The Golden Slave Read online

  Even when Cordelia taught him some new pleasure ― and she had given her life to such arts ― a part of him wondered how long this would endure. For the rest, however, it had been a good month, or whatever time had passed. He had the name of bodyguard, though only the surly Nubian was allowed to bear weapons. He accompanied her on impulsive journeys about the countryside, organized hunts in the forests for her to watch, matched himself in athletic exhibitions with the brawnier slaves from this and surrounding farms. A few times she even sent him on errands of two or three days, as to a town to arrange for certain supplies. He thought of using the chance to escape ― but no, he knew too little of Italy; they would snare him and tie him up to die. Wait a little longer, make careful plans, or even win freedom for himself and Hwicca within this Roman world. It was not impossible, given patience…. Meanwhile, aloneness with a blooded horse, among hazy hills and through woods where only dryads and charcoal burners dwelt, was a gift to him, almost like being free again.

  Now he was coming back from such a trip. He rode at an easy mile-eating pace, soothed by hoof-plop and saddle-squeak, the breeze in his face amid the clean summery odor of his mount. He was richly clad; his tunic, cloak, and boots were of simple cut and muted color, but he liked the sensuous fabrics. His hair fluttered in the light wind, and he sat straight as a lancer; and, when he saw the villa itself, dark against a sky turning pink and gold with sunset, he was close to letting out a Cimbrian whoop. After all ― Cordelia! He checked the noise and merely grinned instead, but he set the horse to a gallop, and they came ringing and snorting into the rear courtyard.

  “Hoy-ah!” Eodan jumped to the flagstones, tossed his reins at a stableboy and strode quickly toward the garden gate. The shortest way to the atrium was through the roses.

  As he passed into their fragrance, he stopped. Phryne was alone between the walls, gathering a few early blooms. A great cloud of hot bronze lifted far, dizzyingly far above her head; the sky beyond it was taking on the color of her eyes.

  “Hail,” he said.

  She straightened herself. The plain white stola fell in severe folds, but could not hide a deerlike grace. She had not Cordelia’s opulence, and she barely reached to his heart; yet it came to him that he had never thought of her as boyish, nor as just a little bit of a thing.

  Her face, all soft curves and a few pert, nearly rakish angles, stiffened. She turned as if to go, but resolve came back; she continued her work, ignoring him.

  He did not know why, unless was that his small journey had given certain unseen chain-galls time to heal, but he went toward her and said, “Phryne, if I have wronged you, how can mend it unless you tell me what did?”

  Her back was turned, her head bent. Under the softly piled black hair, he saw that her nape was still almost childish. Somehow that filled him with tenderness. She said, so low he could scarcely hear it, “You have not harmed me.”

  “Then why have you circled so wide of me? You never answered when I greeted you in passing. You have said me no word in weeks.”

  Her voice rose a little but shook: “Well, some women may be glad of your pawing. I was not!”

  Eodan felt himself flush, as deeply as the western sky. He responded clumsily, “Why have you given me no chance to say what I meant? It was wrong of me to ― to kiss you. I ask your pardon. But I was driven; there was a Power in that place ― and did I hurt you so much?”

  Then she looked up at him and said in a tone heavy with unshed tears: “It was chiefly yourself you harmed.”

  Eodan looked away. For a moment he trod from her, up and down a graveled path that mumbled beneath his feet. The bronze cloud cooled toward newly blown roses. In the west, just above the crumbling vine-covered wall, he could see a green streak, unutterably clear. Somewhere a cow lowed; otherwise it was very quiet.

  Eodan said at last, slowly, word by word, as he hammered its shape within himself: “I understand. But you do not understand me. They say you are still a maiden. Well, you have called a curse on me for doing something of which you have no knowledge.”

  Phryne’s fingers clenched about a rose stalk. The thorns bit. She stared at the bright blood drops, wiped them on her gown in a blind fashion and said through unfirm lips: “Perhaps it is true. I thought one thing of you. When you did something else, that is how you hurt me. But perhaps I have indeed not understood.”

