by Roland Green
Conan was carving chunks out of the sleeping serpent. As a final measure, he drove his dagger through one eye, deep into the brain. The serpent passed from sleep into death with only a faint shudder.
“Your own advice, my lady,” Conan said, wiping his sword on the scales and sheathing it. “With both slashed as they are, it will seem—I hope—that they killed each other. Also, the first one won’t be waking up, to hunt us through the tunnels.’1 Livia shuddered and put out one hand to Harphos, the other to Conan. For a moment both men needed to hold her, to keep her from falling into the muck. Then she took a deep breath.
“Let us be on our way.”
“As you wish, my lady,” Talouf said. “But best I lead. I have learned these tunnels rather better than the rest of you, I think.”
Conan glared at the sergeant. “Talouf, have you been lying about your not being in Messantia before?”
“Captain, you only asked if I was known to the Guardians. I said that I was not, and that was the truth.”
“Because you spent all your time out of the light of day, no doubt,” Livia said, with a faint smile.
“It’s not only thieves who have business best done in the dark,” Talouf said, and turned down the tunnel.
They were not long in learning what the serpents ate. Thrust out from the muck were bones, the greater part of them shattered by the serpents’ teeth or coils but recognizable as human.
They were mercifully not much longer in finding a way to the streets, with fresh air and dry stone underfoot. They emerged into twilight, and by the time they were approaching the Damaos palace darkness had fallen.
They had also settled one matter among them. Before they could move against the enemy without, the enemy within must be foiled. A spy there was, without a doubt, and if his name was not Reza, then Reza would help them hunt that spy or suffer the same fate.
XIV
Reza awoke swiftly at the noise in his room. Those who did not wake swiftly on the Iranistani frontier did not serve long with Khadjar’s Irregulars. If Khadjar did not send them away, the Iranistanis took their heads and sometimes other parts.
Swiftly awake, Reza rolled even more swiftly to the side of the bed away from the door. As he rolled, his hand darted under his pillow. It came out holding a short sword.
But as he rolled off the bed, the flat of a broadsword came down across his wrist. His fingers opened and his blade clattered to the floor. He saw a vast looming shape move with the speed of a striking adder, and a booted foot slam down on the sword.
Then something hard smashed across his temple. He fell face-down on the floor, vaguely aware of cold stone against his cheek. Not so vaguely he felt iron hands binding his feet and hands. He wanted to curse, but he lacked the strength.
He could see clearly, though. Looking under the bed gave him a view of the door, and the people standing by it. When he saw them, Reza was quite sure he was dreaming. The Lady Livia here, watching him trussed like a pig for slaughter? And Harphos of Lokhri, standing so close to Livia that his breath might have ruffled her hair and wearing a bulging leather bag slung over his shoulder?
Reza had just decided that he had struck his head and addled his wits, when he felt a giant’s strength pulling him to a sitting position. He found himself staring into icy blue eyes in a dark face that might have been carved from the stone of its native Cimmerian hills.
“He’s awake,” Conan said.
“I—” Reza began.
“The less you say now, the sooner we’ll be done with this,” Conan said. His voice sounded less harsh than his face. “Harphos, are you ready?”
“Yes, although I would urge that we have some olive oil ready to hand.”
“Olive oil?” Livia and Conan asked together.
“Yes. A dose of the herb as strong as we may need will make him spew his guts all over the room after a while. If we feed him some olive oil when we are done with the questioning, this may not happen.”
Livia nodded. “Gisela, you can move about with the fewest questions asked. To the kitchen with you.” “Yes, my lady.” Reza saw the maid slip out the door, and Harphos put down the bag and begin setting out bottles and vials.
“Now, Reza,” Lady Livia said. “It appears that there is a spy in our house. He has betrayed too many of our secrets. In spite of your long service, you have ample reason to be that spy. Lord Harphos has devised a potion that will make you tell the truth in the matter. If you refuse to take it, we shall have to judge you guilty. Then we must use harsher—”
Reza began to laugh, and could not stop. He saw the others looking at one another. No doubt they thought he was mad.
