The Golden Slave

XV

The south coast of the Black Sea was good to look upon, where red cliffs and green valleys and their many streams met wine-dark waters; high overhead went summer clouds, blinding white, and thunder spoke from the Caucasus. Sinope lay on a small peninsula about halfway between Byzantium and Colchis. It was an ancient Greek colony, now become the chief seat of the Pontine kings.

Eodan stood in the bow with Phryne and Tjorr, watching the city grow as they entered its harbor, until the first loveliness of marble colonnades and many-colored gardens yielded to a tarry workaday bustle where the surface was crowded with galleys from half the East. He was well clothed in white linen tunic, blue chlamys, leather belt and sandals, the German sword polished and whetted at his waist. They had even shaved him so he could look civilized and worked the dye from his hair so he could look foreign. He wondered how that would affect his price, if Mithradates judged against him.

“Tjorr,” he said, “since your folk have clashed with these before now, are you not in danger of his wrath? I have been wondering if it would not be wiser for you to stay aboard here until―”

The Alan, clad like his chief but still doggedly shaggy-faced, answered with a boy’s eagerness: “From what I’ve heard, he is not one of those sour Romans. Why, if he has any honor at all, he will send me home laden with gifts, just because our raids kept his soldiers amused.” He laid a hand on the hammer slung at his side. “Nor do I think anything can go too badly wrong while I bear this. Did we not win a ship, strike off our fetters, thwart our enemies, get pulled from the sea god’s mouth and have a well-fed passage here, while I bore the Smasher? There’s luck in this iron.”

Eodan thought of Hwicca and his lips tightened. “It may be,” he said. “Though I am unsure what that word luck means.”

She had ceased to haunt him. First had been all those days when her face on the balefire came between his eyes and the world, though it had not been her, that cold white face, it was dead ― but where then had she wandered? He would sleep for a little and wake up; a few times he woke so happily and looked about for her before remembering she was dead. But since Phryne called him to anger, with the biting unjustness of her words, he had been more nearly himself. There was a goal again, the beech forests of the North, with sunlight snared in their crowns and a lark far and far up overhead ― yes, he wanted to go back and search for his childhood, but homecoming was not what it had been in his thoughts. Hwicca would not be with him.

Well, a man sometimes lived when they cut off a hand or a leg or a hope; he fumbled on as best he could, and what he had lost hurt him on rainy nights.

Eodan shut off the awareness and turned to Phryne. “Are you certain you will not speak for us?” he asked. “Our tale is so strange already that it will add small strangeness for a woman to argue on our behalf. And you have more knowledge of this realm, and a quicker wit.”

The girl smiled faintly and shook her head. She wore a white dress Arpad had gotten her, and a palla with the hood drawn up. That covered her shortened hair and made a discreet shade across her face; here in the East a woman was regarded as being much less than a man, so this garb would please by its modesty.

“I have already told you the small amount I know, and you have been clever to draw much else from the captain,” she said. “Nor does it matter greatly. The knowledge we shall need is how to deal with men, and there, Eodan, you are showing more inborn gifts than any other person I have met.”

He shrugged, a little puzzled as to her meaning, and watched the harbor. Small boats crawled about the galley’s oars, tub-shaped coracles whose paddlers screamed their wares of fruit, wine, sausage, cheese, guidance among the brothels and other delicacies. The people of Sinope were a mixed lot. Most were dark, stocky, curly-headed, big-nosed and hairy, but not all. On the wharfs Eodan could see Armenian mountaineers with shepherds’ staffs and crooked knives, a sleek Byzantine merchant, a gaily-robed warrior of pure Gallic strain, a pair of hobnailed Macedonian mercenaries, a spear-bearing man, in fur cap and white blouse and baggy trousers tucked into his boots, whom Tjorr said delightedly was an Alanic tribesman, a graybearded Jew, a lean Arab ― this was not Rome, this Sinope, but it pulled in its share of the earth’s people!

They docked, and Arpad led his guests ― or prisoners ― ashore with an escort of soldiers. Since this was an official ship, they stopped for no formalities of bribing the customs agents. A messenger ran ahead of them, and they had not reached the palace when he came back to say the king would receive them at once.

