Conan the Mercenary

by Andrew J Offutt

  'This braying mule-brain is our host, Conan: Hilides. Hilides: Conan, a Cimmerian. Noble Khashtris's new bodyguard—with me, of course.'

  'Cimmeria.' The big taverner looked at Shubal's big companion. 'Conan. Co-nan. Welcome to Khauran, Conan. Sorry about your taste in friends. A passing nice corselet you have there. You're not from Shadizar, eh?'

  Conan shook his head. 'The mail is,' he said, and drained his mug. 'Small cups you use, Hilides.' Then he made a face.

  Hilides laughed. 'Does go down easy, don't it! Took it too fast; stings the tongue that way! And wait'll it comes back; you'll jump a mile when you fart. Verenus Cling-' coin's brew. Shubal swears he waters it.'

  'No, I don't Hilides; I swear you water it.'

  'Ha! Hoho!' Hilides slapped his gut, which Conan saw was solid and firm as a thigh. 'Only thing I water is my garden! think Verenus brews it from alfalfa, Conan. Oddly though, it's popular.'

  'That's because it's cheap,' Shubal said, 'and Verenus's daughter is coming on to be a beauty! Uh, be careful about drinking much, Conan. Noble Khashtris is... sensitive about that.'

  'I've barely dampened my throat,' Conan said. 'Fill it, Hilides, or a man-sized mug, if you have one. This will go on Shubal's bill until our lady parts with some coin, unless you'll make a chit for me, too.'

  'For a well-employed friend of Shubal, Shem's gift to womankind, I will. You look good for it; you could buy Verenus's brewing for a half-year with that mail. As a welcome to Khauran, though, I'll buy the second one.'

  'The second?'

  'Aye – you knocked back that first mug so fast you didn't even taste it, and I'll not support such waste!'

  Conan chuckled while Shubal laughed. 'But only,' Hilides called back, 'if I hear about Shadizar and your adventure there, Shubal!'

  'Huh! Try to stop me from talking about it,' Shubal said, looking around. He nodded at one man, threw up his hand in greeting to another. At this hour of the afternoon, only three others gave Hilides business. 'Oh – Hilly! A little Shemite sausage?'

  Conan blinked. 'This little place stocks sausage from down in Shem?'

  'Not really,' Shubal said smiling. 'Hilides adds some pepper and sage and a bit of honey to the Khaurani summer sausage his wife makes, and calls it Shemite. He doesn't charge any more for it, and I think I'm the only one who knows any different. I don't say anything. It's a popular treat here. It is good, Conan. Put hair on your chest.'

  Conan said nothing. He had no hair there as yet, and wished he did. It was not a favoured subject with him. He was sitting back, leg asprawl; now he leaned forward and thumped a pair of meaty forearms on the small round table.

  'Shubal: What do you know about that Sergianus?'

  'Hardly anything. No one else does, I think. It bothers me a bit now; today is only the second time ever I saw him, and this is the first time I've set eyes on that medallion he wears.'

  'It bothers you?'

  'I think I recognize it. Or I've seen its twin.'

  'And-'

  'Well, where I've seen it certainly wasn't in Nemedia, Conan; never been up there. Or one just like it — as I remember.'

  'You think maybe he's a thief? Or buys stolen goods, maybe?'

  'I haven't thought about it at all, in truth. As for buying stolen goods-most of us do, at one time or another. No, I don't think anything. I just don't remember where I've seen it—I mean, one like it.'

  'Did you notice anything... unusual about Sergianus, Shubal?'

  'Certainly. He has an odd voice – and a suicidal bent.'

  'What? Why do you say that?'

  'Conan, he is paying court to our queen. I do believe, judging from the looks they exchange and his concern for her, that they two may love each other.'

  'One larger mug of Verenus's beer,' Hilides said, 'on me. And a bit of the fiery sausage of Shem.' He stood at Conan's elbow.

  'Thanks, Hilides,' Conan said, hardly glancing at the man. 'Shubal... why is that suicidal?'

  Hilides, half-turning away, paused. 'Suicidal?'

  'Conan,' Shubal said, 'the unhappy Queens of our Khauran have more to contend with than the Curse of the Witches. They also have a hard time keeping consorts. Our Queen lalamis was wed at fourteen, delivered of twins at fifteen - -'

  - and one of them the Witch,' Hilides said, lingering.

  ' — and widowed when she was only seventeen. A fevert carried off her husband, and almost killed her. She lay abed for months.'

