Delphi Works of Robert E. Howard (Illustrated) (Series Four)

by Robert E. Howard

  As he impressed the Venetian envoys, Suleyman knew he impressed the world. In the blaze of his magnificence, men would forget that a handful of desperate Caphars behind rotting walls had closed his road to empire. Suleyman accepted a goblet of the forbidden wine, and spoke aside to the Grand Vizier, who stepped forth and lifted his arms.

  “Oh, guests of my master, the Padishah forgets not the humblest in the hour of rejoicing. To the officers who led his hosts against the infidels, he has made rare gifts. Now he gives two hundred and forty thousand ducats to be distributed among the common soldiers, and likewise to each Janizary he gives a thousand aspers.”

  In the midst of the roar that went up, a eunuch knelt before the Grand Vizier, holding up a large round package, carefully bound and sealed. A folded piece of parchment, held shut by a red seal, accompanied it. The attention of the Sultan was attracted.

  “Oh, friend, what has thou there?”

  Ibrahim salaamed. “The rider of the Adrianople post delivered it, oh Lion of Islam. Apparently it is a gift of some sort from the Austrian dogs. Infidel riders, I understand, gave it into the hands of the border guard, with instructions to send it straightway to Stamboul.”

  “Open it,” directed Suleyman, his interest roused. The eunuch salaamed to the floor, then began breaking the seals of the package. A scholarly slave opened the accompanying note and read the contents, written in a bold yet feminine hand:

  To the Soldan Suleyman and his Wezir Ibrahim and to the hussy Roxelana we who sign our names below send a gift in token of our immeasurable fondness and kind affection.

  Sonya of Rogatino, and Gottfried von Kalmbach

  Suleyman, who had started up at the name of his favorite, his features suddenly darkening with wrath, gave a choking cry, which was echoed by Ibrahim. The eunuch had torn the seals of the bale, disclosing what lay within. A pungent scent of herbs and preservative spices filled the air, and the object, slipping from the horrified eunuch’s hands, tumbled among the heaps of presents at Suleyman’s feet, offering a ghastly contrast to the gems, gold and velvet bales. The Sultan stared down at it and in that instant his shimmering pretense of triumph slipped from him; his glory turned to tinsel and dust. Ibrahim tore at his beard with a gurgling, strangling sound, purple with rage.

  At the Sultan’s feet, the features frozen in a death-mask of horror, lay the severed head of Mikhal Oglu, Vulture of the Grand Turk.

  GATES OF EMPIRE; OR, THE ROAD OF THE MOUNTAIN LION

  First published in Golden Fleece, January 1939

  THE CLANK of the four sentinels on the turrets, the gusty uproar of the Spring winds, were not heard by those who reveled in the cellar of Godfrey de Courtenay’s castle; and the noise these revelers made was bottled up deafeningly within the massive walls.

  A sputtering candle lighted those rugged walls, damp and uninviting, flanked with wattled casks and hogsheads over which stretched a veil of dusty cobwebs. From one barrel the head had been knocked out, and leathern drinking- jacks were immersed again and again in the foamy tide, in hands that grew increasingly unsteady.

  Agnes, one of the serving wenches, had stolen the massive iron key to the cellar from the girdle of the steward; and rendered daring by the absence of their master, a small but far from select group were making merry with characteristic heedlessness of the morrow.

  Agnes, seated on the knee of the varlet Peter, beat erratic time with a jack to a ribald song both were bawling in different tunes and keys. The ale slopped over the rim of the wobbling jack and down Peter’s collar, a circumstance he was beyond noticing.

  The other wench, fat Marge, rolled on her bench and slapped her ample thighs in uproarious appreciation of a spicy tale just told by Giles Hobson. This individual might have been the lord of the castle from his manner, instead of a vagabond rapscallion tossed by every wind of adversity. Tilted back on a barrel, booted feet propped on another, he loosened the belt that girdled his capacious belly in its worn leather jerkin, and plunged his muzzle once more into the frothing ale.

  “Giles, by Saint Withold his beard,” quoth Marge, “madder rogue never wore steel. The very ravens that pick your bones on the gibbet tree will burst their sides a-laughing. I hail ye — prince of all bawdy liars!”

