by A. J. Demas
“When did you say you bought him?” Helenos inquired silkily.
“What business is it of yours? Yesterday afternoon, as it happens.” That was what he’d said before, and it seemed best to stick to his story until someone provided proof that he was lying.
He was sure that was what was about to happen, but Helenos merely said, “Hm,” and then Gelon, drunkenly earnest, pushed aside a couple of his companions to come face-to-face with Eurydemos.
“Master! Settle a dispute for us. Do you not agree that the Sasian capon is an abomination against nature, and do you not think that Furs Smear—Surst Fear—him—is a disgrace to the legions if he—”
“That’s enough!” Eurydemos’s voice cut across Gelon’s with the ease of one long practiced in public speaking. “If this is what you’ve taken from my teaching, Gelon, my boy, I have failed you.”
“Don’t you call me your boy,” Gelon breathed. “I’m not your boy.”
Damiskos took Varazda’s arm. “Let’s—”
“I have never taught,” Eurydemos drowned him out, obviously rather drunk himself, “that the citizens of the Ideal Republic would live like—like—would deprive themselves of the fruits of love. I have never taught that!”
Damiskos stood still, waiting for a better moment to shoulder his way out of the knot of students. He tried to take his cue from Varazda, who was looking blank and demure.
Phaia spoke up again. “The ‘fruits of love,’ Master? I don’t think Damiskos has such a thing in mind. Do you?” She looked at Damiskos, a slight smile on her lips. “I thought your interests lay elsewhere.”
“I have many interests,” said Damiskos woodenly.
Some of the other students hooted appreciatively. “Many interests! Do you hear that, Phaia?”
“Why don’t you loan the Sasian to Master Eurydemos for the night?” someone suggested.
Someone else chimed in, hilariously: “We could conduct them to the marriage bed and sing the wedding hymn for them!”
“O blessed night, eya, eya,” someone began to sing tunelessly. “O gather round, ye gods … ”
“How dare you?” Eurydemos was protesting weakly. “This vicious mockery—”
“Perhaps you would rather we sang the hymn for you, First Spear,” Helenos suggested.
“Excellent idea!” someone cheered. “I wouldn’t mind seeing a Sasian subdued by the pride of the Phemian army—if you take my meaning.”
“O blessed night, ai-ai-ai-ai … ”
“Or perhaps,” Helenos continued, as if none of the mayhem around them were going on, “you wouldn’t. I was surprised to see the Sasian kiss you last night. But then, I rather think you were surprised yourself.”
Divine Terza, he had really made a dog’s breakfast of this. He didn’t know exactly what Helenos suspected, but if Damiskos wasn’t selling the story that he’d bought Varazda because he was in love with him—if there was a chance the students knew he hadn’t bought Varazda at all because they knew where Aristokles had been yesterday afternoon—it wouldn’t be hard to guess that what Damiskos was really doing was trying to protect Varazda.
“O BLESS-ED NIIIIIIGHT!”
“Sure,” said Damiskos, looking Helenos in the eye. “Maybe a bit.”
“Because you’re not the master’s rival in love at all, are you?” Helenos continued. “I think your interest in the Sasian is something quite different. Pity, for instance.”
That just made Damiskos mad. Terza’s head. If he were Eurydemos’s rival, he wouldn’t be ashamed to admit it. Varazda was stunningly good-looking, and he’d just kept the whole crowd on the beach enraptured with his dancing; it would be a shock if Eurydemos were the only man there who wanted to sleep with him.
“Oh, well, there you’re wrong,” Damiskos spat back. “It’s true all I got last night was a kiss, and I wasn’t even expecting that—but tonight I’m counting on a bit more.” He slung his arm around Varazda. “Come on, we’re done here.” He pushed past the students still singing their off-key hymn, and tossed back over his shoulder, “So long as you make the wedding offering, I don’t care what you do. Takes more than that to put me off my stride.”
CHAPTER VIII
DAMISKOS HAD SET off more or less at random, anger stiffening his gait and lending him a burst of speed. They were headed in the direction of the ruined huts that Nione had shown him the previous day.