Eodan went between the shields of marching men, through the city gates and a cobbled street of flat-roofed buildings shrieking with bazaars, where the escort clubbed a way, and at last up a hill to the palace. Heavy-armored men, with helmet and cuirass, greaves and shield, sword and spear, tramped up and down upon its walls like a moving arsenal; here and there squatted lightly clad archers holding the short Asiatic hornbow. Beneath posed a guard of Persian cavalry, tall arrogant hook-faced men, their helmets and horses magnificent with plumes, blue cloaks fluttering about scaly coats of mail, trousered legs ending in boots of silver-inlaid leather, lance in hand, ax and bow and small round shield at the saddle―”By the thunder-snake itself,” muttered Tjorr, “how I’d love to sack their barracks!”

A trumpeter preceded them through bronze gates. They went over a path beside which roses flared and Grecian nymphs leaped marble out of secret bowers; they saw a fountain shaped like Hercules and the hydra, so skillfully modeled and painted that Eodan grabbed for his sword; then the stairway opened before them, with sphinxes crouched at the foot, bulls at the head and two polished soldiers rigid on every step. There Arpad’s escort was told to wait. The captain himself and his three guests surrendered their weapons to the watch.

“Not this,” protested Tjorr, holding his hammer. “It is my luck.”

“A god, did you say?” asked the Latin-speaking guard who wanted it. He looked at his officer, unsure; there were so many gods, and some of them were touchy.

The officer shook his head. “No lesser god enters the Presence of Mithras, who is always with the king. Leave it here, fellow, you’ll get it back.”

“But―”

“Do as he says,” Eodan broke in.

Tjorr loosed the thong, his face miserable. “I tell you, my luck is in that hammer. Well, maybe your triskele will see us through.”

“Would you keep the king waiting?” puffed Arpad.

He led the way, his best robe rippling about him, up the stairs and under the red and blue columns of the portico. Slaves prostrated themselves at the doors: once only, since the king received three such salutes. They were conducted down halls of lifelike murals; Eodan saw with a thrill how often the Bull recurred, sacrificed by a youth or shaking great horns beneath a golden sun-disc. Lamps in silver chains gave a clear unwavering light. But, when finally the carpeted ways opened on an audience chamber, the sun himself came through a great glazed window behind the throne.

It was so bright that Eodan could hardly see the man upon carven seat, except as a robe of Tyrian purple and a golden chaplet. He and his companions were held back by the door. Arpad advanced alone, between grave men ― longhaired, sometimes bearded ― in brilliant garments. Among them stood a few outland envoys; a turban or a shaven pigtailed skull betokened foreignness. Around the room, motionless between soaring porphyry columns, were a guard of spearmen.

A long time passed while King Mithradates read the dispatches handed him, questioned Arpad more closely and dictated to his secretary. Eodan could not hear what was said, the courtiers made so much noise as they circulated and chattered. It would be in Greek or Persian, anyhow.

But finally the chamberlain called out something. A hush fell bit by bit, and Eodan saw eyes turn his way. He walked forward. Tjorr and Phryne came behind him; it had been arranged thus at her advice. At the ritual distance from the throne, Eodan halted. Tjorr and Phryne made obeisance, thrice knocking their heads on the carpet and then remaining crouched. Eodan merely bowed his head once upon folded hands.

He heard a sigh go around the room, like the wind before a hailstorm.

Raising his eyes, he locked gaze with Mithradates Eupator. The King of Pontus was a giant, tall as Eodan and broad as Tjorr, his hands ropy with veins and sinew like any huntsman’s. Within a mane of curly dark hair and bearded jaw-line, his head was nearly Greek ― a wide brow, gray eyes, straight nose, rounded shaven chin; it lifted straight from the pillar of his throat. He was only in his mid-thirties, Phryne said, but he owned half this eastern sea, and Rome itself feared he might take all Asia.

“Do you not bow to the throne?” he asked, almost mildly. His Latin came as easily as any Senator’s.

“My Lord,” said Eodan, “I beg forgiveness if I, a stranger, have unknowingly offended. I gave to you that sign of respect we have in the North, when one of royal blood meets a greater king.”

He had made it up himself the day before, but no one had to know that. He hazarded a cruel death ― far safer to proclaim himself dust beneath the royal feet ― but as one more humble suppliant among thousands he could not have hoped for much.

Mithradates leaned back and rubbed his chin. Curious, thought Eodan in a far part of his being, the king’s nails are blue at the base.… “My captain told me what little you would say to him,” murmured the Pontine. “I trust you will be more frank with me.”

