This article originally appeared in REHUPA #158
Spoiler
Alert!-- This article contains information you may not want to know
until after you have read Howard's QUEEN OF THE BLACK COAST.
If one were to compile a list of the most
fascinating supporting characters that Robert E. Howard created
during his all-to-brief life, then Bêlit, the wild she-devil of the
sea, would occupy a place somewhere near the top. She takes hold of
the reader's imagination in ways that contrast to the usual damsels
that populate Howard's yarns.
Bêlit makes her only appearance as the title
character of the Conan story "QUEEN OF THE BLACK COAST".
She is the Shemitish captain of the Tigress, a slender pirate
galley manned by black corsairs from the Southern Isles. A sea-going
tradesman, Master Tito, describes her to his passenger, Conan, as the
wildest she-devil unhanged. He is frank in his fear of running
across Bêlit and her butchers, since it appears that they do not
leave any survivors in the wake of one of their raids. Of course
Tito's trading vessel comes under attack by the Tigress, and
Conan is in the battle of his life. Leaping onto the pirate galley,
Conan lays waste to the pirates around him. Just when he is about to
be killed from afar, Bêlit halts the fight. Howard describes her as
follows:
She was slender, yet formed like a goddess: at
once lithe and voluptuous. Her only garment was a broad silken
girdle. Her white ivory limbs and the ivory globes of her breasts
drove a beat of fierce passion through the Cimmerian's pulse, even
in the panting fury of battle. Her rich black hair, black as the
Stygian night, fell in rippling burnished clusters down her supple
back. Her dark eyes burned on the Cimmerian.
Bêlit offers to spare Conan's life if he becomes
her lover and one of her bloody-handed raiders. Interestingly, none
of her black corsairs seem to have a problem with this, considering
the fact that he killed a good dozen of their number. Conan believes
that to the blacks, Bêlit is a goddess; her will is unquestioned.
He decides to sail with her.
In the three years that follows, Bêlit and Conan
fall into love with each other and blaze a trail of destruction up
and down the Black Coast, going so far as to burn the Stygian fleet
in the harbor of Khemi. It is during this time that Conan acquires
the nickname "Amra", by the people of the Black Coast.
At last, Bêlit and Conan sail up the Zarkheba
River to an ancient ruined city, where she and her corsairs are
killed by a twisted, winged-ape. Conan has his revenge on the
ape-thing and its minions (with some timely assistance from Bêlit's
ghost) and is soon left to wander alone again.
Howard tells the story of Bêlit in the
here-and-now; he doesn't really attempt to describe how she came to
become the "Queen of the Black Coast". All he writes about
are the "bookends" to the time she and Conan spent
together.
Using the few clues available, and a goodly
amount of speculation, I shall endeavor to piece together some of
the more interesting mysteries surrounding the character of Bêlit.
During a conversation with Conan, Bêlit relates
that her fathers were kings of Asgalun. She is certainly of
noble, possibly royal blood. This also implies that she is literate.
She takes great pride in being of Shem; she cares only for its gods
and their rituals. Since Shem is not a maritime nation during the
Hyborian Age, why she would choose to leave her country to become a
pirate on the high seas is anyone's guess.
My belief is that Zingaran privateers kidnapped Bêlit
from the coastal city of Asgalun in a raid. I don't think she would
have willingly joined the pirates as a crewmember, since she would
have led a pretty sheltered life as a Shemitish noble. I feel that
like Sancha in "THE POOL OF THE BLACK ONES", she became
the mistress of the captain. I base this on two pretty slim pieces
of evidence.
First, she is never described in the story as
wielding a weapon of any sort. Weapon-wielding women were pretty
rare in the Conan stories. The only one I can think of right off is
Valeria of the Red Brotherhood in "RED NAILS". Bêlit's
ruse for Conan to kill the snake would have seemed strange if she
were equipped with a sword. When her ghost comes back to aid the
Cimmerian, she thrusts at the creature's breast. But with what? A
sword? A dagger? Her bare hands? Howard never says.
Second, the only attribute of Bêlit that Robert
E. Howard remarked on (other than her appearance) was her keen
intelligence. She made the plans; her mind directed the raids, while
Conan's arm carried them out. That plus the ruse with the snake
indicates a highly developed sense of guile. She is definitely not
above using people to further her whims.
So how did Bêlit become the leader of the Black
Corsairs? I would speculate that the Zingaran galley Tigress
probably sailed down the Black Coast looking for Stygian merchantmen
to board or maybe even looking to raid a few coastal cities that
would be less protected than in Hyborian lands. After a time, the
ship discovered some friendly native kingdoms living among the
Southern Isles and built a base to operate out of. They proceeded to
raid up and down the coast of the Black Kingdoms, returning to their
base to refurbish and resupply the ship. They may have begun to
recruit the men of the Southern Isles to fill out the crew roster.
Eventually one of the raids went badly and the ship limped back to
its base with the captain dead and seriously depleted of manpower.
In order to operate, the Tigress needed to fill out its crew
almost entirely from the manpower of the Southern Isles. Since by
this time Bêlit was presumably the only literate person aboard who
could read maps and charts, she became the defacto captain. After
several important raids on the mainland, she became the captain in
fact. She would have been seen by the superstitious islanders as
having great powers since her raids were successful and she could
always find the way back home. They may even seen her as some sort
of goddess. In time, mainly through attrition, the entire crew would
have become black, with the exception of Bêlit, who never got into
combat personally. Thus she evolved into the Queen of the Black
Coast.
Now I'm going to let you into an insight in Bêlit's
character that my wife gave me that explains why she took Conan as a
lover and elevated him above the rest of the crew. She had to do it.
It may have taken her a while to realize it, but the only thing
protecting her from her crew was her success as captain. While they
were young and inexperienced, they relied on her to tell them what
needed to be done. And it was probably pretty easy for her to play
them off against each other when she needed to. And you know that as
they gained in experience, some of her men would begin to question
her ability to lead, when they felt they could do it so much better
(this being a symptom of men everywhere). If she failed as captain,
they might try to replace her. Fortunately, Ishtar smiled upon her
and sent a young Cimmerian Adonis to her just when she needed him.
He was strong as a bull, very skilled with his sword, and able to
best her most powerful warriors. By saving his life and becoming his
mate, she tied him to her in a way that kept her safe from the crew.
Since most of her men considered her a goddess, they wouldn't
object, and the few that might would have to go through him to get
to her and this they would never get the courage to do, since Amra
was so powerful. She knew he wouldn't move against her (at least for
a while) since she was the only thing protecting him from the spears
her corsairs. She kept Conan placated with sex and violence so that
they eventually fell in love and solved her whole problem. She
became one of the most feared and powerful women of the Hyborian Age
without using any weapon other than her intelligence and guile. How
many people can you say that about?
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