Part 12 (1/2)

Raihna dismounted to gentle them, leaving Conan to tend to her mount.

Illyana remained mounted, eyes cast on something only she could see.

Without looking closely, a man might have thought her half-witted.

After looking closely, no man would care to do so again.

She rode as well as Raihna had promised and made little extra work, for all that she did less than her share of what there was. No one called sorcerer was easy company for Conan, but Illyana was more endurable than most.

It did not hurt that she was comelier than most sorcerers Conan had met! She dressed as though unaware of it, but a handsome woman lay under those baggy traveling gowns and embroidered trousers.

A handsome woman, whose magic required that she remain a maiden even though of an age to have marriageable daughters. It was wisdom for her to be companioned by another woman-who was no maiden.

Indeed, Raihna was enough woman for any man. After a single night with Raihna, Conan could hardly think of Illyana as a woman without some effort. Doubtless this was Raihna's intent, but Conan hardly cared.

Three hundred paces away, the ferry left the far bank and began its return across the s.h.i.+mak. To describe the craft as bargelike would have insulted any barge Conan had ever seen in Aghrapur's teeming port.

Amids.h.i.+ps a platform allowed human pa.s.sengers to stand clear of their beasts and baggage. On either side slaves manned long sweeps, two on each.

Behind Conan other travelers a.s.sembled-a peasant family loaded with baskets, a solitary peddler with his mule and slave” boy, a half-dozen soldiers under a scar-faced sergeant. The peasants hardly looked able to buy a loaf of bread, let alone ferry pa.s.sage, but perhaps they would trade some of their baskets.

The ferry crept across the river until what pa.s.sed for its bow scrunched into the gravel by the pier. Conan sprang on to the pier, which creaked under his weight.

”Come along, ladies. We were first at the landing, but that won't count for much if we're slow off the mark!”

Raihna needed little urging. She helped her mistress dismount, then led the three riding mounts on to the ferry. It had two gangplanks, and the one for beasts was stout enough to support elephants, let alone horses.

Conan stood on the pier until Raihna had loaded and tethered all five animals. No one sought to push past him, nor did he need to draw his sword to accomplish this. The thickness of the arms crossed on the broad chest and the unblinking stare of the ice-blue eyes under the black brows were enough to daunt even the soldiers.

Illyana sat down on the platform under the canopy. Conan and Raihna stood in the open. The soldiers and the peddler watched Raihna appreciatively.

Conan hoped they would confine themselves to watching. He and the women were traveling in the guise of a merchant's widow, her younger sister, and the merchant's former captain of caravan guards. That deception would hardly survive Raihna's shedding the blood of even the most importunate fellow-traveler.

The peasants and the peddler joined Conan's party aboard the ferry. Two deckhands heaved the animals' gangplank aboard. Then the soldiers tramped onto the pier, leading their mounts. The ferrymaster gasped in horror and turned paler than the muddy river.

”By the G.o.ds, no! Not all of you! The ferry cannot bear the weight. The gangplank still less. Sergeant, I beg you!”

”I give no ear to beggars,” the sergeant growled. ”Forward, men!”

Conan sprang off the platform. The planks of the deck groaned as if a catapult stone had struck. He strode to the edge of the deck and put his foot on one end of the pa.s.senger gangplank. The sergeant put his foot on the other end. He was only a trifle shorter than Conan, and quite as broad.

”Sergeant, the ferrymaster knows what he can carry and what he can't.”

”Well and good. You can get off. Just you and the livestock, though.

Not the ladies. My men and I will take care of them. Won't we, lads?”

A robust, lewd chorus of agreement drowned out sulphurous Cimmerian curses. Conan spread his arms wide.

”Sergeant, how well can you swim?”

”Eh?”

”Perhaps you should take a swimming lesson or two, before you try overloading a ferry.”