“Never before have I seen you so drunk,” Conan said as he took the stool. “Are you celebrating, or drowning sorrows?”
The other man’s eyes had drifted half shut. “Do you know,” he said dreamily, “that a blonde is worth her weight in rubies here? These Turanian men will kill to have a fair-haired mistress. Does she have blue eyes, they’ll kill their mothers for her.”
“Have you turned to slaving, then, Emilio? I thought better of you.”
Instead of answering, the other man rambled on.
“They have more heat in them than other women. I think it’s the hair. Gods put color in a woman’s hair, they must have to take some of her heat to do it. Stands to reason. Davinia, now, she’s hotter than forge-fire. That fat general can’t take care of her. Too much army business.” Emilio’s snicker was at once besotted and lascivious. Conan decided to let him run out of wind. “So I take care of her. But she wants things. I tell her she doesn’t need any necklace, beautiful as she is, but she says a sorcerer laid a spell on it for a queen. Centuries gone this happened, she claims. Woman wears it, and she’s irresistible. Thirteen rubies, she says, each as big as the first joint of a man’s thumb, each set on a moonstone-crusted seashell in gold. Now that’s worth stealing.” He snickered and leaned toward Conan, leering. “Thought she’d pay me for it with her body. Set her straight on that. I already have her body. Hundred gold pieces, I told her. Gold, like her hair. Softest ever I tangled my hand in. Softest skin, too. Buttery and sleek.”
The serving girl returned to set a mug and wine-jar on the table, and stood waiting. Conan made no move to pay. He had no hundred gold pieces coming to him. The girl poked Emilio in the ribs with her fist. He grunted, and stared at her blearily.
“One of you pays for the wine,” she said, “or I take it back.”
“No way to treat a good customer,” Emilio muttered, but he rooted in his pouch until he came up with the coins. When she had gone he stared at the Cimmerian across the table. “Conan! Where did you come from? Thought I saw you. It’s well you are here. We have a chance to work together again, as we used to.”
“We never worked together,” Conan said levelly. “And I thieve no more.”
“Nonsense. Now listen you close. North of the city a short distance is an enclosure containing much wealth. I have a commission to steal a—to steal something from there. Come with me; you could steal enough to keep you for half a year.”
“Is this enclosure by any chance the compound of the Cult of Doom?”
Emilio rocked back on his seat. “I thought you were fresh come to the city. Look you, those seven who supposedly entered the compound and were never seen again were Turanians. These local thieves have no skill, not like us. They’d last not a day in Shadizar or Arenjun. Besides, I think me they did not go to the compound at all. They hid, or died, or left the city, and men made up this story. People will do that, to make a place they do not know, or do not like, seem fearful.”
Conan said nothing.
Ignoring his mug, Emilio swept up the clay wine-jar, not lowering it until it was nearly drained. He leaned across the table, pleading in his voice. “I know exactly where the—the treasure is to be found. On the east side of the compound is a garden containing a single tower, atop which is a room where jewelry and rarities are kept. Those fools go there to look at them. The display is supposed to show them how worthless gold and gems are. You see, I know all about it. I’ve asked questions, hundreds of them.”
“If you’ve asked so many questions, think you that no one knows what you intend? Give it over, Emilio.”
A fur-capped Hyrkanian stepped up to the table, the rancid odor of his lank, greased hair overpowering the smells of the tavern. A scar led from the missing lower lobe of his left ear to the corner of his mouth, pulling that side of his face into a half-smile. From the corner of his eye the Cimmerian saw four more watching from across the room. He could not swear to it, but he thought he had encountered these five earlier in the day.
The Hyrkanian at the table spared only a glance to Conan. His attention was on Emilio. “You are Emilio the Corinthian,” he said gutturally. “I would talk with you.”
“Go away,” Emilio said without looking at him.
“I know no Emilio the Corinthian. Listen to me, Conan. I would be willing to give you half what I get for the necklace. Twenty pieces of gold.”
Conan almost laughed. Dead drunk Emilio might be, but he still thought to cheat his hoped-for partner.
“I would talk with you,” the Hyrkanian said again.
“And I said go away!” Emilio shouted, his face suddenly suffusing with red. Snatching the wine-jar, he leaped to his feet and smashed it across the Hyrkanian’s head. With the last dregs of the wine rolling down his face, the scarred nomad collapsed in a welter of clay fragments.
“Crom!” Conan muttered; a deluge of rank-smelling men in fur caps was descending on them.
Conan pivoted on his buttocks, his foot rising to meet a hurtling nomad in the stomach. With a gagging gasp the man stopped dead, black eyes goggling as he bent double. The Cimmerian’s massive fist crashed against the side of his head, and he crumpled to the floor.
Emilio was wallowing on the floor beneath two of the Hyrkanians. Conan seized one by the back of his sheepskin coat and pulled him off of the Corinthian thief. The nomad spun, a dagger in his streaking hand. Surprise crossed his face as his wrist slapped into Conan’s hand. The Cimmerian’s huge fist traveled no more than three handspans, but the fur-capped nomad’s bootheels lifted from the floor, and then he collapsed beside his fellow.
Conan scanned the room for the fifth Hyrkanian, but could not find the remaining nomad anywhere. Emilio was getting shakily to his feet while examining a bloody gash on his shoulder. Ferian was heading back toward the bar, carrying a heavy bungstarter. Another instant and Conan saw a pair of booted feet stretched out from behind a table.
“You get them out of here,” Ferian shouted as he reached the bar and thrust the heavy mallet out of sight. “You dirtied my floor, now you clean it. Get them out of here, I say!”
Conan seized one of the unconscious men by the heels. “Come on, Emilio,” he said, “unless you want to fight Ferian this time.”
The Corinthian merely grunted, but he grabbed another of the nomads. Together they dragged the unconscious men into the street, shadowed with night, now, and left them lying against the front of the rug dealer’s shop.
As they laid out the last of the sleeping men—Conan had checked each to make sure he still breathed—Emilio stared up at the waxing pearlescent moon and shivered.