The Harp and the Blade (7 page)

Conan, on the other hand, though equally concealed from me, had a credible existence. It was pleasant to know that he was stretched out a few feet away, a man I already thought of with a degree of warmth that surprised me. As long as I had allowed myself to be trapped I was glad to know that I had done so for no ordinary man.

He yawned again. “Giving up sleep?” I asked, hoping that he might feel in the mood to talk.

He grunted, and when he finally replied I could tell that he, too, was sitting up. “It gave me up. Next time you rescue me bring along a couple of blankets.”

“Well, we’re warm and cozy compared to the fresh-air fiends out there. Who do you think built this place?”

“It’s Roman work. They had great farms hereabouts. I guess this was a cooler.”

“It’s a good thing you knew about it.”

“I used to come here as a boy. This is my land, though I’ve been much away. I’m glad I’m dying on it.”

“I never had any place,” I said after considering his remark. “I made the mistake of being born to a third son of a chief, so all that they could think to do with me was to farm me out to the Church. But the only thing that caught hold was the poetry I found in the monastery library. So I left when I was ready and have been footloosing it ever since.”

“I was in school in Ireland myself,” he said. “My mother sent me there when my father was killed, so that his local rivals wouldn’t have me done away with also. Yet this land always called to me, and I was determined to have it back. Danes captured me before I was ready, but I didn’t stay a thrall; and I was glad enough to spend some years at Viking work to round out my education at points where it had been neglected. I returned about a year and a half ago.”

“What did the family enemies do about that?”

“Oh, they were all dead or elsewhere, and this immediate district was in such a disorganized state that nobody had any power worth mentioning. The absence of any purposeful active force, not enemies to break, was the first problem with which I found myself confronted. Anyhow, I didn’t really care about vengeance. All I wanted was my land and my people. After my father there was no one capable of looking after them.”

“A man who can look after himself is doing well these days,” I said.

“Yes, but because I saw what had to be done, and knew how it could be done, and because men will follow me I could accomplish things for my people which they couldn’t for themselves.” He was citing a fact, not boasting, and I noted that he, as I had also caught myself doing, was thinking of himself in the past tense. “I didn’t,” he went on, “want my people to be forced either to rot as outlaws or slink through life like starved whores. “

“Chilbert was no help to you,” I suggested.

“No. He used to pillage this locality and now in accordance with his new ambition to be a count he wants to own it. I’ve beat off his raiding parties, but this fall, I hear, he’s going to start a concerted drive for conquest. Originally my scheme called only for retrieving my own, but because Chilbert would not be content with bullying his own domain I have tried to gather strength to break him. Well, I’ve lost out to him—lost other things, too.”

I took it that he referred to a wife and possible children—a man who had such definite knowledge of what he wanted to do with his time as Conan manifested would probably have an ordered domestic scheme as well—but I forbore to ask. There was no woman to mourn for me, I was grateful to think, and the few men who might care would never hear where and in what manner I ended.

I rose to see my last day, looking through the rain at the dim figures of water-logged enemies. “Did you have a nice night, Oliver?” I called solicitously.

“A pretty seedy bunch, if you ask me,” Conan said, clicking his tongue. “What do you figure they’re doing out there, anyhow?”

“They claim as how they’re going to fight us.”

“What? With just those few, scroungy, little warts?” Conan raised his voice in protest. “Look here, Oliver; you’d better get Chilbert to send you some help.”

“They’d probably do better,” I opined, “if they kept out of it altogether and let the dogs do the fighting.”

Conan seemed astonished. “Why, hell, I thought they
were
dogs! All their parents were.”

Some of them started for us at that, but Oliver snarled at them. “Wait till the light’s better!” he ordered.

We ostentatiously ate our breakfast before those hungry men, then we stretched and flexed to work the kinks out of us. Shortly the rain slacked off, stopped soon after; and the sky began clearing. “The sun won’t bother us till late,” Conan remarked, “but then it’ll shine right in our eyes and be the death of us—if we last that long.”

Oliver had the patience of a good leader. He waited until his sodden men had some of the stiffness and dankness worked out of them, while we watched blue spread over a shiny green corner of the earth. “They’re going to rush us this time,” I said, watching them line up three deep.

In a minute they charged at us, four abreast. “Up on the wall!” Conan roared, and we leaped on it to strike down.

The men in front promptly became more interested in warding off our blows than in going forward, but the rear ranks had no such deterrent. They knocked the slowing leaders off balance, and we swooped on the confusion. My blade bit almost through a man’s neck, and I heard another death cry as Conan struck.

The falling men in turn compounded the troubles of our attackers by tumbling back against the on-surging men behind. The force of the rush was broken, and while they jostled each other in an effort to close ranks we hewed at them to wreak havoc. I was wounded in the calf, but once they were no longer charging there were too many of them for their own good, a condition aggravated by the anxiety of all of them to do their share. I drew blood three times in return, and as the last of my victims stumbled I sliced him to his death.

Oliver, who had taken no part in the charge, was quick to see the futility of their broken attack. “Back out of there!” he howled. And then a moment later: “The shields, you fools, the shields!”

It was too late. They had drawn off without the corpses, not risking to stoop for them, and Conan was over the wall. Before they could do anything about it he had chopped the shield arms from two and tossed them into the vault. I have never seen a readier man.

Oliver was shrieking enraged commands, but I had worked the grips from the stiffening fingers by the time he had achieved any reorganization. It was certainly good to have a shield snuggling at my shoulder. I’d felt pretty naked before.

“This is more like it,” Conan grinned. “Now we’ll let them know they’re in a fight.”

“I don’t think they’ll rush us again anyhow,” I said cheerfully.

