The Kothian's mouth worked soundlessly, and he scrubbed his hands all the harder in his ap.r.o.n.

"Find your tongue, fool, before I slit it! If the captain's with a wench, still he must hear the word I bring without delay. Speak, or I'll have your hide for boots!"

Abruptly the straggly-mustached soldier caught the speaker's tunic sleeve. "It's Murad, Tavik!" he exclaimed, pointing.

From the still form of the officer the guards' eyes rose inexorably to Conan, their faces hard. The Cimmerian waited calmly, seemingly unaffected by their stares. What would happen, would happen.

"Your work, big man?" Tavik asked coldly. "Striking an officer of the City Guard will cost you the bastinado. Abdul, see to waking the captain."

They had rested too long under the protection of their position with regard to the smugglers, the big youth thought. Tavik drew his curved sword, but held it casually, lowered by his side, as though he did not believe anyone there would actually make him use it. The other did not even reach for his weapon.

Abdul squatted beside Captain Murad's body, grasped the officer's arms, and stiffened. "He's dead," he breathed, then shouted it. "He's dead, Tavik!"

Conan kicked the bench he had been sitting on at Abdul, who was attempting to leap to his feet and unsheathe his sword at the same time. As the scraggly-mustached man danced awkwardly to avoid falling over the impediment, the Cimmerian's own blade was bared. At his companion's cry, Tavik had raised his blade high to slash, which might have been all very well had his opponent been unarmed. Now he paid for his error as Conan's steel sliced across his exposed belly. With a shrill scream, Tavik dropped his sword, fingers clutching in a vain attempt to keep in the thick ropes of his intestines as he followed the weapon to the stone floor.

Conan leaped back as he recovered from the killing stroke, his broadsword arcing down barely in time to block Abdul's thrust at his side. The force of the blow knocked the guardsman's tulwar wide, and doomed desperation filled his dark eyes in the moment before the Cimmerian's blade pierced his throat to stand out a handspan from the back of his neck. As Conan jerked his sword free from the collapsing corpse, Tavik gave one last kick and died.

Grimly the Cimmerian wiped his sword on Abdul's tunic and sheathed it.

The common room, he realized, now held but half those it had at the beginning of his fight, and more were disappearing every moment through the doors that led to alleys beside and behind the building. No man or wench in the tavern but would want to be able to deny being in the Golden Crescent on the day three of the City Guard died there.

The Kothian tavernkeeper cracked the door to the street enough to peer out, then closed it with a groan. "Guardsmen," he muttered. "Half a score of them. And they look impatient. They'll be in here in a trice to see what's keeping those two. How am I to explain this happening in my tavern? What am I to tell them-" His hand s.n.a.t.c.hed the gold coin Conan tossed him, and he was not too despondent to bite it before making it disappear beneath his ap.r.o.n.

"Tell them, Banaric," Conan said, "of the slavers from Khoraf who killed the captain in a quarrel, and then the guardsmen. A dozen slavers. Too many for you to interfere."

Banaric nodded reluctantly. "They might believe it. Maybe."

They were the last two in the tavern, Conan saw. Even Tasha had gone.

And without a word, he thought sourly. In a matter of moments the entire day had gone rotten. At least he would not have to worry about being hounded by the City Guard. Or he would not if the Kothian told the story he had been paid to tell.

"Remember, Banaric," he said. "A dozen Khorafi slavers." He waited for the innkeeper's nod, then slipped out the back.

Chapter II.

Conan hurried away from the Golden Crescent by the network of alleys, barely as wide as his shoulders and stinking of urine and offal, that crisscrossed the area of the tavern. His plans had been for a day in Tasha's arms, but that had certainly gone aglimmering. He slipped in the slime underfoot, barely caught himself, and cursed. Even if he managed to find the jade again, he was not sure he wanted to spend time with a woman who would take his gift and then run away-without so much as a kiss-just because of a little trouble. There were other women, and other uses for his time. Even after buying the topaz for her and tossing a gold piece to Banaric, Conan's purse was far from empty. The "fish" unloaded the night before on a secluded beach had been Khitan silks and the famed Basralla laces from Vendhya, and the prices paid for them were generous. He would spend a little coin on himself.

Deep into the heart of the sprawling city he went, far from the harbor district, yet all parts of Sultanapur had their share of bustling commerce. There were no ox-drawn carts here, but still the narrow streets were filled with humanity, for coppersmith's shop and bawdy house might lie cheek by jowl with rich merchant's dwelling, and tavern and potter's shop with temple. Buyers, sellers and worshipers were all jumbled in the throng.

Sleek ladies in veils of lace, trailed by servants to carry their purchases, jostled with apprentices bearing rolled rugs or stacked bolts of cloth on their shoulders. Filthy urchins with greedy lingers stalked the purses of fat men with velvet tunics and even greedier eves. In a small square a juggler kept six lighted brands in the air at the same time while shouting curses at trulls in girdles of coin and little else who solicited those who paused to watch.

At every street crossing, fruit peddlers sold pomegranates, oranges and figs, some from trays held before them by a strap about the neck, some from wicker panniers on donkeys. From time to time the donkeys added their braying to the general tumult. Geese and chickens in reed cages honked and cackled, pigs tethered by a leg grunted disconsolately.

Hawkers cried a hundred varied wares, and merchants bargained at the top of their lungs, shouting that such a price would ruin them, then going lower still.

A copper bought a large handful of figs that Conan ate as he strolled and looked, and occasionally made a purchase. From a swordsmith, working his forge beneath a striped awning with the ring of hammer on white-hot metal, the Cimmerian purchased a straight-bladed dagger and sheath that he tucked through his sword-belt in the small of his back.

