The Witch of Aleppo/Chapter 8

N THE guard rooms of the musketeers of Paris many times had Sir Michael of Rohan wagered what he had in the world at ecarte or dice. It was his habit to accept the quips of fortune smilingly. The world was full of quips and he asked no more than to have a hand in the jest that was going the rounds. He had one peculiarity in play; whenever the women of the court or the nobles’ halls took seat at his table, Sir Michael was wont to rise and lay down his hand or pocket his stake, making the excuse with perfect good humor that the ladies dazzled his poor wits.

The truth of it was that the fairer sex had no little skill at cheating, and it was not the part of a cavalier to call attention to peccadillos of this nature. Michael preferred to sit and watch, taking much amusement therefrom.

It was a fair bright morning, and the cavalier had been in good spirits as he watched the last of the sunrise from the edge of a cliff that formed an impregnable barrier between the tribe of Sivas and an invader. He had not heard Lali approach until she stood behind him, but upon perceiving the dark-haired girl, he had made a courteous bow, sweeping his plumed hat upon the very surface of the snow.

She stepped to the edge of the rock and looked down, the wind whipping her cloak about her limbs, and her long tresses unruly.

“From this rock, O Frank,” she observed, “we cast down those who have offended. Many stout Turks who sought to climb to our nest have been tumbled back into purgatory from here.”

“Ah!”

Michael offered his arm, and she took it, though sure of foot as a mountain goat. An imp of mischief danced in her dark eyes.

“Why does the young warrior always seek you?” She questioned gravely. “He never came for me but once and then he struck me.”

From beneath lashes her eyes searched his face, and Michael did not answer because just then his ear caught the rasping of gravel displaced behind him. Lali’s lips hardened.

“You are always with him, and your words have turned him against me,” she accused hotly.

“I? Not so!” Michael glanced at her, puzzled, and, as he did so, the light was shut out. A heavy bear-skin fell upon his head, thrown from behind.

A man standing with his toes over a sheer fall of some thousand feet does not move haphazard. Michael reached swiftly enough for his sword, but before his fingers touched the hilt he heard the steel blade slither out. Lali had drawn it from the leather sheath.

He threw himself back, groping at the thick folds of the skin, and stumbled over his scabbard. A fiery wave passed up and down his spine as his feet slipped in the loose stones. Then powerful hands caught his wrists and ankles, and a rope was passed around his neck, binding the bear skin upon his head.

The assailants lifted him, and bound his hands behind his back, passing the ends of the rope through his belt in front. Steel pricked his shoulder, and he heard Lali’s contented laugh.

“Farewell, O my companion of the road. You go the way of an offender, but down the cliff path, so do not think to run away.”

The rope attached to his belt tugged him to one side; another cord, tied.to his bound wrists, swung him into the path—as his groping feet assured him. Muffled as he was, Michael did not think of shouting for aid, judging that if he did he would be thrust over the rock. Men’s voices reached him and feet crunched before and behind. The bear-skin, as the sun grew stronger, nearly smothered him, while he felt his way down the path.

It was noon by the sun when the skin was pulled from his head. Michael was standing in the valley under Sivas, looking up at the tiny spots that were the huts against the glitter of the snow. Around him were the bare stalks of a vineyard, and within it he saw three Armenians taking money from a pock-marked merchant who kept glancing at him, doling out a silver coin after each glance, more slowly, until he stopped and the four fell to railing, until the Armenians finally left the merchant.

As they passed Michael—one was the boy who had served as guide from the Black Sea—he called out—

“The Cossacks will give more if you take me back.”

But the boy turned his head away. Michael’s lips stiffened.

“Where will they take me?”

One of the Sivas men looked over his shoulder.

“Bagdad—I don’t know.”

Michael opened his lips to call again, then squared his shoulders and turned to the two Turkomans who were leaning on their spears and looking at the line of laden mules standing near the vineyard—the caravan of the merchant who had bought Michael.

They untied his wrists, led him to a mule and when he was on the animal’s back, bound his ankles together under its belly. A word of command was passed down the line of the caravan, saddles creaked, dogs barked, and voices rose in vituperation without which nothing is ever done in that bedlam of the world—Asia Minor.