When he had his breath back, Reza smiled again. “My lady, forgive me for leaving you in doubt so long. I—the reasons you suspect I have are real enough, but I am neither spy nor traitor nor breaker of the oaths I swore to both your blood father and your keeper-father! Bring on your potions, and when I am done with them I will show you where I left the real spy.”
Livia looked at the others. “If he is so fearless—” Conan shook his head. “He might be telling us all this to put us off our guard. It does no harm that he is willing, though.”
“Conan, will you stop talking of me as though I were a brute beast without speech? And Harphos, you may dose me with what you please. But if I spew until I am too weak to fight the real enemies of House Damaos, be out of here before I regain my strength. Otherwise I shall kick you down the stairs, throw you out the door, and drown you in the fish pond.”
Harphos laughed nervously, then returned to measuring out the potion. That gave Reza time to watch his mistress as she looked at her two companions.
Conan had touched her heart. This was past denying. But he had no power over her wits, to lead her astray. Unless Livia cast aside all the wisdom she had gained in the years Reza had known her, the Cimmerian could do no harm to House Damaos. Now all that remained was to persuade the Cimmerian that he, Reza son of Shiram, was quite as innocent!
Lady Doris of Lokhri awoke to pains that had nothing to do with unsatisfied desire. They were more like what she remembered from the time she had fled from an attacker straight into a quick-set hedge. Tiny prickles and stings ran up and down her limbs and body, from shoulders to knees.
The swaying and rattling told her that she was in a light cart, moving fast on one of the High Roads. It was covered as snugly as a bird’s cage at night with a cover of canvas as heavy as sailcloth.
Secure against prying eyes, she stripped off the robe that was her only garment. The prickles and stings were not imagination. Red spots like insect bites covered her everywhere she felt pain.
A moment later she felt the wagon stopping. As silence descended, she heard bird songs and horses blowing, then men’s voices. She began to look about the cart, seeking food or at least water, and more than either a chamberpot!
She had just concluded that the cart held no such thing when a flap of canvas flew back. Into the gap thrust a square face, with a pointed grey beard and a bald head.
Doris decided not to give the man the pleasure of seeing her snatch for the robe. She rested one hand in her lap and covered her breasts with the other arm.
“Lord Akimos. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? ’ ’
“It seems, my lady, that it is you who have chosen to avail yourself of my hospitality. I would be a poor host if I took no thought for your comforts.”
“The one comfort I would like is an explanation. If you cannot give me that, what of a horse to return to Messantia?”
“Alas, my lady. Pressing matters prevent me from extending either courtesy. But anything else within my power will be yours on the instant.”
Doris thought of refusing any favours from the man who had clearly abducted her, for reasons which she would learn at his pleasure if at all. Certainly that chit of a Livia would think it a fine way to display courage.
Doris knew better. She had started poor enough to be hungry and cold much of the time.
She knew that thirst, hunger, and living like a pig in your own filth all sapped strength and wits she would need.
“A chamberpot. Food and water. Some decent clothes. And salve for my—insect bites.”
“Of course.”
Akimos’s face vanished and as she drew on her robe she heard his voice calling his men. The open flap now showed a triangle of purple twilit sky over dark hills. Closer to hand was a gnarled olive tree, and sitting by it a thin young man in a travel-worn blue robe.
At first glance Doris felt a thrill of horror. The man looked much like her son Harphos. Could he be part of this plot, seeking to free himself from her at the price of slavery to Akimos?
Then she saw that the man was old enough to be Harphos’s father, and his eyes were dark and deep within knowledge. Knowledge of a kind not meant for men, and knowledge that she knew would surely be used against her before she left Akimos’s hands.
