Unfortunately, it is not easy for a man on horseback to avoid detection when riding through strange hills, especially when those he seeks to avoid are keen-eyed men who know the land intimately. A few miles from the village he heard the blast of a horn. Immediately, he saw the mounted picket who was stationed on a nearby hillcrest, keeping watch on the small valley through which Conan was riding. Within minutes the horn blast was followed by the drumming of horsemen.
Conan leaned upon his pommel and waited patiently. He could flee, but that would mean selecting another route and losing far too much time.
Best to allow the riders to examine him and to state his business honestly.
If the worst happened, he would cut a way through them and bolt for Cimmeria. If he had to flee, best to flee in the direction of his mission.
The file of horsemen heaved over a ridge and poured into the little valley. There were a score of them, hard-faced men in helms and short cuirasses of mail or scale. By the look of them he judged them to be cousins of the Gundermen to the west. The majority were fair-haired and blue-eyed. He noted one peculiarity about them: Each wore the horns of a bull upon his helm. There was no individual variation in the ornamentation of their headgear. Their shields likewise were decorated with the heads of bulls, and one rider bore a tall standard upon which were the skull and several tails of the same beast.
He kept his hands well away from his weapons as the riders circled him. Their manner was wary but not overtly hostile. His eyes widened as one of the riders rode toward him. This was not a man, but a woman dressed for war. He studied her with open admiration, for she was well worth looking at.
Her face was obscured by a horned helmet which left only a Y-shaped slot for vision and breath, but her body was as splendid as that of a warrior-goddess of Vendhya. Her full breasts were protected by cups of polished bronze, and her wide, powerful shoulders tapered to a small waist cinched by a broad belt covered with silvered scale. Bronze greaves covered her shins and knees, leaving her thighs bare except for a dagger strapped to the right. Except for her armor and the straps that held it in place, she wore nothing except for a narrow loincloth of black silk, not even sandals.
The woman loosened her chin strap and lifted the heavy helm from her head. A mane of tan hair spilled from the helm and hung as low as the woman's elbows, and Conan was pleased to see that her face was as beautiful as her form. It was a strong face, with a brow that was low and wide, and cheekbones that were wider still. Her jaw was square and firm, her nose straight. Many would have considered her features too strong and heavy for true beauty, but the hard planes and angles of the face were softened by a wide mouth with full, sensual lips. In any case, Conan thought the face perfect for her woman-warrior's body. The exceptional
development of her neck and shoulders proved that this was no king's daughter dressed up as a soldier for play, but a woman who was accustomed to wearing armor, probably from childhood. He judged her age at somewhere in the mid-twenties.
Meanwhile, the woman was studying him as frankly. Her cool blue eyes registered approval as they took in Conan's powerful, heavily muscled frame, his big, scarred hands with their calluses from his years of weapon work.
"I am Aelfrith, chieftainess of Cragsfell," the woman said. Her voice was low, almost husky. "You are a Cimmerian, by your look. What is your business in my land?" As Conan had expected, she spoke a dialect of the Gunder tongue, which he understood.
"My name is Conan. I go to my home in Cimmeria, which I have not visited in many years. I travel alone and 1 mean no harm to you or your people. May I pass through your land unhindered?"
"That may not be easy to grant. I would not interfere with your homefaring, but there is war here."
"So I have noticed," Conan said. "Earlier I passed through a village, or rather a place where a village had been. There was not enough left of it for the crows to fight over."
"That was Atzel's work," the woman said, her face paling with rage.
"Many of the folk escaped to my fortress at Cragsfell. We reached the place yesterday, in time to carry off the dead for burial, though there was naught else we could do. Atzel's men left nothing but the bodies of the dead.
He slew all the men he could catch, and carried off the women and children to sell to Nemedian traders."
"Who is this Atzel?" Conan asked. "Is he a bandit or an enemy chief?"
Aelfrith spat upon the ground with a short curse Conan had never heard before. "There are no good words for what he is." She gazed for a moment at the sword at Conan's waist, with its long white handle. "Since you are a stranger here, and mean no harm, I offer my hospitality. We ride for Cragsfell now, so ride with us. You must pass it on your way, so you
may as well get a night's lodging and a good dinner before moving on. You can hear all about Atzel and my woes over a pot of ale."
Conan would have been content to sleep beneath the stars again, but it was a deadly insult to refuse hospitality that had been offered. Besides, this regal warrior-woman intrigued him. "I accept, and gladly."
"Good. We shall be there before nightfall. It may be that we shall be attacked on the way, but you are now under my protection. That is something you would not get from Atzel. He would have killed you by now for your horse and sword, and whatever else you have."
"He might have tried," Conan said grimly. "Many men have tried ere now. They keep one another company in Hell now, plotting what they would do to me when I join them."