  “I am not wont to speak of these matters,” he told her, with effort. “Among the Cimbri, it was not so ― so twisted together. Wives did not betray their husbands. Husbands ― well ― a man is otherwise than a woman. He has other needs. I was driven by the Powers of earth; the Bull was within me that day, Phryne. And more than that ― Can you understand how it felt to hear you tell what has ― has become of my wife, the mother of my son, whom she killed to keep him free? Can you understand how I would turn for any ― what is the word? ― any comfort that you could give ― or anyone could ― Do you see?” he pleaded, facing her with his hands outspread.

  She rubbed her eyes. “I see,” she whispered.

  He doubled up one fist and smote it softly into the other palm, again and again. “It would help Hwicca not a bit if I let the Bull roar within me so loud I could think of nothing else,” he said. “Indeed it was a new thought to me, this you bring forth ― that what is between a man and his wife, for good or ill, can in any way be changed by whether he sleeps alone or not when she is gone.”

  “I am not so sure of that,” she answered. “No man will say it is true of her!” When she lifted her face, he saw it was streaked with silent tears. “But I could be wrong. I do know little of these matters.”

  Eodan said, with a sad smile tugging up one corner of his mouth, “Between the time I wed Hwicca and the time a year afterward, when we came to the Raudian field, I touched no other woman. It was not that I lacked the chance, but only that none seemed worth the time I could be with her. Will you believe that?”

  She nodded dumbly.

  “Well, then.” Eodan held out his hand, in the manner he had learned from the Romans. “Shall we be friends?”

  She caught it tightly. Sunset smoldered to dusk. He could see her as little more than a paler shadow.

  She said at last, in a tone gone remote from sorrow, “I would not have you think, Eodan, that I ever condemned you because of some dead philosopher’s thoughts on chastity. It was that I believed your case was like mine. I have been lonely too, now and then. But I see it was a false hope. No man, no woman ever has the same destiny; we are all pursued by our private Furies. Help me remember that, Eodan!”

  He asked her, out of a newly reborn pain, “What happened, Phryne?”

  “There was a boy in the household at Plataea,” she said, still in the small voice that spoke to itself, knowing him only as a shadow under the evening star. “He was a slave too ― not much older…. He walked like the sun before me. We would have had each other somehow ― oh, there are families among slaves, even a slave can build a home. But then our master’s creditors closed in. Antinous went first. I saw him led off; they said he would be shipped to Egypt… Well,” she finished wearily, “that was three years ago. But sometimes at night I still wake up from a dream where he kisses me.”

  Eodan’s thought was jagged: His ghost will not let her look on another man. And even if she did, would she wish to bear a son that might be sold in Egypt?

  He said aloud, “Phryne, have you heard that the Cimbri do not lie on an oath?”

  She stirred, as if awakening. “What do you want to say?”

  “The oath-ring on which I was wedded must have been cast into bangles for some Roman whore,” he said bitterly. “However, I shall swear anyway to lay no hand upon you, as a man does on a woman, unless you ask it yourself. And I do not expect you will.”

  “Why―”

  “I would like you to think you had one friend to trust,” he blurted. And he did not know why he had made such an offer, unless it was that his memories of Hwicca had begun to shriek again.

&n
bsp; “I will take your oath,” she whispered.

  Suddenly she fled. He heard her weeping in the dark. At such times most folk would rather be alone. He went on into the villa, heavily.

  Cordelia was sitting in the atrium, lamplight glowing on her; she was a roundedness of shadow and rich highlights. She was toying with a loom, because it was fashionable still for Roman matrons to pretend they were housewives. Outside, among the white pillars of the portico, a boy-slave from Sicily was singing and playing an illegal lyre. His high clear tones were so lovely it had been decided he should always keep them.

  She looked up. Her teeth flashed wet and white. “Hail, my Hercules!”

  “Hail, Mistress,” snapped Eodan, not able to smooth his words. He stood with folded arms, looking down upon her.

