Next afternoon Olen, her father’s slave, came into Theria’s room. He seemed furtive in his errand. “I was to give you this,” he said, and handed her a small two-handled bowl. He was for hurrying out, but Theria stopped him. “What is this, Olen?” she asked. “You know best, Mistress,” he said, hiding a smile. It was a shallow bowl, one of those made in the pottery below the hill. Within the bowl was a delicate figure of the goddess “Athena” so the letters said above the figure. She was bestowing something upon a supplicant who stood before her. “Who gave you this bowl, Olen?” asked Theria, puzzled. “A man, Mistress, a sorry-looking slave with clay matted in his hair.” Theria turned the bowl about. On the under side was an unburned painting of a youth standing tip-toe with arms outstretched as if to fly. The drawing was exquisite, but exquisite drawings were common in Greece. Above the youth was scrawled: Eleutheria gives freedom. Theria blushed slowly, angrily red. She held forth the bowl and broke it to shards against the house wall. “Olen,” she said sternly, “never bring me messages. Never bring me gifts.” CHAPTER XVI GATHERING THE THREADS Nikander had spoken of the Medes but in a voice so low that none but Theria heard. Theria, Nikander knew, would not give way to fear. However, she did give way to curiosity. She questioned Medon, but Medon would tell her nothing. “Your father has forbidden us, Missy,” was his word. She plied Olen with questions, but Olen backed away from them with a skill which slaves acquire. As for Baltè, she could only say: “Oh, darling, it is tribes and tribes of men, all the men in the world coming against our Greece. And the king at their head is a god. Where he will he knocks a mountain over, like _that_, an’ when he will he makes the sea dry land for his tribes to walk over. He is goin’ to burn every city of Greece.” Theria, what with her love of her land and her love of mere knowing, felt actually ill from all this bafflement. Late in the afternoon she caught Lycophron walking across the aula. “Lycophron, stay with me! Talk with me only a little while. I’ll have Olen bring wine and the fresh cakes.” “Now, Sis, what are you up to?” he asked. Her eyes were wide and starry. At such times they had the look of being new opened like a child’s. “And Circe put wine before the Mariners,” he quoted, laughing. She finished the lines. “You rogue,” he said. “I believe you know the whole of Homer by heart. Very improper for a girl.” “No, I don’t; I only know most of the Odyssey. But don’t talk about that, please. Oh, please tell me of the war.” She caught his arm pleadingly. “Nobody but you will ever tell me anything. I am not afraid about the war.” “But you’d better be,” he said shortly. “Old Baltè says the great king is a god who makes the land a sea and the sea dry land.”