The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

  'Good day to you both, then,' said Ermak.

  Delia shivered slightly as she stared at his retreating figure. 'That one is no armoured fool with a sword he does not know how to use.'

  'I can see that clearly enough,' Conan said.

  She smiled ruefully. 'Aye, you hardly need me to tell you such a thing. A man like you knows another warrior when he sees him.'

  'There is one thing you can tell me,' Conan said.

  She gave him what was intended to be a coy look. 'And what might that be?'

  'Do you not worry about what your man Maxio will think when he finds out you have been seen so much in my company?'

  'I am neither his wife nor his slave,' she said haughtily. 'He cannot tell me where to go nor whom to see. I am my own woman.'

  'I wonder that Bombas has not sent his henchmen to call upon me,' Conan commented.

  She snorted contempt. 'What have you done to cause him any distress? He fears you, because he fears everyone. And he is unsure of why you are here. Be careful that he does not come to believe you a royal spy, sent to investigate him.'

  Conan emptied his cup and set it on the table. 'I had not thought of that. To kill an investigator would merely bring another

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  one in his place. Should he suspect that I spy for the king, he will just offer me a bribe.'

  'And if he does that?'

  'Why, I will accept, of course!'

  Delia laughed raucously again and then rose. 'I must be on my way now. If you want to find me, I am usually here in the Square at this time of day. But should you want to see me privately,' she placed her hands on the table and leaned forward, letting her gown gape open, 'I am to be found in the Street of the Woodcarvers. My apartment is just above the Sign of the Sunburst. If I am alone, there will be a white cloth hanging from the window just over the sign.' She straightened, then added, 'White is easy to see at night.' With that, she turned and left him.

  Conan was amused at the brazen invitation, but he had learned to be cautious. He would not take up her offer until he had had a look at this Maxio. He had a suspicion that the man was about to ', discard his woman and that she was looking about for a replacement. If so, all would be well. If not, there could be trouble.

  He rose and left the wineshop. As he crossed the Square, a squad of bored-looking public slaves trundled their wheelbarrow toward the three inert bodies that lay in a widening pool of blood. The slaves carried buckets and bore mops over their shoulders. Nobody came toward him from the Reeve's headquarters, so - Conan assumed that he was free from official interference for the present.

  He left the Square by way of an alley between the temple and the wall surrounding the house of Xanthus. He was not at all surprised when someone hissed at him from a gate in the wall around the rich man's house.

  'You, outlander! Warrior! Come here.' The speaker was an elderly slave in old-fashioned livery.

  'What do you want?' Conan asked.

  The slave leaned out and looked up and down the alley, presumably to ascertain whether anyone was watching. He turned back to Conan. 'Come in here. My master craves converse with you.'

  It seemed to the Cimmerian that never before had so many people invited him to confer in such a short time. At least this old slave did not try to persuade him with weapons. He ducked beneath the low lintel and entered a courtyard that must at one time have been fine, but now the remains of wilted plants stood in overgrown planters and the wind blew dry leaves over the cracked pavement. Pulped fruit dropped by ornamental olive trees made footing slippery.

  The slave closed and barred the gate. 'Come this way,' he said. Conan followed the shuffling old man through a door in the rear of the house. It opened into a kitchen in which a pair of slave women toiled over a stove. They did not look up as he passed. The slave led him up a flight of stairs and down a hallway and into a spacious room lined with shelves bearing books and scrolls. A fire crackled on a stone hearth.

  'Abide here a while,' the slave said. 'My master will be along presently.'

  The slave left through a panelled door. Conan strolled to a floor-length window that opened upon a small balcony overlooking the Square; it was no more than fifty paces from where he had slain the red-clad murderers. Anyone who might have stood here, he thought, would have had an excellent view of the proceedings.

  'Greetings, swordsman,' said a voice behind him. The Cimmerian turned to see an elderly man swathed in thick woollen garments. A mantle of rare white fur draped his shoulders, and atop that lay a chain of massive gold, studded with huge gems. His face was thin and ravaged by time, but his voice had strength.

