And then Conan forgot Mordec, forgot the ball, forgot everything around him, for up the street toward him came Tarla, a brass-bound wooden water bucket on her hip. He hurried toward her. "Are you all right?" he demanded.
Though she had no more years then he, she knew what to do with them. Her cool gray eyes measured him with womanly precision. Her gaze made him realize how seldom he had washed, how seldom he had run a bone comb through his hair, in all the time he had spent with Nectan. The shepherd cared nothing for such fripperies, and Conan had cared for them no more. Now, too late, he did. He stared down at the mud under his boots.
"Of course I'm all right," answered Tarla. In Conan's ears, her voice might have been the chiming of silver bells, even though she continued, "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Why? Because of that―that blackguard Stercus." Conan had learned some fine new curses from Nectan, and wanted to tar the Aquilonian nobleman's name with all of them. Somehow, though, he did not think that would improve his standing with Balarg's daughter, and so he swallowed most of what he might have said.
Tarla tossed her pretty head. Sable curls flew. "Oh, he's not so bad," she said, and
sniffed. "At least he bathes now and again."
Even a few weeks earlier, that sally would have sent Conan off in headlong retreat. As much as anything else, what made him stand his ground was the loathing he felt for Stercus. Once more in lieu of worse, he said, "He's nothing but a damned invader."
The weaver's daughter tossed her head again. "And what business is it of yours, Conan, who I see or what I do?"
His father had reminded him such things were Balarg's business first, and not his own. From Mordec, those were only words, words to be evaded or ignored. From Tarla, they were a thrust through the heart. Again, though, he did not flee. "What business is it of mine?" he repeated. "The business of someone who― " He broke off. He did not flee, no, but he could not go on, either.
Yet what he managed to say was enough to draw Tarla's notice in a way nothing that came before had done. She leaned forward, and had to make a hasty grab at the water bucket to keep it from slipping from its place. "Someone who what?"
she asked softly.
"Someone who thinks you should have nothing to do with the stinking Aquilonian, that's what!" blurted Conan.
Tarla's gaze went hard as flint, cold as ice. "You would know more about stinking than Stercus does," she said, and pushed past the blacksmith's son, walking on toward her father's house with angry, determined steps.
Conan stared helplessly after her. He knew he had blundered. He even knew what he should have said ―not that that did him any good now. He kicked at the dirt and snarled some of the things he had wanted to call Stercus, bringing the curses down on his own head instead.
"Come on, son," said Mordec. Conan started; he had almost forgotten his father.
The blacksmith added, "Maybe time will mend it. That often chances."
"It's ruined," said Conan. If something was wrong now, it would stay a disaster forever. That was a law of nature, especially when one was thirteen.
"We lost the fight against the cursed Aquilonians," said his father. "Do you suppose we'll stay quiet under their heels forever? Things have a way of changing."
"What's that got to do with Tarla?" stormed Conan: there is none blinder than he who will not see. He hurried away from Mordec and stormed on to the smithy.
The boys kicking the ball hastily got out of the way, wanting no part of the storm clouds that darkened his features. More than one grown man stepped aside, too; had the whole world had but a single neck, he would gladly have brought a sword down on it, and his face showed as much.
Only after he crossed the threshold did his expression soften. He hurried past the forge, back into the part of the building where his family dwelt. His mother sat up in bed, propped on cushions, knitting a vest for him or for Mordec. Conan nodded to her. "I'm home," he said.
Verina smiled. "It's so good to see you, Conan. I've missed you." Her voice seemed even weaker and more rasping than Conan remembered it.
"How do you feel?" he asked anxiously.
She shrugged. "Every day is another day. But I know I will be better, now that you are here again."
He hoped she was right, but he could not help wondering whether she was trying to reassure herself or him. "Is there anything I can get for you?" he asked.
"No, no, no." Verina waved away the question with a flutter of thin fingers. "I have everything I need, now that you are here again."
"I was doing something I needed to do," said Conan.
