After a slight initial coloring, Baldomer's features composed themselves to as much icy regularity as his scarified face allowed. "A mere security matter, Favian, that is all. Besides which," he continued more vehemently, "my place is not to explain my actions to you. Remember, every decision I make is for your own good and that of the baron."

Favian stepped forward into the center of the room. "Yet you violate my privacy. You have given my best armor to this barbar-boy; next you'll probably have me clapping on his filthy dog-skins. Well, I won't have it!" He moved toward the wardrobe, reaching out to close one of its doors.

The baron stood fast, blocking his way. "What you will have or will not have is no prerogative of yours, Favian. Remember, you have nothing in this world but what I have given you-and nothing I cannot take back, should you prove undeserving!"

"Father, this is too much!" Favian turned from the unmoving baron and approached Conan. "You, there -get that armor off your stinking carca.s.s at once!" While Conan glanced to the baron for a.s.sent, Favian shoved belligerently at the northerner's chest, scarcely budging him. He did so again, harder, as a measured provocation.

Then, suddenly, the lordling produced a riding crop from his sword-belted waist and lashed at Conan's unprotected head and shoulders. The Cimmerian raised an arm in defense and with a lightning-quick grab, seized the lashing tail of the quirt. He yanked it out of the young n.o.ble's grasp and tossed it into a corner of the room.

"Oh you will, will you? Miserable serf! Well, mark me, I am not drunk this time . . . and not unarmed, either!"

The room's confines rang with the sound of Favian's rapier clearing its scabbard. With hardly a pause in its streaking motion, the blade lashed out low at Conan's unshielded legs, but the northerner was already dancing back. He skipped clear of two more wild slashes, then vaulted over the bed to keep from being cornered.

"No, hold!" Baldomer's low command was addressed not to the fighters, but to his two retainers, Arga and Dru, who stood by indecisively, their hands on their dagger-hilts. An instant later the baron unhooked a scabbarded straightsword from the wall and tossed it to Conan. "Here, bodyguard, defend yourself!" The Cimmerian caught the piece smoothly, raising it before him just in time to meet Favian's blade as the young n.o.bleman came vaulting over the bed.

"At him, son!" Baldomer called l.u.s.tily.

The lordling's stroke knocked the scabbard free of Conan's blade to clatter across the floor. The blows that followed rang out rapidly and deafeningly, for it was easier to parry than to dodge in such close quarters. Conan saw that his heavy old sword was dull and notched; it had been a mere set-piece for years, and the leather winding of its hilt was dry and loose in his hand, allowing the metal edges beneath to saw and cut at his skin.

"Favian, pace yourself! Don't waste your strength," Baldomer urged his son. "The Cimmerian has endurance. Draw him out and await your chance."

Conan's worst discomfort was the ill-fitting chest armor that restrained his breaths and bit into the flesh under his arms. His movements were sorely limited, yet he was not hard-pressed.

For Favian's attack quickly lost energy against an armed and armored opponent. He spent ever more time in feinting and threatening and ever less in sparring. Not once did his blade strike the gaudy cuira.s.s. It seemed that his only forceful strokes were low, vicious cuts at Conan's legs.

"That's it, son! Keep your wits. Wear him down."

Without fighting to kill or wound, the northerner began using his training to trip or disarm his adversary. Stools and tables crashed out of the combatants' way, or splintered before their rushes. Just once, Conan's blade locked into the curve of Favian's, threatening to wrench it out of the Lordling's grasp -and before the edges sc.r.a.ped apart, the Cimmerian glimpsed real fear in his opponent's eyes.

Then Baldomer's exhortations faded to silence, and Favian was holding his blade vertical before him, looking nervously amused, calling in fencer's sign-language for a halt. Conan lowered his weapon.

"Well, barbarian, I see that you have benefited greatly from our training." Breathing heavily, the lordling sheathed his blade. Then, to Conan's momentary alarm, he reached forward and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "I should have taken you on a fortnight past, though poor old Eubold met with little luck even then." He gave Conan a rueful smile. "You have pa.s.sed my little test. If I am bound to have a bodyguard, it may as well be one as nimble as yourself!"

Favian glanced around the company, his look daring anyone to a.s.sert that he had meant the fight in earnest. Dru, looking embarra.s.sed, busied himself righting furniture, while Arga took Conan's sword to scabbard it once again on the wall. The youth surrendered the weapon wordlessly. The baron quietly gave orders to his retainers and left without good-byes, his face closed and remote. Conan shucked his armor and handed it to Dru, but as he was about to depart with the two craftsmen, Favian detained him.

