Stoically, Procas sat his steed across the river; but once amid the bushes that fringed the northern shore, he suffered his aides to lift him from the beast while Gromel trotted ahead to summon the surgeon.
After plucking forth the barb and binding the wound, the physician said: "It will be many days, General, ere you will be well enough to travel again.”
"Very well," said Procas stolidly. "Pitch my tent on yonder hillock. Here we shall camp and let the rebels come to us, if they’ve the stomach for it.”
Ghostly among the shadows of the trees nearby, a slender figure clad in the garments of a page, much worn and travel-stained, watched and listened. Had any viewer with catlike eyes perceived the swelling roundure of that youthful figure, he would have recognized a lithe and lovely woman. Now, with a mirthless smile, she unhitched her horse and quietly led the animal to a prudent distance from the camp that the Border Legion was hastily erecting.
That his rival, Amulius Procas, had been wounded during a cowardly retreat before a rabble would be pleasing news for Thulandra Thuu, thought the Lady Alcina. Now that the mighty Cimmerian was dead, Procas had served his purpose and could safely be sacrificed to her master's vaulting ambition. She must get word to the wizard as soon as the aspects of the stars and planets again permitted the use of her obsidian talisman. She melted into the darkness and vanished from the scene.
Bending toward his magical mirror of burnished obsidian, Thulandra Thuu learned with delight of the injury to General Procas. As the image of Alcina faded from the gleaming glass, the sorcerer thoughtfully stroked the bridge of his hawklike nose. Reaching out a slender hand, he raised a metal mallet and smote the skull-shaped gong that hung beside his iron throne, and its sonorous note echoed dully through the purple-shrouded chamber.
Presently the draperies drew aside, revealing Hsiao the Khitan. Arms tucked into the voluminous sleeves of his green silk robe, he bowed, silently awaiting his master’s commands.
"Does the Count of Thune still wait upon me in the antechamber?” the sorcerer inquired.
”Master, Count Ascalante attends your pleasure,” murmured the yellow servant.
Thulandra Thuu nodded. ”Excellent! I will speak to him forthwith. Inform him that I shall receive him in the Chamber of the Sphinxes, and go yourself to notify the king that I shall presently request an audience upon urgent business of state. You have my leave to go.”
Hsiao bowed and withdrew, and the draperies fell back into place, concealing the door through which the Khitan had passed.
The Chamber of the Sphinxes, which Thulandra Thuu had converted to his own use from a disused room in the palace, was aptly named. Tomblike in its barrenness, it was walled and floored in roseate marble and contained no visible furnishings beyond a limestone seat, placed against the further wall. This seat, shaped like a throne, was upheld by a pair of stone supports carved in the likeness of feline monsters with human heads. This motif was repeated in the matching tapestries that hung in rich array against the wall behind the throne. Here, cunningly crafted in glittering threads, two catlike beasts with manlike faces, bearded and imperious, stared out with cold and supercilious eyes. The only light in this chill chamber was provided by a pair of copper torcheres, the flames of which danced in the silver mirrors set into the wall behind them.
Not unlike the sphinxes was Ascalante, officer-adventurer and self-styled Count of Thune. A tall and supple man, elegantly clad in plum-colored velvet, he prowled around the chamber with a feline grace. For all his military bearing and debonaire deportment, his eyes, like those of the embroidered monsters, were cold and supercilious; but they were wary, too, and a trifle apprehensive.
For some time now, Ascalante had awaited an audience with the all-powerful sorcerer of unknown origin. Although Thulandra Thuu had recalled Ascalante from the eastern frontier and demanded his daily presence at court, the magician had let him cool his heels outside the audience chamber for several days. Now it might be that his fortunes were about to change.
Suddenly Ascalante froze, his hand instinctively darting to the hilt of his dagger. One of the tapestries lifted to reveal a narrow doorway, within which stood a slender, dark-skinned man, silently regarding him. The cool, amused intelligence behind those hooded eyes seemed capable of reading a man’s thoughts as if they were painted on his forehead. Recovering his composure, Ascalante made a courtly obeisance as Thulandra Thuu entered the room. The sorcerer bore an ornately carven staff, which writhed with intertwined inscriptions in characters unknown to Ascalante.
Thulandra strode unhurriedly across the chamber and seated himself on the sphinx-supported throne. He acknowledged the other s bow with a nod and the shadow of a smile, saying: "I trust you are well. Count, and that your enforced inactivity has not wearied you?”
Ascalante murmured a polite reply.
“Count Ascalante,” said the magician, “your experience and accomplishments have not eluded those who serve as my eyes and ears in distant places. Neither, I may add, has your lust for high office, nor a certain lack of scruple as regards the means whereby you hope to attain it. I hasten to assure you that the king and I approve of your ambition and of your—ah, practicality."
"I thank you, my lord,” replied the count with a show of composure that aped the suavity of the sorcerer.
"I shall come directly to the point," said Thulandra Thuu, “for events move ever forward through the passing hours, and mortal men must scurry to keep abreast of them. Briefly, this is the situation: it has pleased His Majesty to withdraw his favor from the honorable Amulius Procas, commander of the Border Legion."
Amazement burned in the inscrutable eyes of Ascalante, for the news astounded him. All knew that Procas was the ablest commander Aquilonia could put in the field, now that Conan had left the king’s service. If anyone could subdue the restive barons in the North and crush the rebellion in the South, it was Amulius Procas. To remove him from command at such a time, before either menace had been obliterated, was madness.
“I can divine the feelings that your loyalty rests in," purred Thulandra with a narrow smile. “The fact is that our General Procas has led a rash and ill-planned raid across the Alimane, thus risking open war with Milo, King of Argos."
“Forgive me, lord, but I find this almost impossible of credence," said Ascalante. “To invade a friendly neighboring state without our monarch’s express command is tantamount to treason!"
“It is precisely that,” smiled the sorcerer. “And that the king imprudently did order a punitive expedition into Argos is a datum that, I fear, history will fail to record, since every copy of the document has strangely disappeared. You take my meaning, sir?"
Amusement gleamed in Ascalante’s eyes. "I believe I do, my lord. But pray continue." The Count of Thune appreciated a subtle act of villainy much as a connoisseur of wines might savor a rare vintage.
"The general might have avoided censure,” Thulandra Thuu added with mock regret, “if he had stamped out the last sparks of the rebellion; for the rumors you have heard about the self-styled Army of Liberation, now gathered north of the Rabirians, are true. An adventurer who called himself Conan the Cimmerian— "
"That giant of a man who last year led the Lion Regiment of Aquilonia to victory over the marauding Picts?" cried Ascalante.
"The same," replied Thulandra. "But time presses and affords us little leisure for profitless gossip, however diverting. Had General Procas shattered the rebel remnant and then retreated across the Alimane before King Milo learned of the incursion, all had been well. But Procas bungled the mission, stirred up the wrath of Argos, and fled from the field of battle without spilling a single drop of rebel blood. He so botched the fording of the Alimane that rebel archers targeted scores of our finest soldiers. And his errors were compounded in Messantia by the blunders of a stupid spy of Vibius Latro-—a Zingaran named Quesado—whom His Majesty had impulsively urged upon the diplomatic corps.