Swords From the East by Harold Lamb

must have been a Mongol, a misanthrope, or a madman to come here. Paul-would he have come here?"
    To Aruk he added-
    "Did the Frank wear a long, black robe, and have a shaven poll?"
    "Aye, my falcon! He was an envoy from God."
    "His name?"
    "Paul, it was," said the hunter carelessly, "and something else I cannot remember."
    "Paul!"
    Hugo lifted his head.
    "Paul-of Hainault. Of Grav?"
    Aruk rubbed his chin and yawned.
    "Perhaps. How do I know? Yulga said it is written in the book of the Frank, under the altar."
    Hugo disappeared into the chapel. Feeling in the darkness under the rude altar, his hand came upon crisp parchment. Drawing the sheaf from its resting-place, he shook off the dust and opened the goatskin cover.
    On the parchment fly-leaf was the seal of a Carmelite and the name, neatly written in Latin-

    Well did Hugo know that writing.
    Paul, who had spent his youth shut up with books of the Latins and Greeks; who had pored over the journals of the Fras Rubruquis, Carpini, and the Nestorians who carried the torch of Christianity into Asia six hundred years before. He had come hither alone.
    While Hugo had become notorious among the gallants of the court, Paul had given his life to priesthood. Paul had never been as strong as his brother, but he had the great stubbornness of the Hainaults. They had quarreled. Hugo remembered how the pale cheeks of his brother had flushed.
    "So," Hugo had said bitterly, "you go the way of the coward to pray for your soul. I go the way of the damned. The world is wide; one road to you, another to me."
    "Our roads will meet. Until then, I shall pray for you, Hugo."
    And now, Hugo reflected, they had come to the same spot on the earth; and such a place. It seemed, then, that he had wronged Paul. The youngster-Hugo always thought of him as that-had courage. If he had come here alone he was no coward.
    All at once he was filled with a longing to see the yellow hair of his brother, to hear his low voice. They would talk of the wide, sweet fields of southern France, and the high castle from which one could see the river-
    And then Hugo remembered that there had been dust on the Bible.
    "Where is the other Frank?" he asked Aruk, who was watching curiously.
    "Under your feet, my falcon. Ostrim buried him beneath this yurt when the snow came last."
    Hugo's mustache twitched and an ache came into his throat. He questioned the hunter and learned that Paul had died of sickness; his body was not strong. Yes, he had made only a few Krits out of the people of the Al- tai-Ostrim, Yulga, and two or three more.
    "Leave me now," said Hugo after a while. "I have something to think upon."
    "Will you stay here?" Aruk asked. "I like you, my falcon. But you have made old Cheke Noyon angry, and he is like a bear with a thorn in its paw. Come, and share my yurt; then he will not see you and bite you because of his anger."
    Hugo waved his hand impatiently.
    "I stay here."
    During that afternoon, when they had buried Pierre, Hugo walked moodily among the pines, twisting his hands behind his back. The words of Paul had come true. Their paths had met. But now Hugo could not say to Paul that he had wronged him-could not delight again in the gentle companionship of the boy with whom he had played in what seemed a far-off age.
    "I am an exile," he thought. "There was no roof where I might lay my head. So, I came here, where no one knows my name. But Paul, why must he come to this place of desolation?"
    From the log hut came the murmur of a low voice. Hugo moved to one side and saw, through the door, that the candles were lighted on the altar. With a sudden leap to his blood, he made out a figure covered by what seemed a white veil, kneeling, between the candles.
    Straining his ears to catch the words that were neither French nor Tatar, he at last made them out-for the murmur was only two or three sentences repeated over and over: "Requiem aeternam dona ei Domine-grant him the peace everlasting, 0 Lord," he