"It is an honest answer, Stephano," Ariane said. Stephano snorted.
Conan remembered him now. The night before he had named himself a sculptor, and been free with his hands with Ariane. She had not seemed to mind then, but now she took back her winecup angrily.
"He is a generous man, Stephano, and I think me he'd be generous were he rich." She shifted her direct gaze back to Conan. "But can you not see that generosity is not enough? In Hellgate are those who lack the price of bread, while nobles sit safe in their palaces and fat merchants grow richer by the day. Garian is no just king. What must be done is clear."
"Ariane!" Stephano said sharply. "You tread dangerous ground. School your tongue."
"What leave have you to speak so to me?" Her voice grew more heated by the word. "Whatever is between us, I am none of your property."
"I have not named you so," he replied, matching heat for heat. "I ask but that you let yourself be guided by me. Speak not so to strangers."
Ariane tossed her pretty head contemptuously, her big eyes suddenly cold. "Art sure there is no part of jealousy in your words, Stephano? No intent to rid yourself of a rival?" The sculptor's face flamed red.
"Stranger he may be," she continued remorselessly, "yet he is the kind of man we seek. A warrior. Have I not heard Taras speak so to you a hundred times? We must needs have fighters if-"
"Mitra's mercy" Stephano groaned. "Have you mind at all for caution, Ariane? He is a northern barbarian who likely never knew his father and would sell his honor for a silver piece. Guard your tongue!"
With his left hand Conan slid his broadsword free of its scabbard, just enough so that the edge of the blade below the hilt rested against the side of the table. "When I was still a boy," he said in a flat voice, "I saw my father die with a blade in his hand. With that blade I killed the man who slew him. Care you to discuss it further?"
Stephano's eyes goggled at the sword, his scowl momentarily banished, He touched his lips with his tongue; his breath came in pants. "You see, Ariane? You see what kind of man he is?" His stool scraped on the floor as he rose. "Come away with me, Ariane. Leave this man now."
She held out her winecup to Conan. "May I have some more wine?" She did not look at Stephano, or acknowledge his presence. Conan filled the cup, and she drank.
Stephano looked at her uncertainly, then took a step backward. "Guard your tongue!" he hissed, and darted away, almost crashing into another table in his haste.
"Will you guard your tongue?" Conan asked quietly.
She peered into her wine a time before answering. "From the stories you told, your sword goes where the gold is. Do you choose only by who can pay the most gold?"
"No," he told her. "I've ridden away from gold rather than follow unjust orders." Sighing, he added truthfully, "But I do like gold."
Clutching his cloak about her, she rose. "Mayhap... mayhap we'll speak of it later. They wait for me to finish posing."
"Ariane," he began, but she cut him off.
"Stephano thinks he has a claim on me," she said quickly. "He has not." And she left almost as quickly as Stephano had.
Conan emptied his cup with a muttered curse, then turned to watch her drop his cloak and climb back to her pose on the table. After a moment her eyes shifted to him, then away, quickly. Again she met his gaze and tore hers away. Her rounded breasts rose and fell as her breathing became agitated. Spots of red appeared on her cheeks, growing, her face flushing hotter and hotter. Abruptly she uttered a small cry and leaped down, snatching up the cloak from the floor without looking again at Conan. She pulled the fur-trimmed garment about her as she ran, darting between the tables, feet flashing up the stairs.
The Cimmerian smiled complacently as he poured more wine from the clay jug. Perhaps things were not as bad as they seemed.
Hordo dropped onto the stool across the table, a frown creasing his eye. "Have you listened to what's said in this place?" he asked quietly. "Was there a Guardsman about, there'd be heads on pikes for sedition before many more dawns."
Conan looked casually to see if anyone was listening. "Or for rebellion?"
"This lot?" the one-eyed man snorted derisively. "They might as well march to the block and ask to have their heads chopped. Not that the city's not ripe for it, mind. But these have as much chance as a babe sucking a sugar-tit."
"But what if they had money? Gold to hire fighting men?"
Hordo raised his cup as Conan spoke; now he choked on the wine. "Where would this lot get gold? If one of them had a patron, you can wager your stones he'd not be living on the rim of Hellgate."
