Chapter 2

So they'd rentedthe vacant apartment again after all. Zo slouched in the chair at his dressing table and lifted his hand mirror, looking up at himself from a novel angle. He looked all right, makeup and jewellery relatively undisturbed by napping in the middle of the day. He'd readied himself earlier than usual that day because Djosi had said he might come by in the afternoon, and he didn't want to be caught unprepared. He had hopes of Djosi.

The man next door complicated things there. He'd have to explain to Djosi that the garden wasn't really private anymore.

Thinking about that made him tired again, and he eyed his bed wistfully. The nap hadn't been long enough. Naps never were.

He hoped the new tenant wasn't going to be trouble like the last man. Coming home drunk and bothering the girls, leaving garbage in the anteroom, relieving himself in Zo's garden … Zo really hadn't wanted the place rented again. It had been nice having the whole corner of the house to himself. A bit lonely, but it was better than the alternative.

Angels of the Almighty, he was another Pseuchaian man, the new tenant; was Zo going to have to beg and cajole him to use the privy instead of shitting in the garden like a dog? Was it something they all did? He didn't know.

He dropped the mirror onto his table with a clatter and ran his hand through his hair. To be fair, the new tenant made a better first impression than the old one had. He might be a bit tongue-tied, but there was something appealing about him: a gentleness in his eyes, an unsmiling kindness, as if he was diligently looking for good in everything he saw. The previous man hadn't had any of that.

The new man had had the misfortune to catch Zo when he'd just woken after an inadequate nap on a bad pain day, so Zo had been surly to him. He wasn't proud of that; he could usually keep better control over his mask, even when he was feeling bad. But he'd been startled, too—it was probably understandable.

He'd wait and see what this Hylas was like before he decided how to proceed. Maybe the fact that he'd started off their interaction by being less than charming would ultimately prove useful. Sometimes it did.

Hylas's second morning on Tykanos was spent at the government office next to the fort, trying to find someone who knew anything about the aqueduct project. Was there money allocated to it, were there other people assigned to it besides himself, did it in fact exist in any form other than as a promise made to the town by the governor of the island?

It was only with the arrival of the governor himself, around the sixth hour, that some notes were unearthed outlining in the most general terms where the aqueduct was proposed to go and what it was expected to accomplish. There were two water sources proposed: one on the smaller island, which barely needed an aqueduct to get water down to the town; the other on the larger island, which would mean building out across the water, a much more significant job.

"This looks promising," said Hylas, sitting at Loukianos's desk—at Loukianos's insistence—and studying the documents. Not that there was much to study, and calling it "promising" was being generous. Still, he was here to work.

"First I will need to assemble a team to help me survey the two sites," he went on. "Perhaps I can borrow men from the fort? They should have experienced surveyors there."

"Mm." Loukianos leaned on the corner of his desk and looked critically at his manicured nails. "Mutari is the person to talk to about that."

"Mu … tari." Hylas made a note of the name in the wax tablet he had brought with him. "He is the chief engineer at the fort?"

"What?" Loukianos looked confused. "No, no—Mutari's the mistress of the naval quartermaster. She'll get it sorted out for you."

Hylas stared at him. Were they somehow not talking about the same thing?

"I have to talk to the quartermaster's mistress in order to get a survey team?"

Loukianos nodded as if he didn't see anything odd about it. "If you want help from the fort, yes. You have to approach them in the right way—they get their hackles up about the strangest things—but Mutari's very good. Unfortunately, I believe she's still over in Gylphos, visiting her sister."

"Oh." That stymied Hylas, who had expected simply to walk into the fort and ask to speak to the proper authorities. Not that he'd been looking forward to that; it would be a relief not to have to do it, in fact. "Well, I'll … I could ride out and take a look at the springs myself. That would be a start."

"Right, good. I'll have my man Niko look you up some decent horseflesh—no mean feat on this island, let me tell you, but Niko is simply the best. I don't keep a stable myself, alas. But Niko should have something for you in a couple of days. As soon as I can find him. I'm not sure … Well, he's around somewhere, it's not a big island." He laughed easily.

