by A. J. Demas
“Thank you,” said Varazda in Zashian. “You are very kind.”
He went back into the house and asked the young slave at the door, Niko, whether the mistress was back yet. Niko didn’t know.
A female slave was coming down the stairs with a tray.
“Niko,” she called from halfway down, “you told me Aristokles was still in bed, but—oh, I’m sorry, sir,” she caught herself when she came down far enough to see Damiskos.
“Not at all. Is Aristokles up early this morning?” He put the question casually, but an instinct for trouble tugged at him.
“How can he not be in bed?” Niko demanded. “He hasn’t come down, I know that.”
“He’s not in his room,” the woman insisted. “I’ve just come from there.” She held up the breakfast tray with its untouched bowls of food.
Niko looked at Damiskos as if for backup.
“Had his bed been slept in?” Damiskos asked. It seemed the next obvious question.
The woman considered. “No, sir. Now that you mention it. I don’t believe it had. That’s odd, isn’t it, sir?”
“It would seem so,” said Damiskos.
“All the other guests are up, and the mistress, so … you know … I’m not sure where he can have got to.”
“He was still in the dining room when I left last night,” Damiskos said. He remembered the voices he had heard in the early hours. “Does either of you know when he retired?”
He realized his attempt at sounding casual had rather broken down, but he couldn’t think of any way to pursue the inquiry without sounding worried. And he was worried.
“Around midnight,” said Niko. “By then it was just him and our mistress and that woman with the big eyes.”
“Phaia,” the female slave supplied.
“Yes, her. They all went in at the same time, but Aristokles has Pharastes to attend him, so none of us would have seen where he went.”
A useful cover for skulking about the villa undetected, Damiskos thought.
“You should probably tell your mistress one of her guests is missing.”
Niko looked sceptical. “Missing, sir?”
“Well, I mean. If he doesn’t turn up.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Here, you take this,” said the woman, pushing the untouched breakfast tray into the boy’s hands. To Damiskos she said eagerly, “I’ll run up again and see if his things are still in his room!”
She took off up the stairs, and Niko gave Damiskos the closest thing to a withering look that a respectful slave could allow himself. Damiskos smiled wryly back.
They were both still standing there when the woman came running back down and reported breathlessly, “They aren’t! All his clothes and his trunk are gone! He left in the night!”
“Well, so, he left in the night,” said Niko, striving to remain blasé. “People do sometimes.”
“Around here? Where there are no neighbours? And there was no ship this morning. It’s odd, Niko. Isn’t it, sir?”
“It is rather odd,” said Damiskos. “Might he have moved to another room?”
The slaves considered this.
“Maybe,” said Niko. “But not without one of us knowing about it. Rhea and I are the ones who would have been called if a guest wanted to change rooms. I do luggage, and she does beds and breakfasts. Aradne would have told us if someone was being moved.”
“Yes,” said Rhea, “and anyway, all the rooms that are fit to be slept in right now are occupied. The others have got no beds, or leaks in the roof, or the floors are being retiled.”
“I see,” said Damiskos. “Well, there must be some other explanation.”
“We had better tell the mistress, though,” said Rhea.
Niko looked doubtful. “Don’t you think she, uh, probably already knows?”
“What do you mean?” Rhea asked innocently.
“Well … ” Niko glanced hopefully at Damiskos. “You know what I mean, sir, don’t you?”
He guessed the boy was suggesting that Aristokles and Nione had arranged some kind of tryst. That seemed completely implausible. If they were together, Nione was not there willingly. But she had been seen going out to the vineyard earlier, so kidnapping didn’t seem likely either. And neither possibility explained why Varazda was still here.
Varazda had said, “I must go dress and attend my master.” He didn’t know—or was pretending not to know—that Aristokles was gone.
“I think,” Damiskos said slowly, “that you should go and speak to your mistress—or I suppose it would be more proper for you to report it to the steward. It may be that she knows all about it, but even if she does, I think she cannot fault you for noticing and being concerned. And if she does not know, well—obviously she will be grateful to you for telling her.”
“You go tell Aradne,” said the boy to Rhea. “She likes you better than me.”
“That’s not true, Niko!”
“You know it is. She’s got an anti-whatyoucall, antithesis to men.”
Rhea snorted. “Oh, and you qualify, do you? Fine, I will go tell her. You take that breakfast tray back to the kitchen.”
Damiskos had noticed that Nione’s household was composed mostly of women. He wondered if Aradne had been in charge of choosing the slaves.
CHAPTER VI
THERE WAS NO one in the courtyard of the slave quarters when Damiskos entered for the second time that morning. He had gathered from the way Varazda spoke last night that he wasn't lodged in a dormitory but had his own room, or at least a shared room, which probably meant he was in one of the chambers on the upper level of the slave quarters, their doors opening onto a gallery along the front of the building.
Damiskos laboured up the wooden stairs at the end of the gallery, grateful there was no one in the yard to see how much effort it cost him. He was almost at the top when he glanced up at a noise to see a door halfway along the gallery open and Varazda emerge, in green silk patterned with white roses, with a comb in his hand, his hair still unbraided.
