Swords of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  No wall surrounded the siech. It was a point of honor with the Cossacks not to fortify their camp. But except for Gypsy fiddlers and the most daring merchants who came to sell brandy and weapons, no one ventured past that invisible line marking the square of the barracks. No woman was ever seen within the siech.

  Any man might enter the siech, provided he were sound and strong of body. No weaklings could ride with the Cossacks. He was brought to the koshevoi, who looked at him and questioned him.

  "Do you believe in Christ? And in the holy Church? Well, then, cross yourself and enter whatever barrack you want."

  But there were other tests, by the brotherhood. An ouchar—a newcomer—might be matched against a full-grown bear, with only a wooden sword given him for weapon. Often he bore the scars of the bear's claws on his hide as long as he lived. Or he would be set in a boat to drift down the cataracts of the river that flowed past the siech, or made to ride the unbroken Tartar mustangs. He must fight, at need, but only with his fists, within the limits of the siech.

  His belongings he could leave by his blankets—his kit and plunder. Gold, if he had any, was given to the keeping of the kuren ataman, the captain of the barrack. Theft was almost unheard of and was punished by putting the culprit in the wooden stocks with a club hanging by him, so that the others of the brotherhood could strike him; and when a Cossack of the siech did not pay his debts he was chained to the muzzle of a cannon until a companion made good what he owed. A murderer was buried under the coffin of his victim.

  When the Cossacks moved out to war the koshevoi's command was the only law. And disobedience meant death by a pistol ball or saber cut.

  But while they were in camp they spent their time in revelry, drinking up the spoils of the last campaign. The brotherhood was never the same. Always death thinned its ranks and new faces appeared around the fires. Hither came the riders of the steppes, tired of herding in villages, eager for war that was life itself to them; and hither came fugitives from the law of the cities, from Moscow or Warsaw or Vienna. Some of the dark faces showed the slant eyes and high cheekbones of Tartar blood, others the grace of noble birth; many were scarred and seamed by debauch or suffering or cruelty.

  Slender Gypsies sat by massive Russians, a French soldier of hazard matched cups with the son of a Persian emir. No one asked what they had been, and even their names were forgotten, because the Cossacks promptly gave them nicknames and they were known by no other. They became free Cossacks of the siech, self-appointed guardians of the steppes that were the frontier of Christendom in this seventeenth century. And they left behind them only the memory of their deeds, sung by the old minstrels.

  As the koshevoi stood in the door of his hut, by the great drum that was used to gather the brotherhood together, he caught the words of an old Gypsy song, in a full deep voice.

  My sword is rusty and the blade is dull.

  It hangs upon the wall where the spiders make their nest.

  The whine of a fiddle rose above the commotion of shouting where some of the younger men were dancing, their silver heels striking against the hard clay like an axe upon wood, in the hopak and trepak of the wild Cossack dance. And over the tumult the same strong voice was heard again.

  And when night falls I hear it whisper-whispei Take me in your hand and use me—use me!

  The koshevoi listened for a moment, then lifted his head as if he had made a decision. He called out in a voice that was pitched to carry over the tumult of hoofs and guns—

  "Charnomar!"

  The song ceased and the singer strode through the throng toward him.

  "Aye, Father."

  "Come."

  The leader of the Cossacks turned back into the hut, and the man called Charnomar came after him.

  He was not so tall as many of the Cossacks, who towered over six feet; nor was he so heavy. Like the others his head was shaved except for the long scalp lock that hung upon one shoulder, but his heavy buckskin breeches and his wide leather belt with its polished silver buckle were like no others in the siech. And his sword was a single edged cutlass, almost straight, and heavier than any scimitar or yataghan.

  Some Cossacks had found him out at sea, adrift on a splintered boom. They had been fishing off the Dnieper mouth and had heard heavy cannon fire in the offing; they had sailed out to see what was happening in the mist and had come upon this man, who knew nothing of their speech at that time. From Tartars along the shore they learned that an English merchant brig had been attacked by three Turkish galleys and had kept up the fighting until it sank. The Cossacks promptly named him Charno-mar—Black Sea. When he was able to talk with them in later years, they had asked him where he came from and he said—

  "The sea."

