Saffron Alley

by A. J. Demas

  Varazda walked across the room to a narrow door on the far side, in a gap between two of the divans.

  “This,” he said, opening it, “is your room.”

  Damiskos gave him a slightly puzzled look, which Varazda could not interpret. Varazda led the way into the room.

  “Oh,” said Dami, “now this is pure Zash.”

  There was rich colour and pattern everywhere, and a scent of incense in the air. The restored bouquet stood on the windowsill at the far end, framed by pierced shutters of dark wood, above the stripped bed, which was a Zashian-style pallet raised up on a platform.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Damiskos. “I feel as if I’m back in Suna. This is your bedroom?”

  “No, no—my room is upstairs.” And it looked nothing like this.

  “Ah.”

  Varazda glanced back out into the sitting room to see what Remi was doing. She was sitting on a divan munching her cheese pie and swinging her feet.

  When he looked back, Dami was staring at the south-west wall of the room, at a small niche beside the door.

  “That’s in just the right place for a shrine to Terza,” he said, sounding surprised.

  “I know,” said Varazda proudly. “I asked around.”

  Dami looked at him, then turned to survey the rest of the room again, his expression almost alarmed. “The bed? It’s a Zashian bed, but you’ve got it raised up, so … so I can get in and out more easily?”

  Varazda nodded. “I had the box built to match that table—” He pointed. “—which was in the sitting room before. The shutters too—I mean, they weren’t in the sitting room, but I had the same carpenter do them. The other furniture in here I had already. The room wasn’t being used for much—it was a storeroom at the back of the music shop. If you look behind those hangings, you can see where I had the door walled up, and then I had this one knocked through. I’d been meaning to do it for years, and I thought … ” He smiled. “I thought the time had come.”

  “I see. That … sounds like a lot of work.”

  “Oh, not too much, really. So,” he asked casually, “how long do you think of staying?”

  “Right.” Damiskos looked uncomfortable. “I’ve—I have a week.”

  “Ah.”

  “I was hoping it could be longer.”

  “Yes.”

  Varazda had assumed it would be quite a bit longer. He felt his defenses rising. He had shown himself far too eager. He should have made it sound as if he’d put the bed on some old boxes he’d had lying around, and the niche was a coincidence, and he shouldn’t have said anything about walling up and knocking through doors.

  Damiskos went on: “I wasn’t … able to resign, entirely. It turned out my superior officer was implicated in the Laothalia affair—he was part of the conspiracy to buy the documents that Helenos had stolen—and when he was found out, he fled Pheme and left behind a disastrous mess. Records burnt or just missing, funds unaccounted-for, a major shipment of grain dropped at the wrong location and left to rot—it was pretty bad. I couldn’t leave in the middle of that, and I … in point of fact, I was promoted, I have his job now, and a week was the most time I could get away.”

  Varazda laughed rather sharply. “So when you say you couldn’t resign ‘entirely,’ you mean you didn’t resign at all.”

  “I did resign,” Damiskos said patiently. “I’m Acting Quartermaster until someone suitable is found to replace me.”

  “I see. I’m sorry.”

  “No, I understand—I should have explained that it would only be a short visit, but I … I didn’t want to presume.”

  Suddenly Varazda could picture it: Damiskos back in his miserable life in Pheme, with his ridiculous job, his cramped living quarters, his horrible family, stewing in uncertainty about whether Varazda even wanted him any more, let alone how long he might be welcome to stay.

  It couldn’t have helped that Varazda had never answered any of his letters.

  “I’m sorry,” Varazda said. “I did not mean to leave you uncertain. Of course you are welcome to stay as long as you can. A week will be lovely.”

  Damiskos smiled gratefully. After a moment he said, “Can I kiss you?”

  “Oh, yes, please.”

  He drew Varazda to him, and it was all Varazda could do not to whimper abjectly. It felt so good to have those strong arms around him again. He wrapped his own arms around Damiskos’s neck, and they kissed in sweet absorption, bodies pressed together. Varazda had craved this all the while they had been apart: the hard contours of Dami’s body, the gentle heat of his lips. He had dreamt of this, in fact, and woken feeling oddly guilty.

