Zakhar Berkut/Chapter IV
CHAPTER IV
A wide river of conflagration, devastation and death stretched across ancient Rus. The terrible Mongol Horde from the far off steppe lands of Asia had secretly and suddenly swooped down upon the country and for many centuries afterwards undermined it at its very roots causing the disintegration of the fabric of its national life. The first cities to fall were Kiev, Kaniv and Pereyaslav, which were razed to their foundations. The same fate befell thousands upon thousands of other cities, towns and villages. The redoubtable chief commander of the Mongols, Batu-Khan, nicknamed Batiyem, led his horde of one hundred thousand, driving before him about four times as many prisoners, gathered as he moved, who were forced to fight for him in the front lines of battle. He advanced, distending this forcible army along the entire breadth of Rus, treading up to his knees in blood. It was impossible to even attempt a united resistance against this vast army, especially since Rus had become impoverished and divided against itself, torn by civil quarrels arising out of the dissensions among her ruling kings and other self-seeking factions in the various provinces.
Here and there the city dwellers endeavored to stem its progress by closing the gates of their cities, guarded by massive walls and fortifications. The Mongols often lost considerable time in breaking down these ramparts. But feebly held cities were rendered defenseless far more frequently through treason and bribery than mere weakness of their fortifications.
The goal of the dreadful Mongol Horde was the Uhri (Hungary), then a rich and prosperous country inhabited by a race closely related to the Mongolian whom the great Jinghis Khan had, in an act of self-aggrandizement, ambitiously asked to surrender themselves. However, the Hungarians were unwilling to capitulate and the barbaric Mongol Horde was subsequently ordered to reassert the supremacy of the great Jinghis Khan by attacking in his name and wreaking its vengeance upon them. According to the plans of Batiyem, the Horde was to march to its attack upon Hungary simultaneously from three different directions; from the east by way of Rumania, from the west through Moravia and from the north over the Carpathians. To carry out this purpose, the Horde divided itself into three sections: one under the leadership of Kaydan, advancing through the Bessarabian Steppes into Rumania; the second, under the command of Peta, separated itself from the main Horde at Volynia and advanced across Red Rus to the sources of the Dniester river, in order to ford it easily, and then invaded the Sub-Carpathian region, seeking trails which would lead it over the crest of the Carpathians. Those taken prisoners from this region as well as a few traitorous boyars, led the Mongols along the highway overlooking the bank of the river Strey, to the Tukholian trail and, as the Korchenian messengers had reported, their tents were already gleaming whitely on the wold below Mt. Senevid.
It was twilight. A heavy fog hung over the Sub-Carpathian valley. The wooded hills of the Tukholian region were enveloped in dense mists resembling smoking volcanoes ready to erupt. Foaming at the twists and turns, the Strey river rushed along its rocky bed. The sky was covered with myriad trains of shimmering stars and on earth, in the broad expanse of plain overlooking the Strey river, there began the glimmering of lights at first wide-apart, flickering pusillanimously, then spreading, flaring boldly, until the whole plain as far as eye could see was covered with their blazing glow. Like the gently rippling waves of a calm sea the lights fluctuated in the darkening expanse above the valley, here bright and enlivened and there vacillating, dying out. These were the campfires of the Mongols.
But away in the distance where the twinkling sea of light ended, burned other fires appallingly wide, which curved around the Mongol encampment in a broad, fiery belt, at times flaming high into the air. Here the foreign marauders plundered, robbed and murdered the people, taking the able-bodied prisoners, burning and demolishing everything they could not carry away with them.
It was almost dusk when along the narrow trail leading towards the crest of the lower Senevid mountain range rode two people on their small but sturdy, sure-footed Carpathian mountain horses.[1] One of the riders, a man in his prime, was dressed and armed as a warrior, with a helmet, sword, battle-axe, and a lance fastened to the horse’s saddle. The coarse, thick, already greying hair falling to his shoulders, showed from beneath the helmet. Even the thick mists, rolling themselves upward from the gorges and ravines completely enveloping the mountain ranges, could not hide the look of deep dissatisfaction and defiant, blind determination evident upon his face which every now and then reflected the wild outbursts of blasphemy and wrath, waxing in bitter mirth as if a palsy with its accompanying queer involuntary flutter of muscles wrenched at his joints followed by a clouding into gloomy meditation, until his fine, sensitive horse also trembled at the man’s agitation.
The other rider, a young and beautiful girl was garbed in a tunic of fine, striped linen and a turban of beaver skin, which did not quite succeed in confining the luxuriantly abundant tresses of yellow-gold hair. Suspended across her shoulders was a bow made of the flexible horn of a bison and a “saydak” (pouch) filled with arrows. Her dark, flashing eyes swept the panorama, enthralled by the evenly undulating contours of the mountain masses resembling wooly lambs with their covering of dark-green forests, and reveling in the lucent green canopy of rolling downs and wolds.
“What a magnificent view, father!” exclaimed her vibrant, melodious voice when their horses tarried a moment at a narrow bend in the uphill pass over which they were laboriously travelling in order to reach their destination before complete darkness set in. “What a beautiful region!” she repeated, in a lower, more subdued tone, gazing backward, indicating with her glance the vast reaches of the darkening valley.