"Ariane's father is a lord," Conan said quietly. "And she told me some of the rest come of rich men, too."
The one-eyed man chose his words carefully. "Do you tell me they actually plan rebellion? Or think they do?"
"Stephano and Ariane, between them, as much as told me so."
"Then let us be gone from here. They may have some talents, but rebellion is not among them. If they met you last night and tell so much today, what have they told others? Remember, our heads can decorate pikes as easily as theirs."
Conan shook his head slowly, although Hordo was right, on the face of it. "I like it here," was all he said.
"You like a round-bottomed poet," Hordo said heatedly. "You'll die for a woman yet. Remember the blind soothsayer."
"I thought you said he was a fool," the Cimmerian laughed. "Drink, Hordo. Rest easy. We'll talk of our Free-Company."
"We've no gold yet that I can see," the other said sourly.
"I'll find the gold," Conan said with more confidence than he felt. He had no idea whence it might come.
Still, it would be well to have his plans in order. A delay of days could mean the difference between being sought after and all who could afford such companies already having hired. "I'll find it. You say we can, ah, borrow weapons from the storehouses of the smuggling ring you serve. Are they serviceable? I've seen smuggled mail so eaten with rust it fell apart in a good rain, and blades that snapped at the first blow."
"Nay, Cimmerian. These are of good quality, and of any sort you want. Why, there are as many kinds of sword bundled in those storehouses as I've ever heard named. Tulwars from Vendhya, shamshirs from Iranistan, macheras in a dozen patterns from the Corinthian city-states. Fifty of this sort and a hundred of that. Enough to arm five thousand men."
"So many?" Conan murmured. "Why would they keep so much in their storehouses, and in such variety?
There's no profit in storing swords."
"I bring what I'm told from the border to Belverus, and I'm paid for it in gold. I care not if they grow barley in the storehouses, so long as I get a fat purse each trip." Hordo tipped the jug over his cup; a few drops fell. "Wine!" he roared, a blast that brought dead silence to the room.
Everyone turned to stare in amazement at the two burly men. A slender girl in the same sort of plain neck-to-ankles cotton robe that Ariane wore approached hesitantly and placed another clay jug on the table. Hordo fumbled in the purse at his belt and tossed her a silver piece.
"The rest is for you, little one," Hordo said.
The girl stared at the coin, then laughed delightedly and dropped a mockingly deep curtsey before leaving. Conversation slowly resumed among those at the tables. The musicians struck up their various tunes, and the poet orated to the wall.
"Pretty serving girls," Hordo muttered as he refilled his battered metal cup, "but they dress like temple virgins."
Conan hid a smile. The one-eyed man had drunk deeply the night before. Well, he would discover soon enough that he did not have to pay for his wine. In the meantime, let him contribute for the both of them.
"Consider, Hordo. Such a motley collection of weapons is just the sort of thing these artists would put together."
"That again?" the other man grumbled. "In the first place, whoever runs the ring, I can't see him wanting Garian overthrown. Those fool tariffs might be starving the poor, but they make good profits for smuggli
ng. In the second place...." His face darkened, the scar below his patch standing out whitely. "In the second place, I've been through one rebellion with you. Or have you forgotten riding for the Venhyan border half a step in front of the headsman's sword?"
"I remember," Conan said. "I've said naught of joining their rebellion."
"Said naught, but thought much," Hordo growled. "You're a romantic fool, Cimmerian. Always were, likely always will be. Hannuman's Stones, man, you'll not mix me in another uprising. Keep your mind fixed on the gold for a Free-Company."
"I always keep my mind on gold," Conan replied. "Mayhap I think on it too much."
Hordo groaned, but Conan was saved having to say more by the appearance of the slender girl who had brought the wine jug. Tilting her head to one side, she favored the big Cimmerian with a look, half shyness, half invitation, that made the room suddenly too warm.
"What's your name, girl?" Hordo asked. "You're a pretty little bit. Get rid of that cotton shift, deck yourself with a little silk, and you could work in any tavern in Belverus."
