The Golden Slave

by Poul Anderson

  “Eodan.”

  He stopped under the garden wall. The buildings were blacknesses that shouldered among paling stars; rails and roofs gleamed with dew. Beyond the stableyard the land was still full of night. Phryne came to him. “Are you up so early?” he asked in a small wonderment.

  “I could not sleep,” she answered.

  “Nor I,” he mumbled bitterly. “Though for another reason. I never thought I could hate a woman while I embraced her.”

  “She must have found that interesting,” said Phryne.

  He heard the scorn in her voice; he did not know how much was intended for him, but he felt the whole burden of it. He said through a thickness in his lungs, “Why do I not bid them crucify me and be done? I let her call my Hwicca foul names, and then I kissed her!”

  “You must live,” said Phryne gently.

  “Why?”

  “For ― well―” She stood beside him, and somehow he came to think of a certain brook, sun-speckled under airy beeches, long ago in Cimberland. “Well, for what help you can give your wife,” she finished, looking straight before her, across the Samnian darkness.

  “Which is none,” he groaned.

  Suddenly it burst within him. As if the sun had taken him full in the eyes, he gasped and cried low, “But I can!”

  “What?” Fear shadowed the face that swung to him. “How?”

  “Hear me, Phryne,” he whispered, rapidly, shaking with the knowledge of it. “I will go hence. I know the road to Rome, I walked it the other way last year. I can find his house there, and steal Hwicca away, and ― O Bull whose horns are the moon, why did you not make it clear to me before?”

  “You cannot!” A muted shriek. “You do not know the land, the city… every man who sees you will know your height and hair and ― What use will it be, to die on a cross or thrown to wild beasts?”

  “Why, if my ghost has any strength at all, it may try again somehow,” he said. “Or if not ― well, I tried once. I gave Hwicca a man for a husband to the very end.” He lifted his hands to the eastern light, and in Cimberland’s tongue he called upon the day and the dark, the wind and sea and all the Powers of earth to witness his promise.

  Phryne flung herself to her knees. “Eodan, Eodan, you are a little child among wolves! You know not what you say!”

  “I know what I have said,” he replied slowly. “I have sworn an oath that is not able to be broken.”

  He felt the cold and the wet gloom before dawn close in on him. What had he done, indeed? he thought. It was not well to make such enormous promises without thinking carefully. He had belike pledged himself to death.

  But, if so, death was his weird and would not be stayed; for he had invoked the very river of Time.

  He shuddered with the awe of it, his teeth clenched together. “I will leave in a few days, as soon as I can,” he said. “You will forget we ever spoke of this, will you not?”

  Phryne rose again. She leaned against the wall, her cheek and palms to its rough brick, her eyes closed. It was as though she drew on her own roots of strength. At last, in a faraway voice, she answered him: “No, I shall help you.”

  VI

  Not till four days afterward did Phryne stop Eodan on the portico and breathe: “I have made ready. Meet me in my chamber ― do you know where it is? ― after sunset, and I will try to disguise you. Can you get horses?”

  His heart raced within him. He thought for a moment, standing under fluted pillars with a green lawn and broad fields before him, standing among thunders and drawn swords. At last he nodded. “There are stableboys who sleep among the animals, but it will be simple enough to frighten them, if I have any weapon. No one else will know until morning.”

  “Then the gates of Tartarus will be opened!” Her eyes were huge and her cheeks pale. “Let me see,” she murmured. “I will have a sword for you ― I know where such tools are kept ― and a couple of daggers as well. You can overawe the boys, so they let themselves be bound and gagged one by one. Drop a little word here or there, as if in carelessness, to make them think you plan to flee into the mountains. That would be the expected direction, anyhow, to reach Helvetia. Where did you think to go, in truth, after Rome, Eodan?”

  “I do not know,” he said. “North, to some place where men are still free. I do not know what the best way is.”

  “There is none,” she told him. “They are all beset.” Quickly, leaning close so he could feel her breath upon his breast, swift and frightened: “I am not so sure your best hope lies to the north. You would have to cross too much Roman country. In the east or the south, now. But we can speak of that later. We dare not be seen lingering like this. After dark, then ― do not fail! I have contrived that the two girls who sleep with me be out tonight. My supplies would be discovered before another such chance came. So tonight!”

