"Sailing to Sarantium" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kay Guy Gavriel)

CHAPTER VII

Could one forget how to be free?

The question had come to her on the road and it lingered now, unanswered. Could a year of slavery mark your nature forever? Could the fact of having been sold? She had been sharp-tongued, quick, astringent at home. Erimitsu. Too clever to marry, her mother had worried. Now she felt afraid in the core of her being: anxious, lost, jumping at sounds, averting her eyes. She had spent a year having any man who paid Morax use her in whatever way he wanted. A year being beaten for the slightest failing or for none at all, to keep her mindful of her station.

They had only stopped that at the very end, when they wanted her unmarked, smooth as a sacrifice, for death in the forest.

From her room at the inn Kasia could hear the noise from the Hippodrome. A steady sound like the cascading waters north of home, but rising at intervals-unlike the waters-into a punishing volume of sound, a roar like some many-throated beast when a turn of fortune, terrible or wonderful, happened over there where horses were running.

The zubir had made no sound at all in the wood. There had been silence, under and over leaves, shrouded and gathered in fog. The world closing down to the smallest thing, to the one thing. Something terrible or wonderful, and her own existence given back to her, leading her from the Aldwood to Sarantium which had never even been a dream. And to freedom, which had been, every night of that year.

There were eighty thousand people over in the Hippodrome right now. Carullus had said so. It wasn't a number she could even get her mind around. Nearly five hundred thousand in the City, he'd said. Even after the riot two years ago and the plague. How did they all not tremble?

She'd spent the morning in this small room. Had thought to have her meal sent up, reflecting on the change that embodied, wondering what girl, beaten and afraid, would appear with a tray for the lady.

The lady with the soldiers. With the man who was going to the palace. She was that lady. Carullus had made certain they knew it downstairs. Service was a function of status here, as everywhere, and the Bronze Gates opening were the doorway to the world in Sarantium.

Martinian was going there. Or, rather, Caius Crispus was. He'd said they should call him Crispin in private. His name was Crispin. He'd been married to a woman named Ilandra. She was dead and his two daughters were. He had cried her name aloud in the country dark.

He hadn't touched Kasia since that night after the Aldwood. Even then, he'd had her sleep in his cloak on the floor again at the beginning. She'd come to the bed herself, when he cried out. Only then had he turned to her. And only that one time. After, he'd made certain she had her own room as they travelled with the soldiers through the autumn winds and blowing leaves, Sauradia's swift rivers and silver mines becoming Trakesia's harvested grainlands, and then that first appalling sight of the City's triple walls.

Five hundred thousand souls.

Kasia, her world spinning and changing too quickly for even a clever one to deal with, had no idea how to sort through what she was feeling. She was too caught in the movement of things. She could make herself blush-right now-if she remembered some of what she had felt, unexpectedly, towards dawn at the end of that one night.

She was in her room, hearing the Hippodrome, mending her cloak- his cloak-with needle and thread. She wasn't skilled with a needle, but it was a thing to do. She'd gone down to the common room for the midday meal, after all. She was erimitsu, the clever one, and she did know that if she allowed herself to become enclosed within walls and locked doors here she might never get out. Hard as it was, she'd made herself go down. They had served her with casual efficiency, though not with deference. All a woman could ask for, perhaps, especially in the City.

She'd had half a roasted fowl with leeks and good bread and a glass of wine she'd watered more than halfway. It occurred to her, eating at a corner table, that she'd never done this in her life: taken a meal at an inn, as a patron, drinking a glass of wine. Alone.

No one troubled her. The room was almost empty. Everyone was in the Hippodrome, or celebrating the last day of Dykania in the streets, snatching food and too much drink from vendors" stalls, waving noise-makers and banners of guild or racing faction. She could hear them outside, in the sunlight. She forced herself to eat slowly, to drink the wine, even pour a second glass. She was a free citizen of the Sarantine Empire in the reign of Valerius II. It was a public holiday, a festival. She made herself accede when the serving woman asked if she wanted melon.

The woman's hair was the same colour as her own. She was older, though. There was a faded scar on her forehead. Kasia smiled at her when she brought the melon but the woman didn't smile back. A little later, however, she brought over a two-handled cup filled with hot spiced wine.

"I didn't order this," Kasia said, worriedly.

"I know. You should have. Cold day. This'll calm you. Your men'll be back soon enough and they'll be excited. They always are, after the chariots. You'll have to get busy again, dear."

She walked away, still without a smile, before Kasia could correct her. It had been a kindness, though. Dear. She had meant to be kind. That could still happen then, in cities.

The spiced wine was good. It smelled of harvests and warmth. Kasia sat quietly and finished it. She watched the open doorway to the street outside. A flow of people, back and forth, unending. From all over the world. She found herself thinking of her mother, and home, and then of where she was, right now. This moment. The place in the god's world where she was. And then she thought about the night she had lain with Martinian-Crispin-and that made her flush again and feel extremely strange.

She did as Carullus had instructed and had the serving woman set her meal to the room charges and then she went back upstairs. She had a room of her own. A closed door with a new lock. No one would come in and use her, or order her to do something. A luxury so intense it was frightening. She sat at the small window, needle to hand again, the cloak warm across her knees, but the spiced wine after the other two cups had made her sleepy and she must have drifted off in the slant of sunlight there.

The hard knocking at the door woke her with a start and set her heart to hammering. She stood up hastily, wrapped herself in the cloak-an involuntary, protective gesture-crossed to the locked door. She didn't open it. "Who is that?" she called. She heard her voice waver. "Ah. They said he brought a whore." A clipped, eastern voice, educated, sour. "I want to see the westerner, Martinian. Open the door."

She was the erimitsu, Kasia reminded herself then. She was. She was free, had rights under law, the innkeeper and his people were below. It was full daylight here. And Martinian might need her to keep her wits just now. She'd heard Morax talk to merchants and patricians often enough. She could do this.

She took a breath. "Who seeks him, may I ask?"

There was a short, dry laugh. "I don't talk to prostitutes through locked doors."

Anger helped, actually. "And I don't open doors to ill-bred strangers. We have a problem, it appears."

A silence. She heard a floorboard creak in the hallway. The man coughed. "Presumptuous bitch. I am Siroes, Mosaicist to the Imperial Court. Open the door."

She opened the door. It might be a mistake, but Marti-Crispin- had been summoned here to do mosaic work for the Emperor and this man..

This man was small, plump and balding. He was dressed in a rich, very dark blue, calf-length linen tunic worked expensively in gold thread, a crimson cloak over that with an intricate design running across it in a band, also in gold. He'd a round, complacent face, dark eyes, long fingers, at odds with the general impression of rotund softness. On his hands she saw the same network of cuts and scars that Crispin bore. He was alone save for a servant, a little distance behind him in the empty hallway.

"Ah," said the man named Siroes. "He likes skinny women. I don't mind them. What do you charge for an afternoon encounter?"

It was important to be calm. She was a free citizen. "Do you insult all the women you meet? Or have I offended you somehow? I was told the Imperial Precinct was known for its courtesies. I appear to have been wrongly informed. Shall I call for the innkeeper to have you thrown out, or shall I simply scream?"

Again the man hesitated, and this time, looking at him, Kasia thought she saw something. It was unexpected, but she was almost sure.

"Thrown out?" He gave that same short rasp of laughter. "You aren't presumptuous, you are ignorant. Where is Martinian?"

Careful, she said to herself. This man was important, and Crispin might depend upon him, work with him, for him. She could not give way to panic or anger, either one.

She schooled her voice, cast her eyes downwards, thought of Morax, genuflecting to some fat-pursed merchant. "I am sorry, my lord. I may be a barbarian and unused to the City, but I am no one's whore. Martinian of Varena is at the Hippodrome with the tribune of the Fourth Sauradian."

Siroes swore under his breath. She caught it again, then, that hint of something unexpected. He's afraid, she thought. "When will he be back?"

