Strumosus, entirely relaxed now, sitting at the head of the table pouring wine for his three guests, had benignly tilted his head sideways. He said: ‘Young Kyros over there attended to it. He has the makings of a cook.’
Two sentences. Simple words. Kyros feared he might weep for joy and pride. He did not, of course. He wasn’t a child, after all. He did blush, unfortunately, and lower his head before all the approving smiles. And then he began waiting ardently for the moment, released to the privacy of his cot in the apprentices’ room, when he could reclaim—over and again—that miraculous sequence of words and the expressions that had followed. Scortius had said. Then the Rhodian had added. Then Strumosus had said . . .
Kyros and Rasic were given the next day to themselves: an unexpected holiday, a reward for working all night. Rasic went whistling off to the harbour to buy a woman in a caupona. Kyros used the free time to go to his parents’ apartment down in the overcrowded, pungent warrens of the Hippodrome where he’d grown up. He told them, shyly, about what had been said the night before. His father, a man of few words, had touched his son’s shoulder with a scarred, bitten hand before going off to feed his beasts. His mother, rather less reserved, had screamed.
Then she had bustled out of their tiny apartment to tell all her friends, before buying and lighting an entire row of thanksgiving candles in the Hippodrome’s own chapel. For once, Kyros didn’t think she was being excessive.
The makings of a cook.
Strumosus had said that!
They didn’t end up going to bed that night. There was food fit for the god’s palaces behind the sun and wine to equal it in the blessedly warm, firelit kitchen. They finished with an herbal tea, just before sunrise, that reminded Crispin of the one Zoticus had served him before his journey had begun—which reminded him of Linon, and then home, which made him think, again, of how far away he was. Among strangers, but less so after tonight, it felt. He sipped the hot tea and allowed the faint dizziness of extreme fatigue to wash over him, a sense of distance, of words and movements drifting towards his awareness from far away.
Scortius had gone out to the stables to check on his best horse. Now he came back, rubbing his hands together after the pre-dawn chill of the air, and took the bench next to Crispin again. A calm man, alert and unassuming, for all his wealth and renown. A generous spirit. He’d run madly in the darkness to warn them of danger. That said something.
Crispin looked at Carullus across the stone table. Not a truth to call this man a stranger now, really. Among other things, he knew the big soldier well enough to realize he was hiding discomfort. The wounds weren’t dangerous, they’d been assured by the surgeon, but they had to be hurting now, and Carullus would carry new scars from both of them. He had also lost men he’d known a long time tonight. Might even be blaming himself for that; Crispin wasn’t sure.
They had no idea who’d paid for the assault. Soldiers on leave were not particularly expensive to hire in the City, it seemed. It required only some determination to arrange an abduction or even a killing. A runner had been sent with a message from Carullus to his surviving men—the ones who had taken the architect home would be expecting them at the inn. It would be a hard message for them to hear, Crispin thought. Carullus, a commander, had lost two men in his charge, but the soldiers would have lost companions. There was a difference.
The Urban Prefect’s officer had been polite and formal with Crispin when he’d arrived with the factionarius. They’d spoken privately in the large room where the banquet had taken place. The man had not probed deeply, and Crispin had realized that the officer wasn’t certain he wanted to know too much about this murder attempt. Intuitively, Crispin had said nothing about the mosaicist dismissed by the Emperor or the aristocratic lady who might have felt herself diminished by this—or embarrassed by a reference to a necklace she wore. Both things had happened in public: the man would learn of them if he wanted to.
Would someone kill for such things?
The Emperor had refused to let his wife put on the necklace when it came.
There were threads to be untangled and examined here, but they were not about to reveal themselves when his brain was weary and vague with wine and an overwhelming night.
When the grey rumour of dawn showed in the east, they left the kitchen and went across the courtyard to join the administration and employees of the Blues in chapel for the faction’s early-morning invocation. Crispin discovered a genuine gratitude, almost a feeling of piety within himself as he chanted the antiphonal responses: for his life preserved, again; for the dome given to him tonight; for the friend Carullus was, and the friend the charioteer might become; for having survived an entry into court, questions in an Empress’s rooms, and swords in the night.
