The Golden Slave

III

Early the next year, only a few days after the feast of Mars had signaled the vernal equinox, they brought an injured slave to the master’s house. This was on a Samnian latifundium owned by Gnaeus Valerius Flavius.

It was a raw day ― low smoky clouds scudded over the fields, with a cold whistle of wind and a few rain-spatters. The rolling land lay wet and dark, its trees nearly bare save for a clump of pines. A rutted road gleamed with wind-ruffled puddles, and a few cows and goats, still winter-shaggy, huddled behind the sheds. The field slaves stamped their feet, blew on chafed hands and bent to their task; no idleness now, this was plowing and sowing time, that the flax might clothe Rome next winter. Their overseers rode up and down the lines, touching a back here and there with a skilled lash, but lightly; today the air did all the needful whipping for them.

Phryne came out of the house and felt how the wind bit. Her stola skirts streamed from her girdle, and she almost lost the blue palla before she got it on. Nevertheless, she could not have stayed another hour in the villa. Mistress Cordelia would have it hot as Ethiopia, and drown the brazier fumes in enough incense to throttle a mule!

As she walked over the sere lawn, smiling to old gardener Mopsus but hurrying on (he was a dear, and so lonely since the master sold his last grandchild ― and a Greek ― but how he talked), she saw two field hands approach. They were common dark men, some or other kind of barbarian, she didn’t know what. But the one they supported was something else. She had not seen so big a man in a long time, and his unkempt yellow hair and beard tossed a blaze across the sunless sky.

Why… he must be a Cimbrian… one of the very people who had captured Master Flavius in Gaul! It was a Euripidean situation. Phryne went down the hill for a closer look. One of the dark men saw her and bobbed his head with coarse deference ― a household slave, personal attendant to the mistress herself, was not common folks.

“What is the matter?” asked Phryne. “What happened?”

The Cimbrian lifted his head. He bore a strongly molded face, heavy about the jaw and brows but almost Hellenic of nose. His eyes were wide apart beneath a tattooed triskele (how had the yelping barbarians of Thule ever come on that most ancient symbol?) and a green color like winter seas. He was white about the lips. His left leg dragged.

“He got hurt by a bull,” said the first of the dark slaves. “The big white stud bull broke out of the pen and come ramping down in the field. Gored one man.”

“They didn’t dare kill him,” added the other. “He’s worth too much, you see. And we couldn’t lay a rope on him. Then this fellow got in, took him by the horns, threw him and held him down till help come.”

Phryne felt how the blood flew into her face. “But that was wonderful!” she cried. “Another Theseus! And only hurt in the leg!”

The Cimbrian laughed, a short inhuman bark, and said: “I would not have been hurt at all ― we used to throw bulls every year at the spring rites ― but when those trained pigs of cowherds let him up they held the ropes too slack.” His Latin was rough and ungrammatical, but it flowed quickly.

“Foreman says get him to the barracks and fix the bone,” said one of those who upbore him. “Best we go.”

Phryne stamped her foot. At once she realized that she had driven her small shoe into the mud. She saw the Cimbrian’s eyes slide down, and a grin went like a ghost over his mouth. He looked back at her and nodded wryly. He knew.

She blurted in confusion: “Certainly not! I know what you would do, have that fool of a blacksmith splint it ― and he will limp for the rest of his life. Up to the villa!”

They followed her, bashfully. No, not the Cimbrian ― he jumped one-footed ― but, when they entered the kitchen and put him in a chair, he sprawled as if he owned it. He was caked with mud, he had on only a sleazy gray tunic, Were shackle scars on his wrists and ankles, but he said, “Give me some wine,” and the chief cook himself poured full stoup. The Cimbrian emptied it in three long gulps, sighed, and held it out again.

Phryne went off after the house physician. He was Greek like herself, all the most valuable slaves were Greek, even as the only valuable free folk had once been ― an aging man, with a knowledge of herbs and poultices to ease Cordelia, who suffered loudly and would not be without him. He came readily enough, looked at the wound, called for water and began sponging it.

