"Lord of Emperors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kay Guy Gavriel)

CHAPTER IV

He hadn't known Nishik long at all-only for the duration of their journey here-and he couldn't have said he liked the man. The stocky soldier made a poor manservant and an insufficiently respectful companion. He hadn't troubled himself to disguise the fact that he regarded Rustem as no more than a burdensome civilian: the traditional soldier's attitude. Rustem had made a point in the first days of mentioning his travels a few times, but when that elicited no useful response he stopped, finding the exercise of attempting to impress a common soldier to be undignified.

Having acknowledged this, it remained to note that the casual killing of a companion-whether one was partial to him or not-was hardly something one ought to countenance, and Rustem had no intention of doing so. He was still outraged about the morning's deadly encounter and his own humiliating flight through the Jaddite city.

This information he conveyed to the big, red-haired artisan at the wedding celebration to which he'd been brought. He was holding a cup of excellent wine, but could take no pleasure in the fact or the reality of his arrival-finally-in the Sarantine capital after a hard winter trek. The presence of the murderer at the same gathering undermined any such feelings and gave an edge to his anger. The young man, dressed now like some Sarantine lordling, bore no resemblance at all to the profane, drunken bully who'd accosted them with his cronies in the laneway. He didn't even seem to have recognized Rustem.

Rustem pointed out the fellow at the request of the mosaicist, who seemed a brisk, no-nonsense person, belying a first impression of unhealthy choler and passion. The artisan swore under his breath and promptly fetched the bridegroom to their little group.

"Cleander's fucked up again," the mosaicist-his name was Crispin- said grimly. He seemed prone to vulgar language.

"Tried to grab Shirin in the hallway?" The soldier bridegroom continued to present an inordinately cheerful visage.

"I wish it were that. No, he killed this man's servant this morning, in the street, with witnesses around. Including my friend Pardos, who just arrived in the City. Then he and a swarm of Greens chased both of them all the way to the Sanctuary, with swords drawn."

"Oh, fuck," said the soldier, with feeling. His expression had changed. "Those stupid little boys."

"They aren't boys," said Rustem coldly. "Boys are ten years old or such. That fellow was drunk at sunrise and killed with a blade."

The big soldier looked at Rustem carefully for the first time. "I understand that. He's still very young. Lost his mother at a bad time and left some intelligent friends for a wild group of younger ones in the faction. He's also hopelessly smitten with our hostess here and will have been drinking this morning because he was terrified of coming to her house."

"Ah," said Rustem, using a gesture his students knew well. "That explains why Nishik had to die! Of course. Forgive me for mentioning the matter."

"Don't be a shit, Bassanid," said the soldier, his eyes briefly hard. "No one's condoning a killing. We'll try to do something. I'm explaining, not excusing. I should also mention that the boy is the son of Plautus Bonosus. There's a need for some discretion."

"Who is-?"

"Master of the Senate," said the mosaicist. "He's over there, with his wife. Leave this with us, physician. Cleander can use a good scare put into him and I can promise you we'll make it happen."

"A scare?" said Rustem. He felt his temper rising again.

The red-haired fellow had a direct gaze. "Tell me, doctor, would a member of the court of the King of Kings be more severely punished for killing a servant in a street fight? A Sarantine servant?"

"I have no idea," said Rustem, although he did, of course.

Pivoting on a heel, he strode past the yellow-haired bride in her white garment and red belt and went right across the room towards the murderer and the older man the artisan had indicated. He was aware that his swift progress through a relaxed gathering would attract attention. A female servant, perhaps sensing a problem, appeared right in front of him, smiling, carrying a tray of small plates. Rustem was forced to stop; there was no room to pass. He drew a breath and, for want of evident alternatives, accepted one of the little plates she offered. The woman-young, full-figured, and dark-haired-lingered in his path. She balanced her round tray and took his wine cup, freeing his two hands. Her fingers touched his. "Taste it," she murmured, still smiling. Her tunic was cut distractingly low-not a fashion that had reached Kerakek.

Rustem did as she suggested. It was rolled fish of some sort, in pastry, a sauce on the plate. As he bit down, a mildly stunning explosion of flavours took place in his mouth and Rustem could not suppress a grunt of astonished pleasure. He looked at the plate in his hand, and then at the girl in front of him. He dipped a finger in the sauce and tasted it again, wonderingly.

The dancer hosting this affair clearly had a cook, he thought. And comely servants. The dark-haired girl was gazing at him with dimpled pleasure. She handed him a small cloth to wipe at his mouth and took the tiny plate from him, still smiling. She gave him back his wine.

Rustem discovered that his surge of anger appeared to have dissipated, But as the servant murmured something and turned to another guest, Rustem looked at the Senator and his son again and was struck by a thought. He stood still a moment longer, stroking his beard, and then moved forward, more slowly now.

He stopped before the slightly florid figure of the Master of the Sarantine Senate, noting the austere, quite handsome woman beside him and-more to the point-the son at his other side. He felt very calm now. He bowed to the man and the woman and introduced himself formally.