"My lord, I would imagine when the racing ends." They heard a roar from across the narrow streets and the expanse of the Hippodrome Forum. Someone had won a race, someone had lost it. "Will you wait for him? Or shall I leave him a message from you?"

" Wait? Hardly. Amusing, I must say, that the Rhodian thinks he is at leisure to go to the games when he's taken the god's time arriving."

"Surely not a failing during Dykania, my lord? The Emperor and the Chancellor were both to be at the Hippodrome, we were told. No court presentations were scheduled."

"Ah. And who is informing you so comprehensively?"

"The tribune of the Fourth Sauradian is very knowledgeable, my lord."

"Hah! The Sauradians? A country soldier."

"Yes, my lord. Of course, he is an officer and does have an appointment with the Supreme Strategos. I suppose that required that he make himself aware of doings in the Imperial Precinct. As best he could. Of course, as you say, he wouldn't really know very much."

She looked up in time to catch an uneasy glance from the mosaicist. She cast her eyes quickly downwards again. She could do this. It was possible, after all.

Siroes swore again. "I cannot wait on an ignorant westerner. There is to be an Imperial Banquet after the chariots tonight. I have an honoured couch there." He paused. "Tell him that. Tell him… I came as a colleague to extend greetings before he was faced with the. strain of a court appearance."

She kept her eyes down.

"He will be honoured, I know it. My lord, he will be distressed to have missed your visit."

The mosaicist twitched his cloak up on one shoulder, adjusting the golden brooch that pinned it. "Don't fake proper manners or speech. It hardly suits a bony whore. I do have enough time to fuck you. Will a half solidus get your clothes off?"

She held back the biting retort. She wasn't afraid any more, astonishingly. He was. She met his gaze. "No," she said. "It will not. I shall tell Martinian of Varena you were here and offered, though."

She moved to close the door.

"Wait!" His eyes flickered. "A jest. I made a jest. Country folk never understand court wit. Do you… would you… by chance have any experience of Martinian's work, or, ah, his views on… say, the transfer method of setting tesserae?"

A terrified man. They were dangerous sometimes. "I am neither his whore nor his apprentice, my lord. I shall tell him, when he returns, that this is what you came to learn."

"No! I mean… do not trouble yourself. I will discuss the matter with him myself, naturally. I shall have to, ah, ascertain his competence. Of course."

"Of course," Kasia said, and closed the door on the Mosaicist to the

Imperial Court.

She locked it, leaned back against the wood, and then, unable not to, began to laugh silently, and then to weep, at the same time.

Had he arrived back at the inn after the racing, as he had intended, had he spoken with Kasia and learned of her encounter with a visitor-the details of which would have meant rather more to him than they did to her-Crispin would almost certainly have conducted himself differently in certain matters that followed.

This, in turn, might have occasioned a significant change in various affairs, both personal and of much wider import. It could, in fact, have changed his life and a number of other lives, and-arguably-the course of events in the Empire.

This happens, more often than is sometimes suspected. Lovers first meet at a dinner one almost failed to attend. A wine barrel falling from a wagon breaks the leg of someone who chose an impulsive route to his usual bathhouse. An assassin's thrown dagger fails to kill only because the intended victim turns-randomly-and sees it coming. The tides of fortune and the lives of men and women in the god's created world are shaped and altered in such fashion.

Crispin didn't come back to the inn.

Or, rather, as he and Carullus and Vargos approached it at sundown through the roiling, tumultuous festival streets, half a dozen men detached themselves from where they were standing by the front wall of the inn and approached them. They were clad, he noted, in subtly patterned knee-length dark green tunics, with a vertical brown stripe on both sides, brown trousers, dark brown belts. Each wore an identical necklace with a medallion, a badge of office. They were grave, composed, entirely at odds with the chaos around them.

Carullus stopped when he saw them. He looked cautious, but not alarmed. Crispin, taking his cue from this, stood easily as the leader of the six men came up to him. He was admiring the taste and cut of the clothing, in fact. Just before the man spoke, he realized he was a eunuch. "You are the mosaicist? Martinian of Varena?" Crispin nodded. "May I know who asks?"

Overhead at her window Kasia was watching. She had been looking out for the three men as soon as the cheering from the Hippodrome had stopped. She looked down and thought of calling out. Did not. Of course.

"We are sent from the Chancellor's Offices. Your presence is requested in the Imperial Precinct."

"So I understand. It is why I have journeyed to Sarantium." "You do not understand. You are greatly honoured. You are to come tonight. Now. The Emperor will be hosting a banquet shortly. After this he will receive you in the Attenine Palace. Do you comprehend? Men of the highest rank wait weeks, months to be seen. Ambassadors sometimes leave the city without an audience at all. You will be presented tonight. The Emperor is greatly engaged by the progress of the new Sanctuary. We are to bring you back with us and prepare you."

Carullus made a small, whistling sound. One of the eunuchs looked at him. Vargos was motionless, listening. Crispin said, "I am honoured, indeed. But now? I am to be presented as I am?"

The eunuch smiled briefly. "Hardly as you are." One of the others sniffed audibly, with amusement.

"Then I must bathe and change my clothing. I have been in the Hippodrome all day."

"This is known. It is unlikely that any clothing you have brought will be adequate to a formal court appearance. You are here by virtue of the Chancellor's request. Gesius therefore assumes responsibility for you before the Emperor. We will attend to your appearance. Come." He went. It was why he was here.

Kasia watched from the window, biting her lip. The impulse to call after him was very strong, though she could not have said why. A premonition. Something from the half-world? Shadows. When Carullus and Vargos came upstairs she told them about the afternoon visitor, about that last, strangely specific question he'd asked. Carullus swore, deepening her fears. "Nothing for it," he said, after a moment. "No way to tell him now. There's a trap of some kind, but there would have to be, at that court. He has quick wits, Jad knows it. Let us hope he keeps them about him." "I must go," Vargos said, after a silence. "Sundown." Carullus looked at him, gave Kasia a shrewd glance, and then led them both briskly out into the crowded, now-darkening streets to a good-sized sanctuary some distance back towards the triple walls. Among a great many people in the space before the altar and the sun disk on the wall behind it they heard the sundown rites chanted by a wiry, dark-bearded cleric. Kasia stood and knelt and stood and knelt between the two men and tried not to think about the zubir, or Caius Crispus, or about all the people packed so closely around her here, and in the City.

Afterwards, they dined at a tavern not far away. Crowds again. There were many soldiers. Carullus greeted and was saluted by a number of them when they entered, but then, still being solicitous, chose a booth at the very back, away from the noise. He had her sit with her back to the tumult, so she wouldn't even have to look at anyone but Vargos or himself. He ordered food and wine for the three of them, jesting easily with the server. He had lost a great deal of money on one particular race in the afternoon, Kasia gathered. It didn't seem to have subdued him very much. He was not, she had come to realize, a man easily subdued.

He felt outraged beyond words, violated and assaulted, undermined in his very sense of who he was. He had shouted in profane rage, lashed out in wild fury, sending fountains of water splashing from the bath, soaking a number of them.

They had laughed. And given the wide swath already cut from him while he'd lain back at his ease, eyes innocently closed in the wonderfully warm, scented water, Crispin had had no real choice any more When he'd finished snarling and swearing and vowing obscenely violent acts that appeared only to amuse them further, he'd had to let them complete what they'd begun-or look like a crazed madman.

They finished shaving off his beard.

It seemed that the fashion at the court of Valerius and Alixana was for smooth-cheeked men. Barbarians, hinterland soldiers, provincials who couldn't know better, wore facial hair, the eunuch wielding the scissors and then the gleaming razor said, making a moue of ineffable distaste. They looked like bears, goats, bison, other beasts, he opined.

"What do you know about bison?" Crispin had rasped bitterly.

"Nothing in the least! Thanks be to holy Jad in his mercy!" the eunuch with the razor had replied fervently, making the sign of the sun disk with the blade, eliciting laughter from his fellows.

