[XVII]
"You bid me surrender a guest, who has fought well for me to boot," Mithradates said gravely. And then, with an imp's grin: "Also, I doubt the reality of your threat. If the Cimbri were all like this one, Europe must still be too shaken to go adventuring in the East. Ten years hence, perhaps ... but no one would hazard so rich a province as Pergamum just to capture a man. I have read your official documents, Flavius, and they convey nothing but a strong request."
"Great King, it was never my intention to threaten," answered the Roman with a smooth quickness. "Forgive clumsy words. We are blunt folk in the Republic. But of course the King understands that the Senate and the people of Rome will welcome so vital a token of a most powerful and splendid monarch's good will toward them. I am authorized to make a small material symbol of the state's gratitude, to the amount of—"
"I have seen what the bribe would be," said Mithradates. "We shall discuss all this at leisure tonight." His gaze flickering between Eodan and Flavius, he chuckled deeply. "There will be a feast at which you two old friends may reminisce. In the meantime, I forbid violence between you. Now I have work to do. You may go."
Eodan backed out, taking Phryne's arm at the door. "Come to my tent," he said. "You should not have been so reckless as to travel hither."
"I would not hold back from you even the littlest help," she whispered. She caught at his cloak, and her tone became shrill. "Eodan, will he give you up to them?"
"I hardly think so," said the Cimbrian. Bitterness swelled in his throat. "But neither will he give Flavius up to me!"
They started across the courtyard, and the wind snatched at their mantles. Eodan looked back and saw Flavius emerging from the keep.
"Wait," he said to Phryne. "There are things I would talk about that no one else has a right to hear."