He was ushered into an office of palatial proportions, and a man looked up at him from behind a desk of equally imposing size. The man himself was fat, with sagging flesh drooping in unhealthy folds, spilling over the tight collar of his embroidered tunic and hanging over his belt like a suspended waterfall. His flesh was greyish, and his small brown eyes peered from the folds ' as from behind ramparts.
'Here is the foreigner, Your Excellency,' the big man reported.
'Very well, Julus. You, barbarian, come here.' He gestured with a gloved finger. Over the gloves Bombas wore rings upon every finger. Even his thumbs sported large seal rings.
Conan stepped forward. 'Yes?'
'I saw you watching that fight a little while ago,' the Reeve
said.
'And I saw you watching it, too,' said the Cimmerian.
The Reeve's face gained a little colour. 'What is it to me if the riff-raff of this town murder each other? Good riddance is what I say to that. But I make it my business to know what new villains solicit my town. I knew you for a Cimmerian the moment saw you. I was a junior officer in Gunderland years ago, and I know your breed. You are all troublemakers, and there are still some of us who haven't forgotten Venarium.'
'I've made no trouble in your town,' Conan maintained, 'although I've seen very little but trouble since I rode through your gate.'
'What is your business here?' the Reeve demanded.
Conan decided that he had better say nothing about Piris. 'A way back on the road, I drove off some bandits about to victimize a woman. A respectable, Aquilonian lady. She was on her way either to find her sister, who had run away with a gambler, and I agreed to help her.''
There was no belief in the Reeve's expression. 'Knight-errantry is for aristocrats, not for a common sell sword like you.'
Conan shrugged, knowing better than to plead nobility of purpose. 'She is paying me.'
'Well, I will have my eye on you from now on. This is my city, and I like to regulate the comings and goings of the scoundrels who infest it. Get your business done and move on. I have no need for the likes of you in this city.'
Conan wanted to laugh in the face of this pig-eyed lout who would pretend to control this town when he was too fearful to leave his own palace.
'And further,' said Bombas, 'there is one man whose company you should particularly avoid. His name is Maxio. He murdered my brother, and the moment I see him, he draws his last
breath.' Now the Reeve's tone grew conciliatory. 'Still, so long as you keep to lawful employment, and stay not too long, you will have no trouble from me. You have been warned. However,' and now his voice became almost friendly, 'should you learn of where Maxio is hiding, that is information for which I will pay handsomely. Keep it in mind. And now, good day to you.'
Conan turned and went to the door, then turned back. 'Your, Excellency?''
The Reeve looked up from his papers. 'Yes?'
'As King's Reeve, you are empowered to have a hundred men-at-arms, all mounted, are you not?'
'That is so.'
'Yet I have seen only about a score, and none of them on horseback. Why is that?'
The Reeve looked at him coldly. 'When I need to consult with a penniless barbarian on matters of military policy, rest assured that I shall send for you instantly. Now, begone.'
Smiling, Conan turned and left.
V
The Fat Man
From the Reeve's palace, Conan continued his exploration of the city. South of the Square, the buildings were older and a great deal shabbier. By the time he reached the Pit, they were truly dilapidated. Here the streets were nearly deserted, and the few inhabitants bore the ragged look of poverty and drunkenness. This was a district of predators and scavengers, who slept by day and preyed by night.
Apparently the clean-up crews never strayed far south of the Square, for here the streets and alleys were slick with filth and the rats were as abundant in the day as at night. He found the Wyvern, its door bolted at this early hour.
He walked to the confluence of the rivers and arrived in time to see some bodies floating by, most likely those of the men who had been slain in the riot. All had been thoroughly stripped, and the river fish already nibbled at the ghastly mess of exposed organs floating next to one of the corpses.
Satisfied that he understood the basic layout of the town, Conan turned his steps back northward. This time he took a different route, and he noted that the more prosperous, newer section of the town had a system of sewers beneath the streets. He knew from experience that these could be handy for escape in time of need, and he made a mental note of every access hatch he passed.
