The Golden Slave (23 page)

Eodan remembered the king, motionless on the knees of a conquered god. He choked back his breath; one by one easing muscles that had stiffened to leap at a certain throat, he wheeled and marched to the high seat and prostrated himself thrice.

“Great King whose glory lights the world,” he said thickly, returning to the Latin he could best use, “forgive your slave. This Roman slew my wife. Give him to me, lord of all the earth, and I will afterward eat that fire for your amusement if you wish.”

Mithradates leaned back. He considered Flavius, who saluted him with no more respect than a high-born Roman was allowed to show any foreign despot. Lastly his glance fell upon Phryne, kissing the floor beside Eodan.

“Who is that?” he asked. Then, with a sudden chuckle of pure pleasure―the laughter of
a
little boy shown some wholly unawaited novelty―”Why, it is the Greek girl who fled with the two men. This I was not told. Rise, both of you. Woman, explain your arrival here.”

Eodan stood up. His jaws were clenched so they ached. He looked across a few feet at Flavius―no, he would
not
look―he shifted his eyes to Phryne. She stood before the king, her bowed head shielding her face, and said in Greek:

“Merciful Monarch, I am no one, only a slave girl named Phryne, who escaped from Rome with the Cimbrian and is now free by your grace. May the sun never set upon you. As the King has heard, this Roman came to Sinope with armed escort, saying he had a commission to bring back the Cimbrian. When he learned that Your Majesty was being served by the Cimbrian down here, he arranged for horses and rode with Pontine guides―for who would leave a Roman unwatched?―through Paphlagonia and Galatia to find you. It went as a diplomatic party, but its purpose is hostile, that the King may be deprived of the Cimbrian’s services. All this I was told through the household. Some of Your Majesty’s favor has come down to me; Your Majesty made rich gifts to all our party when we arrived, though I was not summoned to thank you. And then there were my earnings, and some gifts from the parents of children I instructed. With all this I was able to buy a strong eunuch to guard me. The captain of the Pontine escort kindly allowed me, on my plea, to accompany them―”

“Did you have that much money, besides the slave’s price?” asked Mithradates dryly.

“I was to give him my eunuch when we reached the King’s camp,” whispered Phryne.

“And be alone and penniless among soldiers?” Mithradates clicked his tongue. “Cimbrian, you have a loyal friend indeed. I did not believe any woman capable of it.”

He leaned forward. “Come here, Phryne. Stand before me.” His hand reached out, throwing back her hood, then reaching for her chin to tilt her face up to his. Eodan saw how the blue-back hair had grown in the summer―still too short but softly gathered above a slim neck―yes, she was surely a woman!

“Why was I not told about you before now?” murmured the king.

Flavius said with a tone that gibed at Eodan: “Your Majesty, she would not speak to me all the trip, but when she found herself―as Your Majesty phrased it―alone and penniless among soldiers, with no way into the royal presence, it entertained me, as I hoped it might entertain Your Majesty, to offer her help and protection which she must accept. It was at my expressed desire that she was allowed to wait outside with me.” He raised his shoulders and his brows. “Of course, it might have been more amusing to see what she would have tried to gain admittance. A woman is never quite penniless; she has always one commodity―”

Mithradates held Phryne’s head, watching the blood and the helpless anger rise in her. Finally he released the girl. “The Flavius misunderstood me,” he said. “We shall let you speak your case, Phryne.” He nodded toward Eodan. “However, that the Cimbrian may know your mission, Roman, state it first.”

Flavius’ head lifted, as though on a spear shaft. His tone rang out, with more depth and harshness than Eodan had yet heard from him:

“Your Majesty, this barbarian and his associates are more than runaway slaves. They have murdered free men, even citizens. There is a wise Roman law that orders that if a slave kills his owner, then all the slaves of that owner must die. How else shall free men, and their wives and daughters, be safe?”

“No writ runs here but mine,” said Mithradates calmly.

“Your Majesty,” pursued Flavius, “the Cimbrian and his allies did still worse. They committed piracy. And that is an offense against the law of all nations.”

