Conan of Venarium

When Melcer saw the Cimmerian, his grip on the pike tightened again. But the man of the north was in anything but a warlike mood. Pleased with his purchase, he beamed at Melcer as he walked by. The farmer, caught off guard, smiled back. Out in the woods, he would not have trusted the barbarian for an instant—though the youngster called Conan had caused him no trouble in several visits to his farm. Here in Venarium, even a full-grown Cimmerian seemed safe enough.

So Melcer thought, at any rate, until he rounded a corner and espied a drunken Cimmerian sprawled, oblivious to the world around him, outside the door to one of the many taverns in the new town. A blond Gunderman, at least as sodden, lay beside him in the gutter. Venarium might bring barbarians to civilization, but it also dragged civilized men down to barbarism.

Melcer made his way to a miller's a few doors beyond the tavern. There he bought flour poured into sacks of coarse canvas. He lashed them onto the ox's back, then led it in the direction of the fort. It followed. What choice did it have? It was but a slave. Melcer prided himself on his freedom.

He had to pause at a corner while soldiers led manacled Cimmerian captives toward Fort Venarium. They too would be slaves, either here or down in the mines of Aquilonia. A short life, that, but not a merry one. The difference between the ox and the barbarians was that they had known freedom's sweetness, and knew it was taken from them.

Melcer stopped at a shop that sold what it called notions: little things of the sort a farmer was ill-equipped to make for himself. Melcer bought some fine iron needles for Evlea; she was down to the last one fetched from Gunderland, and had talked about making more from bone. He also bought her a sachet of dried rose petals. Drying flowers in the cool damp of Cimmeria was a losing proposition. And, to give their food a little extra savor, he bought some spices that had made the long journey from Iranistan to Aquilonia and then to the frontier.

How much the spices cost jolted him. The man who ran the shop only shrugged his shoulders. "What I have to sell is what bandits did not steal and what kings did not confiscate." he said. "You pay for all the hardships and robberies on the road."

"What did you pay for your goods?" asked Melcer.

"Less than I'm charging you," answered the merchant. "If you think I will tell you otherwise, you are wrong. I have not seen it written anywhere in the stars that I am not allowed to make a living."

He sent Melcer a challenging stare. Since he was so frank about what he was doing, Melcer saw no real way to quarrel with him. The farmer did ask, "How much would I have to give for pepper and cinnamon in some other shop here?"

"Go ahead and try, friend, and good luck to you," said the other man. "Good luck finding them at all, first. And if you find them for less, bring back what you bought from me and I will give back your money."

That convinced Melcer not to waste his time trying. He led the ox down the street to a tavern that had no drunks from any nation lying sozzled outside it. He tied the beast to a pillar supporting the entrance, then strode inside and ordered a mug of ale. He sat down where he could keep an eye on the ox. It had only the flour on its back; the smaller things he had bought he kept with him. But even an ox with nothing on its back might tempt a thief.

When the Gunderman finished that first mug of ale, he bought himself a second. When he finished the second, the pretty barmaid who had brought it came back with a broad, inviting, expectant smile. Instead of ordering a third, he got up and walked out of the tavern. The smiling barmaid cursed him behind his back. Pretending not to hear, Melcer kept walking. He untied the ox and started back to his farm.

He was inside the forest again and within a mile of his own land when an arrow hissed past his face and thudded into the bole of a fir to his right. He clutched his pike and stared in the direction from which the shaft had come. He saw nothing. He heard nothing. A ghost might have drawn the bow. He pounded that way anyhow. If a brigand wanted him, he would go down fighting.

After a few strides through ever thicker snow, he did hear something: laughter. Snowshoes on his feet, Conan emerged from behind a pine. "You jump!" he shouted in his bad Aquilonian. "You jump high!" He imitated Melcer's reaction, then laughed harder than ever.

"Of course I jumped, you cursed son of a dog!" shouted Melcer. "You could have killed me!"

Conan only nodded at that. "Could have killed, yes. Did not kill. Too easy. No-" He said something in his own language, then frowned, looking for a way to put it into Melcer's. When he brightened, the farmer knew he had found it. "No sport. Is a word, sport?"

"Yes, sport's a word," growled Melcer. "Come down here and I'll warm your behind for you, you damned murderous savage. I'll teach you words, by Mitra!"