"A good belief for a mercenary," Iskandrian laughed. "Or a soldier." A frown quickly replaced his mirth. "Why are you in this part of the palace, barbarian? You are far from the path from Antimides" chambers to the gate."
Conan hesitated, then shrugged ruefully. "I am lost," he admitted, and the general laughed again.
"That does not sound like what I"ve heard of you. But I"ll get you a guide." With a wave of his hand he summoned a servant, who bowed low before Iskandrian and ignored Conan. "Take this man to the barbican gate," the general commanded.
"My thanks," the Cimmerian told him. "Yours are the first words I have heard in some time that were neither mocking nor lies."
Iskandrian eyed him sharply. "Make no mistake, Conan of Cimmeria. You have a reputation for daring and tactical sense, and were you Ophirean, I"d make you one of my officers. But you are a mercenary, and an outlander. Do I have my way, the day will come when you"ll leave Ophir with all the haste you can muster or have your ashes scattered here."
With that he stalked away.
By the time Conan got back to Timeon"s palace, he was uncertain if he had ever had so many opposed to him before. Iskandrian seemed to like him personally, and would see him dead given the chance. Antimides hated him to the bone, and without doubt would like to put him on his funeral fires whether he went to them alive or dead. Synelle he was unsure of; what she said she wanted and what her body said she wanted were opposites, and a man could be shaved at the shoulders for involving himself with such a one as that. Karela claimed that she desired him dead, for all she had not taken the opportunity granted her, and she had a knack of making her desires come true that would make a statue sweat in the circ.u.mstances. Then there was the thrice-accursed horned figure. Had the second group of attackers been after it, as those first two had been? If they were, he could wager good coin on future attempts, though he still had no clue as to why.
Of course, he could rid himself of the threat of attack by ridding himself of the bronze, but that smacked too much of fright to suit him.
Let him but discover why it was worth killing and dying for, and he would willingly shed himself of it, but it was not his way to run from trouble. The Cimmerian almost laughed when he realized that the murder of Timeon was the only trouble to come his way of late that had been resolved.
The guards on the white-columned portico looked at him expectantly, and he put on a smile for their benefit. "All is well," he told them. "We have a patron, and gold to tempt the wenches."
He left them slapping each other"s back in relieved laughter, but once he was inside his own smile disappeared. Did they know half of what faced them, they would likely throw down their bows on the spot and desert.
"Machaon!" he called, the name echoing in the high-ceilinged entry hall.
Narus, on the balcony above, shouted down. "He"s in the garden. How went matters with Antimides?"
"a.s.semble the men here," Conan told him, hurrying on.
The tattooed veteran was in the garden as Narus had said, on a bench with a girl, his arms wrapped around her and hers around him. Trust Machaon, the Cimmerian thought with a chuckle, even when waiting to see if they must flee the country. It was about time he found something for merriment in the day.
"Leave her be," he said jovially. "There"ll be time for wenches lat-"
He broke off as the girl leaped to her feet. It was Julia, cheeks scarlet and b.r.e.a.s.t.s heaving.
Clutching her skirts with both hands she looked helplessly at him, turned suddenly tear-filled eyes on Machaon, then ran wailing past the Cimmerian into the palace.
Machaon flung up his hands as Conan rounded on him angrily. "Hear me out before you speak, Cimmerian. She came about me, teasing, and taunted me about kissing her. And she did not try to run when I did it, either."
Conan scowled. He had saved her from a life as a trull, given her honest employment, for this? "She"s no camp-follower, Machaon. If you want her, then court her. Don"t grab her like a doxy in a tavern."
"Mitra"s mercies, man! Court her? You speak as if she were your sister.
Zandru"s h.e.l.ls, I"ve never taken a woman against her will in my life."
The young Cimmerian opened his mouth for an angry retort, and found that none came. If Julia wanted to be a woman fully-fledged, who was he to say her nay? And Machaon was certainly experienced enough to make her enjoy her learning.
"I"m trying to protect someone who apparently doesn"t want it any more, Machaon," he said slowly. His reason for seeking out the grizzled man returned to him. "Events have turned as I said they would. We have our patron." Machaon barked a laugh and shook a fist over his head in triumph. "Narus is bringing some of the men to the entry hall. You fetch the rest, and I"ll tell the company."
The wide, tapestry-hung hall filled rapidly, three-score men-less the guards posted, for there was no reason to be foolish-crowding it from wall to wall. All looking expectantly to him, Conan thought as he watched them from a perch on the curving marble stair. Boros was among them, he saw, but after the gray-bearded man had ferreted out Tivia for him, he was willing to let him remain. So long as he remained sober and stayed away from magic, at least.
"The company has a new patron," he announced, and the hall exploded in cheers. He waited for the tumult to subside, then added, "Our payment is twice what we were getting." After all, he thought while they renewed their shouts of glee, Synelle had offered to double Antimides"
best offer; why would she not do the same for Timeon"s? "Listen to me,"
he called to them. "Quiet, and listen to me. We"ll be quartering in a house on the Street of Crowns. We leave here within the hour."
