"And into the Axylon! She was last seen riding south on the road into the Axylon!"
"Surely there is witchcraft here," said Eodan. "She never showed any sign of madness, Lord. An evil spirit must have seized her, or some spell—"
Inwardly, coldly, his mind raced and dodged, like a hare with wolves behind. He did not know what might haunt these dreary plains; perhaps she was indeed harried out by a troll. He was thinly surprised that he did not cower at the thought, as once he would have done, but wished only to find that creature and sink iron into it. Yet maybe she had done this of her own will, for some reason unknown to him. He found it hard to imagine his cool Phryne, who knew what the stars were made of, seized by some misshapen Phrygian shadow; or was it just that he dared not imagine it?
Whatever the truth, he wanted to go after her himself. No yapping Asiatics would carry her back in ropes to the king's bed. It was not meet!
Eodan's green gaze narrowed upon Mithradates. He saw the terrors of a thousand generations, who had muttered in dark huts and brewed magic against a world they peopled with demons, flit over the lion-face. Let him dissect as many criminals and cast as many learned horoscopes as he wished; Mithradates remained only half a Greek.
"They deal in black arts here," said the king. His finger traced a sign against evil, the Cross of Light that stood on the banners of Mithras. "I'll hale the wizard we saw up onto a rack before this hour is out."
A scheme sprang into Eodan's head. His heart leaped with it.
"Or the Romans?" he said.
"What? No, their law forbids magic."
"I have seen much Roman law broken by Romans, Great Master. Also, this may not be sorcery after all; it may be some trick of theirs."