"Five quills," said a voice from a veiled litter.
Zuru glanced around the crowd of Gamburuvians and said: "Sold!"
Since both had spoken in the bastard Ghanatan used as a trade language from the kingdom of Kush southward, Conan understood. He was surprised that such a low bid had not been topped. A "quill" was a length of quill from the wing feathers of one of the larger birds, filled with a minute amount of gold dust; for the land of the Amazons had not yet learned the use of coined money. Still, Conan wondered why an aristocratic young beauty like Chabela had not fetched a higher price. The person in the litter must be so important that nobody dared bid against him―or her, Conan corrected himself.
He was tired, hungry, and in a vile temper. He had been clubbed until his scalp was a mass of wounds and swellings. He had been forced to walk leagues in the broiling sun, had been given precious little food or drink or sleep, and he was as touchy as a lion with a toothache. So, when one of the slavers jerked his chain to lead him to the block, he almost― but not quite―burst into violent and unthinking action.
A few years before, Conan would have laid lethal hands on the slaver and damned the consequences. But hard-won experience checked his impulse. He could undoubtedly kill this one guard, and perhaps several more before they brought him down, as they inevitably would. These were hardened marauders who had dealt with many a recalcitrant slave before. At ten paces, one of them could hurl a javelin through the ring made by a man's thumb and forefinger without touching his flesh.
If Conan attacked them, he might get a few, but the rest would stick him full of spears and hack him apart with their knives before he could fill his lungs to give a war cry. And then, who would care for Chabela? In taking on her cause, he had―he hated to admit it, even to himself―assumed a certain responsibility for her. He must live.
His eyelids narrowed to slits; his mouth was compressed to a thin gash; the veins in his temples throbbed and swelled with his suppressed fury. His limbs quivered with the effort of his self-control as he walked to the block. A nearby slaver mistook this tremor for a sign of fear and whispered as much to a comrade, smiling as he spoke. Conan sent the turbaned black a hard, level gaze that wiped the smile from his features.
"Strip, you!" snapped Zuru.
"You will have to help me off with these boots," said Conan calmly. "My feet are swollen from much walking." He sat down on the block and held out one leg.
Zuru grunted and seized the boot. For an instant he wrestled vainly with it.
Then Conan gently placed his other foot against the slaver's backside, relaxed the foot in the boot, and shoved. Zuru shot away as if hurled from a catapult, to fall face-down in a puddle.
With a scream of rage, the slaver lieutenant bounded to his feet. Snatching a whip from another slaver, Zuru ran back to where Conan sat with a faint smile on his grim features.
"I―I will teach you, white dog―" yelled Zuru, making a furious cut at Conan with the whip.
As the lash of hippopotamus hide snaked toward him, Conan shot out a hand and caught the whip. Then, still not rising from the block, he pulled the whip in, hand over hand, drawing Zuru toward himself.
"Be careful, little man," he rumbled. "You would not wish to damage your merchandise, now would you?"
The slaver chief, Mbonani, had been watching the scene. Trying to suppress a smile, he spoke: "The white dog is right, Zuru. Let his new owner teach him manners, not you."
But Zuru was too far gone in rage to heed even his captain. With an inarticulate howl, he whipped out his Ghanata knife. Conan rose to his feet, gathering the slack of the chain that connected his wrists to use as a weapon.
"Holdl" cried an imperious voice from the veiled litter. Its tone of command brought even the infuriated Zuru to a halt.
A jeweled black hand whipped aside the muslin hangings, which concealed the rider within from the eyes of the vulgar. A black woman stepped from the palanquin, and Conan's eyes widened with involuntary admiration.
The woman was well over six feet in height―almost as tall as Conan, and of robust build. Black as oiled ebony was she, and sunlight gleamed in satiny highlights on the curves of her heavy breasts, sleek thighs, and long, muscular legs. A jeweled coif in her bush of kinky mack hair bore ostrich plumes dyed several brilliant colors: peach, rose, and emerald green. Uncut rubies gleamed in her ear lobes, and pearls shone softy in multiple strands about her neck.