“Great King,” said Eodan, “I have so little to bring you I am ashamed. May you live forever! All the world lays its wealth in your hands. I can but offer the salvage price of my ship, paid at Rhodes, which Arpad insists is his. I leave to your judgment, Wise One, whether the monies do indeed belong to him, or to me who would give them as an offering to Your Majesty. But one gift at least I bring, if you will accept it ― my story, what I have done since leaving my own realm, and what I have seen from Thule to Rhodes and from Dacia to Spain. Since this tale is my gift to you, I did not think it fit that Arpad, your servant, should have its maidenhead.”

Mithradates opened his mouth and bellowed with laughter.

“Well, your gift is accepted,” he said at last, “and I shall not be miserly myself if the tale be rich. From what country are you?”

“Cimberland, Great King.”

“I have heard somewhat of the Cimbri. Indeed, one of my neighbors sent them an embassy a few years ago. Surely this will be a night’s entertainment, though you humble my pride by making me hear it in Latin. Chamberlain! See to it that these three are given a suite, changes of raiment and whatever else they require.” Mithradates said it in the Roman tongue, doubtless for Eodan’s benefit, since he must repeat it in Greek. “Go, I will see you at the evening meal. And now, Arpad, about those monies.”

“Great King of All the World,” wailed Arpad, flat on his belly, “may your children people the earth! It was but that I, your most unworthy subject, thought to offer you―”

As he went to the guest chambers, Eodan asked the slave who led him ― an Italian, he saw with glee ― what the king had meant, that he was ashamed to hear the tale in Latin. “Know, Master,” said the boy, “that our puissant lord keeps no interpreters on his own staff, for he himself speaks no fewer than two and twenty languages. You must indeed have come from far away.”

The suite was as luxurious as one might have expected. Phryne said doubtfully, “We build our hopes on Vesuvius. The soil there is surpassingly rich, but sometimes the mountain buries it in fire. I will be happy if we can get from here unscathed.”

“Why,” said Eodan, surprised, “I would have thought you could dwell here more gladly than any place else in the world. They are a mannered folk, it seems.”

“They are more alien to me, a Greek, than the Romans — or the Sarmatians ― or the Cimbri.” She looked out the window, down to gardens where paths twisted so a man could lose his way. “If we stay long enough, you will understand.”

“It may be. Nonetheless, I have a feeling no few arts could be learned here that might take root in the North.” Eodan went over to her. “Though one of the greatest could be taught me by yourself.”

She turned about with an eagerness that astonished him. “What do you mean?” Her face flushed, and she lifted her hands like a small girl.

“I mean this craft of writing. Not that we would have much use for it in the North … and yet, who knows?”

“Oh.” She looked away again. “Writing. Indeed. I will teach you when the chance comes. It is not hard.”

Near sundown, an obsequious eunuch informed them they would soon dine. They left Phryne to a solitary meal ― women did not eat before the king ― and followed him to a lesser feasting hall.

Music sounded from a twilight peristyle ― flute, lyre, drum, gong, sistrum, and other instruments Eodan had not heard, yowling like cats. The diners, arrayed in their silks and fine linens, gold and silver and jewels, lay about a long table on couches, in somewhat the Grecian manner. Mithradates came last, to trumpets, and all but Eodan prostrated themselves.

There was silence. A slave brought forth a cup and knelt to offer it to the king. Mithradates looked over his half-guests. “Tonight I drink hemlock, in memory of Socrates.” A kind of unvoiced whisper ran about the assembly as he drained the beaker.

“Now,” he said, “let the feast begin!”

Eodan, who was hungry, paid little heed to the succession of artificed viands. Cordelia had offered him enough of that; let a man be nourished on rye and beef, with a horn of ale to wash it down. He took enough mutton to fill himself and barely tasted the rest. For the hour or so in which they ate ― this was no elaborate banquet, only the king’s evening meal ― no person spoke. Eodan did not miss the talk, and the music he ignored. The dancers were another matter. He studied the acrobatic boys closely; this or that trick could be useful in combat. When the supple women came out with dessert and dropped one filmy garment after the next as they swayed about, he knew his hurts were scarring over. He would have traded all these for Hwicca ― yes, all women who lived ― but since she was gone and they were here …

Finally, with some decorum restored, there was general conversation. Mithradates talked impatiently to various self-important persons, dismissed them at last with plain relief and roared the length of the table: “Cimbrian! Now let us hear that tale you promised!”

