Conan: Road of Kings (7 page)

“You should have summoned one of us.” Mordermi accepted her words. “You might have been killed.”

“Summoned whom? You were all passed out over your cups.”

“Turn him over, and let’s see who he was,” Mordermi directed. “What kind of security do I have that lets Korst’s assassins swagger through my quarters at will!”

They rolled the corpse onto its back, shoved a torch close to the bloody face. Several of them swore.

“Mitra! It’s Velio!” Mordermi growled. “I held Velio one of my most trusted lieutenants. So Rimanendo’s gold has corrupted even those I thought were my close friends! Conan, I offered you shelter here, and nearly caused your death.”

Conan remained silent. In his own mind he was uncertain whether this Velio was indeed a spy and assassin—or a loyal henchman who, having witnessed Sandokazi’s dalliance, was only intent upon avenging his lord’s honor.

Six

At the King’s Masque

The smell of the sea was warmed by the vast rose gardens that surrounded the royal pavilion beyond the high walls that enclosed the pleasure palace upon the shoreward side. Away from the waterfront squalor of Kordava’s harbor, the royal pavilion thrust out into the sea from a lofty headland just beyond the city walls. A thousand festive lanterns made multicolored daylight about the gardens, while the laughter and gaiety of the guests drowned out the restive murmur of the surf in the darkness beneath the promontory.

Less festive than furtive, Conan moved among the guests of King Rimanendo’s birthday masque—thinking that tonight’s was a mad piece of daring, even for Mordermi, who had contrived to forge a quantity of royal invitations.

The Cimmerian cut a fantastic figure amidst the assembled wealth and nobility, and Conan was acutely self-conscious. He wore the horned helmet, scale armor and fur cloak of a Vanir warrior—a race he neither resembled nor loved. Henna gave his black mane an auburn tint, while a silken mask covered his upper features. The disguise was Sandokazi’s idea, as was the heavy war axe he carried—a two-handed weapon with broad blade and hammer head. Conan approved of this last; weapons, other than a gentleman’s rapier and dagger, were suspect at the king’s revel, but this axe was only part of his costume.

“Who would expect a real barbarian to masquerade as a barbarian?” Sandokazi had argued, displaying a Zingaran’s tendency to lump all the dissimilar northern barbarians into one catchall. Conan spoke Zamoran well enough to pose as a visiting official from that distant realm—thus excusing his accent to the snobbish and parochial Zingaran gentry, most of whom would be hardpressed to distinguish a Pict from a Kushite, a Stygian from a Turanian, should so slight a matter have cause to impinge upon their attention.

Sandokazi herself wore a falcon’s mask, full-face, and an enveloping cape of feathers that swirled about her bare limbs as she walked. She wore nothing beneath the feathered cloak.

Santiddio, who led her about upon a silver chain affixed to her neck, wore a falconer’s garb and a domino mask. As Sandokazi had predicted, none of the guests paid him a second glance.

Strangest of all, Mordermi capered about in an idealized guise of King Rimanendo himself—in ermine robes, gilt mail, tinsel crown, powdered hair, sufficient belly padding to alter his own physique without blaspheming that of Zingara’s monarch. Again, Sandokazi’s idea; “Will they look askant upon the image of our king?”

She was, to Conan’s mind, exceedingly clever, and he was just as relieved that there had been no further nocturnal visits during the month he had remained with Mordermi.

The weeks had passed quickly and not unprofitably for Conan. The pickings were rich for Mordermi and his band, and Mordermi was a generous leader. Conan himself was no slouch when it came to the unlawful acquisition of property, and the Cimmerian gave away nothing in daring or ability to the more experienced Zingaran rogue. Admiration grew into a firm friendship between the two, tempered with an undercurrent of rivalry which, in their youth, neither man yet recognized as a threat.

It was a friendship that included Santiddio and Sandokazi, although there was never the kinship of spirit that made a bond between Conan and Mordermi. Mordermi was a barbarian of the urban slums in effect, forged in a wilderness as savage and pitiless in its way as the cold mountains of Cimmeria. With Santiddio and Sandokazi there was always that aloof barrier engendered by higher breeding. For all his talk of the brotherhood of all mankind, Santiddio’s intellectuality effectively divorced him from the realities of his dreams, while there was to Sandokazi the sense of an amused participant in a game that seems somehow too childish for one of her accomplishments.

