by Roland Green
Conan’s reply was a wordless grunt and a nod. More would have betrayed his suspicions. Harphos and Shilka gone off together, and Livia uneasy about it? Was she jealous, or had she played matchmaker for reasons of her own?
Conan doubted he would ever know, women being what they were and Livia worse than that! Certainly the answer would not be worth losing sleep to find.
He likewise doubted that Harphos would ever be much of a fighting man. Not enough to be more help than danger to the men rescuing his mother, certainly, but how to keep him safe if he wanted to run into danger? That also was a question not to be answered tonight.
“My thanks,” Conan said. “I will be sleeping on top of the east tower, if anyone needs me.”
The first sensation to creep through the deep veil of sleep around Conan was warmth. Had those blankets finally done their duty, or had these hills somehow brought a warm breeze to the castle’s crag?
Then Conan’s wits awoke, enough for him to realize that the warmth came from one place. A brazier or fire, perhaps—but there had been neither on the tower roof with him when he lay down.
He threw off the blankets and sat up, reaching for his sword as he did. He found himself staring into two wide blue eyes. Those eyes held laughter, and so did the wide red-lipped mouth below them.
“I could not sleep in the miasma of those chambers below,” Livia said. “So I came up to sleep where I would be safe and the air fresh.”
Conan noted that her shoulders were bare above the blankets wrapped around her. The brazier gave enough light to show a light dusting of freckles on those shoulders. It did not reveal what she wore under the blankets.
“You may find the air fresher than you like, before morning,” Conan said. He stretched. If the wench was going to chatter, he would not be sleeping for a while, so best be comfortable. “Did you bring any wine?”
“No, but I brought a pot of one of Harphos’s ointments. I saw that you were all bruised and grazed.
“Hardly that. I had my riding leathers on when I climbed the cliff. Try climbing rocks in your bare skin some time, and you’ll know what bruising and grazing is really like. Or try a friendly bout of wrestling.”
“What is a friendly bout?”
“When you’re with a friend, to see who’s the best, or just practice. I’ve been in bouts where owners were matching their slaves against each other. The loser had a flogging coming, or worse.”
“Would you teach me a trifle of wrestling?” The catch in Livia’s voice was there again, but he could not see a flush.
“Why?”
“I have my dagger, but if we are attacked and the fight is long...”
“I see. You and Harphos both want to be soldiers overnight.”
“Do not insult us, Conan. We only want to learn what we can, to help defeat Lord Akimos. And I think I am fit to learn wrestling.”
Livia must have practised. the gesture, because she threw off all the blankets in one movement. Under them she was clad as Conan had begun to suspect. Her own skin, lightly freckled in more places than her shoulders, and nothing else.
“Well, Conan?”
“For serious bouts, Livia, one normally wears a loin-guard.”
“Women are made differently from men, as I’m sure you know. Besides, I see no guard on your loins.” “No, but I see that the brazier has fallen over and the blankets will take fire in another minute.”
Livia whirled, and the flow of muscle and sinew and the easy lift of her firm breasts held Conan’s eye. His blood was alight already, and only the sternest command to his arms kept them from reaching for her. Only a few coals had fallen, and the brass pot of unguent sufficed to crush them out. When she was done, Livia turned back to Conan.
“If we need no loinguards, is there anything else lacking?”
“Wrestling is best done on something soft.”
“Like blankets?”
“Yes.”
She spread out her blankets, and as Conan spread out his their hands met. His hands took on a life of their own, leaping up her arms to grip her shoulders and pulling her close.
She resisted for a heartbeat. Then she flew forward, so that Conan fell over backward with Livia on top. Since all they intended could be done lying down, it was some time before they rose again, and then it was only briefly.
They were not still until the moon rose and found them both asleep, wrapped in each other’s arms and the tangled blankets.
XVII
“Conan. Conan, wake up!”
