Saffron Alley

by A. J. Demas

  “Oh, for him, yes, very normal. Only about Themistokles, though, as I said.” She stopped, realizing what he’d just made her say. He gave her an innocent look. She went on, wearily: “He has a fixation on Themistokles. They were lovers at one time, when Themi was a boy. Lykanos keeps asking me if he can watch the two of us.” Another eyeroll. “I’ve never said yes to that.”

  “Oh, God, I should think not. I once had to—” He snapped his mouth shut. What on earth had he been about to reveal?

  She gave him a smile so comradely and conspiratorial that it made him smile in return.

  “Free men want the strangest things sometimes, don’t they?” she said. “But there’s no shame in it, I think. In Zash, everyone is taught to hate themselves for wanting things, but I like the way they’re not like that here.”

  “I know what you mean,” he said.

  “Themi’s not ashamed of what he wants,” she said thoughtfully, “but Lykanos … I wouldn’t call him ‘ashamed,’ either, but there is something secretive about him. Something darker.”

  He was glad she had returned to the topic of her own accord. “Jealousy, maybe?”

  “Of Themi? It could be. On the surface they are friends, but there is certainly something there … Well, it is not for me to speak of, especially not to a stranger. Though I feel as if I know you. Tash—” She put her fingers to her lips. “I mean Ariston—I must remember to call him by the name that I encouraged him to take. Ariston has talked of you often.”

  “He has?” Varazda raised his eyebrows.

  “I don’t believe he ever mentioned your name—it was always ‘my brother’ this and ‘my brother’ that. ‘My brother looks after all of us, my brother works three different jobs to support us, my brother would do anything for his family, he’s so good with my niece, he cares for everyone in the neighbourhood … ”

  “Well … ” Varazda found to his surprise that he was genuinely embarrassed.

  “What else did he say? Oh, I remember. ‘My brother is so comfortable being himself. I wish I could be like that.’ I remember wondering what he meant by that, but now I think I see.”

  “Do you?”

  “I think he meant that you don’t try to blend in. Not even a little bit. I admire that.”

  Chapter 13

  Later that night, Yazata and Varazda stood in the corner of the hall near Varazda’s dining room, looking through at the people inside but trying to stay out of sight.

  “What are we going to do?” Yazata asked, twisting his hands together.

  Varazda pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know. Yes, I do. We’ll have to keep him here as long as we can and try to prevent him drinking too much.”

  Yazata nodded mutely.

  “I wish you hadn’t sent Damiskos away,” Varazda said bitterly.

  “What do you imagine he would do?” Yazata made it sound like a genuine question.

  Varazda gave him a sour look. “He was First Spear of the most famous legion of the Phemian army—that’s like … ” He cast about for a Zashian equivalent that might make sense to Yazata. “It’s a little like the Gilded Blade of the Undying Band. He’s a strategist. He comes up with plans and organizes people. And he’s physically intimidating—as you may have noticed. He’d be able to deal with Stamos. And he’d want to. He’d see as well as you and I do that it’s only a matter of time before Stamos hits her, if he’s not doing it already.”

  “And would that concern him?”

  Varazda stared at him. “Can you ask me that? Do you think I would care for him, would have invited him into our lives, if I thought he wouldn’t care that my friend’s husband might be beating her?”

  “He’s a man,” Yazata said simply. “They don’t care about that kind of thing. They think it’s right.”

  “Were you not listening when I told you what he did at Laothalia?”

  “Of course I was listening. He saved your life. You feel indebted to him. He’s still a man, and I know what men are like.”

  Yazata swept back out into the dining room to rejoin their guests, and Varazda trailed after him.

  Varazda was sitting at the kitchen table when Dami let himself in the front door. It was dark, a lamp on the table casting the only light on the ground floor of the house. Varazda could hear Dami propping his cane in the corner and hanging up his cloak. Then he appeared in the kitchen doorway.

  “Dinner party go all right?” he said, leaning against the doorpost.

  “Ah, no. I wouldn’t say that.”

  “Oh. What happened?”

