“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 homecoming 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 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 ― longhaired, sometimes bearded ― in brilliant garments. Among them stood a few outland envoys; a turban or a shaven pigtailed 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 huntsman’s. Within a mane of curly dark hair and bearded jaw-line, 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.