"Well, now!" said the Roman when they sat behind a closed door. He
stretched himself across one of the mattresses, boylike on his belly,
and reached for a leather bottle of good wine. His grin leaped at the
others. "Thus far, my friends, well done. Shall we pledge our mutual
success?"
Eodan opened his cloak and let the sword slide to his knees. His left
arm was stiff and pained from holding the blade pressed to his ribs,
hours at a time. He looked with sullen red eyes at his enemy and said:
"No. I will pledge your ghost in your own blood, nothing else."
Phryne hugged her knees and stared from a drawn small face. "It is best
that Flavius not leave this cabin all the voyage," she said. "He can
plead seasickness. Two of us must be with him at any time, awake."
"Oh, one will do," said Eodan. His jaws felt rusty. "At least, if the
other two are here, asleep but ready to be called."
"Bind him," said Hwicca timidly.
Flavius raised his brows. "If a sailor should chance to look in upon us
and saw me bound--" he murmured.
"It is true." Eodan's head drooped. He jerked it back again. "Be as
wise in our behalf as you have been, Roman, and you will see Rome
again."
Flavius poured himself a cup. "Do you think so?" he asked lightly. "I
doubt that."
"I have promised."
"How much will your word be worth to you, once we reach a wild land
where you have no further need of me for shield?" Flavius' eyes rested
candidly on Hwicca, above the rim of his cup. A slow, deep flush went
up her throat and cheeks. She drew herself into a corner, away from
them all, but her gaze remained locked with his.
"Not that I expect us ever to get that far," went on Flavius. "Your
luck has been good until now--"
"A Power has been with me," said Eodan, and touched his forehead where
the holy triskele lay under a grimy cloth.
"So you may think. But what educated man can take seriously those
overgrown children on Olympus?" The Roman nodded at Hwicca. "We spoke
of this now and then, you and I. Do you remember? There was a time you
gathered jasmine blossoms--"
"Be still about that or I will forget my word!" roared Eodan in the
Cimbric. Hwicca huddled back and lifted an arm, as though to ward off a
blow.
"As you wish," said Flavius, unruffled. "To continue--" A crash
outside, and the sound of swearing and a whip, interrupted him--"I
myself do not believe in any Power except chance. There are blind
moieties of matter, obeying blind laws; only the idiot hand of chance
keeps each cycle of centuries from being the same. Now it is very
possible, by chance, to throw the same number at dice several times
sequentially. It is not possible forever, my friend. I think you
have thrown about as many good numbers as any man in the world ever
did. Soon your luck must turn. You shall be found out through some
happenstance. You will then try to kill me. One way or another, we
shall all die. You and Phryne and Hwicca and myself, all dead--mold in
our mouths and our eye sockets empty." Flavius tossed off his wine and
poured another cup. "It is inevitable."
Eodan snarled, out of a chill, dreary foreboding, "If you say more such
unlucky words, I will--no, not kill you--each such word will cost you a
tooth. Now hold your mouth!"
Flavius shrugged gracefully. Phryne closed her eyes. Beneath the
booming and the voices on deck, there was silence.
Finally Eodan turned to his wife. She would not meet his look. When he
took her hand, it lay slack on his palm.
"Hwicca," he said, burred Cimbric low and unsure in his throat. "Pay
him no heed. We shall be free."
"Yes," she said, so he could scarcely hear it.
"That 'yes' was not meant," he told her. His heart lay a lump in his
breast.