Conan of Venarium

"What if- " But Mordec broke off with that question unspoken. If he asked Balarg whether Tarla would entertain a suitor from Venarium, he would mortally insult the other villager, and their feud would burst into flame whether he wanted it to or not. Or, worse, Balarg might make it plain that he would entertain a suit from Stercus, in which case Mordec did not see how he could keep from inflaming the feud himself.

Being a clever man, Balarg saw much of that, if not all, regardless of whether Mordec finished the question. "I think you have said enough," growled the weaver. "I think you have said too much. And I think you had better go, or one of our wives will be a widow before the sun sets tonight."

"Oh, I'll leave," said Mordec. "But I will tell you one thing more, Balarg: you are no blacksmith, and you know nothing of the fire you play with." He turned on his heel and tramped out into the street.

The boys' ball came bounding toward him. Before he thought, he drew back his foot, then shot it forward. His toe met the ball squarely and sent it flying over the houses of Duthil and far out into the fields beyond. The boys skidded to a stop, their necks craning comically as they turned in unison to follow the flight of the ball. When at last it thudded to earth, some of them ran after it. Others stared in awe at Mordec.

"Nobody can kick like that," said one.

"He just did, Wirp," said another. Wirp shook his head, manifestly disbelieving what he had just seen.

Mordec said not a word. He slowly walked back to the smithy, wishing he could boot sense into Balarg as readily as he had vented his spleen on a harmless ball.

On sentry-go outside the Aquilonian camp by Duthil, Granth son of Biemur watched Count Stercus ride south toward Venarium. Turning to his cousin, he said, "I wish he'd find some other village to visit."

Nodding, Vulth answered, "You aren't the only one. The more he comes here, the more trouble I see down the road."

Out of the side of his mouth, Benno said, "Here comes trouble closer than down the road."

Sergeant Nopel emerged from the fortified encampment and bore down on the sentries. Granth tried to straighten up, and also tried not to be too noticeable as he straightened: that might have made Nopel see he'd been slouching. Nopel noticed almost everything; noticing was part of what made him a sergeant. But he only waved now, a world-weary flap of the arm that said he had larger things to fret about than whether his sentries slouched. "As you were, boys," he called.

Despite that, Granth did not relax from the brace he had taken. "What's up, Sergeant?" he asked.

Nopel did not answer right away. He looked toward Duthil. After a moment, Granth realized he was looking beyond Duthil toward the trackless wilderness still inhabited by wild, unsubdued Cimmerians. He said, "The tribes are stirring."

Granth and Vulth and Benno and Daverio stared at one another in consternation. "How do you know that?" asked Daverio.

"How do I know?" said Nopel. "How do I know? By Mi-tra, I'll tell you how I know. I've just come from talking with Captain Treviranus, and he told me. That's how I know." By the way he spoke, he might have had the news from the gods themselves.

Granth was not prepared to disagree with him. As far as the Gunderman was concerned, Treviranus made as good a garrison commander as anyone could want. If he said a thing was so, so it was likely to be. But cynical Daverio asked the question that had barely occurred to Granth: "Well, how does the captain know?"

"How does he know?" Sergeant Nopel sounded as if he could not believe his ears. But the Bossonian bowman nodded. Nopel's frown was fearsome. "Why, because he's heard, that's how."

"Well, who told him?" persisted Daverio. "It wasn't anybody from here, or we'd all have heard about it by now."

And Granth could hardly disagree with that, either. Anything anyone in the garrison knew, everyone in the garrison knew in a matter of minutes. The Gundermen and Bossonians, a tiny island in a vast, hostile sea, had no secrets from one another.

"I don't know who told him. I only know what he told me," said Nopel. He fixed Daverio with a challenging stare. "You want to go tell him he's wrong? You want to tell him you know better, and we can all relax? He'll be glad to hear that. You bet he will."

Daverio was a hard and stubborn man, but no common soldier would have been so rash as to beard Captain Treviranus in his den. He shook his head now, saying, "I'm trying to find out what's going on, that's all. If the tribes are stirring out there somewhere, what are we supposed to do about it?"