

  They wanted to ask the American for work to do-sewing. I told them to go to another door in the street because we had no need of sewing.

  Then they began to argue and the younger one said they had had nothing to eat that day. Overhead, the American stirred and came down to see what was happening. The old one drew back, but the girl addressed him boldly in some kind of French, I think, and he shook his head.

  The girl took his hand and put back her cloak and smiled, trying to slip past him into the house. But he would not permit it, giving her some money instead-I do not know how much. Then she jumped up on her toes and kissed him, and went away to where the crone was waiting. John Paul returned to his writing because I heard the scrape of his pen.

  I was glad the women had gone because every minister of Petersburg had a regiment of spies and the foreign nobles had nearly as many, and it is an ill place where a man can be watched without knowing it. The great clocks of the towers had struck many times when wheels creaked up to the house and an equerry of the palace reported that a tarantass belonging to her Majesty had been brought for the American to use on his journey.

  As Paul Jones was asleep by then, I went out to look at the tarantass, which was a long, narrow wagon with big wheels, leather bound. In front and rear were places for footmen to stand, holding on by straps. A slop ing roof covered it like a house, and within was room enough for two to sit or recline but not to stand. The windows were small and heavy shutters closed them.

  Two pairs of matched bays were hitched up, one pair to the shaft, the other to the traces. I was very sleepy by then, and dozed a bit until John Paul woke me up.

  "Stuppai, Ivak," he cried with a smile. "Forward!"

  I was angry that he should have found me asleep when dawn was streaking the sky, and I cursed the Tatars a bit when I found that he had been to the stables and had the horses fed before waking me. We were ready by the time Edwards rode up, yawning, with his body servant and a led horse with double packs. All the servants of the palace had gone except the equerry and the two postilions. For a while we delayed while the two officers talked, and John Paul went up to the tarantass and glanced inside carelessly, though he could have seen little in the faint light.

  "Ivak," Edwards called to me, "here's a of a mess. The American will not ride in the carriage of the Empress. He wants to make the journey in a saddle. We cannot send back her Majesty's gift."

  "Health to your Honor," I pointed out. "In that case we can throw the luggage in the wagon and use the pack animals as spare mounts for the servant and Tatars. Then, perhaps Pavel-Paul Jones can sleep in it when we halt."

  In this way our progress would be swifter, and I was glad when the American ordered the packs thrown into the tarantass and we set out with three extra mounts, leaving the equerry standing at salute. Ekh, I was glad to ride for the last time through the muddy streets in the pale dawn and hear for the last time that clamoring, invisible ringing of the bells.

  II

  When the net is invisible the fish thinks the water is clear. That is how the fish is caught.

  For a time that day I watched John Paul, to see how he would bear himself. Ekh, he was at home in the saddle, that chap, and he forced the pace faster than the Englishman, Edwards, wanted to press on. Because it was the season of the rasputitsa, the flood during the spring thaw, the roads were no better than fords across the treacherous swamps. The carriage would slip from the crown of the road and sink into the mire up to the hubs.

  After John Paul had dismounted once and put logs under the wheels, to force the carriage back to the road, I made the postilions change places with the Tatars. I was angry because we had to drag along the tarantass, but if I had known what evil was stored up for us within it, I would have unhitched the horses and left it like a stranded ship in the great pools of the flooded country.

  If it had not been for John Paul we should not have reached the first of the zamoras-the post stations along the highroad to Moscow-that night. The sun had gone down behind a cloud bank when we drew up at the inn and a score of slouching rogues came out to stare at us. They showed their teeth but nothing more when I elbowed them aside and shouted to the pig of a tavern keeper to make ready a leg of mutton and brandy spirits and bread for their excellencies, the officers, who had chosen to quarter themselves in the carriage after looking once at the inn.

  They sat on the shaft and ate the dinner when it was brought, but I went to the stables before eating to make certain that the Tatars had watered the horses and given them oats. I found all as it should be, the beasts bedded down and the Tatars not yet drunk on chirkhir, and I was turning away to seek out my dinner when one of them touched my knee.

