“VARAZDA HAS TOLD you that Eurydemos’s students planned and carried out an assassination in Boukos,” said Damiskos.
Nione nodded. Aradne shook her head but did not look surprised. They stood together with Damiskos and Varazda on the beach outside the warehouse, having left the rest of the women inside. Damiskos had almost forgotten to be tired; the old, familiar feeling of pushing himself past his body’s limits to plan the next phase of the campaign returned to him, and it felt something like joy.
“The murdered man was a diplomat from Zash, carrying details of troop deployment and fortifications on the Deshan Coast,” Damiskos said. “Those documents were stolen after his death.”
Aradne gave a low whistle. “That sounds bad. I take it that’s bad.”
“Yes,” said Varazda, “it is bad.”
“The Deshan Coast is a mess,” Damiskos explained. “There’s been a tenuous peace for the last couple of years, but it’s been heating up again recently.”
“But it’s civil war there, isn’t it?” said Nione. “It’s Zashians against Zashians.”
“It is now,” said Damiskos. “But for anyone who wanted Pheme to go to war with Zash again, it would be an ideal spot to strike—the power of the king is already weak in the region.”
“But no one wants Pheme to go to war with Zash again,” Aradne protested. “Do they?”
“Plenty of people do. Helenos has told me himself he thinks the republic needs war to be great, or some nonsense, and there are men in the military—men in high places—who would agree with him. I don’t know that any of them would do business with murderous philosophy students hawking state secrets, but I wouldn’t rule it out.
“I had a feeling, when I put the pieces together, that Helenos must have some information like this. In fact, it’s more dangerous than I’ve explained. Officially, Zash keeps no secrets from us on the Deshan Coast, because we’re there—we have legions permanently stationed in the colonies and collaborating with the Zashian crown in the region.
“But of course the king of Zash does have secrets—so do we. Whatever’s in these documents, there is bound to be something we don’t already know, something politicians and power-hungry officers in the legions can point to and claim Zash has been lying to us and breaking the peace of the colonies. It’ll be all the pretext they need to start another war.”
“That’s why,” Varazda added, “it doesn’t matter whether the king of Zash knows about the theft or not—it won’t help just to rearrange the troops so the documents are no longer accurate. That’s not the real danger. So we persuaded the embassy staff to delay reporting the theft until we’d tried to recover the documents.”
“You mean you’re lying to your king?” Aradne looked impressed.
“No, because he’s not my king. I’m a Boukossian citizen. I don’t work for the embassy—I’m here on behalf of the Basileon of Boukos.”
“And you’ve looked for these documents?” said Nione.
Varazda nodded. “But I was only able to search Eurydemos’s and Phaia’s belongings thoroughly—and fruitlessly, I’m afraid. Helenos and Gelon share a room and have an extraordinary amount of luggage. I hadn’t been able to go through it all before Aristokles went missing. I think the documents could still be there.”
“Right,” said Damiskos. He stood with his hands on his hips for a moment. He had put his clothes back on, damp as they were. “So. Holding the beach is a strong position. We have fresh water and plenty of food. We can afford to wait for the men to come back from the Tentines and strengthen our hand further. Or for the fishermen to quarrel with the students and come down to retrieve their boats—which, honestly, I might have expected to happen before now. It’s also a question how many of the male slaves they can count on to assist them—we know they’ve coopted a few of them, but we don’t know what’s happened to the rest.
“Helenos, who’s currently in charge, is not as bloodthirsty as his colleagues. He wouldn’t let them kill me when they had the chance, and I don’t think he was pleased with Gelon and Phaia killing Aristokles. That works in our favour. Our other advantage is that he’s likely, given the way he see the world, to underestimate us because we’re a bunch of women, slaves, a cripple, a Sasian, degenerates—all the rest of it.”
Aradne snorted.
“Our disadvantages,” Damiskos went on. “We outnumber them, but we do lack able-bodied men, weapons, and experience—whereas we know that at least some of them are capable of planning and executing assassinations and spur-of-the-moment murders. We have children to protect. They have hostages. Eurydemos, certainly, Tyra probably, likely some of the household men. That weakens our position, because obviously we don’t want any hostages harmed.”
“Obviously,” said Aradne.
