“Let us discuss it at the Thestis,” Conan said, “before we gather an audience.”
“With our luck,” Hordo muttered, “this will be the one morning in half a year the City Guard has patrols out.”
It was but a short distance down the twisting street to the inn, but obviously no one had heard the fighting. Only Kerin gave them a second glance when they walked in. In those morning hours there were few of the artists about, and none of the noise that would reverberate in the evening.
“Hordo,” the slender girl said, “what happened to your arm?”
“I fell over a broken wine-jar,” he replied sheepishly.
She gave him a sharp look and left, returning in a moment with a pile of clean rags and a jug of wine. Uncorking the wine, she began to pour it over the gash on Hordo’s arm.
“No!” he shouted, snatching it from her hand.
An amused smile quirked her mouth. “It hurts not that much, Hordo.”
“It hurts not at all,” he growled. “But this is the proper way to use wine.”
And he tipped the clay jug up to his mouth, with his free hand fending off her attempts to take it back. When finally he stopped for breath she jerked it way, pouring the little wine that remained over a cloth and dabbing at his forehead.
“Hold still, Hordo,” she told him. “I will fetch you more wine later.”
Across the common room Conan noticed a face strange to the inn. A handsome young man in a richly embroidered red velvet tunic sat at a table in a corner, talking to Graecus, a swarthy sculptor who spent considerable time in the company of Stephano.
After discovering that someone might want him dead, Conan was feeling suspicious of strangers. He touched Kerin’s arm.
“That man,” he said. “The one talking to Graecus. Who is he? He seems well dressed for an artist.”
“Demetrio, an artist?” she snorted. “A catamite and a wastrel. They say he’s a great wit, but I’ve never found him so. Betimes he likes to dazzle those among us who can be dazzled by his sort, when he is not rolling in the fleshpots.”
“Think you it’s him?” Hordo asked.
Conan shrugged. “Him, or anyone else.”
“By Erebus, Cimmerian, I’m too old for this.”
“What are you two talking about?” Kerin demanded. “No. I’d as lief not know.” She rose, pulling Hordo behind her, a faun leading a bear. “That cut on your arm needs ointment. Wine-jar, indeed!”
“When I return,” Hordo called over his shoulder to Conan, “we can begin looking for the men we want. Courtesy of our enemy, eh?”
“Done,” Conan called back, rising. “And I’ll fetch that sword. It should fetch a coin or two.”
In his room abovestairs the Cimmerian pried up a loosened floor board and took out the serpentine blade. Light from the small window ran along the gleaming steel, and glinted on the silver work of the quillons. The feel of taint rose from it like a miasma.
As he straightened he wrapped his cloak, rent from the tall man’s sword, about the blade. Even holding it in his bare hand made his stomach turn as the slaying of his first man had not.
When Conan returned to the common room, the man in the red velvet tunic was waiting at the foot of the stair, a pomander to his aquiline nose, his eyes lidded with langorous indolence, yet the Cimmerian noted that the hilt of his sword showed wear, and the hand that held the pomander had bladesman’s calluses. Conan started past.
“A moment, please,” the slender man said. “I am called Demetrio. I collect swords of ancient pattern, and I could not help but hear that you possess such a one, and wish to sell it.”
“I remember nothing of calling it artcient,” Conan replied. The man had a viperish quality the Cimmerian liked not. As if he could smile and clasp a hand, yet strike to the heart while doing so. Still, he found himself listening.
“Perhaps I but imagined you named it ancient,” Demetrio said smoothly. “If it is not, I have no interest. But an it is, well might I buy.” He eyed the cloak-wrapped bundle beneath the Cimmerian’s arm. “You have it there?”
Conan reached into the cloak and drew forth the blade. “This is the sword,” he said, and stopped as Demetrio jumped back, hand to his own sword.
The Cimmerian flipped the sword over, proffering the hilt. “Perhaps you wish to try its heft?”
“No.” The word was a shaky whisper. “I can see that I want it.”