Varazda stood still, watching Damiskos finish climbing the stairs, a dubious expression on his face.
“Aristokles left in the night,” said Damiskos quickly, in Zashian, once he had reached the gallery. “Did you know about it?”
He’d intended to spring this on Varazda to catch him off guard, if possible. He also wanted to speak first to shut down whatever dry remark Varazda had been planning to make. “You want something, First Spear? Again? You must want it pretty badly, too, to brave those stairs.”
It worked on both counts. There was, for a moment, a look of complete shock on Varazda’s face. It melted away to be replaced by his usual haughty composure, and there was a tense pause.
“Who told you that?” Varazda asked finally.
“Some of the household slaves—Niko and Rhea. His bed had not been slept in, and his belongings are gone.”
“Couldn’t he have moved to a different room?”
“Apparently not without their knowing about it.”
“I see.”
“Did you attend him last night when he went to bed?”
Varazda looked for a moment as if he was going to remind Damiskos again that this was none of his business. Instead he said, with an air of being very forbearing, “No. My excuse for leaving the dining room to talk to you was that I wanted to go to my own bed. And after our conversation, I did.”
Damiskos considered that and decided that he believed it.
“But the household slaves thought you would be attending Aristokles, so they left him alone. So actually, nobody knows where he went when he left the dining room.”
He almost added, “And it’s too late for you to pretend you do know.” He knew Varazda was thinking it.
Varazda pulled his hair forward over his shoulder and twisted it around his hand to lift it off his neck, as if he was too warm. “First Spear … ” He sighed. In Zashian, he said, “Who do you work for?”
Damiskos blinked. What
did that have to do with anything? “The office in charge of provisioning the Phemian army. In Pseuchaian my commanding officer is called the ‘Quartermaster’—I don’t know the Zashian word.”
“No, no.” Varazda waved his free hand irritably. “Really. Who do you really work for.”
“I don’t … I don’t think I understand. Do you think I am lying to you?”
Varazda’s dark eyes were inscrutable. “No. I see. You are actually here on behalf of the Master Provisioner of the Phemian legions to buy fish sauce.”
“Is there something about that that’s hard to believe? Eurydemos’s students seemed to think it was funny—like something out of a modern novel, they said.”
Varazda’s shapely eyebrows went up. “The comedy of the absurd? They have a point. That’s not what I was getting at, though. I’m trying to account for your interest in Aristokles and me.”
“I’m not interested in Aristokles. Nor—nor in you.” That didn’t come out sounding nearly as convincing as he wanted, or as polite. “I mean … ”
Varazda sighed. “I, ah … Aristokles is here on behalf of the Boukossian government.”
Damiskos blinked at him for a moment. “He what? Doing what? Courting Nione?”
“No,” said Varazda dryly. “That part is what you might call extra-curricular.”
“Oh. So he’s—he’s what? A spy?”
“Something like that.” He seemed to be thinking for a moment, then he nodded decisively. “Look, I’ll tell you the whole story, if you want. I probably owe you an explanation after that … after last night.” He looked through the open door into his room for a moment. “You’d better come in.”
The room beyond the door was small and very full of Varazda’s belongings. There were two beds, but only one had a mattress; evidently Varazda had the room to himself.
For someone who had, presumably, been a domestic slave, he was surprisingly untidy. There was a trunk against the opposite wall, its lid open, clothes flopping out of it. More clothes were draped over the disused bed, along with a box containing a jumble of jewelry and a makeup kit: little brushes, vials, and pots of colour. There was a faint scent of incense in the air.
Varazda tossed the coverlet halfheartedly over his own bed and pushed aside some of the clothes on the other bed to make room for Damiskos to sit. Damiskos sat.
“If Aristokles didn’t actually come here to court Nione—those earrings he gave her, were they … ”
Varazda made a face. He sat cross-legged on the end of his own bed. “They were mine. My favourite pair. I made him promise to get me a replacement when we’re back in Boukos.”
“Ah.” Made him promise? None of your business, First Spear, Damiskos reminded himself.
“So,” said Varazda, “I said I’d tell you the whole story. I hope it goes without saying that this is in utter, utter confidence?”
“Of course.”
“Good. You know Eurydemos opened a school in Boukos about a year ago?”
“I think someone mentioned that.”
“It’s very popular—he was flooded with students as soon as he opened. As far as anyone knew, what they were teaching there was nothing out of the ordinary. Whatever it is they normally teach in these places.” He waved a hand airily. “Don’t ask me—I’m a dancer, not a philosopher. Anyway, a week ago there was a riot.”
“A riot? In Boukos?” He hadn’t known such things happened there.
“Well, probably not something you’d consider a riot in Pheme. A disturbance. Nobody was trampled to death in the streets. It started in the Vintners’ District, near Eurydemos’s school, and we think—the captain of the public watch thinks—some of Eurydemos’s students started it. At the very least, they were heavily involved. They broke into the home of a Zashian merchant, looted a couple of shops that stock Zashian goods, and finally marched across town and tried to set fire to our embassy.”
“No! But that’s appalling!” Damiskos was shocked. “An anti-Zashian riot? But I thought the trade agreement had been well received.”
