“What? You mean to keep this prize rather than scuttle it, and to sail in two ships?”
“Two ships or twenty... all I need are crews to man them and staunch officers who can follow my commands! That is how it was done in the Western Sea.” Conan knew that the latter statement was more wish than fact, but guessed that few of these Vilayet hands would know it. “It is the path lowly pirates like ourselves can tread to become sea-kings! ’ ’
“Captain Amra! Look here, sir—”
Some pirates had not been following the debate with shouts of encouragement or murmurs of controversy; those few were engaged in prying open the stout door that slanted between poop and main deck. Firmly fastened both inside and out, the oak panel had so far resisted the leverage of boarding pikes and oar blades. Now, as jamb and coaming were on the verge of tearing loose before incessant attacks, the pirates sought Conan’s attention. “I cannot tell it for sure, Captain, but just now I heard voices inside.”
“Oh, did you?” With a stride, Conan was before the straining panel. “Come, lads, stretch your thews this time! Ready, heave!”
The door groaned free of its fastenings and fell outward, and Conan strode forward onto it. Brushing aside a splintered, sagging chunk of the jamb, he peered into the dimness between decks.
Within was dank, spice-scented gloom, with a glittering array at one side—no gleaming heap of treasure, but a silk-draped table spread with mirrors, bottles, and trinkets. At the back of the cabin, outlined against the slatted paleness of stemcastle windows, stood two figures, both female.
“Oh, aye,” Conan heard the addled cabin boy prating behind him, “our brave pirate captain seeks the Hyacinth’s treasure. A rare, dangerous cargo it is, you will see!” “Get him away,” Conan rapped out. “Dogs, keep back from the door. Some of you try yonder hatchways and see what lies in the lower hold,” he added, so as to furnish them a temporary distraction. “Now then, out with you! Come forth into the light! Who might you wenches be?” “Innocent sea-travellers.” One of the women, silk-gowned, high-sandalled and black-haired, stepped through the ravaged doorway, raising a dainty hand to shield her eyes against the afternoon brightness. “I am Philiope, daughter of Count Aristarkos of Shahpur. Yonder is my handmaid Sulula.” She presented the second female, less sleekly beautiful but just as finely costumed, who hung back in the shadowed doorway. “You, then, are the one called Amra the Lion?”
“Aye, and what if it is so?” Conan found it strange to hear his pirate name murmured in such delicate, gracious accents.
“If you are he, then I throw myself upon your protection!” Sinking forward on one knee, the girl Philiope seized Conan’s blood-crusted hand and pressed it to her face, speaking in fervent tones as she did so. “I know this ship has fallen prey to fierce invaders, to the evil Brotherhood. So I look to you, the strongest and most feared of all, to protect me and mine from the ill fate that overtakes their victims! Please, I beg you, see that no great harm befalls me or Sulula, my faithful servant—nor either descends on those who tried to save us, under my father’s instruction. If you would undertake this, I swear to you—” here she turned her face aside to plant a kiss on the hard knuckles of his hand “—I would be most grateful.”
As she spoke, gazing up at him, Conan felt desire stir through his chest, belly, loins. The maid was winsome indeed, a lithe, dusky Turanian beauty, full-chested and firm-thighed in her sea-green gown, a puff-sleeved affair that dragged behind her in a ruffled train, yet retreated sharply enough in front to expose one dark-tipped breast and one bent knee. Furthermore, the wench had brass to her, in spite of her claimed noble origin; Conan liked her way of taking the initiative.
“It was you—” against his will, he found the back of his hand caressing the velvety cheek pressed against it “—that the troop of soldiers and the catapult were placed on board to protect?”
“Yes, by arrangement of my father, to guard me and my cousins.” Relinquishing his hand, she waved to indicate the pair of noblemen backed up along the rail with the rest of the prisoners. “And, of course, my dowry in the hold below. It was being sent to Hyrkania to guarantee my marriage... my prearranged marriage,” she added in unasked explanation, “to a rich and senior official of the most dignified repute.”
“So you ask me to keep you safe—for a ransom, I would hope.”
“Yes.” The girl Philiope rose to her feet before him. “Both for myself and my beloved servant,” she added with a nod to her timid companion. “Unless you see fit to release her.”