"So your father told me." Verina made a sour face. "I wish you wouldn't get into
so much trouble."
"If I hadn't fought back, that―Aquilonian would have killed me," said Conan, not wanting to describe Hondren to his mother in any more detail than that.
Mordec came up behind Conan. "The boy is right," said the blacksmith. "He had to be strong, or he would have gone under. Life is hard. Life is cruel. All we can do is hold off death as long as we can."
Verina looked at her husband. "I know something of holding off death," she said.
Mordec coughed ―not the long, dreadful, racking coughs that tore at Verina, but a short one full of embarrassment. Verina went on, "And I know how hard and cruel life can be, too. Do you think I would stay in my bed day after day, year after year, if I did not?"
Although Mordec had fought the Aquilonians for as long as he could, Verina drove him off in headlong retreat. Conan stayed; she had not turned her sharp tongue on him, and seldom did. "Are you sure there's nothing I can do for you, Mother?" he asked.
"Stay safe," she answered. "Past that, nothing matters. Too many I hold dear have died on one field or another. I don't want you to fall that way."
"I won't," declared Conan. His hand folded into a formidable fist. "I'll make the other fellow fall instead." He did not doubt he spoke the truth, and wondered why his mother began to weep.
In his first full growing year on Cimmerian soil, Melcer discovered both the good and the bad about the land where he had chosen to settle. The soil itself was splendid: as rich as any in Gunderland, and here he had a farm large enough to be worth working, not the tiny fragment of a family plot that would have been his portion in the country where he was born.
The weather, on the other hand―well, the less said about the weather, the better.
He thanked Mitra he had not put wheat in the ground; no variety he knew would have reached maturity in the short Cimmerian growing season. Even barley was
risky; he tried not to dwell on how risky it might be. The barbarians here raised rye and oats, which ripened more quickly still. Melcer did not mind rye bread, but, as far as he was concerned, oats made better animal fodder than food for human beings.
The vegetables in the garden by the cabin flourished ― until a late frost wreaked havoc upon them. Fortunately, the barley sprouted the day after that frost. Had it come up the day before, he would have lost the whole crop, and he did not have the seed grain to withstand such a catastrophe.
Evlea's belly began to bulge with their second child. This seemed a healthier place to raise children than Gunderland, perhaps because it was less crowded. He heard of many babies of Aquilonian blood being born on nearby farms, and of hardly any dying. Families were large down in the land whence he had come, but practically all of them had the sorrow of losing a young child, or more than one.
Loving something as vulnerable as a baby meant casting the dice with fate, but few mothers or fathers were so cold as to refuse the challenge.
Though he had other Aquilonians for neighbors, Melcer still carried his pike wherever he went, on the farm or off it. He seldom saw a Cimmerian, and not seeing the natives suited him fine. They seemed cowed for the time being, but how long would that last? How long could it last? The barbarians were fierce and proud. Would they not seek revenge for their defeat one day? If they did, Melcer intended to be no easy meat.
He
did not think all the Cimmerians lusted for his blood, even if some of his fellow settlers seemed to take that view. The odd half friendship he had forged with the boy named Conan helped dissuade him from believing any such thing.
But then the whole winter and much of the spring went by without his seeing Conan. He began to wonder whether some misfortune had befallen him.
When Conan did reappear, he came out from behind a tree at the edge of Melcer's farm with such silent grace, he might have been standing there for some little while before the Gunderman noticed him. And when Melcer did, he needed a moment to be sure the newcomer was indeed the boy he had known. Conan had added a couple of inches and at least twenty pounds, and, despite already being more than good-sized, still gave the impression of a puppy who had not yet grown
into his feet.
"Hail," said Melcer, and then, cautiously, "Is there peace between us?" The pike was thrust into the ground close by, but not close enough to suit him. Conan looked devilishly quick and dangerous.
