One night in boukos, p.1
One Night in Boukos, page 1
One Night in Boukos
A.J. Demas
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© 2018 by A.J. Demas
Published June 2018 by Sexton’s Cottage Books.
All rights reserved.
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Cover Design: Alice Degan
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
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About the Author
Chapter 1
It was a spring evening in the city of Boukos. The air in the courtyard had a wet tang, like a suggestion of rain, nothing as definite as a promise. Above the brick wall, against the dark blue sky, the pale blossoms of fruit trees showed like tiny clouds. The trees themselves were planted in a row of pots along one side of the courtyard. Along the opposite wall, echoing the trees, stood a row of painted statues. A pale-haired goddess with bare breasts and a mantle draped in chiselled folds over one arm held out a golden apple. A young soldier, naked but for a pair of tooled greaves, leaned in a muscular pose on his tall spear. A man with horns and a tail propped himself against a tree stump and raised a cup to his lips. A princely figure in a short, belted tunic and sandals held the hand of a naked child with wings. They were eerily lifelike in the fading light, and Marzana could easily imagine that one of them might move at any moment.
Perhaps, Marzana thought, to an inattentive observer, he would look like another statue himself, standing still in the torchlit colonnade of the house, feet firmly planted, hands clasped behind his back. A statue very different from the row along the wall: a tall, dark-eyed man with an aquiline profile never seen in Pseuchaian art. Against the chill of the evening he wore a long coat, with woven bands of leaves and birds decorating the wide sleeves and the hem. Beneath it, his linen shirt and loose blue trousers also bore subtle coloured patterns. A red sword-belt lay across his chest, and a curved blade hung sheathed at his side. His pointed beard was lightly hennaed; beneath his tall felt hat, his dark hair fell to his shoulders, and small gold rings winked in his ears.
He destroyed his resemblance to a statue by unclasping his hands and looking guiltily down at the string of prayer beads he held. He moved his thumb slowly over the polished surface of the one where he had left off, and looked back out at the statues that had distracted him. He found them, like all Pseuchaian art, both admirable and unnerving in their striking approximation of life. Zashian artists, he supposed, being of course second to none, could have created sculptures of equal naturalism if they had wanted to. It was simply not the way things were done in Zash. He was very far from home, and there was no forgetting it.
He thumbed the remaining beads in the string with a renewed, though still half-hearted attention, silently finishing his evening devotion. He was on the point of turning back into the house when the gate at the far end of the courtyard opened. He saw the sentry, silhouetted in the light of his lantern, nodding curtly to someone, but not bowing. Not His Excellency returning home, then. Marzana stayed to see who it was. A familiar figure in a red coat came sauntering down between the statues and the fruit trees.
“Bedar?”
The owner of the red coat extracted a hand that had been tucked into his sash and waved in greeting. He arrived in the torchlight spilling out from the colonnade, and he yawned elegantly.
“Hello, Marzana. You are not waiting up for His Excellency, I hope.”
The red coat was expensively embroidered with winged lions in gold thread. Its owner was younger than Marzana—how much younger Marzana had never been able to discover—and smaller, his figure soft with feminine curves under his expensive clothes. He had a child’s clear olive complexion, delicate hands like a woman, and the shrewd, hard, calculating eyes of a bandit king.
“Not waiting up, no,” said Marzana. “I was not expecting him so soon. Is he on his way?”
Bedar shook his head, the gold pendants of his earrings swinging against the backdrop of his long, silkily black hair. “The party continues unabated. His Excellency remains.” He leaned against a column, arranging himself decoratively. The shrewd eyes were beautifully almandine and finely outlined in kohl, his sleekly folded eyelids just touched with aquamarine. “Much good may it do him.”
Marzana frowned. “He sent you home?”
“No, I left. When he inquires about it tomorrow, I will have been taken ill—I very probably would have been taken ill, should I have remained much longer. You laugh.”
“I do.”
Bedar produced his own string of prayer beads from his sash and flipped them irreverently around two fingers. “This is why I like you, Marzana. You laugh at me.”
Marzana hadn’t been sure that Bedar did like him, and found he was pleased by the revelation, flippant as it might have been.
“You astonish me! You simply left? Are you not the perfect servant that you are rumoured? Do you do this sort of thing often?”
“Of course not. I should never have got where I am if I did.” He poured the string of beads from one hand to the other. They flashed red and gold in the torchlight, inappropriately well-matched to the colours of his coat. Prayer beads were not supposed to be items of jewellery; the thrice-holy Vaksha had made this very clear. “His Excellency was enjoying himself, as far as I could tell, and scarcely noticed either my presence, when I was there, or, I daresay, my departure, when I ceased to be. Certainly I was not greatly needed.”
“No doubt. But you were the only one he took with him—now he is there without any attendance.”
