by A. J. Demas
Varazda looked out over the couches with a frown. Lykanos was still eating and seemed deep in conversation with his neighbour. That proved nothing in particular. Leto was nowhere to be seen, and Shorab was gone too.
“Themistokles isn’t here yet,” Dami observed, reaching for his sandals.
“Heron said he would be late,” said Varazda. “But to miss dinner altogether?”
“Do you think something’s happened to him already?” Ariston fretted. “I thought he’d just been caught up at Kallisto’s, but—”
“Kallisto’s?” Dami repeated, on his feet now, sandals fastened. “What’s he doing there?”
Varazda stood and stepped into his shoes.
“Saying goodbye to her,” said Ariston. “He planned it this way—he has to cut ties before announcing he’s standing for election, and he’s getting engaged soon too. He thought it would be symbolic to break it off with her right before the dedication.”
Varazda suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Dami evidently didn’t.
“I know, I know,” said Ariston. “But she knows it’s coming—it’s not as if it’s going to be a surprise.”
The guests were still finishing their meal as the three of them climbed the least noticeable of the ladders up to the scaffolding and began making their way quietly around the room under the frieze. It was shadowy up here now; the guests would have to be accompanied by servants with torches in order to see the carvings properly, but it would make for a dramatic presentation. Varazda had to hold up the long skirt of his gown to pick his way carefully over the boards.
Ariston was poking into the cracks between panels of the frieze, and Dami was testing the ropes that bordered the scaffolding, when he stopped and put out a hand.
“What is it?” Ariston squeaked, just as Varazda felt the vibration of other footsteps on the boards of the scaffold.
There were three of them, and they were armed guards, in the green sashes and leather helmets of the public watch. The noise from the party below must have covered the sound of their ascent. They were not making any effort to move quietly now.
“You there!” one of them hailed Varazda and his companions. “Stop what you’re doing!”
Varazda stepped forward, making a gently shushing gesture. “No need to create a scene, my friends. We were looking at the sculptures—Ariston here was explaining the work to us. But if you want us to get down, of course we’ll get down.”
The watch captain did not look placated. “Who are you?”
“Tashmat son of Rohaz,” Ariston gabbled out. “Themistokles Glyptikos’s apprentice—ask anyone!”
The watch captain jabbed a finger at Varazda. “Who are you?”
“I? Part of the entertainment. You didn’t see me dance just now?” Varazda gave them an innocently disappointed look.
“Of course we didn’t. We’ve been busy. Had a tip about some foreigners snooping around the new frieze. And lo and behold, here you are, right where they said you’d be. You’d better come with us.”
“Come with you where?” Varazda asked, stalling.
One of the other watchmen spoke up. “Just down to the watch-house, if you don’t mind. It’s probably all a misunderstanding—”
“Don’t try to talk to them,” the captain interrupted. “It’ll just give them the chance to twist you round their little fingers. That’s what these dickless Sasians do, talk and talk until you don’t know which way is up—they learn our language just so they can lie to us in it.”
The remaining watchmen looked uncomfortable.
“They aren’t foreigners,” the third one ventured. “They’re the Chief’s friends, Pharastes and whatsisname and, um.” He looked at Damiskos.
The captain gave him a sour look. “Nevertheless.”
“Who gave you the information about us?” said Varazda, with a sudden flash of uncomfortable intuition.
“You’ve no call—”
One of the insubordinate ones interrupted their leader. “Young girl, blonde—servant type, but pretty. She said her patron had sent her.”
“Did she,” said Varazda grimly.
“As I say, I’m sure it’s all just—”
“Move!” barked the watch captain. “Now, all of you! No, not you.” He waved his hand impatiently at Dami. “You’re not a suspicious foreigner, are you?”
“Uh, but—” one of the junior watchmen started to object. “Hadn’t we better—just to be safe … ”
“What? Arrest a military veteran who was minding his own business?” the captain snapped.
“Much appreciated,” said Dami. “As a matter of fact, I was questioning these two about their motives before you arrived.”
“There you see?”
Dami fell back a couple of steps to allow the watchmen to surround Varazda and Ariston.
Their departure, with the watchmen marching them out the main doors of the Palace of Letters, caused a stir among the guests, and Varazda gritted his teeth angrily, thinking of the damage this was going to do to his carefully cultivated reputation. Narosangha and Babak looked like they were contemplating stopping the watchmen, but Varazda waved to them and rolled his eyes as if to say it was all a misunderstanding, not to worry.
“Do you think,” Ariston whispered in Zashian, as they were descending the steps outside, “they were talking about Leto? The blonde servant type?”
Varazda nodded. “It sounded like her, didn’t it?”
“But why?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. Under his breath he added, “At least I hope I don’t know.”
At the watch-house, on the edge of the agora, they were escorted into a cell, and the watch captain took obvious pleasure in refusing to let Varazda send a message to Marzana. They sat on a straw mat on one of the benches that lined the room, their backs to the wall.
“This is insane,” Ariston said, repeating a line he had used many times already on the way over. “What is going on? What is this about?”
Varazda pinched the bridge of his nose. His eyes felt itchy, and he wanted to scrub his hands over his face, but he was wearing too much makeup, with no prospect of being able to wash it off any time soon.
