Chapter 18

"If the governor goes,will you go with him?"

Hylas jolted out of his thoughts and stared at the man beside his desk. Dorios, the clerk. And Hylas could have sworn that was the first thing he had said; he was not so far gone in his reverie about Zo that he had missed a whole conversation.

"If the governor goes?" he repeated.

"Have you not heard the rumour, then? Oh, I thought you would have, being the governor's man. They're saying he's going to be recalled to Pheme."

"Who's saying that?" Hylas managed not to simply repeat "Recalled to Pheme?" like an idiot.

Dorios gestured around the office and listed some names. "Everyone I've talked to this morning. I don't know who started the rumour, but it's certainly spreading. So would you go with him, or … You'd be useful here, you know—I mean, quite apart from the aqueduct, which, it's a shame about that, but …"

He let the sentence hang unfinished. Hylas looked around the office and noticed that a number of people were surreptitiously paying attention to their conversation. Dorios wasn't the only one who was interested in his answer. It was flattering, alarming, and not entirely unexpected.

"If Loukianos is recalled to Pheme," he said slowly, "I will stay and see if his successor has any better luck with the aqueduct."

"Good man!" said Dorios heartily.

Hylas left the office soon after that, as much to get away from everyone who was apparently interested in his future plans as anything. But he did also want to corner Loukianos and find out what was going on. His situation with the governor was such that he didn't really have much to fear from being blunt. The man had flirted with him, propositioned him, thrown up on him, and didn't pay him a salary. Perhaps it was only to be expected that he would be prepared to leave the island without telling Hylas.

Given the warm weather and the fact that he was possibly about to lose the governorship—and should probably have been doing something about that—Hylas expected to find Loukianos in his garden. He was right. He was shown to the couches in the grotto, and after a few minutes, Loukianos came strolling up in work clothes with dirt in his hair, pulling off leather gardening gloves.

"Hylas! What can I do for you?"

Hylas, who had been sitting on the edge of a couch without removing his sandals, stood up now.

"I heard a rumour this morning that the archons might recall you to Pheme."

"Ah." Loukianos nodded, not looking surprised. "Well. Yes. I heard the same rumour. I'm going to resign. I was going to send for you to tell you."

"Why?"

"Because I thought you should know."

"No, why are you going to resign?"

"Oh. Before I can be recalled, you know. It will look better." He shrugged. "Maybe. A little. Here, let's sit. I'll—I'll tell you about it."

Loukianos toed off his sandals and flopped onto a couch, tossing his gloves at the table and missing. The slave who was present stooped to pick them up, and Loukianos sent him to bring them wine. Hylas resumed his seat on the edge of the couch opposite.

"I hadn't told you," Loukianos said, "but … the aqueduct project has been—it was communicated to me fairly clearly—my last chance to do something right on this island before the Phemian government decided I'd fucked up enough and appointed a new governor. There was an outbreak of dysentery at the fort last winter because of the water situation. They were drinking water meant for their bath house—I don't even know where that stuff comes from."

"The Eastern stream, heavily contaminated with runoff from the town fountains," said Hylas mechanically.

"Right. No wonder they got sick. No one died—it was all strong, young fellows who were affected, and they pulled through—luckily it didn't affect the town. But that was when I promised the aqueduct, and if I can't get it built, I'm finished. And it seems very much like I can't get it built."

"Why did you not tell me any of this sooner? Not about the dysentery—I found out about that my first week here. I assumed you didn't know."

"Of course I knew. It's my job. Which—I don't do very well, so fair point. No, I knew about that. Pheme knows about that—I figured you probably knew about it before you came here. I thought you probably knew my career was hanging by a thread. Because apparently when soldiers don't have enough sense not to drink their fucking bath water, it's the governor's fault. That was—partly—why I tried so hard to show you a good time when you first got here. I thought I needed to win you over."

Hylas stared at the mosaic beneath the table for a moment. He was marshalling his thoughts, but before he could speak, one of Loukianos's slaves came in, followed by a couple of guests Hylas knew only vaguely, and the moment to speak had passed. Not that he thought anything he could have said would be likely to help, anyway.

He sat listening to Loukianos's guests chat about the tea houses and some gossip from Pheme, and the governor laughing and replying as if he hadn't just been telling Hylas that he was about to abandon the whole life he had built here without even a pretence of a fight.

Mistress Aula returned to the house that morning, and Zo made sure not to be there to hear the others tell her the news about him. The mistress had been subdued since Pani and Menthe revealed their frescoes, and Zo wasn't sure how he expected her to react. He also wasn't sure just how much about him she would hear. Would Chrestos mention what he had seen on the stairs? She came to his room after breakfast.

