"In a good household. I was educated with care, to be a nurse for their children. But they fell on evil times two years ago and had to sell me. The dealer took me to Rome, and Mistress Cordelia bought me." He felt a dull anger. He said, "You wear your bonds lightly." "What would you have me do?" she replied with a flash of indignation. "I should give thanks to Artemis for a situation no worse than this--my books, at least, and a measure of respect, and an entire life's security. Do you know what commonly happens to worn-out slaves? But my mind will not wear out!" "Well, well," he said, taken aback. "It is different for you." And then wrath broke loose, and he lifted his fist against heaven. "But I am a Cimbrian!" he shouted. "And I am a Greek," she said, still cold to him. "Your people did not have to come under the Roman yoke. You could have stayed in the North." "Hunger drove us out. We were too many, when the bad years came. Would you have us peaceably starve? We did not even want war with Rome, at first. We asked for land within their domains. We would have fought for them, any enemies they wished. We sent an embassy to their Senate. And they laughed at us!" Eodan dropped the bridle, leaned against his crutch and held out shaking claw-curved fingers. "I would tear down Rome, stone by stone, and flay every Roman and leave their bones for ravens to pick!" She asked in a steel-cool tone: "Then why do you think it evil of them to do likewise to you, since the gods granted them victory?" He felt the tide of his fury ebb. But it still moved in him; and the ocean from which it had come would always be there. He said thickly, "Oh, I do not hate them for that. I hate them for what came afterward. Not clean death, but marching in a triumph, shown like an animal, while the street-bred rabble jeered and pelted us with filth! Chained in a pen, day upon day upon day, lashed and kicked, till we finally went up on a block to be auctioned! And afterward shoveling muck, hoeing clods, sleeping in a hogpen barracks with chains on, every night! That is what I have to revenge!" He saw how she shrank away. It came to him then that he had his own purposes for her. He forced a stiff smile. "Forgive me. I know I am uncouth." She said with a break in her voice, "Were you put on the block? Did it only happen that Flavius bought you?" "Actually, I was not," he admitted. "He had inquiry made for me, and bought me directly. He saw me and said with that smile of his that he wanted to be sure of my fate, so he could pay me back the right amount of both good and evil. Then I was walked down here with some other new laborers." "And your--" She stopped. "I must go now, Eodan." "My wife?" He heard his heart knocking, far away in a great hollowness. "He told me that he had Hwicca, too--in Rome ..." His hands leaped out. He seized her by both arms so she cried out. The apple blossoms fell from her grasp, and his foot crushed them.