“A harp,” someone shouted. “He plays it like a harp.”
Conan fingered through the forty arrows in the quiver strapped behind the cantle of his saddle, making sure once again that each fletching was sound.
“He must miss often, to carry so many shafts.”
“Nay, he uses the feathers to tickle women. Take her ankle, you see, and turn her … .”
The laughing comments droned on, some measure of silence falling only when the soldiers returned with a straw butt.
“Set it there,” Conan commanded, pointing to a spot some fifty paces away. The soldiers ran to comply, as eager as their superiors to see the barbarian’s discomfiture.
“Not a great distance, barbar.”
“But it’s a child’s bow.”
Breathing deeply to calm himself, Conan rode away from the bunched officers, stopping when he was a full two hundred paces from the butt. Nocking a shaft, he paused. This demonstration must proceed perfectly, and for that his concentration must be on the target, not clouded by anger at the chattering baboons who called themselves officers.
“Why wait you, barbar?” Vegentius shouted. “Dismount and—”
With a wild cry Conan swung the bow up and fired. Even as the shaft thudded home in the butt he was putting boot to the stallion’s flanks, galloping forward at full speed, sparks striking from the flagstones beneath the big black’s drumming hooves, firing as quickly as he could nock arrow to bowstring, shouting the ululating warcry that oft had wrung fear from the warriors of Gunderland and Hyperborea and the Bossonian Marches.
Arrow after arrow sped straight to the butt. At a hundred paces distant he pressed with his knee, and the massive stallion broke faultlessly to the right. Conan fired again and again, mind and eye one with bow, with shaft, with target. Again his knees pressed, and the war-trained stallion pivoted, rearing and reversing his direction within his own length. Still Conan fired, thundering back the way he had come. When at last he put hand to rein there were four arrows left in the quiver behind his saddle, and he knew, did anyone count the feathered shafts that peppered the butt, they would number thirty and six.
He cantered back to the now silent officers.
“What sorcery is this?” Vegetius demanded. “Have your arrows been magicked, that they strike home while you careen like a madman?”
“No sorcery,” Conan replied, laughing. For it was, indeed, his turn to laugh at the stunned expressions worn by the officers. “’Tis accounted a skill, though not a vast one, if a man can hit a running deer with a bow. This is but a step beyond. I myself had no knowledge at all of the bow when I was taught.”
“Taught!” Tegha exclaimed, not noticing the glare Vegentius gave him. “Who? Where?”
“Far to the east,” Conan said. “There the bow is the principal weapon of light cavalry. In Turan—”
“Whatever they do in these strange lands,” Vegentius broke in harshly, “’tis of no matter here. We have no need of outlandish ways. A phalanx of good Nemedian infantry will clear any field, without this frippery of bowmen on horses.”
Conan considered telling him what a few thousand mounted Turanian archers would do to that phalanx, but before he could speak another group approached, and the officers were all bowing low.
Leading this procession was a tall, square-faced man, the crown on his head, a golden dragon with ruby eyes and a great pearl clutched in its paws proclaiming him to be King Garian. Yet Conan had no eyes for the king, nor the counselors who surrounded him, nor the courtiers who trailed him, for there was among them a woman to seize the eye. A long-legged, full-breasted blonde, she was no gently born lady, not wearing transparent red silk held by pearl clasps at her shoulders and snugged about her slender waist by entwined ropes of pearls set in gold. But an she were someone’s leman, he paid her not the attention he ought. For she returned Conan’s stare, if not so openly as he, yet with a smoky heat that quickened his blood.
Conan saw that Garian was approaching him, and doffed his helm hoping the King had not seen the direction of his gaze.
“I saw your exhibition from the gallery,” Garian said warmly, “and I have never seen the like.” His brown eyes were friendly—which meant he had not noticed Conan’s gaze—though not so open as the eyes of one who did not sit on a throne. “How are you called?”
“I am Conan,” the Cimmerian replied. “Conan of Cimmeria.” He did not see the blood drain from Vegentius’ face.
“Do you come merely to entertain, Conan?”
“I come to enter your service,” Conan said, “with my lieutenant and two score men trained to use the bow as I do.”
“Most excellent,” Garian said, clapping a hand against the stallion’s shoulder. “Always have I had an interest in innovations of warfare. Why, from my childhood I as much as lived in the army camps. Now,” a trace of bitterness crept into his voice, “I have not even time to practice with my sword.”
“My King,” Vegentius said deferentially, “this thing is no better than trickery, an entertainment, but of no use in war.” As he spoke his eyes drifted to Conan. The Cimmerian thought, but could not believe, it was a look of hatred and fear.
“No, good Vegentius,” Garian said, shaking his head. “Your advice is often sound on matters military, but this time you are wrong.” Vegentius opened his mouth; Garian ignored him. “Hear me now, Conan of Cimmeria. An you enter my service, I will give each man of yours three gold marks, and three more each tenday. To yourself, ten gold marks, and another each day you serve me.”
“It is meet,” Conan said levelly. No merchant would have paid more than half so well.
Garian nodded. “It is done, then. But you must practice the sword with me for a full glass each day, for I see by the wear of your hilt that you have some knowledge of that weapon as well. Vegentius, see that Conan has quarters within the Palace, and let them be spacious.”