Saffron Alley

by A. J. Demas

  Saffron Alley

  * * *

  A.J. Demas

  * * *

  © 2021 by A.J. Demas

  Published February 2021 by Sexton’s Cottage Books.

  All rights reserved.

  * * *

  Cover art by Vic Grey

  Cover design by Alice Degan

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Join the Club

  List of Places

  Acknowledgments

  Also by A.J. Demas

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  The sheets were soaked, the vase lay in pieces on the floor, and flowers spilled down off the bed onto the tiles. Telltale footprints led away from the puddle. Varazda looked at it and groaned.

  “I told them not to let that creature in here!” he announced to the empty room.

  He knelt to gather up the scattered flowers. There were spikes of dusty purple with a pleasantly astringent smell, a couple of sprays of bright blue cornflowers, a branch with clusters of jewel-like berries, and tall stalks of ornamental grass like small sheaves of wheat. It had been a nicely masculine arrangement—the purple flowers and the stalks of grass even looked a little like spears, which amused him—and he’d been quite proud of it. He and Remi had picked it all in the vacant lot at the end of the street.

  He went through to the kitchen with his armload of battered foliage, dumped it on the table, and hunted for the broom to sweep up the remains of the vase. Remi came down the stairs from Yazata’s side of the house on her hands and knees, and began doing a circuit of the kitchen making snorting noises.

  “Papa, I am something. Ask me what am I.”

  “Are you a horse?” He couldn’t find the broom. It wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Actually, he didn’t know where it was supposed to be.

  “No, what am I!”

  “Oh. What are you?”

  “A cent—a centimaur!”

  “So you are! What a lovely centaur you are.”

  He found the broom leaning up against the wall outside the back door. Selene waddled in from the yard, looking dignified, and began following Remi around the kitchen with soft honks.

  “Papa, what are you doing with our lovely flowers?”

  “Tidying them up.”

  “Oh, did they have an accident?”

  “Yes. Darling, can you take Selene outside?”

  “She won’t do a mess on the floor.”

  Of course she had already ‘done a mess’ on the floor, though not the kind Remi meant. Varazda sighed. He heard Yazata’s steps on the stairs at his side of the house, and in a moment Yazata himself emerged, dressed to go out. He bent to scoop Remi up, and propped her on his hip.

  “You’re sweeping something?” Yazata blinked at Varazda in surprise.

  “Oh, is that what this is for?”

  Yazata gave his chortling laugh.

  “Now you say, ‘Don’t hurt yourself,’” Varazda prompted.

  “I wouldn’t say that!” Yazata protested. It was true; it had already been a little daring of him to be arch about the broom.

  Varazda kissed him on the cheek. “Going out?”

  “Kiss me too!” Remi demanded. They both kissed her, one on each cheek.

  “To visit Maraz,” said Yazata. “Chares tells me she’s almost recovered, though she’s not well enough to go out yet. I’m bringing her some cakes and a few of today’s eggs.” He picked up a covered basket from the kitchen workbench.

  “Can I have one?” Remi asked, wriggling.

  “An egg? You can fetch one yourself.”

  “No, a cake! Can I have a cake?”

  “I saved one just for you.” Yazata set his basket down again so that he had a free hand, lifted the cover of another dish on the workbench, and handed Remi the small golden cake inside. She gave a squeal of triumph and took a large bite.

  “Give Maraz my love,” said Varazda. “If there’s anything we can do … ”

  “Of course. Oh, and um.” Yazata rearranged the cloth over his basket, not meeting Varazda’s gaze. His voice dropped almost to a whisper. “I may have forgotten to tell you about Pelike.”

  “Mm? I know about Pelike. She’s coming to clean the house and watch Remi. She should be here any minute.”

  “I like Pelike,” said Remi.

  “I—I—I’m afraid Pelike’s not coming,” Yazata said in a rush. “She’s at her mother’s in Thuia, pickling.”

  “Pickling,” Varazda repeated tonelessly.

  “Yes, she had to go help pickle—something.” Yazata’s face twisted apologetically. “Oh dear, I should have told you.”

  “Well—it’s all right, you forgot.” Nevertheless, Varazda couldn’t help giving a small, frustrated growl. “She can pickle her own head if she wants, just not today. The house is … it’s … ”

  “It’s what?”

  “You can’t pickle your head, Papa!”

  “It’s fine,” Varazda forced himself to say soothingly. “If I had thought Pelike was not coming … ” He’d have hired someone else, is what he’d have done. But he was careful not to mention that to Yazata, who was sensitive on the subject of hiring help.

  “I don’t have to visit Maraz today, it’s just that Maia said—” He closed his mouth abruptly, as if swallowing something he didn’t mean, or didn’t dare, to say.

  “Does Maia know Maraz?” Varazda asked, distracted.

  “Oh. No.”

  Varazda didn’t pursue it. “Well, you know it’s the day that I’m meeting the ship.” This was the euphemism that he had been employing around his family—meeting the ship—as if it was the ship that he had invited to stay with them.

