“Then they’ll be there till the morrow,” Conan laughed, “for he’ll never admit to failure.” He laid two coppers on the bar. “Have you any Khorajan ale? My throat is dusty.”
“Do I have Khorajan ale?” Ferian said, rummaging under the bar. “I have wines and ales you have never heard of. Why, I have wines and ales I have never heard of.” He drew out a dusty clay crock, filled a leathern jack, and made the coppers disappear as he pushed the mug in front of Conan. “Khorajan ale. How stand affairs in the Gilded Bitch of the Vilayet? You had to leave in a hurry, did you?”
Conan covered his surprise by drinking deeply on the dark, bitter ale, and wiped white froth from his mouth with the back of his hand before he spoke. “How knew you I have been in Sultanapur? And why think you I left hurriedly?”
“You were seen there these ten days gone,” Ferian smirked, “by Zefran the Slaver, who came through here on his way back to Khawarism.” It was the tavernkeeper’s major fault that he liked to let men know how much he knew of what they had been about. One day it would gain him a knife between his ribs. “As for the rest, I know naught save that you stand there with the dust of hard riding on you, and you were never the one to travel for pleasure. Now, what can you tell me?”
Conan drank again, pretending to think on what he could tell. The fat man was known to trade knowledge for knowledge, and Conan had one piece of it he knew was not yet in Aghrapur, unless someone had grown wings to fly it there ahead of him.
“The smuggling is much abated in Sultanapur,” the Cimmerian said finally. “The Brotherhood of the Coast is in disarray. They sweat in the shadows, and stir not from their dwellings. ’Twill be months before so much as a bale of silk passes through that city without the customs paid.”
Ferian grunted noncommittally, but his eyes lit. Before the sun next rose, men who would try to fill the void in Sultanapur would pay him well.
“And what can you tell me of Aghrapur?”
“Nothing,” Ferian replied flatly.
Conan stared. It was not the tapster’s way to give less than value. His scrupulousness was part and parcel of his reputation. “Do you doubt the worth of what I’ve told you?”
“’Tis not that, Cimmerian.” The tavernkeeper sounded faintly embarrassed. “Oh, I can tell you what you can learn for yourself in a day’s listening in the street. Yildiz casts his eyes beyond the border, and builds the army accordingly. The Cult of Doom gains new members every day. The—”
“The Cult of Doom!” Conan exclaimed. “What in Mitra’s name is that?”
Ferian grimaced. “A foolishness, is what it is. They’re all over the streets, in their saffron robes, the men with shaven heads.”
“I saw some dressed so,” Conan said, “chanting to a tambourine.”
“’Twas them. But there’s naught to them, despite the name. They preach that all men are doomed, and building up earthly treasures is futile.” He snorted and scrubbed at his piggish nose with a fat hand. “As for earthly treasure, the cult itself has built up quite a store. All who join give whatever they possess to the Cult. Some young sons and daughters of wealthy merchants, and even of nobles, have given quite a bit. Not to mention an army of rich widows. There’ve been petitions to the throne about it, from relatives and such, but the cult pays its taxes on time, which is more than can be said of the temples. And it gives generous gifts to the proper officials, though that is not well known.” He brightened. “They have a compound, almost a small city, some small distance north, on the coast. Could I find where within their treasures are kept … well, you are skillful enough to make your fortune in a single night.”
“I’m a thief no more,” Conan said. Ferian’s face fell. “What else can you tell me of the city?”
The fat man sighed heavily. “These days I know less than the harlots, whose customers sometimes talk in their sleep. In these three months past, two thirds of those who have given me bits and pieces, servants of nobles and of those high in the Merchant’s Guild, have been murdered. What you have told me is the best piece of intelligence I have had in a month. I owe you,” he added reluctantly. He was not one to enjoy indebtedness. “The first thing I hear that you might use to advantage, I will place in your hands.”
“And I will hear it before anyone else? Let us say two days before?”
“Two days! As well as a year. Knowledge spoils faster than milk under a hot sun.”
“Two days,” Conan said firmly.
“Two days, then,” the other man muttered.
Conan smiled. Breaking his word was not among Ferian’s faults. But this matter of the murders, now … . “It seems beyond mere chance that so many of your informants should die in so short a time.”
“No, friend Conan.” To the Cimmerian’s surprise, Ferian refilled his mug without asking payment. That was not like him. Perhaps he hoped to pay off his debt in free drink, Conan thought. “Many more have died than those who had a connection to me. There is a plague of murder on Aghrapur. More killings in these three months than in the whole year before. Were it not for the sorts who die, I might think some plot was afoot, but who would plot against servants and Palace Guards and the like? ’Tis the hand of chance playing fickle tricks, no more.”
“Conan!” came a shout from the stairs at the rear of the common room. The big Cimmerian looked around.
Emilio stood on the bottom step with his arm around a slender girl in gauds of brass and carnelian and a long, narrow strip of red silk wound about her in such a way as almost to conceal her breasts and hips. She half supported him as he swayed drunkenly, which was no easy task. He was a big man, as tall as Conan, though not so heavily muscled. He was handsome of face, with eyes almost too large for a man. His eyes and his profile, he would tell anyone who would listen, drew women as honey drew flies.
“Greetings, Emilio,” Conan called back. “No longer dressing as an old woman, I see.” To Ferian he added, “We’ll talk later.” Taking his mug, he strolled to the staircase.
Emilio sent the girl on her way with a swat across her pert rump, and eyed Conan woozily. “Who told you that tale? Ferian, I’ll wager. Fat old sack of offal. Not true, I tell you. Not true. I simply left Zamora to seek rich—” he paused to belch “—richer pastures. You’re just the man I want to see, Cimmerian.”
Conan could sense an offer of cooperation coming. “We no longer follow the same trade, Emilio,” he said.
Emilio did not seem to hear. He grabbed the arm of a passing serving girl, ogling her generous breasts as he did. “Wine, girl. You hear?” She nodded and sped off, deftly avoiding his attempted pinch; he tottered and nearly fell. Still staggering, he managed to fall onto a stool at an empty t
able and gestured drunkenly toward another. “Sit, Conan. Sit, man. Wine’ll be here before you know it.”