They were animals, birds, and things that had the shape of men but also subtle differences. They were nothing as simple as the Serpent Men of Valusia, who would have been almost a relief.
Muhbaras knew that custom required him to wait for the Lady to speak, as if she were a queen or near-kin to one. He also knew that this custom allowed the Lady to sit and study those who came before her for as long as it pleased her, rather like a serpent studying a particularly succulent bird.
By sheer force of will, Muhbaras had not grown uneasy and was standing as still as the seven Maidens when the Lady at last spoke.
"One of your warriors has looked upon a Maiden with the desire of a man for a woman."
The captain inclined his head, as graciously as he could contrive. Unless the Lady was altogether a raving madwoman, there had to be more to the matter. And as he was not a raving madman, he would let her reveal that "more" before he opened his own mouth.
It seemed that half the night crawled by, in a silence rivaling that of the graveyard. The captain began to suspect that the Lady was testing his courage, and vowed to pass any test she might set him.
At last the Lady sighed. She was garbed in a robe made of a single thickness of silk, so thin that Muhbaras could see her breasts lift under it with the sigh. He cast his eyes and thoughts elsewhere, and inclined his head again.
"Do you not wish to know more, Khorajan?" the Lady asked. Her voice had the quality of a fine steel blade slicing equally fine silk. In another it might have seemed intended to arouse desire. In the Lady it seemed only intended to arouse slavish obedience.
"I wish to know all that my Lady of the Mists sees fit to tell me. I do venture to add that the more she tells me, the more likely we are to resolve this matter peaceably."
"Peace requires the death of the soldier who offended. Anything less will mean no peace."
The captain waited, until he realized that he was expected to reply to those bald words, as naked of mercy as the rocks of the mountains or the vultures circling above them. Common sense told him that negotiation was futile. Honor bound him to try.
"A lesser penalty will still suffice to keep the man—"
"No lesser penalty will suffice in any way, in the eyes of the gods."
Which gods? the captain wondered, not quite reverently. Although the Lady might be unwilling or unable to answer, having confused her own will with that of the gods—a vice not unknown among less powerful mortals, or the captain would not have been here in honorable if perilous exile from his native city.
"Honor to the gods and to you, my Lady," the captain said. "But if no deed of desire has been done—"
"The eyes give passage to the soul. Your soldier's soul has touched the Maiden."
Muhbaras had not heard that from any priest, but had long since ceased to expect the Lady to be bound by any common notions of priestcraft. He would have liked to know what did bind her, and still hoped to learn something of that, but did not expect that this night would be the time.
The Lady's wrath in the face of disobedience would doubtless be tempered by her need for himself and his men. Yet even her tempered wrath could leave him unfit for duty for some time, which Ermik could put to use to usurp the captain's authority.
Moreover, the Lady (who was seldom ill informed) might know of the spy's coming and his favor in Khoraja. She might think that he could be put into the captain's place as a more pliant tool.
That would be folly in the Lady. But the captain had never heard that witches were less foolish than common folk.
"Give me the name of the man, then, and I will have him straitly confined, questioned, and brought before you."
"His name is Danar son of Araubas, and he has already been confined by my Maidens and their servants. His guilt is proven beyond need for further questioning. I summoned you here out of courtesy, that you might not wonder what had become of him. I only ask you: Do you wish to witness his passing or not?"
The moment the captain heard the name of the condemned man, he knew at least some truth without needing to ask questions the Lady would not answer. Danar was youthful, courteous, and by all reports, most pleasing to a woman's eye. If he had looked with desire on any woman, Maiden, crone, or a very goddess, it was because she had so looked upon him first!
That truth would not save Danar, however. It would most likely condemn the Maiden as well as Danar—and whatever hope the Maidens' womanliness might give to the captain would be flung off the cliff along with Danar.
That would be the method of execution—that or some other passing fit for a soldier. No more blackened and reeking tongues dealing a death that even the most hardened Stygian torturer would call harsh. The captain would save his man's soul, if he could not save his body.
"Very well. I will consent to all that you have asked, on one condition. I will speak alone with Danar son of Araubas, and bear any last wishes to his kin. Otherwise I will make no promises whatever in this matter."
Muhbaras ventured to look the Lady squarely in the eyes. He saw for the first time flecks of brown in their blazing gold, and faint shadows on the eyelids below the finely plucked eyebrows.
In another woman, he would have said those eyes would look very well widening on a pillow as she gave and took pleasure. With the Lady of the Mists, that was a thought to drive from one's mind as one drove a mad dog from the nursery.
"By my honor and my bond with the Mists, I pledge to grant you that, if the man be living when you come to him."
That left an opening for treachery through which one could have driven the elephants of the royal menagerie, but Muhbaras judged it wise to make no further argument. He bowed his head and made the ritual Khorajan gestures of binding himself with blood and steel to fulfill a vow.
Then he straightened. "The man is more likely to be living if I go straight to him. Is that permitted?"
The Lady nodded. Silently she raised a hand, and the Maidens gathered about the captain to lead him out of the chamber.
Conan rode north in the vanguard of fifty Green-cloaks. Farad and Sorbim rode beside him, their gazes making a complete circle around their chief every few moments.
Ten paces to the Cimmerian's right, Khezal rode with three picked Greencloaks. They kept a similar watch out for his safety.
"Conan," Khezal called, across the gap. "What would you have done if I had refused to let you ride north?"
"I remember a wise captain who said that 'if is a word for priests and scribes, not fighting men."
"I remember that when the wise captain said that, he was teaching a young Cimmerian who has since become a wise captain in his own right."
"Indeed, I would have owed the other captain an answer to such a question," the Cimmerian said, in a dangerously level voice. "Do I owe you as much?"
"He taught me also, and there is another reason for you to think carefully before you refuse. I do not teach. I lead men, who, like me, must know how far we can trust you."
Conan muttered a few oaths, but within he was rallying his thoughts. Indeed, Khezal was in a position wherein the trust of his men was life or death. Anything that could help strengthen that trust, and would not weaken Conan, was Khezal's right.
"So be it," Conan said. "Had you refused, I would still have gone north, with Farad and Sorbim. No Greencloak would have suffered, save those foolish enough to stand in our path. We might even have saved the captives."
"And if you could not?" one Greencloak said. Khezal shot the man a barbed look, but Conan held up a hand.
"No, the answer's his right as well as yours. If they had to die, they would have died as whole men, or at least not without rites."
The Greencloak looked more content than his captain. Conan spat into the sand. Khezal was wiser than the Cimmerian intended to tell him for some while, but there was much he needed to learn about Afghulis and those the tribesmen called chief.