Hordo grunted. "A thief, then. I'll still wager she has the pox, though."
"It's a dangerous game you play, girl," Conan said.
She tossed her blonde head defiantly. "Who notices one more strumpet among many? I take only a few coins from each, and each thinks he spent them in his cups. And once I mention the herbalist none want the wares they think I offer." Abruptly she brought her lips to within a breath of his. "I'm not a whore,"
she murmured, "but I could enjoy a night spent in your arms."
"Not a whore," Conan laughed, "but a thief. I know thieves. I'd wake with purse, and cloak, and sword, and mayhap even my boots gone." Her eyes flashed, the guilelessness disappearing for an instant in anger, and she writhed helplessly within the iron band of his arm. "Your luck is gone this night, girl. I sense it." Abruptly he released her. For a moment she stood in disbelief; then his open palm cracking across her buttocks lifted her onto her toes with a squeal that drew laughter from nearby tables. "On your way, girl," Conan said. "Your luck is gone."
"I go where I will," she replied angrily, and darted away, deeper into the tavern.
Dismissing her from his mind he turned back to his wine, drinking deep. Over the rim of the leathern jack his eyes met those of the girl who had seemed out of place. She was looking at him with what was clearly approval, though not invitation, just as clearly. And she was writing on a scrap of parchment. He would wager there were not a handful of women on that entire street who could read or write so much as their own names. Nor many men, for that matter.
"Not for us," Hordo said, noticing the direction of his gaze. "Whatever she is, she's no daughter of the streets dressed like that."
"I care not what she is," Conan said, not entirely truthfully. She was beautiful, and he was willing to admit his own weakness for beautiful women. "At the moment I care about finding employment before I can no longer afford any woman at all. I spent the day walking through the city. I saw many men with bodyguards. There's not so much gold in it as in smuggling, but I've done it before, and I likely will again."
Hordo nodded. "There's plenty enough of that sort of work. Every man who had a bodyguard a year ago has five now. Some of the fatter merchants, like Fabius Palian and Enaro Ostorian, have entire Free-Companies in their pay. There the real money is to be made, hiring out your own Free-Company."
"If you have the gold to raise it in the first place," Conan agreed. "I couldn't buy armor for one man, let alone a company."
The one-eyed man drew a finger through a puddle of wine on the table. "Since the trouble started, half of what we smuggle in is arms. Tariff on a good sword is more than the price used to be." He met Conan's gaze. "Unless I miscount, we could steal enough to outfit a company without anyone being the wiser."
"We, Hordo?"
"Hannuman's Stones, man! When they start telling me who my friends can be, I'm not much longer for smuggling."
"Then it's a matter of getting silver enough for enlistment bonuses. For, say, fifty men-"
"Gold," Hordo cut him off. "The going rate is a gold mark a man."
Conan whistled between his teeth. "It's not likely I'll see that much in one place. Unless you...."
Hordo shook his head sadly. "You know me, Cimmerian. I like women, drink and dice too much for gold to stay long with me."
"Thief" someone shouted. "We've caught a thief."
Conan looked around to see the innocent-faced blonde struggling between a bulky, bearded man in a greasy blue tunic and a tall fellow with a weaselly look to his close-set eyes.
"Caught her with her hand in my purse!" the bearded man shouted.
Obscene comments rose amid the tavern's laughter.
"I told her her luck was gone," Conan muttered.
The blonde screamed as the bearded man ripped the strip of silk from her breasts, then tossed her up to the skinny man, who had climbed onto a table. Despite her struggles, he quickly tore away the rest of her flimsy garb and displayed her naked to the tavern.
The bearded man shook a dice cup over his head. "Who'll toss for a chance?" Men crowded round him.
"Let us go," Conan said. "I don't want to watch this." He gathered up the cloak-wrapped sword and started for the street.
Hordo took one regretful look at the barely touched pitcher of wine, then followed.
At the door Conan caught the eye of the young woman in the plain cotton dress once more. She was staring at him again, but this time her face bore disapproval. What had he done, he wondered. Not that it mattered. He had more important concerns on his mind than women. Followed by Hordo, he ducked through the doorway.
Chapter III
Full dark was on the Street of Regrets, and the frenzy of its denizens had grown as if by motion they could warm themselves against the chill of night. Whores no longer strutted sensuously, but rather half-ran from potential patron to potential patron. Acrobats twisted and tumbled in defiance of gravity and broken bones as though for King Garian himself, receiving hollow, drunken laughter in payment, yet tumbling on.
Conan paused to watch a fire-juggler, his six blazing brands describing slow arcs above his bald head. A small everchanging knot of people stood watching as well. Three came and two left even as the Cimmerian stopped. There were better shows that night on the street than a juggler. Conan fingered a copper out of his pouch and tossed it into the cap the quick-handed man had laid on the ground. There were only two in the cap to precede it. To Conan's surprise the juggler suddenly turned toward him, half-bowing as he kept the brands aloft, as if acknowledging a generous patron. As he straightened, he began to caper, legs kicking high, fiery batons spinning now so that it seemed his feet were always in the midst of the circles they described.