Men at court, he explained patiently, manipulating the razor with precision as he spoke, had a duty to the god and the Emperor to appear as civilized as they could. For a red-headed man to wear a beard, he'd added firmly, was as much a provocation, a sign of ill-breeding, as… as breaking wind during the sunrise invocation in the Imperial Chapel.

Waiting, some time later, in an antechamber of the Attenine Palace, clad in silk for only the second time in his life, with soft, close-fitting leather shoes and a short, dark green cloak pinned to his shoulder over the long, dove grey tunic bordered in textured black, Crispin couldn't stop touching his own face. His hand kept wandering up of its own accord. They had held up a mirror for him in the bath: a splendid one, ivory-handled, a design of grapes and leaves etched on the silver back, the glass wonderfully true, next to no distortion.

A stranger had gazed back at him, wet and pale and angry-looking. Smooth-cheeked as a child. He'd had the beard since before he met Ilandra. Over a decade now. He hardly knew or remembered the oddly vulnerable, truculent, square-chinned person he encountered in the glass. His eyes showed very blue. His mouth-his entire face-felt unguarded and exposed. He'd essayed a brief, testing smile and stopped quickly. It did not look or feel like his own face. He'd been… altered. He wasn't himself. Not a secure feeling, as he prepared to be presented at the most intricate, dangerous court in the world, bearing a false name and a secret message. Waiting, he was still angry, taking a kind of refuge from mounting anxiety in that. He knew the Chancellor's officials had been acting with undeniable goodwill and a good-humoured tolerance for his water-spraying fit of temper. The eunuchs wanted him to make a good impression. It reflected upon them, he'd been made to understand. Gesius's signature had summoned him and smoothed his way here on the road. He stood now in this sumptuous, candlelit antechamber, hearing the sounds of the court beginning to enter the throne room through doors on the far side, and he was-in some complex way-a representative of the Chancellor, though he'd never even seen the man.

One arrived in the Imperial Precinct, Crispin belatedly realized, already aligned in some fashion, even before the first words or genuflections took place. They had told him about the genuflections. The instructions were precise and he'd been made to rehearse them. Against his will, he'd felt his heart beginning to pound, doing so, and that feeling resumed now as he heard the dignitaries of Valerius II's court on the other side of the magnificent silver doors. There was rising and falling laughter, a lightly murmurous flow of talk. They would be in a good humour after a festival day and a banquet.

He rubbed at his naked chin again. The smoothness was appalling, unsettling. As if a shaven, silk-clad, scented Sarantine courtier were standing in his body, half a world away from home. He felt dislodged from the idea of himself he'd built up over the years.

And that sensation-this imposed change of appearance and identity- probably had much to do with what followed, he later decided.

None of it was planned. He knew that much. He was simply a reckless, contrary man. His mother had always said so, his wife, his friends. He'd given up trying to deny it long ago. They used to laugh at him when he did, so he'd stopped.

After the protracted wait, watching the blue moon rise across an interior courtyard window, events happened quickly when they did begin.

The silver doors swung open. Crispin and the Chancellor's representatives turned quickly. Two guardsmen-enormously tall, in gleaming silver tunics-stepped from within the throne room. Crispin caught a glimpse beyond them of movement and colour. There was a drifting fragrance of perfume: frankincense. He heard music, then that-and the shifting movements-stopped. A man appeared behind the guards, clad in crimson and white, carrying a ceremonial staff. One of the eunuchs nodded to this man, and then looked at Crispin. He smiled-a generous thing to do in that moment and murmured, "You look entirely suitable. You are benevolently awaited. Jad be with you."

Crispin stepped forward hesitantly to stand beside the heraldic figure in the doorway. The man looked over at him indifferently. "Martinian of Varena, is it?" he asked. It really wasn't planned.

The thought was in his mind even as he spoke that he might die for this. He rubbed his too-smooth chin. "No," he said, calmly enough. "My name is Caius Crispus. Of Varena, though, yes."

The herald's startled expression might actually have been comical had the situation been even slightly different. One of the guards shifted slightly beside Crispin, but made no other movement, not even turning his head. "Fuck yourself with a sword!" the herald whispered in the elegant accents of the eastern aristocracy. "You think I'm announcing any name other than the one on the list? You do what you want in there."

And, stepping forward into the room, he thumped once on the floor with his staff. The chattering of the courtiers had already stopped. They'd aligned themselves, waiting, creating a pathway into the room.

"Martinian of Varena!" the herald declared, his voice resonant and strong, the name ringing in the domed chamber.

Crispin stepped forward, his head whirling, aware of new scents and a myriad of colours but not really seeing clearly yet. He took the prescribed three steps, knelt, lowered his forehead to the floor. Waited, counting ten to himself. Rose. Three more steps towards the man sitting on the candlelit shimmer of gold that was a throne. Knelt again, lowered his head again to touch the cool stone mosaics of the floor. Counted, trying to slow his racing heart. Rose. Three more steps, and a third time he knelt and abased himself.

This last time he stayed that way, as instructed, about ten paces from the Imperial throne and the second throne beside it where a woman sat in a dazzle of jewellery. He didn't look up. He heard a mildly curious murmuring from the assembled courtiers, come from their feast to see a new Rhodian at court. Rhodians were of interest, still. There was a quip, a quicksilver ripple of feminine laughter, then silence.

Into which a papery thin, very clear voice spoke. "Be welcome to the Imperial Court of Sarantium, artisan. On behalf of the Glorious Emperor and the Empress Alixana I give you leave to rise, Martinian of Varena."

This would be Gesius, Crispin knew. The Chancellor. His patron, if he had one. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath. And remained utterly motionless, his forehead touching the floor. There was a pause. Someone giggled.

"You been granted permission to rise," the thin, dry voice repeated. Crispin thought of the zubir in the wood. And then of Linon, the bird-the soul-who had spoken in his mind to him, if only for a little while. He had wanted to die, he remembered, when Ilandra died.

He said, not looking up, but as clearly as he could, "I dare not, my lord."

A rustle, of voices, of clothing, like leaves across the floor. He was aware of the mingled scents, the coolness of the mosaic, no music now. His mouth was dry.

"You propose to remain prostrate forever?" Gesius's voice betrayed a hint of asperity.

"No, good my lord. Only until I am granted the privilege of standing before the Emperor in my own name. Else I am a deceiver and deserve to die."

That stilled them.

The Chancellor appeared to be momentarily taken aback. The voice that next spoke was trained, exquisite, and a woman's. Afterwards, Crispin would remember that he shivered, hearing her for the first time. She said, "If all who deceived in this room were to die, there would be none left to advise or amuse us, I fear."

It was remarkable, really, how a silence and a silence could be so different. The woman-and he knew this was Alixana and that this voice would be in his head now, forever-went on, after a gauged pause, "You would rather be named Caius Crispus, I take it? The artisan young enough to travel when your summoned colleague deemed himself too frail to make the journey to us?"

Crispin's breath went from him, as if he'd been hit in the stomach. They knew. They knew. How, he had no idea. There were implications to this, a frightening number of them, but he had no chance to work it through. He fought for control, forehead touching the floor.

"The Emperor and Empress know the hearts and souls of men," he managed, finally. "I have indeed come in my partner's stead, to offer what assistance my meagre skills might avail the Emperor. I will stand to my own name, as the Empress has honoured me by speaking it, or accept what punishment is due my presumption."

"Let us be extremely clear. You are not Martinian of Varena?" A new voice, patrician and sharp, from near the two thrones.

Carullus had spent some of the time on the last stages of their journey telling what he knew of this court. Crispin was almost certain this would be Faustinus, the Master of Offices. Gesius's rival, probably the most powerful man here-after the one on the throne.

The one on the throne had said nothing at all yet. "It seems one of your couriers failed to ensure proper delivery of an Imperial summons, Faustinus," said Gesius in his bone-dry voice.

