Page 86 of Sword Dance

“You’ve been ‘more than decent’ to me too, Dami.”

“Someone should have been years ago,” said Damiskos with sudden heat. “That is—I’m sure people have been good to you before—”

“But not in quite the way you have.”

Damiskos drew back just enough to kiss Varazda, but a slight sound carried across the water made him stop before their lips met. He pushed himself up onto his good knee, letting go of Varazda reluctantly, to look out the window.

“They’ve dropped anchor.”

The ship stood broadside to the shore, some distance out in the bay. They had begun to lower a boat.

“What? Oh. May their mothers all get the mange,” Varazda said, in his best court Zashian, so Damiskos could understand it.

Damiskos laughed and laughed, far more than the quaintly coarse insult deserved. Everything he felt for Varazda and had tried to suppress seemed to bubble out of him in laughter. He slid down the wall to sit next to Varazda again.

“I know, I’d forgotten all about them too,” Damiskos said when he got himself under control. He wiped his eyes. “But after all, they are only philosophers. It’s not as if we’re going to be dealing with armed men.”

Varazda’s eyes widened. “I’m not sure of that.”

“Why? Did you see weapons?”

“No, but it’s a military ship. Isn’t it? I’d have thought that was your area of expertise.”

“What? Is it not the postal ship from Boukos?”

Damiskos hauled himself up to look out the window again. It was a smallish, thirty-oar vessel, not a warship, with a red sail and a distinctive prow, a goat’s head, the emblem of Boukos.

“Only military ships carry a red sail,” Varazda explained.

“I see. It’s not a warship. If that’s what you were thinking.”

“Ah. Well, it has got a red sail.”

“It looks more like a large yacht. If it is meant to be a warship, the Boukossian navy is in worse shape than I realized.”

“Shut up.”

“I expect it’s an attaché or a commander’s personal vessel or something. I do see men in breastplates on board, actually, now that I look. But they’re not the ones disembarking. It’s a bunch of young men in mantles—I count ten, not including the sailors. Why do these philosophers always insist on keeping their mantles wrapped around themselves all the time? Eurydemos couldn’t even take his off to jump out of a window.”

“The general Pseuchaian affinity for mantles has always puzzled me. If you cut all that cloth up and sew sleeves in it, it’s so much more convenient.”

“You don’t have to convince me.” He let himself down to the floor again.

“All right,” said Varazda, “so it’s not the postal ship, but it does seem to be disgorging a lot of philosophical types. Enough to make a material difference to our plans?”

Damiskos frowned. “Maybe not. But if we let them get up to the house, the others will know this wasn’t the postal ship, and we won’t be able to pretend that it brought our crack Zashian troops to surround the villa.”

“Right. So what should we do?”

“I’ll go out and stall them. I’ll pretend to be one of them—they’ve no reason to think I’m not—and tell them they can’t go up to the villa yet because … ”

“The slaves have retaken it. You got out before it happened, and you don’t know what the situation is now, but you think they’d better let you go back in and scout things out before they come up to the villa.”

“Right.”

“I’ll watch your back.” He patted the hunting bow. “Kiss for luck?”

“Divine Terza. Of course.” Damiskos leaned in and gave Varazda a soldierly kiss, brisk but passionate, then pushed up to his feet and strode toward the door, leaving Varazda wide-eyed and rather pink-cheeked in his wake.