"Hail, Mistress," snapped Eodan, not able to smooth his words. He stood
with folded arms, looking down upon her.
"Well! You have a face like Jupiter's wrath, my friend." Cordelia
leaned back, regarding him through narrowed dark eyes. "Did you have
trouble on your journey?"
"No trouble, Mistress. Here is the money I did not spend." He slipped
the heavy purse from his belt and flung it on the table. The denarii
crashed so loudly that she started.
She rose, in one rippling motion, and the thin silk showed him how she
tautened. Her lips parted. A scream would bring the Nubian, the porter
and half a dozen watchdogs to bind him and do whatever she wished.
Eodan felt coldness along his backbone. He had to be more careful.
The knowledge that he, Boierik's son, must be careful of a woman tasted
like vomit.
"What is the matter with you?" she asked in anger.
"I beg your pardon, Mistress." Eodan went to one knee and bowed his
head stiffly. "I felt a little out of sorts."
Cordelia chuckled in her throat, left the chair and came to him. She
ran her hand through his tangled hair as he knelt. "And why were you so
at odds with the world ... Hercules?" she murmured.
He saw the answer. "I was parted from you," he got out. Then suddenly,
because he must do something in his shame, he grasped her about the
knees and pulled her to him. His face he buried in soft darkness.
"Oh," she gasped. "Oh--not here--wait--" But her hands were pressing
his head close. He forced her down to the floor. She laughed without
sound and tried to roll from him. He used his strength to pull her
back. The frail spidery silk ripped open in his fingers. "Beast!" she
said, her lips stretched wide, her eyes closed.
Outside, the boy faltered for an instant, then recollected his
orders and continued the song. It dealt with a legionary in far Asia
remembering his mother.
Afterward Cordelia led Eodan to her sleeping chamber. A maid brought
them wine and cakes. She drooped an eye at him, her mouth quivering
faintly upward, and he recalled that once she had agreed to meet him
after moonrise.
"Hercules," said Cordelia, not heeding the girl at all. She snuggled
herself against Eodan's side, as they lay on the bed, and nuzzled his
cheek. "You big crazy Hercules."
He did not feel the stallion's contentment she had given him before.
Tonight she had only left him hollow, in some fashion he did not
understand. He had never felt he was betraying anyone--until now. He
held his wine cup in slack fingers and asked, "Mistress, why will you
not try to speak my right name?"
"Because anyone might bear it," she said, "but there is only one son of
Alcmene."
He could not speak what he really felt, not if he wished to live. But
he could at least shake off all canine eagerness to please. He could
say bluntly, "Mistress, you have been kind to me, but it was my habit
once to give kindness. It hurts to receive it, and to make no gift in
return."
He wanted to roar out: I am no pet animal, no toy of yours, I am a
free man with my own name my father gave me. I am not ungrateful for
ease, and chains removed, and your body. But between us is merely a
shallowness. On your part, an amusing few weeks; on my part, a slave's
scrabbling for what he can get, a slave's sly revenge on his master,
and a slave's worry about what will become of him when you grow weary.
I will be no more a slave, I will go hence to my wife.
But he listened to her say, "Hercules, you have given me more than you
know."
Startled, he turned to face her. He had not seen her blush before now:
it rose up over breasts and throat and cheeks and brow like a tide.
Her nails bit his wrist, and she did not meet his eyes. He heard the
slurred, hurried tone:
"Have you ever wondered why I drink and take men and disgrace myself
as well as my husband? Did you think it was simple idleness and lust?
Well, it is in part; I will not say otherwise. But only in part.
Flavius forsook me long before I turned on him. He gave me a few weeks,
and they were sweet, but then he turned elsewhere. I was locked away
to be a proper Roman matron and bear his children. Do you think you
are the only slave in this room, Hercules? When I remained barren, he
hardly spoke to me. For nine years, before he went off to be captured
by you, he hardly said me a word. And yet it was him the gods had
cursed, not me. For hear! I turned in my need to a young lad who
visited our house now and again, a curly-headed boy who loved me, loved
me. And by him I was quickened! It could have been Flavius' son. He
could have set the child on his knee, no one had to know.... He had my
baby destroyed! I could have brought the law on him--perhaps my lover
might have helped--I do not know. Perhaps not. A father has so much
power. I did not try. It was better to come out of the woman's world,
begin to give my own banquets and have many men--many, many. I dared
have no more children, especially when he was away in captivity. I
possess an old slave woman, a witch from Thrace, who knows how to keep
the occasional accident from ever becoming noticeable. I thought it was
as well. I did not wish to carry on my own sickness in the world. Let
it die with me.
"Hercules--" Her head burrowed into the crook of his arm, she shivered
beneath his touch--"I found a kind of hope in you."
Eodan thought, Did earth's last happy folk leave their bones on the
Raudian plain?
Blindly, he drew Cordelia to him. Her hands were cold on his skin. But
the rest of her seemed ablaze.