The Walking Drum Read online

  The time was now.

  All my instincts as well as my intelligence warned me there was no time to lose. The walls seemed suddenly oppressive, and I wished desperately to be free, to be outside, riding across the tawny plain.

  Turning to Aziza, I said, "You must think, and you must be honest both with me and with yourself. If you escape with me now, you will be tying yourself and your fortunes to me, perhaps for always. You cannot go back."

  "I do not want to go back, Mathurin. I wish to be with you."

  "All right. We will go, now."

  The slave had been gone from the room; now he returned suddenly. I went at once to the storeroom and began packing food.

  "If you will but tell me what to do, Master, I will do it."

  "Just stay where you are and be still. I will do it myself."

  He turned to leave the room, and I stepped before him, my hand on my scimitar. "Sit down!" I commanded.

  His lips tightened, and he grew suddenly wary.

  "Try to leave," I promised, "and you shall choke on your own blood."

  He backed away and seated himself on a cask. Swiftly, I finished my packing and went out of the door, locking it behind me.

  Aziza was waiting. "Hurry, Mathurin! They—"

  The outer door opened, and I heard footsteps and the clank of arms.

  Wheeling in my tracks, I pushed to open the door into the secret room. The stone door swung inward.

  Four men faced me with drawn swords.

  16

  WHEN I OPENED my eyes my cell was unchanged, and I lay upon the filthy straw that for three months had been my bed. For a long time I lay still, remembering the expression on the face of Mahmoud as he stood behind the four swordsmen.

  "I am sorry, my friend," he said smugly. "You were in the way."

  Aziza had cried when they took her from me, her lovely features contorted with weeping. One other face that I was to remember, a tall, handsome man with a smartly trimmed beard. He looked at me coldly as if I were some sort of insect, then looked away.

  Prince Ahmed!

  "Throw him into prison," he said, "and when he has suffered enough, kill him."

  He could not forgive the days at the Castle of Othman with Aziza. That I had even looked at the bride of Ahmed without her veil was an insult.

  Three months in this vile place? When and how would they kill me? Or had I been forgotten?

  My Berber guards were savage, bitter men, yet they were fighting men, and for this I admired them. They left me my books. When taken from the house of ibn-Tuwais, I had been allowed to bring the books he had given me, and from time to time, mysteriously, I had received others.

  Was Mahmoud to be thanked for this? Or had Aziza contrived some means of having them smuggled to me?

  One thing I had done. Before being taken away, I cleared ibn-Tuwais of any complicity in my activities; aiding in this was proof that I had paid him for my quarters. As no Arab would accept money from a friend in such a case, they had believed my story, and he was freed.

  During those three long months, I had studied the geography of al-Idrisi, far superior to anything of the kind available in Christian Europe. Eratosthenes, a scholar of 194 b.c. in Alexandria, had devised a method for calculating the diameter of the earth, and al-Mamun in 829 had figured its diameter to be 7,850 miles. Also during these three months, I had read the translations of Hippocrates and Galen by Hunayn ibn-Ishaq.

  There was only straw upon the floor of my cell and one small window to offer light. When the wind blew rain into the cell, I had to crowd under the window itself to keep dry, and it was always cold, damp, and unpleasant. One day a guard came to my door and handed me a package in which was wrapped the work on surgery by Albucasis.

  There was little to do but read, although each day I exercised to keep my body fit. The food was bad, but it was no worse than aboard the galley. My mind was forever occupied with thoughts of escape, yet I now knew the passage outside my cell to be impossible. There were four Berber guards in that passage, and at the end of it a guardroom in which a dozen more were wont to gather to talk and to gamble. My small window opened upon a sheer cliff that fell away for hundreds of feet.

  Al-Idrisi I loved. The great Moslem geographer had much information about the far corners of the earth not obtainable elsewhere. The Arabs, because of the pilgrims who came to Mecca from all parts of the world, were in an excellent position to gather geographical knowledge.