Finely carved amber beads went into his pouch with the thought that they would grace the neck of some other wench than Tasha. Unless, of course, she apologized prettily for running away as she had.

A narrow, shadowed shop, presided over by a skinny man with an unctuous manner and oily countenance, yielded a white hooded cloak of the thinnest wool, not for the cold that never came in Sultanapur, but to keep off the sun. He had looked for such a cloak for some time, but most men in Sultanapur wore turbans, and few cloaks with hoods were sold, not to mention cloaks large enough to fit across his shoulders.

A ragged man pa.s.sed Conan, bearing on his back a large clay jar wrapped in damp cloths. The handle of a ladle protruded from the mouth of the jar, and bra.s.s cups clinked against each other as they dangled on chains along the jar's sides. The sight of him awoke in Conan the thirst that came from eating so many sweetly ripe figs, for the ragged man was a water seller. In a city so hot and so dry as Sultanapur, water had a price as surely as did wine.

Conan motioned the man aside and squatted against a wall while the water seller set down his jar. The chains reached far enough for a Turanian to stand and drink, but Conan must needs either squat or stoop. A copper pa.s.sed into the water seller's bony hand, and Conan took his cup of water.

Not so cool by far as a mountain stream in Cimmeria, he thought, freshened by the runoff of the spring thaws. But such thoughts were worse than useless, serving only to make the heat seem to suck moisture from a man even faster. He drew up the hood of his new cloak to give himself a little shade. As he drank, fragments of talk drifted to him through the cacophony of the street. Tasha occupied his mind, and but fragments of fragments registered on his ear.

". . . Forty coppers the cask is outrageous . . ."

". . . At least ten dead, they say, and one a general . . ."

". . . A prince, I heard . . ."

". . . If my husband finds out, Mahmoud . . ."

". . . A Vendhyan plot. . ."

". . . While the wazam of Vendhya is in Aghrapur talking peace . . ."

". . . So I seduced his daughter to even the bargain . . ."

". . . The a.s.sa.s.sin was a northland giant. . ."

Conan froze with the bra.s.s cup at his lips. Slowly he raised his eyes to the water seller's face. The man, staring idly at the wall against which the Cimmerian crouched, seemed merely to await the return of his cup, but sweat beaded his dark forehead where there had been none before, and his feet shuffled as though he would be away quickly.

"What did you hear, water seller?"

The ragged man jumped, rocking his jar. He had to catch it to keep it from toppling. "Master? I ... I hear nothing." A nervous laugh punctuated his words. "There are always rumors, master. Always rumors, but I listen only to the babblings of my own head."

Conan slid a silver piece into the man's calloused palm. "What did you hear just now?" He asked in a milder tone. "About a northlander."

"Master, I sell water. Nothing else." Conan merely continued looking at him, but the man blinked and swallowed as though at a snarl. "Master, they say ... they say there are soldiers dead, City Guardsmen, and perhaps a general or a prince. They say Vendhyans hired it done, and that one of the slayers ..."

"Yes? "

The water seller swallowed again. "Master, they, say one of the slayers was a ... a giant. A ... a northlander."

Conan nodded. The tale obviously had its roots in the occurrence at the Golden Crescent. And if so much were common knowledge, in however distorted a fashion, how much else was known also? His name perhaps? He did not worry about the how of the story spreading. Smugglers did not usually turn against their own, but perhaps one in the tavern that morning had been caught and put to the question by the guardsmen who had been in the street. Mayhap Banaric had not felt a gold piece enough for a lie in the face of the guardsmen's certain anger at what they found. At the moment he had quite enough worry in how to avoid capture in a city where he stood out like a camel in a zenanna. His eyes searched the street, and a possibility came to him. At least there were no guardsmen. Yet.

He emptied the cup with a gulp, but held it a moment longer. "It is a good thing to sell, water," he said. "Water and nothing else. Men who sell water and nothing else never have to look over their shoulders for fear of who might be there."

"I understand, master," the water seller gasped. "I sell water and nothing else. Nothing else, master."

Conan nodded and released the cup. The water seller heaved his jar onto his back so quickly that water slopped over the sides, and hurried into the streaming crowd. Before he was out of sight, Conan had already dismissed the ragged fellow from his mind. There would be a reward, likely as distorted as the numbers of guardsmen slain, and the water seller would sooner or later try for part of it, but with luck, he would remain silent for perhaps as much as an hour. In truth, the Cimmerian would settle for a tenth of that.

Drawing the hood of his cloak farther forward, Conan strode hurriedly down the street, searching for a vendor of a particular sort. A sort of vendor who did not seem to be present, he thought angrily. There were sellers of bra.s.s bowls and wicker baskets, of tunics and sandals and gilded jewelry, but not of what he sought. But he had seen apprentices carrying ... There it was. A rug merchant's stall, filled with carpets in all sizes and colors, stacked, rolled and hanging on the walls.

As Conan entered, the plump merchant hurried forward, hands rubbing in antic.i.p.ation and a professional smile on his face. "Welcome, master.

Welcome. Here you may see the finest carpets in all of Sultanapur. Nay, in all of Turan. Carpets to grace the palace of King Yildiz himself, may Mitra bless him thrice daily. Carpets from Iranistan, from-"

"That one," Conan cut him off, pointing to a rug that lay near the front of the stall in a roll thicker than a man's head. He was careful to keep his face down. The sight of blue eyes would bring more than a sign for warding off the evil eye now.