  Conan nodded curtly. 'Sir. What would you have of me?'

  The old man crossed to the window and gazed out upon the slaves busily plying their mops. The bodies were gone.

  'I was in my study when my manslave told me there was about to be an amusing show in the Square. In the past, the rogues of the town slew each other in the alleys of the Pit, and at night. Now they fight pitched battles in the Square in broad daylight. I have come to treasure these little shows. My pleasures have been few of late. I witnessed your slaying of those three fellows in red leather. That was prettily done. Ingas's men are accounted dangerous in this town.'

  'I am good at my work,' Conan said laconically.

  'It is that very thing I wish to speak of. Will you work tor me and kill some rogues who need killing?'

  Conan suppressed a smile. The man's direct, businesslike manner was refreshing: no offer of dinner or even of a cup of wine, ' no long, tedious story, just an offer of pay for service.

  'What is your offer?' he asked.

  'This was once a fine city, with myself as its leading citizen. Now it is a lawless place, dominated by the scum and sweepings of this and all the neighbouring lands. It needs a thorough cleansing, and I think you are just the man to do it.'

  'One man?' Conan asked. 'To subdue a town full of outlaws?'

  'I will pay generously. You may hire such bravos as you wish. Killers work cheap in this city. But it should not be necessary to exterminate the lot. A few leaders are causing all the trouble, slay the wolves, and the leaderless dogs will be easy to deal with.'

  'I have heard,' the Cimmerian said, 'that it was you yourself who brought Ermak to town.'

  'And what if I did? The miners' guild stirred up trouble and required putting down. Then the rogue would not leave town when I ordered him to.'

  'Since this is a royal burgh,' Conan said, 'why did you not appeal to the Crown for help with the miners? Or for expelling the mercenaries?' Conan watched the man's face closely, but the old features displayed only overweening pride and self-confidence.

  'My dealings with his majesty, King Numedides, are my own affair, nothing that a barbarian sell sword need concern himself with.'

  'As you will,' Conan said. 'I can do the job for you. I will want twenty thousand golden marks of Aquilonia. Half now.'

  To his astonishment, the ancient head nodded. 'Done.' Xanthus tugged on a cord and moments later the old servitor appeared. The master whispered in the slave's ear and gave him a massive key. Then he turned back to Conan.

  'You will have your money presently. You need not render me reports of your progress. When the task is done, come to me for the balance of your pay. I think this concludes our business.'

  'Not quite,' Conan said. He had walked to the window again and stood with his back to Xanthus, staring across the Square toward the Reeve's headquarters. 'Will you speak to the King's Reeve and see that he gives me no trouble or interference?' A small looking glass hung on the wall next to the window, and in it he saw the old man wince slightly, his arrogant composure slipping for the first time.

  'You are to stay clear of him. I do not want him brought into this matter in any way, and I cannot intercede with him for you.'

  'I thought you were the richest man in Sicas,' Conan said, 'and he is a bribe-taker.'

  'Then bribe him yourself if he troubles you!' Xanthus s
pat. 'By Mitra, I am paying you enough to pass a few bribes! Matters old and ill lie between us, and I'll have nothing to do with Bombas. Now get to your work, swordsman. I expect to hear good things of you in the near future.' With that, the old man whirled and stalked out amid floating robes. Conan smiled coldly toward the fur-clad back.

  Minutes later, the old butler tottered in, bowed beneath the weight of a leather sack as long as Conan's forearm and as thick as two of those arms held together. The gold coins the sack held were stuffed in so tightly that they did not even clink. Without a word, the Cimmerian picked up the bag and left the house.

  With a light heart and a springy stride, Conan sought out the Street of the Woodcarvers. In one hand he clutched the weighty bag as lightly as another man would have held a pillow stuffed with down. He was careful not to give indication of the thing's true weight, for then the practised eyes of the town's numerous thieves would have discerned that he carried gold.

