Page 55 of Sword Dance

“Gelon killed him—Phaia helped. From what I can make out, he told her he was an agent of the Boukossian government to try to impress her with his importance.”

Varazda groaned. “That’s the sort of thing he would have done.”

“So she and Gelon killed him, and the rest of the students have been trying to cover it up. What made you come looking for me?”

Varazda shrugged. “Someone said you had come down to walk on the beach, but you’d been gone a long while, and I had seen the students go down and come back. I was worried. Shall we get out of the water, and you can tell me the rest?”

“Good. Yes. I will.”

“Er, you might care to take off your clothes first. You smell a little fishy.”

“Divine Terza, that’s an understatement.”

Varazda helped him undress, tossed his tunic and boots back up onto the shore for him, and helped him wade further into the water to rinse himself off. By this time Damiskos was beginning to feel more like himself. In fact, he was starting to feel more like himself than he had felt in a long time.

He got to his feet, streaming water, but for a moment Varazda did not. Damiskos looked down at him. He was kneeling in water up to his waist, still fully dressed, looking up at Damiskos, who was naked but for his wet loincloth. Just looking at him.

It wasn’t a lascivious look. It was appreciative, but it was a little detached, almost wistful. It didn’t seem like the kind of look you would normally give a man you had slept with the night before. Damiskos didn’t know what it meant.

He held out a hand to help Varazda up, and Varazda accepted it and rose gracefully. His sodden trousers clung to his legs as they splashed up onto the beach. He pulled off his shoes and tried to wring some of the water out of his clothes.

They walked up the beach, away from the smoky, fishy smell of the factory. Damiskos was limping so badly that he did not refuse when Varazda offered him a shoulder to lean on.

“Did they put you in there to kill you?” Varazda asked.

Damiskos stopped to think. “Helenos said he didn’t want any more bodies. He wasn’t happy about the Zashians in Boukos being killed—perhaps he felt it reflected badly on the school, I don’t know. The others think any dead Zashian is a blow struck for their cause, but Helenos focusses on the big picture, which I suppose is hundreds and thousands of dead Zashians. The others wanted to drown me, but Helenos wouldn’t let them. I don’t remember if they discussed what they were going to do with me. I was … ”

Varazda put a hand lightly on his arm. “Don’t go back there if you don’t want to.”

“I … Thanks. I don’t think I was really there at the time, so I can’t … But they dumped me in that tank, and I was there for … ” He looked up at the sky. It had been early morning when he came out here, and the sun was past the zenith now; it was mid-afternoon. It hadn’t just felt like hours inside the fish-sauce tank. “Hours. Hours before somebody set that fire—it hadn’t been burning long when you found me. One of the students must have come back and set it. They must have thought the fishermen weren’t coming back.”

“They know they’re not. The fishermen are up at the villa, demanding extra pay for working while the Opos-worshippers are on holiday. It was the students’ idea. I heard them talking about it on Hapikon Eve.”

“Terza’s balls.” Too late, the oath struck him as tactless. “Oh—sorry.”

Varazda shrugged expansively. “Presumably he has them. I’ve never heard that he didn’t.”

Damiskos felt a strong urge suddenly to hug him. He resisted because it didn’t seem the time or place, and he wouldn’t have wanted it to be misinterpreted. Or correctly interpreted, maybe.

“Anyway,” said Varazda, “it wasn’t the students who set the fire—it was the fishermen. They were threatening to do it—to let the place burn unless their wages were increased.”

“Huh. Clearly a bluff. That fire wasn’t going to burn the place down.”

“Might have damaged the merchandise, though. Does fish sauce burn?”

“I couldn’t say. I don’t want to think about fish sauce right now.”

“Right. Sorry.”

Damiskos’s attention had been caught by figures on the path down from the villa. It was a number of Nione’s slaves, six or eight of them, led by the steward, Aradne, hurrying down the path with shovels and buckets in hand.

“They must have taken the fishermen seriously,” Damiskos said. “Good for them.” He wasn’t sure about the other women, but Aradne he thought might be capable of putting out a burning building all by herself.

“Planning to sit here and watch while the mistress’s factory burns?” Aradne demanded as the group of women approached.

“It’s not burning any more, actually,” Varazda replied brightly.

“We put it out,” Damiskos added.