"What is the matter?" asked Phryne. "What happened?"
The Cimbrian lifted his head. He bore a strongly molded face, heavy about the jaw and brows but almost Hellenic of nose. His eyes were wide apart beneath a tattooed triskele (how had the yelping barbarians of Thule ever come on that most ancient symbol?) and a green color like winter seas. He was white about the lips. His left leg dragged.
"He got hurt by a bull," said the first of the dark slaves. "The big white stud bull broke out of the pen and come ramping down in the field. Gored one man."
"They didn't dare kill him," added the other. "He's worth too much, you see. And we couldn't lay a rope on him. Then this fellow got in, took him by the horns, threw him and held him down till help come."
Phryne felt how the blood flew into her face. "But that was wonderful!" she cried. "Another Theseus! And only hurt in the leg!"
The Cimbrian laughed, a short inhuman bark, and said: "I would not have been hurt at all—we used to throw bulls every year at the spring rites—but when those trained pigs of cowherds let him up they held the ropes too slack." His Latin was rough and ungrammatical, but it flowed quickly.
"Foreman says get him to the barracks and fix the bone," said one of those who upbore him. "Best we go."
Phryne stamped her foot. At once she realized that she had driven her small shoe into the mud. She saw the Cimbrian's eyes slide down, and a grin went like a ghost over his mouth. He looked back at her and nodded wryly. He knew.
She blurted in confusion: "Certainly not! I know what you would do, have that fool of a blacksmith splint it—and he will limp for the rest of his life. Up to the villa!"
They followed her, bashfully. No, not the Cimbrian—he jumped one-footed—but, when they entered the kitchen and put him in a chair, he sprawled as if he owned it. He was caked with mud, he had on only a sleazy gray tunic, there were shackle scars on his wrists and ankles, but he said, "Give me some wine," and the chief cook himself poured a full stoup. The Cimbrian emptied it in three long gulps, sighed, and held it out again.