“A clean break,” he said. “The muscle was little torn. Stay on crutch for a few weeks and it should heal as good as new. But first we’ll hear some of those famous Cimbrian howls, for I must set it.”

“Do you take me for a Southlander?” snorted the hurt man. “I am a son of Boierik.”

“There are philosophers in my family,” said the physician, with an edge in his voice. “Very well, then.”

Phryne could not look at the leg, nor could she look away from the barbarian’s face. It was a good face, she thought, it would be handsome in a wild fashion if some god would smooth off the slave-gauntness. She saw how sweat spurted out on the skin, when his bones grated, and how he bit his lip till the blood trickled.

The physician splinted and bound the leg. “I will see about a crutch,” he said. “It might also be well to speak to the major-domo, or the mistress. Otherwise, if I know the chief field overseer, they’ll put this man back at work before he is properly healed.”

Phryne nodded. “You may go,” she said to the gaping sowers. The cook bustled off on some errand. Phryne found herself alone with the barbarian.

“Rest a while,” she said. She noticed his cup was empty for the second time; she risked the steward’s wrath and poured him a third.

“Thank you.” He nodded curtly.

“It was heroic of you,” she said, more clumsy with words than she was wont.

He spat an obscenity. “The bull was something to fight.”

“I see.” She found a chair and sat down, elbows on knees, looking at her folded hands.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Phryne.” Though it meant nothing to him, she was obscurely grateful to hear no sniggering reference to her historic namesake’s profession; why did they never remember that the first Phryne had modeled for Praxiteles, and forget what else she had been?

“I am Eodan, Boierik’s son. Are you a Roman?”

She started, met a smoldering in his eyes and laughed a little. “Zeus, no! I am a Greek. A slave like yourself.”

“A well-tended slave,” he fleered. He was drunk ― not much, but enough to loosen the wariness learned in the dealers’ pens. “A darling of the house.”

Anger leaped in her ― it stung that he should snap when she had offered only help ― and she said, “Are you so brave to make war on me with your tongue?”

He checked himself. As he sat rubbing his shaggy chin, she could almost see him turning the thought over in his mind. Finally, pushed out with an effort that roughened it: “You are right. I spoke badly.”

“It is nothing,” she said, altogether melted. “I think I understand. You were a free man. A king, did you say?”

“We have… we had no kings,” he mumbled. “Not as you seem to mean the word here ― what little I’ve heard. But truly I was a free man once.”

A gust of rain went over the tiled roof. The hearthfire leaped and sputtered; smoke caught Phryne’s eyes, and she coughed and threw back her cloak. Eodan’s gaze fixed on her.

She knew that look. Every woman in the Roman world knew it, though the high-born paid it no heed. A slave girl must. It was the look of a man locked away from all women for months and years, lucky to have a rare hurried moment in a strawstack at festival time. The penalty for attacking expensive female property could be death, if her owner cared (Phryne doubted Cordelia would)… still, a desperate hand might seize her one night. She stayed close to the villa when she was here.

She said quickly, “I have heard Master Flavius telling he was a prisoner among your folk for four years.”

Eodan laughed, deep laughter from full lungs, but somehow grim. At last he answered, “Flavius was my slave.”

“Oh―” A hand stole to her lips.

Still he looked at her. She was not tall, but she was lithely formed. The simple white dress fell about long slim legs, touched the curve of thigh and waist, drew over small firm breasts. Her hair was of deep bluish-black, piled on a slender neck and caught with a bone fillet. Her face did not have classic lines; perhaps that, and her quietness when Roman men were about, was why she remained a virgin at twenty. But more than one lovesick slave had tried to praise deep violet eyes, smoky-lashed under arching brows, a wide clear forehead, tilted nose and delicate chin, soft mouth and pale cheeks.

Eodan lifted his cup. “Be not afraid,” he said. “I cannot leave this chair before they bring me a staff.”

