Conan the Triumphant Part 2

Conan stopped and looked back, feigning doubt. This fellow, he thought, would not last a day among the peddlers of Turan.

There was sweat on the shopkeeper's face, though the day was cool.

"Please, n.o.ble sir. Come into my shop, and we will talk. Please."

Still pretending reluctance, Conan allowed himself to be ushered inside, plucking the figure from the barrel as he pa.s.sed. Within, the narrow shop was crowded with tables displaying examples of the smith's work. Shelves on the walls held bowls, vases, ewers and goblets in a welter of shapes and sizes. The big Cimmerian set the statuette on a table that creaked under its weight.

"Now," he said, "name me a price. And I'll hear no more mention of gold for something you were going to melt."

Avarice struggled on the smith's plump face with fear of losing a purchaser. "Ten silvers," he said finally, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his face into a parody of his former welcoming expression.

Deliberately Conan removed a single silver coin from his pouch and set it on the table. Crossing his ma.s.sive arms across his chest, he waited.

The plump man's mouth worked, and his head moved in small jerks of negation, but at last he sighed and nodded. "Tis yours," he muttered bitterly. "For one silver. It's as much as it is worth to melt down, and without the labor. But the thing is ill luck. A peasant fleeing the troubles brought it to me. Dug it up on his sc.r.a.p of land. Ancient bronzes always sell well, but none would have this. Ill favored, they called it. And naught but bad luck since it's been in my shop. One of my daughters is with child, but unmarried; the other has taken up with a panderer who sells her not three doors from here. My wife left me for a carter. A common carter, mind you. I tell you, that thing is . . ."

His words wound down as he realized he might be talking himself out of a sale. Hurriedly he s.n.a.t.c.hed the silver and made it disappear under his tunic. "Yours for a silver, n.o.ble sir, and a bargain greater than you can imagine."

"If you say so," Conan said drily. "But get me something to carry it through the streets in." He eyed the figure and chuckled despite himself, imagining the look on Machaon's face when he presented it to him. "The most hardened trull in the city would blush to look on it."

As the smith scurried into the back of his shop, two heavy-set men in the castoff finery of n.o.bles swaggered in. One, in a soiled red brocade tunic, had had his ears and nose slit, the penalties for first and second offences of theft. For the next he would go to the mines. The other, bald and with a straggly black beard, wore a frayed wool cloak that had once been worked with embroidery of silver or gold, long since picked out. Their eyes went immediately to the bronze figure on the table. Conan kept his gaze on them; their swords, at least, looked well tended, and the hilts showed the wear of much use.

"Can I help you?" the shopkeeper asked, reappearing with a coa.r.s.ely woven sack in his hand. There was no 'n.o.ble sir' for this sort.

"That," slit-ear said gruffly, pointing to the statuette. "A gold piece for it."

The smith coughed and spluttered, glaring reproachfully at Conan. "It's mine," the Cimmerian said calmly, "and I've no mind to sell."

"Two gold pieces," slit-ear said. Conan shook his head.

"Five," the bald man offered.

Slit-ear rounded on his companion. "Give away your profit, an you will, but not mine! I'll make this ox an offer," he snarled and spun, his sword whispering from its sheath.

Conan made no move toward his own blade. Grasping the bronze figure by its feet, he swung it sideways. The splintering of bone blended with slit-ear's scream as his shoulder was crushed.

The bald man had his sword out now, but Conan merely stepped aside from his lunge and brought the weighty statuette down like a mace, splattering blood and brains. The dead man's momentum carried him on into the tables, overturning those he did not smash, sending bra.s.s vases and bowls clattering across the floor. Conan whirled back to find the first man thrusting with a dagger held left-handed. The blade skittered off his hauberk, and the two men crashed together. For the s.p.a.ce of a breath they were chest to chest, Conan staring into desperate black eyes. This time he disdained to use a weapon. His huge fist traveled more than half the length of his forearm, and slitear staggered back, his face a b.l.o.o.d.y mask, to pull shelves down atop him as he crumpled to the floor. Conan did not know if he was alive or dead, nor did he care.

The smith stood in the middle of the floor, hopping from one foot to the other. "My shop!" he wailed. "My shop is wrecked! You steal for a silver what they would have given five gold pieces for, then you destroy my place of business!"

"They have purses," Conan growled. "Take the cost of your repairs from-" He broke off with a curse as the scent of roses wafted to his nose. Delving into his pouch, he came out with a fragment of vial.

Perfume was soaking into his hauberk. And his cloak. "Erlik take the pair of them," he muttered. He hefted the bronze figure that he still held in one hand. "What about this thing is worth five gold pieces? Or worth dying for?" The shopkeeper, gingerly feeling for the ruffians'

purses, did not answer.

Cursing under his breath Conan wiped the blood from the figure and thrust it into the sack the smith had let drop.

With a shout of delight the smith held up a handful of silver, then drew back as if he feared Conan might take it. He started, then stared at the two men littering his floor as if realizing where they were for the first time. "But what will I do with them?" he cried.

"Apprentice them," Conan told him, "I'll wager they won't put anything valuable in the sc.r.a.p barrel."

Leaving the dumpy man kneeling on the floor with his mouth hanging open, Conan stalked into the street. It was time and more to find himself a woman.