Once, as he stood next to a clothes-seller's stall, a procession passed by. A score of men and women, most of them quite young, followed a man bearing the image of a large-breasted female deity that bore a Vendhyan look. The followers clashed tuneless instruments and chanted endlessly. Conan inquired of the vendor who these people might be, and the man made a sour face.
'Followers of Mother Doorgah. Their leader is a priest who came here a couple of years ago and moved into the old Temple of Mitra on the Square. They're a nuisance, but harmless enough.'
'Is that allowed?' Conan asked. 'I thought that only state deities were permitted to have temples in a royal burgh.'
The man looked at him pityingly. 'It seems that this goddess has money. That is all that is required in Sicas.'
Moving on, Conan checked with the gate guard and found that Piris had not yet made an appearance. Where was the man? Already, Conan was impatient with the waiting. Sicas was a town where a man of courage, strength, and enterprise could grow very { rich, and the Cimmerian had thought of several ways that he might hasten his own growth in that direction. The eight hundred dishas he had yet to earn from Piris, which had seemed a goodly fortune just a few days before, now seemed a paltry sum. He decided to give Piris one more day to contact him; failing that, he would commence operations on his own.
There were still two hours of daylight remaining, so the Cimmerian went to the inn and saddled his horse. Both he and the animal needed the exercise. He wanted the beast to be in top shape should his leave-taking of Sicas be precipitate and not lacking in company.
Outside the city, he put the horse through its paces, finishing with a hard gallop and then a leisurely, cooling walk on the return to the city gate. Back at the inn, he oversaw the animal's currying and gave the stable boy specific instructions as to the mount's care and feeding, tipping the lad handsomely to be sure that his orders were carried out conscientiously.
As he walked from the stable, his stomach reminded him that lie had not eaten since breakfast. His relatively active day had left him ravenous. He was striding toward the public room when a man stood in his way.
'Your pardon, sir,' said the man, who, Conan realized, was not much more than a boy, and one with a weakly pretty face. By way of compensation he wore a brigantine of brown velvet studded with brass, and his open cloak revealed that he wore not one, but two swords.
'Yes?' Conan grumbled. Hunger always put him in an ill temper.
'My master would speak with you.'
'Boy,' Conan said, 'I do not know your master, and I do not know you, and you stand between me and my dinner. Stand aside, and if your master wishes to speak with me, he may come here and ask for me within.'
'I am sorry, sir, but I must insist. My master desires most urgently to speak with you, and in fact, he invites you to share dinner with him.'
'That is better, but still not good enough. Stand aside.' He pushed past the youth and walked toward the common room. 'Sir!'
This time Conan whirled. 'Curse you, boy. What do—' He stopped when he saw the small crossbow that the youth levelled at him. He must have had it hooked beneath his cloak, already drawn and with a bolt fitted to the string. 'Now, sir, will you come with me?'
'Are you as good as you think you are? That thing lacks the power to punch through this armour, and I have slain many men while
badly wounded.' His hand went to his hilt.
The youth smiled. 'Perhaps so. But do you truly want to get a bolt through your leg, or your arm, or perhaps even through an eye? That is a great annoyance to endure just to turn down an offer of dinner.''
'Your master had better be a very, very generous man,' Conan said. 'Let's go.'
The youth walked just behind Conan and directed his route. From the inn they walked but a short distance, then went around to the rear of a fine stone house. The boy indicated that he should™ climb an exterior stair to the house's half-timbered second story and Conan complied, halting at a landing facing a heavy door. 'This is the place,' the boy said. 'Now, knock.'
Conan knocked. Then he whirled and snatched the crossbow from the youth's hands and tossed it to the ground below. Cursing, the lad reached for his swords, but his hands closed on Co-nan's, which already gripped the hilts.
Conan grinned at him. 'Men who are not confident in their swordsmanship sometimes think that two swords make them twice as dangerous.' Abruptly the Cimmerian yanked the two blades free of their scabbards. Before the youth could even think to move,; Conan was behind him, and the blades crossed just beneath his; chin. 'But it is not true,' Conan concluded.
