Page 63 of Sword Dance

Looking around, he saw he was not the only one awake. A young woman, one of the vineyard workers, sat on the other side of the remains of the fire, with her mantle drawn tight around her shoulders.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked quietly, when she had seen that he was awake.

“Oh, no, sir,” she said shyly. “I’m keeping watch. We’ve been doing it all night, taking turns, you know. Pharastes suggested it, but he said really it was your idea. Aradne said it was a good one.”

“Ah,” said Damiskos, unable to suppress a smile. And it’s been quiet, has it?”

She nodded. “But I’m scared all the same, sir. If any of those men come back … ” She shivered.

“Would it help if I sat up with you?” said Damiskos.

“Yes, sir. But only if you’re not too tired.”

“Not at all,” he said truthfully. “I feel quite wide awake.”

The girl didn’t seem to want conversation, so he sat on his side of the fire pit, silently keeping her company while the sky behind the mountains grew brighter. He watched Varazda sleeping, his face half-hidden between the crook of his arm and the tangle of his long hair. He had an endearing way of sleeping, unguarded and somehow untidy, hair in his face, limbs sprawled carelessly.

Damiskos wondered what he looked like in his sleep, and whether Varazda had spent any time looking at him in the firelight the night before. Probably not; Varazda had probably been too busy organizing the watch and claiming that it was Damiskos’s idea.

The sun peeked out from a cleft in the mountains, gold light spilled across the beach, and Aradne joined them at the cold fire pit. She gave Damiskos a nod of greeting.

“All quiet, Kore?” she asked the girl who had been on watch.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Right. Well, you’re … relieved.” She glanced at Damiskos. “That is the term, isn’t it.”

“Relieved? Yes.”

Varazda woke up, rolling onto his back and rubbing his eyes and stretching gorgeously. He pushed his hair out of his face and sat up. He was as grubby as the rest of them, his face smudged with soot, one sleeve of his shirt torn at the shoulder, the dark fabric of his trousers stained with salt water.

“Good morning,” he said rather muzzily, squinting around at his companions at the fire pit.

“Good morning,” said Damiskos, trying to keep his tone brisk and soldierly.

“Morning,” said Aradne, doing a much better job of what he had been trying for.

Varazda looked up at the sun rising behind the mountains as if trying to decide what time it was.

“I’m not usually up this early,” he remarked.

Kore laughed, then bit her lip. “You’re not … Somebody told me you’re not really a slave?”

“Not any more. Even when I was, I didn’t have to get up early, as a rule.”

Aradne, to Damiskos’s surprise, did not snort derisively at that. She nodded with a thoughtful expression, as if this information had told her something significant about Varazda. Damiskos realized what it was: that a slave who didn’t have to rise early, especially one who looked like Varazda, was probably being used by somebody for sex.

“It sounds nice,” said Kore innocently.

She got up then and went into one of the beach huts, where there were sounds of the babies and children waking. For the moment, Damiskos, Varazda, and Aradne were left alone at the fire pit.

“What’s going on with you two?” Aradne asked abruptly.

“What do you mean?” Damiskos countered.

“Are you a couple.”

“No,” said Varazda, decisively, before the last syllable was quite out of her mouth. “We’ve been pretending to be so that Damiskos had an excuse to keep an eye on me, ever since my supposed master—may God give him peace—went missing.”