Swords From the Sea

by Harold Lamb

  At a word of command from a sergeant who brought up the rear, one of the soldiers jerked down his lash with a hiss on a naked back. Blood spattered down into the snow, leaving a trail of red drops between the wheel marks of the limber.

  Pierre's shoulders twitched in an involuntary shiver. The muscles in his cheeks grew rigid, and his voice was hoarse when he spoke to the sergeant of grenadiers.

  "Ho, la! Where is the tavern of this village?"

  He spoke in French and the other understood. The sergeant had long curls whitened with flour, and walked with his toes turned out, his thin back straight as the rattan cane he carried. Pierre, who had seen a bit of the world, knew the earmarks of a soldier who had served under Frederick the Great of Prussia.

  "Follow your nose, take the first turning to your left, and look for the sign of the Fleur-de-Luys." The sergeant's blurred eyes ran up Pierre's powerful body and fastened on his set face. "So-a little blood makes your gorge rise, my lad?"

  "What are these birds?"

  "Deserters, that were caught. Thirty-one-" the Prussian resumed his count of the lashes under his breath-"thirty-four for that cock. Trying to get off in time of war, they were! You are going to the tavern, eh?"

  "Aye," grunted Pierre and rolled away.

  The sergeant halted to stare after him thoughtfully, until the boy who had followed Pierre from the ship came up and pulled at his sleeve.

  "If it please you, sir," the apprentice whispered, "the tall rogue is one of the crew. Master Ruggewein bade me say the others be at the merchants' shops by the bridge.

  "They will be drunk by candlelight."

  The sergeant nodded, pursing his lips.

  "Master Ruggewein did say," piped up the boy, "that this big lout is a bad one with his hands. You had best take a squad of muskets with you, if you would fetch him in."

  The sergeant's face wrinkled in a noiseless laugh. He had seen the Provence sailor shiver when the knout fell and he felt sure that the man was squeamish at a little blood-letting. The Prussian was a drillmaster in the grenadier corps, and he had seldom encountered a chap he could not handle with cane and tongue.

  The candles that gleamed inside the horn windows-the only sign of festival in the Fleur-de-Luys-leaped as Big Pierre came through the door with a flurry of wind-driven snow. A breath of frosty air cut into the aura of drying sheepskins and stale cabbage soup and dirty humans about the red-hot stove.

  Pierre looked around and, failing to find any of the men from the bark, made for the counter where a pyramidal candle of some kind of animal fat bubbled and smoked, disclosing the butts of wine casks in the gloom behind.

  "Brandy, if you please, Mignon," he smiled at the proprietress, a buxom woman who hailed from Brittany and better things. "One can't get such a thing as brandied grapes in this dogs' village, I suppose. No? Well, fry up a cod in oil and leave the bottle-isn't this a feast day? Where are the girls? Why doesn't anyone strike up a song?"

  He glanced hopefully at the long benches where fat-backed Russians sat sleepily over vodka, or kvass-a fermented milk drink that the Provencal who liked good wine had christened "pig's lemonade" after a sip-and at the walls, where straw had been shaken down.

  On this straw, stirred by the wind that swept through the cracks, he could make out pairs of feet in the shadows-the boots of a dragoon sleeping off the effects of the Fleur-de-Luys vintages, the rag wrappings of beggars, the bare feet of pilgrims, swollen and calloused. And one pair of broken horsehide shoes out of which thrust toes belonging to a peasant girl, whose yellow hair spread all over the straw.

  The very - of a lot, Pierre thought, and turned his attention to the opposite wall. Apart from the others, several men sat here on a carpet that had once been respectable. They had keen eyes and long, thin beards and hooked noses-Mohammedans by their turbans and voluminous khalats-traders by the packs stowed jealously behind them.

  "Eh, what are these folk?" he asked the Brittany woman.

  "Bashkirs, or some other tribesmen. They come from the south with rhubarb and saffron. But they will not go south again, monsieur."

  "Why not, Mignon?"

  "The soldiers say there is war with the Turks. I don't know; but those heathen will be clapped into jail all the same." The woman, who had once been pretty, became talkative. Pierre was good to look at, and he had given her a whole silver crown. "Folk come here from all the world-"

  "Bon sang, and why?"

