Conan of Venarium

Since Conan was convinced his father was raving like a lunatic, he could not very well nod again. Yet to shake his head would have been to deny the plain import of his father's words. With both choices bad, he walked on, pretending he had not heard. Mordec's rumbling chuckle said the pretense was imperfectly convincing. Conan flushed once more.

They walked into Duthil side by side, Conan matching his father's long, tireless strides. Villagers and two or three soldiers from the camp not far away were on the main street. Conan, who had had no company save Nectan and a flock for the past month, stared in wonder at so many people all together.

A ball came rolling his way. Before he could do anything about it, his father leaped forward, kicked it with all his might, and sent it flying far down the street. The usual shouting pack of boys chased after it. "I liked that," said Mordec, more cheerfully than Conan was used to hearing him speak. "When you grow up, you don't get the chance for such things so often, and that's a cursed shame." He pointed to the boys. "Do you want to get into the game? Do it while you can."

But Conan shook his head. After a month tending sheep, kicking a ball seemed a childish pursuit. He had been playing games all his life. If his father enjoyed them so much, he was welcome to them.

And then Conan forgot Mordec, forgot the ball, forgot everything around him, for up the street toward him came Tarla, a brass-bound wooden water bucket on her hip. He hurried toward her. "Are you all right?" he demanded.

Though she had no more years then he, she knew what to do with them. Her cool gray eyes measured him with womanly precision. Her gaze made him realize how seldom he had washed, how seldom he had run a bone comb through his hair, in all the time he had spent with Nectan. The shepherd cared nothing for such fripperies, and Conan had cared for them no more. Now, too late, he did. He stared down at the mud under his boots.

"Of course I'm all right," answered Tarla. In Conan's ears, her voice might have been the chiming of silver bells, even though she continued, "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Why? Because of that—that blackguard Stercus." Conan had learned some fine new curses from Nectan, and wanted to tar the Aquilonian nobleman's name with all of them. Somehow, though, he did not think that would improve his standing with Balarg's daughter, and so he swallowed most of what he might have said.

Tarla tossed her pretty head. Sable curls flew. "Oh, he's not so bad," she said, and sniffed. "At least he bathes now and again."

Even a few weeks earlier, that sally would have sent Conan off in headlong retreat. As much as anything else, what made him stand his ground was the loathing he felt for Stercus. Once more in lieu of worse, he said, "He's nothing but a damned invader."

The weaver's daughter tossed her head again. "And what business is it of yours, Conan, who I see or what I do?"

His father had reminded him such things were Balarg's business first, and not his own. From Mordec, those were only words, words to be evaded or ignored. From Tarla, they were a thrust through the heart. Again, though, he did not flee. "What business is it of mine?" he repeated. "The business of someone who— " He broke off. He did not flee, no, but he could not go on, either.

Yet what he managed to say was enough to draw Tarla's notice in a way nothing that came before had done. She leaned forward, and had to make a hasty grab at the water bucket to keep it from slipping from its place. "Someone who what?" she asked softly.

"Someone who thinks you should have nothing to do with the stinking Aquilonian, that's what!" blurted Conan.

Tarla's gaze went hard as flint, cold as ice. "You would know more about stinking than Stercus does," she said, and pushed past the blacksmith's son, walking on toward her father's house with angry, determined steps.

Conan stared helplessly after her. He knew he had blundered. He even knew what he should have said —not that that did him any good now. He kicked at the dirt and snarled some of the things he had wanted to call Stercus, bringing the curses down on his own head instead.

"Come on, son," said Mordec. Conan started; he had almost forgotten his father. The blacksmith added, "Maybe time will mend it. That often chances."

"It's ruined," said Conan. If something was wrong now, it would stay a disaster forever. That was a law of nature, especially when one was thirteen.

"We lost the fight against the cursed Aquilonians," said his father. "Do you suppose we'll stay quiet under their heels forever? Things have a way of changing."