And finally—because the small graces of life really did matter to him—for the taste of a shrimp-stuffed whitefish in a sauce like a waking dream.
Scortius didn’t bother going home. He bade them good day outside the chapel and then went off to sleep in a room they reserved for him in the compound. The sun was just coming up. A small party of Blues escorted Crispin and Carullus to their inn as the bells summoning Sarantines to later morning prayers in other chapels began all around them.
The clouds were gone, swept away south; the day promised to be cold and bright. The City was stirring as they walked, rousing itself to the resumption of the mundane at the end of a festival. There was debris in the streets but less than he’d expected: workers had been busy in the night. Crispin saw men and women walking to chapels, apprentices running errands, a food market noisily opening up, shops and stalls displaying their wares under colonnades. Slaves and children hurried past carrying water and loaves of bread. There were lines of people already outside food stands, snatching the first meal of the day. A grey-bearded Holy Fool in a tattered and stained yellow robe was shuffling barefoot towards what was probably his usual station to harangue those who were not at prayer.
They reached the inn. Their escorts doubled back to the compound. Crispin and Carullus walked in. The common room was open, a fire going, a handful of people eating inside. The two men passed by that doorway and went up the stairs, moving slowly now.
‘Speak later?’ Carullus mumbled.
‘Of course. You’re all right?’ Crispin asked.
The soldier grunted wearily and unlocked the door to his room.
Crispin nodded his head, though the other man had already closed the door. He took out his key and headed for his own room farther down the hall. It seemed to take an oddly long time to get there. Noises from the street drifted up. Bells still ringing. It was morning, after all. He tried to remember the last time he’d stayed awake an entire night. He fumbled at the lock. It took some concentration but he managed to open the door. The shutters were blessedly closed against the morning, though bands of sunlight penetrated through the slats, stippling the darkness.
He dropped the key on the small table by the door and stumbled towards his bed, half asleep already. Then he realized—too late to check his motion—that there was someone in the room, on the bed, watching him. And then, in the bands of muted light, he saw the naked blade come up.
Some time earlier, still in the beclouded dark of night, a waiting soldier has handed the Emperor of Sarantium a fur-lined cloak as he emerges into the windy cold from the small chapel and the stone tunnel that leads through the Imperial Precinct walls.
The Emperor, who can remember—though only with an effort now—walking in only a short tunic and torn, sodden boots through a winter the first time he came south from Trakesia, at his uncle’s behest, is grateful for the warmth. It is a short enough walk back to the Traversite Palace, but his personal immunity is to fatigue, not cold.
I am growing old, he thinks, not for the first time. He has no heir. Not for want of effort, or medical advice, or invocations of aid from the god and the half-world, both. It would be good to have a son, he thinks, but has been reconciled for some time now to not having one. H
is uncle passed the throne to him: there is some precedent in the family, at any rate. Unfortunately, his sisters’ sons are feckless nonentities and all four of them remain in Trakesia, at his very firm instruction.
Not that they would stir any sort of insurrection. To do such a thing requires courage and initiative and none of them has either. They might serve as figureheads, though, for someone else’s ambition—and the god knows there is enough hunger for power in Sarantium. He could have them killed, but he has judged that unnecessary.
The Emperor shivers, crossing the gardens in the night wind. It is only the chill and damp. He is not fearful, at all. He has only been afraid once in his adult life that he can remember: during the rioting two years ago, in the moment he learned that the Blues and Greens had joined together, side by side in the Hippodrome and in the burning streets. That had been too unexpected a development, too far outside the predictable, the rational. He was—and is—a man who relies on orderly conduct to ground his existence and his thinking. Something so unlikely as the factions joining with each other had rendered him vulnerable, unmoored, like a ship with an anchor ripped free in a storm.
