Eriakes’s Inn, on the edge of the maul. I asked after you, and they directed me hither.”
“What are you doing now?”
“Looking for gainful employment, honest or otherwise.”
“If you seek a fence to dispose of your loot, do not look at me! I gave all that up after the Chief Inquisitor had me arrested. I escaped the scaffold only by bribing him with all I’d saved, to the last farthing. Well, almost to the last farthing.” Tigranes cast a significant glance toward the curtained doorway.
Conan shook his head. “I’ve had enough of that starveling life, save as a last resort. But I have soldiered all the way from Shahpur to Khitai, and that should count for something.”
“Speaking of Turan,” said Tigranes, “a party of Turanians was here yesterday, asking questions. They said they were looking for a man of your description, accompanied by a woman. Has that aught to do with you?”
“It might or it might not. How looked these Turanians?”
“The leader was a short, square fellow with a little gray beard, who called himself Parvez. He had several fellow countrymen in tow, and an escort of a brace of King Mithridates’s guards. His snooping evidently has our King’s approval.”
“I know who Parvez is,” said Conan. “One of Yildiz’s diplomats. A gang of Zamorians abducted Yildiz’s favorite wife, and the King is frantic for her return. I had naught to do with that jape, but the Turanians seem to think I did. Methinks I had better shake the dust of Shadizar from my boots.”
“That were not the only reason,” said Tigranes. “The law remembers you all too well, despite the years you have been away. And your size makes you conspicuous, no matter by what name you call yourself.” Tigranes’s eyes narrowed speculatively, and the demon of greed peered out from his small, piglike orbs.
“I had thought of going to—” began Conan, but paused as suspicion crackled in his mind. His experience with the Zamorian underworld had taught him that the “honor amongst thieves,” to which the denizens of the maul paid lip service, was in fact as rare as fur on serpents or feathers on fish.
“No matter,” he said negligently. “I’ll remain in hiding here for a few days ere I decide upon my next move. I shall visit you again.”
Concealing his apprehension with a rough jest, Conan left the Golden Dragon and returned to Eriakes’s Inn. Instead of going to bed, he roused Eriakes, paid his scot, got his horse from the stable, and by dawn was well away on the road to Yezud.
N ext morning Tigranes, who had mulled things over during the night, went to the nearest police post. He told the sergeant that the notorious Conan, wanted for sundry breaches of Zamorian law in years gone by as well as for questioning by the Turanian envoy, was to be found at Eriakes’s Inn.
But when the sergeant with a squad of regulars invaded Eriakes’s establishment, they found that Conan had departed hours before, leaving no word of his destination. Thus Tigranes, instead of an informer’s fee, received a beating for tardiness in reporting his news. Nursing his bruises, he returned to his inn, vowing vengeance on the Cimmerian, whom he illogically blamed for his mishap.
Meanwhile, Conan sped north on Ymir as fast as he dared to push his sturdy steed.
A t Zamindi, the villagers were preparing for a spectacle. All the folk, in their patched brown and gray and rusty black woollens, had turned out; some boosted their children to their shoulders, the better to view the event. The much-anticipated spectacle was the burning of Nyssa the witch.
The old woman had been tied to a dead tree a bowshot from the outskirts of the town. In a ragged shift, her white hair blowing, she watched in sullen silence as a dozen men piled sticks and faggots around her. The ropes bound her tightly, but they did not sink into her flesh only because her withered form retained no fat beneath her mottled skin.
So intent upon the sight were the
“What are you doing now?”
“Looking for gainful employment, honest or otherwise.”
“If you seek a fence to dispose of your loot, do not look at me! I gave all that up after the Chief Inquisitor had me arrested. I escaped the scaffold only by bribing him with all I’d saved, to the last farthing. Well, almost to the last farthing.” Tigranes cast a significant glance toward the curtained doorway.
Conan shook his head. “I’ve had enough of that starveling life, save as a last resort. But I have soldiered all the way from Shahpur to Khitai, and that should count for something.”
“Speaking of Turan,” said Tigranes, “a party of Turanians was here yesterday, asking questions. They said they were looking for a man of your description, accompanied by a woman. Has that aught to do with you?”
“It might or it might not. How looked these Turanians?”
“The leader was a short, square fellow with a little gray beard, who called himself Parvez. He had several fellow countrymen in tow, and an escort of a brace of King Mithridates’s guards. His snooping evidently has our King’s approval.”
“I know who Parvez is,” said Conan. “One of Yildiz’s diplomats. A gang of Zamorians abducted Yildiz’s favorite wife, and the King is frantic for her return. I had naught to do with that jape, but the Turanians seem to think I did. Methinks I had better shake the dust of Shadizar from my boots.”
“That were not the only reason,” said Tigranes. “The law remembers you all too well, despite the years you have been away. And your size makes you conspicuous, no matter by what name you call yourself.” Tigranes’s eyes narrowed speculatively, and the demon of greed peered out from his small, piglike orbs.
“I had thought of going to—” began Conan, but paused as suspicion crackled in his mind. His experience with the Zamorian underworld had taught him that the “honor amongst thieves,” to which the denizens of the maul paid lip service, was in fact as rare as fur on serpents or feathers on fish.
“No matter,” he said negligently. “I’ll remain in hiding here for a few days ere I decide upon my next move. I shall visit you again.”
Concealing his apprehension with a rough jest, Conan left the Golden Dragon and returned to Eriakes’s Inn. Instead of going to bed, he roused Eriakes, paid his scot, got his horse from the stable, and by dawn was well away on the road to Yezud.
N ext morning Tigranes, who had mulled things over during the night, went to the nearest police post. He told the sergeant that the notorious Conan, wanted for sundry breaches of Zamorian law in years gone by as well as for questioning by the Turanian envoy, was to be found at Eriakes’s Inn.
But when the sergeant with a squad of regulars invaded Eriakes’s establishment, they found that Conan had departed hours before, leaving no word of his destination. Thus Tigranes, instead of an informer’s fee, received a beating for tardiness in reporting his news. Nursing his bruises, he returned to his inn, vowing vengeance on the Cimmerian, whom he illogically blamed for his mishap.
Meanwhile, Conan sped north on Ymir as fast as he dared to push his sturdy steed.
A t Zamindi, the villagers were preparing for a spectacle. All the folk, in their patched brown and gray and rusty black woollens, had turned out; some boosted their children to their shoulders, the better to view the event. The much-anticipated spectacle was the burning of Nyssa the witch.
The old woman had been tied to a dead tree a bowshot from the outskirts of the town. In a ragged shift, her white hair blowing, she watched in sullen silence as a dozen men piled sticks and faggots around her. The ropes bound her tightly, but they did not sink into her flesh only because her withered form retained no fat beneath her mottled skin.
So intent upon the sight were the
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