Swords From the East (3 page)

Buddhists are not so lucky: Buddhism and the allied (or at least entangled) tradition of Bon are normally painted in hostile colors in Lamb's fiction. I don't mean to minimize this; I would just say that this represents a historical attitude that Lamb probably found in his sources, rather than importing it there. Howard Jones, the editor to whose tireless labor we owe these splendid new editions of Lamb's fiction, has wisely decided against meddling with Lamb's text for political reasons or any other reason. Even the rather Victorian dashes that mask the characters' mild and infrequent profanity survive in these editions unaltered.

In these adventures in a patriarchal world, most of the characters are men, but when women appear, they are not mere plot-coupons or MacGuffins. Nadesha (from "The Road of the Giants" ~, in particular, is a dashing, heroic figure, and the bitter Cherla ("The House of the Strongest" and the tragic Aina ("The Net" are, in their ways, equally memorable. Lamb often draws his characters in broad strokes, but they are never mere caricatures, and if he is intent on portraying historical realities that test the limits of our sympathy, he never forgets to make his characters sympathetic.

Lamb was also a gifted stylist of plain, eloquent English. That may be surprising: most of the stories in this volume originally appeared in a pulp magazine, not a medium famous for its literary sophistication. But Adventure was an unusual pulp, deliberately pitched at readers looking for more intelligent fare. (The young Sinclair Lewis worked there as an editor.) And, even when he was being paid by the word, Lamb just wasn't the type to lard his sentences with excess verbiage. He almost invariably (as Twain puts it) picks "the right word, not its second cousin."

I like, for instance, the ambiguous threat the hero makes to the opposing general in "The Wolf-Chaser": "'Tell Galdan Khan what you have seen,' smiled Hugo. 'Say that he will never see his mirzas again. On the first clear night I will come into his lines and speak with him."' His characters don't all sound the same, but he likes to craft ones that speak with a certain snap. An exchange from "Sleeping Lion" ~a tale of Marco Polo at the court off Kublai Khan):

"Can you make me invisible so that I may pass through gates unseen?"

"I can make a mountain invisible," he croaked.

"How?

"By looking the other way," he snarled.

Lamb doesn't bother to strain for unusual verbal effects. He picks subjects worth talking about, then describes with searing directness what his mind's eye sees. Here are the Torguts on the move (from "The Road of the Giants"): "With steady eyes he was looking into a sunrise that, seen through the smoke, was the hue of blood. This ruddy glow tinged the brown faces that passed the Khan; it dyed red the tossing horns of the cattle. Two hundred thousand humans had burned their homes and were mustering for a march in the dead of winter over one of the most barren regions of the earth."

Lamb writes a good deal about war, and he doesn't write about it, as someone once said of Vergil, "with eyes averted." These are ripping yarns in the finest tradition. Out of many examples, here's part of a scene from "The Three Palladins" where the Mongols are fighting over the ruins of their leader's tent. It was attacked during the night by assassins, shot full of arrows, and finally set afire. Temujin (later Genghis Khan[ is feared dead, but then "the sand [was] stirring at the edge of Temujin's crumpled and blazing tent. The sand heaved and fell aside as if an enormous mole were rising to the surface, but instead of a mole a blackened face was revealed by the glow of the fire. Presently the body of a man followed the face, and Temujin climbed out of the hole he had dug in the loose sand while the arrows slashed through his yurt." He tunneled his way out of the assassination scene and lived to make his would-be assassins sorry that they'd missed. All in a day's work-if you're Genghis Khan.

But Lamb, in his interest in heroism, doesn't shy away from war's essential ugliness. Here (from "The Wolf-Chaser") a French nobleman takes a stroll through a Tatar village as it is being sacked by its enemies: "Captives were being roped together by the necks. Children were lifted on lances, to guttural shouts. Almost within reach, Hugo saw a Tatar's eyes torn out by a soldier's fingers." It's all quite repellent, and Hugo is repelled-but, with equal realism, he does not get involved. It simply did not occur to Hugo to draw his sword in a quarrel between peasants and common soldiers. "'Peste! What is it to me?' he grumbled."

Hugo will eventually become involved, and thereby hangs the rest of the tale, which I won't spoil for you. But this is a good example of Lamb's historical imagination at work. Hugo is all wrong by our standards, and Lamb doesn't attempt to justify him. But Hugo's attitude makes perfect sense in the world through which he moves.

Lamb's greatest talent (as a biographer, popular historian, or writer of fictions is sheer storytelling. Whether his hero is a reindeer herder trying to keep his herd safe from interlopers who view the animals as mere commodities ("The Gate in the Sky"), or a French adventurer, looking for his missionary brother, who fights in a Mongolian Thermopylae ("The WolfChaser"), or a Chinese nobleman who flees a murderous intrigue to become an adviser and court-champion to the young Genghis Khan ("The Three Palladins"), or a Siberian girl whose encounter with outsiders has tragic consequences for both sides ("The Net"), Lamb tells a tale where things happen that have an emotional impact, and where a surprise often lurks on the story's last page.

These pieces of historical fiction have a certain importance for literary history. Lamb's fiction, almost forgotten now, was an enormous influence over later writers of popular fiction such as Robert E. Howard, Norwell Page, and Harry Harrison, to name just three.

But that's not the reason to read these stories now, or at least it's not the most important reason. They are worth reading because they are worth reading: fascinating stories of heroism from a skilled storyteller who breathed life into his characters and the world they inhabit.