Aelfrith regarded him with a measuring gaze. "Yes, I think you would take many with you before setting out on that road yourself. Come, let us ride." She rehelmed and wheeled her horse. Conan kept close behind, admiring the view thus afforded. He strove to hide his broad grin from Aelfrith's, men. The rear of her loincloth was no more than half a handsbreadth wide, and rendered this view very nearly as interesting as the front had been. Such scantiness of garb was common enough in Zamora or Nemedia, but it was not at all common among northern women. He guessed shrewdly that this was a way she chose to emphasize her difference from the common run of women. She rode as expertly as any cavalryman, her supple body moving as one with her mount. Conan found himself regretting that his mission would not allow him to stay in this place and get to know her much better.
A long afternoon's ride through the wooden hills brought them within sight of a craggy tor surmounted by crude battlements of heaped stone.
Aelfrith pointed to the hill fort. "Cragsfell," she said. By the time the sun was a handsbreadth lower in the sky, they were riding through cultivated land where the harvest was being taken in and swineherds were driving their beasts into the woods to fatten upon the fallen acorns. Conan noted that every man kept a spear handy even at these rustic labors, and many had sword or bow.
The road rose to wind around the tor like a serpent, circling so that approachers must always keep the unshielded side toward the fort.
Archers and crossbowmen studded the battlement, casting speculative
glances toward the blackhaired stranger who rode behind their chieftainess. A dozen men worked a great windlass which raised a bronze-strapped gate of thick timber, and the small cavalcade rode inside.
The fort was small by southern standards, no more than a village surrounded by a dry stone wall. At its center was a long, timber hall, elaborately carved and painted. The whole place swarmed with people, most of them women and children sent there by their menfolk to be out of harm's way in these troubled times. They smiled and waved as Aelfrith rode in. She seemed to be popular with her people.
They dismounted, and boys took their horses. Most of the men stretched, their bodies stiff from riding, but Aelfrith merely unhelmed and strode gracefully toward the great hall. Conan stayed close behind her.
Inside the hall she tossed her helm to a boy and announced: "We have a guest!" She pointed at two tow-headed boys. "You and you, see to his needs. Show him to the bathhouse and find him clean clothes. He is to receive the courtesies due a visiting thane."
Suspiciously, Conan wondered why a mere wandering warman such as he should warrant this kind of courtesy.
A tousle-haired girl of no more than five years ran from a curtained alcove at the rear of the hall, and Aelfrith gathered her up in her arms. She turned to Conan. "This is Aelfgifa, my only child." The little girl looked at Conan with distrust. Young as she was, she knew that this blackhaired stranger was no kinsman or friend of hers.
"She will be the mother of fine warriors," Conan said. It was a customary way to praise a host's girl children in the northern lands, but Aelfrith seemed to take exception.
"She'll be a warrior herself if I live long enough to raise her properly."
She smiled at the child in great wide. "Already she can ride and use a little bow I have had made for her. When she has enough strength of arm, she shall learn the sword and spear."
Conan wondered what had become of the child's father, but he knew better than to ask questions of a ruler, even a ruler of a small realm such as this chieftainess. If she thought fit, she would tell him in the course of the evening. If not, he was riding out in the morning in any case, and curiosity would not kill him.
"Bathe and rest," Aelfrith advised him. "When darkness falls you shall sit beside me at table. I have matters to discuss with you, but not until you have rested and eaten and cut the road dust with some ale." She turned to one of the boys she had designated as his attendants and rapped him on the skull with her knuckles. "Why have not not brought our guest a horn?
He thirsts." The boy ran off, rubbing his scalp. She turned back to Conan.
"The lads will take you to the men's bathhouse. I go now to wash and find out what new bad habits my daughter has learned. We shall speak at dinner." She walked toward the curtained alcove. A pair of young women came out and began to unbuckle her harness before she was through the curtain.
"I shall lead you to the bath, sir," said one of the boys with great self-importance. The other ran in with a horn of foaming ale. Conan noted that it was a common oxhorn, before he emptied half of it at a single swallow.
"Are you really a Cimmerian, sir?" asked the boy who had brought the horn. "Cimmerians sometimes come down out of their mountains to steal our cattle." The boys led him outside and toward a wooden building that was larger than the dwelling houses.
"That would be the Murrogh," Conan said. "They are the enemies of my clan. I am your friend. My clan never raided in the Border Kingdom that I ever heard of. We do most of our fighting with the Picts and the Vanir.
And, of course, with our fellow Cimmerians." This seemed to reassure the boys.
They entered a single large room, most of which was taken up by a huge wooden tub, in which several of the men he had ridden with that day were already splashing. The room was filled with steam, and water slopped all over the flagstoned floor. Conan unbelted his sword and dirk and bade one of the boys take it outside, away from the damp, The other helped pull off his boots. He stepped from his loincloth and climbed into the great tub.
The hot, steaming water soothed the aches from his mighty but tired muscles, and he luxuriated in its caress. He greeted his fellow bathers and sought to engage them in conversation. They were courteous but curt in their speech. Clearly, they would remain cautious with this stranger until their chieftainess's intentions toward him became clear.
A boy brought him a full horn of ale and Conan sat back, blissfully
relaxing from the rigors of his trip. One small doubt gnawed at his contentment: Obviously, the chieftainess had a proposal to make, and she wanted him to be in a receptive mood before she broached it. He might find himself in the delicate, dangerous position of having to say no to a woman who was accustomed to being obeyed, and who had scores of tough fighting men at her command.
