The Hour of the Dragon
annoyance. He froze in the midst of his gesture. His mouth opened; he
stared as at a ghost out of the past. Unbelief and fear glimmered in his
wide eyes.
'Well,' said Conan, 'have you no word of greeting, Publio?'
Publio moistened his lips.
'Conan!' he whispered incredulously. 'Mitra! Conan! _Amra!_'
'Who else?' The Cimmerian unclasped his cloak and threw it with his
gauntlets down upon the desk. 'How man?' he exclaimed irritably. 'Can't
you at least offer me a beaker of wine? My throat's caked with the dust
of the highway.'
'Aye, wine!' echoed Publio mechanically. Instinctively his hand reached
for a gong, then recoiled as from a hot coal, and he shuddered.
While Conan watched him with a flicker of grim amusement in his eyes,
the merchant rose and hurriedly shut the door, first craning his neck up
and down the corridor to be sure that no slave was loitering about.
Then, returning, he took a gold vessel of wine from a near-by table and
was about to fill a slender goblet when Conan impatiently took the
vessel from him and lifting it with both hands, drank deep and with
gusto.
'Aye, it's Conan, right enough,' muttered Publio. 'Man, are you mad?'
'By Crom, Publio,' said Conan, lowering the vessel but retaining it in
his hands, 'you dwell in different quarters than of old. It takes an
Argossean merchant to wring wealth out of a little waterfront shop that
stank of rotten fish and cheap wine.'
'The old days are past,' muttered Publio, drawing his robe about him
with a slight involuntary shudder. 'I have put off the past like a
worn-out cloak.'
'Well,' retorted Conan, 'you can't put _me_ off like an old cloak. It
isn't much I want of you, but that much I do want. And you can't refuse
me. We had too many dealings in the old days. Am I such a fool that I'm
not aware that this fine mansion was built on my sweat and blood? How
many cargoes from my galleys passed through your shop?'
'All merchants of Messantia have dealt with the sea-rovers at one time
or another,' mumbled Publio nervously.
'But not with the black corsairs,' answered Conan grimly.
'For Mitra's sake, be silent!' ejaculated Publio, sweat starting out on
his brow. His fingers jerked at the gilt-worked edge of his robe.
'Well, I only wished to recall it to your mind,' answered Conan. 'Don't
be so fearful. You took plenty of risks in the past, when you were
struggling for life and wealth in that lousy little shop down by the
wharves, and were hand-and-glove with every buccaneer and smuggler and
pirate from here to the Barachan Isles. Prosperity must have softened
you.'
'I am respectable,' began Publio.
'Meaning you're rich as hell,' snorted Conan. 'Why? Why did you grow
wealthy so much quicker than your competitors? Was it because you did a
big business in ivory and ostrich feathers, copper and skins and pearls
and hammered gold ornaments, and other things from the coast of Kush?
And where did you get them so cheaply, while other merchants were paying
their weight in silver to the Stygians for them? I'll tell you, in case
you've forgotten: you bought them from me, at considerably less than
their value, and I took them from the tribes of the Black Coast, and
from the ships of the Stygians--I, and the black corsairs.'
'In Mitra's name, cease!' begged Publio. 'I have not forgotten. But what
are you doing here? I am the only man in Argos who knew that the king of
Aquilonia was once Conan the buccaneer, in the old days. But word has
come southward of the overthrow of Aquilonia and the death of the king.'
'My enemies have killed me a hundred times by rumors,' grunted Conan.
'Yet here I sit and guzzle wine of Kyros.' And he suited the action to
the word.
Lowering the vessel, which was now nearly empty, he said: 'It's but a
small thing I ask of you, Publio. I know that you're aware of everything
that goes on in Messantia. I want to know if a Zingaran named Beloso, or
he might call himself anything, is in this city. He's tall and lean and
dark like all his race, and it's likely he'll seek to sell a very rare
jewel.'
Publio shook his head.
'I have not heard of such a man. But thousands come and go in Messantia.
If he is here my agents will discover him.'
'Good. Send them to look for him. And in the meantime have my horse
cared for, and have food served me here in this room.'
Publio assented volubly, and Conan emptied the wine vessel, tossed it
carelessly into a corner, and strode to a near-by casement,
involuntarily expanding his chest as he breathed deep of the salt air.
He was looking down upon the meandering waterfront streets. He swept the
ships in the harbor with an appreciative glance, then lifted his head
and stared beyond the bay, far into the blue haze of the distance where
sea met sky. And his memory sped beyond that horizon, to the golden seas
of the south, under flaming suns, where laws were not and life ran
hotly. Some vagrant scent of spice or palm woke clear-etched images of
strange coasts where mangroves grew and drums thundered, of ships locked
in battle and decks running blood, of smoke and flame and the crying of
slaughter.... Lost in his thoughts he scarcely noticed when Publio stole
from the chamber.
Gathering up his robe, the merchant hurried along the corridors until he
came to a certain chamber where a tall, gaunt man with a scar upon his
temple wrote continually upon parchment. There was something about this
man which made his clerkly occupation seem incongruous. To him Publio
spoke abruptly:
'Conan has returned!'
'Conan?' The gaunt man started up and the quill fell from his fingers.
'The corsair?'
'Aye!'