Bracelets of pure, soft gold jingled on her arms and ankles. Otherwise, her only garment was a brief kilt of leopard skin about her voluptuous loins.
Nzinga, queen of the Amazons, bent a lingering gaze upon the giant Cimmerian.
Silence fell upon the bazaar. Slowly the queen's full lips parted in a languorous smile.
"Ten quills for the white giant," she said at last.
There were no further bids.
Chabela found her new life as a slave almost unendurable. It was bad enough that she, who had been the pampered daughter of a powerful monarch, must now fetch and carry at the behest of a black queen. Worse yet was the fact that slaves were required to go about their tasks naked; garments were for free tribesmen only.
She slept on a verminous pallet in the slave quarters. A harsh-voiced, heavy-handed slave-mistress roused her and her companions in thralldom with the first light of dawn to cook and clean, scrub and mop, and serve at the royal table. It did her no good to see the erstwhile Zingaran buccaneer, Conan, lolling on fat cushions at these feasts, guzzling banana wine and gorging on fish cakes and pastries.
Her estimate of the redoubtable Cimmerian fell. She did not have a word equivalent to the modern "gigolo," but she knew the concept well enough. Her contempt for Conan was aggravated by the fact that he did not seem to resent his status as the queen's kept lover. No man worthy of the name, she told herself, would sink so low as to enjoy such disgusting servitude. Experience had not yet taught her, as it had long taught Conan, to accept such conditions as came one's way when one could do nothing to change them.
Since Conan was the only person in this dreadful city whom she could even consider as a friend, she would have despaired utterly, had not Conan, on a few rare occasions when nobody was looking, tipped her a broad wink. The wink said―or at least she hoped that it said―"Keep up your courage, girl; 111 get you out of this yet."
On the other hand, even Chabela was forced to admit that Queen Nzinga was a magnificent woman. The girl tried to imagine their behavior in bed; but, having been delicately reared, she lacked the worldly knowledge to do so. She could not know that, however the splendid black lioness of Gamburu might queen it' in public, Conan was the master of the bedroom.
This was something new, too, for Queen Nzinga. Her experience, and the whole culture of her kingdom, assumed that woman was man's natural superior. A hundred queens had reigned before her on the Ivory Throne. Each of them had despised and degraded their men, using them as servants and as tools of pleasure and parenthood, and discarding them when they became sickly or exhausted or tiresome. Such had also been her way.
Until the giant Cimmerian had come into her life, she had easily dominated all her men. But Conan could not be dominated; his will was harder than iron, and he was even taller and stronger than she. In the clasp of his mighty arms, the black Amazon found pleasures beyond her previous experience. She became insatiable in her hungers.
She also became fiercely jealous of all the women whom the Cimmerian must have known before her. Of them, however, he would say nothing; her questions were ignored. Conan was not without a certain rude chivalry in such matters. Rail and bellow and smash things though she would, he remained unmoved, with a faint smile on his lips.
"And what of that plump little white wench the Chanatas captured along with you?" Nzinga flared. "She was your lover, yes? You found her soft, perfumed body desirable, did you not? More desirable than Nzinga, eh?"
Looking at her in the passion of her fury, with her eyes blazing and the ebon globes of her breasts dancing,
Conan had to admit that never since his first great love, Belit of the Black Corsairs, had he known a more splendid woman.
But, now that he knew she was jealous of Chabela, he must be careful ―extremely careful. He must find some way to quench those suspicions, or Chabela would suffer.
Nzinga was quite capable of ordering the head smitten off anyone, man or woman, who thwarted her.
Conan had hitherto done what little he could to lessen Chabela's misery. Now, however, he would not dare to intervene even to that small extent, lest Nzinga get wind of it.
He yawned. "Chabela? I hardly know the child," he said. "She is a highborn Zingaran, and such folk place an absurdly high value on virginity. If I had loved her, she wouldn't be here now."
"What mean you?"
"She'd have slain herself, as they are taught to do there."