She tossed her head, laughing gaily, silken brown hair rippling about her shoulders. "Thank you, kind sir, and for your generous contribution." Hordo frowned in uncomprehension. "My name is Kerin," she went on, her soft brown eyes shifting to Conan like a light-fingered caress. "And by those shoulders, you must be the Conan Ariane spoke of. I work in clay, though I hope to have my sculpture cast in bronze some day. Would you pose for me? I can't pay you, but perhaps...." Her mouth softened, full lower lip dropping slightly, and her eyes left no doubt what sort of arrangement she wanted with the muscular barbarian.
Conan had barely listened after the mention of posing. An image flashed in his brain of Ariane, posing on the table, and he was uncomfortably aware of his face growing hot. Surely she did not mean .... She could not want ....
He swallowed hard and cleared his throat. "You mentioned Ariane. Did she send a message?"
"Why did she see you first?" Kerin sighed. "Yes, she did. She's waiting in your room. To tell you something very important, she said." She ended with a slight smirk.
Conan scraped back his stool.
"Girl," Hordo said as the Cimmerian rose, "what is this posing? I might well do it." Kerin slipped into the seat Conan had vacated.
All the way across the common room Conan waited for Hordo's outraged shout, but when he looked back from the foot of the stairs the one-eyed man was nodding slowly, a delighted grin on his face.
Laughing, Conan ran up the stirs. It seemed his friend would receive more than good value for his silver piece.
Upstairs the narrow hall was lined with many doors, most crudely made, for the original chambers had been roughly partitioned into more. When Conan pushed open his own rude plank door, Ariane was standing below the small window high in the wall. His cloak was still wrapped tightly around her, her fists showing at the neck where she held it together. He closed the door behind him and leaned back against it.
"I pose," she said without preamble. Her eyes glinted with something he could not quite read. "I pose for my friends, who cannot hire models. I do it often, and never have I felt embarrassment. Never until today."
"I merely looked at you," he said quietly.
"You looked at me." She uttered a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. "You looked at me, and I felt like one of those girls at the Gored Ox, wriggling to a flute for drooling men. Mitra blast your eyes!
How dare you make me feel like that!"
"You are a woman," he said. "I looked at you as a man looking at a woman."
She closed her eyes and addressed the cracked ceiling. "Hama All-Mother, why must I be stirred by an untutored barbarian who thinks with his sword?" A smug smile grew on his face, to be quashed almost immediately by a glare from her large hazel eyes. "A man may take as many women as he wishes," she said fiercely. "I refuse to have less freedom than a man. If I choose to have but one man at a time to my mat, and have no other till he leaves or I do, that is my affair. Can you accept me as I am?"
"Did your mother never tell you a man likes to do the asking?" he laughed.
"Mitra blast your heart!" she snarled. "Why do I waste my time?" Muttering to herself she stalked toward the door, cloak flaring in her haste.
Conan reached out one massive arm, curling it around her waist beneath the cloak. She had time for one strangled squawk before he lifted her, the cloak floating to the floor, to crush her soft breasts against the hard expanse of his chest.
"Will you stay with me, Ariane?" he asked, looking into her startled eyes.
Before she could speak he tangled his free hand in her hair and brought her lips to his. Her small fists bruised themselves against his shoulders; her feet kicked futilely at his shins. Slowly her struggles subsided, and when a satisfied murmur sounded in her throat he released her hair. Panting, she let her head drop onto his broad chest.
"Why did you change your mind?" she managed after a time.
"I didn't change it," he replied. She looked up, startled, and he smiled. "Before you asked. This time I did the asking."
Laughing throatily, she let her head fall back. "Hama All-Mother," she cried, "will I never understand these strange creatures called men?"
He laid her gently on his sleeping mat, and for a long time thereafter only sounds passion-wrought passed her lips.
Chapter VI
The Street of Regrets in the morning hours fit well Conan's mood. The paving stones were littered with the tawdry refuse of the previous night's revelry; those few people to be seen were stumbling home bleary eyed and hollow faced. Conan kicked rubbish from his path as he strode along, and gave growl for growl to the stray dogs that scavenged among the leavings.
