“And that,” Naipal laughed, loud and mocking, “is all but done, is it not, Masrok, my faithful servant?”
Success so filled him with ebullience that the stupefying fear of the past few days was swept away. Certainly enough time had passed. On whatever waters that vessel rode, if it was near enough to threaten him when he was so close to his goals, it must have made shore by now. And if it had, surely whatever danger it carried had been dealt with by his myrmidons. He would admit no other thought, not when so many victories were already his on this day.
With a firm hand he raised the carven ivory lid and brushed back the silken coverings. Black was the surface of the mirror, and dotted with tiny points of light. It took a moment for Naipal to realize that he saw a vast array of campfires, viewed from a great height. If one small ship had threatened him before, now it seemed that an army did. For his days of fear he was repaid with more fear, and with uncertainty. Had the danger of the ship been disposed of, or had it been transmogrified to this? Was this a new threat, surpassing the old?
Long into the night Naipal’s howls of rage echoed in the vast dome.
CHAPTER XI
When the first paleness of dawn appeared on the horizon, Conan was already up and saddling the stallion. The hollow thunk of axes chopping wood drifted to him from the bank of the Zaporoska, not half a league off and lined with tall trees. He shook his head at the Khitan merchant’s camels, sharing the picket line with the smugglers’ horses. Camels were filthy beasts, to his mind, both in habits and smell, and untrustworthy besides. He would rather have a horse at any time, or even a mule.
“Stinking beast,” Hordo grumbled, slapping a camel’s flank to make it move aside. Coughing from the cloud of dust he had raised, the one-eyed man edged into the space created to reach his own mount. “And dirty, too.”
“Have you looked at the goods they carry?” Conan asked quietly.
“I saw no chests, if that’s what you mean. We cross the river this morning, you know.”
“Pay attention, Hordo. It is all carpets and velvet and tapestries, as the Khitan said. But the value of it, Hordo.” The big Cimmerian had been a thief in his youth, and his eye could still gauge the price of anything worth stealing. “ ’Tis mainly of the third quality, with only a little of the second. I should not think it worth carrying to Arenjun, much less all the way to Vendhya.”
“Distance and rarity increase value,” Kang Hou said, approaching silently on felt-slippered feet. His hands were tucked into the sleeves of a pale-blue velvet tunic, this one embroidered with swallows in flight. “It is clear you are no merchant, Patil. The Iranistani carpet that will barely procure a profit in Turan will bring fifty times as much in Vendhya. Do you think the finest Vendhyan carpets go to Turan? Those grace the floors of Vendhyan nobles, yet a far greater price may be obtained by taking a carpet of the second quality to Aghrapur than by selling one of the first quality in Ayodhya.”
“I am no merchant,” Conan agreed, backing the black Bhalkhana away from the picket line, “nor wish to be. Yet I am as eager to reach Vendhya as you. If you will excuse me, Kang Hou, I will see when the caravan is to move on. And what else I can discover,” he added for Hordo’s ears.
Conan rode through the encampment slowly, for though he was indeed eager to travel onward, also did he wish to give his eyes a chance to roam, to see if they might perchance light on some chests like those used for shipping tea.
The caravan was in fact three encampments, though the three camps butting one against the other, and even larger than Conan had supposed. Three and forty merchants, with their servants, attendants and animal tenders, made up nearly the thousand people he thought the entire caravan contained, numbering among them Vendhyans and Khitans, Zamorans and Turanians, Kothians and Iranistanis. Men scurried to collapse and fold tents, to load bales and bundles and wicker panniers on camels and mules under the watchful eyes of finely-clad merchants, who eyed each other as well with surreptitious suspicion, wondering if some other had cut a sharper bargain or aimed for the same markets. Conan received his own share of speculative glances, and more than one merchant called nervously for his guards as the tall Cimmerian rode past.