“We’re also weakened by the fact that we don’t know what the students’ endgame is or what plans they may already have in place. On the beach we’re vulnerable from the sea, which could be a problem if they’ve got more reinforcements on the way. That’s a possibility we have to consider. The other possibility we have to consider—and I think this one is much more likely—is that they’ll realize we can afford to wait them out, and they’ll try some sort of preemptive strike before the factory-workers come back. And right now, we’d be vulnerable to that. I think we can expect an exploratory party pretty soon, probably with an offer of some kind—we’ll let you back into your house if you do such-and-such for us—I’m not sure what it will be because I’m not sure exactly what their aims are. But when we refuse it—which we’ll do—they may lose interest in bargaining pretty quickly.”
“Right,” said Aradne. “So what do you think we should do.”
“I think we should fortify our position on the beach.”
Nione blinked at him. “What does that mean, exactly? You don’t mean build, build defensive … um, defences … do you?”
“I do, actually. With your approval. It’s your household, which makes you the ranking officer here.”
She gave a startled laugh. “Oh dear, no. I defer to you.”
“Well. I think we should dig a trench around the beach huts, extending back to the spring. Then what you do is, you build a rampart with the dirt you’ve dug out—sand, in this case, which isn’t ideal, but we’ll make it work—and erect a wall of stakes on top of that. There’s plenty of branches in the brush around here that will work beautifully for stakes, we’ve got the shovels you brought down to fight the fire, and the women from the vineyard will be familiar with this type of work. It shouldn’t take more than a few hours, given our workforce and the size of the area we’re dealing with.
“Then when we’re done with the ditch and rampart, we stockpile whatever projectiles we can find, gather more brush to close up the beach houses and provide better cover—that should be plenty of work for the day. The most important thing is to look like we’re doing something and aren’t scared—the second most important thing is to do something, to keep from getting scared.”
“I see,” said Aradne.
“Will you make a speech to tell the women?” Nione asked Damiskos.
“I think it would be better if you did. I’ll brief everyone on the plan afterward, but I do feel it’s best for you to maintain your authority as mistress of the house.”
“Hm.” She looked uncertain. “Best for me, or best for the women?”
“Best for everyone.” He smiled wryly at her. “Don’t worry—I’ll have your back.”
“I appreciate that.” She returned the smile.
Nione and Aradne went back into the warehouse to gather up the women, and for a moment Damiskos and Varazda were left alone on the beach.
“That was magnificent,” Varazda said.
“What was?”
“All of it. ‘These are our weaknesses, and we’re going to build a rampart, here’s how it will all go.’ That whole display of competence. It was marvellous.”
Damiskos shrugged self-consciously. He really hadn’t given it much thought; it had all just come so naturally, the analysis and the strategy following in orderly fashion. He was feeling like himself.
“Easy as breathing.”
“I know. It’s your element. It’s what you do the way I dance.”
Damiskos glanced at him and away, and he heard Varazda draw in a breath, and then felt his touch, feather-light, as Varazda slipped an arm around his waist.
“I’m sorry, that was thoughtless of me. No one has taken the dancing away from me.”
“Did you learn to dance in the king’s household at Gudul?” Damiskos asked after a moment, an easy change of subject. Varazda’s arm was still around his waist.
“No. The sword dance was my clan’s. I learned it in my father’s house before I was gelded. I didn’t use real swords then, just wooden ones. I learned other dances at Gudul, but I always practiced my family’s dance, even when no one wanted me to perform it. Of course in Boukos they love it, and I dance it all the time now.”
“I’m glad,” said Damiskos. “That you got to keep something of your own.”
Damiskos had been right in thinking that Nione’s slaves would make short work of trenching and fortifying the small area around the beach huts. The women from the vineyards took care of the digging while the rest went into the brush, with a couple of small hatchets from the factory, to cut branches to Damiskos’s specifications, which they brought back to the beach and began planting in the top of the rampart as soon as a section was finished. Some of the older children helped and were quite adept at weaving the branches together to create a denser barrier. The thing began to take shape and look businesslike very quickly. Varazda worked with the diggers, stripped to the waist, with his hair in a single braid, teasing and trading banter with them in the easy way that Damiskos had already seen him do.
Once work was well underway and Damiskos was no longer needed to give orders, he and Aradne went back to the factory site, where they found a handcart and began loading it up with supplies to ferry back to their camp.
“Remind me why we’re not making our base here,” said Aradne, as she hefted a jar of olives into the cart. “Where the food is, and where there’s walls that aren’t half fallen down.”
“Fresh water at the other location, direct access to the sea here could be a liability, we’re less visible from the villa there, and, frankly, the other location’s more comfortable. This place stinks.”
“Hah. Yes, good points.”
Their cart loaded, they did a thorough search of the three buildings, looking for anything that could be used as a tool or a weapon.
