“You must be good men to have in a tight place. If you grow tired of slaughter in far-off lands, the slaves on my date plantation, a few days’ ride north and east of here, need a firm hand. ‘Tis an easy job; you need not even speak their language—in fact, our late overseer was a mute! When your term of enlistment is past, Sergeant, look me up: Craxus of Kezank-March, at your service!”
The women were the most persistent. Males seemed obliged to confront the heroes and prove themselves, but they usually sheered off judiciously before the warriors’ guarded grunts and surly looks; but the females found their dour aspect enticing. To Conan’s astonishment, Juma played expertly to their fascination, mingling his gruffness with tantalizing hints of war experience and personal prowess.
“Oh, Sergeant Juma, I can just imagine what it would be like to be princess of a village stormed by your troops!” A svelte matron, whose silk turban had more fabric in it than her brief, clinging gown, drew the willing Kushite down beside her on a pillowed ottoman. “You look so virile and strong! Now confess to me, you don’t
always
slay the women, do you?”
Conan himself fell as prey to a leaner, hungrier courtesan, a dusky Turanian, auburn-haired from some trace of western blood. “I envy you troopers your travels to exotic lands and your adventures in strange ports! We women have to be content with homier pleasures.” She sank onto the cushioned seat, clinging to the Cimmerian’s horny hand with both of hers as he loomed over her. “In Venjipur, they say, rare and exciting potions are to be found. Did you bring back any such mementoes for us city-dwellers? Lotus elixirs, say, or other foreign delights?”
“No.” Conan shook his head gravely. “Such potions steal the soul. I have tasted their evil power and seen too many others die or go mad from them. ‘Tis foolhardy even to use them to soothe the pain of a wound, you know; some troopers learn to crave them ever more, gashing themselves over and over again for the sake of applying the balm, until they sicken and die of the creeping blood-rot.”
Conan’s frank speech made the woman flinch and relinquish his hand uncomfortably. Yet at the same time, the tale seemed to engage her deeper interest. She stared thoughtfully into his eyes for a few heartbeats, then whispered something to her turbaned companion, who still cooed over Juma.
“Officers,” the women announced, “your appetites must be… simply ravenous after your long journey! Let us go and bring you drink and dainties from yonder table. You wait here; we shall return at once to hear more of your fascinating stories.”
As the two bustled away through the crowd, Conan sank down on the ottoman beside his friend. “Come, Juma, let us get away from here. I cannot bear this morbid questioning; it brings back too many evil memories.”
Laying his empty kumiss-jar on the tile-blazoned floor, Juma shrugged. “Just sit here and play along, Conan, and I guarantee you a soft bedmate tonight. Know you, these courtly females will love you less curtly and wearily than Venji campgirls. Unless, of course, you miss your Sariya…”
Impatiently Conan shrugged his remarks aside. “Juma, how you can take your leisure so calmly with arrows drawn at our backs, and our enemies conniving against us? You, who warned me of the perils of the capital…”
“Did I not also say that a hero’s life is a short, intense one? We have no choice now but to relax and enjoy it.” Juma eased back onto the cushion, a living example of pantherine calm. “This is the best way to spin out our lives another day, by doing what is expected. Tomorrow you meet Yildiz; by then, some course of action may present itself.”
“Aye, perhaps—but even the Sunrise Throne looks shaky these days. Methinks I should warn Yildiz before the night is over, or seek out the source of the threat directly!”
Juma raised his hand to Conan’s arm in a cautionary gesture, his voice sinking to a stockade-whisper. “Put no faith in Sempronius’s guesses and innuendos; that eunuch is as sly as any of his brethren. Above all, do not hint at any weakness in this Yildiz’s reign, unless you are ready to take the blame for undermining it!”
“My thanks for your counsel.” Conan clasped the Kushite’s wrist, detaching his friend’s grip from his arm. “But I cannot bide here tamely now. Take both wenches with my compliments, Juma, but be wary.” Before the courtesans had returned, he slipped away through the crowd.
Abolhassan was nowhere to be seen—an annoyance, since Conan was half-minded to confront him and settle their real or rumored differences without delay. Watchfully he scanned the thronging, lofty-arched hall, from his vantage a head above most of the idlers. He met dozens of glances, some conveying distaste, others a pathetic eagerness to make closer contact. He had to sweep his gaze ruthlessly free of them all, wishing that his height, coloring, and garish dress did not make him so conspicuous.
