Rogues in the House

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"Rogues in the House" is one of the original stories by Robert E. Howard about Conan the Cimmerian, first published in Weird Tales in 1934. It was the seventh Conan story Howard had published. The story was republished in the collections The Coming of Conan (Gnome Press, 1953) and Conan (Lancer Books, 1967). It has more recently been published in the collections The Conan Chronicles Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle (Gollancz, 2000) and Conan of Cimmeria: Volume One (1932-1933) (Del Rey, 2003).

Rogues is a short story in which Conan inadvertently gets between two powerful men fighting for control of a city.

[edit] Plot Overview

The story takes place in an unnamed fictional city in Corinthia, during an apparent power struggle between two powerful leaders - Murilo, an aristocrat who is nominally the city's head, and Nabonidus, the "Red Priest," a clergyman with a strong power base. After Nabonidus delivers a subtle threat to Murilo, he turns to Conan for help.

Prior to the story's beginning, Conan killed a corrupt city priest, but was caught after he became intoxicated and a prostitute turned him in. Languishing in a jail and awaiting execution, Conan agrees to Murilo's bargain - in exchange for setting him free and getting him out of Corinth, Conan will kill Nabonidus.

After taking mild and quick revenge on the prostitute who turned him in (he drops her into a cistern), Conan sneaks into Red Priests's booby-trapped mansion, only to find that Murilo and Nabonidus himself are being held captive after a mysterious third party took Nabonidus' place and impersonated him.

[edit] Motifs

Rogues in the House is written in an extremely ironic fashion, and as a Jacobean revenge story. It is eventually revealed that Nabonidus' "usurper" is actually his pet, a (relatively) intelligent and strong ape-like creature, Thak, who got the better of his master. Both Murilo and Nabonidus end up embarrassed that their schemes and struggles were initiated by a trained animal.^{[citation needed]}

The story's title reflects the story's other main irony, the rivalry between Murilo and Nabonidus. Each man considers himself to be the city's true ruler; each considers himself both socially and morally superior to Conan; and each considers the other to be corrupt and evil. They each call each other a "rogue." However, after the unfolding of several events and the revealing of some of their past deeds, Conan humorously realizes that the true "rogues" of the city are these two men.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] External links

• Conan wiki • Rogues in the House • Synopsis, characters, locations, and publishing history
• Conan the Barbarian at AmratheLion.com
• Conan.com: The Official Website

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