  She went from him, almost running, the breeze fluttering her light white gown about her. Eodan could not hold himself from staring. A slave with the soul of a chief’s daughter, he thought; surely some Power had sent her across his path. He would have promised sacrifices if he had known what Power it was, but the gods of this land were unknown to him, and Cimberland’s too far away to have heard about his trouble. Well ― tonight!

  He went on into the villa. It was hours till sundown; how would he live through them without roaring his secret to the world? He would get Cordelia’s permission to go for a gallop. Yes, a good plan, thus he could spy out his road of escape….

  He found her in the peristyle. Her maids twittered and giggled, a plump little scurrying bevy, wisps of cloth gay about a delicious roundedness fore and aft. They were laying out towels, clean garments, the mistress was pleased to swim in the pool. Cordelia stood aloof among them. As she saw Eodan come between the pillars, she drew her half-discarded stola about her. The dark Etruscan head lifted, and she said with an unwonted chill, “What would you? Did you not hear the household was forbidden to come here?”

  “I beg pardon,” said Eodan. “I was out―”

  “Out! You have been out far too much. This is the place you are supposed to guard. Where were you?”

  Eodan thought back. On a certain morning he had made his vow to quit this kept life. The next night she had still been exhausted, and he slept in the guards’ chamber. Since she had said nothing about it, he had again slept with the guards the following darkness. The next morning he offered the cattle overseer to help bring several beasts of good stock from a neighboring plantation; they had not come back till well after sundown, and he was tired and went directly to his pallet…. Yes, by Fire itself, he had scarcely seen Cordelia in three days!

  “I am sure you knew my whereabouts, Mistress,” he answered her. “If you do not summon me to ― to help you―” An uncontrollable giggling tinkled around the sunlit space; Cordelia frowned and thinned her lips―”I would not trouble you, Mistress,” he finished.

  She said slowly, “Is gratitude, then, not a barbarian habit?”

  “But how have I done wrong?” he asked. He knew very well, and he could not dissemble bewilderment he did not feel. Cordelia’s face darkened.

  “Go, all you women!” she snapped. “Let no one in here.”

  They fled, with squeaks of dismay; now Mistress was angry! Cordelia walked slowly toward Eodan across gleaming mosaic. Her knuckles, where she held up the loosened ungirdled stola, were bloodlessly taut.

  “If you think so little of me that you will only come on command… that you will drive cows till midnight rather than even ask me if that is my wish―” She was close to him now, speaking through knotted jaws. “Don’t think I have not seen you in corners with that Phryne! If you find me dull, you may as well go back to the fields!”

  I find you not dull but a foe, he wanted to say. There is too much blood between us.

  Aloud: “Mistress, I did not understand. I thought you would summon me.”

  Something eased within her. She laughed, low, and put her hands on his shoulders. The gown fell about her feet
. It could have been one of the statues he had seen ― Venus, in her aspect of hot sleepless nights ― that stood before him, save that veins pulsed under this skin and sweat jeweled it in the sun. “Hercules, Hercules,” she cried, “can you not get it into your thick yellow head, I want to be the one commanded?”

  He stepped back, stammering, feeling the will of Venus but remembering she was Hwicca’s enemy. “Mistress… I cannot… I am―”

  “Tonight,” she said eagerly. “Just at day’s end. We will watch the sun go down and we shall not sleep before it rises again.”

  O my weird which I invoked, help me now! he thought.

  It came to him what he must do. And because the day was warm, and she stood clothed only in sunlight and her loosened dark hair, and he had slept alone for three nights, and he might be a flayed corpse in a few days… he trod forward with the Bull strong and exultant in his soul.

  “Oh!” said Cornelia. “Hercules! No! Tonight, I told you!”