As he straightened, Rustem saw the boy finally recognize him and go white. The Senator's son glanced quickly towards the front of the room where their hostess, the dancer, was still greeting late arrivals. No escape for you, thought Rustem coldly, and he spoke his accusation to the father in a deliberately low-voiced, cool tone.

The mosaicist had been right, of course: discretion and dignity were critical when people of stature were involved. Rustem had no desire to become embroiled with the law here; he intended to deal with this Senator himself. It had just occurred to him that although a physician might learn much of Sarantine medicine and perhaps hear a little chatter about affairs of state, a man owed a debt by the Master of the Senate might find himself in a different situation-to the greater benefit of the King of Kings in Kabadh, who had things he wished to know about Sarantium just now.

Rustem saw no reason to have poor Nishik, his long-serving, much-loved servant, die in vain.

The Senator cast his son a satisfyingly poisonous glance and murmured, "Killed? Holy Jad. I am appalled, of course. You must allow-"

"He was drawing his own sword!" the boy exclaimed in a low, fierce tone. "He was-"

"Be silent!" said Plautus Bonosus, a little more loudly than he'd perhaps intended. Two men not far away glanced over. The wife, all reserve and composure, appeared to be gazing idly about the room, ignoring her family. She was listening, however; Rustem could see it.

"As I was saying," Bonosus continued more softly, turning back to Rustem, his colour even more heightened, "you must allow me to offer you a cup of wine at our home after this charming celebration. I am grateful that you chose to speak with me directly, of course."

"Of course," said Rustem gravely.

"Where would we find your unfortunate servant?" the Senator asked. A practical man.

"The body is being attended to," Rustem murmured.

"Ah. So there are… others who have already learned of this?"

"We were pursued through the streets by sword-wielding youths led by your son," Rustem said, allowing himself a shade of emphasis. "I imagine a number of people did observe our passage, yes. We received assistance in the Emperor's new Sanctuary from his mosaicist."

"Ah," said Plautus Bonosus again, glancing across the room. "The Rhodian. He does get about. Well, if that matter is attended to…"

"My mule and all my goods," said Rustem, "were left behind when we were forced to flee. I have just arrived in Sarantium this morning, you see."

The wife turned to him then, eyeing him thoughtfully. Rustem met her gaze briefly and turned away. The women here appeared to be rather more… present… than those in other places he'd been. He wondered if it had to do with the Empress, the power she was said to wield. A common dancer once. It was a remarkable story, really.

The Senator turned to his son. "Cleander, you will excuse yourself to our hostess and leave now, before the dinner is served. You will ascertain the whereabouts of this man's animal and goods and have them brought to our home. You will then wait there for me to arrive."

'Leave? Leave already?" said the boy, his voice actually breaking. "But I haven't even…"

"Cleander, there is a possibility you might be branded or exiled for this. Get the accursed mule," said his father.

His wife laid a hand on his arm. "Shh," she murmured. "Look."

A hush had descended over the large room full of animated, pleasure- seeking Sarantines. Plautus Bonosus looked past Rustem's shoulder and blinked in surprise.

"Now how do they come to be here?" he asked of no one in particular.

Rustem turned. The silence became a murmurous rustling as those assembled-fifty or more-bowed or sank low in acknowledgement of the man and the woman who stood now in the entrance to the room with the hostess behind them.

The man was very tall, smooth-shaven, compellingly handsome. He was bareheaded, which was unusual and showed his thick golden hair to good effect. He wore a knee-length, deep-blue tunic slashed to show gold at the sides, with gold hose and black boots like a soldier and a dark green panelled dress cloak, pinned at one shoulder with a blue gem, large as a man's thumbnail. He held a white flower in one hand, for the wedding.

The woman beside him had her own yellow hair gathered up loosely under a white mesh cap, with artful ringlets spilling down. Her floor-length garment was crimson and there were jewels at the hem. She wore gold at her ears and a necklace of gold with pearls and a golden cloak. She was nearly as tall as the man. A sallow, lean fellow materialized at the man's elbow and whispered briefly in his ear as those attending the celebration rose from homage.

"Leontes," said the Senator softly to Rustem. The Strategos."

It was a courtesy. Rustem could not have known this man, though for years he had heard of him-and feared him, as did everyone in Bassania. There was a glow cast by renown, Rustem thought, something almost tangible. It was Leontes the Golden (and the origin of the name became clearer now) who had comprehensively beaten the last fully mustered northern army east of Asen, almost capturing the Bassanid general, forcing a humiliating peace. The general had been invited to kill himself when he returned to Kabadh, and had done so.

It was Leontes who had also won lands (and productive, taxable citizens) for Valerius in the great spaces stretching all the way west and south to the fabled Majriti deserts, who had brutally quelled incursions from Moskav and Karch, who had been honoured-they'd heard of it even in Kerakek-with the most elaborate Triumph an Emperor had ever granted a returning Strategos since Saranios had founded this city.