At that moment the door began to open and Conan barged through, pushing the boy before him. A man sprang back as they! entered. Conan braced a knee against the boy's back and shoved' him forward just as the blades snapped away from the lad's neck.
'Your boy is too young to be allowed to play with dangerous! toys,' Conan said, casting the twin swords at the man's feet. The I youth sprawled in a corner, holding a hand to his head, which I had made violent contact with the wall.
The man Conan addressed was immense, not only tall, but enormously fat. If Bombas was a wreck of sagging, pallid flesh, this man was a majestic monument of billowing fat, appearing to be constructed of spheres stacked one atop another. His immensity, poised on incongruously tiny feet, seemed to float weightlessly as he moved. He was dressed in richly ornate garments and wore many jewels; his fat face was as pink and cherubic as a babe's. But his eyes were as hard and sharp as sword points. He walked over to the youth and looked down sadly.
'Gilmay, Gilmay,' he sighed. 'What am I to do with you? I give you simple instructions. I say: 'Gilmay, go and ask, respectfully, mind you, that this Cimmerian gentleman come to meet with me, that we may break bread and hold converse together.' Hut do you follow my instructions? No, indeed you do not. Instead, you must measure yourself against a tried warrior. Simple courtesy is not sufficient, for you must play with swords. Well, this gentleman has very properly chastised you, and you should be grateful that he did you no harm in the process. Now, Gilmay, I adjure you to apologize to this gentleman.'
The boy looked up, furious, but he saw something in the fat man's face that cowed him thoroughly. He turned to Conan and bowed. 'I beg your forgiveness, sir.'
Conan stood thunderstruck throughout the strange performance. 'You did all the suffering,' he said.
'And that being the case,' said the fat man, 'let us all be friends and sit down and have dinner like civilized men.'
'I am not a civilized man,' Conan said.
'And yet,' the other said, 'you displayed the true, the inner... that is to say, the spiritual... quality of civilization and gentility. I cannot tell you, sir, how much I admire one who has not only the strength and spirit to conquer, but tempers these manly virtues with the qualities of compassion and the fine judgement, the delicate discrimination, to know when the proper amount of force has been applied and that no more need be exercised. I admire that, sir, indeed I do.'
Conan endured the torrent of words with equanimity. 'Get to the point.'
'The point? But, sir, is dinner not the very point of existence? Would any day be complete without it? And if not complete, how can any day be of profit? So let us to dinner, sir, and then we shall speak of other matters.'
'A bite of dinner would not come amiss,' Conan allowed.
'Gilmay, inform our host that we are to be served immediately.'
The fat man turned to Conan. 'And now, sir, that the air has been cleared between us, now that all hostility has been disperse, and an air of tranquillity prevails over all, I pray you be seated and allow me to pour you a cup of this excellent wine of Poitain,' laid down many years before either of us afflicted the ears of our fond parents with babyish squalls. This is a fine, full-spirited Altuga Red, its grapes grown on the southward-facing slopes of a vineyard of that province, brought to fullest maturity, picked by, stout yeomen and trampled by the shapely bare feet of the most beauteous peasant lasses of that fortunate land. Those feet, where they are not crumbled to dust, are now gnarled and cankered with age, but their former beauty remains enshrined in this most excellent vintage.' He poured two cups full and handed one to. Conan. The Cimmerian watched the other man drain his glass before doing likewise. It was splendid wine, he thought, even without all the build-up. He held out his glass and the fat man refilled both.
'And now, sir,' the man said, 'I know that you are a Cimmerian and that your name is Conan.'
'You're better informed than I in that matter,' Conan said. 'Then let us correct that at the outset. Your humble servant whom you see standing before you, and eager to offer hospitality, is Casperus, a scholar and minor, I say very minor, wizard of Numalia, in Nemedia. Do you know the city?' 'I've been there,' Conan nodded.
