The Hour of the Dragon
twilight, the marrow of my knees turned to water. It is an ill thing to
meet a man you thought dead in the woodland at dusk.'
'Bid the keeper see to my steed which is tied behind yonder oak,'
requested Conan, and Servius nodded, drawing the king up the path. The
patrician, recovering from his supernatural fright, had become extremely
nervous.
'I will send a servant from the manor,' he said. 'The keeper is in his
lodge--but I dare not trust even my servants in these days. It is better
that only I know of your presence.'
Approaching the great house that glimmered dimly through the trees, he
turned aside into a little-used path that ran between close-set oaks
whose intertwining branches formed a vault overhead, shutting out the
dim light of the gathering dusk. Servius hurried on through the darkness
without speaking, and with something resembling panic in his manner, and
presently led Conan through a small side-door into a narrow, dimly
illuminated corridor. They traversed this in haste and silence, and
Servius brought the king into a spacious chamber with a high, oak-beamed
ceiling and richly paneled walls. Logs flamed in the wide fireplace, for
there was a frosty edge to the air, and a great meat pasty in a stone
platter stood smoking on a broad mahogany board. Servius locked the
massive door and extinguished the candles that stood in a silver
candlestick on the table, leaving the chamber illuminated only by the
fire on the hearth.
'Your pardon, your Majesty,' he apologized. 'These are perilous times;
spies lurk everywhere. It were better that none be able to peer through
the windows and recognize you. This pasty, however, is just from the
oven, as I intended supping on my return from talk with my keeper. If
your Majesty would deign----'
'The light is sufficient,' grunted Conan, seating himself with scant
ceremony, and drawing his poniard.
He dug ravenously into the luscious dish, and washed it down with great
gulps of wine from grapes grown in Servius' vineyards. He seemed
oblivious to any sense of peril, but Servius shifted uneasily on his
settle by the fire, nervously fingering the heavy gold chain about his
neck. He glanced continually at the diamond-panes of the casement,
gleaming dimly in the firelight, and cocked his ear toward the door, as
if half expecting to hear the pad of furtive feet in the corridor
without.
Finishing his meal, Conan rose and seated himself on another settle
before the fire.
'I won't jeopardize you long by my presence, Servius,' he said abruptly.
'Dawn will find me far from your plantation.'
'My lord----' Servius lifted his hands in expostulation, but Conan waved
his protests aside.
'I know your loyalty and your courage. Both are above reproach. But if
Valerius has usurped my throne, it would be death for you to shelter me,
if you were discovered.'
'I am not strong enough to defy him openly,' admitted Servius. 'The
fifty men-at-arms I could lead to battle would be but a handful of
straws. You saw the ruins of Emilius Scavonus' plantation?'
Conan nodded, frowning darkly.
'He was the strongest patrician in this province, as you know. He
refused to give his allegiance to Valerius. The Nemedians burned him in
the ruins of his own villa. After that the rest of us saw the futility
of resistance, especially as the people of Tarantia refused to fight. We
submitted and Valerius spared our lives, though he levied a tax upon us
that will ruin many. But what could we do? We thought you were dead.
Many of the barons had been slain, others taken prisoner. The army was
shattered and scattered. You have no heir to take the crown. There was
no one to lead us----'
'Was there not Count Trocero of Poitain?' demanded Conan harshly.
Servius spread his hands helplessly.
'It is true that his general Prospero was in the field with a small
army. Retreating before Amalric, he urged men to rally to his banner.
But with your Majesty dead, men remembered old wars and civil brawls,
and how Trocero and his Poitanians once rode through these provinces
even as Amalric was riding now, with torch and sword. The barons were
jealous of Trocero. Some men--spies of Valerius perhaps--shouted that
the Count of Poitain intended seizing the crown for himself. Old
sectional hates flared up again. If we had had one man with dynastic
blood in his veins we would have crowned and followed him against
Nemedia. But we had none.
'The barons who followed you loyally would not follow one of their own
number, each holding himself as good as his neighbor, each fearing the
ambitions of the others. You were the cord that held the fagots
together. When the cord was cut, the fagots fell apart. If you had had
a son, the barons would have rallied loyally to him. But there was no
point for their patriotism to focus upon.
'The merchants and commoners, dreading anarchy and a return of feudal
days when each baron was his own law, cried out that any king was better
than none, even Valerius, who was at least of the blood of the old
dynasty. There was no one to oppose him when he rode up at the head of
his steel-clad hosts, with the scarlet dragon of Nemedia floating over
him, and rang his lance against the gates of Tarantia.
'Nay, the people threw open the gates and knelt in the dust before him.
They had refused to aid Prospero in holding the city. They said they had
rather be ruled by Valerius than by Trocero. They said--truthfully--that
the barons would not rally to Trocero, but that many would accept
Valerius. They said that by yielding to Valerius they would escape the
devastation of civil war, and the fury of the Nemedians. Prospero rode
southward with his ten thousand knights, and the horsemen of the
Nemedians entered the city a few hours later. They did not follow him.
They remained to see that Valerius was crowned in Tarantia.'
'Then the old witch's smoke showed the truth,' muttered Conan, feeling a
queer chill along his spine. 'Amalric crowned Valerius?'
