Sword Dance

Chapter 4-1

Chapter 4

When Damiskos woke the following morning, the first thing he saw was Varazda’s floral-patterned handkerchief on the table by the head of the bed. He propped himself on one hand and lay looking at it and recalling the events of the previous night. Gelon’s knife was on the table too. Damiskos had eaten the raisin cake.

He wondered what he should do about last night’s incident. His instinct, born of a career in the army, was to report it to someone. But who? If Aristokles hadn’t been there at the time, it would have been appropriate to report it to him, as involving his slave—or his freedman, or whatever Varazda was. But Aristokles had been there, and frankly his response had been one of the more peculiar parts of the incident.

He should tell Nione—though Aristokles would no doubt do so himself, perhaps already had. Aristokles might also complain to Eurydemos about the behaviour of his student. That would be very appropriate.

Damiskos got out of bed and went to the portable shrine to Terza that he had set up in a suitable corner of his room the previous morning. It was a day for burning incense, but he had used up all his small supply on the journey over the mountains. The rubrics specified only a sweet smell, so it was possible to use something other than incense. His eyes fell again on the handkerchief by the bed.

On impulse, he picked it up and brought it to his nose. It smelled of perfume. He had rinsed out the traces of blood the night before, and it was still slightly damp. He shook it out and draped it over the incense burner in his shrine and made his customary brisk and unemotional morning prayer.

He heard voices from the winter dining room on the other side of the atrium as soon as he emerged from his room.

“Gelon says your slave attacked him last night—and I say you should have him beaten for it!”

“I suppose it’s my business what I choose to do with my own slave, sir.”

“Not when he begins attacking free Phemians, sir! Then it’s everyone’s business to see he’s punished.”

“Some of us”—here Damiskos thought he recognized the voice of Helenos, calm and reasonable as ever—“wonder that you would see fit to bring such a slave into a Phemian household.”

Damiskos stepped through the dining-room door. The men inside looked up at his arrival.

Along with Aristokles and Helenos, Gelon was there, looking distinctly shifty and rather sick, his white face decorated with a livid bruise under one eye. Kleitos was there too; he was the one who had been remonstrating with Aristokles. Varazda was not present, and Damiskos did not know whether to think this a mercy or not.

“First Spear,” said Helenos smoothly. “Ah, my apologies—Damiskos, I mean. You and I were speaking yesterday of the matter.”

Damiskos frowned at him.

“You agreed with me,” Helenos continued undaunted, “that no Pseuchaian should own a creature so contrary to nature. I believe the word you used was ‘repellant.’”

Damiskos carefully said nothing. Behind Helenos, Gelon was looking as if he wished he was dead. Aristokles was looking rather queasy too, come to that.

“Repellant!” Kleitos exclaimed. “That’s a polite word, especially coming from a soldier.” He laughed heartily and looked as if he would have slapped Damiskos on the shoulder if he had been standing nearer.

“What exactly are you speaking of?” Damiskos asked severely. It would be bad form—and giving up a tactical advantage—to admit he had overheard any of their conversation.

“Ah.” Kleitos took over eagerly. “Gelon here appeared this morning with a bruised face, as you can see, and when I asked him about it, he said the Boukossian’s eunuch lay in wait for him last night and launched a cowardly attack. I naturally sought out the slave’s master and laid the matter before him, but he refuses to take action—perhaps because he doesn’t believe Gelon’s word, or perhaps—”

“He shouldn’t believe it,” Damiskos interrupted, “because Gelon is lying.”

Kleitos gaped, but Damiskos thought it clear he was enjoying himself. He was obviously a busybody.

Damiskos had been told that he had no flair for the dramatic. He went on stolidly: “It may have been Aristokles’s servant who gave Gelon that bruise, but I think it more likely I did it myself. I came upon the two of them fighting last night, and it was very clear to me that Gelon was the aggressor. He ran when I took away his knife.”

Kleitos turned on Gelon. “Is this true?”

“No! I mean, I did have a knife, and I was—but I didn’t start it. He attacked me—or, anyway, I thought he was going to. I was defending myself.”

“You interrupted the eunuch in some suspicious activity, didn’t you?” Helenos prompted.

“Well, I—that is, I—we’re not going to talk about that?” It was an appeal to the older student, as if Gelon feared they were veering off some script agreed beforehand. That was interesting.

“I’m sure we can all imagine the sort of thing,” said Helenos delicately.

Kleitos shuddered. “Well, however it got started, it ended with a Sasian eunuch laying hands on a Phemian citizen, and I remain firm in my opinion that he should be whipped.”

“I feel bound to say,” said Damiskos, “that I saw nothing to support that judgement. If we were in the city and the matter were taken to law, I would testify to it.” He would also mention the fact that Varazda was apparently free, which changed the legal character of the matter considerably.

“Thank you,” said Aristokles with a pathetic dignity. “I shall consider what you have said and decide what to do with my own slave, as is my right.”

After a little more muttering and blustering, the two students and Kleitos left the dining room. Aristokles lingered as if anxious to let them get well ahead of him. He glanced back at Damiskos with a wan smile.

“Much obliged, I’m sure.”

“What are you doing pretending that Va—Pharastes—is your slave if you’ve freed him?”

“What am I … oh, well, it’s just easier. Everyone assumes, you know.”

Damiskos frowned. That didn’t make much sense. “Still, you were there last night. And surely Pharastes told you what happened. I am surprised you did not defend him more strenuously.”

“Surprised” was maybe not the right word. “Disgusted” might have been a better one.

“I—I don’t know what happened,” Aristokles protested—nervously, Damiskos thought. “I mean, Gelon’s a monomaniac, isn’t he? Perhaps he saw Pharastes outside that philosopher’s door and thought he was sneaking in for an assignation!”

