The Hour of the Dragon - Robert E. Howard (great reads .TXT) 📗

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’s 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 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, and they cannot be defeated by the forces which might still

be at your command. You would be sacrificing your loyal subjects

uselessly. In sorrow I say it, but it is true: King Conan, you are a

king without a kingdom.”

 

Conan stared into the fire without replying. A smoldering log crashed

down among the flames without a bursting shower of sparks. It might

have been the crashing ruin of his kingdom.

 

Again Conan felt the presence of a grim reality behind the veil of

material illusion. He sensed again the inexorable drive of a ruthless

fate. A feeling of furious panic tugged at his soul, a sense of being

trapped, and a red rage that burned to destroy and kill.

 

“Where are the officials of my court?” he demanded at last.

 

“Pallantides was sorely wounded at Valkia, was ransomed by his family,

and now lies in his castle in Attains. He will be fortunate if he ever

rides again. Publius, the chancellor, has fled the kingdom in

disguise, no man knows whither. The council has been disbanded. Some

were imprisoned, some banished. Many of your loyal subjects have been

put to death. Tonight, for instance, the Countess Albiona dies under

the headsman’s ax.”

 

Conan started and stared at Servius with such anger smoldering in his

blue eyes that the patrician shrank back.

 

“Why?”

 

“Because she would not become the mistress of Valerius. Her lands are

forfeit, her henchmen sold into slavery, and at midnight, in the Iron

Tower, her head must fall. Be advised, my king—to me you will ever be

my king-and flee before you are