  After a moment, Damiskos’s hand slid up Varazda’s thigh, under the skirt of Varazda’s tunic, just far enough to be tantalizing, just slowly enough that Varazda could have pushed it away if he had wanted to, which he didn’t.

  “I’ve been wanting to do that since I first saw you at the harbour,” Damiskos murmured into Varazda’s neck.

  “Since you first recognized me, you mean.”

  Damiskos groaned.

  Varazda reached up to untie his hair and shook it out, while they still stood clasped body to body. Damiskos drew a handful to his lips and kissed it, a surprisingly heated gesture. Varazda could feel Dami’s arousal through the thin layers of their clothes. He had to remind himself that it was no reason to tense up and pull away.

  In the distance, Varazda heard a door open, and Remi called out, “Yaza! Papa, it’s Yaza!”

  Yazata was coming through from the front of his house into the kitchen when Varazda and Damiskos emerged from the sitting room. He stopped, hands tightly gripping the handle of the basket he carried, face frozen.

  Remi was dancing around in front of him with her half-eaten pie, telling him all about Damiskos: “He has a sword and a stick, Yaza!”

  “You bought dinner from a cookshop?” were the first words out of Yazata’s mouth, in a tone of anguish such as one might have used to say, “You were forced to eat your shipmates?”

  “We weren’t sure when you would get in, that’s all,” Varazda said soothingly. “Yazata, this is Damiskos. Damiskos, Yazata.”

  “But he doesn’t dance with his sword, he—um, um—collects people,” Remi explained.

  “It is a great pleasure to meet you,” said Damiskos, stepping forward after Yazata had set down his basket and holding out his hands for the Zashian-style greeting.

  Yazata looked at them for a moment as if he had never seen such a thing before, then he clasped them gingerly and let go almost as if he were dropping something hot. Damiskos showed no sign of offence.

  “And his knee got breaked because there was a war,” Remi was saying, “and Yaza, Yaza, do you know about Terza? He has a hat!”

  Yazata reached down to stroke Remi’s hair, and slightly, subtly, gathered her against himself, as if he thought she might want protection. She wriggled away.

  Yazata was bigger than Damiskos: fully as tall, broader in the shoulders, and fat. He was strikingly handsome, with a strong nose and wide-set eyes, his skin a few shades lighter than Remi’s, his long, thick black hair always pulled back into a tight single braid. He moved majestically, like a big ship on a smooth sea.

  Yet it was hard to imagine anyone less physically threatening. And Damiskos—well, he was rather the opposite. It was not surprising if Yazata was a little scared of him.

  “I am going upstairs to change my clothes,” Yazata murmured in Zashian, not meeting Varazda’s eyes, “and then I will cook. But of course if you’d rather eat your cookshop food … ”

  “A floppity hat! Yaza, did you know that?”

  “Remi’s eating now because she was hungry,” said Varazda, trying not to make it sound like a criticism. “Damiskos and I can wait.” He glanced at Damiskos.

  “Of course,” Damiskos agreed eagerly.

  “What are you going to cook?” Remi asked, Terza forgotten, following Yazata to the foot of the stairs. “Can I help?”

 
; “Not tonight I’m afraid, Umit. Perhaps tomorrow.” He made his majestic way up the stairs.

  “I’m not an Umit,” Remi called after him earnestly. “I’m just a Remi!”

  Varazda realized his was grinding his teeth and tried to stop. “Come sit at the table and finish your pie, Remiza.”

  She scrambled up onto the bench on the right side of the table and scooted down to her usual spot in the middle.

  “Are you going to sit with me?” she asked, looking up at Damiskos.

  “May I?”

  “Please,” said Varazda. “Sit—and eat, if you like.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Damiskos, lowering himself onto the bench. He had a neat, efficient manoeuvre to do it without bending his bad leg more than was comfortable. He made it look easy; it probably wasn’t.

  Varazda began moving food off the table onto the workbench on the other side of the kitchen. Remi reminded Damiskos that she was a Remi, not an Umit, and Dami nodded seriously.

