Page 67 of Something Human

“So we came up with the idea, my advisors and I, of offering them a choice between being sent back to Pheme as slaves or staying in Tios as freedmen—I don’t think you have those here, either, but it means what it sounds like—and they all chose to stay, so we freed them. We may or may not have been legally within our rights—it’s a grey area—but it doesn’t matter, so long as they don’t try to go back to Pheme. We minted our own coins to pay them for their work, and we offered grants of money to any private slave-owners in the city who wanted to do the same—free their slaves and rehire them as freedmen. I thought—we thought—that kind of thing might raise morale in the midst of a hard winter, and I think it did.

“But now I’m not just the rebel archon of a breakaway colony—I’m the radical who freed all the slaves. There are philosophers in Pheme who are saying we should all do that, that no one should keep slaves. It’s a hot topic.” He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I didn’t do it because of the philosophers, I honestly didn’t even know about that. I just did it because it seemed like a good idea at the time. But if I come out on the right side of history for it—and I think I may—I won’t complain.”

He paused, and Rus moved to lie closer against him in the grass, wanting to make it clear he enjoyed listening to all this. “Go on,” he said.

“Well, then there are ways that Tios is changing, already. Becoming less an outpost of Pheme and more its own city. I guess it had been happening in small ways for a while, as more locals moved into the city and we traded more with the tribes, but it’s out in the open now, and people are talking about it. It’s become deliberate. More Phemians—Tians—are starting to wear local dress, cook the local specialities, marry local women. My councillors have started looking to me to make some sort of gesture—grow a moustache, maybe, or start wearing a kilt. They thought the tattoo was the beginning of something, a transformation of some kind.” He smiled. “Actually, it was a poor substitute for the gesture I really wanted to make.”

“Which was?”

“You.”

“You mean … ” What did he mean? Rus felt as if he couldn’t breathe.

Adares put out a hand and touched Rus’s hair. “I mean I imagined bringing you to Tios and flaunting you in front of the council and the people. It would never fly in Pheme, an archon having an acknowledged lover—much too radical. But in Tios, why not? They would all have loved you, when they met you—you’re surprisingly full of old-fashioned Phemian virtues—and the story of how you rescued me on the battlefield would make everyone think of the heroic lovers of legend. The romantic types would have lost their minds. I’d have been re-elected on the strength of it.” He grinned. “Of course, I may be re-elected anyway, if only because no one else wants the job.”

Rus held his breath, aware of every place Adares’s body touched his. The Phemian had spoken so easily of it—“bringing you to Tios”—as if he had imagined riding through the city gates with Rus behind him on his horse. Perhaps he had. But it was a fantasy, or a dream whose time had passed. He hadn’t suggested that it might really be like that now.

Adares’s fingers tunnelled in under Rus’s hair and curled around the back of his neck. “Meanwhile here you are, set to be the youngest of your people ever to be made high priest—right? Tell me more about that.”

Rus sighed. “If I have to.”

“You do.”

So he told Adares the whole story about his dream and Unumus’s interpretation and Suthus making him his deputy.

“But I don’t think the dream can have been a vision from the gods, because wouldn’t Kahait have been wearing my kilt pin if it had?”

Adares had turned to lie on his back again, and he looked thoughtfully up at the sky for a moment. “Yes, that does seem obvious, doesn’t it? I don’t know. If I’m honest, Rus, if it were my dream, I don’t think I’d believe in it even if she had the kilt pin. I mean, that is the sort of thing you might dream, too, isn’t it?”

“I suppose it is. What are you saying, then?”

“I don’t know. I guess that I’m not the type to have visions from the gods. But … ” He looked down at Rus. “I wouldn’t have thought you were, either.”

“No.” It was what he’d thought, but it was strange to hear someone else say it. Strange and a little painful. Somehow he’d thought Adares had a higher opinion of him than that.

“I don’t mean it the way you’re probably thinking. I think you’re the most … the most religious man I know. I think the gods might very well have things to say to you, personally. I just don’t think they’d necessarily do it in your sleep.”

Rus considered that for a moment. “You think I’m not mystical.”

“Exactly. You’re really not. You’re lots of other things—you’re pedantic, you’re passionate, you’re literalistic, and funny, and full of life, and so completely at home in your own body. I love you. I know that’s not what we were talking about, but I missed my chance to say it once, and I’m going to take every chance I have from now on.”

“I love you too,” Rus said fervently. “I love you too.”

Adares reached for him, and rolled on top of him to kiss him long and deeply. His hands moved firmly, expertly over Rus’s body. “Mm. What would you like me to do about this? It’s beginning to resemble one of these standing stones. I’ve been waiting a while to make that joke,” he admitted.

“Please don’t ever make it again. I’m quite serious.”

Adares laughed. “You are, aren’t you? Is this all right?” He was moving unhurriedly on top of Rus, rubbing against him the same way he had done that first time in the fall.

“Of course.”

“It’s just that I’ve noticed you like being on top.”

“Perhaps I’ll tumble you over into the grass when you least expect it.”

“Mmm. Will you?”

But he didn’t. He let Adares stay on top, lazily pushing them to a climax that arrived at the same time for both of them. Afterward he pulled Adares over into the crook of his arm, and they lay exhausted together.