  He grinned, pulled her to him, and held her one-handed with muscles that had wrestled horned kine to earth, while his lips bruised hers and his free hand roved up and down her body. “Well,” she sighed finally, “well, just once―”

  When they had rested for a time, he stood up. “Come, into the pool!” he said. She hung back. Laughing, he sprang. Water spouted, drenching her. He swam to the edge where she crouched and hauled her after him. She came up sputtering. He kissed her. She gave in and paddled about, while he snorted and churned, porpoiselike, darting in again and again, until at last it was she who urged him back onto the tiles.

  Thereafter she complained that her body was sore from the hardness, so they sought her bedroom. After a while she clapped her hands and had a girl bring refreshments. And so it went till sundown.

  As the first darkness came out of the east and up from the lower valley, like smoke, Cordelia drew Eodan’s head down upon her bosom and held him there, with a grasp made gentle by weariness. “O Hercules,” she whispered, “I thought there were no more men in the world worth caring for.”

  He lay with closed eyes, drained of strength, wishing he could sleep, wishing this were Hwicca.

  “It is not only that you still my hunger,” she murmured. Her voice was trailing off, swallowed by sleep. “It is yourself. I am not lonely under your kisses…. Be with me always, Hercules! I ask you ― as a beggar ― I who love you…”

  Eodan waited until he was sure she slept deeply. Then he took her arms from about his neck and sat up. The room was dark and hot. He heard the night outside, noisy with crickets. It was hard to remember that he must not be contented with she who lay beside him. For a moment he cursed his own foolishness, which had laid a weird on him.

  But what was said could not be unsaid. He sighed, got to his feet and fumbled about after his tunic. When he found it he stood for a little while looking down at Cordelia; but his eyes were blurred with night. Finally, not knowing why, he stooped and kissed her, not on the mouth, but the brow.

  Barefooted, he slipped across marble to the small tiring room beyond. A bronze mirror caught enough light to prickle him with a thought of ghosts. Beyond stood Phryne’s door. The only bar was on this side, but he knocked and waited till she opened it.

  She stood with a lamp in her hand, dressed as during the day but with her hair tumbled about her shoulders. The smoky oil flame touched eyes that were too bright and lips that lacked steadiness. “So you came after all,” she said.

  “I agreed to, did I not?” Eodan sat down. His knees shook with exhaustion; he was unable even to feel afraid. He looked dully about the room ― a mere cubicle, three pallets on the floor, a table with some combs and other things, a shelf holding many rolled-up books. Those must be hers, he thought. A window faced unshuttered on blackness.

  “I hope you completed your task,” spat Phryne. “It would not do to leave your owner unsatisfied before you go to your dear wife, would it?”

  “Oh, be still,” he said. “I had no choice. She would have had me come to her and stay all night.”

  “Did you enjoy your work?” jeered the whisper.

  “I did,” he said, flat and cold on the unmoving air. “I do not know how this concerns you. But, if you are so angry with me, I shall depart without your help.”

  He half stood up. She pushed down on his shoulders. “No, Eodan!” Suddenly frantic: “Zeus help us, no, it would be your death! I am sorry for what I said. It was indeed no ― no c-concern of mine.”

  He looked up, startled. She had turned her head and was wiping her eyes with her knuckles, like a child. “Phryne,” he asked, “what is the matter?”

  “Nothing. Come, we are spilling time.” She drew a shaky breath, squared her shoulders and went over to the table. From beneath it she dragged a small wooden box. Squatting on the floor ― as he saw her by that guttering light, against monstrous unrestful shadows, he thought of a Cimbrian god-wife, but a newly initiated one, young, shy, fair, riven by the Powers she must now rein and drive ― Phryne took out a bundle of harsh gray cloth, a sheathed Roman sword and two long daggers, some pots and bowls, and more.

  “I have stolen enough money to fill a purse,” she whispered. “And these clothes will pass for a poor smallholder’s. The hat will shade your face from chance eyes. We will dye your hair black and cover that barbarous tattoo with a bandage, as though it were some injury. Here, bend over.”

  It was soothing to have her work upon his head, rinsing, rubbing in the dye, combing. He felt a little strength flow into him. When she was done she washed her blackened hands, cocked her head and smiled. “There! Though we must take along a razor and shave that flax stubble every day.”