Michael took off his hat and bowed to the distant height.

“I wish you well of the silver, Mistress Lali,” he cried in English. “’Twas a slender price for such a man as I—who wished you well. If God sends we meet again I shall weigh you with more care.”

He struck the mule with the flat of his leather scabbard and moved on with the caravan, the guards finding amusement in this antic of the Frank. It occurred to him that Demid had been wise to keep him with the Cossacks.

WEEK later they threaded through the last mud of the foot hills and dropped down below the snow line, having passed under the ruins of Zeitoon once the stronghold of the Armenians, now razed on its crags by order of Sidi Ahmad. Some of the merchants of the caravan drew off here, to take the highway to Damascus, but Michael’s owner remained with various rug sellers and other slave traders, on the southern trail.

Being merchants who disliked hardships, they camped that night on the near shore of a swift, blue river that Michael fancied to be the Chan or Jihan, once crossed by Xenophon and the Greeks. Being swollen by the melting snows its crossing was no easy feat, and the next morning the Turkomans were forced to strip, to carry over the goods on their heads, while the slaves were set to work to build rafts.

Michael setting about his share of the task philosophically, the first to note a band of cloaked horsemen spurring up over the sands. The merchants shouted for the guards, but those who were in the river made haste to complete the crossing, and the few remaining, after a glance at the drawn simitars of the Arab marauders, cast away their spears and sat down to watch events.

So did the slaves. Several of the owners of the caravan offered fight, probably hoping to make better terms by a show of resistance. The raiders made no bones about riding them down, and Michael noticed that they cut the throat of the merchant who had bought him.

In a few minutes the slaves who had been about to cross the Jihan were lined up and divided among the chiefs of the pillagers, together with the bales of cotton and furs. Camels were then brought up by grinning boys who signed for the prisoners to mount and accompany their new masters. A couple of the Turkomans were included by way of good measure, and Michael suspected that those who were left behind took advantage of the happening to plunder the remaining merchants.

So began a strange chapter in the long wanderings of the Irishman, who, in the eyes of his captors, the Arabs, was no longer a living spirit, but a thing of flesh and muscles, to be sold for the best price it would bring.

He noticed that the Arabs headed southwest, along the river and crossed lower down that same day, moving out before dawn toward a rocky range of hills where only one pass was visible. After laboring through the mud of this ravine, they made camp in a ruined khan—a traveler’s shelter in a plain green and pleasant with olive trees and pomegranates.

Here again, the company divided after lengthy discussion, and an old Arab who looked what he was—a monarch of horse thieves—signed for Michael to come with him and a stripling who bristled with weapons as he tried to strut like the warriors.

This was different from the mule caravan. On a swift-gaited camel Michael sped along a beaten track with the desert riders, who circled the villages and headed toward a nest of minarets on the skyline.

Studying their destination as it drew nearer, Michael made out the white sides of a castle rising on a height—the green of gardens showing over the walls and a lofty tower over the gardens. Perhaps because the ground outside had been cleared of all brush and huts, he had never beheld walls so massive as those which hemmed in the city of minarets and domes—a city gleaming white and yellow and purple under the utter blue of the sky.

One of the thieves let fall a word that roused his curiosity at once—

“Haleb.”

Now Michael was almost sure that this was Aleppo, and the thought that he had come before the Cossacks to their destination made him smile.

Michael reasoned that the Cossacks would delay only a short while to search for him; learning nothing of his seizure, they would press on, playing as they were for a great stake. They might come into sight of the city about this time, and he cherished this flicker of hope.

But, passing through the heavily guarded gate—Bab el Nasr, Gate of Victory it was called—on the north side of the town, and threading into the crowded passages be tween the sheer walls of mosques and the dwellings of the nobles, he mentally increased the odds against Demid.

Aleppo was full of Moslem soldiery.

Moreover it was full of mosques, which meant throngs of armed worshippers, who indeed fired at him volleys of abuse, with more than a little mud and stones. The old Arab, however, was equal to the task of caring for his stock-in-trade. Giving back insult for insult he took the center of the alleys with his camel while his son brought up the rear with display of teeth and steel, until they gained the shelter of the caravanserai of the desert men near the slave market.

