Page 43 of Sword Dance

“I suppose I had some thought of getting Phaia away from these awful men—which was wrong of me, because she’s no more their dupe than I am. She has her own mind and her own conscience, and she’s chosen her path. She chose to deceive me, too. She’s really Helenos’s girl.”

“Oh, Nione, I’m so sorry.”

“I overheard them talking the other night. She probably thinks of me as a stupid old woman only good for getting them a free holiday in the country.”

“I’m sorry.” It was all he had to say, but it was heartfelt.

They sat in silence for a moment before he reached out and took her hand. He was glad to be able to do it now, to know it would be understood as a gesture of friendship. She squeezed his hand in return.

“And now Aristokles has gone missing,” she continued, “and his poor servant … I am glad you bought him, Damiskos, for his sake, but please tell me you mean to free him. It isn’t a love affair if one person owns the other.”

“Ah,” said Damiskos. “About that.”

* * *

He told her everything he knew, and then they went to dinner with the students who had, quite possibly, murdered Aristokles and hidden his body, who had certainly killed men in Boukos, and who might intend harm to Varazda as well. They pretended that all was well and everyone was enjoying a lovely house party with a heavy emphasis on discussions of the Ideal Republic.

What else could they do? Nione had a houseful of mostly female slaves who could not be asked to subdue and imprison a group of dangerous young men. Of the few able-bodied male slaves in her household, several were away in the Tentines. There seemed nothing to do but rely on the veneer of civility that everyone was still preserving. Damiskos thought that aside from times when he had been held captive or in terrible pain, he might never have passed a worse evening.

Everything that the students said sounded fatuous, even grotesque, as if their words came to him eerily distorted. They were discussing slavery now, debating the views of the radicals in the city who wanted to abolish it. The argument was between two of the new students, who would allow that the radicals might be morally right, though in practice their ideas would never work, and everyone else, who thought that slavery was a natural human institution which could not morally be abolished.

Damiskos had taken it for granted that everyone thought slavery was an evil, and that the only argument was between people who thought it a necessary evil and those who didn’t. At any other time he thought he would have been shocked to learn there were people who could argue it was a moral good, not an evil at all. But after what he had already heard about Eurydemos’s students, it didn’t even surprise him much.

He felt duty-bound to stay at dinner with Nione, now that she knew who she was harbouring under her roof, but fortunately she did not want to linger over dinner herself, and he was able to excuse himself as soon as she quit the dining room.

He went to his room for his sword and hurried to the slaves’ courtyard. He found Varazda sitting on a bench with his arm around the shoulders of one of Nione’s women, who was drying her eyes. She looked up guiltily as Damiskos approached, but Varazda gave her arm a squeeze.

“It’s all right, he’s harmless.”

The woman gave a watery laugh. “He’s your new master, isn’t he?”

“That’s right,” said Varazda dryly. “And he’s a good one.” He looked up at Damiskos. “One of the students has been giving Dria trouble.”

“It’s was nothing, really,” Dria murmured, with a miserable face that belied the statement. “I only wish I’d been braver and not given in and told him what he wanted to know—we’ve all heard how he tried to attack you.”

“So you were scared,” said Varazda. “Of course. I’d’ve been too. Well. I was.”

He had a different way of talking to women, Damiskos thought, his mannerisms subtly more feminine, his voice a little bit different. Damiskos wondered if he did it on purpose or if it was just something he slipped into naturally.

Dria’s roommate arrived in the courtyard with a bottle and cups from the kitchen. With thanks and more apologies to Varazda, the two women retreated to their room.

“It was Gelon, in case you were wondering,” said Varazda, “and what he wanted to know was where my bedroom is.”

“Daughters of Night.”

“Mm. I thought I’d better not switch rooms, or someone else might get stabbed in the night.”

“Right.” For a moment he thought to suggest his own room. But there was only one bed … he would have to offer to sleep on the floor, or …

They climbed the stairs and arrived at Varazda’s door.

Damiskos said, “Shall I take first watch, or will you?”

“Oh, First Spear. Only you would miss the opportunity to say ‘We’d better not sleep much tonight, ha ha’—in favour of setting up a watch rota.”

Damiskos drew himself up sternly. “Under the circumstances, I would find it unacceptably crass to make that kind of remark. So I will take that as a compliment.”

“How do you know it wasn’t meant as one?” He gave Damiskos a hurt look.