Page 87 of Sword Dance

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As Damiskos swung around the corner of the factory, the boat with the new contingent of philosophers had reached the jetty, and the sailors who had rowed it were making it fast to a mooring ring. The young men in mantles began climbing out. Damiskos stood by the factory wall, watching while they still had not noticed him.

He saw swords and knives clumsily concealed under mantles. This group had come prepared for violence.

Damiskos had opened his mouth to hail them when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked. Eurydemos was running down the beach from the direction of the hidden cove, his own mantle flopping and flapping around him, heading for the jetty and the boatload of students.

What in Terza’s name was he playing at? Damiskos was too far away to intercept him before he reached the jetty.

“Halt!” Damiskos bellowed at a parade-ground volume. “Halt there!”

Eurydemos glanced around wildly and then stumbled on. Damiskos ran to cut across his path, but it was hopeless.

“The gods be thanked!” the philosopher called to the students. “You’ve come to rescue me!”

For a moment Damiskos faltered. Was it possible Eurydemos was right? Had they come to rescue him?

No. They hadn’t. They were fumbling their weapons out from under their mantles and coming down the jetty toward Eurydemos.

“Master,” one in the lead called out, “the time has come for you to step aside. The old order must give way! Pheme must be restored to greatness, that Boukos may follow in her footsteps.”

Eurydemos was on the jetty now, the students halfway down. They had stopped, standing across the width of the jetty, swords and knives out, in stances ranging from “would pass muster in the Sixth Koryphos” to “knows which end of the knife to hold.” Eurydemos slowed but continued to walk toward them.

“Boys, what are you saying?” he called.

The students replied with something about purity and barbarians. Damiskos reached the end of the jetty himself and started down it. Eurydemos had stopped finally, within striking distance of the students, but the students had not struck. They were waiting, Damiskos realized, for him to come up behind Eurydemos and take him unawares. They had heard Damiskos shout at Eurydemos and thought he was one of them.

If he could just keep Eurydemos from flinging himself on his students’ swords, this might all work in Damiskos’s favour.

He came up behind Eurydemos, who was in full flight with some nonsense about virtue, and caught him around the throat with his right arm, drawing his sword left-handed at the same time and flipping it around to grip it loosely. Eurydemos made a startled noise and then turned a baleful glare on Damiskos.

“What are you doing now?” he demanded, his tone more irritated than alarmed.

“Good work,” said the leader of the students, who was the one who wouldn’t have disgraced the Sixth Koryphos. “You must understand, Master. On the battlefield of the intellect, as you yourself have said—”

“No, no, no!” Eurydemos interrupted impatiently. “He’s not on your side.” He twisted around in Damiskos’s hold, which was not very secure only because Damiskos hadn’t thought it needed to be. “You’re not on their side. I cannot allow this subterfuge.”

“I see why you think he needs to be replaced,” said Damiskos to the students, getting his hand over Eurydemos’s mouth, which he should have done sooner.

He didn’t know how much of this exchange would be audible in the factory, and he could only pray that Varazda wouldn’t show himself. No one could be confused about whose side he was on.

“Who are you, anyway?” one of the students asked with a doubtful frown. “Are you from the Marble Porches? Whose student?”

“I was at the Marble Porches,” another one spoke up. “I’ve never seen him.”

“I’m not a student,” Damiskos answered while Eurydemos struggled uselessly in his grip, making affronted noises. “I’m a soldier. I’m here to talk to Helenos about the documents he stole from the Sasian embassy.”

He felt rather clever as he was saying this, but when the words were met by stunned silence, he realized he’d made a tactical error. They hadn’t known about the theft.

“Are you calling Helenos Kontiades a thief?” a voice in the back demanded.

“Whose side are you on?”

“Your side, of course.” Damiskos tried to brazen it out.

“Let him go,” said the lead student, gesturing with his sword at Eurydemos. “If you are not trying to protect him from the consequences of his folly and intellectual corruption, let him go.”

Ah, what the hell. When you put it like that.