ITH Allah are the keys of the unseen.”
Abdullah ceased his say and took his hand from his lute.
“But who will seek them out?” he added.
The listeners glanced at each other, and Mistress Bengli, chin on hand, smiled and watched the gleaming jewels on her fingers. Many had come to Palestine believing that it held the lure of the fabulous Khar and had found it otherwise.
“I have not heard the tale related so,” observed Hugo. “Ha, minstrel, you are skilled in your craft—for you make us think you have dwelt in Khar.”
“Sire, I have.”
Guiblo shook his head.
“Then, rogue; you must have crossed the great desert and passed through the Iron Gates of which your folk prate.”
Abdullah bowed assent.
“The road is no easy one. Nay, a full three moons must a man sit in the saddle, and the horse should be of good blood. In an elder day one of the heroes of the Franks led his host over the desert and saw the salt sea that lies in the desert.”
“His name?”
“Iskander.”
From the end of the table a monk who had not spoken until now looked up with a gleam of interest.
“By your leave, my lord, that should be Alexander, King of Macedon. Aye, the misguided scholasticists do relate in their profane books the deeds of the Macedonian.”
“And how did Alexander pass the Iron Gates?”
“With his sword,” Abdullah said calmly. “And yet—did he live to set foot in his own land again? Nay; the Iron Gates take their toll.”
“What manner of thing are they?”
“In the books of the cosmographers, Strabo and Herodotus, Messer Guiblo,” explained the monk, “there is a mark on the road to the east inscribed with the words Caspiæ Pylæ, or Gates of the Caspian. Their nature is unknown, for since the day of the Cæsars no Christian hath ventured there.”
“Riddles,” scoffed Hugo in his own speech. “'Tis a myth that holds no profit for us.”
Abdullah appeared to grasp his meaning.
“O king,” he observed gravely, “riders have come out of Khar on a foray, and the traces of their horses can be seen within your borders.”
“My watchers beheld them not.”
“Who can behold the stars in broad day, or the djinn folk who ride upon the winds at night? Does the lord of the castle wish to see a talsmin—a token that his servant's word is true?”
Thrusting his hand into his girdle, the minstrel drew forth something that flashed in the flickering candle-light—a neck-chain of rubies cut into the semblance of roses, strung on a cord of finely wrought gold.
“Such jewels as these the women of Khar wear on their throats.”
Mistress Bengli caught up the chain in her white fingers, and the others crowded close to stare from the gleaming rubies to Abdullah, who seemed inwardly amused by the excitement he had caused.
Now, considering him narrowly, Longsword thought that no playing of the lute could fashion such muscular hands, and no warbling of nights could give such note of command to a voice. Abdullah bore himself more like an atabeg—a leader of a host—than a minstrel.
“Here is a strange rogue forsooth,” muttered the seneschal, Piculph, “with a baron's ransom in his belly-band.”
Robert frowned, for he wished no ill to the teller of tales, and Abdullah might as well have cast his valuable chain into the Orontes as to have shown it to the woman of the Montserrat. Hugo would cheerfully slit open a hundred natives on the chance that one had swallowed a single ruby like these. But Abdullah seemed no whit fearful of the fate he had called down on himself, for he had ceased to watch Mistress Bengli and was eying the great tapestries that shook and bellied upon the walls as the gusts of a rising wind buffeted the castle walls and whined through the cracks. The man, heedless of the company at the table, was listening to the sounds of the night beyond the walls.
At that moment there was heard a mutter of voices at the entrance to the hall, the clank of a long scabbard on the stone flagging of the floor, and the captain of the warders stood within the curtain with uplifted hand.
“Pardon, good my lord, I bear tidings. On the river road we have seen an array of Moslems. At midnight I went forth beyond the hamlet to overlook the valley, and in the lower gorge armed men do assemble in ranks. Wilt give command to man the walls, or sally forth?”
“Ha—so!”
Hugo stroked his heavy chin and glanced at his companions.
“Sir Robert had the right of it, methinks—and the watchers upon the hill towers shall taste of the strappado. What is your counsel, messires?”
The young Sieur de la Marra struck the table with his fist and set the flagons dancing.