Conan sensed that he himself was as much of an enigma to the others, and that perhaps their friendship was nourished by the fact that they were all of them misfits: Mordermi whose ambitions were far more subtle than merely to reign as prince of thieves. Sandokazi, whose amusement was to pull down the social order that was her birthright. Santiddio, whose dream was to create a new order based upon reason, not power. And finally Conan, a barbarian adventurer who had left Cimmeria to see the civilized kingdoms of mankind, and had found little to vindicate his wanderlust.

He had sought adventure, and in that Conan had never been disappointed.

There were several hundred guests here to celebrate King Rimanendo’s birthday masque. Fantastically costumed figures promenaded about the garden and grounds, while within the pavilion courtly gentlemen and their gorgeously gowned ladies swirled in dance upon the black marble floor. Scantily clad serving girls darted about with golden trays of sweet-meats and choice delicacies, brimming silver goblets of rare wines and iced punches. Amorous couples dwindled into the privacy of arbors and floral-scented bowers, where the laughter and music of the masque muffled their silken rustlings and soft sighs.

Conan ate sparingly, but tossed down whatever goblet was offered him, quaffing century-old vintages as if they were cheap ale. To those guests who accosted him, Conan grunted curt replies in Zamoran. Of menacing aspect, the royal guests judged him drunk and boorish. Conan was not drunk.

This night’s adventure was not to his liking, although Mordermi saw it as a splendid jest. Conan preferred more stealthy theft, or else open brigandry—break into a wealthy lord’s treasure vault, or sack a merchant’s caravan. Mordermi’s scheme tonight ran the risks of both methods. As such, Conan was not overconcerned; the elaborate charade did annoy him.

Besides themselves, Mordermi had contrived to place another score of his men and as many of the White Rose within the royal pleasure palace. Most were in the guise of servants and lackeys, although a number of Santiddio’s associates were of sufficient presence to masquerade as guests. Weapons were the crucial point; one does not come heavily armed to honor his king’s birthday. Of course, no gentleman would appear at a court festival without his rapier, while his lackey would be expected to carry a knife or bludgeon against thieves and footpads. Conan, Mordermi pointed out when the Cimmerian wanted to lead the outside assault, must serve as a one-man shock troop for those within the walled gardens.

The royal pleasure palace—bordered by high walls and sea-torn cliffs, guarded by Rimanendo’s personal troops. The scheme—daring beyond belief. The risks—bordering on the suicidal. The prize—the gold and jewels of Zingara’s wealthiest aristocracy.

A red-haired girl, wearing only a scanty halter and G-string fashioned of interlinked silver discs and dragging a two-handed sword in an absurd portrayal of a barbarian swordswoman, tilted her smiling face toward Conan’s scowl. “Why so sombre, my fellow barbarian?” she trilled. “I know a quiet spot where we two can repair to wage a friendly struggle. After all, it is not yet the time for removing our … masks.”

“Is it not yet midnight?” Conan asked in a thick accent. “But it is almost time for the pretty falcon to dance, as she has promised.”

The girl made a face behind her mask. “If you want to
watch
some fool dance, don’t let me detain you.”

“Bitch!” Conan mumbled, as she clanked away. His temper was not the sweeter for all the wine he had drunk. On his own, he would have taken the highborn tart on her offer, turned her playful scorn into a different mood, then gone on about his larcenous endeavours. But this was Mordermi’s game, and Conan must play his part—or the carefully planned raid would turn into a death-trap for all of them.

Conan sourly let a serving wench refill his goblet, then strode off toward the pavilion where Sandokazi was to begin her dance. The prospect of imminent fighting soothed the Cimmerian’s temper—where another man would instead have grown raw-nerved from the tension.

That one of the royal guests might desire to dance before the others like an entertainer in some low tavern was not strange—for this was the king’s birthday masque, when Zingara’s aristocracy might shed their courtly dignity and act out the whims and passions that lurked behind the masks of their well-bred hauteur. Chaste matrons might cavort about as painted hoydens; austere lords might mince upon the dance floor in the seductive gowns of a demimonde; maidenly daughters might flaunt their white flesh in the scantiest of costumes before the hot eyes of young gentlemen whose fanciful attire revealed rather than concealed their virile curves.