  “Well! You have a face like Jupiter’s wrath, my friend.” Cordelia leaned back, regarding him through narrowed dark eyes. “Did you have trouble on your journey?”

  “No trouble, Mistress. Here is the money I did not spend.” He slipped the heavy purse from his belt and flung it on the table. The denarii crashed so loudly that she started.

  She rose, in one rippling motion, and the thin silk showed him how she tautened. Her lips parted. A scream would bring the Nubian, the porter and half a dozen watchdogs to bind him and do whatever she wished. Eodan felt coldness along his backbone. He had to be more careful.

  The knowledge that he, Boierik’s son, must be careful of a woman tasted like vomit.

  “What is the matter with you?” she asked in anger.

  “I beg your pardon, Mistress.” Eodan went to one knee and bowed his head stiffly. “I felt a little out of sorts.”

  Cordelia chuckled in her throat, left the chair and came to him. She ran her hand through his tangled hair as he knelt. “And why were you so at odds with the world… Hercules?” she murmured.

  He saw the answer. “I was parted from you,” he got out. Then suddenly, because he must do something in his shame, he grasped her about the knees and pulled her to him. His face he buried in soft darkness.

  “Oh,” she gasped. “Oh ― not here ― wait―” But her hands were pressing his head close. He forced her down to the floor. She laughed without sound and tried to roll from him. He used his strength to pull her back. The frail spidery silk ripped open in his fingers. “Beast!” she said, her lips stretched wide, her eyes closed.

  Outside, the boy faltered for an instant, then recollected his orders and continued the song. It dealt with a legionary in far Asia remembering his mother.

  Afterward Cordelia led Eodan to her sleeping chamber. A maid brought them wine and cakes. She drooped an eye at him, her mouth quivering faintly upward, and he recalled that once she had agreed to meet him after moonrise.

  “Hercules,” said Cordelia, not heeding the girl at all. She snuggled herself against Eodan’s side, as they lay on the bed, and nuzzled his cheek. “You big crazy Hercules.”

  He did not feel the stallion’s contentment she had given him before. Tonight she had only left him hollow, in some fashion he did not understand. He had never felt he was betraying anyone ― until now. He held his wine cup in slack fingers and asked, “Mistress, why will you not try to speak my right name?”

  “Because anyone might bear it,” she said, “but there is only one son of Alcmene.”

  He could not speak what he really felt, not if he wished to live. But he could at least shake off all canine eagerness to please. He could say bluntly, “Mistress, you have been kind to me, but it was my habit once to give kindness. It hurts to receive it, and to make no gift in return.”

  He wanted to roar out: I am no pet animal, no toy of yours, I am a free man with my own name my father gave me. I am not ungrateful for ease, and chains removed, and your body. But between us is merely a shallowness. On your part, an amusing few weeks; on my part, a slave’s scrabbling for what he can get, a slave’s sly revenge on his master, and a slave’s worry about what will become of him when you grow weary. I will be no more a slave, I will go hence to my wife.

  But he listened to her say, “Hercules, you have given me more than you know.”

  Startled, he turned to face her. He had not seen her blush before now: it rose up over breasts and throat and cheeks and brow like a tide. Her nails bit his wrist, and she did not meet his eyes. He heard the slurred, hurried tone:

  “Have you ever wondered why I drink and take men and disgrace myself as well as my husband? Did you think it was simple idleness and lust? Well, it is in part; I will not say otherwise. But only in part. Flavius forsook me long before I turned on him. He gave me a few weeks, and they were sweet, but then he turned elsewhere. I was locked away to be a proper Roman matron and bear his children. Do you think you are the only slave in this room, Hercules? When I remained barren, he hardly spoke to me. For nine years, before he went off to be captured by you, he hardly said me a word. And yet it was him the gods had cursed, not me. For hear! I turned in my need to a young lad who visited our house now and again, a curly-headed boy who loved me, loved me. And by him I was quickened! It could have been Flavius’ son. He could have set the child on his knee, no one had to know…. He had my baby destroyed! I could have brought the law on him ― perhaps my lover might have helped ― I do not know. Perhaps not. A father has so much power. I did not try. It was better to come out of the woman’s world, begin to give my own banquets and have many men ― many, many. I dared have no more children, especially when he was away in captivity. I possess an old slave woman, a witch from Thrace, who knows how to keep the occasional accident from ever becoming noticeable. I thought it was as well. I did not wish to carry on my own sickness in the world. Let it die with me.

