Sword Dance

by A. J. Demas

  Varazda turned to signal that he would look over the wall, using the gestures Damiskos had taught him. He crept along a little and peered over the top of the wall. He held out a hand, ready to signal for Damiskos to follow or stay put, but instead he curled his hand in a dancerly, flowerlike gesture. Damiskos gave an inaudible snort. Varazda glanced back, grinning, and then beckoned for Damiskos to follow, and flowed over the wall.

  Their first stop was the kitchen, which they entered by the unlocked door off the yard. It was a mess, with broken vessels on the floor and the tables, food spilling out of containers, unraked ashes on the stove. Most of the knives had been taken, leaving only a couple of rather blunt cleavers and three small fruit knives. Damiskos bundled these up in a towel and tucked them into his belt, and they left the kitchen.

  They crossed the dark yard without incident and reached the gate leading into the yard shared by the stables and the slave quarters. Here there were signs of life. Light glowed in a couple of downstairs windows of the slaves’ building, and when they slipped cautiously over the wall into the yard they could hear a murmur of voices coming from the lit room.

  Varazda had explained the layout of the slave quarters to Damiskos earlier. The men were all housed downstairs, in double rooms, the women upstairs along the gallery. Downstairs was also a common room, a dining hall, and the slave baths. The light and voices were clearly coming from one of those.

  Varazda leaned close to Damiskos to whisper in his ear. “Do you want to go listen under one of those windows while I go upstairs? See what you can find out?”

  Damiskos nodded crisply and gave the signal for Varazda to move out toward the staircase. Varazda made a comical face at him, and Damiskos allowed himself another soft huff of laughter. All very unprofessional. He should be ashamed of himself.

  He watched Varazda move off toward the stairs, visible only because Damiskos was straining his eyes to follow him. He really was very good at this, catlike and cautious, pressing himself into the shadows and moving smoothly and swiftly. He would have been fine alone, just as Damiskos had said. But it still pleased Damiskos absurdly that Varazda was glad to have him along.

  He waited until Varazda was halfway up the stairs before moving toward the lit windows, hugging the wall, crossing quickly past the main door. When he reached the far side, he dropped to sit the ground and scooted himself along with his hands, a totally undignified performance that was the best he could do since he couldn’t crouch properly anymore. He positioned himself under one of the windows, back to the wall, where he could hear the voices from inside reasonably clearly.

  The windows must have belonged to the dining room, because he could hear sounds of eating, spoons chinking against bowls, voices muffled by mouthfuls of food, cups clunking on the table. It sounded like half a dozen men, no more than that. He recognized the voice of the boy Niko among the rest.

  “Going to make a raid on the kitchen tomorrow morning, I don’t care,” Niko was saying. “What are they going to do to me if they catch me, anyway? Philosophize at me?”

  “They could kill you the way they killed Tio and Demi. You are not leaving the yard.”

  “It’s not the philosophers I’m worried about,” rumbled another man’s voice. “It’s Sesna and his boys.”

  There were grunts and murmurs of agreement.

  “Well, I’m not afraid of them,” Niko blustered, “and I’m going. First thing tomorrow. You’ll thank me when I bring back some decent food.”

  Conversation died down into the sounds of eating and drinking. Damiskos crept back around the building to the gate leading out of the slaves’ yard. Sure enough, it was barricaded on this side, a couple of stout beams affixed as makeshift bars.

  Varazda appeared at his shoulder, swords under one arm. He had changed into a clean shirt with flowers embroidered around the neck; the buttons were not done up, the shirt fastened only by his sash. He gave Damiskos a questioning look. Damiskos pointed to the bars on the gate.

  “They’ve barricaded themselves in,” Damiskos whispered. “I think only some of the men are in here. They’re worried about someone named Sesna?”

  “Mm. The head porter. A bully, I gather.”

  “And ‘his boys,’ they said.”

  “He has a few flunkies. They’re the ones who feel hard-done-by in a house full of women.” Varazda shrugged contemptuously. “It’s about what you’d expect.”