As a matter of fact they left us entirely alone for a short time while Oliver took stock of the new situation. I tied up my wound, while my friend looked after a gash in his thigh. “Oliver’s a sub-louse, but not an especially stupid sub-louse,” he said in a low voice. “It won’t take him long to see that the way to finish us is to keep hammering at us, never give us a chance to rest. Do you think you could give them a song while he’s making up his mind?”

Pleased at the idea, I took up my harp. It would perhaps be the last time a song of mine was ever heard, for who can know that his work will live after him? I strummed, trying to decide which verses would be most fitting, then determined to improvise. My mind was quick with excitement, and line after line fell in place. The Frankish tirade, excellent for the purpose, was the form I chose. I didn’t have enough time to polish it, of course, but it served well enough.

“The king of the rats once set his seal

Pompously under this decree:

Whereas cats use rats for a meal

And whereas rats don’t like it, we

Order our subjects mercilessly

To hunt down cats, vile each by each,

Leaving none to prolong the breed;

When the last one yowls its final screech

Rats can—but will no more be—feed.

Chilbert, Rex, his cross. All heed!”

Some of the foe were trying to shout me down, but Oliver made them shut up. Not that he enjoyed my song, but he wanted all the quiet he could get while he thought things out. The fact that we now had shields as well as a wall to protect us was diconcerting him. I therefore directed the next strophe at him.

“A rat whose hide was a dirty red

Squeaked that the king had ordered well.

‘A cat’s most winsome when most dead,

Nine times dead and deep in Hell!

Come on,’ he bragged, ‘my wrath is fell!’

But when they’d tracked down two of the pests

He and his army stopped, perplexed.

‘The king’s decree,’ he coughed, ‘suggests

That we corner cats, but now what next?

There were no directions in the text.’ 
”

Conan furnished my only applause. Oliver had turned his back and was beginning to give orders, so I raised my voice above his while I rubbed things in.

“There were forty rats and only a brace

Of cats, but these with great disdain

Yawned in the flea-scarred red rat’s face

And entered a cave to dodge the rain;

While all the rats endured the pain

Of being washed, which is not their way

And they were foodless—the cats both ate,

Then snugly slept till a drier day

Making the bold avengers wait

Shivering under a sky in spate.
”

I didn’t blame them—there wasn’t anything else they could have done—but I knew that none of the survivors would ever think of that night of drenched discomfort without painful twinges of shame.

Oliver had found that more than four at our wall crowded each other. He was telling them off into groups of that number, and I gave them all a final boastful warning.

“I will not say that the rats went mad

(One needs a mind for a brain attack),

But they lost what minor sense they had

And rushed the cats, who cuffed them back—

But kept a few for the morning snack.

And so it went till the day was past,

When one they couldn’t stomach—that’s

The rank red rat—limped home at last.

‘
Where are the rest?’ asked the king of the rats.

‘All traitors, sire. They’ve changed to cats!’ 
”

I had no more than time to put my harp down when they were on us, but we were not worried yet. We hunched behind our shields and took things as easily as possible, wounding two whose excitement allowed us good openings. After ten minutes Oliver called them back, and four others immediately faced us.

Defensive fighting is not so tiring, but by the time we had engaged all of the squads we were working hard. We’d been nicked in several more places, too, and sweat made the cuts sting. “We won’t last another full round,” Conan muttered. “Let’s get rough.”

They had become so used to having us conserve our strength that we took them grandly by surprise. “Over!” Conan yelled; and we cleared the wall before they were set and hacked at their legs. The two we slashed went down, and we turned on the others before help could race to them. Comfortably hedged but a second before by an additional comrade on each side, they were not steeled to meet us on even terms. They were more anxious to leave than to fight, and so did neither. We were doomed men for whom there was no such thing as risk, and they had no chance against our smashing charge as they tried to edge away. One we killed when his shield was riven by Conan’s blow; the other we slew as he turned to bolt.

Then they were around us in numbers and all but cut us off from the wall. It was several desperate minutes before we saw an opportunity to jump back into our haven, and by that time we were bleeding from more places. It had been fine, swift work, but we were thoroughly tired for the first time. I thought longingly of the sweet spring in the rear of the vault, and I could hear Conan’s breath coming heavily.

Still we stood them off, and eventually—I was losing even approximate track of time—Oliver ordered them to make way for replacements. He had taken no part in the fighting since the night before, but he included himself in this new squad. Doubtless he calculated that the kill was at hand, and he didn’t want to miss it.

“Take this,” Conan whispered, thrusting the hilt of his sword toward me. Then he tore a block from the barricade, brought it over his head, and heaved it. Oliver threw up his shield; but it was beaten in, and he went down. For the moment then his men were more interested in their leader than in us. They crowded to bend over him, and we had our first respite in perhaps two hours.

I sat down, glancing at my wounds with detached curiosity. It seemed not worth while to do anything about them. “You never can tell what you’re liable to find under a stone these days,” I panted.

Conan snickered. “He certainly crawled under it in a hurry. Shy, probably.” He lifted his voice to address the foe. “Don’t take any stones off that carrion; pile more on!”

But Oliver apparently wasn’t carrion yet. In a few minutes they picked him up and carried him to the shade of a tree, where he lay motionless. We couldn’t judge how badly he was hurt, but we hoped for the worst. He would at any rate be in no mood to enjoy our downfall.

Seeing them all so interested in their injured chief, Conan took a dead man’s steel cap, leaving me on guard while he went back to the spring. The water he brought me tasted as only water can at such times. It revived me to a degree and helped to quiet my breathing. As I looked up from drinking I saw that his eyes were on me intently.

“Finnian,” he said after a moment, “it may seem foolish to say this now when we have no more time belonging to us; but you’ve played a friend’s part even though you didn’t know me, and—”

“I wasn’t keen for it,” I interrupted to confess.