“My loyal Zafra!” he said quietly. “How valuable you are to me! And you were right—she was indeed a spy, and has given another into our hands. Too, I admit that I was fearful she might implicate my Tigress! Instead the girl obviously hated and envied her and Balad would make Chia slave—if ever he succeeded in his insane plans!”
Zafra made a shallow bow.
“I must tell my lord,” he said, just as quietly. “My suspicion was roused when I noted how she behaved when I visited her mistress, your Tigress. My lord Khan will recall that on the occasion of my presenting him with the Sword, he sent Chia the Tigress to me.”
“That same evening. Of course I remember. You are telling me that you have… been with her, since?”
Zafra kept his head down. “My lord, I am. I must tell you, though it has been hard to work up the nerve. We have spent… considerable time together.”
Akter laughed and again clapped the man’s thin shoulder. “Do you love her, Zafra?”
“My lord,” Zafra said truthfully, “I do not.”
“And do you think she loves you?”
“No, lord Khan.”
“Then since I sent you her for dalliance, and began it myself, how can I object to my royal wizard’s spending time with the irresistible Tigress, eh? I cannot tell you how thankful I am that you have told me, Zafra—for I have known, for weeks. For a month, and longer.” Akter smiled into his mage’s surprised eyes. “I will, however, find a woman just for you, Wizard of Zamboula.”
“Your… sword, my lord Akter Khan.”
“Ah yes.” Akter turned and took the blade from Baltaj. “How good of you to have wiped it clean and shining, Baltaj!”
“I but returned her blood to her, lord Khan. She did not notice.”
Laughing, Akter Khan left the dungeon, and with him his mage, and in a short time two men brought a swordless young guardsman into Baltaj’s hands. As he was wholly innocent and hardly knew Mitralia, Khoja looked upon her corpse with little emotion; he had seen dead women before, though not one, true, who bore marks of ninety or more strokes of a hot iron.
“He did indeed know of us, Chia,” Zafra said. “We are safe now; he was so grateful that I ‘confessed’ our friendship.”
“And Mitralia?”
“Gone, poor dear. The potion I had you give her did its work, and my spell; she actually confessed to being a spy for Balad, and said precisely those things I bade her say, when her mind was open and helpless to me. She implicated the guardsman you mentioned—”
“Khoja.”
“Yes.”
“Good. The pig had the arrogance to look openly at me.” Chia sighed, and caressed him. “I shall miss Mitralia, though; she did love my hair, and brushed it better than anyone! Now I shall have to find another, and train her.”
Zafra chuckled. “Here, I will comb it with my fingers. I rather imagine our khan will choose the next girl to be sent you!”
“Ummtn… but—Zafra? Khoja has nothing to confess.”
“And so he will confess nothing. Baltaj will be impressed by his bravery and strength of character— and angry too. Khoja will not last long.”
“Ah Zafra, Zafra! My genius love.”
“I do not deny it, my love. Just do be exceedingly careful now, in your passing of information to Balad’s agent!”
Hajimen and ten camel-perched Shanki would escort Conan and Isparana to Zamboula. Akhimen’s decision and announcement brooked no demurrer, and Conan saw no reason to make one. He prevented Isparana from scandalizing the Shanki by asking for the men’s clothing that was designed for riding. The scarlet robes of the Shanki women were voluminous enough to permit her to bestride a horse, he pointed out, and to these people, their friends, the concept of women in any sort of leggings was barbarous and worse.
“So? I am in company with a barbarian!”
“They don’t know that, ‘sparana. Now put your glarestone around your neck and prepare. No use waiting till noon to be on our way.”
“Conan.”
He had turned away; he looked back.
“I had a sword, Conan. You took it. I had a dagger, and used it to save you—though only Erlik knows why!”
Conan looked questioningly at her. He had thanked her; he knew what she wanted now, and was availing himself of the opportunity to ponder on it.
“I will have a sword and dagger,” she said.
“With a guard of eleven men on camels, you will hardly need weapons.”
“Said the Stygian to the Kushite!”
“Hm.” He showed her a very small smile. “You are right. The first question these people asked was about your lack of weapons. We have quite an armory packed on that one horse! Khassek’s sword and dagger, and Sarid’s—”
“—and mine—”
“—and those of five of the Yoggites, plus the two that Khassek and I… acquired, up in Shadizar.”