The ten nights past had been an idyll at the Sign of the Thestis, wrapped in Ariane's arms, her passions and appetites feeding his own even as they sated them. Stephano brooded much in jealousy and wine, yet the memory of the Cimmerian's anger kept his tongue between his teeth. Hordo, drawn by the attractions of the slender Kerin, had moved his few belongings from an inn three streets away, and of an evening they drank and told each other lies till the charms of Ariane and Kerin parted them. Those were the nights. Days were another matter.
Conan paused at the sound of running boots behind him, then continued on as Hordo joined him.
"Ill luck this morrow, too?" the one-eyed man asked, eyeing the Cimmerian's face.
Conan nodded shortly. "When I had defeated all three bodyguards now in his service, Lord Heranius offered three gold marks for me to take service as their chief, with two more every tenday."
"Ill luck?" Hordo exclaimed. "Mitra! That's twice the usual rate for bodyguards. I'm tempted to give up smuggling. At least there'd be no danger of the headsman's block."
"And I must swear bond-oath before the City Magistrates not to quit his service without leave for two years."
"Oh."
Conan's right fist cracked into the other palm with a sound like a club striking leather. A drunk, stumbling his way home, jumped a foot in the air and fell in a puddle of vomit. Conan did not notice.
"Everywhere it is the same," he grated, "Free-Companies or single blade-fee alike. All demand the bond-oath, and some require three years, if they do not require five."
"Before the bond-oaths," Hordo mused. "Some men changed masters every day, getting a silver piece more each time. Look you. Why not take service with whoever offers the most gold? This Lord Heranius, by the sound of it. When you're ready to go, if he won't release you, just go. An oath that makes a man a slave is no oath at all."
"And when I do, I must leave Belverus, perhaps all of Nemedia." He was silent for a time, his boots kicking broken clay wine-jars and soiled bits of abandoned clothing from his path. At last he said, "At first it was but talk, Hordo, this Free-Company that I would lead. Now it's more. I'll take no service until I ride at the head of my own company."
"It means so much to you?" Hordo said incredulously. He dodged a jar of slops thrown from
a second-story window, hurling a curse at the thrower, already gone.
"It does," Conan said, ignoring the other's mutters about what had splashed on his boots. "In the final sum of it all, perhaps a man has no more than himself, naught but a strong right hand and the steel in it. And still, to rise, to make some mark in the world, a man must lead others. I was a thief, yet did I rise to command in the Army of Turan, and did well at it. I know not how far I may rise nor how far the path I follow may take me, yet do I intend to rise as high and go as far as my wits and a good sword will take me. I will have that Free-Company."
"When you do," the one-eyed man said drily, "be you certain they swear the bond-oath." They turned into the street that led to the Sign of Thestis.
As Conan laughed, three men stepped out to spread themselves across the narrow street, broadswords in hand. The sound of boots behind made Conan glance quickly over his shoulder. Two more armed men stood there, cutting off retreat. The Cimmerian's blade whispered from its worn shagreen scabbard; Hordo, sword flickering free, pivoted to face those behind.
"Stand aside," Conan called to the three. "Find you easier meat elsewhere."
"Naught was said of a second man," the one to Conan's left muttered, his thin, rat-like face twitching.
The man to the right, shaven dome gleaming in the morning sun, hefted his sword uneasily. "We cannot take one without the other."
"You'll find but your deaths here," Conan said. With his left hand he unfastened the bronze pin that held his cloak, doubling the furlined garment loosely over that arm.
The leader, for the tall man in the center with his closely cropped beard was clearly so, spoke for the first time. "Kill them," he said, and his blade thrust for Conan's belly.
With pantherine grace the muscular Cimmerian moved aside, his cloak tangling the tall man's blade while his right foot planted itself solidly in the fellow's crotch. In the same move Conan's sword beat aside a thrust of the shavenhead. Gagging, the leader attempted to straighten; but Conan pivoted, his left foot taking the bearded man on the side of the head, knocking him under the feet of onrushing ratface. Both went down in a heap.
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