The gaunt man went livid. 'Is he mad? If he is discovered here we are
ruined! They will hang a man who shelters or trades with a corsair as
quickly as they'll hang the corsair himself! What if the governor should
learn of our past connections with him?'
'He will not learn,' answered Publio grimly. 'Send your men into the
markets and wharfside dives and learn if one Beloso, a Zingaran, is in
Messantia. Conan said he had a gem, which he will probably seek to
dispose of. The jewel merchants should know of him, if any do. And here
is another task for you: pick up a dozen or so desperate villains who
can be trusted to do away with a man and hold their tongues afterward.
You understand me?'
'I understand.' The other nodded slowly and somberly.
'I have not stolen, cheated, lied and fought my way up from the gutter
to be undone now by a ghost out of my past,' muttered Publio, and the
sinister darkness of his countenance at that moment would have surprised
the wealthy nobles and ladies who bought their silks and pearls from his
many stalls. But when he returned to Conan a short time later, bearing
in his own hands a platter of fruit and meats, he presented a placid
face to his unwelcome guest.
Conan still stood at the casement, staring down into the harbor at the
purple and crimson and vermilion and scarlet sails of galleons and
caracks and galleys and dromonds.
'There's a Stygian galley, if I'm not blind,' he remarked, pointing to a
long, low, slim black ship lying apart from the others, anchored off the
low broad sandy beach that curved round to the distant headland. 'Is
there peace, then, between Stygia and Argos?'
'The same sort that has existed before,' answered Publio, setting the
platter on the table with a sigh of relief, for it was heavily laden; he
knew his guest of old. 'Stygian ports are temporarily open to our ships,
as ours to theirs. But may no craft of mine meet their cursed galleys
out of sight of land! That galley crept into the bay last night. What
its masters wish I do not know. So far they have neither bought nor
sold. I distrust those dark-skinned devils. Treachery had its birth in
that dusky land.'
'I've made them howl,' said Conan carelessly, turning from the window.
'In my galley manned by black corsairs I crept to the very bastions of
the sea-washed castles of black-walled Khemi by night, and burned the
galleons anchored there. And speaking of treachery, mine host, suppose
you taste these viands and sip a bit of this wine, just to show me that
your heart is on the right side.'
Publio complied so readily that Conan's suspicions were lulled, and
without further hesitation he sat down and devoured enough for three
men.
And while he ate, men moved through the markets and along the
waterfront, searching for a Zingaran who had a jewel to sell or who
sought for a ship to carry him to foreign ports. And a tall gaunt man
with a scar on his temple sat with his elbows on a wine-stained table in
a squalid cellar with a brass lantern hanging from a smoke-blackened
beam overhead, and held converse with ten desperate rogues whose
sinister countenances and ragged garments proclaimed their profession.
And as the first stars blinked out, they shone on a strange band
spurring their mounts along the white road that led to Messantia from
the west. They were four men, tall, gaunt, clad in black, hooded robes,
and they did not speak. They forced their steeds mercilessly onward, and
those steeds were gaunt as themselves, and sweat-stained and weary as if
from long travel and far wandering.
14
The Black Hand of Set
Conan woke from a sound sleep as quickly and instantly as a cat. And
like a cat he was on his feet with his sword out before the man who had
touched him could so much as draw back.
'What word, Publio?' demanded Conan, recognizing his host. The gold lamp
burned low, casting a mellow glow over the thick tapestries and the rich
coverings of the couch whereon he had been reposing.
Publio, recovering from the start given him by the sudden action of his
awakening guest, replied: 'The Zingaran has been located. He arrived
yesterday, at dawn. Only a few hours ago he sought to sell a huge,
strange jewel to a Shemitish merchant, but the Shemite would have naught
to do with it. Men say he turned pale beneath his black beard at the
sight of it, and closing his stall, fled as from a thing accursed.'
'It must be Beloso,' muttered Conan, feeling the pulse in his temples
pounding with impatient eagerness. 'Where is he now?'
'He sleeps in the house of Servio.'
'I know that dive of old,' grunted Conan. 'I'd better hasten before some
of these waterfront thieves cut his throat for the jewel.'
He took up his cloak and flung it over his shoulders, then donned a
helmet Publio had procured for him.
'Have my steed saddled and ready in the court,' said he. 'I may return
in haste. I shall not forget this night's work, Publio.'
A few moments later Publio, standing at a small outer door, watched the
king's tall figure receding down the shadowy street.
'Farewell to you, corsair,' muttered the merchant. 'This must be a
notable jewel, to be sought by a man who has just lost a kingdom. I
wish I had told my knaves to let him secure it before they did their
work. But then, something might have gone awry. Let Argos forget Amra,
and let my dealings with him be lost in the dust of the past. In the
alley behind the house of Servio--that is where Conan will cease to be a
peril to me.'
* * * * *
Servio's house, a dingy, ill-famed den, was located close to the
wharves, facing the waterfront. It was a shambling building of stone and
heavy ship-beams, and a long narrow alley wandered up alongside it.
Conan made his way along the alley, and as he approached the house he
had an uneasy feeling that he was being spied upon. He stared hard into
the shadows of the squalid buildings, but saw nothing, though once he
caught the faint rasp of cloth or leather against flesh. But that was
nothing unusual. Thieves and beggars prowled these alleys all night, and
they were not likely to attack him, after one look at his size and