Conan the Defender (Robert Jordan's Conan Novels 2)

“The people,” Conan said, staring at the darkbrowed man as if he had never seen his like before. “You talk of preventing a slaughter that will tarnish your ideals. What of the thousands who will die taking the Palace? If they can?”

“We compromised our ideals by hiring swordsmen for gold,” Stephano maintained stubbornly. “We cannot compromise them further. All who die will be martyrs to a just and glorious cause.”

“When is this glorious day?” Conan asked sarcastically.

“As soon as Taras has gathered his thousand men,” Graecus replied.

“In effect, then this Taras gives the word for your uprising?” Graecus nodded slowly, a suddenly doubtful look on his face, and Conan went on. “Then I must speak to Taras before I decide whether to join you.”

Ariane’s eyes grew wide. “You mean that you still may turn aside from us? After we have opened ourselves to you?”

“We have told him all!” Stephano cried, his voice growing more shrill by the word. “He can betray everything! We have given ourselves to this barbarian!”

His face suddenly hard, Conan gripped his sword with both hands, pulling it up so that the hilt was before his face. Stephano stumbled back with a shriek like a woman, and Graecus scrambled his feet. Ariane’s face was pale, but she did not move.

“By this steel,” Conan said, “and by Crom, Lord of the Mound, I swear that I will never betray you.” His icy blue eyes found Ariane’s and held them. “I will die first.”

Ariane stepped forward, her face full of wonder, and placed a hesitant hand on the Cimmerian’s cheek. “You are like no other man I have ever known,” she whispered. Her voice firmed. “I believe him. We will arrange a meeting for him with Taras. Agreed, Stephano? Graecus?” The two sculptors nodded jerkily. “Leucas? Leucas!”

“What?” The skinny philosopher started as if he had been asleep. “Whatever you say, Ariane. I agree with you wholeheartedly.” His eye lit on Conan’s bared blade, and his head jerked back to thump against the wall. He remained like that, staring at the steel with horrified eyes.

“Philosophers,” Ariane murmured laughingly.

“I must go,” Conan said, returning his sword to its scabbard. “I must meet Hordo.”

“I will see you tonight, then,” Ariane said. Stephano suddenly looked as if his stomach pained him. “And, Conan,” she added as he turned for the door, “I trust you with my life.”

With her life, the Cimmerian thought as he left the inn. Yet was she involved to the heart in the conspiracy and uprising. It could succeed. If Taras had in fact the thousand trained and armed men he claimed. If the people rose, and followed, and did not flee when faced with the interlocked shields and steady tread of infantry, the armored charge of heavy cavalry and the roof-rending crash of monstrous seige engines. If the rebels in their pride could be convinced to let their ideals wait on victory and seize the Palace while the Golden Leopards yet stood unaware. Too many ifs. Her life was bound with a doomed cause. Yet in the pride of his youth Conan swore another oath, this to himself. While holding to his oath not to betray, he would save her life despite her.

IX

By one glass past midday the Street of Regrets had begun its revelry, though slowly, yet building for the climax of night. A hundred jugglers tossed balls, batons, rings, knives and flaming wands where a thousand soon would. A hundred strumpets, rouged, perfumed and bangled, lightly draped with brightly colored silks, postured where two thousand would strut at dark. Through them strolled scores of richly tunicked nobles and merchants, each convoyed by his sword-bearing man or pair, vanguard for the multitudes to follow. Litters in dozens, borne by well-muscled slaves, bounded by armored guards, carried sleek, hot-breathed women seeking in advance of their sisters the vices offered by the desperate. And among them all the beggars wheedled in their rags.

Conan, making his way down the street, indifferent to its sights and sounds, found himself laughing when at last he spied the Sign of the Full Moon. On a slab of wood hanging above the entrance was painted a naked woman, kneeling and bent, her back to the viewer, and her buttocks glowing as if reflecting the sun. This spoke of the raucous delights that Hordo would choose.

Suddenly one of the litters caught his eye, scarlet curtained, its black poles and framing worked with gold. Of a certainty it was the litter he had seen his first day in Belverus, the litter of the veiled woman who had looked at him so strangely. The scarlet curtain twitched aside, and once again he was looking into the eyes of the woman veiled in gray. Over that distance he could discern not even so much as their color, yet those tilted eyes were familiar to him. Hauntingly so; if he could but bring back the memory.

He shook his head. Memory and imagination played tricks. A hundred women he had known and a thousand he had not could have eyes exactly alike. He turned to enter the Full Moon.

From behind, sweeping over the murmur of the street, came a sound, a woman’s laugh, half sob. He spun, an icy chill running up his spine. That laugh had seemed so familiar that he was almost sure if he opened his mouth a name would emerge to match it. But no woman was there, save the whores. The litter was swallowed up in the throng.

The Cimmerian eased sword and belt dagger in their sheaths, as if that easing would ease his mind. He was too much on edge for worry of Ariane, he told himself. It would do good to lose himself for a time with Hordo in drink and ogling of this fabulous dancer. He plunged into the Full Moon.

The common room of the Full Moon smelled of sour wine and stale perfume. The rough wooden tables were no more than a third filled at this hour, with men who hunched over their drinks, nursing their wine and their own dark fears together. Seven women danced to two shrill flutes and a zither, each carrying a strip of transparent red silk used now to cover the face, now to conceal bare breasts. From thin gilded girdles worn low on rounded hips depended curved brass plates that covered the juncture of their thighs, each plate marked with the price for which she who wore it could be enjoyed in the rooms above.

Though all the dancers were nicely curved, Conan saw none he believed would have excited Hordo’s imagination the way the message indicated. Perhaps they had other dancers, he thought, who would appear later. As he

took a table close to the narrow platform where the dancers writhed, a plump serving wench appeared at his elbow, a single twist of muslin about her hips.

“Wine,” he said, and she darted away.

As he settled to enjoying the women on the stage he became aware of someone staring at him. Hesitantly the thin philosopher, Leucas, approached his table.

“I need … may I talk with you, Conan?”

The thin man looked about him nervously as he spoke, as though afraid of being overheard. The only other men not concentrating on their wine were three dark-skinned Kothians, their hair braided into metal rings and Karpashi daggers strapped to their forearms. They appeared to be arguing as to whether the dancers were worth the prices they bore. Still, Leucas half fell onto the stool across from Conan, leaning across the table and pitching his voice in an urgent whisper as if he expected someone to stop him, violently, at any second.

“I had to talk to you, Conan. I followed. Your sword. When I saw it, I knew. You’re the one. You are the kind of man who can do this sort of thing. I … I am not. I’m just not a man of action.” Sweat poured down his narrow face, though the tavern was shadowed and cool. “You do understand, don’t you?”