Page 58 of Something Human

Rus felt an urgent need to make something happen, even something as unsatisfactory as himself leaving the hall. He turned to Gunthanaruth’s wife.

“You want to go to your bed,” she guessed.

“Would you excuse me?”

“Of course. Leave all that,” she added, waving at his mask and discarded costume. “I’ll have a girl take it back for you in the morning.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

He got to his feet, stiff and awkward from sitting for so long after the exertion of the dance. Adares looked up at him, glanced down at the oblivious headman, and then at Gunthanaruth’s wife.

“My lady, I am about to become like him”—pointing at Gunthanaruth—“in a moment, if I do not have some new air. Would you excuse me also?”

“Of course, Headman Filerus, of course.”

“I will wait for you, and we can walk together,” said Rus, hoping that sounded innocent to other ears—it certainly didn’t to his own.

“Oh, are we leaving?” said Kagieros, seeing Adares move to get up.

“No. I’m going out for a breath of fresh air.”

“We’ll come with you, sir,” said another of the Phemians, an older, warrior-looking man.

“Yes, please!” said Kagieros fervently. “We’re dying of boredom here.”

Adares shushed them irritably. The bard was still singing. “We can’t all leave. And I’m coming back.”

Rus stood uncertainly at the dais steps, where he had gone to put on his shoes and the shirt that one of the votive boys had brought for him earlier.

“You should have attendance, lord archon,” said the older Phemian. “For the look of it. Kagieros and Doros and I will come, and the rest will stay.”

Adares sighed. “Thank you, Kleisios. It’s a good thought. Come.” He caught Rus’s eye and gave the minutest possible shrug.

Rus waited while the Phemians tied their sandals and fastened their cloaks. He gave instructions for a couple of the kahar who were still in the hall to go sit at the headman’s hearth and make conversation with the remaining Phemians. He should have done it before, he thought guiltily. He led the way out into the night, Adares and his men following.

“Would you like to walk along the ridge out beyond the paddock?” Rus asked when they were all outside. “The air is cool, and you can see the mountains.”

“Can I take a piss there?” asked Kagieros. “Because—” The older man hushed him fiercely.

“I would like it, if it is not too far,” said the third Phemian, Doros, in stilted Luth, but with a better accent than Adares’s.

“Blessed Orante!” Kagieros groaned. “Can we not all talk Pseuchaian now, please?”

Adares turned and strode ahead of the group, and Rus caught up to him. The others took the hint and lagged behind. They walked around behind the hall and followed the fence at the edge of the paddock. The night air was soft and pleasant, the moonlight blue on the mountain peaks that rose up around them.

Adares looked at Rus. “Do all your feasts last fifteen years, or was this one special?”

Rus laughed. “This was special, just for the two of us.”

“The two of us,” Adares repeated after a moment, softly. They had reached the end of the paddock, and they stopped. Adares looked at Rus. “I thought you were dead.”

“I know.” He remembered that hadn’t been true until that evening. “I mean … ”

“You mean you hoped.”

“I—I didn’t hope you thought I was dead, I … ” It had seemed complicated even at the time, and now it was hard to remember how it had been.

“You hoped I knew what you did. I know. And I did. As soon as I heard why the Luth were leaving, I knew it was you. I knew what you’d done. I wished I could have stopped you—but I wished that for myself. For the city … you saved us, Rus. We wouldn’t have lasted, if Gunthanaruth had pressed the siege. We’ve been declared rebels and placed under embargo by Pheme—we’re on our own. It happened at the worst possible moment, and it hasn’t been lifted. At this point I don’t think it will be. Obviously I don’t want Gunthanaruth to know that yet, by the way. We’re working up to declaring ourselves an independent republic, when we’ve got enough support among the tribes, but we’re not quite there yet.”