He remembered the wind bearing him up, but also blowing him away from the babe. He reached out his arms to grip one tiny foot, but the tentacles of more beasts than all the wizards of the world could keep were also reaching out, clambering from livid swamp and flames the colors of burning rubies and solid rock blacker than a starless night”
"The Princess Chienna bids you enter."
The voice and accent were a hill woman's, but the words were those of a royal maid of honor. Aybas had fought fear. Now he fought laughter. The princess exacted proper service and obedience so firmly that the idea of refusing never came to anyone's mind.
Anyone's, that is, except the Star Brothers”and Aybas was here tonight in the hope that he could make even the wizards' whims miscarry.
The door swung open on its leather hinges. Rush tapers cast a fitful light but showed the princess seated on her usual stool. She wore Pougoi dress now, even to the leggings and the bird-bone combs thrust into her long black hair. But she sat as if in her father's hall, receiving a guest of state while clad in silk and cloth of gold.
"I would bid you welcome, Lord Aybas, if I thought anyone coming in the service of your master deserved such a greeting."
"Your Highness, I Aybas looked at the serving woman, who made no move to leave.
"I would have her tell you her own story if we had time," the princess said, "but, in brief, she is kin to a warrior who died on the night of my arrival. Who died of the miscarrying of the wizards' magic. You may speak freely."
This command rendered Aybas briefly mute. If it had reached the princess that he was no great friend to the wizards, had it reached other ears as well?
If one could be hanged for stealing a cup of wine, why not steal the whole barrel? Aybas nodded.
"I understand that your son has been wet-nursed by women of this tribe.
Now, by the customs of the lowland, that makes him nurse-brother to the Pougoi. By the customs of the Pougoi, a nurse-brother is next only to a blood-brother in kinship."
"So I have heard," the princess said. Aybas was sure that she was hiding ignorance, since few of the lowlanders thought it worth learning much about the mountain tribes. The Border Kingdom might be more peaceful if it was otherwise, Aybas thought.
But ignorant or not, the princess was playing her part well. Aybas judged it time for the next scene of the pageant.
"A nurse-brother of the Pougoi is under Pougoi laws in many ways. Among these laws is one that even the wizards have obeyed since the first days of their star-magic. Man, woman, or child, one of the Pougoi may not be sacrificed unless he gives consent or has committed a great offense."
"A babe at the breast can consent to nothing!" the princess snapped.
Then she smiled. "Except perhaps to go to sleep before driving his nurses and mother distracted with his crying."
Aybas held his peace until he was sure that no more would follow. The princess was silent, but he saw her face grow taut as she struggled to hide her fear for her babe.
Then the struggle to hide fear turned into a struggle of another kind.
Aybas could read her thoughts, almost as if they had been carved out of the air in runes of glowing fire: If I admit that Prince Urras is bound by any laws of the Pougoi, this may cause some to doubt his right to the throne. There are already many who fear the reign of a babe. There will be more if they think he must do the bidding of a louse-ridden, rock-scrabbling mountain tribe. Yet if I call my son one of the Pougoi, the wizards cannot sacrifice him without defying their own laws. Their own folk will draw back from them. And if my son cannot be sacrificed, then the wizards' greatest strength against me is a broken reed!
"Indeed," Aybas whispered in agreement to the princess's unspoken wisdom. She herself was safe as long as the count intended to wed her.
Her son, heir to the realm, had always been in a different and worse circumstance.
Without words, Aybas prayed that she would see the way to what must be done.
"The customs of the Pougoi have always been held in honor by me and my kin," the princess said as if speaking to the whole court. "Therefore it is only fit and proper that my son be proclaimed a nurse-brother of the Pougoi. He shall have the rights of any Pougoi male child of his age, and he shall assume his lawful duties when he is of age."
The servant appeared to be ready to fall down in a fit, and for a moment Aybas grew fearful. Then he realized that she was only trying to hold in wild laughter. The idea of a royal princess claiming to honor the hill tribes was too much for her.
