Conan the Swordsman

by L. Sprague De Camp

  "The folk are frightened these days," replied the taverner. "We know not what will happen. Word travels on forked tongues that the king has imprisoned his queen because, quoth he, she excelled in lewdness whilst he was busy with his councillors. But she is a' gentle lady, always just and kind to the common folk when she travels in the land, and never the hot breath of scandal has scorched her before.

  "Lately the barons have kept to their castles, laying up supplies and preparing for war. We know not how the king's mind runs."

  Conan grunted. "You mean, you wonder if the king has lost his sanity. What faction now rules this weakling?"

  "The king's cousin, Rigello, is said to be in favor again. Five years since, he burned ten villages of his fief when the rains came not and folk could not deliver to their liege their quota of crops. He was therefore banished from the court; but now, they say, he has returned. If true, this bodes ill for the rest of us."

  The door of the tavern opened; a gust of air and the jingle of bells interrupted the talk. Conan beheld a grizzled warrior in helmet and mail, with a star-shaped emblem on his chest, who shortly doffed his casque and threw it clanging on the floor.

  "Wine, damn you," he said hoarsely. "Wine to slake my thirst and deaden my conscience!"

  A tavern maid hurried to fetch a pitcher and goblet. Conan asked: "Who is that man?"

  The host lowered his voice and, leaning forward, murmured: "Captain Garus, an officer of Queen Marala's guard. The regiment is now disbanded. I do but hope he has the wherewithal to pay for his victuals."

  Conan took a silver coin from his pouch. "This will pay for his eating and drinking, and mine, too. The balance will cause you to forget our talk."

  The taverner opened his mouth as if to speak, but after a glance at the grim eyes of the black-browed Cimmerian, he merely answered with a nod and scuttled back to his wine taps. Picking up his own pitcher and goblet, Conan carried them to the old soldier's table and seated himself boldly.

  "I offer you health, Captain!" he said.

  The ex-officer's faded eyes fixed themselves on Conan's face with unexpected sharpness.

  '"Do you try to make a fool of me, stranger? By Mitra, do you mock me? I know full well that I should have laid down my life defending my queen and that I failed to do so. You need not tell me this!"

  Conan curbed the curt reply that trembled on his hps when the tavern door slammed open and four men in ebon mail stamped in, hands on sword hilts. Their leader, a gaunt fellow with a white scar stitched from ear to mouth, pointed a mail-gloved finger. "Seize the traitor!"

  The old captain lumbered to his feet, tugging at his sword, as the grasping hands of two soldiers seized and tried to disarm him. Conan leaped to the table top, and with a sweeping kick, sent one of the intruders tumbling into a comer. The other aimed a cut at Conan's legs; but the Cimmerian leaped high with folded knees, and the blade whistled harmlessly beneath his feet. Then his booted heels slammed into the chest of the attacker, and both men hit the straw-covered floor in a whirl of thrashing limbs. The man collapsed with a scream of anguish as his ribs cracked under the blows of the mighty Cimmerian.

  Conan rolled to his feet and swept his sword out of its scabbard just in time to parry a slash from the scar-faced officer's weapon. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his drinking companion trading blows with the remaining invader; swords flashed in the firelight. The other patrons of the inn scrambled out of the way—bursting out the door, pressing against the oaken walls, or ducking under the stout tables.

  Thrusting, slicing, and parrying with the scar-faced officer, Conan roared: "Why the devil do you interrupt my drinking?"

  "You will find out in Count Rigello's dungeons!" panted the other. "Your drinking days are done."

  Scarface, Conan realized, was a seasoned and skillful fighter. During a brief pause, the officer drew a poniard from his belt, and after deflecting one of*' Conan's furious attacks, he threw himself into a body-to-body bind, stabbing at Conan with his free left arm.

