armies of the emperor. They were insane with bravery and fools for battle, but like men from one end of the world to the other, they were slaves to their appetites and to their love of treasure, and with their decks piled high with gold, fresh meat and casks of Georgian wine, the Northmen must as a matter of highest principle choose profitable retreat over the doubtful glories of combat.
As they rode to relieve the town, the advance riders of the Arsiyah became entangled, as the Rus had doubtless planned it, in skeins of fugitives with their bundles and their animals. In the time it took the advance guard, plunging and kicking and laying about them with the blunt ends of their lances, to clear a path, the remainder of the company caught up. Through the Persian eyeglass Zelikman could clearly make out, in the midst of the surging horsemen, Amram and the youth, mounted together, something stiff in Amram’s carriage betraying to Zelikman’s eye that his hands were probably bound, and beside them Hanukkah slouched on the back of a desert ass. There was a delay as orders were given and lamentations heard and prayers offered, and then half the company was divided in two and sent to flank the walls of the city and gain the river mouth, where even now a lone barge set out toward the long ships with the last great fistful of plunder, poled with wild discipline by a dozen red-shirted men. The remaining half of the black-armored Arsiyah dismounted to confront the barred gate. They could not know, as Zelikman saw plainly from the top of the rise, that the Rus had abandoned, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say they had perfected, their conquest of the city.
The troopers set about scaling the towers that flanked the gate, but they could not gain a toehold in the masonry, and so they improvised a harness from rope and lashed a half-dozen horses together and set the team to work pulling at an iron hasp in the left-hand door. This proved to be futile as well, and men were sent to pile kindling at the doors’ base. Then Amram leapt from the horse and held out his arms, and his bonds were cut. He took hold of the rope that still bound the horses to the gate and, with a slap on the hindquarters of the biggest animal, put his own back into the effort. Zelikman could hear the singing of the rope and the low oaken moaning of the gate, followed a moment later by an echoing bang like the crack of an immense whip. The doors fell open, and with ululating cheers the riders poured into the city they had arrived at too late to save. The last Northmen hauled themselves, along with their booty, onto the only ship that had not yet set sail just as the first Arsiyah rode out onto the burning wharfs. Under the weight of horses and armor the wharfs collapsed, throwing up a spectacular cloud of vapor and sparks.
Zelikman lowered the eyeglass, returned it to its doeskin pouch and then summoned Hillel and drove him at a gallop down to the town. The Arsiyah had seen him only by moonlight, with his hat lowered and his cloak flying. And if prior circumstance had inclined them to view him as an enemy—through soldierly habit, and because of his undeniable theft of the horse they had stolen from those who had stolen it from Zelikman, who had stolen it from a thief—the Arsiyah would now be in need of him, with his salves and his ointments and his willingness to stoop to the lowly work of the surgeon.
In the first group of refugees he fell among he found a dozen burned, punctured, battered and maimed, bleeding from raw and tumultuous wounds. Rumor of the miraculous advent of a white-skinned barber soon traveled all the way to the mouth of the river and back, so that to ride the seven rods that lay between him and the city gates required the remainder of the daylight, the better part of his pharmakon and his entire stock of fine silken thread.
He entered the city caked in blood, hungry and hollowed out, having vomited twice in the course of the day in
As they rode to relieve the town, the advance riders of the Arsiyah became entangled, as the Rus had doubtless planned it, in skeins of fugitives with their bundles and their animals. In the time it took the advance guard, plunging and kicking and laying about them with the blunt ends of their lances, to clear a path, the remainder of the company caught up. Through the Persian eyeglass Zelikman could clearly make out, in the midst of the surging horsemen, Amram and the youth, mounted together, something stiff in Amram’s carriage betraying to Zelikman’s eye that his hands were probably bound, and beside them Hanukkah slouched on the back of a desert ass. There was a delay as orders were given and lamentations heard and prayers offered, and then half the company was divided in two and sent to flank the walls of the city and gain the river mouth, where even now a lone barge set out toward the long ships with the last great fistful of plunder, poled with wild discipline by a dozen red-shirted men. The remaining half of the black-armored Arsiyah dismounted to confront the barred gate. They could not know, as Zelikman saw plainly from the top of the rise, that the Rus had abandoned, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say they had perfected, their conquest of the city.
The troopers set about scaling the towers that flanked the gate, but they could not gain a toehold in the masonry, and so they improvised a harness from rope and lashed a half-dozen horses together and set the team to work pulling at an iron hasp in the left-hand door. This proved to be futile as well, and men were sent to pile kindling at the doors’ base. Then Amram leapt from the horse and held out his arms, and his bonds were cut. He took hold of the rope that still bound the horses to the gate and, with a slap on the hindquarters of the biggest animal, put his own back into the effort. Zelikman could hear the singing of the rope and the low oaken moaning of the gate, followed a moment later by an echoing bang like the crack of an immense whip. The doors fell open, and with ululating cheers the riders poured into the city they had arrived at too late to save. The last Northmen hauled themselves, along with their booty, onto the only ship that had not yet set sail just as the first Arsiyah rode out onto the burning wharfs. Under the weight of horses and armor the wharfs collapsed, throwing up a spectacular cloud of vapor and sparks.
Zelikman lowered the eyeglass, returned it to its doeskin pouch and then summoned Hillel and drove him at a gallop down to the town. The Arsiyah had seen him only by moonlight, with his hat lowered and his cloak flying. And if prior circumstance had inclined them to view him as an enemy—through soldierly habit, and because of his undeniable theft of the horse they had stolen from those who had stolen it from Zelikman, who had stolen it from a thief—the Arsiyah would now be in need of him, with his salves and his ointments and his willingness to stoop to the lowly work of the surgeon.
In the first group of refugees he fell among he found a dozen burned, punctured, battered and maimed, bleeding from raw and tumultuous wounds. Rumor of the miraculous advent of a white-skinned barber soon traveled all the way to the mouth of the river and back, so that to ride the seven rods that lay between him and the city gates required the remainder of the daylight, the better part of his pharmakon and his entire stock of fine silken thread.
He entered the city caked in blood, hungry and hollowed out, having vomited twice in the course of the day in
Similar Books