“And what despicable people inhabit that region!” cut in the the other rider bitterly.
“You shouldn’t say that, father!” she defended hotly and at once became embarrassed and noticeably lowering her voice she added, “I don’t know, but I personally have found those people very likeable.”
“Oh, I know that YOU like them!” cried the other rider reprovingly, “and particularly that you’ve taken a very great fancy to one of the worst among them, that abominable Berkut! Oh, I realize that you’re ready to even forsake your own father for him; that you’ve already stopped loving me because of him! But what can I do when it seems faithlessness is part of the very nature of daughters! But I warn you girl, beware! Don’t trust that glossy exterior! Don’t trust a snake no matter how attractive a color it assumes.”
“Father, father, what awful ideas you entertain! How cruelly you accuse me! I have confessed to you that I love Maxim and I have vowed before the sun that I will be his. However, I do not belong to him yet, but to you. And even when I am his, I will not stop loving you, never, father, never!”
“Foolish girl, you will not be his, there’s no use even thinking about it! Have you forgotten that you are a boyar’s daughter and he a peasant lout, a shepherd?”
“No father, that isn’t true! He is a prince among princes, a finer, more gallant, more valiant and more honorable man than all the other sons of boyars I’ve ever seen. Besides father, it’s too late now to retract it, I have made the vow and must keep my promise!”
“What matters the oath of a silly, love-blinded girl?”
“Father, I’m not a silly, love-blinded girl! It is not the result of a wild, unthinking impulse, without careful deliberation beforehand nor even without the help of a higher power.” These last words were uttered in a reverently hushed tone.
The boyar turned towards her curiously. “What is this I hear? What kind of a higher power prompted you to such crass foolishness?”
“Listen father!” the girl said, turning towards him and slackening the reins on her horse. “The night before we started on the bear hunt, my mother appeared to me in a dream. She looked just as you have always pictured her to me: in a white dress with flowing hair, but her face was rosy with life and bright as if lit by the rays of the sun; her lips curved in a joyous smile and her eyes shone with infinite mother love. She advanced towards me with outstretched arms and embraced me warmly.”
“‘Peace-Renown, my only child!’ said she, in a gentle, loving tone, which I can still hear echoing in my heart, ‘Heed what I am going to tell you: the most important moment of your life is approaching, my dearly beloved daughter! Your heart will be stirred and awakened. Listen to the voice of your heart, my daughter and heed its dictates!’”
“‘Yes, mother!’ I said, trembling with the force of an indescribable emotion.”
“‘Then I bless your heart!’ she replied, vanishing in a whiff of heavenly odorous scent, and I awoke. Truly my heart did speak, father, and I followed its urging. My mother’s blessing is upon me!”
“Foolish girl, that was but a dream! What you were thinking of during the day, you dreamed at night! And anyway,” the boyar added after a pause, “and anyway, you will never see him again!”
“Never see him?” cried Peace-Renown, alarmed. “Why won’t I see him? Is he dead?”
“Even if he lived to be a hundred, you won’t ever see him again because we will never return to that region.”
“Not return? Why?”
“Because,” replied the boyar with a forced casualness, “because those KIND people of yours and first of all, that old devil, the father of your Maxim, passed a unanimous resolution at their town meeting to drive us out of their village, to tear down our house and destroy all signs of our ever having lived there! But just wait, you churlish boors and you will learn with whom you have to deal! Tuhar Wolf is not just a common Tukholian wolf, but knows how to get the best of even the Tukholian bears!”
These words struck like a dagger in Peace-Renown’s heart.
“Drive us away, father? Why do they want to drive us out? Oh yes, I think I know, it must be because of that forester whom you ordered so cruelly beaten though I begged you to the point of tears to let him go?”
“How you always do remember the unpleasant things!” broke in Tuhar Wolf splenetically although deep in his heart he was pained at this reproach coming from his own daughter’s lips.
“Oh, I know very well that if you had been present at their meeting you would have sided with them against your own father! But what can one do? Your father is old and crabbed, does not know how to make his eyes twinkle or how to sigh. No, you are not satisfied with such a companion! And what does it matter to you that your father has become prematurely grey trying his best to insure your future, while that newer, more attractive, younger companion is probably right now along with his fellow Tukholians demolishing our house, our last and only stronghold in the world!”
Peace-Renown could not endure her father’s bitter reproaches any longer and hot tears of injustice sprang to her eyes. “Rather, it is you who no longer love me!” she sobbed. “I do not know why you should suddenly turn so bitterly against me? I’m sure I have given you no cause for it! You have taught me yourself to live honestly and to tell the truth always. Has telling the truth all at once become so offensive to you?”
The boyar was silent, his head lowered sullenly. They were nearing the crest of the mountain, climbing along the narrow trail furrowed between giant beeches which completely obliterated their view of the sky. The horses, given their reins, themselves sought the path in the pitch darkness, their hoofs clattering hollowly, along the sloping rocky trail.
“Since we’ve been banished from Tukhlia where are we going now?” asked Peace-Renown suddenly wiping away her tears with the back of a sleeve and gazing towards the summit of the steep incline.
“Into the world wherever our eyes lead us,” replied the father.
