death; or would it be a civilized war where boundaries were adjusted
and prisoners taken for the slave market?

Thus Arpad's stay became delightful, and he left with regret. But it
was now early summer, and soon the etesian winds would make eastward
sea traffic all but impossible.

By some quirk--by the ill wind of Ahriman, mumbled his sailors--they
encountered a powerful west wind, a veritable gale. It blew steadily,
hour upon hour and day upon day; as they wallowed north on bare poles
and oars, striving to hold course and not be blown clear to Syria, the
skies turned to an unseasonable overcast with chill gusts of rain. When
at last he recognized the island of Rhodes, smoky blue through the
squalls, Arpad decided to put in and wait out this weather.

Beating through rain and spindrift, he saw another galley. It had a
sail up, recklessly, no oars out at all, the ports shuttered.... Arpad
steered closer. That fool of a captain would smash himself on the beach!

Something about the stranger's unruly course told him it was badly
undermanned. It had an Italian look, not much of a galley, an old
trading scow but even so--Arpad sent a man up to speak with the lookout
in the crow's-nest. Only three crewfolk were seen on the other deck.
Two of them fought their yardarm, trying to pull it about so they would
not be blown so directly toward the island. The third stood by a
lashed steering oar. The ship was sluggish, low in the water, now and
then a wave breaking over the side; it was slowly foundering.

Arpad considered various matters, such as the rescue of distressed
mariners and the salvage rights on their vessel. "Stand by to board!"
he called.

Even in these high seas, a naval crew had small trouble laying
alongside and grappling fast. An armed party surrounded the three and
conducted them aboard the Pontine galley. Arpad had them led to his
cabin, where they stood dripping on a carpet while he removed his own
wet cloak. Only then did he regard them closely.

They stood with a sort of exhausted defiance between four drawn swords.
The lamp, swinging from its chains, revealed them clad in rags. But
they were no ordinary sailors. There was a burly redbearded fellow, his
broad battered face speaking of Sarmatian plains. There was a young
woman whose figure would have been good, in the skinny Greek manner,
had she not lost so much weight; her hair was cut like a boy's and
her hands were bloodied from ropes and levers. The strangest was a
barbarian with yellow hair dyed a fading black and a sun symbol etched
on his brow. He looked like a wild king, and yet he stood gloomily
withdrawn as any desert eremite, showing no interest in who had taken
him or what his fate would be.

The backs of both men had been whipped; the red one bore permanent
manacle scars. Slaves, then. And doubtless the woman was, too. Their
captured weapons had been laid at Arpad's feet--a rusty longsword, an
ax and an iron-headed maul.

"Do you speak Greek?" asked Arpad. His Latin was limited.

"I do," said the girl. Her eyes--you didn't see violet eyes very often,
and especially not with such long sooty lashes; really, it was her best
feature--were hollow from weariness and wide from anxiety, but she
looked on him without wavering. "What ship is this, and who are you?"

"What a way for fugitive slaves to address a Pontine noble!" exclaimed
Arpad lightly. "Down on your knees and beg for your lives; that would
be more in keeping."

"These men are not slaves," she said. "They are chieftains returning
home."

"And you? Come, now, do not anger me. When a ship is found with only
three slaves aboard, I can guess the tale for myself. Tell me your
names and how it all came to be."

She said with a pride at which her exhaustion dragged: "I am merely
Phryne, but I stand between Eodan of Cimberland and Tjorr of the
Rukh-Ansa."

"I know _them_!" said Arpad.

"It is a long story. They were war prisoners, who regained their
freedom by conquering the Roman crew--and even I have heard the King of
Pontus is no friend to Rome, so is he not a friend to Rome's enemies?
But the upshot was that we three alone remained on this vessel. We
could do little more than set sail and run before the wind, hoping to
strike a land, Crete or Cyprus or wherever the gods willed, whence we
might make our way to Cimmeria. But we found two men and one woman
cannot even keep a ship bailed out in such weather." She smiled
tiredly. "We were debating whether to try and make landfall on that
island ahead, risking shipwreck and capture if it is Roman-held, or
steer past--if we could. Now you have changed the situation, Master
Captain, and we throw ourselves upon your hospitality."

"What slave may claim hospitality?" asked Arpad. "And when he has
mutinied, probably murdered, as well.... Would you feel bound to
consider a wolf your guest?" He stroked his chin. The ship, he
calculated, would surely be considered salvaged by him; the Rhodesian
authorities had to have their share, but he would get something. If he
did not dispute possession of the two men--the port governor could put
them to work, or kill them, or give them to the Romans, whatever the
law said--then the governor in turn would doubtless ignore the girl.
There was a good mind under that tip-tilted face, and a hot spirit
in that small thin body; she would make the rest of this voyage most
interesting to Captain Arpad, and he could get a fair price at home
after he had fattened her up enough for the Oriental taste.

Her pale, wet cheeks had darkened as he spoke, more with anger than
fear. She rattled off a few harsh Latin words. The Alan growled and
looked about. A guard's sword pricked his hairy flank; he would never
cross the two yards to Arpad's throat. He said something to the tall
blank-faced man, who shrugged. Mithras! Didn't that one care at all?
Well, men did go crazy sometimes when the fetters were clinched.

Arpad listened more closely, interested. He heard the redbeard: "But
Eodan, _disa_, they'll flay us!"

"Then thus the Powers will it," said the tall one in a dead voice.

The girl, Phryne, stamped her foot and shouted:

"I thought I followed a man! I see now it is a child! You sit like a
wooden toad and will not stir a hand, even for your comrades--"

A wan wrath flickered in the cold green eyes. The one called Eodan
said: "You lie. I worked my share during these past few days, to keep
the ship afloat. If I did not care whether we sank or not, that is my
concern."

She put her fists on her hips, glared up at him and said: "But you make
it the world's concern! I understood you had suffered loss when Hwicca
fell. Do you think I cannot imagine it, how it would be for me, too,
did the one I cared for die in my arms? I said nothing when you made a
raft for her, though we needed your help even that first day; when you
laid her on it with the Roman sword and her dagger, though we needed
both; when you drenched it with oil that might have nourished us; when
you risked your own life to launch it and set the torch to it; and when
you howled while it fell burning behind. A man must obey his own inward
law, or be no man at all. But since then? I tell you, it has ceased
to be your private mourning. Now you call upon the world and all the
gods, by your silence and your indifference, to witness how _you_ are
suffering!

"You overgrown brat! If you want to sacrifice your comrades to her
ghost, do it with your hands like a man!"

Arpad signaled his guards. "Take them out and give them food and dry
garments," he said. "Bind the men and bring the girl back to me."

A hand closed on Eodan's shoulder. He pushed it off, impatiently, and
made a huge stride toward the captain. His lean face was taut with fury.

"Do you dare treat a Cimbrian like a slave?" he said.

"_Hoy!_" The guards closed in. Eodan's fist jumped out. One man lurched
back with a smashed mouth. Another circled, unsure. Tjorr growled and
reached for the hammer on the floor. The remaining two men forced him
away, but had no help to spare with Eodan.

A hand gripped Arpad's tunic so he choked. The long head bent down
toward his. "You little spitlicker," said Eodan, "I do not know whether
to string you to the mast myself or ask your king to do it for me. But
I think I shall let him have the pleasure."

Arpad shuddered and gestured his guards back, for he had seen monarchs
enough, and there was no mistaking the royal manner. A king born did
not act as if it were possible men could fail to knock their heads on
the ground before his boots. Eodan stood unarmed, nearly naked, and
shook him back and forth very slowly, in time with the words:

"Now hearken. I am Boierik's son of the Cimbri. I have a quarrel with
the gods, who have treated me ill, but it does not change who I am. I
have been searching for a king to hear a message I bear. Since your
vessel chanced to pick me up, I will speak first to your ruler. Obey me
well, and perhaps I shall forgive you for what you said in ignorance.
So!"

He threw Arpad to the floor. The guardsmen stepped in, hemming him
between shields and lifted blades. They glanced at their captain. Arpad
stood up.

One could never be sure.... If that big man was mad, then he might
be the walking voice of--of anything ... or else, there were so many
outlandish tribes, a prince of one might easily have been captured
and--and truly great Mithradates would be interested to meet such a
person, as he was interested in all the realms of earth. The king might
even bestow favor on this Eodan, some of which might then reflect
on Arpad. Or perhaps the king would have Eodan beheaded; but that
annoyance would surely not be considered Arpad's fault, since Arpad had
only brought this visitor in the hope of amusing the king. It was not
too great a risk. And, if the tall one demanded treatment as a guest
meanwhile, it was not unduly inconvenient, the ambassador's cabin stood
empty....

"My master, the sublime one who knows all nations, must decide this,"
purred Arpad. His Latin was always equal to titles. "We shall seek his
august presence."

XV

The south coast of the Black Sea was good to look upon, where red
cliffs and green valleys and their many streams met wine-dark waters;
high overhead went summer clouds, blinding white, and thunder spoke
from the Caucasus. Sinope lay on a small peninsula about halfway
between Byzantium and Colchis. It was an ancient Greek colony, now
become the chief seat of the Pontine kings.

Eodan stood in the bow with Phryne and Tjorr, watching the city grow
as they entered its harbor, until the first loveliness of marble
colonnades and many-colored gardens yielded to a tarry workaday bustle
where the surface was crowded with galleys from half the East. He was
well clothed in white linen tunic, blue chlamys, leather belt and
sandals, the German sword polished and whetted at his waist. They had
even shaved him so he could look civilized and worked the dye from his
hair so he could look foreign. He wondered how that would affect his
price, if Mithradates judged against him.

"Tjorr," he said, "since your folk have clashed with these before now,
are you not in danger of his wrath? I have been wondering if it would
not be wiser for you to stay aboard here until--"

The Alan, clad like his chief but still doggedly shaggy-faced, answered
with a boy's eagerness: "From what I've heard, he is not one of those
sour Romans. Why, if he has any honor at all, he will send me home
laden with gifts, just because our raids kept his soldiers amused." He
laid a hand on the hammer slung at his side. "Nor do I think anything
can go too badly wrong while I bear this. Did we not win a ship, strike
off our fetters, thwart our enemies, get pulled from the sea god's
mouth and have a well-fed passage here, while I bore the Smasher?
There's luck in this iron."

Eodan thought of Hwicca and his lips tightened. "It may be," he said.
"Though I am unsure what that word luck means."

She had ceased to haunt him. First had been all those days when her
face on the balefire came between his eyes and the world, though it
had not been her, that cold white face, it was _dead_--but where then
had she wandered? He would sleep for a little and wake up; a few times
he woke so happily and looked about for her before remembering she was
dead. But since Phryne called him to anger, with the biting unjustness
of her words, he had been more nearly himself. There was a goal again,
the beech forests of the North, with sunlight snared in their crowns
and a lark far and far up overhead--yes, he wanted to go back and
search for his childhood, but home-coming was not what it had been in
his thoughts. Hwicca would not be with him.

Well, a man sometimes lived when they cut off a hand or a leg or a
hope; he fumbled on as best he could, and what he had lost hurt him on
rainy nights.

Eodan shut off the awareness and turned to Phryne. "Are you certain you
will not speak for us?" he asked. "Our tale is so strange already that
it will add small strangeness for a woman to argue on our behalf. And
you have more knowledge of this realm, and a quicker wit."

The girl smiled faintly and shook her head. She wore a white dress
Arpad had gotten her, and a palla with the hood drawn up. That covered
her shortened hair and made a discreet shade across her face; here in
the East a woman was regarded as being much less than a man, so this
garb would please by its modesty.

"I have already told you the small amount I know, and you have been
clever to draw much else from the captain," she said. "Nor does it
matter greatly. The knowledge we shall need is how to deal with men,
and there, Eodan, you are showing more inborn gifts than any other
person I have met."

He shrugged, a little puzzled as to her meaning, and watched the
harbor. Small boats crawled about the galley's oars, tub-shaped
coracles whose paddlers screamed their wares of fruit, wine, sausage,
cheese, guidance among the brothels and other delicacies. The people
of Sinope were a mixed lot. Most were dark, stocky, curly-headed,
big-nosed and hairy, but not all. On the wharfs Eodan could see
Armenian mountaineers with shepherds' staffs and crooked knives, a
sleek Byzantine merchant, a gaily-robed warrior of pure Gallic strain,
a pair of hobnailed Macedonian mercenaries, a spear-bearing man, in fur
cap and white blouse and baggy trousers tucked into his boots, whom
Tjorr said delightedly was an Alanic tribesman, a graybearded Jew, a
lean Arab--this was not Rome, this Sinope, but it pulled in its share
of the earth's people!