  My restlessness increased. Prince Ahmed would not permit me to live. His pride would not allow it. Sooner or later the order would come through.

  When my guard was not around, I often grasped the lower sill of my window and chinned myself, pulling myself up until I could peer through the bars. All I could see was blue sky and an occasional drifting cloud. Yet one by one I tested the three bars.

  They were set in the stone window frame closer to the outer edge than the inner, and the castle was very old, dating back to earliest Visigothic times. The wall itself was exposed to driving rains, and over the years the stone on the outer edge might have eroded away.

  Testing them, I found one was very slightly loose in its socket, so it became a part of my exercise, my daily routine, to work at the bar. Twisting it, I found I could occasionally loosen fragments, a fine sand that could itself be used as an abrasive.

  Occasionally, I would pour a few drops of my water into the hole, and as I was a man of more than usual strength, it seemed possible to push the bar free at the bottom, breaking away the thin edge of stone that remained. The other bars were seated solidly, yet the edge of another hole was thin, and if I could work the first bar loose and use it as a lever ... ?

  My guard on this day was a slender, knifelike man with a lean face and high cheekbones. He was a warrior and looked it. Several times I made efforts to engage him in conversation, to no avail until I commented that I hoped my horse was being cared for.

  "The dappled Barb? Maybe after you are killed they will give him to me."

  "You are a man who would understand such a horse," I agreed.

  There was a change in his manner. He seemed inclined to be friendly. Our talk was of horses, then it switched to camels. The Berber was a desert man and seemed pleased when I showed some interest in camels. Of them I had learned a little from Hassan, the servant of John of Seville.

  At the end of an hour I had learned a few things. The castle in which I was imprisoned was on a lonely crag some distance from Córdoba, and the walls fell into a deep gorge on all but one side. The idea did not frighten me, as from boyhood I had climbed about on the lofty cliffs of my native Brittany. Heights did not disturb me, and I had learned how to use every tiny finger grip, every crack, every opening in the rock.

  My beard had grown; my clothing was unclean, and the straw on which I spent my nights was forever clinging to it. Yet that clothing was still sufficient to cover me, and sewn into the seams were the remaining gems I had kept from the galley.

  That night when the cell was dark I labored long at the loosened bar and the second one also. By daylight when I lay down to sleep there was some movement in the second bar.

  The guard awakened me by bringing food. On this morning he did not seem disposed to talk nor would his eyes meet mine. "The order has come then?"

  He shrugged irritably and closed the door behind him. Then he said quite distinctly. "You are to be strangled."

  "When?"

  "Tomorrow."

  "You may have my horse."

  When he spoke, there was something in his tone I could not fathom. "I already have him. He is in the stable at my house in the village, with your saddle and your weapons."

  Was he boasting? Or trying to give me information?

  "Wait. Is anyone near us?"

  "No."

  "I must escape. I have a diamond. Help me and it is yours."

  "I would be killed. Prince Ahmed is furious." He chuckled. "It is said the beautiful one murmurs your name in her sleep."

  He
hesitated at the door. "You have friends who wish you free."

  "Aziza?"

  "It was not she who sent the books. But I cannot help you."

  "You were asked?"

  "Yes."

  "By whom?"

  "I cannot say, only that she is very powerful in some places. Yet even her influence cannot reach beyond ibn-Haram and Prince Ahmed."

  She?

  I knew no woman who might wish to help other than Aziza, nor any person. Perhaps John of Seville—but he would have no knowledge of my danger.

  When he had gone I wasted no time. From my guard's manner I knew he would not mind if I escaped, but he would take no hand in it himself.

  Besides, what could he or anyone do? The passage was filled with men, the outer court also. One could not buy them all, nor would they risk the reprisals of ibn-Haram.

  Hoisting myself to the window, I grasped one bar with my left hand, the other with my right. With all my strength I pushed on the right-hand bar.

  Nothing happened.