  "Horses!" he said, and after a moment, "Nine riders on the road, Ivak Khan."

  Now Tatars have ears like weasels, and it was quite a while before I heard the hoofbeats coming nearer. The Tatar who had spoken peered up at me and pulled his forefinger across his throat, then touched the hilt of my saber. He meant that men were around who would cut my throat, and warned me to be on guard.

  Just as he did so a screaming began in front of the inn, a shrill screaming that was horrible to hear. I took off my kalpak and crossed myself, for it sounded like a woman vampire calling from the forest, but the cries were coming from the wagon.

  "Aid-Aid! Who will hear the prayer of a Christian maid?"

  John Paul and the Englishman were on their feet, staring at the tarantass in astonishment, because all the day that wagon had given out no cries and now there was either a woman or a vampire inside it.

  A body of horsemen came clattering up to the fire, and the leader dismounted and strode over to the wagon. He was an ensign of the Guards with a long mustache and a long saber and a red face. The six troopers with him kept to their saddles and worked their horses around so as to hem us in.

  "Let us see what is boiling in this pot!" growled the ensign, jerking open the doors.

  He began to haul at something and presently pulled out-for he was a strong man-a girl who was bound with belts at the wrists and ankles. She was slender, with tangled dark hair, and she wore a silk cloak lined with hare's fur.

  All the time the ensign was unbuckling the straps she leaned on his shoulder and wept, chattering like a squirrel. Servants of the American, she said, had overtaken her in the street of Petersburg and had gagged her. Then she had been carried to John Paul's house and placed in the wagon. She said-and this was quite true-that she had had nothing to eat all day, and had been shaken up and down like wheat at threshing.

  The ensign, whose name was Borol, asked her if she was not Anna Mikhalovna, and she assented eagerly. Then he frowned and turned to Edwards, explaining how complaint had been made that morning at the quarters of the Guard by this girl's mother. An order had been issued that he should follow the American, find the girl, and request John Paul to return to Petersburg.

  When Borol pointed at the American, John Paul spoke one word to Edwards, who turned to the ensign-

  "Salute the rear admiral."

  Borol chewed his mustache and clicked his lips; then drew his heels together and saluted sullenly. It was plainly to be seen that John Paul was not in such high favor now. He took Edwards's arm
and the two paced up and down while the aide-de-camp explained about the accusation and the order to return.

  Meanwhile Borol made a great show of warming Anna Mikhalovna at the fire and ordering brandy for her to drink, and I went closer to stare at her. She was the girl who had called at John Paul's door the evening before with the old crone.

  Ekh, the whole thing was clear in my mind, all at once. The girl had not been in the tarantass when it was first driven up from the palace. Some time before dawn she had been placed in it, bound, most likely. Then John Paul's enemies in Petersburg had spread a story that the American had carried off the girl, and now he would be recalled to explain the matter to a court of men who hated him. It meant that he would be kept waiting at the Muscovite palace instead of joining his command, even if nothing worse happened. In my mind was the picture of the foreign prince with the Hessian boots, and I wondered how much the English had to do with the plot. They had no love for John Paul, and made no secret of it.

  The story of Anna Mikhalovna could not be true. Why had she kept quiet in the wagon all day, only to cry out like a bugle when the troopers came up? And as for John Paul's servants carrying her off, he had no servants. Besides, she had tried to enter his house last evening, and when she had been turned away this new plot had been made against him.

  Probably his enemies had counted on a scene in his courtyard when we started off; but he had chosen a horse instead of the carriage and the girl had not been seen, because no one had looked inside when the packs were thrust through the door.

  It was a plot that men who spend their lives at court would hatch-a small and skillful plot, the kind that ties up a man as with silk cords. What could John Paul do but go back? He belonged to the world of the court, and according to his code it would be necessary to clear his name before he could accept his new mission.

  Edwards looked like a man who has come to a fork in the road, puzzled, yet a little pleased. But John Paul had grown pale and his eyes were dark as coals.