"It rather seems," said the other man, "that the Chancellor's eunuchs failed to ensure that a man being formally presented at court was who he purported to be. This is dangerous. Why did you have yourself announced as Martinian, artisan? That was a deception."

It was difficult doing this with his head on the floor. "I did not," he said. "It seems that-regrettably-the herald must have… misheard my name when I spoke it to him. I did say who I am. My name is Caius Crispus, son of Horius Crispus. I am a mosaicist, and have been all my grown life. Martinian of Varena is my colleague and partner and has been so for twelve years."

"Heralds," said the Empress softly, in that astonishing, silken voice, "are of little use if they err in such a fashion. Would you not agree, Faustinus?" Which offered its clue, of course, as to who appointed the heralds here, Crispin thought. His mind was racing. It occurred to him he was making enemies with every word he spoke. He still had no idea how the Empress-and so the Emperor, he had to assume-had known his name. "I shall inquire into this, naturally, thrice-exalted." Faustinus's sharp tone was abruptly muted.

"There does not appear to be," a new voice, blunt and matter-of-fact, inserted itself, "any great difficulty here. An artisan was requested from Rhodias, an artisan has answered. An associate of the named one. If he is adequate to the tasks allotted him, it hardly matters, I would say. It would be a misfortune to mar a festive mood, my lord Emperor, with wrangling over a triviality. Are we not here to amuse ourselves?"

Crispin didn't know who this man-the first to directly address Valerius-would be. He heard two things, though. One, after a heartbeat, was a ripple of agreement and relief, a restoration of ease in the room. Whoever this was had a not-inconsiderable stature.

The other sound he caught, a few moments later, was a slight, almost undetectable creaking noise in front of him.

It would have meant nothing at all to virtually any other person in Crispin's awkward position here, forehead pressed to the floor. But it did mean something to a mosaicist. Disbelieving at first, he listened. Heard suppressed laughter from right and left, quick whispers to hush. And the soft, steady creaking sound continuing before him.

The court had been diverting itself tonight, he thought. Good food, wine, amorous, witty talk, no doubt. It was night-a festival night. He pictured female hands laid expectantly on male forearms, scented, silk-clad bodies leaning close as they watched. A Rhodian needing a measure of chastisement might offer wonderful sport. He didn't feel like offering them sport.

He was here at the Sarantine court in his own family name, son of a father who would have been proud beyond words in this moment, and he wasn't inclined to be the mark for a jest.

He was a contrary man. He'd admitted it already, long ago. It was self-destructive at times. He'd acknowledged that, too. He was also the direct descendant of a people who'd ruled an empire far greater than this one, at a time when this city was no more than a gathering of wind-blown huts on a rocky cliff.

"Very well, then," said the Chancellor Gesius, his voice almost but not quite as dry as it had been. "You have permission to rise, Caius Crispus, Rhodian. Stand now before the all-powerful, Jad's Beloved, the high and exalted Emperor of Sarantium." Someone laughed.

He stood, slowly. Facing the two thrones.

The one throne. Only the Empress sat before him. The Emperor was gone.

High and exalted, Crispin thought. How terribly witty.

He was expected to panic, he knew. To look befuddled, disoriented, even terrified, perhaps wheel about in a stumbling bear-like circle looking for an Emperor, reacting in slack-jawed confusion when he did not find him.

Instead, he glanced upwards in relaxed appraisal. He smiled at what he saw when he did so. Jad could sometimes be generous, it seemed, even to lesser, undeserving mortals.

"I am humbled beyond all words," he said gravely, addressing the figure on the golden throne overhead, halfway to the height of the exquisite little dome. "Thrice-exalted Emperor, I shall be honoured to assist in any mosaic work you or your trusted servants might see fit to assign me. I might also be able to propose measures to improve the effect of your elevation on the glorious Imperial throne."

"Improve the effect?" Faustinus again, the sharp voice aghast. Around the room, a sudden tidal murmuring. The joke was spoiled. The Rhodian, for some reason, hadn't been fooled.

Crispin wondered what the effect of this artifice had been over the years. Barbarian chieftains and kings, trade emissaries, long-robed Bassanid or fur-clad Karchite ambassadors, all would have belatedly looked up to see Jad's Holy Emperor suspended in the air on his throne, invisibly held aloft, elevated as much above them in his person as he was in his might. Or so the message would have been, behind the sophisticated amusement.

He said mildly, still looking upwards, not at the Master of Offices, "A rnosaicist spends much of his life going up and down on a variety of platforms and hoists. I can suggest some contrivances the Imperial engineers might employ to silence the mechanism, for example."

He was, as he spoke, aware of the Empress regarding him from her throne. It was impossible not to be aware of her. Alixana wore a headdress more richly ornamented with jewellery than any single object he'd ever seen in his life.

He kept his gaze fixed overhead. "I should add that it might have been more effective to position the thrice-exalted Emperor directly in the moonlight now entering from the southern and western windows in the dome. Note how the light falls only on the glorious Imperial feet. Imagine the effect should Jad's Beloved be suspended at this moment in the luminous glow of a nearly full blue moon. A turn and a half less, I surmise, on the cables, and that would have been achieved, my lord."

The murmuring took a darker tone. Crispin ignored it. "Any competent mosaicist will have tables of both moons" rising and setting, and engineers can work from those. When we have set tesserae on some sanctuary or palace domes in Batiara it has been our good fortune-Martinian's and mine-to achieve pleasing effects by being aware of when and where the moons will lend their light through the seasons. I should be honoured," he concluded, "to assist the Imperial engineers in this matter."

He stopped, still looking up. The murmuring also stopped. There was a silence that partook of a great many things then in the candlelit throne room of the Attenine Palace, among the jewelled birds, the golden and silver trees, the censers of frankincense, the exquisite works of ivory and silk and sandalwood and semi-precious stone.

It was broken, at length, by laughter.

Crispin would always remember this, too. That the first sound he ever heard from Petrus of Trakesia, who had placed his uncle on the Imperial throne and then taken it for himself as Valerius II, was this laughter: rich, uninhibited, full-throated amusement from overhead, a man suspended like a god, laughing like a god above his court, not quite in the fall of the blue moonlight.

The Emperor gestured and they lowered him until the throne settled smoothly to rest beside the Empress again. No one spoke during this descent. Crispin stood motionless, hands at his side, his heart still racing. He looked at the Emperor of Sarantium. Jad's Beloved.

Valerius II was soft-featured, quite unprepossessing, with alert grey eyes and the smooth-shaven cheeks that had led to the attack on Crispin's own beard. His hairline was receding though the hair remained a sandy brown laced with grey. He was past his forty-fifth year now, Crispin knew. Not a young man, but far from his decline. He wore a belted tunic in textured purple silk, bordered at hem and collar with bands of intricately patterned gold. Bach, but without ornament or flamboyance. No jewellery, save one very large seal ring on his left hand.

The woman beside him took a different approach in the matter of her raiment and adornment. Crispin had actually been avoiding looking directly at the Empress. He couldn't have said why. Now he did so, aware of her dark-eyed, amused gaze resting upon him. Other images, auras, awarenesses impinged as he briefly met that gaze and then cast his eyes downwards. He felt dizzied. He had seen beautiful women in his day, and much younger ones. There were extraordinary women in this room.

The Empress held him, however, and not merely by virtue of her rank or history. Alixana-who had been merely Aliana of the Blues once, an actress and dancer-was dressed in a dazzle of crimson and gold silk, the porphyry in the robe over her tunic used as an accent, but present, unavoidably present, defining her status. The headdress framing her very dark hair and the necklace about her throat were worth more, Crispin suspected, than all the jewellery in the regalia of the queen of the Antae back home. He felt, in that moment, a shaft of pity for Gisel: young and besieged and struggling for her life.

Her head held high despite the weight of ornament she carried, the Empress of Sarantium glittered in his sight, and the clever, observant amusement in her dark eyes reminded him that there was no one on earth more dangerous than this woman seated beside the Emperor.