  Catching the man's wrist, Conan dropped his blade. With a speed no civilized man could match, he clapped a hand to the other's thigh, hoisted him high above his head, and hurled him to the floor with an earth-shaking crash. The officer's weapons clattered away, and he lay, barely breathing, blood gushing from his mouth.

  Conan retrieved his sword and turned to see how Garus fared. The old soldier's opponent had lost his weapon and now stood with back to wall, nursing a bloodstained arm and murmuring pleas for quarter.

  "Have done with him!" shouted Conan. "Let us be off!"

  Garus slapped the man's ear with a gusty blow to the side of his head, and the fellow, moaning, tumbled into the straw. The innkeeper and the bravest of the tavern's habitués clustered in the doorway, gaping at the carnage and the overturned tables; but Conan and Garus, ignoring their slack-jawed stares, sheathened their weapons and hastened out. Soon they were galloping toward Ianthe, hooves drumming on the clay roadbed, cloaks blown backward in the wind.

  "Why did you, a stranger, save my hide?" grumbled Garus when they slackened their speed to a trot.

  Conan's rude laugh floated back along the moonlit road. "I like not to be disturbed at my drinking. Besides, I have business with your queen, and I shall find your help of value to procure an audience."

  He spurred his mount, and the horses plunged forward into the velvet night.

  At dawn they thundered into the city, which straddled the Red River, a tributary of the Khorotas. The rising sun painted the windows of the tile-roofed buildings myriad shades of red, and the metallic ornaments on the domes and towers twinkled, jewel-like, in the clear morning light.

  -

  2 • "Fetch Me the Dragon's Feet"

  Again a tavern, again a table, again a pitcher of wine. At the Wild Boar in Ianthe sat Conan and Garus, swathed in voluminous hooded robes, purchased with gold the Cimmerian had brought from Zamboula. The merchants of the city favored these garments because, Conan guessed, their sheer bulk aided many to cozen their customers. In this surmise, Conan was not altogether wrong; but the robes also lessened a man's chance of recognition by the minions of Lord Rigello, a useful aspect of the apparel.

  The wine drinkers talked in low voices to a dark-skinned young woman in a servant's smock, of a quality that bespoke service in a wealthy household. The girl was red-eyed from weeping.

  'T do so want to help my queen!" she said.

  "Keep your voice down," growled Conan. "Where is she now?"

  "In the West Tower of the royal palace. Ten of Count Rigello's men guard her door, and her chambermaid brings her food. The only person else allowed to visit her is her physician."

  "What is his name?" said Conan, eyes glinting.

  "The learned Doctor Khafrates, who dwells by the Comer Gate. He is an old and wise friend to the queen."

  "Fear not, little one," said Conan. "We shall meet with the good doctor to see if he can cure the queen's affliction. But first let's have a look at this West Tower."

  The young evening wore a wreath of rosy clouds in honor of the coming night, and the streets of Ianthe rang with the shouts and laughter of the populace. Conan and Garus strolled among them and unnoticed reached the West Tower of the royal palace. The tower formed a corner bastion of the curtain wall encircling the palace grounds. Its cylinder of masonry rose abruptly from the side of one of the city's major avenues. There were no openings on the four lower stories of the tower, but above that level, windows pierced the massive structure, some illuminated from within.

  "Which is the queen's chamber?" whispered Conan.

  "Let me see," said the girl. "It is that one, the second row up, third window from the right end." She pointed.

  "Don't point, lass; you'll draw attention." Conan walked to the base of the wall and examined the masonry.

  "Nobody could climb that wall," said Garus.

  "No? You have not seen what a Cimmerian hillman can do." Conan fingered the grouting between the ashlars of stone. "You're
right in one way, Garus. The recesses between the stones lack depth for toe- and finger-holds. Had I the world of time, I could scale this wall by digging mortar from between the stones to make my own holds as I climbed. Well, let us now find Doctor Khafrates."

  -

  The good doctor was a portly man with a vast gray beard that lay, like melting snow, upon his expansive chest. Thoughtfully he answered Conan's questions.