“Lykanos wants us out of the way, apparently,” he said.
“So we can’t stop him pushing Themistokles to his death!”
Varazda shook his head. “I don’t think so. It was Leto who told us about the murder plot in the first place, then Leto who set us up to get arrested. If she’s doing Lykanos’s bidding, doing both those things doesn’t make sense.”
If she was doing Lykanos’s bidding, both times. Varazda didn’t say that.
“Unless,” said Ariston, “unless Lykanos isn’t planning to kill Themistokles at the party at all. Maybe he’s planning to kill him on the way to the party.”
“That’s possible,” said Varazda doubtfully. Something about that still did not quite make sense.
Ariston had got a look of terror on his face suddenly. “Oh God, oh God. What if he’s going to kill Themistokles at Kallisto’s house and frame her for it? He could—uh, strangle Themistokles with one of Kallisto’s scarves or—and I’m sure some people know about her—her thing that she does. She’d be suspected for sure!”
She would, that was a fact. “Shh, shh. Setting aside the fact that Lykanos is at the Palace of Letters right now, not in Temple Walk, why would he want to frame Kallisto for anything? Isn’t he supposed to be jealous and want Themistokles out of the way so he can keep Kallisto for himself?”
“Oh. Oh, you’re right.”
Well, thought Varazda, not really, because I don’t think that is what Lykanos wants. But he badly needed Ariston to be calm right now, and speculating about an imaginary murder plot was not going to help achieve that.
He hoped it was imaginary. He couldn’t help remembering that Themistokles said he had told Lykanos he planned to break off his affair with Kallisto. It wasn’t a stretch to think that he might have mentioned when and where he planned to
do it.
Ariston pushed his hands into his hair, disarranging the sleek locks. “What are we going to do?”
“Right now, we have to wait for Damiskos to get us out of here.”
Ariston looked surprised. “How’s he going to do that?”
“By fetching Marzana and telling him what’s happened. It’s not as romantic as cutting his way through the guards and breaking down the door, but it’s more practical.”
Ariston managed a wan smile. “I’m sorry, you know.”
“Hm? Sorry about what?”
He shrugged awkwardly. “That I was rude about Damiskos. I mean, he’s a great guy—a great guy, I really like him—but, you know, I should have been nicer about your whole … thing, even before I knew that.”
“Thanks.”
“Shit. I really hurt your feelings, didn’t I?”
“Ah. Well … ”
“Shit fuck. I’m so sorry, Varazda. Yazata was just worried about you, that was why he was being so weird, but I wasn’t worried—immortal gods, I know you can take care of yourself, you take care of all of us. I just thought it was … you know, why did you have to go and do something so not normal? Is what I thought.”
“I understand.”
“Yeah. But it’s stupid. I want so hard to be normal, but nobody I really love is, so what’s the point?” He made a frustrated noise. “That’s not what I mean. I mean, you and Yazata, you just are who you are. And Yazata, well, he spends most of his time in the house, and just visits a few friends and lives quietly, but you? You go to public baths, you wear women’s clothes and a nose-ring and dance Zashian dances at noblemen’s houses. You’re so much just who you are.” He spread his hands hopelessly. “I don’t know how to explain it better. But you’re my family, you and Yazata and Remi, and if the only way I could really be normal was by pretending you’re not, that’s not something I want.
“And … the other thing is … if I really want to be normal, I should find a girl like Dia, from the bakery—not her, obviously, she’s having Skyphos Bariades’s kid, but somebody like her—and forget about Kallisto. Because the gods—God—knows that’s not normal.”
“I think,” said Varazda slowly, “that maybe we should stop using the word ‘normal,’ because I’m no longer sure what it means—but falling in love with someone and wanting to be with them is pretty common. Even somebody older or younger—or the same age—or who has a strange job or comes from a different sort of family or any of that.”
“Yeah, but … I don’t have an ambition to one day become one of Kallisto’s lovers—clients—or replace Themistokles, or anything like that. I don’t know what I want, but it’s not that. I want to be her partner, somehow. I don’t even know what that means. I just know, when I’m with her, I can be who I am, and it feels like we could make up our own rules and ‘normal’ isn’t maybe even real.
“But the other thing is, being who I am means being Ariston, not Tash, and wearing Pseuchaian clothes, and—and calling myself a man. It means being, well, really different from you.”
“I know that,” said Varazda gently. “That doesn’t bother me. If it doesn’t bother you. I’m very happy for you to be yourself. I’ve never wanted you to be embarrassed by me or anything I do.”
“Holy angels. I’ve been such a shit to you.”
“No, Ari. Come on.”
“I have, though. If I can ever make it up to you … ”
They heard the door to the cells being opened, and they scrambled up to look out from their own cell to see Marzana striding down the passage. Dami, Varazda was surprised to see, was not with him.
“Marzana! God guard your coming and your going. We are so glad to see you!”
“I’m not sure that you should be,” said Marzana sternly.
He arrived in front of the grille that separated their cell from the passage, and made no move to unlock it. He was carrying a bundle of canvas under one arm.
