Conan the Defender Read online

  “He knows,” Ariane said as she closed the door, and they all jumped.

  Conan casually put his hand to his sword hilt.

  “He knows!” Stephano yelped. “I told you he was dangerous. I told you we should have nothing to do with him. This is not our part of it.”

  “Keep your voice down,” Ariane said firmly. “Do you want to tell everyone in the inn?” He subsided sulkily, and she went on, addressing the others too. “It’s true that recruiting men like Conan was not part of what we were supposed to do, but I’ve heard each one of you complain that you wanted to take a more direct part.”

  “At least you can write poetry taunting Garian,” Graecus muttered. “All I can do is copy what you write and scatter it in the streets. I can’t do a sculpture to rouse the people.”

  “King Garian sits on the Dragon Throne,” Conan said suddenly. They all stared at him. “King Garian sits to his feast alone. I saw that one. Did you write it, Ariane?”

  “Gallia’s work,” she said drily. “I write much better than that.”

  “This is all beside the point,” Stephano shrilled. “We all know why you trust him, Ariane.” He met Conan’s icy blue stare and swallowed hard. “I think what we do is dangerous. We should leave hiring this sort of … this sort of man to Taras. He knows them. We don’t.”

  “We know Conan,” Ariane persisted. “And we all agreed—yes, you too, Stephano—that we should take a part in finding fighting men, whatever Taras says. With Conan we get not one, but forty.”

  “If they’ll follow him,” Graecus said.

  “They will follow me wherever there is gold,” Conan replied.

  Graecus looked a little unsettled at that, and Stephano laughed mockingly, “Gold!”

  “Fools!” Ariane taunted. “How many times have we talked of those who claimed that revolution should be kept pure, that only those who fought for the right reasons should be allowed to take part? How many of them went to the impaling stake for their purity?”

  “Our cause is just,” Stephano grated. “We taint it with gold.”

  Ariane shook her head wearily. “Time and again we have argued this. The time for such argument is long past, Stephano. How think you Taras gathers fighting men? With gold, Stephano. Gold!”

  “And from the start did I oppose it,” the lanky sculptor replied. “The people—”

  “Would follow us and rise,” she cut him off. “They would follow us and, none of us knowing aught of weapons or war, would be cut down.”

  “Our ideals,” he muttered.

  “Are not enough.” She glared at each of her fellow conspirators in turn, and they shifted uneasily beneath her gaze. Of them all, Conan realized, the strongest will was housed within her sweet curves.

  “What I want,” Graecus announced, “is a chance to hold a sword in my hand. Conan, can I ride with you on the day?”

  “I have not said I would join you,” Conan replied slowly.

  Ariane gasped, clutching her hands beneath her rounded breasts, her face a picture of dismay. Graecus sat open-mouthed.

  “I told you he was not to be trusted,” Stephano muttered.

  “My men will follow me,” the Cimmerian went on, “but not if I lead them only to the headsman’s block or the impaling stake. I cannot join you without some idea of your chances of success, and to know that I must know your plans.”

  “He could betray us,” Stephano said quickly.

  “Be quiet, Stephano,” Ariane said, but she studied the Cimmerian’s face without speaking further.

  “I am not civilized enough,” Conan told her softly, “to betray my friends.”

  She nodded shakily. Stephano tried to cut her off, but she ignored him. “Taras hires warriors. He says that we need at least a thousand, but he will soon have that many. Our strength, though, is the people. Their anger is so great now, and their hunger, that they would pull Garian down with their bare hands, could they. Some know they will receive weapons. Others will follow. We have weapons for ten thousand, weapons smuggled across the border. Some no doubt by your friend, Hordo.”

  “Ten thousand?” Conan said, remembering Hordo’s estimate of five.

  “Ten,” Graecus said. “I’ve seen them. Taras showed me a storehouse full.”

  And let him count them, too, Conan thought drily. “It takes a great deal of gold to arm ten thousand, even poorly. And more to hire a thousand already armed. You provided this gold?”

  “Some part of it, yes,” Ariane said defensively. “But, as you know, we earn no great amounts, and most of what we have from our … our other sources goes to this inn.”

