The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

  Conan shook his head and quaffed deeply on his ale. Was Sharak attempting to inflate his payment?

  Perhaps the habit of trying to do so was too deeply ingrained to lose.

  He busied himself with drinking. The common room was beginning to fill, with queued sailors and half-naked trulls for the most part. The wenches were the most interesting, by far. One, short, round-breasted and large-eyed in her girdle of coins and gilded wristlets and torque, made him think of Yasbet. He wished he could be certain she was safe at home. No, in truth he wished her in his bed upstairs, but, failing that, it was best if she were at home, whatever her greeting from Fatima. Could he find her again, it would of a certainty brighten his days in Aghrapur. Let Emilio talk of his blonde-what was her name? Davinia?-as if she were the exotic these Turanians thought her. In his own opinion it was women with large eyes who had the fires smouldering within, even when they did not know it themselves.

  Why-

  'I am done,' Sharak said.

  Conan blinked, pulled from his reverie. 'What?' He looked at the wax tablet, now covered with scribbled symbols. 'What does it say?'

  'It is unclear,' the old astrologer replied, tugging at one of his thin mustaches with bony fingers. 'There are aspects of great opportunity and great danger. See, the Horse and the Lion are in conjunction in the House of Dramath, while the Three Virgins are-'

  'Sharak, I would not know the House of Dramath from the house of a rugmaker. What does it mean?'

  'What does it mean?' Sharak mimicked. 'Always 'what does it mean?' No one wants to know the truly interesting part, the details of how. . . Oh, very well. First of all: there is a need to go back in order to go forward. To become what you will become, you must become again what you once were.'

  'That's little help,' Conan muttered. 'I have been many things.'

  'But this is most important. This branching here, indicates that if you fail to do so, you will never leave Aghrapur alive. You have already set events in motion.'

  The air in the tavern seemed suddenly chill. Conan wished the old man had not been right so often before. 'How can I have set events in motion? I've been here barely a day.'

  'And spoken to no one? Done nothing?'

  Conan breathed heavily. 'Does it speak of gold?'

  'Gold will come into your hands, but it does not seem to be important, and there is danger attached.'

  'Gold is always important, and there is always danger attached. What of women?'

  'Ah, youth,' Sharak murmured caustically. 'You will soon be entangled with women-two, it seems here-but there is danger there as well.'

  'Women are always at least as dangerous as gold,' Conan replied, laughing.

  'One is dark of hair, and one pale-haired.'

  The Cimmerian's laughter faded abruptly. Pale haired? Emilio's Davinia? No! That would almost certainly mean aiding Emilio in his theft, and that had been left behind. But he was to 'become what he had been.'

  He forced the thought away. He was done with thieving. The astrologer's reading must mean something else.

  'What more?' he asked harshly.

  ''Tis not my fault if you like it not, Conan. I merely read what is writ in the stars.'

  'What more, I said!'

  Sharak sighed heavily. 'You cannot blame me if.... There is danger here connected in some fashion to a journey. This configuration,' he pointed to a row of strangely bent symbols scribed in the wax, 'indicates a journey over water, but these over here indicate land. It is unclear.'

  ''Tis all unclear, an you ask me of it.' Conan muttered.

  'It becomes less clear. For instance, here the colour yellow is indicated as of great importance.'

  'The gold-'

  '-is of small import, no matter your feeling on it. And there is more danger tied to this than to the gold.'

  The big Cimmerian ground his teeth audibly. 'There is danger to breathing, to hear you tell it.'

  'I can well believe it so, to look at this chart. As to the rest, the number thirteen and the colour red are of some significance, and are linked. Additionally, this alignment of the Monkey and the Viper indicates the need of acting quickly and decisively. Hesitate, and the moment will be lost to you. And that will mean your death.'

  'What will come, will come, old man,' Conan snapped. 'I'll not be affrighted by stars, gods or demons.'

  Sharak scowled, then pushed the silver piece back across the table. 'If my reading is so distasteful to you, I cannot take payment.'

  The muscular youth's anger dropped to a simmer instantly. ''Tis no blame of yours whether I like the reading you give or no. You take the money, and I'll take your advice.'

