by A. J. Demas
Varazda squeezed his hand, surprisingly hard. “I didn’t mean that—I meant are you thinking of sending someone. Because you could send me. I’m a terrific shot. I used to hunt deer in the king’s park at Gudul.”
“Of course you did.” Damiskos smiled at the image that flashed into his mind of his beautiful Varazda riding through the dappled woodland of northern Zash with a bow in his hand. Not his Varazda. Not his, he reminded himself sternly.
They crept over to the corner of the hut, Damiskos gave Varazda a boost, and Varazda slithered easily up onto the tiles of the roof. Damiskos handed him up a supply of the stones they had gathered earlier, tied in a sling made of one of the women’s shawls.
Presently, as Damiskos had expected, the students shuffled closer, and Helenos took a step forward as if about to speak. Varazda whipped a stone at his head. Helenos dodged by a hairsbreadth and jumped back. The women laughed. One of them whistled. They got to their feet, their own collections of stones at the ready.
Varazda was silhouetted against the sky, arm drawn back to hurl another stone, and Damiskos, exhilaration gone and actually feeling a little sick to his stomach, prayed that he had been right about the students having no bows.
Helenos, who was no longer in control of his troops, gave no order, but the students charged anyway, half-heartedly and with abysmal discipline. The women and Varazda launched a barrage of stones. Howls of shock and pain met the onslaught, and the students beat a ragged, piecemeal retreat. Some of them simply kept running along the beach, a couple lay down in the sand, clutching injured body parts, and the rest stood at a safe distance and had a shouted argument about what to do next. In the end, they gathered up their wounded and slunk away to the villa.
Damiskos woke with a feeling that he’d forgotten something. The tree-covered slopes beyond Laothalia stood out black against the slowly lightening sky. Varazda was sleeping in the sand nearby. The women were asleep in the beach hut, or in the sand outside its entrance, rolled up in their mantles.
Damiskos realized that he had fallen asleep where he sat after the students departed, before he had set up a watch rota—and of course he hadn’t kept watch himself. He would have earned well-deserved lashes if he had neglected his duty like that in the army, no matter how tired he had been. Of course, in the army he never had neglected his duty like that.
Looking around, he saw he was not the only one awake. A young woman, one of the vineyard workers, sat on the other side of the remains of the fire, with her mantle drawn tight around her shoulders.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked quietly, when she had seen that he was awake.
“Oh, no, sir,” she said shyly. “I’m keeping watch. We’ve been doing it all night, taking turns, you know. Pharastes suggested it, but he said really it was your idea. Aradne said it was a good one.”
“Ah,” said Damiskos, unable to suppress a smile. And it’s been quiet, has it?”
She nodded. “But I’m scared all the same, sir. If any of those men come back … ” She shivered.
“Would it help if I sat up with you?” said Damiskos.
“Yes, sir. But only if you’re not too tired.”
“Not at all,” he said truthfully. “I feel quite wide awake.”
The girl didn’t seem to want conversation, so he sat on his side of the fire pit, silently keeping her company while the sky behind the mountains grew brighter. He watched Varazda sleeping, his face half-hidden between the crook of his arm and the tangle of his long hair. He had an endearing way of sleeping, unguarded and somehow untidy, hair in his face, limbs sprawled carelessly.
Damiskos wondered what he looked like in his sleep, and whether Varazda had spent any time looking at him in the firelight the night before. Probably not; Varazda had probably been too busy organizing the watch and claiming that it was Damiskos’s idea.
The sun peeked out from a cleft in the mountains, gold light spilled across the beach, and Aradne joined them at the cold fire pit. She gave Damiskos a nod of greeting.
“All quiet, Kore?” she asked the girl who had been on watch.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Right. Well, you’re … relieved.” She glanced at Damiskos. “That is the term, isn’t it.”
“Relieved? Yes.”
