He smiled, and watched a blush spread over her cheeks. So she had had her ear pressed to his door, had she? "And what concern is that of yours?" he asked. "You are here to scrub pots and stir the stew, to fetch and carry for Fabio. Not to be wandering parts of the palace where you have no business."
"But you kissed me," she protested. "And the way you kissed me! You cannot make me feel like that, then calmly walk away. I"m a woman, curse you! I"m eighteen! I will not be dismissed like a plaything."
For the second time in the s.p.a.ce of hours, he mused, a woman was protesting her womanhood to him. But what a contrast between them.
Karela was bold and defiant even as she melted with pa.s.sion; Julia frightened despite her bluff front. Karela knew well the ways of men and women; Julia was ravaged by a kiss. Karela knew who she was and what she wanted; Julia ...
"Do you want to come to my bed?" he said softly, taking her chin in his hand and tilting her face up. Scarlet suffused her face and neck, but she did not try to wrench free. "Say yes, and I"ll carry you there this moment."
"The others," she whispered. "They"ll know."
"Forget them. "Tis you must chose."
"I cannot, Conan." She sobbed when he released her, and leaned toward him as if seeking his touch. "I want to say yes, but I fear to. Can you not just ... take me? Men do such things, I know. Why must you put this burden I do not want on me?"
Barely four years seperated them, yet at that moment he felt it could as well be four hundred. "Because you are not a slave, Julia. You say you are a woman, but when you are truly a woman you will be able to say yes or no, and know it is what you mean to say. But till then ... well, I take only women to my bed, not frightened girls."
"Erlik curse you," she said bitterly. Instantly she was contrite, one hand raised to touch his cheek. "No, I didn"t mean that. You confuse me so. When you kissed me you made me want to be a woman. Kiss me again, and make me remember. Kiss me, and give me the courage I need."
Conan reached for her, and at that instant a bellow of pain and rage echoed down the halls. He spun, grabbing instead for the leatherwrapped hilt of his sword. The cry came again, from above he was certain.
"Timeon," he muttered. His blade came into his hand, and he was running, shouting as he ran. "Rouse yourselves, you poxed rouges! "Tis the baron screaming like a woman in birth! To arms, curse you!"
Servants and slaves ran hysterically, shrieking and waving their arms at his shouts. Men of the company knocked them aside without compunction as they poured out of the corners where they had been taking their ease. Helmets were tugged on and swords waved, as a growing knot of warriors followed the big Cimmerian up marble stairs.
In the corrider outside Timeon"s chamber the two guards Conan had caused to be set there stood staring dumbfounded at the ornately carved door. Conan slammed into that door at a dead run, smashing it open.
Timeon lay in the middle of a multi-hued Iranistani carpet, his body wracked by convulsions, heels drumming, plump hands clawing at his throat. His head was thrown back, and every time he managed to fight a breath he loosed it again in a scream. Tivia, his leman, stood with her back to a wall, clutching a cloak about her tightly, her eyes, large and dark fixed on the helplessly jerking man in an expression of horror. An overturned goblet lay near Timeon, and a puddle of wine soaking into the rug.
"Zandru"s h.e.l.ls!" Conan growled. His eye lit on Machaon, forcing his way through the men crowding the hall. "A physician, Machaon. Quickly!
Timeon"s poisoned!"
"Boros is in the kitchens," the tattoed man called back. Conan hesitated, and the other saw it. "Curse it, Cimmerian, it"ll take half the day to get another."
Timeon"s struggles were growing weaker; his screams had become moans of agony. Conan nodded. "Fetch him, then."
Machaon disappeared, and Conan turned back to the man on the floor. How had the fool gotten himself poisoned? The answer might mean life or death to him and the rest of the company. And he had to have the answer before the matter was turned over to the King"s torturers. Valdric might ignore the great part of what was happening in his country, but he would not ignore the murder of a n.o.ble in the very shadow of his throne.
"Narus!" Conan shouted. The hollow-faced man stuck his head into the room. "Secure the palace. No one leaves, nor any message, till I say.
Hurry, man!"
As Narus left Machaon hurried Boros into the room. The former mage"s apprentice looked sober at least, Conan was glad to see.
"He"s poisoned," the Cimmerian said.
Boros looked at him as he might at a child. "I can see that." Fumbling in his pouch the gray-bearded man knelt beside Timeon. Quickly he produced a smooth white stone the size of a man"s fist and a small knife. With difficulty he straightened one of the baron"s arms, pushed up the sleeve of his robe, and made a deep cut. As blood welled up he pressed the white stone to the cut. When he took his hands away the stone remained, tendrils of black appearing in it.