  'I am four score and two-years of age,' the astrologer said, suddenly diffident, 'and never in all that time have I had an adventure.' He gripped his knobbly staff, leaning against the table. 'There is power in this, Cimmerian. I could be of aid.'

  Conan hid a smile. 'I've no doubt of it, Sharak. When I need such help, I will call on you, have no fear.

  There is one thing you might do for me now. Know you where I might find Emilio at this hour?'

  'That cankerous boaster?' Sharak said disdainfully. 'He frequents many places of ill repute, each worse than the last.' He reeled off the names of a dozen taverns and as many brothels and gaming halls. 'I could help you look for him, if you really think he's needed, though what use he could be I do not know.'

  'When you finish supping you can search the halls.'

  'I would rather search the brothels,' the old man leered.

  'The halls,' Conan laughed, getting to his feet. Sharak returned grumbling to his stew.

  As he turned toward the door, the Cimmerian's eyes met those of a man just entering, hard black eyes in a hard black face beneath the turban-wrapped spiral helmet of the Turanian army. Of middling height, he moved with the confidence of a larger man. The striping on his tunic marked him as a sergeant. Ferian hurried, frowning, to meet the dark man. Soldiers were not usually habitues of the Blue Bull.

  'I am seeking a man called Emilio the Corinthian,' the sergeant said to Ferian.

  Conan walked out without waiting for the innkeeper's reply. It had nothing to do with him. He hoped.

  IV

  Conan entered the seventh tavern with never so much as a wobble of his step, despite the quantity of wine and ale he had ingested. The large number of wenches lolling about the dim, dank common room, roughed and be-ringed, their silks casually disarrayed, told him that a brothel occupied the upper floors of the squat stone building. Among the long tables and narrow trestle-boards crowding the slate floor, sailors rubbed shoulders with journeymen of the guilds. Scattered through the room were others whose languid countenances and oiled mustaches named them high-born no less than their silk tunics embroidered in gold and silver. Their smooth fingers played as free with the strumpets as did the sailors'

  callused hands.

  The Cimmerian elbowed a place at the bar and tossed two coppers on the boards. 'Wine,' he commanded.

  The barkeeper gave him a rough clay mug, filled to the brim with sour-smelling liquid, and scooped up the coins. The man was wiry and snakefaced, with heavy-lidded, suspicious eyes and a tight, narrow mouth. He would not be one to answer questions freely. Another drinker called, and the tapster moved off, wiping his hands on a filthy apron that dangled about his spindly shanks.

  Conan took a swallow from his mug and grimaced. The wine was thin, and tasted as sour as it smelled.

  As he eyed the common room, a strangely garbed doxy caught his gaze. Sleek and sinuous, she had climbed upon a trestle-board to dance for half a dozen sailors who pawed her with raucous shouts, running their hands up her long legs. Her oiled breasts were bare, and for garb she wore but a single strip of silk, no wider than a man's hand, run through a narrow gilded girdle worn low on the roundness of her hips, to fall to her ankles before and behind. The strangeness was that an opaque veil covered her from just below her hot, dark eyes to her chin. The sisterhood of the streets might pai
nt their faces heavily, but they never covered them, for few men would take well to the discovery that their purchase was less fair of visage than they had believed. But not only was this woman veiled, he now saw no less than three others so equipped.

  Conan caught the tavernkeeper's tunic sleeve as he passed again. 'I've never seen veiled strumpets before. Do they cover the marks of the pox?'

  'New come to Aghrapur, are you?' the man said, a slight smile touching his thin mouth.

  'A short time past. But these women?'

  ''Tis rumoured,' the other smirked, 'that some women highly born, bored with husbands whose vigor has left them, amuse themselves by disporting as common trulls, wearing veils so those same husbands, who frequent the brothels as oft as any other men, will not recognise them. As I say, 'tis but a rumour, yet what man will pass the chance to have a lord's wife beneath him for a silver piece?'

  'Not likely,' Conan snorted. 'There would be murder done when one of those lords discovered that the doxy he'd bought was his own wife.'

  'Nay. Nay. The others flock about them, but not the lordlings. What man would risk the shame of knowing his wife had been bought?'

  It was true, Conan saw. Each veiled woman was the centre of a knot of sailors or dockworkers or tradesman, but the nobles ignored them, looking the other way rather than acknowledge their existence.

