Conan of Cimmeria Part 19

A giant grasped her thigh and plucked her from the saddle, full into the furious hands that eagerly awaited her. Her skirt was ripped from her body and waved in the air above her, while a bellow of primitive laughter went up from the surging mob. A woman spat in her face and tore off her breastplates, scratching her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with blackened fingernails. A hurtling stone grazed her head.

Tananda saw a stone clutched in a hand, whose owner sought to reach her in the press to brain her. Daggers glinted. Only the hindering numbers of the jammed ma.s.s kept them from instantly doing her to death. A roar went up: "To the temple of Jullah!"

An instant clamor responded. Tananda felt herself half carried, half dragged along by the surging mob. Black hands gripped her hair, arms, and legs. Blows aimed at her in the crush were blocked or diverted by the ma.s.s.

Then came a shock, under which the whole throng staggered, as a horseman on a powerful steed crashed full into the press. Men, screaming, went down to be crushed under the flailing hoofs. Tananda caught a glimpse of a figure towering above the throng, of a dark, scarred face under a steel helmet, and a great sword lashing up and down, spattering crimson splashes. But, from somewhere in the crowd, a spear licked upward, disemboweling the steed. It screamed, plunged, and went down.

The rider, however, landed on his feet, smiting right and left. Wildly driven spears glanced from his helmet or from the shield on his left arm, while his broadsword cleft flesh and bone, split skulls, and spilled entrails into the b.l.o.o.d.y dust.

Flesh and blood could not stand it. Clearing a s.p.a.ce, the stranger stooped and caught up the terrified girl. Covering her with his shield, he fell back, cutting a ruthless path until he had backed into the angle of a wall. Pushing her behind him, he stood before her, beating back the frothing, screaming onslaught.

Then there was a clatter of hoofs. A company of guardsmen swept into the square, driving the rioters before them. The Kus.h.i.tes, screaming in sudden panic, fled into the side streets, leaving a score of bodies littering the square. The captain of the guard-a giant Negro, resplendent in crimson silk and gold-worked harness-approached and dismounted.

"You were long in coming," said Tananda, who had risen and regained her poise.

The captain turned ashy. Before he could move, Tananda had made a sign to the men behind him. Using both hands, one of them drove his spear between his captain's shoulders with such force that the point started out from his breast. The officer sank to his knees, and thrusts from a half-dozen more spears finished the task.

Tananda shook her long, black, disheveled hair and faced her rescuer.

She was bleeding from a score of scratches and as naked as a newborn babe, but she stared at the man without perturbation or uncertainty. He gave back her stare, his expression betraying a frank admiration for her cool bearing and the ripeness of her brown limbs and voluptuously molded torso.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"I am Conan, a Cimmerian," he grunted.

"Cimmerian?" She had never heard of his far country, which lay hundreds of leagues to the north. She frowned. "You wear Stygian mail and helm.

Are you a Stygian of some sort?"

He shook his head, baring white teeth in a grin. "I got the armor from a Stygian, but I had to kill the fool first."

"What do you, then, in Meroe?"

"I am a wanderer," he said simply, "with a sword for hire. I came here to seek my fortune." He did not think it wise to tell her of his previous career as a corsair on the Black Coast, or of his chieftainship of one of the jungle tribes to the south.

The queen's eyes ran appraisingly over Conan's giant form, measuring the breadth of his shoulders and the depth of his chest. "I will hire your sword," she said at last. "What is your price?"

"What price do you offer?" he countered, with a rueful glance at the carca.s.s of his horse. "I am a penniless wanderer and now, alas, afoot."

She shook her head. "No, by Set! You are penniless no longer, but captain of the royal guard. Will a hundred pieces of gold a month buy your loyalty?"

He glanced casually at the sprawling figure of the former captain, who lay in silk, steel, and blood. The sight did not dim the zest of his sudden grin.

"I think so," said Conan.

4. The Golden Slave

The days pa.s.sed, and the moon waned and waxed. A brief, disorganized rising by the lower castes was put down by Conan with an iron hand.

Shubba, Tuthmes' servant, returned to Meroe. Coming to Tuthmes in his chamber, where lion skins carpeted the marble floor, he said, "I have found the woman you desired, master-a Nemedian girl, captured from a trading vessel of Argos. I paid the Shemite slave trader many broad pieces of gold for her."

"Let me see her," commanded Tuthmes.

Shubba left the room and returned a moment later, leading a girl by the wrist. She was supple, and her white body formed a dazzling contrast to the brown and black bodies to which Tuthmes was accustomed. Her hair fell in a curly, rippling, golden stream over her white shoulders. She was clad only in a tattered shift. This Shubba removed, leaving her shrinking in complete nudity.