"But whom do we serve?" Tauria.n.u.s shouted. Others took up the cry.
Conan drew a deep breath. "The Lady Synelle." Flat silence greeted his words.
At last Tauria.n.u.s muttered disgustedly, "You"d have us serve a woman?"
"Aye, a woman," the Cimmerian answered. "Will her gold buy less when you clink it on the table in a tavern? And how many of you have worried as to how we"d fare if, when someone does succeed Valdric, it turned out we followed the wrong side? We"ll be out of that. A woman cannot succeed to the throne. There"ll be naught to do but guard her holdings from bandits and spend her gold."
"Twice as much gold?" Tauria.n.u.s said.
"Twice as much." He had them, now. He could see it in their faces. "Get your belongings together quickly. And no looting! Timeon has heirs somewhere. I want none of you rogues hauled before the justices for theft."
Laughing again, the company began to disperse, and Conan dropped to a seat on the stair. At times it seemed as much of a battle to hold the company together as to fight any of the foes they had been called on to face.
"You handled that as well as any king," Boros said, creakily climbing the stairs.
"Of kings I know little," Conan told him. "All I know are steel and battle."
The gray-bearded man chuckled drily. "How do you think kings get to be kings, my young friend?"
"I neither know nor care," the Cimmerian replied. "All I want is to keep my company together. That and no more."
Sweat glistened on the body of the naked woman stretched taut on the rack, reflecting the flames of charcoal-filled iron cressets of the dampstreaked stone walls of the royal palace dungeon. Nearby, the handles of irons thrust from a brazier of glowing coals, ready in case they were called for. From the way she babbled her tale, punctuating it periodically with screams as the shaven-headed torturer encouraged her with a scourge, they would not be needed.
She had taken money to poison Timeon, but she did not know the man who paid her. He was masked. She became frightened when the first dose of poison showed no effect on the baron, and had placed all she had been given in his wine at once. Before all the G.o.ds, she did not know who had paid her.
Antimides listened quietly as the torturer did his work. It amazed him how the struggle for even a chance at life could continue when the person involved had to know there was no hope of it. Time and again, with men and women alike, had he seen it. As soon as he had spoken and seen the expression on Tivia"s face, he was aware that she recognized his voice, that she knew him for the man behind the black silk mask.
Yet even with the rack and the whip she denied, praying that he would spare her if he thought his secret was safe.
It was odd, too, how dangers suddenly multiplied just when he was in sight of his goal. Had the girl administered the poison in daily doses as directed the finest physician would have said Timeon died of natural causes, and he would have been free of a fool who drank too much and talked too freely when drunk. Then there was the barbarian with the outlandish name, bringing her to him, drawing attention to him when he least wanted it. No doubt that could be laid to Timeon"s tongue. But what were the chances the man would fail to tell Synelle what he knew or suspected?
He, Antimides, had been the first to learn of Valdric"s illness, the first to prepare to take the throne at his death, and all, he was certain, without being suspected by anyone. While the others fought in the countryside, he remained in Ianthe. When Valdric finally died, they who thought to take the throne, those few who managed to survive his a.s.sa.s.sins, would find that he held the royal palace. And he who held the royal palace held the throne of Ophir. Now all of his careful plans were endangered, his secrecy threatened.
Something would have to be done about Synelle. He had always had plans for that sharp-tongued jade. Prating about her bloodlines. Of what use were bloodlines in a wench, except with regard to the children she could produce? He had planned to take great pleasure in breaking her to heel, and in using those bloodlines she boasted of to make heirs with an even stronger claim to the throne than himself. But now she had to be done away with, and quickly. And the barbarian as well.
He perked an ear toward Tivia. She was repeating herself. "Enough, Raga," he said, and the shaven-headed man desisted. Antimides pressed a gold coin into the fellow"s thick-thingered hand. Raga was bought long since, but it never hurt to ensure loyalties. "She"s yours," Antimides told the man. Raga beamed a gap-toothed smile. "When you are done, dispose of her in the usual fashion."
As the count let himself out of the dungeon Tivia"s shrieks were rising afresh. Lost in his planning for Synelle and the barbarian, Antimides did not hear.
Chapter IX.
The house on the Street of Crowns was a large square, two stories high, around a dusty central court, with the bottom floor of the two sides being given over to stables. A wooden-roofed balcony, reached by stairs weakened from long neglect, ran around the courtyard on the second level. Dirty red roof tiles gleamed dully in the late afternoon sun; flaking plaster on the stone walls combined with shadows to give the structure a leprous appearance. An arched gate, its hinges squealing with rust, led from the street to the courtyard, where a dusty fountain was filled with withered brown leaves.
"Complete with rats and fleas, no doubt," Narus said dolefully as he dismounted.
Tauria.n.u.s sat his horse and glared about him. "For this we left a palace," A flurry of doves burst from an upper window. "See! We"re expected to sleep in a roost!"
"You"ve all grown too used to the soft life in a palace," Conan growled before the mutters could spread. "Stop complaining like a herd of old women, and remember the times you"ve slept in the mud."