"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."
"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, they 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 thunder-cloud.
"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."