"Bezoar-stone," Boros announced to the room. "Sovereign for poison. A physician"s tool, strictly speaking, but I find it useful. Yes."
He tugged at his full beard and bent to study the stone. It was full black, now, and as they watched it became blacker, as a burned cinder, as a raven"s wing, and blacker still. Suddenly the stone shattered. In the same moment a last breath rattled in Timeon"s throat, and the fat baron was still.
"He"s dead," Conan breathed. "I thought you said that accursed stone was sovereign for poison!"
"Look at it!" Boros wailed. "My stone is ruined. "Twould take poison enough to kill ten men to do that. I could not have saved him with a sack full of bezoar-stones."
"It is murder, then," Narus breathed. A murmur of disquiet rippled through the men in the corridor.
Conan"s hand tightened on his sword. Most of the three-score who followed him now he had recruited in Ophir, a polyglot crew from half a dozen lands, and their allegiance to him was not as strong as that of the original few. They had faced battle with him often-such was the way of the life they led, and accepted by them-but unless he found the murderer quickly fear of being put to the question would do what no enemy had ever been able to. Send them scattering to the four winds.
"Do you want me to find who put the poison in the wine?" Boros asked.
For a moment Conan could only gape. "You can do that?" he demanded finally. "Erlik blast you, are you sober enough? An you make some drunkard"s mistake, I"ll shave your corpse."
"I"m as sober as a priest of Mitra," Boros replied. "More so than most.
You, girl. The wine came from that-" He pointed to a crystal flagon, half-filled with ruby wine, on a table near the bed. Tivia"s mouth opened, but no words came out. Boros shook his head. "No matter. I see no other, so the wine must have come from there." Climbing to his feet with a grunt, he delved into his pouch once more.
"Is he truly sober?" Conan said quietly to Machaon.
The grizzled man tugged nervously at the three thin gold rings dangling from the lobe of his right ear. "I think so. Fabio likes his company, but doesn"t let him drink. Usually."
The Cimmerian sighed. Avoiding the hot irons meant trusting a man who might give them all leprosy by mistake.
With a stick of charcoal Boros scribed figures on the tabletop around the flagon of wine. Slowly he began to chant, so softly that the words were inaudible to the others in the room. With his left hand he sprinkled powder from a twist of parchment over the flagon; his right traced obscure patterns in the air. A red glow grew in the crystal container.
"There," Boros said, dropping his hands. "A simple thing, really." He stared at the flagon and frowned. "Cimmerian, the poisoner is close by.
The glow tells."
"Crom," Conan muttered. The men who had been in the doorway crowded back into the hall.
"The closer the wine is the one who poisoned it," Boros said, "the more strongly it will glow."
"Get on with it," Conan commanded.
Picking up the flask, Boros moved closer to Machaon. The glow remained unchanged. As he moved past the door, briefly thrusting the flask toward the men outside, it dimmed. Abruptly the bearded man pressed the wine-filled vessel against Narus" chest. The hollow-cheeked man started back; the glow did not brighten.
"A pity," Boros murmured. "You look the part. And that leaves only. .
All eyes in the room went to Tivia, still standing with her back pressed against the wall. Under their gaze she started, then shook her head vigorously, but still said nothing. Boros padded toward her, holding the flagon of glowing wine before him. With each step the light from the wine became brighter until, as he stopped not a pace from the girl, the crystal he held seemed to contain red fire.
She avoided looking at the luminous vessel. "No," she cried. ""Tis a trick of some sort. He who placed the poison in the wine put a spell on it."
"Sorcerer as well as poisoner?" Boros asked mildly.
With an oath Conan strode across the room. "The truth, girl! Who paid you?" She shook her head in denial. "I"ve no stomach for torturing woman," he continued, "but mayhap Boros has some spell to force the truth from you."
"Well, let me see," the old man mused. "Why, yes, I believe I have just the thing. Aging. The longer you take to tell the truth, the older you"ll become. But it works rapidly, child. I should speak quickly, were I you, or you may well leave this room a toothless crone. Pity."
Tivia"s eyes swiveled desperately from the grim-faced Cimmerian to the kindly-appearing man, calmly stroking his beard, who had voiced the awful threat. "I do not know his name," she said, sagging against the wall. "He wore a mask. I was given fifty pieces of gold and the powder, with fifty more to come when Timeon was dead. I can tell you no more."
Sobbing, she slid to the floor. "Whatever you do to me, I can tell you no more."