He thought back to the night before ... how small she had been, under the tower which was the king ... and why had she been so afraid that his displeasure with her might be visited on her comrades? When the king tired of a concubine, even if she had only been with him one night, he did not rage about it. He always had enough women. He gave her to some noble, as a special mark of favor, and of course the noble would never be anything but gentle toward such a token. Usually he made her his chief wife. So Phryne's luck had come golden to roost on her shoulder, by the mere fact of a royal command to bed. Yet she had looked upon Eodan with desolation. And she had thrown him a final furtive word, not to trouble himself about her, for she would do what was best. He thought, stiffening: It was so little to her liking, to enter a harem, that she rode forth alone. Out there is a land of wolf, bear, lynx and herdsmen wilder than they; south are Lycaonia and Parthia, where a woman is also only an animal. If she is not slain along the way, there will come a time when she must turn her dagger against herself. Flavius entered. "Hail, King of the East," he said. He saw Eodan and stopped. The Cimbrian remained unmoving. Flavius bit his lip. Then: "How may I serve Your Majesty?" "You can tell me what you know of Phryne's vanishing," spat Mithradates. "What?" Flavius took a step backward. His eyes flickered to Eodan, then returned--and suddenly a faint smile quivered upon his mouth. "I know nothing, Lord," he murmured. "Yet I would venture that she fled in the night?" "It is so told," Mithradates answered. "Is this any work of yours?" "Of course not, Great King! I suggest--" "He _says_ it was not caused by him," snapped Eodan. "Yet My Master knows he was never a friend to me or mine. Nor is Rome itself a friend of Pontus. What better way to harm us all at one blow?" Flavius looked at Mithradates, who rumbled like a beast in the arena. Then, slowly, the Roman's ruddy-brown eyes sought Eodan's, held them and would not let go. "This was your plan to strike at me, was it not?" he murmured. "I know nothing of it!" shouted Eodan. "I only know--" Flavius shook his head, smiling. "Cimbrian, Cimbrian, you have laid down your natural weapons and tried a womanish trick. You will gain no victory with it. There is never any luck in demeaning oneself." Eodan sought for words, but he found only a black mist of his rage and fear. And of his shame--that he should have tried to use Phryne's plight as a dagger in a Roman back. Yes, he thought, shaken, I have called down evil upon myself and now I must somehow endure what comes.