Varazda woke up, rolling onto his back and rubbing his eyes and stretching gorgeously. He pushed his hair out of his face and sat up. He was as grubby as the rest of them, his face smudged with soot, one sleeve of his shirt torn at the shoulder, the dark fabric of his trousers stained with salt water.
“Good morning,” he said rather muzzily, squinting around at his companions at the fire pit.
“Good morning,” said Damiskos, trying to keep his tone brisk and soldierly.
“Morning,” said Aradne, doing a much better job of what he had been trying for.
Varazda looked up at the sun rising behind the mountains as if trying to decide what time it was.
“I’m not usually up this early,” he remarked.
Kore laughed, then bit her lip. “You’re not … Somebody told me you’re not really a slave?”
“Not any more. Even when I was, I didn’t have to get up early, as a rule.”
Aradne, to Damiskos’s surprise, did not snort derisively at that. She nodded with a thoughtful expression, as if this information had told her something significant about Varazda. Damiskos realized what it was: that a slave who didn’t have to rise early, especially one who looked like Varazda, was probably being used by somebody for sex.
“It sounds nice,” said Kore innocently.
She got up then and went into one of the beach huts, where there were sounds of the babies and children waking. For the moment, Damiskos, Varazda, and Aradne were left alone at the fire pit.
“What’s going on with you two?” Aradne asked abruptly.
“What do you mean?” Damiskos countered.
“Are you a couple.”
“No,” said Varazda, decisively, before the last syllable was quite out of her mouth. “We’ve been pretending to be so that Damiskos had an excuse to keep an eye on me, ever since my supposed master—may God give him peace—went missing.”
“Right,” said Aradne. “I wondered. Good man,” she added to Damiskos. “Thoughtful of you.”
Damiskos smiled, because this formidable woman’s approval actually did mean something to him, but he couldn’t really feel it just then. He was too winded by Varazda’s “no,” the speed and obvious sincerity of it, the way his lovely eyes had widened a little to emphasize its definitiveness. Varazda hadn’t actually laughed or said, “My God, never!” but Damiskos couldn’t help thinking it might have been easier if he had. At least then it might have been possible to feel angry about it rather than just stupidly bludgeoned.
It promised to be a long day. There was little that they could do, but they must remain on their guard against another incursion from the villa, and keeping up morale would be crucial. Damiskos advised Nione to tell the women that they could go out onto the beach so long as they remained ready to run back into the fortifications at the first sign of any approach. The sight-lines along the beach toward the villa were excellent, but Damiskos arranged sentries all the same. He set another group to watch for anyone approaching from the steep wooded hillside above the beach huts, though it was unlikely anyone could get down that way. They gathered up the stones they had thrown the night before and made neat piles of them before sitting down to breakfast.
“Everyone wants to bathe,” Aradne told Damiskos. “Do you think it’s all right?”
“So long as they go out a few at a time and keep an eye out for trouble. I’ll, er, make myself scarce in the meantime. To give them some privacy.”
“Good man. Suppose Pharastes can stay, though. Somebody said he’s a whatyoucall, a eunuch?”
“Uh, yes, that’s right.”
“Huh. So that’s your thing. You like eunuchs.”
“What? No. Not—not as such.”
“But you
like him. Don’t try to lie—I saw it. You flinched when I asked whether you were a couple and he said ’no.’”
“Did I?”
“You did. I don’t think he noticed, though.” After a moment she clapped Damiskos on the shoulder and said, “Poor bastard. I was sorry to do that to you. Wouldn’t have said anything if I’d known.”
He took himself down the beach to the other side of the factory, only noticing after he had set off that Varazda had followed him. He hoped it wasn’t with an eye to any kind of sex, because he felt like he had been ridden over by a cavalry unit and its baggage train, and his hair and tunic, cursorily washed in the ocean, still smelled faintly of fish sauce. Besides, he was still smarting from that “no.”
Then it occurred to him that Varazda was doing the same thing he was doing—leaving the women alone to bathe—because Varazda had spent the last seven years in Boukos living as a man, and probably no longer thought of himself as entitled into women’s private spaces.
