Harry Turtledove - Conan of Venarium

With another seated bow, Stercus continued, "I had not looked for so fair a flower in these parts, even in springtime. I must come back again soon, to see how you bloom."

Tarla murmured again, in even more confusion. Stercus urged his horse forward. As he rode on through Duthil, he turned and waved to the weaver's daughter. Tarla started to raise her hand to return the gesture. A panther might have sunk its fangs into Conan's vitals. Tarla let her hand fall without completing the gesture, but that she had so much as begun it was a lash of scorpions to the blacksmith's son. He watched Stercus leave the village. That the Aquilonian commander failed to fall over dead proved beyond any possible doubt that looks do not, cannot, kill.

One of the slightly younger boys, to whom the byplay between Stercus and Tarla had meant nothing, kicked the ball again. It spun straight past Conan, but he heeded it not. With Stercus gone, his gaze had returned to Tarla's. He had had his share —perhaps more than his share—of a youth's half-formed longings for a maid, and had dared hope Tarla harbored half-formed longings for him as well. But Count Stercus had crashed in upon his dreams like a stone crashing into an earthenware jug. Stercus' longings were anything but half-formed; the Aquilonian knew exactly what he wanted — and, very plainly, how to go about getting it.

"That is a foreign dog," snarled Conan.

Had Tarla been truly ensnared by Stercus, that outburst against him would have cost Conan the game on the spot. As things were, she shook herself like someone coming out of deep water. She nodded, but said, "No doubt he is. Still, he speaks very gently, doesn't he?"

Conan had no answer to that, or none that would not have involved the vilest curses he knew. From across the street, though, a gray-haired woman called, "Why should he speak a young girl so fair, with him a man full grown?"

Another woman said, "You know why as well as I do, Gruoch." They both cackled — there was no other word for it.

The shrill sound filled Conan with almost as much horror as Count Stercus' irruption into Duthil had done. Tarla's cheeks went red as ripe apples. That horrified Conan, too. The weaver's daughter drew back into her house, closing the door behind her. Her embarrassment only made the women cackle more. Conan had not fled from serpent or wolves or Aquilonian knight. The women of his own village were another matter. They went on laughing and clucking, hardly noticing his retreat.

His father was sharpening a knifeblade against the grinding wheel when Conan came into the smithy. Sparks flew from the edge of the blade. Without looking away from what he was doing, Mordec said, "I'm glad you're back, son. We've got some firewood behind the house that needs chopping."

Firewood was the furthest thing from Conan's mind. "We have to slay all the damned Aquilonians who've come into our land!" he burst out.

"I expect we'll do our best one of these days." Now Mordec did lift the blade away from the grinding wheel. He also stopped pumping the foot pedal, so the wheel groaned to a stop. Eyeing Conan, he asked, "And what has set you to eating raw meat and breathing fire like a dragon from out of the trackless north?"

"Didn't you see him, Father?" demanded Conan in angry amazement. "Didn't you see that cursed Count Stercus ride past our doorway?"

Mordec's gaze narrowed and sharpened. "I saw an Aquilonian knight go by, yes. Do you mean to tell me that was their commander?"

Conan nodded. "I do. It was."

His father scowled. "I hope you did not make him notice you. Remember, even the Aquilonian captain at the camp nearby warned us against this man."

"He knows I speak a little of his language. Past that, no," said Conan.

"I do not suppose that will put you in any particular danger," said Mordec. "A few of use have learned some Aquilonian, and some of the invaders can speak a bit of Cimmerian now."

"This Stercus does —more than a bit, in fact. He knows it well," said Conan.

"I am not sure this is good news," said his father. "Those people commonly use our tongue when they want to take something from us."

"He spoke— " The words did not want to come after that, but Conan forced them out one by one: "He spoke to the weaver's daughter." He did not wish to name Tarla. If he did not, he would not need to admit, either to himself or to his father, that he cared more about her than he might have about some other girl in Duthil.

"Did he, by Crom?" said his father, and his scowl got deeper. By the way he looked at Conan, what the boy felt was no secret to him. After a moment, Mordec went on, "If Stercus spoke to Tarla, I am going to have to speak to Balarg. That man has made a name for debauching young girls — though despite what Captain Treviranus said I did not think his gaze would light on one so young as she. But who can know? Once a man goes into the swamp, is he not likely to mire himself ever deeper?"

Conan did not follow all of that. He had only the vaguest notion of what debauching meant. All he knew was that he had not liked the way the Aquilonian looked at Tarla, and had liked the way Stercus spoke to her even less. He said, "Do you think Balarg will make her stay away from him?"

"I hope so," answered Mordec. "I would, were she my daughter. Still, Balarg is a free man—or as free a man as any of us can be, living under Numedides' yoke. He must choose for himself. To choose well, he must know the truth." He looked down at the knife blade he had laid on the frame of the wheel. It still needed more work. Even so, shrugging, he went down the street toward the weaver's house.

He came back in less than half an hour. To Conan, the wait had seemed like an eternity. "Well?" asked the boy eagerly.

"He says he will do what he can," answered Mordec. "I do not know just what this means. I do not think Balarg knows, either. He cannot keep Tarla inside his house all day and all night. She was work to do, like anyone else in Duthil."

Had Conan had his way, he would have had Balarg wrap Tarla in a blanket and stick her in a storeroom so Stercus' eye could never fall on her again. Or would he? If she were hidden away like that, his own eye could never fall on her again, either. In murky, misty Cimmeria, he spied the sun seldom enough as things were. Losing sight of Tarla would be like having it torn from the sky.

Mordec set a large, hard hand on his shoulder. "We may be fretting over nothing," the blacksmith said. "Tomorrow, Stercus may find another girl in a different village, or even some Aquilonian wench, and trouble us no more."

"If he troubles Tarla, I will kill him myself," said Conan fiercely.

"If he troubles Tarla, every man in the village will want to kill him," said Mordec. "If you see clearly he has come for that—strike quick, or someone else will snatch the prize from you."

"If he comes for that," said Conan, "he is mine."

Whenever Conan went into the woods to hunt these days, whenever he loosed an arrow, he imagined he was aiming at Count Stercus' neatly bearded face. Imagining the shaft going home in the narrow space between the Aquilonian's dark eyes made him send it with special care.

Songbirds twittered on the branches of firs and pines and spruces. Here and there in the forest, Conan had smeared birdlime on some of those branches. He hoped for grouse, but would take whatever he caught. Food was food; he approached hunting with a barbarian's complete pragmatism and lack of sentimentality.

He had not called on Melcer's farm since Stercus rode through Duthil. He did not care to admit, even to himself, that he had formed something of a liking for the Gunderman; the mere idea of liking any of the invaders was abhorrent to him. But it took Stercus' visit to the village to remind him that there could be, there should be, no meeting between those who had come into Cimmeria and those who rightfully belonged here. In his own country, Melcer would have been a good enough fellow. In Conan's country, what was he but a marauder and a thief?