Conan of Venarium

The prospect of helping his mother was enough to make Conan listen to his father. He dashed back to the kitchen to pour the ale. Verina reluctantly perched on the stool Mordec had vacated. Had she and her husband and son been alone in the house, the blacksmith doubted she would have. Instead, she would have stubbornly stayed on her feet until she fell in a faint, which might not have taken long. But with Loarn watching what went on, she did not care to quarrel too openly with her husband.

"Here you are, Mother." Conan hurried up with another mug of ale.

"Thank you, Conan." Verina was polite with him, where she had wasted no courteous words on Mordec.

Loarn tore into his food, as a man will when for a long time he has not eaten so much as he would have liked. After only bones and crumbs were left, he licked his fingers clean and wiped them dry on the checked wool of his breeks. That done, he bobbed his head to Mordec. "I thank you kindly," he said. "You've always made a prime host, that you have, but you've outdone yourself now, times being so hard for you. To the ravens with me if I know how I can pay you back."

"Your company is enough," said Verina, determined to make everything seem as smooth as it could.

But Mordec shook his head. "If you want to repay me, Loarn, spread the word of what's happened here in the south far and wide, so the rest of Cimmeria does learn of it."

"I'd do that anyhow, for my own honor's sake," said the tinker. "I'll gladly do it for yours as well."

At Mordec's direction, Conan brought Loarn blankets and a pillow, so the guest could stretch out on the floor by the forge, whose banked fire and hot brickwork would help keep him warm through the night. Giving Loarn a pillow meant Conan himself would go without one, but he did not grudge the peddler the best the house had to offer. Hospitality toward friends was as important a duty as vengeance against enemies.

Thirst for that vengeance made Conan's blood boil as he waited for sleep in his narrow bed. He imagined Count Stercus abusing Tarla rather than the girl from Rosinish. He imagined himself slaughtering Stercus and all the Gundermen and Bossonians who followed him. Such gore-soaked images helped soothe the boy, as softer toys might have soothed children in softer lands.

For his part, Mordec was also a long time finding slumber.

What would the Cimmerians still free do when they learned some of their cousins had passed into Aquilonian dominion? The blacksmith hoped such news would inflame them to come to their countrymen's rescue. That was what he hoped, but how much truth mingled with hope? The rest of the Cimmerians might easily decide the men of the south had proved themselves weaklings who deserved whatever happened to them. Like its god, this country's people had scant forgiveness in them, scant tolerance for weakness.

But they did have the barbarian's innate love of freedom. Mordec pinned his hopes there. Surely the other Cimmerians would see that, if one part of their land fell under King Numedides' iron first, the rest could easily follow. Surely they would want to make sure such a disaster did not befall them. Surely they would —would they not?

Grunting worriedly as sleep overtook him, Mordec at last began to snore.

Chapter Five

Wolves and Demon

Winter came early to Cimmeria, as it did more winters than not. Winds howled down from the north, from the ever-frozen lands of Vanaheim and Asgard. When times got hard, red-haired and blond wolves who ran on two legs might swoop down on Cimmeria to carry off what they could. In a usual year, men from southern Cimmeria could fare north to help drive back the marauders, who even to them seemed savage. Now, though, with Count Stercus and the colonists carving out a toehold for King Numedides of Aquilonia here in the south, the clans near the northern borders would have to shift for themselves if danger came their way.

No word of rampaging AEsir or Vanir came down to Duthil: only one blizzard after another, blizzards that piled the snow in thick drifts and left trees so covered in white, their greenery all but disappeared. Hunting was hard. Even moving was often hard. Winter was the bleak time of the year, the time when folk lived on what they had brought in during the harvest and hoped they would not have to eat next year's seed grain to keep from starving.

For those who did not make their living directly from the fields, those like Conan and his family, winter was an even chancier season than for most others. If people had not the rye and oats to give Mordec for his labor, what were he and Conan and Verina to do? They had had hungry winters before. This looked like another one.