When she was gone, Alcuina turned to Rerin. 'And now, old friend, have you some spell to loose these magical bonds?'
Rerin bent forward and studied the cords that bound Alcuina's wrists and ankles. 'Have you tried a knife?' he asked.
'I never thought of that,' said Conan. He drew his dagger and slid it across the bonds, which parted easily.
'Never thought of it!' Alcuina screamed, her face turning scarlet that flooded to her breasts. In her anger she seemed to have forgotten her nudity for the moment. 'You deliberately left me like that so you could handle me at will and do as you liked in the castle!'
'There is much to be said,' Conan assured her, 'for a queen who is immobilized when there is warrior's work to be done.'
'You fool! What would I have done if they had killed you while I was helpless! Did you think of that?'
'I am sure that you would have done your queenly best and managed affairs as well as you have so far.'
'Look!' said Rerin, anxious to forestall what was about to erupt into civil war between queen and warrior.
They looked to where he was pointing. The castle, which had been so solid, was beginning to melt, or rather collapse in upon itself, its outlines becoming wavery, as if all within it had grown soft, shrunken, and diminished.
'It is like a jellyfish cast upon the seashore,' said Conan, scratching his beard-stubbled chin.
'Their magic must have been all that held that unstable place together,' Rerin mused. Then he noticed Conan's growth of whiskers. 'How long were you in that castle?'
'It must have been some three or four days,' Conan said, puzzled.
'No,' protested Alcuina. 'It was nine or ten days at least.'
'And yet I spent only a single night out here since Conan ascended the wall. Even time is strange here in the demon land.'
'We must find our way home, and that swiftly,' insisted Alcuina. 'This place terrifies me, and I am concerned for my people at home. What may be happening to them?'
'I am hungry,' Conan said. 'Rerin, get a fire started. I shall be back soon with game.' With that he darted off into the underbrush.
Rerin sat by Alcuina when the fire was crackling. She wore his cloak as a temporary garb. 'What think you now of your champion?' he asked.
'He is like something from an old tale. I have never seen a warrior like him, yet he is so wild and self-governed that wonder whether he serves me or his own whim.'
'And yet he has possibilities. You need a king to sit beside you in the hall, and none of the neighbour kings suits you. You could do worse than this Cimmerian. He has no kingdom to swallow yours up, and with him leading your war-host you need fear no enemy.'
'It might work for a while,' Alcuina said, 'but some night as he lay sleeping I would probably kill him.'
X
Court of the Winter Kings
King Odoac of the Thungians, his rotund bulk swathed in rich winter furs, stood blowing on his hands. Behind him stood a band of his picked warriors, and beside him in the snow was thrust a hunting spear. They awaited the great stag that the huntsmen were to drive past them. There came a sound of crashing brush from the right.
'The stag comes!' said the king's nephew.
'I can hear that, you young fool,' said Odoac.
He picked up his heavy javelin and made himself ready. According to ancient custom the king had the first cast, and after him each warrior in order of rank.
With a cloud of erupting snow the splendid beast broke from the brush. Its eyes rolled and its tongue hung from its mouth in exhaustion and panic. Behind it the huntsmen yelled and clattered, driving it toward the waiting noble hunters.
As it lumbered past, the king stepped forward and, with a straining grunt, cast his spear. The cast was powerful but far wide of the mark. The spear glanced from the wide-spreading antlers of the beast, and the beast halted, startled by the unfamiliar impact.
While Odoac cursed in futile rage, the stag turned to face the hunters. With its head lowered, it began to trot toward them, presenting the most difficult of targets. The king's nephew, young Leovigild, stepped forward as his arm flashed back. He took three paces and cast his javelin. It sped unerringly to the stag, slipped below the antlers and beside the head, and pierced the juncture of chest and neck. With its neck artery cut and its heart pierced, the great animal collapsed and died almost instantly.
The young man stood smiling, and the others clapped him on the back, praising the superb cast. Then they all fell silent as the king strode up to his nephew, rage upon his face. With a powerful buffet of his open palm, he struck the younger man to the snowy ground.
