For an instant Vyndra stared up at him, scarlet suffusing her cheeks.
Then her eyes snapped shut, and frantically she tried to cover herself with her arms.
"It did not work with Kang Hou," Conan laughed, "and it does not work with me." Her blush deepened and her eyes squeezed tighter. "This time your playing at games has gone awry," he said, leaning over her. "One chance, and one chance only, will I give you to run and then I will show you what men and women do who do not play games."
The crimson did not leave her cheeks, but her eyes opened just enough for her to look at him through long lashes. "You fool," she murmured.
"I could have run from you any day since my hands were unbound."
Throwing her arms about his neck, she pulled him down to her.
Chapter XIX
As shadows lengthened with the sinking sun, Conan left Vyndra sleeping on the cushions and went in search of more wine. "Immediately, master,"
a servant said in response to his request, adding at his next question, "No, master, the two men have not yet returned from the city. I know nothing of the Khitan woman, master."
Finding a chamber with tall, arched windows looking to the west, Conan sat with his foot on the windowsill and his back against its frame. The sun, violent red in a purpling sky, hung its own diameter above the towering trees in the distance. It was a grim sight, fit for his mood.
The day had been useless. Waiting in the palace, even making love to Vyndra, however enjoyable, now seemed time wasted. At least in following the caravan this far there had been the illusion of doing something about the poison in his veins, of hunting down the men whose deaths he must see to before his own. One of those men, at least, was in the city, not a league distant, and here he sat, waiting.
"Patil?"
At the soft female voice, he looked around. An unveiled Vendhyan woman stood in the doorway of the chamber, her plain robes of cotton neither those of a servant nor of a noble.
"You do not recognize me," she said with a smile, and abruptly he did.
"Kuie Hsi," he gasped. "I did not believe you could so completely-"
Impatiently he put all that aside. "What did you learn?"
"Much, and little. The caravan remained in the city only hours, for the merchants' markets are in Ayodhya and the nobles are impatient to reach the court. Karim Singh, however," she added as he leaped to his feet, "is yet in Gwandiakan, though I could not learn where."
"He will not escape me," Conan growled. "Nor this Naipal, wizard though he be. But why does the wazam remain here rather than going on to the court?"
"Perhaps because, according to rumor, Naipal has been in Gwandiakan for two days. As his face is known to few, however, this cannot be confirmed."
Conan's fist smacked into his palm. "Crom, but this cannot be other than fate. Both of them within my grasp. I will finish it this night."
The Khitan woman caught his arm as he started from the chamber. "If you mean to enter Gwandiakan, take care, for the city is uneasy. Soldiers have been arresting the children of the streets, all of the homeless urchins and beggar children, supposedly on the orders of the wazam.
Many are angered, and the poorer sections of the city need but a spark to burst into flame. The streets of Gwandiakan could run with blood over this."
"I have seen blood before," he said grimly, and then he was striding down the tapestried corridors. "Punjar! My horse!"
But half-awake, Vyndra stretched on the cushions, noting lazily that the lamps had been lit and night was come. Abruptly she frowned.
Someone had laid a silken coverlet over her. With a gasp she clutched the covering to her at the sight of Chin Kou. The Khitan woman's arms were filled with folds of many-colored silk.
"I brought garments," Chin Kou said.
Vyndra pulled the coverlet up about her neck. "And what made you think I would need clothing?" she demanded haughtily.
"I am sorry," Chin Kou said, turning to leave. "No doubt when you wish to cover yourself, you will summon servants. I will leave you the coverlet since you seem to desire that."
"Wait!" Blushing, Vyndra fingered the coverlet. "I did not know. As you have brought the garments, you might as well leave them."
Chin Kou arched an eyebrow. "There is no need to take such a tone with me. I know very well what you were doing with the chengli who calls himself Patil." Vyndra groaned, the scarlet in her cheeks deepening.
After a moment the merchant's daughter took pity. "I was doing the same thing with the chengli who calls himself Hasan. Now I know your secret and you know mine. You fear only shame before your servants. My uncle's switch produces a much greater smarting than mere shame."
