The Hour of the Dragon - Robert E. Howard (great reads .TXT) 📗

of the Barachans. He

had also sailed with the Zingaran buccaneers, and even with those wild

black corsairs that swept up from the far south to harry the northern

coasts, and this put him beyond the pale of any law. If he were

recognized in any of the ports of Argos it would cost him his head.

But without hesitation he rode on to Messantia, halting day or night

only to rest the stallion and to snatch a few winks of sleep for

himself.

 

He entered the city unquestioned, merging himself with the throngs

that poured continually in and out of this great commercial center. No

walls surrounded Messantia. The sea and the ships of the sea guarded

the great southern trading city.

 

It was evening when Conan rode leisurely through the streets that

marched down to the waterfront. At the ends of these streets he saw

the wharves and the masts and sails of ships. He smelled salt water

for the first time in years, heard the thrum of cordage and the creak

of spars in the breeze that was kicking up whitecaps out beyond the

headlands. Again the urge of far wandering tugged at his heart.

 

But he did not go on to the wharves. He reined aside and rode up a

steep flight of wide, worn stone steps, to a broad street where ornate

white mansions overlooked the waterfront and the harbor below. Here

dwelt the men who had grown rich from the hard-won fat of the seas-a

few old sea-captains who had found treasure afar, many traders and

merchants who never trod the naked decks nor knew the roar of tempest

of sea-fight.

 

Conan turned in his horse at a certain gold-worked gate, and rode into

a court where a fountain tinkled and pigeons fluttered from marble

coping to marble flagging. A page in jagged silken jupon and hose came

forward inquiringly. The merchants of Messantia dealt with many

strange and rough characters but most of these smacked of the sea. It

was strange that a mercenary trooper should so freely ride into the

court of a lord of commerce.

 

“The merchant Publio dwells here?” It was more statement than

question, and something in the timbre of the voice caused the page to

doff his feathered chaperon as he bowed and replied:

 

“Aye, so he does, my captain.”

 

Conan dismounted and the page called a servitor, who came running to

receive the stallion’s rein.

 

“Your master is within?” Conan drew off his gauntlets and slapped the

dust of the road from cloak and mail.

 

“Aye, my captain. Whom shall I announce?”

 

“I’ll announce myself,” grunted Conan. “I know the way well enough.

Bide you here.”

 

And obeying that peremptory command the page stood still, staring

after Conan as the latter climbed a short flight of marble steps, and

wondering what connection his master might have with this giant

fighting-man who had the aspect of a northern barbarian.

 

Menials at their tasks halted and gaped open-mouthed as Conan crossed

a wide, cool balcony overlooking the court and entered a broad

corridor through which the sea-breeze swept. Half-way down this he

heard a quill scratching, and turned into a broad room whose many wide

casements overlooked the harbor.

 

Public sat at a carved teakwood desk writing on rich parchment with a

golden quill. He was a short man, with a massive head and quick dark

eyes. His blue robe was of the finest watered silk, trimmed with

cloth-of-gold, and from his thick white throat hung a heavy gold

chain.

 

As the Cimmerian entered, the merchant looked up with a gesture of

annoyance. He froze in the midst of his gesture. His mouth opened; he

stared as at a ghost out of the past. Unbelief and fear glimmered in

his wide eyes. “Well,” said Conan, “have you no word of greeting,

Publio?”

 

Publio moistened his lips.

 

“Conan!” he whispered incredulously. “Mitra! Conan! Amra!” “Who else?”

The Cimmerian unclasped his cloak and threw it with his gauntlets down

upon the desk. “How, man?” he exclaimed irritably. “Can’t you at least

offer me a beaker of wine? My throat’s caked with the dust of the

highway.”

 

“Aye, wine!” echoed Publio mechanically. Instinctively his hand

reached for a gong, then recoiled as from a hot coal, and he

shuddered.

 

While Conan watched him with a flicker of grim amusement in his eyes,

the merchant rose and hurriedly shut the door, first craning his neck

up and down the corridor to be sure that no slave was loitering about.

Then, returning, he took a gold vessel of wine from a near-by table

and was about to fill a slender goblet when Conan impatiently took the

vessel from him and lifting it with both hands, drank deep and with

gusto.

 

“Aye, it’s Conan, right enough,” muttered Publio. “Man, are you mad?”

 

“By Crom, Publio,” said Conan, lowering the vessel but retaining it in

his hands, “you dwell in different quarters than of old. It takes an

Argossean merchant to wring wealth out of a little waterfront shop

that stank of rotten fish and cheap wine.”

 

“The old days are past,” muttered Publio, drawing his robe about him

with a slight involuntary shudder. “I have put off the past like a

worn-out cloak.”

 

“Well,” retorted Conan, “you can’t put me off like an old cloak. It

isn’t much I want of you, but that much I do want. And you can’t

refuse me. We had too many dealings in the old days. Am I such a fool

that I’m not aware that this fine mansion was built on my sweat and

blood? How many cargoes from my galleys passed through your shop?”

 

“All merchants of Messantia have dealt with the sea-rovers at one time

or another,” mumbled Publio nervously.