Conan was awake but busy admiring Livia through half-closed eyes. She was worthy of admiration, not having bothered to dress before walking to the parapet. By good fortune, it was high enough to conceal all but her neck and head from anyone below.
“I’m awake. What is it?”
“I see two score men on the path up to the castle.”
Conan leaped up and likewise hurried to the parapet without concern for his garb. He shaded his eyes against the sunrise and studied the approaching men. Then he laughed.
“There’s mostly women and children. I see a few lads with clubs and bows, but nothing more. I think one of the villages has sent their folk up to safety here.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t recognize them.”
“No harm in your not being a soldier. You’ve other talents in plenty.”
Livia blushed, turning fair skin made rosy by the dawn rosier still. Then she laughed and bent gracefully to don her clothes.
Conan hurried down the tower stairs as soon as he’d pulled on breeches and weapons. By then Reza and Harphos were both on duty, and swordsmen were drawn up, ready to help the archers if the newcomers proved hostile. Reza seemed as like solid granite as ever, but Harphos had the look of a man who had spent much of the night in bed but little of it asleep.
Oris offered to go out and meet the villagers, and quickly returned with their message.
“They are from Three Wolves. The headmen have sent them up here, to be safe from the women-stealers.” “Do they have their own food, water, and bedding?” “I could see none.”
Conan wished that trolls might carry off the village headmen, then took a deep breath.
“I’ll not send them back, not when they’ve doubtless walked all night. But I want some of the lads to carry this message to the villages.
“No one comes to the castle without bringing their own food and bedding. We’ve plenty of water, but we’re not fit to shelter half the countryside.”
“Would it not also be wise, to ask them to send some armed men?” Harphos put in. “We shall have to divide our men when we march to rescue my mother from—” “Harphos, be silent until we are alone,” Reza snapped. The young man lost half his years and looked like a boy just threatened with a beating. Conan stepped into the quarrel.
“We will indeed be sending men out,” he said. “But ten men could hold this fort against an army.”
“True, if it were wholly intact,” Harphos said. “But I—during the night, when I looked for a quiet place to— sleep—I saw weak spots. Also, the village fighters need not come into the castle. They can camp in the valley, ready to warn us of attacks. Then they can wait and strike the attackers in the rear, while we fight them in front.”
Conan looked at Harphos with new respect. After a moment and with reluctance, so did Reza. “You’re thinking like a soldier,” the steward said, and gripped Harphos by both shoulders. “Your mother may finally thank you for learning something she didn’t teach you, if this goes on!”
“Reza, you’ve a touching faith in human kindness, if you think that,” Harphos said. “Captain Conan, may I show you the weak spots?”
Most of the weak spots Harphos showed Conan were nothing of the kind. Some would have daunted trained apes, and only two offered any hope for even the nimblest of human climbers.
Harphos looked rather cast down, but Conan reassured him. “My lord, I’d been captain in the hosts of Turan for a year before I learned much of fortress-building.”<
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“Turan’s not a great land for castles, is it?”
“Only in the mountains, where they can bar the roads. Otherwise Turan has too many open borders, and too many foes beyond each one, to spend gold on defences that can’t move.”
“I see.” Harphos turned away, looked out over the valley, and appeared to be struggling for words.
“Captain Conan, may I ask a favour. of you?”
“To come with us?” Harphos nodded. “We could use your healing skills. But can you march and fight?” “I kept up all the way from Messantia, did I not?” “Yes. But we didn’t have to fight. Harphos, I can’t spare four men to—to—”
“Nurse the boy?”
“That’s not quite the way I’d put it.”
“No, I suppose not, and I’m grateful for your trying to be kind.” Harphos rested a hand on the hilt of his short sword. “Captain, shall we go a few passes with this against a weapon of your choice? If I show you that I will not be helpless, may I come?”
“Yes.”
“Your word on it?”
“By Mitra and Erlik, show that you know steel and you may go wherever this journey leads us.”
