Conan Of The Isles

CHAPTER THREE THE CUP AND TRIDENT

The storm broke about midnight. Lightning flickered and flared in the thick-piled clouds above the western horizon and ere long a wind rose like a pack of howling wolves, driving sheets of rain before it.

But within the Cup and Trident, a seaside inn near the harbor of Messantia in Argos, all was warmth and light and merriment. A mighty fire roared on the stone hearth, filling the long, low-ceilinged room with flickering orange light and steamy heat. Sailors, fishermen, and an occasional traveler caught by the cloudburst sprawled on log benches before long tables, swilling sour Argossean ale or, for those who could afford a finer liquor, rich Zingaran wine. A bull calf turned on the creaking spit above the roaring blaze, and the spicy smell of roasting meat filled the air.

Caught by the gusty wind, the oaken door crashed open. Men turned, startled, to see a gigantic figure looming in the door. From throat to heel he was wrapped in a black cloak. Streams of water trickled from him, forming puddles on the floor. Under the black, wide-brimmed, wayfarer's hat, the men in the tavern glimpsed dangerous blue eyes in a bronzed, weatherbeaten face and the silver of a hoary beard as the stranger stamped in, slamming the door shut behind him and doffing his voluminous cloak to wring the water from it in streams.

A fat, perspiring innkeeper with a round, red face framed in greasy black curls clumped over to ask the stranger's fancy. He made jerky little bows while rubbing his fat hands on the leathern apron about his paunch.

'Hot mulled ale,' the fierce-eyed oldster growled, as he sat down at the bench nearest to the fire. 'And a haunch of that calf I smell sizzling, if 'tis done. Quick, man! I'm wet to the bone, frozen to the marrow, and hungry as a famished wolf!'

As the innkeeper puffed away to serve the stranger, a burly, tawny-haired Argossean, much the worse for wine, nudged his comrades and rose to his feet to stand before the fire, rocking a little on his heels. He was big and beefy, with the thickly corded throat and broad, bulging shoulders of a wrestler. The piglike little blue eyes in his round, red face bore an expression of brute cunning and oafish stupidity. He stood looking down with an open, wet-mouthed grin at the old man, taking in the gray mane and the scarred cheeks. Conan, spreading his cloak to catch the heat of the fire, paid him no heed.

'What have we here, lads, eh?' said the red-faced one in a thick voice.

'Looks like a Zingaran buccaneer to me, Strabo,' said one of his cronies.

Strabo looked the stranger up and down. 'Long in the tooth for a buccaneer, lads’ he sneered. 'And look at the old dog, sitting there, hogging the best seat in the Cup and Trident! Hey, graybeard! Drag your old bones to the back and let honest Argosseans soak up some heat!'

Conan raised blazing eyes. If Strabo had not been so deep in his cups and spoiling for a fight, the banked fires behind that gaze might have penetrated even his dull wits.

As it was, Conan's ominous warning glare only roused him to pettish fury. Childish rage flared in his bloodshot eyes, and his porcine face flushed.

'I'm talking to you, gaffer!' he snarled, and swung one leg to kick Conan's shin with a heavy thud - startlingly loud in the inn, which had become suddenly quiet. This was the local bully, the strong man, the braggart. The other locals chuckled and nudged one another, waiting for the fun when Strabo goaded the old fellow into a rage. At the other end of the room sat a silent, catlike figure in a shadowy corner, enveloped in a thick, black cloak with the hood drawn close about his face. He leaned forward with strange interest, eyes narrowing to observe the quarrel.

Conan moved like a striking tiger. One moment he sat folded under his steaming cloak; the next, he flashed into a blur of action. As he surged to his feet, one huge, bony., mottled hand clamped like a vise on Strabo's fleshy thigh; the other caught the bully's throat with throttling force. Then Conan, incredibly, swung the heavy Strabo off his feet and hurled him clear across the room. Strabo's body struck the wooden wall with an impact that shook the house and thudded to the plank floor, where he sprawled in a daze. For a moment he lay, gasping. A voice among the onlookers muttered:

'An old dotard like that? Imposs—' Then Strabo, his face an even brighter scarlet, lurched to his feet. Roaring an incoherent oath, he charged across the room with thick arms outspread.

Conan stepped forward to meet him. Like a ball of iron, his left fist sank into the other's bulging belly. The air whistled from Strabo's lips, and his face went mottled and gray as tallow. Then, as he doubled over, Conan's right fist caught him in the face with a smack that made men wince. The punch snapped the bully's head back and lifted him clear of the floor. As he came down in a heap, Conan booted him into the fire.

