Conan The Hero (13 page)

Conan’s argument had its desired effect, forcing Juma several steps further along the stone paves. Babrak had little choice but to move along with his larger, grappling companions against the hurrying tide of pedestrians.

“As for danger—why, man, we came to this country to tweak danger! I am in a foul mood, as you may have noticed. I will be in a worse one if I do not crack some heads together or otherwise disport myself by tomorrow sunrise.”

Cleaving to the others more for compulsion than support, Conan moved with them down the grimy street. Peddlers, handcarts, furtive citizens, and feral-eyed urchins flowed around them in a torrent seldom topping the larger men’s shoulders. The only other things tall enough to stand out above it were slave-drawn chair-coaches and the pointy, helmeted heads of other northern troopers. These were conspicuous as well by their disheveled uniforms decked with souvenir beads, garters, and silk scarves, and their noisy, drunken aimlessness.

In all the bustle, the three companions traveled only a dozen steps before ducking through the odiferous, brightly lamplit doorway of a crowded kvass-house.

“Jugboy! A pitcher of mule-milk and three noggins here! Hey, jambee! Run up three totees kumish quick-quick!” Conan’s gruff rendering of the local pidgin was adequate, within moments, to quench their thirst. But when Juma slapped down a silver ounce on the narrow table, the aproned serving-boy pocketed it and turned away, nodding and grinning idiotically. The Kushite had to grab and shake him like a weasel’s prey to get him to render up change.

The establishment was crowded with knee-high tables and ankle-high stools. Around them stood or squatted patrons of widely varying races. The dim, red-lit air bore scents of sandalwood incense and headier perfumes, doubtless intended to cover the reek of the near-rancid kumiss, among other smells.

Not savored locally, the fermented mare’s milk was imported or counterfeited to please the occupying horse-troops, and the beverage did not thrive well in the tropic heat. Nevertheless, it served its purpose; after a few beakers, the heads and stomachs of the three friends were awash in its queasy tide. One of its effects was frankness.

“You are lucky, Conan,” Babrak observed, “to be on your feet so soon.” He pursed his lips to belch discreetly. “Of the stragglers from the jungle fight, fully half those with lesser wounds have perished of the blood-rot. And many of your troop’s survivors will be missing limbs and other valued parts.”

“Aye, my friend.” Conan nodded solemnly, gazing into his tankard. “Crom bless the both of you dogs for taking me out of that stinking infirmary and into Sariya’s care, back at our hut. That bone-chopping Imperial surgeon should be turned loose against the enemy, curse his foul breath! But Sariya…” He shook his head profoundly. “The woman has a way about her… I was weak unto death, but she nursed me to life.”

“Weak is not the word I would have used, Conan.” Juma looked ruefully to Babrak. “We know, because it took all our strength as well as Sariya’s to hold you down during your raging fevers.”

“Indeed,” the smaller man nodded. “You refought all your battles then, with foes both earthly and unearthly!”

“She is an angel. I would doubt our wisdom in leaving her at Sikander.” Ignoring them, Conan frowned over his foamy cup. “But she wished a rest. The village folk all befriend her now, and the guards I assigned are able men.”

“Aye, righteous pillars of Tarim, every one! Do not worry, Conan.” Babiak nodded with a smile of utter confidence. “Lucky we are, indeed, to be given so many privileges lately. Rumor around camp has it that your exploits gain you lofty favor, perhaps among the officer staff in Aghrapur!” He laughed easily, scanning the crowded room. “That is what made it possible for us to nursemaid you, you know; we now get extra rations, abbreviated duties, even furloughs like this one!” A spangled Venji girl-trollop minced past them to a nearby table, and the youth averted his eyes chastely. “Not that it means much to a strict follower of Tarim’s law,” he added resolutely.

“Indeed, Conan,” Juma said with a sterner look. “You should be careful of this curious favor that has descended on you. We must not leave Sariya alone more than a day or so. Having known the pains and perils of the hero’s game, you now enjoy its rewards… but beware.” The Kushite glanced narrow-eyed around the room, then leaned closer to his friend. “Know you, these very enjoyments mark you and set you apart. They goad jealousy in dangerous quarters, and are seldom as benign and freely given as one thinks.” He pursed leathery black lips in a frown. “Heed me in this, Conan: I have known more dead heroes than live ones.”

