XVIII

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.

Flavius bit his lip. Then: "How may I serve Your Majesty?"

"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."

Mithradates started. "What do you mean?"

"I was honored to serve the Great King, but it cannot be any more. Let me go out upon the Axylon."

Flavius caught a gasp between his teeth. Mithradates drew his knife in a hand that shook. The slaves at the room's end cowered back into shadow; some half-sensed ripple went along the lines of guardsmen, and all their eyes swung inward toward Eodan.

"I must thank the Roman," he went on. "I would have let her die out there, or worse than die. He showed me my shame. I am not certain why she is gone: it may be a spell cast on her or it may be of her own choosing, for some reason I do not understand. But she watched over me while I slept among foemen. I cannot offer her less now than my own help."

"You—would bring her back—here?" Mithradates said it with a stubbornness that dug in its heels. He would not believe anything else. "Well, perhaps so—"

"With the Alan kept hostage for his return, Your Majesty," put in Flavius.

Eodan shook his head. "Tjorr has nothing to do with this, My Lord. That is why I ask leave to depart the King's service. I do not think it likely Phryne wishes to return hither."

"And you would set her will above mine?" asked Mithradates in a stunned voice.

"What I would like," said Eodan, "is that you give her freely into my hands, so that I could bring her back here and let her do or not do whatever she wished. But I have no art of wheedling; I ask merely for a dismissal."

"You will get your head on a gatepost!" exclaimed Flavius in a blaze of victory.

Mithradates stood stooped, his breath rattling in his lungs. His head swung back and forth, as though he were a bull looking for a man to gore.

Suddenly he leaped forward, and his knife flashed. Eodan stepped aside. The knife struck a pillar, drove in and snapped off short. "Guards!" bellowed the king. "Seize this traitor!"

Eodan stood quietly. Hands fell upon him, spears touched his ribs. He glanced at Flavius. The Roman laughed aloud, bent close while Mithradates screamed and shredded his cloak, and whispered, "Did you think, you fool, he would let you go? You have all but said before his household, Phryne left because she would not be taken by him. You insulted more than the king's majesty, you insulted his manhood!"

"I knew what I said," Eodan answered.

Mithradates raged up, flung Flavius and a guardsman aside, and smote the Cimbrian's face with his hand.

Eodan shook a ringing head, licked the blood that ran from his mouth and said in Greek, "I did not know it was the custom of civilized men to strike a guest."

Mithradates fell back as though from a sword thrust.

Then for a while he paced, snarling and mewing. Flavius began to talk, but a lion roar silenced him. "Wine!" said the King at last. A slave hurried up with a flagon. Mithradates snatched it, kicked the kneeling man in the stomach, drained the cup and crumpled its heavy silver between his fingers.

"Another," he commanded.

It was brought him. He drank it with more care. He flung himself onto the high seat, slumped for a while, looked up into the darkness above the rafters and finally began to laugh. It was a raw, barking laugh, with little humor, but at the end he stood up and spoke calmly.

"Release him," he said. The guards fell back, and Eodan waited. Mithradates folded his arms. "After this," he continued, almost in a light tone, "you will not care to stay. It is a delicate question whether you are my guest, my soldier or my slave, but civilized people must be generous. Let the Cimbrian take the horse, the arms and the monies he got from me. Let him ride off wherever he wishes, so he come not back to this army." The wind piped around the hall; the fire-pits roared. "Well, begone!" cried Mithradates.

Eodan bent his knee and backed out, as though he were leaving on some royal errand. And would the Powers it were so, he thought dully, knowing a wound took hours to feel pain.

He heard Flavius say, in a voice that quivered: "Great King, will you also let this guest depart?"

As if from immensely far away, the voice of Mithradates came: "There is a destiny here. I would stand in its way if I dared—but I am only a man, even I.... Tomorrow at dawn, when we march north, you may quit the camp." An animal scream: "Now leave my eyes! All of you! Every man in here, leave the King to himself!"

They streamed out, almost running, terror written beneath the bright helmets; for the king sat at a heathen god's feet and wept.

Eodan saw Flavius stalk toward his own tent. They exchanged no words. He went to his place, clapped for a groom and donned his Persian war-garb. A saddled gray stallion was led forth. Eodan sprang upon it and trotted quickly from camp.

He would follow the highway south, hoping for a sign.

An hour afterward, when the Pontine army was only smoke on a gray horizon, he saw the dust cloud behind. It neared, until he could see the black horse that raised it, and finally he heard the drumbeat of its hoofs—and Tjorr's red beard flaunted itself in the wind.

"Whoof!" said the Alan, pulling up alongside him. "You might have waited."

Eodan cried aloud, "It was not needful. You should have stayed where your luck was."

"No—now, what luck would come to a man that forsook his oaths?" said Tjorr. "I was weary of Pontus anyhow. Now we will surely drink of my Don again."