Chapter 5

Hylas carriedhis breakfast tray out into the back courtyard as usual, then hesitated. He knew that Zo was up; he'd glimpsed him, on the way to the kitchen, going into the privy. That didn't mean he wanted company.

Finally Hylas made up his mind and set the tray down on a rock near his own door. He went to Zo's door and knocked tentatively on the frame of the lattice.

"Yes?" came Zo's voice after a moment.

"I, um … "

"You can open it."

"Oh."

Hylas slid open the screen. Zo was sitting in a chair at what might have been either a desk or a dressing table—maybe both, as it had writing materials and makeup on it. His black hair was pulled back into a short, careless pigtail, and his eyes were not painted, which made him look freshly, differently beautiful.

"Good morning," Hylas said. "They always give me two cups with my tea and more buns than I can eat. Do you—would you—like to join me?"

"Thank you," said Zo, and Hylas was so sure it would be the beginning of "Thank you, but no," that he was quite startled when Zo pushed back his chair from his desk.

"Oh, you—you will?"

The companion paused. "Did you not want me to say yes?"

"No! No, I … I did. I wasn't sure whether you usually breakfast at this hour." That made some sense; he felt proud of himself.

Zo smiled. "Usually I'm trying to fall back to sleep at this hour. But not today, so I'd be happy to join you."

He rose from his desk with difficulty and leaned on his crutch as he came out into the garden. The crutch was just a long staff with a small cross-piece at the top, surely not the best design for its purpose. Hylas ran to pick up the tray from where he had left it and carried it over to the chair near Zo's door.

"You can bring out one of the chairs from my room for yourself," Zo suggested.

Hylas considered that for a moment. "But we don't have a table," he said. "So we'd have nowhere to put the tea things … I'll just sit on the ground and hand things to you. That'll work better."

Zo was giving him a doubtful look. In the sunlight and without his makeup, he looked strikingly young. Hylas was seized with a feeling of shame that he had for so long ignored someone who might have benefited from his help and company, simply because he'd found Zo's beauty intimidating.

"You probably find it easier to get up from a chair than from a cushion on the ground," Hylas went on, not sure how else to show consideration than by baldly spelling it out. "I understand. Sitting cross-legged is hard on one's knees. We don't do it so much where I'm from."

Zo moved finally to sit in his chair, giving Hylas a wry smile. "Don't you mostly recline on couches?"

"Where I'm actually from, no—we usually sat on stools and benches and things."

He sat down on the grass beside Zo's chair, putting down the tea tray, and for the first time he filled both of the bowls on the tray with tea. He lifted one carefully, holding it with both hands, to offer it to Zo, and their eyes met, as they had the night before over the lamp flame. And again, there seemed to be something there, a connection warm as the steam rising from the tea, bright as the light from the lamp flame. Though perhaps it was only how a well-trained companion looked at anyone. Whatever it was, Hylas appreciated it.

Zo blew on the surface of his tea, the bowl poised in his long, elegant fingers. He sipped it. Hylas tried not to stare at his mouth. He was so young, and so tired; it seemed like taking advantage.

"Mm. This is the good tea for guests. They must like you in the kitchen."

"Oh. They may. I like them. We have good chats when I go there." He realized that must sound implausible, that he could actually have a satisfactory conversation with anyone. But the kitchen staff were very talkative.

"Last night …" Zo began delicately. When he hesitated, it sounded artful, not as if he was searching desperately for the right word or wondering if he should say this at all. "You said you were glad I can get around by myself with my crutch. That was kind of you."

"Oh!" It had burst out of him, and he'd been quite sure it had been inappropriate and unwelcome. He thought he'd even seen Zo's beautiful eyebrows contract in a frown. "Well, I—I meant it."

"Yes." Zo gave him a sidelong look, elegantly unreadable. "You strike me as a man who is not in the habit of saying things he does not mean."

That made Hylas laugh. "I—I say things I don't mean all the time. But only without meaning to. If, uh, if you follow."

"I believe I do."

After a moment's silence, during which they sipped their tea, Hylas tried to say something that he'd been struggling to put into words. "You—you don't have to be charming, when it's just me."

Zo gave him a wide-eyed look. "You think I can help it?"

Then they were both laughing. Zo had a beautiful, dark laugh, surprisingly rich and totally infectious.

"Actually," he said, sobering but still smiling, "I appreciate the sentiment."

"Oh, that's … well. Good." Hylas picked up the basket of buns and offered it. "There's different kinds. I think the ones with sesame seeds are sweet. Oh, you probably know that."

"I like the salty ones," said Zo, picking out a bun. "Thanks."

They sat in silence for a time after that, drinking their tea and eating buns. They could hear birds crying overhead on the cliff face, and a breeze moved through the garden, circulating the scent of rosemary.

