Page 61 of The House of the Red Balconies

What would he say if Zo suggested they leave the Red Balconies together? Of course he’d say yes. Even if it was a terrible idea, burdening himself with an invalid accustomed to luxury, barely able to travel, the two of them with no home, no money, no resources.

He wouldn’t say yes because he actually wanted to take Zo away from the Red Balconies, to keep Zo for himself or prevent him from entertaining guests. Of that Zo was sure.

He ran over that morning’s conversation with Mistress Aula in his mind, and reluctantly considered the possibility that he could have handled that better. He was the one who’d suggested that she wanted to tell all the guests who he was; she’d started simply by saying she wanted to use his identity to the advantage of the house. And he thought of how well Menthe and Pani had managed by giving her a gift, being nicer to her than she had any right to expect.

Hylas had said, “She says things that are hard to forgive.” He hadn’t said Zo shouldn’t forgive her.

CHAPTER 19

Zo was asleep in the morning when Hylas came to his door with the tea tray and peeked inside. He set down the tray and retreated quietly, feeling cheated not so much because he’d hoped for another morning of love-making—he’d been preparing to insist, for Zo’s sake, that they take it easy that morning anyway—but because he’d wanted to tell Zo what he was planning to do that day. He hoped Zo would approve.

He didn’t know that it would work. If Loukianos really was set on resigning and going back to Pheme, asking him for a salary wasn’t going to be much use. So the first thing he needed to do was to determine whether Loukianos was serious.

That question was quickly answered once he reached the governor’s mansion. There were several sea chests in the atrium of the house. Loukianos had already begun packing up his belongings.

“So have you sent your resignation to Pheme already?” Hylas asked, looking at the chests.

“What?” said Loukianos, rubbing his temple. He showed all the signs of a man who’d been out late the night before drinking. “No, not yet. Just preparing. I really am awfully sorry about this, my dear fellow. The way I told you about everything yesterday was … not decent. I wish you’d come out with us last night, I’d have got to talk to you more.”

“I’m here now to talk to you,” Hylas pointed out.

“You are, you are. It’s very good of you. Let’s sit down, shall we?”

He led the way into the official reception room of the mansion, the first time Hylas had ever been shown in there, as far as he could remember.

“Loukianos,” he said when they were seated, “we’re friends, and I want to be frank with you. I was surprised to learn you’re planning to go back to Pheme, because you have not been acting like someone whose career is on the line. You gave me no indication, before yesterday, that the aqueduct was urgent for you—I knew it was urgent for the town, but that’s a different thing. You’ve been—I’ve been strategizing with Mutari while you’ve been … what? What have you been doing?”

Loukianos waved a hand with a sad look. “She’d make a better governor than I do.”

That was very much not the point. “She’s doing a lot of work that you ought to be doing, is what I’m trying to say. And she doesn’t get to be governor, no matter how good she’d be at it. She doesn’t get to live in your mansion, she doesn’t get paid by the Phemian government. She’s using what power she has to help Tykanos because it’s her home—you have a lot more power and you should be doing the same thing.”

For a moment, Loukianos looked ready to become offended. Then he sagged back into his chair. “You’re right, I … No, you’re right.”

Hylas pressed on: “The aqueduct absolutely is necessary, and Mutari and I have made progress—we still need permission from Tetum, but the other obstacles have been dealt with, and I have a workable design well underway. But there’s more to be done with the town’s water supply than just the aqueduct, and I have been doing some of it. If you’d write to Pheme and tell them the work that’s been done so far, instead of preparing your resignation … ”

Loukianos gave him a startled look. “But I didn’t do any of that. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“I’ve mapped the island’s water system,” said Hylas patiently. “Yes, there was a map in the government office, it’s very nice, but it was also very out of date. I’ve been having repairs made all over the town. I’ve pinpointed the problem at the new bath complex and think I know how to solve it. I haven’t done anything at the fort yet, but only because … ”

He paused as he realized how that sentence should finish. Only because I’ve been afraid to go to the fort to talk to them about it. He’d been avoiding contact with the fort as much as he could, ever since coming to the island—he hadn’t even gone down to the fort when he needed men to help dig up the roads—without even thinking about why. But he knew why; it was because it reminded him too much of home.

That was no reason at all. The officers at the fort weren’t going to look at him and see a failed man, a proscribed aristocrat, the way the Ariatan noblemen had. They would look at him and see an engineer. And they needed an engineer.

“The point is,” he said, picking up the thread of the conversation as if he hadn’t just had an epiphany, “I don’t know what you think I’ve been doing all this time, but it hasn’t been nothing. I’ve made real improvements in the town, I have more planned, and you should tell Pheme that.”

“I should take credit for your work, you mean?”

“Absolutely. It’s what you intended to do when you brought me here to build the aqueduct.”

“Well, I—I mean … ” Loukianos looked flustered.

“You more or less told me so yesterday,” Hylas reminded him. “And I already knew it, anyway. It’s why you haven’t been paying me a salary.”

“I just thought … it would be simpler … You haven’t been lacking for money, have you?”

“This isn’t recrimination, Loukianos. I understand what you were doing. I didn’t question it when you first hired me, but my situation has changed, and I need a salary now.”

“I’ll see what I can—I don’t know if⁠—”