Sailing to Sarantium (28 page)

'It is unmatched in the world!'

'I believe that.'

The cleric hesitated. Kasia and Vargos, Crispin saw, were eyeing him
with astonishment. It occurred to him-with a restorative amusement
that neither of them had had any reason to believe he was good for
anything to this point. A worker in mosaic had little enough chance
to show his gifts or skill walking the emptiness of Sauradia.

In that moment, in an intervention Crispin could have called divine a
tinkling sound was heard across the floor. Crispin repressed a smile
and walked over. He knelt, looking carefully, and found a brownish
tessera without difficulty. He turned it over. The backing was dry,
brittle. It crumbled to powder as he brushed it with a finger. He
rose and walked back to the other three, handing the mosaic piece to
the cleric.

'A holy message?' he said dryly. 'Or just a piece of dark stone
from'-he looked up-'most likely the robe again, on the right side?'

The cleric opened his mouth and closed it, exactly as he had before.
He was undoubtedly regretting, Crispin thought, that this had been
his day to be awake in daylight and deal with visitors to the chapel.
Crispin looked up again at the severe majesty overhead and regretted
his bantering tone. Attempts at such things had rankled, but it
hadn't been personal, and he ought to have been above such pettiness.
Especially today, and here.

Men, he thought-perhaps especially this man, Caius Crispus of
Varena-seemed to escape so rarely from the concerns and trivial
umbrages that made up their daily lives. He ought to have been moved
beyond them today, surely. Or perhaps-a sudden, quite different sort
of thought-perhaps it was because he'd been taken so far beyond that
he needed to find his way back in this manner?

He looked at the cleric, and then up again at the god. The god's
image. It could be done, with skilful people. Probably close to half
a year, however, realistically. He decided, abruptly, that they would
stay the night here. He would speak to the leader of this holy order,
make amends for irony and levity. If they could be made to understand
what was happening on the dome, perhaps when Crispin reached the City
bearing a letter from them, the Chancellor, or someone else-the
Imperial Mosaicist?-might be enlisted in an attempt to preserve this
splendour. He'd teased and been flippant, Crispin thought. Perhaps
he'd make redress by an act of restoration, in memory of this day and
perhaps of his own dead.

In the unfolding of events, of a man's life, so many things can
intervene. Just as he was not to see his torch of Heladikos in the
chapel outside Varena by glittering candlelight, so this, too, was a
task Crispin was never to perform, though his intentions in that
moment were deeply sincere and nearly pious. Nor did they, in fact,
end up spending that night in the dormitory of the ancient sanctuary.

The cleric slipped the brown tessera into his robe. But before anyone
could speak again, they heard a distant and then a growing thunder of
horses from the road.

The cleric looked to the doors, startled. Crispin exchanged a sharp
glance with Vargos. Then they heard, even through the doors and well
back from the road, a loudly shouted command to halt. The hoofbeats
stopped. There was a jingling, then boots on the path and the voices
of men.

The doors burst open admitting a spearshaft of daylight and half a
dozen cavalry soldiers. They strode forward, heavy steps on stone.
None of them looked up at the dome. Their leader, a burly,
black-haired, very tall man, carrying his helmet under one arm,
stopped before the four of them. He nodded to the cleric, stared at
Crispin.

'Carullus, tribune of the Fourth Sauradian. My respects. Saw the
mule. We are looking for someone on this road. Would you be named
Martinian of Varena, by any chance?'

Crispin, unable to think of any adequate reason to do otherwise,
nodded his head in agreement. He was, in fact, speechless.

Carullus of the Fourth's formal expression gave way on the instant to
mingled disdain and triumph-a remarkable conjunction, in fact, a
challenge ever to render in tesserae. He levelled a thick, indicting
finger at Crispin. 'Where the fuck have you been, you shit-smeared
Rhodian slug? Sticking it into every poxed whore on the road? What
are you doing on the road instead of at sea? You've been awaited in
the fucking City for weeks now by his thrice-exalted Majesty, His
Imperial Magnificence, the fucking Emperor Valerius II himself. You
turd.'

 

'You are a mentally defective idiot of a Rhodian, you know.'

An entirely unexpected memory came to Crispin with the words forming
slowly, retrieved from some lost corner of childhood. It was amazing,
really, what the mind could dredge forth. At the most absurd moments.
He had been stunned unconscious when he was about nine years old,
playing 'Siege' with friends around and on top of a woodshed. He'd
failed to repel a ferocious Barbarian assault from two older boys and
had pitched from the shed roof, landing on his head among logs.

From that morning until the guardsmen of Queen Gisel had clapped a
sack of flour over his head and clubbed him into submission the
experience had not been repeated.

It had now, Crispin grasped through the miasma of an excruciating
headache, been duplicated twice in the same autumn season. His
thoughts were extremely muddled. For a moment he'd attributed the
obscene words he'd just heard to Linon. But Lmon was sardonic not
profane, she called him imbecile not idiot, spoke Rhodian not
Sarantian, and she was gone.