It's been a long generation since I discovered Lamb. My mother has since passed through the gate in the sky, and now, instead of asking Those Questions, I am occasionally tasked with answering them. I'm no longer sure that Genghis Khan is the emperor of all men, or that empires are really such great things after all. But I'm more sure than ever that Harold Lamb is one of the great storytellers in the eternal republic of letters. For proof, I offer the book you hold in your hands.

The long night of winter had begun. Snow flurries swept the heights of the Syansk Range that separates Mongolia from Siberia proper. In that year early in the eighteenth century under the heights a great quiet had fallen.

Ice formed along the banks of the streams. Another week and the passes into the northern plain, with its scattered settlements, would be closed. The few traders who still lingered in the Syansk were hurrying down to the towns, several hundred miles away.

More and more the play of the northern lights obscured the brightness of Upener, the polar star.

As he had done for a score of years, Maak, the Buriat reindeer keeper, led his herd from the upland pastures down to the valleys where the streams were still open and the larches had a thin garment of foliage.

His beasts were sleek from a season's cropping of lichen and Pamir grass. Their coats were growing heavier against the frost that was sending to cover all animal life on the heights. Two hundred or more, they followed obediently the white reindeer that was Maak's mount.

Maak's broad face was raised to the sky of evenings. His keen, black eyes followed the flicker of elusive lights above and behind the mountain summits. A gate, he knew, was ready to open in the sky, and through it the spirits-the tengeri-would look down on the earth.

This happened only occasionally, when the magic lights were very bright in the autumn-as now. For those who saw the open gate in the sky it was an omen. An omen of death or great achievement-one would not know which until time brought fulfillment.

"Someday the gate in the sky will open," he repeated to himself quietly as he watched of nights.

It might well mean death when he would be drawn up by the Qoren Vairgin, the king-spirit of the reindeer. Then he would make brave sport among the flaming lights and perhaps look forth in his turn from the spirit gate upon the whole world-upon the Mongolian plain whence the Chinese merchants sometimes came to barter for the soft horns of a young reindeer, to the towns from which the Russian colonist traders arrived every other year or so. Maak knew of no world other than this.

At times he wondered whether the gate would ever open.

Maak had seen no living being but his clansmen, the Buriats-and had seen them only in the spring and fall changes of pasture. He belonged to the wandering ones of the clan, the reindeer keepers. He had been told that the traders were superior fellows indeed.

Never did Maak leave his reindeer. The herd furnished him milk and fat. His long coat, soft boots, and cap were of their skins. His bowstring was reindeer gut; the skinning knife he inherited from his father, who had been a herder.

No one had ever seen Maak kill one of his herd. When he wanted meat he shot down other game with his bow. He was as lean as the reindeer-with long, supple muscles that hid his strength. His slant eyes were mild.

This shyness of Maak came from long isolation. Barely did he remember the chants of a dead grandfather-chants of Mongol warriors who had taught the meaning of fear to their enemies.

Traders who learned that Maak-like the other wandering ones-did not kill his reindeer or sell them-the traders laughed, saying that he was mad, a khada-ulan-obokhod, an old man of the mountain-a spiritless coward.

"He has turned into a deer," they said, "with only enough wit to run away. Pah. He would not fight even for his own life!"

Nevertheless the other Buriats were superstitious about khada-ulan- obokhod and did not molest them.

As they came to a bend in the upper valley, Maak's mount, an old white buck, halted with lifted muzzle. The herd, following the example of their leader, stopped and bunched together, eyes and ears pointed in the same direction.

They were in sight of a large stream that gave into the Irkut. Beside the river were three canvas tents and a knot of packhorses. Smoke rose into the chill evening air. Three men came from the fire and looked at them.

Maak would have turned when one of the travelers, a stocky, bearded man in a fine mink coat, waved to him.

Now Maak had been seeking that very spot to camp for the night. When the men invited him by gestures to join them he hesitated. Finally he edged the reindeer up to the tents and dismounted.

They were traders; the bearded man a Siberian colonist; a handsome, brisk young fellow was Orani, a Yakut half-breed; the third a silent Mongol.

"Greetings, nim tungit-tent companion," Orani, who acted as interpreter, proclaimed.

Maak nodded and accepted their hospitality shyly. His herd he let to graze on the moss in a birch grove, out of sight of the tents.

They gave him a luxurious brick of tea, and all four quaffed numberless bowls of the potent liquid as they sat around the fire.

"We have no meat, --take the luck!" explained Orani. "Game is bewitched around here and our bullets all miss. Sell us one of your fine, plump beasts and we'll have a feast; eh, Maak?"

The reindeer keeper shook his head. The men exchanged glances, and the Siberian, Petrovan, looked angry.

The traders had had ill luck with more than game for the pot. The fur they were taking back from the Syansk was a poor lot-some fair mink, but only a few ermine and no black foxes at all. The Mongol hunters were harder than ever to deal with. Petrovan considered it a personal grievance. Until now his summer trading had been good.

"The gentleman," informed Orani, "will give you a powder-flask and a handful of bullets for a brace of deer. Come, Maak; strike a bargain, man!"

Absently the Buriat shook his head. He had no musket, and he was admiring the businesslike hunting-piece of the trader and Orani's silvermounted flintlock. He offered them some of his reindeer milk; they declined with a grimace, but the ever-hungry Mongol emptied all portions down his gullet.