Cordelia lay on the couch before him.

Light rippled along her gown of sheerest silk, and her flesh seemed toglow through.

Beside her the table bore wine and food prepared for two.

Eodan gaped.

"Hail Cimbrian," Cordelia raised her hand and beckoned him. "Come," shesaid.

Eodan swayed toward her, the blood roaring in his temples.

"Will you drink with me?" she asked softly.

"Yes," he answered thickly.

Their hands touched as she poured the wine into his goblet, and he felthis flesh leap with excitement.

"My husband was wrong to set a king to work in his fields," shemurmured. "Perhaps we two can reach a better understanding."

She lifted her goblet. "To our tomorrows, may they be better than ouryesterdays."

They drank in turn.

Suddenly her arms went around him and her mouth was hot on his. "Imeant this to be leisurely with much fine play," she whispered. "Butthat would be wrong with you. I see it now."

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This might have happened. The Cimbri are still remembered by the olddistrict name Himmerland. Plutarch describes the battle at Vercellae,which took place 101 B.C., and its immediate aftermath. Other classicalwriters, such as Tacitus and Strabo, and a treasure of archeologicalmaterial enable us to guess at the Cimbri themselves. Apparentlythey were a Germanic tribe from Jutland, with some elements ofCeltic culture; by the time they reached Italy they had grown into aformidable confederation.

King Mithradates the Great (more commonly but less correctly spelledMithridates) is, of course, also historical. His expedition intoGalatia in 100 B.C. is not mentioned by the scanty surviving records;but it is known that he had already fought with that strange kingdomand annexed some of its territory, so border trouble followed by apunitive sweep down past Ancyra is quite plausible.

At that time the area now called southern Russia was dominated bythe Alanic tribes, among whom the Rukh-Ansa were prominent. They arepresumably identical with the "Rhoxolani" whom Mithradates' generalDiophantus defeated at the Crimea about 100 B.C.

The tradition described in the epilogue may be found in thethirteenth-century Heimskringla and, in a different form, in thechronicle of Saxo Grammaticus.

Otherwise my sources are the usual ancient and modern ones. I havetried to keep the framework of verifiable historical fact accurate. Forwhatever brutality, licentiousness and unreasonable prejudice is shownby the people concerned, I apologize, adding only that by the standardsof the modern free world the era was a good deal worse than I care todescribe explicitly.

For the sake of connotation, cities and other political units aregenerally referred to by their classical rather than contemporarynames. It should be obvious from context where any particular spot lieson the map. However, the following list of geographical equivalents maybe found interesting.