  “Should we go in and speak to the men in here? See if they have any intelligence we haven’t gathered yet?”

  “Yes, I think so. I’ll go in, you stay outside with the swords.” He handed them over. “I’m not sure we want to show our hand completely until we have to.”

  Damiskos nodded agreement. “You didn’t forget the picture of your daughter, did you? While you were busy frivolously putting on clean clothes?”

  Varazda gave him a fond smile and patted the front of his sash, where Zashian men were in the habit of stashing their valuables. “No, First Spear, I didn’t forget the picture of my daughter.”

  He leaned in and kissed Damiskos on the cheek, then he was gone across the dark yard, headed for the door of the slaves’ quarters, doing up his buttons as he went. He was inside for only a brief time before he reappeared in the lighted doorway and beckoned for Damiskos to join him. Damiskos came, carrying Varazda’s swords, and followed him through the door into the slaves’ dining room.

  There were only four people at the table; they were just noisy eaters. And Damiskos saw immediately that this was not a useful auxiliary force. There were two old men, stooped and white-haired, a young man who looked to be blind, and Niko.

  They were eager to give Damiskos and Varazda their account of the seizure of the villa, but it was mostly what they had heard already: the fishermen had come in demanding extra pay; the students had locked Eurydemos in his room and drawn knives when the slaves tried to protect their mistress. The mistress had escaped with her women, and the men had stayed behind voluntarily as a diversion

  “The mistress wanted to take us four with her,” said the blind man. “She would have taken us with her, but we insisted on staying.”

  “It was noble of you,” said Varazda warmly. “But are you four the only ones left in here? What happened to the rest of the men?”

  “Sesna and his thugs threw in their lot with the philosophers,” said the blind man, scowling. “The others, we think they locked them in the cellars, but we don’t know.”

  “When they didn’t come back, we barricaded the gates,” Niko explained. “The gate from the yard, and the one on the other side, by the stables. Your horse is all right, by the way, sir. Grandad and I’ve been looking after her—and the others.”

  Grandad, whom Damiskos recognized as one of the grooms, grunted something about the boy knowing nothing of horses, which Niko ignored. Damiskos thanked them both sincerely for taking care of Xanthe.

  Since they had spent the last day and a half hiding in the slaves’ quarters, the men didn’t have much more to report. They said the porters had made a couple of attempts to get into the yard, and threatened to get ladders to scale the walls, but since the ladders were actually stored in back of the stables, they hadn’t been able to make good on the threat. They had heard the students arguing once or twice, but didn’t know what it was about.

  Varazda and Damiskos thanked them and explained that they were on their way to get help.

  “It’s probably best for you to stay here,” Varazda said. “So long as you feel safe. If all goes according to plan, the siege should be lifted by tomorrow morning.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Damiskos added, looking pointedly at Niko, “risk going out to the kitchen. For instance.”

  “Did we do the right thing, leaving those men there?” Varazda asked in a whisper as they edged around the walls toward the house door.

  Damiskos stopped, the question unexpected. It had been Varazda’s decision, but Damiskos didn’t think it had been wrong.

  “Yes, I th
ink so,” he whispered back. “We couldn’t bring them with us now, and we need to finish what we came here for. If we’re able, on the way back, we could stop and collect them. Or try to—they may not come. They may say they need to stay and take care of the horses or something. Not wanting to abandon their post. They strike me as that type.”

  “Well, you would know, First Spear. But thank you. I’m glad we agree.” He made the “go ahead” gesture.

  The windows on the front of the house were small and high up, and opened onto unoccupied bedrooms rather than onto the atrium. As in any traditional Phemian house, no outside windows looked onto the atrium, which was lit and ventilated by its central skylight. They could not risk trying the front door, as they would be going in blind. They had to take a circuitous route, described to them by Aradne, to reach Damiskos’s room. They crossed the front of the house and reached a narrow alley beside the kitchen building which opened out at the back into a small paved yard smelling of kitchen garbage and privies.

