Chapter 14

For the firsttwo weeks of the new year, Governor Loukianos did not go out to any of the tea houses. He didn't come to the government office much, either. Exactly what he was doing, in the dead of winter when he couldn't reasonably be gardening, Hylas didn't know. He wavered between feeling worried for the man, that he was perhaps sliding into a depression, and annoyed with him. He needed Loukianos to come to the Red Balconies to meet Zo, and he also needed him to do something, anything really, to help with the stalled aqueduct project.

Hylas was keeping himself busy working on the water infrastructure of the town. He had two teams now making repairs to the pipes, and they had restored water to all of the fountains that had been dry, although they had been obliged to shut off the supply to two of them, temporarily, because the volume of water currently entering the town wasn't sufficient to keep them all flowing.

In the second week of Turning Month, Mutari reported that she'd been able to arrange for Hylas and a couple of surveyors from the fort to visit the big island surreptitiously. They made it an overnight trip, camping in the forest near the site of the spring, and managed a thorough survey of the area that allowed Hylas, on his return to the government office, to begin planning the aqueduct in earnest. They were still, however, no closer to getting permission from Gylphos to build it.

Loukianos returned to the government office the day after Hylas got back from the big island, acting as if nothing had happened. Mostly. He asked Hylas how things had been at the Bower lately, and seemed surprised when Hylas said he didn't know because he hadn't been.

"Well, we must remedy that, then!" Loukianos declared heartily. "We must both make our triumphant return tonight."

In fact, Hylas had been enjoying the evenings at the Red Balconies. Some nights he burned incense and sat with the companions, watching Pani and Menthe work on their frescoes, listening to Zo play or sing or talk to his guests. But a couple of nights he had helped out Ahmos and the night cook, whom he had seen looking harried over one thing and another. He was not really a guest of the house, and it had seemed natural—felt better, even—to make himself useful than to sit around being entertained all the time.

"Mistress will make a joke about how she ‘hopes you don't expect to be paid now'," Zo had said, gently imitating Aula's sharp tone. "And it won't sound like a joke, but it will be meant as one."

"I know," Hylas said. "I think I am beginning to understand how she is."

He would miss spending the evening at home with Zo and the others. But he didn't dread the prospect of returning to the Bower of Suos with the governor. Loukianos and his friends could be amusing in their way. And there was always the morning to look forward to.

"Actually," he told Zo the next day, "it was worse than I expected. I think they've been as gloomy at the Bower of Suos the last two weeks as we were here at the end of the year. Not only has Loukianos abandoned them—and me, which they pretend to care about?—"

"How implausible!"

"Yes, I know. And Timon of Kos hasn't been seen anywhere in weeks, either."

"Really?" Zo frowned. "He's written me a few times. I didn't mention it to you …"

"You don't have to tell me everything," Hylas said automatically. Certainly there were things, quite significant things about his own feelings, that he wasn't telling Zo.

"No. They weren't very interesting letters. A lot of stuff about how I'm torturing him. Not in a fun way. But I also assumed they weren't true. You know, that he was out at other tea houses amusing himself and not thinking about me all the time as he claimed." He made a face. "Clearly I'd better do something about that. It would be unprofessional not to."

Hylas didn't ask what he planned to do. It was none of his business.

It was a few days after the governor's triumphant return to the tea houses, and before Hylas had come up with a way to invite him to the Red Balconies, that Mutari proposed a trip to Tetum. Hylas at first didn't know what she was getting at, why she was mentioning it to him. Was it just because she thought it would be inconvenient for him if she went off to her homeland for an extended stay at this point? But there was nothing going on now; she'd already been tremendously helpful getting him to the big island with the surveyors, and he would have plenty to work on in her absence.

No, it turned out; she wondered if he wanted to come with her.

"I've become almost used to not making a fool of myself in every social situation," he told Zo the following morning, "but I certainly haven't forgotten how to do it. I didn't know what to say to her. ‘Aren't you somebody's mistress? Are you allowed to invite me places?'"