  “Maia, our neighbour from across the street, was here, and her husband showed up.”

  Dami slid onto the bench opposite him. “Is he violent?”

  “Mostly he’s loud and rude, especially when he’s been drinking, which of course he had. Maia claims he doesn’t hit her, but I don’t believe it. She’s afraid of him. He’s a sailor, away from home for long stretches, which suits everyone well. When he does come home, I’m never sure what’s best to do. Tonight I thought I’d keep him here as long as I could and hope when he went home with Maia he’d just pass out and not give her any trouble.” He shrugged discontentedly. “Ariston took the children out to play, to get them away from him, which was a help. But Yazata’s friend Maraz was here, and she’s just recovered from an illness and not been out of her mistress’s house in a month, and it was hardly the pleasant evening we’d hoped for her.” He levered himself up from his seat. “Do you want a drink? I was just thinking about getting myself a drink.”

  “Yes, please.”

  “I haven’t asked how your evening was,” Varazda said, as he pulled a bottle of wine from the shelf where they kept them.

  “It was … I’m afraid it was delightful.”

  “Bastard,” said Varazda without heat.

  “Except, of course, that I wished you could have been there.”

  “Naturally.”

  “I had a long conversation with Sorgana about the cult of Terza. Learned a few things, actually. And I played knucklebones with the younger boy and lost. We had delicious lamb … ”

  Varazda growled, and Dami gave an abashed laugh. Varazda passed him a full cup of wine and poured one for himself.

  “Chereia interrogated me about my past,” Dami added, “and said she approves of me.”

  “Good! Not that I had any doubt—I know her to have excellent judgement.”

  Varazda took a gulp of wine. He slid onto the bench next to Dami, and Dami’s arm came around him to pull him close. It felt so good.

  An hour later, the wine bottle was empty, and they were still sitting at the table, on opposite sides now. They had somehow ended up deep in a discussion of horses. Varazda, as the son of a Deshan warlord, had learned to ride before he was old enough to remember, and was still comfortable on horseback, but his actual knowledge of the animals was sketchy. Dami of course was full of information, had opinions about breeds and gaits and types of saddles, and could list the names of all the horses he had owned in his career and describe their qualities and what had become of them. It was a little like hearing him list a series of departed friends. Varazda told him so.

  “I could do that too,” said Dami. “And I could do departed lovers … there have been a fair number of those.”

  Varazda looked into his cup to check whether there was any more wine at the bottom. There wasn’t. “Other soldiers?”

  Dami nodded. “Mostly. It brings you together, and then it’s what tears you apart, in the end.” He tapped a finger on the table. “Poetic.”

  “Mm.” Varazda checked his cup again, just in case. There was still no wine in it. “Does the man of higher rank always get to be in charge, in bed?”

  “Uh. I mean, not always. Depends on your personality. Also a lot of times you’re equals. When I was a captain in the Fourth Darian, I had a brief thing with another captain, and I let him fuck me one time, just because he wanted to. Only time I’ve actually done that. It was … I’d say mediocre.
He didn’t really know what he was doing.

  “But then a couple of years after that, I visited this courtesan in Pheme, and she did this thing with her fingers, and … ” He dropped his head back, eyes closed. “It was so good.” He opened his eyes, wine-warmed gaze on Varazda.

  “I could probably do that.” Varazda heard the words come out of his mouth and wondered how that had happened.

  Dami snorted. “You could do it the regular way, honey. If you wanted. From what I’ve seen, you’ve got a perfectly serviceable prick. It just takes a little while to warm up.”

  “That’s … that’s very sweet of you to say.” He felt as if he might tear up and wasn’t sure why. “I couldn’t ever do it to you, though. I don’t think I could. I hate it so much.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Dami’s expression clamped down into military seriousness. “Don’t even—it won’t happen.”

  “But if you … ”

  “I said ‘if you wanted,’ and you don’t, so we’re done. Dismissed.”

  “There’s a chapter in The Three Gardens,” Varazda pursued doggedly, “called the Cinnamon … the Cinnamon Forest? No, Grove. The Cinnamon Grove.”