Before the Cimmerian could dispute his friend’s dismal outlook, all three troopers were distracted. A youthful Venji, pockmarked and crooked-toothed, bowed before their table in his tight uniform and began extolling the virtues of his alleged sister. She posed at his side: a red-lipped, sloe-eyed, smoldering girl-child, sheathed in a green silk gown slit almost to her armpits. At their trio of stares she settled back against one of the tiny tables, spreading her knees and seeming almost ready to offer them an immediate sampling of her talents.

“I think not,” Juma announced to his friends with a broad grin. “The fruit looks a bit underripe to me. Babrak, now, he needs a more motherly type to initiate him into the conjugal mysteries. And Conan… but of course, you have Sariya as your consort.”

The Cimmerian shifted his thick shoulders restlessly. “Now, now, Juma, I am not wed to the wench! I am still my own man. Nevertheless, I do not relish this stripling, whose vital places probably have hair pasted on! Nor do I care for her grinning tout—be off, you two!”

Feigning anger at the insult, the Venji youth jabbered threats in pidgin, demanding payment for damages. Finally he had to be propelled away by an armlock and a boot in his scrawny buttocks. The tart spat copiously at her tormentors’ feet before flouncing off after him.

“They will be at us again if we get drunk enough in this place, rely on it!” Conan refilled his companions’ battered cups. “And beware, fellows—even that raw fillet of monkey-meat may begin to look tempting after a few more pitchers of this swill! That is why it is always wise to move on.”

The entertainment in the house had so far been limited to a bored, bead-draped girl twitching on a dais at the end of the room, accompanied by the incessant chiming and tweeting that passed thereabouts as music. Now a more elaborate show commenced, with an older, buxom actress directing and assisting in vulgar tricks performed by trained, silk-costumed jungle apes. The time was ripe for departure, so the troopers passed out into the street, which was dimmer now and less thronged. The ancient pavement and stone doorposts were also less obviously filthy, with paper lanterns and glowing, bead-curtained windows and doors giving the shopfronts a festive look.

Conan, striding with a limp he could almost conceal, led the way down a narrow side-passage. After some turns and branchings, it took them to a tavern whose low-arched entry spilled an inviting puddle of light on the pavement and the wall opposite. Just outside its healthy glow, a pair of Venji civilians stood muttering. As the three troopers approached, one of the loiterers leaned forward, revealing a long knife-scar on one pockmarked cheek.

“Lotusss!” he whispered sibilantly. “Banghee Palace have many good kind of lotus. Good girls too!” He rolled his yellow eyes suggestively. “We send you and girls to happy jade paradise.”

“Ignore him, Conan,” muttered Juma into his friend’s other ear. “His palace is doubtless some riverside tent, and his girls really crones or ill-shaven boys. To a real lotus-lover, such details matter not at all. Duck in here, and we will be rid of them… but wait!”

Upon his failure to detain Conan and Juma, the scarred man accosted Babrak more insistently, seizing his arm and tugging at it. Meanwhile, the second loiterer could be seen edging around behind the Turanian—for a grab at his belt-purse, possibly, or at his weapons, or for worse mischief. The two troopers turned swiftly to their friend’s aid.

Conan arrived in time to see the brass butt of Babrak’s dagger sweep upward, to glance from the scarred man’s chin; a low blow from his own balled fist sent the second loiterer rebounding, grunting, from the stone wall. Juma moved in with a kick to the staggering lotus-seller’s ribs; a moment later the two toughs were scuttling away down the silent alley.

“Huzzah! The night has begun at last!” Juma grinned broadly, spreading his pale palms wide to clap his companions’ backs. “We will raise your glum spirits yet, Conan! Good roughhousing!”

“Our friend Babrak here is not tardy with his knife,” Conan observed, turned back toward the lit doorway. “He had no real need of us, except as his audience! Tavern brawling must not be one of the vices barred by Tarim’s holy law.”

The interior of this second tavern was broader and lower, with bamboo tables and wickerwork seats that a northerner could almost fit into. Food, as well as drink, was in evidence here; after conferring with an elderly male taverner, the three called for portions of a safe-sounding stew of fish, vegetables, and swamp-rice.

“Those alley toughs are a good reason to watch our backs tonight,” Juma said, making his wicker stool strain and creak under his rangy weight. “If they were Phang Loon’s bullies, they can always summon more of their kind.”

“What—those gutter-snipes?” Conan’s laugh faltered slightly as he felt the arm of his chair break loose from the seat due to a careless twist of his hips.