  "It's a rich country. The nobles only carry gold-won't bother about silver or such-like. And I've heard tell the Muscovites have made themselves lords of the heathen empires down in the south. The empress has her palaces full of foreign gentry, to wait on her."

  "Who is the king?"

  "He died. But Catherine is more of a king than he ever was. Yes, this is a feast day." She glanced at a black and gold icon banging over the stove with lighted candles beneath it. "She is like a pope, too. The peasants say she is an angel out of heaven. But the boyars will cut up something fierce this night."

  Pierre, who was hungry for excitement, wanted to join them instantly. "These boyars, where can a chap find them?"

  "Tiens, my good lad-they are at the winter sports or the theater; they're the grandees, the princes, certainly." She glanced at the door anxiously. "You may see them in the street-such as ain't under the tables. Only their servants come here." The woman from Brittany ran back to the kitchen, returning in a moment with the cod Pierre had ordered, smoking in bubbling oil in a wooden dish. Wiping the perspiration from her red face, she leaned close to him to whisper-

  "Go back to your ship, my man. Go, quickly!"

  Pierre took the platter and looked at her inquiringly.

  "This is an evil place, monsieur. Ah, pray to the good God and get away out of sight before it is too late."

  Between mouthfuls of the cod, washed down with white wine, the man from Provence surveyed his surroundings. It was not like other taverns, but he had seen worse. True, the men were not sociable and no one laughed; still, he would hit on one of his mates from the bark presently and go the rounds of other taverns. The evening had barely begun.

  "Corbleu-what is wrong here?" he asked.

  "This land is not as others. There is a curse upon it. 'Tis a simple matter to get into it, but one does not get out again in a hurry."

  Pierre thought of the bark, and the snow barrier that was rising around the town. Yes, he could believe that. He was in for a bad winter, but he never bothered his head about the future. In his thirty years of life he had been in many tight places, and enjoyed fighting his way out. He poured a glass of wine for the woman and waited for the loosening of her tongue.

  "She is the curse of this land-that witch of an empress, monsieur. She is worse than the blind witch of Tanteval, who lives in caves and sings when the surf roars and a ship is wrecked. She is an old woman, but her face is young. It is quite true that she killed that poor man, her husband. And all her lovers she raises to great power, then casts them aside."

  "I would like to clap eye on her," observed the sailor, his mouth full of cod.

  "I have seen her, of nights!" The woman crossed herself and breathed quickly. "Ah, if it is known that I talked of these things they would burn me. Catherine rides in a gold coach without wheels, drawn by roaring beasts. And her skin shines more than the gold-perhaps witches' oil is rubbed on it, and she rides to the Devil's Sabbath. A giant with one eye always sits beside her-a prince of Muscovy."

  Pierre waxed cheerful. All this would be well worth seeing. He knew the superstitions of the coast of Brittany.

  "Faith," he laughed, "you will be saying that this lord is twin to the King of the Auxcriniers, who looks up from the waves. Him with the livid skin, when the lightning flashes, and the beard of shells. Whoever sees him is sure to be shipwrecked, I've heard."

  The woman hesitated, and clasped her hands in her apron.

  "Just the same, monsieur, I say to you that she is seeking for souls."

  "The deuce!"
r />   "Souls, or serfs-'tis all the same. She lures men to serve her, and then there is no escaping. They will carry off a fine, upstanding lad like you for the army-" The door was flung open, and the candles flared. An old man, his head covered with what looked like a woolen nightcap, and a pack strapped to his back, entered hurriedly. He panted as he leaned on the arm of a young girl.

  Pierre forgot witches and the catching of souls in an instant. He twirled his mustache with both hands, bowed with an air, sweeping his cap over the earth that was the floor of the tavern.

  He knew the man for a Jew, but the young woman was more than pretty. Even while she shook the melting snow from her dark tangle of hair and her foxskin shuba, she glanced around the room, her brown eyes resting longest on Pierre and the group of the Mohammedan traders.

  Here was no blowsy Dutch vrauw, but a young thing of fire and laughter. Pierre, whose wits were not laggard, noticed that the old man was frightened and the girl amused.

