Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures

“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.

The Road of the Eagles

I

Though the cannon had ceased to speak, their thunder seemed still to echo hauntingly among the hills that overhung the blue water. A league from the shore the loser of that grim sea-fight wallowed in the crimson wash; just out of cannon-shot the winner limped slowly away. It was a scene common enough on the Black Sea in the year of our Lord 1595.

The ship that heeled drunkenly in the blue waste was a high beaked galley such as was used by the dread Barbary corsairs. Death had reaped a grim harvest there. Dead men sprawled on the high poop; they hung loosely over the scarred rail; they lay among the ruins of the aftercastle; they slumped along the runway that bridged the waist, where the mangled oarsmen lay among their shattered benches. Even in death these had not the appearance of men born to slavery – they were tall men, with dark hawk-like countenances. In pens about the base of the mast, fear-maddened horses fought and screamed unbearably.

Clustered on the splintered poop stood the survivors – twenty men, many of them dripping blood from wounds. The reek of burnt powder and fresh blood hung over the ship like a pall. The men were a strange picturesque band – tall and lean, most of them, as men become who spend their lives in the saddle. Indeed, they seemed not entirely at home on the water. They were burnt dark by the sun; beardless, their moustaches drooped below their chins; their heads were shaven except for a long scalp-lock on the ridge of the skull. They were clad in boots and baggy breeches of leather, nankeen or silk; some wore kalpaks, lambskin caps, others steel caps, while many had no head-wear. Some wore shirts of chain-mail, others were naked to their sash-girt waists, their muscular arms and broad shoulders burnt almost black. Naked blades were in their hands – Turkish scimitars and long Hungarian sabers. Their dark eyes were restless; there was something of the eagle about them all – something wild and untamable, from the fundamental tie-ribs of Life.

They were standing about a man who lay dying on the poop. This man’s drooping moustache was shot with grey. His face was twisted with old scars. His svitka was thrown back, his shirt dyed by the blood that welled from a sword-cut in his side.

“Where is Ivan – Ivan Sablianka?” he muttered.

“Here he is, asavul,” came the chorus as a big warrior strode forward.

“Yes, here I am, uncle,” the big man twisted his moustache uncertainly. He was the tallest man there and heavily built. Clad like the others, he differed from them strangely. His wide eyes were blue as the waters of a deep sea, his scalp-lock and flowing moustache the color of spun gold. He had lost his helmet, and in his huge fist he gripped the great weapon that gave him his name – sablianka – little sword.

He bent lower to hear the words of the dying asavul.

“He has escaped us, sir brothers,” whispered this one. “Does any of the sotniks – the captains – live?”

“Nay, little uncle,” answered a lean dark warrior who was binding a rude bandage about a gashed forearm. “Tashko swallowed a bullet the wrong way, and – ”

“Nay, I saw the others die,” murmured the older man. “I am the only officer among you, and I am dying. Ivan – kunaks – brothers – your task is not yet done. I can not go on with you, but you must not falter. When we stood about the mangled body of Skol Ostap, our Ataman, on the banks of Father Dnieper, we all swore by our Cossack honor that we would not rest until we brought back to the Sjetsch the head of the devil who slew him and our comrades. Now after we’ve followed him clear across the Black Sea in the galley we took from him, he’s beaten us off and staggers away; nay, he can not ride far on a horse we foundered with cannon balls. He’ll run in to shore. You have horses – follow! To Stamboul or to hell if you must! Ivan, you are essaul – sergeant – now. Follow! Die or take the head of Osman Pasha – who – slew – Skol – Ostap – ”

The shaven head dropped on the scarred breast. The Cossacks shifted and murmured in their moustaches. They looked expectantly at Ivan Sablianka. He gnawed his moustache reflectively, glanced at the lateen sail drooping in the windless air, and stared at the shoreline. Besides that of their foe, no other sail was visible on the sea, no harbor or town on that wild lonely coast. Low, tree-covered hills rose from the waterline, climbing swiftly to blue mountains in the distance, on whose snow-tipped peaks the sinking sun flamed red. There was a reason why Ivan should know more about seas and ships than his comrades, but he had no exact idea as to where they were. They had crossed the Black Sea; therefore they were now in Moslem territory; these hills were doubtless full of Turks – in his mind he lumped all Muhammadan races under a single contemptuous term.

Under a broad shading hand he stared at the slowly receding craft – a counterpart to that on which he stood. Its crew had been glad enough to break away from the death-grapple. Ivan knew that it was crippled beyond repair, though in better shape than the hulk which was sinking under his feet. The corsair was making for a creek which wound out of the hills between high cliffs. She moved slowly, heeling to port, but Ivan believed she would make it. On the poop he could still make out a figure which caused him to rumble in his throat – a tall figure, on whose mail and helmet the sinking sun sparkled. Ivan remembered the features under that helmet, glimpsed in the chaotic frenzy of battle – hawk-nosed, grey-eyed, black-bearded – stirring in the Cossack an illusive sensation of semi- recollection. That was Osman Pasha, until recently the scourge of the Levant, most renowned of all the Algerian