'You insolent young puppy! I would have had him if you had not jostled my arm! Do you think your forwardness has escaped my notice! You have taken my stag just as you would like to take my throne!'
The warriors remained silent at this outburst. They all knew that no man had stood near the king, and that he had missed his cast through his own clumsiness, but none would give him the lie. These insane rages were growing more common with Odoac, as he felt his powers waning through the ravages of age and overindulgence.
'You are unjust, my liege,' said Leovigild. The youth's face was pale with mortification, but he made no move against his uncle. 'I cast because it was my turn, and all men know how loyally I have always served you.'
'See that it remains so, puppy,' said Odoac with unbearable contempt. 'It will be many years before Ymir takes me into his hall and you may sit upon the throne.'
The king whirled and stalked off. He would have liked to kill his nephew, as he had killed all other rivals, some of them his own sons. But custom decreed that he must have a designated heir, and Leovigild, his murdered brother's only son, was the last remaining male of the royal line. Had he slain the boy,- his nobles would have felt free to rid themselves of Odoac and make one of their number king in his place. As an infant and a boy, the lad had been no threat. Now that he had reached man's estate, something would have to be done about him.
Some of the warriors would have aided Leovigild to stand, but he shook off their helping hands. 'I should not have allowed such a blow, even from a king,' he said, fearful that he had lost respect in the eyes of the warriors.
'What could you have done,' said a grizzled nobleman, 'save sharing the fate of your male kin? You must bide your time, youngling. It cannot be much longer.' Mollified, he walked back to the hall in the midst of the warriors.
That evening, after the feasting, Odoac dismissed all from the hall save his noblest warriors and champions. With drinking-horns filled, they waited to hear their master's words. His obese bulk filling the great throne, Odoac looked around at them, his piglike eyes almost buried in the fat face. His gaze halted for a moment upon Leovigild, and the young man stared back, unafraid. He was handsome and yellow-haired, a short, soft, blond beard framing his firm jaw. His eyes were clear and blue, in contrast to Odoac's muddy, bloodshot
orbs. Odoac envied the boy's youth, strength, and fine looks as much as he feared his ambition and the way the warriors were increasingly turning to Leovigild for advice and approval.
'My warriors,' the king began, 'it is time we made plans concerning the future of the kingdom. For years now we Thungians have been menaced by two enemy peoples: Queen Alcuina and her Cambres, and Totila and his Tormanna.' He almost spat out the last words, trying to hide his fear of Totila with a mask of contempt. If the truth was known, he secretly envied the way Totila, a mere bandit-chieftain, had built his war-band into a powerful kingdom while he himself, who had inherited a kingdom from his father, had barely been able to hold it together with murder and treachery. 'Of course, I would have destroyed both of them long ago had it not been for their accursed wizards, Rerin and Lilma.
'Let it not be said that I am an unreasonable man. I offered Queen Alcuina my suit, in honourable marriage. With her lands and people annexed to mine, neither of us need have feared any enemy. But did the slut eagerly accept, like my first three wives?' He glared around hi
m and pounded on the arm of the throne with his fist. 'No, she did not! She behaved as if I, King Odoac of the Thungians, were some humble crofter, instead of a mighty king whose forebears can be traced back to Father Ymir himself!' The king calmed himself with a visible effort before going on.
'I have borne this humiliation and insolence, with patience, for as long as any man could be asked. The time has now come to act. Word has come to me that, some weeks agone, Alcuina disappeared under uncanny circumstances.' A murmur of conversation broke out at this news. 'I doubt not that this is the work of Totila's pet wizard, Lilma. Alcuina's men are shut up inside their stockade, and they are leaderless. They have no one of royal blood to command them, so they huddle together waiting for their queen to return. I think they will have a long wait. Now is the time to strike and swallow them up, before Totila does!'
There was a savage growl of approval from the assembled warriors. Whatever their doubts concerning his erratic behaviour and waning powers, they had no such doubts concerning his acquisitiveness and his predatory instincts. Of these things, they all approved. Odoac had been a decent battle-leader in his younger days, and perhaps he was showing a flash of his old power in this plan. After all, kings lived by preying upon rival kings, and better the Thungians should absorb the Cambres than the hated Tormanna.