  Dami cocked an eyebrow. “Do cinnamons grow in groves?”

  “It’s trees, it comes off of trees, of course it grows in groves. Shh. It’s in The Three Gardens, in the Garden of Roses, and it’s all about … ”

  “Spicy stuff?”

  “Mm.”

  “Is the finger thing in there?”

  “I think so. I never really studied that section.”

  “Well, I’m up for anything you are. I don’t suppose you could get a copy of The Three Gardens here.”

  “Are you kidding? This is Boukos. The city’s awash with them. Somebody’s translating it into Pseuchaian—Ariston knows a fellow who painted frescos in somebody’s country house based on the Garden of Jasmine.”

  Dami sputtered with laughter, smacking his palm on the table. Varazda was suddenly overcome by a hot wave of longing, like an indescribable hunger.

  “Dami, I—I want to go to bed with you, so badly. But I think I may be a little drunk.”

  “Varazda? Not to come over all coarse and soldierly on you, but you’re shitfaced.”

  “I’m a little bit drunk,” Varazda pursued, “I think, and I can’t get hard when I’m drunk. I know, I used to do it on purpose, at Gudul, when I had to go to bed with men who didn’t want to know I even had it in me—and why did I mention that, that’s not romantic at all. What I meant to say is, can we do something even if I’m not … you know. Can you handle it being one-sided like that?”

  “That may be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever asked me. Darling. Yes. I could handle that. If you were tired or something. But you’re not, you’re drunk.”

  “You’re drunk too.”

  “Oh, sweetheart. We shared a single bottle of wine. I’m not drunk.”

  “Please, Dami. We could do what we did in that vineyard at Laothalia. You liked that.”

  “Marble-Porches style, that’s what that’s called.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yeah, but the Marble Porches is a philosophy school. I didn’t want to mention it at the time.”

  “A philosophy school? I like the Zashian style of naming sex acts better.”

  “We’re not doing it. Varazda. My sweet. You have inhibitions, we’ve already established that, and they’re lowered because you’re drunk, and the name for what I’d be doing if I took you to bed like this is taking advantage.”

  Varazda dropped his head onto his outstretched arms on the table. “Why are you like this?” he groaned, muffled by his hair.

  “Because secretly you love it.”

  Varazda swept his hair out of the way and peered up from the table. “I wouldn’t say it was all that secret.”

  Dami grinned. “Do you know what we should do?”

  “What?”

  “I should go next door and borrow one of the lutes, and play for you.”

  “God, yes. You should do that. Why haven’t you done that already?” Varazda rolled his head to one side on the table and waved a hand in a less imperious gesture than he intended. “Go, go.”

  “You’re going to have to get me the key. Or do you expect me to break a window?”

  “I expect you to command the door to open to you.” Varazda sat up, raking back his hair. “Very well. I shall accompany you.”

  “Think you can find the way?”

  Varazda leaned across the table to swat at Dami, who ducked away, swinging his legs over the bench, and slipped, and nearly tipped the bench over before he caught the edge of the table and righted himself. He glared at Varazda.

  “Do not speak. I am sober as a fucking funeral oration. I can drink all the King of Zash’s eunuchs under the table, any day.”

  “That is pure bravado, First Spear. You have no idea how much some of the King of Zash’s eunuchs can drink.”

  Dami made a show of coming around the table and helping Varazda to his feet, and Varazda made a show of getting up gracefully—drink never made him uncoordinated, the way it did some people—and then he was wrapping his arms around Dami and kissing him hungrily.

  “This—doesn’t count—as taking advantage?” he asked anxiously when they parted for air.

  Dami’s hands slid up his back and into the cascade of his hair. Holy angels. Dami really did have such beautiful eyes, especially when they were filled with that almost painful intensity.

  “No,” Dami said very gently. “I don’t think so. You don’t have inhibitions about kissing me.”

  “No,” Varazda breathed. He felt again as if he might be close to tears.

  “I want to stand between you and harm,” Dami said, his voice still incredibly soft. “I will always try to do that. Even—especially—if the harm might come from me.”

