He paused just once behind a burning cottage; there he dragged one of Squire Ulf's ravagers off of a struggling village girl. He slashed the man's throat with the keenest part of his saber, near the hilt, and left the body in the weeds while the maid scampered away downriver.

Then he strode onward amid smoke and swaggering forms. At the heart of the inferno he found Durwald, still sitting atop his mount, watching Favian hoa.r.s.ely urge the attackers on. The lordling was telling his troops to heap fresh f.a.ggots and debris onto the flaming huts, to make sure they were burned to the ground.

Conan strode to the marshal and glared up at him. "Durwald, I know why we are here!"

The aristocrat gazed down on the Cimmerian and his blood-smeared, restless blade with a melancholy look on his face. His own sword lay ready across the pommel of his saddle.

"A ferry! That was the rebellion Squire Ulf so deplored, the uprising that marked this place for destruction-a wooden boat competing with his bridge and cutting into his tolls and revenues!"

Durwald shook his head in mute annoyance, saying nothing.

"Will you stand for it?" Conan raged at him. "Are you a warrior, or a butcher of innocents?"

The marshal reined his horse away from the shouting Cimmerian, his face betraying no emotion. His eyes were red and streaming, as were the eyes of most of those present, but whether the tears came from the smoke hanging heavy in the air or from bitter shame, none would ever know.

CHAPTER 9.

Death's Eager Bride

The city gates of Dinander reared tall on either hand. Built of heavy square timbers bound with black iron straps, they loomed as formidable as the dark stone walls that flanked them. Doubtless they were as efficient at holding unwilling citizens in as they were at keeping invaders out. But today the great doors stood wide, and the main avenue beyond was scattered with townsfolk sporting festive garb in the early afternoon sun. These pressed back swiftly out of the roadway, their faces stiff with respect and habitual fear, as Baron Baldomer Einharson's column of hors.e.m.e.n entered the city.

The baron, riding just behind the four armored cavalry who formed the advance guard, sat imperiously astride a high-stepping sorrel gelding in lieu of his slain stallion. Close after him rolled a chariot carrying Chief Marshal Durwald and driven, as any country lout would openly have declared, by the baron's dashing son, Favian.

But the country lout would have been wrong, for the charioteer was truly a northern barbarian decked in Favian's best armor. Baldomer's real son rode near the head of the main cavalry column, the steel beaver of his helm clamped down across his handsome, mortified features.

The purpose of this double imposture would surely have puzzled the simple-minded countryman. There rode Baldomer, plainly identifiable, a ready target to his ill-wishers. His finely turned and brightly polished armor was scarcely more proof against a skillful bowshot than was the bulky plate of a common cavalryman. Why, then, should he conceal his son's ident.i.ty, and not his own?

The answer, the simple farmer would have concluded, had more to do with the tortuous, mysterious workings of the n.o.ble mind than with plain sense. Aristocracy moves in strange ways, he would have muttered to himself.

And yet Lord Baldomer seemed content-if ever such a tranquil emotion could be read into his craggy, wild-featured face. Sitting straight and tall in his war saddle, he surveyed the sunlit-and-shadowed rows of his subjects. Hampered by the press of watchers, he gradually let his mount fall back alongside the chariot, which was navigating the streets adequately well under the Cimmerian's raw hand. At length Marshal Durwald, speaking from his pa.s.senger bench in the rumbling car, addressed the old warrior.

"Word of your early return must have preceded us, Milord, for your subjects to turn out like this." The marshal scanned the lines of citizens thoughtfully, nodding from time to time to a prominent townsman or his rosy-cheeked wife. "Either the courier we sent to Svoretta let it slip or the spymaster made it known through his agents."

"Aye. Would that the chief of espionage were not so shy of public appearances that he could meet us openly at the gate! Even old Lothian would be a welcome source of news." Baldomer kept his face immobile and aloof toward his watchers as he spoke. "Still, 'tis no great harm to be greeted by my subjects. I shall stop in the central square to inform them of the successful provincial tour, and of our decisive stroke against the rebels."

