Saffron Alley

by A. J. Demas

  “Damn fucking right that’s what I wanted! What other good is she? I’d’ve been captain of my own ship instead of slaving on Dromo’s tub another season. If you didn’t want him to touch your precious Aula, you should’ve slept with him yourself! I know you’re whore enough. But you don’t want me to get ahead—you’ve never wanted me to get ahead.”

  Maia turned toward Varazda. “He tried to get into Aula’s room to punish her—he was going to beat her, for refusing to go with that awful boy. I—I—” She still didn’t seem to be able to admit it: that she had, finally, been trying to get away.

  Varazda stepped between the women and Stamos. He was feeling much more sober.

  “I really do think you need to be back on your ship,” he told Stamos.

  “You fucking what? You—” He stopped with a grunt as Dami stepped in front of Varazda and planted a hand in the middle of Stamos’s chest.

  “He’s right,” Dami said. “Leave the women alone and go back to your ship.”

  “Yeah?” Stamos sneered, swatting at Dami’s hand without managing to dislodge it. He stepped back instead. “Who’s going to make me?”

  Damiskos looked at him. “Is that a real question?”

  Varazda almost laughed. Aula, with a startled gasp, did.

  Stamos growled and swung the heavy wine bottle he still held. Dami caught his arm as it came up, gave him a shove, and the bottle crashed on the pavement, shards of pottery flying.

  “The only thing you can hope to do here,” said Damiskos conversationally, “is outrun me. I suggest you do it.”

  There was no protest from Maia or Aula, no attempt to come to Stamos’s defense. Varazda was glad of that.

  “You’ve got some fucking—” Stamos began.

  Damiskos, who had disarmed Stamos without letting go of his cane, now swung it with both hands like a fighting staff and hit Stamos on the side of the head.

  “Try again,” he said crisply.

  “Who the fuck … ” Stamos stumbled back, shaking his head. “Don’t know who the fuck you think … I’m gonna fucking … I swear on fucking Orante’s fucking … ” And he turned and ran out of Saffron Alley.

  Aula and Maia were hugging one another, and Maia began to cry. When Varazda turned toward them, she pulled him into their embrace.

  “I’m so sorry,” she gulped. “So, so sorry.”

  He hugged her back. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I hope my interference wasn’t, uh, unwelcome,” said Dami.

  Aula looked up sharply. “He’s made our lives a hell for as long as I can remember. I pray to the gods he stays away.”

  Maia cried harder.

  “We’ll all do what we can to make sure of it,” said Varazda, before Dami could try to reply—because what could he say? He would only be here for a few more days.

  Chapter 14

  In the end they did go to the music store and get the lute. Varazda offered to take Maia and Aula in and feed them, but they went back to their house to see to the younger children. Maia kept looking at Dami as though she wanted to say something to him but couldn’t work up the courage.

  They brought the lute back to Varazda’s sitting room, and Dami played and sang. His voice was deep and rough as his stubble, the low notes sounding almost growly. Varazda fell asleep curled up next to him on the divan.

  He woke before dawn, feeling clear-headed and alert. The room was bathed in a cold, grey light. He uncoiled himself and sat up to look at Dami, who had fallen asleep with the lute still in his lap, legs stretched out, leaning back against a pile of cushions in the corner of the divan. His sleeping face was stripped of its sternness, as if he might be having pleasant dreams.

  As Varazda watched, Dami stirred, arching his back slightly and moving his head against the cushions. A smile twitched at his lips. The lute slipped across his lap. Varazda reached out and caught it before it fell, but Dami was already blinking awake.

  His gaze, warm and slightly disoriented, was on Varazda, who slid the lute away onto the table and moved toward him. Dami pulled him onto his lap, hands firm on Varazda’s waist, with an eagerness that sent a thrill through him. Varazda straddled his thighs and moved against him. Dami was already impressively hard, and Varazda felt his own desire rising to meet him. Dami’s mouth was hot and urgent against his, and his hands were everywhere. It was exactly what Varazda had been wanting all night.

  He pulled back, rising up on his knees and bracing one hand on the wall above Dami’s shoulder. They breathed for a moment.