Maddeningly, he felt himself unable to move smoothly through the crowd; though he would have navigated a night jungle without stirring a twig, he could not seem to bypass a single babbling, gesticulating courtier without colliding with him or her, and then having to extricate himself from their voluble courtesies and protestations. Inching past an especially raucous, close-packed group, he found himself the target of a municipal officer with a strident, sharply pitched voice.
“Ah, here is Conan, the pride of Venjipur, soon to receive the benison of the mighty! I have been wanting a word or two with you, fellow.” Failing to snatch Conan’s dagger-hand in his earnest grasp, he pummeled him on the shoulder instead.
“Oof! Back off, man! Who are you?” Stepping away, Conan made forcible room in the crowded surroundings; he wanted to be able to see his challenger’s hands and have adequate time to react to a sudden blow or a knife-thrust.
“I? I am Omar, Captain of the Civil Horse-Guard. You may have seen me earlier today, leading a saber detachment to save you from a mob of your… admirers.” The medium-sized, red-tunicked man smiled and added his own bray to a spate of appreciative laughter from watching courtiers. His brown-mustached face, rubicund with drink and temerity, had a pursed look about the lips, making them seem well-suited to uttering slights and slanders. “Come, let us talk man-to-man. Even though I am your senior in both rank and years, I would not let that stand between us.”
“Nor would I, since civil guards have no sway over fighting officers.” Standing with his hands loose at his sides, Conan courteously reminded himself not to clutch at his dagger-hilt.
“No, perhaps not. What I meant to take up with you”—Omar paused, visibly playing to the audience of watching courtiers—“was to congratulate you on your victory at… where was it… Sikander! I read the official reports, and I agree that your conduct was most valiant. A dozen-hundred enemy dead at least, allowing for double counting, and impressive losses on our own side as well, to prove your courage. Well done, soldier!” Omar beamed around at the group as if the putative credit were his own.
“Yes, truly,” he finally resumed in the face of appreciative nods and murmurs, “after reviewing your conduct of the battle, there is only one small criticism I can make: Where were your cavalry, fellow?” With raised eyebrows and outspread palms, Omar invoked the judgment of the watchers. “Why, a good horse charge might have doubled the enemy dead-count, with but a fewscore more losses among our own ranks. Elephants and so forth may be traditional down south, but there is still no substitute for the old hack-and-trample!”
Conan, regarding his critic narrowly, nevertheless lowered his eyes as he answered, for he felt slightly put off by the number and intensity of the watching stares. “If by Sikander, you mean the battle of the Elephant Shrine—why, the cavalry was far behind us at the fort. They never even found the fight. But that is just as well, since I see little use for horses in jungle combat.”
“Ah, but there, you see!” Omar crowed triumphantly. “Your attitude is at fault there, Sergeant! To leave the cavalry in the rear of battle is like setting the horse behind the plow and lashing the yoke to your own weary neck. Once the enemy has been put to rout and is fleeing through level forest, that is where a horse troop can shine, outrunning the pitiful fugitives, riding and slashing them down mercilessly! If you entertain a prejudice against cavalry, sir, may I suggest that it is only because you have not
tried
them.”
“Crom blight your impudence, man! With my friends being butchered all around me, I would have been happy to see help coming, whether astride horse, camel, or goat! But come they did not; your saddle-brothers shirked the fight! Whether because of the torpor of their sickly nags or their own miserable cowardice, they left us for dead.” In spite of his earlier resolve, Conan found himself not only clutching his dagger, but sawing it angrily in and out of its sheath.
“Sir, I am insulted! This offense to me and my brothers in service can be redeemed only by blood!” Omar’s demeanor had changed abruptly; he spoke low now, standing pike-straight, his eyes flashing righteously around at the company. Conan, sizing him up as rangy and trim in spite of a slight swag-belly, decided he might be a capable fighter.
“I would invite you into the stableyard now,” the glaring captain went on, “except that I see you are not prepared.” Glancing down at Conan’s gem-crusted knife, he slapped his own long, straight scabbard. “Therefore, may I suggest the municipal barracks at midnight, where swords are plentiful.”