"It might be wise not to make too much of it, Milord," Durwald advised, a bitter smile crossing his face. "It was, after all, a small skirmish, not clearly aimed at any rebel faction."

Baldomer shook his head sharply and deepened his frown. "The death by sword of two of our crack troopers proves a significant military presence. And did your own officers not count the bodies of seventy-eight armed rebel sympathizers, man, woman and child? I call that a formidable victory."

Conan, his attention held by the task of guiding the chariot through the milling crowds, nevertheless gave an ear to the talk. He had been ill-tempered of late, especially today, as the impatient jerking of the reins in his hamlike fists revealed. The press of the street was growing thicker, and he was ever alert for a new ambush or an a.s.sa.s.sination attempt. The reserve and forced gaiety the Cimmerian sensed in the lines of watchers made him wonder whether the people really celebrated their baron's return, or his absence. For whatever reason, all the folk of the town seemed to be packed into the main street on this day.

To call Baldomer's abbreviated provincial tour a success was a gross lie, or an even grosser delusion, Conan knew. During the week in which their decimated party had lingered at Edram Castle before turning back to Dinander, he had never heard what report the baron had been given of the village ma.s.sacre. He knew that the luckless river town was no rebel stronghold. And yet he had seen the girl there. ...

"Remember, sire, we found no lair of snake cultists during our a.s.sault." Durwald was still arguing with his obtuse baron. "They are the fastest-growing menace, and the one that should be dealt with promptly."

"True enough, Durwald. Now that I am returned, I shall ready a larger force with which to eradicate them." Baldomer paused in his talk, gazing ahead across his horse's tossing mane into the market square. "But what have we here, a wedding?"

Conan gave close attention to the handling of his team as the crowd widened and the avenue opened out before them. He had already driven the chariot past the Temple School, its marble porticoes lined with young male and female acolytes, and moments ago he had cleared the gray, battlemented munic.i.p.al barracks, from whose murky grilles the stench of the town's dungeons wafted, especially sour in his memory. Now, just ahead of the procession, lay Dinander's cobbled central plaza.

Here tables heavy with food and drink had been set out, and the loiterers affected even more lavish dress, bright with lace and embroidery. Their activity centered about a spired, broadly arched building: the town's guild-hall.

"'Twould appear to be a marriage in the family of one of the chief artisans," Baldomer said from the saddle. "A goldsmith or jewel-tinker, to judge by this costly outlay."

"Yes, my liege." Durwald leaned near the chariot's trundling wheel to address his master more discreetly. "Now I recall that the banns were recently posted for the marriage of Evadne, daughter of old Arl, the silversmith, to a petty landholder."

"Evadne... is she not the one who teaches metalcraft at the priest-school, in defiance of the guilds' ban against females?"

Durwald nodded. "Aye, a headstrong wench."

"Indeed. I think I know what is afoot." Baldomer scanned the plaza grimly from his saddle. "It is an old trick of rich and disloyal families to stage their weddings when their baron is away, and so avoid the exercise of lordly privilege." He turned in his saddle and delivered a curt signal to Favian, leading the main body of cavalry. "Form up, there! You, boys, pull over to the steps," he ordered Conan. "'Twould be unmannerly not to stop and pay our respects at this celebration. Remember, you are my son."

Conan swung the chariot toward the steps of the guild-hall, scattering nervous watchers and toppling a decorative flower stand along the way with his brisk, inexpert handling of the team. Favian, as his cavalrymen clattered past on either hand to form a protective cordon, grumbled a curse at the Cimmerian for this display of poor driving in his name.

Conan, biting back an angry retort, stepped down from the platform and awaited Baldomer. To his surprise, the baron did not dismount, but spurred his steed straight up the low steps toward the building's stately entrance.

Conan strode after the horse's flicking red-brown tail as it pa.s.sed through the high, intricately sculptured archway; his careless ill-temper, he realized, probably lent him a convincingly n.o.ble bearing. Durwald and Favian followed close behind, the latter leaving the visor of his cavalry helm down.

