Page 16 of Sword Dance

He wanted to offer some kind of help, but didn’t know how to do it in a way that wouldn’t seem both condescending and overbearing. Besides, he had so little idea of what was going on here. He wasn’t sure whether to say, “I’ve got my eye on you two,” or “Call on me if you need anything.”

“Yes?” said Varazda finally.

A female slave emerged from the dark atrium and slipped past them. Damiskos waited for her to exit to the garden.

“We shouldn’t talk here. It’s hardly private.”

“Hardly.”

There was another pause. Varazda seemed to be waiting for something. Then abruptly he pushed himself away from the wall, hennaed fingers flicking back a stray braid.

“Lead the way,” he said. He had switched to Pseuchaian too; it didn’t put him at a disadvantage.

Damiskos took the lamp from its bracket and went down the hall and around the corner to the library anteroom, where he opened the door. Varazda stopped, a faint look of surprise on his face. He had obviously expected them to go somewhere else.

“Oh,” said Damiskos. “I forgot, I still have your handkerchief. Come, I’ll give it back to you.”

He led the way to his own door and held it open, noticing as Varazda walked through it that his posture and movements were much more masculine than they had seemed earlier, almost stiffly so.

“It’s right here,” Damiskos said, closing the door and gesturing toward the shrine in the corner.

Varazda frowned. “You appear to have dedicated it to your deity. I would not dream of taking it.” He walked closer and leaned in to inspect the figure in the shrine.

Damiskos plucked the handkerchief off the unlit incense burner and held it out. “I didn’t dedicate your handkerchief. Just the scent on it.”

He gritted his teeth in anticipation of whatever delicately snide comment was coming. Zashians loved to make jokes about the number and behaviour of Pseuchaian gods and the rituals with which they were worshipped.

“Oh.” Varazda took the handkerchief. “I’m sure Terza will have appreciated it. It’s very expensive.” He tucked the colourful cloth back into his sash. “And … your question?”

“I know it’s none of my affair, but … last night, Gelon tried to force himself on you, didn’t he?” He didn’t believe Aristokles’s assertion to the contrary, any more than he had believed Gelon’s weird, weak story about what had happened.

Varazda’s eyebrows went up. He had elegant, effeminate eyebrows, well matched to his painted eyes. “He didn’t, no. What gave you that idea?”

Now Damiskos was completely at a loss—and more than a little embarrassed. What had given him the idea?

“I—I don’t know, I just … ”

In fact, he remembered very clearly. He had looked at Varazda in the dark and been struck by how beautiful he was. Somehow this had suggested what Gelon’s motivation must have been. He could see now that this didn’t really make sense.

“Because he was carrying on about Kossian lovers at dinner?” Varazda suggested. “Did that seem a little pointed? Well, it doesn’t matter. That wasn’t what happened.”

“That’s—that’s good. I wouldn’t have said anything, only I thought … you hadn’t told your master—former master, and that you ought to, because … But if that wasn’t what happened, then … That’s good.”

“Is it?” Varazda’s tone was very dry.

“Yes, but—what did happen?”

“What did happen … ” Varazda considered him thoughtfully for a moment, clearly deciding what to tell him—clearly not caring that it was obvious this was what he was doing. “Aristokles wanted to visit the kitchen for a snack. I was waiting for him in the yard, alone, and Gelon snuck up on me and threatened me with a knife. We fought briefly—he found me more of an opponent than he had expected—and then you arrived, and you know the rest.”

“He ambushed you? But—immortal gods—why? Do you have any idea?”

“Mm. I have some idea.”

Damiskos looked at him expectantly. “And?”

“I appreciate that you’re trying to make this your business, First Spear. I’m grateful for your intervention last night, and for your defence today. But it isn’t, really. Your business.”

“Ah,” said Damiskos, chastened and—once again—embarrassed. Also annoyed, but he thought Varazda was being deliberately annoying, and he wished he knew why. “Well. You can’t say fairer than that, I guess.”