“But you said we were going visiting at another boyar’s?”
“That’s right. The truth happened to be inconvenient so I lied to you.”
“Where are we going now then?”
“Wherever you want. It’s immaterial to me. Do you think we should go back to Halich to the king who growing weary of me was so glad to rid himself of us? A foxy individual that one, getting everything he can out of a man, sucking out all his life’s strength and then discarding him like the pit of a cherry after all its juice is sucked out. That’s just what he did with me. And how glad he was when I asked him for a grant of Tukholian land! ‘Go,’ he said to me, ‘so that I might never see you here again! Go and fight out your miserable claims with the “smerdi”, as long as you don’t come back here to me again!’ Well then, should we go to him to complain against those Tukholians and ask him to aid us?”
“No, father!” said Peace-Renown. “The king’s assistance won’t redress the wrong already done, but may make matters worse.”
“You see,” replied the boyar without heeding the implication in his daughter’s last words. “Or perhaps we should return to Tukhlia, to those execrative peasants, to that devil Berkut and ask their forgiveness, submit to their court’s punishment, give up our boyarism and beg them to admit us into their community as equals among equals, to live with them as they live, together with their sheep among the oats and manure?”
Peace-Renown’s whole sturdy body straightened itself involuntarily and her face began to light up at these words. “What do you think, father, is there a chance that they might take us back?” she asked eagerly.
“Who knows!” replied the boyar cynically. “It all depends upon the gracious goodwill of their reverend boors, the elders, and particularly of the oldest and greatest boor of them all, Zakhar Berkut!”
“Father, why can’t we give it a try? The Tukholians dislike to be unjust. Even though they have condemned us, they have done so according to their laws. And perhaps . . . perhaps you father, with some . . . your quick-tempered ways have added on to it all? But if we were to approach them nicely, speak to them gently . . .”
“What in the name of heaven is that?” cried Peace-Renown, suddenly breaking off her train of thought.
Their horses stopped at the summit of the range and before them as if by magic spread the extensive Strey valley, a sea of fire, the sky reflecting its flaming glow. As if up from hell, terrifying noises arose from the valley: the neighing of horses, the clanging of armor, the shouts of sentries, the hum of voices of black slaves who tended the fires and mingling with them, from the distance, came the heart-rending cries of those being slaughtered, voices of women driven off to slavery or shame, screams of children tossed on pikes, the pitiful pleadings of chained men led to prison, the lowing of cattle and the crackling of burning buildings collapsing, cascades of sparks flying up to the sky like swarms of fireflies. The blood-red glow of the fires revealed down below dotted over the plateau beside the river, innumerable rows of tents, divided by broad lanes, where the bulk of the Mongol garrison lay cantoned. The men appeared to be crawling like ants between these tents gathering about the campfires. Peace-Renown, petrified by the scene, was unable to take her eyes away from it. Even the gloomily morose old boyar seemed unable to move from the spot, losing his eyes in that monstrous bloody sea, nostrils filled with the odor of bitter smoke and blood, listening to the clamor, the screams, groans and triumphant shouts of victory. Even the horses beneath the two riders, sensing their horror, trembled visibly, pricking their ears, pawing at the ground as if afraid to go any further.
“Father, will you please tell me what in God’s name is that?” exclaimed Peace-Renown at last.
“Our allies,” replied Tuhar Wolf surlily.
“Oh! It must be the Mongols about whom the people spoke with such dread?”
“Yes, it is they!”
“Destroyers of our Rus!”
“Our allies are against the abominable “smerdi” and their independent style of government.”
“Father, this means our doom too! When there are no more peasants left who will feed the boyars?”
“Have no fears, my daughter, no storm has yet been strong enough or deadly enough to destroy the root and seed of that lowly breed.”
“But father, the Mongols spare the house and property of no one, not even the king’s palaces! You told me once yourself how they crushed the kings to death beneath the boards upon which they sat eating their meals.”
“That is all for the good also! Let them crush the kings, those cunning ravens! But they did not crush a single boyar, I repeat once more, they are our allies!”
“But father, would you want to be allied with those barbarians, drunk on the blood of our Ukrainian race?”
“Why should I concern myself who they are and what they’re like? Through them lies our only salvation. I don’t care if they are Lucifer’s helpers in person, if they only aid me!”
Peace-Renown blanched and stared at her father fearfully. The change in him was startling. In the blood-red flare of the bonfires which lighted up the entire region, his face looked fantastic, monstrous wild and the red glow reflected on his helmet turned it into a wreath of blood encasing his face. They both had dismounted from their horses and stood on the steep bank of the mountain, staring at each other.
“How terrible you look in this light, father,” whispered Peace-Renown. “Why, I hardly recognize you!”
