“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.”