Chapter 8

"Areyou Loukianos's new man, then?"

"I … I beg your pardon?"

Hylas looked at the companion who had sat down beside him. They were at the Bower of Suos that evening, Loukianos was on the other side of the room deep in conversation with some other guests, and Hylas had been sitting by himself. The young man who had taken the cushion beside him was strikingly handsome, with bronze skin and crisply curling black hair. His expression was politely unfriendly.

"I heard the two of you went for a walk on the Eastern Beach," he said, "and a refreshing dip in the sea. He's been talking about it. I suppose, odd as it seems, you must be his new man."

It took Hylas another moment of staring stupidly to grasp what the companion meant. He thought Hylas and Loukianos were lovers.

"Did—did he say that I was?" That would be a bizarre twist.

"No, of course not. I can put two and two together."

"I—I daresay you can. But, um …" He tried to think what Zo would say, under these circumstances. He'd had a week's worth of conversations with Zo over breakfast by this time to gather examples. "You seem to have arrived at three?" he managed.

The companion blinked at him, then gave a bright, surprised laugh. "Oh! I do beg your pardon, then. And I can't say I'm sorry to hear it," he added, becoming much more friendly. "One has always hoped to catch the governor's eye, you know. It's only natural."

Hylas guessed it would be, if you were one of only a small number of male companions in town, and knew—as apparently everyone did—that the governor liked men.

The governor liked men. Hylas hadn't realized that, but he should have. Loukianos's favourite tea house was the one that was half male companions.

"Does he … need a new man? Not that I'm, er, in the running, but …" He was thinking along different lines entirely.

The companion shrugged. "If he hasn't told you about Hippolytos, I probably shouldn't gossip, though I think it was quite common knowledge. He had a lover, there was a tragic death." He waved a hand as if talking about such things was beneath him, or maybe just didn't suit the image he cultivated as one of the Bower's companions. "But that was well over a year ago now."

Could it really be this easy? Had he already found the perfect patron for Zo? They could even talk about gardening together.

And Loukianos was a decent man. He would treat Zo well, be careful with him if they … when they …

And maybe they would be so happy together that they would both think fondly of Hylas ever afterward, as the man who brought them together. That was a kind of happiness that someone like him could be worthy of.

"What are you doing over here by yourself?"

The governor's friend Timon appeared in front of Hylas apparently from nowhere. Hylas realized he was by himself, because the companion he had been talking to had melted away, as they sometimes did when you sat stupidly lost in your own thoughts for too long.

"This place is dead tonight," Timon complained. "None of the good-looking girls are even here. Where's Loukianos? We should go somewhere else."

"We could go to the Red Balconies," said Hylas eagerly.

Timon gave him a quizzical look. "Really? What's there that's worth seeing these days? I've heard it's dull. Whatsisname used to have a mistress there, but even he admitted the place had gone downhill."

"I-it's a nice place, I think. They have very good musicians, and they serve delicious food."

"Mm. They ought to be a restaurant, not a tea house."

Hylas surprised himself by laughing. "If that would stop you enjoying yourself, I suppose you'd better not go."

The look Timon was giving him became even more quizzical. But Loukianos reappeared at that point, and the conversation was mercifully dropped. The party agreed to leave for the Amber Lily, and Hylas produced a very convincing yawn and said it was time for him to head home.

On the walk, his thoughts returned to his conversation with that companion at the Bower of Suos and the possibility of Loukianos becoming Zo's patron. It shouldn't be too hard to get the governor himself to go to the Red Balconies. His friends might turn up their noses, but Loukianos had promised to show Hylas around all the tea houses, and so long as Hylas didn't let on that he was actually living at the House of the Red Balconies, they should be able to get there eventually.

But something else occurred to Hylas. That companion had thought he was Loukianos's lover. Did that mean that the last man Loukianos had been with had been someone like him—older than Zo, closer to Loukianos's own age? Would he even be drawn to Zo? Just because he liked men …

But that was absurd. No one who liked men could fail to be drawn to Zo. He was young, but he was not a boy; he was erudite and eloquent, like all the companions. And even before you got to know him, you couldn't fail to be captivated. He was so lovely: all that tumbled dark hair, the quick grace of his hands, that deep, dark voice, like water running underground.

Even if you weren't drawn to men, as Hylas wasn't …

He stopped dead in the moonlit street with the force of the realization. He had been telling himself that lie for so long that it had become part of him, and he'd forgotten it was a lie. But he wasn't in Ariata now. He was on Tykanos, where even the governor could have a male lover and no one seemed to bat an eyelash.