This was such a strange answer that it took Damiskos a moment to absorb it.

“Was Pharastes outside Eurydemos’s door?” he said finally.

“Well, I don’t know! He might have been.”

“He’s your servant. Shouldn’t you know where he is?”

“Not all the time! I can’t keep track of him all the time!”

“I see.” Then Damiskos remembered something. “He can’t have been having an assignation with Eurydemos last night—at least not in Eurydemos’s room—because Eurydemos wasn’t in his room. I saw him in the garden, and then I met him coming in from the garden on my way back to bed.”

“I know he wasn’t having an assignation with—with … But the point is, Gelon doesn’t know that, does he?”

And anyway, Damiskos was about to add, Eurydemos is in love with Nione. Then he remembered that he had assumed Eurydemos was in love with Nione on the strength of that poem about a fruitless tree … which possibly meant something else entirely.

Had Eurydemos been waiting in the garden for Varazda, who hadn’t arrived because he had retreated to his own bed after the scene with Gelon? Somehow that didn’t quite fit. What had Aristokles been doing, if that were the case?

“Well,” said Damiskos, “as you say, he is a monomaniac. I hope he will not cause you or your servant any more trouble.”

Aristokles shuddered.

“Have you told our host?” Damiskos asked.

“What? Told her what?”

“Told her,” said Damiskos patiently, “what happened last night. That one of her other guests attacked Pharastes.”

“No, no.” Aristokles waved a hand. “Nothing to do with her.”

“I beg to differ. If it had happened under your own roof, to one of your own guests, I’m sure you would want to know.”

“Yes, yes, of course, and I will tell her at the—at the appropriate juncture.” Aristokles had been looking away impatiently toward the door, but now he glanced back sharply at Damiskos. “I beg you would not say anything yourself.”

That sounded quite sincere, and Damiskos found it somewhat alarming.

“I don’t know what you’re up to, Aristokles,” he said, “but I don’t like it. Refusing to take action when one of the other guests attempts to r**e your freedman—”

“Attempts to—? No, no—you’ve got it quite wrong. That wasn’t what he was doing at all.” The Boukossian seemed surprised by the suggestion.

“How do you know?” Damiskos countered. “Did you ask your servant what happened?”

“Of course I did,” Aristokles snapped. “Look, you simple little soldier, you have no idea what is going on here. There are things in motion—affairs of the highest—you have no idea.”

“Really.”

“Really. Now leave me and Pharastes alone.”

Damiskos narrowed his eyes at the Boukossian. “I will … if you’ll leave Nione Kukara alone.”

“Oh, yes, yes, yes,” Aristokles crowed. “I knew this was about jealousy at heart. I could tell you—the things I could tell you. You’ve no idea.”

“So you keep saying.”

Damiskos could tell that Aristokles was making a colossal effort not to tell him absolutely all about it, and he had a feeling that if he just waited long enough, and looked unimpressed enough, the Boukossian would lose the struggle. Unfortunately, they were interrupted by a slave with a broom peeping through the dining-room doors to see whether she could come in to sweep, and this gave Aristokles all the distraction he needed to think better of whatever he had been about to say. He pulled himself together, sleeking back his hair with one hand, and cast Damiskos a dark look as he stalked out of the room.

Still turning the conversation over in his mind, Damiskos went out to the garden, where he was met by an entirely normal scene of Nione breakfasting at her private table with Phaia. She beckoned him over to join them.

“Shall we take a walk down the shore to look over the factory this morning?” Nione suggested when he had taken a seat.

“Yes. Excellent.”

He was startled to catch an obviously hostile look from Phaia. It was gone in an instant, and he thought perhaps it hadn’t had anything to do with him. Sometimes he himself was accused of frowning forbiddingly at people when he thought he was simply giving them a neutral look.

“May I come too?” Phaia asked, turning to their host. “I haven’t seen the factory.”

“Of course, if you like.” After a moment, almost shyly, she added, “I should love to show it off to you.”

Damiskos ate in silence while the two women talked. He wasn’t inclined to honour Aristokles’s request that he say nothing to Nione of what had happened last night. But he wasn’t inclined to talk about it in front of Phaia either, so for the moment he had little choice but to keep quiet.

After breakfast, the three of them walked down from the villa to the complex of buildings by the shoreline that housed the fish-sauce operation. The path descended the cliffside with the aid of several steep flights of stairs. Damiskos was embarrassed by how slowly the two women were forced to go for his sake.

“Will you be staying long?” Phaia asked him coolly.

“At least a fortnight, I hope,” said Nione before he could answer.

“Really?” said Phaia. “That seems a long time to spend buying fish sauce.”

Nione laughed.

“My commanding officer thought I needed a holiday,” said Damiskos, “after … There was a lot of trouble with the grain shortages in the winter. I hope I hadn’t complained, but I suppose I must have been looking tired.”

Once he’d been able to lead troops into battle after days of hard riding through the hostile coastlands of Zash, but these days apparently a few late nights in an office were enough to make him look like he needed a holiday.

“I see,” said Phaia. “Well, for my part, I’m sure I shall never want to leave.” She smiled, intimately and dazzlingly, up at Nione.

“Oh, come,” said Nione, but she looked as if she was suppressing a smile of her own.

Damiskos wondered if that was what it looked like—women had different ways of behaving with one another, so it didn’t do to make assumptions—and whether Phaia had been glaring at him after all because she thought he was trying to flirt with Nione too.

He also thought that he was going to need another holiday after this one.

The fish-sauce factory was set on a white sweep of shoreline below the promontory that held the villa. The buildings, of whitewashed stone, stood near the waterline, and a pair of neat fishing boats were moored at the end of a stone jetty. Workers were busy processing the morning’s catch at a long table on the shore.