Read Online Swords From the Desert by Harold Lamb - Free Book Online

lies when the Domastikos listened. "This Arab lord helped me put them to flight. He is a notable swordsman, though a Muslimin."
    Menas spoke Arabic as well as Arbogastes, and now he looked at me suddenly.
    "What seek ye of me, 0 son of the black tents?"
    "Wai, my lord, it is no time for the Muslimin to go alone in the streets. I seek protection."
    "How many men hast thou, 0 Khalil?"
    "I have one sword, Iny lord."
    "Wilt use it on my behalf?"
    "At need."
    "For what price?"
    "For no price. Naught have I to sell or buy."
    Hereupon he looked upon the fountain for a moment, pinching the skin of his cheek between two fingers.
    "It needs no soothsayer, my Badawan, to tell that thou hast a need. All men have needs-some slack purses, some desires. What is thine?"
    "A horse, my lord," I made answer truthfully. "Aye, a wonder of a horse."
    And I told him of the gray courser, in the hands of the barbarian girl. The young exquisite deigned to smile.
    "By the good saints Sergius and Bacchus, this Arab covets the colt, not the filly. Why not go with Arbogastes and take it?"
    "Whither? The gates are closed."
    "True." He still smiled, as though contemplating something that pleased him. "And, after all, a saracin might not easily presume to ride off with the horse in the patriarch's garden. What then?"
    I made bold to tell him of my plan.
    "When thy men make away with the barbarian girl, then I will bridle and lead out the gray courser, as if bearing him to thee."
    "And so, must I lose a racer worth a few hundred denarii in the Hippodrome?"
    Now when a youth has his heart set upon a woman, and at the same time dreams of making himself an emperor, he is not apt to haggle at a horse. I had seen that which I had seen-the bearded Maga Ducas, or Lord of Ships, stalking impatiently in the anteroom. Aye, and the captain of the yellow-haired barbarian mercenaries as well.
    Truly this youth held a high place in the Greek court, if he dared to keep such men of war gnawing their beards in his hall. And he had ambition, or they would not have waited upon him.
    So I weighed my words accordingly, knowing well that unless I bargained with him, his men-at-arms would take the gray horse for him or for themselves. Such Greeks and barbarians have no true love of a fine horse, yet they would have sold him for a price.
    "I have a white charger from the stable of the emperor himself, my lord," I ventured, "and this royal beast I shall give to the hand of thy captain, when I take the gray racer."
    He looked at me sharply, considering the advantages of Murtzuple's charger, and nodded.
    "Agreed," he said in Greek.
    Thus he spoke with the desire to test me, but the thought came to me not to reveal my knowledge of the Greek, that I had from the galley slaves of the Gates.
    "This Arab," spoke up Arbogastes, "understandeth not the noble language of your Mightiness."
    "Be it agreed, 0 Khalil," the Lord Menas said again in my speech, and I bent my head.
    "Between us it is agreed, my lord," I reminded him, "yet forget not that I have agreed to stand at thy back and draw my sword in defense of thy person-that only, and not to be thy servant, at command, as is this Persian."
    "Body of Bacchus, thou art a man of many conditions and few promises. A true rarity, I vow, in Constantinople-"
    There was a sudden commotion of running feet near at hand, yet unseen, a long shout and a clamor of voices. Menas listened, but his soft voice went on:
    "And so thy boldness is forgiven thee. Abide with Arbogastes and await my further word."
    He had been toying with a silver ball, and now he let it drop into a bronze basin that hung beside the couch. At once a boy slave slipped from the shadows behind the couch, and another from beyond the fountain. They ran to the heavy velvet curtain that hid one side of the chamber and drew it back. There was no wall. We looked out upon a tiled balcony overhanging an arm of the sea.
    It was the hour of sunset, and a red pathway lay upon the sea-a pathway that