Novel 1984 - The Walking Drum (v5.0) Page 14

  Turning to Akim, I suggested, “Put out a guard and choose a place in the hills to which you can escape. I warn you. They intend to sweep the hills, and they will find you. Hide what is of value and your flocks.”

  It was a concession from Akim that he suggested I stay on, and I learned then that many a victory is easier won with words than a sword—and the results are better.

  “I shall stay, Akim, and you shall tell me stories of your wars. I venture you will have stories worth the telling.”

  “That I have.” That he was pleased was obvious. “It will be good to talk to another soldier.”

  Alan came with a candle, and I followed him. In Moorish homes a room was rarely set aside for sleeping. One slept wherever one might be, yet Alan showed me to a room where there was privacy, and brought me water with which to bathe. When I followed him from the main room, I caught the expression in the eyes of the bastard of the Visigoth, if such he was, and that expression was not pleasant.

  That was one victory that must be won with a sword.

  Sharasa stood in the doorway as I passed, her head tilted back against the doorjamb, looking at me from under lowered lashes.

  And that was a victory that must be won with other weapons.

  Chapter 18

  *

  AFTER TWO DAYS nothing had been resolved except some of the wrinkles in my belly. Sharasa was just as elusive and just as attractive, but surprisingly, Akim and I had become friends.

  The stories he had to tell were of war and bloodshed, of risk and riot, of scaling walls and single combat. Akim, unwittingly, was teaching me much of war, and not knowing what might lie before me, I was eager to learn.

  He had fought for and against both Goth and Moor, surviving many a bitter battle in the breaches of city walls, in house-to-house combat, and of fighting in the streets.

  The bastard son of the Visigoth was called Aric, and I knew he intended to kill me. Aric had decided Sharasa was for him, and until I arrived on the scene, it had seemed to him inevitable. He glowered about, casting threatening looks in my direction.

  Sharasa was often about, yet vain as I might be, I knew much of her interest was in what I had to say of clothes, cities, and the behavior of other women. This, Aric was too stupid to understand. Sharasa, I think, had long had her own dreams, none of which included Aric. My words fed those dreams.

  Alan, too, was never far from me when I talked of Córdoba.

  Turning to him one evening when we were briefly alone, I said, “Alan, you must go to Córdoba or Seville. You would be happier there.

  “Go to Seville,” I advised, “find John of Seville, and tell him Kerbouchard sent you.”

  Akim overheard and turned sharply around. He had heard no name for me but Mathurin, and at the time not too many Europeans had family names.

  “Kerbouchard? Your name is Kerbouchard?”

  “It is.”

  He slapped the table with the flat of his hand. “Why did I not see it? You resemble him, Kerbouchard the Corsair!”

  What a ring he gave the name! What a sound!

  “I am his son.”

  “I saw him once. It was in Almeria, that city of pirates and rovers of the sea. He came with a dozen ships loaded to the gunwales with loot!

  “Ah, how we stared! Our mouths watered to see it! Gold, silks, spices, jewels…he unloaded them all. Had he asked for volunteers, the city would have emptied to serve him.

  “There was never another like him, not one! He had raided the isles of Greece, captured a rich prize off Tripoli, looted another within sight of Rhodes!

  “There was a soldier with him, a man I knew from another time, another war. His name was Taillefeur, he—”

  “What?” I caught Akim’s wrist. “Taillefeur was with my father?”

  “You know him? Then you know him for a rascal, though a first-class fighting man. Yes, Taillefeur was with him, and I wondered at it, for he was not a man to serve another unless he could betray him for a price, and there were many who offered prices for Kerbouchard.

  “Taillefeur fought beside me at the defense of Caltrava in 1158. We fought in the breach together against the Moslems, but I never trusted the man.”

  Taillefeur had been with the Baron de Tournemine, my father’s enemy. Was it he who brought news of my father’s death? Might he not have betrayed my father, if betrayal was his way?

  It was a thing to consider.