  “You’re quite awake?” Varazda said. “Because—there’s more than one kind of ‘taking advantage,’ isn’t there?”

  “Mmm.” Dami rubbed his eyes and scraped a hand across his stubble. “I’m—waking up.” He squinted at the lines of weak light coming through the shutters. “It’s not morning yet, is it?”

  “It’s not. Do you … want to go to bed?”

  “Divine Terza. Yes. Let’s.”

  They scrambled off the divan and headed for the bedroom. Varazda latched the door.

  “Do you want me to go down on you?” Dami asked.

  “Go where?”

  Dami made an indicative gesture, from his lips to Varazda’s groin. “Has to be on the bed, though. Can’t literally go to my knees for you, sorry.”

  “No, no, you don’t have to … Holy angels. Yes, I want you to do that, but … ” He looked down helplessly. “You’re already … so …” It didn’t seem polite to make him wait for his own gratification.

  Dami chuckled, low and beautiful. “I have an idea.” He put his hands on Varazda’s belt. “May I?”

  “Yes.”

  It felt different to be undressed when he was wearing Pseuchaian clothes—a little awkward and perfunctory—and he realized no one but himself had ever done it before. He wondered if Dami had much experience undressing his male lovers; if they’d all been soldiers together, perhaps they just unbuckled their armour and stripped off their tunics and got to it.

  They both broke down giggling when Varazda’s hair got caught in the neck of his tunic and ended up all over his face. He shook it back and attacked Dami’s military-style belt, which had a strangely complicated buckle that he couldn’t immediately undo. Dami meanwhile was trying to push Varazda’s loincloth down without properly undoing it, and they both ended up leaning into each other, nuzzling affectionately, on the edge of laughter, until their clothes were scattered on the floor around them.

  Dami firmed his grip on Varazda’s waist and lifted him, and Varazda wrapped his legs around Dami and held on, doing his best to make himself easy to carry. Dami did carry him, all the way to the bed, where he tumbled him down the wrong way round, with a little grunt of effort. Something about that—the way he’d done it, the fact that he hadn’t tried to make it look easy—brought a great swell of affection to Varazda’s heart.

  He started to sit up to rearrange himself the right way around on the bed, but instead he lazily watched Dami take down the reservoir of oil from the lamp stand and come back to the bed. In the thin shadows of early morning, his body, naked and roused, was like something out of a dream.

  “Hold out your hands,” Dami said.

  Varazda obeyed, uncomprehending, and Dami poured a little oil into them. He took Varazda’s hands in his and smoothed the oil slowly over both palms with his thumbs. He sat on the bed by Varazda’s hip.

  “What am I supposed to do with these?” Varazda asked, holding up his slick hands.

  “You’ll think of something,” said Dami, and he drew up his legs and stretched out on his side, right way around on the bed.

  “Oh,” said Varazda. This was so far from what he had expected that he was actually rather shocked. For a moment he froze, oily hands awkwardly out in front of him.

  “So what you do … ” Dami began drily.

  Varazda growled. “I know what to do.”

  He dropped his head back to the mattress, and Dami’s beautiful cock was in front of his face, Dam
i’s strong hands were on his thighs, and Dami’s mouth gently touched the red-hot centre of his own desire.

  He caressed Dami’s manhood with his slippery palms, pressing his face into Dami’s thighs, all the technique he had ever known forgotten. He was on fire from the waist down, his flesh crying out for more everywhere Dami touched with his mouth and hands. He begged aloud, in the dialect of his childhood, which he knew Dami didn’t understand.

  “Ah, Dami, my heart, I … ” He was molten, reforming under Dami’s touch. “I’m—I’ll—almost—” was all he could manage by way of warning.

  He heard that throaty chuckle again, and Dami drew back with a slow lick, and held Varazda with one big hand, balancing him on that precipice for a long, aching moment before, with a gentle swirl of his thumb, he tipped him over. Varazda tried to muffle his shout of pleasure against Dami’s thigh, and it didn’t quite work.

