XX

They rode up to the shepherd's house. Phryne struck the dog on the nose

with her staff when it flew at her throat. It ran away, and she strung

her bow and nocked an arrow. Eodan stayed mounted, the German sword in

his hand. Tjorr went afoot to the door and beat on it with his hammer.

"Open!" he bawled. Nothing stirred. He hefted the maul, swung it high

and sent it crashing against the latch. The flimsy bolt cracked in two.

Voices piped with fear in the dark hut. A shaking graybeard barred the

entrance, holding a rusty old ax. Tjorr grabbed him by the tunic and

threw him to the ground, not unkindly. "Out!" he said, gesturing.

They shambled forth. There was only one woman, shapeless in a sacklike

gown, and a dozen children. They looked so unlike that Eodan decided

fatherhood was divided among the three herdsmen who had left their

flock and were hovering timidly half a mile away.

"Must we turn bandit?" asked Phryne in a troubled voice.

Eodan considered her, clad in the same foul garments as the shepherds,

but shining through it. He said bluntly, "This is no otherwise than

smiting that whelp they kept." But because of her look he remembered

certain thoughts about a king and fumbled in his purse. He tossed some

coins to the ground. The grandsire sucked in his breath and crawled to

shaky feet; the three men edged closer.

"Does anyone here speak Greek?" called Eodan. They stared. "Well, you

shall understand my signs then, with a kick if your minds lag, for our

time is short. I will give you ten times the worth of these hovels." He

turned to Phryne. "Do you watch over Tjorr and me. Let them not talk

much among themselves. Shoot the first who shows treachery. And now let

us work!"

Dismounting, he peered into the house. Enough light came through

the door and smokehole to show him a littered earth floor, piled

sheepskins, a few stone tools and clay vessels, a dung fire. But the

ceiling was what he looked at. Branches hauled from some remote forest

many years ago were laid across the walls, and turf piled on them to

make a roof. He nodded. "Thus I thought," he said.

Tjorr rounded up the family and made them watch him. A child whimpered

as he climbed the rough wall to the roof and began throwing off its

sod layers. He flung the child a coin. At once the oldest boy grinned

brashly, swarmed up and helped. Tjorr laughed, clambered down and went

to the shed. Using Phryne's staff for a lever, he pried a few rocks

out of its wall. The same child studied his face carefully and tried

another whimper. Tjorr gave it another coin. The mother giggled. Tjorr

urged her to the task.

Then for some hours he and Eodan made the shepherd folk demolish

their roof and their outbuildings. Phryne paced the dusty grounds,

watchfully, her bow always in her hand. The wind blew from the high

country and the snow clouds moved closer.

There were stout wooden posts at the corners of the shed. Tjorr dug

them out and dragged them to the roofless house. He set two of them

upright on the floor--one close to the entrance and one a yard from the

rear wall; across them he laid a third. Then he put the branch-rafters

back, crossing his heavy timber piece, and heaped a layer of turf on as

before. The shepherd people gaped, blinked, made signs against the evil

eye, which these surely crazed men must have, but helped him after a

few blows. He had them form a line and pass him stones from the wrecked

outbuildings. These he laid on the turf, within a yard of the rear

wall, layer upon layer. Finally the branches beneath sagged, and even

the timber upbearing them started to groan. Quickly, then, he threw

enough sod on his roof of boulders to hide what it was.

Meanwhile Eodan was digging inside the house, at its rear end. He sank

a pit nearly eight feet deep and drove a shaft from that, several yards

outward, so that it ended below the grounds; he left the wooden shovel

there and came back out. Rather his crew of men and children did this,

even as most of the roof work had Tjorr merely overseeing. They would

need their whole strength later.

At the end, hours past the time they began, Phryne looked at the

completed task. She saw merely a shepherd hut with a somewhat thicker

roof than was common, and wreckage behind it. "Do our lives hang on no

more than this?" she asked wonderingly. "Would it not have been better

to flee across the plain?"

"Once they found our trail," said Tjorr grimly, "they could have

changed horse and horse while our own ran themselves dead. No, our

chances here are not good, but I think the _disa's_ plan has made them

better for us than if we played mouse to the Roman ferret"

"One more thing to do," said Eodan. He kindled a stick, went over and

touched it to the haystacks. The shepherds moaned. Eodan grinned, with

a certain pity, and tossed the grandsire his full purse. "There's the

price of your flocks and home and a winter's lodging. Go!" He waved

his sword and pointed south. They stumbled from him, out onto the

plain, looking back with frightened animal eyes. "Why those bonfires?"

asked Tjorr. "Not that I don't like the warmth on this bitter day,

but--"

"Hay could be stacked around the house and lit," said Eodan. "I do not

wish to die in an oven."

Tjorr tugged his ruddy beard. "I had not thought of that. Is it a heavy

burden to be forever thinking, _disa_?"

Eodan did not hear him. He took Phryne's hand in his. "Have I any hope

of making you depart until the fight is over?" he asked.

Her dark head shook. "In all else will I obey you," she said, "but I

have a right to stand with my man."

"I made you a promise once," he began, shaken.

"Oh, I hold you to it," she laughed. It was a very small and lonely

laugh, torn by the wind. "You shall not kiss me against my will. But,

Eodan, it is now my will."

He touched his lips to hers, with an unhurried tenderness; if they

lived, there would be more than this. Tjorr said: "I make out a dust

cloud to the north, _disa_. I think horsemen."

"Then let us go within," said Eodan.

It was dark in the hut; stones covered the smokehole, now, and the

sagging door was closed behind them. They sat on the earth and waited,

Phryne lying in the circle of Eodan's arm. Presently hoofs rang on the

ground outside, and weapons clashed. They heard a dog bark.

"The place seems deserted," said a voice in Latin. "Maybe the fire in

that hay drove its people off."

"And they left two hobbled war-horses?" snapped Flavius. "Look in and

see if anyone lairs."

Tjorr planted himself by the doorway, raising his hammer. The door

creaked open. Chill gray light outlined a Roman helmet and shimmered

off a Roman cuirass. Tjorr struck down, and the helmet gonged. There

was the noise of crunching bones. The man fell and did not move again.

"Here we are, Flavius!" cried the Alan.

Phryne loosed an arrow out the door. Someone cursed. Eodan, glimpsing

horses and men, sprang to the entrance and peered out. Ten living

Romans and a couple of Gauls in battle harness--a dozen men, then,

against two men and a woman.... "I reckon, Eodan," said Tjorr, "you and

I must each strike six blows."

Flavius rode into the Cimbrian's view. His ravaged face stiffened

beneath the plumed helmet. He spoke almost wearily: "I still offer

pardon, even liberty and reward, to your companions. It is only you I

want, and only because you murdered Hwicca."

"I would most gladly meet you in single combat," said Eodan.

"We have been over this ground before," said Flavius. "Let me ask you

instead--do you really wish the Sarmatian and the Greek girl to die on

your account? Would it not be most honorable of you to release them

from whatever vows they gave you--even command them to depart?"

"He is our king," said Phryne from the darkness. "There are some

commands that no king may give."