''How so?"
" 'Twas during the days following the battle, when my cuts were healing. I dined several times with the King and his daughter, and Chabela filled my ears with her plans for making me over. My speech, my dress, my table manners, my ideas of pleasure … all were to be changed. I was to become the perfect Zingaran gentleman, waving a scented handkerchief before my nose whilst I watched the royal ballet troupe go through its gyrations. Now, I may not be so wise as Godrigo, the king's pet philosopher; but I know what I like. Nay, Sigurd, I'll win myself a throne some day, Crom willing; but 'twill most likely be at the point of a sword, not as a wedding gift.''
"Meanwhile, Ferdrugo has been generous to a fault. He gave me the Cobra Crown, which I have earning usuary with Julio the goldsmith; that's where this new rigging and the new equipment for the lads came from. Conan chuckled. "Here I am, not yet forty, and already I'm becoming a penny-pinching money-grubber! I'd better be about the proper business of a buccaneer ere it's too late, and I turn into a potbellied miser. Kingdom-saving is no proper work for honest rogues like us, and doubtless there'll be plenty of fat-bellied merchantment sailing from Argos and Shem. Leave off your mooning over my refusal of the offer of a moonstruck girl, and let's think of business. Come look at the charts in my cabin." He raised his voice. "Master Zeltran! Join us in the cabin, if you please."
Conan strode away. For a moment, the big read-beard stared after him open-mouthed. Then he lifted his hands in a shrug of despair and followed his captain.
"By Llyr's green beard and Thor's hammer," he groaned, "but there be just no arguing with a Cimmerian!''
The rigging creaked, the bow wave soughed, and the gulls squealed as the Wastrel sailed southward, bearing Conan to new adventures.
The end.