Page 32 of The House of the Red Balconies

The donkey’s expression, rendered in a couple of brushstrokes, was serene and dignified. It wore a green blanket across its back, and its tail and the tips of its ears had been painted black.

“Thank you,” said Hylas. “I will treasure it.”

Winter came the way it often did on Tykanos, in a sudden blast of cold rain, lashing out of a grey sky that hung over the island for weeks. At the Red Balconies they lit braziers and huddled indoors. Theano succeeded in getting one of the good sitting rooms opened up, even in its half-furnished state, and she and the other women began entertaining in there. Their loyal guests made jokes about how they would endure worse for the food and entertainment on offer. Zo divided his time between the public sitting room and his own room, where Timon of Kos had become a fixture.

It was a delicate dance, keeping Timon interested enough that he might be willing to commit to offering a garland, while also making it clear to him that he wouldn’t get enough of Zo to really satisfy him until he did. Taris, who was engaged in a similar dance with a First Spear of the resident marine legion, remarked one morning at chores that she sometimes felt envious of prostitutes.

“I wish I could just write him an invoice, you know?”

Once Zo would have argued with her; he’d loved the way nothing was taken for granted, nothing specifically owed in exchange for payment at the Red Balconies. It had felt like home to him, a place where he could deploy all the skills he had learned in his precarious, pampered boyhood. But that was before he’d been obliged to single-mindedly pursue a patron. Now he knew exactly what Taris meant.

None of them had secured a garland yet. Chrestos was still doing fine with Captain Themistokles, and Taris had hopes of her marine First Spear, but the other three were completely without prospects.

Most of the guests who had at first been put off by the switch to entertaining in the companions’ rooms had started to come back, but the winter was always a slow time, with no ships arriving in the harbour, and it was an open secret that the house’s finances were in a bad way. Hylas told Zo he’d overheard Theano arguing with Mistress Aula about buying cheaper tea and olives—insanity, Theano had said, when the quality of the food and drink were among the Red Balconies’ few remaining attractions.

Now that it was too cold to sit in the garden, Zo and Hylas ate breakfast in Hylas’s room. They had never talked about it; it just happened naturally on the first rainy morning. Hylas knocked on Zo’s door, cloak pulled up over his head, and said, “Tea’s in my room. Come over when you’re ready,” and Zo came. Hylas had a little table he’d built himself out of a couple of old shutters and a barrel, and he brought in Zo’s chair from outside and seated himself on top of his sea chest.

“Now we’re at the same height,” Zo remarked, wanting—and at the same time not wanting—to ask if Hylas had built the table to chair-height instead of cushion-height for his sake.

Hylas’s eyes were on the tea he was pouring. “I miss sitting at your feet,” he said.

Zo laughed but did not reply, letting the statement hang in the air, as courtly a thing as any of the compliments he ever paid his guests. He felt strangely proud of Hylas when, every so often, he came up with something like that.

Hylas continued to be a hero around the Red Balconies, because while he waited for whatever machinations were necessary to get his aqueduct built, he had managed to restore water to the fountain in the courtyard. Apparently it had only been a matter of digging in the right place and repairing a broken pipe, and water was restored to the whole street. It wasn’t good drinking water—they still had to go to the fountain on the corner for that—but apparently that would change when the aqueduct was built, and in the meantime it did make filling the baths easier.

They had finished reading The Bronze Dolphin aloud to each other by the end of Dendreia and begun to discuss what they should try to borrow next. Zo claimed he would be interested in a treatise on bridge-building if Hylas would read it to him, and although Hylas knew he was just being charming, it was still pleasant to hear. He had learned that although Zo had a grumpy side that he would never show around his guests, that didn’t mean his sunny, charming manner was entirely an act. It was a real aspect of him, too.

The mood at the Red Balconies continued to be strained as winter deepened. Hylas could discern it in the way the companions spoke to him. Some of them seemed more remote, distracted; others, like Theano, had opened up to him more, accepting him as an ally. Chrestos, with all the naval officers confined to port for the winter, was taking the opportunity to sequester himself in his room with his patron as often as possible. But one morning a few days after the end of the festival, he showed up at Hylas’s door.

“Come in,” Hylas said, surprised. “We’re eating breakfast. You can join us if you like.”

“Thanks.” Chrestos loosened the cloak he had been clutching around his shoulders, as Hylas had got the room to a comfortable temperature.

“Morning, Chrestos,” said Zo, with his mouth full. “What’s up?”

“I, uh … ” Chrestos perched on the end of Hylas’s sea chest. “I heard that you guys do this, and I just wanted company this morning, so I came to barge in. Nobody else is awake.”

Hylas took the other end of the chest, while Zo refilled his bowl of tea and offered it to Chrestos.

“Captain Themistokles didn’t stay over?” Zo asked.

“No, he’s got a sore shoulder, and he’s been finding my bed uncomfortable. He’ll get me a new one, it’s not a big problem.” He cradled his bowl of tea and sipped moodily.

Hylas exchanged a glance with Zo, who returned a reassuring smile. So he too thought there was something up with Chrestos, and he would take care of trying to draw him out. That was good.

In fact, Chrestos had come prepared to talk, and didn’t need any prompting.

“Can I tell you guys a secret?” he said suddenly, putting down his tea bowl.

“Of course.” Hylas and Zo both said it at once.

Chrestos drew in a deep breath through his nose. “I don’t really like sex. That’s not the secret,” he added hastily. “He already knew that.” He pointed at Zo. “The secret is—and really, don’t tell anybody this—neither does Captain Themistokles. We don’t really … do much. It’s mostly kissing and cuddling. Is that bad?”

Zo made a strangled noise. “Why—why—would that be bad, Chrestos? It sounds perfect.”

“Really?”

“Because you’ve both got what you want, and that’s rare. It wouldn’t suit everyone.”