"Mistress”ah?"
"Myssa," the woman said as she realized that Aybas was addressing her.
"I bear witness to this oath. I will stand, speak, and shed blood to uphold it."
Aybas wondered whose blood she was swearing to shed but decided that his ignorance was best not revealed. He had not inquired too closely into the customs of the Pougoi after he had learned of the one that might save Prince Urras.
"Very well," Aybas said. "I swear to lay this matter before the lawful men of the tribe, for hearing this oath according to custom. I also swear to regard Prince Urras as a nurse-brother of the Pougoi from this moment forth."
That could prove an unfortunate promise should a direct command concerning the prince come from Count Syzambry. Aybas, however, had little fear of such a command being issued at any time soon. He had overheard enough about the count's wound to doubt that the man would be ordering more than an empty chamberpot for some while. The man might even die.
Then it would be well for Aybas if he had Chienna's goodwill. Count Syzambry would have merely cast the realm into chaos rather than usurping its throne, and an exile who wished to survive that chaos could not have too many powerful friends.
With some of his most courtly phrases, Aybas bowed himself out. It was full dark now, and he stumbled twice before his night sight returned.
The dream did not return, however. This was a blessing Aybas had not expected. Perhaps he had found favor in the gods' sight?
Perhaps. But the Star Brothers were closer than the gods, and they would need much more persuasion than Chienna. As he ascended the village street toward his hut, Aybas began to rehearse in his mind a speech to the wizards.
He was so caught up in it that he stumbled twice again. He also passed Wylla as if she were invisible, and he did not hear a single peal of the witch-thunder that rolled across the sky as he reached his hut.
Conan marched his men and Raihna's hard for the next two days. He turned a blind eye to the Guards who slipped off during each night, and sometimes by day, when forest or rough ground hid them swiftly.
Raihna fretted both at the deserters and at Conan's apparent complaisance. "If this continues, we will have none but a handful of veterans in ten days."
"We will still have your men."
"Of course." But she was near to biting her lips as she said it. Conan would not press her, since the truth would be out sooner rather than later if their roaming the hills continued.
"We've no place to go until we know if the king and Decius won free of the palace," Conan said. "The men understand that. They also know that if Syzambry wins, anyone still mustered as a Guard will have a short life and a long death. A man who has drifted homeward to get in a crop and be a peaceful farmer”he may save his kin, if not himself."
The Cimmerian did not add that Raihna should have known this herself.
The daughter of a Bossonian yeoman (at best) must have lived all her girlhood knowing that an extra pair of hands at the harvesting could mean life or death for a family through the winter.
After a moment, Raihna knew what Conan had not told her. She blinked, then rested a hand on his shoulder.
"Forgive me, Conan. I fear that I am too ashamed of how I have misled my men to have all my wits."
"Well, chase them down and bring them back," he said, slapping her on the rump. "You muster a pretty fair strength of them when they're all present."
Conan did not look the othe
r way when some of the Guards talked openly of looting villages and farms.
"There'll be none of that, for three reasons. One is that we want the villagers' friendship. Or at least we don't want them running to Syzambry with tales of our whereabouts. The second is that we can scrape by with game, fish, and berries for a while longer."
"Long enough to find the king?" someone asked, from safely back in the ranks.
"The king or his grave," Conan said. "As long as King Eloikas lives, our oath as Guards binds us to his service. If he's dead, our oath binds us to rescue his heir and put him on the throne."
The silence that last vow produced was so complete that a snapping twig sounded like a falling tree. Conan rested a sooty hand on the hilt of his broadsword.
"The third reason for leaving the villagers in peace is that anyone who doesn't answers to me, and to my friend here." The sword leaped from its scabbard, flashed in the sunlight, and returned to rest in a single fluid motion.
The band resumed its march in a more sober mood. Even Raihna seemed to have been affected by the Cimmerian's words when she dropped back to walk with him in the rear guard.
