Strong Wine

by A. J. Demas

  Go into politics?

  “Do you want to take the bed,” Dami was saying, “and I’ll make myself comfortable on the floor?”

  “Oh, no. I’ll go back to my own room. I’ll tell Mother you said you weren’t interested in having sex with me.”

  “Uh. All right, thanks. That’s—I’d appreciate that.”

  Varazda climbed down, finally, still rather mystified by what he had heard, but wishing he could have gone back in and wrapped Dami in his arms for the easy way he had said, “I’m in love with someone else.”

  Aradne was still up when Varazda got back, sitting in the kitchen with her cook, listening to another young woman read aloud from a novel. Varazda heard something about doomed lovers as he came in from the passage, and he hesitated. He wasn’t sure he was in the mood for doomed lovers. But they stopped reading when they saw him.

  “Pharastes! How did it go with the breaking and entering?”

  “What?” said the cook, staring between the two of them as Varazda pulled up a stool and sat down at the kitchen table.

  “He was breaking into his lover’s family home to learn the details of a false murder charge against him—it’s the stuff of romantic fiction, Dria. It’s as good as Alkaios and Eudoxia.”

  “Well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, after what happened last summer,” said the cook.

  “So what did you learn, Pharastes?”

  “Helenos died from drinking a tincture of Nepharos’s Bell—thorn-flower, you call it here. He was staying in Crow Street on the Skalina Hill, and Dami knocked him down in the street when they met. Also, there’s some woman who’s trying to get her daughter into bed with Dami—I mean actually delivering her to the door of his room in the middle of the night—and I don’t quite know what that’s about. They said something about ‘winning him back.’”

  “Yikes,” said the cook. She’d brought down a cup for Varazda and poured out some of the wine that she and Aradne had been sharing. She pushed it across the table to him. “He told you about it, though—that’s a good sign.”

  Varazda didn’t know what she meant. “He didn’t get a chance to tell me—she came to the door, the young woman, I mean, and I overheard them talking.”

  The cook grimaced and shot Aradne a look.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Aradne sternly. “I’m sure Damiskos behaved like a gentleman.”

  “What?” said Varazda.

  “Oh, bless his heart, he wasn’t even worried!” cried the cook. “Here, have a bun. They’re still quite fresh, only left from yesterday.”

  “So who was the girl?” Aradne asked. “Not an ex-wife—he’s never been married, has he?”

  “No!” Varazda unpinned his hair and shook it out. “He’s had, you know … ” He trailed off, realizing he didn’t know. Dami had certainly talked about male lovers, a fiancée in Zash, and visiting courtesans and things, but Varazda didn’t know if he had ever had what one might call a regular mistress. He thought not.

  “You know … ” Aradne prompted.

  “Um. Well, he’s not like me.”

  “Addicted to cock?”

  “Ew. Aradne, please.”

  She snorted. “What? He likes pussy, is what you’re trying to say.”

  Varazda put his hands over his ears. That was when Nione came in, sleepy-eyed and wrapped in a shawl, carrying a lamp. The cook jumped instinctively to her feet.

  “Hello, Dria. Aradne, what have you been doing to poor Varazda? He’s red as a beet.”

  Aradne relayed Varazda’s story in her own style, and Nione stopped her before she could finish a sentence that began, “What I think it must be—”

  “Ino,” Nione said. “She’s not an ex-wife, she’s an ex-fiancée. I remember her, slightly. She was around when Damiskos was still serving in the Maidens’ Honour Guard, though they weren’t officially engaged then. They were friends—her father was a business connection of his father. They got engaged just before he went into the legions, and then her parents called it off.”

  “Well, they’ve called it on again, I guess,” said Aradne. “Or at least the mother has.”

  “The parents were both very cruel, I remember,” said Nione. “I think Damiskos wanted to marry her mostly to get her away from them. She was shy—or something more than that. She had difficulty talking to people. I don’t think they were in love, exactly. I’m sorry, Varazda—that must have been a distressing thing to hear.”

