Swords From the Desert by Harold Lamb

the garden, rose the cupola of the patriarch's church, as a shepherd's watchtower, rising from a knoll, guards against the approach of an enemy.
    There was no enemy within the brick wall, though any manner of man might enter-for the patriarch and his flock, being servants of the Roumi's god, were above molestation. And there was a man sitting on the edge of the canal who preened himself like a peacock.
    He was as bright as a peacock, a bearded Persian with plumes in his turban clasp, and a purple cloak, and a round shield slung on his shoulder, and an array of daggers in his girdle. His scimitar was too heavy to handle well-though he was a big man.
    When I looked at him, he glanced at the pigeons and the Roumi maids and the sky, and at everything but me. Then it came to me that I had seen him leaning against one of the gates of the Place of Horses the evening before. I went and stood beside him.
    "What seekest thou?" I asked.
    He pretended surprise.
    "I watch."
    "Thou were sent?"
    Out of the corner of an eye he looked at me shrewdly.
    "I came. No one is forbidden this garden, 0 my lord."
    "Or Al-Maidan. Yet a certain questing is forbidden."
    And I opened my cloak to let him see the scimitar slung from my shoulders. And he rolled over on his haunches to stare and assert innocence.
    "Nay, 0 Badawan, I know thee not. I swear by the breath of Ali I seek thee not. I was sent to watch-"
    The words left his lips, and I heard a light step behind us. The barbarian girl named Irene was coming down the path from the church, an old woman trudging behind her. The footbridge across the canal was near my Persian, and so she approached us with only a glance of amusement for me. But she stopped and frowned at the warrior, who had turned his head and was making clumsy pretense of throwing crumbs to the fluttering pigeons.
    Presently, when she did not move away, he rose up and swaggered toward the gate. She watched him with blazing eyes. When he was beyond hearing she turned to me.
    "The city gates are closed, Khalil, and thou hast tarried too long."
    "Look then to the charger."
    I saluted her and went forth, yielding the path to the grave-faced men of the monastir. I have heard it said that the damosels who listened to the young boy reading were daughters of Nazarene lords, even of kings, and I wondered whether the barbarian were such. But she wore her hair gleaming upon her shoulders and they had their faces hidden behind white cloths. The closing of the gates seemed to bring her joy, as if it heralded the coming of one she loved.
    I hastened to overtake the Persian, and saw him step from the flagstones of the court into the maw of an alley. And before I reached the turning there arose a din as of dogs and wolves.
    There was mud in the alley and gloom between smoke-blackened walls, and in the gloom I beheld my Persian, roaring and laying about him savagely with his clumsy blade. A few thieves and scoundrels were circling him, plucking at his garments and trying to drive a knife into him.
    It was no quarrel of mine. For all his slashing and outcry, the Persian was getting the worst of it. And it came into my mind that he would he of use to me.
    With the flat of my scimitar I struck the faces of the low-born nearest me, and when they fell the others ran. They had not a bit of bravery in them, and the flash of steel was enough to send them off. But the Persian was beside himself, still dealing lusty blows into the air.
    "Dogs! Dung-bred slaves! Oho-ye flee from Arbogastes. Tamen shud! It is finished."
    He charged after the wretches, then galloped back to slash at the two who had fallen. But these had taken to their heels, and he came and peered at me, wiping the sweat from his eyes.
    "Dogs of Satan-curs they be, a score of them. Oho, they tucked up their skirts and fled like hyenas when they heard my shout. Thou didst see it? Come then! My throat is dry with shouting the war shout. We shall taste Cyprian wine."
    It had been my coming that routed