  On their right was the bath complex, a low-roofed annex to the main house, overgrown with vines which trailed on up the house’s western wall. The ground-floor windows of the rooms on this side looked out over the top of the tiled bath-house roof. Damiskos’s room was one of these, and their plan was to climb up to the window by way of the bath-house. Aradne had said it should be possible, though personally she had never tried it, and that was what they had to go on.

  Clouds had half-covered the moon at this point, and it was very dark in the little yard. Varazda stood looking up at the view of roof and wall and windows above them for a moment, then adjusted the swords that he had tucked through his sash, crossed at the back. He reached up, and with a little jump caught hold of the overhanging edge of the bath-house roof and pulled himself lightly up.

  He crouched on the tiles of the roof, looking over at Damiskos, and beckoned with one hand: come up.

  Damiskos reached up to grasp the roof; he was just slightly taller than Varazda and didn’t have to do more than stand on tiptoe to reach it. He kicked off the wall using his good leg, and hauled himself up over the edge onto the tiles. This was not something he had practiced doing since his injury, but he managed it efficiently enough, though he must have looked laboured and ungraceful compared to Varazda. Who was poised ready to help him over the edge if he needed it, but made no comment when he didn’t.

  There were five ground-floor windows along the length of the bath complex, all close enough to the roof that they would have to slither on their stomachs when passing under them to be sure of not being seen. All were dark except for the second and the fifth, whose shutters were open with light glowing out from within. Faint voices came from the second window, which Damiskos thought belonged to another bedroom.

  Crouching by the first window, Varazda pointed down the line and back at Damiskos: which window is yours? Damiskos pointed at the third window, hoping that he remembered Aradne’s diagram of the house well enough. It was too dark now to consult it. Varazda nodded and gestured “forward.”

  He’d really taken to the hand signals, Damiskos thought with amusement. I must remember to tease him about it later.

  They crawled along the roof close to the wall, moving slowly and carefully for fear of dislodging a loose tile; Aradne had warned them that this roof was in bad repair. It sloped at a gentle angle away from the main house wall, and was easy enough to traverse except for that consideration. They passed under the lit window, pressing themselves as low as possible. None of the voices that Damiskos could hear from below were familiar. It sounded like a game of dice in progress. The fishermen, possibly.

  They reached the third, dark window and stopped beneath it. Damiskos levered himself up to push experimentally at the shutters. They were latched from inside. Varazda sat up next to Damiskos, drew one of his swords, and offered it. Damiskos mouthed “Thank you” and used the thin bronze blade to lift the latch and let it drop to the side. He smiled at Varazda in the dark as he returned the sword.

  It was odd to be on a night mission—behind enemy lines, so to speak—with a fellow you wanted to kiss all the time.

  Damiskos pushed the shutters open and looked into the room. A little faint light slanted in through the window above the door, which opened onto the atrium, and he could see that it was indeed his room. The bed was directly under the window where they sat. He turned and signalled to Varazda that he would go in and Varazda should wait here. Varazda touched his arm to stop him, pointed to himself, and pointed up at the wall of the house.

  Damiskos followed the gesture, looking up at the thick trunk of a vine twining up the wall to the second-storey windows. He shook his head.

  Varazda raised his eyebrows: why did Damiskos think it was a bad idea?

  It wasn’t a bad idea; it was a good way of getting into the upstairs rooms, one they hadn’t thought of because they hadn’t known the vines would make the wall scalable at this point. But it would require them to split up. There was no way Damiskos could make it up that wall, and Varazda had to know that.

  Damiskos reached through the window to rap his knuckles on the shutter, and gestured upward. What if the windows above were closed? Varazda laid his hand on the hilt of one of his swords. Shrugged. Yes, he probably could unlatch a window with his sword while hanging one-handed onto a vine, Damiskos thought. He craned his neck to look up at the window above them, the one Varazda could most easily reach from the vine. It did appear to be shuttered, but there was no light showing between the louvres.

