Conan the Gladiator

by Leonard Carpenter

  The city’s craving for foreign goods was obviously great. Aside from the scattering of pale-featured northern colonials doing their daily shopping, supplying themselves and their larders as if they were at home in Corinthia, Conan saw prosperous-looking tradesmen and expensive women— the wives and concubines of church and civil officials, with their litters and covered chariots waiting—adorning themselves in the jewel bazaar and trying on fashionable garments behind the flimsiest of curtains in tailors’ stalls.

  Women of other sorts noticed the athletes, too, calling out to them seductively and venturing forth from doorways; but it was obvious that business was on their minds, and Jemain did his best to shoo them off before his sightseers could be tempted.

  As they came in sight of the city’s East Wall, the street took on the appearance of a pleasure-district. Numerous taverns, stables, hostels, and less orderly establishments offered their business to the camel-riders and bargemen who brought wares from abroad. By night, Conan guessed, it must be a lively quarter indeed, with one or more ships or caravans always newly arrived from sea and desert expanses.

  But the real squalor lay outside the city’s East Gate. Luxur’s builders had evidently been reluctant to open their town to naval invasion by letting the broad ship canal pass inside its defences. Instead, they left a narrow strip of land lying undefended, outside the city wall but overlooked by it, where river ferries and barges as well as easterly caravans might be unloaded. The Canal Wharf, so-called by respectable city-dwellers, had grown into a teeming slum of sheds, warehouses, nomads’ tents, and vendors’ ramshackle stalls. It lay outside the domain of the church wardens and customs-takers, who collected their due in the shadow of the city gate. Therefore, the place enjoyed a thriving commerce in tariff-free and black-market goods, heathen idols, condemned and unfit slaves, and other wares that might fall short of the city fathers’ high standards. Most of it, of course, ended up inside the city anyway, smuggled in by private dealers and enterprising citizens.

  Having come thus far, to the very river-bottom —where unpaved streets ran foul with muck, and wayside lurkers beckoned to passers-by and called out in strange languages, making even plucky young Jemain look ill-at-ease—the threesome decided to seek refreshment. They found their way into the only public-house that advertised itself here: a cavernous, many-pillared building, obviously converted from a stable and still smelling like one. The Pleasure Barge—as symbolized by a crudely carved and painted boat-silhouette nailed over the door—fronted on a muddy, reedy wagon turnaround. A mere dozen paces away half-sunken flatboats sat moored in stagnant canal water.

  Boisterously the gladiators ordered their drink out of casks and jars set in the back of the shanty, across a plank that was laid over two barrels. The publican was a one-eyed, one-armed river pirate; he delivered them beverages in gourd-sized palm-nut halves that served as noggins, then greedily plucked up their copper coins. The boy drank watered wine while the three men swigged sour arrak, fermented palm-sap from the southern plantations.

  “What are the odds in the next arena meet, then?” the barkeep asked in a rasping, Shemitish-accented voice. “Are you lads assigned to fight on this coming Bast Day?”

  “We might very well be,” Roganthus answered, obviously flattered to be recognized. “They have not told us so as yet.”

  “You lot are newcomers,” the barman said, “untried in the public’s eye. But there will be a fight, you can be sure of it... and keen wagering, too.” He squinted his one eye critically to examine the three. “You are all feeling well, then—no injuries from yesterday’s affray?”

  Roganthus snorted. “Hurt? Rather the opposite, I would say! I seem to thrive on that sort of thing. And it works up a powerful thirst. Here, fellow, another of those sour beakerfuls,” he said, slapping more coppers onto the rough plank.

  “If you want to gain valuable inside information on these future champions, I am the one to ask—I, Jemain, of Tanner’s Warren!” Inflamed by his weak wine, the boy crowed grandiosely across the bar. “I am a faultless odds maker, and a star-caster as well! I have rare intuition none other can match!”

  Conan, who had learned to put small faith in the mutterings of touts and tipsters, was nevertheless impressed by this city’s continual fervour of betting speculation. Now he leaned over to catch the barkeeper’s one watery eye. “I know not if you were at the show, and saw my party almost butchered alive by wild beasts and brigands.” At the barman’s wary head shake, he continued, “Yet obviously you know of it. I ask you, would you truly lay money on the outcome of such a mad spectacle?”