“Should I apply for ransom to your lordly father, then, or to this rich fiancé of yours?”
“Why, ah... my father, Count Aristarkos, would be more responsive to your demands, I should think.” She nodded to the prisoners. “These others could be set free— with adequate food and transportation, of course—on any Turanian land or sea. They would carry your message to my home, I am sure. My cousins have always been most devoted to me.”
The arrogant Khalid Abdal, from his place at the rail, nodded to her with a wry, supercilious smile. “Very well spoken, my dearest Philiope!”
“I see.” Conan turned to Ivanos at his elbow. “What is your report from below decks?”
The tall, lean Corinthian, wearing a purple damask cloth draped about his unshaven neck and a silver soup tureen inverted atop his close-cropped head, beamed triumphantly at his captain. “It is a rich cargo, Captain—mixed, with fineware, fabric, spices, made-goods, and potted daintyfoods and relishes.” His announcement was greeted with cheers and sea-jigging from the nearby pirates.
“Oh, is it?” Conan grunted suspiciously. He could smell good Kothian wine on his lieutenant’s breath, and decided to conclude any necessary business before the whole pirate rabble was unmanageably drunk. “I warn you, do not relish your potted goods overmuch, not until I give leave! Set guards over the hold, three men at each hatchway. If any slinking thief tries to get in, bring him before me.”
“Yes...aye, Captain!” Ivanos stammered.
“I will remain aboard this ship with the cargo and a picked crew. The rest of you can row with us back to Djafur—or tow us if the wind does not rise. The loot, aside from provisions, will be divided fairly at Djafur.” The pirates sent up a groan of disappointment at this news, yet did not protest strenuously, since most of them knew it was best to avoid fights and carousals in open sea.
“The prisoners will be set adrift—” he gestured to a small launch upturned in the ship’s waist “—with food and water, along the coast. I can do no better than that,” he assured Philiope, scowling into her wide-eyed face. “Fear not, they will easily find a ship bound south and west to carry them to Turan. Your ransom will be twenty talents of gold—” at this figure, the pirates murmured in amazement, though Philiope did not look surprised “—or an equivalent value in tradeware, provisions, and weapons. Have your father contact the sea-tribes near Djafur, they will set up an exchange. Until then, you remain with me, under my protection. Mark me well, you skulking sea-dogs,” he proclaimed with a baleful look at his crew. “Amra of the Black Coast does not trade in damaged goods!”
“And my faithful handmistress?” Philiope was quick to remind him. “She can go with the rest, I presume?” “Aye, well...” Conan hesitated. He felt awkward in dealing with these female complications; furthermore, he had just caught sight of Olivia skirting past dead bodies on the Hyacinth's deck, doubtless coming to learn the outcome of the battle. The look on her face as she saw the gowned woman was grim. He had all but forgotten Olivia; suddenly, an inspiration struck him.
“I will not set a woman adrift. But on the other hand, it would not do for a prisoner of the Red Brotherhood to keep a slave. Therefore, I give your servant Sulula to my mistress Olivia for the term of your captivity, to tend to her wants and, as time permits, to your own.” He spoke in round tones so that Olivia, who came frowning, might hear. “You remain under my protection, of course, all three.”
“Point of law, Captain!” It
was Punicos who spoke, striding to the fore of the pirate assembly. “By the tradition of our Brotherhood, women captives taken with a ship are to be shared out equally among the brothers for use by all, for as long as they last. It has struck many of us as unfair that you should keep one woman to yourself... now you want three! And even assuming, Captain, that some noble landsman would be fool enough to pay you in gold for this little hussy—”
Punicos’s speech went no further; Conan’s steel scimitar, swung in a swift, pantherish lunge, flashed through the air and clove the man cleanly from collarbone to hip. The gory carcass tumbled to the deck, falling in two loosely attached pieces before his shipmates’ hushed, appalled gaze.
“Any more business, any fine legal points?” Conan demanded hoarsely. “Enough, then. Cast these bodies overboard, and bring me a count of the living. Loosen up the grapples and ready the sails! I scent a wind rising!”