Behind them, the students were marshalling in an impromptu procession.
“Torches!” someone cried. “Torches for the wedding party!”
“Eya! Eya!”
“That,” said Damiskos, “uh, didn’t go entirely as planned.”
“I daresay it didn’t.” Varazda’s voice was toneless.
Damiskos withdrew his arm to unsling Varazda’s coat from his shoulder and offer it. Varazda took it and draped it around his bare shoulders.
“It’s just that I was annoyed,” Damiskos tried to explain. “They keep assuming I share their wretched preoccupation with ‘Phemian purity,’ which is a load of balls, and I’m sick of it. But please don’t think—I didn’t mean it. I wouldn’t—won’t—take advantage of you.”
Varazda gave him a sour look and glanced back at the students, who were laughing and gathering up sticks to wave in lieu of torches. He turned to walk on, reaching out to take Damiskos’s hand. “You’re going to have to, now.”
“I—uh—oh?”
“They are clearly prepared to follow us, and they’re going to watch—as you invited them to.”
“I didn’t—I—that wasn’t—I was just being rude. Are you sure—”
“For God’s sake, don’t let go of my hand.” He was walking close to Damiskos, nestled against his side. His grip was hard and unfriendly, but it probably looked good from a distance. “We’re going to have to put on a show for them. We can’t afford not to. I told you we had a description of the one of the assassins? ‘A young man with a shaved head and a broken nose.’ Sound familiar?”
“Shit. It was them.”
“It seems that it was.”
“You might have told me sooner.”
“In Zashian, in front of all of them? Yes, I can see that working beautifully. You would have remained completely stone-faced, I’m sure.”
That stung. “Look, I’m doing my best.”
Varazda made no reply. The students had organized their procession and begun singing in ragged unison. People from the bonfire were looking over curiously. Eurydemos was waving his wine-cup and ranting about the Ideal Republic. You could feel the violence simmering under the surface of the scene—the crude violence of the mob, but also, perhaps, the cold violence of the fanatic.
“Most of them are just drunk,” said Damiskos. “But Helenos isn’t, and he thinks I was bluffing.”
“Well, you were.”
“Yes! I mean, of course. I mean—as it happens—I prefer women.”
“You’ll just have to pretend I am one. It is dark—that should help.”
“I’m not going to—”
“Stop saying you’re not going to take advantage of me. If you don’t want to compromise me further, you’ll have to lie down with me. If Helenos is trying to prove you haven’t really bought me, he’ll egg them on to watch, and if they don’t see what they want—”
“This’ll turn ugly,” Damiskos finished for him. “What should we do?”
“We can go in one of those little tumbled-down houses up ahead—they don’t look like they’d offer the slightest privacy. And since I suppose ‘You won’t put me off my stride’ was the biggest bluff of the lot, we’d better attempt something that doesn’t require you to do too much acting. Leaves of the Lily, maybe—although that won’t look all that spectacular for our audience. I’m not very good at Stalk of the Lily, but I suppose it doesn’t matter—you can at least pretend to enjoy it. You wouldn’t like Heart of the Pomegranate, and Planting the Rose is out of the question.”
“What are you talking about?” Damiskos was torn bet
ween laughter—of the strictly hysterical sort—and plain horror. “I—I mean, I don’t know what any of those things are, and—”
“And I don’t know any other names for them. I’ve never had to discuss any of this in Pseuchaian, because I’ve never had to do any of it in Pseuchaia—”
“And we’re not going to do any of it now, if it means anything like what I think.”
Damiskos drew a deep breath. He had fucked up at every turn, rousing Helenos’s suspicion and bringing this whole situation down on Varazda’s head. He owed it to Varazda to do what he could to fix it.
