No more did thoughts of Synelle clog his mind. With the death of the second of his attackers he had remembered Machaon telling him of two young nobles watching the house where the Free-Company was quartered. That two different lordlings should attack him on the very next day was beyond his belief. The one had called loudly that Conan had robbed the other, as if inviting witnesses. Hardly the act of one intending murder, but perhaps slaying him had been but part of their plan.
Had they succeeded, who in Ianthe would have taken the part of a dead barbarian over that of two from noble houses? The people rushing by had done their best to ignore what happened, but if collared by a noble and pressed, which of them would not remember that Conan had been accused of theft and had then attacked the two, proving his guilt? With a King’s Justice and a column of Ophirean infantry, Demetrios and his friend could have descended on the Free-Company, demanded the object they claimed had been stolen—and which they could no doubt describe as well as Conan—and have the house torn apart to find it. The bronze would have been in the hands of those who sought to use it. Boros might try to speak of evil gods and rites beneath Tor Al’Kiir, or Julia, but no ear would pay heed to the pratings of a drunken former apprentice mage, nor the babblings of a pot-girl.
Conan quickened his pace, brimming with an urgent need to assure himself that the image still lay beneath the floorboards of his sleeping chamber. He had become convinced of one thing. He would not have another night of rest in Ophir until that malevolent figure was beyond the reach of men.
The black candles guttered out, and Synelle lowered her hands with a satisfied sigh. The spell binding the barbarian had been altered. He was still held, but with more subtle desires than before.
With a weary groan she sagged to a low stool, wincing with the movement, and brushed spun silver hair back from her face. She pulled her cloak—that unadorned covering of scarlet wool had been all she had taken time to snatch in her flight, and it had been flight—about her nakedness. Her breasts were swollen and tender, her thighs and bottom bruised by Conan’s fierce desires.
“How could I have known what would be unleashed in him?” she whispered. “Who could have thought a man could be so … .” She shivered uncontrollably.
In the barbarian’s arms she had felt gripped by a force of nature as irresistable as an avalanche. Fires he had built in her, feeding them till they raged out of control. And when the leaping flames had consumed all before them, when he had quenched and slaked what he had aroused, he stoked still new fires. She had tried to bring that endless cycle to a halt, more than once she had tried—memories flooded her, memories of incoherent cries when words could not be formed and reason clung by the slenderest of threads to but a single corner of her passion-drugged mind—but her sorcery had not only wakened lust in him, it had magnified that lust, made it insatiable, overwhelming. His powerful hands had handled her like a doll. His hands, so strong, so knowing and sure of her.
“No,” she muttered angrily.
She would not think of his hands. That way led to weakness. She would remember instead the humiliation of crawling weakly from her own bed when the barbarian fell at last to slumber, slinking like a thief for fear of waking him, of waking the desire that would bloom in him when his eyes touched her. On the floor of her secret chamber she had slept, curled on the hard marble with only the cloak for covering and lacking even the mat the meanest of her slaves would have, too exhausted to think or dream. Remember that, she told herself, and not the pleasures that sent tendrils of heat through her belly even in remembrance.
A ragged cry broke from her throat, and she staggered to her feet to pace the room. Her eye fell on the silver plate, black tallow hardening at its edges, the ash of blood and hair lying on its surface. The spell was altered. Not again would she have to face a night where she was a mote caught in the stormwind of the giant barbarian’s desires. Her breathing slowed, grew more normal. He was still hers, he would still bring her to rapture, but his lusts would be more controllable. Controllable by her, that is.
“Why did I fear it so long?” she laughed softly. Taken altogether, this thing of men was quite wonderful. “They must simply be controlled, and then their vaunted strength and power can avail them nothing.”
That was the lesson women had not learned, that she had only just come to. If women would not be controlled by men, then they must rather control men. She had always coveted power. How strange and beautiful that power should be the key to safety in this as well!
A knock at the door shattered her musings. Who would dare disturb her there? The rapping came again, more insistent this time. Gathering her cloak across her breasts with one hand, she flung open the door, tongue ready to flay whoever had violated her sanctorum.
A surprised, “You!” slipped out instead.
“Yes, me,” Taramenon said. His face was tight with barely controlled anger. “I came to speak to you last night, but you were … occupied.”
Laying a hand gently on his chest, she pushed him back—how easily he moved, even in his rage —and closed the door firmly behind her. No man, not even he, would ever enter that chamber.
“It is well you are here,” she said as if he had had no accusation in his words. “There are matters of which we must speak. A woman must be found—”
“You were with him,” the tall nobleman grated. “You gave that barbarian swine what was promised to me.”
Synelle drew herself to her full height, and flung cold fury at him like a dagger. “Whatever I gave was mine to give. Whatever I did was mine to do, and none with right to gainsay me.”
“I will slay him,” Taramenon moaned in anguish, “like a dog in the dirt.”
“You will slay whom I tell you to slay, when I tell you to slay them.” Synelle softened her voice; shock had driven anger from Taramenon’s face. There was still uses for the man, and she had long since learned means of controlling him that had naught to do with sorcery. “The barber will be useful for a time. Later you may kill him if you wish.”
The last had been a sudden thought. Conan was a wonderful lover, but why limit herself to one? Men did not limit themselves to one woman. Yet the young giant would always hold a place in her affections for the vistas of pleasure he opened to her; when she was Queen of Ophir she would have a magnificent tomb erected for him.
“I found the brigand you wanted,” Taramenon muttered sullenly. “A woman.”
Synelle’s eyebrows arched. “A woman bandit? A hardened trull, no doubt, with greasy hair and gimlet eye.”
“She is,” he replied, “the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”
Synelle flinched, and her jaw tightened. Why had the fool forced his presence on her before her tire-maids could see to her toilet? “So long as she brings me the scrolls from Inaros’ library, I care not what she looks like.” He chuckled, and she stared at him. Suddenly he was more relaxed, as if he thought he was in command. “If you think to make sport of me,” she began dangerously.
“I did not send her after Inaros’ scrolls,” Taramenon said.
Words froze in her throat. When she found speech again
she hissed at him. “And pray tell me why not?”
“Because I sent her after the image of Al’Kiir that you speak. She knows where it is. She described it to me. It will be I who provide you with what you so desperately need. Did you think you could hide your impatience, your eagerness beyond that you’ve ever shown for all the parchments and artifacts you have gathered placed together? I bring it to you, Synelle, not that barbar animal, and I expect at least the reward that he got.”