Novel 1984 - The Walking Drum (v5.0) Page 18

  Two chinar trees leaned their great trunks close above the path, and there were rose bushes beside them. Valaba started to go ahead of me when I heard a sound, a faint chink of metal as a blade brushes against twigs!

  Catching Valaba’s arm, I whirled her to one side, and my dagger came from its sheath as men closed around me.

  My life was saved because I did not hesitate or step back as expected. It was ever my way to go toward an enemy, and I went now.

  He stepped from behind a bush and held a sword in his hand.

  Chapter 23

  *

  HE HELD HIS point low. When he saw me moving toward him, his blade came up, but he moved too slowly, and I was already past the point. Before he could step back, I had put my dagger into his belly.

  Turning sharply around, I faced three men with drawn swords.

  Valaba screamed, and one of them turned toward her, another swore at him. Outside the garden there were running feet, and the three men moved to kill me.

  These were hired assassins, and neither honor nor glory lay in a victory over them, nor could I defeat them in any way except by surviving.

  Valaba was at the gate, but they would not dare harm such as she. She was safe enough.

  Feinting a lunge that brought them up short, blades up, I spun around quickly, put my blade between my teeth, jumped, and grasped the top of the wall. With a quick motion I swung my legs over the wall and dropped on the far side. Behind me I heard Haroun and his guards surrounding the garden, but there was nothing further to be gained here. I left the garden and, by a roundabout route, hastened to my quarters.

  On the bed lay a message with but a single word in Persian.

  Come

  *

  SAFIA WAS WAITING, but if she noticed my handsome clothing, she gave no indication. Gesturing to some clothing on a bench, she said, “Change into that. You must disappear.”

  “Disappear?”

  “You must not return to your quarters. Whatever you have there will be packaged and sent to the library.” She indicated a small pile of gold coins. “Take that. You must go to a place I will designate, and remain there until I call you.”

  “The time is near?”

  “You were attacked tonight, were you not?”

  “You knew?”

  “They were not enemies of yours, but of mine.”

  When I dressed I resembled one of the many footloose mercenary soldiers ready to sell their services to any cause.

  Beside the armor was a sword. As I picked it up, my blood surged with excitement. What a blade! The balance was beautiful, the feel of it—I ached for combat.

  *

  THE ROOM WAS small with one door and a window that opened upon a wall that ran for some distance between a double row of trees, shaded and crossed by their branches, creating a leafy tunnel, concealed from both sides. The wall ended at an aqueduct near a street.

  Safia’s planning astonished me. The section where I now waited was shabby, inhabited by mercenary soldiers, camp followers. The street near the aqueduct was where our horses were stabled and waiting. Not far from it was a small postern gate.

  Days passed, but there was an ample supply of food; an olla suspended from a ceiling beam contained water. There were books, also.

  I made but one friend. Khatib was a sly man with quick hands and a quicker brain. No longer young, there was little he did not know of the ways of the beggar or the trickster. Squatting on his heels by the doorstep, he regaled me with news from the streets, as well as about our neighbors.

  He had a face of old leather, and an odd way of peering from the corners of his eyes as if to gauge the effect of his comments. He seemed to like me, and I liked him, but I dared trust no one.

  My identity was that of a Frankish soldier and former pirate, something I was qualified to carry off, for aside from my brief experience, I had countless tales from my father and his crew.

  From Khatib I learned tricks of the hand and juggling, for he had once traveled with a company of tumblers and jugglers, some of whom were thieves.

  My reading was done only at night and behind closed doors. To be able to read marked a man, and there is always gossip.

  It was at this time that I read The Ring of the Dove, by a young Spaniard of Moorish extraction who devoted his time to an exploration of amorous play and its accompanying phenomena. It struck me as an intriguing area for study.

  Khatib was another sort of book, one I never tired of reading. Within that cunning, fertile, amoral mind lay all the devious tricks and devices men have learned over thousands of years, or so it seemed. He also possessed qualities of dignity and loyalty that would have been a lesson to any Christian or Moslem.

