"He has deserved well of us," Cordelia said. "Let him be kept in the
household, at least till he is properly healed. Give him good raiment
and light work. And first of all a bath!"
Thereafter she did not hurry matters. Eodan limped about with a
crutch, ate and drank and slept enormously, scoured pots or helped old
Mopsus the gardener. He spent much time down at the stables, where
he soon had the friendship of the head groom, a dour Cappadocian who
was believed to have been hatched rather than born since not even a
mother could have loved him. Phryne did not understand how a man of
intelligence--and Eodan had a good mind in his rough way--could sit
hour after hour talking about currycombs and fetlocks and spavins and
whatever else there was; but so it went and, after all, divine Homer
dwelt lovingly on horses.
Washed, shaved, his hair cut and combed, a white tunic and sandals on
him, Eodan might almost have been a Homeric warrior himself--Diomedes,
perhaps, or Ajax the haughty. As he grew rested and fleshed out, his
manners became milder, he snarled or cuffed at men less often, his
smiles were sometimes nearly warm instead of a mere wolfish baring of
teeth. But he dropped his green eyes for no one, and the house slaves
who shared their room with him were kept at a frosty distance.
The major-domo was afraid of him. "I would not trust that barbarian,
not one inch," he told Phryne. "My dear, you should have seen his back
when he first bathed. I would not even try to count all the whip scars.
And many slashes were new--he got them here, in the months we have had
him, the last of them perhaps only yesterday! Mark my words, it is the
sign of an unruly heart. It is such men who lead slave revolts. If he
were mine, I would geld him and sell him to the lead mines."
"Some men were born gelded," said Phryne coldly, and left. She
could almost see the crisscrossing of thin white lines on Eodan's
shoulderblades. She avoided him for a while, uncertain why she did so.
And the springtime waxed. Each day the sun stood higher; each day a new
bird-song sounded in the orchard. One morning fields and trees showed
the finest transparent green, as if the goddess had only breathed
on them in the night. And then at once, unable to wait, the leaves
themselves burst out and the orchard exploded in pale fire.
It happened Cordelia was complaining of a headache again; she must lie
in a dark room and make everyone creep by. Phryne, who considered her
mistress as strong as a cow, found an excuse to leave the villa. She
would gather apple blossoms and arrange them for Cordelia's delight.
The morning was still wet, after a short rain. Where the sun struck
the grass, it flashed white. A thrush sat on a bough and chanted of
all bright hopes; a milk cow grazed in a meadow, impossibly red. When
Phryne went among the gnarled little trees, they shook down raindrops
upon her. She took a low branch in her arms and buried her face in its
flowers.
"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."