Vyndra stared at the other woman as though seeing her for the first time. It was not that she had been unaware of Chin Kou, but the Khitan was a merchant's niece and surely merchants' nieces did not think and feel in the same way as a woman born of the Kshatriya blood. Or did they? "Do you love him?" she asked. "Hasan, I mean?"
"Yes," Chin Kou said emphatically, "though I do not know if he returns my feelings. Do you love the man called Patil?"
Vyndra shook her head. "As well love a tiger. But," she added with a mischievousness she could not control, "to be made love to by a tiger is a very fine thing."
"Hasan," Chin Kou said gravely, "is also very vigorous."
Suddenly the two women were giggling, and the giggles became deep-throated laughter.
"Thank you for the clothing," Vyndra said when she could talk again.
Tossing aside the coverlet, she rose. Chin Kou aided her in dressing, though she did not ask it, and once she was garbed, she said, "Come. We will have wine and talk of men and tigers and other strange beasts."
As the Khitan woman opened her mouth to reply, a shrill scream echoed through the palace, followed by the shouts of men and the clang of steel on steel.
Chin Kou clutched at Vyndra's arm. "We must hide."
"Hide!" Vyndra exclaimed. "This is my palace and I will not cower in it like a rabbit."
"Foolish pride speaks," the smaller woman said. "Think what kind of bandits would attack a palace! Do you think your noble blood will protect you?"
"Yes. And you also. Even brigands will know that a ransom will be paid, for you and your sister as well, once they know who I am."
"Know who you are?" came a voice from the doorway, and Vyndra jumped in spite of herself.
"Kandar," she breathed. Pride said to stand her ground defiantly, but she could not stop herself from backing away as the cruel-eyed prince swaggered into the chamber, a bloody sword in his fist. In the corridor behind him were turban-helmed soldiers, also with crimson-stained weapons.
He stooped to take something from the floor-the veil she had worn while dancing-and fingered it thoughtfully as he advanced. "Perhaps you think you are a noblewoman," he said, "perhaps even the famous Lady Vyndra, known for the brilliance of her wit and the dazzling gatherings at her palaces? Alas, the tale has been well told already of how the Lady Vyndra fell prey beyond the Himelias to a savage barbarian who carried her off, to death perhaps, or slavery."
"What can you possibly hope to gain by this farce?" Vyndra demanded, but the words faded as six veiled women, swathed in concealing layers of silk, entered the room. And with them was Prytanis.
Smirking, the Nemedian leaned against the wall with his arms crossed.
"The gods are good, wench," he said, "for who should I find in Gwandiakan but Prince Kandar, who was interested to learn of the presence of a certain woman nearby. A purse of gold he offered for the nameless jade, and I could only accept his generosity."
Annoyance flashed across Kandar's face, but he seemed otherwise unaware of the other man. "Prepare her," he commanded. "Prepare both of them. I will not refuse an extra trifle when it is put before me."
"No!" Vyndra screamed.
She whirled to run, but before she had crossed half the chamber, three of the veiled women were on her, pushing her to the floor. With a corner o
f her mind she was aware of the other three holding Chin Kou, but panting desperation flooded every part of her. Frantically, futilely, she fought, but the women rolled her this way and that, stripping away her so-recently donned robes with humiliating ease. When she was naked, they would not allow her to regain her feet but dragged her writhing across the floor with kicking legs trailing behind her. At Kandar's feet they forced her to her knees and his gaze chilled her to the bone, turning her muscles to water, stilling her struggles. Chin Kou was knelt beside her, as naked as she and sobbing with terror, but Vyndra could not take her eyes from Kandar's.
"You cannot hope to get away with this," she whispered. "I am not some nameless-"
"You are nameless," he snapped. "I told you, the Lady Vyndra is gone"-slowly he fastened the veil across her face by its tiny silver chain-"and in her place is a new addition to my purdhana. I think I will name you Maryna."
"Your sister," Vyndra panted. She had had no trouble with the veil while dancing; now it seemed to restrict her breathing. "I will free Alyna. I will-" His slap jerked her head sideways.
"I have no sister," he growled.
