Page 12 of The House of the Red Balconies

“It’s just that I’d never … I wasn’t sure … Is there anything … ”

“May I get a light?” Zo held up the taper indicatively. “It’s dark in my room, and I … dropped something.”

“Of course!”

Hylas sprang toward the lamp on its stand beside his bed, the twin of the one in Zo’s own room. Apparently Pantaleon hadn’t made off with that when he took the rest of the furniture. The aqueduct man unhooked the lamp from its chain and brought it over to the door. Zo put his taper to the flame and waited for it to catch.

“Thank you,” he said. “Did you enjoy this evening’s entertainment?”

Hylas looked up from the lamp flame, and their eyes met. “I enjoyed your playing, very much.”

Zo smiled. “Thank you for listening so attentively.”

The taper had caught and burned brightly. Zo withdrew it from the lamp flame.

“It was my pleasure,” said Hylas.

Zo carried the burning taper back to his room, lit a candle on his desk, and cleaned up the broken lamp on the floor. By the time he shed his outer clothes, blew out the candle, and crawled into bed, the light from next door had gone out too, so presumably the aqueduct man had also gone to bed.

CHAPTER 5

Hylas carried his breakfast tray out into the back courtyard as usual, then hesitated. He knew that Zo was up; he’d glimpsed him, on the way to the kitchen, going into the privy. That didn’t mean he wanted company.

Finally Hylas made up his mind and set the tray down on a rock near his own door. He went to Zo’s door and knocked tentatively on the frame of the lattice.

“Yes?” came Zo’s voice after a moment.

“I, um … ”

“You can open it.”

“Oh.”

Hylas slid open the screen. Zo was sitting in a chair at what might have been either a desk or a dressing table—maybe both, as it had writing materials and makeup on it. His black hair was pulled back into a short, careless pigtail, and his eyes were not painted, which made him look freshly, differently beautiful.

“Good morning,” Hylas said. “They always give me two cups with my tea and more buns than I can eat. Do you—would you—like to join me?”

“Thank you,” said Zo, and Hylas was so sure it would be the beginning of “Thank you, but no,” that he was quite startled when Zo pushed back his chair from his desk.

“Oh, you—you will?”

The companion paused. “Did you not want me to say yes?”

“No! No, I … I did. I wasn’t sure whether you usually breakfast at this hour.” That made some sense; he felt proud of himself.

Zo smiled. “Usually I’m trying to fall back to sleep at this hour. But not today, so I’d be happy to join you.”

He rose from his desk with difficulty and leaned on his crutch as he came out into the garden. The crutch was just a long staff with a small cross-piece at the top, surely not the best design for its purpose. Hylas ran to pick up the tray from where he had left it and carried it over to the chair near Zo’s door.

“You can bring out one of the chairs from my room for yourself,” Zo suggested.

Hylas considered that for a moment. “But we don’t have a table,” he said. “So we’d have nowhere to put the tea things … I’ll just sit on the ground and hand things to you. That’ll work better.”

Zo was giving him a doubtful look. In the sunlight and without his makeup, he looked strikingly young. Hylas was seized with a feeling of shame that he had for so long ignored someone who might have benefited from his help and company, simply because he’d found Zo’s beauty intimidating.

“You probably find it easier to get up from a chair than from a cushion on the ground,” Hylas went on, not sure how else to show consideration than by baldly spelling it out. “I understand. Sitting cross-legged is hard on one’s knees. We don’t do it so much where I’m from.”

Zo moved finally to sit in his chair, giving Hylas a wry smile. “Don’t you mostly recline on couches?”