Hylas opened his mouth to speak and then closed it without saying anything. Would he lose face if he admitted that he had intended to hire a mule from a place he'd seen near the harbour and go that afternoon?

"Now," Governor Loukianos went on, "the reason I came by was to make sure you got some spending money. Will three hundred or so do you, do you think?"

Hylas made an effort not to let his mouth drop open soundlessly again. He couldn't think what to say. Three hundred what? Phemian nummoi, presumably, as that must be the official currency of the island, but surely that was a huge sum? A discussion of salary had been notably absent from the negotiations over this job, and he had taken that to mean that it wouldn't pay well, which hadn't bothered him. His needs were few. But three hundred nummoi? How often was he to be paid that? Monthly? Weekly? Before he saw the governor's palace and garden, he wouldn't have imagined it possible, but now …

"P-perfectly, yes, sir."

Loukianos pushed off from the desk. "I'll have them get it ready for you tomorrow. So there's nothing else to be done today, and you'll be able to join me at the Sunset Palace." He rubbed his hands together with satisfaction. "Excellent. I'm looking forward to introducing you to everyone."

Hylas got home late. He was glad that the walk from the Sunset Palace to the House of the Red Balconies was short, just a couple of dark streets separating the two tea houses. He had drunk more than usual—wine, not tea—and though he was still clear-headed, he was tired and wanted nothing more than to fall into his bed.

The Sunset Palace had been much as he expected, a beautiful building full of beautiful women who tried to make him feel welcome and special. It wasn't their fault that they failed so badly. It wasn't Loukianos's fault either. He had been attentive enough, introducing Hylas to all the companions and the other guests, making sure Hylas's cup was always full and giving him no opportunity to slip away unnoticed. If it had been in Hylas's power to enjoy such an evening, he would presumably have had a good time.

He hadn't. It had been like the olive pits in the governor's dining room all over again, magnified into a whole evening of not knowing what to do, what to say when anyone spoke to him, where to look or how to position his body so that he looked like someone who felt at ease. Whenever anyone looked at him, he thought he could feel their scepticism. "What's he doing here?" he could imagine them asking. He wanted to tell them he didn't know either.

The House of the Red Balconies was almost unrecognizable after dark. Light glowed from the courtyard out into the entry hall, and music and voices enlivened the interior. The sleepy air of the daytime was gone, the shabbiness of the courtyard hidden by shadows.

Hylas spotted Taris, the companion he had met first, sitting in the courtyard with a group of men around her. This evening her headscarf was gold, still wrapped like an elaborate flower. The woman he assumed was the mistress of the house, the one with all the bracelets, was greeting guests as they arrived. He started to hasten across the courtyard toward his rooms, when it occurred to him that he might still be mistaken for a guest, being unknown to most of the companions, and he should introduce himself to the woman in charge.

He lingered while the mistress spoke with the men who had just entered. His gaze wandered to the gallery above the arcade around the courtyard, and he saw a door open and a group of guests and companions come out, talking boisterously. Among them was the young man Hylas had seen sleeping, Zo. He was laughing elegantly and leaning on the arm of a tall man with a bald head, as if he needed assistance to walk. The group disappeared through another doorway, and the mistress of the house was greeting Hylas and asking him something.

"Did I see you noticing our Zo?" she repeated, giving him an indulgent smile. "Let me take you up to join his party."

"Oh. No. Er, I'm not—I'm the new tenant."

The mistress's manner immediately changed. "What do you want, then?"

"Nothing. Just to tell you that. I'm on my way to bed."

She rolled her eyes. "Nice to be like you," she muttered as she turned away.

"Did your man Djosi end up going home?" Chrestos asked with a yawn as he and Zo were closing up the upstairs sitting room for the night.

"Yes," said Zo. "He was here all afternoon, though."

"Ooh. How did that go?"

Zo shrugged. "Honestly, not very well. I think I made a misstep, telling him the garden wouldn't be private anymore now that there's a new tenant."

"Well, that's true. What was wrong with that?"

"He thought it meant I wanted to do something private in the garden."

