In the moment when Leontes the Golden had been speaking to Carullus, and an assembly of wedding guests had hung upon his words as upon holy text, Crispin had been unable not to look at another recent bride.
His reward, Styliane had called herself last autumn, in the half-light of Crispin’s room at an inn. Crispin, listening to Leontes now, had understood something, remembering the Strategos’s direct words and manner in the Attenine Palace the night of his own first appearance there. Leontes spoke to the court like a blunt soldier, and to soldiers and citizens with the grace of a courtier, and it worked, it worked very well.
As the unflawed mingling of charm and pious honesty captured and held this mixed gathering like some fortress under siege, Crispin had found Styliane Daleina staring back at him, as if she’d been waiting to gather in his gaze.
She had lifted her shoulders a little, gracefully, as if to say without the need for words, Do you see now? I live with this perfection, as an ornament. And Crispin had been able to hold those blue eyes for only a moment and had then turned away.
Gisel, his queen, had not lingered long enough to even notice his presence here, let alone resume the charade of intimacy between them. He had visited her twice during the winter—as bidden—at the small palace they’d given her near the walls, and each time the queen’s manner had been regally detached, matter-of-fact. No thoughts or surmises about their country and invasion had been exchanged. She had not yet seen the Emperor in private. Or the Empress. It chafed her, he could see, living here with few tidings from home and no way of doing or achieving anything.
Crispin had tried, and failed, to imagine the shape and tenor of an encounter between the Empress Alixana and the young queen who had sent him here with a secret message in autumn half a year ago.
In Shirin’s reception hall, with the world poised on the brink of springtime now, his thoughts turned back to the bride. He could remember his first sight of her in the front hallway of Morax’s inn. They are going to kill me tomorrow. Will you take me away?
He still felt a sense of responsibility for her: the burden that came with saving someone, extending and utterly changing their life. She used to look at him, in the days when she shared a city home with him and Vargos and the servants the Chancellor’s eunuchs had assigned to him, and there had been questions in her eyes that made him deeply uneasy. And then one night Carullus had found him drinking in The Spina and announced he was going to marry her.
A declaration that had brought them all here now, a gathering winding towards its twilit end and the bawdy, age-old songs that would precede the curtained wedding bed, sprinkled with saffron for desire.
He looked over towards Shirin again, by the far wall. Someone else had joined Pertennius now, he saw, grinning. Another smitten suitor, one had to assume. They were legion in the City. You could make up a regiment of those who longed for the Greens’ dancer with an aching need that led to bad verse, musicians on her porch in the middle of the night, street fights, tablets of love bought from cheiromancers and tossed over the wall into her courtyard garden. She had shown some of these to Crispin: Spirits of the newly dead, journeyers, come now to my aid! Send sleep-destroying, soul-ravaging longing into the bed of Shirin, dancer of the Greens, that all her thoughts in the dark be of yearning for me. Let her come forth from her doors in the grey hour before sunrise and make her way boldly, unashamed, with desire, to my house . . .
One could be afraid and disturbed, reading such things.
Crispin had never touched her, nor had she made overtures to him that went beyond teasing intimations. He couldn’t have said why, in fact: they were bound to no one and shared a secret of the half-world with no other people alive. But there was still something that kept him from seeing Zoticus’s daughter in a certain light.
It might have been the bird, the memory of her father, the dark complexity of what they shared. Or the thought of how weary she must be of men pursuing her: the crowds of would-be lovers in the street, those stone tablets in the garden invoking named and nameless pagan powers, merely to bed her.
Not, Crispin had to admit, that he was above being amused just now, seeing her cornered by suitors in her own house. A third man had joined the other two. He wondered if a fight would start.
‘She says she will kill you immediately after she kills these two merchants and the wretched scribe,’ said the bird. ‘She says for me to scream in your head when I say this.’
‘My dear, dear Rhodian!’ said a polished, rich voice at that same moment, approaching from the other side. ‘I understand you intervened earlier to save this visitor to our city from harm. It was very good of you.’