Presiding over his birthday revel, King Rimanendo smiled down from his royal box upon the guests who caroused upon the black marble floor beneath the gallery. His Majesty had already drunk more than was his wont for the occasion, and the smile upon his loose-featured face was more vacuous than usual. His corpulent figure seemed to be poured half in, half out of his velvet-padded chair of state. A young boy, whose naked flesh glowed with scented oils, held a chalice of opiated wine to his master’s lips on command, while his twin daintily wiped the trickles of wine and sweat from the rolls of chin.

A number of Rimanendo’s choice circle of sycophants and courtiers shared the royal box, while the remainder of the gallery was filled for the most part by vigilant soldiers of the kings personal guard. King Rimanendo was not yet fool enough to forget that many of his guests here tonight would carouse all the more abandonedly at his royal wake.

*

Sandokazi’s appearance had excited comment even amidst the naked debauchery of this night’s revel. Bare flesh was cheap tonight—its lure derived from a society in which a wellborn lady customarily wore enough clothing from ankle to neck to require two attendants to help her dress. While girls of high rank brazenly paraded their barely costumed bodies, Sandokazi lured and tempted with too-brief glimpses of her supple dancer’s figure beneath the fluttering streamers of her feathered cloak. When she had promised to dance for them in the hour before unmasking, excitement grew high as that hour approached.

They made way for her within the pavilion, clearing a space upon the polished marble floor. Sandokazi spoke briefly with the musicians—she had made arrangements with them earlier in the evening—and they began to ply their strings and flutes and drums in a quick, trilling melody. Conan knew too little about music to recognize the piece, but the rest of the growing audience made a bright chatter of applause.

She stood for a moment in the center of the circle they had cleared for her—a fantastic figure even beside those who gathered to watch her dance. Her feathered cape completely enveloped her from neck to ankles as she paused there motionlessly. Behind the falcon mask that entirely enclosed her head, her glowing eyes stared back at them without blinking. Then Santiddio unfastened the silver chain from the collar at his sister’s throat, and stepped away.

Freed from this tether, Sandokazi leaped from the polished floor in a sudden great bound, throwing her arms outward in a gesture that raised her cloak from her side like the spreading wings of a bird taking flight. For a moment Sandokazi seemed to hang suspended in midair, her lithe figure completely naked as her feathered wings bore her on high. Then, even as breath caught in hundreds of throats, she had fallen lightly to the marble floor, her nudity concealed once more by the flurry of feathers.

Across the black marble floor Sandokazi danced now—sweeping low, spinning gracefully, then rising into the air in a sudden leap. So swift were her movements that the wreaths of white and umber feathers swirled all about her like living wings—one instant revealing a blur of white breast or tanned thigh, in another heartbeat molding close to her figure in a second skin. The musicians increased the tempo of their shrill melody, and Sandokazi seemed to fly about the ebon floor—soaring, darting, rising, diving. Her audience, remembering that first leaping vision of naked beauty, watched entrancedly as the flurry of her cloak enticed their eyes with the instantaneous disclosing and veiling of the dancer’s charms.

Faster and faster the tempo of her flight. Only a trained danseuse could have maintained such a pace, mastered the intricate gestures and movements. Many of the watchers speculated as to whose face might be hidden beneath the falcon mask, enraptured by the beauty that was not concealed to them.

At last, as the frenetic music reached a crescendo, Sandokazi once again leapt high into the air, arms outspread, pirouetting in midair. Her cloak of feathers spun straight out from her shoulders, disclosing her entire figure in nude perfection, as she seemed to take flight above the polished floor. Trailing her wings, she dropped back to the marble—as lightly as a falcon returning to its perch. Gathering her cape about her, Sandokazi made a low bow to her entranced audience.

“My lords and my ladies!” shouted Santiddio, rejoining his sister through the tumultuous applause. “You have seen the dance of the falcon! But recall that the falcon is a bird of prey—for now you must pay the price of your entertainment!”

At first they thought he only meant for them to shower her with coins and trinkets, as they might a common dancer. But angry shouts and cries of alarm quickly disabused them.

“Softly, my lords!” Santiddio warned, drawing his rapier. “It’s only your gold and jewels we want, not your lives!”