III
The Center of the World
Under the bright blue shell of Turanian sky, before the city’s many-masted harbour, the Imperial Palace at Aghrapur spread vast and ornate. Its frescoed halls and inlaid galleries enclosed an area greater than the whole capital cities of some less powerful lands, all beneath one roof—or rather, an ever-growing assemblage of roofs, domes, towers, minarets, and arcades knit cunningly together. Through its expanses a visitor could walk for many days without retracing the same path or setting foot in inhospitable sunlight.
Nephet Ali gave little more than passing notice to these wondrous rooms and byways. The small, brisk vizier knew them better, perhaps, than anyone; in his years of service to the resplendent Emperor Yildiz, Grand Monarch of All Turan, he had decreed a good many of them himself and taken a hand in their design and furnishing. Now, even as he strode across silk-carpeted foyers and echoing mezzanines inlaid with costly gemstones, his mind roved other, more elaborate corridors and byways: the tortuous funnels, viaducts, and hidden passages of Imperial enterprise and Turan’s military purchase system.
The procurement routes, not unlike these palace corridors, were strewn with dangerous spy-holes and ambushes. This current summons from the emperor, for instance—it might mean that some past or present theft of the vizier had been discovered—that he had been too greedy, and now as a consequence was to be stripped of office, possibly of life. If such was the case, he had best be ready to plead innocence or to deflect the guilt elsewhere. On the other hand, this meeting might merely be to unveil some splendid new opportunity for siphoning and profiteering; with that hope in his heart, Nephet Ali reminded himself to maximize his profit by making his demands sufficiently exorbitant from the start.
Arriving at the gold-bossed ebony doors of the emperor’s apartment, he halted expectantly before the guards there: two hard-muscled, slim-waisted Hyperborean females. The women were well-matched in their towering height, their thick ropes of braided blond hair, and their identical costumes consisting of bundled fur waist-clouts, bearhide buskins, homed helmets, and round gold brassiere cups harnessed firmly in place by gilded chain mail. His Resplendency’s idiosyncrasy of maintaining a female bodyguard was well established, of course; yet Nephet Ali had to admit that this show of barbarous splendour in the midst of arabesque opulence caught his attention and made his pulse murmur in his temples.
Tamely he submitted while the Northern maidens searched him for weapons—a thorough search indeed, he noted as they riffled through his purse and groped up under his caftan of gold-embroidered silk. Satisfied at last, his captors opened the ebon portal; one of them led him through it, across a still-considerable distance of pillared corridors and vaulted chambers, to the broad, open archway of His Resplendency’s bedchamber.
Another pair of guards was stationed there, statuesque Kushite females. These two were armoured in light turbans, vests, and harem pantaloons, all knit of diaphanous silver mesh that shimmered against their black skin. They did not repeat their predecessors’ search, but parted their crossed pikes briefly to admit Nephet Ali into the lavish sanctum.
Emperor Yildiz was not on his bed, which was a velvet mattress afloat in a stone-curbed pool of shimmering quicksilver. Instead, the floating bolster was occupied by two of his fat concubines, either asleep or drugged. They lay semi-clad across its rumpled coverlets like seals dozing on an offshore rock. Nephet Ali, gazing around at the cavernous elegance of the bedchamber, located the Resplendent One disporting himself with others of his harem along a farther wall of the room.
The emperor’s well-known propensities dictated that his concubines be considerably softer and fleshier than his female bodyguards. Yildiz, a compact, olive-skinned monarch of thinning hair and ripening years, lounged slackly on a divan of yellow upholstery, watching two of his favourites at play. The women, largely unclothed, capered and squealed in a wine tub of aromatic purple grapes, tramping out the overripe juice with bare feet. As the vizier ventured closer, one of the maidens leaned copiously out of the tub and turned a golden tap set in its side. Filling a jewelled goblet, she handed it to Yildiz. He in turn offered the ruby vintage to one of the two male visitors seated upright and attentive in padded chairs at his side. The thin, bald guest, whom Nephet Ali recognized as Ninshub, the minister of finance, politely accepted, though he did not raise the cup to his lips.