They docked, and Arpad led his guests--or prisoners--ashore with an
escort of soldiers. Since this was an official ship, they stopped for
no formalities of bribing the customs agents. A messenger ran ahead of
them, and they had not reached the palace when he came back to say the
king would receive them at once.

Eodan went between the shields of marching men, through the city gates
and a cobbled street of flat-roofed buildings shrieking with bazaars,
where the escort clubbed a way, and at last up a hill to the palace.
Heavy-armored men, with helmet and cuirass, greaves and shield, sword
and spear, tramped up and down upon its walls like a moving arsenal;
here and there squatted lightly clad archers holding the short Asiatic
hornbow. Beneath posed a guard of Persian cavalry, tall arrogant
hook-faced men, their helmets and horses magnificent with plumes, blue
cloaks fluttering about scaly coats of mail, trousered legs ending in
boots of silver-inlaid leather, lance in hand, ax and bow and small
round shield at the saddle--"By the thunder-snake itself," muttered
Tjorr, "how I'd love to sack their barracks!"

A trumpeter preceded them through bronze gates. They went over a path
beside which roses flared and Grecian nymphs leaped marble out of
secret bowers; they saw a fountain shaped like Hercules and the hydra,
so skillfully modeled and painted that Eodan grabbed for his sword;
then the stairway opened before them, with sphinxes crouched at the
foot, bulls at the head and two polished soldiers rigid on every step.
There Arpad's escort was told to wait. The captain himself and his
three guests surrendered their weapons to the watch.

"Not this," protested Tjorr, holding his hammer. "It is my luck."

"A god, did you say?" asked the Latin-speaking guard who wanted it. He
looked at his officer, unsure; there were so many gods, and some of
them were touchy.

The officer shook his head. "No lesser god enters the Presence of
Mithras, who is always with the king. Leave it here, fellow, you'll get
it back."

"But--"

"Do as he says," Eodan broke in.

Tjorr loosed the thong, his face miserable. "I tell you, my luck is in
that hammer. Well, maybe your triskele will see us through."

"Would you keep the king waiting?" puffed Arpad.

He led the way, his best robe rippling about him, up the stairs and
under the red and blue columns of the portico. Slaves prostrated
themselves at the doors: once only, since the king received three such
salutes. They were conducted down halls of lifelike murals; Eodan saw
with a thrill how often the Bull recurred, sacrificed by a youth or
shaking great horns beneath a golden sun-disc. Lamps in silver chains
gave a clear unwavering light. But, when finally the carpeted ways
opened on an audience chamber, the sun himself came through a great
glazed window behind the throne.

It was so bright that Eodan could hardly see the man upon that carven
seat, except as a robe of Tyrian purple and a golden chaplet. He and
his companions were held back by the door. Arpad advanced alone,
between grave men--long-haired, sometimes bearded--in brilliant
garments. Among them stood a few outland envoys; a turban or a shaven
pig-tailed skull betokened foreignness. Around the room, motionless
between soaring porphyry columns, were a guard of spearmen.

A long time passed while King Mithradates read the dispatches handed
him, questioned Arpad more closely and dictated to his secretary. Eodan
could not hear what was said, the courtiers made so much noise as they
circulated and chattered. It would be in Greek or Persian, anyhow.

But finally the chamberlain called out something. A hush fell bit by
bit, and Eodan saw eyes turn his way. He walked forward. Tjorr and
Phryne came behind him; it had been arranged thus at her advice. At the
ritual distance from the throne, Eodan halted. Tjorr and Phryne made
obeisance, thrice knocking their heads on the carpet and then remaining
crouched. Eodan merely bowed his head once upon folded hands.

He heard a sigh go around the room, like the wind before a hailstorm.

Raising his eyes, he locked gaze with Mithradates Eupator. The King of
Pontus was a giant, tall as Eodan and broad as Tjorr, his hands ropy
with veins and sinew like any hunts-man's. Within a mane of curly dark
hair and bearded jawline, his head was nearly Greek--a wide brow, gray
eyes, straight nose, rounded shaven chin; it lifted straight from the
pillar of his throat. He was only in his mid-thirties, Phryne said, but
he owned half this eastern sea, and Rome itself feared he might take
all Asia.

"Do you not bow to the throne?" he asked, almost mildly. His Latin came
as easily as any Senator's.

"My Lord," said Eodan, "I beg forgiveness if I, a stranger, have
unknowingly offended. I gave to you that sign of respect we have in the
North, when one of royal blood meets a greater king."

He had made it up himself the day before, but no one had to know that.
He hazarded a cruel death--far safer to proclaim himself dust beneath
the royal feet--but as one more humble suppliant among thousands he
could not have hoped for much.

Mithradates leaned back and rubbed his chin. Curious, thought Eodan
in a far part of his being, the king's nails are blue at the base....
"My captain told me what little you would say to him," murmured the
Pontine. "I trust you will be more frank with me."

"Great King," said Eodan, "I have so little to bring you I am ashamed.
May you live forever! All the world lays its wealth in your hands. I
can but offer the salvage price of my ship, paid at Rhodes, which Arpad
insists is his. I leave to your judgment, Wise One, whether the monies
do indeed belong to him, or to me who would give them as an offering
to Your Majesty. But one gift at least I bring, if you will accept
it--my story, what I have done since leaving my own realm, and what I
have seen from Thule to Rhodes and from Dacia to Spain. Since this tale
is my gift to you, I did not think it fit that Arpad, your servant,
should have its maidenhead."

Mithradates opened his mouth and bellowed with laughter.

"Well, your gift is accepted," he said at last, "and I shall not be
miserly myself if the tale be rich. From what country are you?"

"Cimberland, Great King."

"I have heard somewhat of the Cimbri. Indeed, one of my neighbors
sent them an embassy a few years ago. Surely this will be a night's
entertainment, though you humble my pride by making me hear it in
Latin. Chamberlain! See to it that these three are given a suite,
changes of raiment and whatever else they require." Mithradates said
it in the Roman tongue, doubtless for Eodan's benefit, since he must
repeat it in Greek. "Go, I will see you at the evening meal. And now,
Arpad, about those monies."

"Great King of All the World," wailed Arpad, flat on his belly, "may
your children people the earth! It was but that I, your most unworthy
subject, thought to offer you--"

As he went to the guest chambers, Eodan asked the slave who led him--an
Italian, he saw with glee--what the king had meant, that he was ashamed
to hear the tale in Latin. "Know, Master," said the boy, "that our
puissant lord keeps no interpreters on his own staff, for he himself
speaks no fewer than two and twenty languages. You must indeed have
come from far away."

The suite was as luxurious as one might have expected. Phryne said
doubtfully, "We build our hopes on Vesuvius. The soil there is
surpassingly rich, but sometimes the mountain buries it in fire. I will
be happy if we can get from here unscathed."

"Why," said Eodan, surprised, "I would have thought you could dwell
here more gladly than any place else in the world. They are a mannered
folk, it seems."

"They are more alien to me, a Greek, than the Romans--or the
Sarmatians--or the Cimbri." She looked out the window, down to gardens
where paths twisted so a man could lose his way. "If we stay long
enough, you will understand."

"It may be. Nonetheless, I have a feeling no few arts could be learned
here that might take root in the North." Eodan went over to her.
"Though one of the greatest could be taught me by yourself."

She turned about with an eagerness that astonished him. "What do you
mean?" Her face flushed, and she lifted her hands like a small girl.

"I mean this craft of writing. Not that we would have much use for it
in the North ... and yet, who knows?"

"Oh." She looked away again. "Writing. Indeed. I will teach you when
the chance comes. It is not hard."

Near sundown, an obsequious eunuch informed them they would soon dine.
They left Phryne to a solitary meal--women did not eat before the
king--and followed him to a lesser feasting hall.

Music sounded from a twilight peristyle--flute, lyre, drum, gong,
sistrum, and other instruments Eodan had not heard, yowling like
cats. The diners, arrayed in their silks and fine linens, gold and
silver and jewels, lay about a long table on couches, in somewhat the
Grecian manner. Mithradates came last, to trumpets, and all but Eodan
prostrated themselves.

There was silence. A slave brought forth a cup and knelt to offer it to
the king. Mithradates looked over his half-hundred guests. "Tonight I
drink hemlock, in memory of Socrates." A kind of unvoiced whisper ran
about the assembly as he drained the beaker.

"Now," he said, "let the feast begin!"

Eodan, who was hungry, paid little heed to the succession of artificed
viands. Cordelia had offered him enough of that; let a man be nourished
on rye and beef, with a horn of ale to wash it down. He took enough
mutton to fill himself and barely tasted the rest. For the hour or
so in which they ate--this was no elaborate banquet, only the king's
evening meal--no person spoke. Eodan did not miss the talk, and the
music he ignored. The dancers were another matter. He studied the
acrobatic boys closely; this or that trick could be useful in combat.
When the supple women came out with dessert and dropped one filmy
garment after the next as they swayed about, he knew his hurts were
scarring over. He would have traded all these for Hwicca--yes, all
women who lived--but since she was gone and they were here....

Finally, with some decorum restored, there was general conversation.
Mithradates talked impatiently to various self-important persons,
dismissed them at last with plain relief and roared the length of the
table: "Cimbrian! Now let us hear that tale you promised!"

Eodan followed his beckoning arm, to lie beside the king himself.
Envious eyes trailed him. Not everyone listened--the whole room buzzed
with talk--but he was as glad of that. He had not wished to make the
Cimbrian destiny a night's idle amusement; but to this gray-eyed man,
himself a warrior, it was fitting to relate what Boierik had done.

Now and again Mithradates broke in with a question. "Is it true that
sky and sea run into one up there, as Pytheas has written?... How high
does the sun stand at midsummer?... Do they know of any poisons? This
is a self-preserving interest of mine--too many kings have died of a
subtle drink. I take a little each day, so that now they cannot harm
me, neither hemlock nor arsenicum nor nightshade nor--But continue."

The lamps burned low; slaves stole about filling them with fresh oil.
Eodan's throat hoarsened; he drank one cup of wine after another,
until his head buzzed like all summer's bees in a clover meadow in
Jutland.... Mithradates matched him, goblet for goblet, though the
king's was larger, and showed no sign of it.

And at last Eodan said: "Then your ship found us and brought us hither.
So it may be the gods have ended their feud with me."

"That Ahriman has," corrected Mithradates, "but he is the common enemy
of all men and--Could it be, I wonder, that the Bull in whose sign you
wandered the world was the same that bleeds upon the altars of the
Mystery? But enough." His hand cracked down on Eodan's shoulder, and he
raised his cup, clashing it against the Cimbrian's. "What a journey!"
he cried. "What a journey!"

"I thank Your Majesty. But it has not ended yet."

"Are you certain?" Mithradates looked at him, with gravity falling like
a veil. "I wonder if you are not too much a man to be flung back on any
northward wind. Would you like to fight Rome?"

Eodan answered harshly, "There is blood of my blood on their hands. I
count it defeat that I shall not meet the man Flavius again. I will set
up a horse skull in the North and curse him, but it is not enough."

"Your chance could come," said Mithradates. "There will be war between
Rome and Pontus. Not yet, not for some years, but it is brewing, and it
will be pitiless. I shall need good officers."

"I have not the skills, Great King," said Eodan.

"You could learn them, I think. See here. This very month I am leading
an expedition against the Tectosages. Their tetrarch has been a
thorn in my side since I took Galatian territory. We have had border
skirmishes, and all the Gallic cantons lean toward Rome and intrigue
against me. They must learn who is master. It will not be a great
war--an outright conquest would alarm the Romans too much at this stage
of things--only a punitive expedition. But the fighting will be brisk
and the booty sufficient. I would like to have you and your Alanic
friend in my following. I think you could serve me well, and you would
gain in both wealth and knowledge."

"I should be honored, Great King," said Eodan. One did not refuse such
an offer, and indeed it could be profitable. And to ride a war-horse
again!

"So be it. We shall talk further. Now, hm, did you say your Grecian
girl was a maiden and wishes to remain so? _I_ would not stand for it!
_I_ took it for granted, till you related otherwise, that you two held
her in common."

"She lifted me from slavery, Lord. It is a small thing to repay her."

"Well, as you wish. If she is indeed learned, she can tutor the younger
children of palace officials." Mithradates grinned. "Meanwhile, you
and the Alan have certain needs. I take it you both prefer women?" He
beckoned his secretary and gave orders.

