Conan and the Open Window

This Conan fan fiction story was written for the Borrowed Plumes event.

The night was alive with music and song. Cheers and jeers from the streets and squares punctuated the throb of drums and the piping of flutes and horns. Torches seemed to dance to the sounds and cast their glow on the faces of revellers and merrymakers.

The noise and light reached a wide window halfway up the wall of a great house. A smooth olive-brown face framed by long dark hair looked out, sadness marking the large dark eyes and the full lips. A deep sigh escaped. "Oh, how can they be so uncaring?"

"The people celebrate your father's life, Lady Lira," said a young woman in the low-cut dress of a lady's maid. "And the new alliance with one of the most powerful cities in Ophir."

"They celebrate because my brother pays them!" cried Lira, turning abruptly away from the window. Her light nightgown spun around her. "They drink the wine and mead he provided, Mea, they sing to the songs of his musicians! My father's passing goes unmourned in this feast."

The girl addressed as Mea shrugged. "The people care little who rules, as long as they have food on their tables and their sons and daughters are not dragged away by invaders."

"And to ensure that, my brother marries me off to an old lecher I have met only twice in my life. Prince Alizhi is three times my age, and fat as a pregnant sow!" Lira gave a scornful laugh, crossing on her bare feet from the window to a low table. A flagon of cool wine stood on a tray, with a pair of silver goblets. "Come, drink with me then. Celebrate my father's death, and my brother's tyranny!" She filled the goblets and held one out to Mea.

The maid shrugged again and took it. "Who would you have rule in his stead? Your father was old, and his time was come."

"Who?" Lira drank and drained the goblet. "Me! Am I not the firstborn? Did my father not intend me to take his place after him?"

Mea sipped her wine and nodded. "But Lord Terant has the support of the city's patricians."

"Pah!" Lira refilled her goblet and drank, but slowly this time. "He has the support of Grepho. That vile sorcerer coerces the other houses, threatens them -- even does murder to enforce his master's will!"

Mea's reply was cut off by a fresh outburst of shouting and cheering from the street. "I will close the window," she said. "At least you do not need to hear it."

"No, leave it open. The night air is cool, and perhaps a great bird will alight on the sill to let me fly away." Lira spread her arms wide. "Come, winged one, rescue me from a fate worse than death!"

So forceful was her prayer that Mea looked outside, almost expecting to see her mistress's wishes answered. But no bird descended from the dark skies. "Hush, Lady," she began, turning back to Lira, when suddenly something else caught her eye. "What is this!"

As the women shrank back, clutching their goblets to their breasts as if to shield themselves, a great arm threw itself over the sill. It was corded with muscle, and on the wrist it bore a wide leather cuff. A second hand joined it, similarly large and strong, and then a mane of dark hair appeared.

"A man!" breathed Lira. She pressed herself against Mea and grasped the maid's hand. "What should we do?"

"Call the guards! Go, Lady, and I will slow him down."

But they both stood unmoving -- unable to move -- as first a pair of blue eyes appeared, and then the rest of the man's face. The features were lean and hard, worn by sun and weather, and the gaze was alert and wolfish as he took in the room and the women. A barbarian of some kind, Lira thought with alarm. A savage from the wilderlands.

He grinned and pulled himself lithely up and onto the wide sill. "It seems that chance has brought me to the right place." A sleeveless white tunic hung half open to reveal neck, shoulders and chest as massive as his arms.

Lira felt Mea tremble beside her. Her own legs seemed ready to collapse beneath her, but she steadied them. "Stay back!" she said. It came out as a whisper. "The guards are but a shout away." Her arm came up as if to ward him off. It still held the silver goblet.

The stranger eyed her, then the goblet. "You warn me away, but you offer me wine?" He pulled the window to behind him, shutting out the noise from outside, and slung his legs down from the sill. They were long and muscled, their strength apparent under the loose grey silk of his pantaloons. Soft boots came to midway up his calves, and at his waist a sheathed knife hung from his belt. On a smaller man it might almost have been a sword, so long and heavy did it look.

Lira nearly retreated a step. "B-- back!" she whispered again, suddenly aware, as the man's eyes looked her up and down, of her beauty, her flimsy gown and her feminine curves beneath it.

He grinned again. "By Crom, girl, I am more tempted by what you have in your hand than what your clothes hide. I have been chased by a fat merchant and his guards -- aye, and their dogs! -- and then by the Watch. I have a thirst." And he reached out a massive hand.

Uncertainly, Lira glanced at Mea, seeing the same wonder that she felt mirrored on her maid's face. Then she leaned forward hesitantly, until the hand with the goblet in it almost touched the stranger's.

