Page 37 of Sword Dance

A letter from Aristokles arrived the following morning. Damiskos was at breakfast with Nione and Tyra when the young slave Niko brought it in. The students, mercifully, were too hungover to be present, and their master had not come down either.

Damiskos and Tyra waited politely while their host opened the tablet and read its contents. Nione set it on the table by the basket of bread, frowning. She shook out her skirt as if to rise, then subsided into her chair and looked at Damiskos.

“I don’t want to embarrass you, Damiskos,” she said, clearly embarrassed herself, “only I wondered if you might have some idea why Pharastes lied to me about his master’s—his former master’s—whereabouts?”

Damiskos desperately wanted to unfold the full story to her on the spot, but he couldn’t do it in front of Tyra—couldn’t do it at all, in fact, without betraying Varazda’s trust.

“I … I can only think that Aristokles must have instructed him to do so.”

“Yes, I suppose that may be.”

“Would you like me to speak to him for you?”

“Perhaps we could send for him now.”

Well, it had been worth a try.

She sent Niko to fetch Varazda. Damiskos half expected the boy to come back alone to report that Varazda had vanished now too, but he didn’t. He came back followed by Varazda, who looked to Damiskos’s eyes as though he had neither slept much nor had any breakfast. His hair was pulled back in a simple twist, and he had no earrings in or kohl around his eyes. He was wearing the trousers he had worn yesterday, with a plain white shirt.

“May I speak to him?” Nione asked, before Varazda had arrived at their table.

“What? Oh, yes, of course.”

“Pharastes, I hope you can clear up a misunderstanding for me,” Nione said. “I received a letter from your previous master this morning. He says he was called away by a family crisis—he had a message from home yesterday and left on the same ship that brought the letter. I do not know what ship that was, or where it docked—it cannot have been the ship from Pheme that we saw yesterday afternoon. And all this is quite different from the account of his departure that you gave me.”

Varazda let a moment pass in uncomfortable silence, an expression of shocked distress on his face.

“Indeed, my lady,” he said finally. “I knew nothing of this. He told me that he was travelling to the village—I can only think that his plans must have changed suddenly. But by the time of his departure, of course, I was no longer his slave. I suppose he does not mention me in his letter?”

Damiskos saw an opportunity and leaned forward to pick up the letter before Nione could do so. He flipped it open, turned it around, and held it out toward Varazda.

“You can see for yourself that he doesn’t,” he said.

Nione took the letter back from Damiskos, giving him a rather annoyed look. “He did not,” she told Varazda gently, assuming that of course he could not read.

Damiskos didn’t know that he could, but he was hoping that he might at least recognize Aristokles’s writing. If it was Aristokles’s writing.

“I suppose what you say must be true,” said Nione. “I can think of no other explanation. But it is strange that he should have packed all his belongings for a journey down to Laokia, and strange that he should not have told anyone when he decided to take ship suddenly instead. After all, he had time to write this message for me and leave it with one of the fishermen.”

“It is very strange, my lady.”

“He’s a bit of a strange man,” Tyra put in. “I had a really peculiar conversation with him. He kept talking about being afraid of something.”

“Perhaps, Damiskos,” said Nione, “you might inquire in the stables for me—did Aristokles take a horse when he left, and do they know where he intended to go?”

“Of course.”

“I’m sure it will all prove to be some kind of misunderstanding.”

“I expect so,” said Damiskos. He pushed back his chair. “I’ll go right now, if you don’t mind.”

He and Varazda left together.

“Do I find he took a horse, or no?” Damiskos asked when they were in the hallway leading into the house.

Varazda ground the heels of his hands into his eyes for a moment, an uncharacteristically inelegant gesture. “Yes. I think we want my story to hold up while theirs doesn’t. Or—I don’t know. This is rather a mess.”

“It is that.”