  "Good day, little sparrow," he cried. "Eh, it is good to come in out of the storm, is it not? Only say-shall I clear a place for you at the stove, or will you share a glass from this fine bottle?"

  It seemed to him that she understood and would have answered, but changed her mind so quickly that he was not sure.

  He had seen her type before: the poise of the head, the olive skin, the full eyes and the delicate lips. This was no daughter of gnomes, or child of a Muscovite ox. A Gypsy? Perhaps.

  He stood in front of her, holding out a freshly filled glass, smiling. His eyes, clear as a boy's and as fearless, smiled as well as his lips. The high spirits and the vitality of this girl in the foxskin shuba appealed to the sailor's mood.

  Although she shook her head, her lips curved and white teeth gleamed vagrantly. Pierre saw that just under her eyes the skin was lighter than above, as if her face had been veiled from the glare of a burning sun. A ring, nearly as long as her middle finger, aroused his interest at once.

  It was heavy silver, set with sapphires and small emeralds that made a pattern. Apparently meaningless, this pattern was formed of an Arabic word, possibly one of the numberless talismans of the Moslems, possibly a signet. Pierre looked at the merchant on the rug.

  One had risen and was fingering his scimitar hilt irresolutely. Pierrethough he watched for it-did not see the girl make a sign, but presently the Bashkir squatted among his companions again, turning his back as if indifferent to the newcomers.

  But Pierre felt sure that the merchant knew this girl, and that she was an Arab; more likely, a Berber. He wondered what a woman of the southern tribes was doing in this place. Before now he had seen such, standing in the slave markets of Algiers.

  The Jew kept plucking at her sleeve, scrabbling his beard with a shaking hand. She paid absolutely no attention until she had finished her scrutiny of the room. Then, she spoke to him and he went off like a welltrained dog, to sit in the darkest corner, and the girl walked around the circle of tribesmen.

  They did not look up, but Pierre thought she spoke to them and they answered, before she went to sit by the Jew, as far from the glow of the candles as possible. One by one the Bashkirs got up and went out, leaving their goods. Only urgent need would take such men into a storm, and only the risk of life itself or greater plunder would induce them to leave their belongings unguarded.

  Pierre shrugged and drained his glass, and being by then in high good humor, lifted his voice in song-

  Neither the song nor the bottle was ended when the sergeant of grenadiers appeared in the Fleur-de-Luys and came to the counter, ordering rum laced with brandy.

  "Come, my likely lad, empty a noggin with Sergeant Kehl of the Guards," the grenadier proclaimed huskily.

  With a cupful of Pierre's brandy inside him, he confessed to being a veteran of the Seven Years' War, Bulow's regiment. The Russian service was a smooth thing, he said, after the pipe-clay and button-shining discipline of old Frederick. The Russian officers were easygoing-didn't know a bayonet from a ramrod-and left everything to the sergeants. And it was no hard matter to pick up money, one way or another.

  "Aye," assented Pierre, "enlistment bounties."

  Kehl drew the back of his hand across his lips and glanced up at the big sailor.

  "No harm in saying regimentals would look well on a strong-set lad like you."

  "Fifteen years," laughed the Provencal, "I've been with the colors of France. Aye, ropeman, topman, and sergeant of marines. I was with D'Estaing off Algiers."

  "Gerechter Herr Gott! That is different." Kehl lowered his voice confidentially. "I'll tell you something. These Russians are cattle-they've only one general officer who is worth his snuff. That's old Prince Suvarof, and he rose from the ranks. They must have foreign gentry to command their ships for them. Join up, and you'll wear a sword in a year-a lively lad with a hard head like yours."

  "Do they keep you for seed?" Pierre shook his head. "I've served my time."

  Kehl was a man of firm convictions. He believed that any peasant could be won over with a drink and a promise. Already he had the others of Ruggewein's crew locked up in the guardhouse. To bring in a French sergeant of marines as a volunteer would mean a double bounty, whereas if the man should put up a fight and taste a musket butt, Kehl might not get anything.

  He was doubly mistaken in thinking that Pierre was a peasant and would not fight a crimp's squad.

