"So we will keep you here, with the title of guardsman," decided Cordelia. "He seldom comes to this estate. You can arrange to be elsewhere if he should come. This may take a few months, you realize. I must work on my father and others; I must make sure that when I finally do divorce him, I will come at once under some other man's powerful protection. And, of course, that you come with me." A slow, cruel smile lifted her lips. "And that I rule my next household. Some Senator, doddering with age, and very rich.... Then you can be brought to Rome, Hercules. There will be wealth for you.... many slaves are wealthy in their own right—or you can even be freed, if you think a change of title makes any difference." She melted against him. "It does not. You already have me in freehold."
He embraced her again. As she trembled in his hands, he wondered how much of her speaking was real and how much only the she-animal of this night.
He waited until she had rested again, and drunk again, and returned to him on the bronze bed. Then, as he lay tangled in her hair, he said—it had taken less courage to charge the Roman army—"When can you get release for my wife?"
She sprang from him, spitting like a cat. "Do you dare?" she yelled.
Eodan stood up, smiling by plan, and said, "I would not forget any—friend—even her. Can she not be bought back, or released somehow?"
Cordelia paused. Her look grew narrow, as he had seen before. "Do you think of this brood-mare as merely a friend?" she asked.
Eodan swallowed. He could not answer, only nod.
"Then forget her, as you will have to forget all the Cimbri," said the woman in a cold voice. "I will not arouse Flavius' suspicions by speaking of that mop-headed sow he has been wallowing with all winter. Let him sell her to a brothel when he tires of her, as he has done with so many others."
Through a shimmering and a humming, Eodan saw how she stood crouched, ready to escape his violence and call for help. Neither of them moved—until at last she walked by him, threw herself upon the bed and beckoned him as she would a dog.
He came. There was nothing else possible, save to die.