'Aye, in the coronation hall, with the blood of slaughter scarcely dried
on his hands.'
'And do the people thrive under his benevolent rule?' asked Conan with
angry irony.
'He lives like a foreign prince in the midst of a conquered land,'
answered Servius bitterly. 'His court is filled with Nemedians, the
palace troops are of the same breed, and a large garrison of them occupy
the citadel. Aye, the hour of the Dragon has come at last.
'Nemedians swagger like lords through the streets. Women are outraged
and merchants plundered daily, and Valerius either can, or will, make no
attempt to curb them. Nay, he is but their puppet, their figurehead. Men
of sense knew he would be, and the people are beginning to find it out.
'Amalric has ridden forth with a strong army to reduce the outlying
provinces where some of the barons have defied him. But there is no
unity among them. Their jealousy of each other is stronger than their
fear of Amalric. He will crush them one by one. Many castles and cities,
realizing that, have sent in their submission. Those who resist fare
miserably. The Nemedians are glutting their long hatred. And their ranks
are swelled by Aquilonians whom fear, gold, or necessity of occupation
are forcing into their armies. It is a natural consequence.'
Conan nodded somberly, staring at the red reflections of the firelight
on the richly carved oaken panels.
'Aquilonia has a king instead of the anarchy they feared,' said Servius
at last. 'Valerius does not protect his subjects against his allies.
Hundreds who could not pay the ransom imposed upon them have been sold
to the Kothic slave-traders.'
Conan's head jerked up and a lethal flame lit his blue eyes. He swore
gustily, his mighty hands knotting into iron hammers.
'Aye, white men sell white men and white women, as it was in the feudal
days. In the palaces of Shem and of Turan they will live out the lives
of slaves. Valerius is king, but the unity for which the people looked,
even though of the sword, is not complete.
'Gunderland in the north and Poitain in the south are yet unconquered,
and there are unsubdued provinces in the west, where the border barons
have the backing of the Bossonian bowmen. Yet these outlying provinces
are no real menace to Valerius. They must remain on the defensive, and
will be lucky if they are able to keep their independence. Here Valerius
and his foreign knights are supreme.'
'Let him make the best of it then,' said Conan grimly. 'His time is
short. The people will rise when they learn that I'm alive. We'll take
Tarantia back before Amalric can return with his army. Then we'll sweep
these dogs from the kingdom.'
Servius was silent. The crackle of the fire was loud in the stillness.
'Well,' exclaimed Conan impatiently, 'why do you sit with your head
bent, staring at the hearth? Do you doubt what I have said?'
Servius avoided the king's eye.
'What mortal man can do, you will do, your Majesty,' he answered. 'I
have ridden behind you in battle, and I know that no mortal being can
stand before your sword.'
'What, then?'
Servius drew his fur-trimmed jupon closer about him, and shivered in
spite of the flame.
'Men say your fall was occasioned by sorcery,' he said presently.
'What then?'
'What mortal can fight against sorcery? Who is this veiled man who
communes at midnight with Valerius and his allies, as men say, who
appears and disappears so mysteriously? Men say in whispers that he is a
great magician who died thousands of years ago, but has returned from
death's gray lands to overthrow the king of Aquilonia and restore the
dynasty of which Valerius is heir.'
'What matter?' exclaimed Conan angrily. 'I escaped from the
devil-haunted pits of Belverus, and from diabolism in the mountains. If
the people rise----'
Servius shook his head.
'Your staunchest supporters in the eastern and central provinces are
dead, fled or imprisoned. Gunderland is far to the north, Poitain far
to the south. The Bossonians have retired to their marches far to the
west. It would take weeks to gather and concentrate these forces, and
before that could be done, each levy would be attacked separately by
Amalric and destroyed.'
'But an uprising in the central provinces would tip the scales for us!'
exclaimed Conan. 'We could seize Tarantia and hold it against Amalric
until the Gundermen and Poitanians could get here.'
Servius hesitated, and his voice sank to a whisper.
'Men say you died accursed. Men say this veiled stranger cast a spell
upon you to slay you and break your army. The great bell has tolled your
dirge. Men believe you to be dead. And the central provinces would not
rise, even if they knew you lived. They would not dare. Sorcery defeated
you at Valkia. Sorcery brought the news to Tarantia, for that very night
men were shouting of it in the streets.
'A Nemedian priest loosed black magic again in the streets of Tarantia
to slay men who still were loyal to your memory. I myself saw it. Armed
men dropped like flies and died in the streets in a manner no man could
understand. And the lean priest laughed and said: 'I am only Altaro,
only an acolyte of Orastes, who is but an acolyte of him who wears the
veil; not mine is the power; the power but works through me.'
'Well,' said Conan harshly, 'is it not better to die honorably than to
live in infamy? Is death worse than oppression, slavery and ultimate
destruction?'
'When the fear of sorcery is in, reason is out,' replied Servius. 'The
fear of the central provinces is too great to allow them to rise for
you. The outlying provinces would fight for you--but the same sorcery
that smote your army at Valkia would smite you again. The Nemedians hold
the broadest, richest and most thickly populated sections of Aquilonia,