And who had been given the tall, ice-elegant woman beside him as a further prize. They knew of the Daleinoi in Bassania, as well-even in Kerakek, which was on the southern trade routes, after all. The family's wealth had begun with a spice monopoly, and the eastern spices usually came through Bassania, north or south. Ten or fifteen years ago, Flavius Daleinus had been killed in some appalling fashion at a time of Imperial succession. A fire of some kind, Rustem recalled. His elder sons had been killed or crippled in the same attack, and the daughter was… here in this room, brilliant and golden as a prize of war.

The Strategos gestured briefly and the dark-haired serving girl hurried over with wine for him, her cheeks flushed with excitement. His wife also accepted a cup, but stayed behind as her husband stepped forward so that he appeared alone now, as if an actor on a stage. Rustem saw Styliane Daleina glancing around slowly, registering, he was certain, presences and alignments utterly invisible to him. Her expression was as unrevealing as that of the Senator's wife, but the impression given by the two women was in no other way the same. Where the wife of Plautus Bonosus was reserved and detached, the aristocratic spouse of the most powerful soldier in the Empire was cold and brilliant and even a little frightening. Awesome wealth and great power and violent death were in her lineage. Rustem managed to look away from her just as the Strategos began to speak.

"Lysurgos Matanios once said that it is a finer thing to see a friend well wed than to sip from even the rarest wine," Leontes said, lifting his cup. "It is a pleasure to enjoy both today," he added, pausing to drink. There was laughter: well-bred from the courtiers, more obviously excited from the theatre and army people.

"He always uses that line," murmured Bonosus to Rustem, drily. "I wish I knew why he was here, though."

As if answering, the Strategos went on. "It seemed proper to stop and lift a cup in honour of the marriage of the only man in the army who could talk so much and so well and so much and… so much, that he extracted the arrears of payment for the soldiers from the Precinct coffers. I do not urge anyone ever to put themselves in the position of being persuaded by the tribune of the Fourth Sauradian to do anything… unless they have a great deal of time to spare."

Laughter again. The man was smooth as a courtier but his manner was direct and unassuming, the teasing rough and easy as a soldier's. Rustem watched the military men in the room as they gazed at the speaker. There was adoration written in their features. The wife, motionless as a statue now, seemed vaguely bored.

"And I fear," Leontes was saying, "that we do not have a great deal of time today, so the Lady Styliane and I are not able to join you in sampling the delights prepared by Strumosus of the Blues in a Green household. I do commend the factions for this rare conjunction and hope it bodes well for a peaceful racing season." He paused, an eyebrow raised for emphasis: this was an authority figure, after all. "We came that we might salute the groom and his bride in Jad's most holy name, and to convey a piece of information that may add in some small way to the felicity of the day."

He paused again, sipped his wine. "I addressed the bridegroom as tribune of the Fourth Sauradian just now. I was behind the tidings, as it happens. It seems that some Supreme Strategos or other, anxious to put a certain mellifluous voice far away from his overburdened ears, rashly signed papers this morning affirming the promotion of the tribune Carullus of Trakesia to his new rank and appointment… as chiliarch of the Second Calysian, such position to be assumed in thirty days… which will allow the new chiliarch time here with his bride, and a chance to lose some of his increased pay at the Hippodrome."

There was a shout of pleasure and laughter, nearly drowning out the last words. The bridegroom came quickly forward, his face flushed, and knelt before the Strategos.

"My lord!" he said, looking up, "I am… I am speechless!"

Which elicited its own burst of laughter from those who knew the man. "However," added Carullus, lifting a hand, "I do have a question I must ask."

"Speechlessly?" said Styliane Daleina, from behind her husband. Her first comment, softly spoken, but everyone heard it. Some people did not need to raise their voices to be heard.

"I lack that skill, my lady. I must use my tongue, though with far less skill than my betters. I only wish to ask if I may decline the promotion."

Silence fell. Leontes blinked.

"This is a surprise," he said. "I would have thought…" He let the sentence trail off.

"My great lord, my commander… if you wish to reward an unworthy soldier, it will be by allowing him, at any rank at all, to fight at your side in the next campaign. I do not believe I am saying anything untoward if I suggest that Calysium, with the Everlasting Peace signed in the east, will be no such place. Is there nowhere in… in the west where I might serve with you, my Strategos?"

At the reference to Bassania, Rustem heard the Senator beside him shift a little, uneasily, and clear his throat softly. But nothing of note had been sped. Yet.

The Strategos smiled a little now, his composure regained. He reached down, and in a gesture almost fatherly, ruffled the hair of the soldier kneeling before him. His men loved him, it was said, the way they loved their god.

Leontes said, "There is no campaign declared anywhere, chiliarch. Nor is it my practice to send newly married officers to a war front when there are alternatives, as there always are."

"Then I can be attached to you, since there is no war front," said Carullus, and he smiled innocently. Rustem snorted; the man had audacity.

'Shut up, you idiot!" The entire room heard the red-haired mosaicist. The laughter that followed affirmed as much. It had been intended, of course. Rustem was quickly coming to realize how much of what was being said and done was carefully planned or cleverly improvised theatre. Sarantium, he decided, was a stage for performances. No wonder an actress could command so much power here, induce such prominent people to grace her home-or become Empress, if it came to that. Unthinkable in Bassania, of course. Utterly unthinkable.