  She flourished a huge pewter pot and drained it as stoutly as any man in the realm.

  At this moment another reveler, returning from an errand, came into the scene. The door at the head of the stairs admitted a wobbly figure in close- fitting velvet. Through the briefly opened door sounded noises of the night — slap of hangings somewhere in the house, sucking and flapping in the wind that whipped through the crevices; a faint disgruntled hail from a watchman on a tower. A gust of wind whooped down the stair and set the candle to dancing.

  Guillaume, the page, shoved the door shut and made his way with groggy care down the rude stone steps. He was not so drunk as the others, simply because, what of his extreme youth, he lacked their capacity for fermented liquor.

  “What’s the time, boy?” demanded Peter.

  “Long past midnight,” the page answered, groping unsteadily for the open cask. “The whole castle is asleep, save for the watchmen. But I heard a clatter of hoofs through the wind and rain; methinks ’tis Sir Godfrey returning.”

  “Let him return and be damned!” shouted Giles, slapping Marge’s fat haunch resoundingly. “He may be lord of the keep, but at present we are keepers of the cellar! More ale! Agnes, you little slut, another song!”

  “Nay, more tales!” clamored Marge. “Our mistress’s brother, Sir Guiscard de Chastillon, has told grand tales of Holy Land and the infidels, but by Saint Dunstan, Giles’ lies outshine the knight’s truths!”

  “Slander not a — hic! — holy man as has been on pilgrimage and Crusade,” hiccuped Peter. “Sir Guiscard has seen Jerusalem and foughten beside the King of Palestine — how many years?”

  “Ten year come May Day, since he sailed to Holy Land,” said Agnes. “Lady Eleanor had not seen him in all that time, till he rode up to the gate yesterday morn. Her husband, Sir Godfrey, never has seen him.”

  “And wouldn’t know him?” mused Giles; “nor Sir Guiscard him?”

  He blinked, raking a broad hand through his sandy mop. He was drunker than even he realized. The world spun like a top and his head seemed to be dancing dizzily on his shoulders. Out of the fumes of ale and a vagrant spirit, a madcap idea was born.

  A roar of laughter burst gustily from Giles’ lips. He reeled upright, spilling his jack in Marge’s lap and bringing a burst of rare profanity from her. He smote a barrelhead with his open hand, strangling with mirth.

  “Good lack!” squawked Agnes. “Are you daft, man?”

  “A jest!” The roof reverberated to his bull’s bellow. “Oh, Saint Withold, a jest! Sir Guiscard knows not his brother-in-law, and Sir Godfrey is now at the gate. Hark ye!”

  Four heads, bobbing erratically, inclined toward him as he whispered as if the rude walls might hear. An instant’s bleary silence was followed by boisterous guffaws. They were in the mood to follow the maddest course suggested to them. Only Guillaume felt some misgivings, but he was swept away by the alcoholic fervor of his companions.

  “Oh, a devil’s own jest!” cried Marge, planting a loud, moist kiss on Giles’ ruddy cheek. “On, rogues, to the sport!”

  “En avant!” bellowed Giles, drawing his sword and waving it unsteadily, and the five weaved up the stairs, stumbling, blundering, and lurching against one another. They kicked open the door, and shortly were running erratically up the wide hall, giving tongue like a pack of hounds.

  The castles of the Twelfth Century, fortresses rather than mere dwellings, were built for defense, not comfort.

  The hall through which the drunken band was hallooing was broad, lofty, windy, strewn with rushes, now but faintly lighted by the dying embers in a great ill-ventilated fireplace. Rude, sail-like hangings along the walls rippled in the wind that found its way through. Hounds, sleeping under the great table,
woke yelping as they were trodden on by blundering feet, and added their clamor to the din.

  This din roused Sir Guiscard de Chastillon from dreams of Acre and the sun-drenched plains of Palestine. He bounded up, sword in hand, supposing himself to be beset by Saracen raiders, then realized where he was. But events seemed to be afoot. A medley of shouts and shrieks clamored outside his door, and on the stout oak panels boomed a rain of blows that bade fair to burst the portal inward. The knight heard his name called loudly and urgently.

