"Robert Jordan - Conan 02 - The Invincible" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jordan Robert)

many colors. Gold armlets encircled his biceps, and a gold hoop hung from one dark ear. The oily man's
right hand gripped Semiramis' breasts; his left arm flexed as the other hand worked beneath the table.
She wriggled seductively, and giggled as he whispered in her ear. Conan ignored the pair as he strode to
the bar.

"Wine," he ordered, and dug into the leather purse at his belt for the necessary coppers. There were few
enough remaining.

Fat Abuletes made the coins disappear, replacing them with a leathern jack of sour-smelling wine. His
neck rose in grimy folds above the collar of a faded yellow tunic. His dark eyes, sunk in the suet of his
face, could weigh a man's purse to the last copper at twenty paces. Instead of moving away, he
remained, studying Conan from behind the fat, flat mask of his face.

The smells of the thin wine and half-burned meat from the kitchens warred with the effluvia wafted in
from the streets whenever the door opened to let another patron in or out. It yet lacked three full glasses
of night-fall, but the tables were filled with cutpurses, panderers and footpads. A busty courtesan in
brass-belled ankle bracelets and two narrow strips of yellow silk hawked her wares with lascivious
smiles.

Conan marked the locations of those who looked dangerous. A turbanned Kezankian hillman licked his
thin lips as he studied the prostitute, and two swarthy Iranistanis in loose, flowing red pantaloons and
leather vests ogled her, as well. Blood might well be shed there. A Turanian coiner sat hunched over his
mug, pointed beard waggling as he muttered to himself. It was known in the Desert that he had been
badly bested by a mark, and he was ready to assuage his humiliation with the three-foot Ibarri
swordknife at his hip. A third Iranistani, dressed like the first two but with a silver chain dangling on his
bare chest, attended a fortuneteller turning her cards at a table against the far wall.

"What hold you, Conan," Abuletes said abruptly, "on the coming troubles?"

"What troubles?" Conan replied. His mind was not on the tavernkeeper's words. The soothsayer was no
wrinkled hag, as such women were wont to be. Silken auburn hair showed at the edges of her
voluminous brown cloak's hood, framing a heart-shaped face. Her emerald eyes had a slight tilt above
high cheekbones. The cloak and the robe beneath were of rough wool, but her slender fingers on the
Mar cards were delicate.

"Do you listen to nothing not connected to your thievery?" Abuletes grumbled. "These six months past no
fewer than seven caravans bound for Turan, or coming from there, have disappeared without a trace.
Tiridates has the army out after the Red Hawk, but they've never gotten a glimpse of that she-devil. Why
should this time be any different? And when the soldiers return empty-handed, the merchants screaming
for something to be done will force the king to crack down on us in the Desert."

"He has cracked down before," Conan laughed, "and nothing changes." The Iranistanis said something
with a smirk. The soothsayer's green eyes looked daggers at him, but she continued to tell her cards.
Conan thought the Iranistani had the same idea he did. If Semiramis wanted to flaunt her trade before
him.... "What proof is there," he said, without taking his eyes from the pair across the room, "that the Red
Hawk is responsible? Seven caravans would be a large bite for a bandit to chew."

Abuletes snorted. "Who else could it be? Kezankian hillmen never raid far from the mountains. That
leaves the Red Hawk. And who knows how many men she has? Who knows anything of her, even what
she looks like? I've heard she has five hundred rogues who obey her like hounds the huntsman."