The interior of the guild-hall waited cavernous and dark, with a nest of bright candlelit hues at the depressed center of its floor, where the ceremony was underway. Those gathered in the gallery evinced a short, astonished silence at the baron's clopping invasion, before the obligatory bows rippled through the a.s.sembly. These were halfhearted, with some of the celebrants even risking disgruntled whispers to their neighbors or stiff-necked stares at the mounted lord. Others gazed at him with no evident emotion but fear.

The focus of the room's attention was, or had been, the brightly gowned man and woman at its center. They knelt facing one another, undergoing a marriage ritual danced by a garlanded priestess in tribute to the local harvest G.o.ddess, Ulla. Now, whether at the baron's intrusion or at the completion of the ceremony, the couple turned to face the warlord. The young, boyishly handsome groom's bearing toward his feudal lord was proud and a little resentful, Conan could see. The woman, although her face was thickly veiled in gem-sparkling lace, showed an impressive, calm resolution as she rose to her feet.

For some reason her bearing held the Cimmerian's attention. His lordly counterpart was likewise attracted to her, as he could tell sidelong from the forward att.i.tude of Favian's visored head.

"Greetings, subjects!" Baldomer sat erect in the saddle, his voice ringing out sharply in the hushed gallery. "A sad thing it is that my travels on urgent state business have made me late for your nuptial feast! Nevertheless, I intend to be the first to wish you a long, fruitful union. Health, too, to your kinfolk gathered here." Shadowy in the candlelight, the baron's face scanned the inner circle of the newlyweds' families with unconcealed contempt, or so it seemed to Conan.

"I a.s.sure you that my royal line means to confer on your houses every honor and privilege that our city's customs dictate. My son, Favian, agrees with me in this." Conan started briefly at the weight of Baldomer's gauntleted hand on his shoulder, as the warlord leaned down from the saddle to clasp him in a show of fatherly pride. Uneasily the Cimmerian felt the gaze of the entire a.s.sembly shift toward him, not necessarily with affection.

"To this end," the baron resumed, "I proclaim to you: today, upon my homecoming, the doors of the Manse shall be laid open for a continuation of these festivities. My servants will set forth food and drink for all. Come as my guests. The presence of this young fellow and his stately bride is welcomed, nay, commanded!"

Baldomer finished his decree and began reining his horse around in the crowded s.p.a.ce; meanwhile, murmurs and halfhearted shouts sounded in the gallery. Given the festive nature of the invitation, the response was far from the enthusiastic one Conan would have expected. The buzzing of the throng spread and deepened as the mounted baron herded his retinue before him through the archway and out into the sunlit plaza.

Once again the noise and bustle of entertainment filled the Manse. Down its stone hallways wafted the smells of cooked food and the tinny, martial-sounding echoes of trumpet music. Again Conan sat excluded from the feast, brooding in young Lord Favian's beshadowed room. He waited with his chair drawn half behind a window curtain, gazing out across the dusty sill. He watched pale ghosts of the festivities in the courtyard below, shadows thrown onto the inside of the outer, wall by the torchlight and candlelight issuing from the Manse's open doors.

The flitting shapes portrayed the indecisive state of his thoughts, dulled by frequent sipping from a wineflask beside his chair. He pondered many things: the loves and the enemies he had found in recent weeks, the splendor and ambition that lurked in the Manse, the wrath and shame of the evils he had witnessed here and elsewhere. Dissolved by wine, the turbid confusion of his brain had finally begun to drain down to hard particulars: how much longer to remain here, how much wealth to take when he left, how many lives to leave intact. ...

His musings were interrupted by a noise in the corridor outside. He placed his hand on his saber-hilt. The weapon was already clear of its sheath, propped against his chair arm. Yet the fumbling at the latch was unguarded, and Conan watched the faint outline of the doorway with no particular dread. If his heart quickened at all, it was only in hope of a repet.i.tion of the last tender meeting that had occurred in this chamber.