  He said also that he was not from the Great Sea—the Mediterranean— but from a wide ocean beyond that and a place called the New World. Of this the Cossacks had never heard. The New World was America.

  It was said that Charnomar had been a captive of the Turks on the Barbary Coast. At times he spoke of the Christians he had seen tortured there, and he certainly knew the oaths of the galleys. He made himself at home in the siech, or rather in the raids that were launched across the Black Sea to Azov and Sinope, where the Cossacks stormed the citadels and plundered the mosques.

  At such times Charnomar's gray eyes glowed and, though he said little, he seemed utterly content. He knew more about navigating than the Cossack atamans, and they came to rely upon his strange luck which brought

  him back alive and laughing out of places where he should have died.

  They said of him—

  "Upon a horse he is a man, but when he rides the sea he is a devil."

  All this passed through the mind of the leader of the Cossacks as he looked at this man who knew more about the sea and the mysteries that lay beyond it than about a horse and the warfare of the steppes. Then he spoke to the old Cossacks.

  "This is how it is, sir brothers. The Turks have laid a trap for us; that is what they have done. When did the sultan's dogs ever take ransom for a Cossack of the siech? They would like to get their hands on the ransom and the man who brings it. That is all. But if we send nothing, then they will mock at Cossack honor. And it is not to be endured that a brother should die alone and unaided upon the stake."

  "Summon the siech to march!" growled one of the veterans. "We will answer with swords!"

  But the koshevoi shook his head. He would have liked nothing better. Yet he knew that the armies of the sultan were too strong to be met in the field by the few thousand Cossacks of the siech.

  "There is only one road to follow," he said grimly. "To send a Cossack to Constantinople."

  "Then the Turks will set up two stakes."

  "Perhaps," the koshevoi nodded. "Only God knows what will happen. But there is no other way." He looked steadily into Charnomar's gray eyes and explained how Kirdyaga had been taken and what was in the letter. "You know the ways of the Turks," he went on slowly, "and the road over the water. Aye, you stole up on the lighthouse at the straits and blew it up with powder. The Turks put a chain across the Dnieper mouth, and you rode a log down the swift current and broke it. And only God knows why you are still living. But this is another matter. If the Turks seize you, they will put you in the cage, and your sword will not avail you. So, I cannot command you to go to Constantinople, but I ask if you will go with the ransom for Kirdyaga."

  The elder Cossacks all looked at Charnomar. It was a mission they could not have undertaken, not the koshevoi himself, but in the reckless swing of Charnomar's great shoulders, in the poise of his young head and the gleam of clear gray eyes from his dark face there was no sign of anxiety.

  "I'll go," he said. "Only give me jewels, not gold."

  Jewels they gave him, the older Cossacks going from one barrack to another and merely saying that the koshevoi wanted whatever was finest in the way of precious stones. The softly gleaming heap that lay upon the table within the hour was no larger than a man's fist
, doubled up. In it was a string of matched pearls and several large uncut emeralds, greatly desired by Moslems, and rubies that had been pried out of sword hilts. The value of the lot was double the amount of the ransom.

  "For," said the chief of the Cossacks, "it is the way of a Turk when he is offered payment, to ask double the price. And besides you will need gold for the road."

  He pondered for a moment and called for glasses and a jug of the strong brandy.

  "By God," he said, when Charnomar had taken up his glass with the rest, "it's a hard road—a very devil of a road. The Moslem women over yonder, lad, are dark-eyed vixens. Don't talk to them, or they'll destroy you. Keep a sword by you always, and if you're taken by the Moslems, if they beset you, why, strike out and go down with steel in you. That's the best way. And if it happens so, we'll hear of it and remember. Because the Cossacks do not forget."

