Eodan said at last, slowly, word by word, as he hammered it into shape within himself: "I understand. But you do not understand me. They say you are still a maiden. Well, you have called a curse on me for doing something of which you have no knowledge."
Phryne's fingers clenched about a rose stalk. The thorns bit. She stared at the bright blood drops, wiped them on her gown in a blind fashion and said through unfirm lips: "Perhaps it is true. I thought one thing of you. When you did something else, that is how you hurt me. But perhaps I have indeed not understood."
"I am not wont to speak of these matters," he told her, with effort. "Among the Cimbri, it was not so—so twisted together. Wives did not betray their husbands. Husbands—well—a man is otherwise than a woman. He has other needs. I was driven by the Powers of earth; the Bull was within me that day, Phryne. And more than that—Can you understand how it felt to hear you tell what has—has become of my wife, the mother of my son, whom she killed to keep him free? Can you understand how I would turn for any—what is the word?—any comfort that you could give—or anyone could—Do you see?" he pleaded, facing her with his hands outspread.
She rubbed her eyes. "I see," she whispered.
He doubled up one fist and smote it softly into the other palm, again and again. "It would help Hwicca not a bit if I let the Bull roar within me so loud I could think of nothing else," he said. "Indeed it was a new thought to me, this you bring forth—that what is between a man and his wife, for good or ill, can in any way be changed by whether he sleeps alone or not when she is gone."
"I am not so sure of that," she answered. "No man will say it is true of her!" When she lifted her face, he saw it was streaked with silent tears. "But I could be wrong. I do know little of these matters."
Eodan said, with a sad smile tugging up one corner of his mouth, "Between the time I wed Hwicca and the time a year afterward, when we came to the Raudian field, I touched no other woman. It was not that I lacked the chance, but only that none seemed worth the time I could be with her. Will you believe that?"
She nodded dumbly.
"Well, then." Eodan held out his hand, in the manner he had learned from the Romans. "Shall we be friends?"
She caught it tightly. Sunset smoldered to dusk. He could see her as little more than a paler shadow.