02-Warriors of the Steppes by Harold Lamb

Author:Harold Lamb [Lamb, Harold]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Central, Action & Adventure, Fantasy, Steppes - Asia, Cossacks, Steppes, Asia, General, Science Fiction, Adventure Fiction, Historical Fiction, Central - History - 16th Century, Fiction, Short Stories
ISBN: 9780803280496
Publisher: Bison Books
Published: 2006-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Leave’t to others to cant and to repine

When You and I embrace our life—the vine.

“Nay, methinks the verse is mine. 'Tis excellently attuned. Ho—I will sit in the inner chamber—”

Despite the tavern keeper's remonstrance Mujir stepped gracefully over the prone forms of slumbering camelmen in the outer stall and pushed through the curtains that veiled a separate compartment of the inn.

Here he salaamed before a seated figure and slumped down heavily on the carpet. The other glanced at him once sharply, then looked away indifferently. Not so Mujir.

“Come, brother in wine and watcher of the night, let us tickle our throats with that which Mohammed scorns but I do not.”

The seated figure made no response. Struck by a new fancy, the hafiz unrolled his prayer-carpet from his waist and hung it with drunken seriousness over the opening in the curtain—after Faizuli Anim had brought him his jar of wine and left.

“Thus,” he explained, stroking his dyed beard, “do I veil the aspect of our delightful sin as a radiant damsel shrouds the beauty of her face. Come, brother! My eyes tell me you are a soldier, and your rich armor and jeweled ornaments bespeak rank and prowess.

“When did the wild ass keep his muzzle from the fresh grass, or a warrior his lips from wine—or the wine of a woman's mouth for that matter?”

The stranger made no response. He was a straight-backed man, wearing travel-stained mail, nearly concealed by a cloak of rich texture. His cotton trousers were clean and his red morocco shoes costly. The hilt of his scimitar was a mass of jewels, and a blue diamond shone from his turban crest.

These things the hafiz had noticed. But he had not observed the dark face under the turban with the scar on one cheek from chin to brow, the thin, hooked nose, and the hard eyes which moved slowly from object to object with a purposeful stare.

By face and form the stranger was an Afghan of a northern tribe, by dress a follower of the Mogul, and one of rank, who had prospered in war.

But the hafiz was in a mellow mood.

“Nay, have I not earned a kiss from the grape, O warrior?” he appealed. “'Twas a rare feat to thread the streets of the City of the Sun this night.

“Patrols of cursed unbelievers, godless Hindus and their like, search the bazaars and alleys for certain evil-doers. 'Tis said in the bazaars that a woman of the dead raja was snatched from the ghat, and the evil Brahmans are astir like a nest of angered bees.”

This time the soldier looked up.

“Eh—why do they search in Srinaggar?”

“Because—so 'tis said—the woman was carried hither. Nay, I would she had been burned to a crisp on the ghat for the trouble she has made me. When the shaven priests have anointed a woman for death what else is she fitted for? Ho—the wine is cool!”

Whereupon he quaffed deep and lay back upon the carpet with a watery sigh, his plump limbs lax, and the Afghan regarded him with disfavor.

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