“I’ve an evil feeling about this, Conan,” he said. “I wish you would come with me.”
“You come with me,” Conan replied. “Back inside where we’ll drink some more of Ferian’s wine, and perhaps try our luck with the girls.”
“You go, Conan. I—” Emilio shook his head. “You go.” And he staggered off into the night.
“Emilio!” Conan called, but only the wind answered, whispering down shadowed streets. Muttering to himself, the Cimmerian returned to the tavern.
III
When Conan came down to the common room of the Blue Bull the next morning, the wench with the beads in her hair accompanied him, clutching his arm to her breast, firm and round through its thin silk covering, letting her swaying hip bump his thigh at every step.
Brushing her lips against his massive shoulder, she looked up at him smokily through her lashes. “Tonight?” She bit her lip and added, “For you, half price.”
“Perhaps, Zasha,” he said, though even at half price his purse would not stand many nights of her. And those accursed beads had quickly gotten to be an irritation. “Now be off with you. I’ve business.” She danced away with a saucy laugh and a saucier roll of her hips. Mayhap his purse could stand one more night.
The tavern was almost empty at t
hat early hour. Two men with sailors’ queues tried to kill the pain of the past night’s drink with still more drink, while morosely fingering nearly flat purses. A lone strumpet, her worknight done at last and her blue silks damp with sweat, sat in a corner with her eyes closed, rubbing her feet.
At the bar Ferian filled a mug with Khorajan ale before he was asked.
“Has aught of worth come to your ear?” Conan asked as he wrapped one big hand around the leathern jack. He was not hopeful, since the fat tavernkeeper had once more failed to demand payment.
“Last night,” the stout man said, concentrating on the rag with which he rubbed the wood of the bar, “it was revealed that Temba of Kassali, a dealer in gems who stands high in the Merchant’s Guild, has been featuring Hammaran Temple Virgins at his orgies, with the result that fourteen former virgins and five priestesses have disappeared from the Temple, likely into a slaver’s kennels. Temba will no doubt be ordered to give a large gift to the Temple. Last night also twenty-odd murders took place, that I have heard of so far, and probably twice so many that have not reached my ears. Also, the five daughters of Lord Barash were found by their father entertaining the grooms of his stable and have been packed off into the Cloisters of Vara, as has the Princess Esmira, or so ’tis rumored.”
“I said of worth,” the Cimmerian cut off. “What care I for the virgins or princesses? Of worth!”
Ferian gave a half-hearted laugh and studied his bit of scrub cloth. “The last is interesting, at least. Esmira is the daughter of Prince Roshmanli, closest to Yildiz’s ear of the Seventeen Attendants. In a city of sluts she is said to be a virgin of purest innocence, yet she is being sent away to scrub floors and sleep on a hard mat till a husband can be found.” Suddenly he slammed his fist down on the bar and spat. The spittle landed on the wood, but he seemed not to see it. “Mitra’s Mercies, Cimmerian, what expect you? It’s been but one night since I told you I know nothing. Am I a sorcerer to conjure knowledge where there was none? An you want answers from the skies, ask old Sharak over there. He—” Suddenly his eye lit on the globule of spit. With a strangled cry he scrubbed at it as if it would contaminate the wood.
Conan looked about for the astrologer he had known in Shadizar. The bent old man, wearing what seemed to be the same frayed and patched brown tunic he had worn in Shadizar, was lowering himself creakily to a stool near the door. His white hair was thinner than ever, and as always he leaned on a long blackwood staff, which he claimed was a staff of power, though no one had ever seen any magicks performed with it. Wispy mustaches hung below his thin mouth and narrow chin, and he clutched a rat’s-nest of scrolls in his bony fingers.
Ferian gave the bar one more scrub and eyed it suspiciously. “I like not this owing, Cimmerian,” he muttered.
“I like not being owed.” Conan’s icy blue eyes peered into the fulvous ale. “After a time I begin to think I will not be repaid, and I like that even less.”
“I pay my debts,” the other protested. “I’m a fair man. ’Tis known from Shahpur to Shadizar. From Kuthchemes to—”
“Then pay me.”
“Black Erlik’s Throne, man! What you told me may be worth no more than the wind blowing in the streets!”
Conan spoke as quietly as a knife leaving its scabbard. “Do you call me liar, Ferian?”
Ferian blinked and swallowed hard. Of a sudden, the Cimmerian seemed to fill his vision. And he remembered with a sickly sinking of his stomach that among the muscular youth’s more uncivilized traits was a deadly touchiness about his word.
“No, Conan,” he laughed shakily. “Of a certainty not. You misunderstand. I meant just that I do not know its value. Nothing more than that.”
“An you got no gold for that information last night,” Conan laughed scornfully, “I’ll become a priest of Azura.”
Ferian scowled, muttered under his breath, and finally said, “Mayhap I have some slight idea of its worth.”
A smile showed the big Cimmerian’s strong white teeth. The tavernkeeper shifted uncomfortably.
“An you know its worth, Ferian, we can set some other payment than what was first agreed.”
“Other payment?” Despite his plump cheeks, the innkeeper suddenly wore a look of rat-like suspicion. “What other payment?” Conan took a long pull of ale to let him steep. “What other payment, Cimmerian?”
“Lodgings, to begin.”