Impersonally, Tuthmes nodded. "She is a fine bit of merchandise. If I were not gambling for a throne, I might be tempted to keep her for myself. Have you taught her Kus.h.i.te, as I commanded?"

"Aye; in the city of the Stygians and later, daily, on the caravan trail, I taught her. After the Shemite fashion, I impressed upon her the need of learning with a slipper. Her name is Diana."

Tuthmes seated himself on a couch and indicated that the girl should sit cross-legged on the floor at his feet. This she did.

"I am going to give you to the queen of Kush as a present," he said.

"Nominally you will be her slave, but actually you will still belong to me. You will receive your orders regularly, and you shall not fail to carry them out. The queen is cruel and hasty, so beware of roiling her.

You shall say nothing, even if tortured, of your continuing connection with me. Lest, when you fancy yourself out of my reach in the royal palace, you be tempted to disobey, I shall demonstrate my power to you."

Taking her hand, he led her through a corridor, down a flight of stone stairs, and into a long, dimly-lit room.

This chamber was divided into equal halves by a wall of crystal, as clear as water although a yard thick and strong enough to resist the lunge of a bull elephant. Tuthmes led Diana to this wall and made her stand, facing it, while he stepped back. Abruptly, the light went out.

As she stood in darkness, her slender limbs trembling with unreasoning panic, light began to glow out of the blackness. She saw a malformed, hideous head grow out of the blackness. She saw a b.e.s.t.i.a.l snout, chisel-like teeth, and bristles. As the horror moved toward her, she screamed and turned, forgetting in her frantic fear the sheet of crystal that kept the brute from her. In the darkness, she ran full into the arms of Tuthmes. She heard him hiss, "You have been my servant. Do not fail me, for if you do he will search you out wherever you may be. You cannot hide from him." When he whispered something else in her ear, she fainted.

Tuthmes carried her up the stairs and gave her into the hands of a black woman with orders to revive her, see that she had food and wine, and bathe, comb, perfume, and deck her for presentation to the queen on the morrow.

5. The Lash of Tananda

The next day, Shubba led Diana of Nemedia to Tuthmes' chariot, hoisted her into the car, and took the reins. It was a different Diana, scrubbed and perfumed, with her beauty enhanced by a discreet touch of cosmetics. She wore a robe of silk so thin that every contour could be seen through it. A diadem of silver sparkled on her golden hair.

She was, however, still terrified. Life had been a nightmare ever since the slavers had kidnapped her. She had tried to comfort herself, during the long months that followed, with the thought that nothing lasts forever and that things were so bad that they were bound to improve.

Instead, they had only worsened.

Now she was about to be proffered as a gift to a cruel and irascible queen. If she survived, she would be caught between the dangers of Tuthmes' monster on one hand and the suspicions of the queen on the other. If she did not spy for Tuthmes, the demon would get her; if she did, the queen would probably catch her at it and have her done to death in some even more gruesome fashion.

Overhead, the sky had a steely look. In the west, clouds were piling up, tier upon tier; for the end of Kush's dry season was at hand.

The chariot rumbled toward the main square in front of the royal palace. The wheels crunched softly over drifted sand, now and then rattling loudly as they encountered a stretch of bare pavement. Few upper-caste Meroites were abroad, for the heat of the afternoon was at its height. Most of the ruling cla.s.s slumbered in their houses. A few of their black servants slouched through the streets, turning blank faces, shining with sweat, toward the chariot as it pa.s.sed.

At the palace, Shubba handed Diana down from the chariot and led her in through the gilded bronze gates. A fat major domo conducted them through corridors and into a large chamber, fitted out with the ornate opulence of the room of a Stygian princess-which in a way it was. On a couch of ivory and ebony, inlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl, sat Tananda, clad only in a brief skirt of crimson silk.

The queen's eyes insolently examined the trembling blond slave before her. The girl was obviously a fine piece of human property. But Tananda's heart, steeped in treachery itself, was swift to suspect treachery in others. The queen spoke suddenly, in a voice heavy with veiled menace:

"Speak, wench! Why did Tuthmes send you to the palace?"

"I-I do not know-where am I?-Who are you?" Diana had a small, high voice, like that of a child.

"I am Queen Tananda, fool! Now answer my question."

"I know not the answer, my lady. All I know is that Lord Tuthmes sent me as a gift-"

"You lie! Tuthmes is eaten-up with ambition. Since he hates me, he would not make me a gift without an ulterior reason. He must have some plot in mind Speak up, or it will be the worse for you!"

"I-I do not know! I do not know!" wailed Diana, bursting into tears.

Frightened almost to insanity by Muru's demon, she could not have spoken even if she had wished. Her tongue would have refused to obey her brain.