“I have heard this tale,” said Mithradates. “I feel it was more an act of war than of piracy.” His teeth gleamed in the same child’s delight as before. “But, if you are the very man whom the Cimbrian overcame, tell me your story. What happened on that other vessel?”

“We destroyed his mutineers, Great King, and rowed to Achaea, whence I returned overland as fast as horses would bear me. When the facts of this outrage were laid before the Senate, it was decided that the Cimbrian must be punished, did not Neptune strike him down first. But not until lately did intelligence reach me, who had been given charge of the hunt, that these outlaws had insinuated themselves into Your Majesty’s grace. I came at once, to free your majesty of such odious creatures. Now―”

“Enough.” Mithradates turned to Phryne. “Well, girl, what is it you wished so badly to say to me?”

She might have fallen at his feet; but she stood before him like a visiting queen. Her tones fell soft: “Great King, I would do no more than plead for the lives of two brave men. My own does not matter.”

“For that,” said Mithradates, “I shall surely never let you go.”

Flavius said with a devouring bitterness: “Your Majesty, the Senate of Rome does not feel this female slave is of great importance, nor even the Alanic barbarian. It is not recommended to Your Majesty that you leave them alive, but I feel the King will soon discover that for himself. However, the Cimbrian, ringleader and evil genius of them all, must be done away with. We would prefer he die in Rome, but otherwise he must die here. I have already presented Your Majesty with the written consular decree of the Republic. May I say to the Great King, in the friendliest spirit, knowing that a word to the wise is sufficient―should I return with this decree unfulfilled, the Senate may be forced to reckon it a cause for war.”

 
XVII

“You bid me surrender a guest, who has fought well for me to boot,” Mithradates said gravely. And then, with an imp’s grin: “Also, I doubt the reality of your threat. If the Cimbri were all like this one, Europe must still be too shaken to go adventuring in the East. Ten years hence, perhaps … but no one would hazard so rich a province as Pergamum just to capture a man. I have read your official documents, Flavius, and they convey nothing but a strong request.”

“Great King, it was never my intention to threaten,” answered the Roman with a smooth quickness. “Forgive clumsy words. We are blunt folk in the Republic. But of course the King understands that the Senate and the people of Rome will welcome so vital a token of a most powerful and splendid monarch’s good will toward them. I am authorized to make a small material symbol of the state’s gratitude, to the amount of―”

“I have seen what the bribe would be,” said Mithradates. “We shall discuss all this at leisure tonight.” His gaze flickering between Eodan and Flavius, he chuckled deeply. “There will be a feast at which you two old friends may reminisce. In the meantime, I forbid violence between you. Now I have work to do. You may go.”

Eodan backed out, taking Phryne’s arm at the door. “Come to my tent,” he said. “You should not have been so reckless as to travel hither.”

“I would not hold back from you even the littlest help,” she whispered. She caught at his cloak, and her tone became shrill. “Eodan, will he give you up to them?”

“I hardly think so,” said the Cirnbrian. Bitterness swelled in his throat. “But neither will he give Flavius up to me!”

They started across the courtyard, and the wind snatched at their mantles. Eodan looked back and saw Flavius emerging from the keep.

“Wait,” he said to Phryne. “There are things I would talk about that no one else has a right to hear.”

“You will disappoint the king,” she said in an acrid voice. “He is looking forward to the subtlest gladiatorial contest.”

Eodan strode from her. Flavius wrapped his toga more closely against the cold bluster of the air. He smiled, raising his brows, and stood waiting; his dark curly hair fluttered. But somehow no youth or merriment were left in him.

“Will you be kind enough to assault me?” he asked.

“I am not a fool,” grunted Eodan.

“No, not in such respects…. Since your life hangs now on the king’s pleasure, you will heel to his lightest whim like any well-trained dog.” Flavius spoke quietly, choosing each word beforehand. “Thus it is seen―he who is born to be a slave will always be a slave.”

Eodan held onto his soul with both hands. At last he got out: “I will meet you somewhere beyond the power of both Rome and Pontus.”