He saw her open her mouth to speak, and when someone, astonishingly, forestalled her he saw, because he was looking, the quick pursing of lips, the briefly unveiled displeasure.

"This Rhodian," said an elegant, fair-haired woman behind her, "has all the presumption one might have expected, and none of the manners one dared hope for. At least they chopped off his foliage. A red beard along with an uncouth manner would have been too offensive."

Crispin said nothing. He saw the Empress smile thinly. Without turning, Alixana said, "You knew he was bearded? You have been making inquiries, Styliane? Even newly married? How very characteristic of the Daleinoi."

Someone laughed nervously and was quickly silent. The big, frank-looking, handsome man beside the woman looked briefly uneasy. But. from the name that had been spoken, Crispin now knew who these two people were. The pieces slotting into place. He had a puzzle-solving mind. Always had. Needed it now.

He was looking at Carullus's beloved Strategos, the man the tribune had come from Sauradia to see, the greatest soldier of the day. This tall man was Leontes the Golden, and beside him was his bride. Daughter of the wealthiest family in Sarantium. A prize for a triumphant general. She was, Crispin had to concede. She was a prize. Styliane Daleina was magnificent, and the single, utterly spectacular pearl that gleamed in the golden necklace at her throat might even be…

An idea came to him in that moment, anger-driven. Inwardly he winced at his own subversive thought, and he kept silent. There were limits to recklessness.

Styliane Daleina was entirely unruffled by the Empress's remark. She would be, Crispin realized: she'd revealed her knowledge of him freely with the insult. She would have been ready for a retort. He had an abrupt sense that he was now another very minor piece in a complex game being played between two women.

Or three. He was carrying a message.

"He can beard himself like a Holy Fool if he chooses," said the Emperor of Sarantium mildly, "if he has the skills to assist with the Sanctuary mosaics." Valerius's voice was quiet, but it cut through all other sounds.

It would, Crispin thought. Everyone in this room would be tuned to its cadences.

Crispin looked at the Emperor, pushing the women from his mind. "You have spoken persuasively about engineering and moonlight," said Valerius of Sarantium. "Shall we converse a moment about mosaic?"

He sounded like a scholar, an academician. He looked like one. It was said that this man never slept. That he walked one or another of his palaces all night dictating, or sat reading dispatches by lanternlight. That he could engage philosophers and military tacticians in discourse that stretched the limits of their own understanding. That he had met with the aspiring architects of his new Great Sanctuary and had reviewed each drawing they presented. That one of them had killed himself when the Emperor rejected his scheme, explaining in precise detail why he was doing so. This much had reached even Varena: there was an Emperor in Sarantium now with a taste for beauty as well as power.

"I am here for no other reason, thrice-exalted," Crispin said. It was more or less the truth.

"Ah," said Styliane Daleina quickly. "Another Rhodian trait. Here to converse he tells us-no deeds. Thus, the Antae conquered with such ease. It is all so familiar."

There was laughter again. In its own way, this second interruption was intensely revealing: she had to feel utterly secure, either in her own person or that of her husband, the Emperor's longtime friend, to break into a colloquy of this sort. What was unclear was why the woman was attacking him. Crispin kept his gaze on the Emperor.

"There are a variety of reasons why Rhodias fell," said Valerius II mildly. "We are discussing mosaics, however, for the moment. Caius Crispus, what is your opinion as to the new reverse transfer method of laying tesserae in sheets in the workshop?"

Even with all he'd heard about this man, the technical precision of this question-coming from an Emperor after a banquet, in the midst of his courtiers-caught Crispin completely by surprise. He swallowed. Cleared his throat.

"My lord, it is both suitable and useful for mosaics on very large walls and floors. It enables a more uniform setting of the glass or stone pieces where that is desired, and relieves much of the need for speed in setting tesserae directly before the setting bed dries. I can explain, if the Emperor wishes."

"Not necessary. I understand this. What about using it on a dome?"

Crispin was to wonder, afterwards, how the ensuing events would have unfolded had he tried to be diplomatic in that moment. He didn't try. Events unfolded as they did.

"On a dome?" He echoed, his voice rising. "Thrice-exalted lord, only a fool would even suggest using that method on a dome! No mosaicist worth the name would consider it."

Behind him someone made what could only be called a spluttering sound.

Styliane Daleina said icily, "You are in the presence of the Emperor of Sarantium. We whip or blind strangers who presume so much."

"And we honour those," said the Empress Alixana, in her exquisite voice, "who honour us with their honesty when directly asked for it. Will you say why you offer this… very strong view, Rhodian?"

Crispin hesitated. "The court of the glorious Emperor, on a Dykania night… do you really wish such a discussion?"

"The Emperor does," said the Emperor.

Crispin swallowed again. Martinian, he thought, would have done this much more tactfully.

He wasn't Martinian. Directly to Valerius of Sarantium he spoke one of the tenets of his soul. "Mosaic," he said, more softly now, "is a dream of light. Of colour. It is the play of light on colour. It is a craft… I have sometimes dared call it an art, my lord. built around letting the illumination of candle, lantern, sun, both moons dance across the colours of the glass and gemstones and stones we use… to make something that partakes, however slightly, of the qualities of movement that Jad gave his mortal children and the world. In a sanctuary, my lord, it is a craft that aspires to evoke the holiness of the god and his creation."

He took a breath. It was incredible to him that he was saying these things aloud, and here. He looked at the Emperor.

"Go on," said Valerius. The grey eyes were on his face, intent, coolly intelligent.

"And on a dome," said Crispin, "on the arch of a dome-whether of sanctuary or palace-the mosaicist has a chance to work with this, to breathe a shadow of life into his vision. A wall is flat, a floor is flat-"

"Well, they ought to be," said the Empress lightly. "I've lived in some rooms

Valerius laughed aloud. Crispin, in mid-flight, paused, and had to smile. "Indeed, thrice-gracious lady. I speak in principle, of course. These are ideals we seldom attain."

"A wall or a floor is flat, in its conception," said the Emperor. "A dome..?"

"The curve and the height of a dome allow us the illusion of movement through changing light, my lord. Opportunities beyond price. It is the mosaicist's natural place. His… haven. A painted fresco on a flat wall can do all a mosaic can, and-though many in my guild would call this heresy-it can do more at times. Nothing on Jad's earth can do what a mosaicist can do on a dome if he sets the tesserae directly on the surface."

A voice from behind him, refined and querulous: "I will be allowed to speak to this crass western stupidity, I dare trust, thrice-exalted lord?"

"When it is done, Siroes. If it is stupid. Listen. You will be asked questions. Be prepared to answer them."

Siroes. He didn't know the name. He ought to, probably. He hadn't prepared himself as well as he should have… but he had not expected to be here at court a day after arriving in the City.

He was also angry now. Crass? Too many insults at once. He tried to hold down his temper, but this was the place where his soul resided. He said, "East or west has nothing to do with any of this, my lord. You described the reverse transfer as new. Someone has misled you, I am afraid. Five hundred years ago mosaicists were laying reversed sheets of tesserae on walls and floors in Rhodias, Mylasia, Baiana. Examples still exist, they are there to be seen. There are no such examples on any dome in Batiara. Shall I tell the thrice-exalted Emperor why?" "Tell me why," said Valerius.

"Because five hundred years ago mosaicists had already learned that laying stone and gems and glass flat on sticky sheets and then transferring that relinquished all the power the curves of the dome gave them. When you set a tessera by hand into a surface you position it. You angle it, turn it. You adjust it in relation to the piece beside it, and the one beside that and beyond it, towards or away from the light entering through windows or rising from below. You can build up the setting bed into a relief, or recede it for effect. You can-if you are a mosaicist, and not merely someone sticking glass in a pasty surface-allow what you know of the proposed location and number of candles in the room below and the placement of the windows around the base of the dome and higher up, the orientation of the room on holy Jad's earth, and the risings of his moons and the god's sun… you allow light to be your tool, your servant, your. gift in rendering what is holy."