Eodan followed his beckoning arm, to lie beside the king himself. Envious eyes trailed him. Not everyone listened ― the whole room buzzed with talk ― but he was as glad of that. He had not wished to make the Cimbrian destiny a night’s idle amusement; but to this gray-eyed man, himself a warrior, it was fitting to relate what Boierik had done.

Now and again Mithradates broke in with a question. “Is it true that sky and sea run into one up there, as Pytheas has written? … How high does the sun stand at midsummer?

… Do they know of any poisons? This is a self-preserving interest of mine ― too many kings have died of a subtle drink. I take a little each day, so that now they cannot harm me, neither hemlock nor arsenicum nor nightshade nor ― But continue.”

The lamps burned low; slaves stole about filling them with fresh oil. Eodan’s throat hoarsened; he drank one cup of wine after another, until his head buzzed like all summer’s bees in a clover meadow in Jutland…. Mithradates matched him, goblet for goblet, though the king’s was larger, and showed no sign of it.

And at last Eodan said: “Then your ship found us and brought us hither. So it may be the gods have ended their feud with me.”

“That Ahriman has,” corrected Mithradates, “but he is the common enemy of all men and ― Could it be, I wonder, that the Bull in whose sign you wandered the world was the same that bleeds upon the altars of the Mystery? But enough.” His hand cracked down on Eodan’s shoulder, and he raised his cup, clashing it against the Cimbrian’s. “What a journey!” he cried. “What a journey!”

“I thank Your Majesty. But it has not ended yet.”

“Are you certain?” Mithradates looked at him, with gravity falling like a veil. “I wonder if you are not too much a man to be flung back on any northward wind. Would you like to fight Rome?”

Eodan answered harshly, “There is blood of my blood on their hands. I count it defeat that I shall not meet the man Flavius again. I will set up a horse skull in the North and curse him, but it is not enough.”

“Your chance could come,” said Mithradates. “There will be war between Rome and Pontus. Not yet, not for some years, but it is brewing, and it will be pitiless. I shall need good officers.”

“I have not the skills, Great King,” said Eodan.

“You could learn them, I think. See here. This very month I am leading an expedition against the Tectosages. Their tetrarch has been a thorn in my side since I took Galatian territory. We have had border skirmishes, and all the Gallic cantons lean toward Rome and intrigue against me. They must learn who is master. It will not be a great war ― an outright conquest would alarm the Romans too much at this stage of things ― only a punitive expedition. But the fighting will be brisk and the booty sufficient. I would like to have you and your Alanic friend in my following. I think you could serve me well, and you would gain in both wealth and knowledge.”

“I should be honored, Great King,” said Eodan. One did not refuse such an offer, and indeed it could be profitable. And to ride a war-horse again!

“So be it. We shall talk further. Now, hm, did you say your Grecian girl was a maiden and wishes to remain so? I would not stand for it! I took it for granted, till you related otherwise, that you two held her in common.”

“She lifted me from slavery, Lord. It is a small thing to repay her.”

“Well, as you wish. If she is indeed learned, she can tutor the younger children of palace officials.” Mithradates grinned. “Meanwhile, you and the Alan have certain needs. I take it you both prefer women?” He beckoned his secretary and gave orders.

Morning was not far off when Eodan and Tjorr entered their room, none too steadily. A maidservant accompanying them woke Phryne, who came from her chamber wrapped in a mantle. Her eyes were dark in the lamp-glow. “What has happened?” she asked.

“Much,” said Eodan. “It is well for us. But now you shall have a private room, and a servant of your own.”

“Why―” Phryne’s look turned forlorn. It fell on a couch in the corner and on the two who sat there. Long gowns and demure veils did not hide what they were.

She grew white. She stamped her foot and cried out, “You could have let your wife grow cold in death before this!”

Eodan, weary, startled by her rage, snapped back: “What good would it be for her ghost if I remained less than a man, just because you are less than a woman?”

Phryne drew her mantle over her face and departed.

Eodan stared after her, tasting his own words poisonous on his tongue. But it was too late now ― was it not? The slave girl came over to him, knelt and pressed his hand to her forehead. He saw through the thin silk that she was young and fair of shape.

He said in an ashen tone, “the King is kind.”

“Da,” muttered Tjorr. “But I know not, I know not. All this we gained when my hammer was elsewhere. I wonder how much luck is in such gifts.”