Shubba prostrated himself and touched his forehead to the dust. Then, rising, he hurried from the roof. Tuthmes glanced again toward the Outer City. The fires seemed somehow to glow more fiercely, and a drum had begun to emit an ominous monotone. A sudden clamor of furious yells welled up to the stars.
'They have heard that Amboola is dead,' muttered Tuthmes, and again a strong shudder shook his frame.
III
Tananda Rides
Dawn lit the skies above Meree with crimson flame. Shafts of rich, ruddy light struck through the misty air and glanced from the copper-sheathed domes and spires of the stone-walled Inner City. Soon the people of Meree were astir. In the Outer City, statuesque black women walked to the market square with gourds and baskets on their heads, while young girls chattered and laughed on their way to the wells. Naked children fought and played in the dust or chased each other through the narrow streets. Giant black men squatted in the doorways of their thatched huts, working at their trades, or lolled on the ground in the shade.
In the market square, merchants squatted under striped awnings, displaying pots and other manufactures, and vegetables and other produce, on the littered pavement. Black folks chaffered and bargained with endless talk over plaintains, banana beer, and hammered brass ornaments. Smiths crouched over little charcoal fires, laboriously beating out iron hoes, knives, and spearheads. The hot sun blazed down on all—the sweat, mirth, anger, nakedness, strength, squalor, and vigor of the black people of Kush.
Suddenly there came a change in the pattern, a new note in the timbre.
With a clatter of hoofs, a group of horsemen rode by in the direction of the great gate of the Inner City. There were half a dozen men and a woman, who dominated the group.
Her skin was a dusky brown; her hair, a thick, black mass, caught back and confined by a golden fillet Besides the sandals on her feet and the jewel-crusted golden plates that partly covered her full breasts, her only garment was a short silken skirt girdled at the waist. Her features were straight; her bold, scintillant eyes, full of challenge and sureness. She handled the slim Kushite horse with ease and certitude by means of a jewelled bridle and palm-wide, gilt-worked reins of scarlet leather. Her sandaled feet stood in wide silver stirrups, and a gazelle lay across her saddle bow. A pair of slender coursing hounds trotted close behind her horse.
As the woman rode by, work and chatter ceased. The black faces grew sullen; the murky eyes burned redly. The blacks turned their heads to whisper in one another's ears, and the whispers grew to an audible, sinister murmur.
The youth who rode at the woman's stirrup became nervous. He glanced ahead, along the winding street. Estimating the distance to the bronze gates, not yet in view between the huts, he whispered, 'The people grow ugly, Highness. It was folly to ride through the Outer City today.'
'All the black dogs in Kush shall not keep me from my hunting!' replied the woman. 'If any threaten, ride them down.'
'Easier said than done,' muttered the youth, scanning the silent throng. 'They are coming from their houses and massing thick along the street—look there!'
They entered a wide, ragged square, where the black folk swarmed. On one side of this square stood a house of dried mud and palm trunks, larger than its neighbours, with a cluster of skulls above the doorway.
This was the temple of Jullah, which the ruling caste contemptuously called the devil-devil house. The black folk worshiped Jullah in opposition to Set, the serpent-god of their rulers and of their Stygian ancestors.
The black folk thronged in this square, sullenly staring at the horsemen. There was an air of menace in their attitude. Tananda, for the first time feeling a slight nervousness, failed to notice another rider, approaching the square along another street. This rider would ordinarily have attracted attention, for he was neither brown nor black. He was a white man, a powerful figure in chain mail and helmet.
'These dogs mean mischief,' muttered the youth at Tananda's side, half drawing his curved sword. The other guardsmen—black men like the folk around them—drew closer about her but did not draw their blades. The low, sullen muttering grew louder, although no movement was made.
'Push through them,' ordered Tananda, spurring her horse. The blacks gave back sullenly before her advance.
Then, suddenly, from the devil-devil house came a lean, black figure.
It was old Ageera, the witch-smeller, clad only in a loincloth.
Pointing at Tananda, he yelled: 'There she rides, she whose hands are dipped in blood! She who murdered Amboola!'