  He began explaining to Remi that he had a brother named Timiskos, and people confused their names. “It would be like if you had a sister called Nemi,” he suggested.

  “I have a sister,” said Remi. “Amistron is my sister.”

  “Oh,” said Damiskos, looking to Varazda for help.

  “Imaginary sister,” Varazda supplied. He didn’t need Dami wondering if there were more children in his family than he’d admitted to.

  “Papa, you maked a joke!” Remi observed hilariously. “Amistron’s not imaginary!”

  “Silly me,” said Varazda. He caught Dami’s eye and shook his head reassuringly.

  Yazata came downstairs again, his trousers and coat replaced by his more usual shapeless robe and slippers, and began cooking. Varazda went to stand beside him, his hip propped against the workbench, while Remi and Damiskos were still talking.

  “How’s Maraz?” he asked.

  “Much better!” Yazata’s face lit up. “She is starting to look like her old self again, and to make jokes as usual. Her mistress has been treating her very well.” He scooped lentils out of a jar and began picking through them. “Oh, that reminds me. Did you see Maia today?”

  “No. I went over there, but she was out.”

  Yazata nodded. “I should check on her. She has seemed worried recently. I’m afraid it’s because Stamos’s ship is due back soon.”

  Varazda groaned. “I keep hoping for a shipwreck.”

  “Oh dear, don’t say that. Think of the other men on the ship!”

  “I just said I hope for it, Yaza,” Varazda said, patting Yazata’s arm, “not that I’m out there rearranging rocks. I hope that the other men make it safely to shore—how’s that?” He caught Dami’s eye from across the room, and Dami smiled.

  “Perhaps she’s worried about something else, though,” Yazata went on, “with one of the children. There are so many things for a parent to worry about. I must think of some way to find out what it is.”

  “You could ask her.”

  “I couldn’t,” said Yazata, as if this should have been self-evident. “She would be embarrassed to know that I’ve noticed. I know what I’ll do. I’ll take over a basket of eggs and ask how many she wants. Then perhaps she’ll say, ‘I should take an extra one for Stamos,’ if she is expecting him.”

  “Stamos doesn’t deserve our eggs.”

  Yazata ignored that. “If he is due back, we’ll have the children over here to play, or I’ll take them on a picnic—how would that be?”

  “That’s an excellent idea. I wish we had a house in the country for occasions like this.” Yazata shot him a worried look, and Varazda added, “I’m not thinking of buying a house in the country. I’m aware I can’t afford that.”

  Yazata allowed himself a slight chuckle. “I never know,” he said mildly.

  “I should go unpack some of my things,” said Dami, moving to rise from the table. “Could—er, would that be all right?”

  It wasn’t the most subtle way of leaving Varazda and Yazata alone to talk, but subtlety wasn’t really required here. Varazda gave Dami a wry smile.

  “Sure, go ahead. Remi, you stay here and finish eating, please.”

  Yazata concentrated studiously on the lentils as Dami left the kitchen. Varazda waited a moment to see whether he would speak, but he did not.

  “Yazata, my dear, I’m worried that perhaps you stayed away so long today because you were afraid of meeting Damiskos. You could tell me if that were true, right?”

  Yazata looked up. “I’m always a little afraid of meeting anyone, Varazda. But no—no, I’m all right.” He leaned over to give Varazda a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be all right.”

  It wasn’t as reassuring as Varazda had hoped.

  Dami didn’t have much to unpack, and he came wandering tentatively back into the kitchen after a short time. Varazda was sitting at the table with Remi. Yazata looked over his shoulder.

  “I make a famous dish from my homeland,” he explained rather loudly, his Pseuchaian more laboured than usual. “I hope you will like.”

  “I am sure I will,” Damiskos replied. He slid onto the bench on the other side of Remi. “Varazda tells me you are an excellent cook.”

  Yazata looked surprised, caught slightly off balance. Varazda was honestly a little impressed by the lie, and the smooth manner in which Damiskos carried it off.

  Obviously he must have social skills of some sort, to have risen as far as he had in the army. And Varazda had already seen that he was very good in a crisis.