Morning was not far off when Eodan and Tjorr entered their room,
none too steadily. A maidservant accompanying them woke Phryne, who
came from her chamber wrapped in a mantle. Her eyes were dark in the
lamp-glow. "What has happened?" she asked.

"Much," said Eodan. "It is well for us. But now you shall have a
private room, and a servant of your own."

"Why--" Phryne's look turned forlorn. It fell on a couch in the corner
and on the two who sat there. Long gowns and demure veils did not hide
what they were.

She grew white. She stamped her foot and cried out, "You could have let
your wife grow cold in death before this!"

Eodan, weary, startled by her rage, snapped back: "What good would it
be for her ghost if I remained less than a man, just because you are
less than a woman?"

Phryne drew her mantle over her face and departed.

Eodan stared after her, tasting his own words poisonous on his tongue.
But it was too late now--was it not? The slave girl came over to him,
knelt and pressed his hand to her forehead. He saw through the thin
silk that she was young and fair of shape.

He said in an ashen tone, "The King is kind."

"_Da_," muttered Tjorr. "But I know not, I know not. All this we gained
when my hammer was elsewhere. I wonder how much luck is in such gifts."

XVI

Summer had burned hot on the Asiatic uplands, but winter would be
very cold. The day after he left the city Ancyra, Eodan felt the wind
search through clothes and flesh toward his bones. Overhead the sky was
leaden, with a dirty wrack flying beneath it. Dust smoked off harvested
fields. There were not many of these; the rest was wild brown pasture,
cut by tiny streams and bare hills. He was on the edge of the Axylon,
the vast treeless plateau running south to Lycaonia, with little more
sign of man than some sheep and goat herds.

He wrapped his cloak more tightly about him and thought of autumn gold
and scarlet in Jutland, where forests roared on long ridges. Why had
three Gallic tribes left such a country, nearly two hundred years ago,
and wandered hither?

But so they had, conquering Cappadocians and Phrygians until a new
nation stood forth around the Halys. They let the natives farm and
trade as ever, save for taxes and a share in the crop. The invaders
rooted their three tribes in separate parts of the country, each
divided into four cantons with a chief and a judge above it; a great
council imagined it guided the entirety. Mithradates had remarked
once it was no mean feat to combine so carefully the worst features
of a monarchy and a republic. The Gauls shunned cities, holding to
fortified villages clustered around the castles of chiefs. There they
practiced the skills of war, heard their bards and Druids, remained in
fact--under all the proud trumpets--a wistful fragment of the North.

"Maybe the Powers were not so unkind after all," said Eodan. "It might
have been worse for the Cimbri had they overcome Rome."

Tjorr shook his head, puzzled. "You are a strange one, _disa_," he
said. "Half of what you speak these days I do not understand at all."

They trotted on southward, into the wind off the high plains. Some
miles ahead lay the Pontine army, where Mithradates was getting ready
to march home. The lancers who jingled after Eodan and Tjorr were
a detachment sent to fetch certain hostages, who would assure the
behavior of Ancyra's Phrygians as well as of the Tectosagic overlords.
Eodan had recognized the commission, small though it was, as a mark of
royal favor. For himself, he was chiefly pleased that the Greek he had
been studying as chance offered was now good enough to serve him. He
could not live in Asia without learning its universal second language.

Tjorr glanced complacently at his own outfit. Like the Cimbrian, he
wore the garb of a Persian cavalry officer, though he had added thereto
a treasure of golden bracelets. "This has been a good war," he said.
"We have seen new lands and new folk, done some lively fighting--ha, do
you remember how we attacked them at the river, drove them into its
waters and fought them there? And those castles we won were stuffed
with plunder!"

"I saw them," replied Eodan shortly.

He did not know why his mood should be so gray. It had indeed been a
fine campaign, and he had learned more about war and leadership than
he could reckon up--much of it simply from watching Mithradates, who
was a noble chief to follow and often a good mirthful restless-minded
friend to converse with. The battles had gone well--one could forget
the unforgotten during a few clangorous hours of charge and fight
and pursuit--until the Tectosages yielded the terms and indemnities
demanded. He, Eodan, had been granted enough booty to pay the expenses
of Sinope's court; now his own star could follow that of Mithradates
until both, perhaps, lit all the Orient sky.

Nevertheless, winter lay in his soul, and he rode to his King without
gladness.

Tjorr went on, eagerly: "The best of it is, we've not to garrison here
in winter. Back to Sinope! Or Trapezus? There's a city! Do you remember
how we stopped there?" It had been politic to march eastward first,
entering Galatia through the country of the Trocmi, who had already
been subdued; for Rome watched jealously the stump of independent
Paphlagonia that lay between Sinope and Ancyra.

Eodan smiled one-sidedly. "I remember how you hired a bawdyhouse just
for yourself."

"Oh, I invited my friends, of course. A pity the King wished to talk
geography or astronomy or whatever it was with you that night. Still,
we've picked up some nice wenches here and there, not so?" Tjorr sighed
in reminiscence. "Ah, Satalu! She was as sweet and bouncy as a stack
of new-mown clover. Not that I say anything against my concubine in
Sinope, though I may buy another one or two for variety." He rubbed the
hammer at his side. "There's luck in this old maul, I tell you. Maybe
even something of the lightning."

Eodan's thoughts drifted pastward. Perhaps his forebodings were no
more than a recollection--now, when he was not too hurried to consider
it--of how the captured Galatians had stumbled in clanking lines, north
to the slave markets of Pontus.

Or it might be a certain aloneness. Phryne had not understood--maybe
no woman could understand--how a man was driven to one after another,
by the ruthless force of the Bull, merely so that he could sleep
afterward ... when the only one he truly wanted had dwindled to a small
burning star on a windy sea. Wherefore Phryne had coldly avoided him.
In the bustle of an army that made ready to go, he had found no chance
to seek her out and gain back a friendship he missed; there was little
privacy in an Eastern palace. He contented himself with making certain
she would have an honorable, paid position in the household.

Could I write, he thought, my words would have reached her during these
months. But since I lack that great witchcraft, I was only able to make
sacrifices, hoping the gods would bring her a dream of me.

He had offered to many powerful gods: Cimberland's Bull, who was also
in some way Moon and Sun, and Hertha the Earth Mother, whom they called
Cybele down here; even Jupiter and the fork-tongued thunder-snake that
Tjorr invoked. He would have given Mithras precedence, that being
the favored god of Pontus, but the king explained it was forbidden
to call on him unless one had been initiated into his mysteries. And
thereafter: "But you can be instructed this winter, when we have come
home, and I myself will stand as your sponsor. For our hearts are much
alike, Eodan."

The Cimbrian was ready enough to go under the banner of Mithras, who
was not only strong but consoling. He had been born of a virgin through
the grace of Ahura-Mazda the Good, that all his followers might live in
heaven after death--which seemed a better fate than that granted the
puzzled quiet shades of the Greeks. Perhaps Mithras could even call
Hwicca back from the night wind, though Eodan dared not hope it. The
god's midwinter birthday was a cheerful occasion, where men feasted
and exchanged gifts. One day, when evil Ahriman rose up for a last
onslaught, all those warriors whom Mithras had been guesting in heaven
would ride with him to battle.

Eodan thought sometimes that the North might welcome such a god, more
humanly brave than the dark, nearly formless wild Powers of earth and
sky. But it seemed unsure that he would ever again see the North.

"There, now! Shall we enter in the horseman's manner?"

Eodan looked up, blinking to awareness. The camp was in view, not very
far ahead. "Indeed," he said, wondering where the time had gone. It was
mid-afternoon. He signaled his trumpeter, and the call rang out, cold
and brassy in the gray cold light; the wind made it ragged. But the
troopers raised their lances and smote with their spurs. As one, they
came a-gallop under streaming flags, through the tents and a burned
village to the castle walls.

Eodan jumped to the ground and flung his reins at a groom. The captain
of the watch saluted him before the gates. "Let it be known," said
Eodan, "that the Cimbrian has returned from Ancyra as ordered and will
see the king when the king pleases. May the king live forever!"

After quartering the hostages, he walked toward his own tent. There was
much he did not like in Asia, he reflected, and this crawling before
the high, in both words and flesh, was not the least. Mithradates
deserved respect, yes, but a man was not a dog. Nor was a woman an
animal, to be kept for breeding or pleasure alone. A few months of
giggling Eastern wenches had shown Eodan how sheer tedium could drive
so many men to catamites. He thought of Phryne, born a slave, less
chained in her soul than the High Queen of Pontus. It is better in the
North, he thought, overwhelmed by his earliest years. They are still
free folk on Jutland's moors.

"Master!"

Eodan paused before his tent. Tjorr, who had just left him, returned
quickly. A slave bent his knee to him. "Master, the great king would
see the Cimbrian at once."

"What?" Eodan looked down at his mail, flowing trousers, spurred boots
and flapping red cloak--all dulled with dust. Well, Mithradates was a
soldier, too. "I come."

"What might it be?" asked Tjorr, pacing him as he hurried back under
the grassy earth wall. "Has something happened?"

"Surely it has," said Eodan, "or the king would allow me a rest and a
bite to eat first."

"Maybe a new war has begun somewhere?"

Eodan grinned with a sour humor. "We're not so important, you and I,
that we're summoned in person to plan the royal strategy. I think this
concerns us--me, at least--alone."

He paused at the castle gate to surrender his longsword. Tjorr scowled
unhappily. "I shall wait here," he said. "Perhaps my hammer will fend
off bad luck."

Eodan said, with the bleakness of wind and treeless uplands taking him,
"I think our luck has already passed these doors and is waiting inside."

He crossed a flagged courtyard, where guardsmen drilled among the
lesser buildings. The keep was a gloomy stone hall, sod-roofed and
galleried. Beyond its entryroom was a long feasting chamber, where
Mithradates had established his court. Fires burning in pits along the
rush-strewn dirt floor gave some warmth, though not all their fumes
went out the smokeholes. The king had added charcoal braziers and had
hung his lamps from captured swords thrust into wooden pillars carved
with gods. He sat in the canton chief's high seat, which was shaped
like the lap of stag-horned Cernunnos. A robe of Sarmatian sable and
African leopard warmed Mithradates' huge frame; his golden chaplet
caught the unsure light like a looted halo. Around the room gleamed his
unmoving hoplites; a few courtiers and some mustached Gauls huddled at
one end, where a boy plucked an unheeded lyre.

Eodan put his helmet under his arm, strode to the king and bowed to one
knee--a special favor, granted for his blood of Boierik. "What does My
Lord wish from his servant?"

"Stand, Cimbrian." Eodan saw a troubled look on the heavy face. "Today
there came an embassy." Mithradates leaned toward a runner who crouched
under the secretary's feet. "Bring them in."

Eodan waited. The king said slowly: "You have been welcome at court
and camp--not for your knowledge and tales of far places, though they
delighted many hours of mine; not for your sword, though it has sung
me a gallant song; but for something that is yourself. Whatsoever may
happen, Eodan, remember what has been between us. The gods themselves
cannot take away the past."

A door at the far end was flung wide. Two came through it.

One was a man in a toga; Eodan could not see his countenance by the
dim unrestful light. But even through a long, hooded mantle he would
know the shape and gait of the other. His blood pulsed with a quick
unreasonable gladness; he forgot himself in the king's presence and ran
toward her with his hands outstretched. "Phryne!" he cried. Reaching
her, he grasped her by the elbows and looked down into the pale
heart-shaped face and said in his lame Greek: "Now I can tell you with
your homeland's speech how I have missed you."

"Eodan--" She shivered violently, as if winter had come with her all
the way down from the north. "Eodan, my only gift to you is woe."

He raised his eyes, most carefully, and looked upon Gnaeus Valerius
Flavius.

Eodan howled. He sprang back, snatching for his sword, but the empty
belt mocked him. The Roman lifted an arm. "_Ave_," he said. His
closed-mouth smile creased cheeks grown gaunt; Eodan could see how the
bones stood forth in his face.

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 Cimbrian. 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?"

When they came back it was approaching sunset. Eodan was sitting before
a small pile of silks, linens and ornaments. "A slave brought these for
you, Phryne," he said. "The king commands your presence at his feast."

"The king!" She stared bewildered. "What would the king with me?"

"Be not afraid," said Eodan. "He is only cruel to his enemies."

Tjorr's eyes glittered. "But this is wonderful!" he cried. "Girl, your
fortune may be made! I'll get a female to help you dress--"

When she had gone he muttered, "She did not appear overly glad of the
king's favor."

"She is too frightened on our behalf," said Eodan.

