Page 4 of The House of the Red Balconies

“Oh!” That meant, if he had understood Taris’s explanation, that he needed to buy a stick of incense or something before starting a conversation? “Then I’d better … I mean … ” What was he saying? “I am honoured by your acquaintance.” By some miracle he got out a whole, coherent sentence. “I will not take up any more of your time.”

“God guard your coming and your going,” said Zo, the foreign greeting perfectly polite, the dryness inescapable.

Hylas fled; there was no other word for it. He got back into his own bedroom and slid the lattice shut behind him. He paced around the room. What had Taris said about the bath? He was to share it with Zo and someone else, perhaps another equally daunting person. He would certainly be going to the public bath house.

CHAPTER 2

So they’d rented the vacant apartment again after all. Zo slouched in the chair at his dressing table and lifted his hand mirror, looking up at himself from a novel angle. He looked all right, makeup and jewellery relatively undisturbed by napping in the middle of the day. He’d readied himself earlier than usual that day because Djosi had said he might come by in the afternoon, and he didn’t want to be caught unprepared. He had hopes of Djosi.

The man next door complicated things there. He’d have to explain to Djosi that the garden wasn’t really private anymore.

Thinking about that made him tired again, and he eyed his bed wistfully. The nap hadn’t been long enough. Naps never were.

He hoped the new tenant wasn’t going to be trouble like the last man. Coming home drunk and bothering the girls, leaving garbage in the anteroom, relieving himself in Zo’s garden … Zo really hadn’t wanted the place rented again. It had been nice having the whole corner of the house to himself. A bit lonely, but it was better than the alternative.

Angels of the Almighty, he was another Pseuchaian man, the new tenant; was Zo going to have to beg and cajole him to use the privy instead of shitting in the garden like a dog? Was it something they all did? He didn’t know.

He dropped the mirror onto his table with a clatter and ran his hand through his hair. To be fair, the new tenant made a better first impression than the old one had. He might be a bit tongue-tied, but there was something appealing about him: a gentleness in his eyes, an unsmiling kindness, as if he was diligently looking for good in everything he saw. The previous man hadn’t had any of that.

The new man had had the misfortune to catch Zo when he’d just woken after an inadequate nap on a bad pain day, so Zo had been surly to him. He wasn’t proud of that; he could usually keep better control over his mask, even when he was feeling bad. But he’d been startled, too—it was probably understandable.

He’d wait and see what this Hylas was like before he decided how to proceed. Maybe the fact that he’d started off their interaction by being less than charming would ultimately prove useful. Sometimes it did.

Hylas’s second morning on Tykanos was spent at the government office next to the fort, trying to find someone who knew anything about the aqueduct project. Was there money allocated to it, were there other people assigned to it besides himself, did it in fact exist in any form other than as a promise made to the town by the governor of the island?

It was only with the arrival of the governor himself, around the sixth hour, that some notes were unearthed outlining in the most general terms where the aqueduct was proposed to go and what it was expected to accomplish. There were two water sources proposed: one on the smaller island, which barely needed an aqueduct to get water down to the town; the other on the larger island, which would mean building out across the water, a much more significant job.

“This looks promising,” said Hylas, sitting at Loukianos’s desk—at Loukianos’s insistence—and studying the documents. Not that there was much to study, and calling it “promising” was being generous. Still, he was here to work.

“First I will need to assemble a team to help me survey the two sites,” he went on. “Perhaps I can borrow men from the fort? They should have experienced surveyors there.”

“Mm.” Loukianos leaned on the corner of his desk and looked critically at his manicured nails. “Mutari is the person to talk to about that.”

“Mu … tari.” Hylas made a note of the name in the wax tablet he had brought with him. “He is the chief engineer at the fort?”

“What?” Loukianos looked confused. “No, no—Mutari’s the mistress of the naval quartermaster. She’ll get it sorted out for you.”

Hylas stared at him. Were they somehow not talking about the same thing?

“I have to talk to the quartermaster’s mistress in order to get a survey team?”

Loukianos nodded as if he didn’t see anything odd about it. “If you want help from the fort, yes. You have to approach them in the right way—they get their hackles up about the strangest things—but Mutari’s very good. Unfortunately, I believe she’s still over in Gylphos, visiting her sister.”

“Oh.” That stymied Hylas, who had expected simply to walk into the fort and ask to speak to the proper authorities. Not that he’d been looking forward to that; it would be a relief not to have to do it, in fact. “Well, I’ll … I could ride out and take a look at the springs myself. That would be a start.”

“Right, good. I’ll have my man Niko look you up some decent horseflesh—no mean feat on this island, let me tell you, but Niko is simply the best. I don’t keep a stable myself, alas. But Niko should have something for you in a couple of days. As soon as I can find him. I’m not sure … Well, he’s around somewhere, it’s not a big island.” He laughed easily.

Hylas opened his mouth to speak and then closed it without saying anything. Would he lose face if he admitted that he had intended to hire a mule from a place he’d seen near the harbour and go that afternoon?

“Now,” Governor Loukianos went on, “the reason I came by was to make sure you got some spending money. Will three hundred or so do you, do you think?”

Hylas made an effort not to let his mouth drop open soundlessly again. He couldn’t think what to say. Three hundred what? Phemian nummoi, presumably, as that must be the official currency of the island, but surely that was a huge sum? A discussion of salary had been notably absent from the negotiations over this job, and he had taken that to mean that it wouldn’t pay well, which hadn’t bothered him. His needs were few. But three hundred nummoi? How often was he to be paid that? Monthly? Weekly? Before he saw the governor’s palace and garden, he wouldn’t have imagined it possible, but now …

“P-perfectly, yes, sir.”

Loukianos pushed off from the desk. “I’ll have them get it ready for you tomorrow. So there’s nothing else to be done today, and you’ll be able to join me at the Sunset Palace.” He rubbed his hands together with satisfaction. “Excellent. I’m looking forward to introducing you to everyone.”

Hylas got home late. He was glad that the walk from the Sunset Palace to the House of the Red Balconies was short, just a couple of dark streets separating the two tea houses. He had drunk more than usual—wine, not tea—and though he was still clear-headed, he was tired and wanted nothing more than to fall into his bed.