“Talk, he says,” Hordo muttered. “Bel save us from your … .” He sighed heavily. “He’s a king. What more is there? I hold no brief for any king. No more did you, last I saw you.”
“Nor do I now. But talk. We’re drunk, and too senseless to be silent while walking Hellgate in the middle of the night.” He eased his broadsword in its scabbard. A hint of light from a window far above glinted on his face; his eyes seemed to gleam in the dark like those of a forest animal. A hunting animal.
Hordo stumbled over something that made ripe squelching sounds beneath his boots. “Vara’s Guts and Bones! Let me see. Garian. At least he got rid of the sorcerers. I like kings better than I do sorcerers.”
“How did he do that?” Conan asked, but his ear was bent for sounds from behind rather than the answer. Was that a foot on gravel?
“Oh, three days after he took the throne he executed all the sorcerers still at court. Gethenius, his father, had had dozens of them in the palace. Garian told no one what he intended. Some few did leave, giving one excuse or another, but the rest … . Garian gave orders to the Golden Leopards three glasses past midnight. By dawn every sorcerer still in the palace had been dragged out of bed and beheaded. Those who fled were true sorcerers, Garian said, and could keep their wealth. These, who couldn’t even discover he intended their deaths, were charlatans and parasites. He had their belongings distributed to the poor, even in Hellgate. Last good thing he’s done.”
“Interesting,” Conan said absently. In the dark his keen eyes picked out one shadow from another. There was a crossing alley ahead. And behind? Yes. That was the mutter of someone who had stepped in whatever had fouled Hordo’s boots. “Say on,” he said. His blade whispered on leather as it eased from its sheath.
The one-eyed man lifted his eyebrow at what Conan had done, then he, too, drew his sword. Both men walked with steel swinging easily in their fists.
“That curse,” Hordo continued conversationally. “Gethenius took ill a fortnight after the planting, and as soon as he took to his bed the rains stopped. It rained in Ophir. It rained in Aquilonia. But not in Nemedia. The sicker Gethenius got and the closer Garian came to the throne, the worse the drought grew. The day he took the throne the fields were dry as powdered bone. And they gave about as much harvest. Tell me that’s not proof of a curse.”
They reached the alley; Conan side-stepped into its shadows, motioning Hordo to go on. The burly one-eyed man shambled on into the dark ahead, his words fading slowly.
“With the crops gone, Garian bought grain in Aquilonia, and raised tariffs to pay for it. Fool brigands on the border starting burning the grain wagons, so he raises tariffs again to hire more guards for the wagons, and to buy more grain, which the fools on the border still burn. High tariffs make for good smuggling, but I’d just as soon he … .”
Conan waited, listening, Briefly he considered unwrapping the madman’s blade, but he could still feel the taint to it, even through the cloak. He propped it behind him against the wall. The following footsteps came closer, hurrying, yet hesitant. But one set, he was sure now.
A slight, cloak-shrouded shape moved into the alley crossing, pausing in the dark, all its attention on Hordo’s faintly receding footsteps. Conan took a quick step forward, left hand coming down on the figure’s shoulder. Spinning the shape, he slammed it against the wall. Breath whooshed out of his opponent. Blade across the figure’s throat, he dragged it down to the alley to a pool of light. His mouth fell open as he saw the other’s face. It was the girl who had seemed so out of place at the Gored Ox.
There was fear in her large, hazel eyes, but when she spoke her voice was under control. “Do you intend killing me? I don’t suppose killing a woman would be beyond you, since you abandon them with such ease.”
“What are you talking about?” he rasped. “Are you working with footpads, girl?” He found it hard to believe she could be, but he had seen stranger things.
“Of course not,” she replied. “I’m a poet. My name is Ariane. If you don’t intend to cut my throat, could you take that sword away? Do you know what they were doing when I left? Do you have any idea?”
“Crom!” he muttered in confusion at her sudden torrent. Still, he lowered his blade.
She swallowed ostentatiously, and fixed him with a level gaze. “They were casting dice for who would have the first … turn with her. Every man there intended to take one. And in the meanwhile they were passing her about, beating her buttocks till they looked like ripe plums.”
“The blonde thief,” he exclaimed. “You’re talking about the blonde thief. Do you mean to say you followed me into Hellgate just to tell me that?”
“I didn’t know you were coming into Hellgate,” she said angrily. “I do things on impulse. But what business is it of yours where I go? I’m not a slave. Certainly not yours. That poor girl. After you let her go I thought you had some sympathy for her, thought you might be different from the rest despite your rather violent appearance, but—”
“You knew she was a thief?” he broke in.
Her face turned defensive. “She has to live, too. I don’t suppose you know about the things that drive people to become thieves, about being poor and hungry. Not you with your great sword, and your muscles, and—”
“Shut up!” he shouted, and immediately dropped his voice, taking a quick look up and down the alley. It was well not to attract attention in a place like Hellgate. When he looked back at her she was staring at him, open-mouthed. “I know about being poor,” he said quietly, “about being hungry, and about being a thief. I was all of them before I was old enough to shave my face.”
“I’m sorry,” she said slowly, and he had the irritating feeling that it was as much for his youthful hunger as for what she had said.
“As for the girl. She threw away the chance I gave her. I told her her luck was gone, and it was, if I caught her, and you saw her.”
“Maybe I should have spoken to her when I saw her,” Ariane sighed.
Conan shook his head. “What kind of woman are you? A poet, you say. You sit in a tavern on the Street of Regrets, worrying about thieves. You dress like a shopkeeper’s virgin daughter, and speak with the accents of a noblewoman. You chase me into Hellgate to upbraid me.” He laughed, deep in his chest. “When Hordo returns we’ll escort you back to the Street of Regrets, and may Mitra save the doxies and cut purses from you.”
A dangerous light kindled in her eyes. “I am a poet, and a good one. And what’s wrong with the way I dress? I suppose you’d rather I wore a few skimpy strips of silk and wriggled like—”
He clamped a hand over her mouth, not breathing while he listened. Her eyes were large and liquid on his face. It came again, that sound that had pricked his ear. The rasp of steel sliding from a sheath.
Shoving the girl further up the narrow confines of the dark alley, Conan spun just as the first man rushed him. The Cimmerian’s blade slashed out his throat even while his sword was going up.
The first of the three following on his heels stumbled against the collapsing body, then shrieked as Conan’s steel sought the juncture of shoulder and neck. From behind the men came a scream that ended in a gurgle, and a cry of “The Red Hawk!” told the Cimmerian youth that Hordo had joined the fray. The man facing Conan dropped into a guard position, nervously trying to see the combat behind him without taking his eyes from the massive youth.