She pressed her cheek to his chest, crushing her full breasts against him. Unseen by him a small smile curved her lips, softening, though not supplanting, the fear in her eyes. "You are mine," she whispered.
"When first I kissed you," Conan panted, "you wanted me. As I want you.
I knew I had not imagined it."
"Come," she said, taking his hand as she backed from him. "My bed lies beyond that archway. I will have wine brought, and fruits packed in snow from the mountains."
"No," he growled. "I can wait no longer." His hand closed on sheer silk; the robe shredded from her ripe nakedness. Careless of her protests of servants who might enter, he pulled her to the floor. Soon she protested no more.
Chapter XII
The sun was rising toward its height once more as Conan left Synelle's house, and he wondered wearily at the passing of unnoticed hours. But she had so occupied him with herself that there had been no room for time. Had she not been gone from her bed at his waking, he might not be leaving yet. For all of a day and a night together, and little sleeping in it, a knot of desire still burned in his belly, flaring whenever he thought of her. Only the need to see to his Free-Company, and her absence, had stirred him to dress and go.
Bemused he strode through the crowded streets as if they were empty of all but him, seeing only the woman who still held his mind in thrall with her body. Merchants in voluminous hooded robes and tarts in little save gilded bangles scurried from his way lest they be trampled; satin-clad nobles and long-bearded scholars abandoned dignity to leap aside when they incredulously saw he would not alter his path. He heard the curses that followed him, but the stream of abuse from scores of throats did not register. It was so much meaningless babble that had naught to do with him.
Suddenly a man who had not stepped aside bounced off Conan's chest, and the Cimmerian found himself staring into an indignant face as the memory of Synelle's silken thighs dimmed, but did not fade. The man was young, no older than he himself, but his tunic of blue brocade slashed with yellow, the golden chain across his chest, his small, fashionable beard, the pomander clutched in his hand, all named him nobly born.
"You there, thief," the youthful lord sneered. "I have you now."
"Get out of my way, fool," Conan growled. "I've no time or desire to play lordlings' games." The man wore a sword strapped around his waist, the Cimmerian noted, unusual with the garb he wore.
Conan tried to step around the brocaded youth, but another young noble, with thin mustachios in addition to his beard, stepped in front of him with a swagger. Jeweled rings bedecked all his fingers, and he, too, wore a sword. "This outlander," he said loudly, "has robbed my friend."
Conan wondered for whose benefit he was speaking so; no one in the teeming street paid the three any mind. In fact, a large space had opened about them as passersby studiously avoided their vicinity.
Whatever sport these two sought, he wanted none of it. He wished only to see that all was well with his company and return as quickly as possible to Synelle. Synelle of the alabaster skin as soft as satin.
"Leave be," he said, doubling a massive fist, "or I'll set your ears to ringing. I've stolen nothing."
"He attacks," the mustachioed lordling cried, and his sword swept from its sheath as his fellow flung his rose-scented pomander at Conan's face.
Even with his brain fogged by a woman's memory the big Cimmerian had survived far too many battles to be taken so easily by surprise. The blade that was meant to take his head from his shoulders passed through empty air as he leaped aside. Anger washed his mind clean of all but battle rage. The sport these fops sought was his death, a killing for which, with the times as they were and the fact that he was an outlander, they would not be brought to book. But they had chosen no easy meat. Even as Conan's own steel was coming into his fist, he booted the first young noble who had accosted him squarely in the crotch; the youth shrieked like a girl and crumpled, clutching himself.
Whirling, Conan beat aside the thrust the mustachioed lordling had meant for his back. "Crom!" he bellowed. "Crom and steel!" And he waded ferociously into the combat, his sword a flashing engine of destruction.
Step by step his opponent was forced back, splashes of blood appearing on his tunic as his desperate defenses failed to turn aside the Cimmerian's blade quickly enough. Disbelief grew on his face, as if he could not understand that he faced a man better with the sword than he.