But when the door swung wide and the fumbler strode in, the candle that wavered in the intruder's hand showed that it was Favian, unhelmeted and clad in his second-best armor. He reacted in a slow, tipsy way to the sight of the outlander sprawled on his bed-furniture, then waved an arm toward the open door behind him.

"Begone, savage! This room's rightful owner has arrived, and he shall scarcely be needing your services tonight. Back to your stinking cellar!"

Hardly warmed by this speech, Conan did not move to obey. "I was told to wait out the night here. With the Manse full of revelers, your father and his spy-chief think the danger too great for you. Better that you crawl off to some other bed."

Instead of taking offense, Favian showed astonishment. "My father told you . . . ? Why, the old demon! He would never stoop so low!" With an air of distracted rage, the lordling took two steps toward Conan and stood lowering at him. "Cimmerian, you may have stolen my place and my name-my chariot, my clothes and my honor as well! But my manhood you shall not have!" He set down his candle and stood unsteadily, waving his fist in the air like a knight's flourished mace. "The oaths are cast, the decree is made, and the bride is commanded here to my pleasure. 'Tis my natural right and privilege-well-nigh the last one remaining to me. I will die rather than relinquish it!"

Faced with imminent a.s.sault by the intemperate lord, Conan arose and stepped back. "What mean you, drunken rogue?" He clutched his sword ready at his side, avoiding the empty-handed Favian more for his madness than for his menace. "A bride is to join you here tonight?"

"Aye, barbarian-by my n.o.ble right, the right of the seignior. What think you is the occasion of tonight's revel, anyway? Thank the G.o.ds there is still one lordly freedom my father cannot deny me, if only because of his own handicap." Favian stood arrogantly straight at the room's center, his gaze fixed scornfully on the Cimmerian. "As sole functioning heir of the Einharson line, I have first claim to each new virgin of the province on her wedding night."

Conan shook his head in astonishment, his sword sagging at his side. "Why, 'tis vile! What young woman would permit such a thing . . . and what groom?"

"Permit? What choice do they have?" Favian laughed disdainfully. "But you would be surprised, barbarian! Most girls yearn for it-the well-bred ones especially. They cherish the brief moment of splendor throughout the remainder of their staid, boring lives. And what commoner does not welcome a royal graft into his stunted family tree, if his bride is lucky enough to be chosen?"

Conan's head still shook, half now in bitter amus.e.m.e.nt. "A wonder that your father so guards his n.o.ble seed in your loins. Likely his heirs are spread over half of Nemedia!"

Suddenly ignoring Conan, Favian harkened to approaching steps and sc.r.a.pes of armor in the corridor. "Enough prattle now, and away with you! I hear the favored one being brought hither to my tutelage. A proud and surly student, she strikes me to be. But she will learn well under her master's rod." With no further seeming of threat or insult toward Conan, he extended an arm to usher him out. "Come this way; an encounter in the corridor might be ... confusing. This pa.s.sage leads to the rear postern stair." Drawing his hesitating bodyguard by one arm toward the room's hidden doorway, Favian flung aside the curtain and unlatched the panel.

The Cimmerian, his head buzzing with drink and confusion, let himself be shoved through without protest. In the narrow pa.s.sageway beyond, as the door slammed and latched behind him, he found himself without light.

Well, no harm; he remembered the place from his earlier visit. With his armored elbows brushing both walls and his still-drawn sword probing before him like a cane, he moved toward the rear of the Manse.

The darkness was not total, he came to realize. A dim thread of light crossed the pa.s.sage just ahead -from Calissa's door, he knew. On coming to it, he found that the portal was not tightly secured. The inner bolt was wedged only partway home, leaving the panel minutely ajar and allowing light to escape. Sliding his sword-blade into the crevice, he flicked up the hinged metal bar and pushed the door open.

