Conan the Triumphant (Robert Jordan's Conan Novels 4) - Page 14

Conan reached for her, and at that instant a bellow of pain and rage echoed down the halls. He spun, grabbing instead for the leather-wrapped hilt of his sword. The cry came again, from above he was certain.

“Timeon,” he muttered. His blade came into his hand, and he was running, shouting as he ran. “Rouse yourselves, you poxed rouges! ’Tis the baron screaming like a woman in birth! To arms, curse you!”

Servants and slaves ran hysterically, shrieking and waving their arms at his shouts. Men of the company knocked them aside without compunction as they poured out of the corners where they had been taking their ease. Helmets were tugged on and swords waved as a growing knot of warriors followed the big Cimmerian up marble stairs.

In the corrider outside Timeon’s chamber the two guards Conan had caused to be set there stood staring dumbfounded at the ornately carved door. Conan slammed into that door at a dead run, smashing it open.

Timeon lay in the middle of a multi-hued Iranistani carpet, his body wracked by convulsions, heels drumming, plump hands clawing at his throat. His head was thrown back, and every time he managed to fight a breath he loosed it again in a scream. Tivia, his leman, stood with her back to a wall, clutching a cloak about her tightly, her eyes, large and dark, fixed on the helplessly jerking man in an expression of horror. An overturned goblet lay near Timeon, and a puddle of wine soaking into the rug.

“Zandru’s Hells!” Conan growled. His eye lit on Machaon, forcing his way through the men crowding the hall. “A physician, Machaon. Quickly! Timeon’s poisoned!”

“Boros is in the kitchens,” the tattoed man called back. Conan hesitated, and the other saw it. “Curse it, Cimmerian, it’ll take half the day to get another.”

Timeon’s struggles were growing weaker; his screams had become moans of agony. Conan nodded. “Fetch him, then.”

Machaon disappeared, and Conan turned back to the man on the floor. How had the fool gotten himself poisoned? The answer might mean life or death to him and the rest of the company. And he had to have the answer before the matter was turned over to the King’s torturers. Valdric might ignore the great part of what was happening in his country, but he would not ignore the murder of a noble in the very shadow of his throne.

“Narus!” Conan shouted. The hollow-faced man stuck his head into the room. “Secure the palace. No one leaves, nor any message, till I say. Hurry, man!”

As Narus left Machaon hurried Boros into the room. The former mage’s apprentice looked sober at least, Conan was glad to see.

“He’s poisoned,” the Cimmerian said.

Boros looked at him as he might at a child. “I can see that.”

Fumbling in his pouch the gray-bearded man knelt beside Timeon. Quickly he produced a smooth white stone the size of a man’s fist and a small knife. With difficulty he straightened one of the baron’s arms, pushed up the sleeve of his robe, and made a deep cut. As blood welled up he pressed the white stone to the cut. When he took his hand away the stone remained, tendrils of black appearing in it.

“Bezoar-stone,” Boros announced to the room. “Sovereign for poison. A physician’s tool, strictly speaking, but I find it useful. Yes.”

He tugged at his full beard and bent to study the stone. It was full black, now, and as they watched it beca

me blacker, as a burned cinder, as a raven’s wing, and blacker still. Suddenly the stone shattered. In the same moment a last breath rattled in Timeon’s throat, and the fat baron was still.

“He’s dead,” Conan breathed. “I thought you said that accursed stone was sovereign for poison!”

“Look at it!” Boros wailed. “My stone is ruined. ’Twould take poison enough to kill ten men to do that. I could not have saved him with a sack full of bezoar-stones.”

“It is murder, then,” Narus breathed. A murmur of disquiet ripplied through the men in the corridor.

Conan’s hand tightened on his sword. Most of the three-score who followed him now he had recruited in Ophir, a polyglot crew from half a dozen lands, and their allegiance to him was not as strong as that of the original few. They had faced battle with him often—such was the way of the life they led, and accepted by them—but unless he found the murderer quickly fear of being put to the question would do what no enemy had ever been able to. Send them scattering to the four winds.

“Do you want me to find who put the poison in the wine?” Boros asked.

For a moment Conan could only gape. “You can do that?” he demanded finally. “Erlik blast you, are you sober enough? An you make some drunkard’s mistake, I’ll shave your corpse.”

“I’m as sober as a priest of Mitra,” Boros replied. “More so than most. You, girl. The wine came from that?” He pointed to a crystal flagon, half-filled with ruby wine, on a table near the bed. Tivia’s mouth opened, but no words came out. Boros shook his head. “No matter. I see no other, so the wine must have come from there.” Climbing to his feet with a grunt, he delved into his pouch once more.

“Is he truly sober?” Conan said quietly to Machaon.

The grizzled man tugged nervously at the three thin gold rings dangling from the lobe of his right ear. “I think so. Fabio likes his company, but doesn’t let him drink. Usually.”

The Cimmerian sighed. Avoiding the hot irons meant trusting a man who might give them all leprosy by mistake.

With a stick of charcoal Boros scribed figures on the tabletop around the flagon of wine. Slowly he began to chant, so softly that the words were inaudible to the others in the room. With his left hand he sprinkled powder from a twist of parchment over the flagon; his right traced obscure patterns in the air. A red glow grew in the crystal container.

“There,” Boros said, dropping his hands. “A simple thing, really.” He stared at the flagon and frowned. “Cimmerian, the poisoner is close by. The glow tells.”

“Crom,” Conan muttered. The men who had been in the doorway crowded back into the hall.

Tags: Robert Jordan Robert Jordan's Conan Novels Fantasy
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