Crispin turned, saw the Master of the Senate with his wife, the Bassanid beside them. Plautus Bonosus was well known, both for his private weaknesses and his public dignity. The Senate was a purely symbolic body, but Bonosus was said to conduct its affairs with style and order, and he was known for a man of discretion. His handsome second wife was impeccably proper, still young, but modest and dignified before her time. It crossed Crispin’s mind briefly to wonder what—if anything—she did to salve herself while her husband was out at night with boys. He couldn’t readily imagine her yielding to passions. She smiled politely now at the two chariot-racers nearby, in the midst of their admirers. Both of them bowed to her and to the Senator. A little distracted, Scortius took a moment to resume the thread of his argument.
Crispin saw Pardos detach himself from those around the charioteers and come nearer. There had been changes here in half a year, but these he would sort through when he had time alone with his former apprentice. He did know that his feelings when he’d seen that it was Pardos on the ladder this morning had been those of unalloyed pleasure.
It was rare to find or feel anything unalloyed here amid the mazelike intricacies of Valerius’s city. A reason he still preferred to try to live on his scaffolds overhead, with gold and coloured glass and an image of the world to make. A wish, but he knew the City and himself well enough by now to realize it wouldn’t happen. Sarantium was not a place in which one found refuge, even in pursuit of a vision. The world claimed you here, caught you up in the swirling. As now.
He nodded respectfully to Bonosus and his wife and murmured, ‘I understand you might have a personal reason for wishing to make matters right with this physician. I am happy to leave the affair in your hands, if our eastern friend’—he looked politely at the doctor—‘is willing to have it so.’
The Bassanid, a prematurely greying, rather formal man, nodded his head. ‘I am content,’ he said, his Sarantine really quite good. ‘The Senator has been generous enough to offer me a residence while I conduct my researches here. I shall leave it to him and to those more versed than I in the justice of Sarantium to determine what should be done with those who killed my servant.’
Crispin kept his expression innocent as he nodded his head. The Bassanid was being bribed, of course—the house was a first instalment. The boy would be given some penance to perform by his father, the dead servant buried quickly in a grave outside the walls.
Curse-tablets would be thrown there by night. The racing season was starting soon: the cheiromancers and other self-declared traffickers in half-world power were already busy with maledictions against horses and men— and defences against the same. A charlatan could be paid to invoke a broken leg for a celebrated horse, and then be paid to provide protection for that same animal a day later. The burial place of a murdered pagan Bassanid, Crispin thought, would probably be said to contain even greater power than the usual run of graves.
‘Justice will be done,’ said Bonosus soberly.
‘I rely upon it,’ said the Bassanid. He looked to Pardos. ‘We will meet again? I am in your debt and would like to repay your courage.’ A stiff man, Crispin thought, but courteous enough, knew the things to say.
‘No need for that, but my name is Pardos,’ said the young man. ‘I’ll be easy enough to find in the Sanctuary,if Crispin doesn’t kill me for
setting tesserae at the wrong angle.’
‘Don’t set them at the wrong angle,’ Crispin said. The Senator’s mouth quirked.
‘I am Rustem of Kerakek,’ said the Bassanid, ‘here to meet my western colleagues, share what I know, and obtain what further learning I can, for the better treatment of my own patients.’ He hesitated, then allowed himself a smile, for the first time. ‘I have travelled in the east. It seemed time to journey west.’
‘He will be living in one of my houses,’ Plautus Bonosus said. ‘The one with the two round windows, in Khardelos Street. We are honoured, of course.’
Crispin felt himself go suddenly very cold. A wind seemed to pass into him: chill, damp air from the halfworld, touching the mortal heart.
‘Rustem. Khardelos Street,’ he repeated, stupidly.
‘You know it?’ the Senator smiled.
‘I . . . have heard the name.’ He swallowed.
‘Shirin, I will not say that!’ he heard inwardly, still struggling with a sudden fear. There was a silence, then Danis again: ‘You cannot possibly expect me to . . .’
