Sidestepping, the Cimmerian struck. The Turanian gagged loudly as he doubled over the steel that bit deep into his middle. Before the man could fall, Conan had freed his blade to slash at the cords binding the nearest sheep. Fleeing the flashing blade, the wooly animals darted toward the jumble of soldiers shouting for the way to be cleared and shoppers screaming for mercy, the whole spiced with scores of fluttering, squawking chickens. Two more soldiers struggled clear of the pack only to fall over the sheep. Conan waited no longer. He ran, pulling over more cages of chickens behind him as he did.
At the first corner he turned right, at the next, left. Startled eyes, already turned in the direction of the tumult, followed his flight. He had gained only moments, he knew. Most of those who saw him would deny everything when asked by the City Guard, for such was the way of life in Sultanapur, but some would talk. Enough to make a trail for the soldiers to follow. Ahead of him an ox-drawn, two-wheeled cart, piled high with lashed bales to a height greater than a man, passed his line of sight on a crossing street. Another high-wheeled cart followed behind, the ox-driver walking beside his animal with a goad, then another.
Abruptly Conan stopped before the stall of a potter. Before the potter's goggling eyes, he calmly reached up and wiped the blood from his sword on the man's yellow awning. Hurriedly resheathing his blade, Conan fastened the belt around his waist as he ran on. At the next crossing street he looked back. The potter, staring after him and pointing, stopped his shouting when he saw Conan's gaze on him. This man would certainly talk, even before the guardsmen asked. It was a risk he took, the Cimmerian knew, but if it failed, he would be no worse off than before. But it would work, he told himself. He had the same feeling that he had when the dice were going to fall his way.
Sure that the potter marked his direction, Conan turned in the direction from which the carts had come. As he started down the street, he let out a breath he had not been aware of holding. The feeling of certainty was assuredly working better than it usually did with dice.
Still another ox-cart rumbled down the narrow street toward him.
Moving back against a wall to let the cart pass, he stepped around it to the far side as soon as it was by. When his legs were in line with the tall wheels, he slowed his pace to the trudge of the ox. The potter would tell the guardsmen of the direction he had gone, while he went off the opposite way. It was but another moment gained, but enough moments such as these could add up to a man's life.
As soon as the cart had crossed the street where the potter stood, Conan hurried on ahead. He had to get to the harbour and the jumble of docks, warehouses, and taverns, where he could find safety among the smugglers. And he had to find out why there was a reward of a thousand pieces of gold being offered for him. The first was the most urgent, yet it would not be so easy as simply walking there. He was far from inconspicuous, and the white cloak would soon be added to the description of the man for whom the reward was offered. Without the hood, though, his blue eyes would leave a trail easily followed by guardsmen seeking a big northlander. The question, then, was how to exchange the cloak for one of another colour, but also with a hood, while not letting his eyes be seen.
He watched for a cloak he might buy or steal, but saw few with hoods and none large enough to avoid looking ludicrous on his broad shoulders. There was no point in drawing eyes by looking the clown when the purpose was to avoid them. As quickly as he could without gaining attention for his speed, pausing at every street crossing to look for guardsmen, he moved toward the harbour. Or tried to. Three times he was forced to turn aside by the sight of City Guardsmen, and once he barely had time to duck into a shop selling cheap gilded jewellery before half a score of guardsmen strode by. He was going north, he realised, parallel to the harbour district, and certainly not toward it.
Guardsmen's spears above the heads of the crowd before him turned him down a side street packed with humanity. Away from the harbour, he thought with a curse as he pushed through the crowd, then cursed again when shouts for the way to be cleared indicated the soldiers had entered the same street. They gave no sign that they had seen him, but that could not last for long, not with him standing a head taller than the next tallest man on the street. He lengthened his stride, then almost immediately slowed again. A score of spear points, glittering in the sunlight, approached from ahead.
This time he did not waste breath on curses. An alley, smelling strongly of offal and chamber pots, offered the only escape. As he ducked into it, he realised that he had been there before, in company with Hordo during his first days with the one-eyed man's band of smugglers. Stairs of crumbling brown brick, narrow yet, even so, all but filling the width of the alley, led to the floor above a fruit vendor's stall. Conan took them two at a time. A stooped man in robes of brown camel's hair jumped as the Cimmerian pushed open the rough wooden door without knocking.