“And my sword.”
“Aye, and your swo—ah! Wait, ‘sparana.”
Leaving the tent, Conan went to that pack he called their “armory,” and opened it. On Hajimen while Akhimen Khan watched, the Cimmerian forced the good Akbitanean sword of Sarid the Samaratan. As a curiosity, he showed them Khassek’s awful Ilbarsi knife. He showed the Shanki, too, the pommel-less sword of a certain king’s agent of Shadizar in Zamora, and in laconic phrases he sketched the story of its acquirement. The Shanki laughed; Hajimen and others had met and endured officious fops—they called them
foops
—in Zamboula.
The desert men showed their appreciation of the workmanship and value of dear Ferhad’s corundum-set dagger with its silver-etched blade.
“It is a gift for my beloved Isparana,” Conan said. “I will keep the one she used to… help me, against those Yoggites.”
Hajimen spat. Conan dutifully spat. A delightful custom, he mused, and vowed to mention the green-robed
jazikhim
again and again, so as to join the Shanki in the ritual spitting.
“It is a good man’s gesture,” Hajimen said, of Conan’s gift to his ‘beloved woman.’ “On my camel I have packed clothing I outgrew at sixteen, when my growth came on me of a sudden. I know the woman of Conan is a warrior. Once we are well away from here and my father and others will not know and be horrified, I shall present those clothes to the warrior-woman called Isparana.”
“That is kind of Akhimen,” Conan said, “though she loves her Shanki woman’s finery.”
About as much as I love eating nettles
, he thought. So Hajimen represented a liberal new generation, did he? A shame; the Shanki might change under him, when Hajimen’s turn came to be called khan.
“I am sorry that we had no clothing big enough for our guest,” Hajimen said, “save the kaffia and camel-robe we give him with pleasure.”
“I like these,” Conan said grinning, though in truth he was warm, in padded vest and the mail corselet he had yet to blood, though he had owned it for two months. As the Shanki wore no mail, the Cimmerian had covered his with a tunic—which was being ruined from the inside, as must be any cloth worn over a mail of links or scales. Reward awaited him, in Zamboula. He would bedeck himself in an embroidered tunic of scarlet then, if he wished!
The Cimmerian did wear a pair of the ballooning crimson leggings of the Shanki; they were too short, but he did not care. His booted legs were covered past the calves; how much legging did a man need?
“When I have handed these arms to Isparana,” he said, “we will be ready to depart the abode of the Shanki.”
“But not their company. Our camels kneel in readiness for Conan of Cimmeria.”
“Call me Conan.”
“I just have, guest of my people.”
Conan turned away smiling. He went to Isparana. With a grim-faced austerity she buckled on the sword-belt and drew the sheath around a little so that it hung down her left leg. She looked pointedly at the shorter sheath on her right thigh, and at Conan.
“My dagger? You took it out of that Yoggite, did you not?”
Conan spat Shanki-style, and smiled. “Aye, though it wasn’t easy. In his fall off his horse he fell on that arm and pinned it to his chest by your dagger. I will keep it as a memento. Remember how first we met, Ispy—”
” ‘sparana I will tolerate,” she said. “Ispy I will not!”
“—two thieves,” he went on, “glowering at each other across that fell chamber of Hisarr Zul? Who’d ever have believed then that you would one day save my life—deliberately!”
“I acted without thinking.”
“As you did that day when the Khawarizmi took us?
After
I downed several of those slaving dogs and insured our escape, you bashed me out of the saddle.”
In her flowing, shapeless red clothing and with her lips all black and her eyes seeming huge and lustrous within their black outlines, she shook her head. “No, that day I was thinking! You had after all lost me both my camels, and all my supplies. I will have my dagger now, barbarian thief!”
“That was the day after I took the Eye of Erlik from around your neck while you slept.”
“Dog! Grunting pig of a barbarian!”
“Ah, I was fearful that you had done with those terms of endearment I have grown to expect and relish, ‘sparana.”
“You had also watched me disrobe and bathe in that oasis pool! And I shall wear this scar on my hip forever, slinking barbarian viper!”
Conan had reminded her deliberately to test her reaction. She did not shout, or draw sword. “I am sorry for that now, Isparana—and had no idea it would happen. I am gladder than glad that you had the false amulet in a pouch at your hip when Hisarr’s sorceries melted it to slag, rather than around your neck. I should hate for that beautiful bosom to be scarred.”