“Why don’t you speak frankly, daughter,” replied the father with a wild, mirthless laugh. “I know what you wanted to say! You wanted to say to me, ‘I cannot go on with you any further, father, I will leave you, traitor to our country, and I will return to my beloved, faithful Berkut!’ Go on, say it, and leave me! I will go where fate awaits me and will to the end of my days continue to strive for your welfare.” The bitter, harsh tone of the boyar’s reproach softened in the end, grown tremulous with emotion, so that Peace-Renown burst into unrestrained weeping and throwing her arms around her father’s neck, sobbed:
“Oh, father! How you rend my heart! Have I hurt you so deeply? I know that you love me! I . . . I . . . will never leave you! I will be your slave, your captive to my dying day, but please don’t go there and allow our good name to be forever dishonored!” Still weeping, she knelt at her father’s feet and embraced his knees with her arms bathing his hands in her tears. Tuhar Wolf was visibly moved, two tears squeezed themselves out of his old eyes and dropped down upon her. He lifted Peace-Renown to her feet and embraced her fiercely.
“My child,” he spoke very gently now, “don’t complain so against me! Misfortune has filled my heart with bitterness and my mind with anger. But I know that your heart is of purest gold and that you will not desert me in my days of trial and anxiety. You see, we two are alone in the world with no one to turn to, no one from whom we can expect any help, only ourselves. We have no other choice. We must accept aid from whomever we can get it!”
“Father, father!” cried Peace-Renown through tears. “Your resentment against the Tukholians has blinded you and is compelling you to your own destruction. Suppose we are unfortunate, is that any reason why we should become traitors to our country? No! It is better for us, if we are cast out of society, to die of starvation first!”
“You are too young, my daughter, too zealous without being aware of what starvation and poverty are like. I have experienced them both and want to protect you from such knowledge. Just don’t argue with me! Come let’s ride to our destination! What is predestined will happen, we cannot outwit our fate!” He jumped upon his horse and spurred him on. It was no use for Peace-Renown to try to stop him now, he was already descending the other side of the mountain. Weeping, she followed after him. In her simple, childish faith, she continued to believe that she would still be able to somehow win her father over and protect him from inviting his own doom by turning traitor against their country. The deluded girl did not realize how deeply her father had sunk into that abyss already so that in truth for him there was no other way out except to fall deeper, down to its very bottom.
The farther down they descended the thicker the uncanny, murky darkness drew around them and the less they could see except for the flickering of campfires and the vast billowy sea of distant fires of the burning villages and cities. However, the roar and tumult increased to deafening volume. The wreaths of smoke ate into their eyes and took away their breath.
The boyar set his horse in the direction of the first campfire which flared high in the middle of the plain. Here was stationed the Mongolian sentry. Nearing it, they perceived five men dressed in fur coats with the fur side out (in Ukraine it is the custom to wear coats with the fur on the inside), wearing tri-cornered fur turbans, their bows slung over their shoulders and battle-axes in their hands.
Not far from the guards’ campfire, Peace-Renown overtook her father and catching hold of his hand, said, “Father, in God’s name, I beg of you, turn back from here!”
“Where to?”
“Let’s go back to Tukhlia!”
“No. It’s too late! We will return there later, but not submissively pleading for their mercy. We will go as guests and I’d like to see whether your Berkut will dare to drive us out then!”
At this juncture the Mongols became aware of the presence of strangers and with savage yells, bows held in readiness, they surrounded them.
“Who goes there?” several called in their own language and in Ukrainian.
“A humble servant of the great Jinghis Khan!” answered Tuhar Wolf in Mongolian.
The Mongol guards gaped at him in astonishment. “Where are you from, who are you and what is your business here?” asked one, apparently the captain of the guards.
“That is not for your ears,” replied the boyar sharply, in Mongolian. “Who leads your army?”
“The grandsons of the great Jinghis Khan, Peta-Behadir and Burunda-Behadir.”
“Then go and tell them ‘The river Kalka flows over a muddy bed and empties into the Don.’ We will await your return here by the fire.”
With slavish respect the Mongols backed away from the unknown arrivals who spoke their tongue and in such an authoritative tone, which they were accustomed to hear only from their khans and princes. In a minute the captain of the guards had put another man in his place and leaping upon his horse galloped away to the encampment which was perhaps three-quarters of a mile away from the sentry’s campfire.
Tuhar Wolf and Peace-Renown dismounted from their horses which one of the guards took from them, cleaned, watered and tied in a field of rye sown by peasants on the fertile land. The guests drew closer to the campfire warming their hands grown cold from the chill of the spring evening.
Peace-Renown shivered visibly. The bursting gush of hot blood turning to ice as it rushed, left her face white. She did not raise her eyes to her father’s face. For the first time hearing the Mongolian tongue from her father’s lips and noting with what deference the Mongols obeyed his orders, she began to realize that this was probably not the first time her father had met those dastardly despoilers of her fatherland and to suspect the truth of the gossip she had heard in the court of king Danilo, that Tuhar Wolf, in the battle at Kalka, committed treason by revealing to the Mongols in advance all the secret plans made by the kings for the defense of their country. True, the gossipers had admitted that there was insufficient proof by which to convict him and cause him to be beheaded. The boyar had stood in the front line of battle and was taken prisoner during the first skirmish. But the fact that he was released quickly and without demand of ransom did strike some of them as very peculiar though the boyar swore the Mongols released him in deference to his valiant heroism. The truth of the matter was never brought to light. However, all at the king’s court began to shun Tuhar and even the king himself no longer trusted him as much as he had in the past. In the end, the boyar himself becoming conscious of the change, had asked for a grant of land in the Tukholian region. Without so much as even asking the boyar his reason for withdrawing from Halich to bury himself in the inconceivably wild and dismal woodland wilderness and especially with a pretty daughter, king Danilo yielded him the grant, obviously glad to be rid of him. And when he prepared to leave the city of Halich all the boyars who had been his comrades in battle for many years were very cool in their parting farewells.
