"A good sign. What of the others?"
"The Afghulis?"
"Is that what they are? A long way from home, I should say."
That bordered on lying. It was hardly a surprise that the man would have sworn Aghuli guards, if the tales from Afghulistan these two years past held even a kernel of truth.
It was also a near-lie in a good cause. The captain wished to know how many of his men might have some chance of recognizing the captive. The fewer, the better, at least until he and the man had sat down together and felt each other out.
"I am going to visit the captive. Have wine and sausage brought to the tent when I am there. Treat the Afghulis as common prisoners, but do not allow anyone to harm them or them to harm themselves."
"As the captain wills," Barak said. Again the captain knew he was being politely reproached.
"Are the men unhappy?"
"Not so's you'd notice, even the ones who lost friends. But they're all curious."
And unsatisfied curiosity could turn into discontent and mutiny faster than the desert wind could blow down an ill-secured tent. The captain had survived one such affray when he was barely fledged, and had no wish to face a second.
"I must speak with our captive to satisfy my own curiosity," the captain said. "But when I have satisfied mine, I will do the same for all the men."
The sergeant bowed. He seemed more resigned than happy, but that was the common view of sergeants toward superiors and superiors' plans they could not understand.
The captain finished trimming his mustache, cleaned his teeth, then garbed himself properly, including mail under his tunic, both shirt and loin-guard, and a steel cap under his headdress. Of weapons openly displayed, he bore only a dagger.
If he could make his peace with the captive, he would need no weapon at all. If not, neither sword, axe, nor bow would be sufficient.
Conan had just decided that he was unobserved and that it was time to begin loosening rivets when the tent flap shivered. Then a Turanian captain walked in, wearing silk from headdress to boot-top and a jeweled dagger in his sash.
Another of Yezdigerd's well-born lapdogs, was the Cimmerian's first thought.
Then he noticed that the silk was heavy enough to wear well, and stained and patched from much hard service. The sash had the subtle bulges of one weighted to serve as a weapon, and the steel of the dagger probably cost as much as the jewels. Nor did the man move like a courtier, more like a young wolf for all that he was at least a head shorter than the Cimmerian.
"Well, Captain Conan. I will not now say well met, but I will ask if you remember me."
Conan knew the Turanian tongue well enough that he could have composed verse in it had he ever felt the desire to compose verse at all. The captain's accent was that of the very highest nobility—so wellborn, he was, if no lapdog.
The Cimmerian studied his visitor, whom he began to think he had indeed seen before. He thought the man had been thinner and the beard not so faded by years of desert sun, but above the beard—
"Crom!"
"Not I, Conan. I would not sit on a throne of ice in a cold wasteland, glowering at all men who dare ask me for the smallest favor. Or is that some other Cimmerian god?"
"That is close enough, Khezal son of Ahlbros. Or Khezal's twin brother, if ever he had such."
"There is only one and he stands before you."
"Well, sit, then. It will never be said that I made an old comrade stand in my presence, even when I'm not at my best for giving hospitality."
Something Conan could not readily name passed over Khezal's face at the words "old comrade." So the man put some value on that, did he? Enough, maybe, to explain what he planned and what part the Cimmerian had in those plans?
Khezal sat down. He seemed to move a trifle more stiffly now.
"New wounds, Khezal? Or the old ones bothering you more with the passing years?"
"Conan, I'm three years younger than you, which hardly makes me a stiffening dotard drowsing by the fireside. Can you shape your tongue to questions that are neither impertinent nor insulting?"
If Conan had held any doubt of Khezal's identity, it was fast fading. The wry speech was that of the young captain, hardly more than a boy, who had fought beside Conan against the beasts created by the Jewels of Kurag. The best part of ten years had made the manner sit better on him, like a masterpiece of a saddle on a horse, but had not changed it past recognition.
"If this question is either, may Erlik's hounds bite off your stones. What of my men?"
"We have given rites to three, and hold two honorably captive. The others have fled."
"May I see them?"
"When we have—"
"Now."
"Conan, you are hardly in the best position to make conditions."
"On the contrary, I'm in a fine position. You want something from me. As long as I refuse it, you are worse off than I."
"Your position could be made worse."
"How, without risking my death? Dead men help no living man's schemes, as I'm sure I need not tell you."
Khezal muttered something that invoked unlawful parts of a number of still less lawful gods. Conan laughed.
"I'm not meaning to begin our new friendship with a quarrel. Not if there's to be a friendship, which I imagine there is, or I'd have awakened with my throat cut. But a quarrel, there'll be, if I can't see my men."
"Conan, by Erlik, Mitra, Vashti, and Crom, by the blood we have shed in each other's company, by Dessa's lively legs, and by Pylia's fine breasts, I swear that your men have come to no harm."
The Cimmerian laughed. "I can almost believe that oath. How fare the ladies?"
Khezal's face turned sober. "Pylia is dead. The story goes that she challenged some younger rival to see who could wear out the most men in a single night. She won, but died of her victory."
"Remembering Pylia, I can believe that. And Dessa?"
"She keeps her own tavern, after years as Pylia's most trusted girl. Still comely, the last time I saw her, and as we thought she might, thriving as she never would have wed to some dull clerk."
"A wench after my own heart—"
"And other parts? Never mind, you are right. We are neither of us made to be clerks, either."
"No, but I am made so that I will see those men of mine, whether you help or hinder."
"Conan, were I my own master—"
"The son of one of the Seventeen Attendants, not his own master? Tell me that shrimp sing bawdy ballads, and I will believe this more easily."
Khezal's face went taut and dark, and Conan instantly realized that he had struck too deep, even in jest. He had indeed heard much of the affairs of Turan since Yezdigerd ascended the throne, to make him believe that even a man like Khezal could fall from favor. After all, why otherwise would the man be prowling the desert with Turanian cavalry patrols, instead of governing a whole province?
"I ask your pardon, Khezal. I spoke too hastily. But those men are sworn to me, and I to them."
"I doubt it not. And I am sworn to defend Turan against all its enemies, among whom you are numbered. If I am to be forsworn, the fewer who know about it, the better for us all. Informers are always cheap, and there is more than enough silver to buy them. The less you are seen until after we march, the better."
Conan had also heard that Turan now swarmed with spies as an ill-kept kitchen with vermin. If Khezal risked more than his authority over his men— risked his own life, indeed—he deserved a hearing.
He also was a battle comrade, and it was not in Conan to forget the debt he owed to such.
"Let it be as you wish, Khezal. Tell me what you want of me, and I will trust you for what comes next."
"You almost said that without smiling, Conan."
"Did I? Perhaps I'd best become a player in temple pageants, to command my face better."