  The old warriors stroked down their mustaches and lifted their glasses. "Kozatchenky bratiky!" they said. "To the brotherhood!"

  When he reached the corner of his barrack, Charnomar felt a fold of his breeches plucked, and looked down into the thin, eager face of the Jew, Shamoval.

  "Ai, noble sir," whispered the man in the shuba. "The captain is going to set out on a journey, and in my shop there is everything he will need— soft leather boots and splendid kaftans. Such kaftans never were seen before! And if the colonel wants saddlebags—"

  "To the devil with the saddlebags and you too!"

  Charnomar frowned at the trader. He still held in his hand the leather wallet containing the jewels and a sack of gold. Although Shamoval's dark eyes never quite looked at the wallet, they circled around and over it as if it were a magnet from which they could not free themselves. Charno-mar reflected that Shamoval had been in the koshevoi's hut, unheeded by the Cossacks, and had heard the talk. Jews had a way of wandering all over and there was no telling whether Shamoval would not betake himself to the Turkish posts.

  "Where is your shop?" he asked, considering.

  Shamoval hastened off across the deserted assembly ground to the traders' streets on the outskirts, where blacksmiths pounded at their anvils and rug merchants and dram sellers sat in their stalls. Only a few Cossacks walked idly through the alleys, because, since it was a time of comparative peace, the brotherhood had spent or drunk up most of its gold. These traders were like the moths that swarm around a light; they gleaned fortunes from the Cossacks, or were plundered and driven out, according to the mood of the warriors.

  The Jew's shop was no more than a stall hung with blankets under a thatched roof, with some ordinary saddles and gear stacked in it. But Shamoval lifted the curtain on the inner side, calling out harshly as he did so and whispering to Charnomar to enter.

  A clay lamp smoked dimly among shadows that vaguely suggested the presence of a Jewess hidden under quilts in the corner, among rags and sacks of cabbages and piles of broken cord—and two wooden chests, one of which Shamoval dragged out under the lamp.

  "Look here," observed Charnomar, "you heard what the koshevoi said."

  "I?" Shamoval glanced over his shoulder anxiously. "How should I understand what the noble lords were saying? Am I a Cossack, to understand such things? I only heard that the noble captain is going on a journey."

  He delved into the chest and began to lay out piles of really costly garments. Charnomar sat down on the other chest and struck a light for his short clay pipe. He noticed that the trader was selecting a strange attire— a fur edged kaftan, bright green breeches, a crimson girdle scarf, an embroidered shirt and black velvet vest sewn with seed pearls.

  "Here are some of the things the noble captain will need," he explained.

  Charnomar pulled at his pipe without answering.

  "And riding slippers—" Shamoval hastened off and came back with a pair embroidered with tarnished gold thread. "The man who wore these was a fine, strong hero like you. Only—" he glanced at Charnomar—"that sword won't do at all."

  "Why not?"

  Shamoval lifted his arms and shoulders. "Doesn't the captain know that such swords were never seen in Constantinople—"

  He checked his words suddenly and turned pale, and could not keep from looking fearfully at Charnomar's cutlass.

  "So you heard the talk of the Cossacks?" His visitor smiled. "And you've laid out a Circassian swordsman's garments. Why?"

  "Emboldened because he was not struck down at once, Shamoval became eloquent.

  "Ai, it is certain that the captain must disguise his noble self. And since he can't talk like the Turks and the Greeks—may dogs litter on their graves!—he ought to go as a man from the Circassian mountains. Then every one will take him for a Moslem, but he won't be suspected if he talks in a strange dialect. Many times have I been in the sultan's city, and I've only seen a few Circassians. This one was put to death for something or other and I bought his garments from one of the keepers of the cage before they put an end to him. By everything that's holy, I swear they cost me sixty-two ducats, without the sword and all the daggers the noble lord must wear in his girdle. The keepers took the Circassian's weapons, but I have better ones—if the noble lord will only rise up."