The source of the light, he saw, was a three-branched candelabrum resting on a dressing-table at the opposite side of the room. Its triple radiance was reflected in the hazy, polished silver of a mirror hung beyond the table. Also thus hazily reflected were the pale, rosy charms of Calissa, who stood at the table laving herself from a golden basin. Her flimsy sleeping-gown was thrown down from her shoulders to hang loosely about her waist, and her hair cascaded in a rusty-red plume down her shapely back.

At the faint creak of the door she turned to regard her visitor. Her face showed gentle surprise rather than alarm, and she made no effort to cover herself in modesty. "Favian, dear brother! We have had no chance to talk . . ." Her face reddened then as she realized her mistake. Swiftly she took up an embroidered linen towel with which to cover her bosom, patting her skin dry where it glistened with washwater.

"Your brother is dallying with another beauty tonight, Calissa." Conan sheathed his sword and eased the door shut behind him, taking care to set the bolt securely this time. "He ousted me from my night.w.a.tch in his room."

The n.o.blewoman said nothing. Contriving to keep her towel across herself, she drew up the front of her nightdress and shrugged her arms into the sleeves. Her newfound shyness was not well served by the mirror at her back.

"Why cover up such splendor, girl?" Conan went across the woven carpet toward her. "'Tis nothing I have not seen before, and from a good deal nearer vantage. ..."

"Stop!" Groping behind her, Calissa s.n.a.t.c.hed up a pair of haircutting shears, pointing them meaningfully before her. "Whatever license I may once have allowed you, you do not command me! Remember, you are still a minion in this house!"

"Aye, whatever you say." Conan stopped in the middle of the room, watching her push strands of raven-red hair out of her face. "But then, joinings between lords and their minions seem to be the way of this place."

"Enough!" Calissa stood against the dressing-table, waving her scissors as if to hold him at bay. "Should my brother decide to take every slattern of the town to his bed, what am I to do about it? Women are as nothing here. I am not at fault for his low tastes!"

"Why, girl, you are jealous! I did not know . . ." Conan started toward her again, then thought better of it and stayed in the middle of the carpet. " 'Tis a trial for you, I see, to be joined to such a mad family."

"Madness! Speak not of madness, lest you call it forth from places you did not expect. Remember, I, too, am an Einharson." Her eyes blazed darkly at him from her pale face. "But then, what does it matter, really? Madness is the common thing in the world. 'Tis widely abroad in the land. The madness of war and civil strife eventually sweep over us no matter what we do."

"You have heard more talk of rebellion, then," Conan offered. "Is it whispered here at court?"

Calissa laughed. "Are you so blind that you do not see the stirrings, even amidst all this ghastly merrymaking? The murmurs and the surly looks, the cruel remedies bandied by the n.o.bles, the bridling of the commoners under my father's ever-harsher demands? And now we hear these stories of snake-cults gathering power in the east."

"Aye, did they tell you of the ambush? 'Twas a crack company of archers that set on us in the woods," Conan told her gravely. "They might have slain us all, had we rallied less swiftly. ..."

"Fool, they will not stand a chance!" The n.o.ble girl was shaking her head in exasperated impatience, her hair thrashing darkly behind her. "My father, and you, and all his other troopers, will crush them, as the warlords of Dinander have dealt with such outbreaks over the centuries." She paused, placing a hand on her forehead. "What I despise most is the turmoil and the suffering, and the way our province will be thrown backward once again, with all the gains of my mother's day lost. The serfs will be as slaves, this city little better than a prison. How I dread it!"

Conan regarded her silently for a moment. "Aye, girl, I understand. I would not want any part of it myself." He paused as if silently debating within himself, then resumed: "Have you ever thought of leaving here? There are other cities than Dinander, most of them comelier and better-smelling."

"Nay, Conan, you do not understand." Wearily she tossed her scissors onto the dressing-table, where they clashed against bottles of ointment. "No matter what happens here, I must see it through and try to salvage something. My father will need me, and after him, my brother, though they would never admit it."

He nodded gravely. "As long as you do not expect me to do the same."

