Something eased within her. She laughed, low, and put her hands on his
shoulders. The gown fell about her feet. It could have been one of the
statues he had seen--Venus, in her aspect of hot sleepless nights--that
stood before him, save that veins pulsed under this skin and sweat
jeweled it in the sun. "Hercules, Hercules," she cried, "can you not
get it into your thick yellow head, I want to be the one commanded?"
He stepped back, stammering, feeling the will of Venus but remembering
she was Hwicca's enemy. "Mistress ... I cannot ... I am--"
"Tonight," she said eagerly. "Just at day's end. We will watch the sun
go down and we shall not sleep before it rises again."
O my weird which I invoked, help me now! he thought.
It came to him what he must do. And because the day was warm, and she
stood clothed only in sunlight and her loosened dark hair, and he had
slept alone for three nights, and he might be a flayed corpse in a few
days ... he trod forward with the Bull strong and exultant in his soul.
"Oh!" said Cornelia. "Hercules! No! Tonight, I told you!"
He grinned, pulled her to him, and held her one-handed with muscles
that had wrestled horned kine to earth, while his lips bruised hers and
his free hand roved up and down her body. "Well," she sighed finally,
"well, just once--"
When they had rested for a time, he stood up. "Come, into the pool!"
he said. She hung back. Laughing, he sprang. Water spouted, drenching
her. He swam to the edge where she crouched and hauled her after him.
She came up sputtering. He kissed her. She gave in and paddled about,
while he snorted and churned, porpoiselike, darting in again and again,
until at last it was she who urged him back onto the tiles.
Thereafter she complained that her body was sore from the hardness, so
they sought her bedroom. After a while she clapped her hands and had a
girl bring refreshments. And so it went till sundown.
As the first darkness came out of the east and up from the lower
valley, like smoke, Cordelia drew Eodan's head down upon her bosom and
held him there, with a grasp made gentle by weariness. "O Hercules,"
she whispered, "I thought there were no more men in the world worth
caring for."
He lay with closed eyes, drained of strength, wishing he could sleep,
wishing this were Hwicca.
"It is not only that you still my hunger," she murmured. Her voice was
trailing off, swallowed by sleep. "It is yourself. I am not lonely
under your kisses.... Be with me always, Hercules! I ask you--as a
beggar--I who love you...."
Eodan waited until he was sure she slept deeply. Then he took her arms
from about his neck and sat up. The room was dark and hot. He heard
the night outside, noisy with crickets. It was hard to remember that
he must not be contented with she who lay beside him. For a moment he
cursed his own foolishness, which had laid a weird on him.
But what was said could not be unsaid. He sighed, got to his feet and
fumbled about after his tunic. When he found it he stood for a little
while looking down at Cordelia; but his eyes were blurred with night.
Finally, not knowing why, he stooped and kissed her, not on the mouth,
but the brow.
Barefooted, he slipped across marble to the small tiring room beyond.
A bronze mirror caught enough light to prickle him with a thought of
ghosts. Beyond stood Phryne's door. The only bar was on this side, but
he knocked and waited till she opened it.
She stood with a lamp in her hand, dressed as during the day but with
her hair tumbled about her shoulders. The smoky oil flame touched eyes
that were too bright and lips that lacked steadiness. "So you came
after all," she said.
"I agreed to, did I not?" Eodan sat down. His knees shook with
exhaustion; he was unable even to feel afraid. He looked dully about
the room--a mere cubicle, three pallets on the floor, a table with some
combs and other things, a shelf holding many rolled-up books. Those
must be hers, he thought. A window faced unshuttered on blackness.
"I hope you completed your task," spat Phryne. "It would not do to
leave your owner unsatisfied before you go to your dear wife, would it?"
"Oh, be still," he said. "I had no choice. She would have had me come
to her and stay all night."
"Did you enjoy your work?" jeered the whisper.
"I did," he said, flat and cold on the unmoving air. "I do not know how
this concerns you. But, if you are so angry with me, I shall depart
without your help."