  “He started to tell me about it, before I had to dive out the window. He said there was a ‘situation.’ I don’t think I understand very well what the ‘situation’ is, even now.”

  Nione and Aradne exchanged a glance. The cook, Dria, made a stifled noise.

  Aradne said, “The awful mother wants him to knock her up—”

  “Make her pregnant,” Nione supplied with a wince.

  “—so she’ll have to marry him.”

  “Oh,” said Varazda after a moment, realizing that he had reared back in shock. “I see.”

  Aradne shook her head. “I don’t know whether it’s worrying or cute that you’re so innocent sometimes.”

  “Worrying,” he said, rubbing his hands over his face. “It should definitely be worrying. And I’m not innocent, just—things like that happen at the Zashian court all the time, but I expect better from Pseuchaians.” He shook himself slightly.

  Nione kindly changed the subject. “I can go to the Hall of Justice tomorrow morning and find out the exact details of the charge, if you think that would be helpful. I’m afraid they wouldn’t give them out to you, as you’re not a citizen—but as a retired Maiden, I’m a sort of honorary man.” She shrugged apologetically. “It’s ridiculous, really.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Aradne. “There’s nothing manly about you. Take it from me.”

  Dria giggled.

  “And I suppose,” Nione went on, mostly ignoring this, “that you’ll want to visit the place where Helenos was living. The Skalina is a very bad neighbourhood—you really must be careful there.”

  Varazda nodded. “Do they keep records of how people died here? When they die suspiciously, I mean.”

  “No,” said Aradne. “They do that in Boukos?”

  “Yes, there’s a registry kept at the watch house. But it’s a new thing—a friend of mine was responsible for starting it.”

  “There’s nothing like that here,” said Nione. “But we know how he died, don’t we? He was poisoned.”

  “Yes, but I’d like to know how they know that.” In Boukos it would all have been helpfully recorded in Marzana’s Registry of Suspicious Deaths. “Damiskos said he was poisoned with thorn-flower, and as far as I know that doesn’t cause any particular signs on the body, so they must have had some other reason to think that’s how he died. I want to know what it was.”

  “Right,” said Aradne. “In case they were mistaken or something.”

  “Or something,” said Varazda. “What happens when someone is found dead, in Pheme? At home, the public watch would be called, and they’d take the body to the Temple of Nepharos—who does that here?”

  “You can pay people,” said Aradne. “I mean people who do that for a living. Or if you have slaves you’d get them to do it. In a place like the Skalina … ” Her eyebrows went up, and she looked at Nione. “Gods, you know, I’ve no idea. Do you think the neighbours would do it?”

  “Probably they would have,” said Nione, “but they didn’t need to. We know his family is involved—it was his father who brought the charge. And if they know how he died, and they could only know how he died by having been at the scene—they or their servants—then they were probably responsible for removing the body.”

  “You’re right!” said Aradne.

  “Brilliant,” said Varazda.

  Nione yawned hugely. “Thank you. I’m surprised I’m even coherent at this hour.”

  “I’ve often wondered how Pheme manages without a public watch or a royal guard, as they have in Zashian cities.”<
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  “Well, we have fire patrols at night,” said Nione, “and the big houses and public buildings have guards.”

  “You can usually find someone to enforce the laws,” said Aradne.

  “I’m afraid I must be off to bed.” Nione got up from the bench where she had been sitting beside Aradne. “I’ll, um … ” She hesitated.

  “I’ll be there soon,” said Aradne, grinning up at her.

  When she was gone, Aradne looked at Varazda and seemed to realize that she was still grinning. She looked embarrassed. Dria rolled her eyes and got up to put away some dishes.

  “It’s hard to get used to,” Varazda offered after a moment.

  “What is?”

  “Oh, I was just thinking that I’ve been in Nione’s position, more or less. It takes time to get used to. Sharing a bed with someone. Not that I ever took a vow of celibacy, just a general policy of avoidance, for, oh, a decade or so.”

  Aradne raised her eyebrows. “Is that so? And you were finally convinced to give it up.”