"What of my gold?" Prytanis demanded suddenly. "The wench is yours, and I want my payment."
"Of course." Kandar took a purse from his belt, tossing it to the slitnosed man. "It is satisfactory,"
Prytanis eagerly untied the purse strings and spilled some of the golden coins into his palm. "It is satisfactory," he said. "If only Conan could see-" His words ended in a grunt as Kandar's sword thrust into his middle. Gold rang on the floor tiles as he grabbed the blade with both hands.
Kandar met the Nemedian's unbelieving gaze levelly. "You gazed on the unveiled faces of two women of my purdhana," he explained. The razor steel slid easily from the dying man's grasp, and Prytanis fell atop his gold.
Face smarting, Vyndra gathered the last shreds of her courage. "To kill your own hirelings and take back the gold is like you, Kandar. You were always a fool and a worm." His dark gaze made her realize it had been the last of her courage. She clenched her teeth with the effort of facing him.
"He saw your face unveiled," the prince said, "and that of the Khitan woman, so he had to die, for my honor. But he earned the gold and I am no thief. You will be beaten once for that and again for each of the other insults."
"I am of the Kshatriya blood." Vyndra spoke the words for her own benefit, as though to deny what had happened, and no one else seemed to notice them.
"This was the last of your strange companions," Kandar continued. "The others are already dead. All of them."
A whimper rose in Vyndra's throat. The vanishing of a small hope she had not known was there until it was gone, the hope that the huge barbarian would rescue her, left her now truly with nothing. "You will never break me," she whispered and knew the emptiness of the words even as they left her lips.
"Break you?" Kandar said mockingly. "Of course not. But there must be some small training in obedience. Some small humbling of your pride."
Vyndra wanted to shake her head in denial, but his eyes held hers like a serpent mesmerizing a bird. "On the morrow you will be placed on a horse, garbed as now, and paraded through the streets of Gwandiakan so that all may see the beauty of my new possession. Bring them!" he snapped at the women.
With all of her heart Vyndra wanted to muster a shout of defiance, but she knew, as she was dragged to the horses, that it was a wail of despair that echoed in the halls of her palace.
Chapter XX
At a crude plank table by himself in the corner of a dirt-floored tavern, Conan was reminded of Sultanapur as he tugged the hood of his dark cloak, borrowed from a groom at Vyndra's palace, deeper over his face. Wondering when he would next be in a city without the need to hide his features, he emptied half the cheap wine in his wooden tank in one long swallow.
The others in the tavern were Vendhyans all, though far from the nobles or wealthy of Gwandiakan. Carters who smelled of their oxen rubbed elbows with masons' apprentices in tunics stained with gray splashes of dried mortar. Nondescript turbaned men hunkered over their wine or talked in hushed tones with black eyes darting to see who might overhear. The smell of sour wine warred with incense, and the muted babble of voices did not quite mask the tinkle of bells at the wrists and ankles of sloe-eyed doxies parading through the tavern. Unlike their sisters in the West, their robes covered them from ankle to neck, but those robes were of the sheerest gossamer, concealing nothing. The jades found few customers, though, and the usual frivolity of taverns was absent. The air was filled with a tension darker than the night outside the walls. The Cimmerian was not the only man to keep his face hidden.
Conan signaled for more wine. A serving wench, her garb but a trifle more opaque than that of the trulls, brought a rough clay pitcher, took his coin and hurried away without a word, obviously eager to return to her cubbyhole and hide.
That tightly wound nervousness had been evident in the entire city from his arrival, and it had grown tighter as the night went on. Soldiers were still arresting homeless waifs and beggar children, such few as had not gone to ground like pursued foxes, carrying them off to the fortress prison that stood in the center of Gwandiakan. But even the soldiers could sense the mood of the sullen throngs. Patrols now often numbered a hundred men, and they moved as though expecting attack at any moment.