  'Try one,' the snake-faced man urged. 'One silver piece, and you can see for yourself if she moves beneath you like a noblewoman.'

  Conan drank deeply, as if considering. Had he been interested in dalliance, it was in his mind that better value would come from an honest strumpet than from a nobly-born woman pretending to be such. The tapster had none of the fripperies of the panderer about him-he did not sniff a perfumed pomander or wear more jewellery than any three wenches-but no doubt he took some part of what was earned on the mats above the common room. He might talk more easily if he thought Conan a potential patron. The Cimmerian lowered his mug.

  'It's a thing to think on,' he chuckled, eyeing a girl nearby. A true daughter of the mats, this one, in an orange-dyed wig with her face as bare as her wiggling buttocks. 'But I seek a friend who was supposed to meet me. I understand he frequents this place betimes.'

  The tavernkeeper drew back half a step, and his voice cooled noticeably. 'Look around you. An he is here, you will see him. Otherwise....' He shrugged and turned to walk away, but Conan reached across the bar and caught his arm, putting on a smile he hoped was friendly. 'I do not see him, but I still must needs find him. He is called Emilio the Corinthian. For the man who can tell me where to find him, I could spare the price of one of these wenches for the night.' If Sharak was correct-and he always was-Conan had to find Emilio, and what word he had thus far garnered was neither copious nor good.

  The tapster's face became even more snake-like, but his lidded eyes had flickered at Emilio's name.

  'Few men must pay for the whereabouts of a friend. Mayhap this fellow-Emilio, did you say his name is?-is no friend of yours. Mayhap he does not wish to meet you. Ashra! Come rid me of this pale-eyed fool!'

  'I can prove to you that I know him. He is-'

  A massive hand landed on the Cimmerian's broad shoulder, and a guttural voice growled, 'Out with you!'

  Conan turned his head enough to look coldly at the wide hand, its knuckles sunken and scarred. His icy azure gaze travelled back along a hairy arm as big around as most men's legs. And up. This Ashra stood head and shoulders taller even than Conan himself, and was half again as broad with no bit of fat on him.

  For all the scarring of his hands, the huge man's broadnosed face was unmarked. Conan thought few could reach high enough to strike it.

  He attempted to keep his tone reasonable. Fighting seldom brought information. 'I seek a man this skinny one knows, not trouble. Now unhand me and-'

  For an answer the big man jerked at Conan's shoulder. Sighing, the Cimmerian let himself be spun, but the smile on Ashra's face lasted only until Conan's fist hooked into his side with a loud crack of splintering ribs. Shouting drinkers scrambled out of the way of the two massive men. Conan's other fist slammed into the tall man, and again he felt ribs break beneath his blow.

  With a roar Ashra seized the Cimmerian's head in both of his huge hands and lifted Conan clear of the floor, squeezing as if to crush the skull he held, but a wolfish battle-light shone in Conan's eyes. He forced his arms between Ashra's and gripped the other's head in turn, one hand atop it, the other beneath the heavy chin. Slowly he twisted, and slowly the bull neck gave. Panting, Ashra suddenly loosed his hold, yet managed to seize Conan about the chest before he could fall. Hands locked, he strained to snap the Cimmerian's spine.

  The smile on Conan's face was enough to chill the blood. In the time it took three grains of sand to fall in the glass, he knew, he could break Ashra's neck, yet a killing would of a certainty gag the tapster's mouth. Abruptly he released his grip. Ashra laughed, thinking he had the victory. Conan raised his hands high, then smashed them, palms flat, across the other's ears.

  Ashra screamed and staggered back, dropping the Cimmerian to clutch at his bleeding ears. Conan bored after him, slamming massive fists to the ribs he had already broken, then a third blow to the huge man's heart. Ashra's eyes glazed, and his knees bent, but he would not fall. Once more Conan struck.

  That never-struck nose fountained blood, and Ashra slowly turned, toppling into a table that splintered beneath him. Once the prostrate man stirred as if to rise, then was still.

  A murmuring crowd gathered around the fallen man. Two mere grabbed his ankles, grunting as they dragged the massive weight away. More than one wench eyed Conan warmly, licking her lips and putting an extra sway in her walk, among them those with veiled faces. He ignored them and turned back to the business at hand, to the tapster.