“What is it?” asked Varazda, feeling cold with apprehension. His first thought was that something had happened to Dami. He didn’t speak it aloud.
“You were arrested on insubstantial grounds, and I would have had no hesitation in ordering your release. However, new evidence has come to light, and you are now being held on a charge of murder.”
It was Ariston who spoke first. “Murder? Varazda? Are you joking?”
“Of course not,” said Marzana. He unfolded the canvas surrounding his bundle, and held out the matched pair of Varazda’s bronze swords, the blades stained all down their length with blood.
“Who am I supposed to have killed?” Varazda managed to ask, through the increasingly difficult effort to breath, as the world closed steadily into a black tunnel around him.
“His name was Alkaios, but I would not have expected you to know that. He was one of my volunteer watchmen. He was nineteen and engaged to be married.”
“Varazda wouldn’t kill anybody like that!” Ariston cried. “Anyone—I mean—anyone at all! Have you gone insane? And when was he supposed to have had a chance to do it? He’s been in here ever since your men arrested us.”
Marzana looked at him levelly. “Alkaios was killed on the scaffolding at the Palace of Letters, where he had been patrolling throughout the evening. He was found there by his fellows shortly after they arrested you—on the same scaffolding.”
“Ohh,” said Ariston, nodding, “so you think we killed him just before that, during dinner, because he found us doing something up there—that makes sense. I mean—uh—”
“Marzana,” Varazda said, holding onto the grille to stay upright. “You don’t believe that I did this?”
“I don’t want to. But one of my men has been killed, with your swords, and it has been brought home to me recently that I don’t know you as well as I thought I did. I don’t even know the nature of your work for the embassy.”
“The embassy?” Ariston cut in again. “The ‘nature of his work’ is that he’s a dancer, Marzana! What the fuck?”
“Be quiet,” said Marzana commandingly, and Ariston clamped his mouth shut, which was something of a relief. Marzana rewrapped the stained swords. “You will have to stay the night here. In the morning, my men will investigate, and I will decide how to proceed.” He paused a moment. “I’m sorry, Varazda. Of course I don’t think you’re guilty. Just be patient, and this will all be sorted out.”
Varazda swallowed hard and nodded. “The swords were—I’d left them, in a place where anyone might have picked them up. They were out of my sight all through dinner. Damiskos can confirm that. I suppose you’ve checked that the, that the wounds match the blades?”
Marzana nodded grimly. “They do.”
“Yes. You’ll—you’ll figure it out, I’m sure.”
Marzana looked at him for a moment. “I’m going to send someone to bring you some water. I will see you in the morning.”
And he turned and strode out.
Chapter 19
Varazda sat in a corner of the cell, holding the cup of water that the duty guard had brought him, and trying to stop his hands from shaking long enough to drink. Ariston was pacing back and forth—not that there was much “back” or “forth” in the small room.
“What are we going to do, what are we going to do?” he moaned.
“Ari,” said Varazda finally, “is there … any possible way that you could calm down? It’s just not—not all that helpful for both of us to lose our cool right now.”
“Lose our cool? You’re not losing your cool—you’re just sitting there!”
“I’m not—I’m not doing terribly well. Actually.”
Ariston stared at him for a moment. “Oh,” he said finally. “Right.”
He came over and sat on the floor beside Varazda, squeezed his shoulder, and then kept his hand there.
“Thanks,” said Varazda. He took a sip of his water. “I’ll tell you something, if you like.” He felt it would help to talk. “It will seem funny, under the circumstances.”
/> “Sure. What is it?”
“When Marzana said he doesn’t know what I do for the embassy … I don’t work for the embassy.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I work for the Basileon.”
Ariston stared at him blankly. “You … what?”
“I’m a confidential agent for the Basileon. I supply information on things that are going on in the city—mostly from the great houses where I dance, but I’ve had other assignments. That was what I went to Pheme for in the Month of Grapes.”
“You’re a spy.”
“Mm.”
“You’re a spy. How long—how long have you been doing it?”
“Oh … well, they approached me almost as soon as I was freed. So about seven years.”
“Does Yazata know?”
Varazda nodded. “I told him a few years ago.”
“But you didn’t tell me.”
Varazda looked at him affectionately. “I’m telling you now. It isn’t the sort of thing one is supposed to advertise widely.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Ariston smiled wryly. “What about Damiskos, though? Does he know?”
“He found out at Laothalia in the summer. He knows.”
“That’s good. I mean, you’ve got to be honest with lovers, haven’t you?”
“Um. That is my understanding.”
Ariston laughed. “I’m learning so many new things about you, Varazda. I always thought you were like Yazata, you know, totally uninterested in sex or romance or anything—and then you suddenly bring home this soldier. And now it turns out you’ve been a spy almost the entire time I’ve known you. Is there anything else I’m going to find out?”
Varazda shook his head. “Nothing comes to mind.”
After a minute Ariston said, “Why did you think I’d find that funny?”
“What? Oh, I … don’t suppose I seem very competent right now. Getting myself arrested and suspected by one of my close friends … ”
“It’s all part of the job, though, isn’t it?”
“No. No, this is not part of the job. I don’t know why this happened.”