  “I? Why, indeed, I had a silver shekel riding on it. Nothing personal, you understand.”

  Since the man did not say he had won any shekels, Conan assumed the bet had been against himself and his friends. He frowned. “But tell me, why would you risk money on a bout that has no whit of sense or fairness to it?”

  Speaking authoritatively from below, Jemain chimed in. “Everyone knows the fights are unfair. It’s just a matter of finding out which side the advantage is on and fixing the odds accordingly.” “Myself, I follow the arena fights regularly,” the barkeep said, ignoring the urchin’s babble. “After all, it was there that I left this arm and this eye, all on the same day! In time, with Set’s good grace, I shall win back enough to compensate me for the loss.”

  “By all the gods,” Conan avowed, sipping his arrak, “that will take a cartload of silver! To suffer those grievous wounds all at once, and yet survive—”

  “Aye indeed, ’twas not easy,” the man said bitterly. “I myself, if the truth be known, had to fight all the harder after my parts were hewn away. I came within a hair being packed off and stuffed by the Morgue Priest Manethos’s embalmers, whether breathing or not! Beware of them, my friend... not every injured fighter is so lucky as I was!” While Conan, Jemain, and the barkeep exchanged stories, and Roganthus became better acquainted with his arrak, Dath drifted away. In the half-open porch of the tavern, among the various indolents and beggars, there lounged a group of four shabby-shirted, underfed youths who had followed the gladiators down from the town... casually, but with a wistful eye to a robbery, so Conan guessed, once their targets should become well-oiled with drink. Dath, sauntering up to these ruffians and braving their initial scowls, fell into low-voiced conversation with them. Soon after that, he and they disappeared from view.

  But Conan was not overly concerned; Dath was, after all, of their age and general type, and less a foreigner here in Stygia than he himself or Roganthus. With quick wits and a smattering of Stygian, he was well able to take care of himself, and would probably turn them aside from their hunt.

  Even so, none of the three had brought along a real weapon—nothing more imposing, at any rate, than a mere foot-long dagger. Conan therefore resolved that he should be cautious, and avoid confounding his wits with too much drink.

  No sooner had this resolve been formed than he was interrupted by a wharf-rat, one of a pair who had been idling, already drunk, at the front of the inn. The bare-chested, oversized Stygian looked as if he could pole a barge single-handed to Khemi or, for that matter, float there himself. Blessed with overkeen hearing, the fellow broke in on their conversation.

  “Namphet, I have heard stories of your arena days till I want to puke! As for you outlanders— you should learn that there are those of us who could match your feats of derring-do! And far surpass them, too, if we did not have honest work to occupy us!”

  Roganthus, idling over his drink, was quick to take umbrage. “Say now, fellow, do not dismiss us unfairly! You may not know that we are trainee professionals, devoted to physical culture and the mastery of our athletic skill. Not many men could stand up to us in a head-on grapple—”

  “I, for one, see little to be afraid of.” The Stygian glanced around at his companion, a taller and thinner but equally ugly stevedore who pressed up close behind, wearing a bucktoothed sneer “Weight-lifters, are you? I lift more weights in a day, un
loading cargo barges on a morning shift, than you do in a summer’s tour of Shemitish cow-towns!” He guffawed and belched simultaneously. “Fighters, you claim to be? Well, Lufar and I have ended more fights right here on the canal-front than any ten oiled, pampered pups like you it the arena! And we’re ready to show you how it’s done...”

  Conan was already edging aside for space, planning to break free of the ramshackle confines of the bar and find room to manoeuvre in the street The wharf-elephants moved aggressively to cut him off—but just then, help arrived from an unexpected quarter.

