“Poor blooms,” she whispered. “My poor babies. It is wrong to take away your springtime.”
The knife bit at the twigs; she filled her arms with apple blossoms.
Eodan came from the villa. He crutched along as readily as a three-legged dog, bound for the stables carrying a mended bridle. The endlessly gossiping slaves had told Phryne the barbarian was clever with his hands.
But when he saw her he halted. He had never thought much about beauty ― land, workmanship, live flesh was good or bad, no more. Now, briefly, the sight of a girl’s dark head and slim waist, with dew and white radiance between, went through him like a spear.
The moment passed by. He thought only as he swung about toward her that ― by the Bull! ― it was a new year and she was a handsome wench. “Ave,” he called.
“Atque vale,” said Phryne, smiling at him. His hair needed cutting again, and it was uncombed, tangled with sunlight.
“Hail and farewell? Oh, now, wait!” Eodan reached her and barred the path. “You have no haste. Come talk to me.”
“My task here is finished,” she said in a quick, unsure voice.
“Must they know that?” Eodan’s coldest laugh snapped out. “I’ve learned how to stretch an hour’s task into a day. You, having been a slave longer, must be even more skilled at it.”
The fair planes of her cheeks turned red. She answered, “At least I have learned not to insult those who do me no harm.”
“I am sorry,” he said, contrite. “My people were not mannered. Is that why you have kept yourself from me?”
“I have not,” she said, looking away. “It ― it only happened… I was busy―”
“Well, now you are not busy,” he said. “Can we be friends?”
The gathered blossoms shivered on her breast. Finally she looked up and said, “Of course. But I really cannot stay here long. The mistress has one of her bad days.”
“Hm. They say in the kitchen that’s only from idleness and overeating. They say her husband sent her down here because her behavior made too much of a scandal even for Rome.”
“Well ― well, it was a ― a rest cure… “
Ha, thought Eodan, I would like to help Mistress Cordelia rest her tired nerves! The story went that Flavius needed her family’s help too much in his political striving to divorce her. And, if ever a man deserved the cuckoo sign, it was Flavius!
Eodan clamped on that thought and tried to snuff it out. He could taste its bitterness in his throat.
He said: “You have a Cimbrian habit, Phryne, which I myself was losing. You do not speak evil of folk behind their backs. But tell me, how long have you been here?”
“Not long. We came down perhaps a week before your accident.” Phryne looked past a stile, over the meadow to the blue Samnian hills. Tall white clouds walked on a lazy wind. “I only wish we could stay forever, but I’m afraid we will go back to the city in a few months. We always do.”
“How do you stand with the mistress?” asked Eodan. He hitched himself a little closer to the girl. “Just what is your position?”
“Oh ― I have been her personal attendant for a couple of years. Not a body servant; she has enough maids.”
Eodan nodded. His thoughts about Cordelia’s younger maids were lickerish, and their eyes had not barred him. But so far there had been no chance. He listened to Phryne:
“I am her amanuensis. I keep her records and accounts, write her letters for her, read and sing to her when she wants such diversion. It is not a hard life. She is not cruel. Some matrons―” The girl shivered.
“You are from Greece?”
She nodded. “Plataea. My grandfather lost his freedom in the war of ― No matter, it would mean nothing to you.” She smiled. “How tiny our vaunted world of Greeks and Romans is, after all!”
“So you were born a slave?” he went on.
“In a good household. I was educated with care, to be a nurse for their children. But they fell on evil times two years ago and had to sell me. The dealer took me to Rome, and Mistress Cordelia bought me.”
He felt a dull anger. He said. “You wear your bonds lightly.”
“What would you have me do?” she replied with a flash of indignation. “I should give thanks to Artemis for a situation no worse than this ― my books, at least, and a measure of respect, and an entire life’s security. Do you know what commonly happens to worn-out slaves? But my mind will not wear out!”
“Well, well,” he said, taken aback. “It is different for you.” And then wrath broke loose, and he lifted his fist against heaven. “But I am a Cimbrian!” he shouted.
“And I am a Greek,” she said, still cold to him. “Your people did not have to come under the Roman yoke. You could have stayed in the North.”
“Hunger drove us out. We were too many, when the bad years came. Would you have us peaceably starve? We did not even want war with Rome, at first. We asked for land within their domains. We would have fought for them, any enemies they wished. We sent an embassy to their Senate. And they laughed at us!” Eodan dropped the bridle, leaned against his crutch and held out shaking claw-curved fingers. “I would tear down Rome, stone by stone, and flay every Roman and leave their bones for ravens to pick!”
She asked in a steel-cool tone: “Then why do you think it evil of them to do likewise to you, since the gods granted them victory?”
He felt the tide of his fury ebb. But it still moved in him; and the ocean from which it had come would always be there. He said thickly, “Oh, I do not hate them for that. I hate them for what came afterward. Not clean death, but marching in a triumph, shown like an animal, while the street-bred rabble jeered and pelted us with filth! Chained in a pen, day upon day upon day, lashed and kicked, till we finally went up on a block to be auctioned! And afterward shoveling muck, hoeing clods, sleeping in a hogpen barracks with chains on, every night! That is what I have to revenge!”
He saw how she shrank away. It came to him then that he had his own purposes for her. He forced a stiff smile. “Forgive me. I know I am uncouth.”
She said with a break in her voice. “Were you put on the block? Did it only happen that Flavius bought you?”
“Actually, I was not,” he admitted. “He had inquiry made for me, and bought me directly. He saw me and said with that smile of his that he wanted to be sure of my fate, so he could pay me back the right amount of both good and evil. Then I was walked down here with some other new laborers.”
“And your―” She stopped. “I must go now, Eodan.”
“My wife?” He heard his heart knocking, far away in a great hollowness. “He told me that he had Hwicca, too ― in Rome… “
His hands leaped out. He seized her by both arms so she cried out. The apple blossoms fell from her grasp, and his foot crushed them.
“Hau!” he roared. “By the Bull, only now do I think of it! You attend the mistress? And she still shares her husband’s town house? Then you have seen Flavius in Rome this winter! You have seen her!”
“Let me go!” she shrieked.
He shook her so her teeth rattled. “How is she? You must have seen her, a tall fair girl, her name is Hwicca. What has become of her?”
Phryne set her jaws against the pain. “If you let me go, barbarian, I will tell you,” she said.
His hands dropped. He saw finger marks cruelly deep on her white skin. She touched the bruises with fingers that trembled while tears ran silent down her face. She caught her lip in her teeth to hold it steady.
“I am sorry,” he mumbled. “But she is my wife.”
Phryne leaned against the tree. At last she looked up, still hugging herself. The violet eyes were blurred. She whispered, “It is I who must ask pardon. I did not realize it was the same ― I did not know.”