  The snake-faced innkeeper stood behind the bar wearing an expression almost as stunned as Ashra's. A bung-starter dangled forgotten in his ham.

  Conan took the heavy mallet from the slack grip and held it up before the man's eyes, fists touching in the middle of the thick handle. The muscles of his arms and shoulders knotted and bunched; there was a sharp crack, and he let the two pieces fall to the bar.

  The tavernkeeper licked his thin lips. He stared at Conan as if at a wonderment. 'Never before have I seen the man Ashra could not break in two with his bare hands,' he said slowly. 'But then, even he couldn't have....' His gaze dropped to the broken mallet, and he swallowed hard. 'Have you a mind to employment? The job held by that sack of flesh they're hauling off is open. A silver piece a day, plus a room, food, drink, and your choice of any wench who has not a customer. My name is Manilik. How are you called?'

  'I am no hauler of tosspots,' Conan said flatly. 'Now tell me what you know of Emilio.'

  Manilik hesitated, then gave a strained laugh. 'Mayhap you do know him. I'm careful of my tongue, you see. Talk when you shouldn't, and you're apt to lose your tongue. I don't waggle mine.'

  'Waggle it now. About Emilio.'

  'But that is the problem, stranger. Oh, I know of Emilio,' he said quickly, as Conan's massive fist knotted atop the bar, 'but I know little. And I've not seen him these three days past.'

  'Three days,' Conan muttered despondently. Thus far he had found many who knew Emilio, but none who had seen the Corinthian these three days past. 'That boasting idiot is likely gazing into a mirror or rolling with that hot-blooded Davinia of his,' he growled.

  'Davinia?' Manilik sounded startled. 'If you know of her, perhaps you truly do know....' He trailed off with a nervous laugh under Conan's icy eyes.

  'What do you know of Davinia, Manilik?'

  The innkeeper shivered, so quietly was that question asked. It seemed to him the quiet of the tomb, mayhap of his tomb an he answered not quickly. Words bubbled from him as water from a spring.

  'General Mundara Khan's mistress, bar-, ah, stranger, and a dangerous woman for the likes of Emilio, not just for who it is that keeps her, but for her ambition. 'Tis
said lemans have bodies, but not names.

  This Davinia's name is known, though. Not two years gone, she appeared in Aghrapur on the arm of an ivory trader from Punt. The trader left, and she remained. In the house of a minor gem merchant. Since then she's managed to change her leash from one hand to another with great dexterity. A rug merchant of moderate wealth, the third richest ship owner in the city, and now Mundara Khan, a cousin of King Yildiz himself, who would be a prince had his mother not been a concubine.'

  The flow of talk slowed, then stopped. Greed and fear warred on Manilik's face, and his mouth was twisted with the pain of giving away what he might, another time, have sold.

  Conan laughed disparagingly and lied. 'Can you not tell me more than is known on every street corner?

  Why, I've heard strumpets resting their feet wager on whether the next bed Davinia graces will be that of Yildiz.' He searched for a way to erase the doubt that still creased the tavernkeeper's face. 'Next,' he said, 'you'll tell me that as she chooses her patrons only to improve herself, she must risk leaving her master's bed for her own pleasures.' How else to explain Emilio, and this Davinia so clearly a woman intent on rising?

  Manilik blinked. 'I had no idea so much was so widely known. It being so, there are those who will want to collect what the Corinthian owes before Mundara Khan has him gelded and flayed. He had better have the gold he has bragged of, or he'll not live to suffer the general's mercies.'

  'He mentioned gold, did he?' Conan prompted.

  'Yes, he....' The heavy-lidded eyes opened wide. 'Mean you to say it's a lie? Four or five days, he claimed, and he would have gold dripping from his fingers. An you are a friend of the Corinthian, warn him clear most particularly of one Narxes, a Zamoran. His patience with Emilio's excuses is gone, and his way with a knife will leave your friend weeping that he is not dead. Narxes likes well to make examples for others who might fail to pay what they owe. Best you tell him to keep quiet about my warning, though. I've no wish for the Zamoran to come after me before Emilio finishes him.'