Page 68 of The Hymn to Dionysus

He nodded, very slightly, as though he still had a strong instinct not to move.

Too late, I noticed that he was shaking. It was subtle, but even in the moonlight, he had the tight paleness that everyone does after they come off their first battlefield. It’s what happens when you stare right down the spear-shaft of being murdered. Not generally, not like when you feel ill or you realize that there’s going to be an imminent supply problem, or even something dangerous but impersonal like the dust storm. It’s different when the Unseen is in the doorway and you’re so near to the Ferryman that you can hear the creak of his oar.

Even gods must be afraid sometimes.

I held my arm out, in case that would help.

He went very still for a second, then dropped down next to me and put his head against my shoulder. He was fear-cold. I snagged my cloak from the other chair and put it around him. He stayed quiet, not moving except how my breathing moved him. I shut my eyes, trying not to think about what I’d done next, the last time I’d held him wrapped in my cloak.

I rubbed his hair. It was warm, and I could feel the difference between the black and the grey. Despite everything, it gave me a little glow of joy.

“Drink time,” I said. “I’ve got some wine. It’s not as good as yours, but I mean, medicinally . . .”

“Yes please,” he said. “Yes. Hold on, you aren’t meant to have—”

“It’s emergency wine, all right?” A few days ago, I would have thought that drinking with a witch in the middle of the night was one step away from turning into a slob who spent all his time beating his wife and staggering home at dawn in yesterday’s clothes. I’d never met anyone who had poise without austerity. I hadn’t thought that was possible, but here he was, spun of poise, and not a thread of austerity. “You don’t know about it and I never mentioned it.”

“Yes please.” He pressed his hands over his face. “Sorry.”

“No, that was frightening,” I protested, not liking that he thought he needed to be sorry.

I’d never thought I’d see him look ashamed. I’d thought shame would just ping off him. But he did look ashamed now. “You’re not frightened,” he said.

“The . . .” I shook my head as I poured out some wine from its slim little jar, because the cups were distracting. I only had four, one for me and one for each of the triplets, and I felt like I was robbing them to use one. It paralysed me for a second and then I had to switch them round, so he had mine and I had the old one we normally kept spoons in.

I brought a plate of the honey cakes from yesterday too, because he was right about his honey: it did help. Anything sweet did, but this all the more so. The bees must have been a special kind. Maybe they were witch-bees.

“I’ve not had any monsters climb out of my cupboard before, but midnight ambushes are ordinary after-dinner fare, you know? We used to make it into a game. We had a scoreboard and everything.”

“A scoreboard?” he repeated, his voice smoking. He sounded like he was trying hard to calm down and I wanted to tell him to try less, because it would go away faster, but instructions wouldn’t help. Distraction was better.

“You earned points for acting stupidly,” I explained. I set the cups down and lit a lamp. The tiny light made everything seem safer. Everything in the room had been grey and silver before, but now, there was a pool of colour, and it was reassuring. “Five for dropping your sword, twenty for letting someone take it off you, thirty for being asleep on watch, fifty if you let someone burn your tent down. And then we had a special Moron of the Month ceremony. The prize was a jar of really old cheese. You had to keep it in your tent the whole month. So, when some Hatti cavalryman rode screaming at you, you didn’t freeze, which is normal; you went, oh fuck, what if they give me the Cheese of Shame?”

It was a relief when he laughed.

I touched our cups together. “To eventful evenings.”

He smiled, but it was pretend. He was looking at the cup, the one that was usually mine. Helios had given it to me. It was supposed to be a special-occasion wine cup, because it was fantastically made, the glaze flawless, and it was inscribed for me. It said kalos Phaidros. Kalos means “beautiful.” At the time I’d assumed it was my due and I fully deserved a commander who had things specially made to toast how lovely I was, because as I’ve mentioned, I was vigorously unlovely. Now I had to wonder if, not at all unlike Dionysus, Helios had been telling useful lies. He wasn’t blind, he hadn’t failed to notice I was about as kalos as a homicidal pig, but I’d never fought better than I had when I knew he was watching.

“Don’t laugh,” I said, about the cup.

Dionysus glanced up at me, not laughing. “Are you sure it’s all right for me to use it?”

I almost asked why he said so, but then I saw it. I clearly didn’t live with anyone, but I wouldn’t have kept it if Helios had left me. He had seen the helmet in the other room too. “Of course it’s all right,” I promised.

He held it carefully all the same, in both hands. “This wine is so bad,” he said, but he was smiling.

“Witch it into something better then. Come on, what’s the point of you?”

“All right,” he said. “Will I show you some magic?”

“Yes please,” I said, curious, because I’d expected him to pour it in a plant pot.

He held the cup in both hands and closed his eyes for a second, then held it out to me.

“Piss off,” I said.

“Taste it.”