But the Cimmerian did not shake his head. "No war between us, anyhow," he said. His Aquilonian was still bad, but better than it had been the last time he visited Melcer's farm. He had plainly kept company with some of the settler's countrymen, even if he had not come here for some time. In an odd way, that made Melcer jealous. Conan went on, "No have special quarrel with you."
"No special quarrel, eh?" Melcer unobtrusively shifted closer to the pike. Now he could grab it in a hurry if he had to. "And do you have a general quarrel with me?"
"Of course." Conan seemed surprised at the question. "You are Aquilonian. You are invader. Not love you, not― " He blew Melcer a kiss to show what he did not feel about him.
You are an invader. You are an Aquilonian. Melcer wondered whether every Cimmerian stored that hatred in his heart, whether it merely awaited the opportunity to burst forth. That was a worrisome thought, for the natives still far outnumbered the settlers. It would take years of immigration ― probably years of out-and-out expulsion, too ― before southern Cimmeria took on a fully Aquilonian character.
And yet Conan had said, with the rude frankness of the barbarian, that he had no special quarrel here. Melcer saw no reason not to believe him, not when he so openly declared his hates. The Gunderman asked, "Where have you been? Why didn't you come here for so long?"
"In my village, and hunting," answered Conan. "And some time with Nectan the shepherd." He stood even taller and straighter than usual. "I kill wolf."
"Good for you," said Melcer, and meant it. Cimmeria had far more wolves than
he had ever known in Gunderland. Their howling had kept him awake through many long winter nights, and he had lost livestock despite his best efforts to stand watch over the animals every moment. "I have killed wolves, too," he told the Cimmerian.
"A man's work," said Conan. Melcer took that in the spirit in which it was offered: as praise for him and not bragging on Conan's part about his own manhood. But then the youngster added, "I want all wolves in Cimmeria dead."
He was not looking at Melcer, but he was staring south toward Venarium, the heart of Aquilonian rule in the conquered province.
When Melcer thought of wolves that went on two legs rather than four, he did not look in the direction of Venarium. Instead, barbarians such as the youngster standing before him sprang to mind. He did not think the Cimmerians would give warning by howling before they began to hunt.
And then Conan surprised him by asking, "You know Count Stercus?" He pronounced the unfamiliar name with great care, obviously not wanting to be misunderstood.
"Do I know him? By Mitra, no!" said Melcer. "But I know of him. Everyone who comes here knows of him."
So intent was Conan on his own thoughts, he did not even snarl at the idea of Aquilonian settlers coming into a land he reckoned his. He simply asked, "What do you know of him?"
"That he is the governor of this province," began Melcer, but the young Cimmerian waved impatiently: that was not the sort of thing he wanted to hear.
Melcer went on, "Of the man I know not so much, and not so much of what I know is good."
Conan said something in his own language then. Melcer had learned not a word of Cimmerian, nor did he care to, but the curses bursting from the young barbarian's lips sounded fiery enough to make him wish he knew what they meant. Somewhere off behind Conan, a bird sang sweetly, offering an odd counterpoint to his impassioned oaths.
At length, the youngster had vented his spleen to the point where he could abandon his own tongue and attempt to speak in a civilized language once more: "You tell what you know."
Melcer began to obey before reflecting that Conan had not the slightest right to command him. By then, he had already said, "I hear that Stercus is a lecher of no small fame ―that if he weren't a lecher, he would have been able to stay in Tarantia and wouldn't have had to command the army that came up into this country."
"A lecher." Again, Conan pronounced a word strange to him with care. "What means this?"
"He chases women ―and young girls, too, by what folk say, though I know not if that be true ― more than is proper for a man."
"Crom!" Conan whispered. The next moment, he was gone, as suddenly and silently as he had appeared. A bush shook for a moment, giving some small hint of the direction in which he had gone, but Melcer heard not a sound. The Gunderman shrugged broad shoulders and then went back to work; on a farm, especially a new farm, there was always plenty to do. For a little while, he wondered why a barbarian boy should care about the highest-ranking Aquilonian hereabouts. But in the unending round of labor, he forgot Conan's concerns soon afterwards.