"I love this garden," Hylas remarked, almost to himself.

"Thank you. It's not at its best right now."

He looked at Zo, surprised. "It's yours? I mean—you planted it?"

Zo nodded. "Some of it. I designed it all, and I take care of it when I can. I'm not always an invalid, and I'm not in a permanent decline—it comes and goes. Some days I'm able to work in my garden."

"Ah, truly? That is wonderful."

"Milo, the bouncer here before Ahmos, used to help me. He's the one who started building the terraces back there. But he earned his freedom and went home to Pyria a few months ago."

"I'll help you." The words were out of Hylas's mouth before he could consider their wisdom. He rephrased: "Could I help you? I don't know anything about gardening, but—well, I don't know much, but I've been learning a few things lately. Governor Loukianos is always talking to me about his garden."

"I've heard the governor's garden is magnificent. I've always wanted to see it."

"I like yours better," said Hylas truthfully.

"But you just said you don't know anything about gardens."

"That's true, I did."

"I'll teach you what I know, and then you'll understand that the governor's is much more impressive than mine."

"Does that mean that I can help maintain it for you?"

"Of course. I'd be very grateful."

And yet there was a whole houseful of people he might have asked, if he had wanted to. Was it absurd of Hylas to feel honoured that he was allowed to help?

"I do know how to build walls," he said. Better than this Milo, he didn't add.

"I suppose you would."

They sat and ate buns and sipped tea in silence for a few minutes. The time stretched out without feeling awkward, more like being quiet with an old friend than with a stranger. Not that Zo could have qualified as an "old" friend to anyone Hylas's age. In a different life, Hylas might have had a son or daughter who could have been Zo's contemporary.

"Do you get out into the town much?" Hylas asked. "When you're, when you're feeling up to it?"

Zo shook his head. "It's troublesome to go out, so I generally don't. Mind you, the girls don't go out much either. We're not really supposed to be available to meet in the streets, you know? You have to come to one of the houses to see us. We can't be too free with our company."

"I suppose that makes sense," Hylas allowed.

"And I'm not supposed to walk around much, even in the house."

"Not supposed to—you mean your physician has told you not to?" Hylas asked with concern.

Zo gave a short laugh. "No, Mistress Aula has told me not to. ‘It's all very well to pretend to be ill, but you've got to do it prettily.' Which means lying in bed or letting myself be carried if I insist on going anywhere."

"Is that—is that what you quarrelled about?" Hylas blurted, remembering what Taris had told him in that outpouring of unsolicited gossip a few days ago. He should have phrased it differently; Zo would wonder how he knew they had quarrelled.

But Zo simply nodded. "I gave in, in the end. I don't go out or insist on hobbling around with my crutch. I let Ahmos carry me." He shrugged. "It is easier that way."

"I don't think you like it, though," Hylas guessed. "You'd prefer to do things for yourself when you can. As anyone would."

Zo looked at him. "Do you think so? I sometimes feel it's unduly troublesome of me."

"I think …" Hylas spoke slowly, choosing his words with care. "I think it is good to be able to accept help when you need it. Not everyone can. But when you don't need it—it's not troublesome to want to do things for yourself. Especially things that other people take for granted."

"Mm. Perhaps you're right. Is there more tea?"

"Oh—yes. I beg your pardon, I should notice when your cup is empty and fill it, shouldn't I? As I'm, er, sort of the host here."

Zo laughed. "It's all right. If I don't have to be charming, I can just ask for more tea."

Hylas refilled his bowl and passed it up to him.

"So tell me what else needs to be done in the garden, besides finishing that wall."

"Did you know he's a hero?" Pani said at lunch.

"Who?" asked Zo.

"He saved a whole village from a flood," said Menthe.

"Koilas, on Pheme," said Chrestos, who was fastidiously picking individual seeds out of a halved pomegranate. "It's a town, not a village."

"Who?" Zo repeated.

"It's a village," said Menthe.

"The aqueduct man," said Pani to Zo finally. "What's his name?"

"Hylas. How did he save a village?" Zo demanded. Images of that soft-spoken man standing alone against an invading army or running with armloads of children ahead of a roaring fire jostled absurdly in his mind.

"With engineering," said Taris.

"Oh." That made more sense.

"They were damming a river down from the mountain," said Pani, picking up the story, "and there was a fatal flaw in the construction?—"

"It would have flooded the whole town?—"

"Village."

"It would have flooded the whole valley, only he caught it in time."

"Wasn't it his job to catch it, if he's an engineer?" Theano spoke for the first time. She was older than the other companions, and the one who usually said things like this.

