`Why would you not go over to Natohk?’ she inquired.
`What could he pay us?’ he snorted. `With fat-bellied brass idols he looted from the Shemite cities? As long as you’re fighting Natohk, you may trust us.’
`Would your comrades follow you?’ she asked abruptly.
`What do you mean?’
`I mean,’ she answered deliberately, `that I am going to make you commander of the armies of Khoraja!’
He stopped short, the goblet at his lips, which curved in a broad grin. His eyes blazed with a new light.
`Commander? Crom! But what will your perfumed nobles say?’
`They will obey me!’ She clasped her hands to summon a slave, who entered, bowing deeply. `Have Count Thespides come to me at once, and the chancellor Taurus, lord Amalric, and the Agha Shupras.
`I place my trust in Mitra,’ she said, bending her gaze on Conan, who was now devouring the food placed before him by the trembling Vateesa. `You have seen much war?’
`I was born in the midst of a battle,’ he answered, tearing a chunk of meat from a huge joint with his strong teeth. `The first sound my ears heard was the clang of swords and the yells of the slaying. I have fought in blood-feuds, tribal wars, and imperial campaigns.’
`But can you lead men and arrange battle-lines?’
`Well, I can try,’ he returned imperturbably. `It’s no more than sword-play on a larger scale. You draw his guard, then stab, slash! And either his head is off, or yours.’
The slave entered again, announcing the arrival of the men sent for, and Yasmela went into the outer chamber, drawing the velvet curtains behind her. The nobles bent the knee, in evident surprize at her summons at such an hour.
`I have summoned you to tell you of my decision,’ said Yasmela. `The kingdom is in peril-‘
`Right enough, my princess.’ It was Count Thespides who spoke – a tall man, whose black locks were curled and scented. With one white hand he smoothed his pointed mustache, and with the other he held a velvet chaperon with a scarlet feather fastened by a golden clasp. His pointed shoes were satin, his cote-hardie of gold-broidered velvet. His manner was slightly affected, but the thews under his silks were steely. `It were well to offer Ophir more gold for your royal brother’s release.’
`I strongly disagree,’ broke in Taurus the chancellor, an elderly man in an ermine-fringed robe, whose features were lined with the cares of his long service. `We have already offered what will beggar the kingdom to pay. To offer more would further excite Ophir’s cupidity. My princess, I say as I have said before: Ophir will not move until we have met this invading horde. If we lose, he will give king Khossus to Koth; if we win, he will doubtless restore his majesty to us on payment of the ransom.’
`And in the meantime,’ broke in Amalric, `the soldiers desert daily, and the mercenaries are restless to know why we dally.’ He was a Nemedian, a large man with a lion-like yellow mane. `We must move swiftly, if at all-‘
`Tomorrow we march southward,’ she answered. `And there is the man who shall lead you!’
Jerking aside the velvet curtains she dramatically indicated the
Cimmerian. It was perhaps not an entirely happy moment for the disclosure. Conan was sprawled in his chair, his feet propped on the ebony table, busily engaged in gnawing a beef-bone which he gripped firmly in both hands. He glanced casually at the astounded nobles, grinned faintly at Amalric, and went on munching with undisguised relish.
`Mitra protect us!’ exploded Amalric. `That’s Conan the northron, the most turbulent of all my rogues! I’d have hanged him long ago, were he not the best swordsman that ever donned hauberk-‘
`Your highness is pleased to jest!’ cried Thespides, his aristocratic features darkening. `This man is a savage – a fellow of no culture or breeding! It is an insult to ask gentlemen to serve under him! I-‘
`Count Thespides,’ said Yasmela, `you have my glove under your baldric. Please give it to me, and then go.’
`Go?’ he cried, starting. `Go where?’
`To Koth or to Hades!’ she answered. `If you will not serve me as I wish, you shall not serve me at all.’
`You wrong me, princess,’ he answered, bowing low, deeply hurt. `I would not forsake you. For your sake I will even put my sword at the disposal of this savage.’
`And you, my lord Amalric?’
Amalric swore beneath his breath, then grinned. True soldier of fortune, no shift of fortune, however outrageous, surprized him much.
