by A. J. Demas
“Yes. But what I was going to say was: We needn’t keep up the pretence.”
“Oh. No, I didn’t think … I mean, if you’re sure.”
Varazda reverted to his mannered court Zashian: “I mean the pretence of a continued liaison between ourselves. It will do to let it be thought that I am simply promiscuous.” After a moment he added, very precisely, “That is also a pretence.”
“Yes,” said Damiskos, and couldn’t suppress a smile. “I’d figured that.”
He was surprised to see Varazda’s cheeks colour slightly. He realized how his remark might be taken.
“I didn’t mean just because of the, um … ” He made an unfortunate gesture.
“Out,” said Varazda, holding open the door.
The more Damiskos thought about what he had just learned, the more disgusted he was with Aristokles. Maybe the man knew what he was doing with his mission—appearances to the contrary—but why had he thought it necessary to bring his very Zashian freedman into a nest of suspected Zashian-haters? Aristokles and Varazda obviously had a close and friendly relationship, even if they weren’t lovers. Look at all the details Varazda knew about his patron’s mission; it was obvious they talked almost as equals and that Aristokles had few secrets from Varazda. All the more reason to take better care of him, Damiskos thought. Advise him to tone down the jewellery and the makeup, at least—those were bound to attract the anger of the philosopher’s students with their mania for manliness.
Though it would have been a shame. All that finery did suit him.
When Damiskos came into the house, Niko hurried up to tell him that the mistress was back and discussing with Aradne at that very moment the question of what had happened to Aristokles Phoskos.
It came as rather a strange shock to recall that when he had last been looking for Nione it was with the intention of telling her a vague story about Aristokles acting suspiciously and Gelon menacing Varazda for unknown reasons. He knew so much more about it now, and he couldn’t talk to her because he was committed to keeping Varazda’s secret, and he didn’t yet know what story Varazda was going to give to account for Aristokles’s disappearance.
If it was true that Eurydemos’s students had murdered men in Boukos and stolen valuable documents, did Nione know about it? Damiskos did not want to believe that possible. But she had invited these people into her house, was apparently seriously considering letting them move into her house permanently. Did she had any idea what they were really up to?
No. No, surely not. She was tolerant to a fault, but she must draw the line somewhere, and Damiskos felt sure she would not be embracing the students if she knew them to be criminals and fanatics.
Someone had proposed a game of Reds and Whites for that afternoon, and everyone else seemed enthusiastic. Damiskos thought joining the game would be the best way of keeping an eye on the other guests.
It was deathly dull. No one was much of a player except Kleitos, who had won a cup in the Pan-Pseuchaian games as a boy and took every opportunity to mention it. He and his wife obviously played together at home, and she would have been quite good too if she hadn’t been so busy trying to make sure to let him win.
Nione seemed distracted and not herself. Damiskos might have been imagining it, but he thought he could see evidence that she had been crying. Several times in the course of the set she was called away by members of her staff and returned looking even more harried and unhappy.
Helenos was exactly the sort of Reds and Whites player that Damiskos would have expected him to be: carelessly unskilled but not bothered by it, just a little aloof from the whole thing. Eurydemos was the same, only he also seemed to feel it was beneath him to remember the rules, and kept having to pause to hitch up his mantle.
Gelon was missing from the party, the only one absent besides Aristokles.
The Reds and Whites court was squeezed in between the summer dining room and the cliff’s edge, with a strip of scrubland preventing the balls from rolling off and landing on the beach below. In the final game of the set, Phaia, who was a bad player but seemed to take the game very seriously, sent her red ball flying into the undergrowth. Damiskos, who was standing nearest—and had almost been hit by the ball—volunteered to wade in after it. He was the only person present not wearing a gown or a long mantle, so no one objected.
He battled through the bushes, wondering whether he could feign some sort of shrub-related injury that would allow him to retreat to the house and escape the rest of the boring game, when something out in the bay caught his eye. It was a small ship, arriving from the city of Pheme, to judge by the direction it was pointed. The sailors had just dropped anchor and were lowering a boat.