"I mean, you could have said that." Zo sipped his tea. "She is somebody's mistress."

"‘Will he kill me, though?' That's what I wanted to know. ‘Will you have to hide me in your luggage?' Apparently not. Apparently he'd consider it a favour if I would go with her, as her escort. I barely know him, but she trusts me, and—he must trust her, so … I suppose I must also have a reputation of some sort that, er, helps."

It was a very strange thought. He'd never imagined there could be any advantage in having a public reputation as a man who had so little idea what to do with a woman that he could be trusted around other men's beautiful mistresses.

"Mm," said Zo diplomatically. "So, are you going to go?"

"Yes. The opportunity to visit Gylphos—there are lots of things in Tetum I'm interested to see, and to have a local guide, it's too good a chance to pass up. And of course she does think we may be able to make contacts that will help with the aqueduct."

Just when Hylas had begun to feel guilty for talking excitedly of a trip that Zo couldn't go on, Zo showed signs of being excited on Hylas's behalf, talking about the things he should look for in the market and the sights he should be sure to see—all of it based on hearsay, as Zo himself had never been to Tetum or any part of Gylphos. Hylas knew Zo was playing up his enthusiasm to be a good friend, and he insisted Zo tell him what he wanted brought back from the markets of Tetum as a present.

The trip to Tetum lasted two weeks, and he missed Zo the entire time. And yet he enjoyed himself thoroughly too. He bought Zo three presents: the sweets he had requested, a pair of earrings with bright blue enamel beads, and a fan of plaited reeds painted with a scene of water birds and a hippopotamus. He visited people with Mutari and had to do very little talking because most of them did not speak Pseuchaian, but everyone was very polite to him. They looked at famous buildings and ancient statuary, and a cousin of Mutari's gave him a tour of some farms that used interesting Gylphian irrigation techniques.

Another of Mutari's cousins kept trying to encourage him to talk to her teenage son, who did in fact speak Pseuchaian fairly well. Hylas assumed this was because the boy was interested in engineering, but this didn't seem to be the case. Eventually Mutari gave him a hint that the mother was probably trying to make a match between him and her son, having made assumptions about Hylas from the fact that he was Mutari's escort. Hylas realized that yes, the signs had been pointed that way fairly clearly. He also realized this was a story of his trip that he was not going to be able to tell Zo.

They had no luck finding anyone to talk to about the aqueduct. They learned that a new envoy to Tykanos had been sent by Suna, but after arriving in Tetum he had gone travelling, and no one knew exactly where he was. In some ways, business in Gylphos seemed to be done very similarly to business on Tykanos.

"Well," said Mutari, as they relaxed on the river boat on the first leg of their return journey, "at least we had a good time. I got to visit my cousins, you learned all that fascinating stuff about canals and bought some presents for your boyfriend …"

"He's not my boyfriend."

"Mm, I don't know about those earrings, then."

"No? Are they l-love token earrings, do you think?"

"A little bit. Just be prepared to have a conversation about your relationship if you give him those."

"Maybe I'll save them for his birthday. I don't want to make him uncomfortable."

He was looking forward so keenly to seeing Zo that it seemed almost wrong, as if he should have needed Zo's permission to think so much about him. He arrived back at the Red Balconies as the sun was setting, and just managed to catch Zo before he left his room to join the other companions upstairs. The way Zo beamed at him and shouted, "You're back!" was better than any of the sights of Tetum.

"I got you presents," he said, thrusting the parcel into Zo's hands as a substitute for what he suddenly wanted to do, which was hug Zo.

He'd completely forgotten to take the earrings out of the parcel, but Mutari had been wrong, or underestimated Zo, because there was no conversation about them. Zo gasped and exclaimed over them, took out the earrings he had been wearing to put them in, pinned back his hair to show them off, and looked at himself in his mirror.

"How did you know to pick these? I used to have a pair just like this when I was a boy. They were my favourite earrings."

"I just … thought they would suit you."

"I love them. And the fan, too." He picked it up, tracing his fingertips over the painted animals.

