Page 54 of The House of the Red Balconies

“Of course you don’t want to go back!” Taris said. “No one’s really free in a royal court, are they?”

“Like birds in a gilded cage,” said Menthe wisely. “That’s what I’ve heard.”

The best winter sitting room was packed with guests that night. Mistress Aula was still away, staying with her friend who had just given birth. The lamplight flickered over Pani and Menthe’s murals, and Zo was playing his flute when Hylas came in, arm in arm with the new Zashian regular, Nahaz. They caused a minor commotion by the door, and Zo almost faltered in the notes of his song. Nahaz was hatless and dishevelled, holding his head as if in pain, and Hylas supported him to a divan, where he collapsed gratefully, and Taris flew to his side. Zo went on playing, more quietly—no one was listening to him now, but they would notice if he stopped—and watched Hylas depart dutifully on some errand at Taris’s command. He was curious, of course, but he knew he’d hear all about it in due course. For the moment he was content to enjoy watching Hylas be helpful to other people.

Eventually Hylas came and sat with the group near Zo, and Zo heard the story of what had happened to Nahaz. Hylas had met him outside of one of the other tea houses, where Nahaz had been trying to break up a fight between two other guests and got himself knocked down in the street. Hylas had come to his aid and, he admitted after some prompting, succeeded in both breaking up the fight and rescuing Nahaz.

“I thought to bring him here, because, erm … ”

“Naturally you would bring him here,” said one of Zo’s regulars. “Where better?”

“Well, I live here, you see,” Hylas elaborated. “I’m the tenant. I just thought to bring him back to the kitchen to get cleaned up. It was his idea to come up here—he said he wanted to see Taris.”

Zo smiled, wondering if that was quite true. It was natural for Hylas to bring the injured man home with him, and no doubt if Nahaz had wanted to go straight to the kitchen, Hylas would have taken him there. But Zo could easily imagine that the idea of going up to see Taris had been offered as an alternative by Hylas himself. He was learning that kind of subtlety. Zo was so proud of him.

For a moment in the crowded, lamplit sitting room, Zo was captured by a vivid memory from that morning: Hylas naked in his bed, so intent as he moved over Zo, the look in his eyes saying that he cared as much for Zo’s pleasure as for his own, if not more. Zo shivered, and two of his regulars asked simultaneously if he was cold.

Hylas lingered after the guests cleared out, helping Pani and Chrestos stack cushions and extinguish lamps. It seemed very natural. Taris had disappeared with Nahaz, whether still reminding him of his mother or not, Zo didn't know or care to know.

“Who’s Mistress going to have entertaining in the public sitting rooms,” Chrestos mused aloud, “if all the rest of you get patrons? I mean, they’ll want you to themselves all the time.”

“Not necessarily,” said Zo. “That’s how you and Captain Themistokles are, but … ”

“It’s not that he’s jealous! He’s not, you know. He doesn’t mind my entertaining other men when he’s not here. So long as it’s not in private, of course.”

“I know,” said Zo soothingly. It was just that Themistokles wasn’t very sociable. He didn’t want to offend Chrestos by pointing that out. “That’s his preference. Some men like to meet in company as well as in private. But—you do have a point. Mistress is so desperate for us to pair off, but she’s not thinking about what it will do to the entertainment.” He shrugged. “I guess she’ll find out.”

“But what if she takes us down that path, and it ruins the house?” Chrestos pursued. “We can’t let her do that. It’s our house, too.”

“We won’t let it happen,” said Hylas simply.

“That's right,” said Pani, around a yawn. “Listen to the aqueduct man, Chrestos. Let's all get to bed.”

Hylas walked down the gallery with Zo. It still seemed natural. They were going to the same part of the house, after all. Hylas had the lamp. At the top of the stairs, he offered his hand to Zo, as he might have done any time in the last four months, and Zo took it, as he might have done, and their bodies settled together in a way that they would not have done any time before that morning.

They’d taken two steps down the stairs when Chrestos appeared on the top step behind them.

“Do you—” he started, and froze.

“What?” Zo asked, looking up.

They were just holding hands; Hylas was helping him down the stairs. Of course they were going to brazen it out.

“Nothing. I can keep a secret,” Chrestos blurted, and wheeled away like a soldier on parade.

“Can he, do you think?” Hylas asked after they had stood there on the stairs for a long moment, listening to Chrestos’s retreating footsteps.

“I doubt it. But we can always claim he misinterpreted what he saw.” He looked up into Hylas’s eyes, pale in the lamplight. “Though it would be nice not to have to.”

“Would it?” Hylas looked half embarrassed, half amused.

“To say, ‘The aqueduct man is my lover’? Yes, I would like that.”

Hylas was silent a moment. “Zo from the Red Balconies is my lover,” he said softly. “No one would believe it—but I would like to say it.”

Chrestos had believed it—Chrestos had guessed it, Zo wanted to point out, and frankly, Chrestos wasn’t usually the first to guess things. But he didn’t say that. He didn’t say how much it meant to him that Hylas had said “Zo from the Red Balconies” and not “Prince Zoharaza,” either. He couldn’t speak, because his throat seemed suddenly to be closing up at the thought that they couldn’t say any of this. Whether Chrestos could keep their secret or not, it was a secret, it had to be, and to realize that both of them were wishing it need not be felt, for a moment, like the worst thing in the world.

It was Hylas who broke the silence to say gently, “We should go down to bed. To our beds, I mean. And then—I’ll see you tomorrow morning?”