"My thanks." He took the cup and, after a bow and a smirk, tossed the wine down his throat. "Ah! Is there more?" He dropped the empty goblet carelessly on a divan and took the second goblet from Mea's outstretched hand. Its contents vanished as smoothly as the first cup's had.

"Now, that is better!" He flung himself heavily onto the divan. "Tell me, what house is this? In the chase I lost track of the city's streets."

At this, Mea seemed to refind her courage. "This is the Palace of the Duke!" She drew herself up to her full height -- if the man had been standing, she would not have come even to his chin -- and stepped in front of her mistress. "And this is the chamber of Duke Latenno's daughter, Lady Lira."

The man shot Lira another look, then rose and bowed. It was deeper than before, and without mocking. "My condolences for your loss, Lady. Your late father ruled wisely." Then he reached across for the flagon and returned to his seat to pour himself more wine.

Lira glanced at Mea. The other woman seemed as bewildered as she was. "Are you simply going to sit there and drink?"

He looked up from his cup. "I need a place to lie low until the hunt outside dies down. Unless you have a better plan..." And again he let his eyes roam across her body, and Mea's too.

Lira gasped as she realised what he meant. "Silence, you dog! I am a betrothed woman -- and as far above your station, you rogue, as the dove above the jackal." Yet she could not help but contrast the vitality of this barbarian, this savage, with her memory of the fat Prince Alizhi, wiping sweat from his bald pate and breathing hard from climbing the few steps to her father's dais.

He shrugged. "High or low, a woman is a woman and a man is a man." He drained his goblet and refilled it. "But I will not force myself upon either of you. Let me remain here an hour, and I will be on my way." He peered into the flagon. It seemed to be empty. "The time would pass more swiftly with another jug or two of this sweet wine, though."

Again Lira gasped, but now for the man's casual comfort, his assumption that they would simply suffer him to stay. Bring him more wine, even! as if he was the Duke and they his serving girls. "How dare you!" she exclaimed. "You have not even told us your name!"

At that she felt a blush surge into her cheeks. That was not what she had meant to say. She intended to scold him, to tell him to leave either through the window or through the door. And yet... Yet, deep down she was curious to learn more about him. She had chafed at the night, with the revelry outside and the anticipation of being wedded to her brother's disgusting ally on the morrow.

This man promised some distraction at least. He was like the storm blowing in across the lowlands to chase away the summer's sultry heat. There was about him the fierceness of the wild, before which the perfume of civilised palaces fled.

"I am Conan," the man said, interrupting her thoughts. "A Cimmerian. I came with Prince Alizhi, in his entourage of mercenaries. Tonight he feasts in this palace, and I ventured out to explore the city. But a pair of rogues tried to rob me. When I put them in their place with a few words and blows of my fists, they fell into a merchant and his guards. In the confusion I was thought to be one of the robbers." He raised the cup as if to drink, then lowered it, clearly remembering that it was empty. "Rather than explain myself to curs who had already made up their minds that I was a bandit, I fled. Fortune brought me here -- fortune, and yours being the only window open that I could reach."

"You came with Prince Alizhi?" Lira sat on the divan and leaned forward eagerly. "Tell me what you know of him!"

"Crom, girl!" the man who called himself Conan said. "He is not that interesting. A fat old man. In Ophir he cannot find a bride, so he comes here to wed and make an alliance." The blue eyes looked regretfully into the empty cup. Then he sighed and placed it on the floor. "A young bride will send the man to meet his gods in six months. Less, if she is determined and skilled."

Send him to meet his gods? For a moment Lira wondered what the man meant, then realisation hit her. If she is determined and skilled. I could be that. I could rid myself of a husband, and rule his city after him.

"Lady Lira is his bride." It was Mea, sliding onto the divan on Conan's other side. "As she said, she is betrothed. But," and she placed her hand on the man's silk-clad thigh, "I am free. I am Mea." She leaned closed to his face. "I am as low as you are."

"Mea!" exclaimed Lira. For some reason the maid's forwardness annoyed her. "Unhand our guest. And fetch more wine. And... and something from the kitchens for him to eat." She glared. "Go!"

The maid scowled, but rose and took the empty flagon. Before she left, she curtsied to Lira, and again to Conan. The second was considerably lower, and exposed her bosom and cleavage. "I will return swiftly," she murmured.

When the door shut behind her, Conan's gaze followed her. Lira supposed he had been looking at Mea's plump backside, which she liked to shake for the soldiers. The thought emboldened her. "Conan," she said, rising, "my bedchamber is through that door." Her mind struggled to find more words, something seductive, but it all seemed unnecessary. So instead she simply walked to the other room, swinging her hips as she had seen Mea done a hundred times.

