Conan The Defender Part 15

Another alley serpentined across the one he followed; he dodged down it. Still another pa.s.sage appeared, winding cramped between dark walls, and he turned into that. Behind the curses of his pursuit followed.

As he ran he realized that he was in a warren, a maze of ancient pa.s.sages in an area surrounded by more normal roadways. The buildings seemed ready to topple and fill those pa.s.sages with rubble, for though they had begun long years past with but single stories, as years and needs demanded more room that could not be got by building outward, extra rooms had been constructed atop the roofs, and more atop those, till they resembled nothing; so much as haphazard stacks of stuccoed and gray-tiled boxes.

In such a region, running like a fox before hounds, it would be a matter of luck if he found his way to the outside before his pursuers seized him. And it seemed his luck was sour that day. But there was another option, for one who had been among the icy crags and cliffs of Cimmeria.

With a mighty leap he caught the edge of a roof, and swung himself up to lie flat on the slate tiles. The curses and shouts of the Guardsmen came closer, were below him, were moving off.

"He's up there!" a man shouted below. "I see his foot!"

"Erlik's Bowels and Bladder!" Conan muttered. His luck was not sour.

Verily it had rotted.

As the Guardsmen struggled to climb, the Cimmerian darted across the slates, hoisted himself onto a higher level, scrambled over it and leaped to a lower roof. With a great crack the tiles gave way beneath his feet, and he plummeted into the room below.

Dazed, Conan struggled to his feet in a welter of broken slate. He was not alone, he realized. In the shadows against the far wall, face obscured, a large man in an expensive cloak of plain blue uttered a startled oath in the accents of the gutter. Another man, short beard circling a face pocked with the marks of some disease, stared in disbelief at Conan.

It was the third man, though, a gray cloak pulled over his scarlet tunic, who drew the eye. Hawk-faced and obsidian-eyed, his dark hair slashed at the temples with white, he looked born to command. And now he issued one. "Kill him," he said.

Crom, Conan thought, reaching for his sword. Did everyone in Belverus want him dead? The pock-faced man put hand to sword hilt.

"Down there!" came a shout from above. No muscle moved in the room save a twitching of the pock-faced man's cheek. "That hole in the roof! A silver piece to the man who first draws blood!"

Visage dark as death, the hawk-faced man raised a clawed hand, as if he could strike Conan across the breadth of the room. There were thuds above as men dropped to the roof. "No time," the hawk-faced one snarled.

Turning, he stalked from the room. The other two vanished behind him.

Conan had no mind either to greet the Guardsmen or to follow on the heels of those three. His eye lit on a tattered cloth, hung against the wall like a tapestry. As if it hid something. He jerked it aside to reveal a door. That let onto another room, full of dust and empty of else, but from there another door opened into a hall. As Conan closed that one softly behind him, he heard the thumps of men dropping through the hole in the roof.

For a wonder, after the maze of the alleys, the corridor ran straight to a street, and for its length the Cimmerian saw no one save one aging blowze who cracked a door and gave him a gap-toothed smile of invitation. Shuddering at the thought, he hurried on.

When he got back to the Thestis, the first person he saw was Hordo, scowling into a mug of wine. He dropped onto a stool across from him.

"Hordo, did you send a message telling me to meet you at the Sign of the Full Moon?"

"What? No." Hordo shook his head, without looking up from his mug.

"Answer me this, Cimmerian. Do you understand any part of women? I walked in, told Kerin she had the prettiest eyes in Belverus, and she slapped my face and said she supposed I thought her b.r.e.a.s.t.s weren't big enough." He sighed mournfully. "And she won't say another word to me."

"Mayhap I can illumine your problem," Conan said, and in a low voice he told of the message purporting to come from the one-eyed man, and what had occurred at the Full Moon.

Hordo caught the import at once. "Then 'tis you they're after. Whoever 'they' are. Did the knifemen not take you, the Guardsmen were meant to."

"Aye," Conan said. "When the Guardsmen followed so doggedly, I knew their palms had been crossed with gold. But I still know not who did the crossing."

Hordo drew a line through a puddle of spilled wine with a spatulate finger. "Have you thought of leaving Belverus, Conan? We could ride south. Trouble brews in Ophir, too, and there's no dearth of hiring for Free-Companies. I tell you, this business of someone you know not seeking your death sits ill with me. I knew you should have heeded that blind soothsayer."

"You knew...." Conan shook his head. "An I ride south, Hordo, I lose the company. Some would not leave the gold to be had here, and I have not the gold to pay the rest until we find service in Ophir. Besides, there are things I must attend to here first."

"Things? Conan, tell me you're not involving us in this... this hopeless children's revolt."

"Not exactly."

"Not exactly," Hordo said hollowly. "Tell me what it is you are doing.

Exactly"

"Earn a little gold," Conan replied. "Discover who means to have me dead, and deal with them. Oh, and save Ariane from the headman's axe.

You don't want Kerin's pretty head to fall, do you?"

"Perhaps not," the one-eyed man said grudgingly.

Looking around the room until he spotted Kerin, Conan waved for her to come to the table. She hesitated, then came over stiffly.

"Is Ariane here?" he asked her. The first part of saving her head was to let her know about Leucas, so she could stop him.

"She went out," Kerin said. She looked straight at the big Cimmerian as if Hordo did not exist. "She said she had to arrange a meeting for you."

"About that message this forenoon," Hordo said suddenly.

Casually Kerin leaned over and tipped his winemug into his lap. He leaped to his feet, cursing, as she left.

"Beheading's too good for her," he growled. "Since we've both been abandoned, as it seems, let us go to the Street of Regrets. I know a den of vice so iniquitous that wh.o.r.es blush to hear it mentioned."

"Not the Sign of the Full Moon, I trust," Conan laughed.

"Never a bit, Cimmerian." Hordo broke into song in a voice like a jacka.s.s in pain. "Oh, I knew a wench from Alcibies, her nipples were like rubies. Her hair was gold, but her rump was cold, and her...." A sudden, shocked silence had descended on the common room. "You're not singing, Conan."

Laughing, Conan got to his feet, and roaring the truly obscene second verse they marched out to horrified gasps.

Chapter X.

"Are you certain?" Alba.n.u.s demanded. Golden lamps suspended on chains from the arched ceiling of the marble-columned hall cast shadows on the planes of his face, making him look the wolf he was fiercer cousin to.

Demetrio bristled sulkily, half at the doubting tone and half for having been made to wait on Alba.n.u.s in the entry hall. "You wanted Sephana watched," he muttered. "I had her watched. And I'm certain.

Would I have come in the night were I not?"

"Follow me," Alba.n.u.s commanded, speaking as to a servant.

And he no more noticed the young catamite's pale lips and clenched fists than he would have those of a servant. Demetrio followed as commanded; that was all that was important. Alba.n.u.s had slipped already into his persona of king. After all, it was now but a matter of days.

His last essential acquisition had been made that very day.

The dark-eyed lord went directly to the chamber where he so often sported himself with Sularia, but the woman was not there now. He tugged the brocaded bell-pull on the wall in a particular fashion, then went straight to his writing desk.

"When?" he demanded, uncapping the silver inkpot. Taking quill and parchment before him, he scribbled furiously. "How long have I before she acts?"

"I was not privy to her planning," Demetrio answered with asperity. "Is it not enough that she gathers her myrmidons about her this night?"

"Fool!" Alba.n.u.s grated.