"Do you think she has good reason to fear?"

"I do not know--nor care, if I can only lay hands on Flavius."

As twilight fell, an escort of torchbearers came to bring them to the
castle. Entering the feasting hall, Eodan saw it aglow with lamps. Some
attempt to make it worthy of the king was shown by plundered robes
strewn on the floor; musicians stood in the murk under the god-pillars
and caterwauled. It was no large banquet Mithradates gave this
night--couches for a score of his officers, with Eodan on his right and
Tjorr beyond him, Flavius on the left. Cimbrian and Alan wore Persian
dress, to defy the plain white tunic of the Roman. The rest clad their
Anatolian bodies in Greek style, save that the king had thrown a
purple robe over his wide shoulders.

Eodan greeted Mithradates and the nobles as always, and reclined
himself stiffly. The king helped himself to fruit from a crystal bowl.
"Never before has this place known such an assembly of the great," he
declared with sardonic sententiousness. "And yet our chief guest has
not been summoned."

"Who might that be, Lord of the World?" asked a Pontine.

"It is not our custom that women dine with men," said Mithradates. "We
feel it a corruption of older and manlier ways." That was a malicious
dart at Flavius, thought Eodan. "Yet all you nobles would consider
it no insult to guest a queen; and many philosophers assure us that
royalty is a matter of the spirit rather than of birth."

"Though the Great King shows that when spirit and birth unite, royalty
comes near godhood," said an officer with practiced readiness.

"I am therefore pleased to present to you all a veritable Atalanta--or
an Amazon princess--or even an Athena, wise as well as valiant. Let
Phryne of Hellas stand forth!"

She walked from the inner door, urged by a chamberlain. Her garb was
dazzling--long lustrous gown and flowing silken mantle, her hair and
throat and arms a barbaric blaze of finery. It came as a wrenching in
Eodan that she should look so unhappy. She advanced with downcast eyes
and prostrated herself.

"No--up, up!" boomed Mithradates. "The King would have you share his
place."

Eodan heard a muffled snicker at the table's end. Blood beat thickly in
his temples; what right had some Asiatic to laugh at a Greek? His eyes
ranged in search of the man, to deal with him later. By the time he
looked back, Phryne had reclined beside Mithradates on the royal couch.

"Know," said the ruler in his customary Greek, "she spent her last
wealth and risked life, freedom and honor to journey here from Sinope
that she might plead the case of her comrades. And before then she had
shared the perils of flight from Rome and battle at sea--and she is
learned enough to instruct the children of noblemen. Therefore I say
a queen's heart lies behind those fair breasts, and it shall have a
queen's honor. Drink, Phryne!"

He took up his huge silver chalice and gave it to her with his own
hands. A low, envious gasp sighed down the length of the table.

Phryne lifted her decorous veil to put the cup at her lips. "Ha, ha!"
shouted Mithradates. "See, she is beautiful as well! Let the feast
begin!"

It was no banquet at all, compared to the least meal in Sinope--little
more than a roast ox and several kinds of fowl, stuffed with rice and
olives. No acrobats or trained women being available, some young Gauls
offered a perilous sword dance, and a Phrygian wizard showed such
tricks as releasing doves from an empty box. Thus Tjorr enjoyed it
better than any he had attended before; his guffaws rang between the
guardsmen's shields until even Flavius had to smile a little. Eodan
hardly noticed what passed his eyes and teeth; he was too aware of the
Roman.

When the meal was at last over, an expectant silence fell. Mithradates
leaned toward Flavius. "Your account of your adventures was
ungraciously curt today," he said smiling. "Now we would hear more
fully. You can be no ordinary man, who so endangered the Cimbrian."

"Your Majesty flatters me," said Flavius. "I am a most ordinary Roman."

"Then you flatter your state. Though you belittled it earlier, in
contending that one man might be so great a danger to it."

"Would not Your Majesty alone be the greatest danger to us, were we so
unfortunate as to lose your good will?"

"Ha! Let it not be said your race makes poor courtiers. Your
compliments are only less polished than the orations in which you
describe your own bluffness." Mithradates drained his chalice and set
it down; at once a slave refilled it. His gaze went from Flavius to
Eodan and Tjorr, and back to Phryne. "Surely there is a purpose here,"
he mused. "Lives are not often so entangled. I must take care to reach
a decision that will accord with the will of the Most High."

Eodan sat up. "My Lord," he said raggedly, "give weapons to us two, or
our bare hands, and watch who heaven favors!"

Mithradates murmured thoughtfully: "I have heard you speak of yourself,
Eodan, as a man whom the gods hate."

"For once he spoke truth, Your Majesty," said Flavius. "It would be an
impiety if--if I, at least, suffered him to live."

"Would you meet him in single combat, then?" asked Mithradates.

"It is an uncouth German custom, Your Majesty," said Flavius. "It is
not worthy of a civilized man."

"You have not answered my question."

"Well ... I would meet him, Great King, if there were no better way."

Eodan sprang to his feet. "At once!" he yelled.

"Give me my hammer, and I'll take care of his following!" said Tjorr.

Phryne sat up on the couch. "No!" she gasped.

"Back!" cried Mithradates. His face was flushed with the wine; he
drained a second cup in three gulps. "Back, lie down--I cannot have
this. You are both my guests!"

The room grew very quiet, until only the crackling fires and the heavy
breathing of men had voice. And outside the wind prowled under the
walls.

"This may not be," said the king finally. "I am a civilized man, too.
Let the world be sure I am no barbarian. We shall settle this dispute
by reason and principle. Hear me and obey!"

"The King has spoken," came whispers from around the long room.

"These people sought my roof," said Mithradates, "and it was granted
them to stay. They are under my protection."

"The hospitality of Your Majesty is known throughout the world," said
Flavius. "But no guest may remain forever. Dismiss them from your
presence, Great Lord, and I will wait for them outside your borders."

"You have not yet given me a reason to send them away," Mithradates
told him.

"Your Majesty," said Flavius, becoming grave, "I have charged them with
revolt, murder, theft and piracy. They are foes of civilization itself,
and the Roman state is certain that all civilized men will recognize
that fact. Let me tell the King a tale.

"At their request, the Cimbri sent an embassy to Rome while they were
still in Gaul. Their terms were refused, of course--should we allow
wild men within our borders?--but they were shown about the city.
Has the King heard what they thought most wonderful? The feed bags
on dray-horses! It is truth I tell. They could not take their eyes
off; they laughed like children. They were also shown that Grecian
statue called the Shepherd, which the King has surely heard is one of
our greatest treasures, the image of an old man with all the tragedy
and dignity of age upon him. The wondered why anyone had troubled to
picture a slave so old and lame as to be worthless!"

Flavius leaned forward, gesturing, his orator's voice filling the
hall with richness and warmth. "Great King, beyond our realms are
the barbarians, the howling folk without law or knowledge. We have
thrilled at your exploits when you broke the Scythians; there you
served Rome, Your Majesty, even as Rome served Pontus on the Raudian
plain. Our fore-fathers were not the same, Great King: yours were
Persian shahs and mine were Latin freeholders. But the same mother
bore us--Hellas--and we honor her alike." He pointed at Eodan. "There
he sits--the enemy--who would stable his horses in the Parthenon
and kindle a fire with Homer. It is more that I hunt than this one
barbarian, O Protector of the Greeks. It is barbarism itself."

Stillness fell again. Mithradates drained another cup. Eodan crouched,
waiting for he knew not what. The king looked at him. "What have you to
say to that?" he asked.

Eodan thought dimly, I might play upon his honor, as Flavius did on
his pride. I daresay he would allow me to remain in Pontus the rest of
my life, did I show him a scar or two won in his service. But I am a
Cimbrian.

He said heavily, in his rough Greek: "I ask no more than the rights of
a man, My Lord."

"A barbarian is not a man!" snarled Flavius.

Mithradates shifted the weight on his elbow till he stared down at
Phryne. "Well," he said, "we have one pure Hellene here. What does she
think?"

"A Greekling slave!" exclaimed Flavius. "The King jests. He knows a
slave is even less a person than a barbarian."

Phryne sat up and flung at him: "You were a better man's slave after
Arausio. You needed the whole Roman army to make him yours in turn.
Must we raise ancestors from Hades? Well, then, where were yours when
mine fought at Salamis?"

Mithradates put on a frown. "_Mine_ were in Persian ships," he said.

"Yet now you are called the protector of the Greeks," she answered
promptly. He grinned. "Great King, who deserved better of you--the man
who freed even one little Greek, or the man whose people laid Corinth
waste?"

"I cannot believe you are at feud with all the gods, Eodan," said
Mithradates. "At least one must love you, to send you so fair an
advocate."

He sprawled lionlike, turning his maned head toward Flavius. "These
people are still of my household," he said. "Let no man do them harm.
The King has spoken."

Eodan's heart lifted, however somberly, as Flavius bent his stiff neck.
"I hear and obey, Your Majesty," he mumbled.

"Well," said Mithradates, his solemnity leaping to become genial,
"remain a while. Accompany us back to Sinope. There is much I would ask
of you, and you shall not go home empty-handed. Now fill all flagons
and drink with me!"

Phryne stared at Eodan a moment. Then her face sank into her hands.

"But what is the matter?" said the King. "You have won your cause,
girl."

"Forgive me, Lord. That is why I weep."

"Come, drink of my cup. Those eyes are too beautiful to redden."

She accepted, shakily. Tjorr plucked at Eodan's sleeve. "We seem to've
escaped that snare," he muttered. "Now we'll have to devise one for
Flavius."

Eodan glanced across at the Roman, who was shaking in rage but somehow
achieving mannered discourse with a Pontine officer. "Hm. Perhaps
the King will let me pursue him when he departs.... No, I fear not,
it would be an open act of war. It may be I shall have to wait until
there is actual war with Rome." His fingers strained crooked upon the
cushions. "Give it be otherwise!"

"Make not too free with such wishes," cautioned Tjorr. "They are often
granted, in ways we mortals did not look for."

Eodan drank deep, as it was one means of easing the hate and the
hurt within himself. He saw Flavius do likewise. Mithradates was in
conversation with Phryne; none dared interrupt him. Eodan drifted
about, playing some pachisi with one man--he played badly tonight--and
talking of cavalry tactics with another. Time went.

He heard Mithradates at last, when the deep voice crashed through all
the babble around: "Come with me now."

He swung about, suddenly cold. The king was standing up. Phryne had
risen, too; her hands were lifted, and behind her thin veil he saw
horror.

"What does My Lord mean?" she said, almost wildly.

Mithradates threw back his head and bellowed laughter. "You cannot be
that much a maiden," he whooped. "They only raise them like that in
Asia, for a novelty."

She sank to her knees, so that his bulk loomed up in shadow and she was
only a little heap of gaily colored clothes before him. "Great King, I
am not worthy," she stammered.

"What the skulls and bones is this?" muttered Tjorr at Eodan's ear.
"Her luck has found her and she won't go with it!"

The Cimbrian's gaze swept the hall. Most of the court was too drunk to
heed the byplay; a few watched with lickerish interest. Flavius stood
under a pillar, grinning.

Truly, thought Eodan in the darkness of his head, some god had rewarded
Phryne. A royal concubine was rich and honored; it was by no means
impossible to become a royal wife; and Mithradates, they said, was man
enough to satisfy all his harem. The Cimbrian took a step forward,
feeling his skin prickle. He grew aware that his hand felt after a
sword he did not have.

Phryne, huddled at the king's feet, looked sideways. Her look met
Eodan's; it was black with ruin. He glided toward her, hardly knowing
what he did. Phryne shook her head at him, and he jerked to a halt. O
Bull of the Cimbri, what Power used his limbs tonight?

"You have shown yourself well worthy," said Mithradates on an impatient
note. "Rise and come."

Perhaps only Eodan saw her lips tighten. She beat her head on the
floor. "Lord, forgive your slave. The Moon forbids me."

"Oh. Oh, indeed." Mithradates stepped back, a primitive unease on his
face. "You should have told me that earlier."

"I was too bedazzled by My Lord," she said. Her regained wit bespoke
some resolution taken. Eodan wondered with a chill what it had been.

"Well ... rise." Mithradates stooped for her hand and pulled her up as
if she were weightless. She stood trembling before him. "A week hence,
my tent will be decked with kings' robes for you," he said. "In the
meantime, you shall have a tent and servants of your own, and ride in
the Tetrarch's litter."