  “There are some,” Stephano said loftily, “who despite their wealth believe that we are right and Garian will destroy Nemedia. They furnish Taras with what is needed to acquire arms and men.”

  “Who are they?” Conan asked. “Will they support you openly, put their names behind you once you take to the streets?”

  “Of course,” Stephano said, but almost immediately his loftiness fell into uncertainty. “That is, I suppose they will. You see, they prefer to remain anonymous.” He laughed shakily. “Why, not even any of us here has ever seen them. Their money goes directly to Taras.”

  “What Stephano means,” Ariane said as the sculptor sank into silence, “is that they’re affrighted we will fail, and fear to find themselves upon the headsman’s block. ’Tis likely they think to manipulate us, and the revolution, to increase their own wealth and position. But if they do, they forget that we command the people. And a thousand armed men.”

  A thousand armed men who had taken gold from these mysterious benefactors, Conan thought wearily. “But what is your plan? Not just to rush into the streets handing swords out to the people?”

  Graecus smiled broadly. “We are not such fools as you might think us, Conan. Those of us who distribute the bread in Hellgate have found men who can be trusted, marked out those who will follow when the word is given. These will receive the weapons. We will lead them to surround the Royal Palace, while Taras takes the thousand to seize the city gates and lay seige to the City Guard in their barracks.”

  “What of the Free-Companies, and the bodyguards?” Conan asked. “There must be three thousand such in the city, and those who have paid them will most certainly support the king.”

  “Yes,” Ariane said, “but each will also keep his bodyguard close about him till he sees what happens. We can ignore them. If necessary, they can be rooted out later, one by one. A Free-Company of a hundred may be overrun by a thousand from the gutter to whom death is no more than an escape from hunger.”

  She looked ready to lead such an assault herself, small head erect, shoulders back out-thrusting her breasts to strain the fabric of her shift, eyes alight with hazel fire. Conan knew her words were true. Men who welcomed death were fearsome opponents in the assault, though more easily dealt with in the long campaign. Whatever the outcome of this meeting, he must keep his company ready to move at all times with no more than an instant’s warning.

  What he said, though, was, “What of the army?”

  It was Graecus again who answered. “The closest troops are a thousand at Heranium and two at Jeraculum. They would take five days to reach Belverus, once they have been commanded to march, but will be too few to do anything to effect while we hold the city gates. As to the forces on the Aquilonian border, they will still have to decide to abandon the border, worrying all the while of what Aquilonia will do.”

  “Ten days’ march from the border for a sizeable force,” Conan said thoughtfully. “Two days hard riding for a message to get there. So you can count on twelve days before you must face seige machinery and soldiers in numbers to assault the city walls. Perhaps it will be longer, but ’tis best to count on no more.”

  “You have an eye for such things,” Graecus said approvingly. “We plan based on twelve days.”

  “And will have no need for them,” Stephano pronounced with a dismissing wave of his hand. “Long before then, t
he downtrodden of the city will have risen to join us. A hundred thousand men will line the walls of the city, shoulder to shoulder. We will have called on Garian to abdicate—”

  “Abdicate!” Conan shouted. The others started, staring at the walls as if they could see them listening. He went on in a lower tone. “You raise a rebellion, then call on Garian to abdicate? ’Tis madness. The Golden Leopards could hold the Royal Palace for half a year of siege, perhaps more. You have twelve days.”

  “’Tis none of my idea,” Ariane said disgustedly. “From the first have I said we must sweep over the Palace in the first hour.”

  “And slaughter everyone there!” Stephano said. “Then we are no better than Garian, our beliefs and ideals so much rhetoric.”

  “I do not remember,” Graecus said slowly, “who it was first suggested we demand that Garian abdicate. On first thought, perhaps it seems best to do as Ariane wishes, attack the Palace while the Golden Leopards yet believe it is no more than another disturbance in the streets. But we cannot totally abandon the very ideals for which we fight. Besides,” he finished with a smile, as if he had found the solution, “it is well known that the hill on which the Royal Palace sits is riddled with a hundred passages, any one of which will take us inside its defenses.”

