"You can have the tent back, then," said Eodan bitterly, "and I will roll a blanket on deck, since it appears we must all be sundered from each other."
"Before Hades, I wonder now if she may not be right!" yelled Phryne. She stamped her foot, whipped about and ran to the tent.
She was still wearing the boy's tunic, bare-legged, for there were no women's garments aboard save Hwicca's dresses, too large for her. Quintus, squatting by the rail with his friend, the big man called Narses, stared after the Greek girl and smacked his lips.
Eodan paced the deck in wrath, wondering what unlucky thing he had done. Well, the night wind take them all! Phryne, who would not help his wife when she needed help, and Hwicca, who had become a Roman's whore, and—by the Bull, no, he would not say that of her! If it were true, the only thing would be to cast her off, and he would not do that.
He raised his hands toward the early stars. "I would pull down the sky if I could," he said between his teeth. "I would make a balefire for the world of all the world's gods, and kindle it, and howl while it burned. And I would tread heaven under my feet, and call up the dead from their graves to hunt stars with me, till nothing was left but the night wind!"
No thunderbolt smote him. The ship ran onward, dropping the dark mass of Sicily astern; the last red clouds in the west smoldered to ash and then to night; the moon stood forth, insolently cool and fair. Eodan had no wish to sleep, but he saw that Demetrios was dangerously worn, so he sent the man aft to rouse Flavius and Tjorr.
"We can hold this course all night, they tell me," he said to the Alan. "The wind is falling, so we won't go too far. Call me if anything seems to threaten."
"Da." Tjorr's small bush-browed eyes went from Eodan to the closed cabin door. He shook his head, and the moonlight showed a bemused compassion on his battered face. "As you will, Captain."
Flavius hung back, well into the shadows. He did not follow Tjorr and the new watch aft until Eodan had departed.
The Cimbrian rolled himself into his blanket forward of the mast, so the sail's shadow would keep the moon from his eyes. He sought sleep, but it would not come. Now and again he heard bare feet slap the planks, a man on watch or one come from below for some air. It was warmer tonight than before; his skin prickled. He cursed wearily, forbade himself to toss about and lay still. If he acted sleep, perhaps he could draw sleep.