The Strategos was smiling again, a man at ease, sure of his god-and of himself, Rustem thought. A righteous man. Leontes glanced across at the mosaicist and lifted his cup to him.

It is good advice, soldier," he said to Carullus, still kneeling before him. "You will know the pay difference between legate and chiliarch. You nave a bride now, and should have strong children to raise soon enough, in Jad's holy service and to honour his name."

He hesitated. "If there is a campaign this year-and let me make it clear that the Emperor has offered no indications yet-it might be in the name of the poor, wronged queen of the Antae, which means Batiara, and I will not have a newly married man beside me there. The east is where I want you for now, soldier, so speak of this no more." The words were blunt, the manner almost paternal-though he wouldn't be older than the soldier before him, Rustem thought. "Rise up, rise up, bring us your bride that we may salute her before we go."

"I can just see Styliane doing that," the Senator beside Rustem murmured under his breath.

"Hush," said his wife, suddenly. "And look again."

Rustem saw it too.

Someone had now come forward, past Styliane Daleina, though pausing gracefully beside her for an instant, so that Rustem was to carry a memory for a long time of the two of them next to each other, golden and golden.

"Might the poor, wronged queen of the Antae have any voice at all in this? In whether war is brought to her own country in her name," said this new arrival. Her voice-speaking Sarantine but with a western accent-was clear as a bell, bright anger in it, and it cut into the room like a knife through silk.

The Strategos turned, clearly startled, swiftly concealing it. An instant later he bowed formally and his wife-smiling a little to herself, Rustem saw-sank down with perfect grace, and then the entire room did so.

The woman paused, waiting for this acknowledgement to pass. She hadn't been at the wedding ceremony, must have just this moment arrived. She, too, was clad in white under a jewelled collar and stole. Her hair was gathered under a soft hat of a dark green shade and as she shed an identically hued cloak now for a servant to take, it could be seen that her long, floor-length garment had a single vertical stripe down one side, and it was porphyry, the colour of royalty everywhere in the world.

As the guests rose in a rustle of sound, Rustem saw that the mosaicist and the younger fellow from Batiara who'd saved Rustem's life this morning remained where they were, kneeling on the dancer's floor. The stocky young man looked up, and Rustem was startled to see tears on his face.

"The Antae queen," said the Senator in his ear. "Hildric's daughter."

Confirmatory, but hardly needed: physicians draw conclusions from information gathered. They had spoken of this woman in Sarnica, too, her late-autumn flight from assassination, sailing into exile in Sarantium. A hostage for the Emperor, a cause of war if he needed one.

He heard the Senator speak to his son again. Cleander muttered something fierce and aggrieved behind him but made his way out of the room, obeying his father's orders. The boy hardly seemed to matter just now. Rustem was staring at the Antae queen, alone and far from her home. She was poised, unexpectedly young, regal in her bearing as she surveyed a glittering crowd of Sarantines. But what the doctor in Rustem-the physician at the core of what he was-saw in the clear blue northern eyes across the room was the masked presence of something else.

"Oh dear," he murmured, involuntarily, and then became aware that the wife of Plaufus Bonosus was looking at him again.

A feast for fifty people was not, Kyros knew, particularly demanding for Strumosus, given that they often served four times that number in the Blues" banquet hall. There was some awkwardness in using a different kitchen, but they'd been over here a few days earlier and Kyros-given larger responsibilities all the time-had done the inventory, allocated locations, and supervised the necessary rearrangements.

He'd somehow overlooked the absence of sea salt and knew Strumosus wouldn't soon forget it. The master chef was not-to put it mildly-tolerant of mistakes. Kyros would have run back to their own compound to fetch it himself, but running was one thing he wasn't at all good for, given the bad foot he dragged about with him. He'd been busy by then with the vegetables for his soup in any case, and the other kitchen boys and undercooks had their own duties. One of the houseservants had gone, instead-the pretty, dark-haired one the others were all talking about when she wasn't nearby.

Kyros seldom engaged in that sort of banter. He kept his passions to himself. As it happened, for the last few days-since their first visit to this house-his own daydreams had been about the dancer who lived here. This might have been disloyal to his own faction, but there was no one among the Blue dancers who moved or sounded or looked like Shirin of the Greens. It made his heartbeat quicken to hear the ripple of her laughter from another room and sent his thoughts at night down corridors of desire.

But she did that for most of the men in the City, and Kyros knew it. Strumosus would have declared this a boring taste, too easy, no subtlety in it. The reigning dancer in Sarantium? What an original object of passion! Kyros could almost hear the chef's astringent voice and mocking applause, the back of one hand slapping into the palm of the other.

