“’Tis not coddling,” he snapped, exasperated. “Anyone may use liniment for a sore … muscle.”
“Let him rub some on,” Sharak chortled. The astrologer clung to his horse awkwardly, like a stick figure placed on a pony by children. “Or if not him, wench, then let me.”
“Still your tongue, old man,” Akeba said, grinning. “I see you ride none too easily yourself, and I may take it in mind to coat you with so much liniment that you run ahead of us the rest of the way.”
“You have done well, woman,” Tamur said suddenly, surprising everyone. “I thought we would have to tie you across your saddle before the sun was high, but you have the determination of a Hyrkanian.”
“I thank you,” she told him, glaring at the Cimmerian. “I was not allow … that is, I have never ridden before. I walked, or was carried in a palanquin.” She eased herself on her saddle pad and muttered an oath. Sharak cackled until he broke into a fit of coughing. “I will use the liniment this night,” Yasbet said stiffly, “though I am not certain the cure won’t be worse than the disease.”
“Good,” Conan said, “else by tomorrow you’ll not be able to walk, much less—” He broke off as they topped a rise. Spread before them was a great arc of yurts. More than a thousand of the domed felt structures dotted the rolling plain like gray mushrooms. “There’s the encampment you predicted, Tamur. I suppose ’tis time for us to begin acting the part of traders.”
“Wait. This could be ill,’ the nomad said.”There are perhaps four tribes camped here, not one. Among so many there may well be one who remembers that we swore vengeance on Baalsham despite the ban. Do they realize we have brought you here to break the taboo on the Blasted Lands … .” A murmur rose from the other Hyrkanians.
From the tents two score of fur-capped horsemen galloped toward them, lance points glittering in the rising sun.
“It is too late to turn back, now.” Conan kicked his mount forward. “Follow me, and remember to look like traders.”
“For violating a taboo,” Tamur said, trailing after the Cimmerian, “a man is flayed alive, and kept so for days while other parts important to a man are removed slowly. Burning slivers are thrust into his flesh.”
“Flayed?” Sharak said hollowly. “Other parts? Burning slivers? Perhaps we could turn back after all?”
Yet he followed as well, as did the others, Yasbet riding with shoulders back and hand on sword hilt, Akeba in an apparently casual slouch above the cased bow strapped ahead of his saddle pad. The rest of the Hyrkanians came more slowly, muttering, but they came.
Tamur raised his sword hand in greeting—and no doubt to show that he did not intend to draw the weapon—as they approached the other horsemen. “I see you. I am called Tamur, and am returned to my people from across the sea, bringing with me this trader, who is called Conan.”
“I see you,” the leader of the mounted nomads said, lifting his right hand. Squat and dark, mustaches thick with grease dangling below his chin, he eyed Conan suspiciously from beneath the fur cap pulled down to his shaggy brows. “I am called Zutan. It is late in the year for traders.”
Conan put on a broad smile. “Then there will be no others to compete with me.”
Zutan stared at him, expressionless, for a long moment. Then, wheeling his horse, he motioned them to follow.
The riders from the encampment spread out in two lines, one to either side of Conan and his party, escorting them—or guarding them, perhaps —into the midst of the yurts, to a large open space in the center of the crescent. People gathered around them, men in fur caps and thick sheepskin coats, women in long woolen dresses, dyed in a rainbow of colors, with hooded fur cloaks held close about them. Those males who
had reached an age to be called men were uniformly surrounded by the rankness of rancid grease, and those of middle years or beyond were so weathered and leather-skinned as to make their ages all but impossible to tell. The women, however, were another matter. There were toothless crones among them, and wrinkled hags, but one and all they seemed clean. Many of the younger women were pretty enough for any zenana. They moved lithely to the tinkle of ankle bells beneath their skirts, and more than one set of dark, kohled eyes followed the young giant above full, smiling lips.
Sternly Conan forced himself to ignore the women. He had come for a means to destroy Jhandar, not to disport himself with nomad wenches. Nor would the need to kill father, brother, husband or lover help him. Nor would trouble with Yasbet.
As he swung down from his wooly mount, Conan leaned close to Tamur and spoke softly. “Why do the women not grease their hair also?”
Tamur looked shocked. “’Tis a thing for men, Cimmerian.” He shook his head. “Hark you. I have meant to speak on this to you for some time. Many traders adopt this custom while among us. It would aid your disguise to be seen to do so. Perhaps you could grow a mustache as well? And this washing you insist on is a womanly thing. It saps the strength.”
“I will think on these things,” Conan said. He noticed Akeba, a wry smile on his dark face, peering at him over his horse.
“Long mustaches,” the Turanian said. “And mayhap a beard like that of Muktar.”
Conan growled, but before he could reply a sharp cry broke from Yasbet. He spun to see her half fall from her saddle-pad in attempting to dismount. Darting, he caught her before she collapsed completely to the ground.
“What ails you, wench?”
“My legs, Conan,” she moaned. “They will not support me. And my … my … .” Her face reddened. “My … muscles are sore,” she whispered.
“Liniment,” he said, and she moaned again. The crowd about them stirred. Hastily he lifted her back to her feet and put her hands on her sheepskin saddle-pad. “Hold to that. You must keep your feet a moment longer.” Half-sobbing, she tangled her hands in the thick wool; he turned immediately from her to more pressing matters.
Zutan pushed his way to the forefront of those watching. Four squat, bow-legged elders followed him, and the murmurs of the onlookers were stilled. “I present to you,” Zutan intoned, “the trader called Co-nan. Know, Co-nan, that you are presented to the chiefs of the four tribes here assembled, to Olotan, to Arenzar, to Zoan, to Sibuyan. Know that you are presented to men who answer only to the Great King. Know this, and tremble.”
It was near impossible to tell the age of any man above five-and-twenty in those tribes, but these men had surely each amassed three times so many years, if not four. Their faces were gullied rather than wrinkled, and had the color and texture of a boot left ten years in the desert sun. The hair that straggled from under their filthy fur caps was as white as bleached parchment, beneath a coating of grease, and their mustaches, just as pale, were long and thin. One had no teeth at all, muttering through his gums, while the other three showed blackened stumps when they opened their mouths. Yet the eight black eyes that peered at him were hard and clear, and there was no tremor in the bony hands that rested lightly on the hilts of their yataghans.
Conan raised his right hand in the greeting Tamur had used. What did traders say at these times, he wondered. Whatever he said, though, it had best come fast. Zutan was beginning to tug at his mustache impatiently. “I see you. I am honored to be presented to you. I will trade fairly with your people.”