Recklessly he attempted to go over to attack. Only once more did Conan's steel strike, but this time it split the lordling's skull to his black mustachios.
As the body fell the grate of the boot on pavement gave Conan warning, and he turned to block the first noble's slash. Chest to straining chest they stood, blades locked.
"I am better than ever Demetrios was," his youthful attacker sneered.
"In this hour you will meet your gods, barbar."
With a heave of his mighty shoulders Conan sent the other staggering back. "Run to your mother's breast, youngling," he told him, "and live to do your boasting to women. If you know their use."
With a cry of fury the man rushed at Conan, a blur of steel before him.
Eight times their blades met, striking sparks with the force of the blows, filling the street with a ringing as of a blacksmith's hammer and anvil. Then the Cimmerian's broadsword was slicing through ribs and flesh to the heart beneath.
Once more, for a moment, Conan stared into those dark eyes. "You were better," he said, "but not by enough."
The young lord opened his mouth, but blood spilled out instead of words, and death dulled his eves.
Hastily Conan freed his blade and cleaned it on the tunic of blue brocade. The space about them still was clear, and as if an invisible wall separated him and the two dead from those hurrying by, no one so much as glanced toward them. Given the mood of the city, it was more likely than not that no one of them would admit to what he had seen, short of being put to the question by the King's torturers, but there was no point in standing there until a score of Iskandrian's warriors appeared. Sheathing his sword, Conan melded into the crowd. Within a few paces they had closed around him, cloaking him in their number.
No more did thoughts of Synelle clog his mind. With the death of the second of his attackers he had remembered Wachaon telling him of two young nobles watching the house where the Free-Company was quartered.
That two different lordlings should attack him on the day was beyond his belief. The one had called loudly that Conan had robbed the other, as if inviting witnesses. Hardly the act of one intending murder, but perhaps slaying him had been but part of their plan.
Had they succeeded, who in Ianthe would have taken the part of a dead barbarian over that of two from noble houses? The people rushing by had done their best to ignore what happened, but if collared by a noble and pressed, which of them would not remember that Conan had been accused of theft and had then attacked the two, proving his guilt? With a King's Justice and a column of Ophirean infantry, Demetrios and his friend could have descended on the Free-Company, demanded the object they claimed had been stolen-and which they could no doubt describe as well as Conan-and have the house torn apart to find it. The bronze would have been in the hands of those who sought to use it. Boros might try to speak of evil gods and rites beneath Tor Al'Kiir, or Julia, but no ear would pay heed to the pratings of a drunken former apprentice mage, nor the babblings of a pot-girl.
Conan quickened his pace, brimming with an urgent need to assure himself that the image still lay beneath the floorboards of his sleeping chamber. He had become convinced of one thing. He would not have another night of rest in Ophir until that malevolent figure was beyond the reach of men.
The black candles guttered out, and Synelle lowered her hands with a satisfied sigh. The spell binding the barbarian had been altered. He was still held, but with more subtle desires than before.
With a weary groan she sagged to a low stool, wincing with the movement, and brushed spun silver hair b
ack from her face. She pulled her cloak-that unadorned covering of scarlet wool had been all she had taken time to snatch in her flight, and it had been flight-about her nakedness. Her breasts were swollen and tender, her thighs and bottom bruised by Conan's fierce desires.
"How could I have known what would be unleashed in him?" she whispered.
"Who could have thought a man could be so . . ." She shivered uncontrollably.
In the barbarian's arms she had felt gripped by a force of nature as irresistable as an avalanche. Fires he had built in her, feeding them till they raged out of control. And when the leaping flames had consumed all before them, when he had quenched and slaked what he had aroused, he stoked still new fires. She had tried to bring that endless cycle to a halt, more than once she had tried-memories flooded her, memories of incoherent cries when words could not be formed and reason clung by the slenderest of threads to but a single corner of her passion-drugged mind-but her sorcery had not only wakened lust in him, it had magnified that lust, made it insatiable, overwhelming. His powerful hands had handled her like a doll. His hands, so strong, so knowing and sure of her.