  He saw the Sign of the Sunburst, its gilded rays shining brilliantly in the midday sunlight, but he did not seek Delia. Instead he went to a joiner's shop and bought a stout wooden casket well mounted with thick iron straps. This he carried to the Street of Locksmiths and purchased the strongest padlock he could find to fit the coffer's hasp.

  He bore the coffer, with the bag now safely inside it, upon his shoulder as he returned to the inn. There he added to it most of the money he had received from Casperus. Already he had acquired more money than he could readily carry with him, and he had yet to accomplish a single one of his tasks. He knew that he could not leave his bounty unwatched at the inn, but the strongbox would do until he could cache his new wealth. He all but whistled as he turned the key in the lock. No sooner had he withdrawn the key than the door opened and Brita entered.

  'Still no luck, eh?' he said, noting her downcast look.

  'None. Oh, a few people have seen girls answering Vila's description, but who knows if this was her indeed. I myself have seen a score of small, yellow-haired girls her age here.' She sat on the room's single chair, knees together and hands clasped upon them. Once again she was the demure, well-bred girl she had at first seemed. Now Conan was not so sure. He knew himself to be less than astute when it came to women, but he was no fool.

  Dropping the key into his pouch, he lifted the coffer by its side handles and deposited it upon the foot of his bed. He made the effort seem easy, but the great muscles sprang into prominence along his arms as he did it, earning him an admiring look from Brita. He stretched himself upon the bed, his feet crossed at the ankles atop the coffer, his fingers laced behind his tousled, black-haired head as he leaned back against a pile of cushions.

  'Well, I have had a very good day indeed,' he said with satisfaction.

  She smiled. 'I rejoice to hear it. Tell me all about it.'

  Briefly, he did so. A look of unmistakable jealousy crossed her face when he told her of his luncheon with Delia, followed by a

  look of horror when he related the challenge by Ingas's three killers. Her hand flew to her open mouth when he told her how he had slain the three. Then he related his summons from the house of Xanthus.

  'And you did this just to attract that man's notice?' she gasped, her eyes round with incredulity.

  'I would have had to deal with them anyway. They were determined to call me out. Better the three of them before me in daylight than behind me in the dark. I was sure to be seen from the house of Xanthus and the temple both. It was just a question of who would summon me first. Xanthus was quicker.' Then he told her of his interview with the old man.

  'But surely,' she said when he finished, 'you do not truly intend to kill or chase out every villain in this hideous town all by yourself?'

  'We shall see how it falls out,' he said non-committally. 'What troubles me more is the old bandit's readiness to pay. I demanded half on account, expecting him to laugh in my face and offer perhaps one fifth, which I would have accepted. Instead, he agreed upon the half without a word of protest.'

  'Then he is desperate,' she said.

  Conan shook his head. 'No, it is not that. He is said to be the richest man in Sicas, but the only servants I saw were an old valet of all work and two slatternly women to cook and clean. He has what was once a fine courtyard, yet he has not even a gardener to keep it in order. His house is splendid, but he must have inherited that. Otherwise, the only things splendid about him are his clothes and his jewels, upon which he does not stint. No, the man is a miser as tight-fisted as any I have ever seen. Yet he handed me ten thousand gold marks without demur.'

  'Why would he do such a thing?' she asked.

  He grinned without mirth. 'Because he expects to get his money back. He is wrong. I will spend my wealth, or gamble it away, or give it away, or just throw it away, but no man takes

  back what he has paid me when I have rendered him good service.'

  'And will you do as he wants?' she asked uncomfortably.

  'I took his money, did I not?' he said indignantly. Then, smiling, 'Of course, all may not fall out exactly as he thinks. But that often happens when one rogue tries to outwit another. I do confess, though, that I wonder what lies between him and the King's Reeve. Bombas is in every man's purse, so why not in that of the man with the biggest purse in Sicas?'

  'From the way you have described them,' she said, 'they do not sound like the sort of men who would let their personal feelings for one another stand in the way of their pursuit of wealth.'

  'Very true,' Conan said. 'There is something deeper here, and I will find the bottom of it, be sure of that.'