  “Hercules―” Her head burrowed into the crook of his arm, she shivered beneath his touch-”I found a kind of hope in you.”

  Eodan thought, did earth’s last happy folk leave their bones on the Raudian plain?

  Blindly, he drew Cordelia to him. Her hands were cold on his skin. But the rest of her seemed ablaze.

  And later, humbly, she said, “Thank you.”

  The night wore on. They did not sleep. But it was curious how much they talked, and how dryly, almost like two consuls mapping a campaign, when they were not kissing.

  “This cannot be too open,” she said. “Flavius can endure being whispered about on my account, for the sake of my father’s help. An equestrian cannot rise far without some such figurehead. And a Roman wife’s affairs with Romans are common enough ― but not with barbarians. That would make him a laughingstock! And he would avenge his slain political ambitions more than his honor.” After a moment, thoughtfully: “And even if his reputation were not harmed ― I am unsure what he feels toward you, who owned him―”

  “I too,” said Eodan, surprised. He had imagined Flavius was grateful at first, after Arausio, and friendly later, and malicious after Vercellae. Now it grew upon him that he had only seen chance waves across a deep and secret pool. Flavius’ soul was locked away from him.

  “So we will keep you here, with the title of guardsman,” decided Cordelia. “He seldom comes to this estate. You can arrange to be elsewhere if he should come. This may take a few months, you realize. I must work on my father and others; I must make sure that when I finally do divorce him, I will come at once under some other man’s powerful protection. And, of course, that you come with me.” A slow, cruel smile lifted her lips. “And that I rule my next household. Some Senator, doddering with age, and very rich… Then you can be brought to Rome, Hercules. There will be wealth for you…. many slaves are wealthy in their own right ― or you can even be freed, if you think a change of title makes any difference.” She melted against him. “It does not. You already have me in freehold.”

  He embraced her again. As she trembled in his hands, he wondered how much of her speaking was real and how much only the she-animal of this night.

  He waited until she had rested again, and drunk again, and returned to him on the bronze bed. Then, as he la
y tangled in her hair, he said ― it had taken less courage to charge the Roman army―”When can you get release for my wife?”

  She sprang from him, spitting like a cat. “Do you dare?” she yelled.

  Eodan stood up, smiling by plan, and said, “I would not forget any ― friend-even her. Can she not be bought back, or released somehow?”

  Cordelia paused. Her look grew narrow, as he had seen before. “Do think of this brood-mare as merely a friend?” she asked.

  Eodan swallowed. He could not answer, only nod.

  “Then forget her, as you will have to forget all the Cimbri,” said the woman in a cold voice. “I will not arouse Flavius’ suspicions by speaking of that mop-headed sow he has been wallowing with all winter. Let him sell her to a brothel when he tires of her, as he has done with so many others.”

  Through a shimmering and a humming, Eodan saw how she stood crouched, ready to escape his violence and call for help. Neither of them moved ― until at last she walked by him, threw herself upon the bed and beckoned him as she would a dog.

  He came. There was nothing else possible, save to die.

  Toward sunrise, Cordelia murmured drowsily, “I forgive you, Hercules. We will forget what was said, because of what was done.”

  He made his lips touch hers.

  “Now good night,” she laughed. “Or is it good morning?”

  He waited until she slept ― by the colorless, heartless false dawn she looked blowsy enough ― then put on his tunic and stole from the room. He felt the need of a bath and, yes, he would borrow a horse and gallop it for some miles. He was empty with weariness, but there was no sleep in him. Not even when they bound him amidst the wagons had he felt so alone.