"Will you really”?" she began.
"Hsst!" He put a finger to her lips, and they slowed their pace until the last of the rear guard was beyond hearing.
"Why not, by Crom? If Eloikas is dead, the babe is king of the Border Kingdom. He deserves a better court than the Pougoi. If Eloikas isn't dead, Syzambry still has a hold over him as long as the princess and babe are in the hands of the wizards."
Conan did not add that he would have risked his life to snatch a scullery maid or a spitboy from the hands of the Pougoi wizards. Being in their toils seemed something an honest man shouldn't wish on his worst enemy.
"And if Syzambry's dead?"
Conan jerked his head, dismissing that rumor.
"But if he is alive, wouldn't his men be scouring the countryside for us?"
"We don't know how many men he has left," Conan said. "Besides, I hate to speak well of that misbegotten son of a Kushite camel thief, but he'll be a hard man to kill."
Raihna grimaced. "You're full of cheery counsel this
The reproof died on her lips. Faint and far, but beyond mistaking, they heard it.
The pipes.
Conan's hand went to his sword again. He did not draw. He took a deep breath instead, then let it out with the curses in his mind unuttered.
But they echoed within his skull as loudly as they could ever have echoed from the hills.
"Show yourself, you whistling jester. Show yourself, you goat's-kin.
Show yourself, and show your true colors if you bear any!"
The Star Brother Forkbeard stared at Aybas. The wizard's face held every emotion that Aybas had ever seen on a human countenance¦ save one: it showed no surprise.
Aybas did not pray. Prayers to lawful gods seemed themselves unlawful in this damp grotto, with the smell of the beast hanging heavy in the air. He only commanded his stomach firmly not to disgrace him.
If Aybas had doubted before that the wizards ate flesh from their star-beast, he doubted it no longer. What he had seen in the shadowy corners of the grotto and what he smelled with every breath he took could not be explained in any other way.
Aybas's throat contracted and his stomach twitched. The gods showed some mercy, even if unasked. Forkbeard was looking down at the rough-hewn oak table before him and saw nothing of Aybas's struggle for self-command.
When the wizard looked again at the Aquilonian, he looked with a face twisted by fury and frustration. His hands slapped the table, making a bronze bowl topple over and roll until it clanged on the floor. It rolled again until it reached Aybas's foot. The Aquilonian forced himself not to flinch when the bowl touched his skin.
"Aybas," the wizard said. No "lord," and the name itself sounded like a curse.
"I am here, Star Brother, and at your command."
"At¦ at¦ my”?" Forkbeard's fury altogether took possession of his tongue, and he sputtered into silence. Aybas thought of asking forgiveness for unintended offenses, but he also lapsed into silence.
He much doubted that he could utter such words and still command his face.
With neither man able to break it, the silence drew on. It began to seem to Aybas that the rocks overhead would crumble with the passage of the years and allow the lake and the beast to come roaring into the grotto.
"Aybas," Forkbeard snapped then. "Did you speak to anyone of this notion that Prince Urras is nurse-brother to the Pougoi?"
"Other than to the princess and her servant, I spoke no word to any living creature, or even to the air. I do not know what the women may have said, where, or to whom. But my tongue has been guarded, and I will swear it by whatever you hold most sacred."
"That would not be lawful, since you are not a Star Brother." The wizard seemed to be speaking merely to avoid looking witless. Then he sat down abruptly and twisted his beard with the fingers of both hands.
"Perhaps you are blameless. But your¦ the scheme¦ this truth¦ it has escaped to the warriors of the Pougoi. They think it the truth. They think well of a future king of the Border being nurse-brother to the Pougoi."
Forkbeard did not add, "They think ill of sacrificing him to the star-beast." He did not need to. The very air shouted it in Aybas's ears. He was hard put not to grin in triumph.
To give his mouth some occupation, Aybas inclined his head and spoke.
