"Phryne." Though it meant nothing to him, she was obscurely grateful to hear no sniggering reference to her historic namesake's profession; why did they never remember that the first Phryne had modeled for Praxiteles, and forget what else she had been? "I am Eodan, Boierik's son. Are you a Roman?" She started, met a smoldering in his eyes and laughed a little. "Zeus, no! I am a Greek. A slave like yourself." "A well-tended slave," he fleered. He was drunk--not much, but enough to loosen the wariness learned in the dealers' pens. "A darling of the house." Anger leaped in her--it stung that he should snap when she had offered only help--and she said, "Are you so brave to make war on me with your tongue?" He checked himself. As he sat rubbing his shaggy chin, she could almost see him turning the thought over in his mind. Finally, pushed out with an effort that roughened it: "You are right. I spoke badly." "It is nothing," she said, altogether melted. "I think I understand. You were a free man. A king, did you say?" "We have ... we had no kings," he mumbled. "Not as you seem to mean the word here--what little I've heard. But truly I was a free man once." A gust of rain went over the tiled roof. The hearthfire leaped and sputtered; smoke caught Phryne's eyes, and she coughed and threw back her cloak. Eodan's gaze fixed on her. She knew that look. Every woman in the Roman world knew it, though the high-born paid it no heed. A slave girl must. It was the look of a man locked away from all women for months and years, lucky to have a rare hurried moment in a strawstack at festival time. The penalty for attacking expensive female property could be death, if her owner cared (Phryne doubted Cordelia would) ... still, a desperate hand might seize her one night. She stayed close to the villa when she was here. She said quickly, "I have heard Master Flavius telling he was a prisoner among your folk for four years." Eodan laughed, deep laughter from full lungs, but somehow grim. At last he answered, "Flavius was my slave." "Oh--". A hand stole to her lips. Still he looked at her. She was not tall, but she was lithely formed. The simple white dress fell about long slim legs, touched the curve of thigh and waist, drew over small firm breasts. Her hair was of deep bluish-black, piled on a slender neck and caught with a bone fillet. Her face did not have classic lines; perhaps that, and her quietness when Roman men were about, was why she remained a virgin at twenty. But more than one lovesick slave had tried to praise deep violet eyes, smoky-lashed under arching brows, a wide clear forehead, tilted nose and delicate chin, soft mouth and pale cheeks. Eodan lifted his cup. "Be not afraid," he said. "I cannot leave this chair before they bring me a staff."