He found the ball, nestled right on the edge of the bluff, and as he was manoeuvring awkwardly to retrieve it without losing an eye to one of the bushes, he noticed something else below. Someone was crawling about in the tall grass and shrubs below the cliff, dragging something.
Damiskos straightened up and nudged Phaia’s ball with the toe of his boot. It tipped over the edge and bounced and rolled down to plop into the undergrowth below. The crawling person started, turned around, and looked up, and Damiskos recognized Gelon.
“I’m afraid the red’s gone out of play,” he reported when he had made his way back to the court. “Over the cliff edge.”
“Automatic forfeit!” Kleitos cried, as Damiskos had known he would.
“Why don’t we call it a match, in that case?” said Damiskos, who had been winning the set. “There’s a ship coming in—maybe we should go down to meet it.”
“Oh, that will be our fellow students from Pheme,” said Phaia. “Come, Nione—let us go welcome them.”
She held out a hand, smiling, head tilted winsomely to one side. Nione gave her a look that Damiskos had seen on the faces of men on the battlefield who had received their mortal wound. There was an awkward pause before Phaia dropped her hand and laughed carelessly. Everyone seemed to have noticed; no one said anything.
“I must go speak to Aradne about accommodating our extra guests,” said Nione finally. “I was not expecting them so soon. You will excuse me.”
She left, and after a moment Tyra followed her back toward the house. The others headed for the stairs down to the beach. Damiskos kept up as best he could.
Helenos and Phaia were walking ahead, deep in conversation. Helenos was obviously annoyed; Phaia seemed to be trying to justify herself.
By the time they reached the beach, the boat was almost ashore, its passengers waving and hailing the approaching party. Damiskos let the others get ahead of him here, and turned back to scan the fringe of grass and shrubs for Gelon.
He spotted him, crouching among the bushes with leaves in his hair. When Gelon realized he’d been seen, he crawled out and got to his feet, attempting a casual air.
“Damiskos from the Quartermaster’s Office!”
“What are you doing out here?” He looked past Gelon at the bushes. There was certainly something else in there—a dark, inert object—but he could tell nothing more about it from here. “Not looking for another opportunity to ambush Aristokles’s slave, I hope.”
He wondered if Gelon, who had brought a knife with him to a house party and been willing to use it, had been one of the assassins in Boukos. He hadn’t been very skilled with the knife, so perhaps not.
“Don’t be silly,” said Gelon cheerfully. “Helenos is very disappointed in you, Damiskos.”
Damiskos glanced over his shoulder at the group by the shore. They were paying no attention to him and Gelon.
“Why should I care what Helenos thinks?”
“Why should you care?” Gelon looked genuinely surprised. “Because he’s the rising star. He’s the one everyone is going to be listening to at the Marble Porches in a few years—maybe less. Eurydemos is past it. That’s a fact. He’s been seduced by the gods-cursed Sasians, that’s what it is. Mentally seduced, I mean, though who knows about the other—anything’s possible. He
is a soft half-man. Maybe he’s let some trousered dog bend him over.” Gelon shuddered. “It all goes together, that’s what Helenos says: degeneracy of the mind and body. Barbarian ideas infect like a disease, infect the individual, infect the state.”
Damiskos laughed harshly. “Helenos doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s never been to Zash, has he? Those people are so hemmed in by taboos and euphemisms and elaborate clothes—it’s a wonder anyone in the kingdom ever has sex at all.”
Gelon was shaking his head. “Helenos has seen the Sasian plague infect Boukos and Master Eurydemos. He says we have to take strong measures to prevent the same thing happening in Pheme. And he saw you last night with the Sasian gelding—he saw the two of you coming out of your room. We thought you agreed with us that a barbarian dog has no business in a Maiden’s house. How did he get at you? You’re not a degenerate yourself—First Spear of the Second Koryphos, I wouldn’t dare suggest it!”