  “Everyone may know of these passages,” Ariane said, her voice dripping acid, “but do you know where to find one of them? Just one?”

  “We could dig,” the stocky man suggested weakly. Ariane snorted, and he subsided.

  Conan shook his head. “Garian will not abdicate. No king would. You will but waste time you do not have to waste.”

  “If he will not abdicate,” Stephano said, “then the people will storm the Royal Palace and tear him to pieces with their bare hands for his crimes against them.”

  “The people,” Conan said, staring at the darkbrowed man as if he had never seen his like before. “You talk of preventing a slaughter that will tarnish your ideals. What of the thousands who will die taking the Palace? If they can?”

  “We compromised our ideals by hiring swordsmen for gold,” Stephano maintained stubbornly. “We cannot compromise them further. All who die will be martyrs to a just and glorious cause.”

  “When is this glorious day?” Conan asked sarcastically.

  “As soon as Taras has gathered his thousand men,” Graecus replied.

  “In effect, then this Taras gives the word for your uprising?” Graecus nodded slowly, a suddenly doubtful look on his face, and Conan went on. “Then I must speak to Taras before I decide whether to join you.”

  Ariane’s eyes grew wide. “You mean that you still may turn aside from us? After we have opened ourselves to you?”

  “We have told him all!” Stephano cried, his voice growing more shrill by the word. “He can betray everything! We have given ourselves to this barbarian!”

  His face suddenly hard, Conan gripped his sword with both hands, pulling it up so that the hilt was before his face. Stephano stumbled back with a shriek like a woman, and Graecus scrambled his feet. Ariane’s face was pale, but she did not move.

  “By this steel,” Conan said, “and by Crom, Lord of the Mound, I swear that I will never betray you.” His icy blue eyes found Ariane’s and held them. “I will die first.”

  Ariane stepped forward, her face full of wonder, and placed a hesitant hand on the Cimmerian’s cheek. “You are like no other man I have ever known,” she whispered. Her voice firmed. “I believe him. We will arrange a meeting for him with Taras. Agreed, Stephano? Graecus?” The two sculptors nodded jerkily. “Leucas? Leucas!”

  “What?” The skinny philosopher started as if he had been asleep. “Whatever you say, Ariane. I agree with you wholeheartedly.” His eye lit on Conan’s bared blade, and his head jerked back to thump against the wall. He remained like that, staring at the steel with horrified eyes.

  “Philosophers,” Ariane murmured laughingly.

  “I must go,” Conan said, returning his sword to its scabbard. “I must meet Hordo.”

  “I will see you tonight, then,” Ariane said. Stephano suddenly looked as if his stomach pained him. “And, Conan,” she added as he turned for the door, “I trust you with my life.”

  With her life, the Cimmerian thought as he left the inn. Yet was she involved to the heart in the conspiracy and uprising. It could succeed. If Taras had in fact the thousand trained and armed men he claimed. If the people rose, and followed, and did not flee when faced with the interlocked shields and steady tread of infantry, the armored charge of heavy cavalry and the roof-rending crash of monstrous seige engines. If the rebels in their pride could be convinced to let their ideals wait on victory and seize the Palace while the Golden Leopards yet stood unaware. Too many ifs. Her life was bound with a doomed cause. Yet in the pride of his youth Conan swore another oath, this to himself. While holding to his oath not to betray, he would save her life despite her.

  IX

  By one glass past midday the Street of Regrets had begun its revelry, though slowly, yet building for the climax of night. A hundred jugglers tossed balls, batons, rings, knives and flaming wands where a thousand soon would. A hundred strumpets, rouged, perfumed and bangled, lightly draped with brightly colored silks, postured where two thousand would strut at dark. Through them strolled scores of richly tunicked nobles and merchants, each convoyed by his sword-bearing man or pair, vanguard for the multitudes to follow. Litters in dozens, borne by well-muscled slaves, bounded by armored guards, carried sleek, hot-breathed women seeking in advance of their sisters the vices offered by the desperate. And among them all the beggars wheedled in their rags.