For a long moment she thought he would not follow. She refused to look back, to glance over her shoulder. She had invited him -- she would not beg. But she had already lit a pair of candles and was sliding the nightgown from her shoulders before she heard his booted feet approach behind her.

"I locked the outer door," he said in his deep voice. "Your maid can wait outside with the wine."

At his words Lira turned towards him. The material of her robe pooled around her ankles on the woven carpet. A soft breeze came in through the windows that faced onto the inner gardens, and it stroked her skin. The shiver that ran up her spine had nothing to do with a chill, though.

"Tomorrow I must wed," she said, stepping forward and placing her hand on the man's massive chest. "To an old man who will not make me feel alive before he himself dies. Give me a memory to hold onto until then."

He said nothing, simply seized her in his great hands. She felt powerless to resist, even if she had wanted to. Her bare breasts rubbed against the soft wool of his tunic, so fine that she felt the heat of his body, the soft beating of his pulse. A scent clung to him of wine, of woodsmoke and of sweat. It filled her nostrils and thrilled her. It made her feel like a woman, in the iron grip of this man.

His face lowered, and she raised hers. Their lips met. She tasted the wine on his tongue, and wanted to suck it inside her mouth. Her fingers were digging into his chest, she noticed, although he did not seem to care.

She pulled away from their kiss. "Let me feel your skin," she breathed. "Undress for me."

For an instant he looked down at her, that wolfish look on his face once more. Then he grinned. "By Crom, I like a woman who knows what she wants. Very well, lady." And his hands grasped her around her waist and he tossed her onto the bed.

She landed with a squawk. Her breasts swung as she fought to straighten herself. By the time she had settled, he had removed his boots. His hands went up to his belt, and he unfastened the clasp. It fell to the carpeted floor with a clatter.

Lira watched, feeling the warmth inside her grow. She was no innocent. She had known men -- a handsome captain of the guards, a few visiting nobles, and on one ride out into the country there had been a pair of grooms. She would not go to her marriage bed a virgin, even if this giant Cimmerian had not climbed through her window.

The leather bands around his wrists were next to go. He loosened the cords and pulled them off. Then it was the tunic. As he drew it over his head, his torso was revealed: all lean muscle, marked here and there with old scars.

As his hands went to the laces of his pantaloons, she forestalled him. "No. Come here." She moved forward until she sat on the edge of the bed, with her feet on the floor. As he approached, she took the laces and finished loosening them. A slight tug sent the silk sliding down his legs.

Her face was level with his cock. She had long since abandoned maidenish notions of calling it a "manhood", and this specimen was all cock. Perhaps it was her imagination, fuelled by the excitement that was growing inside her, but it felt too wild to be tamed by civilised names.

She took hold of it in both hands. It trembled and burned. It seemed as eager as she was, and she was so eager! Her mouth opened wide, her head leaned forward, as if she had no control of her body. Her hands pulled the rigid shaft down and her lips slid over the swollen head.

Her jaw felt stretched as she opened wider and wider. The man himself held still, his hands resting on her shoulders. She was grateful for that, that he did not force her down before she was ready. So she took her time, relaxing her mouth and taking more and more of him inside.

She was never going to fit his whole shaft in her mouth. But she succeeded in swallowing more than half its length. His scent filled her nostrils again, his heat was almost enough to burn her.

With one hand on his cock and the other clutching his iron thigh, she sucked. Softly at first, letting her tongue tease, then harder as her head went up and down. The trembling in his shaft spread to his limbs. She felt it under her fingers and heard his breath catch.

"Enough, girl!" he said suddenly. "You will shame me if you continue."

It was perhaps an exaggeration -- he did not seem the kind of man to lose control so easily -- but it was a pleasing compliment. With a few lingering licks of her lips and tongue, she let him slip from her mouth. Her jaw would ache tomorrow, but for now she did not care.

She let herself fall back onto the bed, stretching her arms out to either side. The memory came to her of standing so in the outer chamber, praying for a great bird to come and take her away from this existence. She suppressed a smile, and instead pushed herself up on her elbows.

Conan was standing by the bed, naked like a fine sculpture, and looking almost as hard. He gazed down at her. "When your Prince is in his grave, Lady, you will have your choice of suitors." He grinned. "And only half will be after your city."

She found herself smiling back. "My body will be mine to share with whomever I please. But once the city is mine, I do not intend to share it with anyone." She spread her legs. "Now give me what I want."

