Choking rasps came from Stephano’s throat as the simulacrum of Garian dropped him. Eyes staring from his head, face empurpling, the sculptor clawed helplessly at his throat. His back arched in his struggles till naught but head and drumming heels touched the floor.
Albanus watched the death throes dispassionately, and when the last twitching foot had stilled, he said softly, “Nine hundred fifty more will go with you to your unmarked grave. What I promise, I give.” His shoulders shook with silent mirth. When the spasm had passed, he turned briskly to the likeness of Garian, still standing impassively over the body. “As for you, there is much to learn and little time. Tonight … .”
XVII
Ariane sat despondently, staring at nothing. Around her the common room of the Thestis murmured with intrigue. No musicians played, and men and women whispered as they huddled together over their tables. Reaching a decision, Ariane got to her feet and made her way through the tables to Graecus.
“I must talk to you, Graecus,” she said quietly. That deathly silence had contaminated her also.
“Later,” the stocky sculptor muttered without looking at her. To the others at his table he went on in a low, insistent voice. “I tell you, it matters not if Taras is dead. I know where the weapons are stored. In half a day I—”
Ariane felt some of her old fire rekindle. “Graecus!” In that room of whispers the sharp word sounded like a shout. Everyone at the table stared at her. “Has it not occurred to you,” she continued, “that perhaps we are being betrayed?”
“Conan,” Graecus began, but she cut him off.
“Not Conan.”
“He killed Taras,” a plump, pale-skinned brunette said. “You saw that yourself. And he’s taken Garian’s coin openly, now.”
“Yes, Gallia,” Ariane said patiently. “But if Conan had betrayed us, would not the Golden Leopards arrest us?” Silent stares answered her. “He has not betrayed us. Mayhap he spoke the truth abou
t Taras. Perhaps there are no armed men waiting for us to lead the people into the streets. Perhaps we’ll find we are no more than a stalking horse for some other’s plan.”
“By Erlik’s Throne,” Graecus grumbled, “you speak rubbish, Ariane.”
“Perhaps I do,” she sighed wearily, “but at least discuss it with me. Resolve my doubts, if you can. Do you truly have none at all?”
“Take your doubts back to your corner,” Graecus told her. “While you sit doubting, we will pull Garian from his throne.”
Gallia sniffed loudly. “What can you expect from one who spends so much time with that one-eyed ruffian?”
“Thank you, Gallia,” Ariane said. She smiled for the first time since entering the room where Conan stood above Taras’ body, and left the table to get her cloak. Graecus and the others stared at her as if she were mad.
Hordo was the answer to her problem, she realized. Not as one to talk to, of course. An she mentioned her doubts to him, he would gruffly tell her that Conan betrayed no one. Then he would pinch her bottom and try to inveigle his way into her bed. He had done all of those things already. But he had visited her earlier that afternoon, and had told her that Stephano lived, and was at the palace of Lord Albanus. The sculptor had had a good mind and a facile tongue before his jealousy of Conan soured him. Either he would dispel her doubts, convincing her of the big Cimmerian’s guilt, or, convinced himself he would return with her to the Thestis to help her convince the rest. She wrapped her cloak about her and hurried into the street.
When she reached the Street of Regrets she began to rue her decision to leave the Thestis. That street, always alive with flash and tawdry glitter, lay bare to the wind that rolled pitiful remnants across the paving stones. A juggler’s parti-colored cap. A silken scarf, soiled and torn. In the distance a dog howled, the sound echoing down other empty streets. Shivering, though not from the wind, Ariane quickened her pace.
By the time she reached Albanus’ palace, she was running, though nothing pursued her but emptiness. Panting, she fell against the gate, her small fist pounding on the iron-bound planks. “Let me in!”
A suspicious eye regarded her through a small opening in the gate, swiveling both ways to see if she was accompanied.
“Mitra’s mercy, let me in!”
The bars rattled aside, and the guard opened a crack barely wide enough for her to slip through.
Before she had taken a full step inside an arm seized her about the waist, swinging her into the air with crude laughter. She gasped as a hand squeezed her buttock roughly, and she looked down into a narrow face. The nose had the tip gone.
“A fine bit,” he laughed. “Enough to keep us all warm, even in this wind.” His half-score companions added their jocularity to his.
The mirth drained from his face as he felt the point of her short dagger prick him under the ear. “I am the Lady Ariane Pandarian,” she hissed coldly. Mitra, how long had it been since she had used that name? “An Lord Albanus leaves anything of you, I’ve no doubt my father will tend to the rest.”
His hands left her as though scalded; her feet thumped to the ground. “Your pardon, my lady,” he stammered. The rest stared with mouths open. “All honor to you. I did not mean … .”
“I will find my own way,” she announced haughtily, and swept away while he was still attempting to fit together an apology.
Arrogance, she decided as she made her way up the flagstone walk, was her only hope, arriving at a lord’s palace without servants or guards. When one of the great carven doors was opened by a gray-bearded man with a chamberlain’s seal on his tunic, her large hazel eyes were adamantine.
“I am the Lady Ariane Pandarian,” she announced. “Show me to the sculptor, Stephano Melliarus.”