  With Khatib I often went to a room in an ancient ruin where tumblers and jugglers gathered to practice their arts or to acquire new tricks. Ever athletic and handling my body with ease, I took part in their training, to learn their somersaults, flips, and cartwheels. Some of these I had learned as a boy from others of my age, but now I became an adept.

  Nearby was the Street of the Booksellers where over one hundred dealers gathered along one street. They had been established there since the time of the Abbasids. Al-Ya’qubi states that in his time, about 891 in the Christian calendar, these shops were already here. Many of the keepers of the shops were letter writers for pay, authors of books, and literati of various sorts. The shops not only were where books were sold but were centers of intellectual discussion.

  Several times I bought copies of ancient manuscripts, smuggling them to my room under my robes. One of these was from the private collection of the great Egyptian physician Imhotep, and it concerned treatments for diseases of the eyes, the skin, and the extremities.

  Around the bookshops I never tired of loitering, listening to discussions, examining Egyptian papyruses, Chinese paper, scrolls, or parchment. Córdoba manufactured its own paper and had its own printers.

  Chinese prisoners had, in 751, introduced into the far-off city of Samarkand, the art of making paper from rags or linen, flax or hemp. A paper mill was established in Baghdad in 794, and paper replaced parchment in all government offices. By the tenth century paper was readily available in the Moslem world, and with the advent of paper, books became plentiful.

  Idling along the streets of the bazaar, I talked with the weavers and their masters, fascinated by their skills. By their feeding, the peculiar worms who spin the silk a variety of shades had been created. White cocoons came from white mulberry leaves, but if the worms were fed the dwarf mulberry, the cocoons were of yellow, and fawn cocoons came when the worms were fed from the castor bean plant. These secrets were known to few outside the trade, and not to all who worked with silk. The Arabs, who were master weavers, experimented with many kinds of leaves, and it was whispered to me that one had devised a silk that would poison the wearer because the leaves fed to the worms were poisonous to humans but not to them.

  This silk was extremely rare, and robes or drawers were sold only to a few secret customers. Robes were rarely made of this material, as it was most effective when in contact with the skin. Often the buyers were women of the harem who wished to do away with some rival, or the sons of kings, eager for power.

  Drawers, shirts, or turbans were the garments most often made of this material where the poison was made more effective by the body’s heat. The wearer would die, often in a fit of madness, but with no indication of poisoning.

  One Arab was reported to be feeding his worms a special formula made from leaves of the Indian trumpet vine so the worms would produce a scarlet silk. This was, however, only a rumor.

  Fine dyes were available, the best red coming from an insect associated with oak trees, an insect called kermes by the Arabs.

  Restlessness sat heavily upon me, yet I could not be long absent from my quarters, for when Safia needed me, it would be suddenly and desperately. She had provided food, shelter, and clothing when needed, and more than that, if anyone could discover where my fathe
r now was, it would be she. That she was in mortal danger, I knew.

  Sometimes I suspected her of dealing in magic, yet none of the signs were there, and reared as I had been in the old knowledge that is never written, the signs would be obvious enough. Had not each of my grandparents been buried with the oak and the mistletoe?

  Our family memories went back to the time when a Druid temple topped the isle of Mont-Saint-Michel, long before any Christians came to build there. Had my ancestors not studied in the secret temples of the lost city of Tolente, destroyed by the Normans in 875?

  Had I not myself been consecrated times over? The first at Men Marz, a tall gray stone near Brignogan on the coast where I was born?

  The Druids were gone, it was said, or had never been, but customs and traditions die hard on our rugged Armorican coast, and there were those who still go to the old places in the wilds of the Arré and Huelgoat.