“I remember you,” Aradne remarked as they exited the factory. “At first I didn’t, I thought you were another one of these men come to badger the mistress about marrying. But you were her friend from back in the Maidens’ House.”
“That’s right. I remember you too. Was it your idea or Nione’s to have so many women in the household?” He thought he could ask that now; he also thought he knew the answer.
“Bit of both, I suppose,” said Aradne after a moment. “I never really gave it any thought.”
He’d been right. “You were used to it, I guess.”
“I guess. Though now you mention it, I think some of the men feel … odd about it. Being so outnumbered. As if we’re trying to make some kind of empire of women here, and they don’t belong. Wouldn’t be surprised if a few of them have made common cause with those gods-cursed students. Well. Fuck ’em if they have.”
“Just what I was thinking.”
They collected the loaded cart, gathered up a few other items, and trudged back over the sand to the sheltered cove. The fortifications were more than half finished, the ditch fully dug, some of the diggers resting in the sand near the waterline, while the children played in the shallows.
“They’ve made even better progress than I expected,” said Damiskos approvingly. “They’re hard workers.”
“They are,” said Aradne. “And they like the mistress. They have good lives—for slaves. But they’re still slaves.”
“You think she should free them.” It was a radical idea, but there were people doing it, philosophers in the city arguing that everyone should do it.
Aradne gave him a sharp look. “I didn’t say that. Never mind what I think.”
Varazda came strolling out to meet them, his shirt on again but unbuttoned, a little boy in a dirt-smeared tunic following him, chatting cheerfully.
“We’ve finished digging,” Varazda reported.
“So I see,” said Damiskos.
“He was impressed,” Aradne added. “Thinks you’d all make good soldiers.”
Varazda laughed. “What do you think, Chari?” He looked down at the boy, who had wrapped one arm around his leg.
“I don’t think we can be soldiers,” said Chari, wide-eyed and serious. “I’m little, and everybody else is girls.”
Varazda ruffled the boy’s hair. “It doesn’t necessarily signify, Chari. Remember that.”
“So what do we do now?” Aradne asked. “Do we have a plan?”
“I do, actually,” said Varazda. “At least, I have the rudimentary beginning of a plan.”
“The postal ship comes on Moon’s Day morning?” Damiskos clarified, as they sat in the sand discussing the plan. Around them, the fortifications were finished, and the women and children were making a meal of food they had brought over from the warehouse. “And it’s Seventh Day today. So we should set the signal tomorrow night.”
“Unless the postal ship is early,” said Aradne.
“Is that likely?”
She shrugged. “It was early last week. It arrived on the morning of Hesperion’s.”
“That was because Aristokles and I were travelling on it,” Varazda said, “and we wanted to get here as quickly as possible.”
Damiskos nodded. “Right. So we wait until tomorrow night. If you agree.” He looked to Nione.
She looked startled for a moment, forgetting again that she was in charge. Then she nodded. “Yes. It’s a good plan.”
They had finished their meal by the time the emissary from the villa showed up. It was Gelon. He came swaggering down the beach, knife prominently displayed in his belt, and tried unsuccessfully to look nonchalant as he approached the women’s ditch-and-rampart defence system. They saw him coming from a long way off, and all the children and the household girls were inside the barrier by the time he arrived, leaving a small group outside to meet him.
He stopped a judicious distance away and jerked his chin at the fortifications.
“What’s that supposed to be?”
No one answered him. After a moment, Nione took a step forward and said, “Have you something to say to us, Gelon?”
“Yes, ma’am. Helenos says you should come back to the house.”
“Tell Helenos I will do that when he and his fellow students leave. They are no longer welcome in my home.”
“How’s that?” Gelon feigned exaggerated shock. “You wouldn’t offend against the laws of hospitality, would you?”
Nione narrowed her eyes at him. “You laid violent hands on my servants and my guests. Tionikos and Demos are dead. So is Aristokles Phoskos. You have no claim on anyone’s hospitality.” Her voice rang with a priestly note in the last words, as if she pronounced a solemn malediction.
Gelon looked at her for a moment with a sour expression. “Fine. If that’s how you want it to be. We’ve got things that we want. We’ve got the upper hand now, and this is going to go the way Helenos says it’s going to go.”
“We will see about that,” said Nione.
“We want the use of your villa for our headquarters. We’ll let you live in it so long as you don’t interfere with our work. Or you can give the villa to Eurydemos and go back to Pheme. We’ll let Damiskos from the Quartermaster’s Office escort you back. Out of harm’s way.” He looked at Damiskos. “Sorry about the fire and everything. Not our idea. Some of the idiot fishermen took matters into their own hands.”
