Her calm facade cracked. "The Red Hawk will never be forgotten!"
Emerald eyes flaring, she faced him with fists on hips and feet apart.
Almost he could see the jeweled tulwar at her hip as it had been.
"Now that you"re no longer being the Lady Tiana," he said grimly, "why in Zandru"s Nine h.e.l.ls do you want me dead?"
"Why?" she screeched in furious astonishment. "Have you forgot so soon leaving me naked and chained, on my way to be sold to whatever man bid highest?"
"There was the matter of the oath you made me swear, Karela. Never lift a hand to save-"
"Derketo blast you and your oaths, Cimmerian!"
"Besides which, I had four coppers in my pouch. Think you to have gone for so paltry a price?"
"You lie!" she spat. "I would not heel at your command, so you let me be sold!"
"I tell you-"
"Liar! Liar!"
Conan snarled wordlessly and clenched his teeth on any further explanation. He would not argue with her. Neither would he plead. That last he had never learned to do.
Pacing angrily, Karela hurled her words as if they were daggers, never looking at him directly. "I want you to know my humiliations, Cimmerian. Know them, and remember them, so the memory will be a blade to p.r.i.c.k you constantly when you are in the mines, ever reminding you that when the King proclaims pardons for all who have served a certain time, I will be then to place gold in the proper hands so that one prisoner will be forgotten."
"I knew you would escape," Conan muttered. "As you obviously did."
Her emerald eyes squeezed shut for a moment, and when she opened them her tone was flat. "I was bought by a merchant named Haffiz, and placed in his zenana with two score other women. That very day did I escape.
And that very day was I brought back and given the bastinado, the cane across the soles of my feet. I would not cry, but for ten days I could only hobble. The second time I was free for three days. On being returned, I was put to scrubbing pots in the kitchens."
Despite his position Conan chuckled. "A fool he was, to think to tame you so."
She turned to face him, and if her words were soft her eyes held murder. "The third time I was taken while still climbing the wall. I spat in Haffiz" face, told him to slay me, for he could never break me.
Haffiz laughed. I thought I was a man, he said. I must be taught differently. Henceforth I was to be allowed no waking hour that I was not dressed as if about to be presented to a master"s bed, in the sheerest silks and the finest fragrances, kohl on my eyelids and rouge on my lips and cheeks. I must learn to dance, to play instruments, to recite poetry. Failure in any of these, failure to be pleasing at all times, would be punished immediately. But, as I was like a young girl learning to be a woman, no punishment would I receive not suitable for a child. How he roared with laughter."
Conan threw back his head and roared as well. "A child!"
Raising a fist as if she wished it had strength to knock him senseless, Karela raged. "What do you know of it, fool? Having my b.u.t.tocks turned up for the switch ten times a day. Spoons of ca"teen oil forced down my throat. A hundred more too shaming even to think on. Laugh, you barbar oaf! For a year was I forced to endure, and how I wish I could make you live a year in the mines for every day of it."
With an effort he managed to control his mirth. "I thought you would escape in half a year, perhaps less. But the Red Hawk turned to a thrush in a silver cage."
"Day and night was I watched," she protested. "And I did escape, with a sword in my hand."
"Because you tired of being sent to your bed with no supper?" Chuckles reverberated in his ma.s.sive chest.
"Derketo blast your eyes!" Karela howled. She raced forward to pound her small fists against his great chest. "Erlik take you, you Cimmerian b.a.s.t.a.r.d! You... you...." Abruptly she sagged, clutching him to keep from falling. Her cheek was pressed against his chest; he was astounded to see a tear at the corner of her eye. "I loved you," she whispered.
"I loved you."
The muscular Cimmerian shook his head in wonderment. Did she act like this when she loved him, he could not imagine anyone surviving her hate.
Pushing herself away, she stepped back from him, refusing to acknowledge the tears that trembled on her long lashes. "There is no fear in you," she whispered. "You are not trembling. Nor will you think, "if she suffered so, what will she make me suffer?""
"I have no blame for what happened to you, Karela," he said quietly.
She did not seem to hear. "But if you have no fear, still you are a man." A strange smile played about her lips.
Abruptly her fingers went to the brooches that held her robes; in an instant the gray silk lay in a pool about her slender ankles.