Hordo pulled at Conan's arm, drawing the muscular youth away down the street. "For a copper," the one-eyed man muttered disgustedly. "Time was, it'd have taken a silver piece to get that out of one of them. Maybe more."
"This city is gone mad," Conan said. "Never have I seen so many beggars this side of the Vilayet Sea.
The poor are poorer, and more in number, than in any three other cities. Peddlers charge prices that would choke a Guild Merchant in Sultanapur, and wear faces like they were going bankrupt. More than half a silver queenshead for a pitcher of wine, but a juggler does his best trick for a copper. I haven't seen a soul who looks to care if tomorrow comes or no. What happens here?"
"What am I, Cimmerian? A scholar? A priest? 'Tis said the throne is cursed, that Garian is cursed by the gods."
Conan involuntarily made the sign against evil. Curses were nothing to fool with. Several people noticed and shied away from the big man. They had evil enough in their lives without being touched by the evil that troubled him.
"This curse," the big Cimmerian said after a time, "is it real? I mean, have the priests and astrologers spoken of it? Confirmed it?"
"I've heard nothing of that," Hordo admitted. "But it's spoken on every street corner. Everyone knows it."
"Hannuman's Stones," Conan snorted. "You know as well as I do that anything everyone knows is usually a lie. Is there any proof at all of a curse?"
"That there is, Cimmerian," Hordo said, poking a blunt finger at Conan for emphasis. "On the very day Garian ascended the Dragon Throne-the very day, mind you-a monster ran loose in the streets of Belverus. Killed better than a score of people. Looked like a man, if you made a man out of clay, then half melted him. Thing is, a lot of people who saw it said it looked something like Garian, too."
"A man made out of clay," Conan said softly, thinking of the blind man's prophecy.
"Pay no attention to that blind old fool," Hordo counseled. "Besides, the monster's dead. Wasn't those stay-in-the-barracks City Guards who did it, though. An old woman, frightened half out of her wits, threw an oil lamp at it. Covered it with burning oil. Left nothing but a pile of ash. The City Guard was going to take the old woman in, for 'questioning' they said, till her neighbors chased them off. Pelted them with chamber pots."
> "Come," Conan said, turning down a narrow street.
Hordo hesitated. "You realize we're going into Hellgate?"
"We're being followed. Ever since the Gored Ox," Conan said. "I want to find out who. This way."
The street narrowed and twisted, and the laughter and the light of the Street of Regrets were quickly lost.
The stench of offal and urine thickened. There was no paving here. The grate of their boots on gravel and the sounds of their own breathing were the loudest things to be heard. They moved through darkness, broken only occasionally by a pool of light from a window high enough for its owner to feel some safety.
"Talk," Conan said. "Anything. What kind of king is Garian?"
"Talk, he says," Hordo muttered. "Bel save us from you...." 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 its 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 eyeing to see the combat behind him without taking his eyes from the massive youth.
Suddenly Conan shouted, shifting
his shoulders as if he intended an overhand blow. His opponent's sword flashed up to block. Conan's lunge brought them face to face, the Cimmerian's blade projecting a foot through the other's back. He stared into the dying man's eyes, even in the darkness able to see the despair that came with the realization of death. Then only death was there. He tugged his blade free and wiped it on the dead man's cloak.
"Are you hurt, Conan?" Hordo called, stumbling past the bodies in the narrow alley.
"Just wiping my-" A foul odor filled Conan's nostrils. "Crom! What is that?"
"I slipped in something," Hordo replied sourly. "That's why I was so long getting back. Who's the wench?"
"I'm not a wench," Ariane said.
"Her name's Ariane," Conan said. He raised his eyebrows as he watched her slide a very efficient-looking little dagger inside her dress. "You didn't draw that against me, girl."
"I had it," she replied. "Perhaps I didn't think to need it with you. Are these friends of yours?"
"Footpads," he snorted.
Hordo straightened from examining one of the corpses. "Mayhap you ought to take a look, Conan.
They're dressed well for Hellgate."
"Some of Hellgate's better citizens." The Cimmerian's nose wrinkled. "Hordo, as soon as we return Ariane to the Street of Regrets, you're going to find a bathhouse. That is, if you intend to keep drinking with me."
Hordo muttered something under his breath.
"If it doesn't have to be a bathhouse," Ariane began, then stopped, chewing her full lower lip in indecision. Finally, she nodded. "It will be all right," she said to herself. "There's an inn called the Sign of Thestis, just off the Street of Regrets. It has baths. You can come as my guests, for the night at least."
"Thestis!" Hordo crowed. "Whoever heard of an inn called after the goddess of music and such?"
"I have," Ariane said with some asperity. "If you are invited, the bed, food and wine are free, though you're expected to contribute if you can. You'll understand when you see it. Well? Do you come, or do you stink until you can pay two silver pieces to a bathhouse?"
The Conan Compendium Page 363