  "In accordance with my oath, I treat all who come for healing, no matter on which side of the law they stand. So, in the course of timeless years, I have come to know the city's leading thieves. I would not reveal one name to any man, save for my queen....

  "I will accompany you to the lair of Torgrio the thief, who has but lately retired from his old profession. In his day he was a daring practitioner of his peculiar art. He was a burglar, apt at climbing lofty walls, who now lives on his ill-gotten gains, betimes selling stolen merchandise for younger colleagues. Come."

  Torgrio's house, a small but well-kept structure, nestled between a magnate's mansion on one side and a pottery works on the other. It was a house to which a thrifty, hardworking tradesman might retire after a lifetime of scrimping; for it wore respectability like a garment. Torgrio was no man to make an ostentatious display of his felonious gains.

  The man himself was of so spare a build as to remind Conan of a spider. When Khafrates introduced the news comers and vouched for them, Torgrio smiled a snag-toothed grin.

  "Like the good doctor, I have my principles," he said, "but this case admits of exceptions. What would you of me?"

  "Means to climb the Western Tower," said Conan. "Indeed?" said Torgrio, raising an eyebrow. "What means?"

  "You know what I need," growled Conan. "There are such things in Ianthe. When I was in the business myself, I heard about them."

  "I'll allow they do exist," said Torgrio.

  "Then, will you show them to me?"

  "Perhaps, for a consideration," said Torgrio with a shrug. He called across his shoulder, "Junia, fetch me the dragon's feet!"

  Presently a middle-aged woman padded in, her arms full of steel devices. Torgrio took them and, fingering them, explained:

  "This pair is clamped to your boots—if indeed they will cover feet as large as yours—while this pair is for your hands. First, you adjust the clamps to the size of the courses of stone. Then you place a dragon's foot against one course and pull the handle down, so, clamping these claws into the upper and lower edges of a stone. To release the device, you push the handle up, so. Always retain your grip with one hand and foot while moving upward to another course of stone."

  Garus shuddered. "If Mitra himself commanded me to crawl up a wall like a fly, I could not."

  Conan's laughter was like thunder in the hills. "I got my head for heights on the cliffs of my native land. Sometimes it was either climb or lose your life. Let's practice somewhat on your garden wall, Torgrio."

  -

  3 • The Wall No Fly Could Climb

  The captain of the guardsmen halted the stout Khafrates outside the chamber assigned to the queen.

  Amid the guard's crude jests about his rotund figure, the physician endured their routine search. Then the heavy locks clanked open, and Khafrates entered the queen's apartment.

  The dark-skinned slave girl, now in flowing robes, conducted him into the inner room. The apartment proved a luxurious prison. Tapestries from Iranistan and Vendhya adorned the walls; golden goblets and polished silver salvers gleamed on painted shelves above deep painted cupboards carved in high relief.

  Queen Marala's shining hair "poured a tousled, flaxen mass across her pillow as she lay weeping on her couch. The couch and cushions on which she lay were covered with Turanian cloth of gold, but the fine furnishings did nothing to assuage her sorrow. She exhaled in painful sighs, and her slender young body shivered beneath the whirlwind of her emotion.

  The slave girl spoke softly but anxiously: "My Queen! The learned Doctor Khafrates is here. Will you receive him?"

  Marala raised her head and wiped her eyes on a linen napkin. "Oh, yes! Come in, good Doctor! You are my only friend outside these walls; for you alone I trust. You may leave us, dear Rima."

  Khafrates waddled in, briefly bent a knee, and grunted as he straightened it again. Marala motioned him to a settle near the pillows of her couch. As he sat down, she seized one of his hands in both of hers.

  "It is so good to see you, Doctor Khafrates!" she said. "I grow desperate. I have now been here a month, friendless save for you and Rima.

