Free Lord Byron's Novel by John Crowley Page A

word of the Pacha was not to be challenged, nor would Ali have dreamed of challenging it—better to believe that a tomcat was his father, if the Pacha pronounced it so, than to say the word No to that long-bearded face!
    What bargain the old warrior had struck with the English adventurer—by what means he had first learned of the man’s return to these dominions, and of the object of his coming there—what advantage to himself or hurt to his adversaries he expected by fulfilling his wish—I cannot say—nor whether the Milord he fawned upon had the powers to bring about those Results which he intimated to the Pacha he might. Certain it is, however, that such bargains had been made, and were not to be unmade. And as in this land the filial bond is the strongest that any man can know—the duty owed to Fathers the one least and last to be shaken off by any man of honour or common sense—Ali was left without grounds on which to protest; he must at last bend the knee before this spectre, his Father, and kiss his hands, and offer his Duty.
    ‘Come,’ then said Lord Sane—speaking to Ali as though the boy could understand him,—‘You are flesh of my flesh, and from here, where there is nothing, I shall take you to where you shall have much. And now let us have no more talk. We leave today for the coast. You need bring nothing: all will be provided.’
    And thus suddenly it was done. In the courtyard of the Pacha’s palace there was a great stir, as with a clashing of bells, ornament, and weaponry Lord Sane’s Suliote guards mounted, screamed out their ululations, fired their guns in air. A lad brought forth a mount for Ali—the most beautiful he had ever seen, its trappings and harness gorgeous. The Englishman showed by a wave of his hand that the horse was his, and the lad as well—who thereupon helped Ali to mount—which help Ali hardly knew how to accept. At the same time a groom also led a huge Arabian stallion from the stable, a steed glowing black as the desert night, haughty and enraged—so it appeared by his rolling eye, and bared teeth—and every horse in that enclosure trembled, shook head, started and reared, as though in the presence of a Lion rather than one of their own kind. Lord Sane called its name as harshly as though he pronounced a curse—struck its face to still its tossing—took its reins—and threw himself upon its back; and though the beast reared and twisted, the Lord subdued it. With a raised hand he summoned his train and his guard, the gates were opened, and he went out.
    This black charger was the first of Lord Sane’s beasts that Ali would associate with his father—beasts wild—fierce—unyielding—mad & dangerous. Such beings alone his father could love simply, without hypocrisy or design—who responded only to force, whose spirits were as huge & contrary as his own, whom he could contest with, and break. The horse was hardly still a moment beneath him, and if ever he became so, Sane would challenge him the more, and dig into his shining flanks the little roundels Ali saw at his heels, sharp and hurtful: Ali supposed—for he had never seen their like before, as they are not used in that country—that his father had conceived and made them himself, for the torment they inflicted.
    As they passed downward from the stony heights, Lord Sane was silent; or contrariwise, he talked long to his son in a low grating voice without inflection, talked and talked as though he could compel his son to learn to comprehend the tongue of his father and his father’s fathers merely by the force of his speaking: which Ali could not do, and so listened merely to the tone —which was compelling enough—the matter he would not gather for many weeks and months to come. Once on a time, said the Lord, he had come to these lands for adventure, and by reason of tales told in the South of Gold, for which men will undergo the harshest of privations, and do deeds of the greatest and most dreadful