Page 58 of Sword Dance

Varazda nodded. “But I was only able to search Eurydemos’s and Phaia’s belongings thoroughly—and fruitlessly, I’m afraid. Helenos and Gelon share a room and have an extraordinary amount of luggage. I hadn’t been able to go through it all before Aristokles went missing. I think the documents could still be there.”

“Right,” said Damiskos. He stood with his hands on his hips for a moment. He had put his clothes back on, damp as they were. “So. Holding the beach is a strong position. We have fresh water and plenty of food. We can afford to wait for the men to come back from the Tentines and strengthen our hand further. Or for the fishermen to quarrel with the students and come down to retrieve their boats—which, honestly, I might have expected to happen before now. It’s also a question how many of the male slaves they can count on to assist them—we know they’ve coopted a few of them, but we don’t know what’s happened to the rest.

“Helenos, who’s currently in charge, is not as bloodthirsty as his colleagues. He wouldn’t let them kill me when they had the chance, and I don’t think he was pleased with Gelon and Phaia killing Aristokles. That works in our favour. Our other advantage is that he’s likely, given the way he see the world, to underestimate us because we’re a bunch of women, slaves, a cripple, a Sasian, degenerates—all the rest of it.”

Aradne snorted.

“Our disadvantages,” Damiskos went on. “We outnumber them, but we do lack able-bodied men, weapons, and experience—whereas we know that at least some of them are capable of planning and executing assassinations and spur-of-the-moment murders. We have children to protect. They have hostages. Eurydemos, certainly, Tyra probably, likely some of the household men. That weakens our position, because obviously we don’t want any hostages harmed.”

“Obviously,” said Aradne.

“We’re also weakened by the fact that we don’t know what the students’ endgame is or what plans they may already have in place. On the beach we’re vulnerable from the sea, which could be a problem if they’ve got more reinforcements on the way. That’s a possibility we have to consider. The other possibility we have to consider—and I think this one is much more likely—is that they’ll realize we can afford to wait them out, and they’ll try some sort of preemptive strike before the factory-workers come back. And right now, we’d be vulnerable to that. I think we can expect an exploratory party pretty soon, probably with an offer of some kind—we’ll let you back into your house if you do such-and-such for us—I’m not sure what it will be because I’m not sure exactly what their aims are. But when we refuse it—which we’ll do—they may lose interest in bargaining pretty quickly.”

“Right,” said Aradne. “So what do you think we should do.”

“I think we should fortify our position on the beach.”

Nione blinked at him. “What does that mean, exactly? You don’t mean build, build defensive … um, defences … do you?”

“I do, actually. With your approval. It’s your household, which makes you the ranking officer here.”

She gave a startled laugh. “Oh dear, no. I defer to you.”

“Well. I think we should dig a trench around the beach huts, extending back to the spring. Then what you do is, you build a rampart with the dirt you’ve dug out—sand, in this case, which isn’t ideal, but we’ll make it work—and erect a wall of stakes on top of that. There’s plenty of branches in the brush around here that will work beautifully for stakes, we’ve got the shovels you brought down to fight the fire, and the women from the vineyard will be familiar with this type of work. It shouldn’t take more than a few hours, given our workforce and the size of the area we’re dealing with.

“Then when we’re done with the ditch and rampart, we stockpile whatever projectiles we can find, gather more brush to close up the beach houses and provide better cover—that should be plenty of work for the day. The most important thing is to look like we’re doing something and aren’t scared—the second most important thing is to do something, to keep from getting scared.”

“I see,” said Aradne.

“Will you make a speech to tell the women?” Nione asked Damiskos.

“I think it would be better if you did. I’ll brief everyone on the plan afterward, but I do feel it’s best for you to maintain your authority as mistress of the house.”

“Hm.” She looked uncertain. “Best for me, or best for the women?”

“Best for everyone.” He smiled wryly at her. “Don’t worry—I’ll have your back.”

“I appreciate that.” She returned the smile.

Nione and Aradne went back into the warehouse to gather up the women, and for a moment Damiskos and Varazda were left alone on the beach.

“That was magnificent,” Varazda said.

“What was?”

“All of it. ‘These are our weaknesses, and we’re going to build a rampart, here’s how it will all go.’ That whole display of competence. It was marvellous.”

Damiskos shrugged self-consciously. He really hadn’t given it much thought; it had all just come so naturally, the analysis and the strategy following in orderly fashion. He was feeling like himself.

“Easy as breathing.”

“I know. It’s your element. It’s what you do the way I dance.”

Damiskos glanced at him and away, and he heard Varazda draw in a breath, and then felt his touch, feather-light, as Varazda slipped an arm around his waist.

“I’m sorry, that was thoughtless of me. No one has taken the dancing away from me.”

“Did you learn to dance in the king’s household at Gudul?” Damiskos asked after a moment, an easy change of subject. Varazda’s arm was still around his waist.