The three men were staring at each other when Khashtris came rustling out among the particoloured columns, ready to return home.
As dusk shadowed the palace with rose and a deepening mauve within its chambers, lalamis sat very close to Sergianus. He was discoursing on a proposal of Acrallidus. The young lord stared straight ahead; her eyes held their gaze as if fastened on his face, on his lips. Her lids dreamily shaded those dark eyes, but did not conceal their luminosity, their sparkle of love. Some slaves gazed so, at their masters. Her knee moved ever so slightly to rest against his, and
he glanced at her. He spoke as if in accusation; certainly not as if to a queen:
'lalamis! Are you hearing my words?'
'Yes,' she said softly. 'If you believe it is a bad idea, I will tell Acrallidus, and that will be an end to that.'
'You sound as if you're in a dream, a trance.'
'I am.'
'Can't you pay more attention to the concerns of your own realm?'
'Not while I am alone with you.'
'Can't you stop staring at me that way, woman?'
'No, Sergianus,' she said softly. 'Should I?'
He gave her thigh a careless pat, a fleeting touch. 'I must go-'
'Why?' she asked softly. She swayed closer and her lips remained parted.
He touched, only touched, her soft lips with his. His hands, clamping on her upper arms, held her back, as if at bay. 'Because I must Sergianus said, and rose and left the Queen of Khauran.
She stared dreamily after him, and she sighed.
The moment he was out of the room, Sergianus's face relaxed into a triumphant smile. have her! he thought; and with this pose of coolness, I'll soon hear her begging! And he grinned, and went to his own palace chamber.
There awaited Arkhaurus, Adviser to the Queen Khauran.
VII
Rosela... and Assassins
On the following evening Khashtris went to the palace to play at cards with the queen and others; she would remain overnight or be escorted home by royal guards. Conan and Shubal were at their ease for the night. They walked down to the tavern of Hilides.
Over the evening's first mug of ale, Conan was still stubbornly insisting that they'd been followed when the girl appeared in the tavern's doorway. She looked about fifteen. A childish mass of walnut-hued curls capped her head above a tiny-chinned heart-shaped face with eyes like matched spheres of jasper. The flippy little yellow tunic that hardly covered her elfin body was torn so that one small shoulder was exposed. Conan saw that the wide-eyed girl was panting as if she had been running. Her gaze swiftly roved the interior of its patrons and abruptly she ran to Conan. Before he could so much as exclaim, she was on his knee with her arms around him.
'Please pretend I'm your girl and if a man follows me, look mean at him!'
Conan was more than willing to wrap an arm around her. It half covered her back all the way across, with room for his hand to hold her waist; indeed, his fingers lay on her narrow little belly.
A man did step into the doorway. He too panted as though he had been running; chasing. His eyes sought within the tavern; Conan glowered. The man clenched his teeth while he stared at the huge arm shielding the girl's back — and at the icy blue eyes that were like dagger blades, levelled at him over her shoulder. Grinding his teeth, the young fellow departed into the night.
Her name was Rosela and she was lovely, and a short time later Shubal departed for he had become as the third horse to a double-hitch; the Cimmerian obviously had in
Rosela all the company he needed. Last night Conan had been very alone. Tonight he felt no sympathy for Shubal. He did not even watch the Shemite's back as he left the tavern.
Seconds afterward, a cry arose outside. It had not faded before there followed the clangour of sharp blades. The' diminutive Rosela slid off his knee as Conan rose with a curse.
His sword was in his hand before he reached the doorway.
A man lay dead or dying on the dim-lit street just outside; two others, masked, assaulted a fourth. He was Shubal, and he called Conan's name. That prompted one of his attackers to glance around.
The man turned in time to catch Conan's heavy side-armed stroke across the throat rather than the side of his neck. His severed jugular erupted and he staggered back five or six paces, looking astonished, before he fell.
Conan's and Shubal's swords struck the masked and cloaked second attacker at the same time, neck and belly.
Three men were down in their blood, and Conan had not so much as parried a stroke. He saw that blood came thickly from a nasty sword-bite in Shubal's left forearm. Thrusting the second wight through the middle, Shubal left his sword sheathed there, standing, while he clamped his hand above the cut on his other arm.