  Remi finished her pie and tried to entice Damiskos to come out and be a centimaur with her in the dark yard. Dami plainly could not figure out what that was, and looked rather panicked. Varazda vetoed the whole thing and was met with howls of protest.

  “Perhaps Umit could go out for a little while,” Yazata suggested.

  “Pleeease?” said Remi hopefully.

  “No,” said Varazda. If there was any rule to be enforced in their household, he generally had to been the one to do it. Yazata’s instinct to pacify was so strong that he would give in to almost any plea.

  Varazda’s stomach growled embarrassingly. He pulled the parcel of grilled meat across the table toward himself and selected a skewer.

  Damiskos was looking at him now over Remi’s head, with a humorously wide-eyed expression, as if to say, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  Varazda sank his teeth into a piece of meat and pulled it off the skewer with a flourish. Damiskos fanned himself with one hand, and Varazda grinned. Remi half-scrambled up onto the table to reach for a skewer of her own. Varazda pulled a chunk off his skewer and offered it to her. She took it with her teeth instead of her hand, to her own great amusement. On impulse, Varazda slid another piece of meat from his skewer and held it out to Damiskos.

  Damiskos looked into his eyes for a moment and leaned forward to take the food from his hand. Remi, between them, shrieked with laughter. Yazata looked over his shoulder, saw what was going on, and looked away with a strange expression: not anger or disappointment that they were eating the cookshop meat, or disgust at the show they were making of it, but something like determination. Almost as if he were nerving himself up for something. Varazda did not know what to make of that. But he did not spend much time on it. Dami was here, eating at his table, and Varazda was going to enjoy this week.

  Yazata made labash for dinner. He began explaining it to Damiskos as he sat down at the table and dished it out.

  “This is very popular dish of Zash,” he said, slopping a green mass into one of their largest bowls, “made from lentils and seeds of pomegranate and many different grasses.”

  “Herbs,” Varazda supplied in an undertone.

  “I don’t like blablash,” said Remi glumly.

  “It’s all right, love,” said Varazda, “you’ve had your cheese pie and meat.”

  In fact, Varazda was no longer very hungry himself. In the time it had taken Yazata to cook the labash—easily three quarters
of an hour, it had been a terrible choice in more than one way—he and Damiskos and Remi had finished most of the grilled lamb.

  “Well, I like it,” said Damiskos, pulling the bowl toward himself. “Thank you. Ah, you’ve made it spicy!”

  He tore off a piece of bread for himself, balanced it on the edge of his bowl, and looked up smiling. Yazata froze like a startled hare. Damiskos had spoken in Zashian.

  He spoke Zashian with a strong accent, without the musical inflection that the language had in the mouth of a native speaker. But he spoke it fluently and clearly.

  “Damiskos served in Zash for several years,” said Varazda mildly, accepting his own bowl of labash. “You remember, I mentioned it.”

  “I want to get down,” said Remi. “Can I get down?”

  That offered Varazda the perfect opportunity to say, “Wait until Yazata has said the blessing,” which would have warned Damiskos to wait too. But Varazda could see that Damiskos needed no warning. He was waiting already. Varazda made a shushing gesture to Remi and said nothing.

  Yazata stood an unnecessary moment over his bowl of labash, eyes on Damiskos. Finally he folded his hands and said a long and flowery version of the blessing of the food. Remi began kicking her feet under the table.

  Yazata sat at last, but went on watching Damiskos, who knew he was being watched and put on a nonchalant display of competence, ladling sour cream into his dish and scooping up lentils with his bread as if it would never have occurred to him to ask for a spoon.

  Remi got down from the table and went out into the yard. If Varazda had been paying attention, it would have occurred to him what would happen next. She reappeared in the kitchen door in a moment, carrying Selene.

  “Damikos, look! This is my—”

  Selene surged out of Remi’s grip with a flapping of wings and an indignant hissing, and made straight for Damiskos, neck stretched, beak wide and ready to bite. Damiskos, taken completely by surprised, half-started out of his seat with a cry of alarm, nearly upsetting his bowl of labash.