"Oh Conan, no. 'Tis better if you leave. But come here." She raised her arms to him, resting them on his black-plated shoulders as he faced her. "I am sorry I rebuked you so. As you say, these strange alliances are in the tradition of the Manse. All we can do is to make the best of... ummm." Her words were smothered as his mouth moved against hers.

A few moments later she disengaged from him, panting. "This is most awkward. Let me help you remove your armor-part of it at least!" She reached to his waist, her slim hands fumbling at his straps and buckles.

Conan's doze was interrupted by distant cries of wrath and pain. Slumbers in the Manse were never deep, he had learned; in a breath he was awake, squinting in the faint light of the last guttering candle stub. Surely the shouts had been more than an evil dream; surely they had issued from some nearby chamber.

Easing himself from the coverlets and the warm, silky weight of Calissa's limbs, he arose to don his boots and armor. There was no repet.i.tion of the blood-chilling yells, yet now he fancied that he heard clanks and footfalls in distant corridors-other sleepers roused by the same disturbance, perhaps. Strapping on his saber, he moved silently to the concealed door of his lover's room.

The narrow pa.s.sage between the walls was dark, but he quickly located the entrance to Favian's room by touch. Unfamiliar-sounding voices, male and female, clashed faintly beyond it, and something in their tense, sharp accents signaled danger. Bracing his back against a wall of the narrow corridor, Conan placed the sole of his boot upon the door and pushed, forcing the panel inward with relentless, mounting pressure. Finally the bolt gave with a splintering crack, and the door swung open to thump against the wall.

Beyond the half-open curtain, murder glared up at him luridly: on the floor sprawled Favian, shirtless, his kilted, cavalry-booted legs tangled in a silken bedcover, his face and bared chest kissing the crimson pool outspread from his slashed throat. He had died in surprise, clearly, in the midst of his lordly pursuits; one of his slack hands still lay amid the coils of a many-tailed whip. His blood shone fresh in the brightly candlelit chamber, its scent coppery and cloying in the heated air.

Of the three persons standing at the room's far end, two were males: commoners in festive garb, yet armed, their swords drawn but unstained. The third, a woman, was busy wiping her glinting knife, and the red-smeared hand that held it, on the limp rag of Favian's discarded shirt. Clad in a torn yellow robe which Conan immediately recognized, she spoke hurriedly with the others. In spite of her brusque, businesslike manner, she was without a doubt the innocent young bride Favian had earlier awaited so eagerly in his chamber. But as she turned to stare at Conan's figure in the broken doorway, he knew with dawning certainty that she was already well-familiar to him-as the rebel girl he had glimpsed first in the forest ambush, later in the doomed river town.

CHAPTER 10.

Succession by Steel

As Conan had burst open the door, the female a.s.sa.s.sin had turned. Her two companions fell silent to gawp at him, probably thinking him the ghost of the dead Favian. Now one of them started forward reluctantly, lifting his sword, but he let himself be stayed by the woman's swiftly extended hand. She regarded Conan gravely, as if preparing to address him-when he felt a touch at his side and heard a quick, stricken gasp in his ear.

"Ah, Favian, no!"

It was Calissa, who had awakened and crept silently after him along the pa.s.sage. As she started to push past him into the room, he caught her and pressed her back into the darkness. While she wailed and struggled, he reached out and dragged the door shut after them, jamming it closed on its broken latch.

"Come away, girl, this is no place for you!"

"But my brother-he is slain!" Calissa gasped. "Why do you not arrest those a.s.sa.s.sins, kill them? I know that woman . . . Evadne . . . she was one of the Temple School rebels. Go back!"

"I would sooner protect your life." He was forcing the distraught n.o.blewoman down the corridor before him. "Red mutiny is afoot tonight, Calissa. I will be surprised if this is the mere extent of it."

"No, stop! Let me go!" she shrieked. "Coward, do your duty!" She raged against him, her red hair lashing his face, her voice breaking roughly with sobs. "Ah, but I see why you refuse to obey me. You are in league with them!"