He half stood up. She pushed down on his shoulders. "No, Eodan!"
Suddenly frantic: "Zeus help us, no, it would be your death! I am sorry
for what I said. It was indeed no--no c-concern of mine."
He looked up, startled. She had turned her head and was wiping her
eyes with her knuckles, like a child. "Phryne," he asked, "what is the
matter?"
"Nothing. Come, we are spilling time." She drew a shaky breath, squared
her shoulders and went over to the table. From beneath it she dragged
a small wooden box. Squatting on the floor--as he saw her by that
guttering light, against monstrous unrestful shadows, he thought of a
Cimbrian god-wife, but a newly initiated one, young, shy, fair, riven
by the Powers she must now rein and drive--Phryne took out a bundle of
harsh gray cloth, a sheathed Roman sword and two long daggers, some
pots and bowls, and more.
"I have stolen enough money to fill a purse," she whispered. "And
these clothes will pass for a poor smallholder's. The hat will shade
your face from chance eyes. We will dye your hair black and cover that
barbarous tattoo with a bandage, as though it were some injury. Here,
bend over."
It was soothing to have her work upon his head, rinsing, rubbing in
the dye, combing. He felt a little strength flow into him. When she
was done she washed her blackened hands, cocked her head and smiled.
"There! Though we must take along a razor and shave that flax stubble
every day."
"We?" It grew upon him what she meant. He gaped. "But--you are coming,
too?"
"Of course," she said. "It would be--Eodan, if you tried to go out
alone, hardly knowing the road, not knowing Rome at all, with that
atrocious Latin and--" Her words became feverish. "Oh, Eodan, Eodan,
you Cimbrian mule, would you even know where to buy food? As well fall
on this sword at once and save everyone trouble!"
"Phryne," he said, wholly overcome, as though he were caught in
floating dreams, "your place here is good. What can I do for you? Why?"
She bit her lip and looked away. "It would be too easy to find out who
had helped you. I dare not stay."
He leaned forward, taking her hands. "But what am I to you? Why should
you help me at all, then?"
She jerked free, angrily. "I am a Greek," she snapped. "My grandfather
was a free man. None of this concerns _you_!"
Eodan shook his head in wonderment. But indeed, he thought in the
darkling Northern part of his soul, this was brought on when I invoked
the Powers; she is a part of my weird.
He dared ask no further. There was too much awe about her. Had he
indeed let a vessel of Power touch him, and lived?
"Freedom, freedom," said Phryne. "In a barbarous land, in sod huts and
stinking leather clothes, with not a book or a harp for a thousand
miles ... oh, truly, I shall be free!" Her laughter rattled. Eodan made
the sign against trolldom.
"Well, quickly," she said. "I could not be taken for any peasant girl,
so I must be a boy. There are the shears."
She crouched before him and waited. He took the long
crow's-wing-colored tresses in his hands, feeling that he offended some
spirit of loveliness. But--He cropped away until there were only ragged
bangs falling over her brow and her ears could be seen. She looked in a
mirror and sighed. "Gather them up," she said. "When we make a fire, I
will offer them to Hecate."
She pointed to the clothes. "Now, put that on! Do not stand there
gawping!" With a movement as of defiance, she undid her girdle, threw
it on the floor and stepped from her gown. Indeed she was beautiful,
thought Eodan. Her womanness did not flaunt itself, bursting through
its clothes like Cordelia's; it waited cool among shadows for one
discoverer. He grunted some apology when she glared, turned his back,
and fumbled on the garments laid out for him--a gray, patched woolen
tunic, scuffed sandals, a felt hat and a long wool cloak. He picked up
the heavy purse, slung a sword next to his skin and put a knife in the
rope belt.
As he took up his staff, he saw Phryne clad like him. The baggy cloth
would hide the shape of her body; she must hope the dirty old cape
would shield slim legs and high-arched feet. She was turning from the
shelf of books. She had run her fingers over the scrolls, just once,
and tears lay in her eyes.
"Come," she said. "We have only till morning; then they will start to
hunt us."