  Bracing myself, I drew the right-hand bar back in its socket, only a tiny distance, then smashed it outward with all the power I could muster. For an hour I worked until drenched with sweat and my knees and arms became raw with chafing against the rock wall.

  My guard returned with food, and if he noticed anything, he gave no indication. Only, as he was leaving, he commented, "Twice men have tried to climb down the wall; each was dashed to pieces on the rocks below. It is seven hundred feet to the bottom.

  "My house," he added, "is not a pretty one, but it is painted pink. It is the only pink house outside the walls."

  When he had gone there would be no one nearer than the guardroom. I ate what meager food there was, then scrambled to the sill. Desperately, I went to work. Escape tonight or die tomorrow; die upon the rocks below risking my life for freedom or be strangled like a sheep.

  Grasping the loosest bar, I gave a tremendous shove and something gave. Rock grated, and I shoved again. The bar came loose at the bottom; the top slipped from its socket. I now held in my hand an iron bar three feet long, slightly beveled at one end. An hour later the second bar was free.

  Thrusting my head from the window, I looked off into a vast, unbelievable space. The cell in which I was imprisoned was set upon the rock of the clifftop, but the precipice fell away in a sheer drop for two hundred feet and was then broken by several crevices that seemed to run down the face of the cliff.

  Studying the wall below my window, I carefully noted the knobs and projections that might offer fingerholds. Returning to the floor of my cell, I drank what remained of the water, then lay down for a brief nap. Within the hour my body might lie broken and bloody on the rocks below, but I would never be strangled by the retainers of Prince Ahmed.

  Awakening, I rinsed my mouth with the few drops I had missed of the water, then climbed to the windowsill and went through the window, feet first. Gripping with my fingers on the window ledge, I groped with my toes for the hairline of rock where the building rested, and found it.

  Always agile, and adept at rock climbing, I knew the trial before me would be the worst I would ever meet. In my belt, tied there, were the two iron window bars. Clinging to the ledge with my fingertips with one hand only, I leaned down and thrust one of the bars deep into a crack in the wall.

  Letting go the sill, I let myself fall, catching the bar with both hands. Had the bar slipped or the rock crumbled … but neither happened. A gust of wind caught my body; I heard distant thunder. My toe found a crack. Holding to the bar behind me with my left hand, I leaned down and wedged the second bar into place.

  Farther along the cliff face was a vertical crack some three feet wide and but a few inches deep. Edging my way, handhold by handhold across the face of the rock, using the second iron bar, which I had recovered, for the first I had abandoned in place, I made my way to that crack.

  Rain spattered on the rock face around me, and a gust of wind, harder than the first, tore at my clothing. Placing the sole of one foot against the edge behind me and my knee against the edge in front, using my hands with care, I began to work my way down the crack. After a few feet of descent the crack deepened so I could also oppose a shoulder against the edge behind me. In this way, using a technique often applied during my boyhood climbs along the rocky shores, I descended for at least sixty feet.

  There, for the moment, I had a good foothold and rested as wind and rain lashed at my body. Below me the cliff was a smooth sheet offering absolutely nothing in handhold or foothold. At the bottom, however, glimpsed briefly in flashes of lightning, I perceived a ledge a few inches wide of another rock sheet that overlay that on which I waited.

  Gingerly, I edged out on the smooth surface, flattening myself against the rock. Then I let go and began to slide. There was a moment of sheer panic at the thought of the vast depth below and what would happen if I overshot the ledge or failed to stop myself there.

  Braking my slide with elbows, body, and toes, I slid, rapidly gaining speed. Grasping at the rock for anything to slow my speed, I felt a sharp sliver of pain as a fingernail tore loose, and then my toes thudded against the narrow ledge, and only my body weight against the rock kept me from being thrown clear.

  Clinging to the rock face, I fought away the fear and took slow, deep breaths of the cool air. Gasping hoarsely, I waited, struggling to calm myself and prepare for the ordeal that lay before me.

