Page 25 of The House of the Red Balconies

“I haven’t been back to where I’m from in five years. I should go, someday soon, but my sister and her kids are the only things I miss.”

“So Mistress Aula hasn’t threatened you with eviction?” said Theano after a moment.

“Er, no. She has said that she’ll raise my rent, but to be honest, that’s fair. I’d been thinking myself the rooms are worth more than I pay for them.”

Theano sighed. “I know. The house hasn’t been … ” She hesitated. “Oh, what does it matter. You’ve already heard me speaking frankly. The house hasn’t been run properly in years. She just doesn’t care enough. We’d had misfortunes when the late landlord bought this place, but we could have recovered if he and Aula had worked together sensibly.”

“He should have put Theano in charge,” said Elpis, nodding decisively.

“I was much too young at the time. And not foolish enough to start a rivalry with the landlord’s woman.” She sighed. “I don’t know that it’s made any difference.”

“She knows you’d have been a better mistress,” Elpis said, “and she hates you for it.” She gave her dough a final punch. “Ah well. At least she’s not evicting the aqueduct man. That’s good to hear.”

“Zo must be glad,” said Theano.

“A-ah? Yes?”

“He says you’re a good neighbour.”

“Right. Yes. Well, I try to be.”

He might not have a better chance than this to ask a question that had been nagging at him for some time now.

“Is Zo … free?”

Theano showed no sign of thinking it an odd question; but then, she was a companion.

“Oh, absolutely. He’s not indentured to the house, or anybody’s slave. As far as I know he never has been.”

“I see!” Hylas couldn’t hide that he was glad to hear it.

“But,” Theano went on, “he has nowhere else to go, no family on the island or any other way to support himself. He could go to another tea house, but with his health the way it is, I don’t know if many of them would take him.”

“Oh,” said Hylas. “I … I see.”

“So when Mistress Aula, for instance, tells him that he’s got to find a man to give him a garland—as she’s been telling all of us—no, she can’t compel him, she doesn’t own him. But she could turn him out of the house, and it would be bad for him. That’s what you were wondering, I guess?”

“Yes, I—yes, I suppose so.”

His tea was ready, and he returned the baby to her mother and carried the tray back to his room as usual. And yet everything felt different that morning. What he had realized last night had changed the very quality of the air and the light. He felt more alive, somehow.

And he was also slightly nervous about being near Zo again, knowing what he now knew about himself. Would he see Zo differently? Would it be easier or harder to look at him?

He got back to his room, took the tray out into the garden, as usual, and found that Zo was not yet up. This was the first time, since they started breakfasting together in the garden, that this had happened, and Hylas stood with the tray in his hands for a few moments, unsure what to do about it.

Finally he put the tray down, went to the screen over Zo’s doorway, and knocked softly.

“Hylas?” came Zo’s sleepy voice from inside.

“Are you up?”

“Yeah … no. Come in, though.”

Hylas slid the screen half-open and looked around it. Zo was sitting up in bed, hair tousled, eyes closed to slits against the light. His robe was open down the front, and Hylas could see a slice of smooth, bare chest.

“I’ll bring your breakfast in,” Hylas suggested, “and you eat when you feel like it.”

“Oh.” Zo smiled sleepily. “That’s nice of you, Hylas.”