"Everyone is telling me that you're a prince. I'd think it was another of your pretences, but the governor recognized you from somewhere? And Chrestos tells me you haven't had amnesia or anything like that. So …"

Chrestos had not told her anything about him and Hylas, it would seem.

"So I have known all along who I am, and I concealed my identity on purpose. Yes."

"You must have a reason."

"I do. It's much as you might imagine."

She frowned at him.

He shrugged. "I have enemies. I am in exile, nobody knows where I am, and I'd like to keep it that way. But I wasn't—I'm not—a very important prince. Nobody is waiting for me to return in triumph and claim a throne. If that's what you were wondering."

"Of course it isn't. I'm wondering how I can turn this to the advantage of the house."

"You'd like to advertise the fact that one of your companions is foreign royalty."

"Of course. You must know you could have attracted more guests all these years if you hadn't kept it a secret."

He gritted his teeth. "But you also don't want me to leave."

She looked genuinely startled. "What? Who said anything about leaving? No one wants you to leave. You can't, anyway. Where would you go?"

She probably didn't even think she was saying anything sinister. These things just popped out of her mouth.

"I will have to find somewhere, won't I," he said coldly, "if you begin telling all the guests who I am."

Her eyes narrowed. "Are you threatening me?"

"You threatened me first."

"Well, so you'd leave. You're not really as ill as you pretend to be, then. I knew it."

All Zo's years of learning to resist this kind of nettling couldn't prevent anger surging in him.

"The only pretence I make about my health is that sometimes I pretend to be less sick than I feel. But I've long since stopped expecting you to have the decency to believe that."

Mistress Aula gave an exaggerated gasp. "You have the gall to talk about not being believed when you lied about who you are for five years?"

"I didn't, as a matter of fact. I haven't told any story about my past that isn't true. Zo isn't a made-up name—it's what my father called me when I was a boy, and I told Theano it was short for Zoharaza when I first got here. None of you thought I was an open book. It doesn't matter—believe what you like about me. I got here from Zash with this body, and I can get off the island with it if I have to. You can drive me to it or not, as you choose."

"Fine, if you think me a harpy, I will play the part." She surged to her feet, radiating indignation. "Get a garland from Governor Loukianos or Timon of Kos, I don't care which, by Orante's Month, or I'll spread your name—your title, your father's name, whatever it is you don't want people to know—about the whole island!"

Hylas could tell that Zo was tired that evening. He looked pale and seemed to have difficulty focussing on what his guests were saying; Hylas heard him ask people to repeat themselves, with very gracious apologies, a couple of times. He thought guiltily of their morning together and how much it might have cost Zo, when his strength was so limited. He wished he could move to sit beside Zo and offer his shoulder to rest against, help him keep up with the conversation, maybe even let him fall asleep for a little and take over his job of entertaining the guests. What an absurd thought.

All he could do was wait out the evening, lighting a second stick of incense that he could ill afford, so that he could be there at the end of the night to walk Zo back to his room.

They made their way down the stairs in silence and then stood outside the doors to their rooms, wrapped in each other's arms, Zo resting his head on Hylas's shoulder.

"Will you come in for a bit?" Zo asked finally.

"I was just about to ask if I might."

"Any time you like."

"Don't say that. It must also be any time you like."

Zo nuzzled against him and dropped a kiss lightly on Hylas's jaw. "It is, though. That's what I meant."

Hylas followed him inside, lit the lamp, and steered Zo gently toward the bed.

"I'm afraid, my love, I'm not in any state for—" Zo began, a graceful but clearly automatic speech.

"Don't be ridiculous," Hylas cut him off sternly. "I will sit on the floor and not bother you."

Zo was sitting on the edge of the bed, and Hylas dropped down resolutely to sit at his feet. Zo looked at him for a moment in the semi-darkness, then reached out and took Hylas's face between his hands and rested his cheek against Hylas's hair.

"One might say we should take any opportunity when we're alone together, while we can." He released Hylas and sat back up. "Because when I get a patron, we won't be able to any more."

Hylas nodded. They hadn't spoken of this before, but of course he had understood it. Patronage implied exclusivity; that was the whole point.

"I know. I wish I could offer to be your patron, but …"

There was a moment of charged silence. He realized he'd never said that before.

"Do you?" said Zo finally.

"Yes, of course. I don't mean—I mean because it would help you, because you need a patron. Not because I want any kind of power over you. I want you to be able to rely on me as a friend, not as a … a keeper. Above all I don't want you to be at the mercy of anyone who would treat you unkindly."