  His head was full of Dami’s scent, his cheek and lips pressed against the rough hair of Dami’s body. Pleasure sang through him, sparking like fire and warming as wine, and he nuzzled between Dami’s legs and opened his throbbing lips on Dami’s flesh as if he was hungry for the taste of him. He licked clumsily, making no attempt to take Dami’s manhood all the way into his mouth. Dami might despise him for this abject display, but just then he couldn’t help it, didn’t care—he wanted this so much.

  Dami rolled over and spread his thighs with a groan to give Varazda easier access, and Varazda’s fingers slipping daringly into the warm, muscular cleft below Dami’s balls. That sent Dami over the edge, and he came with a long shudder.

  They lay top-to-tail, sprawled and entangled, for long minutes after Dami’s climax. Dami had his arm around one of Varazda’s legs, and stroked lightly along thigh and knee and up to his ankle.

  “You have the most incredible legs,” he said drowsily. “I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that before.”

  Varazda smiled absurdly up at the ceiling. He was rather proud of his legs. “I’m glad you like them.”

  “And I’m glad you get to show them off.” He kissed Varazda’s ankle.

  “You … that was all right? You liked it? I’m afraid I wasn’t very attentive—I … got caught up.”

  “Are you kidding? I love that. You can get caught up with me any time, sweetheart. And you know, as I may have said before—I like a lot of things.”

  Varazda disentangled himself slightly from Dami in order to push up on his hands into a sitting position. Dami looked so good sprawled there, sweaty and mussed, with his arm twined around Varazda’s leg. Varazda had a fleeting thought of asking just what “I like a lot of things” meant, but the moment was so good, and he didn’t want to risk it. He flopped back down on the bed with a happy sigh.

  Varazda woke much later that morning feeling warm and beautiful and slightly sticky. He was alone in the bed, but it was Dami’s bed; he was lying by the window, and there was a rumpled space in the bedclothes and a squashed-down pillow next to him showing where Dami had slept for the last few hours of the night.

  He rolled over under the covers and snuggled into Dami’s side of the bed, breathing in the familiar scent of his lover. Last night had gone pretty well after all, he thought. Or ended well, anyway. He smiled to himself.

  All right, Varazda, he told himself sternly. This is no time to luxuriate. He still had work to do if he wanted Dami in his life for more than a few days. And he did, because he was in love with Dami. Had he ever seriously doubted that?

  He’d meant to spend the morning practicing, but more importantly, he had not been there when Remi woke. He was always there when Remi woke—usually she woke him, in fact—and she would be upset. He rolled out of bed and grabbed the first item of clothing that his hand fell on, hauling it over his head and tugging out his hair. It was a white tunic of Dami’s, and it was large and shapeless on Varazda. He headed for the door.

  Remi was in the kitchen, sitting on a bench and feeding pieces of lettuce to Selene, who was strutting back and forth under the table.

  “Yaza, look, Papa’s up!” she announced happily.

  Yazata turned from the sink with a dripping bowl in his hands and a stricken expression on his face.

  “I’m sorry,” said Varazda, rubbing his eyes. “I … uh … should have … ”

  “No, no,” said Yazata quickly, clutching the wet bowl. “I got Remi up. It’s no trouble.”

  “Oh.”

  “No, no trouble. You deserve to—to be able to lie in bed with your—” He drew himself up bravely. “With your lover. From time to time.”

  Varazda’s mouth felt dry, and he wondered if he had a headache coming on after all. “Do I?” he said blankly.

  “Oh, Varazda,” Yazata moaned. “I am so sorry.”

  Remi looked between them with mystified alarm. “Did you do something bad?”

  “It’s nothing, Remi my sweet,” said Yazata, “it’s nothing. No! It’s not nothing. I have been foolish, and unkind to your father. I have been most terribly foolish.”

  Remi looked like she might begin to cry. So did Yazata, for that matter.

  “Yaza … ” Varazda began. Could he go back to bed now? he wondered. Where was Dami?

  “Here,” said Yazata, hastily putting his bowl back in the sink and drying his hands on his robe before reaching for a basket of saffron buns on the workbench. “You must be hungry. Sit down.”

  “Thanks. I’m actually thirsty … ”

  “Of course! And I made fresh kilf!” He plopped the basket on the table and dove back to the workbench for a covered jug.