The small room was sparsely furnished, with a cot against one wall and an upright chest with many small drawers against another. A table that leaned on a badly mended leg sat in the middle of the bare wooden floor, a single stool beside it. A few garments hung on pegs in the walls. All seemed old and weathered, and the stooped man was a match for his possessions. Sparse white hair and olive skin blotched with age and wrinkled like often-folded parchment made the fellow seem able to claim a century. His hands were like knobby claws as they clutched a packet of oilskin, and his dark eyes, hooded and glaring, were the only part of him that showed any spark of vitality.
'My apologies,' Conan said quickly. He wracked his brain for the old man's name. 'I did not mean to enter so abruptly, Ghurran.' That was it. 'I fish with Hordo.'
Ghurran grunted and bent to peer fussily at the packets and twists of parchment atop the rickety table. 'Hordo, eh? His joints aching again?
He should find another trade. The sea does not suit his bones. Or perhaps you come for yourself? A love philtre, perhaps?'
'No.' Half of Conan's mind was on listening for the soldiers below. Not until they were gone could he risk putting his nose outside. 'What I truly need,' he muttered, 'is a way to become invisible until I reach the harbour.'
The old man remained bent over the table, but his head swiveled toward the big youth. 'I compound herbs, and occasionally read the stars,' he said dryly. 'You want a wizard. Why not try the love philtre?
Guaranteed to put a woman helpless in your arms for the night. Of course, perhaps a handsome young man like you does not need such.'
Conan shook his head distractedly. The parties of guardsmen had met at the mouth of the alley. A thin murmuring floated to him, but he could not make out any words. They seemed in no hurry to move on. All of this trouble, and he did not even know why. A Vendhyan plot, those he had overheard had said. 'May their sisters sell for a small price,' he muttered in Vendhyan.
'Katar!' Ghurran grunted. The old man lowered himself jerkily to his knees and fumbled under the table for a dropped packet. 'My old fingers do not hold as once they did. What was that language you spoke?'
'Vendhyan,' Conan replied without taking his mind from the soldiers. 'I learned a little of the tongue, since we buy so much fish from Vendhyans.' Most of the smugglers could speak three or four languages after a fashion, and his quick ear had already picked up considerable Vendhyan as well as smatterings of several others. 'What do you know of Vendhya?' he went on.
'Vendhya? How should I know of Vendhya. Ask me of herbs. I know something of herbs.'
'It is said that you will pay for herbs and seeds from far lands, and that you ask many questions of these lands when you buy. Surely you have purchased some herbs from Vendhya.'
'All plants have uses, but the men who bring them to me rarely know those uses. I must try to draw the information from them, asking all they know of the country from which the herbs or seeds came in order to sift out a few grains that are useful to me.' The old man got to his feet and paused for breath, dusting his bony hands on his robes. 'I have bought some trifles from Vendhya, and I am told
it is a land full of intrigue, a dangerous land for the unwary, for those who too easily believe the promises of a man or the flattery of a woman. Why do you wish to know of Vendhya?'
'It is said in the streets that a prince has been slain, or perhaps a general, and that Vendhyans hired the killing done.'
'I see. I have not been out the entire day.' Ghurran chewed at a gnarled knuckle. 'Such a thing is unlikely at this time, for it is said that wazam of Vendhya, the chief advisor to King Bhandarkar, visits Aghrapur to conclude a treaty, and many nobles of the royal court at Ayodhya visit as well. Yet remember the intrigues. Who can say? You still have not told me why you are so interested in this.'
Conan hesitated. The old man provided poultices and infusions for half the smugglers in Sultanapur. That so many continued to trust him was in his favour. 'The rumour is that the assassin was a northlander, and the City Guard seems to think I am the man.'
The parchment-skinned man tucked his hands into the sleeves of his robe and peered at Conan with his head tilted. 'Are you? Did you take Vendhyan gold?'