Saying nothing, he reached down and seized her by the buttocks. One hand drew her close, seemingly without effort, and the other took his cock and ran it along her folds. She whimpered at the touch. It sent shivers through her body, up along her spine and down her legs to her toes.

His swollen head found her entrance and pressed against it. Her breath caught in her throat. It is so big! It will split me in two! But it was eager anticipation, not fear, that made her tremble as he entered her.

She felt the air being pushed out of her as he forced himself inside in short thrusts. Her body felt as if it was being torn apart, but somehow she was being filled and made whole. There was a stretching, an opening, an awakening of every nerve in her body.

Her head and shoulders rested on the bed. The rest of her dangled helplessly in his grasp. She wrapped her legs around his waist, seeking support, wanting to draw him further in. "Yes," she breathed in a strangled voice, "fill me, take me!"

He did as she commanded. His cock entered her all the way until his hard stomach met her mound, the wiry hairs around his cock met the soft curls on her mound. She watched it across her breasts, the curve of her belly. Saw her legs circling him. Felt his heat, his strong hands holding her arse up.

The burning hardness of his shaft was inside her. It seemed as if it filled her all the way along her spine and set her body alight with its heat. Her fingers clawed at the sheets beneath her, clawed as if it was his skin they were scratching.

For a long moment he held still, all the way inside her. Then slowly, deliberately, he withdrew -- and thrust back. "Aaah!" she wailed, in shock at the sensations that ripped through her. "Aaah!" she wailed again, and again, knowing with each thrust that the feelings would shoot through her each time, and each time they would be greater.

She felt the hard swell of his arse beneath her heels, and pressed against it. Again and again and again he drove himself into her. His face was twisted in a fierce look of arousal and hunger. Her breasts swayed with the motion of his thrusts, and his eyes followed them.

"Yes," she moaned, "take me, take me!" He did not need any encouragement, but in her eagerness she could not stop herself. A drop of sweat appeared on his brow. She watched it cling to his skin, then slip down his cheek. There was strain in his eyes too.

"Give it to me," she pleaded as she felt her climax spark inside her. "Do it, give it to me!" With each thrust of his cock the spark grew, until it was more than a spark, it was a flame inside her that coiled and twisted and sought to break free.

His steady rhythm faltered. His mighty chest heaved, as much from concentration as from physical effort, she thought, and his fingers dug into the flesh of her arse, and the sweet, delicious pain was enough to make the flame burst free, exploding along her spine and into her eyes, along her arms and legs into her clawing fingertips and her clenched toes, making her shake and shiver and ripping cries from her throat. Dimly she was aware of Conan squeezing his eyes shut, jerking, then stabbing into her, and stabbing again, almost staggering, then stabbing once more, and then his cock began to lose its hardness, and the wonderful feeling slid away, her body shook a little more and then he lowered her onto the bed and collapsed beside her with a grunt and a groan.

They lay there for a seeming eternity, gasping and reaching for each other with trembling hands. Conan's breath was hot on Lira's neck, but now it was a pleasing warmth, with a promise of belonging.

It meant nothing, of course. She knew that. Tomorrow she would wed Prince Alizhi, and he would take her to his home. And she would see to it that his heart gave out. There would be no room in her life for iron-thewed Cimmerians.

But for now it was pleasant to lie here with him while her body held the memory of pleasure. The breeze from the garden was like the softest blanket, and before she knew it she slid into sleep.

A banging at the outer door woke her. She jolted up, looking around, her mind groping for what was happening. She was on her bed, she realised, still naked. And she was alone.

The banging at the door came again. "Lady?" It was Mea. "Lady? Are you well?"

Lira pushed herself from the bed and gathered the nightgown from where it lay on the carpet. The Cimmerian's clothes were gone. A few steps brought her to the outer chamber. He was not there either. The window stood open.

"Lady Lira?"

Dressed, running a hand quickly through her hair, she went to the door and unlocked it. Mea stood outside, eyes wide with concern. In her hand she held a covered tray, and she had a wine bottle under her arm. "Lady? Is all well?"

"Of course!" She stepped back to let her maid in. "I must have drowsed away, that is all."

Mea looked around the chamber. "Where is Conan?"

"The barbarian? Oh," she waved a hand absently, "he did not linger. When you did not return with the wine, he left through the window. I believe he went in search of drink or women."

"That is probably just as well." Mea placed the tray and the bottle on the table. "Who knows what I would have let him do to me if he had been here when I returned?"

"You might find out yet." Lira lifted the cloth from the tray. She was hungry, she realised. "He will surely accompany Prince Alizhi on the journey home. Now, what have you brought for me to eat?"