The man raised his eyes and stared at her. Doris shivered, although the night was warm. Those eyes seemed to pierce the robe and the skin under it, to study her bones, her internal organs, even her soul.
She drew the robe more tightly about her and turned her back on the man. She no longer wondered when she would be free. It was now a question of would she be free?
“How close are we?”
Talouf put a finger to his lips and whispered, “Too close for your Cimmerian bellowings, Captain.”
Reza grinned, but he was sweating and pale. “Are you well?” Conan asked.
“It’s not the potion that lingers, Conan. It’s the taste of the olive oil.”
“If there was rancid olive oil in the kitchen, Reza, it was your fault—” Harphos began. A large Cimmerian hand clamped over his mouth.
They moved on in silence, Conan, Reza, Talouf, Harphos, and eight picked men, half from House Damaos and half from Conan’s Company. Four of the men and Talouf were garbed as Secret Guardians.
The Secret Guardians were not so secret that Harphos had not learned how they were garbed. They were a band of men skilled at slipping into houses to obtain evidence that was lacking by other means. By the strictest notions of Argossean law, they were criminals, but those notions had not bound them nor their masters for centuries.
Conan laughed when he heard that. “Argos begins to seem more like other places I’ve been. It has ten laws where they have one, but the laws are still what the men who rule say they are.”
“Wait until you rule, Conan, before you laugh at that,” Harphos said.
“Only a god’s going to wait that long,” the Cimmerian said, laughing again.
Whatever the laws said about them, the Secret Guardians were going to be a handy weapon. Lords like Akimos seldom had much to fear from them, but the lords’ servants were another matter.
Another hundred paces brought the band to a narrow tunnel sloping upward. Talouf went to hands and knees and crept up it. A moment later Conan heard the serpent’s hiss that told him all was well.
Reza and Conan scrambled up the tunnel to join Talouf. The passage was low but wide, so both men had room to grip the bronze grating that sealed off the tunnel. With their combined strength at work, even cold-forged bronze could not resist.
“One of those serpents would go through this like parchment,” Reza said as they lowered the grating to the floor.
“It could hardly squeeze into this passage,” Conan pointed out, flexing his shoulders. “And I’d wager there’s some barrier we did not find, to keep the Guardians’ pets out of noblemen’s cellars. A servant or two might be no loss, but if one of them ate the venison for the chief Archon’s banquet—” The Cimmerian feigned a shudder of horror.
He and Reza drew black masks from their purses and pulled them over their heads. Behind them four of the men did the same.
“Ready, lads?” Reza said. The men nodded.
“Very well.” Conan added, “Remember, no bloodshed if we can avoid it. At worst, take a prisoner for Harphos to dose.”
“I didn’t bring any olive oil,” the young man said plaintively.
“I don’t care if Akimos’s people spew their guts all over his pretty marble floors,” Reza said. “Just you be sure that you’re alive to feed them the potion.”
Harphos looked resentful at being banned from the fight. His look only struck the big men’s backs as they climbed through the opening. A drop the height of a man faced them, but both leaped down noiseless as cats, raising only a puff of dust. Behind them came the other masked men.
Conan said afterward that the part of the whole matter where he was most uneasy came next. They roamed the cellar of Akimos’s palace without meeting anything larger than a rat for some time. Then a scout to the servants’ quarters reported them deserted, save for old women and young boys.
Conan refused to trouble either one. He began to wonder if Akimos had decided to guard his secrets by taking with him every servant who might know them. If so, the raiders faced the bleak choice: question women and children, or search the palace from roof to cellar and pray that they found something revealing.
They had been in the palace for long enough to eat dinner at a good wineshop when their luck turned.
“I hear singing,” the scout said.
Conan nodded. He heard it too, along with drumming. They climbed the stairs from the servants’ quarters and advanced down the hall toward Akimos’s private chambers. One man remained behind, to pass signals to Talouf’s party.