They had reached the nearer of the two beach huts, and Damiskos turned Varazda toward him, lifting their joined hands into a clasp between them. Varazda stepped in, very close, every muscle rigid with tension, plainly about ready to throw up with some combination of anger and fear and disgust.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” said Damiskos quickly, to forestall any further suggestions about flowers or fruit. “We’re going to lie down together in there and talk, and—I don’t know—maybe pretend to kiss and cuddle a bit. It’s going to be very boring to watch, and they’ll go back to the bonfire before long. But it should be convincing. It’s what I would really do, if this weren’t all a setup.”
It took Varazda a moment to unclench his jaw sufficiently to reply. “Don’t be ridiculous. You, a soldier? No one would believe that.”
Damiskos sighed. “It’s not what I’d do with a camp follower, or a fellow soldier, but it is what I’d do with someone like you. Not that I—”
“Yes, I heard you the first time. You prefer women.”
“So—is it all right?”
The students were getting close, chanting snatches of obscene poetry in the style of wedding blessings and holding their sticks aloft. Eurydemos had dropped behind, but Helenos was there with the main group, arm draped around Phaia’s shoulders. If they persisted in their parody of a marriage procession, they would end up surrounding the beach house for the singing of the consummation hymn.
Varazda moved back toward the open front wall of the hut, pulling Damiskos with him in what he managed to make a graceful, shyly flirtatious gesture. Considering how strung up he actually was, Damiskos thought that was impressive.
The interior of the hut contained a pair of masonry couches, padded with rush mats, positioned on opposite sides of the small space. Varazda led Damiskos around to the couch on the left, where he sat, and Damiskos deposited the shoes and swords he had been carrying on the floor. Varazda swung his feet up onto the couch. Damiskos remained standing. He could hear the students outside laughing and talking. It was dark in here, but not dark enough; as Varazda had predicted, there was nothing private about it.
“When you say ‘someone like you,’” said Varazda, “you mean a boy, don’t you?”
They were both still speaking in undertones. “I don’t court boys—I know Zashians think all Pseuchaians chase boys, but there are plenty of us—”
“I heard you the first time. And I’m not a boy. I’m thirty.”
Damiskos stared. “Thirty?”
“Thirty. Just turned.”
“Well.” Damiskos sat on the edge of the couch. “We’re almost of an age. I’m thirty-two. I knew you weren’t a boy, but still—you don’t look thirty.”
“Thanks.” He looked, for just a moment, just a little pleased. “Look, First Spear, I realize this situation is my fault.”
“What? No, it isn’t.”
“If I hadn’t surprised you by kissing you in the passage in front of Helenos—”
“You didn’t have any choice. You had to deflect suspicion.”
“I could have done it some other way. And I could have come up with some other explanation for why Aristokles left me behind, rather than forcing you to pretend to be my master.”
“I’m really not sure what else you could have done. The problem was just that I haven’t played along very well.”
“What’s going on in there?” one of the students called from the beach outside.
“Eya, eya for the ploughing of the fertile field—”
“Fertile! Hah!” Loud guffaws.
Varazda draped a wrist over Damiskos’s shoulder. “This isn’t going to allay their suspicions, First Spear,” he murmured. “You literally said you were expecting more than a kiss. We’d better do something out of the Garden of Jasmine, at least.”
“The garden of what? Why can’t you say ‘fuck’ like a normal person?”
“Oh, I can say it, but I’m not going to let you do it—and much as I’d love to do it to you, it’s not really in my repertoire.” He must have been able to see Damiskos’s eyebrows rise, because he cringed. “Oh, God, it was meant to be an insult, that’s all—because you’re supposed to find it humiliating, you all think that sort of thing is humiliating, don’t you? I didn’t mean that I literally want to … ugh, you don’t actually like it? What happened to preferring women?”
“I like a lot of things,” said Damiskos repressively, annoyed that his expression had betrayed anything. “But listen. If I was really courting … someone like you … here’s how I think it would go.”
He slid his hands behind Varazda’s shoulders and eased him down onto his back on the couch. He turned to kneel over Varazda, carefully moving his stiff leg. Varazda’s long, wavy hair was pooled on the cushion beneath him, and his coat had slipped off one shoulder, baring his white chest. Damiskos was acutely aware of how unequal the situation was for the two of them. There was nothing unpleasant about having Varazda under him, his skin blue-white in the moonlight, his eyes wide and dark. The memory of his dancing, fierce and elegant and alluring, was fresh in Damiskos’s mind. He could easily have enjoyed this, but the same was obviously not true for Varazda.
