Page 31 of Sword Dance

Now that he had committed himself to this, he had a moment’s panic when he couldn’t think what to play. He strummed a few experimental chords and then began the first thing that came to mind, hardly even knowing what it was. He looked at the drummer, who nodded and picked up the beat readily. The tune was a lively, cheerful one, one of Damiskos’s favourites, and now he remembered what it was and wished he had picked something else.

He looked up at Varazda, half-expecting to see him glaring. The tune was a wedding-dance from the Zashian coast, danced at the marriage banquet by the young women of the village.

Varazda was giving him a quizzical look, but it was not exactly a glare. He had already laid aside the swords and the embroidered coat. After a moment he raised his hands above his head, palms out, long fingers poised, the gesture flawlessly feminine. He swayed his hips, and someone in the crowd whistled.

It wasn’t the way the village girls danced; it was more like the dance of a Suna courtesan, although by Pseuchaian standards it was very demure. It would have been a fine show even if he had actually been a woman, but in the sword dance he had moved like a man, and now it was hard to believe that the delicate hand gestures and swaying hips belonged to the same person. The audience ate it up, and Damiskos could have sworn that Varazda was enjoying himself. What a mass of contradictions the fellow was. Who would have imagined he would voluntarily dance like this in front of an audience of labourers? He could have done a different dance; no one but Damiskos would have noticed.

Damiskos wrapped up the wedding dance and segued into another tune with a slower, more delicate rhythm, to let Varazda wind down his performance, which he did amid wild applause. Nione got up to entreat Damiskos to play some more for them while Varazda retreated from the fire-lit stage. He obliged her with a couple of tunes he had learned in Suna. They were well received, though nothing like so popular as Varazda’s dancing.

He considered singing, but didn’t quite feel up to it. Besides, Varazda had disappeared into the shadows, and Damiskos was anxious to keep him in sight.

Fortunately, by this point it was nearly midnight and time for some ritual related to Hapikon, from which Damiskos excused himself. Many of the other non-worshipers did the same, drawing back from the fire a little while the followers of Opos joined in a hymn and threw incense-laden logs onto the flames to produce clouds of fragrant smoke that billowed up into the dark sky.

Damiskos looked around for Varazda, whom he would have expected to join him by this time, and spotted his shoes and swords and folded coat abandoned on the edge of the firelight. He gathered them up and went looking for their owner.

He found Varazda, at length, at the back of the crowd, looking like he was trying to think of a polite excuse to get away from Eurydemos, who was just taking a seat beside him in the sand.

Varazda had taken off his shirt and sat with it bunched up in his lap, his hair pulled forward over one shoulder. As Damiskos approached, the philosopher offered Varazda his wine cup. Varazda waved it away delicately. He looked up and saw Damiskos as Eurydemos leaned in close to say something to him, and, for reasons which escaped Damiskos, he glared.

It was a pointed glare, as if he was trying to tell Damiskos something. Damiskos stopped, looked round, and saw the students approaching.

Whether their intention was to mock their master or to rescue him from the clutches of his new favourite, Damiskos didn’t care to find out. They looked drunk enough—still with the sinister exception of Helenos—that it would probably amount to much the same thing either way. They came up behind Damiskos and circled the pair on the ground, looming over them, threateningly close. Eurydemos looked up, frowning, and Damiskos thought he could see the question forming behind his eyes: was he still in control of these young people at all? Damiskos felt sorry for him, but didn’t feel that the philosopher’s problems were his responsibility.

“Do you usually fetch and carry for your slaves?” said someone at Damiskos’s shoulder.

He looked down at the bundle of Varazda’s belongings he was holding. Of course. That was what Varazda had been glaring about. Damiskos managed a laugh.

“No, but I never owned a slave before.”

“Really?” said Helenos. “And yet you could afford to purchase such an exotic specimen.”

“Perhaps he saved up,” Phaia suggested with a snicker.

“I beg your pardon,” said Eurydemos belatedly to Damiskos.

The philosopher hauled himself to his feet, spilling wine from his cup onto the sand. He offered a hand to Varazda, who accepted it lightly and uncoiled himself from his seat in the sand. Eurydemos presented him with the air of a father handing over his youngest daughter to her groom on their wedding day. Damiskos tried not to grimace too obviously.

“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.