"Now that we have crossed swords, Cimmerian, what say you to a drinking bout?" Favian went to an undamaged locker near the bed and brought out an earthenware bottle and two noggin-cups. He flourished the pair of pewter-sealed human skulls in front of Conan's face. "Frankly, I find tippling a n.o.bler sport. I would rather lose my head to drink than to steel any day!"

Much later in the afternoon, when his once-sullen tongue had been oiled by liquor, Conan finished regaling Favian with the story of his jailbreak. His green jerkin was wine-stained and his gestures lavish. "When they dragged me from the place, I expected to be stuck in a gibbet, not in a n.o.ble household! 'Twas as good a piece of luck as a foreigner could wish in this tight-knit country . . . but mayhap an added trouble for you." He tipped his cup up, then thumped it back to the board. "I never wished that, Favian."

"Fah! Think nothing of it, Conan." The young lord waved a hand breezily in his new fashion of camaraderie. "Could I fault you for looking like me, or for being thrown into my father's dungeon at the wrong time? No reasonable fellow would hold that against you. What was the cause of your arrest, by the way? I never did find out for certain."

"I was guiltless, I swear." Conan shook his bleary head. " 'Twas only a curfew sc.r.a.pe."

"No consorting with rebels? Sedition, perhaps?" The n.o.ble youth watched his drinking partner closely.

"Nothing of the sort. Although there was a bit of skull-thumping when I was taken ... all on account of your city guards' rudeness."

"Aye." Favian nodded. "The munic.i.p.als are on edge of late, because of rebel stirrings. And the whispers of snake-cult activity, too. Not that there is any real danger to my family's reign. But the harsher the measures you take at the first hint of unrest, the less trouble you will have later on."

Favian tilted a flask sloshing yellow liquor first into Conan's cup and then, more sparingly, into his own. "Svoretta says the trouble is caused by rural serfs who want to skimp on their fees and tributes." He raised his skull-cup toward the dimming rays from the window, letting the sunset gleam in its red crystal eyes. "That, my friend, is where I could shine. If Father would let me lead a horse detachment into the countryside, I would show the ignorant turnip-eaters the price of dissidence! A lot of rebellion there'd be then! Or better, give me a chariot; I could drive one of those to Helheim itself!"

Conan watched his host through a spiritous haze. "There couldn't be much of a revolt underway. The peasants in the lockup didn't seem any too fierce. Perhaps a show of fairness would get better results. . . ."

"Peasants? Fierce? Why, of course not!" Favian overrode his companion's words with drink-slurred cynicism. "If they were fierce they wouldn't be peasants. That alone is what makes us Einharsons rulers: sheer ferocity, in spite of all Counselor Lothian's pleasant-sounding theories." The young lord tossed the contents of his cup down his gullet and regarded Conan with a sardonic look.

"From the time that my ancestor-n.o.ble Einhar, or his rotty grandsire, whoever began it-from the day he first took up a blade and learned the craft of butchery, using it to elevate himself above his fellow men . . . from that day, the sword has been the ultimate expression of our fine n.o.bility. All of it is based on the murderous art of war. Ever must we use that skill, or induce others to use it for us. The moment we forget, we place ourselves in dire jeopardy!"

Carried away by his own rhetoric, Favian arose from his stool and took up his scabbarded sword from his bed. Removing the sheath and tossing it back onto the disarranged quilts, he clutched the weapon by the middle of its blade and held it up before him. "Strange to think, is it not, that this gruesome tool is the highest implement of human will, the tiller of man's destiny! Yet it is this flesh-slicer, and only this, that steers the course of empire, and sustains us Einharsons in our modest glory!"

"Only the sword?" Conan felt impelled to interrupt before Favian worked himself up into another fighting frenzy. "What about your exalted bloodline, then, and the supernatural wardings that protect your clan?" He watched his host across his raised cup.

"Wardings?" Favian glanced at him suspiciously and tossed the sword casually aside. "What know you of those?"

"Only what the baron once told me," Conan muttered. "And what is rumored around the castle."

"Ah, yes, rumors do seem to get around the Manse." The lordling turned his noggin-cup thoughtfully in his hand. "Well, Conan, soon I shall reach the age of initiation into the mystery of my family's heritage. Then I may find out whether Einhar's curse is merely a hobgoblin with which to scare credulous fools or whether there is real power in it." He eyed his drinking companion speculatively. "But you, Cimmerian, will never find out-if you are lucky, that is, and if you do your bodyguarding well."

