But how? What was going on in each crafty mind? Belesa felt oppressed and stifled by the atmosphere of hatred and treachery. The Cimmerian, for all his ferocious frankness, was no less subtle than the others—and even fiercer. His domination of the situation was not physical alone, although his gigantic shoulders and massive limbs seemed too big for even the great hall. There was an iron vitality about the man that overshadowed even the hard vigor of the other freebooters.
“Lead us to the treasure!” Zarono demanded.
“Wait a bit,” answered Conan. “We must keep our power evenly balanced, so that one cannot take advantage of the others. We’ll work it thus: Strom’s men shall come ashore, all but a half-dozen or so, and camp on the beach. Zarono’s men shall come out of the fort and likewise camp on the strand, within easy sight of them. Then each crew can watch the other, to see that nobody slips after us who go for the treasure, to ambush either of us. Those left aboard the Red Hand shall take her out into the bay, out of reach of either party. Valenso’s men shall stay in the fort but leave the gate open. Will you come with us, Count?”
“Go into that forest?” Valenso shuddered and drew his cloak about his shoulders. “Not for all the gold of Tranicos!”
“All right. Twill take about thirty men to carry the loot. We’ll take fifteen from each crew and start as soon as we can.”
Belesa, keenly alert to every angle of the drama being played out beneath her, saw Zarono and Strombanni shoot furtive glances at each other, then quickly lower their gaze as they lifted their glasses, to hide the murky intent in their eyes. She perceived the fatal weakness in Conan’s plan and wondered how he could have overlooked it. Perhaps he was too arrogantly confident in his personal prowess. But she knew that he would never come out of that forest alive. Once the treasure was in their grasp, the others would form a rogue’s alliance long enough to rid themselves of the man both hated. She shuddered, staring morbidly at the man she knew to be doomed. Strange to see that powerful fighting man sitting there, laughing and swilling wine, in full prime and power, and to know that he was already doomed to a bloody death. The whole situation was pregnant with dark and bloody portents. Zarono would trick and kill Strombanni if he could, and she knew that Strombanni had already marked Zarono for death and, doubtless, her uncle and herself also. If Zarono won the final battle of cruel wits, their lives were safe—but, looking at the buccaneer as he sat there chewing his mustache, with all the stark evil of his nature showing naked in his dark face, she could not decide which was more abhorrent—death or Zarono. “How far is it?” demanded Strombanni.
“If we start within the hour, we can be back before midnight,” answered Conan.
He emptied his goblet, rose, adjusted his girdle, and glanced at the count.
“Valenso,” he said, “are you mad, to kill a Pict in his hunting paint?”
Valenso started. “What do you mean?”
“Do you mean to say you don’t know that your men killed a Pict hunter in the woods last night?”
The count shook his head. “None of my men was in the woods last night.”
“Well, somebody was,” grunted the Cimmerian, fumbling in a pocket. “I saw his head nailed to a tree near the edge of the forest. He wasn’t painted for war. I found no boot tracks, from which I judged that it had been nailed up there before the storm. But there were plenty of other signs—moccasin tracks on the wet ground. Picts have been there and seen that head. They were men of some other clan, or they’d have taken it down. If they happen to be at peace with the clan the dead man belonged to, they’ll mate tracks to his village to tell his tribe.”
“Perhaps they slew him,” suggested Valenso.
“No, they didn’t. But they know who did, for the same reason that I know. This chain was knotted about the stump of the severed neck. You must have been utterly mad, to identify your handiwork like that.” He drew forth something and tossed it on the table before the count, who lurched up, choking, as his hand flew to his throat. It was the gold seal-chain that he had habitually worn about his neck.
“I recognized the Korzetta seal,” said Conan. “The presence of that chain alone would tell any Pict it was the work of a foreigner.”
Valenso did not reply. He sat staring at the chain as if at a venomous serpent Conan scowled at him and glanced questioningly at the others. Zarono made a quick gesture to indicate that the count was not quite right in the head. Conan sheathed his cutlass and donned his lacquered hat.
“All right; let’s go,” he said.
The captains gulped down their wine and rose, hitching at their sword belts. Zarono laid a hand on Valenso’s arm and shook him slightly. The count started and stared about him, then followed the others out like a man in a daze, the chain dangling from his fingers. But not all left the hall.
Forgotten on the stair, Belesa and Tina, peeping between the balusters, saw Galbro fall behind the others, loitering until the heavy door closed after them. Then he hurried to the fireplace and raked carefully at the smouldering coals. He sank to his knees and peered closely at something for a long space. Then he straightened and, with a furtive air, stole out of the hall by another door.
Tina whispered: “What did Galbro find in the fire?”
Belesa shook her head; then, obeying the promptings of her curiosity, rose and went down to the empty hall.
An instant later, she was kneeling where the seneschal had knelt, and she saw what he had seen.
It was the charred remnant of the map that Conan had thrown into the fire. It was ready to crumble at a touch, but faint lines and bits of writing were still discernible upon it. She could not read the writing, but she could trace the outlines of what seemed to be the picture of a hill or crag, surrounded by marks evidently representing dense trees. She could make nothing of it; but, from Galbro’s actions, she believed that he recognized it as portraying some scene or topographical feature familiar to him. She knew the seneschal had penetrated inland further than any other man of the settlement.
VI. The Plunder of the Dead
The fortress stood strangely quiet in the noonday heat that had followed the storm of the dawn. Voices of people within the stockade sounded subdued, muffled. The same drowsy stillness reigned on the beach outside, where the rival crews lay in armed suspicion, separated by a few hundred yards of bare sand. Far out in the bay, the Red Hand lay at anchor with a handful of men aboard her, ready to snatch her out of reach at the slightest indication of treachery. The carack was Strombanni’s trump card, his best guaranty against the trickery of his associates.
Belesa came down the stair and paused at the sight of Count Valenso seated at the table, turning the broken chain about in his hands. She looked at him without love and with more than a little fear. The change that had come over him was appalling; he seemed to be locked up in a grim world all his own, with a fear that flogged all human characteristics out of him.
Conan had plotted shrewdly to eliminate the chances of an ambush in the forest by either party. But, as far as Belesa could see, he had failed utterly to safeguard himself against the treachery of his companions. He had disappeared into the woods, leading the two captains and their thirty men, and the Zingaran girl was positive that she would never see him alive again. Presently she spoke, and her voice was strained and harsh to her own ear: “The barbarian has led the captains into the forest. When they have the gold in their hands, they’ll slay him. But when they return with the treasure, what then? Are we to go aboard the ship? Can we trust Strombanni?”