  Dath and the street idlers had suddenly reappeared to enclose the two drunken marauders in a businesslike semicircle. Without threat or preamble the blows were driven in, low and fast—darting so swiftly, Conan could not tell if they were struck with bare fists, brass cesti or, hopefully not, knife-blades. The longshoremen battled vainly for a moment, then turned and stumbled away through the tavern’s open bam doors. They were pursued a few steps by their vanquishers, who gave them parting kicks and then returned, laughing cruelly among themselves.

  “Most efficient.” Conan, who had never even had the chance to land a blow, gazed solemnly at Dath and his new-found friends, the four street rogues. “You, too, could just as well fight for pay in the arena.”

  “One or more of them will, if I have any say in it,” Dath replied frankly. “They are good steady fellows.”

  “I still think we could have beaten them without any help.” Roganthus, rising belatedly from his keg-seat, managed to look morose and disappointed.

  “We had best go, in case they return with the wharf guards. They are few but troublesome.” Jemain, who had evidently been the one to run and fetch Dath in the first place, beckoned them outside, back toward the city gate.

  As they downed their drinks and went, eight in number now and enough to face down any marauders, Dath sounded well-pleased.

  “I tell you, Conan, I am glad we travelled here to Luxur. Already I feel right at home!”

  VIII

  Battle Practice

  In the days that followed their Circus début, the players worked hard at learning Luxur’s ways at polishing their acts. A new arena spectacle was proclaimed by Commodorus, droned forth by crier from the temple porticoes and announced in red clay daubings on public notice walls. It was scheduled for an imminent date, a few days hence, a special extra showing to be wedged in before the traditional Bast Day exhibition.

  This news caused a pleasant flurry of expectation among the populace. The pace of renovation on the stadium was stepped up accordingly. Even Conan, caught up in the general fervour, undertool a program of physical training to master the way and weapons of the arena.

  When not battering at the various dummies in the exercise yard, and doing severe damage to their cantilevered limbs, he resorted to human sparring partners. Some of these were from a special class of arena slaves, adept at holding up wooden swords and shields and dodging the trainees’ over-eager blows.

  But Conan preferred working with his real fellow gladiators, closely observing their moves and timing. Most often he sparred with Muduzaya the Sword master, learning respect for the black warrior’s subtle misdirections and the swift, powerful sweep of his mock sword. He sustained frequent scrapes and bruises, and dealt out some others himself, yet considered it a small price to pay for the useful drill. It said much about the ease and affinity of these two men that their practice, with all its thumps and abrasions, never crossed over the line into real, murderous combat.

  In the evenings, after long days of exertion, some of the warriors found themselves drawn with Conan to the disreputable surroundings of Namphet’s pub in the Canal Wharf district. In spite of the poverty and filth of the wretched neighbourhood, the place somehow felt congenial. It catered to foreigners, for one thing—to barge-polers and camel-tenders laying over from Shem and the eastern deserts. There in the shanty town, a fighter could guzzle his native brew and share gossip with visitors in familiar dialects. Then, too, the public house stood well outside the fashionable city quarters where the athletes were recognized and tiresomely fussed over by adoring Circus fans.

  It was not a stylish place, the Pleasure Barge, but it was run by an ex-gladiator. The toilers and farm types who frequented it would either challenge a man openly or let him drink in peace.

  Some few of the fighters, and especially the circus players, actively sought out the city’s accolades; Luddhew, Bardolph, and Roganthus boasted of being wined and dined nightly by rich Corinthians and civic officials. Conan guessed that Sathilda might secretly crave such distinction; but for the time being, she was content to crowd in with a pack of cursing gladiators, aboard chariots commandeered from the arena stables. Often as not, the big cat Qwamba was left behind to guard their love-nest while she and Conan thundered off to carouse night-long outside the city wall.

  “Do you know what events are slated for this upcoming show?” Conan asked Ignobold, one of the older gladiators, over drinks at Namphet’s. “Will it be wild beasts again, or single combats? Surely they cannot find another group of foreigners as gullible as we were, to be lured blindly into the arena.”

  Ignobold was a swart, black-browed Ophirean. He had wandered southward guarding a caravan and found Luxur and its bloody Circus Imperium to his liking. “I heard they caught a troop of marauding bandits from Khauran,” he murmured over his cupful of arrak. “Military renegades... you can expect to meet them in the killing-pit this time around.”