  “Yes,” said Yazata in a small voice. “Do you want me to stay home?”

  “No, of course not. You should visit Maraz. I’ll take Remi with me to the harbour.”

  “Yay!” said Remi.

  Yazata nodded. He set Remi down and picked up his basket again. “It might be for the best. Perhaps … ” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Perhaps he ought to know sooner rather than later that you have a daughter.”

  Varazda remembered that night in the little bedroom of the slave quarters, showing Damiskos the miniature portrait of Remi, and the way he had looked at it, so carefully, as if he felt privileged to be shown this piece of Varazda’s heart.

  “Yazata, he knows already.”

  “Oh.” Yazata looked genuinely surprised, and then suddenly apprehensive. “Was he not surprised? Does he not know you’re a eunuch?”

  That was a genuine question, asked with genuine worry. He thought—what did he think? Varazda found it too embarrassing to contemplate. He had no idea how much Yazata understood about the mechanics and varieties of sex, and he did not want to know.

  “Go see Maraz, Yaza. Stay as long as you want.”

  When he looked around after Yazata’s departure, Remi and Selene had disappeared from the kitchen but were not in the yard. He found them in the room Yazata and Tash insisted on calling “the guest suite.” Selene was eating the spilt flowers while Remi squatted on the floor, carefully picking up sharp fragments of vase.

  “Let me take those, my sweet,” Varazda said, dropping the broom and swooping down with visions o
f bleeding fingers and howling. He heard the front door shut behind Yazata.

  They rescued the flowers from Selene and evicted her to the yard, cleaned up the vase, dried the water on the floor, stripped the bed, and hung the sheets and pillowcases on the line outside. Then Remi wanted to find a new vase and recreate the bouquet, so they spent some time doing that. Once it was back on the windowsill, not too much worse for wear, Varazda made a desultory sweep of the downstairs rooms on his side of the house, picking up things that were out of place, took them all upstairs, and dumped them on his bed.

  Tash and Yazata’s front door banged open while Varazda was upstairs, and he heard Tash running up the stairs on their side of the house. When Varazda was back in the kitchen, Tash came clattering down the stairs again, his hair and tunic white with marble dust as usual, with a bundle of evening clothes under one arm and a pair of elaborate sandals dangling from one hand.

  “I’m going to be out late tonight!” he called, plunging into the sitting room on his side of the house. “Not—where did those sketches go—not back for dinner!”

  He emerged after a moment juggling a set of wax tablets and a bundle of papers along with the rest of his burdens, with a stylus clamped between his teeth.

  “Wook et—” he began before removing the stylus and tucking it behind his ear. “Look at this.” He spread the tablets open awkwardly, showing a beautifully detailed sketch of a pair of feet.

  “They’re feet,” Remi announced.

  “Oh, uh, not those … ” He flipped through the leaves.

  “That’s a bum!”

  “What?” said Tash indignantly. “That’s heavenly perfection, is what that is!”

  “Tash!” Varazda yelped.

  “It’s a bum,” said Remi firmly.

  “Here it is, look.”

  He produced one of the scraps of paper and held it up. It contained an elaborate drawing with several figures in complex poses, surrounded by bits of scenery. Varazda could tell that it was a good thing, of its kind, but he had no idea what it was.

  “This is my design for the whole relief,” Tash explained. “You see how the lines of Orante’s arm draw the eye up to the flying dove at the top, and the clouds—well, you probably can’t tell, but they’ll look actually fluffy, not like these floating lumps you usually see. Themistokles said it’s really good, and he wants me to show it to the committee.”

  “Oh, fantastic,” said Varazda, because Tash was obviously happy about this, whatever it was.

  “We’re having dinner with some of them tonight, that’s why I won’t be in. And I might go out for a drink afterward, depending on how it goes.”

  “You’re, uh, going to bathe before dinner, right?” said Varazda.

  Tash tsked and rolled his eyes. “I am going to bathe, I’m not an idiot.”

  “You can see her bum too.” Remi pointed at the sketch.

  “Yeah, but through the fabric of her gown, look—it’s a really good effect, when you can pull it off.”

  Remi wrinkled her nose sceptically.

  “I’m surrounded by such lowbrows,” Tash groaned.

  “It’s great,” said Varazda. “I mean that. They’re considering it for the Palace of Letters?”

  “No, no, we’re all finished the work on that—the dedication’s going to be in a couple of days. This is for a different project. Shi—oh, poop, I’m going to be late. Got to go!”

  Tash gathered his armload of clothes and sketches and pelted out of the kitchen.

  “Good luck!” Varazda called after him.

  A moment later he heard Tash nearly collide with someone on the doorstep, and an irritated exchange.

  “Haven’t you ever heard of knocking? What? Yes, it’s his house, but I’m not him—get out of my way!”

  Varazda looked out into the hallway to see a sleek-haired messenger boy boldly marching in the door and looking critically around the interior of the house.

  “Hello,” said Varazda, “yes?”

  “Pharastes the dancer?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve a message for you. My master, Lykanos Lykandros, desires you to dance at his house on Market Day evening. What answer shall I return?”