He had been prepared to follow the advice of his most senior counsellors that day. To take a small craft from the little cove below the Precinct and flee the sack of his city. The foolish, illogical rioting over a small increase in taxes and some depravities alleged on the part of the Quaestor of Imperial Revenue had been on the very cusp of bringing down a lifetime’s worth of planning and achievement. He had been frightened and enraged. This memory is much more vivid than the one from long ago, the winter trek down to the City.
He reaches the smaller of the two main palaces, ascends the wide steps. Doors are opened for him by the soldiers on duty there. He pauses on the threshold, looking up at the grey-black clouds west over the sea, then he walks into the palace to see if the woman whose words saved them all that day two years ago is still awake, or has—as threatened—gone to sleep.
Gisel—Hildric’s daughter, queen of the Antae—is said to be young and even beautiful, though that last hardly matters in the scheme of things. It is distinctly probable she could offer him an heir, though less likely that she would really afford an alternative to the invasion of Batiara. Were she to come east to wed the Emperor of Sarantium it would be seen as an act of treachery by the Antae. A successor would be named, or emerge.
Successors among the Antae tend to follow each other rapidly in any case, he thinks, as swords and poison do their winnowing. It is true that Gisel would serve as excuse for Sarantine intervention, lending validity to his armies. Not a trivial thing. The endorsement of the High Patriarch might reasonably be expected in the name of the queen, and that would carry weight among the Rhodians—and many of the Antae—which could turn the balance in a war. The young queen, in other words, is not really wrong in her reading of what she might represent for him. No man who prided himself on his command of logic and capacity to analyse and anticipate could deny that this is so.
Marrying her—if she could be winkled out of Varena alive—would represent a truly dazzling opening up of avenues. And she is indeed young enough to bear, many times. Nor is he so old himself, though he might feel it at times.
The Emperor of Sarantium comes to his wife’s chambers by way of the inner corridor he always uses. He sheds the cloak there. A soldier takes it from him. He knocks, himself. He is genuinely uncertain if Aliana will be awake. She values her sleep more than he does—most people do. He hopes she has waited. Tonight has been interesting in unexpected ways, and he is far from tired, keen to talk.
Crysomallo opens the door, admitting him to the innermost of the Empress’s rooms. There are four doors here. The architects have made of this wing a maze of women’s chambers. He himself doesn’t even know where all the corridors lead and branch. The door closes on the soldiers. There are candles burning here, a clue. He turns to her longtime lady-in-waiting, eyebrows lifted in inquiry, but before Crysomallo can speak, the door to the bedchamber itself opens, and Aliana, the Empress Alixana, his life, appears.
He says, ‘You are awake. I am pleased.’
She murmurs, mildly, ‘You look chilled. Go nearer the fire. I have been considering which items of my clothing to pack for the exile to which you are sending me.’
Crysomallo smiles, lowering her head quickly in a vain attempt to hide it. She turns, without instruction, and withdraws to another part of the web of rooms. The Emperor waits for the door to close.
‘And why,’ he says, austere and composed, to the woman who remains with him, ‘do you assume you’ll be allowed any of them when you go?’
‘Ah,’ she says, simulating relief, a hand fluttering to her bosom. ‘That means you don’t intend to kill me.’
He shakes his head. ‘Hardly necessary. I can let Styliane do it once you are discarded and powerless.’
Her face sinks as she considers this new possibility. ‘Another necklace?’
‘Or chains,’ he says agreeably. ‘Poisoned manacles for your cell in exile.’
‘At least the indignity would be shortened.’ She sighs. ‘A cold night?’
‘Very cold,’ he agrees. ‘Windy for an old man’s bones. The clouds will break by morning, though. We’ll see the sun.’
‘Trakesians always know the weather. They just don’t understand women. One can’t have all gifts, I suppose. Which old man were you walking with?’ She smiles. So does he. ‘You will take a cup of wine, my lord?’
He nods. ‘I’m quite certain there’s nothing wrong with the necklace,’ he adds.
‘I know. You wanted the artisan to take a warning about her.’
He smiles at that. ‘You know me too well.’