 

“But not with the black corsairs,” answered Conan grimly.

 

“For Mitra’s sake, be silent!” ejaculated Public, sweat starting out

on his brow. His fingers jerked at the gilt-worked edge of his robe.

 

“Well, I only wished to recall it to your mind,” answered Conan.

“Don’t be so fearful. You took plenty of risks in the past, when you

were struggling for life and wealth in that lousy little shop down by

the wharves, and were hand-and-glove with every buccaneer and smuggler

and pirate from here to the Barachan Isles. Prosperity must have

softened you.”

 

“I am respectable,” began Publio.

 

“Meaning you’re rich as hell,” snorted Conan. “Why? Why did you grow

wealthy so much quicker than your competitors? Was it because you did

a big business in ivory and ostrich feathers, copper and skins and

pearls and hammered gold ornaments, and other things from the coast of

Kush? And where did you get them so cheaply, while other merchants

were paying their weight in silver to the Stygians for them? I’ll tell

you, in case you’ve forgotten: you bought them from me, at

considerably less than their value, and I took them from the tribes of

the Black Coast, and from the ships of the Stygians—I, and the black

corsairs.”

 

“In Mitra’s name, cease!” begged Public. “I have not forgotten. But

what are you doing here? I am the only man in Argos who knew that the

king of Aquilonia was once Conan the buccaneer, in the old days. But

word has come southward of the overthrow of Aquilonia and the death of

the king.”

 

“My enemies have killed me a hundred times by rumors,” grunted Conan.

“Yet here I sit and guzzle wine of Kyros.” And he suited the action

to the word.

 

Lowering the vessel, which was now nearly empty, he said: “It’s but a

small thing I ask of you, Publio. I know that you’re aware of

everything that goes on in Messantia. I want to know if a Zingaran

named Beloso, or he might call himself anything, is in this city. He’s

tall and lean and dark like all his race, and it’s likely he’ll seek

to sell a very rare jewel.” Public shook his head.

 

“I have not heard of such a man. But thousands come and go in

Messantia. If he is here my agents will discover him.” “Good. Send

them to look for him. And in the meantime have my horse cared for, and

food served me here in this room.”

 

Publio assented volubly, and Conan emptied the wine vessel, tossed it

carelessly into a comer, and strode to a near-by casement,

involuntarily expanding his chest as he breathed deep of the salt air.

He was looking down upon the meandering waterfront streets. He swept

the ships in the harbor with an appreciative glance, then lifted his

head and stared beyond the bay, far into the blue haze of the distance

where sea met sky. And his memory sped beyond that horizon, to the

golden seas of the south, under flaming suns, where laws were not and

life ran hotly. Some vagrant scent of spice or palm woke clear-etched

images of strange coasts where mangroves grew and drums thundered, of

ships locked in battle and decks running blood, of smoke and flame and

the crying of slaughter. Lost in his thoughts he scarcely noticed when

Publio stole from the chamber.

 

Gathering up his robe, the merchant hurried along the corridors until

he came to a certain chamber where a tall, gaunt man with a scar upon

his temple wrote continually upon parchment. There was something about

this man which made his clerkly occupation seem incongruous. To him

Public spoke abruptly:

 

“Conan has returned!”

 

“Conan?” The gaunt man started up and the quill fell from his fingers.

“The corsair?”

 

“Aye!”

 

The gaunt man went livid. “Is he mad? If he is discovered here we are

ruined! They will hang a man who shelters or trades with a corsair as

quickly as they’ll hang the corsair himself! What if the governor

should learn of our past connections with him?”

 

“He will not learn,” answered Public grimly. “Send your men into the

markets and wharfside dives and learn if one Beloso, a Zingaran, is in

Messantia. Conan said he had a gem, which he will probably seek to

dispose of. The jewel merchants should know of him, if any do. And

here is another task for you: pick up a dozen or so desperate villains

who can be trusted to do away with a man and hold their tongues

afterward. You understand me?”

 

“I understand.” The other nodded slowly and somberly.

 

“I have not stolen, cheated, lied and fought my way up from the gutter

to be undone now by a ghost out of my past,” muttered Public, and the

sinister darkness of his countenance at that moment would have

surprized the wealthy nobles and ladies, who bought their silks and

pearls from his many stalls. But when he returned to Conan a short

time later, bearing in his own hands a platter of fruit and meats, he

presented a placid face to his unwelcome guest.

 

Conan still stood at the casement, staring down into the harbor at the

purple and crimson and vermilion and scarlet sails of galleons and

carracks and galleys and dromonds.

 

“There’s a Stygian galley, if I’m not blind,” he remarked, pointing to

a long, low, slim black ship lying apart from the others, anchored off

the low broad sandy beach that curved round to the distant headland.

“Is there peace, then, between Stygia and Argos?”

 

“The same sort that has existed before,” answered Public, setting the

platter on the table with a sigh of relief, for it was heavily laden;

he knew his guest of old. “Stygian ports are temporarily open to our

ships, as ours to theirs. But may no craft of mine meet their cursed

galleys out of sight of land!