'I am not so certain that this is the best course, Uncle,' said Leovigild. The old king stared at him with undisguised hate, but the youth went on fearlessly. 'It seems to me a shabby thing to attack Queen Alcuina's people while her fate remains unknown. This is not the way great people should deal with one another.'
'Is that so?' said Odoac in a dangerously mild voice. 'And yet, it is the way we have always dealt among ourselves, high and low, here in the Northland. The weak are swallowed up by the strong. That is the way of it, as I learned from my sire and he from his, and so it has always been since the wars of gods and giants'
Many nodded at these words, for custom was the only law among them except for might. Yet others plainly wanted to hear more of what Leovigild had to say.
'I think that this way is unwise. I grant that it is
good to be strong and fierce, for how can a people survive otherwise? But I think it is also good to be wise and behave with forethought. Here is my counsel: If we war upon the Cartibres at this time, both peoples will lose warriors and will be the weaker when the inevitable war comes with Totila. Instead why do we not send heralds to the Cambres in then' fortress and propose an alliance against Totila until Queen Alcuina returns? This can have only two outcomes, both of them good: If Alcuina comes not back, then the Cambres must in time acknowledge you as their king, having no king of their own and having followed you in war. Should Alcuina return, how can she again reject your suit, since you will have been the salvation of her people. In truth, her folk must demand it, since she has to wed soon.' There was great approbation at words of such maturity and wisdom from so young a man.
Had it not been for those sounds of admiration, had the boy come in private to Odoac with this plan, then Odoac might have adopted it and claimed it as his own. As it was, the words threw him into another towering rage. 'What womanish, weakling words are these? Could the fierce Thungians ever follow such a simpleton? No such coward could be born of our royal line, and I am minded to cut you from it!' So saying, Odoac lurched to his feet and began to draw his sword. His men rushed to restrain him, and forced him back into his throne.
A senior counsellor turned to Leovigild. 'Best get you gone, lad. We'll not let the king harm you, but you cannot stay here now.' Ashen-faced, Leovigild strode from the hall. After a time, Odoac grew calm enough to be released.
'That boy tries me beyond my patience,' said Odoac at length. ''Best that he is exiled. He is treacherous as well as cowardly. I thank you for restraining me,' he said piously. 'I should never wish to shed the blood of a kinsman, be he never so disloyal.' The warriors let this pass in eloquent silence.
'What of the custom, my liege?' asked a grim-faced man. 'Now you have no heir. The people must have an heir to the throne, or there must be trouble.'
Odoac shifted uncomfortably in his seat. 'Think you I am so old that I may not set this matter aright? As soon as we have settled the problem of the Cambres, then I shall take a new wife, be it Alcuina or some other. Then you shall have an heir within the year, vow.'
'That is good to hear, my king,' said the same man, and Odoac was not sure that there was no mockery in the voice. 'Now, what of this black-haired champion of Alcuina's that we have heard something of? Is this fellow likely to cause us trouble?'
Happy to be off the subject of the succession, Odoac said, ' have spoken with the trader Dawaz about this man. He is a mere sell-sword, an adventurer from afar with neither kin nor friend here. He seems to possess some small skill with his weapons, and with a bit of luck he managed to slay Agilulf. I have also heard that he disappeared on the same night as Alcuina, as did the wizard Rerin. All the more reason why we should move now. The Cambres have lost queen, champion, and sorcerer. When shall we have such an opportunity again?' He looked around and saw only battle-lusting faces. 'See to sharpening your weapons, then.' He turned to a trusted retainer named Wudga. 'Go you to all the outlying steadings and summon the warriors. It has been many years since there has been a winter
hosting, so remind them that every man must bring as much preserved food as may feed him for at least a fortnight. After that we should be feasting upon the stores of the Cambres!'
A ferocious cheer went up at these words, the unfortunate Leovigild forgotten for the moment. Odoac sat back and smiled with satisfaction. Few problems, however thorny, were not to be solved with a little warfare and prospect of loot.
