He glided toward it. Now he saw her, an outline; she had been seated
by the window looking out. Her long loose hair and a white gown caught
what light there was.
"Is it you?" she asked, uncertainly. She used the "thou" form of
closeness, and it twisted him.
He reached her. "Do not speak aloud," he said, low, in the Cimbric.
He heard her breath drawn in so sharply that it seemed her lungs must
rip. He dropped his knife and made one more step, to take her in his
hands. She began to shiver.
"Eodan, no, you are dead," she cried, like a lost child.
"If he told you that, I shall tear his tongue out," he answered in a
wrath that hammered against his skull. "I am alive--I, Eodan, your man.
I have come to take you home, Hwicca."
"Let me go!" Horror rode her voice.
He caught her arms. She shook as if with fever. "Can you give us light,
Phryne?" he asked in Latin. "She must see I am no nightwalker."
Hwicca did not speak again. Having risen, she stood wholly mute. Her
hand brushed him, and he felt the palm had changed, had gone soft; she
had ground no grain and driven no oxen for nigh to a year. Oh his poor
caged darling! He let his own grasp go about her shoulders and then her
waist. He raised her chin and kissed her. The lips beneath his were
dead. In an overwhelming grief, that she should have been so hurt, he
drew her to him and laid her head on his breast.
Long afterward Phryne found flint and steel and a lamp. A tiny glow
herded immense misshapen shadows into the corners. Eodan looked upon
Hwicca.
She had not altered greatly to his eyes. Her skin was white now--the
sun had touched it seldom, the rain and wind never; but the same dear
small freckles dusted across her nose. She had taken on weight; she
was fuller about breast and hip. Her hair streamed in a loose mane past
a Roman gown and a Roman girdle, thin sheer stuff broidered with gold;
she wore a necklace of opals and amber. He did not like the perfume
smell, but--"Hwicca, Hwicca!"
Her eyes seemed black, wrenched upward to his. They were dry and
fever-bright. Her shaking had eased, until he could only feel it as a
quiver beneath the skin. "I thought you were killed," she told him,
tonelessly.
"No. I was sent to a farm south of here. I escaped. Now we shall go
home."
"Eodan--" The cold, softened hands reached down, pulling his arms away.
She went from him to the chair in which she had been seated when he
came in. She sat upon it, her weight against one arm, and stared at the
floor. The curve of thigh and waist and drooping head was a sharp pain
to him.
"Eodan," she said at last, wonderingly. She looked up. "I killed
Othrik. I killed him myself."
"I saw it," he said. "I would have done so, too."
"Flavius brought me here," she mumbled.
"That was not your wish," he answered, through a wall in his throat he
had raised against tears.
"There was only one thing that gave me the strength to live," she said.
"I thought you had died."
Eodan wanted to take her in one arm, lead her out, hold a torch in the
other hand; he would kindle the world and dance about its flames. He
went to her, instead, and sat down at her feet, so she must look at him.
"Hwicca," he said, "it was I who failed. I brought you to this land of
sorrow; when we were wedded, I could have turned our wagon northward. I
let myself be overcome by the Romans. I even left you my own task, of
free--freeing our son. The anger of the gods is on my head, not yours."
"Do you think I care for any gods now?" she said.
Suddenly she wept, not like a woman but like a man, great coughing
gulping sobs that pulled the ribs and stretched the jaws. She lifted
her head and howled, the Cimbrian wolf howl when they mourn for their
slain. Phryne stepped back, drawing her knife by the door, but no one
came. Perhaps, thought Eodan, they were used to hearing Flavius' new
concubine yell.
Hwicca reached for him with unsteady hands and brushed them across his
mouth. "You kissed me," she cried. "Now see what you kissed off." He
looked upon a greasy redness. "My owner likes me painted. I have tried
to please him."
Eodan sat in numbness.
Hwicca fought herself to quiet. Finally she said, stammering and
choking, "He brought me here. He left me alone ... for many days ...
until I had used up all my tears. At last he came. He spoke kindly. He
offered his protection if--if--I should have asked him for a spear in
my heart. I did not, Eodan. I gave him back his kindness."
He had thought many ugly fates for her. This he had not awaited.
"Go," she said. "Go while it is still dark. I have money, I will give
you what I have. Leave this place of men's deaths, go north and raise
me a memory-stone if you will--Eodan, I am dead, leave the dead alone!"
She turned away, looking into night. He got up, slowly, and went to
where Phryne was standing.
"Well?" said the Grecian girl. "What is the trouble?" Her tone was
unexpectedly stinging, almost contemptuous; it jerked him like a whip.
He bridled with an anger at her that drained off some of the hurt
Hwicca had given. "She yielded herself to Flavius."
"Did you expect otherwise?" asked Phryne, winter-cold. "It is one thing
to fall on your own sword in battle's heat--another to be a captive
alone, and get the first soft word spoken in weeks! Romans have long
known how to harness a soul."
"Oh ... well--" Eodan shook his head, stunned. "It is not that. I
looked for nothing else, I have seen too many women taken ... But she
will not come with me now, Phryne!"
The Hellene stared across the room at Hwicca, who sat with her face
hidden in her hair. Then she glanced about at clothes and jewels and
whatever else a man was blind to. She nodded.
"Your wife told you she did not merely obey," she said to Eodan. "She
tried to please Flavius. She wanted to."