  “Oh, there was really very little convincing involved.”

  “Hah! Well, I’ve never been the least bit interested in men, but I can tell that Damiskos is a good one.”

  Philion Temnon’s friend the advocate arrived, fresh from Anthousa, the following morning. He was a man named Olympios, with a square, pugnacious face and glittering eyes that roved restlessly over everything. He seemed unable to sit still for long. Damiskos had known officers like that in the army, and they were often very effective.

  “Can’t you just picture him in a courtroom?” Korinna exclaimed to Myrto, as Philion was showing Olympios the recent redecoration of the apartment. “He’ll be perfect.”

  “He seems very energetic,” said Myrto.

  “Well, well,” said Olympios when he had finished looking around the atrium, shaking Damiskos vigorously by the hand, “the distinguished soldier, accused of murder in the slums of Skalina—what a case, to be sure! And Kontios Diophoros’s son, too. Between you and me, could you have picked your victim from a lesser family? It does make my job harder.” Abruptly he roared with laughter. “I’m teasing you! I relish a challenge. I live for it. The higher the status of your victim, the better it is for me.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” said Damiskos, “so he’s not my victim.”

  Olympios laughed as if Damiskos had said something witty. “I’ll tell you, I have seen it all. There was one time I defended a man who was accused of killing his wife. Well, he told me he’d done it. What could I do? I mounted the best defense I could, and got him off. Yes, I did. I’ll never forget the look on his face when the jury’s votes were counted. This would have been ten, twelve years ago, before the fire at the Hall of Justice, when they had those awful frescoes—did you ever see those? Friend of mine knew a good story about how they were painted … ”

  He talked on, while Damiskos followed him on his second circuit of the atrium. Eventually he did return to the point of his story, which was that the wife had not been dead at all but somewhere abroad, and the man had actually wanted to be found guilty and sentenced to exile in order to join her; it had been an attempt at some kind of fraud. Damiskos wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to be amused or impressed by the story. He was neither, and he remained grimly silent.

  Olympios spent the whole morning with them and stayed to lunch although he was rather pointedly not invited. He talked for perhaps a quarter of an hour about Damiskos’s defense and spent the rest of the time rehearsing past cases—sometimes acting out different parts, putting on voices—telling irrelevant stories, and dispensing unwanted advice about decorating. He liked to give people nicknames, and explained this annoying habit as if it was something he was particularly proud of. By the time he left, even Damiskos’s mother had taken against him.

  “Are you sure he’s the right choice?” she asked Philion, in the silence that had descended after the advocate left.

  “All crooks,” Simonides croaked. “Advocates.”

  “Eh? Oh, he’ll be fine,” said Philion. “He pulls himself together. I’ve seen it before.”

  “Well, that’s good,” said Myrto. “But it is going to take an awful lot of pulling, isn’t it?”

  Her husband did not respond. Damiskos put an arm around his mother’s shoulders and gave her a small squeeze. He wanted to tell her about Varazda, but not in front of his father.

  “Well, I liked him,” said Korinna, smiling at Philion. “He’s a very good speaker.”

  Back in his room later that afternoon, Damiskos reread Varazda’s letters. The first one was quite long and full of detail about events in Saffron Alley. He was glad, in a way, that Varazda had arrived before his letters, because reading this thinking that he might never see Varazda or any of the others again would have been too much to bear. He cursed again the fact that he hadn’t had time to explain to Varazda about Ino and the shit business last night.

  The rest of the household was still trying in increasingly awkward ways to give Damiskos and Ino time alone together. Damiskos didn’t bother trying to prevent them. Either he and Ino would sit together in silence, or he would ask her about the set of cups she was working on when she went out to “visit her friend” and enjoy listening to her talk.

  He remembered her telling him sixteen years ago, “I don’t want to marry someone who just wants to rescue me.” He thought she probably still didn’t want that.

  Varazda’s second letter was short and written in Zashian. It was a passage from the Tales of Suna, carefully copied out: the song of the moon fairy pining for her absent lover.