"I tried to pick the hippopotamus with the best expression," Hylas said.

"So how were things around here while I was gone?" Hylas asked Zo the following morning as they sat in his room.

Zo took a moment to think about that, under cover of sipping his tea. There were different ways he might have chosen to answer.

"Honestly, not too bad," he said finally. "Mistress has been in a good temper—or, to do her justice, learning not to take it out on us when she isn't, I think. We have one new regular, a Zashian gentleman, Nahaz—did you ever meet him? Anyway, he's been coming pretty often, and he's a nice addition. Good manners—not court manners, just a solid middle-class type. He likes Taris because she reminds him of his mother, and she likes him because she likes reminding a man of his mother, I guess, and Mistress has decided she likes Taris's headscarf after all now, because it's part of the reminding-him-of-his-mother situation."

"Amazing. That's all working out, then."

"Mm. I have a new prospect myself," he added, reluctant to talk about it but feeling he should. "Or, well, a revival of an old prospect. One of my old regulars, who'd stopped coming for a while, is back with apologies. A man named Djosi. I had my eye on him as a patron a while back … around the time you moved in."

"Ah! That's good," said Hylas eagerly.

Zo found himself annoyed with the eagerness, and then felt childish. It wasn't as if he wanted Hylas to feel jealous.

"Well, we'll see. It came to nothing once before. On the opposite side of the ledger, Timon of Kos has been around a few times."

Hylas nodded. "Theano told me. She said he'd been bothering you. I, uh, didn't like to hear that."

Zo was glad he had mentioned it, then. He hadn't wanted to, but if Hylas had already known, he'd just have looked like he was keeping secrets.

"I knew you wouldn't. She didn't mean he's been doing anything sinister. Just making a fuss and sending letters and things. He's an unpleasant man, when you get to know him."

Hylas had a pained look on his face that Zo wanted desperately to smooth away somehow. "I should never have … I knew—I thought he was unpleasant myself."

"You didn't do anything, Hylas. You just talked about the Red Balconies around him, you didn't tell him to come here."

Hylas shook his head. "I'd heard him say things that revealed his character, and I should have told you instead of letting you pursue a-a liaison with him. What did he do?"

"Nothing. Hylas, don't blame yourself. I don't know what Theano told you. Timon came here a couple of times in an ill temper because he's had a quarrel with his wife."

"His wife?"

"Yes, Hylas. All these men are married."

"R-right. Loukianos isn't, so I suppose I forgot."

"Anyway, he came here. He followed me to my room one night and wasn't going to take ‘no' for an answer, but I pretended to be feeling ill, and not in a pretty way …" It had been a transparent ruse, and he wasn't proud of it.

"Do you think he'll come back?"

"He may." He probably would.

"What can I do to help?"

"Oh, I don't know …" Zo prevaricated.

There was one obvious thing. It would likely make Timon go away for good. But he couldn't ask Hylas to pretend to be his lover, and it wasn't going to happen naturally. If he'd needed more proof of that, the gift of those expensive earrings, thrust into his hands unceremoniously with the cheap tourist items, had supplied that. Those earrings could have been a courtship present, but not given like that.

Hylas went back to the plans for the aqueduct, which he was able to complete now that he had visited the big island, and the work on repairing the pipes in town, which had ground to a halt for no good reason while he had been gone. He thought he might have a solution for the silting-up of the water intake at the new bath complex. The next couple of weeks were satisfyingly filled with real work; he would return to the Red Balconies in the evenings feeling that he had accomplished things.

Zo was busy in the evenings for a while with Djosi, who turned out to be the man Hylas had seen leaving Zo's room on one of his first nights at the Red Balconies. He was handsome and somewhat younger than Hylas, and he and Zo made an attractive pair, sitting together in the evenings. Hylas wished he could simply be happy for Zo without also feeling naggingly inferior whenever the man was around.

Mistress Aula clearly wasn't as pleased about Djosi as she had been about Timon of Kos—he wasn't nearly as rich—but she contented herself with oblique comments and pointed sighs. And then, as suddenly as he had reappeared, Djosi was gone again, this time seemingly for good.

