The night wore on. They did not sleep. But it was curious how much they
talked, and how dryly, almost like two consuls mapping a campaign, when
they were not kissing.
"This cannot be too open," she said. "Flavius can endure being
whispered about on my account, for the sake of my father's help. An
equestrian cannot rise far without some such figurehead. And a Roman
wife's affairs with Romans are common enough--but not with barbarians.
That would make him a laughingstock! And he would avenge his slain
political ambitions more than his honor." After a moment, thoughtfully:
"And even if his reputation were not harmed--I am unsure what he feels
toward you, who owned him--"
"I too," said Eodan, surprised. He had imagined Flavius was grateful
at first, after Arausio, and friendly later, and malicious after
Vercellae. Now it grew upon him that he had only seen chance waves
across a deep and secret pool. Flavius' soul was locked away from him.
"So we will keep you here, with the title of guardsman," decided
Cordelia. "He seldom comes to this estate. You can arrange to be
elsewhere if he should come. This may take a few months, you realize. I
must work on my father and others; I must make sure that when I finally
do divorce him, I will come at once under some other man's powerful
protection. And, of course, that you come with me." A slow, cruel smile
lifted her lips. "And that _I_ rule my next household. Some Senator,
doddering with age, and very rich.... Then you can be brought to Rome,
Hercules. There will be wealth for you.... many slaves are wealthy in
their own right--or you can even be freed, if you think a change of
title makes any difference." She melted against him. "It does not. You
already have me in freehold."
He embraced her again. As she trembled in his hands, he wondered how
much of her speaking was real and how much only the she-animal of this
night.
He waited until she had rested again, and drunk again, and returned to
him on the bronze bed. Then, as he lay tangled in her hair, he said--it
had taken less courage to charge the Roman army--"When can you get
release for my wife?"
She sprang from him, spitting like a cat. "Do you dare?" she yelled.
Eodan stood up, smiling by plan, and said, "I would not forget
any--friend--even her. Can she not be bought back, or released somehow?"
Cordelia paused. Her look grew narrow, as he had seen before. "Do you
think of this brood-mare as merely a friend?" she asked.
Eodan swallowed. He could not answer, only nod.
"Then forget her, as you will have to forget all the Cimbri," said
the woman in a cold voice. "I will not arouse Flavius' suspicions by
speaking of that mop-headed sow he has been wallowing with all winter.
Let him sell her to a brothel when he tires of her, as he has done with
so many others."
Through a shimmering and a humming, Eodan saw how she stood crouched,
ready to escape his violence and call for help. Neither of them
moved--until at last she walked by him, threw herself upon the bed and
beckoned him as she would a dog.
He came. There was nothing else possible, save to die.
Toward sunrise, Cordelia murmured drowsily, "I forgive you, Hercules.
We will forget what was said, because of what was done."
He made his lips touch hers.
"Now good night," she laughed. "Or is it good morning?"
He waited until she slept--by the colorless, heartless false dawn she
looked blowsy enough--then put on his tunic and stole from the room. He
felt the need of a bath and, yes, he would borrow a horse and gallop
it for some miles. He was empty with weariness, but there was no sleep
in him. Not even when they bound him amidst the wagons had he felt so
alone.
"Eodan."
He stopped under the garden wall. The buildings were blacknesses that
shouldered among paling stars; rails and roofs gleamed with dew. Beyond
the stableyard the land was still full of night. Phryne came to him.
"Are you up so early?" he asked in a small wonderment.
"I could not sleep," she answered.
"Nor I," he mumbled bitterly. "Though for another reason. I never
thought I could hate a woman while I embraced her."
"She must have found that interesting," said Phryne.
He heard the scorn in her voice; he did not know how much was intended
for him, but he felt the whole burden of it. He said through a
thickness in his lungs, "Why do I not bid them crucify me and be done?
I let her call my Hwicca foul names, and then I kissed her!"
"You must live," said Phryne gently.
"Why?"
"For--well--" She stood beside him, and somehow he came to think of a
certain brook, sun-speckled under airy beeches, long ago in Cimberland.
"Well, for what help you can give your wife," she finished, looking
straight before her, across the Samnian darkness.
"Which is none," he groaned.
Suddenly it burst within him. As if the sun had taken him full in the
eyes, he gasped and cried low, "But I can!"
"What?" Fear shadowed the face that swung to him. "How?"
"Hear me, Phryne," he whispered, rapidly, shaking with the knowledge of
it. "I will go hence. I know the road to Rome, I walked it the other
way last year. I can find his house there, and steal Hwicca away,
and--O Bull whose horns are the moon, why did you not make it clear to
me before?"
"You cannot!" A muted shriek. "You do not know the land, the city ...
every man who sees you will know your height and hair and--What use
will it be, to die on a cross or thrown to wild beasts?"
"Why, if my ghost has any strength at all, it may try again somehow,"
he said. "Or if not--well, I tried once. I gave Hwicca a man for a
husband to the very end." He lifted his hands to the eastern light, and
in Cimberland's tongue he called upon the day and the dark, the wind
and sea and all the Powers of earth to witness his promise.
Phryne flung herself to her knees. "Eodan, Eodan, you are a little
child among wolves! You know not what you say!"
"I know what I have said," he replied slowly. "I have sworn an oath
that is not able to be broken."
He felt the cold and the wet gloom before dawn close in on him. What
had he done, indeed? he thought. It was not well to make such enormous
promises without thinking carefully. He had belike pledged himself to
death.
But, if so, death was his weird and would not be stayed; for he had
invoked the very river of Time.
He shuddered with the awe of it, his teeth clenched together. "I will
leave in a few days, as soon as I can," he said. "You will forget we
ever spoke of this, will you not?"
Phryne rose again. She leaned against the wall, her cheek and palms to
its rough brick, her eyes closed. It was as though she drew on her own
roots of strength. At last, in a faraway voice, she answered him: "No,
I shall help you."