“I lost my sword,” she announced when she reached them. A narrow length of saffron was her only garment, affording her little more covering than the tavern girls of Aghrapur, but if anything her costume seemed to add to her jauntiness. “But I’ll get another one. You owe me more lessons, Conan.” Her smile became mischievious. “In the sword, and other things.”
Akeba coughed to hide a grin; Sharak openly leered.
“You’ll get your lessons,” Conan said. “But why are you still pulling Davinia about? Set her free, or kill her, if that’s your wish. You have the right, for she would have killed you.”
The blonde’s knees buckled. She crouched weeping at Yasbet’s feet, her beauty hidden by layers of filth.
“I’ll do neither,” Yasbet said, after studying the cringing woman. “I’ll sell her to a brothel. ’is all she’s fit for, and a fitting place for her.” Davinia moaned into her gag; the horror in her eyes indicated she might rather be slain. “And thus,” Yasbet added, “will I get the wherewithal for my sword.”
“I am as glad as any to see the rest of you,” Akeba said, “but I would as soon be gone from this place.”
“Yes,” Sharak said excitedly. “I must return to Aghrapur. With the powers of my staff proven, I can double, no, triple my fees. You will attest to it, will you not, Akeba?”
“Attest to what?” the soldier demanded. “Are you making claims about that stick again?”
Offering a helping hand to Yasbet, Conan started down the hill, away from the bay, toward Aghrapur. “Jhandar called you by another name than Yasbet,” he said as she scrambled after him. “What was it?”
“You must have misheard,” she told him blandly. “Yasbet is all the name I have.” Davinia pressed forward, making urgent sounds at Conan through her gag. Yasbet glared over her shoulder. “Do you want a sound switching before you’re sold?” Eyes wide with shock, the blonde fell silent, and thereafter would not even meet the Cimmerian’s gaze.
Conan nodded to himself. Clearly Yasbet was lying, but some said that was a woman’s right. He would not press her on it.
Snatches of conversation drifted foward from the two men behind.
“If Conan saw it, let him attest to it. I saw nothing.”
“But you are a sergeant, an official as it were. Can you not see how much better your word would be? I’m certain Conan will tell you what he saw.”
The smile Conan had worn since seeing Yasbet alive widened even further. For all the days before, there was much to be said for this day. He was alive, with a little gold—he checked his pouch to see if the two coins still rested there; they did—good friends, and a pretty woman. What more could any man ask for? What more?