The fire warmed me, something that felt like life began creeping into my veins, and with it came a raging thirst. My wounds must be bathed, my foot soaked. Also, I must find food.
What a scene of desolation awaited me! Broken pikes, some scattered fragments of armor, a broken sword, the torn and ravaged skeletons of several hundred men, and over all the smell of death, the stench of decay.
Prowling about, I found a dented helmet that would hold water. Near it I put the stub of a sword. The spring inside the fort had been trampled in, but with the point of a pike I dug it out again, and working with my one good hand, pausing frequently to rest, I scraped sand and mud from the hole. Water began to seep in.
Lying close by, I waited for water to gather, occasionally scooping a handful to my lips. Finally, taking a helmet filled with water I crawled back to my den, inching along, fearful of being discovered by wolves or, worse still, a wild boar. Back in the thicket I heated water, then bathed my swollen foot and ankle. Finally, after finding a few more nuts and eating them, I fell asleep.
During the night I was awakened by the horrible sound of bones crunching in powerful jaws, and the snarling of beasts fighting over the ribs of my old friends … or enemies. Now they were one, nor could any man tell the bones of one from the other.
Those skulls out there, once so hot with anger, with love, with hate or desire or loneliness, they were empty now, playthings of beasts. The passions and dreams were gone now.
Where was all we had worked and bargained for? What profit now from our long trek across Europe? How many had survived? Would even I survive? Was I merely prolonging an inevitable end?
Building my fire higher, yet careful not to allow it to escape its nest and burn my thicket, I sat close to its warmth, feeding small sticks to the flames, pondering upon the strangeness of destiny, thinking back to Cdrdoba and Valaba, remembering Suzanne … where was she now?
When morning came I bathed my wounds again and made a poultice of agrimony mixed with leaves of dittany, daisy, and wild delphinium, a plant I had seen growing in fields all across Europe. These plants had been used in treating battlefield wounds for many years, and I had read of dittany in the works of Virgil, Theophrastus, and Dioscorides.
When I had rested from searching for herbs, I rigged a snare, using several old bowstrings gleaned from the battlefield. The following morning I found I’d caught a marmot, which I skinned, cleaned, and roasted.
The weather grew increasingly cold, but I still could not walk, so to get around I crawled in the dirt like an animal. Hardest of all was to keep clean, although each day I managed to bathe in the sea.
Two weeks went by slowly, and my wounds showed signs of healing, although I had lost weight until I became a veritable bag of bones. My skin looked old, and I was always chilled. Twice in the early mornings I found the tracks of tarpan, a wild horse native to the country, and once the tracks of a huge bear.
One morning I found a bowstring that had not been cut or broken and kept it with me. Later, finding other pieces, I tied them together into a line all of ten feet long. Splicing another line to it about three feet from the end, I tied each of these ends to a rock, making a crude bola for hunting.
Several times I had seen flocks of bustard, and I kept from sight not to frighten them. When finally some came close, I threw my bola and caught one. Hauling the squawking bird to me, I watched the rest fly off. That night I made a royal meal.
It was the same day I began working on a crutch. Using part of an old pike pole, I took another section for a crosspiece and lashed it in place with a bit of bowstring. After three weeks of crawling, I was able to get to my feet at last.
And now I would start for Constantinople!
Ragged, dirty, emaciated, I was a far different creature from the man who only a few weeks before had been the lover of the Comtesse de Malcrais. To Constantinople it was several hundred miles, I believed, but less than that by sea. But I did not have a boat, or even food, or anything in which to carry water.
Turning west I began to walk. Each step I counted, and when I had traveled one hundred steps, I paused to rest. With me I carried my stub of broken sword and the helmet.
At the day’s end I huddled under some black poplars and looked back at the dark blotch beside the sea that was the thicket where so long I had huddled. Throughout the long day I had struggled, falling twice, but each time moving on. I had counted only three hundred steps.
Constantinople was going to be a long way off.
When day came I saw the tracks of horses. They were the clumsy, untrimmed hooves of the tarpan, but among them were the small, dainty hooves of Ayesha. Should I whistle? She had been trained to come to my whistle, but who else might hear? Were the Petchenegs all gone? Nonetheless, I whistled shrilly, whistled, then whistled again.
A long time I waited … nothing. It might be some other horse. Some of the horses in the pack train had small hooves, and some of the Petcheneg horses had, also.
Slowly, painfully, I started on.
This time I must have covered at least a mile before I stopped, and again I whistled.
For several minutes I sat waiting, and then started to rise. Only I did not rise. I sat very still looking across the small clearing at a man opposite me.
He had emerged from the woods, a thin, scrawny man with a queer face. Indescribably filthy, he carried a sack over his shoulder, and in his hand, a stout staff. On his other shoulder were a quiver of arrows and a bow.
For several minutes he watched me, and at last I called out to him in Arabic. There was no response, and I began to grow worried. There was that about him that filled me with unease. He was little enough of a man, but crippled as I was, I was less of one.
With the wound in my side I could lift but one arm, and that with difficulty. My left leg and foot were still in very bad shape, and I could hobble only using the crutch. With my right hand out of action from the wounds and my left occupied with the crutch, I was virtually defenseless. Calling out in the Frankish tongue, I struggled to my feet. Painfully balancing there, I waited while he crossed toward me, pausing about ten feet away. There was an evil amusement in his glance that filled me with horror. Suddenly, he took a step forward, and before I could guess his intention, he put the end of his staff against my chest and pushed.
The push thrust me off-balance, and I fell, striking my injured foot, which made me cry out in agony. He came to stand over me then, and as if it amused him, he kicked me in the face. Not hard—I had been struck harder many times—but it filled me with fear. What sort of monster was this?
He sat down where I had been seated and stared at me, and then he said, in a kind of bastard Arabic, “You will be my slave.” Taking up his stick, he deliberately poked me in the mouth with the end of it, and he laughed when I made a feeble attempt to grasp the stick.
For upwards of an hour he sat there, poking me with the stick, occasionally striking me with it. At last he got up. “Why did you whistle?” This man was an evil creature, scarcely human. What he intended for me I did not know, and I lacked the strength to overcome even his weakness. Did I also lack the wit?
“A djinn,” I said, “I whistled for a djinn.”
The smile vanished, but a sort of crafty humor remained. “A djinn? You? Get up! You are my slave. Get up and carry my sack, or I shall set you afire. Yes, that is what I shall do! I shall set you afire!”
Carefully, I struggled to get my crutch in position, and he watched my every move, perhaps the better to cope with me. After several minutes of struggling, I got to my feet. “The sack”—he pointed—”bring it.”
“Take me to Constantinople,” I said, “and you will be paid.”