Conan The Defender Part 23

Conan nodded, and the bearded man whistled sourly.

"Cimmerian, I say again that we should ride for Ophir, just as soon as we can a.s.semble the company."

"No, Hordo." Conan's eyes still held the icy grimness of the fight, and his face wore the look of a wolf on the hunt. "We have the enemy's trail, now. It's time to attack, not run."

"Mitra!" Hordo breathed. "An you get me killed with this foolishness, I'll haunt you. Attack?"

Before Conan could reply, a slave girl appeared, bending knee to the Cimmerian. "I am to bid you to King Garian with all haste."

The one-eyed man stiffened.

"Be at ease," Conan told him. "Was it my head the King sought, he'd not send a pretty set of ankles to fetch me." The slave girl suddenly eyed him with interest.

"I trust no one," Hordo grumbled, "until we find out who wants you dead. Or until we leave Nemedia far behind."

"I'll tell you when it is time to ride for the border," Conan laughed.

"Lead on, girl." She darted away, and the Cimmerian followed.

King Garian waited in a room hung with weapons and trophies of the chase, but his mind was not on the hunt. Scrolls and sheets of parchment littered the many tables that dotted the room, and even the floor. As Conan entered, Garian hurled a scroll across the room with a sound of disgust. The bruise on his cheek stood out against the angry flush of his countenance.

"Never ask to be a king, Conan," were his first words.

Taken aback, Conan could only say. "And why not?"

Garian's bluff face was a picture of loathing as he swept his arms about to indicate all of the scrolls and parchments. "Think you these are the plans for some grand campaign? Some magnificent ceremony to honor my father's name and memory? Think you so?"

Conan shook his head. More times than one his life had been altered by the plans and strategies of one king or another, but he had never been party to those plannings. He eyed a parchment, lying almost at his feet. The sheet seemed covered with columns of numbers.

Garian stalked about the room lifting scrolls from tables, hurling them to the floor. "The city drains must be cleared or, so the Physicians'

Guild claims, the miasmas will bring on a plague. It is recommended the ancient pa.s.sages beneath the Palace be located and filled, to make the Palace more secure. Part of the city wall must be rebuilt. The army's pay is in arrears. Grain to be bought. Always more grain." He stopped, scowling at the spreading antlers of a great stag on the wall. "I took that in the wilderness on the Brythunian border. How I wish I were back there now."

"Can your counselors not deal with those things?" Conan asked.

The King laughed bitterly. "So they could, were it not for the gold.

Gold, Conan. I am reduced to grubbing for it like a greedy merchant."

"The Treasury-"

"-is well nigh bare. The more grain I must buy in Ophir and Aquilonia, the higher the price goes, and I must try to replace an entire crop, with insane brigands burning those wagons that do not travel under army escort and many that do. Already have I ordered some ornaments to be melted, but even an I strip the Palace bare it would be barely enough."

"What will you do?" Conan asked. Always had he imagined the wealth of kings to be limitless. This was a new thing for him, that a king might have to worry about gold no less than he, if in greater amounts.

"Borrow," Garian replied. "A number of n.o.bles and merchants have wealth to rival my own. Let them take a hand in preventing our nation from starving." He rooted among the parchments until he found one folded and sealed with the Dragon Seal of Nemedia. "You will carry this to Lord Cantaro Alba.n.u.s. He is among the richest men in Nemedia, and so will be among the first to be asked to contribute." Face hardening, he handed the parchment to Conan and added, "Or be taxed if they will not lend."

The King motioned for Conan to go, but the big Cimmerian remained where he stood. It was a delicate thing he was about to do, but he was not a man used to delicacy, and he felt an unaccustomed awkwardness. Garian looked at him in obvious surprise that he did not leave.

"How well do you trust Vegentius?" Conan blurted finally.

"Well enough to retain him as Commander of the Royal Bodyguard," Garian replied. "Why ask such a question?"

Conan took a deep breath and began the tale he had planned on his way to this room. "Since coming here I have thought that I had seen Vegentius before. Today I remembered. I saw him in a tavern in the city in close converse with a man called Taras, one who has been known to say that some other would be better on the throne than you."

"A serious charge," Garian said slowly. "Vegentius has served me well, and my father before me for many years. I cannot think he means me harm."

"You are the king, yet one lesson of kingship I know. A man who wears a crown must be ever wary of others' ambitions."

Garian threw back his head and laughed. "A good swordsman you may be, Conan, but you must leave being king to me. I have somewhat more experience with wearing a crown than you. Now go. I would have that message to Lord Alba.n.u.s quickly."

Inclining his head, Conan left. He hoped that he had planted some seed of suspicion, yet this fighting with words pleased him not at all. To face an enemy with steel was his way, and he hoped that it came soon.

Chapter XVI.

When Conan reached the Palace gate, he found Hordo waiting with his horse. And twenty men, among them Machaon and Narus. The Cimmerian looked at Hordo questioningly, and the one-eyed man shrugged.

"I heard you were to carry a message to some lord," he told Conan.

"Mitra! For all you know he could be the other man at that meeting with Taras. Or the one who wants you dead. Or both."

"You grow as suspicious as an old woman, Hordo," Conan said as he swung into the saddle.

Vegentius, battered but in full armor and red-crested helmet, appeared suddenly in the gate with half-a-score Golden Leopards at his heels.

When his eyes fell on Conan's mounted men, he stopped, glaring.

Abruptly he spun and, angrily pushing through the soldiers, stormed back into the Palace.

"Mayhap I am suspicious," Hordo said quietly, "but at least I've sense enough to remember that some of your enemies have faces we know.

Besides, you'll find the city changed in the last few days."

As Conan led his twenty into the empty streets, the changes were evident. Here and there a dog with ribs protruding sniffed warily around a corner. Occasionally a man could be seen hurrying down a side street, as if pursued, though no one else was about. Windows were shuttered and doors were barred; no shop was open nor hawker's cry heard. A deathly silence hung palpable in the air.

"Soon after we rode to the Palace it began," Hordo muttered. He looked around and hunched his shoulders uneasily, as if riding among tombs.

"First people abandoned the streets to the toughs, the beggars and the trulls. The last two went quickly enough, with none to give or buy, and the bravos had the city to themselves, terrorizing any who dared set foot out of doors. Yesterday, they disappeared too." He looked at Conan significantly. "All in the s.p.a.ce of a gla.s.s."

"As if they had orders?"

The one-eyed man nodded. "Maybe Taras hired armed men after all. Of a sort."

"But not for the purpose Ariane believed." The big Cimmerian was silent for a time, staring at the seemingly deserted buildings. "What is the news of her?" he asked finally.

Hordo had no need to ask who he meant. "She's well. Twice I've been to the Thestis; the others look at me as they'd look at a leper come to their dinner. Kerin has taken up with Graecus."

Conan nodded without speaking, and they rode in silence to the gates of Alba.n.u.s' palace. There Conan dismounted, pounding on the barred gate with his fist.

A flap no bigger than a man's hand opened in it, and a suspicious eye surveyed them. "What do you seek here? Who are you?"

"My name is Conan. Open the gate, man. I bear a message to your master from King Garian himself."

There was a moment's whispered conversation on the other side of the gate. Then came the rattle of a bar being drawn, and the gate opened enough for one man to pa.s.s.