She shakes her head, walking over with the cup. ‘No one knows you too well. I know some things you are inclined to do. He will be a prize, after tonight, and you wanted to give him some caution.’
‘He’s a cautious man, I think.’
‘This is a seductive place.’
He grins suddenly. He can still look boyish at times. ‘Very.’
She laughs, hands him his wine. ‘Did he tell us too easily?’ She walks over to take a cushioned seat. ‘About Gisel? Is he weak that way?’
The Emperor also crosses and sits easily—no sign of age in the movement—on the floor by her feet among the pillows. The fire near her low-backed chair has been attentively built up. The room is warm, the wine is very good and watered to his taste. The wind and the world are outside.
Valerius, who was Petrus when she met him and still is when they are private, shakes his head. ‘He’s an intelligent fellow. Very much so, actually. I didn’t expect that. He didn’t really tell us anything, if you recall. Kept his silence. You were too precise in what you asked and said merely to be hazarding a guess. He drew that conclusion and acted on it. I’d call him observant, not weak. Besides, he’ll be in love with you by now.’ He smiles up at her and sips his wine.
‘A well-made man,’ she murmurs. ‘Though I’d have hated to see the red beard they say he came with.’ She shudders delicately. ‘But, alas, I like my men much younger than that one.’
He laughs. ‘Why did you ask him here?’
‘I wanted dolphins. You heard.’
‘I did. You’ll get them when we’re done with the Sanctuary. What other reasons?’
The Empress lifts one shoulder, a motion of hers he has always loved. Her dark hair ripples, catching the light. ‘As you say, he was a prize after discrediting Siroes and solving the charioteer’s mystery.’
‘And the gift to Styliane. Leontes didn’t much like that.’
‘That isn’t what he didn’t like, Petrus. And she will not have liked having to match his generosity, at all.’
‘He’ll have a guard. At least for the first while. Styliane did sponsor the other artisan, after all.’
She nods. ‘I have told you, more than once, that that marriage is a mistake.’
The man frowns. Sips his wine. The woman wat
ches him closely, though her manner appears relaxed. ‘He earned it, Aliana. Against the Bassanids and in the Majriti.’
‘He earned appropriate honours, yes. Styliane Daleina was not the way to reward him, my love. The Daleinoi hate you enough, as it is.’
‘I can’t imagine why,’ he murmurs wryly, then adds, ‘Leontes was the marriage-dream of every woman in the Empire.’
‘Every woman but two,’ she says quietly. ‘The one here with you and the one forced to wed him.’
‘I can only leave it to him to change her mind, then.’
‘Or watch her change him?’
He shook his head. ‘I imagine Leontes knows how to lay a siege of this kind, as well. And he is proof against treachery. He is secure in himself and his image of Jad.’
She opens her mouth to say something more, but does not. He notices though, and smiles. ‘I know,’ he murmurs. ‘Pay the soldiers, delay the Sanctuary.’
She says, ‘Among other things. But what does a woman understand of these great affairs?’
‘Exactly,’ he says emphatically. ‘Stick to your charities and dawn prayers.’
They both laugh. The Empress is notorious for mornings abed. There is a silence. He drinks his wine, finishing it. She rises smoothly, takes the cup, fills it again and comes back, sitting as she hands it to him again. He lays a hand on her slippered foot where it rests on a pillow beside him. They watch the fire for a time.
‘Gisel of the Antae might bear you children,’ she says softly.
He continues to gaze into the flames. He nods. ‘And be much less trouble, one has to assume.’
‘Shall I resume selecting a wardrobe for exile? May I take the necklace?’
The Emperor continues to look into the tongues of fire. Heladikos’s gift, according to the schismatics he has agreed to suppress in the cause of harmony in the faith of Jad. Chieromancers claim they can read futures in flames, see shapes of destiny. They, too, are to be suppressed. All pagans are. He has even—with a reluctance few will know—closed the old pagan Schools. A thousand years of learning. Even Aliana’s dolphins are a transgression. There are those who would burn or brand the artisan for crafting them, if he ever does.