The banquet was nearly done. The boar, stuffed with thrushes and wood pigeons and quail eggs, served whole on an enormous wooden platter, had occasioned an acclamation they'd heard even in the kitchen. Shirin had earlier sent the black-haired girl to report that her guests were in paroxysms of delight over the sturgeon-king of fish! — served on a bed of flowers, and the rabbit with Soriyyan figs and olives. Their hostess had conveyed her own impression of the soup earlier. The exact words, relayed by the same girl with dimpled mirth, were that the Greens" dancer intended to wed the man who'd made it before the day was done. Strumosus had pointed with his spoon to Kyros and the dark-haired girl had grinned at him, and winked.

Kyros had immediately ducked his head down over the herbs he was chopping as raucous, teasing voices were raised all around, led by his friend Rasic. He had felt the tips of his ears turning red but had refused to look up. Strumosus, walking past, had rapped him lightly on the back of the head with his long-handled spoon: the chef's version of a benign, approving gesture. Strumosus broke a great many wooden spoons in his kitchen. If he hit you gently enough for the spoon to survive you could deduce that he was pleased.

It seemed the sea salt had been forgotten after all, or forgiven.

The dinner had begun on a high-pitched note of distraction and excitement, the guests chattering furiously about the arrival and immediate departure of the Supreme Strategos and his wife with the young western queen. Gisel of the Antae had arrived to join the banquet here. An unanticipated presence, a gift of sorts offered by Shirin to her other guests: the chance to dine with royalty. But the queen had then accepted a suggestion made by the Strategos that she return with him to the Imperial Precinct to discuss the matter of Batiara-her own country, after all- with certain people there.

The implication, not lost on those present, and relayed to a keenly interested Strumosus in the kitchen by the clever dark-haired girl, was that the certain person might be the Emperor himself.

Leontes had expressed distress and surprise, the girl said, that the queen had not been consulted or even apprised to this point and vowed to rectify the omission. He was impossibly wonderful, the girl had added.

So, in the event, there was no royalty at the U-shaped table arrangement in the dining room after all, only the memory of royalty among them and royalty's acid, castigating tone directed at the most important soldier in the Empire. Strumosus, learning of the queen's departure, had been predictably disappointed but then unexpectedly thoughtful. Kyros was just sorry not to have seen her. You missed a lot in the kitchen sometimes, attending to the pleasure of others.

The dancer's servants and the ones she'd hired for the day and the boys they'd brought with them from the compound seemed to have finished clearing the tables. Strumosus eyed them carefully as they assembled now, straightening tunics, wiping at spots on cheek or clothing.

One tall, very dark-eyed, well-made fellow-no one Kyros knew- met the chef's glance as Strumosus paused in front of him and murmured, with an odd half-smile, "Did you know that Lysippus is back?"

It was said softly, but Kyros was standing beside the cook, and though he turned quickly and busied himself with dessert trays he had good ears.

He heard Strumosus, after a pause, say only, "I won't ask how you came by that knowledge. There's sauce on your forehead. Wipe it off before you go back out."

Strumosus moved on down the line. Kyros found himself breathing with difficulty. Lysippus the Calysian, Valerius's grossly fat taxation master, had been exiled after the Victory Riot. The Calysian's personal habits had been a cause of fear and revulsion among the lower classes of the City; his had been a name used to threaten wayward children.

He had also been Strumosus's employer before he was exiled.

Kyros glanced furtively over at the chef, who was sorting out the last of the serving boys now. This was just a rumour, Kyros reminded himself, and the tidings might be new to him but not necessarily to Strumosus. In any case, he had no way to sort out what it might mean, and it was none of his affair in any possible way. He was unsettled, though.

Strumosus finished arranging the boys to his satisfaction and sent them parading back out to the diners with ewers of sweetened wine and the great procession of desserts: sesame cakes, candied fruit, rice pudding in honey, musk melon, pears in water, dates and raisins, almonds and chestnuts, grapes in wine, huge platters of cheeses-mountain and lowland, white and golden, soft and hard-with more honey for dipping, and his own nut bread. A specially baked round loaf was carried up to the bride and groom with two silver rings inside that were the chef's gift to them.

When the last platter and tray and flask and beaker and serving dish had gone out and no sounds of catastrophe emerged from the dining hall, Strumosus finally allowed himself to sit on a stool, a cup of wine at his elbow. He didn't smile, but he did set down his wooden spoon. Watching from the corner of his eye, Kyros sighed. They all knew what the lowered spoon meant. He allowed himself to relax.

"I imagine," said the chef to the room at large, "that we have done enough to let the last of the wedding day be mild and merry and the night be what it will." He was quoting some poet or other. He often did. Meeting Kyros's glance, Strumosus added, softly, "Rumours of Lysippus bubble up like boiled milk every so often. Until the Emperor revokes his exile, he isn't here."

Which meant he knew Kyros had overheard. He didn't miss much, Strumosus. The chef looked away and around the crowded kitchen. He lifted his voice, "A serviceable afternoon's work, all of you. The dancer should be happy out there."

'She says to tell you that if you do not come rescue her immediately she will scream at her own banquet and blame you. You understand," added the bird, silently, 'that I don't like being made to talk to you this way. It feels unnatural.