'Had to defend myself with something,' he said apologetically. 'It was get this arm hacked or lose half my face.'
'Just don't faint. Sit down.' Conan looked around to see a wide-eyed Rosela in the doorway. Other faces peered from behind her, all male. Tush back through those goggle-eyed geese behind you,' Conan said in a feral snarl, 'and get a cup of wine out here. Out of her way, you behind her. Back!'
He turned back to find that Shubal was not sitting, but asquat beside the first fallen man. 'It's poor sour old Nebinio,' the Shemite said. 'They killed him just as I came out.'
The Nemedian, Conan thought, and looked up at a dancing light and the sound of men tramping and clanking. Four came, matching of arms and armour.
There! What goes on here? You two are both foreigners, aren't you?'
Seeing that they were men of the Khauran City Watch, Conan said, "Why, yes,' and, feeling mean: 'Don't you like foreigners, then?' He squinted at the young man under the high-held lantern. A strutter, Conan thought. So damned self-important in his uniform he's like a game-cock.
'Not when I see what appear to be three corpses! Consider yourself under arrest.'
'Consider yourself in trouble if you make any other such noises, raft-prefect. I am Shubal and this is Conan, and we are bodyguards to the Noble Lady Khashtris who even foreigners know is cousin to our Queen lalamis. Close your mouth and open your eyes and you will see that two of these men are masked. Is that a clue, &-prefect, as to whom you might want to be detaining?'
Conan held his smile. He'd not seen Shubal handle himself so, before. He was impressed and pleased. The four men of the watch were standing silent; three stared at the sub-prefect, who appeared to be encountering considerable difficulty in getting his mouth closed.
At last he said, 'Shubal, you said?'
'I did. And Conan. I didn't quite hear your name.'
The man availed himself then of the opportunity to squat beside the man in the cloak; that way the name he muttered was not clear. Conan's glance met Shubal's. Shubal still clutched his wounded arm, the blood flow from which had slackened. The two smiled.
'Masked, aye,' the squatting Watch squad's commander said. 'Dead, too. This your, uh, sword, uh, Shubal?'
'This one's dead, too, Prefect. Throat's slashed out.'
'Yes, it's my sword,' Shubal said.
The sub-prefect straightened. 'Thieves?'
'Assassins,' Shubal said through close-held teeth. They murdered this man. He isn't even armed.'
'You know any of them?'
'This is Nebinio, a Nemedian who's lived here for years and years, a worker in leather. Those two are still masked — here, Conan, what're you doing?'
'Be still,' Conan said, 'pouring this wine Rosela fetched on your wound. Rosela: you leave me now and I'll find you
and slit your throat! Hurt, Shubal? Good. Now we borrow part of the cloak of this killer and tie that arm up.'
'Here,' Rosela said, 'take a strip of my tunic. That cloak's filthy.'
'Crom's beard, girl, you almost aren't wearing it already! Be still, Shubal. Let the wine soak in. Good for wounds, wine is.'
'Frightful... waste,' Shubal gasped.
Rosela stayed; her tunic remained intact to be removed late
r by the Cimmerian; a strip of city Watch-man's sash, no less, bound up Shubal's arm; neither he nor anyone in the tavern recognised the unmasked bandits. The second to fall might have lived to be questioned, for all his bearing two wounds, had not Shubal sheathed his sword in the fellow's intestines to avoid dropping it or returning it unwiped to its proper sheath. The sub-prefect handed Hilides a shiny Queenhead to cover 'whatever these two men have had this night' and gave Cimmerian and Shemite a hopeful look. The silver coin erased both their tabs altogether, but no one was of a mind to tell the sub-prefect so. When a man had made a mistake and wanted to expiate: let him! Conan and Shubal were asked, not told, to stop at the magistrate's any time on the morrow, to leave a statement. Murder had obviously been done, and justice in the form of self-defence. Still, this was not lawless Shadizar or the Mall of Arenjun, and the magistrate had his records to keep and reports to file with City Governor Acrallidus.
'Shubal,' Conan said, while the Watch moved away up the street, dragging corpses.
'Aye.'