  'Months,' Hilides said, standing over the little three-legged table and imperturbably injecting himself into the conversation. 'Months, and was wan and slow to move for! a full year. Some think she's never recovered; it's been four! years now. Lord Arkhaurus feels that the problem is as much in her mind as in her... body.' The taverner hesitated over the final word, and lowered his voice, as though it might be worse than untoward to use such a word in speaking of the queen. 'This young duke's son from Nemedia doesn't worry about that though, does he?'

  'That's just what we were talking about,' Shubal said, I around a mouthful of deceptively pale sausage, dotted with red. 'Conan and I are just come from the audience chamber, and Conan asked-'

  'The audience chamber! And then here? My benevolent stars – Hilides is honoured today!'

  'Oh stop, Hilly. Anyhow, Conan asked if I noted aught unusual about Noble Sergianus. I told him aye, the man's plainly suicidal.'

  'Oh.' Hilides grinned and wagged his head. 'For hanging about our queen? Mayhap he is, eh? Are they thick? So I

  hear. In the meanwhile, though, I also hear that she's happier than she has been in years. Or so they say, eh? I don't spend my time loitering about the audience chamber, nibbing elbows with our Sovereign and her charming visitor from Nemedia.' He glanced around. 'Merkes-our Shubal's just come from an audience with Herself!'

  From across the room a man said, 'Ishtar? Don't be silly. She doesn't speak to Shemites!'

  'I meant the queen...'

  Shubal half-turned to call to the man named Merkes. 'Or anyone as ugly as you, Merkes! For your information, though, Ishtar is a Khaurani import: Herself is a Shemite goddess.'

  'I meant the queen,' Hilides said again, trying to regain control of a conversation that wasn't his to begin with.

  'Bosh and cow feathers!' Merkes said from within a vast black beard. 'She was born right here in Khauran, right where Her temple stands now, across from the palace.'

  'You damned chauvinists,' another man said; the one Shubal had waved to. He sat in the far corner, rear. 'Ishtar's from my own Nemedia!'

  Shubal shook his head, laughing. 'The ignorance of the clientèle this place attracts! Everyone knows that Bel was horn in Shumer, of Shem -'

  'Who's talking about Bel?' Hilides asked.

  '-precisely four thousand nine years ago, which is the day before the world began.'

  'Bel was born in Shem before there was any Shem?' Hilides said.

  'Ishtar,' Shubal went on, never having glanced at the tavern's owner, 'is claimed by the Pelishtians – also of Shem -who say the city of Asgalun was begun on the site of her appearance, full-formed, from a stone of the earth that was split by a single bolt of green lightning. Even her priests agree that this was two hundred years after Bel's birth, for Shem was lonely for a woman's touch. Stars above, can you imagine what a people would be like, with only a single god, and him male? Oho!'

  'Did you know that Bel's the Turanian god of thieves?' Conan tried.

  'That's what's wrong with Stygia,' Merkes said, dropping

  the subject of Ishtar's place of origin. 'All those mid-nighters have is that noxious Set I'

  'Ah,' Hilides grinned, speaking quickly and raising a big hand for attention, 'but you are forgetting Derketo! That thrice-sensuous creature is most definitely female, and Stygian! No, for people with only a male deity, you have to go to those desert tribesmen, the Habiru.'

  'Up in Nemedia we call her Serketo the Stygian Serpent! Slut!'

  Conan sat silent, trying not to guzzle the new-made beer whi
le the others talked about nothing. Gods! Who cared!: Where he came from, gods were plentiful and chief among them was Crom. Nor did that god, never called father, care what happened with an infant, once it was birthed. What self-respecting deity would concern himself — aye, or herself -with the affairs of humankind? It was for humans to concern themselves with the affairs and preferences of the gods, whom they blamed for half that which went bad and most of the good that befell. Derketo did sound promising! Meanwhile, the Cimmerian wanted to find out more about Sergianus, and his own eerie vision in the queen's chamber.

  '... spider-god over in those old ruins called Yezud,' Merkes was saying.

  'Shubal,' Conan said low and fast, 'what's the name of' that fellow from Nemedia?'

  'Sergianus.'

  'No, dolt, the one over there who says Ishtar is ' Nemedian.'

  'Ha!' Hilides essayed again; 'You can tell these two friends – Conan just called Shubal a dolt!'

  'Anyone that big,' Merkes said, 'can call me double-dolt if he wants!'

