Page 70 of Sword Dance

“Mm. The head porter. A bully, I gather.”

“And ‘his boys,’ they said.”

“He has a few flunkies. They’re the ones who feel hard-done-by in a house full of women.” Varazda shrugged contemptuously. “It’s about what you’d expect.”

“Should we go in and speak to the men in here? See if they have any intelligence we haven’t gathered yet?”

“Yes, I think so. I’ll go in, you stay outside with the swords.” He handed them over. “I’m not sure we want to show our hand completely until we have to.”

Damiskos nodded agreement. “You didn’t forget the picture of your daughter, did you? While you were busy frivolously putting on clean clothes?”

Varazda gave him a fond smile and patted the front of his sash, where Zashian men were in the habit of stashing their valuables. “No, First Spear, I didn’t forget the picture of my daughter.”

He leaned in and kissed Damiskos on the cheek, then he was gone across the dark yard, headed for the door of the slaves’ quarters, doing up his buttons as he went. He was inside for only a brief time before he reappeared in the lighted doorway and beckoned for Damiskos to join him. Damiskos came, carrying Varazda’s swords, and followed him through the door into the slaves’ dining room.

There were only four people at the table; they were just noisy eaters. And Damiskos saw immediately that this was not a useful auxiliary force. There were two old men, stooped and white-haired, a young man who looked to be blind, and Niko.

They were eager to give Damiskos and Varazda their account of the seizure of the villa, but it was mostly what they had heard already: the fishermen had come in demanding extra pay; the students had locked Eurydemos in his room and drawn knives when the slaves tried to protect their mistress. The mistress had escaped with her women, and the men had stayed behind voluntarily as a diversion

“The mistress wanted to take us four with her,” said the blind man. “She would have taken us with her, but we insisted on staying.”

“It was noble of you,” said Varazda warmly. “But are you four the only ones left in here? What happened to the rest of the men?”

“Sesna and his thugs threw in their lot with the philosophers,” said the blind man, scowling. “The others, we think they locked them in the cellars, but we don’t know.”

“When they didn’t come back, we barricaded the gates,” Niko explained. “The gate from the yard, and the one on the other side, by the stables. Your horse is all right, by the way, sir. Grandad and I’ve been looking after her—and the others.”

Grandad, whom Damiskos recognized as one of the grooms, grunted something about the boy knowing nothing of horses, which Niko ignored. Damiskos thanked them both sincerely for taking care of Xanthe.

Since they had spent the last day and a half hiding in the slaves’ quarters, the men didn’t have much more to report. They said the porters had made a couple of attempts to get into the yard, and threatened to get ladders to scale the walls, but since the ladders were actually stored in back of the stables, they hadn’t been able to make good on the threat. They had heard the students arguing once or twice, but didn’t know what it was about.

Varazda and Damiskos thanked them and explained that they were on their way to get help.

“It’s probably best for you to stay here,” Varazda said. “So long as you feel safe. If all goes according to plan, the siege should be lifted by tomorrow morning.”

“I wouldn’t,” Damiskos added, looking pointedly at Niko, “risk going out to the kitchen. For instance.”

* * *

“Did we do the right thing, leaving those men there?” Varazda asked in a whisper as they edged around the walls toward the house door.

Damiskos stopped, the question unexpected. It had been Varazda’s decision, but Damiskos didn’t think it had been wrong.

“Yes, I think so,” he whispered back. “We couldn’t bring them with us now, and we need to finish what we came here for. If we’re able, on the way back, we could stop and collect them. Or try to—they may not come. They may say they need to stay and take care of the horses or something. Not wanting to abandon their post. They strike me as that type.”

“Well, you would know, First Spear. But thank you. I’m glad we agree.” He made the “go ahead” gesture.

The windows on the front of the house were small and high up, and opened onto unoccupied bedrooms rather than onto the atrium. As in any traditional Phemian house, no outside windows looked onto the atrium, which was lit and ventilated by its central skylight. They could not risk trying the front door, as they would be going in blind. They had to take a circuitous route, described to them by Aradne, to reach Damiskos’s room. They crossed the front of the house and reached a narrow alley beside the kitchen building which opened out at the back into a small paved yard smelling of kitchen garbage and privies.

On their right was the bath complex, a low-roofed annex to the main house, overgrown with vines which trailed on up the house’s western wall. The ground-floor windows of the rooms on this side looked out over the top of the tiled bath-house roof. Damiskos’s room was one of these, and their plan was to climb up to the window by way of the bath-house. Aradne had said it should be possible, though personally she had never tried it, and that was what they had to go on.

Clouds had half-covered the moon at this point, and it was very dark in the little yard. Varazda stood looking up at the view of roof and wall and windows above them for a moment, then adjusted the swords that he had tucked through his sash, crossed at the back. He reached up, and with a little jump caught hold of the overhanging edge of the bath-house roof and pulled himself lightly up.

He crouched on the tiles of the roof, looking over at Damiskos, and beckoned with one hand: come up.

Damiskos reached up to grasp the roof; he was just slightly taller than Varazda and didn’t have to do more than stand on tiptoe to reach it. He kicked off the wall using his good leg, and hauled himself up over the edge onto the tiles. This was not something he had practiced doing since his injury, but he managed it efficiently enough, though he must have looked laboured and ungraceful compared to Varazda. Who was poised ready to help him over the edge if he needed it, but made no comment when he didn’t.

There were five ground-floor windows along the length of the bath complex, all close enough to the roof that they would have to slither on their stomachs when passing under them to be sure of not being seen. All were dark except for the second and the fifth, whose shutters were open with light glowing out from within. Faint voices came from the second window, which Damiskos thought belonged to another bedroom.