  “Is that so?” Conan turned to Sathilda at his side. “Khauranians are good fighters,” he frankly told her. “They should make worthy adversaries.”

  One of the older and more battle-scarred heroes, revered by the city fans as Halbard the Great, leaned over his bench. “I was set to fight Saul Stronghand this time around, man-to-man, for high stakes.” The rival he named, one of the younger gladiators, was not present at the pub. But even so, Halbard spoke in a gruff, confidential tone to the handful seated around the table. “I did not fear the contest in the least—no, indeed, that Stronghand is a raw upstart, cocky and overrated, if you ask me.” He shrugged his massive shoulders, his callused fingers tugging at one battered ear. “But that weasel Zagar, the so-called talent-procurer, came creeping up to me the other day. He wanted me to lose the fight—take some small wound, he suggested, and go down in the sand. My life would be spared, so he assured me—and I would receive a share of the prize money in secret.” He frowned and shook his head in sullen disapproval.

  Listening closely, Conan leaned forward. “You refused him, then?” he asked.

  “Refused? Why, I offered to flatten his nose for him and tamp that silken fez down about his ears!” Halbard shook a scarred ham-fist and thumped it down on the keg-top. “I would not sacrifice my reputation that way, not for any mere passing gain—my good name is my livelihood, my one true possession! I told him, lay your crooked money on me instead, Zagar, for I will fight Saul Stronghand and trounce him well! Now there is some talk that the match will be cancelled—not if I have anything to say about it!” He shook his jowled, battle-scarred face in indignation.

  Muduzaya, who had been listening from an adjacent keg, now spoke. “Have a care, old friend. These bettors often try to sway the outcome of the contests. They go against a fighter’s strength and popularity if possible, just to promote their own long bets. They would make our reputations rise and fall like a juggler’s batons if they could.” With one large hand he clapped the battered warrior on the shoulder. “You will have to fight all the harder these next few games to keep your standing.” “Indeed,” Conan added, intending to comfort the melancholy man further. “Just stay alert and lucky. I would guess there is a rich, easy retirement for a fighter as well-beloved as you.”

  While Conan waited, the other drinkers said nothing. At their too-conspicuous silence, he felt compelled to press home his point. “Is that not so? Do most of the successful gladiators live out their days here in Luxur, or do they travel home in glory?”
He spoke low, trying not to let his question carry to Namphet, who struggled to fill beakers and keep track of payments with his one remaining hand and eye.

  “Yes, well, that was my plan,” Muduzaya said. “I always intended to save my pay and my wagers and retire after a few years in this business, Set granting me some good luck.” He shrugged apologetically. “But you must understand, Conan, we gladiators are not the best and wisest at keeping money. If we were, we would be temple coin-changers instead of man-butchers.”

  “To be sure,” Ignobold put in, “a man has to keep up appearances and be generous to his friends and concubines. It is hard enough to live decently on the pay they give us for risking our lives, believe me! And these odds makers—if you can turn a profit against them, even betting on the surest outcome, you are a soothsayer indeed!”

  “In truth,” Muduzaya said glumly, “I cannot think of a single noted gladiator who has kept his place in Luxur over these half dozen years. There are those who departed for Corinthia and the Hyborian cities, of course—and Commodorus himself, who they say was an arena fighter in his early days. But as a rule, our sort does not know how to handle business affairs.”

  “That is why a wise gladiator has a business advisor,” the ragamuffin Jemain piped up from the end of the table. “If you want, Muduzaya, I’ll be your handler.”

  Conan could almost imagine taking him up on the offer himself—though, on further consideration, he guessed that the brassy urchin might prove no more wise or honest than Zagar and the rest.

  Of all the gladiators and circus folk, the one who appeared to have the most business sense was Dath, and he was in their midst ever less frequently. He seldom troubled to attend practice sessions—though the two street ruffians he introduced, Sistus and Baphomet, turned up regularly and trained with cool energy. Born fighters from the city’s outlying slums, they were quick to master the subtle tricks of the arena.