His shout was the spark that set off the explosion. A vast roar arose from the mob. They surged forward, screaming, 'Death to Tananda!'
In an instant, a hundred black hands were clawing at the legs of the riders. The youth reined between Tananda and the mob, but a flying stone shattered his skull. The guardsmen, thrusting and hacking, were torn from their steeds and beaten, stamped, and stabbed to death.
Tananda, beset at last by terror, screamed as her horse reared. A score of wild black figures, men and women, clawed at her.
A giant grasped her thigh and plucked her from the saddle, full into the furious hands that eagerly awaited her. Her skirt was ripped from her body and waved in the air above her, while a bellow of primitive laughter went up from the surging mob. A woman spat in her face and tore off her breastplates, scratching her breasts with blackened fingernails. A hurtling stone grazed her head.
Tananda saw a stone clutched in a hand, whose owner sought to reach her in the press to brain her. Daggers glinted. Only the hindering numbers of the jammed mass kept them from instantly doing her to death. A roar went up: 'To the temple of Jullah!'
An instant clamor responded. Tananda felt herself half carried, half dragged along by the surging mob. Black hands gripped her hair, arms, and legs. Blows aimed at her in the crush were blocked or diverted by the mass.
Then came a shock, under which the whole throng staggered, as a horseman on a powerful steed crashed full into the press. Men, screaming, went down to be crushed under the flailing hoofs. Tananda caught a glimpse of a figure towering above the throng, of a dark, scarred face under a steel helmet, and a great sword lashing up and down, spattering crimson splashes. But, from somewhere in the crowd, a spear licked upward, disemboweling the steed. It screamed, plunged, and went down.
The rider, however, landed on his feet, smiting right and left. Wildly driven spears glanced from his helmet or from the shield on his left arm, while his broadsword cleft flesh and bone, split skulls, and spilled entrails into the bloody dust.
Flesh and blood could not stand it. Clearing a space, the stranger stooped and caught up the terrified girl. Covering her with his shield, he fell back, cutting a ruthless path until he had backed into the angle of a wall. Pushing her behind him, he stood before her, beating back the frothing, screaming onslaught.
Then there was a clatter of hoofs. A company of guardsmen swept into the square, driving the rioters before them. The Kushites, screaming in sudden panic, fled into the side streets, leaving a score of bodies littering the square. The captain of the guard—a giant Negro, resplendent in crimson silk and gold-worked harness—approached and dismounted.
'You were long in coming,' said Tananda, who had risen and regained her poise.
The captain turned ashy. Before he could move, Tananda had made a sign to the men behind him. Using both hands, one of them drove his spear between his captain's shoulders with such force that the point started out from his breast. The officer sank to his knees, and thrusts from a half-dozen more spears finished the task.
Tananda shook her long, black, disheveled hair and faced her rescuer.
She was bleeding from a score of scratches and as naked as a newborn babe, but she stared at the man without perturbation or uncertainty. He gave back her stare, his expression betraying a frank admiration for her cool bearing and the ripeness of her brown limbs and voluptuously moulded torso.
'Who are you?' she demanded.
&
nbsp; 'I am Conan, a Cimmerian,' he grunted.
'Cimmerian?' She had never heard of his far country, which lay hundreds of leagues to the north. She frowned. 'You wear Stygian mail and helm.
Are you a Stygian of some sort?'
He shook his head, baring white teeth in a grin. 'I got the armour from a Stygian, but I had to kill the fool first.'
'What do you, then, in Meroe?'
'I am a wanderer,' he said simply, 'with a sword for hire. I came here to seek my fortune.' He did not think it wise to tell her of his previous career as a corsair on the Black Coast, or of his chieftainship of one of the jungle tribes to the south.
The queen's eyes ran appraisingly over Conan's giant form, measuring the breadth of his shoulders and the depth of his chest. 'I will hire your sword,' she said at last. 'What is your price?'
'What price do you offer?' he countered, with a rueful glance at the carcass of his horse. 'I am a penniless wanderer and now, alas, afoot.'
