"It may be. Nonetheless, I have a feeling no few arts could be learned here that might take root in the North." Eodan went over to her. "Though one of the greatest could be taught me by yourself."
She turned about with an eagerness that astonished him. "What do you mean?" Her face flushed, and she lifted her hands like a small girl.
"I mean this craft of writing. Not that we would have much use for it in the North ... and yet, who knows?"
"Oh." She looked away again. "Writing. Indeed. I will teach you when the chance comes. It is not hard."
Near sundown, an obsequious eunuch informed them they would soon dine. They left Phryne to a solitary meal—women did not eat before the king—and followed him to a lesser feasting hall.
Music sounded from a twilight peristyle—flute, lyre, drum, gong, sistrum, and other instruments Eodan had not heard, yowling like cats. The diners, arrayed in their silks and fine linens, gold and silver and jewels, lay about a long table on couches, in somewhat the Grecian manner. Mithradates came last, to trumpets, and all but Eodan prostrated themselves.
There was silence. A slave brought forth a cup and knelt to offer it to the king. Mithradates looked over his half-hundred guests. "Tonight I drink hemlock, in memory of Socrates." A kind of unvoiced whisper ran about the assembly as he drained the beaker.
"Now," he said, "let the feast begin!"
Eodan, who was hungry, paid little heed to the succession of artificed viands. Cordelia had offered him enough of that; let a man be nourished on rye and beef, with a horn of ale to wash it down. He took enough mutton to fill himself and barely tasted the rest. For the hour or so in which they ate—this was no elaborate banquet, only the king's evening meal—no person spoke. Eodan did not miss the talk, and the music he ignored. The dancers were another matter. He studied the acrobatic boys closely; this or that trick could be useful in combat. When the supple women came out with dessert and dropped one filmy garment after the next as they swayed about, he knew his hurts were scarring over. He would have traded all these for Hwicca—yes, all women who lived—but since she was gone and they were here....
Finally, with some decorum restored, there was general conversation. Mithradates talked impatiently to various self-important persons, dismissed them at last with plain relief and roared the length of the table: "Cimbrian! Now let us hear that tale you promised!"