“A zenana,” the slaver said promptly. “She’s too pretty for the work market, too fine for a bordello, not fine enough for Yildiz, neither a singer nor a dancer, though she knows dances she denied knowing. So, a zenana to warm some stout merchant’s bed, eh?” He laughed, but Conan did not join in.
“Conan,” Karela said in a strangled whisper, “please.”
“She knows you,” the plump slaver said in surprise. “You’ll want to buy her, then?”
“No,” Conan said. Karela and the slaver stared at him in consternation.
“Have you been wasting my time?” the slaver demanded. “Do you even have the money for this girl?”
“I do,” Conan answered hotly. He reflected that a lie to a slaver was not truly a lie, but now there was no way to let Karela know the entire truth of the matter. “But I swore an oath not to help this woman, not to raise a hand for her.”
“No, Conan,” Karela moaned. “Conan, no!”
“A strange oath,” the slaver said, “but I understand such things. Still, with those breasts she’ll fetch a fair price in Sultanapur.”
“Conan!” Karela’s green eyes pleaded, and her voice was a breathy gasp. “Conan, I release you from your oath.”
“Some people,” the Cimmerian said, “don’t realize that an oath made before gods is particularly binding. It’s even possible the breaking of such an oath is the true reason she finds herself kneeling in your coffle.”
“Possibly,” the slaver said vaguely, losing interest now that the chance of a sale was gone.
Karela reached out to pluck at Conan’s stirrup leather. “You can’t do this to me, Conan. Get me out of here. Get me out of here!”
Conan backed his horse away from the naked red-head. “Fare you well, Karela,” he said regretfully. “Much do I wish that things could have ended better between us.”
As he rode on down the caravan her voice rose behind him. “Derketo take you, you Cimmerian oaf! Come back and buy me! I release you! Conan, I release you! Derketo blast your eyes, Conan! Conan! Conan!”
As her cries and the caravan faded behind him, Conan sighed. Truly he did not like to see her left in chains. If he had had the money, or if there had not been the oath … . Still, he could not entirely suppress a small tinge of satisfaction. Perhaps she would learn that the proper response for a man saving her life was neither to have him pegged out on the ground nor to abandon him to a sorcerer’s dungeon without so much as a glimmer of a protest. An he knew Karela, though, no zenana would hold her for long. Half a year or so, and the Red Hawk would be free to soar again.
As for himself, he thought, he was in as fine a position as a man could ask for. Four coppers in his pouch and the whole wide world in front of him. And there were always the haunted treasures of Larsha. With a laugh he kicked his horse into a trot for Shadizar.