Pearl of Patmos by Jeffrey Lord

Author:Jeffrey Lord
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Pulp Adventure
ISBN: 9780523002071
Publisher: PINNACLE BOOKS
Published: 1973-08-14T14:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

The prison room was provided with a desk and ample writing materials and for a moment Blade thought the problem of communication was solved. Nob soon dashed that hope.

"I never learned my letters, sire. Old Nob never had time for that nonsense-he was too busy trying to keep his belly full."

Blade glanced at the music box. They could not go on whispering forever. The very fact itself would make them suspect. Then he remembered the unlocked door and cursed himself for a fool. This was such an upside-down, topsy-turvy prison that a man could not think straight in it. He prodded Nob toward the door. It was as simple as taking a stroll.

No effort was made to stop them as they left the building and strolled about the well-kempt grounds. As soon as they were away from any possible listener Blade commanded Nob to talk. That worthy, with his brokentoothed grin, was only too ready. He adjusted his eye patch with a flair and stroked his jutting smooth-shaven jaw. His rugged features, now shorn of facial hair, re-

vealed many old scars and craters the latter attributed by Nob to a bad. case of pox in his childhood:

His right eye glinting with surly amusement, Nob said, x "I caught a hoof on the back of the sconce, master, and it ° must have made me look like a deader for sure-when I '' come to the Samostans was all gone and I had the square

to myself."

Nob screwed up his ugly visage and shrugged. "That were a odd feeling, master. You was gone into the sewer and me all alone there with the dead."

Blade shook his head. "All of them? Every Thyrnian soldier died?"

"Aye. Unless, mind you, there was others playing dead lice me. But old Nob didn't stay to see. I found a few of me jewels and gold pieces, not all, for those thieving Samostans had taken them, and I crawled my way through the piles of corpses and out the gate into the salt marshes. There was naught to do but make for the coast, and that I '~ did. I fell in with a party of riff-raff like meself, you might say, and together we made the coast in three days. Once there-"

They stopped to watch some men tossing an oblong bladder about. Blade gave the man a sharp glance. "And then?"

"Well, sire, we had what amounted to a falling out." Nob did not meet Blade's eye. "There was some difference of mind, sire, on how to divide up the treasure and arms we had, er, acquired, and about how many could go in the little boat."

"You had a boat?"

"In a way, sire. One of the other-other rogues knew g where one was hid. I think he must have been a smuggler, sire." Nob sounded so virtuous that Blade had trouble suppressing a grin. He studied Nob for a moment, then nodded. "You say you had a quarrel?" Blade looked away lest he smile. "What came of it?"

Nob stroked his lantern jaw.

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