  On the morning of the third day Alan came to me. “Be warned,” he whispered, “Aric means to kill you.”

  It was time for me to ride on. I wished the big lout no harm, but my destiny lay outside this valley. Moreover, I feared the soldiers of Yusuf would find even this long-hidden valley.

  On this morning I arose early and rode down the valley toward a deep pool where I had often gone to bathe. The sky was dull with clouds with a suggestion of coming rain, yet the swim would refresh me, and tomorrow I must be on my way to wherever I was going.

  Which of us knows the direction of his life? Who knows what tomorrow may bring? Often, when pausing at a crossroad, I have wondered what might lie waiting on the road not taken?

  Drawing up in the shelter of some willows, I tied my horse where he could feed but would nevertheless be hidden from a chance passerby. Disrobing, I walked to a rock and plunged into the pool.

  For a few minutes I swam, then returned to the rock from which I had dived and began to dress. Yet scarcely had I begun when I heard an angry cry. It was Sharasa!

  Swiftly, I plunged through the curtain of brush and found myself standing in a cave mouth with Sharasa not ten feet from me and Aric facing us both, holding my scimitar taken from my saddle.

  “I will kill you now,” he said. “I shall kill you and her, too!”

  “He has done nothing. He did not know I was here.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  Well I knew the razor edge of that scimitar, and I was half naked and unarmed. That blade would sever an arm like butter.

  “Leave him alone. He has done nothing.”

  The shock of his sudden appearance was gone now. He had given me the moment I needed, and my mind grasped desperately for some escape. Nor was there a rock or a stick upon the cave floor. There was nothing. There was no weapon.

  He had moved to block any escape, and there was no way out. I must meet him, face to face. My life was at stake here, but Sharasa’s was also.

  Warily, I advanced a step toward him, my hands down. It surprised him, I believe, because he had expected me to shrink from death as he would have done. Only death had become a constant companion, and I was not prepared to die, not at the hands of such as he.

  He held the scimitar awkwardly and not like one accustomed to swordplay, yet he was an agile and powerful man. The fury in him might work to my advantage.

  There was little room for maneuver, yet I advanced another step, working a little to his left, studying his position.

  My father, a skilled fighting man, always told me to notice the position of a man’s feet, for if a man can be taken off-balance he can be beaten. There is a limit to how far a man can reach without shifting his feet.

  Behind me now I could hear Sharasa’s hoarse, frightened breathing, and I knew I was fighting for her life as well as my own.

  If I threw myself at his legs, I might throw him, yet the edge of that blade could sever a finger or a hand, and if he sprang back as I moved in, he could run me through. Suddenly, he leaped, slashing wickedly. Only just in time I sprang back, and the tip of the blade just missed me. I made to dive at him as the blade swept past, but he was quick and shifted ground.

  He lunged then, the blade at arm’s length. With the palm of my hand I slapped the flat side of the blade as it thrust at me, knocking the point out of line with my body. Instantly, I stepped in, hooking my right leg behind his leg and smashing him under the chin with the butt of my palm.

  He grunted with pain, and tripped by my right leg, he fell backward. Thrown hard to the sand
, he landed on his back. Promptly, I kicked him under the chin and wrenched the scimitar from his loosened grip.

  He sprang up, staggered, and would have lunged at me, but I slapped him alongside the skull with the flat of the blade. He fell to the sand, and for an instant I was tempted to finish him off.

  “No, Mathurin! No!”

  I drew back, for I had no desire to kill him. “All right, he shall live, but we must go.”

  Returning to my horse, I finished dressing and strapped on my dagger and the scabbard of the scimitar. I took Sharasa up beside me, and we rode back to the farm.

  We rode swiftly, and my usual awareness was dulled by the events of the afternoon and the dangers in facing Akim. Dropping Sharasa to the ground, I swung down and started through the door. I shouted for Alan and stepped through the door into a room filled with soldiers.

  Akim was sprawled on the stone floor, bathed in blood. At least two of the attacking soldiers had been killed, and others nursed wounds. That much I glimpsed before a wicked blow struck me across the head, and I fell, striking the floor on my face.