Coals flew and soot shot out in a black cloud. Squealing with alarm, Strabo's comrades rushed to drag the victim - blackened, singed, and grease-spattered - out of the fireplace. They slapped his pale cheeks, but his head merely swayed limply at each blow. Blood from his smashed nose and cut lips ran down over his chin and soaked his doublet. Conao paid no attention as, muttering curses, they bore their unconscious champion to another room for revival.

The tension broke with a chorus of guffaws, congratulations, and compliments on Conan's prowess, for many of those present had long hoped that somebody would some day take the overbearing bully's measure. Conan merely gave a grim little half-smile and addressed himself to the hot mulled ale being served him. Just as he was heartily quaffing the first steaming flagon, a thunderous bellow arrested his attention.

'By the Hammer of Thor and the Fires of Baal, there's only one mortal man in thirty kingdoms could heave yon fat blusterer across the room like that! Is it- can it be—?' The crowd parted like water before a ship's stem as a towering giant, with a beard of blazing red-gold shot with silver, pushed through. He swaggered up to Conan like a burly crimson bear, magnificent in gold-braided scarlet coat, with a plumed hat set rakishly on his bald head. Golden earrings dangled from his ear lobes. Around his massive belly, a triple length of gorgeous silk was wrapped to form a sash, and thrust into the glittering stuff were a brace of gemmed dirks and an iron-bound cudgel that could brain an ox, A heavy cutlass hung from a gold-worked baldric across his deep chest, and boots of fine Kordavan leather clad his fat bow-legs. Conan caught a glimpse of a sweaty red face with keen blue eyes twinkling under tufted, rust-colored brows, and the white crescent of a broad grin amidst the fiery bush of bristling beard. He lifted his voice in a bellow of joy.

'Sigurd of Vanaheim, you fat old walrus! By the scarlet bowels of Hell - Sigurd Redbeard!' he roared, rising to clasp the burly seaman in his arms. . 'Amra of the Red Lion!' cried Sigurd.

'Hush; hold your tongue, you old barrel of whale blubber! ' growled Conan. 'I've reasons to remain nameless for the while.'

'Oh,' said Sigurd. In a lower voice he continued: 'By the breasts of Badb and the claws of Nergal, broil my guts if it don't warm an old seaman's heart to clap eyes on you!'

They hugged each other like angry bears, then drew apart to pummel each other on the shoulders with buffets that would have sent lesser men staggering.

'Sigurd, by Crom! Sit and drink with me, you barnacled old whale!' Conan roared. The other collapsed, wheezing, on the bench across from the Cimmerian. He doffed his plumed hat and stretched fat legs with a gusty sigh.

'Taverner!’ boomed Conan. 'Another cup, and where's that cursed roast?'

'By Mitra's golden sword and Wodun's league-long spear, ye haven't changed a mite in thirty years!' said the red-bearded Vanr when they had toasted each other. He dragged one crimson cuff across bristling lips and emitted a mighty belch.

'Haven't I, you lying old rogue?’ Conan chuckled. 'Why, thirty years ago, when I hit a man in the face like that, I broke his jaw and sometimes his neck as well.' He sighed. 'But old man Time hunts us all down at the last. You've changed, too, Sigurd; that fat gut was as slim as a topsail yard when last we met. Remember how we were becalmed off the Nameless Isle, with naught to eat but the rats in the hold and what few stinking fish we could dredge out of Manannan's wet lair?'

'Aye, aye,' the other chuckled, wiping sentimental tears from his eye. 'Oh, damn me guts, of course ye've changed, old Lion! They was no silver in your black mane then ... aye, aye, we were both young and full o’ juice in those far days. But sink me! Didn't I hear from one of the Brotherhood that ye were kinging it over some inland realm or other? Corinthia or Brythunia? I misremember which. But by the jaws of Moloch and the green whiskers of Lir, it warms me to see you again, after all these years!'

Over hot beef and more mulled ale, the two comrades exchanged stories. Years before, when Conan had been a member of the Red Brotherhood of the Barachan Isles, the archipelago southwest of the Zingaran coast, he and the red-bearded Vanr had been great friends. Their trails had long since parted, but it was like strong wine tq the Cimmerian's lonely soul to meet his old comrade again and swap jests and reminiscences once more before a roaring blaze, with plenty to eat and drink. Now, Conan was winding up his tale.

'So when I woke and saw it was no dream,' he growled in a low voice, ‘I scrawled a writ of abdication in favor of my son, who will rule as Conan the Second, by Crom! There was naught to hold me in Tarantia. Twenty years of ruling leave a sour taste of law-making and treaty-haggling in a man's mouth. I long ago threw down whatever neighboring kings were minded to pick a quarrel with me. Since the fall of the Black Adepts, there's been no real fighting; and a man can get sick of peace and plenty, after a lifetime of red war.'