"No," she muttered angrily.
She would not think of his hands. That way led to weakness. She would remember instead the humiliation of crawling weakly from her own bed when the barbarian fell at last to slumber, slinking like a thief for fear of waking him, of waking the desire that would bloom in him when his eyes touched her. On the floor of her secret chamber she had slept, curled on the hard marble with only the cloak for covering and lacking even the mat the meanest of her slaves would have, too exhausted to think or dream. Remember that, she told herself, and not the pleasures that sent tendrils of heat through her belly even in remembrance.
A ragged cry broke from her throat, and she staggered to her feet to pace the room. Her eye fell on the silver plate, black tallow hardening at its edges, the ash of blood and hair lying on its surface. The spell was altered. Not again would she have to face a night where she was a mote caught in the stormwind of the giant barbarian's desires. Her breathing slowed, grew more normal. He was still hers, he would still bring her to rapture, but his lusts would be more controllable.
Controllable by her, that is.
"Why did I fear it so long?" she laughed softly. Taken altogether, this thing of men was quite wonderful. "They must simply be controlled, and then their vaunted strength and power can avail them nothing."
That was the lesson women had not learned, that she had only just come to. If women would not be controlled by men, then they must rather control men. She had always coveted power. How strange and beautiful that power should be the key to safety in this as well!
A knock at the door shattered her musings. Who would dare disturb her there? The rapping came again, more insistent this time. Gathering her cloak across her breasts with one hand, she flung open the door, tongue ready to flay whoever had violated her sanctorum.
A surprised, "You!" slipped out instead.
"Yes, me," Taramenon said. His face was tight with barely controlled anger. "I came to speak to you last night, but you were ... occupied."
Laying a hand gently on his chest, she pushed him back-how easily he moved, even in his rage-and closed the door firmly behind her. No man, not even he, would ever enter that chamber.
"It is well you are here," she said as if he had had no accusation in his words. "There are matters of which we must speak. A woman must be found-"
"You were with him," the tall nobleman grated. "You gave that barbarian swine what was promised to me."
Synelle drew herself to her full height, and flung cold fury at him like a dagger. "Whatever I gave was mine to give. Whatever I did was mine to do, and none with right to gainsay me."
"I will slay him," Taramenon moaned in anguish, "like a dog in the dirt."
"You will slay whom I tell you to slay, when I tell you to slay them."
Synelle softened her voice; shock had driven anger from Taramenon's face. There was still uses for the man, and she had long since learned means of controlling him that had naught to do with sorcery. "The barber will be useful for a time. Later you may kill him if you wish."
The last had been a sudden thought. Conan was a wonderful lover, but why limit herself to one? Men did not limit themselves to one woman.
Yet the young giant would always hold a place in her affections for the vistas of pleasure he opened to her; when she was Queen of Ophir she would have a magnificent tomb erected for him.
"I found the brigand you wanted," Taramenon muttered sullenly. "A woman."
Synelle's eyebrows arched. "A woman bandit. A hardened trull, no doubt, with greasy hair and gimlet eye."
"She is," he replied, "the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."
Synelle flinched, and her jaw tightened. Why had the fool forced his presence on her before her tire-maids could see to her toilet? "So long as she brings me the scrolls from Inaros' library, I care not what she looks like." He chuckled, and she stared at him.
Suddenly he was more relaxed, as if he thought he was in command. "If you think to make sport of me," she began dangerously.
"I did not send her after Inaros' scrolls," Taramenon said.
Words froze in her throat. When she found speech again she hissed at him. "And pray tell me why not?"
"Because I sent her after the image of Al'Kiir that you speak. She knows where it is. She described it to me. It will be I who provide you with what you so desperately need. Did you think you could hide your impatience, your eagerness beyond that you've ever shown for all the parchments and artifacts you have gathered placed together? I bring it to you, Synelle, not that barbar animal, and I expect at least the reward that he got."
