O my weird which I invoked, help me now! he thought.
It came to him what he must do. And because the day was warm, and she stood clothed only in sunlight and her loosened dark hair, and he had slept alone for three nights, and he might be a flayed corpse in a few days ... he trod forward with the Bull strong and exultant in his soul.
"Oh!" said Cornelia. "Hercules! No! Tonight, I told you!"
He grinned, pulled her to him, and held her one-handed with muscles that had wrestled horned kine to earth, while his lips bruised hers and his free hand roved up and down her body. "Well," she sighed finally, "well, just once—"
When they had rested for a time, he stood up. "Come, into the pool!" he said. She hung back. Laughing, he sprang. Water spouted, drenching her. He swam to the edge where she crouched and hauled her after him. She came up sputtering. He kissed her. She gave in and paddled about, while he snorted and churned, porpoiselike, darting in again and again, until at last it was she who urged him back onto the tiles.
Thereafter she complained that her body was sore from the hardness, so they sought her bedroom. After a while she clapped her hands and had a girl bring refreshments. And so it went till sundown.
As the first darkness came out of the east and up from the lower valley, like smoke, Cordelia drew Eodan's head down upon her bosom and held him there, with a grasp made gentle by weariness. "O Hercules," she whispered, "I thought there were no more men in the world worth caring for."
He lay with closed eyes, drained of strength, wishing he could sleep, wishing this were Hwicca.
"It is not only that you still my hunger," she murmured. Her voice was trailing off, swallowed by sleep. "It is yourself. I am not lonely under your kisses.... Be with me always, Hercules! I ask you—as a beggar—I who love you...."
Eodan waited until he was sure she slept deeply. Then he took her arms from about his neck and sat up. The room was dark and hot. He heard the night outside, noisy with crickets. It was hard to remember that he must not be contented with she who lay beside him. For a moment he cursed his own foolishness, which had laid a weird on him.