Damiskos stopped, feeling mortified, to let Varazda catch up to him.
“Wait for me!” Varazda said cheerily as he did catch up. “Did you think I was going to bathe with the women?”
Terza’s head. This was presumably part of why Varazda had been recruited as a spy. Nothing escaped him.
“I thought you might,” Damiskos admitted. “I’m sure they’re better company. I’m very sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed.”
Varazda shrugged. “As these assumptions go, that’s not a bad one.”
They continued walking at an easy pace. Damiskos thought for a moment, then said, “You mean because I know you’re not interested in gawking at naked women—”
“And don’t hold it against me … ”
“Far from it. Works out in my favour, really. So all I was assuming was that you might take advantage of your, um … status … to stay on that end of the beach with the rest of our party instead of trudging down to this end with me. And that’s not particularly insulting. Whereas if we’d been going to, say, the Civil Palace in Pheme, where only men are allowed in, and I assumed you would stay outside, that would be insulting.”
“Honestly? Yes, I’d probably take offence at that, but as to whether I would intend going in or not in the first place? It depends on the day, or the mood I’m in, or who I’m with. I never really think of myself as a man, but most of the time I’m quite happy for other people to think of me that way.”
“I see.”
Varazda gave him an arch look. “Do you?”
“Look, I’m giving it an effort, you insufferable fellow. I don’t know what more you want.”
That got another unguardedly boyish laugh out of Varazda. Damiskos had never been much for teasing his lovers—wouldn’t even have said it was something he felt comfortable doing—but as with everything, Varazda was an exception.
They rounded the corner of the factory and came to an open stretch of beach from which they could see the steps up to the villa but not the beach houses or the water where the women would be bathing. Damiskos craned his neck and squinted against the sun to satisfy himself that there was no sign of movement on the stairs or the cliff above.
“I don’t think I’ve ever bathed with anyone I’ve slept with before,” Varazda remarked. “Is there any etiquette about it?”
Damiskos considered that for a moment. They stood at the water’s edge.
“There is, but only when other men are present and you don’t want everyone to know what you’ve been up to. We’re the only ones here. I wouldn't worry about it.”
“Hm. What does that mean?”
“Oh. Uh. Not having to worry about where to look, I guess. Though honestly, Varazda, I’m such a wreck after yesterday—please don’t be insulted if I don’t, you know, show any obvious interest. It isn’t you, it’s—”
“Dami, please! No explanation necessary.”
“No. Thanks.”
Varazda toed off his shoes, unknotted his sash, and let the whole length of fabric fall to the sand. Hooking his thumbs under the hem of his shirt, he drew it fluidly off and dropped it on top of the sash. He unfastened his trousers, let them fall, and stepped out of the pooled fabric. He didn’t do any of it seductively, but the grace with which he did everything was always seductive. He stepped into the water and stood a moment, shaking out his hair and pulling it forward over his shoulder. He half turned, looking back at Damiskos, and his smile was like the one that had glowed in his eyes the other night when he caught Damiskos to keep him from collapsing on the bed. He held out a hand, hennaed palm up, in uncomplicated invitation.
Naked in daylight, Varazda was beautiful in a way that made Damiskos feel, in spite of what he’d just said, that he should look away. He felt as if he had seen something he did not deserve, was not worthy to see: a vision of translucently white skin, and that tiny waist flaring into the supple curves of hips and rear. Damiskos’s desire in that moment seemed separate from his body, a Varazda-shaped hole in his soul.
When Damiskos was a boy, he had for a time been infatuated with a female acrobat who belonged to the household of one of his father’s friends. Varazda was built rather like her: long, lean muscles on a delicate, feminine frame. It struck Damiskos that this was a body Varazda had worked hard to reclaim, to shape for himself, after it had been so precisely mutilated. Varazda’s beauty was his own possession, not something created or nurtured for the satisfaction of Damiskos’s particular tastes.