For a moment, Conan brooded with glowering eyes as if he saw the past unreeled before him. 'Ah, true,' he sighed. 'Aquilonia is fair and green, and I've tried to be a good king to it. But my old friends are gone now: old Publius., the chancellor, who could make three gold pieces sprout where one was sown; Trocero, who helped me to my throne, Pallantides, the general, who always knew what the enemy was thinking even before the enemy himself did. All dead and gone. And since my lass, Zenobia, died giving me a daughter., the very air of Tarantia has grown stale.'

He snorted and tossed down a gulp of ale. 'It was all right while the lad was young; I took joy in teaching him the use of bow and sword and spear, and horse and chariot. But he's grown now and should be about his own life without the specter of a grumbling old graybeard hovering behind him. I didn't need Epemitreus to tell me. 'Twas time I cleared out for one last adventure. Crom, but I have always dreaded the thought of dying in bed, surrounded by whispering physicians and scurrying courtiers! One last battlefield whereon to fight and fall- that's all I ask of the gods.'

'Aye, aye,' the burly redbeard agreed with a wheezing sigh, wagging his head so that the firelight glinted from the golden hoops in his ears.' 'Twas much the same with me, Lion, though I never got a crown or a kingdom from the hands of Fate. Nay, I left the Trade years ago - ran a merchantman between Messantia and Kordava. Can ye imagine old Sigurd Redbeard, the terror of Baracha, a merchant?’ His belly quivered with laughter.

'Ah, and that's not the worst of it, either. Like you, Lion, I settled down with a wench - a fine woman, too, even if she had more than a drop of Pictish blood in her veins. Well, we raised a crop of squalling brats, and now the boys are as big as I am. She's gone years ago, aye, Frigga bless her stout heart, and the younglings grown and thriving on their own. What to do with old men who will not die, eh?

'Ho! I sold everything when the last child wed. Now I'm on my way back to red, roaring Tortage for one last taste of the old life before the long night sets in. What about you, Lion? Come with me, man, back to the pirate deck, and Set take these ghostly prophecies and spectral dooms! Let's sack black-walled Khemi in Stygia! Sink me for a lubber, but either we shall get a spear in the guts and go out like heroes in the sagas, or we shall grab more golden loot than Tranicos, Zarono, and Strombanni rolled into one! Eh, what say ye, man?s

A black shadow fell between them. Conan looked up, one hand going to his sword hilt as the black-cloaked stranger who had been watching them from across the room eased himself into a seat at their table.

'Do you seek a ship, gentlemen?' he said in a purring voice. The Northman rumbled-with suspicion, but the catlike stranger, whose face was still concealed in his hood, placed both gloved hands upon the table, clear of any weapons.

‘I could not but help overhear some of your talk’ the intruder said smoothly. 'Pray forgive this intrusion, but if you will spare me a few moments, I think we can discuss business to our mutual advantage.'

Sigurd eyed him dubiously but grunted with curiosity. Conan fixed the man with a level, noncommittal stare. 'Speak up, then,' he growled. 'Say your piece.'

The other nodded with a polite half-bow. 'Unless I misunderstood the little I overheard, I believe that both of you are old seamen, now thinking of taking ship and resuming a career out of the - ah - Pirate Isles? No, fear not.' He raised a placating hand. 'I am no spying informer, no police agent - but I may be able to finance you in the purchase of a suitable vessel.'

Swift as a striking serpent, the stranger's lean hand vanished into his cloak and reappeared to spill a handful of glittering stones on the wine-ringed wood between them. Winking up in the ruddy firelight lay a princeling's ransom in sapphires blue as the southern seas, emeralds like cat's eyes glowing in the dark, topazes and zircons as yellow as a Khitan's skin, and rubies as scarlet as fresh-spilt blood.

Conan, unimpressed, fixed the stranger with a suspicious glare. 'First,' he growled, 'I want to know who in Crom's name you are. Curse it, I take no gift from a man who hides his face even here in an Argossean inn, with King Ariostro's guardsmen on every street, making the city so safe a juicy wench can walk the length of the waterfront unmolested!'

With a smile in his purring voice, the stranger replied: ‘I thank you for the implied compliment, seaman! I hide my face here for good reason, as Argos-folk know my features all too well.'

'Well then, your name!' rumbled Conan. 'Or I'll pitch you across the room as I did that fat-arsed bully.'

'Gladly, to put you at your ease,' the other laughed. Drawing himself up a little, he said softly: 'Know, sailor, that I am Ariostro, king of Argos!'

Conan grunted with astonishment. The stranger drew off one of his gloves and extended the bare hand. The ancient royal seal ring of the Argossean monarchy blazed in the firelight with the brilliance of the huge diamond in which the royal sigil was cut.