"Yes," said Pani, "but he wasn't the engineer in charge of the dam, you see, he was just an underling, and at first the chief engineer wouldn't listen to him, and he had to go over his head, which got him in trouble—only in the end, they all saw he was right and had saved the village. Town, whatever. A bunch of people who lived in that valley."

"He became quite famous for it, apparently. They gave him an official commendation in Pheme."

"If I weren't so busy, I'd cultivate him," said Chrestos. "But Captain Themistokles takes up all my time."

"The tenants aren't here to be ‘cultivated,' Chrestos," said Theano. "They're here to pay rent."

"It's true," said Menthe. "What if you got involved with him and then wanted to break it off, but he was living here? Ugh."

It was a good point. You wouldn't want to try to negotiate an affair with someone who was living in the same house. The potential for awkwardness was too great.

Not that Zo had been having much luck getting a lover from outside the house, either. He'd had hopes of Djosi, who was perhaps not as much of a prize as Chrestos's never-ending Captain Themistokles, but was personally much more interesting and to Zo's eye better-looking. He'd even thought their first night together had gone reasonably well—as well as these things usually went, with a minimum of awkwardness. But then Djosi hadn't been back, hadn't written a note or sent a gift or anything, and it didn't look good.

"It's nice to have you join us, Zo," said Menthe tentatively. "It seems … it's been a while since you've eaten lunch with us instead of in your room."

"I suppose so," said Zo.

He wasn't sure why he had felt like coming out to join them today. Perhaps it was having breakfasted with someone—a totally novel experience—that had made him want company now.

Hylas sat at the desk that he had politely commandeered in the corner of the Tykanos government office, sketching on a fresh leaf of his tablet. He was at loose ends.

He'd borrowed several idle men from the government office and done a rough-and-ready survey of the spring on the little island. He'd written a report about it which he did not think the governor had read. He had finished a preliminary assessment of the town's water supply, identifying several places where he suspected broken pipes, but no one could tell him who was in charge of digging them up to find out. He'd visited the bath house near the Red Balconies that was always closed, and after asking several people found out that the reason was something to do with the water intake, which kept filling up with sand and having to be laboriously dredged. No one knew who was supposed to fix that, either. Mutari, the quartermaster's mistress and key to assembling a proper survey team, was due back from Gylphos with the next supply ship, tomorrow or the next day. It didn't seem worth coming up with another project to occupy himself for so short a time. Perhaps he should go fishing, he thought, or sea-bathing, or …

He'd delayed too long, because Loukianos had come into the office—he could hear the governor's voice in the anteroom—and that meant that once his state of idleness was discovered, he'd be invited out to a tea house. Poetry would be recited. Women would try gamely to flirt with him. Could he invite the governor out fishing instead?

"There you are, Hylas!" came the inevitable greeting. Loukianos wove through the desks to lean over Hylas's. "What are you drawing there?"

Hylas looked down at the tablet, which he'd forgotten was open. He'd been sketching a plan for completing the terraces in Zo's garden. "Oh, just something I'm building. In my spare time," he added hastily, though why he still had that instinct with Loukianos, given the man's approach to leisure, was beyond him.

"Good, good! Let me know if you need anything. I take it you're not busy this afternoon?"

"No, I am not. I was thinking of taking a walk down to the beach."

"Ah. That's an idea. I haven't visited the beach lately. I used to go pretty frequently at one time." Loukianos looked almost perplexed for a moment, as if he'd forgotten why he used to go, or why he had stopped. "Yes, I know a good place," he went on, warming to the idea. "The Eastern Beach. I could take you there if you like."

Hylas would have been happy to go by himself, but he wasn't craving solitude, and so long as they didn't end up back at the Bower of Suos or—worse—the Amber Lily, he would be happy to have Loukianos's company.

And he was. They walked down through the town, past the fort on a footpath that led to a sheltered, sandy beach. They strolled in the sun and bathed in the sea, then sat on a rock to dry off, and Loukianos told stories about his time in Sasia. It was a good afternoon.

"I haven't done this in far too long," Loukianos remarked as they dressed on the shore. "I used to come here pretty often with … Well. Once upon a time."

It had occurred to Hylas to wonder if Loukianos was mourning someone. He often seemed like a man filling time that had maybe in the past been taken up by the presence of someone else. There was no wife in the governor's mansion, that Hylas had noticed. Maybe he was a widower.

It would have been a reasonable moment for Hylas to confess that he enjoyed the beach more than the tea houses. He could have phrased it tactfully and probably avoided offending. He was used enough to Loukianos by now that he thought he could have managed that. But he decided it would be kinder to say nothing about that. Maybe part of his job here was to be the governor's friend, after all.

"Thank you for accompanying me," he said instead. "I've enjoyed myself."