  In a moment of slipping consciousness I heard someone say, “Leave him to burn. Take the girl, but gently. She will make a fit present for Zagal.”

  With all my will I struggled to move, but could not. A wave of darkness engulfed me, and through the darkness I heard the crackle of flames.

  Chapter 19

  *

  HEAT BLASTED MY face, smoke rolled over me. My eyes opened to find crackling flames within inches of my head. Rolling over, I struggled to rise, only to fall headlong. Still too weak to rise, I crawled through the smoke to the door.

  Twice I collapsed; twice I started again. My head was heavy as a cask; my mind would not work. Fighting toward the air like an animal, groaning with effort and only half conscious, I somehow reached the outside.

  For days I lay around in a daze. The ruins finally stopped smoking, and I managed to bury the remains of Akim and those others who had been killed.

  Alan was gone, so was Sharasa.

  My horse had been taken, and even my poor jacket with the gems sewn into the seams had been taken or thrown away. My dagger had been inside my shirt and unseen. It was all that remained.

  Fortunately, they had not found the cave near the well where the goat’s milk and cheese were kept. There, also, was some wine.

  My clothing was filthy. Some had been charred by the flames, and I had no outer robe. My turban had kept me from being killed by the blow but had suffered in consequence.

  At the edge of the well I sat drinking cold goat’s milk and munching cheese, reflecting on the misfortunes that attended me. Surely, the old gods must have cursed me to have each move end in disaster.

  I was alone. The nearest city was miles away over rough country infested by brigands, many of whom would kill for the sheer pleasure.

  Aziza was lost to me, and now Sharasa.

  My face had been horribly blistered by the flames, but owing to the treatment I had given, methods learned during my study of medicine, it would heal, I believed, without leaving a scar. But meanwhile, the skin was tender, and my beard had grown greatly. It would be long before I dared shave or even trim my beard.

  No one in Córdoba would know me now. My elegance was gone. Shabby, half starved, ugly with beard and healing scars on my body, I looked more the beggar than a student or a gentleman. All I possessed, aside from what I wore, was an old blanket found in the stable.

  Mahmoud? Ah—Mahmoud! He deserved my attention, and I was determined to see he received it in full measure.

  Finding an old waterskin, I cleansed it as well as possible, then filled it with goat’s milk. Wrapping up a cheese, I started upon my way.

  It would be a long walk to Córdoba.

  *

  A WEEK LATER I sat upon the old Roman bridge that crossed the Guadalquivir to Córdoba. It was an ancient bridge built in the days of Augustus, repaired only recently.

  The day was hot and sultry. Along the high road passed an unending stream of people, camels, donkeys, and carts going to and from the city. Footsore and exhausted, I stumbled to my feet and joined the procession, walking toward the city that had given me so much, and had taken so much from me. Yet it was a city I could not yet leave.

  Money, decent clothing, and weapons I must have. The burns, the blow on the skull, and privation had left me weak, and I tired quickly.

  There was the beginning of a plan shaping in my brain. The crews of my father’s ships had been men from many lands, and I had grown up speaking a variety of tongues, none of them well, but since then I had become proficient in Arabic and improved in both Latin and Greek. A sailor from my father’s crew had come from Miletus, and there were several others from Greek islands. Often they had told me stories, and the smattering of their tongue I had acquired had been added to aboard the galley. There was in Córdoba a branch of the Caliph’s Society of Translators and it was in my mind to try there for any task, no matter how small.

  First, I must have clothing. No better hiding place could be found than among scholars, and it would provide a chance to learn, to have access to books.

  My studies until now had taken no definite trend, nor was I planning that they should. Knowledge might be power, but it was also the key to survival. My knowledge of navigation led to my escape from the galley; my small knowledge of medicine helped to heal my burns.