Of course he liked men. He always had. It had been part of the shame that had poisoned his life in Ariata, where you were allowed to have sex with men but not to admit that you liked it, or something—he'd never understood it, though it had seemed so obvious to everyone else. He'd just buried that part of himself, so far down that he had forgotten it was there.

He walked the rest of the way home in a daze, forgetting to return to the question of whether Loukianos would like Zo or not.

The mood at the Red Balconies that night was very bleak. "Dire" was how Chrestos described it in an aside to Pani and Zo. Captain Themistokles was away at sea, so he was thrown upon the mercy of the regular guests like the rest of them. No one felt much sympathy for him.

It was almost too cold to be still entertaining in the courtyard, but the sitting rooms were not yet ready for guests. Everyone put on warm clothes and hoped for the best.

Mistress Aula had been threatening everyone all week. Pani and Menthe were the worst off; Mistress had inherited their contracts with the house, and as good as owned them now. She had told both of them flatly that if they didn't find patrons before Turning Month, she would sell them to a Gylphian brothel. Theano had tried to tell them that she wouldn't really do it, as she would lose money, but that wasn't much comfort. Pani reported having heard Mistress making some threat to Theano herself, or at least talking to her in what Pani interpreted as a threatening tone. There had been a shouting match between Mistress and Taris over Taris's headscarves, which Mistress had long disliked almost as much as Zo's crutch—Taris had beautifully thick, creamy-blonde hair which Mistress felt the guests had "a right" to see. For now, the headscarf was still in place, but Taris—normally Mistress's loyalest supporter—had a hard look in her eyes that showed the argument had taken its toll.

Some of Zo's regular guests, a group of marines, were there that evening, and they were in poor spirits themselves. He got them talking, in the ways that he knew how, and learned that they were worried about a possible action on the Deshan Coast. He listened and asked sympathetic questions as if he knew of the places and powers they named only by rumour; this allowed them to show off their knowledge, distracting them from their worry. In fact, though he'd never been to the Deshan Coast himself, always confined further inland, he knew all about the situation there. Or what it had been five years ago, though it didn't sound as though it had changed much.

"You always know how to lift our spirits, Zo," said one of the marines after they had persuaded him to sing for them.

"It's an honour," Zo replied, but he felt a wave of sadness. He wished he had someone to lift his spirits just then.

Hylas came in, having obviously left another tea house early, his usual habit. He looked lost in thought. Chrestos bounced over to talk to him, foolishly, and Zo saw Mistress Aula notice and approach, frowning. He winced, wishing that he could catch Hylas's eye and warn him.

"You have to pay like everyone else! Don't think you're special!" Her voice could be heard all over the courtyard. An embarrassed hush fell.

Hylas made some flustered reply, Chrestos tried to intervene and clearly only made matters worse, and it ended with Hylas hastening over to the incense burner.

"What did he do to warrant that?" one of Zo's guests wondered aloud.

"He looks harmless," another one agreed with a laugh.

"Bit of a dragon, your mistress, isn't she?"

Gossiping about Mistress was a sure path to more trouble, so Zo did his best to pretend he hadn't heard, offering his guests more wine and producing the first innocuous topic of conversation that came to mind. Hylas, he saw out of the corner of his eye, had lit a stick of incense and gone straight out of the courtyard to his room.

"And she thinks we're the problem. We're not the problem—she is. Do you know why the sitting rooms aren't ready and everyone had to freeze in the courtyard last night? It's because she decided to start redecorating, yesterday. Everything's torn up. And we can't afford that. It's true the rooms were looking shabby, but I don't know where that money's going to come from. And then she goes off at the aqueduct man like that—tch. I don't know what's going to become of us."

Hylas stood paralyzed in the kitchen door, waiting for the cook, who had seen him, to point out to Theano that he was there. She did so finally, with a wry smile, when Theano stopped for breath.

"Immortal gods, Elpis, you shouldn't have let me go on like that. Hello, Hylas."

Theano was sitting on a stool at the table where Elpis was kneading dough. Her baby—Hylas hadn't yet learned its name—was in her lap, playing with a wooden spoon.

"Good morning," said Hylas. He should probably ignore everything he had overheard; that would be the polite thing. "I don't usually see you up so early."

"Leta is getting a tooth and not sleeping well. I'll go back to bed when she lets me."