  How far down I had come I had no idea, but there was no returning, no stopping now. Escape and freedom lay before me; around me, death.

  The inches-wide ledge on which my feet had come to rest seemed to extend along the face of the rock and to slant downward, so clinging to the rock face, I edged along. Time ceased to exist. At times the narrow ledge became no more than an inch wide. Then it grew wider again, and suddenly I found myself in a shallow cave, hollowed by wind and rain. There was room to sit down, and I did, but first I looked up, waiting for a flash of lightning. It came, and I was no more than a hundred and fifty feet from my cell!

  Only the sharp urgency of my position and the knowledge that I could not remain where I was started me moving again. It was not in me to wait for death nor to give up to despair. Somewhere my father, if still alive, was a prisoner, and I must free him. Sucking my torn finger, I studied the rock. Then handhold by precious handhold, I lowered myself. Twice I found narrow chimneys down which I could lower myself for short distances. Once a ledge of rock crumbled under my toes, and only the grip of my fingers saved me. Another time only my closed fist in a vertical crack held me suspended above a black gulf. I had only to open my hand to fall to my death.

  It was some time after the rain had ceased that I became aware of it, so intense was my concentration on the task before me. Thunder rumbled in the gorges like a sulky bear in a cavern. The face of the rock became rougher. I moved more swiftly until suddenly I slipped and fell, and I was brought up with a jolt that smashed my skull against a rock.

  Half stunned, I lay there for several minutes before I rolled over and climbed drunkenly to my feet. Distant lightning flashed, and I looked around me for a way down—and there was none. I was standing in the bed of a dry creek!

  A rumble from upstream warned me a flash flood was coming, and I ran, stumbling, across the creek and up the far bank, only just in time. Pale yellow edged the clouds in the east. Now for the pink house, and my horse!

  I had been all night on the face of the cliff. My forearms were raw, the skin torn and lacerated. My knees were in the same condition, and I walked in pain. There was a cut on my skull from which blood issued, but most painful of all was the lost fingernail.

  My head throbbed with a dull, heavy ache, but I was down. I was free!

  17

  EASTWARD I FLED, eastward astride the fast-running Barb, and before the noon sun was in the sky I took to the hills, riding into rough, broken country. It was a land of naked mountains, serrated ridges, lofty towers, and natural fortresses, forever unused by man, impre
gnable beyond comprehension.

  Sweat trickled into my raw wounds, and the blazing sun caused my head to throb with pain. Nowhere could I find water, and there was but little food in the saddlebags. Yet my only safety lay in losing myself in the empty mountains, reputed to be the hiding place of brigands.

  It was nearly sundown when I heard the tinkle of a bell.

  Riding along a rocky slope, I came upon the droppings of goats and tracks of their tiny hooves. Topping a ridge, I saw them before me. At least two hundred goats guarded by three men and two huge, savage dogs.

  With them was a girl.

  She walked several steps toward me and stood, feet apart, her flimsy skirt blowing in the wind. Her hair was wild and uncombed, but there was a fine insolence in her eyes and manner, and under the flimsy skirt her body had an outline that turned my mouth dry and made my pulses pound.

  She held her ground as I allowed the Barb to pick his way through the scattered rocks. The men shouted at her, but when she continued to stand they left their goats and walked toward her, and me.

  All were armed, and they were taking in my horse and scimitar as if they already possessed them. I was doing the same with the girl.

  "What do you want?" she demanded insolently.

  "Food and wine," I said, letting my eyes say more than my words, "and perhaps a place to rest."

  She looked at me boldly from under long lashes. "Food and drink you may have. As to rest, you will find little here!"

  I took my foot from a stirrup. "Ride?" I suggested.

  She looked at me, then tossed her head and, thrusting a bare foot into the stirrup, stepped up beside me. I put an arm about her waist.

  "Which one is your man?" I asked.

  "Of them?" Her tone was contemptuous. "None of them! Although each wishes to be. They are afraid of my father."

  "They are fools."