  The wine shop where Varazda and Aradne had arranged to meet Nione was small and quiet, with frescoes of fruit around the front counter and a delicious aroma in the air. It reminded Varazda of home.

  “There wasn’t much to be learned at the Hall of Justice,” Nione said as they sat down. “The charge is a simple one of deliberate murder. It was brought by Kontios Diophoros and is to be heard by a jury on the first—a week from today.”

  “That doesn’t give us a lot of time,” said Aradne. Glancing at Varazda, she added, “Er. Sorry.”

  “That’s longer than I thought we’d have, actually.” In Boukos the trial would have been heard days earlier; but Boukos was a much smaller place.

  “There may be a little more I can do,” said Nione. “Let me look into it.”

  “I can’t tell you how grateful I am,” said Varazda. “We have a bit more to tell, though it was a lot of work to get it.”

  “You can say that again,” said Aradne, rolling her eyes.

  The waiter arrived to take their order, and since none of them had so much as glanced at the menu, this took some time.

  “We went to the Diophoros town house,” said Aradne finally, when they had ordered their food. “It’s quite a grand place. We got in the back door by pretending to be fortune tellers.”

  “You what?” Nione started in alarm.

  “No, no, we didn’t actually use the sacred bones! Just made up nonsense.”

  “Oh, of course—I know you wouldn’t, my dear. I’m sorry.”

  “I told you she wouldn’t like it,” Aradne said, looking at Varazda with a wry grin. “It was my idea, but credit where credit is due, Pharastes was much better at it than I. He told them these cryptic things that could have meant anything, all in a thick Sasian accent.”

  “If it’s any comfort,” said Varazda, “I don’t think they really believed any of it. But the premise did allow us to bring the conversation around to what we wanted to know.”

  “He said, ‘I can feel there has been a death—violence—a son of this house!’” Aradne did a bad imitation of Varazda’s ramped-up accent.

  “They were very eager to talk about it,” said Varazda. “We met one of the men who had gone to retrieve Helenos’s body. Apparently the murder was discovered by the neighbours, who didn’t know who Helenos was—he was more or less in hiding. But he had been in touch with his father, and by chance
one of his father’s slaves had been sent there with money for him the morning after he died. They knew it was Nepharos’s Bell that killed him because there was a half-full cup of wine laced with the stuff next to him.”

  “It has a strong smell,” said Aradne. “You’d have to be pretty drunk not to notice you were swigging from a cup of it.”

  “Probably why the cup was still half full,” said Nione reasonably. “Did the servants know what Helenos was doing in Pheme? It must have been risky for him to come back here. He must have had some reason.”

  “They didn’t know,” said Varazda, “but it wasn’t to make contact with his family. He had done that, but only, from the sound of it, incidentally. His father had been sending him money but had not invited him to stay at the house.”

  Nione nodded. “So next … ”

  “Next I have to visit the place where Helenos was staying.”

  The waiter returned with their food, simple dishes appetizingly presented on black-and-white plates that again reminded Varazda of Boukos.

  “You have to try the sausages,” said Aradne. “They’re the best in Pheme.”

  “And the cheese,” said Nione. “Oh, but I can’t remember—can you have goat’s milk?”

  “Hm?” Varazda laughed. “It’s been years since I even thought about that, actually.” He felt guilty admitting to a pious person like Nione that he didn’t observe the taboos of his own religion. “There’s just so much goat everything in Boukos. And even in Zash, it’s sort of … an old-fashioned thing. Some people call it a superstition.”

  Of course then Aradne wanted to hear all about it, and Varazda blundered his way through an explanation of the doctrine of the Thrice-Holy Vaksha surrounding the Horned Beast, all the while suspecting that Nione could have explained it better herself. This took them through most of the meal, which was as delicious as it had looked.

  “Now,” said Aradne finally, “tell us how we can help with the investigation.”

  “Thanks. I don’t know, yet. I think at first I should go look around the Skalina by myself.”