Mithradates stood stooped, his breath rattling in his lungs. His head swung back and forth, as though he were a bull looking for a man to gore.
Suddenly he leaped forward, and his knife flashed. Eodan stepped aside. The knife struck a pillar, drove in and snapped off short. "Guards!" bellowed the king. "Seize this traitor!"
Eodan stood quietly. Hands fell upon him, spears touched his ribs. He glanced at Flavius. The Roman laughed aloud, bent close while Mithradates screamed and shredded his cloak, and whispered, "Did you think, you fool, he would let you go? You have all but said before his household, Phryne left because she would not be taken by him. You insulted more than the king's majesty, you insulted his manhood!"
"I knew what I said," Eodan answered.
Mithradates raged up, flung Flavius and a guardsman aside, and smote the Cimbrian's face with his hand.
Eodan shook a ringing head, licked the blood that ran from his mouth and said in Greek, "I did not know it was the custom of civilized men to strike a guest."
Mithradates fell back as though from a sword thrust.
Then for a while he paced, snarling and mewing. Flavius began to talk, but a lion roar silenced him. "Wine!" said the King at last. A slave hurried up with a flagon. Mithradates snatched it, kicked the kneeling man in the stomach, drained the cup and crumpled its heavy silver between his fingers.
"Another," he commanded.
It was brought him. He drank it with more care. He flung himself onto the high seat, slumped for a while, looked up into the darkness above the rafters and finally began to laugh. It was a raw, barking laugh, with little humor, but at the end he stood up and spoke calmly.