"I rejoice that there is peace between the Star Brothers and the warriors of the Pougoi. Great will be the Pougoi when their strong right hand and their strong left hand wield the same weapon."
Forkbeard shot Aybas a look that made the Aquilonian wonder if he was suspected of jesting. Then the wizard rose.
"You speak the truth. The warriors are our right hand, and the left and the right hands cannot quarrel without leaving the Pougoi helpless in the face of their enemies."
Those might just be the words flung together to sound well, but Aybas thought he heard more in them. Certainly he had not had any messages from Count Syzambry since the night the palace fell and the king fled.
Indeed, he had not even heard of any messages.
Had Syzambry perhaps not survived the moment of his victory? Or was it merely that some aspect of the piper's magic kept messages from passing between the count and the Star Brothers? How much magic did that cursed Marr have at his command?
"Prince Urras is nurse-brother to the Pougoi," Forkbeard said. "This shall be proclaimed so that all may know it. Go in peace, Aybas, but guard your step and your tongue. You are no nurse-brother to anyone, save perhaps a flea-ridden bitch weaned on¦"
The wizard went on at some length in describing all the various unlikely and unclean animals that were near-kin to Aybas. Aybas submitted to the insults with dignity and did not laugh aloud until he was far across the valley toward his hut. Then he laughed until he had to lurch to a stump and collapse upon it until his breath returned. As it did, so did a clear mind.
Who had spread word of his strategem among the warriors of the Pougoi?
He knew none whom he could trust with the matter, and he doubted that the princess did either. She was a shrewd woman, notwithstanding that she was young enough to be Aybas's daughter. But shrewd enough to understand the ways of the Pougoi after only a few days' captivity among them? Aybas doubted that miracle.
Then the name burst into his mind like a thunderclap.
Wylla!
She had heard, perhaps by magic, perhaps by being in the right place with a ready ear. Her father was not least among the Pougoi warriors, in spite of his advanced years. He would surely listen to her, would know warriors whom he could trust with anything, and would speak to them. With law and custom giving them a weapon against the Star Brothers, the warriors could be counted on to finish the work that Wylla had begun.
Aybas knelt and rested one hand on the stump, placed the other over his heart. For the first time since he left Aquilonia, he swore
an oath by the gods of his childhood, in the manner he had been taught as a boy.
He would speak no word and do no deed to harm Wylla, and he would guard her from the words and deeds of others as best he could. He would not touch her without her consent, nor allow others to do so.
If he was forsworn in this, might he end his life here in this valley, without name or honor or any fit prayers and sacrifices.
It was the fourth day after the fall of the palace and the flight of the king.
Rumors flew now like geese bound south in the autumn. It was said that Syzambry was ensorceled, dying, dead, sick abed, or all of these at once. Conan wondered aloud how much truth there might be behind all these words, thinking to keep his men from hoping for too much.
To Raihna, he spoke his mind more freely. "Something has gone awry with Syzambry or his plans or both. I'd wager my manhood on that. But what it might be, and what good we can take from it He threw his hands into the air,
Raihna slipped down off the boulder where she had been perched whetting her dagger. "I'll pray you do not lose the wager, if that is the stakes."
"What, no thoughts of Decius?"
"A woman can think of a score of well-looking men, Conan. But she can only bed one who is present."
Conan put an arm across Raihna's shoulders, but she slipped from under it and darted down the path. "There's a pool down there where the stream makes a bend. Race you to a bath."
Raihna had a head start, but Conan's long legs quickly made up the distance. They finished the race running side by side, with Conan's arm around Raihna's waist.
They were splashing in the pool when Conan thought he heard a footfall.
He took his eyes from Raihna's sun-dappled shoulders and freckled breasts and studied the trees around them.
The mountain wind gave a stately motion to the branches high aloft.
Conan did not think he'd heard the sound of either wind or forest. A deer, perhaps, since he and his companion were farther from the main camp than usual, and upwind of it as well.
The Conan Compendium Page 350