  Putting aside his trembling squire, he ran to the door and cast it open. Sir Guiscard was a tall gaunt man, with a great beak of a nose and cold grey eyes. Even in his shirt he was a formidable figure. He blinked ferociously at the group limned dimly in the glow from the coals at the other end of the hall. There seemed to be women, children, a fat man with a sword.

  This fat man was bawling: “Succor, Sir Guiscard, succor! The castle is forced, and we are all dead men! The robbers of Horsham Wood are within the hall itself!”

  Sir Guiscard heard the unmistakable tramp of mailed feet, saw vague figures coming into the hall — figures on whose steel the faint light gleamed redly. Still mazed by slumber, but ferocious, he went into furious action.

  Sir Godfrey de Courtenay, returning to his keep after many hours of riding through foul weather, anticipated only rest and ease in his own castle. Having vented his irritation by roundly cursing the sleepy grooms who shambled up to attend his horses, and were too bemused to tell him of his guest, he dismissed his men-at-arms and strode into the donjon, followed by his squires and the gentlemen of his retinue. Scarcely had he entered when the devil’s own bedlam burst loose in the hall. He heard a wild stampede of feet, crash of overturned benches, baying of dogs, and an uproar of strident voices, over which one bull-like bellow triumphed.

  Swearing amazedly, he ran up the hall, followed by his knights, when a ravening maniac, naked but for a shirt, burst on him, sword in hand, howling like a werewolf.

  Sparks flew from Sir Godfrey’s basinet beneath the madman’s furious strokes, and the lord of the castle almost succumbed to the ferocity of that onslaught before he could draw his own sword. He fell back, bellowing for his men-at-arms. But the madman was yelling louder than he, and from all sides swarmed other lunatics in shirts who assailed Sir Godfrey’s dumfounded gentlemen with howling frenzy.

  The castle was in an uproar — lights flashing up, dogs howling, women screaming, men cursing, and over all the clash of steel and the stamp of mailed feet.

  The conspirators, sobered by what they had raised, scattered in all directions, seeking hiding-places — all except Giles Hobson. His state of intoxication was too magnificent to be perturbed by any such trivial scene. He admired his handiwork for a space; then, finding swords flashing too close to his head for comfort, withdrew, and following some instinct, departed for a hiding-place known to him of old. There he found with gentle satisfaction that he had all the time retained a cobwebbed bottle in his hand. This he emptied, and its contents, coupled with what had already found its way down his gullet, plunged him into extinction for an amazing period. Tranquilly he snored under the straw, while events took place above and around him, and matters moved not slowly.

  There in the straw Friar Ambrose found him just as dusk was falling after a harassed and harrying day. The friar, ruddy and well paunched, shook the unpenitent one into bleary wakefulness.

  “The saints defend us!” said Ambrose. “Up to your old tricks again! I thought to find you here. They have been searching the castle all day for you; they searched these stables, too. Well that you were hidden beneath a very mountain of hay.”

  “They do me too much honor,” yawned Giles. “Why should they search for me?”

  The friar lifted his hands in pious horror.

  “Saint Denis is my refuge against Sathanas and his works! Is it not known how you were the ringleader in that madcap prank last night that pitted poor Sir Guiscard against his sister’s husband?”

  “Saint Dunstan!” quoth Giles, expectorating dryly. “How I thirst! Were any slain?”

  “No, by the providence of God. But there is many a broken crown and bruised rib this day. Sir Godfrey nigh fell at the first onset, for Sir Guiscard is a woundy swordsman. But our lord being in full armor, he presently dealt Sir Guiscard a shrewd cut over the pate, whereby blood did flow in streams, and Sir Guiscard blasphemed in a manner shocking to hear. What had then chanced, God only knows, but Lady Eleanor, awakened by the noise, ran forth in her shift, and seeing her husband and her brother at swords’ points, she ran between them and bespoke them in words not to be repeated. Verily, a flailing tongue hath our mistress when her wrath is stirred.

  “So understanding was reached, and a leech was fetched for Sir Guiscard and such of the henchmen as had suffered scathe. Then followed much discussion, and Sir Guiscard had recognized you as one of those who banged on his door. Then Guillaume was discovered hiding, as from a guilty conscience, and he confessed all, putting the blame on you. Ah me, such a day as it has been!

