'Beware, your Majesty!' whispered Albiona. 'These folk eat human flesh!'
'I'll stake my kingdom that this is nothing but honest roast beef,' answered Conan. 'Come, lass, fall to! You must be hungry after the prison fare.'
Thus advised, and with the example before her of one whose word was the ultimate law to her, the countess complied, and ate ravenously though daintily, while her liege lord tore into the meat joints and guzzled the wine with as much gusto as if he had not already eaten once that night.
'You priests are shrewd, Hadrathus,' he said, with a great beef-bone in his hands and his mouth full of meat. 'I'd welcome your service in my campaign to regain my kingdom.'
Slowly Hadrathus shook his head, and Conan slammed the beef-bone down on the table in a gust of impatient wrath.
'Crom's devils! What ails the men of Aquilonia? First Servius—now you! Can you do nothing but wag your idiotic heads when I speak of ousting these dogs?'
Hadrathus sighed and answered slowly: 'My lord, it is ill to say, and I fain would say otherwise. But the freedom of Aquilonia is at an end. Nay, the freedom of the whole world may be at an end! Age follows age in the history of the world, and now we enter an age of horror and slavery, as it was long ago.'
'What do you mean?' demanded the king uneasily.
Hadrathus dropped into a chair and rested his elbows on his thighs, staring at the floor.
'It is not alone the rebellious lords of Aquilonia and the armies of Nemedia which are arrayed against you,' answered Hadrathus. 'It is sorcery—grisly black magic from the grim youth of the world. An awful shape has risen out of the shades of the Past, and none can stand before it.'