Conan drew his dagger, wrapped his cloak about his left arm, and stepped back. Added to his longer reach, his broadsword would have made the match pitifully one-sided. But with his dagger against Harphos’s short sword, reach was about equal. Other qualities would decide the match.
In the space of ten deep breaths, Conan decided that Harphos had a fair measure of those qualities. He was alert, as quick as necessary, and a fair judge of openings in his opponent’s guard. Above all, he moved about the rough ground with a deftness that suggested much of his clumsiness was an act.
Conan still had the edge, but he had to work to keep it. The first pass ended as Harphos thrust hard, nicked Conan’s ribs, then found Conan’s dagger locking his sword in place as he tried to draw it back. A long Cimmerian leg struck like a serpent, and Harphos’s feet went out from under him.
He struck hard but held on to his sword and had it pointing at Conan’s belly before the Cimmerian could step back. Then he laughed.
“I reckon it takes more practice than I’ve had, to mix sword-fighting and wrestling.”
“So it does. But a good fighter never forgets the weapons the gods gave him, just because the smiths gave him more. Another pass? ’ ’
“Gladly.” Harphos rose, brushed himself off, and took position.
They went four more passes, and Conan won each one of them but none without trying. He quickly forswore any effort to let Harphos win. The young man would surely know if this happened and be angry. Also, he might give the Cimmerian a wound that would slow him in days to come—and Conan knew he would need a full measure of strength, speed, and wits for the battle.
Akimos and his guards were no weaklings, but also nothing a good fighting man need fear. Akimos’s tame sorcerer was another matter, even more so when the fighting man had to guard not only his back but a village’s worth of wenches and babes!
There was something to be said, Conan decided, for the old days as a thief in Zingara. Then he had to answer to no one, save at times the Thieves’ Guild, and for no skin save his own!
Harphos tried to end the last round with a close grapple. He contrived to launch it without warning Conan, and in a real flight might have opened the Cimmerian’s belly before he died.
Conan tossed Harphos on to his back again and this time stepped back. The head of House Lokhri caught his breath, then accepted Conan’s offered arm.
“Well, Captain?”
“Well enough. I’ll still put you in the centre of the party. Not to shame you, but because we’ll need your healing skills more than your sword arm. I’ve a dozen swords better than yours, but no one else who knows a purgative from a pisspot.”
“As you wish, Captain. As long as I go. And—if I do fall—can you see that Shilka receives what I promised her?”
Conan did not say that if Harphos died it was likely enough that the rest of the party would do the same. He did promise to do his best, and see that Livia would help too.
Conan wasted no time seeking an underground way to the Caves of Zimgas. Even if it existed outside of legend, it might take a month to discover it. Also, below ground the foe would have the same advantage Conan had around the castle, with a handful of men able to halt ten times their number.
Surprise would come from speed more than stealth, and they would need surprise. Even if Skiron had no spells fit to fend them off, Akimos would hardly scruple to fling Lady Doris off the nearest cliff rather than let her live to bear witness against him.
So Conan led forty picked men, guards and villagers both, into the trees on the far side of the ridge from both the castle and the Caves. They left at twilight, intending to move as far as they could before dawn, then to go to ground for the day. After that, a march of less than half the night should bring them to the Caves.
The first night and much of the next day, Livia had too much work to think about what Conan and Harphos might be facing. The women and children had to be bedded down, with families at feud with one another kept as far apart as the castle would allow. The lines at the well had to be kept from turning into brawling mobs. Children had to be kept from wandering off, lest their mothers make the night hideous with screams of terror at losing them.
From managing the Damaos palace, Livia knew most of what was needed. Reza knew the rest. So it was not until the evening after the rescue party’s departure that Livia felt her wits and strength deserting her. She climbed the stairs to the tower where she had given Conan her maidenhood, and sat where their pallets had lain.
She was still sitting there when the sun sank below the mountains and Reza climbed the stairs.
“My lady, are you well?”