Zo nodded, his expression inward. "I wish you could be my patron too, Hylas. I didn't know if you would want it. But I think it would be different, if it were you. The meaning would be different. It's not possible?" He looked up, meeting Hylas's gaze again.

"I don't have the means to support you. I wish I did, I wish more than anything I did."

"Ah. I'm not much accustomed to thinking about money."

Hylas laughed bitterly. "Neither am I, in truth."

Zo made the little noise that Hylas had come to recognize as signalling interest, the way he did when Hylas began to talk about hydraulic engineering or affairs at the government office and stopped because he was afraid of being boring.

"In Ariata, the noble families are forbidden to trade, so they don't use money at all. My mother never liked me to have coins in the house. I used to have my pay directed to an agent who would settle up our accounts with the merchants every month. And when I came to leave Ariata, there was nothing left, I had no savings."

"He'd cheated you."

"Probably, but the truth is I don't know. I hadn't paid enough attention, all those years. I hadn't thought about what my work was worth. I'd felt ashamed to receive pay and glad to get rid of it without having to touch it myself. Now—well, now I couldn't think more differently. I detest this uncertain situation with Loukianos. I want to do my job and be paid for it. Though even if I did, I wouldn't be a fit patron for you. You need—you deserve—a wealthy man."

There was another space of silence. Zo moved to lie down on his bed. He was wearing the earrings that Hylas had given him, and one of them had gotten tangled in his hair. He reached up to loosen it and take it out. Hylas held out a hand to take it for him, and Zo's fingers brushed over his as he dropped the earring into his palm. Zo fiddled for a moment with the other earring.

"I know that it isn't possible," he said, his voice low, "but can you tell me again that you want it?"

"Zo …" Hylas's heart felt over-full. "I want to be yours forever. Your lover, your support, your devoted servant. I can't believe how privileged I am that you want to hear me say that."

Zo pulled out the other earring and half sat up, making a move as if to throw it. He stopped short, the earring clutched in his fist.

"You can't—Hylas, you can't stay here." He looked at Hylas with anger in his eyes. "I'm going to have to take a patron, and if you stay here, next door to me, sharing my garden and coming over to check on me and bring me tea—you can't keep doing that. I'll carry on sleeping with you. I want you so much. Do you think I won't cheat on my patron with you? Hah. I'm a Zashian courtier. Of course I'll do it."

Hylas got to his feet and held out his hand for the other earring. "You will not give your word to be faithful to one man and then betray him. You left the Zashian court because you didn't want to be that kind of man. But if you want me to go, of course I'll go. If my staying would make things hard for you, I won't stay."

Zo handed over the other earring and lay back down.

"I don't want you to go. I'm sorry, I'm—I'm being dramatic. It's not helping."

"You're saying what's in your heart," said Hylas, putting the earrings aside on Zo's dressing table. "I just don't want you to be unhappy. I want you to be with a man who's good for you. I think you can find that."

He came back and resumed his seat on the floor by Zo's bed. He stroked Zo's hair where it lay on the pillow.

"I have until the end of the month," Zo said.

"Why then?"

"Mistress Aula has said I have to secure the patronage of either Timon or Loukianos by Orante's Month."

So she had given him an ultimatum. No wonder he was upset.

"Or what?"

"Or she'll tell everyone who I am. And I—I'm afraid of that."

"Did you tell her why?"

"In general terms—she knows well enough. We had an argument. I couldn't keep my temper."

Hylas sighed. "You shouldn't have to. She says things to you that are hard to forgive. But when it comes to Loukianos … he may be leaving the island before long."

"What?"

He explained what he had learned that day and how the governor seemed resigned to being recalled to Pheme.

"I see," said Zo quietly. "So even if I don't take a patron, you may not be on Tykanos much longer."

"Zo, if that were the case, I would have said so. No, I'll be here. I may just need to find some other way to make a living."

After Hylas left, Zo couldn't sleep. He thought about the way Hylas had said, "If my staying would make things hard for you …" Wouldn't it be hard for him, too?

Of course it would. Now that Hylas was letting himself show it, when they were alone together, it was obvious how much he was in love with Zo, and how much it meant to him to be able to give his love physical expression. It would be hard for him to give that up.

But his whole life had been hard. He was resigned to this, the way he'd be resigned to anything. He didn't believe he deserved to be happy, or to continue to be happy. Maybe he thought all he deserved was to have the memory of this short period of happiness to cherish.

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.