We’re rolling through Cimmerian September here at Black Gate. Well, on Monday mornings we sure are! I was fortunate enough to be asked to do some Youtube panels for the Robert E. Howard Foundation folks this month. And we had a great time talking about the first Del Rey Conan volume – The Coming of Conan – in the first one.

I got to give my thoughts on “Rogues in the House,” which was my Hither Came Conan title. That had been a mid-level Conan story for me. But it moved up the ranks after I finished my essay project. So, with some tweaks, here’s my take on a pretty cool story. And HOW was this six years ago??

When I was pitching this series to folks, I was using the title, The Best of Conan. I didn’t come up with Hither Came Conan for about eight months, I think. Yeah, I know… The idea behind the series came from an essay in my first (and so far, only) Nero Wolfe Newsletter. The plan for 3 Good Reasons is to look at a story and list three reasons why it’s the ‘best’ Wolfe story. And I toss in one ‘bad’ reason why it’s not. And finish it off with some quotes.

So, I’m going to take a somewhat different tack from those who have come before me (I doubt I could have measured up, anyways) and pick out two elements that make this story one of Howard’s best accounts of the mighty-thewed Cimmerian. Then, throw a curveball from the Wolfe approach and highlight a few items worthy of note.

OUR STORY

Obviously, you need to read this story, but here’s a Cliff’s Notes version: Nabonidus, the Red Priest, is the real power in this unnamed Corinthian city. He gives a golden cask to Murilo, a young aristocrat. And inside the cask is a human ear (remind you of Sherlock Holmes? It should.). We learn a little later on that Murillo has been selling state secrets, and the ear is from a clerk he had dealings with. The jig is up!

Given the choice of running away, waiting meekly for assured death, or finding a tool to escape his predicament, he chooses the latter. And Conan is that tool. Wait: that didn’t sound right…

Conan and a Gunderman deserter had been successful thieves until a fence, a Priest of Anu, betrayed them. The priest also happened to be a spy for the police. As a result, the unnamed Gunderman (more on that below) was captured and hung. Conan then cut off the priest’s head in revenge. A ‘faithless woman’ (presumably his current main squeeze) betrayed him to the police, who captured the Cimmerian as he hid out, drunk.

Murillo visits the cell and Conan agrees to kill Nabonidus in exchange for his freedom. Things go a bit awry and Murillo goes after Nabonidus himself but faints at the sight of the red priest in his house. Meanwhile, Conan, after casually killing his ex-girlfriend’s new lover and then dumping her in a cesspool, sneaks into the pits under Nabonidus’ house, where he encounters Murillo, who had been dumped down there.

Creeping along in the dark, they come across the unconscious Nabonidus. Thak, the priest’s semi-human ape-man ‘pet’ has rebelled and taken Nabonidus’ place, killing the man’s guard dog and his servant and donning his red cape. It was the sight of Thak that had caused Murillo to faint.

Thak aspires to humanhood and is emulating Nabonidus. With little alternative, the three men form an unlikely alliance against the usurper. Conan (with a little help from Murillo) kills Thak in a titanic struggle. Nabonidus then tries to slay the other two men, but while he’s giving the standard gloating villain speech, Conan kills him with a stool.

Yeah. You read that right. A stool. It wouldn’t be the last time he vanquished a foe with furniture.

So, what are a couple elements that really stand out in this tale?

CIVILIZATION VS BARBARISM

I think that the most common theme found in Robert E. Howard’s writings (as well as prevalent in his voluminous letters), is that of barbarism vs. civilization. Whether discussing the inevitable decline of civilization; or the false patina of honor and integrity that ‘civilized men’ cloak themselves in when double-dealing with their perceived inferiors – which always includes a certain Cimmerian; or cultures battling savages (often the Picts); there are opposing forces at work.

It could be viewed as the continual struggle between the progression – or regression – of culture. The ‘lost cities/civilizations’ stories resonate with this theme.

The title city of “Xuthal of the Dusk” is the poster child for this decline. The inhabitants are morally degenerate, sexually obsessed, and completely decadent. Xuthal represents the inevitable decay of civilization; with Conan showing the vitality and life of the barbarian.

Howard’s final Conan story, “Red Nails,” which Keith J. Taylor wrote about for this series, seemed to take the idea to its final conclusion. The elimination of a civilization that has fallen into decline and is willfully annihilating itself.

“Beyond the Black River” looks at the conflict at a poly-societal level. It pits the ‘savage Picts’ vs. the civilized settlers along the frontier. The Picts are pushing back against the intruding settlers. Balthus is a woodsman, while Conan is a barbarian from the north lands. The Picts, of course, are primal savages. Balthus dies, Conan survives, and the Picts reclaim their lost province, forcing the settlers back across the Thunder River. At the end of the story, an unnamed settler delivers one of the most famous lines in the entire Conan Canon:

“Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.”

