"There was a boy in the household at Plataea," she said, still in the
small voice that spoke to itself, knowing him only as a shadow under
the evening star. "He was a slave too--not much older.... He walked
like the sun before me. We would have had each other somehow--oh, there
are families among slaves, even a slave can build a home. But then our
master's creditors closed in. Antinous went first. I saw him led off;
they said he would be shipped to Egypt.... Well," she finished wearily,
"that was three years ago. But sometimes at night I still wake up from
a dream where he kisses me."
Eodan's thought was jagged: His ghost will not let her look on another
man. And even if she did, would she wish to bear a son that might be
sold in Egypt?
He said aloud, "Phryne, have you heard that the Cimbri do not lie on an
oath?"