Leovigild rode for many hours, unsure where he might go. No man had pursued him from the hall, none had sought to molest him as he bundled his few belongings onto a packhorse and rode from the garth. Immediate death at the hands of Odoac's men might have been preferable. He was an exile, driven from hearth and hall, denied the protection of his family. In the North, a man without clan or kin was under virtual death sentence.
His small, shaggy mount pushed patently through the snow, twin jets of steam streaming from his nostrils. Mane and tail swept almost to the snow as the sure-footed beast picked its way among the serried drifts, its hooves crunching musically through the hard crust left by the great freeze.
Where could he go? He had his two horses, his sword, helm and cuirass of finely worked bronze. On the packhorse were his hunting clothes and his feast clothes, two long spears, a short javelin, and his shield of painted wood and leather. With the clothes he now wore, these were his total resources. It never crossed his mind to take the protection of some landholder and serve as a peasant farmer. Starvation was preferable. An armed warrior of good blood could always join the war-band of some chieftain. That was at least honourable, but it would have to be far from here, and a lone man was not likely to survive the journey. Besides, he was rightful heir to the Lordship of the Thungians, and he had no intention of relinquishing his claim.
His gloomy thoughts turned to Alcuina of the Cambres. If the reports were true, she now was in some form of exile as well. If the loathsome Lilma was behind it, Alcuina's situation was far more dire than his own. He had never met her, but rumour had it that she was a great beauty. The thought of such a lady wed to his uncle was repellent, although honour and loyalty forbade his expressing the thought while in the garth.
He wished to avoid the men of the Tormanna and of the Cambres. Times were even more unsettled than usual, and there was no law to protect lone wanderers. Captors might wish to make sport with him before killing him, and many a man who was laggard on the battlefield made up for it by fiendish ingenuity in the treatment of prisoners.
He remembered a small valley in the hills to the north. He had found it years before when hunting alone. It was uncultivated and snaked along the ill-defined border between the lands of the Cambres and the Tormanna. If he could pass betwee
n the two nations unseen, he might find a place to hide, perhaps taking service with a petty chieftain until he might return to claim his birthright. Surely Odoac could not live much longer.
That evening he bedded down on the level ground near the mouth of the valley. It was a wild place, frequented only by hunters or herdsmen in search of strayed stock. With the flint and steel from his belt pouch he kindled a fire. There was scant likelihood that he would be seen in this wild spot.
As he was about to bed down in his warm cloaks, he was startled to see ghostly lights flittering among the trees within the narrow valley. His hand went to the protective amulet that hung at his neck, and he chanted out a quick spell to ward off evil. The lights came no nearer and seemed no more menacing than the fire, which was now a small heap of coals before him.
'Ymir!' he muttered in a near whisper, 'am I a child to hide my head for fear of will-o'-the-wisps?'
With a short, forced laugh he bundled into his cloaks and was soon asleep. Nothing molested him, but his sleep was fitful, troubled by vague, menacing dreams.
The next morning, remounted, Leovigild peered into the narrow, growth-choked valley. Little of the snow lay there, but the density of the tree canopy could have explained that. Still, it was an ill-looking place. It took some urging on his part to force the horses into the tangled draw. When he had visited this place before, he had been on foot. That had been in the days of high summer, but even then the darkness of the valley had oppressed him. He had spent a morning in half-hearted pursuit of a wounded stag, and turned back hastily when its tracks ended in a welter of blood and broken brush. Some dire predator dwelled in the valley, but he was older and better armed now.
The air was still and warmer than that outside the valley. The growth of plants was different as well. Here, instead of pine and fir, broad-leafed oak predominated. The trees were stunted but of luxuriant growth, and once he was well into the valley the undergrowth Sunned, and the travelling was easier. The valley floor was uneven, a tiny stream meandering over a gravel bed in its centre. The heavy growth of stunted trees and thick vines, the great mossy boulders, all lent the valley a certain wild beauty, marred by the gloomy dimness.
The Conan Chronology Page 342