"And the other way?" It was Gesius the Chancellor this time, surprisingly. The elderly eunuch's spare, gaunt features were thoughtful, as if chasing a nuance through this exchange. It wouldn't be the subject that engaged him, Crispin suspected, but Valerius's interest in it. This was a man who had survived to serve three Emperors.

"The other way," he said softly, "you turn that gift of a high, curved surface into… a wall. A badly made wall that bends. You forego the play of light that is at the heart of mosaic. The heart of what I do. Or have always tried to do, my lord. My lord Emperor."

It was a cynical, Jaded court. He was speaking from the soul, with too much passion. Far too much. He sounded ridiculous. He felt ridiculous, and he had no clear idea why he was giving vent in this way to deeply private feelings. He rubbed at his bare chin.

"You treat the rendering of holy images in a sanctuary as… play?" It was the tall Strategos, Leontes. And from the blunt, unvarnished soldier's tone, Crispin realized that this was the man who'd intervened earlier. One western artisan is like another, he'd suggested then. Why do we care which one came?

Crispin took a breath. "I treat the presence of light as something to glory in. A source of joy and gratitude. What else, my lord, is the sunrise invocation? The loss of the sun is a grave loss. Darkness is no friend to any of Jad's children, and this is even more true for a mosaicist."

Leontes looked at him, a slight furrow in the handsome brow. His hair was yellow as wheat. "Darkness is sometimes an ally to a soldier," he said.

"Soldiers kill," Crispin murmured. "It may be a necessary thing, but it is no exaltation of the god. I would imagine you agree, my lord."

Leontes shook his head. "I do not. Of course I do not. If we conquer and reduce barbarians or heretics, those who deride and deny Jad of the Sun, do we not exalt him?" Crispin saw a thin, sallow-faced man lean forward, listening intently.

"Is imposing worship the same as exalting our god, then?" More than a decade of debating with Martinian had honed him for this sort of thing. He could almost forget where he was.

Almost.

"How extremely tedious this suddenly becomes," said the Empress, her tone the embodiment of capricious boredom. "It is even worse than talk of which way to lay a piece of glass on some sticky bed. I do not think sticky beds are a fit subject here. Styliane's just married, after all."

It was the Strategos who flushed, not the elegant wife beside him, as the Emperor's own thoughtful expression broke into a smile, and laughter with an edge of malice rippled through the room.

Crispin waited for it to die. He said, not sure why he was doing so, "It was the thrice-exalted Empress who asked me to defend my views. My strong views, she called them. It was someone else who described them as a stupidity. In the presence of such greatness as I find myself, I dare choose no subjects, only respond when asked, as best I may. And seek to avoid the chasms of stupidity."

Alixana's expressive mouth quirked a little, but her dark eyes were unreadable. She was a small woman, exquisitely formed. "You have a careful memory, Rhodian. I did ask you, didn't I?"

Crispin inclined his head. "The Empress is generous to recall it. Lesser mortals cannot but recollect each word she breathes, of course." He was surprising himself with almost every word he spoke tonight.

Valerius, leaning back on the throne now, clapped his hands. "Well said, if shameless. The westerner may yet teach our courtiers a few things besides engineering and mosaic technique."

"My lord Emperor! Surely you have not accepted his prattle about the reverse-"

The relaxed demeanour disappeared. The grey gaze went knifing past Crispin.

"Siroes, when you presented your drawings and your plans to our architects and our self, you did say this device was new, did you not?"

The tone of the room changed dramatically. The Emperor's voice was icy. He was still leaning back in his throne, but the eyes had altered.

Crispin wanted to turn and see who this other mosaicist was but he dared not move. The man behind him stammered, "My lord. thrice-exalted lord, it has never been used in Sarantium. Never on any other dome. I proposed-"

"And what we have just heard of Rhodias? Five hundred years ago? The reasons why? Did you consider this?" "My lord, the affairs of the fallen west, I-"

"What?" Valerius II sat upright now. He leaned forward. A finger stabbed the air as he spoke. "This was Rhodias, artisan! Speak not to us of the fallen west. This was the Rhodian Empire at its apex! In the god's name! What did Saranios name this city when he drew the line with his sword from channel to ocean for the first walls? Tell me!"

There was fear now in the room, palpably. Crispin saw men and women, elegant and glittering, their eyes fixed on the floor like subdued children. "He… he… Sarantium, thrice-exalted." "And what else? What else? Say it, Siroes!"

"The… he called it the New Rhodias, thrice-great lord." The patrician voice was a croak now. "Glorious Emperor, we know, we all know there has never been a holy sanctuary on earth to match the one you have envisaged and are bringing into being. It will be the glory of Jad's world. The dome, the dome is unmatched in size, in majesty…"

"We can only bring it into being if our servants are competent. The dome Artibasos has designed is too big, you are now saying, to use proper mosaic technique upon? Is that it, Siroes?"

"My lord, no!"

"You are being given insufficient resources from the Imperial treasury? Not enough apprentices and craftsmen? Your own recompense is inadequate, Siroes?" The voice was cold and hard as a stone in the depths of winter.

Crispin felt fear and pity. He couldn't even see the man being so ruthlessly annihilated, but behind him he heard the sound of someone sinking to his knees.

"The Emperor's generosity surpasses my worth as much as he surpasses all those in this room in majesty, my thrice-exalted lord."

"We rather believe it does, in fact," said Valerius II icily. "We must reconsider certain aspects of our building plans. You may leave us, Siroes. We are grateful to the lady Styhane Daleina for urging your talents upon us, but it begins to appear that the scope of our Sanctuary might have you overmatched. It happens, it happens. You will be appropriately rewarded for what you have done to this point. Fear not."

Another piece of the puzzle. The aristocratic wife of the Strategos had sponsored this other mosaicist before the Emperor. Crispin's appearance tonight, his swift summons to court, had threatened that man, and so her, by extension.

It was appallingly true, what he'd conjectured earlier: he'd arrived here with allegiances and enemies before he'd even opened his mouth-or lifted his head from the floor. I could be killed here, he thought suddenly. Behind him he heard the silver doors opening. There were footsteps. A pause. The banished artisan would be doing his obeisance.

The doors closed again. Candles flickered in the draft. The light wavered, steadied. It was silent in the throne room, the courtiers chastened and afraid. Siroes, whoever he was, had left. Crispin had just ruined a man by answering a single question honestly without regard for tact or diplomacy. Honesty at a court was a dangerous thing, for others, for oneself. He kept his own eyes on the mosaic of the floor again. A hunting scene in the centre. An Emperor of long ago, in the woods with a bow, a stag leaping, the Imperial arrow in flight towards it. A death coming, if the scene continued.

The scene continued.

Alixana said, "If this distressing habit of spoiling a festive evening persists, my beloved, I shall join brave Leontes in regretting your new Sanctuary. I must say, paying the soldiers on time seems to cause so much less turmoil."

The Emperor looked unperturbed. "The soldiers will be paid. The Sanctuary is to be one of our legacies. One of the things that will send our names down the ages."

"A lofty ambition to now lay on the shoulders of an untried, ill-mannered westerner," said Styliane Daleina, tartness in her voice.

The Emperor glanced over at her, his expression blank. She had courage, Crispin had to concede, to be challenging him in this mood.

Valerius said, "It would be, were it on his shoulders. The Sanctuary has already risen, however. Our splendid Artibasos, who designed and built it for us, carries the burden of that-and the weight of his heroic dome, like some demigod of the Trakesian pantheon. The Rhodian, should he be capable, will attempt to decorate the Sanctuary for us, in a manner pleasing to Jad and ourselves."

"Then we must hope, thrice-exalted, he finds more pleasing manners in himself said the fair-haired woman.