  Conan, making his way down the street, indifferent to its sights and sounds, found himself laughing when at last he spied the Sign of the Full Moon. On a slab of wood hanging above the entrance was painted a naked woman, kneeling and bent, her back to the viewer, and her buttocks glowing as if reflecting the sun. This spoke of the raucous delights that Hordo would choose.

  Suddenly one of the litters caught his eye, scarlet curtained, its black poles and framing worked with gold. Of a certainty it was the litter he had seen his first day in Belverus, the litter of the veiled woman who had looked at him so strangely. The scarlet curtain twitched aside, and once again he was looking into the eyes of the woman veiled in gray. Over that distance he could discern not even so much as their color, yet those tilted eyes were familiar to him. Hauntingly so; if he could but bring back the memory.

  He shook his head. Memory and imagination played tricks. A hundred women he had known and a thousand he had not could have eyes exactly alike. He turned to enter the Full Moon.

  From behind, sweeping over the murmur of the street, came a sound, a woman’s laugh, half sob. He spun, an icy chill running up his spine. That laugh had seemed so familiar that he was almost sure if he opened his mouth a name would emerge to match it. But no woman was there, save the whores. The litter was swallowed up in the throng.

  The Cimmerian eased sword and belt dagger in their sheaths, as if that easing would ease his mind. He was too much on edge for worry of Ariane, he told himself. It would do good to lose himself for a time with Hordo in drink and ogling of this fabulous dancer. He plunged into the Full Moon.

  The common room of the Full Moon smelled of sour wine and stale perfume. The rough wooden tables were no more than a third filled at this hour, with men who hunched over their drinks, nursing their wine and their own dark fears together. Seven women danced to two shrill flutes and a zither, each carrying a strip of transparent red silk used now to cover the face, now to conceal bare breasts. From thin gilded girdles worn low on rounded hips depended curved brass plates that covered the juncture of their thighs, each plate marked with the price for which she who wore it could be enjoyed in the rooms above.

  Though all the dancers were nicely curved, Conan saw none he believed would have excited Hordo’s imagination the way the message indicated. Perhaps they had other dancers, he thought, who would appear later. As he
took a table close to the narrow platform where the dancers writhed, a plump serving wench appeared at his elbow, a single twist of muslin about her hips.

  “Wine,” he said, and she darted away.

  As he settled to enjoying the women on the stage he became aware of someone staring at him. Hesitantly the thin philosopher, Leucas, approached his table.

  “I need … may I talk with you, Conan?”

  The thin man looked about him nervously as he spoke, as though afraid of being overheard. The only other men not concentrating on their wine were three dark-skinned Kothians, their hair braided into metal rings and Karpashi daggers strapped to their forearms. They appeared to be arguing as to whether the dancers were worth the prices they bore. Still, Leucas half fell onto the stool across from Conan, leaning across the table and pitching his voice in an urgent whisper as if he expected someone to stop him, violently, at any second.

  “I had to talk to you, Conan. I followed. Your sword. When I saw it, I knew. You’re the one. You are the kind of man who can do this sort of thing. I … I am not. I’m just not a man of action.” Sweat poured down his narrow face, though the tavern was shadowed and cool. “You do understand, don’t you?”

  “Not a word,” Conan said.

  Leucas squeezed his eyes shut, muttering under his breath, and when he opened them he seemed to have gotten a grip on himself. “You agree that Garian must be removed, do you not?”

  “That’s what you’re planning,” Conan replied noncommitally.

  “But …” Leucas’ voice rose alarmingly; he pulled it down with visible effort. “But that has to be changed, now. We can wait no longer. What happened these few days past. The sun darkening. The ground trembling. The gods have turned their faces from Nemedia. That was a sign, a warning that we must remove Garian before they remove him, and with him all of Belverus.”

  Conan’s own god, Crom, Dark Lord of the Mound, gave a man life and will and nothing more. Conan had seen little evidence that other gods did any more. As for the darkened sky and the trembling ground, it was his opinion that someone in Belverus worked at sorcery, despite Garian’s prohibitions. He had no love of such, but for once he was not involved, and he intended to remain that way.