  'Oh,' Shubal said, 'he's Nebinio.'

  'How long has he been away from Nemedia?'

  'I don't know,' Shubal said.

  'Say, these two are ignoring us, eh? Eh?'

  'Neb!' Shubal called. 'How long since you were in Nemedia?'

  'Too long, by Mitra! What's that have to do with anything?'

  Conan twisted his neck to look back at the chestnut-haired fellow in the corner. Nebinio wore a tunic that had probably begun —years and years ago, when last he'd had his hair trimmed – at white, and a faded half-cloak or cape that was either filthy or unwisely dyed the colour of dust.

  Wondered what you thought of this countryman of yours at the palace,' Conan said. 'Son of the Duke of Tor.'

  'Where're you from, big fellow?' Nebinio said, a bit surly.

  'Cimmeria. My name is Conan.'

  Well, I make it a rule never to argue with a man wearing sword and mail Nebinio, who was perhaps five and a half feet tall, said, 'and I don't know this man whereof you speak – Sergianus, isn't it? But Tor's no duchy.'

  Conan turned himself a bit more around. 'Sergianus is duke's son of Tor, in Nemedia.'

  'Well,' Nebinio said, 'mayhap he's just making himself more important. Tor's a barony. Presided over by a baron. Baron Amalric is about... oh, fifty, perhaps. Has a son who will succeed him, also named Amalric.'

  'No other sons?'

  'Of course he has other sons! Who knows anything about second and third sons, though, noble or no? Hilides, unless you're going to spend the rest of your life there by their table, I'd like more wine here, and a slice of the black.'

  Hilides departed the table of Conan and the Shemite. The other drinker, the quiet one near the door, plunked down a coin and left. Shubal said:

  'Why are you so curious about a Nemedian, your first day in Khauran?'

  Conan looked at him very seriously. 'Are you not curious about him? He may well be your next king.'

  'No, no-queen's consort. But I see what you mean."

  'A baron's seventh son, elevating himself to ducal rank, and who you think is wearing a medallion you've seen somewhere other than in Nemedia. Mayhap he's one of those accursed Zingaran adventurers – or a Stygian sorcerer, old as the hills themselves, in disguise.'

  'You believe in sorcery?' Shubal shrugged. 'I'm probably wrong about the amulet he wears. You about through, here? We'd best be getting back. We should be at the palace right

  now, waiting, and we'd better be about when Noble Khashtris is ready to return home.'

  'I need another jug of ale just to cool my mouth after a bit of that damned sausage of yours! My tongue is numb and my throat feels like one of the flame-eaters in the bazaar in Arenjun!'

  Shubal laughed. 'I'll just finish it for you, then,' he said, scooping up the remainder of Conan's sausage. 'We can't all have strong stomachs.'

  'Strong! Yours must be lined with brass!'

  'Come, Conan; we can always try to beg a cup at the palace.'

  'limp.'

  They rose to depart, despite Hilides's expostulations; he'd not had the story of what he called Shubal's 'adventure' in Shadizar tomorrow. Shubal told him. The two companions talked long in the little tavern.

  Many hours later they took a short-cut through a marketplace crowded with awning-shaded trestle-boards and bins and boxes with hawkers of various fresh edibles. Conan's senses were assaulted with the aromas of a dozen vegetables and fruits, and as many condiments. Shubal shouldered Conan, making a sudden change in their direction. The man from Shem ambled to a fruit-spread table beneath a plain scarlet awning. In its shade sat a moon-faced old woman with much fat and few teeth. Standing beside her was a young woman, plumply attractive, uncommonly chesty in her loose blue outer shift and apron.

  'Sfalana!' Shubal called brightly. 'Miss me?'

  The young woman gave him a cool look from under thick, arched brows. 'Oh, have you been gone?'

  'Evil wench! You know I have, and that you've missed me.'

  'I've managed to keep myself occupied,' Sfalana said, giving Conan a dark-eyed appraisal. The old woman shook with her ridiculously high-voiced laugh. The sound reminded Conan of that of a jackal on the great Turanian desert.

  'Counting melons, doubtless,' Shubal said, unfazed. 'How about a hug?'

  'I'm busy, Shubal.'

  Tie just wants to squeeze your melons,' the old woman shrilled, and made her jackal laughing sound anew. 'Why not buy two of these instead, Shubal? They won't keep you warm, but they're all the way from Korveka, I swear.'