"Great King," she whispered--had Eodan not been close, he would not
have heard it--"if your handmaiden should in any way be displeasing
to you ... should somehow wrong Her Lord ... you will not hold it the
fault of her friends? They knew nothing of me save that I waited in
Sinope to do the King's will, even as they wish only to do it."

"Indeed," said Mithradates roughly. "I am no fool. And have I
not raised my shield above them?" He clapped his hands. "Let the
chamberlain see to her well-being. Find me a couple of Gallic girls for
tonight."

Phryne went past Eodan. She threw him only the quickest of glances, but
never had he seen a look more lonely. The hurried whisper drifted to
him: "Do not be troubled on my account. I do what is best. Make your
own way in the world."

He stared after her. The Power drained from him, he felt tired and
empty. He heard Tjorr rumble answer to Mithradates: "No, Lord, I'm sure
she's not one of these women who hate the touch of men, even if she has
stayed maiden uncommonly late. Haw! On the contrary, Lord, the man she
likes will have enough to do!"

"I thought so myself," said Mithradates. "It is a good omen, that she
was kept for me alone."

It went through Eodan like a sickness--they dared speak thus of his
oath-sister! He would have challenged the king himself if--if--An exile
ate bitter bread. He had only changed one slavery for another.

XVIII

In the morning, after a few dark hours of wakefulness or nightmare--he
was unsure which--Eodan rose to take up his officer's duties. The
Pontines would start home at dawn the next day; though the army itself
could have struck camp in an hour, its train of plunder, captives and
tribute was something else. Eodan was glad enough to lose himself in
a whirl of horses. Now and then he glimpsed the Romans, fully armed
before their little resting place--no more than a decury, and yet they
had crossed half Asia to make a demand upon the king in his host. It
came to him, even in his anger, that he was honored to have one child
who would be Roman.

This day was also cold and blustering. Dust flew about his boots, up
into his eyes and nose and gullet; the clash of iron and brass had a
somehow wintry sound. Up over the Axylon bulked monstrous blue-black
clouds with rain or snow in their bellies, but the earth remained
mummy-dry. Tent canvas cracked in the wind.

About mid-morning Eodan saw a royal runner weave between the mules
whose roundup he was overseeing. He thought nothing of it until the boy
plucked at his foot. Then he looked down from the saddle and heard:
"Master Captain, the king commands your instant attendance."

"I hear and obey," said Eodan's training. He snapped an order to a
younger horseman to continue the task and trotted through the scurry of
the camp. Inwardly he felt a tightening. What would the ruler want of
him now?

When he yielded his sword he felt wholly alone. He had not even a
mail-coat today, only dirt-streaked tunic and breeches in the Persian
manner, a plumed helmet to mark his rank. The guards at the gate
squinted against wind and dust, making their faces somehow inhuman.
Eodan crossed the courtyard and entered the keep.

The hall was nearly empty; one never thought of the rigid troopers
around the walls, of the secretary with tablet and stylus or the
runners crouched at his feet. Mithradates paced before a fire-pit,
where flame welled up. He himself was Persian clad; a ruby upon his
brow gleamed like a red third eye. He wore a dagger at his hip; from
time to time he half drew it and then snicked it back into the sheath
as though into an enemy's heart.

Eodan advanced until he caught the royal glance and made his usual
obeisance.

"Down on your face, barbarian!" roared Mithradates.

That was no moment to haggle about pride. Eodan threw himself flat.
"How have I offended My Lord?" The upsurge of his own wrath came to him
as a shock. He had thought this man was his friend.

"Where is the woman Phryne?" the voice thundered over his head.

Eodan leaped to his feet. "Is she gone?" he shouted.

"I gave you no command to rise," growled Mithradates.

"Is she gone?" yelled the Cimbrian again, out of a feeling that fire
had touched him.

Mithradates stared at him for a long while. Slowly, the king's visage
softened. "Then you do not know?" he asked quietly.

"By my father's ghost, Lord, I swear I do not."

"Hear, then. Her maids entered her tent this morning to help her
arise. She was not there. The eunuch on guard says he knows nothing.
I believe him, though he shall still drink poison for his stupidity,
and be pardoned only if my new antidote saves him. There was a hole
in the tent, at the rear; she must have slashed it with a knife among
her possessions. When word of this finally came to me, I had inquiries
made. An under-groom of your own, Cimbrian, says she came to him in
the night, demanding horses, clothing, arms and food, and rode off. He
says he had received orders to give her whatever she wished without
question."

"That is true, Great King, but--I never thought--I never--Why would she
have gone, whose destiny had just blossomed?"

"And into the Axylon! She was last seen riding south on the road into
the Axylon!"

"Surely there is witchcraft here," said Eodan. "She never showed any
sign of madness, Lord. An evil spirit must have seized her, or some
spell--"

Inwardly, coldly, his mind raced and dodged, like a hare with wolves
behind. He did not know what might haunt these dreary plains; perhaps
she was indeed harried out by a troll. He was thinly surprised that he
did not cower at the thought, as once he would have done, but wished
only to find that creature and sink iron into it. Yet maybe she had
done this of her own will, for some reason unknown to him. He found it
hard to imagine his cool Phryne, who knew what the stars were made of,
seized by some misshapen Phrygian shadow; or was it just that he dared
not imagine it?

Whatever the truth, he wanted to go after her himself. No yapping
Asiatics would carry her back in ropes to the king's bed. It was not
meet!

Eodan's green gaze narrowed upon Mithradates. He saw the terrors of a
thousand generations, who had muttered in dark huts and brewed magic
against a world they peopled with demons, flit over the lion-face. Let
him dissect as many criminals and cast as many learned horoscopes as he
wished; Mithradates remained only half a Greek.

"They deal in black arts here," said the king. His finger traced a sign
against evil, the Cross of Light that stood on the banners of Mithras.
"I'll hale the wizard we saw up onto a rack before this hour is out."

A scheme sprang into Eodan's head. His heart leaped with it.

"Or the Romans?" he said.

"What? No, their law forbids magic."

"I have seen much Roman law broken by Romans, Great Master. Also, this
may not be sorcery after all; it may be some trick of theirs."

Mithradates whirled on a runner. "Bring me the Flavius," he rapped.

Thereafter he paced, up and down, up and down; the only noise being his
boots thudding, the fire that hissed in the pits and the wind whining
outside. There was much smoke in the hall today; it stung tears from
Eodan's eyes.

He thought back to the night before ... how small she had been, under
the tower which was the king ... and why had she been so afraid that
his displeasure with her might be visited on her comrades? When the
king tired of a concubine, even if she had only been with him one
night, he did not rage about it. He always had enough women. He gave
her to some noble, as a special mark of favor, and of course the noble
would never be anything but gentle toward such a token. Usually he made
her his chief wife. So Phryne's luck had come golden to roost on her
shoulder, by the mere fact of a royal command to bed.

Yet she had looked upon Eodan with desolation. And she had thrown him a
final furtive word, not to trouble himself about her, for she would do
what was best.

He thought, stiffening: It was so little to her liking, to enter a
harem, that she rode forth alone. Out there is a land of wolf, bear,
lynx and herdsmen wilder than they; south are Lycaonia and Parthia,
where a woman is also only an animal. If she is not slain along the
way, there will come a time when she must turn her dagger against
herself.

Flavius entered. "Hail, King of the East," he said. He saw Eodan and
stopped. The Cimbrian remained unmoving.

Flavius bit his lip. Then: "How may I serve Your Majesty?"

"You can tell me what you know of Phryne's vanishing," spat Mithradates.

"What?" Flavius took a step backward. His eyes flickered to Eodan, then
returned--and suddenly a faint smile quivered upon his mouth.

"I know nothing, Lord," he murmured. "Yet I would venture that she fled
in the night?"

"It is so told," Mithradates answered. "Is this any work of yours?"

"Of course not, Great King! I suggest--"

"He _says_ it was not caused by him," snapped Eodan. "Yet My Master
knows he was never a friend to me or mine. Nor is Rome itself a friend
of Pontus. What better way to harm us all at one blow?"

Flavius looked at Mithradates, who rumbled like a beast in the arena.
Then, slowly, the Roman's ruddy-brown eyes sought Eodan's, held them
and would not let go. "This was your plan to strike at me, was it not?"
he murmured.

"I know nothing of it!" shouted Eodan. "I only know--"

Flavius shook his head, smiling. "Cimbrian, Cimbrian, you have laid
down your natural weapons and tried a womanish trick. You will gain no
victory with it. There is never any luck in demeaning oneself."

Eodan sought for words, but he found only a black mist of his rage
and fear. And of his shame--that he should have tried to use Phryne's
plight as a dagger in a Roman back. Yes, he thought, shaken, I have
called down evil upon myself and now I must somehow endure what comes.

Flavius turned back to Mithradates. He flung out speech as crisp as
though to an army: "Great King, you are insulted by so clumsy an
attempt at dividing me from your royal favor. Is it not likelier that
this man, who knows the girl--we have only his word and hers that she
is even a maiden--this man plotted with her to flee? Surely she had
more chance to conspire with him and his friend than me; the caravan
master who brought us here from Sinope will testify that she shunned me
the whole trip, whereas she was in Eodan's tent yesterday afternoon.
And would she go out into that desert with no hope of succor? Would
she not assure herself of an accomplice, a captain who could ride out
from the army whenever and wherever he wished--to bring her food,
protection, ultimately to smuggle her back?"

Mithradates hunched his thick frame. His knuckles stood forth white on
the knife hilt; he glared with three red eyes at Eodan and hawked out:
"What have you to say?"

"That I serve the King and this Roman does not," answered the Cimbrian
frantically.

He felt himself driven back by Flavius' marching phrases: "Protector
of the East, there is a simple explanation for what has occurred.
Rather, there are two. First, the barbarian and the Greekling feared
what would happen when you, their master, learned she had lied to you
and was only the leavings of a runaway slave. Thus he sent her out and
will try to lead her back in the wake of the army; she may live with
him, disguised, in Sinope itself; or conceivably he lured her forth
with some such promise, murdered and buried her. Second, it is possible
that he himself speaks truth for once, and it was her decision alone
to flee. Like unto like--she, a slave born, would rather lie with some
Phrygian goatherd than with the King!"

Mithradates bellowed, as though he had been speared. He seized a lamp,
broke its chains with a jerk and hurled it into the fire-pit. When
his working face came under Eodan's eyes, the Cimbrian knew where he
had seen such a look before--in small children, about to scream from
uncontrollable rage.

"She will follow that lamp into the flames," said the Pontine. It was
almost a groan.

"The Roman lies!" Eodan stalked toward Flavius, raising his hands. The
worn eagle face waited for him with a smile of mastery. "I will tear
out his throat!"

Remembering himself, he turned about and cried: "We do not know it was
not witchcraft, Lord."

Mithradates swallowed hard. He beat a fist into his palm, walked back
and forth under the twisted Celtic gods and, inch by inch, drew a
cover across his wrath. Finally his giant striding halted. He searched
Eodan's countenance somberly and asked, "Will you swear, by all which
is holy to you, you have never known her body, and this is no work of
yours?"

"I swear it, My King," said Eodan.

"A barbarian's word," jeered Flavius.

"Be still!" crashed the voice of Mithradates. "I know this man."

Then for a while longer he brooded. "Or does any man know another, or
even himself?" he asked the wooden gods.

Decision hardened over the moltenness in him. "Well," he said heavily,
"it seems that she went because of something in her own will, or an
enchantment. In neither case is she a fit vessel for royal seed. Let
the Axylon have her."

Eodan's muscles began to ease. He thought, in a remote part of himself:
Flavius turned my own foolishness against me, but perhaps Phryne left
her good genius here to watch. For now it has all become as she must
have wished--herself riding off unpursued and no disfavor caused Tjorr
or me.

"She is only another female, after all," said Mithradates. "I could
send men to fetch her back and let her die an example, but it is
unworthy of a civilized man."

"She would doubtless kill herself when your riders came in view, Your
Majesty," said Flavius. "Unless, of course, the barbarian here were
sent after her--"

"Would you truly split him from me?" croaked Mithradates. Sweat studded
his face; Eodan knew suddenly what a combat the king was waging in
himself. "Go, both of you!"

"At once, Your Majesty," said Flavius. "The Lord of the East is wise,
knowing that if she fled in rebelliousness she will be most amply
punished. A herdsman who spied her from afar would know how to stalk
her and pounce unsuspected." He bowed a little toward Eodan. "If the
King permits one more word from me, I should like to withdraw my hints
as to treason by the barbarian. It is clear that he has abandoned the
girl to the Axylon. So if ever he did conspire with her, he is now
aware of his rightful duty toward his true benefactor."