She shook her head. 'No, by Set! You are penniless no longer, but captain of the royal guard. Will a hundred pieces of gold a month buy your loyalty?'
He glanced casually at the sprawling figure of the former captain, who lay in silk, steel, and blood. The sight did not dim the zest of his sudden grin.
'I think so,' said Conan.
IV
The Golden Slave
The days passed, and the moon waned and waxed. A brief, disorganized rising by the lower castes was put down by Conan with an iron hand.
Shubba, Tuthmes' servant, returned to Meroe. Coming to Tuthmes in his chamber, where lion skins carpeted the marble floor, he said, 'I have found the woman you desired, master—a Nemedian girl, captured from a trading vessel of Argos. I paid the Shemite slave trader many broad pieces of gold for her.'
'Let me see her,' commanded Tuthmes.
Shubba left the room and returned a moment later, leading a girl by the wrist. She was supple, and her white body formed a dazzling contrast to the brown and black bodies to which Tuthmes was accustomed. Her hair fell in a curly, rippling, golden stream over her white shoulders. She was clad only in a tattered shift. This Shubba removed, leaving her shrinking in complete nudity.
Impersonally, Tuthmes nodded. 'She is a fine bit of merchandise. If I were not gambling for a throne, I might be tempted to keep her for myself. Have you taught her Kushite, as I commanded?'
'Aye; in the city of the Stygians and later, daily, on the caravan trail, I taught her. After the Shemite fashion, I impressed upon her the need of learning with a slipper. Her name is Diana.'
Tuthmes seated himself on a couch and indicated that the girl should sit cross-legged on the floor at his feet. This she did.
'I am going to give you to the queen of Kush as a present,' he said.
'Nominally you will be her slave, but actually you will still belong to me. You will receive your orders regularly, and you shall not fail to carry them out. The queen is cruel and hasty, so beware of roiling her.
You shall say nothing, even if tortured, of your continuing connection with me. Lest, when you fancy yourself out of my reach in the royal palace, you be tempted to disobey, I shall demonstrate my power to you.'
Taking her hand, he led her through a corridor, down a flight of stone stairs, and into a long, dimly-lit room.
This chamber was divided into equal halves by a wall of crystal, as clear as water although a yard thick and strong enough to resist the lunge of a bull elephant. Tuthmes led Diana to this wall and made her stand, facing it, while he stepped back. Abruptly, the light went out.
As she stood in darkness, her slender limbs trembling with unreasoning panic, light began to glow out of the blackness. She saw a malformed, hideous head grow out of the blackness. She saw a bestial snout, chisel-like teeth, and bristles. As the horror moved toward her, she screamed and turned, forgetting in her frantic fear the sheet of crystal that kept the brute from her. In the darkness, she ran full into the arms of Tuthmes. She heard him hiss, 'You have been my servant. Do not fail me, for if you do he will search you out wherever you may be. You cannot hide from him.' When he whispered something else in her ear, she fainted.
Tuthmes carried her up the stairs and gave her into the hands of a black woman with orders to revive her, see that she had food and wine, and bathe, comb, perfume, and deck her for presentation to the queen on the morrow.
V
The Lash of Tananda
The next day, Shubba led Diana of Nemedia to Tuthmes' chariot, hoisted her into the car, and took the reins. It was a different Diana, scrubbed and perfumed, with her beauty enhanced by a discreet touch of cosmetics. She wore a robe of silk so thin that every contour could be seen through it. A diadem of silver sparkled on her golden hair.
She was, however, still terrified. Life had been a nightmare ever since the slavers had kidnapped her. She had tried to comfort herself, during the long months that followed, with the thought that nothing lasts forever and that things were so bad that they were bound to improve.
Instead, they had only worsened.
Now she was about to be proffered as a gift to a cruel and irascible queen. If she survived, she would be caught between the dangers of Tuthmes' monster on one hand and the suspicions of the queen on the other. If she did not spy for Tuthmes, the demon would get her; if she did, the queen would probably catch her at it and have her done to death in some even more gruesome fashion.
