“How could you have known? But tell me!” He held out his empty hands like a beggar.
“Uicca… I saw her once in a while. The Cimbrian girl, all called her. She seems well thought of by Flavius. He keeps her in a room of her own, with her own servants. He is ― often there. But no one else sees her much. We never spoke. She was always very quiet. Her servants told me she was gentle to them.”
“Flavius―” Eodan covered his eyes against the unpitying day.
Phryne laid a hand on his shoulder. It shuddered beneath her palm. “The Unknown God help you,” she said.
He turned around and looked upon her, then reached out and gathered her against him. He kissed her so her mouth was numb.
She writhed free, scraped down his ankle with a sandaled foot and clawed with her nails until he let her go. She was white; her loosened dark hair fell about her like a thundercloud.
“You slobbering pig!” she cried. “So that is all you miss of your wife!”
She spun about and ran.
“Wait!” he cried. “Wait, let me tell you ― I only―”
She was gone. He stood upon the fallen blossoms and cursed. Hwicca would have understood, he thought in wrath and desolation; Hwicca is a woman, not a book-dusty prune, and knows what the needs of a man are.
He looked down, and up again, and finally north, toward Rome. Then he picked up the bridle and went on to the stables. That day he contrived to be given a task at the forge, shaping iron, and the courtyard rang with his hammerblows until dark.
The days passed. The flax was sown. They paid less heed to the ancient festivals now than formerly; once these acres had belonged to free men; now it was all one plantation staffed with slaves. But some custom still lived. The week of the Floralia was observed, not as immoderately as in Rome, but with a degree of ease and a measure of wine.
On the day before the Floralia the physician examined Eodan’s leg. “It has knit,” he grunted. “Give me back my crutch.”
Eodan asked wearily, “Will they return me to the fields?”
“That is not my province.” The physician left him.
Eodan walked slowly out of the villa into the walled flower garden behind the kitchen. His leg felt almost a stranger to him. No matter, he would be running in an hour. Running hence? They were not going to make a field hand of him again! It ground away, not only the body, but mind and pride and hope, until a mere two-legged ox remained.
Phryne was talking with one of Cordelia’s maids. She saw him and said, “Enough. Come with me.” The girl’s eyes lingered on Eodan as she went by. He swore at Phryne; in all the time since the orchard morning, she would not speak to him ― the winds take her! He considered how to get the maid alone.
“There you are! And well at last! You’ve been loafing too long, you lazy dog, and eating like a horse the while! Come here!”
Eodan strolled toward the major-domo. He rubbed his fist, looked at it and back at the man’s nose, nodded and said: “I did not hear you. Would you repeat your wish?”
“There, there are some ― heavy barrels to move,” stammered the major-domo. “If you will kindly come this way…”
Eodan was willing enough to trundle the wine casks about. It was a glory to feel his strength returned. And the villa was all in a bustle ― they were hanging up garlands everywhere, the girls giggled and the men laughed, o ho ho, tonight! Eodan drew a pretty wench, a maid, into a corner, they scuffled a little, she whispered breathlessly that she would meet him in the olive grove after moonrise or as soon as she could get away….
The Roman correctness of household eased. Men helped themselves openly to wine, laughed with their overseers, drew buckets of water to pour over sweaty skin, combed the fleas from their hair and wove garlands. Eodan, rolling a great cheese from the storehouse, chanted a Cimbrian march for his friend the groom.
But no one understood the words.
At sundown the lamps were lit with those sulfur-tipped sticks Eodan still thought a rash risk of Fire’s anger. The villa glowed with a hundred small suns of its own. He stood in the garden with Mopsus. “I must go in now and help feed my fellows,” he said.
“So, so. A good feed tonight. A good feed. My granddaughter used to live for Floralia night ― or was it my daughter, she was a baby too, once… I wonder, though, why Mistress hasn’t asked any highborn guests. It isn’t like Mistress not to have fun when she can.”
Eodan shrugged. He had seen Cordelia often enough, seated on a couch or borne in a litter, but his world had been far from here, even in the house; she rarely entered the kitchen or the stables. She was only a task his little maidservant must finish before joining him under the olive trees.
He went back into the villa. At its rear were the rooms where the household’s male property ate and slept. As he passed out of the kitchen toward those chambers, he saw Phryne.
The lamp that she held turned her pale skin to gold. He moved forward, smiling, a little tipsy, meaning only to explain himself to her. She lifted her hand. “Stop.”
“I’m not about to touch you,” he flared.
“Good!” Her mouth twisted upward. He had seldom heard so whetted a voice. “I was sent to fetch you. Come.”
She turned about and walked quickly toward the atrium. He followed. “But Phryne, what is this?”
Her fist clenched. “You do not know?”
He halted and said harshly, “If I am about to be sent back to the barracks―”
She looked over her shoulder. Tears stood in her eyes. “Oh, not that,” she said. “Be not afraid of that. Be glad! You are about to be honored and pleasured.”
“What?”
“In fact, the highest honor and the noblest pleasure of which you are capable.” She stamped her foot, caught her breath and strode on. He followed in bewilderment.
They crossed an open peristyle, where the first stars mirrored themselves shakenly in a mosaic pool. Beyond was a door inlaid with ivory, Venus twining arms about beautiful Adonis. A Nubian with a sword stood on guard. Eodan had seen him about ― a huge man, cat-footed, but betrayed by his smooth cheeks and high voice.
Phryne knocked on the door. “Go in,” she said. “Go on in.”
Someone giggled, down in the flickering darkness of the corridor. Eodan pushed his way through, and the door swung shut behind him.
He stood in a long room, marble-floored, richly strewn with rugs and with expensive furnishings. Many lamps hung from the ceiling, till the air seemed as full of soft light as of incense. The window was trellised with climbing roses.
A table bore wine and carefully prepared food for two. But there was only one broad couch beside it.
Cordelia was stretched out on the couch. Light rippled along her gown. It was of the sheerest silk; her flesh seemed to glow through. She sat up, smiling, so that her copious breasts were thrust at him. “Hail, Cimbrian,” she said.
Eodan gaped. The blood roared in his temples.
She stood up, took a big two-handled silver cup and walked across to him. Her gait was a challenge. When she stood before him he could look down the loose open front of her dress. “Will you not drink with me?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, in his own tongue, for Latin had no such simple way of agreeing. He took the goblet and hoisted it in hands that shook. He was no judge of wine, nor would he have cared tonight, but he noticed dimly that this was smooth and strong.
“I have watched you go about,” said Cordelia. “I wanted to thank you for your ― services ― but it seemed best to let your wound heal first. And then today I saw you lift a cask I would have set two men to carry. I am very glad of that.”