  "I have ever been loyal to Moranthes, but now his treatment of me has become too much to bear. Rima reports that Rigello's guards swagger about the palace and the city streets like conquerors, and my husband jumps when Rigello snaps his fingers.

  "You must advise me, dear friend. You know my father persuaded me to wed King Moranthes to preserve the reigning blood line of this land. I cared not for the king, knowing him to be a weak and unstable vessel, but I did my patriotic duty. I think even Father had regrets before the nuptial feast, but he could not tell the king of them and hope to live.

  "As it came to pass, Father's dreams of sturdy princelings for the throne of Ophir proved fruitless. Moranthes cares naught for women; his tastes run to .... in other directions. Then my troubles multiplied when, a year gone by, some worthless wight filched the Star of Khorala!"

  Khafrates stroked his beard to collect his thoughts. Never had the queen addressed him with such candor. No courtier physician he, using his position for political gain, and for this reason he was still allowed to minister to the imprisoned queen. Yet now, he needs must risk that role and with it risk his very life.

  He called to mind his recent conversation with the giant blue-eyed barbarian and the grizzled captain of the Queen's Guard who, in happier times, was wont to stride about his duties in the palace. His blood ran cold as he thought of the peril they had placed him in. Yet he loved the beautiful woman, hardly out of her girlhood, who now appealed to him for help. Suddenly he was glad that he had summoned up the courage to meet the would-be rescuers and abet their plot. He passed a soothing hand over the queen's forehead saying:

  "Despair not, Your Majesty! Your heart is pinched by long confinement, lack of human contact, and ignorance of the world outside. Help may be closer than you think."

  Queen Marala sat up and swept her hair back from her face, as her inborn courage strove to conquer her depression.

  "You are kind, Khafrates. Yet you must realize that when I possessed the Star, Moranthes feared its power. Now he fears it no more and cares not what becomes of me."

  Khafrates lifted bushy eyebrows. "What then was the power of the gem, my Queen?"

  "Was and is, though vulgar legend misinterprets it." She shrugged. "Moranthes imagined that the stone enabled me to enslave men as I wished. He so believed, and thus the people came, also, to believe it. But the legend is false."

  She rose, drew herself up, and looked hard at the physician. "Think you that I need magic to persuade any man to my will—any normal, manly man, that is?"

  Although Khafrates was old, he well knew the power to incite desire that lay within the queen's fine-chiseled lips and the sweet rondure of her lithe body—a body that her gown did little to conceal. He shook his head.

  "I will tell you a story," said Marala, moving gracefully about the chamber, brows indrawn with thought. "Count Alarkar, my ancestor seven generations removed, first owned the Star of Khorala. A famous traveler of his time—and this was long before the present ruling house of Ophir ascended to the throne —he traveled in the East where no Ophirean had ere set foot...."

  Khafrates coughed an interruption. "Your Majesty, I have some urgent news...."

  Caught up in her recollections, the queen imperiously gestured him to silence. "When Alarkar traveled in the Vendhyan jungles, he came upon the mined city of Khorala, inhabited only by a hermit. This hermit was nigh starved; for he had broken a leg and was unable to cultivate his garden patch.<
br />
  "Alarkar nursed the injured man to health, while his retinue scoured the nearby forest aisles for food. In gratitude the lone old man disclosed a cache of treasure beneath the floor of a ruined temple thereabouts and told Alarkar to take whatever he wished. My ancestor chose a ring inset with a great gem stone of azure, and in the sapphire heart of the jewel pulsed an everlasting fire confined within the sphere, like a silver star. This he chose and nothing more."

  "Why did he not take many jewels?" asked Khafrates in amazement.

  The queen smiled. "Count Alarkar was not a greedy man, nor was he without wide wealth at home. Besides, I suppose, he thought that if his retinue departed laden with the riches of the jungle city, they would run afoul of cutthroats and avaricious rulers. In any case, that single ring was all he asked.