Chestos snickered.

"I mean, I did. I guess that's not his thing."

"Well, now you know."

They were out in the gallery by this time, closing the door behind them.

"Do you want me to get Ahmos to carry you downstairs?" Chrestos asked cheerfully.

"I'll be fine," said Zo, smiling, instead of growling or snapping at Chrestos, because he'd conserved enough energy not only to get down the stairs by himself but to be gracious about it. He felt proud of himself.

The following morning, Hylas dragged himself out of bed and went in search of tea. It helped you wake up, he'd heard. And this was nominally a tea house, so they must keep the stuff on hand somewhere. Two days before, in searching for the privy, he had found the kitchen at the back of the house, so he headed there now.

"You're the aqueduct man, aren't you?" the cook said when he presented himself. She called to one of her subordinates: "Tea for the aqueduct man, Dria!"

"Hello, aqueduct man!" called the cook's assistant.

Hylas leaned against the worktable while he waited. In his wandering the other day he had also found the cistern that supplied bath water for the house, and learned that drinking water had to be brought from the public fountain down the street.

"Has the fountain in the courtyard been dry a long time?" he asked.

"Five or six years," the cook said. "We tried to get the landlord to fix it, but then the water on this whole street failed, so it wouldn't matter, even if he could be bothered."

"You mean other buildings on the street used to have piped water, and now it doesn't work?"

"As far as I know. That fountain at the end of the street's fed by a different source altogether, that's why it's still flowing."

"I see." So the aqueduct was going to help, but only if other repairs were made to the water delivery system of the town. Hylas wondered whether that was part of Governor Loukianos's plan too.

A woman came in lugging a jar of oil and struggling to suppress laughter.

"Guess who I just saw leaving?" she said, elbowing the cook.

"Captain Themistokles," the cook's assistant guessed.

"What? No, Captain Themistokles—I've stopped even noticing him, he's like a part of the furniture. No, it was Gordios. The spice merchant?"

"No! Who was he with?" the cook demanded.

"He was by himself when I saw him, and he didn't look happy to be alive. I think he got drunk in a corner and slept here, and nobody noticed."

"Gods, I wonder if he did! How comical!"

"It won't be if it gets talked about," the cook's assistant put in drearily from where she was working at the stove. "You think the girls here want this to be the kind of house where drunks fall asleep in corners? You go to the cheap wine shops and the brothels down by the harbour for that."

"True enough," said the cook with a sigh.

"Oh, hello," said the oil-carrier, finally noticing Hylas. "Who are you?"

"He's the new tenant, the aqueduct man."

"Oh, the aqueduct man! Don't pay any attention to what I was just saying, sir."

"He's just had to come to the kitchen to get his own tea," the cook's assistant intoned. "I think he knows we're a house fallen on hard times."

"Oh, not at all, I mean I—that's—it's no trouble."

Mercifully, the tea was ready by this time. The cook's assistant brought over a small clay pot, its handle wrapped in a cloth, with steam rising from the spout, and the cook placed it on a tray with a basket of fresh buns and two little glazed bowls, then handed the whole thing to Hylas. He didn't know whether the two bowls were because she expected him to share the tea with someone or because there was some other, mysterious use for the second bowl. Did tea have pits that you had to spit out? He thanked her, nodded politely to all three women, and left the kitchen.

He took the tray back to his apartment and set it on the floor, since there was no table. He thought fleetingly of going out into the private yard, but the prospect of running into his neighbour again frightened him, so he settled down inside.

He plumped down a cushion, in imitation of the people he had seen sitting in the courtyard, and lifted the lid of the pot with the cloth to peer inside. Something crumbled and dark was floating in the water, which had turned a clear amber. Were you supposed to fish that out? Was that what the second bowl was for? But surely a spoon or something would have been more useful.

He replaced the lid and poured some tea into one of the bowls. The pot had a strainer built into the spout, his discovered, so few of the solids came out. Hylas blew on the surface of the tea and sipped gingerly. It was very hot, with an earthy, slightly bitter flavour that was completely different than he had expected. He liked it.