“And you’ve obviously never been in the army. Soldiers on campaign sleep with whomever they like, and don’t go about calling each other degenerates—nobody’s got time for that kind of thing when you’re facing death on the battlefield. What are you doing down here?”
Gelon adopted a prim expression. “I probably shouldn’t tell you. I don’t know if we can trust you.”
“If it involves knifing innocent civilians in the night, you can trust me to stop you.”
Gelon gave him a sharp look, as if Damiskos had said something unexpected.
“Well, you should stay away from the Sasian, is all I’m saying. Don’t listen to his lies.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Damiskos said sternly.
The new arrivals from the ship were ashore now, and the whole party was headed their way.
“Hestos! Phaidon!” Gelon called, waving. “Giontes? Good to see you!”
Damiskos hoped briefly that Gelon would take off across the beach to greet them, but he had enough sense to stand his ground and wait for them to come to collect him and Damiskos.
“So this is to be our new home, is it?” one of the students was saying to Eurydemos. “It’s all settled?”
“It will be soon,” Helenos interposed smoothly.
Gelon introduced Damiskos to the newcomers as a war hero, and they were all exaggeratedly deferential.
“First Spear of the Second Koryphos,” Gelon reported.
“We’re honoured!”
“Served in Sasia,” Gelon added.
“Like your cousin, Helenos.”
“Like my cousin. Only Damiskos came home alive.”
“Injured on the battlefield, though,” said one of the other students in a sententious tone, “in defence of the Republic. I hope they give you a generous pension for that.”
“I wasn’t,” said Damiskos. “Injured in battle.”
They didn’t know what to make of this, and so pretended he hadn’t said it.
There were five of them, all about Gelon’s age, all with the same prototypical Phemian looks as Damiskos himself—dark hair, olive skin—as if they had walked off of a painted cup. There was a fat one, a tall one, two utterly generic ones, and a shaven-headed one with a badly-healed broken nose. Gelon mentioned their names, but they did not stick in Damiskos’s mind.
Of course they wouldn’t leave him alone to poke around in the underbrush, but wanted to hear details of his war record and make pronouncements about the glory of Pheme. In this way Damiskos found himself herded back up the stairs to the garden in the midst of the party. Gelon followed, looking pleased with himself. He’d shown more cunning than Damiskos had given him credit for.
So Helenos was the one to watch. Damiskos could see it now that there were more students present: the way Eurydemos, their supposed master, faded into the background, not exactly ignored but subtly condescended to, while Helenos cooly dominated the conversation.
Was Eurydemos uninvolved in the events in Boukos? That fit with what Varazda had already ascertained about his sympathies. Perhaps Helenos and his cronies had masterminded the riot and the theft from the embassy without their master’s consent. But what, exactly, were they planning now?
There were no Zashian shops or embassies here for them to loot. There was just Varazda, abandoned by his patron. A completely innocent bystander, who had already been attacked once.
Varazda was in the garden when they arrived at the top of the stairs. He was sitting on a bench by the fountain with his feet tucked up, looking decorative and very, very Zashian. His hair was in two braids, looped up on either side and pinned behind his ears, framing the long pendants of his earrings. His eyes were dramatically painted.
“You there, slave!” one of the students called out. “Fetch us some wine.”
“Why is he still here?” Gelon asked loudly as Varazda swished away. “Didn’t I hear his master had been urgently summoned back to Boukos?”
There was a little pause.
“Did you?” said Helenos blandly.
“Uh,” said Gelon. “Oh.”
“The Sasian does not belong to the mistress of the house,” Helenos explained to the newcomers, subtly redirecting the conversation. “Her staff is more conventional, in keeping with the style of her house. It is a fine, old-fashioned place, don’t you think?”