His musings were interrupted by a cry of "Hot stone!" A stout woman came in through a back entrance. In her hands she held a pair of tongs which gripped a glowing-hot stone the size of a man's head. The men in the tub pulled hastily back as she cast the stone into the water. It sank with a loud hiss and a burst of steam, and the water bubbled furiously over the spot where the stone disappeared.
He stepped from the tub and the boys scrubbed him down with stiff brushes and crude soap. He felt as if a layer of his skin were being peeled off before the boys doused him with a bucket of water. He climbed back into the tub to soak and had almost dozed off when one of the boys brought him a clean tunic. He climbed from the tub and dried himself with a coarse towel, then put the tunic on and went outside to don his weapons. He felt rested and refreshed and ready for a fight against stiff odds.
Mostly, though, he was ready for dinner. The long day's ride, the rough fare he had been living on, and the relaxation of the bath had brought on a ravening hunger. Good food and strong drink were always high on Conan's list of the important things in life, and the more of both he got the better he liked it.
In the hall he found preparation for the meal almost complete. Trestle tables had been erected down both sides of the hall, and platters of bread and fruits were laid at intervals, with pitchers of ale and mead plentifully supplied. He could smell meats roasting in a nearby cookhouse. His mouth watered and he put aside his doubts in anticipation of the feast. First things first.
The hall began to fill as the more important inhabitants of Cragsfell took their places at the benches. At the head of the two long tables was a small dais upon which stood a smaller table and a tall, richly carved chair.
Ranking warriors and their wives sat nearest the dais, lesser people sat farther down. A steward took charge of Conan and led him to the dais, where a second chair was being placed next to the high seat of Aelfrith.
When Aelfrith entered the hall the diners stood respectfully, then resumed their seats at her signal. She had exchanged her armor for an ankle-length robe of thin green silk that was slit to the waist at both sides and had a neckline that plunged to her belt in front. Conan noted that she still wore the dagger strapped to her thigh.
Aelfrith sat and Conan sat beside her as the first platters of meats were brought in. He decided to let her speak first. He tore loose a chicken leg and cleaned it within seconds.
"You have seen much of war, have you not, Cimmerian?" she asked.
"Aye, since my fifteenth year I've fought, from clan squabbles to great wars. In recent years I've earned my bread in the armies of the great nations of the South, first as a common footman, then as a cavalry trooper, then as an officer of cavalry.''
"That is good to know," she said. She cut into a slab of beef and began to eat almost as ravenously as Conan. "I said that I would tell you of my troubles with Atzel, and why my country is at war."
"Yes, I would like to hear about that." As long as she was feasting him like this, Conan was content to listen. He pulled a meat pie toward him and smashed in its top crust with the butt of his dirk. As Aelfrith spoke he scooped up meat with bits of crust and devoured them, washing the food down with drafts from his horn. The boys stood behind his chair at a respectful distance to see to it that his horn was never emptied and to fetch any viands he might call for. He intended to eat as mightily as possible, for there would be lean pickings in Cimmeria unless his nation had changed greatly in his absence.
"Atzel is a chieftain to the north of here who likes to style himself a king. He would like to take my lands in order to look like something greater than a robber-chief. He plunders other neighbors as well, but his grudge against me is personal. I slew his son."
"By your own hand?" Conan asked.
"I had no help," she confirmed. "Three years ago I was the wife of Rulf, who was chieftain of Cragsfell. He was young and handsome, and a mighty warrior. He was much like you, although his coloring was fair. We had loved each other from childhood.
"In the fall of that year we went to the Great Festival, where we pay honor to the King Bull, the most sacred of our holy symbols. At that time all the peoples are supposed to be at peace, and any may travel to the festival unmolested. My husband a
nd I, as persons of highest birth, took part in the customary rituals. Atzel and his son, Rorik, also took part.
"There is a certain ritual performed on the second evening of the Festival by a small group of highborn women. I am forbidden to describe it to any man, or to any other who is not initiate, but I may tell you that it is performed naked and that it is forbidden by ancient law for any man to look upon this rite upon pain of execution."
Conan was sure he knew what was coming next, and her words proved him right. "Rorik, a very depraved young man, concealed himself in the grove where the ritual is performed and spied upon us. When he saw me unclothed he was smitten with an unquenchable lust to possess me."
"That is understandable," Conan said by way of compliment.
She went on as if he had not spoken. "That evening I lay down to rest in our tent, and my husband went out to drink with friends. Soon Rorik came and entered my tent unbidden. He babbled on about the great love he had conceived for me, and how he had spied upon the women's rite and that now he must possess me. I was more horrified at his sacrilege than frightened at his threatened outrage. My father had trained me as a warrior from childhood, saying that being born female was no excuse to allow my honor to be impugned, and that a woman had more need than a man to be able to defend herself. I had no doubt that I could handle Rorik, although he was a sturdy youth and armed with a sword.
"In my rage I ordered Rorik from my tent, telling him that I would inform all the chiefs of his violation of sacred law. He said that if I would not yield to him willingly, he would take me by force. I laughed in his face.
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