  Among those wooded hills, beside the foaming torrents, among the boulders there are places we of the old knowledge have not forgotten, nor shall we forget. It was there I had been taught the history of my people, a history that reaches back beyond the first Celts who came to Brittany. Some of them migrated to England and to Eire, fleeing before the Romans, only to return many years later to add to the Celtic population of Brittany.

  Again I thought of Valaba. Did she ever come to the Street of the Booksellers? Would I see her there?

  Safia had not come, and might not come for days.

  I would go to the Street of the Booksellers.

  Chapter 24

  *

  STRIPPING, I BATHED in the small tub in a corner of the room. This was an old Visigothic house, and the bath had been added after the Moors arrived.

  Constant exercise with the tumblers, swordplay, and wrestling had developed my back, shoulders, arms, and legs. I had grown no taller, for I achieved my height early, but I had filled out and was much broader and deeper in the chest. My waist was trim, my hips narrow, my legs strong but slim.

  When I landed in Spain I had no beard to speak of; now I wore one trimmed in the latest style, and a mustache. After bathing, I trimmed my hair and beard. My hair was black with a tinge of red when seen in the light, a heritage from Celtic ancestors.

  On the inspiration of the moment I donned my coat of chain mail. It was new, finely made of small links, bearing the mark of a great armorer from Toledo. It was remarkably light in weight. Then I slung my sword from my shoulder, which was the style of the Moor.

  The street was empty but for a disconsolate donkey, and further along the street two camels lay where they had been saddled for a trip. Odd, for camels to be leaving at night.

  The Street of the Booksellers was brightly lit. Here and there groups of students gathered, and strolling among them, I watched for Valaba but saw her not. A feeling of depression lay heavy upon me, nor could I shake it off. Several of the booksellers spoke, obviously willing to engage in discourse, but on this night I was not interested.

  After a while, despairing of finding Valaba, I started back. Nothing had been gained by my walk. Valaba was busy elsewhere.

  A beggar came from his corner to seek alms but when close he whispered, “O Mighty One! Return not. Fly! If your enemies are not there, they soon will be.”

  Beggars were friendly with street players and singers, and by now I was considered one of them. Yet I dared not accept the warning, for Safia would be coming. All was dark and still when I neared my room, yet I detected a stirring in the shadows not far away.

  Entering my room, blade in hand, I searched until sure I was alone, then I went to the corner where I could sit on my bed and not be seen, where I could read. My small light was hidden, and the door was left open a crack to detect any movement outside.

  The book I chose was a rare volume from the library of the great mosque. The book had come to my hands in a strange way. I was searching a stack of uncatalogued manuscripts with a view to bringing them to some kind of order, when the stack toppled toward me, revealing a narrow door fitted into the wall. As nothing was kept there but old manuscripts, books collected but unlisted from the time of al-Hakem, it was possible the existence of the door was unknown to anyone in the library.

  The door was locked, but my curiosity aroused, I picked the lock with a skill I had acquired from street people. Facing me was a small room, comfortably fitted but thick with undisturbed dust. It was a private study, perhaps that of al-Hakem himself. No doubt it was here that the caliph, one of the great scholars of the Arab world, had done his own research into ancient manuscripts.

  Among the fifty or so books there were some with which I had long been familiar, but lying on the table in a sort of leather envelope was a book written in Arabic but translated from the Chinese of Tseng Kung-liang. The original title had been Wu Ching Tsung Yao, written in 1044. Translated the words meant A Compendium of Military Art.

  Opening it, I had found a careful study of the military art of the Chinese and the Mongols as well. What most intrigued my interest was the description given of an explosive powder used by the Chinese in warfare. Included among notes at the back of the book was a formula for making this powder.

  Nothing like this had been used by the Moors, and it was unknown in Christian Europe, but here in my hands lay the method of manufacture, information on its use, and something of its reactions when contained in bamboo, wood, or metal.

  From notes written in a careful hand this book must have come into the hands of al-Hakem shortly before his death. Those caliphs who followed lacked his interest in books, and this room had been forgotten.