“You do love them, don’t you, pawing barbarian hog?”
“I do love them, ‘sparana. And I did not touch you, that night at the oasis.”
“Why didn’t you, Conan? You have since called me irresistible. I was asleep, and you had been watching me. You could have—”
“I am not a rapist, Isparana,” Conan said quietly, with dignity.
She stared at him. “Lying mange-stinking cur! Just a few days ago—”
“That was two weeks ago, and it was not rape,” Conan said, and stared.
When Isparana looked away in silent admission of truth, Conan said, “On that day you tried to slay me, and because of you, both Sarid and Khassek died. Khassek was a good man, ‘sparana.”
“Well… Sarid was not, but I am sorry now that I used him and that he is dead. And that because of me he slew your Iranistani friend, too.”
“Yet if you had not seduced and used Sarid—”
“I did not have to ‘seduce’ him, Conan!”
“Had you not used Sarid, and come north, you and I would never have met again and joined forces, ‘sparana. Or should I call you Lady Kiliya?”
She made a face. It was the name he had used that day the slave-caravan from Kharawizm took them, at the oasis where he had stolen the Eye and been interrupted by her—wielding sword and epithets—so that her camels had fled into the night. The Khawarizmi had not believed she was any Lady Kiliya, or that she was kin of Samara’s king, either, as Conan had contended. He had bloodily disposed of three or four of them—after which she had indeed struck him unconscious and fled. Unfortunately others from the caravan had caught her, after which she and Conan put in a few days in slave-coffle.
“Was there a Kiliya, Conan?”
“There was. A girl of Arenjun,” Conan said, remembering how that vixen had cried out for his life, after he’d been plying her with drinks and charm. “Just a girl, Ispa. Not a woman, like you.”
Isparana was hardly the sort to simper, though she did speak softly while looking just as gently into his eyes. “There have been many girls, haven’t there—and women.”
“A number,” Conan said with a shrug. “As there have been many men for you.”
“Some,” she said, imitating his shrug and thinking on what a rotten lover Sarid had been. “You are trying to get me to admit that you are a passing good lover and that I no longer hope to see you cut to pieces and fed to the dogs who are your brothers, thieving cur.”
He wagged his head. “Ah, and you seek to turn my head with pretty pet names, my love. No, I am not trying to get you to say anything,” he said, while outside a waiting camel made its ridiculous noise. Conan produced the dagger he had concealed in his belt, in back; Ferhad’s dagger, king’s agent of Shadizar. “Here. Your dagger,
my lady
.”
“This is not my—Conan! It… it is jeweled— this is a ruby! Both these are sapphires, surely… can this be an
emerald
!”
“It can. And that could be silver on the blade, too. Probably weakens it. I doubt that pretty twig is of much value as a weapon, ‘sparana.” He was close onto embarrassment, whatever that was. “You could sell it and buy a barrel of good carvers and stickers, though. Along with some slinky Zamboulan clothing.”
She was staring at the knife, which she turned over and over in her hands. “Why, this lovely stone is a pelageren!” she murmured. She looked up of a sudden, and for a moment Conan thought her eyes had gone glassy with avarice. Then he realized that he was looking at a film of moisture. Isparana?
Tears! Her
hand closed tightly on the gem-encrusted hilt. “I shall never sell this gift, Conan. How could you think that I would? It is a gift, from you!”
Conan swallowed and felt approximately as had he been hanging by his thumbs. “Well… after all, I stole it.”
She smiled at him. “Oh Conan! What else, how else would such as I and you come by anything? Both Karamek and I were thieves, in Zamboula; did you not know that? That is why Akter Khan sent us so far north to regain the Eye that Hisarr Zul had stolen. Had he promised us only that we could retain our hands— since we had been caught, and losing them is the penalty—we would never have bothered. We were promised full pardons, you see,
and
no mention to Turan, which has agents everywhere,
and
sufficient reward on our return to Zamboula that we would not need to steal again.”
“Well,” Conan admitted, “it was you who stole it from old Hisarr, not I. I am the one he caught!”
She laughed, and of a sudden she hugged him. “Oh Conan, think you I would believe a gift from you would have been
paid for
, darling?”
“Just call me mangy cur or barbar swine or… viper, even,” he said uncomfortably. “I have grown accustomed to such names, from you.”