Page 18 of The House of the Red Balconies

“Which island are we talking about? The big or the little?”

“The big island,” said Hylas.

“The little island,” said Loukianos at the same time. “Oh. Er. I think you mean the little island, don’t you?”

Hylas shook his head. As he’d assumed, Loukianos had not read his report. “I’ve been to the spring on the little island. The water quality isn’t good—probably something to do with the soil that it travels through—and I’m afraid the spring is too sluggish to provide enough volume even for a bath house or anything of that kind. I haven’t been able to get to the big island myself yet, but I’ve been told by several people that the water there is of a much better quality.”

“Hm,” said Loukianos, frowning.

“You know what the problems are with building on the big island, don’t you?” said Mutari.

“I … am afraid I … ”

“No, no, he doesn’t,” Loukianos interrupted. “By the gods, I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this. You’re sure that water is bad, Hylas?”

“I’m afraid everyone I took with me to the site agreed, sir—it has a bitter taste. It might not be unwholesome, but people wouldn’t want to drink it.”

“Or make tea with it,” Mutari supplied.

“Exactly.”

“All right, all right. Let’s sit down, all of us, and have a talk.”

He pushed off the railing and led the way toward a grotto with benches at the opposite end of the terrace. Hylas and Mutari followed him.

“We do need a new aqueduct badly,” Mutari remarked.

“I know,” said Hylas. “I’ve just finished an assessment of the water supply in town, and it’s not adequate. I think repairs need to be undertaken, and I suspect some householders may have tapped into the pipes to divert water to their own property.”

“Oh, they all do that up here,” said Loukianos gloomily. “All the merchants who live up here on the mountain. There’s some old law that they claim means I can’t stop them or tax them for it or anything. Drives me wild, honestly.”

Mutari reached across and touched Hylas’s shoulder lightly. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Right,” said Loukianos, when they were seated in the grotto. “You know the history, I daresay. The small island of Tykanos used to belong to Boukos, and the Boukossians still govern the villages on the North coast—which is an administrative goat-fuck, but that’s another story. In any case, when Boukos agreed to let Pheme build the naval base here, they ceded control of the town, which is when Pheme first installed a governor.”

“If I may, Loukianos,” Mutari interrupted gracefully. “The salient point is that the big island never belonged to Boukos or Pheme.”

“Exactly,” said Loukianos. “Thank you, my dear. I was wandering from the point. The big island, Hylas, with all the timber but no decent harbour, has always been claimed by Gylphos.”

That is, it belonged to the mainland kingdom off whose coast the islands were situated.

“Ah,” said Hylas. “I didn’t realize.”

He also didn’t entirely understand why this was a problem. Relations between Gylphos and the Pseuchaian League were good, he’d thought. At least they were at peace and traded in grain and dates and flax and things. Certainly the island of Tykanos itself was full of Gylphians coming and going. Mutari was surely Gylphian herself.

“It’s caused tension, of course,” Loukianos went on, “the islands being divided like that. Obviously Pheme would like to be able to log the big island, and the Gylphians would like to have control of a good harbour. But the compromise used to work—they sold us timber cheaply, and we let them use the harbour with only token tariffs. Waived altogether in far too many cases if you ask me, but just try getting that changed.”

“The problem is,” Mutari cut in delicately again, “that Glif—Gylphos—has come under the control of the Sasian throne. It was not a bloody conquest, and our queen is still on her throne, but she answers to the king in Suna now.”

“That means … ” Hylas started. “What does that mean? That if we want to build on the big island, we’ll have to ask permission from … Sasia?”

He’d thought the obstacles to building this aqueduct consisted of some jurisdictional pettiness and maybe some engineering difficulties, but apparently they had to contend with the might of the kingdom of Sasia—Zash, to give it its proper name—ancient and implacable enemy of all Pseuchaia. This was beginning to become nightmarish.

“Not Sasia exactly,” Mutari clarified. “Just the Gylphian officials who may or may not be Sasian puppets at this point.”

“It’s hard to say what’s going on over there,” said Loukianos. “But it’s not impossible. We might be able to do it.”

“I must also warn you,” said Mutari, “you’re not proposing simply to build on the island—you want to take fresh water from it. My people and the Sasians are both very, mm, protective of water sources. There are various religious prohibitions and legal penalties … ” She smiled apologetically.