HYACINTHUS

Chapter Sixteen

THE FOLLOWING DAYS, I was so happy I felt like I was floating. Nothing could bring me down. For the first time of my life, I felt appreciated, I felt secure.

Zephyros often laughed at how much more energetic I had become.

"If I had known, I would have just kissed you the first day", he said.

And then I would make a show out of pucking my lips, and he would kiss me again.

We walked through the forest and left it, now taking a road that passed next to villages. Sometimes, we would meet peasants too, and if they were kind, they would offer us a place to sleep.

I never revealed my identity to them. I said my father was a merchant and that he sold soap. Olive soap.

Whenever I told that lie, Zephyros would glance at me silently, and I would see him pressing his lips together, trying to hold back a laugh.

To him, it was the funniest thing in the world, that blatant lie about my heritage.

I was surprised by the hospitality of the village people. Despite us being strangers, they treated us well.

Although, I didn't approve of all their actions; they treated us better because we were men, and even us were more respected then their own wives and mothers who lived there their whole lives, who had to hide in the kitchens and rooms while we feasted.

I had missed bread, and fruit, and pies. At the first taste of goat cheese after a few months of not eating it, I thought I was going to cry. I didn't miss the palace, but I had to admit that the food there was divine.

At the next village we stopped at, there was a fair, and a rich inn-keeper took us in for free. He claimed that two such good-looking men could bring attention.

And he was right. The people there, not quite sightly, with small features on wide faces, came in flocks to look at us, to a point where it became quite uncomfortable. But at least, we were allowed access to the bath, and I finally could clean myself thoroughly, removing all the grime the wilderness had enforced upon me.

At our departing, the inn-keeper gave us lots of bread, barley biscuits, dried figs and raisins. He also offered to gift us mead and beer, but we declined, because it would have been troublesome to carry.

The only downside was that I had noticed I had gained a bit of fat, mostly on my calves and upper arms. I pinched at them, yet it didn't want to go away.

Zephyros had remained as lean and glorious as ever, and here I was, stuck with the remains of too much teganitai.

When I complained about it to him, he only laughed.

"I didn't even notice", he said. "And I look at you all the time."

It didn't make me feel better. The following day, at dinner table in a remote village in the mountains, I declined sweet cakes and nibbled on cabbage instead, like a bunny.

We were nearing the northern end of the Peloponnese. I felt a bit comforted by the fact that it was incredibly improbable my father could reach me here, in the distant lands of Achaea.

I wondered how he had reacted. A few months had certainly passed, and the leaves of trees were already yellowing. Soon, they would start to fall.

Zephyros was beginning to change, too. He was caring as always, but everytime he would reach out to hold me, he would tremble a bit, like a leaf on the wind. I couldn't bring myself to ask what was happening.

He was more ardent these last days; more passionate, as if he was afraid I would dissappear at any moment. When we kissed, I could sometimes feel a tear fall from his eye onto my cheek.