In his haste he did not notice the heavily veiled woman whose green eyes widened in surprise at his appearance. She watched him blend into the crowd then, gathering her cloak about her, followed slowly.

Chapter II.

The Bull and Bear was almost empty when Conan entered, and the half-dread silence suited his mood well. The curly-haired trull had been leaving with a customer when he got back to her corner, and he had not seen another to compare with her between there and this tavern.

An odor of stale wine and sweat hung in the air of the common room; it was not a tavern for gentlefolk. Half a dozen men, carters and apprentices in rough woolen tunics, sat singly at the tables scattered about the stone floor, each engrossed in his own drinking. A single doxy stood with her back to a corner, not plying her trade but seeming rather to ignore the men in the room. Auburn hair fell in soft waves to her shoulders. Wrapped in layers of green silk, she was more modestly covered than most n.o.ble ladies of Ophir, and she wore none of the gaudy ornaments such women usually adorned themselves with, but the elaborate kohl of her eyelids named her professional, as did her presence in that place. Still, there was a youthful freshness to her face that gave him cause to think she had not long been at it.

Conan was so intent on the girl that he failed at first to see the graying man, the full beard of a scholar spreading over his chest, who muttered to himself over a battered pewter pitcher at a table to one side of the door. When he did, he sighed, wondering if the wench would be worth putting up with the old man.

At that moment the bearded man caught sight of Conan, and a drunken, snaggle-toothed grin split his wizened face. His tunic was patched in a rainbow of colors, and stained with wine and food.

"Conan," he cried, gesturing so hard for the big youth to come closer that he nearly fell from his stool. "Come. Sit. Drink."

"You look to have had enough, Boros," Conan said drily, "and I'll buy you no more."

"No need to buy," Boros laughed. He fumbled for the pitcher. "No need.

See? Water. But with just a little . . ." His voice trailed off into mumbles, while his free hand made pa.s.ses above the pitcher.

"Crom!" Conan shouted, leaping back from the table. Some in the room looked up, but seeing neither blood nor chance for advantage all went back to their drinking. "Not again while you're drunk, you old fool!"

the Cimmerian continued hastily. "Narus still isn't rid of those warts you gave him trying to cure his boil."

Boros cackled and thrust the pitcher toward him. "Taste. 'S wine.

Naught to fear here."

Cautiously Conan took the proffered pitcher and sniffed at the mouth of it. His nose wrinkled, and he handed the vessel back. "You drink first, since it's your making."

"Fearful, are you?" Boros laughed. "And big as you are. Had I your muscles . . ." He buried his nose in the pitcher, threw back his head, and almost in the same motion hurled the vessel from him, gagging, spluttering and spitting. "Mitra's mercies," he gasped shakily, scrubbing the back of a bony hand across his mouth. "Never tasted anything like that in my life. Must have put a gill or more down my gullet. What in Azura's name is it?"

Conan suppressed a grin. "Milk. Sour milk, by the smell."

Boros shuddered and retched, but nothing came up. "You switched the pitcher," he said when he could speak. "Your hands are swift, but not so swift as my eye. You owe me wine, Cimmerian."

Conan dropped onto a stool across the table from Boros, setting the sack containing the bronze on the floor at his side. He had little liking for wizards, but properly speaking Boros was not such a one. The old man had been an apprentice in the black arts, but a liking for drink that became an all-consuming pa.s.sion had led him to the gutter rather than down crooked paths of dark knowledge. "When sober he was of some use in curing minor ills, or providing a love philtre; drunk, he was sometimes a danger even to himself. He was a good drinking companion, though, so long as he was kept from magic.

"Here!" the tavernkeeper bellowed, wiping his hands on a filthy once-white ap.r.o.n as he hurried toward them. With his spindly limbs and pot belly, he looked like a fat spider. "What's all this mess on the floor? I'll have you know this tavern is respectable, and-"

"Wine," Conan cut him off, tossing coppers to clatter on the floor at his feet. "And have a wench bring it." He gestured to the strangely aloof doxy. "That one in the corner will do."

"She don't work for me," the tavernkeeper grunted, bending to collect the pitcher and the coins. Then he got down on hands and knees to fetch one copper from under the table and grinned at it in satisfaction. "But you'll have a girl, never fear."

He disappeared into the rear of the building, and in short moments a plump girl scurried out, one strip of blue silk barely containing her bouncing b.r.e.a.s.t.s and another fastened about her hips, to set a pitcher of wine and a pair of dented tankards before the two men. Wriggling, she moved closer to Conan, a seductive light in her dark eyes. He was barely aware of her; his eves had gone back to the auburn-haired jade.

"Fool!" the serving wench snapped. "As well take a block of ice in your arms as that one." And with a roll of her lips she flounced away. Conan stared after her in amazement. "What is Zandru's Nine h.e.l.ls got into her?" he growled.

"Who understands women?" Boros muttered absently. Hastily he filled a tankard and gulped half of it. "Besides," he went on in bleary tones once he had taken a deep breath, "now Tiberio's dead, we'll have too much else to be worrying about. . ." The rest of his words were drowned in another mouthful of wine.

"Tiberio dead?" Conan said incredulously. "I spoke of him not too hours gone and heard no mention of this. Black Erlik's Throne, stop drinking and talk. What of Tiberio?"