But in “Rogues in the House,” the issue is tackled on a micro level (which is also the case in “The God in the Bowl,” which Mark Finn wrote about). It’s not about self-decaying, morally bankrupt, decadent cultures: Civilization versus barbarism is viewed through the lens of individuals.

We saw a bit of this in “The Scarlet Citadel,” when Conan berates the kings who have arranged his capture and declared him a barbarian, unfit to be a king. It’s one of my favorite bits of Howard writing in the entire Conan Canon.

In “Rogues,” the civilized priest, Nabonidus, is at the extreme ‘evolved’ end of the spectrum. He is a powerful man, product of modern culture. He is the supreme power in the city and is feared by all.

The primitive Thak, while developed for his kind, is at the other, ‘unevolved’ end of the spectrum. He was brought out of the wild, and Nabonidus tries to humanize him. Too successfully, as we see.

Conan, a primitive from Cimmeria, is somewhere in between, taking on a veneer of civilization over his barbarian self through his wanderings, like a cape over his bare shoulders.

That’s our working scale. And Howard uses it to show us that Conan, the barbarian, is more civilized than the cultured Red Priest.

CHARACTERIZATION

I think that in Howard’s best Conan’s adventures, the characters are well-developed within the constraints of a short story. Here, young Conan is at the end of his career as a thief, and he is more mature, and wiser, than the stranger to civilization we met in “The God in the Bowl” and “The Tower of the Elephant.”

“But Murilo, for all his scented black curls and foppish apparel, was no weakling to bend his neck to the knife without a struggle.”

The man with death hanging over him, arranges for Conan to escape from prison, if the barbarian will then kill Nabonidus for him. And even still, when he learns that the jailer he bribed to free Conan has been arrested, he buckles on a sword and goes to try and kill Nabonidus himself. Conan is on the verge of losing his battle with Thak when Murilo smashes a chair on the beast’s back. It distracts him just enough for the Cimmerian to put his blade into Thak’s heart, killing him.

Nabonidus, the Red Priest, is used to running the city. He gets what he wants. He has unchecked power.

He is cruelly arrogant. Full of his own power, he sends the ear in a box to Murillo, rather than simply having him captured, or executed, or whatever. He wants to terrorize the aristocrat. To be fair, he accomplishes that task. Though, a bit too well.

But he finds himself unconscious in his own pits. Forced to work with a man he has basically put a hit out on; and a simple barbarian. Nabonidus has been deposed by his own creation, as it were. Shakespeare mentions a petard being hoisted in this situation. Yet, he takes pride that Thak emulates him and springs a death trap on some intruders. Nabonidus is true to himself.

Of course, once the danger is passed, he reverts to being the evil ruler and betrays his recent comrades. And talk about arrogant. Howard doesn’t just describe, he shows. Nabonidus need only pull a rope, hanging right next to him, and Conan and Murilo are dead. But nooooo, he taunts them. He brags. He explains his thinking. And Conan throws a stool at him, smashing his skull and killing him. So ends the Red Priest.

I always felt like underlying that chair finale was Conan yelling, “Oh, just shut the hell up!”

I also enjoyed the rebels that break into  Nabonidus’ house after Thak has taken over. Though, these folks, rightly or wrongly, bring to mind the People’s Front of Judea (Monty Python’s The Life of Brian).

AND WORTHY OF NOTE

MURILO & STATE SECRETS

Murilo is a young nobleman. At a court festival, he receives a box from Nabonidus. It contains a severed ear. And he knows the head which that ear used to be attached to. It was taken from a court secretary who was selling state secrets to Murilo, who in turn was selling them to rival powers.

Conan, Murilo, and Nabonidus end up trapped in the pits below the Red Priest’s house. Nabonidus challenges Murilo with his crimes, and the nobleman essentially replies, “Oh yeah? Well, you’re worse!” And adds, “This Cimmerian is the most honest man of the three of us, because he steals and murders openly.”

Dark Horse made Murilo a sympathetic traitor. In their version of “Rogues in the House,” he is a prince, and stepson of the king. The kingdom was full of corruption and unrest. Murilo wanted to make “the empire whole again.” So, he was really a rebel, working to bring down a corrupt regime. While this certainly works, it’s not even remotely implied in Howard’s story.

TREATMENT OF EX-GIRLFRIEND

Conan’s girlfriend (I think ‘ex’ is a fair term here) ratted him out to the authorities, resulting in his imprisonment and, presumably, his eventual execution (he not only robbed the Priest of Anu, he went back later and cut off his head). Conan, out of prison thanks to Murilo’s help, decides to chat with her about her choices.