All this came back to Peace-Renown’s mind in one flash and all that had perplexed and exasperated her in the past, now seemed very clear and understandable. It meant what the gossipers had said was true, her father had been in league with the Mongolian marauders ten years back, therefore, he was already a traitor! Peace-Renown, crushed by the weight of the realization of her father’s guilt, bowed her beauteous head in sorrow. Her heart ached terribly. She felt the strong, holy bonds of love and respect for her father which she had carried from her childhood, one by one snap and lie broken. How alone in the world and forsaken she felt now, though her father sat by her, how miserably forlorn and unfortunate though a short while before her father had assured her that he was doing everything he could to insure her welfare and future happiness.
The boyar sat there also none too happily, his heart evidently disturbed by turbulent emotions. Whatever it was he was thinking, his eyes never once left the flickering flames of the campfire, watching the smouldering logs crackling and spluttering, which appeared to be red-hot columns of iron. Were they the reflective thoughts of a man who had reached his decision or had some dreadful premonition laid its icy hand upon his heart and sealed his lips? The fact remained that he, a deliberate and experienced man, avoided Peace-Renown’s eyes and only stared into the red-embered fire watching the burning logs turn into ashes.
“My dear,” said he at last softly, without turning his eyes away from the fire.
“Father, why didn’t you kill me yesterday?” whispered Peace-Renown, doing her best to hold back the threatening tears. Her voice though low, chilled the boyar’s heart. He could not find an answer to her pointed query and was silent, continuing staring into the fire until the guard returned from the encampment.
“The grandsons of the great Jinghis Khan send greetings to their friend and invite him to their tent for a military conference.”
“Let us go!” said the boyar, getting up from his place by the fire. Peace-Renown stood up also though her legs obeyed her unwillingly. In a moment the Mongolian guardsmen brought their horses, lifted Peace-Renown up on her horse and surrounding them, led them to the camp.
The Mongolian encampment was arranged in an immense square protected by a deep fosse. There were twelve paths leading to each side of the square, all posted with armed guards. Though no enemy threatened the encampment, it was nevertheless vigilantly guarded according to the strict military rules of the warring Mongols. In contrast, the Christians equaled the Mongolians neither in discipline of their men, aptitude and training of their leaders, nor in the management of huge armies of men.
At the entrance to the entrenchment, there ensued a loud, harshly shouted conversation between the guards stationed there and those who led the boyar and his daughter, after which they assumed charge of the unfamiliar guests and conducted them to the tents of their chieftains. Though Peace-Renown was quite crushed by the weight of her new knowledge and shame which burned in two bright spots on her girlish cheeks, she had not lost her usual alert audacity nor forgotten her princely training in endurance to the extent that she would neglect to interest herself in the lay-out of the encampment and in all the other new arrangements heretofore unseen by her. She keenly observed the guards who led them. They were short, thick-set and dressed in sheep-skin coats, over which they slung their bows and pouches of arrows on their shoulders, resembling bears or other wild beasts. Beardless, displaying their heavy jowls with the high cheekbones; bright, beady eyes barely visible from between the short-lashed, narrowed eye-lids and small flattened noses made them singularly unattractive. The reflection of the fireglow cast a ghastly greenish tint upon their yellow skin making them appear even more execrable. Speaking in their throaty, sing-song language, their heads drooping dejectedly, they resembled a pack of wolves out for a kill. Their tents, as Peace-Renown now noticed, were made of waterproof canvas pitched on four poles tied together at the top and covered by big caps of horse-hide to protect them against any leakage during the rain. In front of the tents, set on stakes, were bloody human heads with expressions of pain and horror frozen upon their pale bluish faces lit by the fire-glow into terrifying omnipresent simulacra.
Beads of cold perspiration stood out on Peace-Renown’s forehead at this sight. The thought that her head might also soon be sticking up there before the tent of some Mongol warlord did not trouble this courageous girl. On the contrary, she would rather have right then smouldered in one of those huge bonfires and had her head set up as a trophy in front of the tent of some victor than look with her living eyes upon those heads which had but recently belonged to men who thought, worked and loved. How could she walk across this damnable camp of the brutal conquerors to do the smugly safe and treacherous deed!
“No, no!” she thought. “It shall not happen. I will not go a step farther. I will not be a traitress to my country! I will forsake my father if I cannot persuade him to give up his imprecatory plan.”
They stopped before the tent of the chief commander Peta, closest friend of Batiyem. Except for three ensigns fastened to its top, the tent was not distinguishable on the outside from the others around it. However, its interior was handsomely arranged in the customary Asiatic manner. But neither the boyar nor Peace-Renown entered the tent, for they found the Mongol chieftains before their tents sitting by the bonfire where the slaves were roasting two sheep. Perceiving their guests, the chieftains jumped to their feet, grasping their weapons though they made no attempt to move forward from their positions to greet them. Cognizant of the Mongolian practice regarding women, the boyar motioned his daughter to remain where she was while he removed his helmet and slipping his bow from his shoulders approached, bowing low before them and stood there silently, about three paces away from the commanding chieftain Peta, his eyes cast respectfully downward.