Here space was procured for the three camels in the crowded lower court, and Michael’s captor bought oil and vegetables and coffee from the shops within the serai wall, enough for three men. Holding up the skirts of his long cloak, and using his tongue in lieu of elbows to clear a passage, he conducted his prisoner to the wide gallery that ran around the court, where in rows of cubicles, raised a foot or so off the floor, motley groups of visitors sat about dung fires, cooking each one a different thing with a different smell. The Arab ousted a worried looking Jew from the cell he selected for himself, and built up the fire started by the Jew who really was in the wrong serai and knew it and was glad to get off with a whole skin.

As soon as they had eaten their fill they trussed Michael up, and the son went off to see that their camels were not stolen or to steal others himself, and the sire squatted comfortably to listen to the scraps of talk that floated up from the coffee house with in the arcade of the serai.

Michael could make nothing out of the bedlam of tongues, until a dandified janizary strolled past the cell, noticed the water-pipe of the old Arab and asked for a whiff in the name of Allah the Compassionate.

The elegant one had a fierce beard and a stock of blades and hand-guns in his girdle that would have aroused the instant envy of the boy who had left; moreover the taint of forbidden wine was heavy upon him.

“Set it between thy hands.”

The Arab extended the stem of the hubble-bubble across Michael’s prostrate form, so that the warrior was forced to squat on the other side of the prisoner, thus precluding a knife thrust from either.

The Arab, being in from the hills, desired to hear gossip, and he drew information from the janizary in such masterly fashion that Michael gave keen attention.

He heard that he was to be sold on the morrow, since a Zineh or festival began the next day, when all the shops were to be closed. This festival had been ordered by Sidi Ahmad, to celebrate the arrival of a courier from the sultan.

Sidi Ahmad, then, was in Aleppo.

Meanwhile the forces of the pasha were being ordered up from the Persian border and the Euphrates. A detachment of mamelukes had crossed over from Egypt and was waiting in Damascus for marching orders.

“The Sidi will strike a great blow when he goes against the Franks,” boasted the warrior.

“True. The slaying of infidels is pleasing in the sight of Allah. And yet—and yet, the master of Aleppo has grown too great for Aleppo. It may be that he will also strike a blow for himself at Constantinople, and thou and I may yet serve Sultan Ahmad instead of Sultan Mustapha.”

The janizary muttered and handed back the pipe stem after wiping it with his sleeve. Glancing around cautiously, he leaned over Michael to whisper:

“Then our backs would be strengthened—we would have a wiser head to lead the faithful. No man is as crafty as—the Wolf’s Ear.”

“Perhaps it is written.”

“Aye, he is ghazi.”

“In the hills there was talk of this and that. Some said Sidi Ahmad had been seen in Egypt, others that he had gone upon the sea for some purpose. He hides his thoughts.”

“Allah, those were lies.” The janizary opened his beard in a soundless laugh. “Sidi Ahmad has kept to the Wolf’s Ear, like a squirrel to its nest. For months he has not mounted his horse. I have seen it.”

The old Arab puffed at his pipe thoughtfully.

“When you look at a stone do you see a mountain? When you watch a horse can you answer for its master? Sidi Ahmad is one among ten thousand; you say he is here, and I must have dreamed by hasheesh when I beheld him riding like the devil of the air when the moon was last full.”

“You must have dreamed, waggle-beard.”

Michael was pleased that no one had word of the Cossacks as yet—if indeed they were nearing Aleppo. The two fell to talking of the riches of Sidi Ahmad, the Arab with an eye to thievery probing shrewdly at where the treasure was kept in the castle. But the soldier was cautious here.

“Where, if not under the hand of the wazir, the treasurer?”

“You are doubtless a captain of many. Only yesterday it is said that the wazir collected a new tax from the suk, the market-place. Allah alone knows how heavy are the money bags of Sidi Ahmad. The wazir must be tormented with doubt if the treasure is guarded by men—surely he has hidden it, while Sidi Ahmad was absent.”

“Fool! The pasha has not left the Wolf’s Ear. Gold dinars and costly jewels are to be his sinews. With them he can buy swords and swordarms.”