Damiskos looked around, anxious to get back to the beach and investigate the place where Gelon had been hiding in the bushes. But Gelon was staying put, glancing in Damiskos’s direction every so often. There was no chance to sneak off without him seeing, and no opportunity to follow him surreptitiously down to the beach either. Damiskos ground his teeth as the students launched into a debate about virtue like caricatures of themselves.
Varazda returned with wine, followed by a female slave with cups. When they had finished serving everyone, the woman departed, and Varazda remained. He came over to the bench where Damiskos was sitting, and elegantly but rather fussily arranged himself on the ground, with his legs tucked to one side, at Damiskos’s feet.
“If you could try not to act surprised … ” he murmured in Zashian.
“Of course,” Damiskos replied automatically.
He took a swallow of wine, trying to think what a man who wasn’t surprised to have Varazda sit down at his feet would do. He had no idea.
They were seated at a slight remove from the rest of the party, and one or two of the students had cast them curious looks, but no one said anything to Damiskos. Varazda folded his hands in his lap and looked at the ground.
Nione arrived and was listlessly polite to the newcomers. She gave Damiskos a strange look and did not speak to him.
“When you offered to help,” said Varazda in a low voice, still speaking Zashian.
“Yes. Anything. What can I do?”
“You can corroborate the story I’ve recently told our host.”
“Yes, of course. What have you told her?”
“I have told her that before Aristokles left, he sold me to you.”
That landed on Damiskos like a rockslide, though he realized he should have guessed it as soon as Varazda sat at his feet.
“You’ve … uh. Yes, I see how that will help. I suppose I should have thought of it myself.”
“I am very glad you didn’t. I would have refused any such proposal coming from you.”
“Oh. Yes. I quite see that. Rightly so. Why did I, er, buy you, do you think?”
“Well,” said Varazda dryly, “it could be that you are buying up slaves to work your olive farm. But I think it might go over a little better if we say you appealed to Aristokles’s sentimental side to let you have me at a price you could afford because you’ve developed a fondness for me.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Damiskos managed. “I’m sure you could do a fine job of picking olives.”
Varazda looked as if he was struggling, very prettily, to suppress a smile.
“First Spear, I do appreciate that this puts you in an awkward position, and I wish I could have
thought of a better story to account for my presence. If it is any comfort, you should know that I would not have told this particular lie if I had thought you would take advantage of it.”
“Yes, I see. Thank you. I won’t.”
“I know,” said Varazda patiently.
Aradne had come out, followed by the cringing Niko, to glare at the new guests and take a headcount.
“Tell the kitchen five more for dinner, Niko. I’m off to find something for them to sleep on.” Her tone suggested whatever she found would not be very comfortable. “Can I put some of them in Aristokles’s room?” she asked Nione.
“Yes, for now. His, um—Pharastes—told me this morning that he took the coast road to Laokia on an errand he wished to keep secret. I’m not sure when he will be back.”
Damiskos looked down at Varazda, wondering what gesture he could make to signal to the students that Varazda was now his property. He could touch him casually. That would be the sort of thing a master might do to a slave, especially one to whom he was supposedly attracted. He could reach out a hand and brush his fingers around the outside of one looped-up braid, flick a dangling earring in passing, perhaps graze the pale shell of Varazda’s ear with his fingertips.
He sat picturing the exact route his hand would travel, the movements his muscles would make. He couldn’t bring himself to make them.
It was repellant. It would make him no better than the sort of man he had imagined Aristokles to be.
What would Nione think of him?
Well, whatever it was, she probably already thought it, and he wasn’t helping Varazda by sitting here looking awkward.
“May I touch you?” he asked in Zashian.
Varazda glanced up, surprise flickering in his eyes for a moment.
“Yes,” he said stiffly. “I think you had better.”
Damiskos put out his hand and laid it on Varazda’s shoulder. It wasn’t the right kind of gesture at all. It looked like something you might do to comfort a grieving friend. Probably he had a frown on his face to match.