  “We?” It grew upon him what she meant. He gaped. “But ― you are coming, too?”

  “Of course,” she said. “It would be ― Eodan, if you tried to go out alone, hardly knowing the road, not knowing Rome at all, with that atrocious Latin and―” Her words became feverish. “Oh, Eodan, Eodan, you Cimbrian mule, would you even know where to buy food? As well fall on this sword at once and save everyone trouble!”

  “Phryne,” he said, wholly overcome, as though he were caught in floating dreams, “your place here is good. What can I do for you? Why?”

  She bit her lip and looked away. “It would be too easy to find out who had helped you. I dare not stay.”

  He leaned forward, taking her hands. “But what am I to you? Why should you help me at all, then?”

  She jerked free, angrily. “I am a Greek,” she snapped. “My grandfather was a free man. None of this concerns you!”

  Eodan shook his head in wonderment. But indeed, he thought in the darkling Northern part of his soul, this was brought on when I invoked the Powers; she is a part of my weird.

  He dared ask no further. There was too much awe about her. Had he indeed let a vessel of Power touch him, and lived?

  “Freedom, freedom,” said Phryne. “In a barbarous land, in sod huts and stinking leather clothes, with not a book or a harp for a thousand miles… oh, truly, I shall be free!” Her laughter rattled. Eodan made the sign against trolldom.

  “Well, quickly,” she said. “I could not be taken for any peasant girl, so I must be a boy. There are the shears.”

  She crouched before him and waited. He took the long crow’s-wing-colored tresses in his hands, feeling that he offended some spirit of loveliness. But ― He cropped away until there were only ragged bangs falling over her brow and her ears could be seen. She looked in a mirror and sighed. “Gather them up,” she said. “When we make a fire, I will offer them to Hecate.”

  She pointed to the clothes. “Now, put that on! Do not stand there gawping!” With a movement as of defiance, she undid her girdle, threw it on the floor and stepped from her gown. Indeed she was beautiful, thought Eodan. Her womanness did not flaunt itself, bursting through its clothes like Cordelia’s; it waited cool among shadows for one discoverer. He grunted some apology when she glared, turned his back, and fumbled on the garments laid out for
him ― a gray, patched woolen tunic, scuffed sandals, a felt hat and a long wool cloak. He picked up the heavy purse, slung a sword next to his skin and put a knife in the rope belt.

  As he took up his staff, he saw Phryne clad like him. The baggy cloth would hide the shape of her body; she must hope the dirty old cape would shield slim legs and high-arched feet. She was turning from the shelf of books. She had run her fingers over the scrolls, just once, and tears lay in her eyes.

  “Come,” she said. “We have only till morning; then they will start to hunt us.”

  VII

  To Eodan, Rome had been two things. First was the city of the Cimbrian dream, all golden roofs above white colonnades, shimmering against a sky forever blue. Then was the avenue of the triumph, where he bent his weary head lest the hurled muck take him in the eyes, and thereafter the slave pens and finally a stumbling in chains, one dawn, out onto the Latin Way. Neither was of this earth.

  Now he entered Rome herself, and he saw just a little of a city that toiled and played and sang and dickered and laughed, plotted, feasted, sacrificed, lied, swindled, and stood by friends ― a city of men and women and children like any others, built by men’s hands and guarded by men’s bodies. He had thought Rome was walled, but he found as he trudged through hours of buildings that she eternally outgrew her walls, as though she were a snake casting skin, so that the old gates stood open in the midst of a brawling traffic. He had thought of Romans as divided into iron-sheathed rankers, piggish man-traders, and one woman who shuddered in his arms; but he saw a gang of children playing ball in the dust, a leathery smith in a clangorous tiny shop and a limping man who cried out the roasted nuts he bore for sale in panniers slung from a yoke. He saw Romans spread their wares in flimsy booths while a temple gleamed purity above them. He saw a Roman matron, in clothes no better than his, who scolded her small boy for being reckless about passing horse-carts. He saw a young girl weeping, for some reason he never knew, and he saw two young men, merry with wine, stop to rumple the ears of an itinerant dog.