'A wonderful city. A place of scholars and artists, where even such an inept fellow as I could study and gain a humble reputation as a mage. The arts of magic, of course, are terrible and mysterious and require, alas, that one who would be a true master begin his studies in earliest youth, enduring all the sufferings and privations of the ascetic. Alas, I did not have the opportunity to do this, but instead came to study the mysteries only after reaching full maturity and, as you have no doubt observed,' he gestured self-deprecatingly at his rotund form, 'I lack the qualities of true
self-denial. No, I was trained and spent much of my life as an appraiser in art objects, rarities of which most persons cannot even assess the value.'
The Cimmerian nodded, evincing polite interest, giving half an ear to the man's incredibly voluble words but far more attention to matters of gesture and expression. Once, as a naive barbarian youth adrift in the bewildering world of the great cities and city-states and empires, Conan had been gulled by appearances, taken in by words. That was no longer true. He had long ago learned to look beyond outward demeanour and make a far shrewder judgement of his fellow men, although by his own admission, he was a good deal less canny where women were concerned.
The man wanted to give the appearance of a fat, eccentric, rather foolish dabbler in magical arts. That he was indeed fat was unassailable fact. The rest was not. Behind the aspect of softness and the flood of words, Conan perceived a ruthless, brilliant mind at work, and a will as strong as any he had encountered in his life. He said nothing of this, and that, too, was a lesson he had learned early and at great cost.
'Despite my late and, if the truth be told, quite superficial studies,' Casperus continued, 'I acquired enough mastery of the arts thaumaturgic to be able to find a man of many rare qualities, just such qualities as I require, residing within a close radius of my own location. Allow me to show you, sir.'
He walked to a low table, gesturing tor Conan to follow. The Cimmerian did so. He disliked sorcery, but he scented something far more than sorcery here, something far sweeter and far more to his taste. Conan scented money, in large amounts.
On the table rested a wooden object resembling an open book. The hinged cover lay back, revealing strange characters carved into its inner surface. Set into the other half was a round mirror made of what appeared to be black glass.
'Know you what this is, sir?' asked Casperus with amazing brevity.
'A scrying glass,' Conan said. It was a common device, used by sorcerers to discern distant or hidden matters.
'Exactly, sir, exactly. An elementary
thing, but truly indispensable. I had but to concentrate my thoughts upon my requirements, speak a simple spell or two, and behold! There did my scrying glass reveal, in this very city, sir, just such a man as met my requirements. To wit: a warrior of Cimmeria, a bold and hardy son of that most notably bold and hardy race.'
Before Conan could seek more explanation, the servers appeared, coming from below-stairs. They wore livery and per- I formed their task with the swiftness and efficiency of well-trained I domestics, setting up a trestle table, covering it with a snowy cloth and loading it with serving platters. When the last platter I had been laid and the candles lighted, the table looked ready to I collapse with the weight of opulence. There was a profusion of delicacies, but the centrepiece was an entire roast pig, its eyes I replaced by cherries and in its mouth an apple studded with cloves. I 'Where are the others?' Conan inquired. 'What others, sir?' asked Casperus, seating himself. 'The other diners, of course.' Conan seated himself likewise. 'Surely all this is not for just the two of us?' 'And wherefore not, sir?' the mage demanded. Conan accounted himself a trencherman of no mean capacity, but he was certain that he could not have made his way through this spread in a week.
'As I have said, sir, I am at best a third-rate wizard, and before that, a most humble and obscure purveyor of works of art. I am upon no account an accomplished warrior, and to my chagrin, I must confess that in the arts amatory, my deeds must be accounted laughable. However, in the feats of the table, I yield second place to no man, sir, to no man! You and I, sir, each in his own way, possess qualities that border upon the heroic, so why should we feel ourselves bound by the cautions and the appearances of lesser men? Would you practice at arms with an untried youth who is no match for your strength and skill? Well, sir, neither will I face such a meal as would satisfy the paltry
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