Favian stoppered the flask and gathered the cups across the drink-splashed table. "Now, fellow, I make ready for my supper, and you must hie off to yours. But we shall talk again. And should my father forge onward with this imposture he has in mind, I pray that your good luck continues."

Conan left the interview with his wits fogged by Favian's heady beverage. It took all his concentration just to find his way downstairs, nor did stuffing his belly at the servants' table seem to help the state of his brain.

Ludya did not appear, and Conan did not take his usual part in the mealtime chatter. He sat silent, dully pondering what he now knew of Favian: the young n.o.bleman had a volatile character, every bit as complex as the baron's, and mayhap just as mad in the final reckoning. His understanding was burdened by one further insight, which he knew the father shared: the knowledge of the son's cowardice.

After the meal, Ludya pa.s.sed swiftly through the room without any greeting for Conan; her eyes went over him with no acknowledgment. To his half-stupefied senses, that was the final blow. He crawled away to his bed, blearily cursing all civilized men and women and their mad, unpredictable moods.

Late in the night Conan was dragged out of a murky pit of slumber by faint sounds from the common-room: scuffing footsteps and imperfectly m.u.f.fled sobs. He rolled swiftly to the foot of his bed and parted the curtains. The candlelight was faint, but he saw that a half-clad figure was just disappearing into one of the alcoves: Ludya's.

In a moment he was across the room. He entered the dark closet and stood over her pallet, where she lay huddled, weeping quietly. "Ludya . . . what is wrong, girl? Have you been hurt?"

Her sobs became more audible as they mingled with her speech. "No, Conan, go away. Don't worry about me. Please!"

He knelt to put an arm around her. "What is it, child? You can tell me ... Crom!"

As his hand brushed the hot, swollen welts on her back, she whimpered in pain. Conan gingerly probed the extent of her injuries and felt the slickness of blood on his fingertips. "We must have these wounds dressed. Ludya, come." He put his unstained hand to her tear-damp cheek. "Girl, who did this to you? Tell me."

She sobbed for a long moment, making no reply. As he opened his mouth to speak again, his attention was caught by the clink of mailed boots in the adjoining room.

Heavy footsteps marched close to the alcove and halted with the clack of a metal-b.u.t.ted half-pike grounding on stone. A military voice, firm and toneless, called out, "The maid Ludya-is she here?"

"That is her bed, sir," confided a younger male voice.

Conan drew aside the curtain and saw two Iron Guardsmen standing before the alcove, one holding the pike and the other a flickering candle. Faces peered from between the curtains of the other sleeping-closets, but no one spoke.

"The wench Ludya will accompany us," the pikeman ordered Conan.

"She cannot come. She is unwell." Conan stepped forward, keeping the curtain closed at his back to block view of the girl.

"She must come along, by the baron's order. Move aside!" When Conan stood firm, the pikeman widened his stance and lowered his barb-bladed weapon to the ready. The second guard set his candlestick on the dining table and placed a hand on his sword-hilt.

At that moment Ludya pushed through the curtain at Conan's side. He tried to restrain her, but she staggered past him toward the guards. She was pale and silent now, clad in slippers and a scanty shift. She clutched a fur blanket about her, but it left exposed one bare flank and part of her red-striped back. When Conan glimpsed this in the flickering light, rage buzzed inside his skull like a seething cloud of hornets. Any remnant of his earlier intoxication was by now wiped away.

The guardsmen fell into place, one in front of the shamed girl and one behind, and they moved off through the archway. When the pike-wielder heard Conan following them into the hall, he turned and leveled his blade. The barbarian faced him in the doorway, unflinching. After a moment's silent stare, the guard turned and hurried after his comrade and the retreating candle.

The Cimmerian followed the three closely through nighted corridors and up the servants' stair to the residential wing that was newly familiar to him. Several doors stood open there, and the guardsmen escorted the now-quiet Ludya through one of them: Favian's.

The pikeman turned and blocked the entry with his pikestave, but he did not drive Conan away from the doorway; the room within was fully visible to him. On the edge of the disarranged bed sat the young lord, half-dressed in a rumpled nightshirt and riding kilt, his head hanging and his elbows propped on wool-skirted knees. The baron stood at the center of the room, clothed hastily but formally, his hair standing up untidily on the scarified side of his head. His rigid face and posture betrayed his anger, as did the rapping of his knuckles against his kilted thigh. At his side, in the dark garb of a night-prowling spy, stood Counselor Svoretta.

