“Your mad king has made many enemies,” grumbled Conan. “I get reports of knights whose lands he has seized, nobles whose wives or daughters he has outraged, sons of merchants whom he has stripped of their pelf—even common workmen and peasants, stout-hearted enough to take up arms against the royal madman. Those knights yonder are outlaws, driven into exile for speaking out against the tyrant."
"Tyranny oft breeds its own downfall,” said Publius. “How many have we now?”
“Over ten thousand, by yesterday’s reckoning.”
Publius whistled. “So many? We had better limit our recruits ere they devour all the coin in our treasury. Vast as is the sum that you obtained for the jewels of Tranicos, ‘t will melt like snow in the springtime if we enlist more men than we can afford to pay.”
Conan clapped the stout civilian on the back. “It’s your task as treasurer, good Publius, to make our purse outlast this feast of vultures. Only today I importuned King Milo for more camp space. Instead, he drenched me with a cataract of complaints. Our men crowd Messantia; they overtax the facilities of the city; they drive up prices; some commit crimes against the citizens. He wants us hence, either to a new camp or on our way to Aquilonia.”
Publius frowned. “Whilst our troops train, we must remain close to the city and the sea, for access to supplies. Ten thousand men grow exceeding hungry when drilled as you drill them. And ten thousand bellies require much food, or their owners grow surly and desert.”
Conan shrugged. “No help for it. Trocero and I ride forth on the morrow to scout for a new site. The next full moon should see us on the road to Aquilonia.”
“Who is that?”’ murmured Publius, indicating a soldier who, released from the morning’s drill, was sauntering by, close to the general’s tent. The man, clad in shabby black, had swilled a tankardful that afternoon; for his lean legs wobbled beneath him, and once he tripped over a stone that lay athwart his path. Sighting Conan and Publius, he swept off his battered cap, bowed so low that he quite unbalanced himself, recovered, and proceeded on his way.
Conan said; “A Zingaran who turned up at the recruiting tent a few days past. He seemed a mousey little fellow—no warrior—but he has proved a fair swordsman, an excellent horseman, and an artist with a throwing knife; so Prospero signed him on with all the rest. He called himself—I think it was Quesado.”
“Your reputation, like a lodestone, draws men from near and far,” said Publius.
“So I had better win this war," rephed Conan. “In the old days, if I lost a battle, I could slip away to lands that knew me not and start over again with nobody the wiser. That were not so easy now; too many men have heard of me.”
“‘Tis good news for the rest of us,” grinned Publius, “that fame robs leaders of the chance to flee.”
Conan said nothing. Parading through his memory marched the ardvious years since he had plunged out of the wintry North, a ragged, starveling youth. He had warred and wandered the length and breadth of the Thurian continent. Thief, pirate, bandit, primitive chieftain—all these he had been; and common soldier, too, rising to general and falling again with the ebb of Fortune. From the savage wilderness of Pictland to the steppes of Hyrkania, from the snows of Nordheim to the steaming jungles of Kush, his name and fame were legend. Hence warriors flocked from distant lands to serve beneath his banner.
Conan’s banner now proudly rode the breeze atop the central pole of the general’s tent. Its device, a golden hon rampant on a field of sable silk, was Conan's own design. Son of a Cimmerian blacksmith, Conan was not at all of armigerous blood; but he had gained his greatest recognition as commander of the Lion Regiment in the battle at Velitrium. Its ensign he had adopted as his own, knowing that soldiers need a flag to fight for. It was following this victory that King Numedides, holding the Cimmerian’s fame a threat to his own supremacy, had sought to trap and destroy his popular general, in whom he sensed a potential rival. Conan’s growing reputation for invincibility he envied; his magnetic leadership he feared.
After eluding the snare Numedides had set for him, thus forfeiting his command, the Cimmerian looked back upon his days with the Lions with fond nostalgia. And now the banner under which he had won his mightiest victories flew above his head again, a symbol of his past glories and a rallying point for his cause.
He would need even mightier victories in the months ahead, and the golden lion on a field of black was to him an auspicious omen. For Conan was not without his superstitions. Although he had brawled and swaggered over half the earth, exploring distant lands and the exotic lore of foreign peoples, and had gained wisdom in the ways of kings and priests, wizards and warriors, magnates and beggars, the primitive beliefs of his Cimmerian heritage still smoldered in the depths of his soul.
Meanwhile, the spy Quesado, having passed beyond the purlieu of the commander’s tent, miraculously regained his full sobriety. No longer staggering, he walked briskly along the rutted road toward the North Gate of Messantia.
The spy had prudently retained his waterfront room when he took up soldier’s quarters in the tent city outside the walls. And in that room, pushed under the rough-hewn door, he found a letter. It was unsigned, but Quesado knew the hand of Vibius Latro.
Having fed his pigeons, Quesado sat down to decipher the simple code that masked the meaning of the message. It seemed a jumble of domestic trivia; but, by marking every fourth word, Quesado learned that his master had sent him an accomplice. She was, the letter said, a woman of seductive beauty.
Quesado allowed himself a thin, discreet smile. Then he penned his usual report on a slender strip of papyrus and sent it winging north to far Tarantia.
While the army drilled, sweated, and increased in size, Conan bade farewell to the Lady Belesa and her youthful protegee. He saw their carriage go rattling off along the coastal road to Zingara, with a squad of sturdy guards riding before and behind. Hidden in the baggage, an iron-bound box enclosed sufficient gold to keep Belesa and Tina in comfort for many years, and Conan hoped that he would see no more of them.
Although the burly Cimmerian was sensible of Belesa’s charms, he intended at this point to become entangled with no woman, least of all with a delicate gentlewoman, for whom there was no place in the wardrooms of war. Later, should the rebellion triumph, he might require a royal marriage to seciure his throne. For thrones, however high their cost in common blood, must ofttimes be defended by the mystic power engendered by the blood of kings.
Still, Conan felt the pangs of lust no less than any active, virile man. Long had he been without a woman, and he showed his deprivation by curt words, sullen moods and stormy explosions of temper. At last Prospero, divining the cause of these black moods, ventured to suggest that Conan might do well to set his eyes upon the tavern trulls of Messantia.
“With luck and discernment. General,” he said, "you could find a bedmate to your fancy."
Prospero was unaware that his words buzzed like horseflies in the ears of a lank Zingaran mercenary, who huddled nearby with his back against a tent-stake, head bowed forward on his knees, apparently asleep.
Conan, equally unmindful, shrugged off his friend’s suggestion. But as the days passed, desire battled with his self-control. And with every passing night, his need waxed more compelling.
Day by day, the army grew. Archers from the Bossonian Marches, pikemen from Gunderland, light horse from Poitain, and men of high and low degree from all of Aquilonia streamed in. The drill field resounded to the shouts of commands, the tramp of infantry, the thunder of cavalry, the snap of bowstrings, and the whistle of arrows. Conan, Prospero, and Trocero labored ceaselessly to forge their raw recruits into a well-trained army. But whether this force, cobbled together from far-flung lands and never battle-tested, could withstand the crack troops of the hard-riding, hard-fighting, and victorious Amulius Procas, no man knew.