“True. And yet I have not counted more than a score of guards about the tower that is called the Wolf’s Ear.”

“Few can be trusted. And now—the Peace!”

The janizary rose a little unsteadily and swaggered off. When Michael turned over to ease his cramped limbs he beheld the son of the thief squatting in the shadows, inspecting the most valuable of the daggers that the warrior had worn in his belt. The old man nodded approvingly and returned to the gentle sputtering of his pipe.

UYERS in the suk were few, because every householder was busied in laying out the best of his rugs and hangings, in stall and balcony to prepare for the festival.

Some felt of Michael’s muscles, as he stood, naked to the waist in the glaring sun above the two Arabs who knelt at ease. But they passed on after learning the price of the Frankish slave. Others stared curiously at his strange hat and long boots, and walked on to where women were offered. Michael saw dark-haired Armenians, and statuesque Georgians, with many Persian maids standing near him; these waited patiently until a trade was made, then followed their masters off the square with the passivity of animals. Michael preferred to watch the riders that trotted by along the street leading to the castle gate.

His attention was drawn back presently by the crying of some Spanish girls, taken—he heard related—by a raid of corsairs on the coast of that country. Their mother had just been sold to a stout Turk, who was berating the slave merchant for the uproar caused by the children. Michael saw the trader strike the girls with his staff, and, instinctively he took a step toward them. Then, recollecting his plight, at a snarl from the Arab he turned back.

But not before the eye of a tall sheik, wrapped to the cheek-bones in the folds of his white robe, had fallen upon him. The newcomer strode over to Michael and studied him for a full moment.

“At what price is this one offered?”

The Arab called a thousand greetings upon the stranger and said that it was no more than two hundred dinars, that Michael had an excellent disposition, was strong as a horse, and

“He has been a galley slave.”

The stranger pointed to the thick wrists and gnarled arms of the cavalier.

“A hundred is enough, the tax to be paid by you”

“O blind and small-of-wit”

A powerful hand freed itself from the folds of the other’s dress and the Arab’s face changed visibly as he saw a seal ring on the thumb before his eyes.

“O father of blessings”

“Deliver him to my men.”

The stranger moved on, leisurely, with his long stride and was lost in the throng. Meanwhile a group of armed servants closed around the cavalier after paying the Arab his price, which he took dourly enough now that the man of the seal ring was gone.

But Michael did not move. Down the street came a clash of cymbals and a shouting of guards, pushing the crowd back. Those around him rose to peer at the commotion, and a joyful shout from the street was echoed in the market place. A body of janizaries moved into view, escorting a splendid white camel on which a canopy of carpets half-concealed the slender form of a woman.

“Way for the messenger of the mighty, the merciful Mustapha, Protector of Islam, Sword of Muhammad! Way for the distinguished aga and the gift he brings!”

So cried the soldiery, and the rabble roared in glee when the handsome noble on a blue-veined Arab barb—he who rode directly before the camel—began to cast handfuls of silver coin over the uplifted heads. Michael noticed that the aga sat his high-peaked saddle like a rider born, that his turban was sewn with pearls, and the fringe of his caftan glittered with gold thread.

“Allah’s blessing upon the giver! Ten thousand welcomes to the aga, the victorious, the youthful lord, El Kadhr.”

So cried the multitude, and Michael’s eyes sparkled. The man who came as the Sultan’s messenger was Demid.

His beard had been clipped short and parted in the middle, after the northern fashion, but no other disguise—save the garments, plundered perhaps from some caravan on the way—was needed, for the face of the Cossack chief was lean, the dark eyes slanting—a heritage from some Tatar ancestor. His attire was that of a Turkoman chief and his manner, composed and slightly contemptuous, bore out the part.

Michael turned his attention to the rider on the camel. Lali had been furnished new garments, but the poise of her head was unmistakable although she was heavily veiled. Before her walked the two blacks, once more at ease despite their scars. Well for Demid, thought Michael, they were mutes. They had a tale for the telling!

Yet now they stalked proudly, aware of their importance—two eunuchs of the imperial court, unmistakable as such.