  “Poor Peter in the stocks since dawn, and all the villeins and serving- wenches and villagers gathered to clod him — they but just now left off, and a sorry sight he is, with nose a-bleeding, face skinned, an eye closed, and broken eggs in his hair and dripping over his features. Poor Peter!

  “And as for Agnes, Marge and Guillaume, they have had whipping enough to content them all a lifetime. It would be hard to say which of them has the sorest posterior. But it is you, Giles, the masters wish. Sir Guiscard swears that only your life will anyways content him.”

  “Hmmmm,” ruminated Giles. He rose unsteadily, brushed the straw from his garments, hitched up his belt and stuck his disreputable bonnet on his head at a cocky angle.

  The friar watched him gloomily. “Peter stocked, Guillaume birched, Marge and Agnes whipped — what should be your punishment?”

  “Methinks I’ll do penance by a long pilgrimage,” said Giles.

  “You’ll never get through the gates,” predicted Ambrose.

  “True,” sighed Giles. “A friar may pass at will, where an honest man is halted by suspicion and prejudice. As further penance, lend me your robe.”

  “My robe?” exclaimed the friar. “You are a fool—”

  A heavy fist clunked against his fat jaw, and he collapsed with a whistling sigh.

  A few minutes later a lout in the outer ward, taking aim with a rotten egg at the dilapidated figure in the stocks, checked his arm as a robed and hooded shape emerged from the stables and crossed the open space with slow steps. The shoulders drooped as from a weight of weariness, the head was bent forward; so much so, in fact, that the features were hidden by the hood.

  “The lout doffed his shabby cap and made a clumsy leg.

  “God go wi’ ‘ee, good faither,” he said.

  “Pax vobiscum, my son,” came the answer, low and muffled from the depths of the hood.

  The lout shook his head sympathetically as the robed figure moved on, unhindered, in the direction of the postern gate.

  “Poor Friar Ambrose,” quoth the lout. “He takes the sin o’ the world so much to heart; there ‘ee go, fair bowed down by the wickedness o’ men.”

  He sighed, and again took aim at the glum countenance that glowered above the stocks.

  Through the blue glitter of the Mediterranean wallowed a merchant galley, clumsy, broad in the beam. Her square sail hung limp on her one thick mast. The oarsmen, sitting on the benches which flanked the waist deck on either side, tugged at the long oars, bending forward and heaving back in machine-like unison. Sweat stood out on their sun-burnt skin, their muscles rolled evenly. From the interior of the hull came a chatter of voices, the complaint of animals, a reek as of barnyards and stables. This scent was observable some distance to leeward. To the south the blue waters spread out like molten sapphire. To the north, the gleaming sweep was broken by an island that reared up white cliffs crowned with dark green. Dignity, cleanliness and serenity reig
ned over all, except where that smelly, ungainly tub lurched through the foaming water, by sound and scent advertising the presence of man.

  Below the waist-deck passengers, squatted among bundles, were cooking food over small braziers. Smoke mingled with a reek of sweat and garlic. Horses, penned in a narrow space, whinnied wretchedly. Sheep, pigs and chickens added their aroma to the smells.

  Presently, amidst the babble below decks, a new sound floated up to the people above — members of the crew, and the wealtheir passengers who shared the patrono’s cabin. The voice of the patrono came to them, strident with annoyance, answered by a loud rough voice with an alien accent.

  The Venetian captain, prodding among the butts and bales of the cargo, had discovered a stowaway — a fat, sandy-haired man in worn leather, snoring bibulously among the barrels.

  Ensued an impassioned oratory in lurid Italian, the burden of which at last focused in a demand that the stranger pay for his passage.

  “Pay?” echoed that individual, running thick fingers through unkempt locks. “What should I pay with, Thin-shanks? Where am I? What ship is this? Where are we going?”

  “This is the San Stefano, bound for Cyprus from Palermo.”

  “Oh, yes,” muttered the stowaway. “I remember. I came aboard at Palermo — lay down beside a wine cask between the bales—”

  The patrono hastily inspected the cask and shrieked with new passion.

  “Dog! You’ve drunk it all!”

  “How long have we been at sea?” demanded the intruder.

  “Long enough to be out of sight of land,” snarled the other. “Pig, how can a man lie drunk so long—”