'I did not,' Conan replied. 'Nor did I kill a prince, or a general.'
Assuredly no man he had faced that day had been either.
'Very well,' Ghurran said. His lips tightened reluctantly. Then he sighed and took a dusty dark-blue cloak from the wall. 'Here. This will make you somewhat less conspicuous than the one you wear now.'
Surprised, Conan nonetheless quickly exchanged his white cloak for the other. Despite the dust and folds of hanging, perhaps for years, the dark-blue wool was finely woven and showed little wear. It was tight across the Cimmerian's shoulders, yet had obviously been made for a man bigger than Ghurran.
'Age shrinks all men,' the stooped herbalist said as though he had read Conan's mind.
Conan nodded. 'I thank you, and I will remember this.' The sound of the soldiers had faded away while he was talking. He cracked the door and peered out. The narrow street was jammed with people, but none were guardsmen. 'Fare you well, Ghurran. And again, my thanks.' Without waiting for the other man to speak again, Conan slipped out, descended the stairs and melded into the crowd. The harbour district, he thought.
Once he reached that, there would be time to consider other matters.
III
The patrols of guardsmen were a nuisance to the young Turanian who made his way out of the harbour district and into an area that seemed favoured, as nearly as he could tell, solely by beggars, bawds and cutpurses. He avoided the soldiers deftly, and none of the area's denizens favoured him with a second glance.
A Corinthian mother had given him features that were neither Corinthian nor Turanian, but rather simply dark-eyed and not quite handsome.
Clean-shaven at the moment, he could pass as a native of any one of a half a score of countries and had done so more than once. He was above medium height, with a rawboned lanky build that often fooled men into underestimating his strength, several times to the saving of his life.
His garb was motley, a patched Corinthian doublet that had once been red, baggy Zamoran breeches of pale cotton, well-worn boots from Iranistan.
Only the tulwar at his side and his turban, none too clean and none too neatly wrapped, were Turanian, he thought sourly. Four years gone from his own country and before he was back a tenday, he found himself skulking about the dusty streets of Sultanapur trying to avoid the City Guard. Not for the first time since leaving home at nineteen, he regretted his decision not to follow in his father's footsteps as a spice merchant. As always, though, the regret lasted only until he could remind himself of how boring a spice merchant's life was, but of late that reminding took longer than it once had.
Turning into an alley, he paused to see if anyone took notice. A single footsore trull began to flash a smile at him, then valued his garb in her mind and trudged on. The rest of the throng streamed by without an eye turning his way. He backed down the stench-filled alley, keeping a watch on the street, until he felt a rough wooden door under his fingers. Satisfied that he was still unobserved, he ducked through the doorway into darkness.
Instantly a knife at his throat stopped him in his tracks, but all he did was say quietly, 'I am Jelal. I come from the West.' Anything else, he knew, and the knife wielder would have used his blade, not to mention the two other men he was sure were in the pitch-black room.
Flint struck steel, light flared, and a lamp that smoked and reeked of rancid oil was held to his face. Two, he saw, beside the one who still held a razor edge to his throat, and even the man with the lamp, a thick half-moon scar curling around his right eye, clutched a bared dagger.
The scar-faced man stepped aside and jerked his head toward a door leading deeper into the building. 'Go on,' he said. Only then was the knife lowered from Jelal's throat.
Jelal did not say anything. This was not the first such meeting for him, nor even the twentieth. He went on through the second door.
The windowless room he entered was what was to be expected in this quarter of the city, rough walls of clay brick, a dirt floor, a crude table tilted on a cracked leg. What was not to be expected were the beeswax candles giving light, the white linen cloth spread on the table top, or the crystal flagon of wine sitting on the cloth beside two cups of hammered gold. Nor was the man seated behind the table one to be expected in such a place. A plain dark cloak, nondescript yet of quality too fine for that region of Sultanapur, covered much of his garb. His narrow thin-nosed face, with mustaches and small beard neatly waxed to points, seemed more suited to a palace than a district of beggars. He spoke as soon as Jelal entered.
