Harry Turtledove - Conan of Venarium

Even now, so soon after the initial conquest, most of the traffic on the road was Aquilonian: more settlers' wagons coming into this new land; soldiers who helped keep the settlers safe; merchants and peddlers of all sorts, intent on taking what profit they could from the land in which they found themselves. And, coming the other way, down toward Venarium, farmers who had more closely followed the army were bringing first fruits and vegetables to market. An oxcart full of onions might not seem such a wonderful thing at first glance, but Stercus smiled as he rode past it, for those were Aquilonian onions.

Only a handful of Cimmerians were on the road. Except for the sake of a drunken carouse or luxuries they could not make for themselves, the barbarians seldom went to Venarium. They wanted little to do with the Aquilonian presence swelling in their midst. That they wanted little to do with it was in Stercus' eyes yet another harbinger of their eventual extinction. If they could not see they were in the presence of something greater than themselves, that went a long way toward proving they did not deserve to survive.

Axes rang in the forest. Trees fell. More cabins full of settlers from Gunderland rose every day. Stercus smiled to himself, for it was good.

But, by the time he got most of the way to Duthil, the road had become a track once more, and the woods pressed close on either side. This far north, few settlers had yet come. The land remained in its state of primitive barbarism.

Another horseman on the track, this one riding south, caused Stercus to rein in. The roadway was especially narrow here; they would have to go slowly as they edged past each other. By the crimson crest on his helm, the other man was a captain. "Your Excellency!" he called, recognizing Stercus. "Well met, by Mitra! I was on my way to Venarium to bring word to you."

"Word of what, Treviranus?" asked Stercus, his voice a little chilly; his mind was on other things than duty.

The commander of the garrison by Duthil pointed back over his shoulder to the village and beyond. "The tribes are stirring, your Excellency. Out beyond where our arms have reached, Cimmeria begins to bubble and boil like a pot of stew left too long over too hot a fire."

Stercus' laugh was loud and long and scornful. "If the barbarians want another go at us, they are welcome to it, as far as I am concerned. We smashed them once. We can do it again."

"Sir, we smashed three or four clans," said Treviranus worriedly. "If three or four more rise against us, we'll smash them again, aye. But Cimmeria has clans by the score. If thirty or forty rise against us, that is a very different business. How could we throw back such a swarm of men?"

"If you have not the courage for the work, Captain, belike I can find a man who has," said Stercus.

Treviranus flushed angrily. "You misunderstand me, your Excellency."

"Good. I hoped I did," said Stercus. "Have you got any true notion how many barbarians may be in motion against our frontier? With the way the Cimmerians squabble among themselves, isn't it likelier to be three or four clans than thirty or forty?"

"Most of the time, your Excellency, I would say yes to that," replied Treviranus. "But not now."

"Oh? And why not?" Again, Stercus laced his voice with scorn.

The junior officer said, "Why not, sir? Because most of the time, as you say, Cimmerians fight Cimmerians, and they break up into factions. But we know one thing about them: they all hate us. I worry that they will sink all their own feuds until they have driven us from their soil."

Count Stercus yawned. "You grow tedious, Captain. If you want to keep an eye on the barbarians beyond the border, you may do so. But if you start at shadows like a brat waking up in its crib in the middle of the night, then you do yourself no good, you do King Numedides no good, and you do Aquilonia no good. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, sir," said Treviranus tonelessly. He saluted with mechanical precision, then yanked his horse's head around and rode back up the track toward Duthil. He did not look over his shoulder to see whether Stercus followed. By his stiff, outraged posture, he was doing his best to pretend Stercus did not exist.

Laughing, the Aquilonian nobleman urged his own mount into motion once more. Thirty or fort)' clans of Cimmerians getting together for any reason, any reason whatsoever? Count Stercus laughed again. The notion was absurd on the face of it. He would have had trouble believing even three or four clans could unite, if not for the fight at Fort Venarium. If three or four more clans came, he had no doubt the Aquilonians would indeed crush them and send them off howling.

No doubt because of his outrage, Captain Treviranus rode faster than Stercus. The garrison commander had already gone back into his little fortress by the time Stercus emerged from the trees into the clearing surrounding Duthil. The count rode past the palisade toward the village. One of the Aquilonian sentries pointed his way. He saw as much out of the corner of his eye, but did not deign even to turn his head. That he was recognized gratified him. That he acknowledge being recognized never entered his mind. His notion of nobility did not include obliging.

When he came into Duthil, he did slow his horse so he would not trample any of the boys playing ball in the street. He cared nothing for them; seeing them go down under his horse's hooves would have made him rejoice. But it would have angered and grieved Tarla, and Stercus was not a man to frighten his quarry before he brought it down.

He did not see the blacksmith's son among the shouting boys. That left him oddly relieved. The hatred in Conan's blazing blue eyes could not be disguised. And the Cimmerian, though still smooth-cheeked, was already six feet tall, with powerful shoulders and chest a man twice his age might have envied. When thinking of Conan, Stercus was not at all sorry he rode a charger and wore armor.

And here was the house of Balarg the weaver. Count Stercus swung down off his steed, and his armor clattered about him. Then, feeling foolish, he mounted again, for he saw Tarla coming up the street carrying a bucket of water from the stream that ran by the village. He rode up to her, saying, "Good day, my sweet."

"Good day," she answered, and looked down at the ground.

Eyeing her, Stercus wondered how he had contented himself with Ugaine even for a moment. This was what he really wanted: unspoiled, lovely, and young, so young. But he had been patient for a long time —a very, very long time, to his way of thinking. Every heartbeat left Tarla older. Soon, too soon, she would no longer be his image of perfection, only what might have been.

Thinking of that made all Stercus' hard-kept patience blow away like the mist. "We've already waited too long, my darling," he said urgently. "Come away with me now."

She shook her head. "I cannot. I will not. I belong here."

Rage rose up like black smoke from the fire that burned inside Stercus. Had she been playing him along all this time, playing him for a fool? She would be sorry—sorrier—if she had. "You belong with me," the nobleman said. "You belong to me."

At that Tarla's chin came up in defiance. She shook her head again, more firmly this time. "No. I belong to myself, and to no one else," she declared, as full of native love of freedom as any other Cimmerian ever born.

Count Stercus cared nothing for the freedom of Cimmerians. "By Mitra, you are mine!" he cried, and, leaning down, snatched her up onto his saddlebow. The bucket went flying, water splattering the already muddy street. Tarla shrieked. Stercus cuffed her. She shrieked again. He hit her once more, harder this time.

One of the boys playing ball in the street threw a rock at Stercus. It clanged off his backplate and did him no harm. Another youngster ran toward Count Stercus with a stick of firewood —the first weapon he could find —in his hand. Stercus' sword sprang free. He swung it in a shining arc of death. The Cimmerian boy tried to block it with the wood, but to no avail. The blade bit. The boy fell, spouting blood, his head all but severed from his body.