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Read Ebook: The Enchanted Crusade by Krepps Robert W Terry W E Illustrator
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Ebook has 587 lines and 29254 words, and 12 pages
"May you live a thousand years, Mufaddal, my brother."
"This is a noble sentiment. Did you interrupt my eating--that is to say, my meditation--to wish me long life, imbecile?"
The sorcerer looked meditatively at his left forefinger, which turned into a blue snake and hissed at the big dirty man across the laden cloth. Mufaddal jumped and said hastily, "This, of course, is only my rough manner of speaking, Heraj, and naturally you know you are my favorite brother and may come in any time you like."
"Yes. Well, I was going to say, Mufaddal, that complications are lifting their ugly heads in this business of the plague ship."
"What? Are the rats not loaded into the hold, and the job accomplished with but seventeen fellahin bitten? Did we not slay the seventeen before they could come near anyone? And is the ship not as sound as any ship that sails the Mediterranean, having new sails and a new mast, and her belly caulked no later than last month?"
"Ah, very true," agreed Heraj.
"Does every rat not carry at least one flea, cleverly infected with the plague by your own subtle methods?"
"Fleas and rats are as deadly as any Saracen blade, and the grisly death they carry will spread far and wide when they are let off the ship on the coasts of England."
"And lastly, is all not in readiness to sail come the day after tomorrow?"
"True," said Heraj gloomily. "But we can't send it out before then, as our chosen crew will not be assembled till that morning, especially the far-experienced Nubian slave who is coming from Tripoli to guide the ship on its perilous course; and by the wrath of Eblis, you and I may not live to see the dawn of that day, near though you deem it!"
"What are you talking about?" roared Mufaddal.
"I just had a message from a friend who happens to be a hawk in his present incarnation. He tells me that Godwin is coming."
"This is terrible news indeed," said Mufaddal, fiercely mimicking the sorcerer's worried tones. "I quake with fright. I throw myself on the infinite mercy of Allah." He rose and flexed his arms, that were each as thick as a youth's body. "Heraj, who in the name of the seven hells is Godwin?"
"You may well ask," said Heraj, even more gloomily than before. "Nobody seems to know exactly. I can't get a line on his history before a month ago, when he rode out of Jaffa in company with a renegade Saracen chieftain called El Sareuk and a girl named Ramizail. But he's a brawny young champion, whatever his antecedents, and his girl controls the djinn."
"Yes, that one. Well, this hawk says--"
"Can you understand the hawk tongue?"
"This one speaks Arabic. He's a fairly talented fellow, for a hawk. He says that Godwin and the others are pledged to go rampaging over the earth, righting wrongs, and they've heard of the plague ship and are on their way to destroy it. And us, I suppose," added Heraj.
"Name of forty goats," said Mufaddal worriedly. "I fear not this Godwin, but the djinn...." He stared up at the sorcerer. "Can't you do something to stop them? You and Pepi and Habu?"
"What? You know my limitations, and I'm the strongest of the three. I can do a lot, Mufaddal, but I can't combat djinn. The chief of them, Mihrjan, even travels with this Ramizail wench, personally. She controls him and his race by a sigil and ring that came down to her from Solomon."
"Curse it, Heraj, if this ship doesn't sail, England will continue to send Crusaders to the East until they have conquered every inch of desert and city! It's got to sail! How did these loathsome adventurers hear of it?"
"They happened across that Englishman who escaped us, Sir Malcolm du Findley. The one that we started to flay last Thursday, before he crawled out a window and treacherously disappeared."
Mufaddal got off the floor. He hitched up his pants and retied the string that held them around his muscular waist. "Heraj," he said grimly, "I give you an hour to think of some way to stop them. Djinn or no djinn, that ship sails!"
Ramizail went off and stood by herself. "Mihrjan," she said softly.
"I am here, Beloved of Allah."
"Mihrjan, I'm sick of the same dreary food day after day. Godwin maintains that gentlemen rovers should fare roughly, to toughen their bodies. But I'm not a gentleman."
"Assuredly thou art not," said the invisible djinni, respect and male admiration nicely blended in his great voice.
"Thy will is sweet, Mistress."
"Milk chocolate, O Daughter of All Delights."
"Bring me some of that, too. Put the meal on a damask cloth, with blue gauze to wipe the mouth, and the vessels must all be of purest crystal with gold rims."
"To hear is to obey, Little Queen of My Tribe."
"Be sure there's plenty for all of us, with a bowl of mice for Godwin's falcon Yellow-eyes, and remember that my lord and master eats like two-thirds of a regiment."
"Give me but four minutes, Mistress, and you shall see it spread beneath the trees of this oasis, beside the clear spring that bubbles through the sand."
She strolled back to her uncle and her betrothed, a secret smile on her lips. In the specified four minutes a banquet popped into sight just beside them. Godwin jumped.
"What the devil!"
"I'm hungry," said Ramizail, at once on the defensive.
"Mihrjan!" said Godwin, glaring at her. "You had him do this. How often must I tell you my sentiments concerning all this magic, witch-wench?"
"Never again, Godwin dear, for I know them by heart."
"Ramizail," he said angrily, his eyes sparkling blue, "this is going to stop here and now. When you gave me the ring, and thus shared your power over the djinn with me, you promised not to command Mihrjan to do anything I didn't approve of."
"Oh, well," grumbled the girl, "I'm hungry for real food!"
"Ramizail, give me the sigil!"
Her eyes blazed back at his. "Come and take it, you big oaf!"
El Sareuk leaned against a date palm and smiled to himself. It was always a toss-up as to which of these iron-willed people would win an argument. Godwin strode over to the girl, upsetting a goblet of pale pink sherbet with his foot, and took her by the shoulders. She hit him on the nose. He turned her over and smacked her on her lightly-clad bottom. She screeched and bit his leg. He dropped her on the sand and sat on her.
Mihrjan, invisible but no more than three feet from them, laughed deeply.
El Sareuk said to Yellow-eyes, the old peregrine falcon, who was sitting on his shoulder watching the brawl, "Thy master has met, if not his match, at least a very worthy foe!"
Godwin, after a great deal of fumbling, got hold of the sigil where it hung on a chain round her neck, and opened the clasp and took it off.
"Bully!" shrieked Ramizail. "Swaggering, bragging, girl-defeating bully! Give me that back!"
"Not a chance," said Godwin equably. He moved over and sat in the small of her back. He locked the sigil into the ring he wore on his little finger, and the designs of each caught the other and made a single lump of gold. "Now," he said, "I control the djinn."
"Have them transport me to the Isles of the Western Sea," said the girl savagely, "or by the Crescent and Cross, Godwin, I'll murder you when I get up!"
"Nothing so drastic. Mihrjan!"
"Yes, Lord?"
"I control you now absolutely, don't I?"
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