"Hordo," the slender girl said, "what happened to your arm?"

"I fell over a broken wine-jar," he replied sheepishly.

She gave him a sharp look and left, returning in a moment with a pile of clean rags and a jug of wine. Uncorking the wine, she began to pour it over the gash on Hordo's arm.

"No!" he shouted, s.n.a.t.c.hing it from her hand.

An amused smile quirked her mouth. "It hurts not that much, Hordo."

"It hurts not at all," he growled. "But this is the proper way to use wine."

And he tipped the clay jug up to his mouth, with his free hand fending off her attempts to take it back. When finally he stopped for breath she jerked it away, pouring the little wine that remained over a cloth and dabbing at his forehead.

"Hold still, Hordo," she told him. "I will fetch you more wine later."

Across the common room Conan noticed a face strange to the inn. A handsome young man in a richly embroidered red velvet tunic sat at a table in a corner, talking to Graecus, a swarthy sculptor who spent considerable time in the company of Stephano.

After discovering that someone might want him dead, Conan was feeling suspicious of strangers. He touched Kerin's arm.

"That man," he said. "The one talking to Graecus. Who is he? He seems well dressed for an artist."

"Demetrio, an artist?" she snorted. "A catamite and a wastrel. They say he's a great wit, but I've never found him so. Betimes he likes to dazzle those among us who can be dazzled by his sort, when he is not rolling in the fleshpots."

"Think you it's him?" Hordo asked.

Conan shrugged. "Him, or anyone else."

"By Erebus, Cimmerian, I'm too old for this."

"What are you two talking about?" Kerin demanded. "No. I'd as lief not know" She rose, pulling Hordo behind her, a faun leading a bear. "That cut on your arm needs ointment. Wine-jar, indeed!"

"When I return," Hordo called over his shoulder to Conan, "we can begin looking for the men we want. Courtesy of our enemy, eh?"

"Done," Conan called back, rising. "And I'll fetch that sword. It should fetch a coin or two."

In his room abovestairs the Cimmerian pried up a loosened floor board and took out the serpentine blade. Light from the small window ran along the gleaming steel, and glinted on the silver work of the quillons. The feel of taint rose from it like a miasma.

As he straightened he wrapped his cloak, rent from the tall man's sword, about the blade. Even holding it in his bare hand made his stomach turn as the slaying of his first man had not.

When Conan returned to the common room, the man in the red velvet tunic was waiting at the foot of the stair, a pomander to his aquiline nose, his eyes lidded with languorous indolence, yet the Cimmerian noted that the hilt of his sword showed wear, and the hand that held the pomander had bladesman's calluses. Conan started past.

"A moment, please," the slender man said. "I am called Demetrio. I collect swords of ancient pattern, and I could not help but hear that you possess such a one, and wish to sell it."

"I remember nothing of calling it ancient," Conan replied. The man had a viperish quality the Cimmerian liked not. As if he could smile and clasp a hand, yet strike to the heart while doing so. Still, he found himself listening.

"Perhaps I but imagined you named it ancient," Demetrio said smoothly: "If it is not, I have no interest. But an it is, well might I buy." He eyed the cloak-wrapped bundle beneath the Cimmerian's arm. "You have it there?"

Conan reached into the cloak and drew forth the blade. "This is the sword," he said, and stopped as Demetrio jumped back, hand to his own sword. The Cimmerian flipped the sword over, proffering the hilt.

"Perhaps you wish to try its heft?"

"No." The word was a shaky whisper. "I can see that I want it."

The flesh about Demetrio's mouth was tight and pale. The strange thought came to Conan that the slender man was afraid of the sword, but he dismissed the notion as foolish. He tossed the sword onto a nearby table. His hand felt dirty from holding it. And that was foolish too.

Demetrio swallowed, seeming to breathe more easily as he looked at the blade where it lay: "This sword," he said, not looking at the Cimmerian. "Has it any... properties? Any magicks?"

Conan shook his head. "None that I know" Such might add to the price he could demand, but any such claims would be easily disproved. "What will you give?"

"Three gold marks," Demetrio said promptly.

The big Cimmerian blinked. He had been thinking in terms of silver pieces. But if the sword had some value to this young man, it was time to bargain. "For a blade so ancient," he said, "Many collectors would pay twenty."

The slender man gave him a searching look. "I have not so much with me," he muttered.

Shocked, Conan wondered if the blade was that of some long-dead king; Demetrio had made not even a pretense of haggling. His practiced thief's eye priced the amethyst-studded gold bracelet on Demetrio's wrist at fifty gold marks, and a small ruby pin on his tunic at twice that. The man would be good for twenty marks, he thought.

"I would be willing to wait," Conan began, when Demetrio pulled the bracelet from his wrist and thrust it at him.

"Will you take that?" the fellow asked. "I would not risk another buying while I am gone to get coin. It is worth more than the twenty marks, I a.s.sure you. But add in that cloak, for I would not carry a bare blade in the streets."

"Cloak and blade are yours," the Cimmerian said, and quickly exchanged the fur-trimmed garment for the bracelet.

He felt a surge of joy as his fist closed over the amethyst-studded gold. No need to make do now with the few men ten gold pieces would hire. His Free-Company was literally in his grasp.

"I would ask you," he added, "why this blade has such worth. Is it perhaps the sword of an ancient king, or hero?"

Demetrio paused in the act of carefully wrapping the cloak about the sword. Carefully, Conan thought, and as gingerly as if it were a dangerous animal.

"How are you called?" the slender man asked.

"I am called Conan."

"You are right, Conan. This is the sword of an ancient king. In fact, you might say this is the sword of Bragoras." And he laughed as if he had said the funniest thing he had ever heard. Still laughing, he gathered up the sword and cloak and hurried into the street.

Chapter VII.

Alba.n.u.s paused at the door, the crude, fur-trimmed bundle beneath his arm out of place in the tapestry-hung room with its carpetstrewn marble floor. Sularia sat before a tall mirror, a golden silk robe about her creamy shoulders, a kneeling slave woman brushing the honey silk of her hair. Seeing his reflection Sularia let the robe drop, giving him a view of her generous b.r.e.a.s.t.s in the mirror.

The hawk-faced lord snapped his fingers. The slave looked around; at his gesture she bowed and fled on bare feet.

"You have brought me a gift?" Sularia said. "It is wrapped most strangely, an you have." She examined her face in the mirror, and lightly stroked rouge onto her cheeks with a brush of fur.

"This is not for you," he laughed. "'Tis the sword of Melius."

With a key that hung on a golden chain about his neck, he unlocked a large lacquered chest standing against the wall, turning the key first one way then the other in a precise pattern. Were that pattern not followed exactly, he had told Sularia, a cunningly contrived system of tubes and air-chambers would hurl poison darts into the face of the opener.