Overhead, the sky had a steely look. In the west, clouds were piling up, tier upon tier; for the end of Kush's dry season was at hand.
The chariot rumbled toward the main square in front of the royal palace. The wheels crunched softly over drifted sand, now and then rattling loudly as they encountered a stretch of bare pavement. Few upper-caste Meroites were abroad, for the heat of the afternoon was at its height. Most of the ruling class slumbered in their houses. A few of their black servants slouched through the streets, turning blank faces, shining with sweat, toward the chariot as it passed.
At the palace, Shubba handed Diana down from the chariot and led her in through the gilded bronze gates. A fat major domo conducted them through corridors and into a large chamber, fitted out with the ornate opulence of the room of a Stygian princess—which in a way it was. On a couch of ivory and ebony, inlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl, sat Tananda, clad only in a brief skirt of crimson silk.
The queen's eyes insolently examined the trembling blond slave before her. The girl was obviously a fine piece of human property. But Tananda's heart, steeped in treachery itself, was swift to suspect treachery in others. The queen spoke suddenly, in a voice heavy with veiled menace:
'Speak, wench! Why did Tuthmes send you to the palace?'
'I—I do not know—where am I?—Who are you?' Diana had a small, high voice, like that of a child.
'I am Queen Tananda, fool! Now answer my question.'
'I know not the answer, my lady. All I know is that Lord Tuthmes sent me as a gift—'
'You lie! Tuthmes is eaten-up with ambition. Since he hates me, he would not make me a gift without an ulterior reason. He must have some plot in mind Speak up, or it will be the worse for you!'
'I—I do not know! I do not know!' wailed Diana, bursting into tears.
Frightened almost to insanity by Muru's demon, she could not have spoken even if she had wished. Her tongue would have refused to obey her brain.
'Strip her!' commanded Tananda. The flimsy robe was torn from Diana's body.
'String her up!' said Tananda. Diana's wrists were bound, the rope was thrown over a beam, and the end was pulled taut, so that the girl's arms were extended straight over her head.
Tananda rose, a whip in her hand. 'Now,' she said with a cruel smile,
'we shall see what you know about our dear friend Tuthmes' little schemes. Once more: will you speak?'
Her voice choked with sobs, Diana could only shake her head. The whip wristled and cracked across the Nemedian girl's skin, leaving a red welt diagonally across her back. Dian
a uttered a piercing shriek.
'What's all this?' said a deep voice. Conan, wearing his coat of mail over his jubbah and girt with his sword, stood in the doorway. Having become intimate with Tananda, he was accustomed to entering her palace unannounced. Tananda had taken lovers before—the murdered Amboola among them—but never one in whose embraces she found such ecstasy, nor one whose relationship with her she flaunted so brazenly. She could not have enough of the giant northerner.
Now, however, she spun about. 'Just a northern slut, whom Tuthmes was sending me as a gift—no doubt to slip a dagger into my ribs or a potion into my wine,' she snapped. 'I am trying to learn the truth from her.
If you want to love me, come back later.'
'That is not my only reason for coming,' he replied, grinning wolfishly. 'There is also a little matter of state. What is this folly, to let the blacks into the Inner City to watch Aahmes burn?'
'What folly, Conan? It will show the black dogs I am not to be trifled with. The scoundrel will be tortured in a way that will be remembered for years. Thus perish all foes of our divine dynasty! What objection have you, pray?'
'Just this: if you let a few thousand Kushites into the Inner City and then work up their blood lust by the sight of the torture, it won't take much to set off another rising. Your divine dynasty has not given them much cause to love it.'
'I do not fear those black scum!'
'Maybe not. But I have saved your pretty neck from them twice, and the third time my luck might run out. I tried to tell your minister Afari this just now, in his palace, but he said it was your command and he could do naught. I thought you might listen to sense from me, since your people fear you too much to say anything that might displease you.'
'I'll do naught of the kind. Now get out of here and leave me to my work—unless you would care to wield the whip yourself.'
The Conan Chronology Page 276