Valerius smiled, unexpectedly. "Cleverly put," he said. This Emperor, Crispin was coming to realize, was a man who valued intelligence a great deal. "Caius Crispus, we fear you have earned the displeasure of one of the ornaments of our court. You must endeavour, while you labour among us, to make amends to her."

He didn't feel like making amends, as it happened. She had endorsed an incompetent for her own reasons and was now trying to make Crispin suffer the consequences. "It is a regret to me, already," he murmured. "I have no doubt the Lady Styliane is a jewel among women. Indeed, the pearl she wears about her throat, larger than any single womanly ornament I can see before me, is evidence and reflection of that." He knew what he was doing this time, as it happened. It was dangerously rash, and he didn't care. He didn't like this tall, arrogant woman with the perfect features and yellow hair and cold eyes and that stinging tongue.

He heard a collective intake of breath, could not mistake the sudden burning of anger in the woman's eyes, but it was the other woman he was really waiting on, and Crispin, turning to her, found what he was looking for: the briefest flicker of surprised, ironic understanding in the dark gaze of the Empress of Sarantium.

In the awkwardness that followed his making explicit something the lady Styliane Daleina would far rather not have had made so clear, the Empress said, with deceptive mildness, "We have many ornaments among us. It occurs to me now that another of them has promised us to lay to rest a wager proposed at the banquet. Scortius, before I retire for the night, if I am to sleep easily, I must know the answer to the Emperor's question. No one has come forward to claim the offered gem. Will you tell us, charioteer?" This time Crispin did turn to look, as the brilliant array of courtiers to his right parted in a shimmer of silk and a small, trim man moved, neat-footed and composed, to stand beside a candelabrum. Crispin moved a little to one side, to let Scortius of the Blues wait alone before the thrones. Unable to help himself, he stared at the man.

The Soriyyan driver he'd seen perform marvels that day had deep-set eyes in a dark face traced lightly-and in one or two cases less lightly- by scars. His easy manner suggested he was no stranger to the palace. He wore a knee-length linen tunic in a natural, off-white colour, stripes in a dark blue running down from each shoulder to the knee, gold thread bordering it. A soft blue cap covered his black hair. His belt was gold, simple, extremely expensive. About his throat was a single chain, and from it, on his chest, hung a golden horse with jewels for its eyes.

"We all strive," the charioteer said gravely, "in all we do, to please the Empress." He paused deliberately, then white teeth flashed. "And then the Emperor, of course."

Valerius laughed. "Sheathe that deadly charm, charioteer. Or save it for whomever you are seducing now."

There was feminine laughter. Some of the men, Crispin noted, did not appear amused. Alixana, her own dark eyes flashing now, murmured, "But I like when he unsheathes it, my lord Emperor."

Crispin, caught unawares, was unable to control his own sudden burst of laughter. It didn't matter. Valerius and the court around him gave vent to amusement as the charioteer bowed low to the Empress, smiling, unruffled. This was, Crispin understood finally, a court with a nature at least partly defined by its women.

By the woman on the throne, certainly. The Emperor's return to good humour was manifestly unfeigned. Crispin, looking at the two thrones, abruptly thought of Ilandra, with the queer inner twist, as of a blade, that still came whenever he did so. Had his wife made the same sort of openly provocative remark he, too, would have been relaxed enough to find it amusing, so sure had he been of her. Valerius was like that with his Empress. Crispin wondered-not for the first time-what it would have been like to be wed to a woman one could not trust. He glanced at the Strategos, Leontes. The tall man wasn't laughing. Neither was his aristocratic bride. There might be many reasons for that, mind you.

"The jewel," said the Emperor "is still on offer, until Scortius reveals his secret. A pity our Rhodian didn't see the event, he seems to have so many answers for us."

"The racing today, my lord? I did see it. A magnificent spectacle." It occurred to Crispin, a little too late, that he might be making another mistake.

Valerius made a wry face. "Ah. You are a partisan of the track? We are surrounded by them, of course."

Crispin shook his head. "Hardly a partisan, my lord. Today was the first time I was ever in a hippodrome. My escort, Carullus of the Fourth Sauradian, who is here to meet with the Supreme Strategos, was good enough to be my guide to the running of the chariots." It couldn't hurt Carullus to have his name mentioned here, he thought.

"Ah, well then. As a first-timer you wouldn't be able to address the question in any case. Go ahead, Scortius. We await enlightenment."

"Oh, no. No, let us ask him, my lord," said Styliane Daleina. There really was malice in her cold beauty. "As our thrice-exalted Emperor says, the artisan seems to know so much. Why should the chariots be beyond his grasp?"

"There is much that lies beyond me, my lady," Crispin said, as mildly as he could. "But I shall endeavour to… satisfy you." He smiled in turn, briefly. He was paying a price for what he'd done inadvertently to her artisan, and for the deliberate reference to her pearl. He could only hope the price would stop at barbed innuendoes.

Alixana said, from her throne, "The question we debated at dinner, Rhodian, was this: how did Scortius know to surrender the inside track in the first race of the afternoon? He let the Green chariot come inside him, deliberately, and led poor Crescens straight into disaster."

"I recall it, my lady. It led the tribune of the Fourth Sauradian into a financial disaster, as well."

A weak sally. The Empress did not smile. "How regrettable for him. But none of us has been able to offer an explanation that matches the answer our splendid charioteer is holding in reserve. He has promised to tell us. Do you wish to hazard a guess before he does?"

"There is," Valerius added, "no shame attached to not knowing. Especially if this was your first time at the Hippodrome."

It never really occurred to him not to answer. Perhaps it should have. Perhaps a more careful man, judging nuances, would have demurred. Martinian would have been such a man, almost certainly.

Crispin said, "I have a thought, my lord, my lady. I may be very wrong, of course. I probably am."

The charioteer beside him glanced over. His eyebrows were raised a little, but his brown-eyed, observant gaze was intrigued and courteous.

Crispin looked back at him, and smiled. "It is one thing to sit above the track and ponder how a thing was done, it is another to do it at speed on the sands. Whether I am right or not, permit me to salute you. I did not expect to be moved today, and I was."

"You do me too much honour," Scortius murmured.

"What is it, then?" said the Emperor. "Your thought, Rhodian? There is an Ispahani ruby to be claimed."

Crispin looked at him and swallowed. He hadn't known, of course, what was on offer. This was no trivial prize; it was wealth, from the farthest east. He turned back to Scortius, clearing his throat. "Would it have to do with light and dark in the crowd?"

And from the immediate smile on the charioteer's face, he knew that he had it. He did. A puzzle-solving mind. All his life.

In the waiting silence, Crispin said, with growing confidence, "I would say that the very experienced Scortius took his cue from the darkness of the crowd as he reached the turn below the Imperial Box, my lord Emperor. There must have been other things he knew that I cannot even imagine, but I'd hazard that was the most important thing."

"The darkness of the crowd," said the Master of Offices. Faustinus glared. "What nonsense is this?"

"I hope it is not nonsense, my lord. I refer to their faces, of course." Crispin said no more. He was looking at the charioteer beside him.

Everyone was, by now.

"We seem," the Soriyyan said, at length, "to have a chariot-driver here." He laughed, showing white, even teeth. "I fear the Rhodian is no mosaicist at all. He is a dangerous deceiver, my lord." "He is correct?" said the Emperor sharply. "He is entirely so, thrice-exalted lord." "Explain!" It was a command, whip like.

"I am honoured to be asked," said the champion of the Blues, calmly. "You are not asked. Cams Crispus of Varena, explain what you mean." Scortius looked abashed, for the first time. Crispin realized that the Emperor was genuinely vexed, and he guessed why: there was, clearly, another puzzle-solving mind in this room.

Crispin said cautiously, "Sometimes a man who sees a thing for the first time may observe that which others, more familiar, cannot truly see any more. I confess that I grew weary of the later races in the long day, and my gaze wandered. It went to the stands across the spina."

