The common room of the Blue Bull grew crowded as the appointed hour drew near, raucous with the laughter of doxies and drunken men. Conan neither laughed nor drank, but rather sat watching the door with his two friends.
“When will the man come?” Sharak demanded of the air. “Surely the hour has passed.”
Neither Conan nor Akeba answered, keeping their eyes fastened to the doorway. The Cimmerian’s hand on his sword hilt tightened moment by long moment till, startlingly, his knuckles cracked.
The old astrologer flinched at the sound. “What adventure is this, sitting and waiting for Mitra knows how long while—”
“He is here,” Akeba said quietly, but Conan was already getting to his feet.
The long-nosed Hyrkanian stood in the doorway beckoning to Conan, casting worried glances out into the night.
“Good luck be with you, Cimmerian,” Akeba said quietly.
“And with you,” Conan replied.
As he strode across the common room, he could hear the astrologer’s querulous voice. “Why this talk of luck? They but wish to talk.”
He did not listen for Akeba’s answer, if answer there was. More than one man taken to a meeting in the night had never left it alive.
“Lead on,” he told the Hyrkanian, and with one more suspicious look up and down the street the nomad did so.
Twilight had gone, and full night was upon the city. A pale moon hung like a silver coin placed low above the horizon. Music and laughter drifted from a score of taverns as they passed through yellow pools of light spilling from their doors, and occasionally they heard shouts of a fight over women or dice.
“Where are you taking me?” Conan asked.
The Hyrkanian did not answer. He chose turnings seemingly at random, and always he cast a wary eye behind.
“My friends will not follow,” Conan told him. “I agreed to come alone.”
“It is not your friends I fear,” the Hyrkanian muttered, then tightened his jaws and looked sharply at the muscular youth. Thereafter he would not speak again.
Conan wondered briefly who or what it was the man did fear, but his own attention was split between watching for the ambush he might be entering and unraveling the twists and turns through which he was taken. When the fur-capped man motioned him through a darkened doorway and up a flight of wooden stairs, he was confident—and surprised—that for all the roundabout way they had gone the Blue Bull was almost due north, no more than two streets away. It was well to be oriented in case the meeting came to a fight after all.
“You go first,” Conan said. Expressionless, the nomad complied. Loose steps creaked alarmingly beneath his tread. Conan eased his sword in its scabbard, and mounted after him.
At the top of the stairs a door let into a room lit by two guttering tallow lamps set on a rickety table. The rancid smell of grease filled the room. Including his guide, half a score sheepskin-coated Hyrkanians watched him warily, though none put hand to weapon. One Conan recognized, the man with the scar across his cheek, he over whose head Emilio had broken the wine jar.
“I am called Tamur,” Scarface said. “You are Conan?” With his guttural accent he mangled the name badly.
“I am Conan,” the young Cimmerian agreed shortly. “Where is the woman?”
Tamur gestured, and two of the others opened a large chest sitting against a wall. They lifted out Yasbet, bound in a neat package and gagged with a twisted rag. Her saffron robes were mud-stained and torn, and dried tracks of tears traced through the dust on her cheeks.
“I warned this one,” Conan grated. “If she is hurt, I’ll—”
“No, no,” Tamur cut in. “Her garments were so when we took her, behind the inn where you sleep. Had we ravaged your woman, would we show her to you so and yet expect you to talk with us?”
It was possible. Conan remembered the narrowness of the window through which she had had to wriggle. “Loose her feet.”
Producing a short, curved dagger, one of the nomads cut the ropes at Yasbet’s ankles. She tried to stand and, with a gag-muffled moan, sat on the lid of the chest in which she had been confined. The Hyrkanian looked questioningly at Conan, and motioned with the knife to her still-bound wrists, and her gag, but the muscular youth shook his head. Based on past experience he would not risk what she might say or do if freed. She gave him an odd look, but, surprisingly, remained still.
“You were recognized in the enclosure of Baalsham,” Tamur said.
“Baalsham?” Conan said. “Who is Baalsham?”
“You know him as Jhandar. What his true name is, who can say?” Tamur sighed. “It will be easier if I begin at the beginning.”
He gave quick orders, and a flagon of cheap wine and two rough clay mugs were produced. Tamur sat on one side of the table, Conan on the other. The Cimmerian noted that the other nomads were careful not to move behind him and ostentatiously kept their hands far from swords. It was a puzzlement. Hyrkanians were an arrogant and touchy people, by all accounts little given to avoiding trouble in the best of circumstances.