The fires burned higher in the king's eyes. His tone cracked the barest
trifle: "So. Let neither Cimbrian nor Alan leave the army, even for
minutes, until we come home." His lips writhed upward. "It is not that
I doubt your oath, Eodan--" But you do, mourned a thought through the
Cimbrian's upsurging wrath, you do! Flavius knows well how to sow
dragon's teeth--"merely to silence tongues."

Eodan saw Flavius waver; the hall and its grinning gods became unreal.
He threw back his head to howl.

And then everything drained from him. He stood empty of anger, or hate,
or even sorrow. There was only a road, with night at its end, and the
knowledge that he must walk it or cease to be himself.

"Lord," he said, "let your servant depart."

Mithradates started. "What do you mean?"

"I was honored to serve the Great King, but it cannot be any more. Let
me go out upon the Axylon."

Flavius caught a gasp between his teeth. Mithradates drew his knife
in a hand that shook. The slaves at the room's end cowered back into
shadow; some half-sensed ripple went along the lines of guardsmen, and
all their eyes swung inward toward Eodan.

"I must thank the Roman," he went on. "I would have let her die out
there, or worse than die. He showed me my shame. I am not certain why
she is gone: it may be a spell cast on her or it may be of her own
choosing, for some reason I do not understand. But she watched over me
while I slept among foemen. I cannot offer her less now than my own
help."

"You--would bring her back--here?" Mithradates said it with a
stubbornness that dug in its heels. He would not believe anything else.
"Well, perhaps so--"

"With the Alan kept hostage for his return, Your Majesty," put in
Flavius.

Eodan shook his head. "Tjorr has nothing to do with this, My Lord. That
is why I ask leave to depart the King's service. I do not think it
likely Phryne wishes to return hither."

"And you would set her will above mine?" asked Mithradates in a stunned
voice.

"What I would like," said Eodan, "is that you give her freely into my
hands, so that I could bring her back here and let her do or not do
whatever she wished. But I have no art of wheedling; I ask merely for a
dismissal."

"You will get your head on a gatepost!" exclaimed Flavius in a blaze of
victory.

Mithradates stood stooped, his breath rattling in his lungs. His head
swung back and forth, as though he were a bull looking for a man to
gore.

Suddenly he leaped forward, and his knife flashed. Eodan stepped aside.
The knife struck a pillar, drove in and snapped off short. "Guards!"
bellowed the king. "Seize this traitor!"

Eodan stood quietly. Hands fell upon him, spears touched his ribs.
He glanced at Flavius. The Roman laughed aloud, bent close while
Mithradates screamed and shredded his cloak, and whispered, "Did you
think, you fool, he would let you go? You have all but said before
his household, Phryne left because she would not be taken by him. You
insulted more than the king's majesty, you insulted his manhood!"

"I knew what I said," Eodan answered.

Mithradates raged up, flung Flavius and a guardsman aside, and smote
the Cimbrian's face with his hand.

Eodan shook a ringing head, licked the blood that ran from his mouth
and said in Greek, "I did not know it was the custom of civilized men
to strike a guest."

Mithradates fell back as though from a sword thrust.

Then for a while he paced, snarling and mewing. Flavius began to talk,
but a lion roar silenced him. "Wine!" said the King at last. A slave
hurried up with a flagon. Mithradates snatched it, kicked the kneeling
man in the stomach, drained the cup and crumpled its heavy silver
between his fingers.

"Another," he commanded.

It was brought him. He drank it with more care. He flung himself onto
the high seat, slumped for a while, looked up into the darkness above
the rafters and finally began to laugh. It was a raw, barking laugh,
with little humor, but at the end he stood up and spoke calmly.

"Release him," he said. The guards fell back, and Eodan waited.
Mithradates folded his arms. "After this," he continued, almost in
a light tone, "you will not care to stay. It is a delicate question
whether you are my guest, my soldier or my slave, but civilized people
must be generous. Let the Cimbrian take the horse, the arms and the
monies he got from me. Let him ride off wherever he wishes, so he come
not back to this army." The wind piped around the hall; the fire-pits
roared. "Well, begone!" cried Mithradates.

Eodan bent his knee and backed out, as though he were leaving on some
royal errand. And would the Powers it were so, he thought dully,
knowing a wound took hours to feel pain.

He heard Flavius say, in a voice that quivered: "Great King, will you
also let this guest depart?"

As if from immensely far away, the voice of Mithradates came: "There is
a destiny here. I would stand in its way if I dared--but I am only a
man, even I.... Tomorrow at dawn, when we march north, you may quit the
camp." An animal scream: "Now leave my eyes! All of you! Every man in
here, leave the King to himself!"

They streamed out, almost running, terror written beneath the bright
helmets; for the king sat at a heathen god's feet and wept.

Eodan saw Flavius stalk toward his own tent. They exchanged no words.
He went to his place, clapped for a groom and donned his Persian
war-garb. A saddled gray stallion was led forth. Eodan sprang upon it
and trotted quickly from camp.

He would follow the highway south, hoping for a sign.

An hour afterward, when the Pontine army was only smoke on a gray
horizon, he saw the dust cloud behind. It neared, until he could see
the black horse that raised it, and finally he heard the drumbeat of
its hoofs--and Tjorr's red beard flaunted itself in the wind.

"Whoof!" said the Alan, pulling up alongside him. "You might have
waited."

Eodan cried aloud, "It was not needful. You should have stayed where
your luck was."

"No--now, what luck would come to a man that forsook his oaths?" said
Tjorr. "I was weary of Pontus anyhow. Now we will surely drink of my
Don again."

XIX

"Since gossip brought you the tale so swiftly," Eodan said, "you must
also have heard the Romans will be after us at dawn tomorrow. They have
money, and the Gauls here favor them; they'll hire guides, dogs and a
string of remounts."

"I have hunted and been hunted on plains before now," replied Tjorr. "A
flock of sheep to confuse the scent, a trackless waste as soon as we
leave this road--Oh, we can race them all the way to Parthia with good
hope of winning."

"But that is what we may not do, and why you had best return before the
King learns of your absence. I left only on Phryne's account. I shall
have to find her before undertaking such a trip, and it may consume all
the time between me and the pursuit."

Tjorr cocked an eye at him knowingly. Eodan felt his wind-beaten face
grow hot. He said angrily, "She is my oath-sister. Did she think I
would forget what that means?"

"_Da_," nodded the Alan, "or she would have given herself to
Mithradates with no fuss." He squinted down the rutted dirt road, which
wound among boulders and sere grass until it lost itself in stormy
black clouds. "Now our task is to trail her, and she would have made
herself hard to trail. We can only follow this, I think, till we come
on someone who's seen a boyish-looking horse archer go by ... for thus
I take it she equipped herself."

"So my groom told me, and he was too frightened to make up a lie. Come,
then!"

They jingled through unspeaking hours.

At day's end they passed a goatherd in a stinking wool tunic and
knitted Phrygian cap. He gave them a sullen look and mumbled his own
language, which they did not understand, through greasy whiskers.
Eodan felt grimness. Bad enough to be entering wilds where few if any
could speak with him; but this was also a land where the half-Persian
warriors had made themselves hated. He thought, as darkly and coldly as
the whistling twilight, that Flavius might well overhaul him tomorrow
before he had any word of Phryne. He might be wholly doomed; the gods
feared proud men.

Well, if such was his destiny, he would give no god the pleasure of
seeing him writhe under it.

"_Ho-ah!_" cried Tjorr.

Eodan looked up from his thoughts. The Alan pointed westward, where a
single dirty-red streak beneath steel and smoke colors marked sunset.
"A horse out there," he said. Eodan spied the beast; it was trotting
wearily north over the plain.

Horror stood up in him and screamed. He clamped back an answer of his
own, struck spurs into his mount and left the highway. The wind snapped
his cloak and tried to pull him from his seat. Once his horse stumbled
on a rock, unseen in the gloom, but he kept the saddle, swaying lightly
to help the animal muscles that flowed between his knees. And so he
drew up to the other horse.

It was a chestnut gelding with silvered harness; a light ax was
sheathed at the saddlebow--thus did the riders of Pontus equip
themselves. The beast shivered in the heartless wind; its tail
streamed, but the mane was sweat-plastered to a sunken neck. Worn out,
it groped a way back toward the king.

Eodan felt as if the heart had been cut from him, leaving only a
hollowness that bled. "Hers," he said.

"None else," said Tjorr. "A lone alien, with arms and armor worth ten
years of a shepherd's work ... a sling ... and the steed bolted--" He
looked down upon his useless hands. "I am sorry, my sister."

Eodan let her horse go. He began to follow the way it had come, as
nearly as he could judge. He would not leave Phryne's bones to whiten
on this plain. Surely the gods cared for her, if not for him. They
would lead him to her and grant him the time to make a pyre and a cairn
and to howl over her.

Dusk thickened. After some part of an hour, he heard a furtive
scuttering in the grass. He rode after it, and a naked man squeaked
forlornly and dodged from him. It was a Phrygian, wholly bare; he had
not even a staff, but he clutched something to his breast as he ran.
Eodan drew rein and watched him go.

"What happened to him?" asked Tjorr, clasping his hammer; for this was
an uncanny thing to meet on a treeless autumnal plain at nightfall.

"I do not know," said Eodan. "Robbers--the same who killed Phryne?--or
some trolldom, perhaps, for we are in no good country. We cannot speak
with that man, so best we leave him alone to his weird."

They trotted on. But it grew too dark to see, and Eodan would not risk
passing by his oath-sister. In the morning the kites would show him
from afar where she lay. Then the Romans would come, and he would stand
by her grave and fight till they slew him.

"I would like a fire," said Tjorr. He fumbled in the murk, caring for
his horse. "The night-gangers would stay away."

"They will anyhow," Eodan told him. "It is not fated that we should be
devoured by witch-beasts."

Tjorr said, with awe heavy in his tones: "I will believe that. You are
something more than a man tonight."

"I am a man with a goal," said Eodan. "Nothing else."

"That is enough," said Tjorr. "It is more than I could bear to be. I
dare not touch you before dawn."

Eodan rolled himself into the saddle blanket, put his head on his
wadded cloak and lay in cold, streaming darkness. The earth felt sick,
yearning for rain, and the rain was withheld. He wondered if some of
the lightning Tjorr called on had indeed been locked up in the hammer.
When they died tomorrow, the rain might come; or perhaps, thought
Eodan, the first snow, for he is the rain but I am the winter.

I am the wind.

He lay listening to himself blow across the earth, in darkness, in
darkness, with the unrestful slain Cimbri rushing through the sky
behind him. He searched all these evil plains for Phryne; the whole
night became his search for Phryne's ghost. There were many skulls
strewn in the long dead grasses, for this land was very old. But none
of them was hers, and none of them could tell him anything of her;
they only gave him back his own empty whistling. He searched further,
up over the Caucasus glaciers and then down to a sea that roared under
his lash, until finally he came riding past a bloody-breasted hound,
through sounding caves to the gates of hell; hoofs rang hollow as he
circled hell, calling Phryne's name, but there was no answer. Though
he shook his spear beneath black walls, no one stirred, no one spoke,
even the echoes died. So he knew that hell was dead, it had long ago
been deserted; and he rode back to the upper world feeling loneliness
horrible within him. And centuries had passed while he was gone. It
was spring again. He rode by the grave mound of a warrior named Eodan,
which stood out on the edge of the world where the wind was forever
blowing; and on the sheltered side he saw a little coltsfoot bloom, the
first flower of spring.

Then he rested with gladness. The earth turned beneath him; he heard
its cold creaking among a blaze of stars. Winter came again, and
summer, and winter once more, unendingly. But he had seen a coltsfoot
growing....

"There is light enough now."

Eodan opened his eyes. The gale had slackened, he saw. The air felt a
little warmer, and the wind had a wet smell to it. Southward, the world
was altogether murk. It must be snowing there, he thought dreamily. The
wind would bring the snow here before evening. Strange that the first
snow this year should come from the south. But then, perhaps the land
climbed more slowly than the eye could see ... yes, surely it did, for
he had heard that the Taurus Mountains lay in that direction.

"The Mountains of the Bull," he said. "It may be an omen."

"What do you mean?" Tjorr was a blocky shadow in the wan half-light,
squatting with a loaf of bread in his hands.

"We must cross the Mountains of the Bull to reach Parthia."

"If we live that long," grunted the Alan. He ripped off a chunk of
bread, touched it with his hammer and threw it out into the dark.
Perhaps some god or sprite or whatever lived here would accept the
sacrifice.