"I believe you notl You are trying to protect―"
Conan seized Nzinga in the grip of one mighty arm, bent her backwards into the nest of pillows, and drank furious kisses from her panting mouth. He knew that he could dare her temper just so far. In the present situation, there was only one treatment that he could count upon to take her mind off her jealous broodings…
Chapter Fourteen
UNDER THE LASH
For several days more, time passed without incident. Then…
Nzinga lolled on cushions in her seraglio or private quarters. For two days, the white slave, Chabela of Zingara, had been assigned to the most exhausting and degrading tasks. These chores were performed under the very eye of Conan. Nzinga saw to this by a system of carefully planned subterfuge and accident.
Wary of the queen's attention, Conan assumed a mask of indifference, although he often boiled with a rage to strike out on behalf of the captive princess.
Failing to draw any reaction from the Cimmerian, the black queen staged a final scene calculated to expose Conan's true feelings. She declared a small feast for several of her Amazon officers―big, scarred, tough-looking black women, with about as much femininity, in Conan's eyes, as a battle ax.
During the feast, the Zingaran girl waited upon her mistress and upon the latter's fancy man. As she was serving wine, one of the Amazon officers shot out a sandaled foot and tripped her.
With a stifled cry, Chabela lost her balance and upset a beaker of wine over several feasters. One of these, a stout officer named Tuta, scrambled to her feet with an oath and struck the cowering slave girl a terrific blow across the face with her open hand. The girl sprawled on the earthen floor.
A sadistic gleam lit the eyes of the Amazon officer; the sight of the cowering, naked white girl seemed to rouse her to additional fury. In tingling silence, she approached the slave girl like a panther stalking its prey. One scarred, muscular hand sought a needle-sharp bronzen dirk, which hung at her hip.
The room remained silent, save for the faint whisper as the ruddy blade, gleaming in the torchlight, slid from its sheath. Tuta, her face a mask of blood-lust, bent over the slave girl and raised the dagger.
With breathless fascination, Chabela watchedthe approach of the dirk. She knew that she ought to leap to her feet and run, even though she was sure to be caught. But the horror and hopelessness of her position drained the strength from her limbs, so that she could only stare helplessly. In another instant, the blade would sink into her panting breast…
Then Tuta froze as a viselike grip seized her by wrist and nape. The crushing pressure of those huge hands paralyzed her as surely as her approach had paralyzed Chabela. The dirk dropped to the ground with a faint, metallic sound.
Then, with a surge of his powerful thews, Conan hurled her across the hall, to sprawl, half stunned, against the further wall.
Conan was fully awake to' the position into which Nzinga had maneuvered him. He could not let the daughter of King Ferdrugo be stabbed to death; on the other hand, he realized that Nzinga would take his interference as proof of his interest in her rival and vent her jealousy on one or both of them. He forced a laugh.
"Surely the queen of Gamburu is not so spendthrift as to let her slaves be slain for a few drops of wine!" he said, grinning as jovially as he could.
Queen Nzinga eyed him coldly, without expression. Then she gave a small signal to Chabela, who scrambled up and scurried from the room. The tension relaxed.
Conan returned to his place. Beakers of wine went round again, and desultory conversation sprang up.
Conan hoped that the taut moment was over. He covered his thoughts with deep drafts of plantain wine. But he did not fail to notice that Queen Nzinga was eyeing him from time to time with hard, thoughtful eyes.
As Chabela left the dining hall, powerful black hands seized her and held her fast. Before she could cry out, a wad of cloth was thrust into her mouth and secured by a strip of the same material tied around her face and the back of her neck. Then a sack of cloth was drawn over her head. Her wrists were twisted behind her and bound with leather straps. She was lifted off her feet and borne through twisting corridors and down steps to an area of the palace that she did not know. Here her wrists were unbound but then bound again, above her head, to a copper ring suspended by a chain from the ceiling. When this was done, she was left alone.
The pain in her hands slowly diminished as the straps cut off the circulation in them, rendering them numb. She dangled weakly in the silent room, praying that Conan could somehow learn of her predicament.
