"You can tell me what you know of Phryne's vanishing," spat Mithradates.
"What?" Flavius took a step backward. His eyes flickered to Eodan, then
returned--and suddenly a faint smile quivered upon his mouth.
"I know nothing, Lord," he murmured. "Yet I would venture that she fled
in the night?"
"It is so told," Mithradates answered. "Is this any work of yours?"
"Of course not, Great King! I suggest--"
"He _says_ it was not caused by him," snapped Eodan. "Yet My Master
knows he was never a friend to me or mine. Nor is Rome itself a friend
of Pontus. What better way to harm us all at one blow?"
Flavius looked at Mithradates, who rumbled like a beast in the arena.
Then, slowly, the Roman's ruddy-brown eyes sought Eodan's, held them
and would not let go. "This was your plan to strike at me, was it not?"
he murmured.
"I know nothing of it!" shouted Eodan. "I only know--"
Flavius shook his head, smiling. "Cimbrian, Cimbrian, you have laid
down your natural weapons and tried a womanish trick. You will gain no
victory with it. There is never any luck in demeaning oneself."
Eodan sought for words, but he found only a black mist of his rage
and fear. And of his shame--that he should have tried to use Phryne's
plight as a dagger in a Roman back. Yes, he thought, shaken, I have
called down evil upon myself and now I must somehow endure what comes.
Flavius turned back to Mithradates. He flung out speech as crisp as
though to an army: "Great King, you are insulted by so clumsy an
attempt at dividing me from your royal favor. Is it not likelier that
this man, who knows the girl--we have only his word and hers that she
is even a maiden--this man plotted with her to flee? Surely she had
more chance to conspire with him and his friend than me; the caravan
master who brought us here from Sinope will testify that she shunned me
the whole trip, whereas she was in Eodan's tent yesterday afternoon.
And would she go out into that desert with no hope of succor? Would
she not assure herself of an accomplice, a captain who could ride out
from the army whenever and wherever he wished--to bring her food,
protection, ultimately to smuggle her back?"
Mithradates hunched his thick frame. His knuckles stood forth white on
the knife hilt; he glared with three red eyes at Eodan and hawked out:
"What have you to say?"
"That I serve the King and this Roman does not," answered the Cimbrian
frantically.
He felt himself driven back by Flavius' marching phrases: "Protector
of the East, there is a simple explanation for what has occurred.
Rather, there are two. First, the barbarian and the Greekling feared
what would happen when you, their master, learned she had lied to you
and was only the leavings of a runaway slave. Thus he sent her out and
will try to lead her back in the wake of the army; she may live with
him, disguised, in Sinope itself; or conceivably he lured her forth
with some such promise, murdered and buried her. Second, it is possible
that he himself speaks truth for once, and it was her decision alone
to flee. Like unto like--she, a slave born, would rather lie with some
Phrygian goatherd than with the King!"
Mithradates bellowed, as though he had been speared. He seized a lamp,
broke its chains with a jerk and hurled it into the fire-pit. When
his working face came under Eodan's eyes, the Cimbrian knew where he
had seen such a look before--in small children, about to scream from
uncontrollable rage.
"She will follow that lamp into the flames," said the Pontine. It was
almost a groan.
"The Roman lies!" Eodan stalked toward Flavius, raising his hands. The
worn eagle face waited for him with a smile of mastery. "I will tear
out his throat!"
Remembering himself, he turned about and cried: "We do not know it was
not witchcraft, Lord."
Mithradates swallowed hard. He beat a fist into his palm, walked back
and forth under the twisted Celtic gods and, inch by inch, drew a
cover across his wrath. Finally his giant striding halted. He searched
Eodan's countenance somberly and asked, "Will you swear, by all which
is holy to you, you have never known her body, and this is no work of
yours?"
"I swear it, My King," said Eodan.
"A barbarian's word," jeered Flavius.
"Be still!" crashed the voice of Mithradates. "I know this man."
Then for a while longer he brooded. "Or does any man know another, or
even himself?" he asked the wooden gods.
Decision hardened over the moltenness in him. "Well," he said heavily,
"it seems that she went because of something in her own will, or an
enchantment. In neither case is she a fit vessel for royal seed. Let
the Axylon have her."
Eodan's muscles began to ease. He thought, in a remote part of himself:
Flavius turned my own foolishness against me, but perhaps Phryne left
her good genius here to watch. For now it has all become as she must
have wished--herself riding off unpursued and no disfavor caused Tjorr
or me.
"She is only another female, after all," said Mithradates. "I could
send men to fetch her back and let her die an example, but it is
unworthy of a civilized man."
"She would doubtless kill herself when your riders came in view, Your
Majesty," said Flavius. "Unless, of course, the barbarian here were
sent after her--"
"Would you truly split him from me?" croaked Mithradates. Sweat studded
his face; Eodan knew suddenly what a combat the king was waging in
himself. "Go, both of you!"
"At once, Your Majesty," said Flavius. "The Lord of the East is wise,
knowing that if she fled in rebelliousness she will be most amply
punished. A herdsman who spied her from afar would know how to stalk
her and pounce unsuspected." He bowed a little toward Eodan. "If the
King permits one more word from me, I should like to withdraw my hints
as to treason by the barbarian. It is clear that he has abandoned the
girl to the Axylon. So if ever he did conspire with her, he is now
aware of his rightful duty toward his true benefactor."
The fires burned higher in the king's eyes. His tone cracked the barest
trifle: "So. Let neither Cimbrian nor Alan leave the army, even for
minutes, until we come home." His lips writhed upward. "It is not that
I doubt your oath, Eodan--" But you do, mourned a thought through the
Cimbrian's upsurging wrath, you do! Flavius knows well how to sow
dragon's teeth--"merely to silence tongues."
Eodan saw Flavius waver; the hall and its grinning gods became unreal.
He threw back his head to howl.
And then everything drained from him. He stood empty of anger, or hate,
or even sorrow. There was only a road, with night at its end, and the
knowledge that he must walk it or cease to be himself.
"Lord," he said, "let your servant depart."