Moving close to the cloying stink of the wine trough, trying to avoid the dark-violet splotches and footprints on the lapis-lazuli floor, Nephet Ali sank to his knees in greeting. “Your Resplendency, I humbly obey your summons.” “Nephet, is it?” Yildiz sloshed his wine cup high in salute. “Dear fellow, welcome to our revel! Aspasia, Isdra, another flagon for our guest!” As the two houris vied to work the tap, threatening in their girlish eagerness to overturn the entire wine pressing onto the palace floor, Emperor Yildiz motioned his chief engineer to a seat beside him. “Of course you know Ninshub... and here, my young son Yezdigerd. He is the one who proposed this meeting. Now, fellow, drink up!”
Dutifully Nephet Ali accepted a beaker from the dripping concubine and raised it to his lips, sipping as much of the perfumy sweetness as he could stand. Meanwhile, watching through half-closed eyes, he calculated. He had never in fact previously seen Yildiz’s son Yezdigerd, who heretofore was said to lead a quiet, studious existence in a secluded wing of the palace under the tutelage of his grandame, the Queen Mother Khushia. The prince was a taller, leaner, more sallow and thin-featured version of his father. In his grooming he obviously looked westward to the Hyborian lands, dressing in relatively loose, practical cotton pantaloons, a shirt with Kothian-style buttons in front, plain leather bootlets and a simple grey turban. He affected mild disinterest in the cavorting of his father’s two floozies. Indeed, even amid this riot, he seemed entirely composed and purposeful... a man to be careful of.
“So, Nephet Ali!” the emperor beamed. “How pleasant it is to sample the first pressings of the new harvest in such a convivial way, with boon friends! Help yourself to more wine if you wish. Or to the girls, for that matter, if such be your taste. There is no business so urgent that it cannot wait on the promptings of the flesh!”
“Thank you, Resplendency.” Nephet Ali was well used to Yildiz’s flaunting of outrageous distractions during high state gatherings. At first he had understood the practice as a clever means of sounding out his subordinates’ true character and feelings, and of throwing them off guard against his initiatives. But in recent years, the habit seemed to have taken on a purpose of its own—that of merely appeasing the ever more debauched cravings of a jaded ruler. On this occasion, Yildiz himself seemed half-woozy, either with spirits or hashish fumes, and the orgy did not appear to be an act. Accordingly, the vizier elevated his hopes of a ministerial and fiscal triumph.
“I cannot say,” bald Ninshub began, “that I could endorse a significant new military outlay at this time.” The scrawny, skull-bald finance minister, generally uneasy at these licentious meetings, obviously hoped to dispose of the matter and escape with as little plundering of his coffers as poss
ible. “Especially, I must say, on the heels of all the recent troop and sailor levys, galley-builds, and the cost of fortified outposts in the western marches. I should think the amount provided in the regular decree would be more than enough for our offensive plans—”
“Precisely, honoured Ninshub.” The young Prince’s voice was firm and dry, unsurprised by the treasurer’s opening gambit. “I share your rightful concern over undue expenditures. That is why I have proposed this idea... as an economy that will save us shiploads of gold in the future.”
“Yes, but even so—” Ninshub was quick to dismiss the argument, almost laughing in the younger man’s face “—you may not know, Prince, that nearly every expensive scheme is first brought forth as a cost-saving, or even a money-making, proposition. Alas, how few of them turn out to be anything but a steady, escalating drain on the Imperial treasury... especially once the original costs have doubled or trebled, and middlemen have claimed further entitlements—”
“Aye, the middlemen,” Emperor cried plaintively. “Eunuchs are the worst, forever parcelling out my interests, demanding favours from above and baksheesh from below! The deal is done better, I say, if they can be cut out of it. ’ ’ He waved a hand, expostulating in air. ‘ ‘Why, the price of a nice Shemitish wench on the market-block, what is it? Five dinars? I often end up paying ten times as much after the eunuchs are through brokering and dickering!” He turned his head. “Nephet Ali, are you a eunuch?”
In spite of himself, the vizier felt his face begin to flush. “Nay, Resplendency. I have seven wives and twenty-three children.”
“Oh, really? I can never seem to remember. Good then, no offence was meant, none taken. Would you care for another?” “I beg your pardon, Resplendent One?” Nephet Ali was sufficiently off balance to proceed with caution, glancing down at his half-empty cup.
“Do you want another wife?” Yildiz gestured vaguely to the hussies in the wine vat. “Either one of these is yours for the asking.”
Conan of the Red Brotherhood Page 3