Vendhyan nobles who had accompanied the wazam to Aghrapur had the second encampment, and it was odd enough for a second glance even if the chests were not there. Conan’s first thought was that he had stumbled onto a traveling fair, for well over half a thousand people surrounded those gaily striped and pennoned pavilions, being lowered now by turbaned servants. Here, too, were men from many lands, but these were jugglers keeping a dozen balls in the air at once, and acrobats balancing atop limber poles. A bear danced to a flute, tumblers leaped and twisted, and strolling players plucked lute and zither. Skull-capped men in flowing robes and long beards moved through the seeming carnival as if it did not exist, talking in twos and threes, though in truth two of them, screaming insults, were being held from each other’s throats by one who, stripped to the waist and with bulging muscles oiled, appeared to be a strongman.
The third encampment had already been struck and taken to the river, where axemen were building rafts for the crossing, but Conan had no intention of approaching that one in any case. It was not that he could imagine no way the chests might have ended up in the baggage of Karim Singh, wazam of Vendhya, but five hundred hard-eyed Vendhyan cavalry provided steep odds. Their brigantine hauberks and turbaned helms with mail neck guards were much like those of the Vendhyans on the beach, but these men were very obviously aware of just how far into disputed territory they were. They rode like cats, ready to jump at a sound, and their long-bladed lances swung down if anyone came within a hundred paces.
Abruptly something whistled past Conan’s face, close enough for him to feel the breeze. Crossbow bolt, a part of his mind told him even as he instinctively dropped as low as the high pommel would permit and dug his heels into the big black’s flanks. The stallion bounded forward and was at a dead run in three strides. Conan sensed rather than saw other quarrels streak by, and once his saddle was jolted by a hit.
As the river drew closer, he finally pulled up and looked back. Nothing in the breaking camp appeared out of the ordinary. No crossbows were in evidence; no one even looked in his direction. Dismounting, he checked the black over. The animal was uninjured and eager to run farther, but in the high cantle of the saddle there was a quarrel thicker than his finger. Conan felt a grim chill. A hand-breadth higher and it would have been in his back. At least there could no longer be any doubt that the chests were in the caravan.
“You there!” came a shout from the direction of the river. “You, Patil!”
Conan looked up and saw Torio, the caravan guard captain, riding toward him. A quick tug pulled the quarrel free. Letting it fall to the ground, he mounted and rode to meet the other man, who began to speak immediately.
“Twice each year for ten years I have made the journey from Aghrapur to Ayodhya and back, and every time there is something new. Now comes something in its own way stranger than any I have seen before.”
“And what is this strange thing?”
“His Most Puissant Excellency, Karim Singh, wazam of Vendhya, Adviser to the Elephant, wishes your presence, Patil. I mean no offense, but you are obviously no noble, and Karim Singh rarely admits the existence of anyone lower. Why should he suddenly wish to see you, of whom it is most unlikely he has ever heard before?”
“Adviser to the Elephant?” Conan said, partly because he could think of no possible answer to the question and partly from amusement. He had heard of the great gray beasts and hoped to see one on this journey.
“One of the King of Vendhya’s titles is the Elephant,” Torio replied. “It is no more foolish than Yildiz being called the Golden Eagle, I suppose, or any of the other things kings call themselves.”
“Where is this Adviser to the Elephant?”
“Across the river already, and I would watch my tongue around him if I did not want to lose it. That is his pavilion.
” Torio pointed to a large sprawling tent of golden silk on the opposite bank, encircled by a hundred Vendhyan lancers facing outward. “He cares not at all if we are held up because he wants to talk to you, but his party must be the first in line of march. Karim Singh will breathe no man’s dust.” The guard captain paused, frowning at nothing, occasionally seeming to study Conan from the corner of his eye. “Mine is a difficult position, Patil. I am responsible for the safety of all in the caravan but must offend no one. What who has said to whom, who seeks advantage and where, these things become important. All the dangers do not come from outside, from Kuigars or Zuagirs. A man can earn silver, and as the sums are not so large as others might offer, only silence as to who was told is required, not total loyalty. Do you understand?”
