Chapter 6
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,
