The Swordsman by Gardner Francis Fox

Author:Gardner Francis Fox [Fox, Gardner Francis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gardner Francis Fox Library
Published: 2018-09-14T04:00:00+00:00

iii

Damietta was the seaport for Cairo. Here at anchor lay sleek Venetian galleys and Genovese galleasses with their three sails neatly furled. Feluccas from the North African cities of Algiers and Tunis rested prow to stern with fat-bottomed French and English carracks. Bum-boats skimmed the harbor waters like many-legged insects, their oars moving ceaselessly.

Here came samite from Latakia, silks from Beirut, sendal fabrics from Tyre. Sukkar in great white cones, newly in from Outremer, fine Syrian linens and glassware from Antioch, timber from Lebanon and iron from Beirut: all found their markets in the teeming marts of Cairo.

For the first time in several centuries, the Islamic world was a united one. In Venice and Genoa, those marts of international trade, men were more concerned with Alexandria, Damietta and Cairo than they were with the Holy Land. The crusaders fought for love of God, the bankers of the Christian world haggled and cheated for love of a full belly and for exquisite brocades and jewels with which to bedeck themselves.

Even the slaves, as they were rowed in flat-bottomed barges toward the stone wharves and transportation in creaking ox carts to Cairo, were affected by the activity around them. To Baibars, who knew only the wooden cities of Russia and the felt tents of the Mongols, the stone houses and walled cities of the Holy Land, Damietta was a fever. Venetians in fur-trimmed garde-corps and pointed shoes bought bolts of silk and brocades from solemn Mussulmen, while Genovese bankers in velvet cottes and caps edged in miniver, arranged loans for the shipment of priceless jewels.

"They'll take us down the Nile delta to Cairo,” Kefas said, walking with Baibars toward their waiting cart.

“We'll make our run there," the Kipchak nodded.

Kefas was grim. “Run? Where to?"

"Where fortune beckons."

The Greek groaned. “I'm older than you. Maybe that's why I'm more practical. I've been thinking. Freedom is all well and good, but a slave-master—even the worst of them will feed and bed us."

Baibars snorted. “You won't starve! Nor will you sleep badly of nights. I have a plan. Oh, and before I forget. The girl, Murakina. She comes with us."

“Are you mad? That one, whom Abu-Zunbar plans to sell to the Sultan? You and I—who cares about us? But the Khmer woman!” Kefas grabbed the rail as the cart lurched into movement. “You're mad! You'll get us killed yet."

The ox cart caravan went by way of the Nile river road from Damietta, past dozens of dank marshes and shallow lagoons. This delta land was desolate and barren, as sand hill after sand hill lay broken only by stretches of flat wasteland. Their night camps were quiet times when the slave-masters went among them from the cooking fires, handing out sticks with roast meats impaled on them, and broken chunks of black bread. From the harbor of Damietta to Cairo was a hundred miles of waterways and marshes, red hills and limestone outcroppings. Where the canal of Ushmum emptied into the Damietta waterway, rose a strong fortress

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