“‘Tis true, Conan.” Juma’s shift in his own seat was accompanied by a symphony of bending, straining wicker. “The lotus trade hereabouts is controlled by Phang Loon—except, naturally, that sold by the rebels. The warlord is more powerful than any northern monarch, though he lacks the blessing of church or dynasty. That is one true cause of the strife in Venjipur—and if you ask me, we Turanians have made it worse, by uniforming his private army as the Venji Imperial Guard!”

“Not the best ones to have at your back in a fight, I am told.” Babrak frowned over his stew bowl. “Juma is right, though; Phang Loon is not a man to cross.” His speech trailed off with an air of distraction, his brown eyes flitting across the room toward the right-angled counter where drink was dispensed.

The focus of his gaze, the others soon determined, was a woman: a trim Venji matron clad in expensive imitation of northern female garb. Her sheath of dark blue silk, unbroken from ankle to neck, showed her off less immodestly in the smoky lamplight than did the shreds and bangles worn by the tavern-girls who flitted between tables. Iridescent silk was gathered loosely about her shoulders and bosom, revealing only the smallest sliver of bodice, while a high, stiff collar enfolded her black tresses and all but concealed her face from either side. Her slim hands languished in loose sleeves, their red-lacquered fingertips toying with a dainty, steaming teacup as she sat surveying the room.

“A man of lofty taste, our Babrak,” Juma declared after a moment’s appreciation. “He has chosen a noblewoman as the object of his desire.” Reaching across the table to the limit of his chair’s protesting tolerance, he jostled Conan to redirect his attention.

The Cimmerian, busy raking stew from his platter to his lips with the thin sticks provided for this purpose, put down the mess at his friend’s behest. “Hmmm. From her modest garb, there is no guessing her age or nimbleness. Yet from the cost of her finery and her regal bearing, I would judge her owner of this place, and its madam as well!”

Babrak’s olive face darkened in a blush as he lowered his gaze to the woven tabletop. “You need not chide me,” he protested faintly. “I merely find it refreshing to see a Venji woman showing public decorum for once—”

“Yes.” Juma chortled wisely. “And now, no doubt, you would like to learn what her private decorum consists of!” His grin flashed brightly in the dimness. “But Babrak, old friend, we do not mean to scold you! On the contrary, we support your enterprise, and we swear to do all we can to advance it! Do we not, Conan?” he asked, to the Cimmerian’s answering grin.

“Nay, nonsense.” The Turanian youth shook his head in embarrassed irresolution. Yet he was unable to resist a further glance at the stately woman, who may or may not have been returning their looks. “I have no enterprise in mind; my interest was purely aesthetic. As I have told you, I abide by Tarim’s strictures for warriors of the True Faith.”

“Now, now, Babrak,” Conan said in the flustered youth’s other ear, “if you follow those rules too strictly, there will be no more knights to carry on the faith.”

“Aye, lad,” Juma chimed in gaily. “If Tarim wanted his followers to remain totally pure, he would have preached only to eunuchs!”

“Kushite, curb your reckless tongue!” At Babrak’s indignant straightening and quick-flashing gaze, the blue-clad woman across the room could be seen to stir on her high-backed stool and glance their way with what might have been interest.

“Now, now, Babrak, he spoke in jest.” Conan leaned coolly in from his side of the table, keeping the Turanian off balance. “Yet there may be substance in all this… for I ask you, is it not true that those same fleshly pleasures that True Believers swear to forgo in this life are promised as rewards to the Faithful in the next?”

Babrak nodded dubiously, his eyes straying inevitably back across the room. “Yes, that is so.”

“Then tell me, disciple.” Conan spoke slowly and reasoningly. “If you never sample the delights of paradise, how are you to reckon their true value in the next world? How can they spur you to full zeal in serving your god?” His questions drew no immediate response from the youth’s poised lips or his unblinking, distracted eyes. “If you obey the holy laws too narrowly, will your feet not be the less swift for it, your sword less keen in defense of the faith? Should you not first savor the bounties promised by Tarim, so that you can hold paradise clearly in view forever after?”

This argument Babrak obviously found compelling, for he turned his eyes to Conan with a light of comprehension in them. That was enough—indeed, more than enough for his two friends. At the first hint of assent in the youth’s manner, they were on their feet, linking their arms in his, shoving aside the flimsy straw table and marching him across the room toward the wicker throne and its resplendent occupant.