Swords From the West Read Free

Messer Andrea, the master of the slave brokers, and he held himself to be better than the masterless rogues, the ribalds of the alleys-such rogues as he now paused to watch.
    In the deep shadow under the stone arch of an open gate in the city wall some half dozen ragged figures were clustered, looking out at the road. Piculph, being mounted, could see over their heads. Beyond this gate, out on the plain, the glow of sunset lingered. And Piculph's curiosity grew as he watched.
    Often he had watched stout Turks driving laden asses through that gate and sallow Armenians moving through the dust raised by their sheep and grim Tatars whirling lariats as they trotted beside the herds of their shaggy ponies. But he had never seen a man leading a horse.
    And now a tall man was approaching with the long stride of one who had come far on foot. He wore boots of soft leather laced to his knees, a faded mantle gray with dust, and a tarnished steel cap set a little upon one side of his yellow head. Great of bone he was, and though alone, he did not seem to fear the darkness under the gate. The sword slung upon his hip in its leather scabbard was too heavy and too long to be handy in a brawl. So thought Piculph.
    And so thought the ribalds under the arch who had seen that the stranger led a lame horse, a gray Arab racer whose saddlecloth was gleaming cloth of gold. Since the stranger was alone and the horse one of price, the thieves made ready to slay the man-there in the darkness under the arch that smelled of charcoal and sheepskins.
    Piculph grinned in his beard, for he saw what they were about, and he meant to ride in upon them after their work was done and seize the horse himself.
    The stranger entered the arch, and the masterless men thronged about him.
    "Yah huk-yah huk!" they yelled in unison, the beggar's cry of Asia's streets. And at their call a pockmarked devil in a tattered cloak came running up with a lantern as if to light the way before the tall man. Instead he thrust the lantern close to the stranger's eyes-clear gray eyes that looked at them out of a lean, sun-darkened face.
    "Give, in God's name!" whined a beggar, pushing through his mates until his groping hands closed upon the right arm of the stranger. The beggar was blind, his pupils white-filmed, his lids eaten by flies.
    His comrades pressed in closer then, and Piculph saw that for which he had been looking. Behind the blind beggar appeared a stout Levantine boatman grasping a short ax, watching his chance to strike. The thieves clamored louder, and the boatman shifted his weight to his left foot, and the corners of his lips twitched in a snarl. Suddenly he struck, full at his victim's eyes.
    But the tall man had caught the flicker of steel in the light of the lantern. His right arm shot forward, thrusting the blind beggar back, and he himself bent back from the hips. The boatman's ax swung harmlessly through the air.
    At the same instant the stranger pulled clear his sword. The point of the long blade swept out and down, and the boatman shrieked. The sword's edge had caught his wrist and cut through it. The ax, still gripped in hairy fingers, dropped to the earth.
    The boatman staggered against the stones of the arch and fell. At the flash of the long sword his companions vanished, as dogs flee the rush of the wolf-the blind beggar scrambling after them. The stranger picked up the lantern quickly and hooked it to his belt, a broad leather belt, Piculph noticed, set with silver plates and a miniature shield.
    "Poor Bacco!" exclaimed the big Lombard, drawing closer, "what a cut that was!"
    He had spoken in Italian, and the stranger neither answered nor sheathed his sword. Piculph saw now that he was younger than he had thought, but with the narrowed eyes and the lines about the mouth that came from hardship and long service.
    "Whence are you, Messer Swordsman?" he asked, in the lingua franca that was the common speech of the Levant.
    "From the road," the stranger