'Feel up to walking?'
Whither?'
We are to escort you to the house of Sfalana, and then to... go our way. Think how the dear sweet melon-lady will want to nurse her wounded hero. On the morrow I will tell Noble Khashtris and darling Spartus of your wounding, so there will be no objection to your absence. Peradventure Khashtris will want to go and see the magistrate, herself.'
'Hmm. But Sfalana may be abed by now...'
'How could she not rouse herself happily to take in a poor wounded man?'
'Ah-hmm. And you...'
'I am going to show Rosela the gardens behind our little home, Shubal.'
'Co-nan...'
'Hush, Rosela darling; say me nay and I'll search the city for that weasel who chased you into my arms-and give you back!'
'No no, dear boy, it's just that you're holding my hand and every time you emphasise a word you nigh squeeze it in twain!'
Shubal laughed and took up his place on her other side.
'To Sfalana's!'
'To Sfalana's and then to the garden '
And so Conan and Rosela of Khauran escorted the wounded Shubal to the home of Sfalana, seller of fruits, and Conan took Rosela into the gardens of the Noble Khashtris, and showed her many things. And with his soul returned to him, and Rosela to hand, Conan let slip from his mind his nervousness and suspicions of the lord Sergianus of Nemedia or of Koth? —and a week passed, and to the Cimmerian one afternoon fell a strange duty.
VIII
Plot and Counterplot
It came about in this wise:
Rosela gained employment in the palace; Shubal's arm began healing nicely. Next, the queen honoured an agreement made months before; she rode down to some Khaurani town or other to join the priests in dedicating a new temple to Ishtar. With her went both Sergianus and Acrallidus. Khashtris would look after Princess Taramis.
At the last moment it was agreed that the child would remain in her own chambers rather than visit her cousin. Conan and Shubal accompanied Khashtris to the palace, with the Cimmerian feeling more dissatisfied than ever. The prospect of seeing Rosela did not help; he'd be with Khashtris and Shubal, guarding a six-year-old.
He only just saw Taramis, whom he'd never met —if one 'meets' six-year-old pre-girls, he thought sourly. Nor of course did she take any note of him; she had been surrounded by uniformed sword-wearers all her life and took less note of their faces than she did of individual spoons at meals. Shortly after her midday snack, Taramis became drowsy and Khashtris took her up for a nap.
The princess was provided with a suite of two rooms. While she slept, Conan 'was made no happier by having to sit with Shubal and Khashtris in the anteroom: the large chamber was all silk and satin and fluff, in white, pale yellow and green, the colours of Khauran. The Cimmerian proved no good student of the game with cards the two tried to teach him.
When Khashtris said she had business and departed, the men assumed it was to answer a call of nature. Shubal decided to go and see about a bit of wine; Conan enthusiastically agreed and grimly remained. At least, the big morose youth thought, reduced to being nursemaid, the brat slept!
It was then that rescue arrived: into the room swayed
Rosela, smiling. She bore a man-sized goblet.
'Here, get that vast hand off me, lunk — this wine is from the queen's own supply Drink before someone comes and I am punished for stealing. Ouch! I'm still tender there from the night before last.'
Wrinkling his features into a ridiculous expression, Conan sipped daintily. 'Hmm. Not a bad vintage,' he said, in an assumed voice that was supposed to mimic an effete aesthete of the court. And then with a grin – while one hand remained intimately busy with Rosela —he drank it off. He lowered the emptied silver goblet and her upper garment, with a long sigh of satisfaction.
'And now, my dear girl, do taste this good wine from my lips I'
'Oh, Co-nan, you're such a -'
He was still kissing her when he collapsed.
Next Conan knew, Khashtris and Shubal were shaking and slapping him, bidding him wake. Foggily he saw that tears glistened on Khashtris's face. What happened? Suddenly he was lunging to his feet, staggering, and reaching for his sword. It was gone. Conan shot Shubal a confused look.
It was then that the dizzied Cimmerian saw the man who lay sprawled in blood on a fine green rug edged with cloth-of-gold. The fellow lay still — and his dead hand was fisted around Conan's sword! The Cimmerian reeled, glanced again at his employer and fellow guard, and sat down as suddenly as he'd risen.
