Swords From the Desert by Harold Lamb Read Free Book Online

surely no slave.
    No man sat before her, and she herself sat not upon one side, after the fashion of the Frankish woman. One knee was crooked over the low saddle peak, and her face was toward the kohlani's head.
    Her face I did not see through the crack in the curtain, but her long hair was the hue of gold. About her brow was a narrow silver filet, and she looked not to one side or the other.
    "Upon thee the salute, and long years of life! " I bade farewell to Abou Asaid, the father of plots, and sought my horse.
    As usual, my Greek trumpeter and his mates who held the canopy were taking their ease in some nearby wine shop and I called them not. There is a time for ceremony and a time for solitude.
    I mounted the white stallion with a highbacked Frankish saddle, covered with cloth of gold, and reined after the splendid gray horse. I had seen that the rider was not veiled, so she could not be a Muslimin. Only one servant-and he a craggy fellow on an ignoble nag-followed her; her blue cloak and vestment bore no precious stones. She could not be the daughter of a wealthy sire. And yet the kohlani racer would bring a chieftain's ransom.
    I wished well to see the horse near at hand and the face of his rider.
    Girl and servant paced up the street of the metalworkers and turned into a muddy alley where the wooden houses nearly came together overhead-a place of foul odors, with children naked in the mud and women that screamed like the harridans they were.
    From the alley the gray horse climbed to an open place, paved with flagstones, and began to trot. As if the way were familiar, he threaded a path among scattered marble columns and made toward a great square structure of stone.
    There was a gate in this half-ruined wall, and through the gate went the horse and the girl with a rush, as of a dart loosed from the hand. Within the gate it was dark, but in a moment we came out upon the grass of a long enclosure. Here the glow of sunset lighted the sky with its first bright stars.
    It was Al-Maidan, the Place of Horses.* At this place the Greeks held races and watched combats between beasts. Tiers of stone balconies looked down on the grass plain, but at this hour the seats were empty.
    I pushed past the servant, who turned with an oath when he heard the rush of my stallion. I loosed the rein and spoke to the white horse, who stretched his great limbs in a ponderous gallop. Eh, the Franks chose their horses for weight, not for pace.
    Ahead of me the gray kohlani skimmed over the racecourse like a hawk unhooded. I gained not at all. And yet the girl heard the beat of the stallion's hoofs and reined in, turning the gray horse sharply to meet me. I drew in the ring-bit and pulled the stallion back on his heels a spear's length from her.
    In her hand was neither whip nor dagger. The cloud of her light hair was about her glowing face, and her eyes were those of a child who knew no fear.
    Nay, she flinched not when she saw my helmet with the pointed peak and long nasal and chain drop, my black cloak and high-girdled scimitar, and the round shield upon my shoulder. Armed was I, and had come upon her unawares. An arrow's flight away the servant was beating on his nag with his stick.
    "Praise be to the Maker," I cried in my Arab speech, "of such a horse, and so fair a woman."
    For a second she looked into my eyes, and the blood warmed in my veins.
    "Who art thou?" she asked at once, and though she seemed to understand my speech her words were in the Greek tongue. At the same instant she motioned back the vagabond who was coming at me with a stick. He hung back, grumbling.
    "I am Khalil the Badawan."
    It was well for the pair of them that she held off the barbarian with his staff, for if he had touched me with the stick I must have slain him, and I had no mind to do that. She was a maiden of quick understanding and surely a Frank. Her eyes were gray-not the dark ox-eyes of Greek women. Even though she were the child of a noble-born sire, I could