"That is uncertain," agreed Eodan. He shivered and rolled out of his
blanket. "Best we be on our way. The enemy will start at sunrise."

Tjorr regarded him carefully. "You are a man again," he said. "A
mortal, I mean. You are no more beyond hope, and thus not beyond the
fear of losing that hope. What happened?"

"Phryne lives," said Eodan.

Tjorr reached for a leather wine bottle and poured out a sizable
libation. "I would name the god this is for, if you will tell me who
sent you that vision," he said.

"I do not know," said Eodan. "It might have been only myself. But I
thought of Phryne, who is wise and has too much life in her to yield
it up needlessly. She would have known that one Pontine soldier, on a
single jaded horse, would invite a race between robbers and Romans. But
who heeds a wandering Phrygian, some workless shepherd?" He laughed
aloud, softly. "Do you understand? She stopped that man we saw--at
arrow point, I would guess--and made him lay down all his garments. She
could make her wish clear by gestures. Doubtless she flung him a coin;
I remember how he held something near his heart. When he had fled, she
rode on until her horse was too tired to be of use. Then she buried her
archer's outfit, taking merely the bow and a knife, I suppose, and went
on afoot."

Tjorr whooped. "Do you think so? Aye, aye--it must be! Well, let's
saddle our nags and catch her!" He ran after his own hobbled animal.
When he had brought it back, he looked at Eodan for a moment in a very
curious way.

"I am not so sure the witch-power I felt last night has left you,
_disa_," he murmured. "Or that it ever will."

"I have no arts of the mage," snapped Eodan. "I only think."

"I have a feeling that to think is a witchcraft mightier than all
others. Will you remember old Tjorr when they begin to sacrifice to
you?"

"You prattle like a baby. To horse!"

They moved briskly through the quickening light, Eodan ripping
wolfishly at a sausage as he rode. Now Flavius was going forth to hunt.
The Cimbrian would need strength this day.

The brown grass whispered; here and there a leafless bush clawed in
an agony of wind. Mile after mile the sun, hidden by low-flying gray,
touched the Axylon, until finally Eodan and Tjorr rode in the full
great circle of the horizon. A hunter could see far in this land.

They spied a sheep flock, larger than most, but spent no time on its
watchers. Phryne would be able to see at a distance, too; the need was
to come within eye-range of her. Close beyond, Eodan discerned what
must be the home of the owner or tenant or whoever dwelt here. It was
better than usual, being not of mud, but was still only a small stone
house--windowless, surely with just one room, blowing smoke from a
flat sod roof. There were a couple of rude little outbuildings, also
of moss-chinked boulders, and some haystacks. Nothing else broke the
emptiness, and nothing moved but a half-savage dog. The women and
children must be huddled terrified behind their door as the gleaming
mail-coats rode by. Eodan felt a sudden hurt; it was so strange to him
he had to think a while before he recognized it--yes, pity. How many
human lives, throughout the boundless earth and time, were merely such
a squalid desolation?

A king, he thought, was rightfully more than power. He should be law.
Yes, and a bringer of all goodly arts; a just man, who tamed wild folk
more with his law than his spear--though he was also the one who taught
them how to make war when war was needed--so far as the jealous gods
allowed, a king should be freedom.

And afterward, he thought wryly, when the king was dead, the people
would bring back all the reeking past in his now holy name. But no, not
quite all of it. Doubtless men slid back two steps for every three they
made; nevertheless, that third step endured, and it was the king's.

Phryne could show me how, he thought.

As if in answer, he saw the little figure rise from the bush where it
had lain concealed. Dwarfed by hundreds of yards, she came running in
her Phrygian goatskin and rags; but Eodan's gray horse hammered those
yards away, and he leaped from the saddle and caught her to him.

She held him close, weeping on his cold steel coat. "It was not what I
wanted, that you should come. It was not what I wanted."

"It was what I wanted," he said. He raised her chin until he could
smile down into her violet eyes. "I will hear no reproaches. Enough
that I found you."

"I shall never run from you again," she said. "Where you make your
home, there shall Hellas be."

Hoofs clumped at their backs. Tjorr coughed. "Uh-hm! The enemy is on
his way, with hounds and remounts. And we've only two beasts. Best we
flee while we can."

Eodan straightened. "No," he said. "I, too, have run far enough."

XX

They rode up to the shepherd's house. Phryne struck the dog on the nose
with her staff when it flew at her throat. It ran away, and she strung
her bow and nocked an arrow. Eodan stayed mounted, the German sword in
his hand. Tjorr went afoot to the door and beat on it with his hammer.

"Open!" he bawled. Nothing stirred. He hefted the maul, swung it high
and sent it crashing against the latch. The flimsy bolt cracked in two.
Voices piped with fear in the dark hut. A shaking graybeard barred the
entrance, holding a rusty old ax. Tjorr grabbed him by the tunic and
threw him to the ground, not unkindly. "Out!" he said, gesturing.

They shambled forth. There was only one woman, shapeless in a sacklike
gown, and a dozen children. They looked so unlike that Eodan decided
fatherhood was divided among the three herdsmen who had left their
flock and were hovering timidly half a mile away.

"Must we turn bandit?" asked Phryne in a troubled voice.

Eodan considered her, clad in the same foul garments as the shepherds,
but shining through it. He said bluntly, "This is no otherwise than
smiting that whelp they kept." But because of her look he remembered
certain thoughts about a king and fumbled in his purse. He tossed some
coins to the ground. The grandsire sucked in his breath and crawled to
shaky feet; the three men edged closer.

"Does anyone here speak Greek?" called Eodan. They stared. "Well, you
shall understand my signs then, with a kick if your minds lag, for our
time is short. I will give you ten times the worth of these hovels." He
turned to Phryne. "Do you watch over Tjorr and me. Let them not talk
much among themselves. Shoot the first who shows treachery. And now let
us work!"

Dismounting, he peered into the house. Enough light came through
the door and smokehole to show him a littered earth floor, piled
sheepskins, a few stone tools and clay vessels, a dung fire. But the
ceiling was what he looked at. Branches hauled from some remote forest
many years ago were laid across the walls, and turf piled on them to
make a roof. He nodded. "Thus I thought," he said.

Tjorr rounded up the family and made them watch him. A child whimpered
as he climbed the rough wall to the roof and began throwing off its
sod layers. He flung the child a coin. At once the oldest boy grinned
brashly, swarmed up and helped. Tjorr laughed, clambered down and went
to the shed. Using Phryne's staff for a lever, he pried a few rocks
out of its wall. The same child studied his face carefully and tried
another whimper. Tjorr gave it another coin. The mother giggled. Tjorr
urged her to the task.

Then for some hours he and Eodan made the shepherd folk demolish
their roof and their outbuildings. Phryne paced the dusty grounds,
watchfully, her bow always in her hand. The wind blew from the high
country and the snow clouds moved closer.

There were stout wooden posts at the corners of the shed. Tjorr dug
them out and dragged them to the roofless house. He set two of them
upright on the floor--one close to the entrance and one a yard from the
rear wall; across them he laid a third. Then he put the branch-rafters
back, crossing his heavy timber piece, and heaped a layer of turf on as
before. The shepherd people gaped, blinked, made signs against the evil
eye, which these surely crazed men must have, but helped him after a
few blows. He had them form a line and pass him stones from the wrecked
outbuildings. These he laid on the turf, within a yard of the rear
wall, layer upon layer. Finally the branches beneath sagged, and even
the timber upbearing them started to groan. Quickly, then, he threw
enough sod on his roof of boulders to hide what it was.

Meanwhile Eodan was digging inside the house, at its rear end. He sank
a pit nearly eight feet deep and drove a shaft from that, several yards
outward, so that it ended below the grounds; he left the wooden shovel
there and came back out. Rather his crew of men and children did this,
even as most of the roof work had Tjorr merely overseeing. They would
need their whole strength later.

At the end, hours past the time they began, Phryne looked at the
completed task. She saw merely a shepherd hut with a somewhat thicker
roof than was common, and wreckage behind it. "Do our lives hang on no
more than this?" she asked wonderingly. "Would it not have been better
to flee across the plain?"

"Once they found our trail," said Tjorr grimly, "they could have
changed horse and horse while our own ran themselves dead. No, our
chances here are not good, but I think the _disa's_ plan has made them
better for us than if we played mouse to the Roman ferret"

"One more thing to do," said Eodan. He kindled a stick, went over and
touched it to the haystacks. The shepherds moaned. Eodan grinned, with
a certain pity, and tossed the grandsire his full purse. "There's the
price of your flocks and home and a winter's lodging. Go!" He waved
his sword and pointed south. They stumbled from him, out onto the
plain, looking back with frightened animal eyes. "Why those bonfires?"
asked Tjorr. "Not that I don't like the warmth on this bitter day,
but--"

"Hay could be stacked around the house and lit," said Eodan. "I do not
wish to die in an oven."

Tjorr tugged his ruddy beard. "I had not thought of that. Is it a heavy
burden to be forever thinking, _disa_?"

Eodan did not hear him. He took Phryne's hand in his. "Have I any hope
of making you depart until the fight is over?" he asked.

Her dark head shook. "In all else will I obey you," she said, "but I
have a right to stand with my man."

"I made you a promise once," he began, shaken.

"Oh, I hold you to it," she laughed. It was a very small and lonely
laugh, torn by the wind. "You shall not kiss me against my will. But,
Eodan, it is now my will."

He touched his lips to hers, with an unhurried tenderness; if they
lived, there would be more than this. Tjorr said: "I make out a dust
cloud to the north, _disa_. I think horsemen."

"Then let us go within," said Eodan.

It was dark in the hut; stones covered the smokehole, now, and the
sagging door was closed behind them. They sat on the earth and waited,
Phryne lying in the circle of Eodan's arm. Presently hoofs rang on the
ground outside, and weapons clashed. They heard a dog bark.

"The place seems deserted," said a voice in Latin. "Maybe the fire in
that hay drove its people off."

"And they left two hobbled war-horses?" snapped Flavius. "Look in and
see if anyone lairs."

Tjorr planted himself by the doorway, raising his hammer. The door
creaked open. Chill gray light outlined a Roman helmet and shimmered
off a Roman cuirass. Tjorr struck down, and the helmet gonged. There
was the noise of crunching bones. The man fell and did not move again.

"Here we are, Flavius!" cried the Alan.

Phryne loosed an arrow out the door. Someone cursed. Eodan, glimpsing
horses and men, sprang to the entrance and peered out. Ten living
Romans and a couple of Gauls in battle harness--a dozen men, then,
against two men and a woman.... "I reckon, Eodan," said Tjorr, "you and
I must each strike six blows."

Flavius rode into the Cimbrian's view. His ravaged face stiffened
beneath the plumed helmet. He spoke almost wearily: "I still offer
pardon, even liberty and reward, to your companions. It is only you I
want, and only because you murdered Hwicca."

"I would most gladly meet you in single combat," said Eodan.

"We have been over this ground before," said Flavius. "Let me ask you
instead--do you really wish the Sarmatian and the Greek girl to die on
your account? Would it not be most honorable of you to release them
from whatever vows they gave you--even command them to depart?"

"He is our king," said Phryne from the darkness. "There are some
commands that no king may give."

Flavius sighed. "As you will, then. Decurion, seize them!"

It was a narrow doorway; only one person at a time could go through.
The Roman decurion advanced with an infantryman's long shield to guard
him. Eodan waited. The decurion charged in, behind him a pikeman.
Eodan smote at the first Roman's knees as the pike thrust for his
face. Tjorr's hammer struck from the right, knocked the pike aside and
snapped its shaft against the doorway. The decurion stopped Eodan's
sword-blow, and his own blade darted out. It hit the Persian mail-coat.
Eodan chopped at the arm behind it. He lacked room for a real swing,
but his edge hit. The decurion went to one knee. Eodan struck at his
neck--a hiss and a butcher sound in the air.

Another man followed the decurion, stepped up on the dying officer's
back and thrust mightily. Eodan slipped aside. Overbalanced, the Roman
stumbled and fell into the hut. Tjorr's hammer crashed on his helmet.
One of the Gauls sprang yelling through the undefended entrance. Phryne
fired an arrow, and the Gaul staggered; it had caught him in the arm.
Eodan attacked him from the side, and the German sword went home in his
leg. He fell down, screaming. Tjorr finished him off while Eodan went
back to the doorway.

"Nine men left," he panted.