As if there was anything remotely natural about any of these exchanges, Crispin thought, trying to pay attention to the conversation around him.

He could hear Shirin's bird as clearly as he'd heard Linon-provided he and the dancer were sufficiently close to each other. At a distance, Danis's inward voice faded and then disappeared. No thoughts he sent could be heard by the bird-or by Shirin. In fact, Danis was right. It was unnatural.

Most of the guests were back in Shirin's reception room. The Rhodian tradition of lingering at table-or couch in the old-style banquets- was not followed in the east. When the meal was done and people were drinking their last cups of mixed or honey-sweetened wine, Sarantines tended to be on their feet again, sometimes unsteadily.

Crispin glanced across the room and was unable to suppress a grin. He brought a hand up to cover his mouth. Shirin, wearing the bird about her neck, had been cornered against the wall-between a handsome wood-and-bronze trunk and a large decorative urn-by the Principal Secretary of the Supreme Strategos. Pertennius, gesturing in full conversational flight, showed little inclination to register her attempts at shifting to rejoin her guests.

This was an accomplished, sophisticated woman, Crispin decided cheerfully. She could deal with her own suitors, welcome or unwelcome. He turned back to the conversation he'd been following. Scortius and the muscular Green charioteer, Crescens, were discussing alternative dispositions of the horses in a quadriga. Carullus had left his new bride and was hanging on their every syllable. So were a number of others. The racing season was about to start; this exchange was visibly whetting appetites. Holy men and charioteers were the figures most revered by Sarantines. Crispin remembered hearing that even before he'd begun his journey. It was true, he had come to realize-at least as far as the charioteers went.

Kasia, not far away, was in the company of two or three of the younger Green dancers, with Vargos hovering protectively nearby. The dancers were likely to be tormenting her about the night to come; it was part of the wedding tradition. It was also a teasing that would be appallingly inappropriate for this particular bride. It occurred to Crispin that he ought to go over and salute her properly himself.

'She now says to say she will offer you pleasures you have only imagined if you'll only come over here," said the dancer's bird abruptly in his head. Then added, I hate when she does this.

Crispin laughed aloud, occasioning curious glances from those following the debate beside him. Turning the sound into a cough, he looked across the room again. Shirin's mouth was fixed in a rigid smile. Her eyes met his over the shoulder of the lean, sallow secretary and there was black murder in them: nothing that promised delight at all, of the flesh or the spirit. Crispin realized, belatedly, that Pertennius must be very drunk. That, too, diverted him. Leontes's secretary was normally the most controlled of men.

Even so, Shirin could cope, he decided. This was all very amusing, in fact. He lifted a hand in a wave and smiled affably at the dancer before turning back again to the chariot-racers" conversation.

He and Zoticus's daughter had achieved an understanding, built around his ability to hear the bird and the story he'd told her about Linon. She had asked him, that chilly afternoon in autumn-it seemed a long time ago-if what he'd done with his bird meant that she should release Danis in the same way. He had been unable to answer that. There had ensued a silence, one that Crispin understood, then he had heard the bird murmur, inwardly, 'If I weary of this I will tell you. It is a promise. If that happens, take me back.

Crispin had shivered, thinking of the glade where Linon's surrendered soul had saved their lives in the mist of the half-world. Taking one of the alchemist's birds back to the Aldwood was not a simple matter, but he hadn't spoken of that then, or since.

Not even when a letter came from Martinian to Shirin and she sent word to Crispin in the Sanctuary and he came and read it. It seemed that Zoticus had left instructions with his old friend: if he were not home from an unexpected autumn journey by midwinter, or had not sent tidings, Martinian was to act as if he were dead and divide the alchemist's estate according to directions given. The servants were attended to; there were various personal bequests; some named objects and documents were burned.

The house near Varena and all that lay within it undestroyed were left to his daughter Shirin, to use or deal with as she saw best.

"Why did he do that? What in Jad's impossible name," the girl had exclaimed to Crispin in her own sitting room, the bird lying on the chest by the fire, "am I to do with a house in Batiara?"

She'd been bewildered and upset. She had never met her father in her life, Crispin knew. Nor was she his only child.

"Sell it," he'd said. "Martinian will do it for you. He's the most honest man in the world."

"Why did he leave it to me?" she'd asked.

Crispin had shrugged. "I didn't know him at all, girl."

"Why do they think he's dead? Where did he go?"

And that answer he thought he did have. It wasn't a difficult puzzle, which didn't make the solution easier to live with. Martinian had written that Zoticus had taken a very sudden, late-season trip to Sauradia. Crispin had earlier written to the alchemist about Linon, a cryptic retelling of what had happened in the glade.

Zoticus would have understood the implications: far more of them than Crispin had. He was quite certain, in fact, where Shirin's father had gone.

And reasonably sure what would have happened when he got there.

He hadn't told this to the girl. Instead, he'd carried some difficult thoughts out into the wintry cold and a slanting rain, and had had a great deal to drink later that night in The Spina and then a quieter tavern, his assigned guards following him about, protecting the Emperor's so-valued mosaic artisan from all possible harm. Worldly harm. There were other kinds. The wine didn't do what he needed it to do. The memory of the zubir, the dark, huge presence of it in his life, seemed destined not to leave him.

