“The insult to the honor of the king is, captain, paramount, of course,” Aharesus said with a careful glance at the king, who had his face buried in .the goblet of wine. “On a wider view, however, what must be considered is that the palace was entered and the Chief King’s Counselor murdered.”
“My lord counselor thinks that was the reason for it all, and the other just a screen?”
The Counselor gave him a shrewd look. “You’ve a brain, captain. You may have a future. Yes, it makes no sense otherwise. Some foreign power wished the Counselor dead for some purpose of their own. Perhaps Yildiz himself. He has dreams of an empire, and Malderes often thwarted those plans.” Aheresus fingered the golden seal on his chest thoughtfully. “In any case, it’s doubtful that Yildiz, or whoever is responsible, would send his own people into the very palace. One of those being questioned screamed the name of the Red Hawk before he died.”
“She’s just a bandit, my lord Counselor.”
“And a man babbles when he’s dying. But she’s a bandit who will dare much for gold, and we have no other way to search. Until one of those being questioned loosens his tongue.” The chill in his tone promised the questioning would continue until many tongues were loosened; Haranides shivered. “You, captain, will take two companies of cavalry and hound this Red Hawk. Run her to ground and bring her here in chains. We’ll soon find if she had aught to do with this business.”
Haranides took a deep breath. “My lord Counselor, I must have some idea of where to look. This woman brigand ranges the entire countryside.” Incongruously, one of the slaves giggled. Tiridates had both fair heads clutched to his chest.
The stooped counselor flickered an eye at the king and pursed his lips briefly. “Before dawn this morning, captain, a party claiming to be pilgrims departed Shadizar by the Gate of the Three Swords. I believe these were the Red Hawk’s men.”
“I will ride within the hour, my lord Counselor,” Haranides said with a bow. He suspected the guards at that gate were among those under the question. “With your permission, my lord Counselor? My King?”
“Find this jade, captain,” Aharesus said, “and you will find yourself a patron as well.”
He waved a bony hand in dismissal, but as the captain turned to go Tiridates lurched unsteadily to his feet, pushing the two pale-skinned slaves sprawling at his feet.
“Find my pendants!” the drunken King snarled. “Find my casket and my dancing girls! Find my gifts from Yildiz, captain, or I’ll decorate a pike with your head! Now, go! Go!”
With a sour taste in his mouth, Haranides bowed once more and backed out of the audience chamber.
The garden of Imhep-Aton’s rented dwelling was pleasant, a cool breeze rustling in the trees and stirring the bright-colored flowers, but the mage took no pleasure in it. He had had some idea that Conan could deliver the pendants before the five days he had bargained for—the necromancer had some knowledge of thieves, and the way their minds worked. But never had he expected the Cimmerian to revert to his barbarism and turn the palace into a charnel house. The chief king’s counselor, in Set’s name!
He cared not what Zamorans died, or how, but the fool had set the city on its ear with these murders. Now Imhep-Aton must worry that the thief would be run to earth before the prize was delievered into his bony hands.
The mage whirled as his muscular Shemite servant came into the garden, his lean face so twisted that the big man quailed.
“I did as you commanded, master. To the word.”
“Then where is the Cimmerian?” The thaumaturge’s voice was deceptively gentle. If this cretin had bungled as well … .
“Gone, master. He has not been seen at the tavern since this morning, early.”
“Gone!”
The brawny Shemite half-raised his hands as if to shield himself from the other’s anger. “So I was told, master. He sent a message to some wench at the tavern that he would be away some time, that he was riding to the northeast.”
Imhep-Aton’s scowl deepened. Northeast? There was nothing to the … . The caravan route from Khesron to Sultanapur. Could the barbarian be thinking of selling the pendants in the very country from which they came? Obviously he had decided to work for himself. But, Set, why the dancing girls? He shook his vulturine head angrily. The savage’s reasons were of no account.
“Prepare horses and sumpter animals for the two of us at once,” he commanded. “We ride to the northeast.” The Cimmerian would pay for this betrayal.
VII
The Well of the Kings lay some days to the east and west of Shadizar, surrounded by huge, toppled slabs of black stone, worn by rain and wind. Some said they were the remains of a wall, but none knew when or by whom it could have been built, as none knew what kings had claimed the well.
Conan walked his horse between the slabs and into the stunted trees, to the well of rough stones, and dismounted. On the other side of the well, back under the trees, four swarthy men in dirty keffiyehs squatted, watching him with dark eyes that shifted greedily to his horse. He flipped back the edge of his Khauranian cloak so they could see his sword, and heaved on the hoist pole to lift a bucket of water from the depths. Other than his cloak, he was covered only by a breechclout, for he liked to travel unencumbered.
The four moved closer together, whispering darkly without looking away from him. One, the leader by the deference the others showed, wore rusting ring mail, his followers breastplates of boiled leather. All had ancient scimitars at their hips, the sort a decent weapons dealer sold for scrap. Behind them Conan could see a woman, naked and bound in a package, wrists and elbows secured behind her back, knees under her chin, heels drawn in tight to her buttocks. She raised her head, tossing back a mane of dark red hair, and stared at him in surprise, tilted green eyes above a dirty twist of cloth for a gag. The fortuneteller.
Conan emptied the bucket in a worn stone trough for his horse, and drew up another for himself. The last time he had helped this woman, she had shown not even the gratitude to warn him of the two Iranistanis’ attack. Besides, he had Velita to find. He dashed water in his face, though it made little difference in the gritty heat, and upended the rest of the bucket over his head. The four men gabbled on.
So far he had tracked the pilgrims by questioning those passersby who would let an armed man of his size approach them. Enough had glimpsed something to keep him on this path, but in the last day he had seen only an old man who threw rocks and ran to hide in the thorn scrub, and a boy who had seen nothing.
“Have you fellows seen anything of pilgrims?” he said, levering up yet another bucket of water. “Hooded men on horseback, with camels?”
The leader’s sharp nose twitched. “An we did, what’s for us?”