'You've saved my life several times, Conan,' Shubal said. 'It is my pleasure to have saved yours.'
Conan stared. His head was far from clear.
'Shubal saved both you and the princess from that man,' Khashtris told him.
'You must have been drugged,' Shubal said, 'as the princess must have been, earlier. I came in to find this fellow on the point of skulking into her bedchamber, with your sword in his hand.'
Conan shook his head. Drugged? Rosela? Why?'
'I'd say this wight meant to murder the princess and make it look as if you did it, my Cimmerian friend. See if you knew him.'
For several moments longer Conan stared dully at Shubal. Then he slid down to one knee beside the man whose blood ruined a royal carpet. Without care or that ridiculous 'respect for the dead' he had first heard of here in 'civilised' Khauran, Conan twisted the fellow's head around. A corpse stared glassily.
'He... he is famil... I have seen him befo-Shubal! This is the man who followed Rosela that night she came fleeing into the tavern!'
'Ah. Well, it wasn't Rosela he was after today!'
Conan extricated his sword from the man's hand, which had not yet constricted in that final stony grip. He stood and sheathed the weapon. 'Rosela came in just after you left,' he said. 'She brought me wine-in a silver cup.'
'It isn't here now, Conan,' Shubal said quietly. 'And she wasn't here when I entered.' Shubal shook his head. 'It looks as if your meeting with her was no accident. She and this man arranged it. You were-we were both taken in.'
'The same night someone murdered that Nemedian and tried to kill you.'
'And today, Taramis,' Khashtris said, actually wringing her hands. 'Why?'
Conan was grinding his teeth. He thought on Rosela, realising how he had been duped; how she had hurled herself into his arms, most literally, and had since trysted with him again and again. All the while only gaining my confidence, to use me! And she had. Because of her, Taramis should be dead and Conan accused; the big barbarian no one really knew anything about!
'She was someone's tool, as was this.' Conan's foot thumped the man Shubal had slain. 'And those two who murdered the Nemedian... Nebinio... who knew there is no Duke of Tor in Nemedia!'
'Aye,' Shubal said, nodding grim-faced. 'Aye, my friend. Remember our "writing lesson". You were noticed staring at him – who must somehow be Sabaninus... and you are a danger to him. So, the heir
to the throne is killed, giving the queen even more reason and need to seek solace, and wed again. And should she... die, she'd leave him or his heir as ruler of Khauran! While you, foreigner, are safely and legally slain for a most horrible murder!'
Khashtris was pleading: What are you talking about? Who is HE?'
'The deaths, then,' Conan said, 'are of equal importance to him, and to someone else... his Khaurani confederate!'
'But WHY!' Khashtris demanded, streaming tears. Who?
Her bodyguards looked at each other. They nodded in mutual decision; they told Khashtris. They told her all of it. She sank down on the couch strewn with yellow pillows.
'Ishtar!' she hissed, barely audible. 'And when I saw Rosela hurrying so, I wondered what you had done to her, Conan!'
'Saw her? Where?'
'Going-going out into the garden.'
Grinding his teeth, the Cimmerian left them. His head was trying to swim as he stalked through the palace on tingling legs. Angrily, he pinched his forearm, again and again. Blood showed there when he emerged into the spacious garden behind the palace. He did not call out; he searched. He was several minutes finding Rosela, who was in a far corner amid a little grove of some low evergreens clipped to resemble horse-heads.
She lay on the ground. She had been stabbed more than once, low.
'Oh... Co-nan...'
He crouched beside her, without touching her. His eyes and voice were intense. 'Tell me all of it, Rosela. You'll not recover from those stomach wounds. Tell me, or I'll see that you die in worse pain than you know now.'
'K-kill me-e, Conan...'
'Who, Rosela?'
'Ark... Arkhaurus. He hired my brother and me... that night. I was to... gain your confi... dence...'
'You did, bitch. The very Adviser to the Queen, is it? And today?'
'He knew of the queen's trip. He had me employed here. It was he... oh! Hurts, Conan... he who arranged that th-the princess would stay here, so you would come with N-Noble Khashtris. Taramis's... snack was... drugged.
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