“From what king do you bring us your message?” asked Peta.
“I know of no king other than the great Jinghis Khan, the master of all the world!” replied the boyar. This was the usual procedure of formal humiliation in greeting.
Peta then extended his hand to the boyar with ceremonial decorum and also with a show of pleasure.
“You have come at the right time,” said Peta, “we were awaiting our ally.”
“I realized my obligations,” replied Tuhar Wolf. “Only in one way have I disobeyed your customs. I brought my daughter to the encampment.”
“Daughter?” queried the astonished Peta. “Were you not aware that our military rules forbid the presence of women in the encampment of warriors?”
“Yes, I know that. But what could I do with her? I have no home, no relatives, no wife! Aside from me and the great Jinghis Khan, she has no other protector! My king was very eager to be rid of me from his city and those execrable louts, my slaves, have rebelled against me.”
“Nonetheless, she cannot remain here.”
“I beg the grandsons of the great Jinghis Khan to allow her to stay here at least tonight and tomorrow, until I can find some safe place to leave her.”
“Our friends shall be welcome guests here,” replied Peta graciously then. Turning towards Peace-Renown, he said in his unfamiliar Ukrainian, “Come hither, girl!”
Peace-Renown was alarmed at these words addressed to herself by the fearful Mongol chieftain. Eyes filled with loathing and disdain, she gazed at the wrecker of Rus without making the slightest move to obey him.
“Draw nearer, Peace-Renown,” her father ordered. “The great chieftain of the Mongolian armies has received us very kindly.”
“I don’t want his kindness!” returned Peace-Renown.
“Come here, I command you!” the boyar ordered threateningly. Peace-Renown advanced unwillingly.
Peta surveyed her with his bright, beady eyes. “Beautiful girl! Too bad you cannot stay here! Take example from your father, girl, be true to the great Jinghis Khan. Great fortune will smile upon you. Here girl, let me give you this ring from your king Mesteslav, signifying safety from all harm. Show it to Mongol soldier . . . they all let you pass, do not harm you.”
“And now, let us go to the tent.” With these words Peta slipped the big gold signet ring he had taken in the battle at Kalka from the king Mesteslav off his finger and proffered it to Peace-Renown. Set within the ring was a beautiful green beryl with figures carved upon it. Peace-Renown hesitated about accepting the gift from the enemy which perhaps represented the reward for her father’s traitorous deed.
“Take it, child, it is the gift of the great descendant of Jinghis Khan,” said the boyar. “It’s a sign of his gracious beneficence assuring your safety within the encampment.”
“We will have to part, my dear. Their military rules forbid women to remain within their entrenchment. But with that ring you will be able to come and go whenever you need to do so.”
While Peace-Renown still hesitated an idea suddenly suggested itself to her and she took the ring. Turning her face away demurely, she said briefly, “Thank you!”
Peta ordered that she be taken to another tent which had been hurriedly prepared for her father while Tuhar Wolf remained with the Mongolian commanders to take part in their parley.
The first to speak was Peta, chief commander of the army, a man of about forty and a typical Mongolian, short, with lively, deep-set, piercingly bright little eyes, cool-headed, quick to resolve and quick to strike.
“Sit down, friend,” said he to the boyar. “When we tell you that we have been anticipating your arrival, we wish to have it understood that we praise your faithfulness to the great Jinghis Khan. However, you are somewhat tardy. Our army has been here three days already while the great Jinghis Khan, in sending us to the West, to the land of his serfs the Magyars, had warned us against tarrying in any place as long as three days without sufficient cause. Our brother, Kaydan-Behadir, who marches across Rumanian territory, will probably reach Hungary before us, conquer their capitol and what honor will that bring to the army under my command?”
To this the boyar replied, “I understand perfectly what you mean, Behadir. I’m sorry the faithful servant of the great Jinghis Khan could not arrive at your encampment any sooner, but it was not until yesterday that I heard of your approach. However, having once learned of it, I came at once. Let not this short delay worry you unduly, Behadir. Though our highways are not broad, they are safe. The gate to the kingdom of the Magyars will be opened to you, if you will but knock.”
“What highways are there and in whose hands?” questioned Peta briefly.
“One is the Duklan Pass running by the river Scian and then through a defile in the mountains. This trail is comfortable and commodious, trod many a time by Rus and Magyar armies.
“Is it far from here?”
“From here to Peremysl it’s a two-day march and from Peremysl to the mountains two more days.”
“Who guards it?”
“It is guarded by our king’s boyars who have constructed barricades along it. But the boyars are not happy in their service with the king, Danilo Romanowich, therefore they do not guard their forts very zealously. The promise of a small reward will easily persuade them to side with the great Jinghis Khan.”
“But why have we never seen any of them in our encampment before?” questioned Peta.