Chapter Eight
The Wandering Seer
As spring passed into summer, Mordec at last began to believe the Aquilonians would not take revenge on Duthil for Hondren's disappearance, and that Conan had hidden the soldier's body well enough to foil detection. He had not thought that Captain Treviranus would seize hostages and slay them without good reason; the commander of the local garrison impressed him as a decent enough fellow within the limits of his position and situation. But Count Stercus ― Count Stercus
was a different story. Whenever Mordec saw the Aquilonian commander, he thought of a serpent, and serpents were all too likely to strike without warning.
And Mordec saw Stercus far more often than he wished he would. The Aquilonian nobleman kept riding into Duthil on one pretext or another. And, whenever he came into the village, he always made a point of seeing, or of trying to see, Balarg's daughter Tarla.
After three or four such visits, there could be little doubt of Stercus' intentions.
Conan, in his jealous rage, had seen through them from the first. Mordec was loath to believe that his son could be right, that the Aquilonian had conceived an unhealthy passion for a girl so young. When the blacksmith could no longer escape the truth, the hatred he conceived for Stercus, though colder than Conan's, was no less savage. He wanted to crush King Numedides' governor under the sole of his boot, to wipe him off the face of the earth. And what was worst of all was that Stercus behaved so smoothly, he gave no provable cause for offense, no matter how plain he made his interest in Tarla. Worse still, she seemed as much flattered as repelled by it; Mordec wondered if she were using the Aquilonian nobleman to lacerate Conan's feelings.
He soon discovered he was far from alone in his reaction to Stercus, for the Gundermen and Bossonians of the nearby garrison loved the count hardly better than did he. Nor were they shy about saying so over a stoup of ale at the smithy.
"Oh, aye, he's a piece of work, he is," declared one of them with drunken sincerity. "Ready for aught ―if it's pretty and not quite ripe."
"Why put up with such a man?" asked Mordec. "In Cimmeria, he would not last long. His first crime would be his last."
The Gunderman stared at him owlishly. "You haven't got noblemen in Cimmeria, have you?"
"Noblemen?" Mordec shook his head. "We have clan chiefs, but a man is a chief because of
what he has done, not because of what his great-great-grandfather did."
"I thought so. That explains it," said the Gunderman. "We put up with bad nobles, you see, for the sake of good nobles―and there are some. If you know who's on top right from the start, you don't need to fight about it all the time. You can get on with the rest of your business."
That made more sense than Mordec wished it did. Tiny, pointless wars between clans or, even more often, within clans had plagued Cimmeria for centuries uncounted. What Cimmerian would ever admit he was any other man's inferior?
Not even the edge of a sword against his throat was sure to make him say such a craven thing; he was as likely to lash out against the swordbearer, conquer or die.
Mordec wondered whether the invaders from the south fully grasped the difference between their land and the one in which they now found themselves.
He doubted it. Getting on with the rest of your business had never been a great worry in Cimmeria.
"Besides," added the Gunderman, "who knows what we'd get for a commander if we did knock Stercus over the head? No matter what else you say about him, he's a brave fighter. We might be stuck with some other fellow in bad odor with the King who'd run away if a hawfinch chirped at him."
"I thought you spoke of good nobles," said Mordec.
"I did, and there are," said the soldier, draining his mug. Mordec poured it full again. "I thank you," the Gunderman told him. "There are plenty of good nobles ―in places like Tarantia. But you'll not see many of that sort here, by Mitra. A man comes to a place like this without a reputation or at best to try to repair one.
If his is already good, he can do better."
Had he spoken with contempt, he would have infuriated Mordec. But he did not: he simply told the blacksmith how he saw the world. Mordec judged that worth knowing. He did not believe any of the Aquilonians cared to learn how the folk whose lands they had invaded looked at them. Learning such a thing would have proved instructive for the men from the south, had they attempted it.
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