Shirin herself was a balancing spirit. He'd come to think of her that way as the winter deepened. An image of laughter, movements quick as hummingbirds, with a cleverness equally quick and a generosity one might not have expected in a woman so celebrated. She couldn't even walk out-of-doors in the City without hired guards of her own to fend off admirers.

It appeared-and he hadn't known this until today-that the dancer had formed a relationship of sorts with Gisel, the young Antae queen. He had no idea when that had begun. They certainly hadn't told him. The women he knew here were… complicated.

There had been a moment earlier this afternoon when Crispin had been excruciatingly aware that there were four women in the room who had entangled him in intimacies recently: a queen, a dancer, a married aristocrat… and the one he'd saved from slavery, who was a bride today.

Only Kasia had touched him, he had thought, with what he knew to be tenderness, on a windy, black, dream-haunted night in Sauradia. The memory made him uncomfortable. He could still hear the shutter banging in the wind outside, still see Ilandra in his dream, the zubir between them, and then gone. He had been awake and crying out and Kasia had been beside his bed in the cold room, speaking to him.

He looked over at her, newly married to his closest friend here, and then glanced quickly away when he saw that her eyes had been resting on him.

And that, too, was an echo of a different exchange of glances earlier this afternoon, with someone else.

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 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 co 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, it 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. It’d 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 half-world, 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 arc 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 af 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.

Poor 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’d 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.

Shirin looked at Crispin. "Thank you," she said. "You bastard."

"You had your revenge," he sighed. "Half the guests here will have an image of me as some pagan fertility figure, rampant as a pole."

She laughed. "It's good for you. Too many people are afraid of you."

"Not you," he said absently.

Her expression changed, eyeing him. "What happened? You don't look well. Did I really-?"

He shook his head. "Not you. Your father, actually." He took a breath.

"My father is dead," Shirin said.

"I know. But half a year ago he gave me two names he said might help me in Sarantium. One was yours."

She was staring at him now. "And?"

"And the other was that of a physician, with a house and street where I might find him."

"Doctors are useful."

Crispin took another deep breath. "Shirin, the man he named to me last autumn just arrived in Sarantium this morning, and was offered a residence on the named street only this afternoon, just now, here in your home."

"Oh," said the alchemist's daughter.

There was a silence. And in it they both heard a voice: 'But why," said Danis, 'is this so unsettling? You must have known he could do such things.

It was true, of course. They did know. Danis was her own proof of it. They were hearing the inward voice of a crafted bird that was the soul of a slain woman. What more evidence of power was required? But knowing and knowing were different things, at these borders of the half-world, and Crispin was pretty certain he remembered Zoticus denying being able to foretell the future, when asked. Had he lied? Possibly. Why should he have told all the truth to an angry mosaicist he hardly knew?

But why, then, should he have given that same stranger the first bird he'd ever fashioned, dearest to his own heart?

The dead, Crispin thought, stay with you.

He looked at Shirin and her bird and found himself remembering his wife and realizing it had been some days since he'd thought about Ilandra, which never used to happen. He felt sorrow and confusion and the effects of too much wine.

"We had better go back out," Shirin said. "It is probably time for the wedding-bed procession."

Crispin nodded. "Probably."

She touched his arm, opened the door to the kitchen. They went through and back out to rejoin the party.

A little later, Crispin found himself in the darkening street among carried torches and music-makers and bawdy songs, with soldiers and theatre people and the usual cluster of hangers-on joining the loud parade as they led Carullus and Kasia to their new home. People banged things, sang, shouted. There was laughter. Noise was good, of course: it frightened away any evil spirits that might blight the marriage bed. Crispin tried to join in the general merriment, but failed. No one seemed to notice; night was falling and the others were more than loud enough. He wondered how Kasia felt about all of this.

He kissed bride and groom, both, at their doorway. Carullus had leased a set of rooms in a good neighbourhood. His friend, now a genuinely high-ranking officer, held him close and Crispin returned the embrace. He realized that neither he nor Carullus was entirely sober. When he bent to salute Kasia he became aware of something new and subtle about her, and then realized with a shock what it was-a scent: one that only an Empress and a dancer were supposed to wear.

Kasia read his expression in the darkness. They were standing very close. "She said it was a last gift," she whispered shyly.

He could see it. Shirin was like that. Kasia would be as royalty for this night. A rush of affection for this girl swept over him now. "Jad love you and your own gods defend you," he whispered fiercely. "You were not saved from the grove for sorrow."

He had no way of knowing if that was true, but he wanted it to be. She bit her lip, looking up at him, but said nothing, only nodded her head. Crispin stepped back. Pardos and Vargos were standing by. It had turned cold now.

He stopped by Shirin, eyebrows raised. "A risky gift?" he asked.

She knew what he meant. "Not for one night," she said softly. "In a bridal chamber. Let her be an Empress. Let him hold one."

