For the space of three breaths his eyes held hers. Convulsively she turned her face aside. Conan smiled and, casually tossing the dagger to the floor, set about producing cries from her that had naught to do with pain.
6
Sunlight steaming through the windows woke Conan. He opened his eyes and found himself staring at Karela’s dagger, once more driven to the hilt into his mattress. The blade held a fragment of parchment. Karela was gone.
“Blast the woman,” he muttered, ripping the parchment free. It was covered with a bold, sprawling hand.
Another debt added to those you already owe me. The next time you will die, Cimmerian. I will not run from another country because of you. By the Teats of Derketo I swear, I will not.
Frowning, he crumpled the parchment in his fist. It was like the woman, leaving before he woke, with threats but without answers to any of his questions. He had thought she was done with threats altogether; she had enjoyed the night as well as he, of that she had left no doubt.
Hurriedly he dressed and headed into the bowels of the palace. He was still settling his swordbelt about his waist when he entered the long room where his company took their meals, near the kitchen Timeon had given over to them. The simple hearty provender Fabio prepared offended his own cooks, so the lord said. Some score and a half of the mercenary warriors, unarmored but weapons as always belted on, were scattered among crude trestle-tables that had been rooted out of storage in the stables. Machaon and Narus sat by themselves, their attention to the leather jacks of ale in their fists and the wooden bowls of stew before them not so great that they did not note his entrance.
“Ho, Cimmerian,” Machaon called out loudly. “How was that, ah, unruly wench last night?” A sprinkling of rough laughter made it clear he had shared his story with the rest.
Could not the accursed fool keep his tongue behind his teeth, Conan thought. Aloud he said, “Double the guards on the roof, Machaon. And see they keep eyes and ears open. A parade of temple virgins would be undetected up there as it is.”
Narus laughed dolefully into his ale as Conan straddled a bench across from them. “The wench was too unruly, was she? ’Tis the way of all women, to be least accomodating when you want them most.”
“Do you have to beat all of them?” Taurianus called, a jealous edge to his bantering tone. “I thought her shrieks would bring the roof down.”
“Food!” Conan bellowed. “Must I die of hunger?”
“There’s a morsel in that kitchen,” Machaon chuckled, “I could consume whole.” He nudged Narus as Julia hurried from the kitchen, balancing with some difficulty a bowl of stew, a loaf of bread and a mug of ale.
She was much changed from the last time Conan had seen her. Her long auburn hair was tied with a green ribbon, and pulled back from a face bare of rouge or kohl but streaked with sweat from the heat of the kitchen fires. Her long robe of soft white wool, soot smudged and damp with soapy water, was meant to be modest, he assumed, but it clung to her curves in a way that drew the eye of every man in the room.
“You must speak to that man,” she said as she set Conan’s meal before him. He stared at her questioningly, and she flung out an arm dramatically toward the kitchen. “That man. Fabio. He threatened me … with a switch. Tell him who I am.”
Conan scooped up a horn spoon full of stew. In one form or another it served the men of the company for both meals of the day, morning and night. “You work in the kitchens,” he said. “That is Fabio’s domain. Did a queen somehow come to scrub his pots he’d switch her an she did it badly. You’d best learn to do as he tells you.”
Julia sputtered in indignation, the more so when Machaon laughed.
“You’ve too many airs, wench,” the grizzled veteran chortled. “Besides, you’re well padded for it.” And he applied a full-fingered pinch to punctuate his claim.
Squealing, the auburn-haired girl leaped. To seize Conan’s bowl and upend it over Machaon’s head. Narus convulsed with laughter so hard that he began coughing.
“Fool girl,” Conan growled. “I was eating that. Fetch me another, and quick about it.”
“Fetch your own,” she snapped back. “Or starve, if you wish to eat with the likes of him.” Spinning on her heel, she stalked into the kitchen, her back rigid.
A stunned Machaon sat raking thick gobbets of stew from his face with his fingers. “I’ve a mind to take a switch to that conceited jade myself,” he muttered.
“Go easy with her,” Conan said. “She’ll learn in time, whether she will or no. She is used to a gentler way of life than that which faces her now.”
“I’d like to gentle her,” Machaon replied. “But I’ll keep my hands from her as she’s yours, Cimmerian.”
Conan shook his head. “She’s not mine. Nor yours either, till she says she is. There are bawds aplenty in the town, is that your need.”
The two men stared at him perplexedly, but they nodded, and he was satisfied. They might think he was in truth laying claim to the girl—though doubtless wondering why he wished to make a secret of it—but they would not demand more of her than she was willing to give. And they would speak it among the company, giving her protection with the others as well. He was not sure why he did not, save for Karela. It was difficult for him to think too much of other women when that fiery wench was about.
In any case, she was likely to give him ten times the trouble Julia did, and without trying half so hard. Karela was a woman who kept her word. If he did not find a way to stop her she would put steel between his ribs yet. Worse, she had a mind for vengeance like a Stygian. It would be like her to destroy the Free-Company, if she could, before killing him.
“Have either of you heard rumors of a woman bandit?” he asked in a carefully casual tone.
“I’ll have to bathe to get clean of this,” Machaon growled, picking a lump of meat from his hair. He popped it into his mouth. “I’ve heard no such tales. Women are meant for other things than brigands.”
“Nor I,” Narus said. “Women are not suited to the violent trades. Except perhaps that red-haired jade we encountered in Nemedia. She claimed to be a bandit, though I’d never heard of her. The buxom trull was offended I did not know her fame. Remember?”