The four stared at him unblinkingly. Zutan’s tugging at his mustache became more agitated.
What else was he supposed to say, Conan thought. Or do? Suddenly he turned his back on the chiefs and hurried back among the pack animals. Mutters sounded among the tribesmen, and the Hyrkanians who held the guide-ropes eyed him with frowns. Hastily he unroped a wicker hamper and drew out four tulwars, their hilts ivory and ebony. The blades had been worked with beeswax and acid into scenes of men hunting with bows from horseback, with silver rubbed across the etchings hammered till the argentine metal shone. Conan had raised a storm when he found the blades among the trade goods—he was still of a mind that Tamur had meant them for himself and his friends—but they had already been paid for. Now he was glad of them.
As the Cimmerian returned, two swords in each huge fist, Tamur groaned, “Not those, northerner. Some other blades. Not those.”
Conan reached the four chiefs and, after a moment, awkwardly sketched a bow. “Accept these, ah, humble gifts as a, ah, token of my admiration.”
Dark eyes sparked avariciously, and the blades were snatched as if the squat men expected them to be withdrawn. The etched steel was fingered; for a time Conan was ignored. At last the chief nearest him—Conan thought he was the one called Sibuyan—looked up. “You may trade here,” he said. Without another word the four turned away, still fingering their new swords.
Akeba put a hand on Conan’s arm. “Come, Cimmerian. We traders must display our wares.”
“Then display them. I must see to Yasbet.”
As he returned to her, Conan ignored the bustle of hampers being lifted from pack saddles, of pots and knives, swords and cloaks being spread for eager eyes. The throng pressed close, many calling offers of furs, or ivory, or gold as soon as items appeared. Some of Tamur’s followers began gathering the horses.
Yasbet had sagged to her hands and knees on the hard-packed ground beside her mount. Muttering an oath Conan stripped off his cloak and spread it on the ground. When he had her lying on it, face down, he removed the sheepskin saddle-pad from her horse and put it beneath her head.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “Can you stand at all?”
“I do not need to be wrapped in swaddling,” she replied between clenched teeth.
“Hannuman’s Stones, wench! I do not swaddle you. You must be able to ride when it is time to go.”
She sighed, not looking at him. “I can neither stand nor ride. I cannot even sit.” She laughed mirthlessly.
“It is possible we may have to leave suddenly,” he said slowly. “It may be needful to tie you across a saddle. And again I do not mean to mock you by that.”
“I know,” she said quietly. Suddenly she grasped his hand and pulled it to her lips. “You have not only my body,” she murmured, “but my heart and my soul. I love you, Conan of Cimmeria.”
Brusquely he pulled his hand away and stood. “I must see to the others,” he muttered. “You will be all right here? It may be some time before your tent can be put up.”
“I am comfortable.”
Her words were so soft he barely heard them. With a quick nod he strode to where the trade goods were displayed. Why did women always have to speak of love, he wondered. The most calloused trull would do it, given a fingerbreadth of encouragement, and other women took even less. Then they expected a man to act like a giddy boy with his first hair on his chin. Or worse, like a poet or a bard.
He glanced back at Yasbet. Her face was buried in the sheepskin, and her shoulders shook as if she cried. No doubt her rump pained her. Growling wordlessly under his breath, he joined his fellows acting the trader.
Sharak bounced from nomad to nomad, always gesticulating, here offering lumps of beeswax, there pewter cups from Khauran or combs of tortoise shell from Zamboula or lengths of Vendhyan silk. Akeba was more sedate in his demonstrations of the weapons, tulwars bearing the stamp of the Royal Arsenal of Turan, glaives from far Aquilonia, and even khetens, broad-bladed battleaxes from Stygia. Tamur and his men, on the other hand, squatted to one side, passing among themselves clay jars of the ale they had gotten from men of the tribes.
Conan walked among the goods, stopping from time to time to listen to Akeba or Sharak bargain, nodding as if he agreed with what was being done. A merchant who had two men to do the actual peddling surely was not expected to do more.
The trading was brisk, but Conan was soon thinking more of quenching his thirst with a crock of ale than of his playacting. It was then that he noticed the woman.
Past her middle years, she was yet a beauty, tall and well-breasted, with large dark eyes and full red lips. Her fur-trimmed blue cloak was of fine wool, and her kirtle of green was slashed with panels of blue silk. Her necklace of intricate links was gold, not gilded brass; the brooch that held her cloak was a large emerald; and the bracelets at her wrists were of matched amethysts. And she had no eye for the perfumes or gilded trinkets that Sharak bartered away. Her gaze never left the muscular Cimmerian. An interested gaze.
Conan judged her to be the woman of a wealthy man, perhaps even of a chief. That made her just the sort of woman he should avoid, even more so than the other women of the tribe. He made sure there was nothing in his expression that she could read as invitation, and turned away to make a show of studying the goods laid out on a nearby blanket.
“You are young to be a trader,” a deep female voice said behind him.
He turned to find himself face to face with the woman who had been watching him. “I am old enough,” he said in a flat tone. His youth was a touchy point with him, especially with women.
Her smile was half mocking, half … something more. “But you are still young.”
“A man must begin at some age. Do you wish to trade for something?”
“I would think you would be demonstrating the swords and spears to the men, youngling.” Her gaze caressed the breadth of his shoulders, trailed like fingers across the tunic strained by the muscles of his deep chest.
“Perhaps kohl for your eyes.” He snatched a small blue-glazed jar from the blanket and held it out to her. His eyes searched the crowd for a man taking an unfriendly interest in their conversation. This woman would have men after her when she was a grandmother.