“The Pseuchaians will think nothing of that—it’s quite usual for them, and they don’t have a proper sense of His Excellency’s rank. He won’t mind, either. Believe me. He will do very well on his own. The Boukossian ministers are fawning over him, even as we speak. This is the faction that is very eager for the alliance—they wish to make up for that unpleasantness in the Basileon two days ago.” Bedar balled the prayer beads up and tucked them back into his sash without attempting to tell them properly. “You are still vexed, I take it, that he refused an escort from your men?”
“Vexed? No. Soldiers are not vexed—that’s a word from the women’s quarters.”
“Oh, well—pardon me. Darkly brooding? Bitterly vengeful?” He put a little growl into the words that was amusingly unsoldierly.
Marzana laughed. “Let me put it this way. Had he hired me himself to oversee his guard, and then refused like this to let me do my job, I should resign the commission. But my orders come from my commanding officer—and beyond him, from my king. I know where my duty lies, and I shall go on trying to do it, whether His Excellency likes it or not.” He shrugged irritably. “He should have taken an escort—it was pure folly not to. But I wash my hands of it. If he will not listen to me, then I have tried to do my duty, and no better may be. Why did you leave the party? What was it like?”
“An ordeal, in a close little dining room with hard couches and a roaring fire—the Boukossians were all half-naked, of course, so they weren’t bothered by the heat.” Bedar affected a careless tone, but Marzana was not convinced.
“Were they offensive?” he asked.
“Oh, well—” Bedar studied the meticulously filed nails of one hand for a moment. They were stained slightly around the edges with ink—the only thing about his appearance that gave any hint that he did something to earn his keep besides being decorative. “Offence is in how one takes it, I suppose. I was the subject of much speculation. I was twice taken for His Excellency’s wife—once for his son, and His Excellency nearly choked on his wine at that point. Those who did not ask stupid questions contented themselves with staring. They drink from cups the size of washtubs, you know, and there is all manner of merriment if you suggest watering their ghastly strong wine like a civilized person. There was some threat of dancing—that was when I made up my mind to leave.”
Marzana winced. “That was probably wise. I am half inclined to send a couple of my men to the minister’s house to wait for His Excellency. But I think I will not.”
“They would only have to stand around in the cold—possibly in the rain, if this silly foreign weather ever makes up its mind—to be snapped at when His Excellency decides to come home.”
“Precisely. No one would get any thanks for it. Tomorrow is this festival of the Boukossians’, is it?”
Bedar nodded. “They have already begun preparing—I saw them in the streets, on my way back here. I anticipate horrors.”
“I daresay. But look here—will you tell Smar and the others that they need not be afraid to go out in the streets, that there are no crowds of jeering youths with cudgels? I have tried to tell them that this place is not like that—but they won’t take my word for it.”
“I shall tell them,” said Bedar with a smile. “I shall tell them that I walked all the way home from Sosikles’s house tonight by myself, though I did see some hard-looking men in the street—they will think me a very reckless fellow, I am sure.”
“I don’t need them to be reckless—to tell the truth, I’m not sure what I think about you walking arou
“My dear Marzana, I shall tell them. Don’t worry.”
“Thank you.” He half-stifled a yawn. “I must go check on the sentries before I fall asleep on my feet. I beg your pardon.”
“Of course. God guard your sleeping and your waking.” He gave a beautiful, unstudied version of the pious gesture that went with the words.
“And yours.”
As he crossed to the door of the house, Marzana felt a sharp twinge in his bad hip, which had been aching on and off all evening. It would certainly rain tonight, he thought, or tomorrow. If tomorrow, that would be a pity for the Boukossians and their festival. As for him, he had no plans to go anywhere.
He was right about the rain. The sky was pale and clear when he rose the following morning, but there were puddles on the windowsill. It had grown colder, too, and he buttoned his coat as he went on his rounds to inspect the sentries. He arrived in the queer little Pseuchaian kitchen at the back of the house in time to be of assistance in interpreting between the Zashian cook and a shop-boy who had come to deliver some peculiar local produce. A Pseuchaian cook had been provided with the house when the ambassador’s party was installed a week ago, but he had been hastily dismissed. Apparently the Boukossians had not imagined that the ambassador would have brought his own cook with him. Indeed, they had seemed astonished by the sheer size of His Excellency’s entourage; the house they had provided, which they had probably thought flatteringly grand, was actually barely large enough to accommodate everyone.
The cook gave Marzana an almond pastry, apologizing for the quality of the local ingredients that he had been obliged to use in its creation.
“Is there any cheese?” Marzana asked wistfully. He had been craving some good cheese almost ever since they left Suna a month before.
“Not in my kitchen,” said the cook primly. “Haven’t you heard? The only milk you can get in this country comes from the Horned Beast.”
“Really?” said Marzana, trying uneasily to remember whether he had drunk milk or eaten yogurt during the last week. Surely, he thought, if one ingested something from an unclean animal, one would in some way be aware of it? He considered that for a moment and concluded that it might only apply in the case of the extremely pious. He doubted that he would qualify.