  'Oh, of course,' Shubal scoffed. 'I can just see you importing melons from... Korveka... that's it I'

  They looked at him, the old woman and the young, and at the tall youth standing silent beside him.

  'Korveka!' Shubal repeated.

  'I swear,' the old woman said, and laughed.

  'Believe her and you'll believe Derketo is a virgin,' Sfalana said. "Where have you been, anyhow?'

  Shubal reached across the piled fruits and seized her hands. 'Shadizar, with Noble Khashtris. Just a shopping trip for her-things for her and the queen. But for me-it was nearly death. We were attacked, and -'

  'Oh, Shubal!'

  Oh, Conan thought. Now he understood why Sfalana had been so cool and distant with Shubal; she loved him and he'd gone off without telling her. Her eyes and tightened hands showed her concern.

  'Aye. Four bandits slew one bearer, and the other fled. The other two guards were part of it, Sfalana! One played sick so that there were only two of us that night, and the other one ran off the instant the attack began. He was part of it too, we later learned. This —oh. Sfalana, this is Conan. He's from Cimmeria. He saved my life, and our lady's.'

  Sfalana turned huge dark eyes on Conan. 'Ishtar smile on you, Conan of Cimmeria.' And instantly she returned all attention to Shubal. 'Were you hurt?'

  'Not a scratch, I swear. Tell you about it tonight?'

  She nodded. 'Come for dinner?' She glanced at Conan, as if she thought perhaps she should ask him too, but didn't really want to.

  'Uh... no, I'd better show Conan a few things, first. He's joined Noble Khashtris's service, too, and hasn't even seen his bed; we're just back. And we'd better be on our way. Noble Khashtris expects us, at the palace.'

  'The palace!' the old woman cried, and laughed.

  'Of Korveka,' Conan told her, and winked. He was tired of being a less than comfortable bystander.

  She laughed again, then: 'What know you of Korveka, big lad? You from Koth?'

  'No, Cimmeria. North-'

  'Ah! Cimmeria! I've heard of it. Cold! I've never met anyone from Cimmeria before. My name is Mishellisa, Conan of Cimmeria. Come along with Shubal tonight and I'll show you a good time!' And she jackal-laughed, to assure him that she only jested. Conan thought it best to continue his sentence without taking note of hers.

  ' — of here. I'd never heard of Korveka until you mentioned it. I just said it because you said these were Korvekan melons.' />
  'You hear that, Shubal, you doubting Shemite! Your big friend believes me!'

  'You believe her, Conan,' Shubal said, 'and you'll believe Serketo of Stygia's a virgin!' While the old woman cackled, Shubal looked at Sfalana. 'Later.' He glanced at Mishellisa. 'Go to bed early, grandmother.'

  Her high-voiced, ululating laughter followed the two young men as they moved away. Shubal glanced at the sky. - 'We'd best stride out,' he said.

  Conan did. 'What's Korveka?' he asked.

  'A barony of Koth, right up against our western border,' Shubal said. 'By rights it ought to be part of Khauran. Khauran was once part of Koth, you know. Back in their Empire days.'

  'Umm. You seemed excited to hear about it.'

  "Your pardon, lady. Oh, aye! Seeing Sfalana and thinking about tonight I almost forgot again. Aye, Korveka! That's where I've seen that medallion — I mean, one just like Sergianus's — before. Around the neck of the Baron of Korveka, of Koth! I passed through his domain several years ago, on my way here.'

  'Look out where you're going, lout!'

  That to Conan from a bustling man in a violently chartreuse robe that was loose everywhere save over his paunch. Conan stared; the many-chinned fellow betook himself off with alacrity, muttering the while.

  'What does my lord of Korveka look like, Shubal?'

  Shubal barked a short laugh. 'Not like that handsome Sergianus! His son, perhaps. It has been five years-old

  Sabanitus – no, Sabaninus, Sabaninus... he's probably dead by now. A very old man. A very old man, Conan. Sergianus barely looks old enough to be his son.'

  Conan thought on that, and on his vision in the queen's audience chamber, while they strode through Khauran's capital to its royal palace.

  VI

  Sorcery!

  Once Conan had been introduced to the four members of the house of Noble Khashtris, Shubal led him to the room they would share. It was larger than many the Cimmerian had slept in, and larger than the huts of many, many peasant families. The fat dumpling of a blonde maid iterated and reiterated her assurance that his pallet was clean and fresh.