'It is well you come today, Jelal. Each time I must come out into the city increases the risk I will be seen and identified. You have made contact?' He waved a soft-skinned hand with a heavy gold seal-ring on the forefinger toward the crystal flagon. 'Have some wine for the heat.'
'I have made contact,' Jelal replied carefully, 'but-'
'Good, my boy. I knew that you would, even in so short a time. Four years in Corinthia and Koth and Khauran, posing as every sort of merchant and peddler, legal and otherwise, and never once caught or even suspected. You are perhaps the best man I have ever had. But I fear your task in Sultanapur has changed.'
Jelal drew himself up. 'My lord, I request to be reposted to the Ibari Scouts.'
Lord Khalid, the man who ordered and controlled all the spies of King Yildiz of Turan, stared in amazement. 'Mitra strike me, why?'
'My lord, you say I was never once suspected in four years, and it is true. But it is true because I not only acted the part, I was a merchant, or a peddler as the instant demanded, spending most of my days buying and selling, talking of markets and prices. My lord, I became a soldier in part to avoid becoming a merchant like my father. I was a good soldier, and I ask to serve Turan and the King where I can serve them best, as a soldier once more in the Ibari Mountains.'
The spy master drummed his fingers on the table. 'My boy, you were chosen for the very reasons you cite. Your service was all in the southern mountains, so no western foreigner is likely to ever have seen you as a soldier. Your boyhood training to be a merchant not only prepared you to play that part to perfection, but also, because of a merchant's need to winnow fact from rumour to find the proper market and price, it made sure that you could do the same with other kinds of rumours and give reports of great value. As you have. You serve Turan best where you are.'
'But, my lord-'
'Enough, Jelal. There is no time. What do you know of events in Sultanapur this day?'
Jelal sighed. 'There are many rumours,' he began slowly, 'reporting everything but an invasion. Piecing together the most likely, I should say that Prince Tureg Amal was killed this morning. Beyond that I should say the strongest rumour is that a northlander was involved. As it was not what I came to Sultanapur for, I put no more than half my mind to it, I fear.'
'Half your mind, and you get one of two right.' The older man nodded approvingly. 'You are indeed the best of my men. I do not know
where the rumour of a northlander was born. Perhaps someone saw such a man in the street.'
'But the guardsmen, my lord. They seek-'
'Yes, yes. The rumours have spread even to them, and I've done nothing to change that state of affairs for the moment. Let the true culprits think they have escaped notice. It is not the first time soldiers have been sent chasing shadows, nor will it be the last. And a few innocent foreigners-if any of them can truly be called innocent-a few such put to the question, or even killed, is a small price to pay if it helps us take the true villains unaware. Believe me when I say the throne of Turan could be at stake.'
Jelal managed a nod. He was aware from experience just how coldly practical this soft-appearing man could be, even if the stakes were considerably less than the Turanian throne. 'And the prince, my lord?
You said I was half right.'
'Tureg Amal,' Kalid sighed, 'drunkard, wastrel, lecher, and High Admiral of Turan, died this morning of a poisoned needle thrust into his neck. Not by a northern giant, as the rumours say, but by a woman. A Vendhyan assassin, according to reports.'
'An assassin?' Jelal said. 'My lord, the prince's ways with women are well know. Could he not perhaps simply have driven some wench to murder?'
The spy master shook his head. 'As much as I should prefer it so, no.
The servants at Tureg Amal's palace have been questioned thoroughly. A Vendhyan woman was delivered to the palace this morning, supposedly a gift from a merchant of that country seeking added protection for his cargoes on the Vilayet. Within the hour the prince was dead, the keeper of his zenanna drugged, and the woman had disappeared unseen from a heavily guarded palace.'
'It certainly sounds the work of an assassin,' Jelal agreed, 'but-'
'There could be worse,' the older man cut him off. 'The commander of the prince's bodyguard, one Captain Murad, was also slain this morning, along with two of his men, apparently in a tavern brawl. I do not like such coincidences. Perhaps it was unrelated, and perhaps they were silenced after effecting the woman's escape. And if men of the High Admiral's bodyguard took gold to aid in his death ... well, that scandal could do more harm than the old fool's murder.'
The Conan Chronology Page 104