Having hesitated long enough to make everything awkward, Damiskos briskly unbuckled his belt, shed his tunic, loincloth, and sandals, and splashed out into the water past Varazda, catching his beautiful outstretched hand and pulling him along in his wake. Varazda came laughing in mock-protest.
They waded out until the water was deep enough to swim, and Varazda disappeared under the calm surface in a flash of white limbs. Damiskos, who’d never been much of a swimmer, returned to lie in the shallows, letting the warm water lap over him.
It was not entirely pleasant. The smell of charred wood and cloth mixed with the scent of fish sauce in the air, a pungent reminder of their situation, trapped on the beach while the students occupied the villa. He tried to work out what might be going on in the villa just then, much the way he used to try to predict what was happening inside a besieged stronghold, the better to devise his own strategy.
“I think I know what their next move will be,” he said when Varazda walked up out of the water, lovely as a sea-nymph, hair dripping in a dark rope over his shoulder.
“Oh yes?”
Varazda sank to his knees and arranged himself, nymphlike, with his legs tucked to one side and his wrists crossed gently over his lap. He glanced down and seemed to realize what he had done, then self-consciously uncrossed them.
Damiskos looked up into his eyes and could see the tension in him, like a faint echo of his nerves at the beach house on Hapikon Eve. That had been such a short time ago, and yet Damiskos understood so much better now what was going through Varazda’s mind. Understood, but still couldn’t quite have put into words. Perhaps that was just as well.
He remembered he had been about to say something.
“I think they’ll try persuasion or threats again before they try violence. I think we want to make a show of force—be prepared, in fact, to drive them off again—but also to give them hope that we’ll give in if they just wait a little longer.”
“You mean stockpiling weapons and when they show up, bickering amongst ourselves and wringing our hands.”
Damiskos grinned. “Exactly.”
The water lay shallow over Varazda’s thighs, over his prick nestled between them, over his long, beautiful hands, masculine in size but with their feminine decoration.
“I’d have a hard time being discreet, if we were in a public bath,” said Damiskos.
Varazda’s eyes went wide and startled.
“Not to change the subject,” said Damiskos.
“No, no. We weren’t talking about anything important,
after all.”
“I just wanted to mention it.”
“Thank you.” Varazda smiled, relaxing a little. “I am quite sure I couldn’t manage it myself.”
“Manage what?”
“To be discreet.” His cheeks coloured slightly.
Damiskos laughed aloud. “I’m quite sure you could.”
Varazda gave him a curious look. “Is that modesty, First Spear, or a compliment to my dissembling ability?”
“I don’t know … both?”
“Fair. I will take the compliment, but I reject the modesty as unwarranted.”
Damiskos snorted, but he couldn’t help feeling a little glow of pleasure. He still had a soldier’s body, hard with muscle, marked with the scars of battle, curly dark hair on his chest and belly and legs because it was the fashion in the colonial legions not to depilate. He pretended not to be proud of what he had left of his physique, but the truth was he worked hard on it.
Varazda looked as if he wanted to say more but didn’t know what. Damiskos imagined picking up one of Varazda’s hands and laying it on his own chest, drawing it down over his pectoral muscles to his abdomen, inviting Varazda to explore if he wanted to. Damiskos thought he did want to.
Varazda moved briskly, getting his feet under him. “I’ve had a thought too. Something that might slow them down a little when they do come to hector us again.”
He stood and held out a hand to help Damiskos up. Damiskos took it and was pulled smoothly upright, though it couldn’t be said that Varazda made it look easy.
“It’s not exactly light,” said Varazda, looking him up and down ostentatiously. “All … that.”
“We can’t all be water-nymphs.”
Varazda shouted with laughter, in that way that was becoming delightfully familiar to Damiskos.
“Perhaps,” Varazda said as they were dressing on the shore, “later we’ll find another chance to be alone, somewhere where it doesn’t smell like burnt fish sauce.”
“That would be great,” said Damiskos. “We should—if we can—we should do that.”
He knew he was going to think about that for the rest of the day.