“It has been. This seemed to come out of nowhere, which makes the authorities think the anti-Zashian sentiment was being stirred up deliberately in the school. Anyway … the fire at the embassy was quickly put out. Officially, there were no fatalities.”
“Officially.”
Varazda nodded grimly. “In fact, there were three men murdered that night on the grounds of the embassy. The fire may have been arranged to cover up the evidence, although it didn’t work. All the victims were connected to the embassy. An aide to the ambassador, a Boukossian liaison, and a visiting court official from Suna.”
“Daughters of Night,” Damiskos swore. “Is the motive known? Was it simply spite against Zash, or … ”
“Spite, certainly—or something worse than spite—but there were also documents stolen from the court official. His secretary was able to confirm that he’d had them with him, and they were gone. The other two men seem to have been killed because they were with him. It was a ruthless crime, but not a particularly expert one.”
“And the students are suspected.”
“They are. The public watch was able to find a witness who saw several armed men leaving the embassy and got a clear look at one. Her description didn’t match any of the students currently at Eurydemos’s school, but there were a lot of men from his old school in Pheme visiting that week, and they’d left by the time the investigation got underway.”
“So Aristokles is here to investigate Eurydemos and his students. Who may well be murderers.” It was a lot to take in. Aristokles didn’t seem like Damiskos’s idea of a secret agent. But then, presumably that was the point. “I thought he was up to something, but I’d never have guessed it was anything like that. Do they know who—I mean—presumably the philosophers are working for someone?”
They had to be; it was hard enough to imagine them doing more than sitting around talking about the theoretical desirability of assassinating someone in their tedious Ideal Republic. Someone else must have done the practical planning.
“They may be,” said Varazda. “We’re not sure.”
“And what they stole, the documents—obviously I don’t expect you to tell me what they were, but I assume they were sensitive?”
“Very.”
“And the embassy needs them back?”
“Urgently.”
“Terza’s head. I know what they’re doing. They want war with Zash.”
He told Varazda about his conversation with Helenos on the fishing pier and Helenos’s explanation of “Phemian purity.”
“They think war is good for the Republic,” Damiskos said, “and I think they may have a plan to bring it about.”
“You don’t agree?”
“About war? What, just because I happen to be good at it? No. Does a physician wish for a plague so he can exercise his skill?”
Varazda looked momentarily taken aback. “I’m sorry. You’re quite right.”
“Never mind. The point is that Helenos seems to believe this, and I suppose his fellow students may too.”
“They may. Eurydemos himself seems to be rather more pro-Zashian than anything. He certainly … ” Varazda winced. “He certainly fancies me.”
“Ah. Yes. But Gelon attacked you.”
“Yes. That was related. He saw me … lurking, I suppose … outside Eurydemos’s room, and he followed me out to the yard, thinking he was defending his master from my unnatural Sasian what-have-you.”
“Right.” And why had Varazda been outside Eurydemos’s room? None of your business, First Spear. “Aristokles said something like that, actually, when I asked him about it.”
“Did he.” Varazda looked tired.
“They didn’t exactly send their best, did they? The Boukossian government.”
Varazda gave him a sour look for a moment, and Damiskos wished he hadn’t said that. It wasn’t fair to ask a freedman to speak ill of his old master, whatever else they might be to one anoth
er.
“You may be right,” was all Varazda said.
“So I suppose … Do you think Aristokles has gone now to make his report to someone, or meet some contact, or … ” He knew very little about the practical workings of espionage.
“I don’t know where he’s gone,” Varazda admitted, “or why, or when—whether—he’ll be back. I don’t know why he left me behind.”
Damiskos was startled by his candour, although he had spoken calmly enough. “You think something sinister has happened to him.”
“I do. We are potentially dealing with dangerous fanatics. If they happened to learn what he was here for … ”
“Right.” And that wasn’t the least likely thing in the world. Aristokles had come perilously close to telling Damiskos himself.
“In any case,” said Varazda, “I’m going to have to lie and say I do know where Aristokles has gone. That’s why I thought I had better come clean to you now. Since you would of course know that I was lying.” He looked up at Damiskos through his lashes.
“I thought perhaps you wanted my help,” said Damiskos frankly.
Varazda’s brows rose archly.
“You’re in a vulnerable position,” Damiskos persisted, then hoped that didn’t sound bullying.
“It’s kind of you to be concerned, First Spear. I’ll be fine.”
“I know you can handle yourself. I just … With your patron away … And as you said, these men may be dangerous. If there’s anything I can do … ”
“Thank you. I will keep it in mind.”
“Good. Well, I won’t keep you any longer. I do … I am … Thank you for taking me into your confidence. If there’s anything I can do.” He’d already said that. Idiot.
Varazda uncrossed his legs and stood, the movement liquidly graceful.
“One thing more,” he said as he reached for the door handle. “About last night.”
Damiskos got awkwardly to his feet. “Oh, you mean the, um … No, no explanation necessary. I quite understand. You and Aristokles being here on confidential business, obviously you don’t want Eurydemos or his students to think you’re up to anything underhanded, conspiring with any of the other guests or whatnot. No, I—I understood that.”