"And that taught you how to win a chariot race?" Valerius's brief pique had passed. He was engaged again, Crispin saw. Beside him, Alixana's dark gaze was unreadable.

"It taught me how a better man than I might do so. A mosaicist, as I told you, my lord, sees the changing colours and light of Jad's world with some. precision. He must, or will fail at his own tasks. I spent a part of the afternoon watching what happened when the chariots went past the far stands and people turned to follow their passage."

Valerius was leaning forward now, his brow furrowed in concentration. He held up a hand suddenly. "Wait! I'll hazard this. Wait. Yes… the impression is brighter, paler when they look straight ahead-faces towards you-and darker when their heads turn away, when you see hair and head-coverings?"

Crispin said nothing. Only bowed. Beside him, Scortius of the Blues wordlessly did the same.

"You have earned your own ruby, my lord," said the charioteer.

"I have not. I still don't… You now, Scortius. Explain!"

The Soriyyan said, "When I reached the kathisma turn, my lord Emperor, the stands to my right were many-hued, quite dark as I drove past Crescens to the inside. They ought not to have been, with the Firsts of the Greens and Blues right beneath them. Their faces ought to have been turned directly to us as we went by, offering a brightness in the sunlight. There is never time to see actual faces in a race, only an imprests the Rhodian said-of light or dark. The stands before the turn were dark. Which meant the watchers were turned away from us. Why would they turn away from us?"

"A collision behind you," said the Emperor of Sarantium, nodding his head slowly, his fingers steepled together now, arms on the arms of his throne. "Something more compelling, even more dramatic than the two champions in their duel."

"A violent collision, my lord. Only that would divert them, turn their heads away. You will recall that the original accident happened before Crescens and I moved up. It appeared a minor one, we both saw it and avoided it. The crowd would have seen it as well. For the Hippodrome to be turned away from the two of us, something violent had to have happened since that first collision. And if a third-or a fourth-chariot had smashed into the first pair, then the Hippodrome crews were not going to be able to clear the track."

"And the original accident was on the inside," said the Emperor, nodding again. He was smiling with satisfaction now, the grey eyes keen. "Rhodian, you understood all of this?"

Crispin shook his head quickly. "Not so, my lord. I guessed only the simplest part of it. I am. humbled to have been correct. What Scortius says he deduced, in the midst of a race, while controlling four horses at speed, fighting off a rival, is almost beyond my capacity to comprehend."

"I actually realized it too late," Scortius said, looking rueful. "If I had truly been alert, I'd not have been going by Crescens on the inside at all. I'd have stayed outside him around the turn and down the far straight. That would have been the proper way to do it. Sometimes," he murmured, "we succeed by good fortune and the god's grace as much as anything else."

No one said anything to this, but Crispin saw the Supreme Strategos, Leontes, make a sign of the sun disk. After a moment, Valerius looked over and nodded to his Chancellor. Gesius, in turn, gestured to another man who walked forward from the single door behind the throne. He was carrying a black silk pillow. There was a ruby on it in a golden band. He came towards Crispin. Even at a distance Crispin saw that this shining prize for an Emperor's idle amusement at a banquet would be worth more money than he'd ever possessed in his life. The attendant stopped before him. Scortius, on Crispin's right, was smiling broadly. Good fortune and the god's grace.

Crispin said "No man is less worthy of this gift, though I hope to please the Emperor in other ways as I serve him."

"Not a gift, Rhodian. A prize. Any man-or woman-here might have won it. They all had a chance before you, earlier tonight."

Crispin bowed his head. A sudden thought came to him, and before he could resist it, he heard himself speaking again. "Might I… might I be permitted to make of this a gift, then, my lord?" He stumbled over the words. He was successful but not wealthy. Neither was his mother, aging, nor Martinian and his wife.

"It is yours," said the Emperor, after a brief, repressive silence. "What one owns one may give."

It was true, of course. But what did one own if life, if love, could be taken away to darkness? Was it all not just… a loan, a leasehold, transitory as candles?

Not the time, or the place, for that.

Crispin took a deep breath, forcing himself towards clarity, away from shadows. He said, knowing this might be another mistake, "I should be honoured if the Lady Styliane would accept this from me, then. I would, not have even had the chance to speak to this challenge had she not, thought so kindly of my worth. And I fear my own impolitic words earlier might have distressed a fellow artisan she values. May this serve to make my amends?" He was aware of the charioteer beside him, the man's drop-jawed gaze, a flurry of incredulous sound among the courtiers. "Nobly said!" cried Faustinus from by the two thrones.

It occurred to Crispin that the Master of Offices, powerful in his control of the civil service, might not be an especially subtle man. It also occurred to him in that same moment-noting Gesius's thoughtful expression and the Emperor's suddenly wry, shrewd one-that this might not be accidental.

He nodded at the attendant-vividly clad in silver-and the man carried the pillow over to the golden-haired lady standing near the thrones. Crispin saw that the Strategos, beside her, was smiling but that Styliane Daleina herself had gone pale. This might indeed have been an error; he had no sure instincts here at all.

She reached forward, however, and took the ruby ring, held it in an open palm. She had no real choice. Exquisite as it was, beside the spectacular pearl about her throat it was almost a trifle. She was the daughter of the wealthiest family in the Empire. Even Crispin knew this. She needed this ruby about as much as Crispin needed… a cup of wine.

Bad analogy, he thought. He did need one, urgently.

The lady looked across the space of the room at him for a long moment, and then said, all icy, composed perfection, "You do me too much honour in your turn, and honour the memory of the Empire in Rhodias with such generosity. I thank you." She did not smile. She closed her long fingers, the ruby nestled in her palm.

Crispin bowed.

"I must say, "interjected the Empress of Sarantium, plaintively, "that I am desolate now beyond all words. Did I, too, not urge you to speak, Rhodian? Did I not stop our beloved Scortius to give you an opportunity to show your cleverness? What gift will you make to me, dare I ask?"

"Ah, you are cruel, my love," said the Emperor beside her. He looked amused again.

"I am cruelly scorned and overlooked," said his wife.

Crispin swallowed hard. "I am at the service of the Empress in all things I may possibly do for her."

"Good!" said Alixana of Sarantium, her voice crisp, changing on the instant, as if this was exactly what she'd wanted to hear. Very good. Gesius, have the Rhodian conducted to my rooms. I wish to discuss a mosaic there before I retire for the night."

There was another rustle of sound and movement. Lanterns nickered. Crispin saw the sallow-faced man near the Strategos pinch his lips together suddenly. The Emperor, still amused, said only, "I have summoned him for the Sanctuary, beloved. All other diversions must follow our needs there."

"I am not," said the Empress of Sarantium, arching her magnificent eyebrows, "a diversion."

She smiled, though, as she spoke, and laughter followed in the throne room like a hound to her lead.

Valerius stood. "Rhodian, be welcome to Sarantium. You have not entered among us quietly." He lifted a hand. Alixana laid hers upon it, shimmering with rings, and she rose. Together, they waited for their court to perform obeisance. Then they turned and went from the room through the single door Crispin had seen behind the thrones.

Straightening, and then standing up once more, he closed his eyes briefly, unnerved by the speed of events. He felt like a man in a racing chariot, not at all in control of it.

When he opened his eyes again, it was to see the real charioteer, Scortius, gazing at him. "Be very careful," the Soriyyan murmured softly. "With all of them."

"How?" Crispin managed to say, just before the gaunt old Chancellor swooped down upon him as upon a prize. Gesius laid thin, proprietary fingers on Crispin's shoulder and smoothly guided him from the room, across the tesserae of the Imperial hunt, past the silver trees and the jewelled birds in the branches and the avidly watchful, silken figures of the Sarantine court.

As he walked through the silver doors into the antechamber again someone behind him clapped their hands sharply three times and then amid a resumption of talk and languid, late-night laughter, Crispin heard the mechanical birds of the Emperor begin to sing.