  Varazda tapped his shoulder and made a complicated but clear series of gestures to indicate that Damiskos should go up through the house and meet him upstairs. It would give Varazda a chance to begin searching the students’ rooms before they went to set the signal for the postal ship. Damiskos didn’t particularly like it, but he wasn’t going to prevent Varazda from taking the most effective route to the second storey just because he himself couldn’t manage it. He nodded.

  As a compromise for his own peace of mind, he lay on the roof waiting while Varazda climbed nimbly up the vine, braced himself with one foot on the window ledge, drew his sword to flick the latch open, and pushed the shutters noiselessly inward. He slid the sword neatly back through his sash, caught the top of the window to swing himself fully over from the vine to the windowsill, and crouching there, poised as a cat, looked down at Damiskos, and blew him a kiss.

  A moment later, Damiskos had collected himself enough to swing over the edge of his own window and drop down onto his bed.

  The room had been cursorily turned over; his portable shrine lay on the floor, the ashes of the last burnt offering spilled over the tiles. His saddlebags had been dragged out of his closet and opened, but they had not found either his sword or his hunting bow, hidden at the very back of the top shelf.

  He tucked the shrine and its statue into the bag along with the bow, quiver, and the bundle of kitchen knives, tied the bags shut, and buckled on his sword belt. Then he got up on the bed again to heft the saddlebags out the window, letting them down gently onto the roof outside.

  Getting down from the bed, he crossed quietly to the room door and listened at it for a cautious interval. There were no sounds from the atrium, not even faint rustles or soft footfalls. He remembered that sounds from outside had been clearly audible in this room, no doubt because of the connecting window. He eased the door open and slipped out into the empty atrium.

  There were no lights burning here, but the door to the room where he thought he had heard the fishermen stood open, and lamplight spilled out. It lay between him and the foot of the stairs, but the atrium beyond was deeply shadowed. He pulled the door gently closed behind him and started around the long way, creeping close to the walls to stay in the darkness as much as possible.

  He passed the open archway of the anteroom to the library, which he thought was where they had seen the second light burning from outside, but here he could hear no voices, and the inner door was closed. He paused at the opening to t
he passage out into the garden, looking cautiously around the corner. There was no one in the portico, so he ventured a quick detour down the passage. Hiding behind a column, he looked out into the garden.

  Torches flickered in the summer dining room, and he could see students lounging on the couches and hear raised voices. Someone was pouring wine, but whether it was one of the turncoat porters or someone else, he had no idea.

  He slunk back the way he had come. Through the half-open folding doors of the winter dining room he could see a chaos of uncleared dishes and broken wine-cups. There were articles of clothing on the floor in the atrium, and a statue had been toppled from its pedestal and lay in pieces on the tiles. The pool in the middle of the atrium smelled faintly of urine.

  He reached the bottom of the stairs without incident, but someone had broken some crockery on the first few steps, and he barely avoided stepping on the fragments in the dark. He felt around for a clear space on the step with the toe of one boot, and unluckily a number of shards fell off the edge of the step to the floor with loud chinks.

  “What was that?” demanded someone in the lit room beside the stairs.

  “A cat or something,” said another voice, blurred with drink. “Aw, come on, leave it!”

  “If it’s one of those students creeping about, though … ” A third voice. “I don’t trust any of ’em.”

  “Or the damn slaves getting out of the cellar. I told you we should’ve cut and run a long time ago.”

  There was more cursing and unintelligible, raised voices. This time Damiskos was sure there were at least five of them. He had retreated around the corner into the passage leading to the front door, hand on the pommel of his sword, but no one emerged from the room, and presently they seemed to have gone back to their game of dice. He crept out again. Armed, he liked his chances against five fishermen well enough, but they were civilians; they would have to mount a very determined attack before he would think himself justified in killing any of them, and he would prefer it didn’t come to that.