“Only weary, both in mind and body.”
“This is hardly the best place to sleep.”
“No, but it is the quietest. I think I will ask you to have a pallet and water brought up here.”
Reza bowed, but also frowned. “My lady, it will still be no very comfortable place.”
“The men seeking Lady Doris will be even less comfortable tonight. For some, it may be the last night of their lives. Should I wallow in luxury then?”
“I hardly think a pallet in a warmer room is luxury,” Reza said with a smile. “But I see that you have the soul of a captain of war in the body of a woman. Indeed, I have seen that for some time. So I should not have been surprised at—what passed between you and Captain Conan.”
Livia stiffened as if she had been slapped. Then she quenched the first blaze of anger with the thought that Reza did not seem to disapprove. Moreover, if he was the only one who had guessed, her secret was safe.
As if he had read her thoughts, Reza smiled again. “I have told no one, nor will I. I doubt not that Conan will be as discreet.”
“As do I. He has known many women, I am sure, but left none with a worse name unless they have ill-used him.”
“Yes.” Reza now seemed more sober. “My lady, have any promises passed between him and you?”
“Of marriage?” It seemed beyond belief, but she saw Reza nod. The anger burned again. “Reza, you have not called me a wanton. So why call me a fool?” “Have you been one?”
“No. What passed between me and Conan—it may be over and done. Certainly it will not lead us to the wedding altar.”
She could not mistake Reza’s shoulders slumping in relief. “The gods be praised. I had to be sure. My lady, it is not unknown for men to use the chances of battle to rid themselves of rivals. Had you promised anything to Conan, he might have been tempted.”
Livia’s nails stopped a hair short of Reza’s face. “Never insult Conan again like that! His honour is as strong as his manhood!” Reza’s face was unreadable, but she sensed something unspoken but deadly lying between them. “Reza, you will tell me what you have done, or you will leave my service tonight and the castle in the morning!�
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“I sent two men with orders to watch over Harphos like hens with a single chick. They were to strike Conan down if he seemed careless of Harphos’s life.”
Livia decided that screaming, weeping, or clawing Reza’s eyes out would accomplish nothing and waste time into the bargain. She gripped her dagger.
“You will send a messenger to those men. You will tell them that if they lay a finger on Conan I will personally flay them alive. The messenger will have his orders now, in my hearing, and leave the castle before I leave you.”
Reza’s jaw set. “My lady, there would be no time for anyone to reach the rescue party before they struck the Caves. Even if there was, Akimos’s men might find the messenger on the way. Then he would die, but not before exposing our secrets to Akimos. Akimos would be ready, and our men and your reputation alike would perish.”
Reza’s words and calm determination cut through Livia’s rage. “I suppose there is something in what you say. Very well. I will ask only that you speak to the two men when they return, and give them the same warning. I suppose Conan can guard his own back until then.” “At least from my men,” Reza said. “As for the other foes he faces—let us pray for the favour. of the gods. And then, my lady, wherever you wish to sleep, will you lie down and do so? You will be a rag in the morning if you do not.”
Livia tried to answer, but her words vanished in a prodigious yawn. She put an arm around his massive shoulders.
“I will go down, Reza, if you will guide my feet now as you have done so often in the past.”
“With pleasure, my lady.”
Skiron no longer turned his back on Lord Akimos when he wiped the sweat from his face. Nor was it only the heat of the cave that was making him sweat.
The last three times he had cast the spell to keep Doris of Lokhri in bondage, he had sensed what he would have called an echo if it had reached his ears. As he apprehended it in ways that no sorcerer could explain to ordinary folk, he had held his tongue.
Now, though, Akimos was asking him for advice. If the merchant prince did not receive it, he might yet cast away their victory. If he won without Skiron’s advice, it would be hardly better. Skiron would be lucky to escape with going back to the life of a hedge-wizard. Akimos might yet think of giving him to the Guardians, to prove how clean his hands—