Her pale, dark-eyed beauty became icy still. She let her cloak gap open to the floor; Taramenon gasped, and sweat beaded his forehead. "You will come to my bed," she began softly, but abruptly her words became lashes of a whip tipped with steel, "when I summon you there. You will come, yes, perhaps sooner than you dream, certainly sooner than you deserve, but at my command." Slowly and calmly she covered herself once more. "Now when will the image be delivered to your hand?"
"The signal that she has it," he mumbled sulkily, "will be a man in my red surcoat standing before the main gate of the royal palace at noon.
That night at dusk I will meet her at a hut in the forest."
Synelle nodded thoughtfully. "You say this woman is beautiful? A beautiful woman who does what men do, who leads men rather than belonging to them. She must have great pride. I shall be at that meeting with you, Taramenon." From the corner of her eye she saw a slave creeping down the corridor toward them, and rounded on him, furious at the interruption. "Yes?" she snapped.
Falling to his knees, the man pressed his face to the marble tiles. "A message, my gracious lady, from the noble Aelfric." Without lifting his head he held up a folded parchment.
Synelle frowned and snatched the message. Aelfric was Seneschal of Asmark, her ancestral castle, a man who served her well, but who liked as well the fact that she seldom visited or troubled him. It was not his way to invite her attention. Hastily she broke the lump of wax sealed with Aelfric's ring.
To My Most Gracious Lady Synelle,
With pain I send these tidings. In the day past have vile brigands most cowardly struck at my Lady's manor-farms, burning fields, touching barns, driving oxen and cattle into the forests. Even as your humble servant writes these dire words, the night sky glows red with new fires. I beseech my Lady to send aid, else there will be no crops left, and starvation will be the lot of her people.
I remain obediently, your faithful servitor, Aelfric
Angrily she crumpled the letter in her fist. Bandits attacking her holdings? When she held the throne she would see every brigand in the country impaled on the walls of Ianthe. For now Aelfric would have to fend for himself.
But wait, she thought. With the power of Al'Kiir she could seize the throne, overawe both lords and peasants, y
et would it not be even better had she some incident to point to that showed she was more than other women? Did she take Conan's warriors into the countryside and quell these bandits herself ...
She prodded the slave with her foot. "I am leaving for the country.
Tell the others to prepare. Go."
"Yes, my lady," the slave said, backing away on his knees. "At once, my lady." Rising, he bowed deeply and darted down the hall.
"And you, Taramenon," she went on. "Set a man to watch for this woman's signal and bring me word, then ride you for Castle Asmark. Await me there, and this night your waiting will be ended." She almost laughed at the lascivious anticipation that painted his visage. "Go," she said, in the same tone she had used with the slave, and Taramenon ran as quickly as the other had.
It was all a matter of maintaining proper control she told herself.
Then she went in search of writing materials, to send a summons to the barbarian.
Chapter XIII
Conan straightened from checking his saddle girth and glared about him at the assemblage pausing for yet another rest at Svnelle's command.
Three and twenty high-wheeled carts, each drawn by two span of yoked oxen, were piled high with what the Countess of Asmark considered necessary for removing to her castle in the country, rolled feather mattresses and colorful embroidered silk cushions casks of the rarest wines from Aquilonia and Corinthia and even Khauran, packages of delicate viands that might not be readily available away from the capital, chests upon chests of satins and velvets and laces.
Synelle herself traveled in a gilded litter, borne by eight muscular slaves and curtained with fine silken net to admit the breeze yet keep the sun from her alabastrine skin. Her four blonde tirewomen crouched in the shade of a cart, fanning themselves against the midday heat.
Their lithe sleekness drew many eyes among the thirty mercenaries surrounding the carts, but the women were attuned only to listening for the neat command from the litter. Nearly three score other servants and slaves hunkered out of the sun or tended to errands, drivers for the oxen, maids, seamstresses, even two cooks who were at that moment arguing vociferously over the proper method of preparing hummingbirds'
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