The streets had been full of talk earlier, full of rumor, and the Cimmerian had no trouble in hearing of the men he sought. Quickly he learned the location of Prince Kandar's palace, one of the few east of the city, and of that where Karim Singh was said to be staying. Before he had gone a hundred paces, however, he heard of another palace said to house the wazam, and fifty paces beyond that a third, both widely separated from each other and from the first. Each corner brought a new rumor. Half the palaces of Gwandiakan were said to contain Karim Singh.
Tongues could be found to name every palace as housing Naipal, and many spoke of an invisible palace constructed in a night by the mage, while still others claimed the wizard watched the city from above, from the clouds. In the end it was frustration that had sent Conan into the tavern.
A wave of dizziness that had nothing to do with the wine swept over him, not for the first time that night, clouding his vision. Grimly he fought it off, and when his eyes cleared, Hordo was sliding onto a bench across the table from him.
"I have been looking for you for hours," the one-eyed man said. "Kandar attacked Vyndra's palace with a hundred lancers and took Vyndra and the Khitan's niece, Chin Kou. Prytanis was with him."
With a snarl Conan smashed his wooden tankard to the dirt floor.
Momentary silence rolled through the room, and every eye swiveled to him. Then, hastily, talk began again. It was not a night to become involved in a stranger's anger.
"The men?" Conan asked.
"Nicks and cuts. No more. We managed to get to the horses and Kuie Hsi found us a place to hide, an abandoned temple on something called the Street of Dreams, though miserable dreams they must be. A day or two of rest and healing and we'll see what can be done about the wenches."
Conan shook his head, as much to clear it as in negation. "I do not have a day or two. Best you return to this temple. They will need you if they are to make it back to Turan."
"What are you about?" Hordo demanded, but the Cimmerian only clapped his friend on the shoulder and hurried from the tavern. As Conan trotted down the darkened street, he heard the one-eyed man calling behind him, but he did not look back.
The Bhalkhana stallion was stabled near the city gate by which he had entered Gwandiakan, and a coin retrieved the big black from a wizened liveryman. The city gates themselves were massive, ten times the height of a man, and made of black iron plates worked in fanciful designs.
They would not be easily moved, and from the dirt that had accumulated along their bases, it had been years since they were closed. The city's ill ease hung on the turban-helmed gate guards as well, and they only watched him nervously, finger
ing their spears, as he galloped through.
The one bit of definite information he had learned in his night of listening, the one story that did not change-and the one he had thought least useful even at that-was the location of Kandar's palace. Rage filled him, but it was an icy rage. To die with sword in hand would be much preferable to succumbing to the poison in his veins, but the women must be freed first. Only when they were safe could he allow himself to think of his own concerns.
Short of the palace he rode into a copse of trees and tied the stallion's reins to a branch. Stealth and cunning, bred in his days as a thief, would better serve him now than steel.
Prince Kandar's palace, larger even than Vyndra's, shone in the night with the light of a thousand lamps, a gleaming alabaster intricacy of terraces, domes and spires. Reflection pools stretched on all sides and between them gardens of flowering shrubs reached the very walls of the palace, their myriad blossoms filling the darkness with a hundred perfumes.
Perfumes and blossoms did not interest Conan, but the shrubs served well to cover his silent approach. He was but one shadow among many.
Fingers trained by climbing the cliffs of his native Cimmerian mountains found crevices in the seemingly smooth joining of great marble blocks, and he scaled the palace wall as another man might climb a ladder.
Lying flat atop the broad wall, Conan surveyed what he could of the palace-small courtyards with splashing fountains, intricately friezed towers thrusting toward the sky, colonnaded walks lit by lamps of cunningly wrought gold. Breath caught in his throat, and his hand went unbidden to his sword. Past the fluted columns of one of those colonnades walked a man in robes of gold and crimson with another in what seemed black silk. Karim Singh. And, if the gods were with him, Naipal. With a regretful sigh he released the sword-hilt and watched the two men walk on beyond his sight. The women, he told himself. The women first. Scrambling to his feet, he ran along the wall.
Height was the key, as experience in the cities of Nemedia and Zamora had taught him. A man glimpsed in the upper reaches of a structure, even one who obviously did not belong there, was often ignored. After all, without a right to be there, how could he have traveled so far?
The Conan Compendium Page 231