‘It is a pleasant house,’ the Senator was saying. ‘A little small for a family, but near the walls, which was convenient in the days when I was travelling more.’
Crispin nodded distractedly. Then heard: ‘She says to tell you that you are to imagine her hands right now, as you stand before this jaded boychaser and his too-prim wife. Think of her fingers slipping your tunic up from behind and then sliding back down along your skin, inside your undergarments. Think of them now, lightly touching your naked flesh, arousing you. She says to say that . . . Shirin! No!’
Crispin coughed. He felt himself flushing. The Senator’s allegedly too-prim wife eyed him with a mild interest. Crispin cleared his throat.
The Senator, endlessly experienced in meaningless chat, was saying, ‘It is quite close, actually, to the Eustabius Palace—the one Saranios built by the walls. You know he loved to hunt, begrudged the long ride across the city from the Imperial Precinct on a good morning.’
‘She wants you to think of her touching you right now, just where you are standing with them, her fingers stroking your most private places, down and further down, even as the woman in front of you watches this, unable to turn away, her own lips parting, her eyes growing wide.’
‘Indeed!’ Crispin managed, in a strangled voice. ‘Loved to hunt! Yes!’ Pardos glanced at him.
‘She . . . she says that you can feel her nipples against your back now. Firm, proof of her own excitement. And that down below . . . that she is becoming . . . Shirin, I will absolutely not say that!’
‘And so Saranios would spend the night there,’ Plautus Bonosus was saying. ‘Bring favourite companions, a few girls when he was younger, and be outside the walls with bows and spears by sunrise.’
‘She says her fingers are now touching your . . . your, ah, sex from . . . beneath . . . ah, stroking you, and . . . er, sliding? She says the Senator’s young wife is staring at you, her mouth open, as your firm, hard . . . no!’
The bird’s voice became a silent shriek, then blessedly stopped. Crispin, struggling for the scattered shreds of composure, hoped desperately that no one would look down towards his groin. Shirin! Jad-cursed Shirin!
‘Are you well?’ the Bassanid asked. His manner had changed; he was all solicitous, attentive concern. A physician. He would probably look down soon, Crispin thought despairingly. The Senator’s wife was still gazing at him. Her lips, fortunately, had not parted.
‘I’m a little . . . warm, yes, er, not serious . . . am sure, greatly hope, we’ll meet again,’ Crispin said with urgency.
He bowed quickly. ‘If you’ll all excuse me now, ah, there’s a . . . wedding matter. Must . . . speak about.’
‘What matter?’ accursed Carullus said, glancing across from beside Scortius.
Crispin didn’t even bother to answer. He was already crossing the room towards where a slender woman was still standing against the far wall, almost hidden behind three men.
‘She says to say she is now forever in your debt,’ the bird said as he approached. ‘That you are a hero like those of yesteryear and that your lower tunic shows signs of disarray.’
This time he heard amusement even in the tone of Danis: in the singular voice Zoticus the alchemist had given to all his captured souls, including this shy young girl killed—as they all had been—on an autumn morning long ago in a glade in Sauradia.
She was laughing at him.
He might have been amused, himself, even coping with embarrassment, but something else had just happened, and he didn’t know how to deal with it. More brusquely than he’d intended, he shouldered his way in between the figure of Pertennius and the paunchy merchant—almost certainly a Green patron—on his left. They glared at him.
‘Forgive me, friends. Forgive me. Shirin, we have a small problem, will you come?’ He took the dancer by the elbow, not gently, and guided her away from the wall, out of the half-circle of men that had surrounded her.
‘A problem?’ Shirin said prettily. ‘Oh dear. What sort of . . . ?’
As they crossed the room together, Crispin saw people watching and hoped, sincerely, that his tunic was decent by now. Shirin smiled artlessly at her guests.
For want of any better idea, aware that he wasn’t thinking clearly, Crispin steered her through the open doors back into the dining room where half a dozen or so people were lingering, and then into the kitchen beyond.
They stopped just inside the doorway: two white-clad figures amid the after-meal disarray and chaos of the kitchen and the stained and weary chefs and servers there. The talk subsided as people became aware of them.