  Lifting the cover of the chest upon which Charnomar had been sitting, Shamoval drew out a half dozen swords, and the Cossack picked up one at once. It was a long scimitar with a worn hilt of silver set with smooth turquoises, and the blade was gray, with an inscription near the hilt. Char-nomar swung it tentatively and found that it had nearly the weight and feel of his cutlass.

  He picked out two long knives and a worn prayer rug and leather saddle bags, and Shamoval announced that the price of everything would be a hundred and twenty and three gold pieces. And he tried not to look at the wallet in the Cossack's hand.

  "No one will ever suspect the noble sir if he is dressed like this."

  Charnomar selected a saddle with some care, and bade Shamoval send someone for horses, as he intended to set out at once. It was dark before he had completed purchase of a shaggy Kabarda stallion from a Gypsy trader.

  "Now, listen, Shamoval," he said reflectively, "you've charged double what these things are worth—"

  "Ai—"

  "And I'll pay your price, when I come back."

  Shamoval raised his hands and clutched at the straggling locks above his ears.

  "'Tis impossible!"

  "How, impossible?"

  "Why—" the trader gulped and seemed to choke over the words. "Why you will never come back. In the first place no one ever bought a prisoner out of the cage. In the second place, you're like all the other Cossacks. You're certain to get into fighting and be killed, or some woman will trick you. You will never come to the siech again."

  "Then, Shamoval, you will never see your gold."

  "Ai—but certainly the noble captain will promise! His promise will be sufficient."

  "What promise?"

  "Surely the captain has comrades. Just let him promise that if he— that if he doesn't pay, one of his brothers will pay."

  "Not a silver dirhem!" Charnomar's gray eyes kindled in a smile, and then, before Shamoval could speak again, the eyes changed. "Ay, I'll promise one thing. If you wag your tongue no one will pay."

  Shamoval spread out his hands and shook his head so that the tall felt cap flopped from side to side.

  "I don't betray secrets," he said seriously, "and as for the Moslems, I spit upon them."

  He watched curiously while the Cossack stripped off his old garments and began to clothe himself anew, carefully. Charnomar reflected that the Jew's stall was a good place to change, and since it was dark, no one would notice that a Cossack had gone in, and a Circassian had come out. And it was clear to Shamoval that he knew how the garments should be worn. He wound the shawl girdle above his thighs and let the tasseled ends hang at his hip; he twisted the turban cloth into place and knotted it over one ear. For a moment he held his old cutlass in his hand, then tossed it aside.

  Into his girdle under the vest he
thrust the sack of jewels and the purse of gold, and then the long scimitar in its leather sheath.

  "A pity," muttered Shamoval, "such a splendid weapon to fall to the Moslems."

  The Cossack laughed and went out to the shaggy pony that was waiting, hitched to the stall. With a glance at the stars, he mounted and rode off. Once he reined in, to listen to the familiar roar of voices, mellowed by distance, about the fires where mutton and gruel was being issued to the Cossacks at supper. Then he trotted on into the rushes of the river path.

  A fortnight later a six-oared felucca with its great sail furled drifted around the lighthouse point and made for the quays of Galats through the evening mist. The felucca had come from Kaffa, along the northern coast of the Black Sea, the Greek captain never daring to lose sight of land, and every Moslem on its deck gave praise to Allah in that sunset prayer because he had been delivered from the sea alive.

  Charnomar unrolled his strip of carpet with the others and prostrated himself, because not to do so would have brought instant suspicion upon him. But when his companions filed off into the alleys, he rolled his carpet, put it over his shoulder and wandered along the shore looking for a skiff that would take him across the harbor to Stamboul.1

  He walked leisurely, because no one but a madman or a thief or Christian ever hurried within the walls of Islam, with the slow swinging stride of the mountaineer. And a pockmarked waterman about to push off in a skiff already filled with sacks took him for a wanderer out of Asia in search of either wonders or quarrels and good-humoredly indifferent to which it might be. The boatmen of Stamboul have a nose for silver.

  "Eh, chelabim," he hailed Charnomar, "I go to the marketplace."