Phryne received his bluntness with relief. Some of the educated household men simpered about so she could vomit. She could give no better reason, in all honesty, for not taking a lover or even a husband. Cordelia had not forbidden her, and the memory of a certain boy was chilly comfort.

“I should think,” she whispered, leaning close lest it be overheard, “that if you treated Flavius kindly ― and he did not look much abused when he came back ― he could have found something better for you than field labor. That destroys―” She stopped, appalled.

Eodan said bleakly, “Destroys men. Of course. Do you think I have not seen what a few years of it do to a man? He could have done worse, I suppose ― resold me to the games I hear tell of, or as a rower on a ship. But he could never trust me running about a house, even another man’s house, as freely as you do.”

“Why not? You can have no more dreams of escape. You have seen crucified men along the roads.”

“Some things might be worth a crucifixion,” said Eodan. He made no great point of it; his tone was almost matter-of-fact, wherefore Phryne shuddered.

“Hercules help me, why?” she breathed.

Eodan said from a white face, “He took my wife.” He drained his cup.

Phryne sat very still for a while. The wind mourned about the house, wailed in the portico and rubbed leafless branches together. Another rain-burst pelted the roof.

“Well!” said Eodan at last, “Enough of that, little Greek. I should not have said anything, but for the wine, eh, and this leg feels as if there were wolves at it.” The arrogance slipped from him and she looked into eyes hurt and helpless, which begged her to leave him his last rags of pride. “You will not speak of what I said?’

“I swear so,” she answered.

He regarded her for a very long while. Finally he nodded. “I think I can believe that,” he said.

Steps sounded on the brick floor. Phryne stood up, folding her hands before her and casting duly meek eyes downward. Eodan remained as he was, his gaze challenging those who entered. They were the major-domo and Mistress Cordelia.

The major-domo, an Illyrian grown fat and bald in his own self-importance till he could imagine nothing more than accounts and ordering other slaves about, said: “Here the Cimbrian is, I am told, my mistress. I shall call porters and have him carried back down to his barracks.”

Cordelia said: “Wait. I told you I would like to speak with this bull wrestler.”

Phryne raised her eyes, suddenly afraid for Eodan. He was so proud, too much so for his own good. Slaves whom the dealer failed to break inwardly, so that they let him chain their spirits as well as their hands, might sometimes rise high and even regain freedom; but they were more likely to end on a cross or in the arena. And Eodan was drunk and ― O sea-born Cyprian ― he was looking at his owner’s wife as he had looked at her!

“You are a bold man,” said Cordelia.

Eodan nodded.

She laughed. “And not overburdened with modesty,” she went on. “Do not tell me we have another of these barbarian kings!”

Eodan replied: “If you are Flavius’ wife, then we have your husband’s one-time owner.”

Phryne’s heart seemed to crash to a halt. She stood for a brief space feeling blood drain from her. Now the gods would have their revenge, when a man bore his head so high.

Cordelia stepped back. For a moment she flushed.

She was a tall woman of Etruscan stock, perhaps descended from Tarquin himself and some jewel of Tarquin’s harem. Thirty years old, she had the fullness of body that would turn to fat in another decade but was as yet only superb. A silken dress violated every sumptuary law the Republic had ever passed to emphasize hip and bosom, insolently. Her hair was thick, its black copper-tinged, her face curve-nosed and heavy-lipped, her eyes like southern nights. She had the taste to wear only one ornament, a massive silver bracelet.

The major-domo turned red and gobbled his indignation. Cordelia glanced at him, back at Eodan, then suddenly she laughed aloud.

“So this is what he looks like! And my husband, who has wearied Roman dinners this half a year with his stories of the Cimbri, did not bring you to show off!”

She paused, looked closely into Eodan’s face ― their eyes met like swords ― and murmured, “But I see why.”

Phryne leaned against the wall; she did not think her knees would hold her unaided. Now they were on a well-marked path; she knew what came next. The final fate of Eodan was hidden ― it could be gay or gruesome, but this part of the way was mapped.

Young Perseus had entered the Gorgon’s lair and come back alive.

She wondered why she felt like weeping.