“What do you know of me, old man?” Conan asked. “And how do you know it, without sight?”
The old man cackled shrilly, touching the bandage across his eyes with a crooked stick he carried. “When the gods took these, they gave me other ways of seeing. As I do not see with eyes, I do not see what eyes see, but … other things.”
“I’ve heard of such,” Conan muttered. “And seen stranger still. What more can you tell me of myself?”
“Oh, much and much, young sir. You will know the love of many women, queens and peasant girls alike, and many between in station. You will live long, and gain a crown, and your death will be shrouded in legend.”
“Bull dung!” Hordo grunted, thrusting his head past Conan’s shoulder.
“I was wondering where you were,” Conan said. “The old man knew I’m Cimmerian.”
“An earful of your barbarous accent, and he made a lucky guess. Let’s get a table and a pitcher of wine.”
Conan shook his head. “I didn’t speak, but he knew. Tell me, old man. What lies weeks ahead for me, instead of years?”
The blind man had been listening with a pained expression, tilting his head to catch their words. Now his toothless smile returned. “As for that,” he said. He lifted his hand, thumb rubbing his fingertips, then abruptly flattened it, palm up. “I am a poor man, as you can see, young sir.”
The big Cimmerian stuck two fingers into the pouch at his belt. It was light enough, filled more with copper than silver, and little enough of either, but he drew out a silver queenshead and dropped it on the old man’s leathery palm.
Hordo sighed in exasperation. “I know a haruspex and three astrologers would charge half that together, and give you a better telling than you’ll find in this place.”
The old man’s fingertips drifted lightly over the face of the coin. “A generous man,” he murmured. The coin disappeared beneath his rags. “Give me your hand. The right one.”
“A palmist with no eyes,” Hordo laughed, but Conan stuck out his hand.
As swiftly as they had moved over the coin the old man’s fingers traced the lines of the Cimmerian’s hand, marking the callouses and old scars. He began to speak, and though his voice was still thin, the cackle was gone. There was strength, even power in it.
“Beware the woman of sapphires and gold. For her love of power she would seal your doom. Beware the woman of emeralds and ruby. For her love of you she would watch you die. Beware the man who seeks a throne. Beware the man whose soul is clay. Beware the gratitude of kings.” To Conan his voice grew louder, but no one else looked up from a winecup as he broke into a sing-song chant. “Save a throne, save a king, kill a king, or die. Whatever comes, whatever is, mark well your time to fly.”
“That’s dour enough to sour new wine,” Hordo muttered.
“And makes little sense, besides,” Conan added. “Can you make it no plainer?”
The old man dropped Conan’s hand with a shrug. “Could I say my prophecies plainer,” he said drily, “I’d live in a palace instead of a pigsty in Hellgate.”
Stick tapping, he hobbled toward the street, deftly avoiding tables and drunken revelers alike.
“But mark my words, Conan of Cimmeria,” he called over his shoulder from the doorway. “My prophecies always tell true.” And he disappeared into the feverish maelstrom outside.
“Old fool,” Hordo grumbled. “If you want good advice, go to a licensed astrologer. None of these hedge-row charlatans.”
“I never spoke my name,” Conan said quietly.
Hordo blinked, and scrubbed his mouth with the back of his calloused hand. “I need a drink, Cimmerian.”
The scarlet-haired strumpet was rising from a table, leading a burly Ophirian footpad toward the stairs that led above, where rooms were rented by the turn of the glass. Conan plopped down on a vacated stool, motioning Hordo to the other. As he laid the cloak-wrapped sword on the table, the one-eyed man grabbed the arm of a doe-eyed serving girl, her pale breasts and buttocks almost covered by two strips of green muslin.
“Wine,” Hordo ordered. “The biggest pitcher you have. And two cups.” Deftly she slipped from his grasp and sped away.
“Have you yet spoken to your friends of me?” Conan asked.
Hordo sighed heavily, shaking his head. “I spoke, but the answer was no. The work is light here, Conan, and the gold flows free, but I am reduced to taking orders from a man named Eranius, a fat bastard with a squint and a smell like a dungheap. This bag of slime lectured me—imagine you me, standing still for a lecture?—about trusting strangers in these dangerous times. Dangerous times. Bah!”
“’Tis no great matter,” Conan said. Yet he had hoped to work again with this bearded bear of a man. There were good memories between them.
The serving girl returned, setting two leathern jacks and a rough clay pitcher half again the size of a man’s head on the table. She filled the jacks and waited with her hand out.
Hordo rummaged out the coppers to pay, at the same time giving her a sly pinch. “Off with you, girl,” he laughed, “before we decide we want more than you’re willing to sell.”