Tjorr glanced complacently at his own outfit. Like the Cimbrian, he wore the garb of a Persian cavalry officer, though he had added thereto a treasure of golden bracelets. "This has been a good war," he said. "We have seen new lands and new folk, done some lively fighting--ha, do you remember how we attacked them at the river, drove them into its waters and fought them there? And those castles we won were stuffed with plunder!" "I saw them," replied Eodan shortly. He did not know why his mood should be so gray. It had indeed been a fine campaign, and he had learned more about war and leadership than he could reckon up--much of it simply from watching Mithradates, who was a noble chief to follow and often a good mirthful restless-minded friend to converse with. The battles had gone well--one could forget the unforgotten during a few clangorous hours of charge and fight and pursuit--until the Tectosages yielded the terms and indemnities demanded. He, Eodan, had been granted enough booty to pay the expenses of Sinope's court; now his own star could follow that of Mithradates until both, perhaps, lit all the Orient sky. Nevertheless, winter lay in his soul, and he rode to his King without gladness. Tjorr went on, eagerly: "The best of it is, we've not to garrison here in winter. Back to Sinope! Or Trapezus? There's a city! Do you remember how we stopped there?" It had been politic to march eastward first, entering Galatia through the country of the Trocmi, who had already been subdued; for Rome watched jealously the stump of independent Paphlagonia that lay between Sinope and Ancyra. Eodan smiled one-sidedly. "I remember how you hired a bawdyhouse just for yourself." "Oh, I invited my friends, of course. A pity the King wished to talk geography or astronomy or whatever it was with you that night. Still, we've picked up some nice wenches here and there, not so?" Tjorr sighed in reminiscence. "Ah, Satalu! She was as sweet and bouncy as a stack of new-mown clover. Not that I say anything against my concubine in Sinope, though I may buy another one or two for variety." He rubbed the hammer at his side. "There's luck in this old maul, I tell you. Maybe even something of the lightning." Eodan's thoughts drifted pastward. Perhaps his forebodings were no more than a recollection--now, when he was not too hurried to consider it--of how the captured Galatians had stumbled in clanking lines, north to the slave markets of Pontus.