"Hear, then. Her maids entered her tent this morning to help her arise. She was not there. The eunuch on guard says he knows nothing. I believe him, though he shall still drink poison for his stupidity, and be pardoned only if my new antidote saves him. There was a hole in the tent, at the rear; she must have slashed it with a knife among her possessions. When word of this finally came to me, I had inquiries made. An under-groom of your own, Cimbrian, says she came to him in the night, demanding horses, clothing, arms and food, and rode off. He says he had received orders to give her whatever she wished without question." "That is true, Great King, but--I never thought--I never--Why would she have gone, whose destiny had just blossomed?" "And into the Axylon! She was last seen riding south on the road into the Axylon!" "Surely there is witchcraft here," said Eodan. "She never showed any sign of madness, Lord. An evil spirit must have seized her, or some spell--" Inwardly, coldly, his mind raced and dodged, like a hare with wolves behind. He did not know what might haunt these dreary plains; perhaps she was indeed harried out by a troll. He was thinly surprised that he did not cower at the thought, as once he would have done, but wished only to find that creature and sink iron into it. Yet maybe she had done this of her own will, for some reason unknown to him. He found it hard to imagine his cool Phryne, who knew what the stars were made of, seized by some misshapen Phrygian shadow; or was it just that he dared not imagine it? Whatever the truth, he wanted to go after her himself. No yapping Asiatics would carry her back in ropes to the king's bed. It was not meet! Eodan's green gaze narrowed upon Mithradates. He saw the terrors of a thousand generations, who had muttered in dark huts and brewed magic against a world they peopled with demons, flit over the lion-face. Let him dissect as many criminals and cast as many learned horoscopes as he wished; Mithradates remained only half a Greek. "They deal in black arts here," said the king. His finger traced a sign against evil, the Cross of Light that stood on the banners of Mithras. "I'll hale the wizard we saw up onto a rack before this hour is out." A scheme sprang into Eodan's head. His heart leaped with it. "Or the Romans?" he said. "What? No, their law forbids magic." "I have seen much Roman law broken by Romans, Great Master. Also, this may not be sorcery after all; it may be some trick of theirs." Mithradates whirled on a runner. "Bring me the Flavius," he rapped. Thereafter he paced, up and down, up and down; the only noise being his boots thudding, the fire that hissed in the pits and the wind whining outside. There was much smoke in the hall today; it stung tears from Eodan's eyes.