"Great King, it was never my intention to threaten," answered the Roman with a smooth quickness. "Forgive clumsy words. We are blunt folk in the Republic. But of course the King understands that the Senate and the people of Rome will welcome so vital a token of a most powerful and splendid monarch's good will toward them. I am authorized to make a small material symbol of the state's gratitude, to the amount of--" "I have seen what the bribe would be," said Mithradates. "We shall discuss all this at leisure tonight." His gaze flickering between Eodan and Flavius, he chuckled deeply. "There will be a feast at which you two old friends may reminisce. In the meantime, I forbid violence between you. Now I have work to do. You may go." Eodan backed out, taking Phryne's arm at the door. "Come to my tent," he said. "You should not have been so reckless as to travel hither." "I would not hold back from you even the littlest help," she whispered. She caught at his cloak, and her tone became shrill. "Eodan, will he give you up to them?" "I hardly think so," said the Cimbrian. Bitterness swelled in his throat. "But neither will he give Flavius up to me!" They started across the courtyard, and the wind snatched at their mantles. Eodan looked back and saw Flavius emerging from the keep. "Wait," he said to Phryne. "There are things I would talk about that no one else has a right to hear." "You will disappoint the king," she said in an acrid voice. "He is looking forward to the subtlest gladiatorial contest." Eodan strode from her. Flavius wrapped his toga more closely against the cold bluster of the air. He smiled, raising his brows, and stood waiting; his dark curly hair fluttered. But somehow no youth or merriment were left in him. "Will you be kind enough to assault me?" he asked. "I am not a fool," grunted Eodan. "No, not in such respects.... Since your life hangs now on the king's pleasure, you will heel to his lightest whim like any well-trained dog." Flavius spoke quietly, choosing each word beforehand. "Thus it is seen--he who is born to be a slave will always be a slave." Eodan held onto his soul with both hands. At last he got out: "I will meet you somewhere beyond the power of both Rome and Pontus." Flavius skinned his teeth in a grin. "Your destruction is more important to me than the dubious pleasures of single combat." "You are afraid, then," said Eodan. "You only fight women." Flavius clenched his free hand. His whittled face congealed, he said in a flat voice: "I cannot help but smite those women whom you forever make your shields. Now it is a Greek slave girl. How many more have you crawled behind, even before you debauched my wife?" "I went through a door that stood unbarred to all," fleered Eodan. "Like unto like. Will it console you to know, Cimbrian, that she has divorced me? For she grows great with no child of mine, a brat I would surely drown were it dropped in my house."