When Ludya was thrust before the men, she sank to one knee in obeisance-or weakness. The second guard stayed with her, standing stiffly at her back. Baldomer bent and grasped the hair at one side of her head, tilting her tear-stained face up to the candlelight, then let it fall again. "So this is the wench, a mere table servant! What was she doing here?"

Favian raised his head and spoke in a weary, wine-bleared tone. "She would dally with me, she said, as most any of them gladly will. And yet she failed to please me. High notions this one has, indeed, for a low scullion." He raised his head to view the abject girl, a drunken sneer twisting his face. "Then she spoke impertinently to me, and so I scourged her. A commonplace enough happening; what of it, Father?"

Baldomer pivoted, drawing himself up in indignation before his seated son. "Favian, need I tell you why I am upset, or that I will not have unclothed wenches driven like cattle through the halls of this Manse? This is my home, I remind you, not a Zamoran brothel! It was your mother's home." The baron paced stiffly a few steps across the marble floor, then back to the bed, where he half-leaned over his son and shouted at him. "If you must vent your l.u.s.ts so ign.o.bly, then I bid you, use a trace of discretion! A display like this is scandalous and vulgar, bad for the morale of the entire household."

"All right, Father, I apologize-since you choose to make an issue of it." Favian shook his head in exasperation. "Can we please just have an end of it now?"

"An end? Very well!" Baldomer pulled himself erect. "But from this moment you are placed on restraint. And the woman cannot continue here; she will have to be killed."

"Father!" Annoyance and a little disgust tinged Favian's protest. "Why not just send her off somewhere?"

Now that he had his son's full attention, the baron's demeanor was somewhat more settled. "House lackeys must not be encouraged to fraternize with the n.o.bility. It is a breach of precedence." He waved his hand at Ludya, who was stifling sobs once again. "And what if she comes back in a year with an infant on her hip, claiming your paternity and a lifetime share of support?"

"Father, why should that be a problem now, when it never was before . . . ?" Weary of argument, Favian arose from the bed and threw up his arms in futility. "All right, all right, slay her if you must! But leave me alone now, will you!"

The door-guard, thrust back bodily into the room, interrupted them. "Milords, this man . . . followed us from the servants' quarters. . . ." His speech was sporadic as he struggled with Conan over the haft of his leveled pike. Before he could say more, the Cimmerian hooked a leg behind his opponent's knee and shoved forward against the weapon. Still clinging to it, the guardsman toppled to the floor on his back. The other guard drew his sword and faced Conan as the barbarian stepped into the room over the fallen man.

"Boy!" Baldomer barked at him. "Control yourself!"

By a deliberate effort, Conan halted. He stood with his hands at his sides, though his fists remained clenched. "Milord Baron . . ." his tongue stumbled over the unfamiliar terms of respect . . . "I tell you, the girl means no harm." To his faint surprise, he could hear his voice rasp with emotion. "She has suffered much already; let her be!" As he spoke, the two guards positioned themselves in front of him, their weapons pointed at his throat.

"What interest can you possibly have in this affair -" the baron began.

"Milord." Svoretta stepped close to his master, though his words were audible to the others. "Since his arrival at the Manse, the barbarian and the wench have consorted together very closely indeed!" His pause lent added meaning to his words. "I charge the existence of a conspiracy to manipulate the will of the young Lord Favian-to suborn him against you by means of the girl's affections, to blackmail him, or possibly to steal from him."

For a time the only sound was Ludya's forlorn weeping. Favian's eyes rose slowly to meet Conan's. "And today I tried to make my peace with him, yet here again comes the stealthy savage, stealing this time into my very bed!" He shook his head angrily. "You are right, Father. The girl must die! Had I known of this little scheme, I'd have flogged her doubly, no, triply."

Baldomer's voice, smooth with complacency, joined his son's. "You see, Favian, how untidy these matters can become. If she were allowed to live-"

The n.o.bleman was interrupted again, this time by the rattle of curtain hooks at the back of the chamber. An embroidered hanging parted there, to reveal a dim-lit doorway through which a young woman stepped. She was red-haired, with a pale, broad-cheekboned face that looked strikingly beautiful in the half light. Her slender form was wrapped in a green-velvet robe that she held together at the throat with one hand.

