Phryne whipped to her knees and stabbed at his foot. He danced aside, laughing. The saw blade reached across her arm. It was no deep cut, but she cried out and dropped her knife. He kicked it away, grabbed her shoulder and hurled her onto her back. Kneeling beside her, he laid the saw teeth across her throat. "Be still, now, if you would live," he said. "I've business to finish with you."
Phryne looked into the downy face. She lifted her arms. "Oh," she said. "I am conquered."
Quintus' chin dropped. Moving carefully, so he could see what she did, she unfastened her belt. "I have never known a man like you," she breathed. "Let me get this mantle off—" She slid her hands toward the brooch at her throat. The fabric wrinkled up ahead of her arm.
"Quickly!" gasped the boy. He lifted the saw a little, it was shaking so much, and fumbled at his loincloth.
Phryne got the bundled cloak between her throat and the teeth. She stabbed him in the hand with her brooch pin. He yelled, the saw skittered from his grasp. She leaped up and onto the gangway.
Quintus yammered by the rail. A fury lifted in Phryne; she stood up in the moonlight on the bobbing, twisting plank and opened her arms. "Well," she cried, "are you man enough to follow?"
He stumbled onto the gangway. She kicked, and he fell down between the hulls. They were protected by rope bumpers from grinding together, but one lurching wall struck him as he went past. He rebounded, splashed and did not rise again.
Phryne crawled over the plank. Great Mother of Mercy, she thought, what had she done? But now it was to rouse Eodan. Up on the other ship, Tjorr stabbed and hammered, crying to his drunken followers to waken. Twenty men pressed in upon the Sarmatian, driving him back by sheer weight from the weapon chest.
Phryne beat on the cabin door. "Eodan, Hwicca, come out!" she called. "Come out before they kill you!"
It opened. The Cimbrian stood tall against blackness, armed only with a yard-long sword. Behind him Hwicca still blinked sleep from her eyes. Even in that moment, Phryne saw how fulfillment had made her beautiful.