It had been very gracious of Varazda to apologize, but Damiskos was still convinced this situation was mostly his own fault. Even if it wasn’t, trying to handle it sensitively was the least he could do.
Some of the students had brought real torches now, and the shadows of their swaying forms danced over the interior of the beach house as they chanted vulgar nonsense and laughed at their own wit.
“At this point—” Damiskos paused to clear his throat, finding his voice betrayingly husky. “At this point, assume I’m still expecting more than a kiss. So I’m forging ahead … ” He ran a hand sketchily over Varazda’s hair, not really touching him, and down past the edge of the open coat. From a distance, he hoped, it would look like a long, slow caress, down to the waistband of Varazda’s trousers. It took a definite effort to keep from thinking about what it would feel like to really do what he was feigning. “But you don’t like where you think this is going.”
“Right.” Varazda mimed a very convincing reluctance, flinching and twisting away from Damiskos’s hand. Damiskos leaned down and kissed into the soft nest of his hair, then drew back.
“And then I say something like, ‘Don’t worry, there’s no rush’—because there isn’t, honestly, when we’ve got an audience. I don’t see how anyone could find that suspicious. Move over a bit?”
Varazda shifted over on the couch to give Damiskos room to stretch out beside him. Damiskos lay on his side, propped on one elbow, effectively blocking the view for the watchers from the beach. They seemed to be tiring of their chanting. Varazda tugged his hair out from under him to make himself more comfortable, and looked up at Damiskos.
They lay very close on the couch. Varazda smelled good, his citrusy perfume mingled with sweat and smoke from the bonfire. He had gathered his coat around him again. Damiskos reached across and fingered one of the smooth bone buttons on the opposite side, to make it look like he was doing something.
“So, First Spear—all those years in the colonies, what were you doing that you don’t know what the Garden of Jasmine is?”
“Who was I doing, I think you mean. The wrong people, obviously.”
Varazda gave a little splutter of laughter. “It’s a book. The Three Gardens
.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of that. But not read it.”
“It’s mostly pictures.”
Damiskos considered that for a moment. He tried to remember the times he had heard people mention The Three Gardens, wondering how many conversations would have taken on a different cast altogether if he had known they were talking about a book of sex pictures.
“Well, that’s … interesting. I don’t think I ever slept with anyone in Zash who, uh, owned a lot of books.”
“Right.”
From outside the beach hut came sounds of grunting and scrabbling. Someone climbing up onto the roof. Others laughed and called up encouragement.
“I’m going to look through the smoke hole,” the one on the roof called down. “There’s nothing going on in there. I think they’re both eunuchs.”
Damiskos looked down at Varazda, and Varazda rolled his eyes expressively. Damiskos bit his lip to hold back laughter, and after a moment saw that Varazda was doing the same. From the roof came the sounds of one of the students crawling across the tiles. Damiskos braced his hand on the far side of the couch and leaned over Varazda.
“Is he looking in?” Damiskos whispered.
Varazda glanced up. “Yes.”
“Ah.”
“You know, at this point, it might be simpler if we just kissed.”
“Yes.”
Damiskos leaned over a little further, and Varazda pushed himself up on the couch, and their lips met. It was certainly simpler than pretending to kiss. It was very simple, in fact. For a time, there was nothing but the act of kissing, the feeling of Varazda’s lips, his slender hand on the back of Damiskos’s neck, the warmth of their bodies barely touching.
They drew apart just the width of a breath, and Damiskos was aware of other things: soft notes of music and laughter borne on the breeze from the bonfire, the tang of incense-scented smoke, the cool of the night air. Then they were kissing again, still exquisitely light, and this time he let his fingers trail gingerly through Varazda’s hair, trying hard not to sink down into the kiss and enjoy it too much.