He walked back through the colonnade of the house’s inner courtyard, thinking to sit on one of the benches by the door and finish his breakfast. His right hip was aching again, and he looked at the sky, wondering whether there would be more rain. There were a few dark streaks of cloud. From inside the open door he heard voices: Bedar’s, calm as usual, and Smar’s, clearly agitated. Marzana stepped through the door to see if there were anything he could do.
Smar stood in the middle of the atrium, in coat and hat and boots, as if he had just come in from the street. Bedar, listening to him with arms folded and a look of rather elaborate sympathy in his long, dark eyes, was still in his dressing gown. He could, as Marzana had observed, be up and busy before dawn, if the service of his master required it; when it did not, he apparently liked to sleep late.
“I don’t blame you, Bedar,” Smar was saying, with pompous insincerity. “I’m sure you weren’t to know—but I tell you about it for your own good, because you were quite wrong, it is not safe to go out there. People who carry on in that way might be capable of anything. Anything!”
“God guard your going and coming, Smar,” said Marzana. “Is something the matter?”
Smar turned on him with pursed lips. He was rather white in the face, Marzana observed; something had obviously given him a scare. But whatever it was, he seemed to think it was none of the captain of the guard’s business.
“No, indeed,” he said thinly. “We are surrounded by ghastly barbarians—nothing whatever is the matter.” Turning back to Bedar, he added, “Not that I blame you, I’m sure—you weren’t to know, were you?”
He turned on his heel and stalked away into the house, leaving Marzana to look questioningly at Bedar.
“What doesn’t he blame you for, exactly?”
“Oh—he ran into a procession outside. Something to do with the festival—apparently it got started at dawn. They were carrying … well, I don’t know what they were carrying, really, but he seems to think they were puppets, with gigantic … ” Bedar made a fastidious gesture, and finished the sentence apologetically: “gigantic … parts. He is convinced that they were worshipping them.”
Marzana pressed his knuckles to his lips. “I’m sorry,” he said, when he had regained control of himself. “This after I told you to assure him that it was safe to go out of doors.”
Bedar smiled slightly. “He says they tried to make him join in some sort of dance.”
“How distressing for him. Is there something else amiss? You look … worried.” It was not precisely true, but he looked as close to worried as Marzana had yet seen him.
Bedar looked up, now visibly startled. “Worried? Oh.” He brushed back his hair with one hand, tucking it behind his ear. “It is early—I suppose I am not dissembling up to my usual standard yet.”
“So you are worried.”
“I don’t think His Excellency came home last night.” He spoke quietly.
Marzana was a moment taking this in. “He is not in his suite?”
Bedar shook his head. “I woke up feeling guilty about having left the party—you were right, it is not the sort of thing that I do, as a rule, and His Excellency is by no means the worst master I have served. I got up, thinking that I would go and make my apologies, and I met one of the boys in the hall, coming with His Excellency’s breakfast tray, so I took it from him and went in myself. His bed has not been slept in. I don’t know who else knows—your sentries may not have noticed, since they have their separate watches, and no one knew when to expect him. Some of the slaves must have been up, waiting to put him to bed—but I don’t think anyone has told Smar yet. He didn’t say anything about it. He was on his way to the market, he told me, when he ran into the procession.”
“The Boukossians must have invited His Excellency to stay the night. It is probably their custom when they have been drinking hard—as you told me they were.”
“Yes—doubtless you are right. Still, I feel horribly at fault. I ought to have remained—his Pseuchaian is not so good as mine, and had he needed anything, and not been able to tell them—had he been taken ill, perhaps … I am greatly to blame for not having been there. I must make what amends I can. I intend to go to Sosikles’s house directly—I was on my way back to my room to dress when Smar came in.”
“You should have an escort. I will have one of my men accompany you.”
Bedar smiled. “I am not afraid of Pseuchaians inviting me to dance, if that is what you mean. But if you think I should have an escort, by all means, I shall take one.”
“Thank you. I wish your master would be so reasonable. I will send Aza with you—he is a trustworthy fellow.”
“Thank you. And, Marzana—should anyone begin to worry that His Excellency is not at home … ”
“I will tell them that he spent the night at his host’s house, which is a Boukossian custom, and that you have gone to fetch him—as arranged beforehand. Will that do?”
“You are a mighty cedar tree of compassion, and I kiss the hem of your coat.”
Marzana laughed.
Bedar retired to his room to dress, and Marzana finished his breakfast and went to find Aza. He sent him to wait in the courtyard, then returned to the atrium. Bedar emerged from his room, putting in his earrings, but otherwise looking like he had been dressed for hours: immaculate in white trousers and a black, embroidered shirt, his eyes discreetly painted, his hair smelling of lilies.