  "The frontier is closed," he snarled. "The master of your bark has paid you off. Your mates have all entered the ranks-"

  "Crimped, eh?" Pierre frowned and then laughed. "Name of a name! That pinch-beck Ruggewein has saved his rix-dollars. Nay, Master Kehl, I'm for the south, where a chap can set his teeth in white bread and olives."

  "What then?"

  "Who knows? I'll hear the bells of Avignon again, I'll drink white wine again, and sleep on the deck of a fishing tartan when the breeze comes up soft-like off the land."

  Kehl had no imagination, and cared nothing for Provence or the men of that coast. But a thought struck him and he put it into words crisply.

  "The empress's fleet in the Black Sea, down in the south, is at war with the Sultan of the Moslems. The Russians have sent a foreign admiral to take command. Ach, yes. One is coming from that of country of sea traders and rebels, over the ocean."

  "The United States?" Pierre glanced down interested.

  "So. I see you know your way around the world. At the arsenal it is said that this man who is coming was once a pirate-his excellency, lean Paul Jean, or some such name."

  "Never heard of him. But, wait-bon sang! Is it John Paul Jones?"

  So

  Pierre set down his glass untasted and leaned his elbows on the counter.

  "Tell me of this Black Sea and this fleet."

  The brandy warmed his vitals, and he threw off impatiently the hand of the woman from Brittany, who was making efforts to warn him not to listen to Kehl. He was trying to decide how much of his companion's gossip was a lie.

  The Black Sea, Kehl explained with an air, was the sea of the Mohammedans in back of Constantinople. They had proclaimed a holy war against the Russians, who had built and equipped a fine fleet of some twenty large ships-two being sail of the line-in the rivers that emptied into this sea.

  Prince Potemkin, the reigning favorite-now in Petersburg-was to take command in person of the greatest army ever gathered under the eagles. Kehl, because he understood French and was on duty at headquarters, had his ear to the ground. Most of the Russian officers spoke French to one another by choice, and the foreigners by necessity.)

  "A fine, upstanding chap like you," he added, "could pick up more than a dram's worth of loot. Aye, and a fat share of prize money. And why, you ask me? Because, my dear fellow, the sultan has mustered in the bashaws and such-like from the Barbary Coast."

  "The corsairs? From Tripoli-Algiers?"

  "So! 'Tis said they have the cabins of their ships plated with gold. They walk on silk, nothing less; aye, the very knives and spoons they eat
with are full of jewels."

  Pierre, who had seen well-born Berbers and Osmanlis supping off mutton stew with the aid of their fingers and a water basin, did not smile.

  "Every mosque down there is chuck full of treasure-more than Potsdam palace itself, I swear. And their women- wunderschon-better than these here dishwater drabs." He pointed his pipestem at the owner of the Fleur-de-Luys.

  But Pierre was no longer listening. Over by the wall, in the shadows, the woman of the foxskins was looking at him, without flinching. He could see the whites of her full eyes, emotionless as an animal's-cold as a basilisk. And his memory harked back fifteen years to Africa.

  To a tartan, a fishing craft of Toulon blown offshore and dismasted and drifting until the three lads in it sighted the lateen sail of an Algerian felucca, and were picked up.

  For the two others, his companions, who turned renegade and became Mohammedans, he had no blame. They disappeared into the white-walled alleys of a rich city; they had weapons at their belts, and the chance to use them-free men in the brotherhood of the coast.

  Because he was massive of shoulder and heavily thewed, no choice had been offered Pierre. For two years he had lived on the rowers' benches of the Algerian galleys.

  And because he lived-which few did-in the stench and the filth of those chained to the oar, with the bench for his bed, his muscles had hardened to iron. The glare of the sun and the toil of the oar had tempered him as metal is tempered by heating and thrusting into cold water.

  He had been lashed by the boatswain's whip. His back, from the nape of the neck to the loins, still bore purple scars.

  At the end of the two years, when he escaped from the Algerians during a lucky fight off Cape Bona with a Portuguese sloop-of-war, he made a vow to the Holy Mary of the Seas. This vow was that he would never submit to the lash again. Let a man flog him and he-Pierre Pillon-would kill that one with his hands.

  That was why he had winced at the spectacle of the flogging of the deserters a while ago. It reminded him of the galley's waist and the bloodied backs of the slaves.