“No,” Conan replied truthfully, and the other man stiffened as though struck.
“Very well then, Patil. Play the game alone if you wish, but remember that only the very powerful can play alone and survive.” Jerking the reins viciously, Torio trotted away.
The man belonged with the Vendhyan nobles and the jugglers, Conan thought. He spouted gibberish and was offended when he was not understood.
The tree-lined riverbank was a scene of sweating and shouting. With a crash another thick bole toppled, and laborers rushed with their axes to hew away limbs so it could be lashed to the large raft half-finished at the water’s edge. A complement of Vendhyan lancers was leading the horses onto another raft, some fifty feet in length, while a third was in mid-river, making its way along one or a pair of thick cables bowed by the slow current of the Zaporoska. Another heavy cable was already being fastened in place for the raft under construction. Ropes attached to the rafts led to the motive power for the journey in both directions: two score of ragged slaves on either bank for each raft.
The Vendhyan cavalrymen stared at Conan, black eyes unblinking and expressionless, as he led the stallion among them onto the raft. They were tall men, but he was half a head taller than the biggest. Some tried to stand straighter. The only sound on the raft was the occasional stamp of a hoof. Conan could feel the tension in the soldiers. Any one of them would take a direct look as a challenge and being obviously ignored as an insult. As he was not looking for a fight before he even got across the river, the Cimmerian involved himself with pretending to check his saddle girth.
The raft lurched and swayed, swinging out into the current as a strain was taken on the two ropes. It was then that Conan found something to look at in earnest, something on the shore behind them. Well away from the water, Torio rode slowly, peering at the ground. Looking for what he had thrown down, Conan realized. He watched the guard captain until the raft touched the far bank.
CHAPTER XII
Seen close, the huge tent of golden silk was impressive, supported by more than a score of tent poles. The hundred Vendhyan lancers could have fit inside easily, and their horses as well.
The circle of mounted men opened before Conan, seemingly without command. As he rode through, it closed again. He wished he did not feel that those steel-tipped lances were the bars of a cage.
Turbaned servants rushed to meet the Cimmerian, one to take the stallion’s bridle, another to hold his stirrup. At the entrance to the pavilion stood a servant with cool, damp towels on a silver tray, to wipe his hands and face. Still another knelt and tried to lave his sandaled feet.
“Enough,” Conan growled, tossing back a crumpled towel. “Where is your master?”
A plump man appeared in the entrance, a spray of egret plumes on his large turban of gold and green. Beneath the edge of his gold-brocade tunic peeked the pointed, curling toes of silken slippers. Conan thought this was the wazam until the man bowed deeply and said, “Pray follow me, master.”
Within, a large chamber had been created by hangings of cloth of gold and floors of Vendhyan carpets fit for the palace of a king. Incense lay thick and heavy in the air. Hidden musicians began to play on flute and cithern as Conan entered, and five women, so heavily veiled and swathed in silk that he could see nothing but their dark eyes, began to dance.
Reclining on a rainbow of silken cushions was a tall man, his narrow olive face topped by a turban of scarlet silk. The servant’s snowy plumes were duplicated here in diamonds and pearls. About his neck hung a thick necklace of gold set with emeralds as large as pigeon’s eggs, and every finger wore a ring of rubies and sapphires. His dark eyes were deep-set and harder than any of the gems he wore.
“Are you Karim Singh?” Conan asked.
“I am.” The seated man’s deep voice held a note of shock, but he said, “Your lack of the proper forms is strange, but amusing. You may continue it. You are the one called Patil. It is a name of my country and seems odd on one so obviously from distant lands.”
“There are many lands,” Conan said, “and many names. The name Patil serves me.”
The wazam smiled as though the Cimmerian had said something clever. “Sit. One must endure the deprivations of travel, but the wine, at least, is tolerable.”
Seating himself cross-legged on the cushions, Conan ignored silver trays of candied dates and pickled quail eggs proffered by servants who seemed to appear and vanish by magic, so obsequiously silent were they. He did accept a goblet of heavy gold, ringed by a wide band of amethysts. The wine had a smell of perfume and tasted of honey.