  Even in a comparatively small city, and Córdoba was a large one, a man can lose himself by choosing another way of life. Within cities there are islands of people who had no communication outside their own island. It has even been surmised that people cannot know more than a certain number of people with comfort, which some believe has led to the classes in a society as well as to the exclusiveness of groups. If I chose one of those islands remote from those I had known, I might live as isolated as in another country.

  Before me the gate yawned. Several soldiers loitered nearby. My skin tightened, my heart began to throb. This was the moment of danger. Forcing myself, I walked on, keeping my eyes to the road. My flesh crawled as I drew abreast of them, but then as I stepped through the gate, I heard a familiar voice.

  “The check must be thorough. Until the Caliph ceases to search the mountains, we must beware of brigands who might seek to hide within the city.”

  It was Haroun! It was the voice of Haroun!

  Stealing a glance, I saw him in the uniform of an officer and sitting a fine black horse. So he, too, was among my pursuers! He had never been as close to me as Mahmoud, although there had been a sort of quiet friendship between us. The moving line was carrying me past, but I glanced back again. It was a mistake.

  Our eyes met; for an instant our gaze held. In his eyes there was first surprise, then puzzlement. He started toward me, but a cart drawn by four oxen pulled between us, and his path was blocked. When I looked back again he had turned away.

  Hunger gnawed at my vitals. The only thing of value I possessed was my dagger, which was also the last tie with my father and my home.

  Finally, I could walk no more, and I sank down with my back against a building. The sun was warm; the air, filled with fragrances. Oranges, melons, grapes were being sold about me, yet I starved. Voices were lifted in argument; whips cracked; wheels rumbled over the pavement, and there was the pleasant aroma of coffee from a stall nearby. Exhausted, my head tipped forward, and I slept.

  Awakening, I was chilled to the bone. The sun was gone, and the bazaar, empty. My sleep seemed not to have rested me, and my bowels were a void where hunger growled.

  My muscles had cramped and stiffened; my face was sore, and there was nowhere to turn. In despair, I looked about me.

  Why was I such a fool? If I were a prisoner, they would at least feed me. Or would I be strangled at once?

  Gloomily, I stared around the bazaar, scattered with fruit skins, drifted leaves fallen from the trees, and all the usual debris left by traders. Soon the sweepers would come, and after them, the lamplig
hters.

  My dagger held release. I could die.

  Die? But I was Kerbouchard, the son of Jean Kerbouchard the Corsair! Had I not started to find my father and seek my fortune? Was I a coward, to quit so soon? I, who had ridden out of Cádiz, my cloak sewn with gems?

  There were smells about me, but the worst was the smell of my own unwashed body, of my stale clothing. I started to rise, glimpsing behind a booth an orange, fallen from a stand nearby. My eyes went to the orange and then to the booth’s owner, who was preparing to leave.

  Strolling over, I picked up the orange, but the man turned to me, glancing from the orange to me. “It is mine. Give it to me, or pay me.”

  “I am hungry,” I said.

  He shrugged. “So? Pay me. Then eat.”

  “I have no money.”

  The skin on his face tightened. He eyed me with open contempt. “Give me the orange, and be gone.”

  The dagger was in my waistband. If I drew the dagger, the orange might no longer be so dear to him, yet there were soldiers at the far end of the market area, and he had only to lift his voice.

  “You accept not the word of Allah?” I asked gently. “ ‘To eat thereof, and feed the poor and the unfortunate’?”

  “Allah has his troubles, I mine. Pay me. If Allah wills you to be fed, then you will be fed, but not by me.”

  Staring, I brought all the intensity of my gaze upon him. As I advanced a step, he involuntarily retreated. “There is no god but Allah,” I said, “but there are devils.”

  He liked not my words and took a step back, glancing right and left as if for escape. “There are devils,” I said, “and there are curses.” Lifting my hand, I pointed a finger at him and began to mutter in my own Breton tongue a phrase or two of Druid ritual, but nothing to do with curses.

  His features went stiff with horror. I had forgotten how lately these people had come from the desert where savage gods ruled and superstition was the order of the day.