The Golden Slave by Poul William Anderson (beach read book txt) 📕

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, there were shackle scars on his wrists and ankles, but he said, "Give me some wine," and the chief cook himself poured a 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 a 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.

"He has deserved well of us," Cordelia said. "Let him be kept in the household, at least till he is properly healed. Give him good raiment and light work. And first of all a bath!"

Thereafter she did not hurry matters. Eodan limped about with a crutch, ate and drank and slept enormously, scoured pots or helped old Mopsus the gardener. He spent much time down at the stables, where he soon had the friendship of the head groom, a dour Cappadocian who was believed to have been hatched rather than born since not even a mother could have loved him. Phryne did not understand how a man of intelligence—and Eodan had a good mind in his rough way—could sit hour after hour talking about currycombs and fetlocks and spavins and whatever else there was; but so it went and, after all, divine Homer dwelt lovingly on horses.

Washed, shaved, his hair cut and combed, a white tunic and sandals on him, Eodan might almost have been a Homeric warrior himself—Diomedes, perhaps, or Ajax the haughty. As he grew rested and fleshed out, his manners became milder, he snarled or cuffed at men less often, his smiles were sometimes nearly warm instead of a mere wolfish baring of teeth. But he dropped his green eyes for no one, and the house slaves who shared their room with him were kept at a frosty distance.

The major-domo was afraid of him. "I would not trust that barbarian, not one inch," he told Phryne. "My dear, you should have seen his back when he first bathed. I would not even try to count all the whip scars. And many slashes were new—he got them here, in the months we