The tapestries in the hall were as splendid as those of House Lokhri were shabby, even the one that covered a man and a woman asleep on the floor. They had no other covering, and what they had been about was as plain as the wine stains on the marble.
From inside the half-open door, the singing rose louder than before. It did not drown out the clang of cups, the gurgle of wine, or the thud as someone with too much wine in him toppled to the floor.
Someone began beating a drum, or at least something that made a drum-like sound. Conan nodded. In this uproar, a band of Kozaki could have ridden up the hall without being heard.
He drew his sword, flung the door all the way open, and charged into the room beyond.
In the next moment, Conan’s greatest fear was that Akimos’s servants would slaughter one another trying to get away from him. If any of them was fit to hold a weapon, he could not see him. It was no easy matter to seem a thief out for blood as well as loot without actually harming any of Akimos’s wine-witted servants.
Conan gave a Hyrkanian war cry, the signal for Talouf and his “Guardians” to close up. Then he faced a man who had altogether forgotten the sword at his belt, and was wielding a stool with more fury than skill.
A lucky swing of the stool met Conan’s sword. The blade jammed in the tough wood. Conan twisted, wrenching the sword free and at the same time kicking the chair as hard as he could. It slammed back into the man’s stomach. In turn he flew backward against a table laden with wine jars and plates of delicacies. The table went over with a crash of falling plates and the gurgle of spilling vintages.
Several servants, men and women both, were so witless that they went down on all fours like dogs and began lapping up the wine. Conan’s foot itched to kick them like those same dogs.
A Hyrkanian war cry rose over the din.
“Mitra be praised!” Conan said under his breath, but aloud he cursed sulphurously. Then Talouf and his Guardians rushed into the room, swords drawn.
Conan had fought for his life with less care than he fought the mock battle now. His men and Talouf’s had to appear blood foes, without actually shedding blood. Not theirs, and not that of any of the gaping or prostrate servants. That, indeed, was Conan’s greatest problem— not slipping in the puddles of wine and food or stumbling over any of the servants too far gone to crawl out from under the ramping boots of the fighters!
One by one, Conan’s men “lost their courage” and fled up the stairs to the roof. The Cimmerian brought up the rear, fencing so furiously with Talouf that their sw
ords struck sparks from the walls. Conan reminded himself to have a smith look to his sword before he rode out on Lady Doris’s trail.
At last Conan and his thieves were assembled on the roof. There two tasks remained to them. One was to listen to Talouf’s speaking to the servants, to guard against something happening to Talouf and his men.
The other was to keep any servants from rushing up on to the roof and in desperation flinging themselves off. If they did not land on their heads, they might do themselves no serious harm. But the noise would doubtless reach beyond the walls of the palace. If it did not in time bring real Guardians, it would certainly bring Akimos’s neighbours asking questions that Conan had no wish to answer.
Conan’s plan reaped its reward. He heard the servants speak of the Caves of Zimgas, of picked men and horses provisioned for a long journey, of a covered travelling cart furnished as if for the comfort of a lady. He heard of servants being asked if they knew anything of House Lokhri, and much else.
If what Conan heard was rope, then there was enough of it to hang Akimos ten times over.
He waited until Talouf told the servants that they had served their master well and that he would be warned at once. He added that they should cleanse the house of all traces of their feasting, or not even their service to the Guardians would protect them from their master’s wrath.
Then Conan and his men departed, as stealthily as the thieves they pretended to be. When they reached the planned meeting place in the tunnels, they found Talouf already there, and his men carrying two chests.
“One’s scrolls from Akimos’s desk,” the sergeant said. “I said we needed to study them, to perhaps learn more about what the thieves sought.”
“And the other?” Conan asked, prodding it with a toe. The weight told its own tale, so he was not surprised when Talouf opened the lid and showed it filled with silver coins, mixed with a few gold pieces and jewelled chains.
“That goes back,” Conan said.
“To Akimos?” Talouf gaped like the drunken servants.