  “Are you friends again?” Remi wanted to know.

  “Yes, Remiza,” said Varazda. “We always will be. We’ve never not been friends.”

  “But, but Yaza said … ”

  Varazda rubbed his eyes. “He said that he’d made a mistake and he was sorry. That’s what you say, isn’t it, when you make a mistake—that you’re sorry?”

  “Oh.”

  “Even adults.”

  Remi laughed as if that was a good joke. “Can I go out and play with Dori and Opi?”

  “Yes,” said Varazda, “that’s an excellent idea. Why don’t you take Selene with you.”

  Yazata set a cup of kilf in front of Varazda and sat down at the table opposite him. He twisted his big hands together.

  Varazda sipped his kilf. “Thanks. You’ve had a change of heart about something?”

  “I heard noise in the street last night and looked out my window. I saw everything that happened.”

  Varazda gave a wry laugh. “You regretted taking away Dami’s sword, because you noticed he could have used it? By the way, where has he gone?”

  “I don’t know,” said Yazata quickly. “I shouldn’t have hidden his sword, no, but I should also have trusted you from the beginning. I should have trusted you to know your own mind and not to be deceived. But you see, back when you first told me about meeting Damiskos on Pheme—you were in such a bad state when you came back from Pheme. I think all I heard was that he was someone who’d been in this trouble with you—perhaps he’d gotten you into it, I thought. Well, I convinced myself that was the case.”

  Varazda nodded. “Yes, I was in a bad way. I can see how you would have worried. I’m sorry.”

  “It is not your fault. Nor his fault, I can see that now. Holy God, don’t think I can’t see that now. But I’m always so quick to believe the worst of men.”

  “You have good reason. And Dami didn’t make a good impression, what with attacking Tash on his first night here.”

  “That’s … yes. That was unfortunate. Though even I can see that he was only doing the right thing. I could see that at the time, once I heard what had happened. But … ” He heaved a large sigh. “You see, I thought, when you invited Damiskos here, when I knew you were still working on something to do with the affairs in Pheme, I thought … ”

  “You thought Dami was work, didn’t you?” Varazda supplied. “You thought I was sleeping with him for work.”r />
  Yazata nodded mutely.

  “And that I invited him to live with us because I was still on the job?”

  Yazata nodded again.

  “I was beginning to suspect that’s what you thought. Holy God. It’s a wonder you didn’t do more than steal his sword and set the goose on him, Yaza, if that’s what you thought. Did it not occur to you that if he were work, I would have told you?”

  “Well, I … but … Do you mean to say he wasn’t? I’m sure I remember you saying that you had to pretend to be in love with him or some such.”

  “Ye-es. That’s true. We pretended to be a couple for a little while at Laothalia. But that was him doing me a favour, because Aristokles had disappeared and taken my cover story with him. Dami was never part of my assignment. And when we went to bed together, it was because we both wanted to. Both, um, both times.”

  “Angels of the Almighty. I had no idea. I thought … I thought you were becoming fond of him, certainly I could see that, but you had been so, so businesslike before he got here—”

  Varazda groaned. “I was trying to spare your feelings. I didn’t want you to worry that you were going to be displaced, that I was becoming someone different just because … ” He gestured vaguely. “This new thing had happened to me.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Yazata, nodding, “that makes perfect sense, now that you explain it.” He took a discreet swipe at his eyes with the sleeve of his robe.

  “And you weren’t entirely wrong,” Varazda forged on. “We did start out as … well, reluctant allies, and then became fond of one another. And of course I’m not experienced in these things, so I was less sure of what I wanted than he—if you’ve seen that, you’ve seen the truth.”

  Yazata wrinkled his nose sceptically. “I don’t know. You seem pretty sure to me.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yes. That’s why I was so worried about you. I didn’t like the idea of your having to entertain this man, of course.” He shuddered. “I felt I needed to protect you somehow, but I didn’t know how. Then when I saw that you didn’t seem to be pretending to like him—you may think I can’t tell, because no one else can, but I have known you a long time, and it seemed to me you were becoming truly attached, and that made me fear for you. Because who was he? Someone connected with the riot and that bad business on Pheme, that’s all I knew.