“My amah,” she replied, then gasped and glared at him as if he had tricked her into revealing the fact.
“Your amah!” Conan brayed with laughter. “Are you not a little old to have a nursemaid?”
“My father does not think so,” Yasbet replied in a sullen voice. “He thinks I must have an amah until I am given to my husband. It is none of my liking. Fatima thinks I am still five years of age, and father sides with her decisions always.” Her eyes closed and her voice sank to a weary whisper. She spoke as if no longer realizing she spoke aloud. “I shall be locked in my room for this, at the least. I shall be lucky if Fatima does not … .” Her words drifted off with a wince, and her hands stole back to cover her buttocks protectively.
“You deserve it,” Conan said harshly.
Yasbet started, eyes wide and flushing furiously. “Deserve what? What do you mean? Did I say something?”
“You deserve to have an amah, girl. After this I shouldn’t be surprised if your father takes two or three of them in service.” He smiled inwardly at the relief on her face now. In truth, he thought she deserved a spanking as well, but saying so would be no way to gain satisfaction for his curiosity. “Now tell me, Yasbet. What were you doing alone on a street like that, giving your jewels to beggars? It was madness, girl.”
“It was not madness,” she protested. “I wanted to do something significant, something on my own. You have no idea what my life is like. Every moment waking or sleeping is ruled and watched by Fatima. I am allowed to make not the smallest decision governing my own life. I had to climb over the garden wall to leave without Fatima’s permission.”
“But giving jewels to beggars and strumpets?”
“The … the women were not part of my plan. I wanted to help the poor, and who can be poorer than beggars?” Her face firmed angrily. “My father will know I am no longer a child. I do not regret giving up the pretties he believes mean so much to me. It is noble to help the poor.”
“Perhaps he’ll hire six amahs,” Conan muttered. “Girl, did it never occur to you that you might be hurt? If you had to help someone, why not ask among your own servants? Surely they know of people in need? Then you could have sold a few of your jewels for money to help.”
Yasbet snorted. “Even if all of the servants were not in league with Fatima, where would I find a dealer in gems who would give me true value? More likely he would simply pretend to deal with me while he sent for my father! And he would no doubt send Fatima to bring me home. That humiliation I can do without, thank you.”
“Gem dealers would recognize you,” he said incredulously, “and know who your father is? Who is he? King Yildiz?”
Suddenly wary, she eyed him like a fawn on the edge of flight. “You will not take me back to him, will you?”
“And why should I not? You are not fit to walk the streets without a keeper, girl.”
“But then I’ll never keep him from discovering what happened today.” She shuddered. “Or Fatima.”
Wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue, she moved closer. “Just listen to me for a moment. Please? I—”
Abruptly she darted past him into the street.
“Come back here, you fool girl,” he roared, racing after her.
She dashed al
most under the wheels of a heavy, crate-filled cart, and was immediately hidden from view. Two more carts pressed close behind. There was no room to squeeze between them. He ran to get ahead of the carts and to the other side of the street. When he got there, Yasbet was nowhere in sight. A potter’s apprentice was setting out his master’s crockery before their shop. A rug dealer unrolled his wares before his. Sailors and harlots strolled in and out of a tavern. But of the girl there was no sign.
“Fool girl,” he muttered.
Just then the tavern sign, painted crudely, creaked in the breeze and caught his eye. The Blue Bull. All that had happened, and he had come right to it. Aghrapur was going to be a lucky city. Giving his swordbelt a hitch and settling his cloak about his broad shoulders, he sauntered into the stone-fronted inn.
II
The interior of the Blue Bull was poorly lit by guttering rush torches stuck in crude black iron sconces on the stone walls. A dozen men, hunched over their mugs, sat scattered among the tables that dotted the slate floor, which was swept surprisingly clean for a tavern of that class. Three sailors took turns flinging their daggers at a heart crudely painted on a slab of wood and hung on a wall. The rough stones around the slab were pocked from ten thousand near misses. A pair of strumpets, one with multi-hued beads braided in her hair, the other wearing a tall wig in a bright shade of red, circulated among the patrons quietly hawking the wares they displayed in diaphanous silk. Serving girls, their muslin covering little more than the harlots’ garb, scurried about with pitchers and mugs. An odor of sour wine and stale ale, common to all such places, competed with the stench of the street.
When he saw the innkeeper, a stout, bald man scrubbing the bar with a bit of rag, Conan understood the cleanliness of the floors. He knew the man, Ferian by name. This Ferian had a passion for cleanliness uncommon among men of his profession. It was said he had fled from Belverus, in Nemedia, after killing a man who vomited on the floor of his tavern. But as a source of information he had always been unsurpassed. Unless he had changed his ways he would know all the news in Aghrapur, not only the gossip of the streets.
Ferian smiled as Conan leaned an elbow on the bar, though his small black eyes remained watchful, and he did not cease his wiping. “Hannuman’s Stones, Cimmerian,” he said quietly. “They say all roads lead to Aghrapur—at least, they say it in Aghrapur—and seeing you walk in here, I believe it. A year more, and all of Shadizar will be here.”
“Who else from Shadizar is in the city?” Conan asked.
“Rufo, the Kothian coiner. Old Sharak, the astrologer. And Emilio, too.”
“Emilio!” Conan exclaimed. Emilio the Corinthian had been the best thief in Zamora, next to Conan. “He always swore he’d never leave Shadizar.”
Ferian chuckled, a dry sound to come from one so plump. “And before that he swore he would never leave Corinthia, but he left both for the same reason—he was found in the wrong woman’s bed. Her husband was after him, but her mother wanted him even more. Seems he’d been bedding her as well, and lifting bits of her jewelry. The older wench hired a bevy of knifemen to see that Emilio would have nothing to offer another woman. I hear he left the city disguised as an old woman and did not stop sweating for half a year. Ask him about it, an you want to see a man turn seven colors at once, the while swallowing his tongue. He’s upstairs with one of the girls now, though likely too drunk to do either of them any good.”