  Lykanos Lykandros can go fuck himself, was the answer Varazda would have liked to return, or at least, I deeply regret I am not available that evening. But Lykanos Lykandros, a spice merchant who owned a monstrous pink marble house near the agora, wasn’t just a client; he was an assignment.

  “Of course I’ll be honoured,” he told the boy, without even a token attempt at sincerity, and mentally crossed Market Day off his list of free evenings.

  The boy had been gone only a few minutes when someone else knocked at the door. Varazda ran down the hall hoping it was Maia from across the street and that he could foist Remi on her for the rest of the afternoon.

  It wasn’t Maia; it was a potter’s apprentice bringing a wheelbarrow full of clay and wanting to be paid for it. The wheelbarrow left muddy tracks through the house, and the potter’s apprentice was very pedantic on the subject of proper storage of clay, and wouldn’t listen to Varazda’s instructions to just dump it in the middle of the yard. Selene made matters worse by hissing at him. Once the clay had been safely deposited, money had been found to pay the apprentice, and he had been sent on his way, Remi was beginning to complain that she was hungry. That was when Varazda discovered there was nothing to eat in the house.

  There was food: flour, oil, a couple of chicken eggs, some salt fish, spices. Nothing you could just eat without cooking it first, and cooking was an absolute mystery to Varazda. He didn’t even know how to build a proper fire on the stove.

  Yazata knew this very well. He was the one who kept the house stocked with food, who took care of all the meals and worried that the others weren’t eating enough. Yet he had gone off to visit his friend, on a day when they were expecting a guest, without leaving so much as a half-loaf of bread or an apricot in the house. It was unlike him.

  “Right,” Varazda said aloud, impressed by his own calm. “Put your shoes on, Remi. We’re going to the market.”

  Maia across the street was out, of course—probably pickling things in the countryside with Pelike’s mother—so there was no leaving Remi with her or asking to borrow anything from her kitchen. They had to shut Selene in the yard, which neither she nor Remi liked. Then they had to walk all the way to the market, negotiate Remi’s fickle preferences to find her something to eat, visit six different stalls to buy everything Varazda could think of, walk home, dump their purchases in the kitchen, and by then it was well and truly time to leave to meet the ship—if they were lucky.

  They were halfway down Fountain Street when Varazda realized he had left without changing his clothes, painting his eyes, or even combing his hair. It was too late to do anything about it.

  Three quarters of an hour later, as the late afternoon sun of the warm autumn day slanted golden out of the sky, they were at the harbour.

  Varazda was by now hot and sweaty from carrying Remi at a brisk walk most of the way. He set her on top of a stone pylon on the pier by the customs house, where she could see over the crowd, and scanned the busy quay himself, keeping an arm around her little waist. They were in time: the Swift from Pheme had just docked, and its passengers were disembarking. Remi leaned against him.

  “Is that him?” She pointed with a tiny finger.

  Varazda followed the gesture. “No, that’s a little boy. My friend is a grown-up man.”

  Maybe they should get closer to the ship. But they had a good vantage here, and it was easier for Remi not to get lost in the crowd. Varazda rubbed his upper arm, which was hurting where it had been injured a month earlier.

  A month was also how long he had been looking forward to this meeting, and yet it was coming about in a shambles of last-minute bumbling, and that irritated him.

  “A grown-up man,” Remi repeated. “Is he big?”

  Varazda smiled. “Tall, yes, he’s tall.”
/>
  And broad-shouldered, with delightful muscles—and then other parts of him were big too …

  “Taller than me?”

  “Taller than me, even.”

  Remi digested that, looking up at Varazda.

  “That’s tall.”

  “He’s nice,” Varazda said. “You will like him.”

  That was a safe bet—a given, almost. Remi liked anyone who liked her, and she was easy to like: always smiling, always laughing and talking, and so pretty, with her big dark eyes and dimples and wispy-soft black hair.

  “Is that him?”

  “No, that’s a woman.”

  Remi wrinkled her nose at him and pointed again. “Is that him?”

  “That’s a goat!”

  They giggled over that for a bit. And then, while Remi was looking for something else ridiculous to point to, there he was, emerging from the press of people on the pier by the Swift.

  “Look, there.” Varazda pointed. “Do you see the man with the … ”

  With the what? With the beautiful hazel eyes, the clipped dark curls threaded with silver? With the look of settled sadness that sometimes melts into an adorable smile?

  “That tall man there, with the nice face.”

  He would not say, “The man with the cane.”

  Remi considered Damiskos for a moment. “He has a sword. Does he dance with it?”

  “Uh, well, no. He uses it for other things.”

  “What?”

  “Protecting people.”

  “Oh.”

  The cane was a surprise, though not a big one. Dami hadn’t used a cane at Laothalia a month ago, but Varazda didn’t know what its appearance now meant. Had he aggravated his injury? Done too much walking? Or maybe he only used the cane under certain circumstances. Observation would answer the question without Varazda having to pose it, which he would never do.