Damiskos frowned at him.
“And my women?” said Nione. “What about them?”
“Take them with you.” He waved a hand contemptuously. “We don’t want them. They’re mostly foreign-born and wouldn’t make good wives for free Phemians. We do want the Sasian eunuch, though.”
“I’m not sure he would make a good wife for a free Phemian either,” said Damiskos, deadpan.
Gelon huffed an angry breath through his nose. “That’s not why we want him.”
“You don’t get him.” Aradne spoke up. “You don’t get any of this. We’re taking our house back.”
“I’m not here to negotiate with you, you—”
Nione cut him off. “You spoke of using my house for your work. What is the ‘work’ that you imagine you are going to do here? It isn’t just discussing philosophy, I realize that.”
“It’s the work of restoring Phemian purity,” Gelon replied, predictably. “Helenos has a vision. And this is a strategic location.”
“Outside of the city and beyond the reach of its laws,” Damiskos supplied. “Or so you can tell yourselves. But within easy reach of both Pheme and Boukos by sea. You can play at being a little republic of your own, distributing state secrets and stirring up wars in the name of Phemian greatness.”
Gelon gave him a prim look. “When we restore Pheme to its former glory, you’ll wish you had been on our side from the beginning.”
“I doubt it.”
“So … ” Gelon looked around, stumped for a moment. “What is it to be?”
“I believe they’ve already told you,” said Varazda. “Nione Kukara is not going to give you her villa, I’m not going to marry you, and First Spear Damiskos is not going to run errands to Pheme for you. Perhaps you had better go in and tell Helenos.”
“I am not here to negotiate with you,” Gelon repeated peevishly. “Look, Damiskos from the Quartermaster’s Office, we’re willing to let you go if you’ll take Nione back to Pheme with you now. Just come up to the house, get your horse and so on … ”
It was not an unreasonable gambit. If they let Damiskos go now, they had no reason to think he would come back, and at least they’d be rid of him. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine that he’d be eager to escort Nione to safety.
Or they might have a trap prepared for him up at the house. That seemed equally likely.
“Not interested,” Damiskos said shortly.
“Look, there’s no trick. You just … go back to Pheme—get your things and go back to Pheme, take her with you, she’s safe, you’re fine—right?”
“Yes, I understand what you want. The answer is no. I’m staying here.”
Gelon glowered at him. “You’re making a stupid mistake.”
“Nevertheless.”
A bit more glowering, then Gelon sneered openly. “I’ve heard the Quartermaster’s Office is a dumping-ground for officers who have been reduced in rank but not turned off. Everyone knows it.”
Damiskos said nothing.
Gelon was getting red in the face now. “What did you do to get sent there, First Spear of the First Koryphos?”
“Second Koryphos. There’s no First Koryphos. Schoolchildren know that.”
“What was it, then?” Gelon all but snarled. “Rape too many women in Sasia? Or boys—I bet it was boys, the Sasians hate that kind of thing. Or you like to pretend to, don’t you?” he spat at Varazda. “Really you like it, you degenerate sons of—”
“You shut up,” Aradne burst out in a voice like melodious thunder. “You shut your filthy, gods-cursed mouth, go back to whoever the godsdamn fuck you answer to, and tell him we’re staying where we are until you all clear out of our house. You heard us. Nobody’s leaving at your say-so. Now fuck off.”
Gelon raked his eye over the four of them, standing abreast, then turned abruptly, hitched up his trailing mantle, and scurried back across the beach.
“Sorry for the language, ma’am,” said Aradne gruffly.
“Oh, not at all, dear.”
Aradne turned to Damiskos. “It was some political bullshit, wasn’t it? The reason you were reduced in rank.”
He looked at her for a moment. It was a rather nice compliment, in a way. “I wasn’t reduced in rank. I was honourably discharged on account of injury—I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m lame.”
She looked embarrassed. “Right. I apologize.”
“Not at all.” He went on, to smooth over the awkwardness. “I, er, I went back to work for the Quartermaster’s Office instead of drawing a pension because I wanted to be useful. It is a dumping-ground for disgraced officers, and someone told me they were in need of good men. And the pay is slightly better—the Second Koryphos may be a famous legion, but the pay is terrible and the pensions are worse. The joke is that you’re not meant to retire—you’re meant to die in battle or be promoted on to commander.”