Flavius skinned his teeth in a grin. “Your destruction is more important to me than the dubious pleasures of single combat.”

“You are afraid, then,” said Eodan. “You only fight women.”

Flavius clenched his free hand. His whittled face congealed, he said in a flat voice: “I cannot help but smite those women whom you forever make your shields. Now it is a Greek slave girl. How many more have you crawled behind, even before you debauched my wife?”

“I went through a door that stood unbarred to all,” fleered Eodan.

“Like unto like. Will it console you to know, Cimbrian, that she has divorced me? For she grows great with no child of mine, a brat I would surely drown were it dropped in my house.”

Eodan felt a dull pleasure. This was no decent way to hurt an enemy, yet what other way did he have? “So now your hopes for the consulate are broken,” he said. “That much service have I done Rome.”

“Not so,” Flavius told him. “For I allowed the divorce in an amicable way, not raising the charges of adultery I might. Thus her father is grateful to me.” He nodded. “There are troublous years coming. The plebs riot and the patricians fall out with each other. I shall rise high enough in the confusion so that I will have power to proscribe your bastard.”

It had never occurred to Eodan before, to think about the by-blow of his women. He had set Hwicca’s Othrik upon his knee and named him heir, but otherwise―Now, far down under the seething in him, he knew a tenderness. He could find no good reason for it; there was a Power here. He would have chanced Mithradates’ wrath and broken the neck of Flavius, merely to save an unborn child, little and lonely in the dark, whom he would never see. But no, those guardsmen drilling beneath the walls would seize him before he finished the task.

He asked in a sort of wonder: “Is this why you pursue me?”

“I bear the commission of the Republic.”

“The king spoke truly―they are not that interested in one man. This decree is a gesture to please you, belike through your father-in-law. You are the one who has made it his life’s work to destroy me.”

“Well, then, if you wish, I am revenging Cordelia,” said Flavius. His eyes shifted with a curious unease.

“I spared you at Arausio. And what was Cordelia to you, ever?”

“So now you call up the past and whine for your life.”

“Oh, no,” said Eodan softly. “I thank all the high gods that we meet again. For you killed my Hwicca.”

“I
did?” cried Flavius. His skin was chalky. “Now the gods would shatter you, did they exist!”

“Your sword struck her down,” said Eodan.

“After you flung her upon it!” shrieked Flavius. “You are her murderer and none but you! I have heard enough of your filth!”

He whirled and almost ran. Phryne, small and solitary at the gate, flinched aside from him. He vanished.

Eodan stood for a while staring after the Roman. It came to him finally, like a voice from elsewhere: So that is why he must hate me. He also loved Hwicca, in his own way. Indeed the soul of man is a forest at night.

He thought coldly, It is well. Now I can be certain that Flavius will never depart my track until one of us has died.

Phryne joined him as he left. As they went mutely from the castle, Tjorr rushed up to them. “There are Romans come!” he bawled. “A dozen Roman soldiers in camp … I’d swear I saw Flavius himself go by…. Phryne!
You
are
here!”

“Have you any further information?” asked the girl sweetly.

They walked toward Eodan’s tent, and she explained to the Alan what had happened. Tjorr gripped his hammer. “By the thunder,” he said, “it was well done of you! But what help did you think you could give us?”

“I did not know,” she answered unsteadily, “nor am I certain yet. A word, perhaps … one more voice to plead, with a flattering abasement impossible to Eodan … or some scheme―I could not stay away.”

Tjorr looked at the Cimbrian’s unheeding back. “Be not angry with him if he shows you cold thanks,” he said. “There has been a blackness in him of late, and this cannot have lightened it.”

“He has already rewarded me beyond measure,” she said, “by the way he greeted me.”

They entered the tent. Eodan slumped on a heap of skins and wrapped solitude about himself. After some low-voiced talk with Phryne, it occurred to Tjorr to take her out and show her to his and Eodan’s personal guards, grooms and other attendants. “She is not to be insulted. Obey her as you would obey me. Any who behaves otherwise, I’ll break his head. D’you hear?”