"Father, how can you torment this poor child?"

The baron raised an arm to forestall his daughter's approach. "Calissa-do not interfere here, girl. This is a matter between father and son."

"Nay, 'tis not!" She came barefoot around the end of the bed and stood beside Favian. "Just now I heard you call it a household concern. Well, my mother ran this house when she was alive, so I will have a say in it too." Calissa's robe fell apart a little way at the throat, exposing an alabaster curvature of chest that she did not bother to conceal. "Just send the serving-maid home; surely she has a home!"

While Baldomer faced his daughter with an air of mingled consternation and tolerance, Svoretta made answer to her. "My Lady Calissa, I fear 'tis not that simple. The damage is already done, and we must take a firm stance on this sort of thing-"

"Nonsense, Counselor. Your spies in our household should inform you better than that." Calissa turned to her father. "The girl Ludya is well liked by the rest of the servants. If you slaughter her for this mischance, you will be troubled henceforth by mutterings and terrors among all the scullions. Worse, you will have to deal with the ill will of that formidable individual -whoever he is."

Calissa's gesture indicated Conan, who stood tensed on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, eyeing the two guards positioned between himself and the rest of the company. From their ready postures and sweat-filmed faces, the Iron Guardsmen looked none too confident of their superiority.

"Oh please, Father, if this is just one of my brother's boyish indiscretions"-Calissa placed a hand on Favian's shoulder, which he shrugged off impatiently -"then there is no reason for any more suffering." She stepped forward and knelt beside the trembling figure on the floor, laying a protective arm over her. "Ludya . . . where is your home?"

The girl's voice was broken and barely audible. "Varakiel. The marsh country to the northeast."

"Do you have people there? Do you want to go back?"

Ludya seized Calissa's hand and bathed it in tears. "Oh please, Milady, please!"

The older girl helped her rise from the floor. "Come, let me tend your hurts. We will send you home soon, child." She led her charge toward the curtained doorway.

Conan called from his place at the other end of the room. "Ludya-"

Svoretta's harsh voice overrode him. "Milord, what of this incorrigible oaf? I warned your lordship of the trouble he would bring."

The baron turned a cold gaze on Conan. "Learn your limits, barbarian-before I limit you to a steel cage in the torture-rooms." He glanced after the departing women. "And forget the girl; you'll not be seeing her again."

CHAPTER 6.

Nectar and Poison

Yet Conan did see Ludya once more before she was spirited off to her remote home district. For it was Arga, the farrier, who oversaw the hitching of the donkey cart in the gray-lit stableyard at dawn. And he, while instructing an elderly hand to accompany her, stoically pretended not to notice the hulking young ruffian who crept to her side where she lay bundled in the straw-bedded wagon.

"Ludya, girl, will you be all right? Are your homefolk kind? Only say the word and I'll trounce these n.o.ble guards and minions, and carry you away myself!"

Long Conan waited for her reply, and in vain. He watched her wan, expressionless face in the pale light whilst awakening birds chorused faintly in the trees beyond the wall.

"Ludya, do not despair!" As she lay there unresponding, Conan searched for words by which to soothe her inner hurt. "Your dream of advancement here was in vain. These courtly fools were never worthy of you. You'll be better off far away from this wretched Manse, girl; you'll be happier, much happier than-"

"Cease!" Her red-rimmed eyes flared suddenly at him, her bloodless lips forming an angry rapier-curve. "You are right, I have no further need of lords and n.o.ble lackeys." Her contempt was obviously meant to include him. "But I am not finished here, not by a long chance! There are other ways for one to rise in Nemedia."

This wrath in her, utterly strange to Conan, might have been hysteria, or worse. Yet there was a coldness to it and a fixity in her gaze as she spoke. "This unhappy land seethes with rebellion. I go forth now, but when I return, it will be with fire and sword" -her pale hand stirred weakly, folding an edge of her shawl across the lower part of her face-"to cleanse away the foulness festering here!"

Conan stared down at his recent lover, holding his dismay within himself. "Rest with your family awhile . . . " Across the yard, Arga finally turned away from the stable-hand, shouting an order for the guards to throw open the gates.

Numbly Conan reached down to brush the maid's slim fingers in farewell; then he faded back into the shadows of the smithy porch. But as the driver took his seat and the wain jolted forward, Conan called softly after her, "Crom heal you, my poor, mad Ludya!"