‘Greetings!’ said Shirin brightly, as Crispin found himself wordless.
‘And to you both,’ said the small, plump, round-faced man Crispin had first met in a pre-dawn kitchen somewhat larger than this. Men had died that night. An attempt on Crispin’s own life. He remembered Strumosus holding a thick-handled chopping knife, preparing to use it on any intruders into his domain.
The chef was smiling now as he stood up from a stool and approached them. ‘Have we given satisfaction, my lady?’
‘You know you have,’ Shirin said. ‘What could I offer you to come live with me?’ She, too, smiled.
Strumosus looked wry. ‘Indeed, I was about to make you a similar offer.’
Shirin raised her eyebrows.
‘It is very crowded here,’ the cook said, gesturing at the piled implements and platters and the assortment of people standing around the kitchen. Hostess and guest followed him through to a smaller room where dishes and food were stored. There was another doorway here, giving onto the inner courtyard. It was too cold to go outside. The sun was west, it was growing dark.
Strumosus swung the door to the kitchen shut. It became quiet suddenly. Crispin leaned back against the wall. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them; wished he’d thought to collect a cup of wine. Two names were reverberating in his head.
Shirin smiled demurely at the little chef. ‘Whatever will people say of us? Are you proposing to me even as I try to win you, dear man?’
‘For a cause,’ the cook said, his expression serious. ‘What would the Blues have to offer you to become their Principal Dancer?’
‘Ah,’ said Shirin. Her smile faded. She looked at Crispin then back to the cook. Then she shook her head.
‘It cannot be done,’ she murmured.
‘At no price? Astorgus is generous.’
‘So I understand. I hope he is paying you what you deserve.’
The chef hesitated, then bluntly named a sum. ‘I trust the Greens are not offering you less.’
Shirin looked down at the floor, and Crispin saw that she was embarrassed. Not meeting the chef’s eyes, she said only, ‘They aren’t.’
The implication was clear, if unspoken. Strumosus coloured. There was a silence. ‘Well,’ he said, rallying, ‘it only makes sense. A Principal Dancer is more . . .
prominent than any cook. More visible. A different level of fame.’
‘But not more talented,’ Shirin said, looking up. She touched the little man on the arm. ‘It isn’t a matter of payment for me. It is . . . something else.’ She paused, bit her lip, then said, ‘The Empress, when she sent me her perfume, made clear I was only to wear it for so long as I was a Green. This was just after Scortius left us.’
There was a silence.
‘I see,’ said Strumosus softly. ‘Balancing the factions? She is . . . they are very clever, aren’t they?’
Crispin thought of saying something then, but did not. Very clever was not the phrase, though. It didn’t go nearly far enough. He was certain this touch would have been Alixana’s own. The Emperor had no patience for faction issues; everyone knew it. It had almost cost him his throne during the riots, Scortius had told him. But the Empress, who had been a dancer for the Blues in her youth, would be attuned to such matters like no one else in the Imperial Precinct. And if the Blues were allowed to raid the preeminent charioteer of the day, then the Greens would keep the most celebrated dancer. The perfume—no one else in the Empire was allowed to wear it—and the condition attached would have been her way of making sure that Shirin knew this.
‘A pity,’ the little chef said thoughtfully, ‘but I suppose it makes sense. If one looks at all of us from above.’
And that was about right, Crispin thought.
Strumosus changed the subject. ‘Was there a reason you came into the kitchen?’
‘To felicitate you, of course,’ Shirin said quickly.
The chef looked from one to the other. Crispin was still finding it difficult to focus his thoughts. Strumosus smiled a little. ‘I’ll leave you alone for a moment. Incidentally, if you are looking for a cook, the fellow who made the soup today will be ready to work on his own later this year. His name’s Kyros. The one with the bad foot. Young, but a very promising lad, and intelligent.’
‘I’ll remember that,’ Shirin said, and returned the smile.
Strumosus went back to the kitchen. He closed the door behind him.