  Pocketing the book, I had locked the door and piled the manuscripts into their original position. Many of the manuscripts were duplicates of others already translated, and it might be years before they were again disturbed.

  Military art had been a major interest of mine, and the book I now held was a treasure. Such a book might easily win a man a kingdom. It might also blow high the walls of the castle of the Baron de Tournemine.

  I had safely hidden it in another section of the library and had earlier in the week dared sneak into the great mosque to remove it for further study. Now I read this book once more, for it was my intention to commit the entire book to memory. The formula, which was the core and essence of the book, I had memorized within ten minutes of opening it for the first time, but there were other items of importance.

  Yet I could not concentrate. My ears tuned to the slightest sound from the dark street outside, and I finally tucked the book inside my shirt and put out my candle.

  For some time I sat in the dark with a naked sword upon my knees, then suddenly I was sharply alert, listening.

  Something or someone had fallen in the street outside. I heard hoarse panting and a sound of something dragging. A faint moaning, as of someone in dire pain, came to me, and I opened the door wider, the oiled hinges making no sound.

  “Kerbouchard! Help me!”

  It was Safia. Staggering to her feet she half fell across the threshold. Catching her with my free hand, I eased her to the floor. Sheathing my sword, I knelt beside her.

  “Go!” she whispered. “They are coming! They made me talk, and they will kill you, they—!”

  Despite the risk I lit the candle. Her robe was soaked with blood, and she had been beaten until the flesh was cut to the bone in places, and her feet were a pulp from a terrible beating upon the soles.

  “They believe me dead. I could not let you—but go! I release you from your promise. I had no right—”

  Slinging the sack which contained maps and some precious books over my shoulder, I wrapped her in a fresh robe and picked her up.

  Moving might kill her, but if found here, she would certainly be slain. Crawling through the window, I drew her to the wall beside me, then closed the window. Risking a fall, I carried her along the wall in utter darkness, leaves brushing my face and my clothing.

  At the stable the horses were undisturbed. Saddling two and putting halters on th
e others, I tied Safia into her saddle and led the horses outside, closing the door behind me.

  The night was cool, almost cold. The great arches of the aqueduct threw shadows upon the pavement. Tonight I would leave Córdoba. Would I ever return? It was a city I loved, and although it had taken much from me, it had given more.

  The ride would be brutal. It might kill Safia, but we had no choice. Riding in the shadows, I went to the postern gate. As I had hoped, there was no guard. Ignoring her moaning as she became conscious, I rode for the hills, stopping for nothing. What Safia had done to warrant the torture I neither knew nor cared. Whatever it was had ended disastrously.

  Before daylight I found a hollow beside a small stream. Taking Safia from her horse, I went to work. Not for nothing had I read the Canon of Avicenna and other great teachers of medicine. I bathed her wounds, using what medicines I had in my own small kit. Treating her lacerated back, I bound up her wounds.

  She had lost blood and was unconscious while I treated her. The sight of her feet horrified me. It had taken more courage than a person had a right to possess for her to come to warn me on such feet. The sun was high in the sky before I ceased to work, nor was there any way of judging how successful I had been. Now all rested in the lap of Allah.

  Safia was drawn and pale, and when her eyes opened, it was only to stare wildly about and plead for water. There was grass for the horses, and water, but we could not long remain here. Toward nightfall she became conscious, so I could feed her some soup.

  Once more I tied her in the saddle. I was taking her by a roundabout route to the cave where long ago I had fought the Visigoth.

  It was a lonely place, but the cave was hidden, and there was water. We could hide there until Safia was well or until she died.

  At daylight, after concealing the horses on some grass among the willows, and while Safia slept, I took my sword and bow to prowl about. In a small copse I found a few of Akim’s sheep banded together with one big old ram for protection. I put an arrow into a lamb that strayed from the flock and, butchering it, carried the meat back to the cave.