“Word travels quickly,” Karim Singh went on. “I soon heard about you, a pale-skinned giant with eyes like…. Most disconcerting, those eyes.” He did not sound in the least disconcerted. “I know much of the western world, you see, though it is a veiled land to many of my countrymen. Before journeying to Aghrapur to make treaty with King Yildiz, I studied what has been written. While there, I listened. I know of the pale barbarians of the distant north, fierce warriors, stark slayers, ruthless. Such men can be useful.”
For the first time in what seemed a very great while, Conan felt he was on ground he knew, if ground he did not particularly like. “I have taken service as far as Ayodhya,” he said. “After that my plans are uncertain.”
“Ah, yes. The Khitan. He is a spy, of course.”
Conan almost choked on the wine. “The merchant?”
“In Vendhya all foreigners are considered spies. It is safer that way.” The intent look in Karim Singh’s eyes made the Cimmerian wonder for whom he himself was considered to be spying. “But there are spies, and there are spies. One who spies on a spy, for instance. Not all in my land have Vendhya’s best interests in their hearts. It might be of interest to me to know to whom in Vendhya the Khitan speaks, and what he says. It might interest me enough to be worth gold.”
“I am not a spy,” Conan said tightly. “Not for anyone.” He felt a moment’s confusion as the wazam gave a pleased smile.
“Very good, Patil. It is seldom one finds a man faithful to the first buyer.”
There was a patronizing tone to his words that made Conan’s eyes grow cold. He thought of explaining, but he did not think this man would recognize the concept of honor if it were thrust in his face. As he cast about for a way to change the subject, the Cimmerian’s gaze fell on the dancers and his jaw dropped. Opaque veils still covered the faces of the five women to the eyes, but the other swathings of silk now littered the carpets beneath their feet. All of them. Supple curves of rounded olive flesh spun across the chamber, now leaping like gazelles with stretching legs, now writhing as though their bones had been replaced with serpents.
“You appreciate my trinkets?” Karim Singh asked. “They are trophies, after a fashion. Certain powerful lords long opposed me. Then each discovered he was not so powerful as he thought, discovered, too, that even for a lord, life itself could have a price. A favorite daughter, for instance. Each personally laid that price at my feet. Are they not lovely?”
“Lovely,” Conan agreed hoarsely. He strove for a smoother tone, lest the other take his surprise for a lack of sophistication. “And I have no doubt their faces will be equally as lovely when the final veil is dr
opped.”
Karim Singh stiffened momentarily. “I forget that you are an outlander. These women are of my purdhana. For them to unveil their faces before anyone other than myself would shame them greatly, and me as well.”
Considering the soft nudities before him, Conan nodded. “I see,” he said slowly. He did not see at all. Different lands, different customs, but this tended toward madness. Taking a deep breath, he set down the goblet and rose to his feet. “I must go now. Kang Hou will soon be crossing the river.”
“Of course. And when you reach Ayodhya and no longer serve him, I will send for you. There is always need for a man of loyalty, for a ruthless slayer untroubled by civilized restraints.”
Conan did not trust himself to speak. He jerked his head in what he hoped might pass for a bow and stalked out.
Outside the tent the plump man with the egret plumes on his turban was waiting, a silver tray in his hands. “A token from my master,” he said, bowing.
There was a leather purse on the tray. It was soft and buttery in Conan’s palm and he could feel the coins within. He did not open it to count them or to see if they were gold or silver.
“Thank your master for his generosity,” he said, then tossed the purse back to the startled man. “A token from me. Distribute it among the other servants.”
He could feel the plump fellow’s eyes on his back as he strode to his horse—the two servants were still there; one to hold the bridle, one to hold the stirrup for him to mount—but he did not care. If Karim Singh was insulted by the gesture, so be it. He had had all of His Puissant Excellency, the Adviser to the Elephant, that he could stomach.
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