“They have their hands full, great Behadir. The people among whom they live and who must send armed men to guard the forts bear their overlordship unwillingly. The spirit of revolt and discontent is strong among the people. They still long for the old order of things when there were no kings and no rulers, when each community administered its own government and the people cooperated against a common enemy, electing and deposing their leaders whenever there was need. Within one of these communities, in the quiet solitude of his mountain valley, lives an ancient fellow whom they call a sage. He has been largely responsible for the continuance of the rebellious attitude among the people against the change from the old order of things. The people look upon the boyars as if they were wolves. If they knew that a boyar openly sided with the great Jinghis Khan, they would stone him to death. When at your advance, the boyars surrender themselves by allowing you to take their forts, the people will scatter like chaff before the wind.”
Peta listened to the boyar’s recitation attentively and a contemptuous smile played upon his thin lips. “What an extraordinary system you have here! The king rebels against his servants, the servants against the king, the king and his servants against the people and the people against all rule! Extraordinary state of affairs! In our country, when the various petty chieftains once planned to rebel against the great Jinghis Khan, he called them all together to his village and surrounding it with his true followers commanded them to fill eighty giant kettles with water and to set them on to heat at huge campfires. When the water began to boil, he ordered two petty chieftains, without making distinction between the guilty and the innocent, thrown into each kettle and boiled until the flesh fell away from their bones. Then he required them to be taken out and sent back to their subject peoples so that they might learn by this example what happens to leaders who fail to obey and respect the great Jinghis Khan. That is exactly the sort of lesson you need here. And we will teach it to your people. Give thanks to your gods that they have sent us to your lands because if it were not for us, you would devour each other like hungry wolves!”
The boyar’s blood congealed listening to this tale but he dared not utter a single word in protest or contradiction to this conception of justice.
“But tell me, where is the other highway?” questioned Peta further.
“The other is the Tukholian Trail,” replied the boyar, “though narrower and hillier, it is nearer and absolutely safe. There are no forts on it or any of the king’s boyars. The peasants guard it themselves.”
“We’re not afraid of your peasants!” scoffed Peta.
“There’s no need to be afraid of them,” put in the boyar. “They are unarmed and unskilled in warfare. I can easily lead your army over that trail myself.”
“But perhaps on the Hungarian side these trails are strongly fortified?”
“The Tukholian is not entirely fortified and the Duklanian is fortified but not very effectively.”
“Is the Tukholian route to Hungary a very long one?”
“For fully armed men, it will take one day to reach Tukhlia. Spending the night there and starting out at dawn, you will reach the Uhri downs by nightfall.”
“And through the Duklan Pass?”
“Counting the time it will take to storm the forts, at least three days.”
“Well then, lead us through the Tukholian trail!” replied Peta.
“Allow me to make a suggestion, great Behadir,” spoke up one of the Mongol army chieftains, a man of Herculean build and dark olive complexion, dressed in a steppe tiger skin coat which only too obviously indicated his Turkish origin. Burunda-Behadir, rivaling Kaydan in fame, was a passionately vengeful and ruthless warrior, uniting his thirst for blood with the worst forms of evil. The Mongolian military code to which he invariably adhered left behind his onset, rapine and blood and desolate ruins, blazing homesteads and towns, the greatest number of dead and mutilated and the widest rivers of conflagration. He outdid Peta with his forceful intrepidity. In front of his tent every night there were twice as many fresh human heads as in front of any other warrior’s. But Peta did not envy his cool cynicism or his crimes. With his faculty for organizing great masses of men and his capacity for far-reaching combinations in managing huge armies at battle and conducting strategic treks and attacks, in one long series of victories, he felt far superior to Burunda. Therefore he willingly allowed Burunda to take the initiative in the front lines of the most dangerous battles, holding him in check like a heavy iron maul and then letting him go into the battle with his contingent of blood-thirsty Turks at the crucial moment to finish the conquest.
“Of course, brother Burunda!” replied Peta.
“Let me conduct my legion of ten thousand over the Tukholian trail while you take the Duklan pass. When we arrive at the Hungarian side, I will at once strike at the strongest Duklan fortresses, rid them of those who guard it and so make clear the way for you.”
Peta stared at Burunda in amazement for this was the first time that killer had uttered words of such clear wisdom. Burunda’s plan was a good one, though bold, and he was the right man to carry it out.
“Very well,” replied Peta, “We’ll do as you say! Choose your men and start your march the first thing in the morning.”
“Please permit me to make a suggestion also, great Behadir,” said Tuhar Wolf.
“Please do!”
“Since you have decided to send a part of your army along the Tukholian trail and, because of its narrowness even I would not advise sending all of your army through it, then allow me to go ahead of you with a small contingent to occupy the entrance to the trail before the Tukholian louts learn of our advance and barricade it against us.”
“Very well then, go ahead!” said Peta. “When do you want to start?”
“Right away so that I can reach my destination by tomorrow noon.”
“In that case, let there be an end to our conference and may the gods favor the success of our armies!” said Peta getting up from his place. The other chieftains arose also. Tuhar Wolf asked Peta to select a division of the bravest men for him and went to his tent to refresh himself and to take leave of his daughter.