"He offered a garland to a girl at the Amber Lily," Zo reported dispassionately when Hylas came home to find him lying face down on the divan. "I have to start all over again."

"I'm sorry," said Hylas. "Are you just … upset about that, or did you like him?"

Zo laughed as he hauled himself up to a sitting position. "Not tremendously, no. I certainly don't like his fickleness. What kind of man does that? He was throwing out clear hints he was going to ask to be my patron—was he giving her the same line the whole time, and then just flipped a coin to decide, or what? It's frustrating. I'm supposed to be good at this—why can't I get any man to …" He looked away.

"You will," said Hylas, feeling awkward. "You are good at this."

But for a moment he had thought, He doesn't mean "any man"; he means me. Why can't he get me to … to what? To admit that I want him? But what good would that do?

The following afternoon, when he had exhausted the work that he could do for the day, Hylas got up from his desk and went into Loukianos's office. Loukianos sat up in his chair, clearly pretending he hadn't been about to doze off.

"Would you like to come to the Red Balconies this evening, sir?" Hylas asked.

"Eh? Oh, I suppose we've never been there yet, have we? And I said I was going to take you to all the tea houses. Of course, I don't think we've been to Myrrha's either, which is remiss of me …"

"Well, yes, but the fact is I have been to the Red Balconies. I'm there all the time—I lodge there."

"Oh, is that a fact? I had no idea. Come to think of it, I did hear that they'd taken in lodgers. Wasn't Pantaleon their tenant for a while?"

"Mm. But I thought you might like to come with me tonight. The food is very good, and the music. You might find it … a change of pace."

"A good thought, yes. A change of pace. I suppose I could. Is … out of curiosity … there used to be a companion there named Theano. Is she still around?"

"She is, yes."

"Mm. Just curious. Well, I suppose I could come," he said again. "What time did you think of going?"

"I thought to go now, actually. I don't have any more work to do here."

"Right." Loukianos scanned the surface of his desk, which held nothing in the way of excuses for lingering. "I'll join you, then."

Ought he to do this, after all? Did he want Loukianos to become Zo's patron? He, Hylas, was drawn to Zo, desired Zo himself. And there had been that look in Zo's eyes, that time in the bath, and that moment when he looked away, yesterday. Hylas held some interest for him that was not friendship. It wasn't madness to imagine …

But Hylas could not be Zo's patron. He didn't even receive a steady salary from the governor, nor did he know how to ask for one.

So it was madness. Zo needed a patron, and Hylas could not fill that role, but Loukianos could. There was no use in thinking more about it.

The sun was beginning to get low in the sky when they arrived at the Red Balconies. Hylas was about to direct Loukianos toward Zo's room when they were met by Chrestos and Captain Themistokles, coming down the stairs from the gallery arm-in-arm.

"Governor Loukianos!" said the captain. "I didn't know you came here."

"I, er, haven't in some years. But my friend Hylas convinced me to come back."

"You've chosen a good day, sir," said Chrestos enthusiastically. "Two of our companions are just starting a new fresco in the south sitting room which you must see. It's the room at the far end of the gallery," he added to Hylas. "Everyone's up there already. Mistress Aula is away visiting a friend—she'll be sorry to have missed you, sir."

They were just lighting the lamps as Hylas and Loukianos entered. Pani was working on a wall full of delicate foliage, sketching in pencil, while Menthe sat chatting with the group of assembled guests. Zo was sitting on the far side of the room, and at the moment he seemed to have no guests attached to him. He saw Hylas and waved.

Hylas turned to Loukianos, who had frozen in the doorway, and drew him by the elbow into the room, thinking as he did what a strange reversal this was from the situation when he had first arrived on Tykanos only a few months ago.

"There's someone I'd like you to meet," he said. "This is Zo, one of the Red Balconies' companions. Zo, this is Governor Loukianos."

"Prince Zoharaza?" said Loukianos.