Page 21 of Sword Dance

“Niko,” she called from halfway down, “you told me Aristokles was still in bed, but—oh, I’m sorry, sir,” she caught herself when she came down far enough to see Damiskos.

“Not at all. Is Aristokles up early this morning?” He put the question casually, but an instinct for trouble tugged at him.

“How can he not be in bed?” Niko demanded. “He hasn’t come down, I know that.”

“He’s not in his room,” the woman insisted. “I’ve just come from there.” She held up the breakfast tray with its untouched bowls of food.

Niko looked at Damiskos as if for backup.

“Had his bed been slept in?” Damiskos asked. It seemed the next obvious question.

The woman considered. “No, sir. Now that you mention it. I don’t believe it had. That’s odd, isn’t it, sir?”

“It would seem so,” said Damiskos.

“All the other guests are up, and the mistress, so … you know … I’m not sure where he can have got to.”

“He was still in the dining room when I left last night,” Damiskos said. He remembered the voices he had heard in the early hours. “Does either of you know when he retired?”

He realized his attempt at sounding casual had rather broken down, but he couldn’t think of any way to pursue the inquiry without sounding worried. And he was worried.

“Around midnight,” said Niko. “By then it was just him and our mistress and that woman with the big eyes.”

“Phaia,” the female slave supplied.

“Yes, her. They all went in at the same time, but Aristokles has Pharastes to attend him, so none of us would have seen where he went.”

A useful cover for skulking about the villa undetected, Damiskos thought.

“You should probably tell your mistress one of her guests is missing.”

Niko looked sceptical. “Missing, sir?”

“Well, I mean. If he doesn’t turn up.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Here, you take this,” said the woman, pushing the untouched breakfast tray into the boy’s hands. To Damiskos she said eagerly, “I’ll run up again and see if his things are still in his room!”

She took off up the stairs, and Niko gave Damiskos the closest thing to a withering look that a respectful slave could allow himself. Damiskos smiled wryly back.

They were both still standing there when the woman came running back down and reported breathlessly, “They aren’t! All his clothes and his trunk are gone! He left in the night!”

“Well, so, he left in the night,” said Niko, striving to remain blasé. “People do sometimes.”

“Around here? Where there are no neighbours? And there was no ship this morning. It’s odd, Niko. Isn’t it, sir?”

“It is rather odd,” said Damiskos. “Might he have moved to another room?”

The slaves considered this.

“Maybe,” said Niko. “But not without one of us knowing about it. Rhea and I are the ones who would have been called if a guest wanted to change rooms. I do luggage, and she does beds and breakfasts. Aradne would have told us if someone was being moved.”

“Yes,” said Rhea, “and anyway, all the rooms that are fit to be slept in right now are occupied. The others have got no beds, or leaks in the roof, or the floors are being retiled.”

“I see,” said Damiskos. “Well, there must be some other explanation.”

“We had better tell the mistress, though,” said Rhea.