In the dark tent, on a couch covered with soft feather beds stolen by the Mongols, sat Peace-Renown, weeping bitterly. Not until now, after all the terrible and unexpected experiences she had been through, did she have time to think everything over and to ruminate upon every phase of the predicament into which her father had maneuvered her. Her plight was indeed perilous, seemingly inescapable. Her father was a traitor, a Mongolian slave; she was in the Mongolian entrenchment, half guest and half captive and withal thoroughly unprotected and alone against a hostile power. Her last support, her ardent belief in the prophetic dream that her love for Maxim was luckily fated and in her mother’s blessing, even this now in the cool light of reason began to waver, bleeding her heart. How could she ever face Maxim again? How would she be able to explain to him her willing or unwilling presence in the Mongolian encampment? Like poisonous snakes these questions writhed in her heart and she let the tears flow copiously weeping as if her heart would break.
With soft, hesitant tread, the father approached her and laid his hand upon her shoulder. She did not raise her head or move but kept on weeping.
“Daughter, Peace-Renown,” said he, “don’t cry, child! “God willing, everything is going to turn out all right!”
Peace-Renown sat there immobile, aloof, uncaring, as if she had not heard.
“Forget that peasant lout! A more fortunate future awaits you. There are great things and great happiness in store for you and he . . . what is there for him? Tomorrow by noon he will have fallen dead by my sword.”
“Who?” Peace-Renown questioned, jumping to her feet with a heart-rending cry.
“Who will fall dead?” she repeated. “He, Maxim? Are you leading the Mongol attack upon Tukhlia?”
“No, of course not!” denied the boyar. “Who told you that?”
“You did yourself!” Peace-Renown accused him. “Father, tell me the truth. What are you planning to do? You need not be afraid of me! I can see for myself very well that I cannot marry Maxim! It is not because I am above him in rank that I cannot marry Maxim! Oh no, I am beneath him, I feel infinitely far beneath him because he is an upright and honorable person and I am the daughter of a traitor and perhaps even myself a traitress! So father! You were very clever, so clever that you have outwitted yourself! You claimed that you were striving for my welfare and my future happiness, but you have destroyed my happiness! Now that you’ve accomplished what you were after, what good is life to me?”
“But tell me, what are you conspiring against him?”
“Nothing, absolutely nothing! He is probably right this minute climbing high into some lurking place among the mountain ranges.”
“No, no, no, I do not believe you! Tell me what plans you discussed with the Mongols.”
“We planned ways and means of reaching the border of Hungary.”
“And I suppose you are going to show them the Tukholian trail just to revenge yourself on the Tukholians?”
“Foolish girl! Why should I want to avenge myself on them? They are too inconsequential for my vengeance!”
“I want to direct the Mongols to the Hungarian border for the simple reason that the sooner they leave our Rus the less damage they will leave behind them.”
“Oh, certainly, certainly!” cried Peace-Renown. “But on the way they will finish their ruination of what is now still whole. Are you leading them to Tukhlia right now?”
“No, not to Tukhlia. I am taking charge of only a small contingent with which to barricade the entrance to the Tukholian trail.”
“ ‘The one who holds the gate also owns the house.’ Now I understand. You said yourself not long ago, up on top of the mountain that tomorrow Maxim and other Tukholian youths were coming to raze our house? You want to assail them with the aid of these Mongolians!”
The boyar stared at her in astonishment. He began to fear her as if she were a seeress who knew everything he had thought and schemed.
“Daughter, forget about him!” said he. “Only that awaits him which destiny has proscribed for him.”
“No, father, you cannot put me off with that! I am going to Tukhlia to warn him and save him from your assault. And if I see that it is necessary to do so, I will take his side and will defend him and myself to my last bit of strength against you, father, and your perfidious allies!”
“You are insane, girl!” exploded the boyar. “Take care you do not infuriate me! This is an important matter!”
“What do I care about your wrath!” retorted Peace-Renown coldly. “What can you do to me that is any worse than you have already done? If you kill me, you will only be doing me a favor, for I do not care to live. Let me go to him!”
“No, stay here, you fool!”
“Yes, stay here until you go and quietly murder the one who is dearer than life to me! Oh no, I will not stay!”
“Stay here! I swear to God that I will not raise a hand against him!”
“Oh, I know very well what that means!” cried Peace-Renown. “But of course, you are a boyar, how would it look for you to fight a mere lout! You will order your vicious friends to aim their poisoned arrows at him!”
“Well, since you are so concerned about it, I give you my word of honor that neither I nor anyone else in my company shall touch him, no matter how hard he fights against us! Surely that ought to be enough!”
Peace-Renown stood there shaken by suppressed emotion and could not utter a word. Was she sure that was enough or not? Oh, how she wished she were a bird and could fly to him and with eager chirpings warn him of the danger! But of course that was an impossibility!
Her father armed himself and before leaving the tent, said in parting, “I’m asking you again and commanding you to stay within the encampment until I return and then you can do whatever you please. Now, good-bye.”
He went out and the flap of the tent which served as a door stirred restlessly after him.
With clasped hands, the picture of forlorn wretchedness and abject despair, Peace-Renown stood in the middle of the tent, paralyzed with dread, her head bowed and her lips parted, ears strained for the last sounds of the hoof-beats dying away south of the entrenchment in the direction of Tukhlia to which her father was leading the Mongols in order to revenge himself on the Tukholians.
- ↑ Swift for use in war and broad-backed for carrying packs.