"Do you like babies?" Elpis asked Hylas. "Tuma, start getting the aqueduct man's tea ready, will you?"

"Oh yes. I have a niece and nephew back … um, where I'm from. I used to like visiting them."

"Don't get home much?" Theano said.

"Give him the baby," Elpis suggested. "Sit and have a cuddle," she advised Hylas, gesturing with a floury hand at another stool. "Cheers everyone up."

"I'm not in nearly as much need of cheering up as the rest of you," said Hylas, then thought that had effectively broken his resolve of not mentioning what he had overheard. "Er, I mean …"

"We know what you mean," said Elpis.

Hylas took a seat at the end of the worktable, and Theano passed him the baby. She was so small and soft, looking up bright-eyed at Hylas, her little mouth open, still clutching her wooden spoon in one tiny hand. Hylas nestled her in the crook of his arm, remembering what it had been like to hold his sister Maia's children at this age.

"I haven't been back to where I'm from in five years. I should go, someday soon, but my sister and her kids are the only things I miss."

"So Mistress Aula hasn't threatened you with eviction?" said Theano after a moment.

"Er, no. She has said that she'll raise my rent, but to be honest, that's fair. I'd been thinking myself the rooms are worth more than I pay for them."

Theano sighed. "I know. The house hasn't been …" She hesitated. "Oh, what does it matter. You've already heard me speaking frankly. The house hasn't been run properly in years. She just doesn't care enough. We'd had misfortunes when the late landlord bought this place, but we could have recovered if he and Aula had worked together sensibly."

"He should have put Theano in charge," said Elpis, nodding decisively.

"I was much too young at the time. And not foolish enough to start a rivalry with the landlord's woman." She sighed. "I don't know that it's made any difference."

"She knows you'd have been a better mistress," Elpis said, "and she hates you for it." She gave her dough a final punch. "Ah well. At least she's not evicting the aqueduct man. That's good to hear."

"Zo must be glad," said Theano.

"A-ah? Yes?"

"He says you're a good neighbour."

"Right. Yes. Well, I try to be."

He might not have a better chance than this to ask a question that had been nagging at him for some time now.

"Is Zo … free?"

Theano showed no sign of thinking it an odd question; but then, she was a companion.

"Oh, absolutely. He's not indentured to the house, or anybody's slave. As far as I know he never has been."

"I see!" Hylas couldn't hide that he was glad to hear it.

"But," Theano went on, "he has nowhere else to go, no family on the island or any other way to support himself. He could go to another tea house, but with his health the way it is, I don't know if many of them would take him."

"Oh," said Hylas. "I … I see."

"So when Mistress Aula, for instance, tells him that he's got to find a man to give him a garland—as she's been telling all of us—no, she can't compel him, she doesn't own him. But she could turn him out of the house, and it would be bad for him. That's what you were wondering, I guess?"

"Yes, I—yes, I suppose so."

His tea was ready, and he returned the baby to her mother and carried the tray back to his room as usual. And yet everything felt different that morning. What he had realized last night had changed the very quality of the air and the light. He felt more alive, somehow.

And he was also slightly nervous about being near Zo again, knowing what he now knew about himself. Would he see Zo differently? Would it be easier or harder to look at him?

He got back to his room, took the tray out into the garden, as usual, and found that Zo was not yet up. This was the first time, since they started breakfasting together in the garden, that this had happened, and Hylas stood with the tray in his hands for a few moments, unsure what to do about it.

Finally he put the tray down, went to the screen over Zo's doorway, and knocked softly.

"Hylas?" came Zo's sleepy voice from inside.

"Are you up?"

"Yeah … no. Come in, though."

Hylas slid the screen half-open and looked around it. Zo was sitting up in bed, hair tousled, eyes closed to slits against the light. His robe was open down the front, and Hylas could see a slice of smooth, bare chest.

"I'll bring your breakfast in," Hylas suggested, "and you eat when you feel like it."

"Oh." Zo smiled sleepily. "That's nice of you, Hylas."

Hylas filled one of the bowls with tea, put the buns for his own breakfast on the tray, and brought the bowl and the basket of buns in to set on the chair beside Zo's bed. Zo was lying down again. There were dark smudges under his eyes that were not from his makeup.

"Don't let the tea get cold," Hylas advised, and went back out, sliding the screen shut behind him.

It felt the same, after all. Nothing had changed; he had just awoken to how things really were. Hylas smiled to himself as he sat in the sun outside Zo's door and drank his own tea.