“Procas a suicide?” growled Conan, bristling. "Never, by Crom! The old man, for all he was my enemy, was a soldier through and through, and the best officer in all of Aquilonia. Such as Procas sell their lives dearly; they do not slough them off! I smell the stench of treachery in this; how say the rest of you?"
"As for myself,” muttered Dexitheus, fingering his prayer beads, "in this I see the sly hand of Thulandra Thuu, who long nursed hatred for the general”
"Does none of you know more of this Count Ascalante?” demanded Conan. “Can he lead troops in battle? Has combat seasoned him, or is he just another perfumed hanger-on of mad Numedides?” When the others shook their heads, Conan added: “Well, send your sergeants to inquire among the troops, whether any man of them has served beneath the count, and what manner of officer he was.”
“Think you,” asked Prospero, “that this new commander of the Border Legion may unwittingly serve our cause?”
Conan shrugged. “Perhaps; and perhaps not. We shall see. If Trocero’s promised diversion comes to pass . . ."
Count Trocero smiled a secret smile.
The following morning, the rebel leaders, gathered on the lookout prominence, stared across the river in somber fascination. While the Border Legion stood in parade formation, a small party of mounted men moved slowly through the camp and vanished up the Culario road. In their midst a pair of black horses, driven by General Procas’s charioteer, trundled the general’s chariot along at a slow and solemn pace. Across the rear of the vehicle was lashed a large wooden box or coffin.
Conan grunted: "That’s the last we shall ever see of old Amulius. If he had been king of Aquilonia, things would be quite different here today.”
A few nights later, when fog lay heavy on the surface of the Alimane, the black-clad swimmer, whom Count Trocero had sent across the river several days before, returned. Again he bore a letter sewn into an envelope of well-oiled silk.
That very night the Lion Banner rose against the silver splendor of the watchful moon.
SWORDS ACROSS THE ALIMANE
For several months, the friends of Count Trocero had done their work, and well. In marketplace and roadside inn, in village and hamlet, in town and city, the whisper winged across the province of Poitain: "The Liberator comes!"
Such was the title given to Conan by Count Troceros partisans, men who remembered trembling tales of the giant Cimmerian from years gone by. They had heard how he thrust and cut amidst the silvery flood of Thunder River to break the will of the savage Picts, lest they swarm in their thousands across the border to loot and slay and ravish the Bossonian Marches. Poitanians who knew these stories now looked to the indomitable figure of Conan to wrest them from the clutches of their bloody tyrant.
For weeks, archers and yeomen and men-at-arms had filtered southward, ever southward, toward the Alimane. In the villages, men muttered over mugs of ale, their shaggy heads bent close together, of the invasion to come.
Now, at last, the Liberator neared. The moment loomed to free Poitain and, in good time, all of Aquilonia, prostrate now beneath the heavy heel of mad Numedides. The word so eagerly awaited had arrived in an oiled-silk envelope, stamped with the seal of their beloved count. And they were ready.
Chilled by the raw and foggy night, the sentinel, a youth from Gunderland, sneezed as he stamped his booted feet and slapped his shoulders. Sentry-go was a tedious tour of duty in the best of times, but on a damp night during a cold snap, it could be cursed uncomfortable.
If only he had not foolishly let himself be caught blowing kisses in the ear of the captain’s mistress, thought the Gunderman gloomily, he might even now be carousing in the cheerful warmth of the sergeant’s mess with his luckier comrades. What need, after all, to guard the main gate to the barracks of Culario on such a night as this? Did the commandant think an army was stealing upon the base from Koth, or Nemedia, or even far Vanaheim?
Wistfully he told himself, had he enjoyed the fortune of a landed sire and birth into the gentry, he would now be an officer, swanking in satin and gilded steel at the officers’ ball. So deep was he in dreams that he failed to remark a slight scuffle of feet behind him on the cobblestones. He was aware of nothing untoward until a leathern thong settled about his plump throat, drew quickly tight, and strangled him.
The officer’s ball throbbed with merriment. Chandeliers blazed with the light of a thousand candles, which sparkled and shimmered in the silvered pier glasses. Splendid in parade uniforms, junior officers vied for the favors of the local belles, who fluttered prettily, giggling at the honeyed whispers of their partners, while their mothers watched benignly from rows of gilded chairs along the plastered walls.
The party was past its peak. The royal governor, Sir Conradin, had made his requisite appearance to open the festivities and long since had departed in,his carriage. Senior Captain Armandius, commandant of the Culario garrison, yawned and nodded over a goblet of Poitain's choicest vintage. From his red velvet seat, he stared down sourly upon the dancers, thinking that all this prancing, bowing, and circling was a pastime fit for children only. In another hour, he decided, it would not seem remiss to take his leave. His thoughts turned to his dark-eyed Zingaran mistress, who doubtless waited impatiently for him. He smiled sleepily, picturing her soft lips and other charms. And then he dozed.
A servant first smelled smoke and thrust open the front door, to see a pile of burning brush stacked high against the walls of the officers’ barracks. He bawled an alarm.
In the space of a few breaths, the king’s officers swarmed out of the burning building, like bees smoked out of their hive by honey-seeking boys. The men and their ladies, furious or bewildered, found the courtyard already full—crowded by silent, somber men with grim eyes in their work-worn faces and naked steel in their sun-browned hands.
Alas for the officers; they wore only their daggers, more ornamental than useful, and so stood little chance against the well-armed rebels. Within the hour, Culario was free; and the banner of the Count of Poitain, with its crimson leopards, flew beside a strange new flag that bore the blazon of a golden lion on a sable field.
In a private room in Culario’s best-regarded inn, the royal governor sat gaming with his crony, the Aquilonian tax assessor for the southern region. Both were deep in their cups, and consistent losses had rendered the governor surly and short tempered. Still, having escaped from the officers’ ball. Sir Conradin preferred to shun his home for yet a while, knowing that his wife would accord him an unpleasant welcome. The presence of the sentry stationed in the doorway so fanned his irritation that he brusquely commanded the soldier to stand out of sight beyond the entrance to the inn.
“Give a man some privacy,” he grumbled.
“Especially when he’s losing, eh?” teased the assessor. He guessed that the sentry would not have to brave the clammy mists for long, for Sir Conradin’s purse was nearly empty.
Continuing their game, engrossed in the dance of ivory cubes and the whimsical twists of fortune,-neither player noticed a dull thud and the sound of a falling body beyond the heavy wooden portal.
An instant later, booted feet kicked open the door of the inn; and a fierce-eyed mob of rustics, armed with clubs and rakes and scythes as well as more conventional weapons, burst in to drag the gamesters from their table to the crude gallows newly set in the center of the market square.
The men of the Border Legion received their first warning that the province seethed with insurrection when an officer of the guard, yawning as he strolled about the perimeter of the camp to assure himself that every sentry stood alert and at his post, discovered one such sentinel slumbering in the shadow of a baggage wain.