He sees her new boyfriend coming out of her room and kills him instantly. He confronts her, picks her up, carries her outside and throws her in a cesspit. Then he heads off to assassinate a priest. People have complained about Conan’s actions towards the girl. Let’s look at this for a moment:

• Robs a priest;

• Goes back and beheads said priest;

• Kills his ex-girlfriend’s lover without a moment’s hesitation or even giving him a chance;

• Throws his ex-girlfriend (who got him arrested and his partner executed) into a cesspit;

• Attempts to assassinate another priest as payment for getting him out of prison.

I don’t think number 4 is really the major problem with Conan’s actions in this story!

THE EAR

Some of you may know that I’m a Sherlock Holmes buff. Which is why my first column at Black Gate, which ran for thee years, was called The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes (little take on Vincent Starrett, there). Howard was a fan of Arthur Conan Doyle and may well have read the Holmes tale, “The Adventure of the Cardboard Box.” Miss Susan Cushing receives a box in the mail, containing two mismatched human ears. Holmes deduces that they belonged to her sister, Mary, and Mary’s lover. The two had been killed by Mary’s estranged husband, Jim. Jim actually meant to send the ears to a third sister, Sarah, but that’s neither here nor there (then where the heck is it?).

Sarah was one of those meddlesome, annoying types – reminds me of the ‘aunt’ in a Jane Austen novel. Sarah had caused trouble in her sister Mary’s marriage to Jim Browner and helped facilitate her sister’s affair.

In the Holmes tale, the ‘ear in a box’ isn’t a warning. But it absolutely is a message. An important one. Howard might have gotten the idea of Nabonidus giving Murillo the surprise package from that Holmes story. Howard was a Doyle fan, and Patrice Louinet has identified elements of Doyle’s historical, The White Company, in Howard’s work.

HALL OF THE DEAD

Howard wrote a synopsis of a story which L. L. Sprague de Camp completed as “Halls of the Dead.” The Gunderman officer who is after Conan but becomes his reluctant ally, is named Nestor (in both the synopsis and the story). I think that de Camp did a good job and I quite like the story.

Dark Horse adapted the story, retaining Nestor and fleshing out his parts. In fact, he is Conan’s companion in the robbery of the Priest of Anu. And he’s the one who is hung at the beginning of “Rogues in the House.”

Roy Thomas, in adapting the storyline for Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian comic, changed Nestor’s name to ‘Burgun,’ “for no particular reason.” Issue 8, The Keepers of the Crypt, tells the story of “Hall of the Dead.” Issue 9 goes off story and adapts Howard’s non-Conan tale, “The Garden of Fear.”

 Issue 10, The Wrath of Anu, tells the story of Conan and Burgun (Nestor) robbing the priest of Anu, then of Burgun’s capture and hanging. Conan’s girlfriend does not betray him in this version.

Issue 11, the longest in the series until issue 100, spent 34 pages telling “Rogues in the House.” Add in numbers 8 and 10 and it was about 79 pages of story-line built around “Rogues.”

IN A LETTER TO CLARK ASHTON SMITH

“Glad you like Rogues in the House. That was one of those yarns which seemed to write itself. I didn’t rewrite it even once. As I remember I only erased and changed one word in it, and then sent it in just as it was written. I had a splitting sick headache, too, when I wrote the first half, but that didn’t’ seem to affect my work any. I wish to thunder I could write with equal ease all the time. Ordinarily I revise even my Conan yarns once or twice, and other stuff I hammer out by main strength.”

Prior Cimmerian September
By Crom: Marvel, Roy Thomas, and The Barbarian Life 
By Crom: Roy Thomas and “Out of the Deep”

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Bob Byrne’s ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ made its Black Gate debut in 2018 and has returned every summer since.

His ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column ran every Monday morning at Black Gate from March, 2014 through March, 2017. And he irregularly posts on Rex Stout’s gargantuan detective in ‘Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone.’ He is a member of the Praed Street Irregulars, and founded www.SolarPons.com (the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’).

He organized Black Gate’s award-nominated ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series, as well as the award-winning ‘Hither Came Conan’ series. Which is now part of THE Definitive guide to Conan. He also organized 2023’s ‘Talking Tolkien.’

He has contributed stories to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories — Parts III, IV, V, VI, XXI, and XXXIII.

He has written introductions for Steeger Books, and appeared in several magazines, including Black Mask, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, and Sherlock Magazine.

You can definitely ‘experience the Bobness’ at Jason Waltz’s ’24? in 42′ podcast.

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