  'And yet,' she protested, 'you have accepted commissions from that man Piris in Belverus, from the fat man Casperus, and now from the rich miser Xanthus. Do you truly intend to carry through for all of them?''

  'I do not accept pay under false pretences,' he assured her. 'Have no fear. Mayhap a common thread runs through all these things, and when I have found it, I think I will have accomplished all that I have undertaken to everyone's satisfaction, although it may be to their everlasting regret.'

  'You have much confidence.'

  'Aye. Tell me, girl, what gods do you worship?'

  She was taken aback by the sudden change of subject. 'Why, I attend services at the Temple of Mitra, like most Tarantians, and I used to sacrifice to the minor deities of my father's guild, although not lately. Why do you ask?'

  'Well, Crom is my god and the god of my people. He is old, grim, and stern. When we are born, he gives us a fierce warrior's heart and the great strength, endurance, and hardihood that are the birthright of every Cimmerian. But he is not a caring god. Unlike the gods of the south, he takes no delight in sacrifice; he gives us no help and we ask him no favours, because he would grant none.'

  'And so?' she asked, frowning in puzzlement.

  'If he were the sort of god men pray to, I would send him a prayer of thanks right now, for sending me to Sicas.' Hands still laced behind his head, Conan grinned up at the cracked plaster of the ceiling. 'Everyone in this town seems determined to make me rich!'

  VII

  The Silver Mine

  Conan rode from the inn in the light of morning, his iron-bound wooden coffer strapped to the saddle behind him. In the socket that would ordinarily have held his lance, he had placed a spade borrowed from the stable. The hooves of his horse rang loudly on the cobbles as he made his way through the nearly deserted streets, heading southward. If the upper city was but waking as he rode through it, the Pit was as a city of the dead. Not a living soul did he see, although in the alleys he saw a few corpses, soon destined for the river.

  Just above the confluence of the rivers, he passed through the Ossar River gate, where the guard merely accepted his proffered coin and did not bother with stupid formalities such as his name, destination, or time of possible return. The bridge he crossed was a good one, made of stone and built upon arches high enough to allow river barges to pass beneath. On the other side was cultivated land, now lying untended after t
he harvest. The road took him .to hilly terrain, first past vineyards but soon into wild country. He guided his horse off the road and into the hills, following no path.

  In a wooded dell the Cimmerian dismounted and tethered his mount to a sapling. He stood absolutely still and silent for several minutes, moving nothing but his head as he slowly scanned the skyline and strained his ears for any slightest noise. He heard no sound save those of nature.

  Leaving horse and chest, he climbed to the highest ground nearby, his springy hillman's stride making the rugged terrain as easy a traverse as the level pavement of a city. Atop the hill, he found a dead tree, killed by lightning some years before, its leaves gone but its wood sound. This he climbed with the agility of a monkey, and from a convenient limb he enjoyed an unobstructed view of the surrounding countryside. There he sat for an hour, his keen eyes missing nothing, until he was satisfied that no one followed him, that no woodcutter worked nearby, that no rustic lovers in search of privacy spied upon him. Only then did he descend and return to his horse.

  He took the chest from his saddle, the spade from his lance-socket, stripped off his armour and set to work. The spot he had selected was far enough from the nearest trees that he was not likely to encounter troublesome roots. First he measured his proposed excavation by eye; then he spread a blanket upon the ground next to it. Kneeling on the grass, he drew his dirk and carefully cut a rectangular outline in the ground. With swift sawing cuts of his blade, he separated the turf from the underlying soil, rolling it up as he cut. When it was fully separated, he lifted it gently onto the blanket. Then he stood and picked up the spade. He dug energetically but carefully, lifting each spadeful of dirt and depositing it upon the blanket, taking care not to heap it atop the preserved turf.

  When the hole was about a yard deep, Conan lowered the chest into it. He began to cover the coffer with dirt, tamping it down with his boots after every few spadefuls, so that the ground would not subside over the next few days, leaving a tell-tale depression. When only about three inches of excavation remained, he carefully relaid the turf, smoothing it with his hands when it was in place.