But Conan, at this moment, was himself helpless. He sprawled on the cushions of the dining chamber. His eyes were closed, his head lay back, and he snored like distant thunder. Although he had drunk only moderately, a sudden lassitude had come upon him. The thought entered his bemused mind that perhaps Nzinga had drugged him―but, before he could do anything about it, he fell into a slumber so profound that not even an earthquake could have aroused him.
Nzinga gave him a slitted glance and tersely ordered him borne from the room.
Then she arose to stalk through the corridors to the chamber where Chabela hung.
As she strode, fury grew in her heart like the flames pent in a brazen furnace, and gloating anticipation smoldered in her fierce gaze.
The sack was snatched from Chabela's head and the gag from her jaws. She found herself looking into the blazing eyes and savage smile of Nzinga. The slave girl gave a cry of terror.
The black Amazon laughed. "Scream all you like, you white-skinned milksop. It will avail you naught!"
As Chabela hung in her bonds, Nzinga ran a gloating gaze over her victim's supple body. The queen turned away and chose a whip from several instruments of torment that hung from hooks along the wall. The lash, six feet of supple hippopotamus hide from braided handle to threadlike tip, slithered across the floor like a crawling serpent. Chabela stared with horror. Again, the queen laughed harshly.
"Conan's lips have never thrilled you," she said, "as will the kiss of my pet here. Nor have his hands caressed your flesh as shall the lash!"
"What have I ever done to you, that you should torment me so?"
"You took Conan's heart from me, ere we first met!" snarled Nzinga. "Never have I known such a man. But his arms have crushed you in their embrace; his lips have rained burning kisses on your white bosom… These things I know, and I cannot bear the knowledgel With you gone, he will turn to me and love me with all his mighty heart. I will make him king in Gamburu―an office no male has held for a thousand years!" She swished the whip.
It is not true!" moaned Chabela. "Never has he touched me!"
"You lie! But the kiss of the lash shall wring the truth from you!"
Nzinga drew back her arm, and the lash sang and cracked about Chabela's waist.
The girl screamed at the knifelike stab of agony. The whip left a scarlet weal, from which drops of blood slowly oozed.
Nzinga slowly drew back her arm for another slash. The only sound in the chamber was Chabela's hoarse breathing.
Again the whip sang, and a shriek of anguish was torn from the slave girl as t
he lash coiled about her loins. Nzinga watched, her handsome face distorted with eager lust, as the naked girl writhed and twisted in her bonds. Again she struck; now her ebony body glistened with tiny drops of sweat. Again Chabela screamed. The queen laughed, licking her full lips.
"Scream all you like, whimpering slave! No one can hear you. Even if he could, no one would dare to come to your aid. Conan lies in a drugged slumber, from which he will not recover for hours. In all the world, there is no one to help you!"
Her face alight with unholy passion, the giant Amazon caressed with her eyes the form of the slave, now glistening with sweat and blood, as she drew back her arm once more. She meant to indulge her perverted lust to the utmost, until the girl expired beneath the torture of the whip.
Never had Chabela imagined that flesh could endure such torment. Pampered by the luxuries of court lif e, the princess had never experienced true pain before.
Added to the agony of her flesh was the torment of shame. As the only daughter of a fond old king, she had been allowed to go her headstrong way, rarely thwarted by her aged and preoccupied royal parent. Now, as her flesh shrank from the kiss of the lash, so did her spirit shrink from the humiliation.
The Zingaran nobility commonly held black slaves ―Kushites brought up from the south by Stygian and Shemitish slavers―and Chabela knew that they were often punished for real or imagined faults just as she was being chastised now. But never in her wildest imaginings had she supposed that the roles could be reversed, and that a black woman could have her strung up and flog her like the meanest field hand on a Zingaran plantation.
As lash followed lash, Chabela, through the red haze of pain, fixed her gaze on a glittering object that lay across the chamber on a small taboret: a golden headpiece, crusted with countless gems, in the form of a coiled serpent. Of course! She recog-ized the Cobra Crown, which Conan had seized from the black temple on the Nameless Isle. She strove to keep her mind on the Crown, to counteract the pain of the flogging…
The Conan Compendium Page 584