The silence of the nearby onlookers was eerie against the continued babble and clink of the party in the room at large. Conan, flushed and irritated, did not bother to restrain his voice, and so drew more shocked stares. “Damn you, rogue, I will be happy to meet you this midnight—provided it means I do not have to bear more of your insolence now! Fry in Tarim’s deepest hell!” he concluded, turning and shoving away through the crowd.
The buzz of voices behind him, though intense, was still not loud enough to divert the attention of the entire broad hall; and so Conan found refuge in the crowd around the banquet table. This hollow square of trestles, cluttered with food of all descriptions, was besieged on every side by hungry guests. Some of the viands were dispensed by bloused, pantalooned servants moving within the enclosure and by bolder menials who made forays among the revelers.
Conan shouldered his way to a table, plucking up handfuls of grapes and raspberries to cram into his mouth. Looking diagonally across the festive board, he was surprised to see another figure looming tall above the loiterers—Abolhassan, still caped and armored from the parade, accepting a smoking skewer of fruit and meat from a cringing servant.
Well enough, then, Conan told himself; the strident Captain Omar might yet be denied his quarry, if his antagonist and his general fell to blows first. Muttering gruff pardons and warnings to those he pushed past, he began working his way around the table toward his goal.
Halfway there, an even more striking figure inter-cepted him. She was tall and lavishly built, short-caped and kilted in a costume as splendid as any of the courtiers’ gowns, if slightly mannish in cut. More conspicuous than her dress was her pale blond hair, which flowed like a banner in the wake of her brisk movements. She was further distinguished by an entourage: three or four courtly women, more typically Turanian in their dusky looks. Nevertheless they seemed to share the alert, directed gleam that played in their leader’s eye.
“Might you be Conan, the hero of Venjipur?” Her voice, in keeping with her appearance, was bold enough to draw the attention of those nearby. “Are you the valiant officer soon to be decorated by the emperor, in honor of your prowess in his southern campaign?”
“Aye.” Meeting her eye, Conan savored the appealing flash of daring. “That I am.”
“Good, then; let me be the first to decorate you!” With scarcely a pause she took up a silver trencher from the table and slung its contents onto Conan, spattering his face and his silken garb with pink, creamy sauce dotted by unidentifiable lumps. “That for all you warmakers and child-butchers, who march our brothers and sons off to distant battles, and who squander the wealth of our land in cruel, vainglorious war!”
When she had finished, her stridency echoed in a silence more resounding than any uproar. The entire room turned to regard the towering, besmirched hero; the sudden rustle of their attentiveness was punctuated only by gasps and cries of astonishment. It was left for Conan to answer—which he did by taking up a wooden vat of oiled, spicy fruit pieces. “This,” he proclaimed, “is for sleek Turanian wives who fatten on trade and tribute from abroad, but scorn its procurers!” So saying, he emptied the vessel in the general direction of his assailant.
The pale-haired woman, quick on her sandaled feet, sidestepped the slimy torrent; only one shapely, darting leg and the hem of her skirt were besmeared. Instead, a pair of innocent eunuchs behind her caught the cataract’s full force. These two, angrily spluttering and expostulating, shook themselves free of the oily fruit as best they could. Then, instead of assaulting Conan with blades or fists, they laid greedy hold of bread, sausages, melon chunks, and other assorted viands and began hurling them at him.
Promptly the pale-haired maid rejoined the fray, exuberantly calling on her followers to do the same. The Cimmerian, oversized and practically immobilized by the press of the crowd, made an easy target; nevertheless, many of their projectiles flew high and wide. Invariably these struck others in the throng, who in turn joined Conan, laying hold of more foodstuffs or snatching them out of the air to return the treacherous bombardment. In no time the entire throng near the feast-table was embattled, and the room became a flying banquet of fruit, loaves, cutlets, stuffed squab, cheeses, and pastries, with dollops of sauce and pudding of all sorts.
In spite of the melee’s rapid spread, Conan’s attention remained fixed on its blond, brazen initiator; yet the heavy barrage of condiments raining down at the heart of the fray made her difficult to reach. Breaking free of grasping, flailing throwers, he made a headlong lunge, only to slip in a welter of spilled chowder and fall to his knees. His long-haired adversary’s next offering of stuffed shrimp, still nested within a heavy faience bowl, struck him above the eye with an impact that set his brain reeling. Several thundering pulsebeats sounded in his skull before he found the equilibrium to stagger once again to his feet. He plunged into the crowd after his vanished quarry, who had clearly been headed for the door.