The Romans stood away from him, where he stood dripping Roman blood. No
one moved for a while, although Flavius dismounted and paced. The other
Gaul came into view. Eodan remembered now that he had heard thumpings
overhead. "This roof is made of stones, Master," said the Gaul to
Flavius. "We can tear it down, I suppose, but not easily. It would cost
us men."

"Likewise to break through the walls," said the Roman. He spoke
impersonally, as though this were no more than a school problem. Eodan
wondered how much was left the man of joy and hope and even hate; the
demons pacing Flavius had bitten him hollow.

"Arrows," he said at last.

Eodan watched them make ready. Four soldiers were shield to shield,
a few yards away. If he made a dash, they would be on him, and even
a Cimbrian could not hold off four good men in the open. Three more
strung their bows and put arrows point down in the ground before
them--slowly, carefully, grinning into Eodan's emotionless face.
Flavius and the Gaul dragged a post from a torn-down shed into view.

When everything was ready, Flavius stepped forth. "Do you see what
I plan?" he called. "You can stand where you are and be filled with
arrows, or you can close that door, which is only leather hinges, and
wait for us to break it down."

"I think we will wait," said Eodan.

He shut the door, and darkness clamped upon his eyes. He heard the
Roman arrows smite and wondered what impulse of fury made Flavius order
them fired. He trod on a dead man's hand and wondered what woman and
child and horse would wait till time's end for its caress.

"Back," he said. "Into the pit, Phryne."

She kissed him, a stolen instant among shadows, and was gone.

Feet thudded outside. The door, which he had not barred, flew open. Two
black blots staggered through, the timber in their arms.

Tjorr met them as they reeled. His hammer boomed on iron. "_Ho-ah!_"
he cried so it rang. "_Yuk-hai-saa-saa!_ Come in and be slain!"

He stood in the middle of the room with Eodan. Each had a Roman shield
and his chosen weapon, maul or longsword. They waited.

Dimly seen, a man pushed close to Eodan. His sword cut low, feeling for
the Cimbrian's legs. Eodan sprang back. His huge German blade whirled
up so it touched the low ceiling. Down it came again, and the shield
edge crumpled under it. Eodan raised his weapon once more, struck home
and felt blood spurt over his hand.

Another shape, another thrust. He caught that one on his own shield,
and the metal glided aside. The Roman shield pushed against the
Cimbrian's right arm, giving no room to use a sword. His hobnailed
boot trampled down on Eodan's foot, and pain jagged in its path. Eodan
drove the boss of his shield into the Roman's face and he heard a
splintering. The Roman sank to the floor, dazed.

There were two more, now, in the belling, clanging gloom. They came in
on either side, to catch him between them. He kicked out to the right,
and his spur flayed open a thigh. As the shield dropped a little in the
man's anguish, Eodan smote. He struck a helmet, but the sheer force of
it snapped the Roman's head down. The man went to his hands and knees
and crawled away.

Eodan had been holding the other off left-handed, keeping his shield
as a barrier. Now, whipping about, he slid the rim aside and then back
again, so that he locked shields with his enemy and held him fast. He
reached over the top with his longsword and drove the point home.

"_Ho-yo-yo!_" chanted Tjorr, battering till it thundered. Eodan might
have let out a Cimbrian howl, but he had no more wish for it. "Back!"
he gasped to the Alan. "Back before they hem us in!"

Eyes were now used to the shifting twilight, the pale gray dazzle of
the doorway. Eodan and Tjorr stood side by side, just in front of the
rear support timber they had erected. Blood ran from their arms and
painted their breasts; blood stained the sweat on them, and it was not
all Roman this time. But men lay stricken before them; Eodan did not
count how many. He looked across three slippery red yards of trampled
earth and saw five men still on their feet. None were unwounded.

But weariness shuddered in him. His sword, nicked and blunted, had not
bitten well; it was an iron bar in his hand, heavy as sorrow. He could
barely hear the deep hoarse breathing of Tjorr, his own heartbeat and
thirsty-throated breath were so loud.

Now that all the hunters were inside his den, it was time to destroy
them.

Flavius crouched by the door. "Form a line!" he rapped. "Wall to wall!
Drive them back and cut them down!"

Four Roman shields filled that narrow room, Flavius standing behind.
Eodan raised his weapon and called, "Will you not try the edge of this
even once, murderer?"

Flavius screamed. For one blink of time, over the advancing shields and
helmets, through the wintry gloom, Eodan looked upon madness. It came
to him that he should not have taunted an unbearable grief. The gods
are too just.

Flavius raised his sword and flung it above the soldiers.

Eodan felt it strike him in the head. He staggered back, suddenly
blinded with his own blood. The pain seared through his skull until he
stood in a world that was all great whirling flame. He thought as he
toppled, This also must a king have known, what it is to be slain.

The Romans cried their victory and moved in on Tjorr. The Alan threw
down his shield, picked Eodan up with one arm, and swung his hammer.
Even as it hit the pillar he had raised, he leaped into the pit and the
tunnel beyond.

The timber slipped sideways. The piece it had helped carry, running
lengthwise, fell. The thin branches cracked, and the roof of stones
came down.

Eodan heard it dimly, from far away. Now the sky has been shattered,
he thought, and gods and demons die in the wreck of their war. A star
whirled by me and hissed into the sea.

He lay in the tunnel, as though in a womb, while the stones buried
his hunters. There followed a silence that tolled. He heard Tjorr and
Phryne calling to each other in utter night. Her hands groped for him.
He lay in her hands and let the pain reach full tide.

It ebbed again. Tjorr dug a few feet upward. Breaking out into the
open, he reached down, hauled forth Eodan and Phryne and whistled at
what he saw.

"Best I catch the horses," he said awkwardly. "You can see to him, can
you not?"

She kissed her man for answer.

Eodan looked up at the sky. "Lie still," whispered Phryne. "Lie still.
It is well. We are safe."

The wind blew softly, almost warm. The first snow fell on his face.
"Have I been badly hurt?" he asked.

She told him plainly: "Your left eye is gone. Now I must love the right
one twice as much."

"Is it no more than that?" he sighed. "I thought my debt was greater.
The Powers are kind."

XXI

North of the city Tanais the Don River wound like a shining snake, like
the lightning itself in a godlike calm, through rolling plains where
horses pastured. In early summer the land blazed blue with cornflowers.

On the west side of the Don, from the Azov Sea as far northward as
their might would take them, dwelt the Rukh-Ansa. They were a proud
folk--warriors, horse breeders, and weapon makers; their women walked
with long fair locks garlanded and dresses of linen wind-blown around
their tall bodies; their chiefs rewarded a bard's song with golden
rings.

Nonetheless, these were ill times, and, when Tjorr the Red came home,
folk sacrificed bullocks in the hope that he carried better luck. From
wide about the chiefs came riding, until Beli's hall rang with their
iron and the ale flowed merrily. They guested Beli not only to hear
what his returned son could tell them of far farings, but because there
had been tales of a king whom Tjorr had brought with him. Sorely did
the Rukh-Ansa need a wise king.

His was a strange band when it rode to the river's east bank and was
ferried across with gifts from awed tribesmen. Tjorr himself did not
lead it, though the redbeard shone in Parthian mail and glittered with
Grecian silver. He was captain of the warriors, several score Alanic
horsemen guarding a rich baggage train; his own wagon was full of gold,
armor and three lovely concubines. When he related how all this had
come to him through the luck in his hammer, many folk went on their
faces; surely that hammer held lightning.

And yet Tjorr acknowledged another man his _disa_--a very tall man with
long wheat-colored hair, a lean withdrawn face, the sun written on his
brow, and one green eye. This Eodan did not dress much like a king; his
mail was serviceable but unadorned; he claimed no trolldom or god-power
in his weapons. Moreover, he had only one wife--a slight girl with dark
hair and violet eyes who rode like a man but nursed a son in her arms
and had one a year older in a carrying-cradle at her saddlebow. Eodan
would not even accept the overnight loan of another woman; he smiled in
his distant way, thanked his host and then returned to his Phryne.

So the Rukh-Ansa wondered at Tjorr ... wondered even if the Phryne girl
were not a witch who had ensnared both him and her husband ... and
then they would come to speak with Eodan, and after a while they would
understand why Tjorr called him King.

Fires burned high in Beli's feasting hall. The chiefs of the Rukh-Ansa
clans sat at table and raised ox horns heavy with silver and beer, to
the honor of Tjorr and Tjorr's lord.

Gray Beli blinked dim eyes at his son. "Will you not tell us the whole
tale of your wanderings?" he asked.

"Not in one day," said Tjorr. "There are many winter evenings' worth
of telling. Let it only be said now that I was sold through Greece and
Italy until I ended in a Roman galley. But then Eodan and Phryne freed
me. We seized the ship and sailed eastward, until we found the court of
King Mithradates."

"The same whose general hurled us back three summers ago from the
Chersonese?" asked Beli.

Tjorr nodded. "Aye. I wish I had fought with you, but at that very
time, as the gods willed it, I was fighting on Mithradates' behalf,
down in Galatia. He was a good master to us. Why did you war on his
realm?"

Beli shrugged. "It was a hungry year. We have had many hungry years
of late; there are too many of us. But the raid failed, and now the
Chersonese is barred to our horses."

"I will have somewhat to counsel you about that," said Eodan. He had
already learned the Alanic tongue, as it was said he knew several
others, besides reading and writing. Yes, a man of deep mind, with
witch-powers he would not show to just anyone--yes, yes.

"Where then did you go?" asked Beli.

"We fell out with Mithradates," said Tjorr, "and for a while we
were two men and a woman, alone on a cold plain. But we had killed
some Romans, who had fat purses. So we bought huts and sheep from
the Phrygians, to live that winter. In spring we continued through
Lycaonia; it is too friendly with Rome these days, so we did not stay,
simply bribed our way past. There are tribes in the Mountains of the
Bull, hunters and warriors, who made us welcome. We aided them and
lived there a year since my king's first son had to be born. Next
spring we came to Parthia with a following of young men and offered
the lord there our services, he being Rome's foe. There we had it well
since the favor of nobles came to us, once they saw what a man they
had in my king. We dwelt in a fine city and had only enough warlike
missions on the border to keep us amused. Yet we longed to be among our
own sort of men again. So this spring we got leave to go, and came up
through Armenia and behind the Caucasus until we found Alans--and thus
your home, My Father."

"Much have you seen," said Beli. The war-chiefs of the Rukh-Ansa
clashed their ale horns under his words.

"I have seen less with two eyes than my King has with one," said Tjorr
humbly. "He has learned the arts of many nations. He would teach his
own people whatever of it they can use."

"Where are your folk?" asked Beli of the stranger.

"North," said Eodan. "They were the Cimbri once. Now they are any who
dwell where heather blooms and beech forests blow."

"We will go north, my king and I, to rule in his land," said Tjorr.
"There are not many dwelling in it. No few of the Rukh-Ansa could
follow us, find new homes in the North and become great."

"Some of the younger ones might," agreed Beli.

"Might?" cried Tjorr. "Why, if I know my clans, they will be at
spearheads over the right to come!"

"Not all," said Beli. "Not even most. For if you fare north you will
become something else than what you are."

"That is true," said Eodan. "Yet what is it to live, than to become
something else?"

"Forgive me," said Beli, "but there are men who would not follow a
one-eyed king."

"Let them stay home, then," snorted Tjorr. "I'll pasture my horses on
the edge of the world if he leads me there."

"Yes," nodded Beli. "Yes. There are such kings. But how did it happen
you lost your eye, Lord?"

Eodan smiled. It was a wry smile, not ungentle, but wholly without
youth. He had known too much ever to be young again. He said, "I gave
it for wisdom."

EPILOGUE

It was told from olden days, and written in the books of Snorri
Sturlason, that the Asa or Ansa folk came from the land of Tanais
to the North. They soon became overlords; from the high hall they
raised at Upsala their power spread, until even the German tribes
drew chieftains and learning from them. For they were good masters,
who brought their new people not only wealth but knowledge. They
gave to the North crafts of both peace and war, such as the building
of longships and the breeding of fine horses, the writing of runes
and the mustering of armies, foreign trade and foreign travel, much
leechcraft and many wise laws. By all this the folk were strengthened
and helped, so that they lifted themselves from rude forest dwellers
to mighty nations who finally overthrew the Roman power and peopled
Europe afresh, in the time of the Wanderings. Above all did they
shape the country called England, and there they kept much of the old
freedom-shielding law that the Asa men first brought.

Every king in the North reckoned descent from the Asa lords, who
themselves came to be worshiped as gods after they died. The first Asa
king was called Odin, and he was the chief of the gods.