In the morning, after a few dark hours of wakefulness or nightmare--he
was unsure which--Eodan rose to take up his officer's duties. The
Pontines would start home at dawn the next day; though the army itself
could have struck camp in an hour, its train of plunder, captives and
tribute was something else. Eodan was glad enough to lose himself in
a whirl of horses. Now and then he glimpsed the Romans, fully armed
before their little resting place--no more than a decury, and yet they
had crossed half Asia to make a demand upon the king in his host. It
came to him, even in his anger, that he was honored to have one child
who would be Roman.
This day was also cold and blustering. Dust flew about his boots, up
into his eyes and nose and gullet; the clash of iron and brass had a
somehow wintry sound. Up over the Axylon bulked monstrous blue-black
clouds with rain or snow in their bellies, but the earth remained
mummy-dry. Tent canvas cracked in the wind.
About mid-morning Eodan saw a royal runner weave between the mules
whose roundup he was overseeing. He thought nothing of it until the boy
plucked at his foot. Then he looked down from the saddle and heard:
"Master Captain, the king commands your instant attendance."
"I hear and obey," said Eodan's training. He snapped an order to a
younger horseman to continue the task and trotted through the scurry of
the camp. Inwardly he felt a tightening. What would the ruler want of
him now?
When he yielded his sword he felt wholly alone. He had not even a
mail-coat today, only dirt-streaked tunic and breeches in the Persian
manner, a plumed helmet to mark his rank. The guards at the gate
squinted against wind and dust, making their faces somehow inhuman.
Eodan crossed the courtyard and entered the keep.
The hall was nearly empty; one never thought of the rigid troopers
around the walls, of the secretary with tablet and stylus or the
runners crouched at his feet. Mithradates paced before a fire-pit,
where flame welled up. He himself was Persian clad; a ruby upon his
brow gleamed like a red third eye. He wore a dagger at his hip; from
time to time he half drew it and then snicked it back into the sheath
as though into an enemy's heart.
Eodan advanced until he caught the royal glance and made his usual
obeisance.
"Down on your face, barbarian!" roared Mithradates.
That was no moment to haggle about pride. Eodan threw himself flat.
"How have I offended My Lord?" The upsurge of his own wrath came to him
as a shock. He had thought this man was his friend.
"Where is the woman Phryne?" the voice thundered over his head.
Eodan leaped to his feet. "Is she gone?" he shouted.
"I gave you no command to rise," growled Mithradates.
"Is she gone?" yelled the Cimbrian again, out of a feeling that fire
had touched him.
Mithradates stared at him for a long while. Slowly, the king's visage
softened. "Then you do not know?" he asked quietly.
"By my father's ghost, Lord, I swear I do not."
"Hear, then. Her maids entered her tent this morning to help her
arise. She was not there. The eunuch on guard says he knows nothing.
I believe him, though he shall still drink poison for his stupidity,
and be pardoned only if my new antidote saves him. There was a hole
in the tent, at the rear; she must have slashed it with a knife among
her possessions. When word of this finally came to me, I had inquiries
made. An under-groom of your own, Cimbrian, says she came to him in
the night, demanding horses, clothing, arms and food, and rode off. He
says he had received orders to give her whatever she wished without
question."
"That is true, Great King, but--I never thought--I never--Why would she
have gone, whose destiny had just blossomed?"
"And into the Axylon! She was last seen riding south on the road into
the Axylon!"
"Surely there is witchcraft here," said Eodan. "She never showed any
sign of madness, Lord. An evil spirit must have seized her, or some
spell--"
Inwardly, coldly, his mind raced and dodged, like a hare with wolves
behind. He did not know what might haunt these dreary plains; perhaps
she was indeed harried out by a troll. He was thinly surprised that he
did not cower at the thought, as once he would have done, but wished
only to find that creature and sink iron into it. Yet maybe she had
done this of her own will, for some reason unknown to him. He found it
hard to imagine his cool Phryne, who knew what the stars were made of,
seized by some misshapen Phrygian shadow; or was it just that he dared
not imagine it?
Whatever the truth, he wanted to go after her himself. No yapping
Asiatics would carry her back in ropes to the king's bed. It was not
meet!
Eodan's green gaze narrowed upon Mithradates. He saw the terrors of a
thousand generations, who had muttered in dark huts and brewed magic
against a world they peopled with demons, flit over the lion-face. Let
him dissect as many criminals and cast as many learned horoscopes as he
wished; Mithradates remained only half a Greek.
"They deal in black arts here," said the king. His finger traced a sign
against evil, the Cross of Light that stood on the banners of Mithras.
"I'll hale the wizard we saw up onto a rack before this hour is out."
A scheme sprang into Eodan's head. His heart leaped with it.
"Or the Romans?" he said.
"What? No, their law forbids magic."
"I have seen much Roman law broken by Romans, Great Master. Also, this
may not be sorcery after all; it may be some trick of theirs."
Mithradates whirled on a runner. "Bring me the Flavius," he rapped.
Thereafter he paced, up and down, up and down; the only noise being his
boots thudding, the fire that hissed in the pits and the wind whining
outside. There was much smoke in the hall today; it stung tears from
Eodan's eyes.
He thought back to the night before ... how small she had been, under
the tower which was the king ... and why had she been so afraid that
his displeasure with her might be visited on her comrades? When the
king tired of a concubine, even if she had only been with him one
night, he did not rage about it. He always had enough women. He gave
her to some noble, as a special mark of favor, and of course the noble
would never be anything but gentle toward such a token. Usually he made
her his chief wife. So Phryne's luck had come golden to roost on her
shoulder, by the mere fact of a royal command to bed.
Yet she had looked upon Eodan with desolation. And she had thrown him a
final furtive word, not to trouble himself about her, for she would do
what was best.
He thought, stiffening: It was so little to her liking, to enter a
harem, that she rode forth alone. Out there is a land of wolf, bear,
lynx and herdsmen wilder than they; south are Lycaonia and Parthia,
where a woman is also only an animal. If she is not slain along the
way, there will come a time when she must turn her dagger against
herself.
Flavius entered. "Hail, King of the East," he said. He saw Eodan and
stopped. The Cimbrian remained unmoving.