  Varazda kissed him again, gripping his strong shoulders, clinging to him. Not caring how weak it might make him look.

  They parted finally and swayed together down the hall, bumping each other teasingly and leaning unnecessarily on one another. They made it out the door but hadn’t closed it behind them when they heard a crash and shouting from across the street.

  Maia’s door flew open, and Maia and her eldest daughter, Aula, burst out and stumbled down the steps. Stamos’s voice followed them: “Come back here, you whores!”

  Maia looked up and saw Varazda in his doorway, and she smoothed her skirts, preparing to pretend there was nothing going on—as she had always done when things like this had happened in the past. She froze, looking past Varazda at Damiskos, her expression startled, even a little alarmed.

  Stamos came storming out of the house into the street, barefoot, a wine bottle dangling from his hand.

  Varazda was first down the steps. Dami ducked back inside the house, reaching for something that wasn’t there, reappearing without the sword that Yazata still had.

  “The fuck you looking at, Sasian?” Stamos growled. “Get inside your house before I drag you there by the hair like you deserve.”

  This was the most aggressive Stamos had ever been with any of his neighbours, to Varazda’s knowledge. It might have been because he was drunker than usual, but there was also a controlled, animal ferocity about him. He was a big man, slightly top-heavy, with arms as thick as tree-trunks and shoulders like an ox. He was normally crude and sneering without uttering actual threats.

  “I tell you what,” said Varazda cheerily. “Why don’t you get back on your ship, you obscene ape-man, and take the first opportunity to fall headfirst into a barrel of piss?”

  God, but that felt good. He’d been wanting to say something like that to Stamos for years.

  Stamos was staring at him in disbelief. Maia was still standing frozen in the street, with Aula clinging to her arm, as if she couldn’t make herself say her usual lines: Don’t worry, it’s nothing. Just a disagreement.

  Dami came down the steps into the street. He had his cane, and it was obvious he need
ed it going down the steps. Stamos spared him a contemptuous glance and looked back at Varazda.

  “What did you just say to me, you dickless goat-fucker?” Stamos’s voice was low and menacing.

  “Sooo … quite apart from how you think I’d fuck a goat without a dick, or at any rate why I’d bother, that’s actually not the part that they cut off anyway—I would have expected you to know that, a well-travelled man like yourself.”

  “What’s going on?” Damiskos asked casually. He had put his hand on Varazda’s arm. Varazda wasn’t sure why, but it was nice to have it there.

  “None of your business, old man.” Stamos sneered pointedly at the cane.

  “I’m Damiskos.” He gave Maia and Aula a curt half-bow. “You seemed to come out of your house in some distress. Is there anything we can do?”

  “Fuck off back into your house,” Stamos replied.

  “Other than that,” said Dami, cutting off something very witty that Varazda knew he was going to have thought of in a moment. Varazda realized he was feeling slightly light-headed. Dami might have been right about how drunk he was.

  “I—I—” Maia glanced between Dami and Stamos.

  “No,” Stamos said for her, taking a step closer, wine bottle swinging in his fist. “We don’t need any interfering cripples or Sasian cunts—”

  “Mm, still not … ” Varazda started.

  “I’m sure there’s no need to speak that way of your neighbours,” said Dami, in a mild tone that nevertheless managed to cut through Stamos’s obscenities and silence him for a moment.

  “Tell them it’s nothing,” Stamos ordered Maia, giving her an unfriendly nudge.

  “I won’t,” said Maia tightly. She gripped her daughter’s arm. Aula looked terrified. “Not this time. I won’t let you—”

  Stamos grabbed her arm. “You shut your mouth.” To Damiskos he explained, his voice rising as he lost control of his anger:

  “She lost me a captain’s place because she wouldn’t make nice with the ship-owner’s wife and kids. That’s all I asked, but no, it’s too much for this ungrateful bitch!”

  Maia wrenched her arm out of his grasp and took a step back, drawing Aula with her. “Their grown son laid hands on our Aula! Was I supposed to stand by and let that happen? Is that what you wanted?”