Gracefully she stepped from the robes. She was as he remembered, full b.r.e.a.s.t.s and rounded thighs, long legs and a tiny waist. Karela was a sensual delight for the male eye.
Slowly, on her toes, she spun, arms raised, head turning to let her silken tresses caress now creamy shoulders, now satin b.r.e.a.s.t.s. With a gentle sway to her hips she walked to him, stopping only when her b.r.e.a.s.t.s touched him, just below the ribs as he hung in the chains.
Touching her full lower lip with her tongue and looking up at him through her lashes, she began in a sultry tone.
"When you are taken into the mines only death can bring you to the surface again. You will live your life in dank, foul air and the dim light of guttering torches. There are women there, if you want to call them women. Their hands are as calloused as any man"s." Her fingers stroked across his iron-hard chest. "Their hair and skin are filth encrusted, their stench foul; their kisses...."
Her slender arms stretched up, her hands hooked behind his neck, and she pulled herself up until her face was level with his.
"They have no sweet kisses such as this," she whispered, and pressed her lips to his. He met her kiss savagely, until at last she broke free with a whimper. Her emerald gaze was tremulous, his the blue of windswept northern skies. "You will never have a kiss like that again,"
she said breathlessly.
Abruptly she dropped to the stone floor and backed away, biting her full lower lip. There was sudden uncertainty in her green eyes. "Now I will be the only woman in your mind for the rest of your life," she said. "The only woman for the rest of your life." And, s.n.a.t.c.hing her robes from the floor, she ran into the darkness. After a time he heard the door squeak open and clash shut.
She had not changed, he thought. She was still the Red Hawk, fierce and hot-blooded as any bird of prey. But if she thought he would go meekly to the mines, or whatever the ancient penalty Garian had spoken of, then she was also as wrong-headed as she had ever been.
Conan eyed his chains, but did not again attempt to break them. Among the lessons taught by the treacherous snowcovered crags of the Cimmerian mountains was this: when action was not possible, struggle only brought death sooner; waiting, conserving strength, brought the chance of survival. The Cimmerian hung in his chains with the patience of a hunting beast waiting for its prey to come closer.
Chapter XXI.
Creaking, the chains that held Conan"s arms began to rattle down, lowering him to the stone floor. He could not suppress a groan as his position shifted; he had no idea how many hours he had hung there. The pool of light and the dark beyond were unchanging, giving no sign of time"s pa.s.sage.
His feet touched the floor, and knees long strained gave way. The full length of his ma.s.sive body collapsed on the stone. Straining, he tried to get his arms under him, but the blood had long since drained from them. They could only twitch numbly.
The two men who had wielded the whips hurried into the light and began removing the chains. His weakened struggles were useless as they manacled his hands behind him and linked his ankles with heavy iron chains. The man with the burn scar was as silent and expressionless as before, but hairy-chest, he with the oddly pleasant face, talked almost jovially.
"Almost did I think we"d let you hang another day, what with all the excitement of this one. Fasten that tighter," he added to the other.
"He"s dangerous, this one." The second man grunted and went on as he was, hammering a rivet into the iron band on Conan"s left wrist.
"My men," the Cimmerian croaked. His throat felt dry as broken pottery shards.
"Oh, they were part of it," the round-faced man laughed deprecatingly.
"Fought off the Golden Leopards sent to arrest them, they did, and disappeared. Might have been made much of, another time, but more has happened since dawn this day than since Garian took the throne. First the King banished all of his old councilors from the city on pain of death. Then he created the t.i.tle High Councilor of Nemedia, with near the power of the King himself attached, and gave it to Lord Alba.n.u.s, an evil-eyed man if ever I saw.
And to top that, he named his leman a lady. Can you imagine that blonde doxy a lady? But all those fine n.o.bles walk wide of her, for they say she may be Queen, next. Then there were the riots. Get the rest of it, Struto."
The silent man grunted again and lumbered away.
Conan worked his mouth for moisture. "Riots?" he managed.
The round-faced man nodded. "All over the city." Looking about as if to see if anyone might overhear, he added in a whisper. "Shouting for Garian to abdicate, they were. Maybe that"s why Garian got rid of the old councilors, hoping any change would satisfy them. Leastways, he didn"t send the Golden Leopards out after them."