He spat an obscenity. "The bull was something to fight."
"I see." She found a chair and sat down, elbows on knees, looking at her folded hands.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Phryne." Though it meant nothing to him, she was obscurely grateful to hear no sniggering reference to her historic namesake's profession; why did they never remember that the first Phryne had modeled for Praxiteles, and forget what else she had been?
"I am Eodan, Boierik's son. Are you a Roman?"
She started, met a smoldering in his eyes and laughed a little. "Zeus, no! I am a Greek. A slave like yourself."
"A well-tended slave," he fleered. He was drunk—not much, but enough to loosen the wariness learned in the dealers' pens. "A darling of the house."
Anger leaped in her—it stung that he should snap when she had offered only help—and she said, "Are you so brave to make war on me with your tongue?"
He checked himself. As he sat rubbing his shaggy chin, she could almost see him turning the thought over in his mind. Finally, pushed out with an effort that roughened it: "You are right. I spoke badly."
"It is nothing," she said, altogether melted. "I think I understand. You were a free man. A king, did you say?"