`I’ll serve under him. A short life and a merry one, say I – and with Conan the Throat-slitter in command, life is likely to be both merry and short. Mitra! If the dog ever commanded more than a company of cut-throats before, I’ll eat him, harness and all!’
`And you, my Agha?’ she turned to Shupras.
He shrugged his shoulders resignedly. He was typical of the race evolved along Koth’s southern borders – tall and gaunt, with features leaner and more hawk-like than his purer-blooded desert kin.
‘Ishtar gives, princess.’ The fatalism of his ancestors spoke for him.
`Wait here,’ she commanded, and while Thespides fumed and gnawed his velvet cap, Taurus muttered wearily under his breath, and Amalric strode back and forth, tugging at his yellow beard and grinning like a hungry lion, Yasmela disappeared again through the curtains and clapped her hands for her slaves.
At her command they brought harness to replace Conan’s chain-mail – gorget, sollerets, cuirass, pauldrons, jambes, cuisses and sallet. When Yasmela again drew the curtains, a Conan in burnished steel stood before his audience. Clad in the platearmor, vizor lifted and dark face shadowed by the black plumes that nodded above his helmet, there was a grim impressiveness about him that even Thespides grudgingly noted. A jest died suddenly on Amalric’s lips.
`By Mitra,’ said he slowly, `I never expected to see you cased in coat-armor, but you do not put it to shame. By my fingerbones, Conan, I have seen kings who wore their harness less regally than you!’
Conan was silent. A vague shadow crossed his mind like a prophecy. In years to come he was to remember Amalric’s words, when the dream became the reality.
3
In the early haze of dawn the streets of Khoraja were thronged by crowds of people who watched the hosts riding from the southern gate. The army was on the move at last. There were the knights, gleaming in richly wrought platearmor, colored plumes waving above their burnished sallets. Their steeds, caparisoned with silk, lacquered leather and gold buckles, caracoled and curvetted as their riders put them through their paces. The early light struck glints from lancepoints that rose like a forest above the array, their pennons flowing in the breeze. Each knight wore a lady’s token, a glove, scarf or rose, bound to his helmet or fastened to his sword-belt. They were the chivalry of Khoraja, five hundred strong, led by Count
Thespides, who, men said, aspired to the hand of Yasmela herself.
They were followed by the light cavalry on rangy steeds. The riders were typical hillmen, lean and hawk-faced; peaked steel caps were on their heads and chain-mail glinted under their flowing kaftans. Their main weapon was the terrible Shemitish bow, which could send a shaft five hundred paces. There were five thousand of these, and Shupras rode at their head, his lean face moody beneath his spired helmet.
Close on their heels marched the Khoraja spearmen, always comparatively few in any Hyborian state, where men thought cavalry the only honorable branch of service. These, like the knights, were of ancient Kothic blood – sons of ruined families, broken men, penniless youths, who could not afford horses and platearmor, five hundred of them.
The mercenaries brought up the rear, a thousand horsemen, two thousand spearmen. The tall horses of the cavalry seemed hard and savage as their riders; they made no curvets or gambades. There was a grimly business-like aspect to these professional killers, veterans of bloody campaigns. Clad from head to foot in chain-mail, they wore their vizorless head-pieces over linked coifs. Their shields were unadorned, their long lances without guidons. At their saddle-bows hung battle-axes or steel maces, and each man wore at his hip a long broadsword. The spearmen were armed in much the same manner, though they bore pikes instead of cavalry lances.
They were men of many races and many crimes. There were tall Hyperboreans, gaunt, big-boned, of slow speech and violent natures; tawny-haired Gundermen from the hills of the northwest; swaggering Corinthian renegades; swarthy Zingarians, with bristling black mustaches and fiery tempers; Aquilonians from the distant west. But all, except the Zingarians, were Hyborians.
Behind all came a camel in rich housings, led by a knight on a great war-horse, and surrounded by a clump of picked fighters from the royal house-troops. Its rider, under the silken canopy of the seat, was a slim, silk-clad figure, at the sight of which the populace, always mindful of royalty, threw up its leather cap and cheered wildly.