Alone, in that great throng, the cavalier did not call out. He could have made Demid hear, for the cortege passed within stone’s throw. But to signal to the Cossack before those hundreds of vigilant eyes would be to place the chieftain in jeopardy at once. Michael remained silent, smiling a little as he understood the trick by which Demid had entered Aleppo. He had merely taken the place of the aga, who had been slain on the galley—the officer who had had Lali in his charge. But Ayub and the other Cossacks were not visible, and Michael wondered what part they were to play.

“The Sidi will have a warm welcome for this bringer of gifts,” spoke up some one near him. “It is said that El Kadhr had a wolf’s fight with a band of unbelievers in the hills and overthrew them, after all but these few of his men were slain.”

A savage shout gave token of the joy of the Moslems at this feat of the aga, and Michael, listening, grew thoughtful. In this way Demid had explained his lack of escort; the janizaries he must have picked up near the city. But, successful in passing the gates of Aleppo, where no other Christians were suffered to enter except as slaves, he was now in the center of a fanatical mob that would tear his limbs apart at a slip of the tongue or a false move.

All at once Michael was aware that Demid had seen him. The gaze of the aga had passed over the slaves and lingered a second on the cavalier. Tossing some silver toward the clamoring Arab younglings he rode on without a sign of recognition.

Another moment and he checked his horse, where the multitude at the road leading up to the castle held up the cavalcade. Stooping he spoke swiftly to one of the officers of the guards, handing the man at the same time a purse from his girdle.

The janizary made a sign of obedience, looked around at Michael and made his way back to the suk. Swaggering as one who had just been noticed by the messenger of the sultan, he approached the Arab.

“How high is the bidding for this Frank?” he asked curtly.

The desert man fingered his beard thoughtfully, and seeing no loss in talk, drew the soldier a little aside from the Turkomans who were still staring after the envoy.

“Three hundred gold pieces, to you, my friend, and the tax on you. You have seen how docile he is”

“I have here two hundred and twenty dinars. It is yours for the slave. The lord from the imperial city has given me command to buy this dog. The Frank crossed his glance with the aga, and perhaps made a spell upon him. So the lord from the imperial city has selected me to buy him, in order that he may be slain and the spell rendered of no account. The aga, El Kadhr, is a hater of the Nazarenes, as a man should be.”

At this Michael’s pulse quickened, for covetousness darkened the Arab’s eyes, and he schemed palpably to avail himself of the new offer. The guards observed that Michael was standing by them, but took no notice of the merchant.

“Surely you have more than that in the purse,” objected the desert man. “I saw the aga hand it to you. Is it not all for this Frank? The envoy is open of hand.”

“By my beard, it is not so. And the tax is on you”

“B’illah! What do you say?”

Inwardly cursing their quarreling, Michael listened to their rising voices in a feverish suspense.

“Allah! What words are these words. The door of bidding is closed!”

The leader of the Turkomans swung around and grasped Michael’s shoulder.

“Dog of an Arab! Saw you not the wazir’s ring?”

The desert man flung up his arms with a groan.

“Aye,” he muttered to the puzzled janizary. “A dweller in the Wolfs Ear saw fit to claim this slave for a fourth of his value. I have eaten wrong-dealing”

“Which you will spew out again, father of thieving!” growled the Turkoman, and made a sign for his companions to close around Michael.

As they moved ofi Michael saw the janizary stop to curse the desert man, and then—well aware of the danger of crossing an official of the castle—stride away toward Demid. He had not gone far before a lithe, tattered figure stole after him, and stumbled over his heels. The blade of a knife flashed, and the purse which the soldier had tied to his girdle, dropped into the hand of the son of the Arab.

Michael, despite his disappointment, could laugh merrily at this. The butt of the Turkoman’s spear smote his cheek, splitting the skin.

“O caphar, unbeliever, you can work your spells in the darkness under the Wolf’s Ear. Hasten, for you will have an audience with your master.”

So it happened on the day of the festival in Aleppo that the man with the signet ring passed into the gate of the palace wall, and after him Demid and his charge, and upon their heels, in a sad strait indeed but no whit disheartened, Sir Michael of Rohan.