As those who hold you do? he thought suddenly, but did not say. It might have been in his face, though, for Shirin abruptly looked away, nonplussed. He walked over to Pardos. They watched bride and groom pause on their threshold, amid jests and cheering.

"Let's go," said Crispin.

'Wait!" said the bird.

He looked back. Shirin, hooded and cloaked now in the darkness, stepped forward again and laid a gloved hand on his arm. She said, beseechingly, and to be heard,'I have a last favour to ask. Will you escort a dear friend home? He's not quite… himself, and it isn't fair to take the soldiers from their celebrating now, is it?"

Crispin glanced beyond her. Swaying unsteadily, with a wide, entirely uncharacteristic smile spread across his face and eyes glazed like an enamel icon of some holy figure, was Pertennius of Eubulus.

"But of course," Crispin said evenly. Shirin smiled. Her composure had returned, very quickly. She was a dancer, an actress, trained.

'She says you are not to take any sexual advantage of the poor man in his disordered state." Even the accursed bird seemed amused again. Crispin gritted his teeth, said nothing. Carullus and Kasia disappeared within, to a last lewd chorus from the musicians and the soldiers.

"No, no, no, no!" said the secretary, stepping forward too quickly from behind Shirin. "Dear woman! I'm well, I'm entirely well! In fact I shall… escort you home myself! Honoured! Honoured to-"

Vargos, who was nearest, managed to catch the man before he toppled in the process of demonstrating the excellence of his state.

Crispin sighed. The fellow did need an escort, and Shirin was right about the soldiers, who were collectively as far gone in drink as the secretary and loudly proclaiming intentions of further celebration in honour of the newest chiliarch in the Sarantine army.

He sent Vargos with Pardos back to his own home and began walking-slowly, of necessity-with the secretary towards Pertennius's chambers, next to the Strategos's city residence. He didn't need directions: in addition to having the use of an entire wing of one of the palaces in the Imperial Precinct, Leontes owned the largest house in Sarantium. It happened to be nowhere close to Crispin's own home and mostly uphill from where they were; Shirin had known that, of course. It occurred to him that she really had bested him in their encounters today. He should probably be more irked by that than he was. He was still touched by her gesture with the perfume, though.

Looking back over his shoulder, carrying his own torch, he saw that the Greens" dancer would not lack for escorts on her own short journey home.

It was cold. He hadn't thought to take a cloak, of course, in that mad rush to change and make the ceremony in time.

"Fucking Jad," he said under his breath.

Pertennius giggled, almost fell. "Fucking!" he agreed and then giggled again, as if he'd startled himself. Crispin snorted; controlled men could be amusing when in drink.

He steadied the secretary with a hand on his elbow. They trudged on, close as cousins, as brothers, clad in white under the white moon. At intervals, out of the corner of his eye, Crispin saw tongues of flame flicker and vanish along the streets. You always saw those at night in Sarantium; one even commented on it after they'd spent any time in the City. A little later, as they passed behind the Sanctuary and turned up the wide street that would bring them to the secretary's rooms, they saw a sumptuous litter appear in front of them, its curtains closed. They both knew where they were, however, and who, almost certainly, would be inside.

Neither man commented, though Pertennius took a sudden deep breath of the cold night air and straightened his shoulders, walking a few steps alone with an exaggerated gravity, before stumbling again and accepting Crispin's guiding hand. They passed a watchman of the Urban Prefecture and nodded gravely to him: two inebriated men, out later than was safe, but well dressed, suited to this neighbourhood. Ahead, they saw the litter turn into a torchlit courtyard as servants swung open the gates and then closed them quickly.

The blue moon was up now above the houses, a crescent. A faint white line of flame appeared to run right across a laneway where it met the wide street and then it disappeared.

"Must come in!" Pertennius of Eubulus said as they went past the massive stone house and the barred gates where the litter had been admitted and came to his door. "A chance to converse. Away from the street crowd, the soldiers. Actors. Uneducated rabble."

"Oh, no," Crispin demurred. He achieved a smile. There was something sourly amusing about the man taking that tone in his current state. "We both need sleep, friend." He was feeling his own wine now, and other things. A restlessness of spring. Night. A wedding. The presence of the past. This wasn't the person he wanted to be with now. He didn't know who was.

'Must!" the secretary insisted. "Talk to you. My own task. Write about the Emperor's buildings, the Sanctuary. Your work. Questions! Why a bison? Those women? On the dome? Why so much of… of you, Rhodian?" The gaze, in moonlight, was direct for a disconcerting instant, could almost have been called lucid.

Crispin blinked. More here than he'd expected, from the man, from the moment. After a long hesitation, and with a mental shrug, he went to the door with Leontes's secretary and entered when a servant admitted them. Pertennius stumbled on his own threshold, but then led him heavily up a flight of stairs. Crispin heard the door being closed below Behind them in the night streets of the City, flames appeared and disappeared as they always did, seen or unseen, unlit by any taper or spark unfathomable as the moonlit sea or the desires of men and women between their birth and dying.