Recklessly, he opened his eyes. The world shifted and heaved,
appallingly. He closed them again quickly, near to throwing up.

'A genuine fool,' the heavy voice went on implacably. 'Ought never to
be allowed out of doors. What in holy thunder do you expect to happen
when a foreigner-a Rhodian at that!-calls a Sarantine cavalry tribune
a fart-faced goat-fucker in the presence of his own men?'

It wasn't Linon. It was the soldier.

Carullus. Of the Fourth Sauradian. That was the swine's name.

The swine went on, his tone a gross exaggeration of patience now.
'Have you the least idea of the position you put me in? The Imperial
army is entirely dependent on respect for authority . . . and regular
payment, of course . . . and you left me next to no choice at all. I
couldn't draw a sword in a chapel. I couldn't strike you with my
fist... giving you far too much dignity. Flattening you with a helm
was just about the only possible course. I didn't even swing hard. Be
grateful that I'm known for a kindly man, you snot-faced Rhodian
prig, and that you've a beard. The bruise won't show as much before
it heals. You'll be as ugly as you've always been, not more than
that.'

Carullus of the Fourth chuckled. He actually chuckled.

He'd been slugged with a helmet. It was coming back to him. On the
cheekbone and jaw. Crispin had a memory of a swift, heavy arm coming
across, then nothing more. He attempted to move his jaw up and down,
and then from side to side. A searing pain made him gasp, but
movement was possible, it seemed. He continued to try opening his
eyes at intervals, but the world insisted upon moving about in a
sick-making fashion whenever he did.

'Nothing's broken,' Carullus said easily. 'Told you, I'm a
good-natured man. Bad for discipline, but there it is. There it is.
The god made me what I am. You really must not think you can walk the
roads of the Sarantine Empire making insults-however clever-to the
face of military officers in the presence of their troops, my western
friend. I have fellow tribunes and chiliarchs who would have dragged
you straight outside and run you through in the graveyard to save
lugging your corpse anywhere. I, on the other hand, do not entirely
subscribe to the general loathing and contempt for the sanctimonious,
cowardly, shit-smeared Rhodian catamites that most soldiers of the
Empire profess. I actually find you people amusing at times and, as I
said before, I'm a kindly man. Ask my troops.'

Carullus, a tribune of the Sauradian Fourth, liked the cadences of
his own voice, it appeared. Crispin wondered how and how soon he
could kill this kindly man.

'Where . .. am I?' It hurt to talk.

'In a litter. Travelling east.'

This information brought no inconsiderable relief: it seemed the
world was indeed moving, and the perception of a weaving landscape
and an up-and-down-bobbing military conversationalist beside him was
not merely a product of his braincase having being rearranged again.

There was something urgent to be said. He struggled and then
remembered what it was. Forced his eyes open again, finally grasping
that Carullus was riding beside him, on a dark grey horse. 'My man?'
Crispin asked, moving his jaw as little as possible. 'Vargos.'

Carullus shook his head, his own mouth a thin line in a smooth-shaven
face. 'Slaves who strike a soldier-any soldier, let alone an
officer-are torn apart in a public execution. Everyone knows that. He
nearly knocked me down.'

'He's not a slave, you contemptible shit!'

Carullus said, mildly enough, 'Careful. My men might hear you, and
I'd have to respond. I know he isn't a slave. We looked at his
papers. He'll be whipped and castrated when we get to camp, but not
killed between the horses.'

Crispin felt his heart thump then, hard. 'He's a free man, an
Imperial citizen and my hired servant. You touch him at absolute
peril. I mean it. Where s the girl? What's happened to her?'

'She is a slave, from one of the inns. And young enough. We can use
her at camp. She spat in my face, you know.'

Crispin forced himself to be calm; anger would make him nauseated
again, and useless. 'She was sold from the inn. She belongs to me.
You will know this, having gone through those papers, too, you
pustulent excrescence. If she is touched or harmed, or if the man is
harmed in any way, my first request of the Emperor will be your
testicles sliced off and bronzed into gaming dice. Be clear about
this.'

Carullus sounded amused. 'You really are an idiot, aren't you? Though
pustulent excrescence is good, I must say. How do you tell anything
to the Emperor at all if it is reported that you and your companions
were found by our company to have been robbed, sexually penetrated in
various ways, and foully murdered by outlaws on the road today? I
repeat, the man and the girl will be dealt with in the usual manner.'

Crispin said, still struggling to keep his composure, 'There is an
idiot here, but he's on the horse not in the litter. The Emperor will
receive a precise report of our encounter from the Sleepless Ones,
along with their earnest petition that I return to supervise the
restoration of the image of Jad on the dome, as we were discussing
when you burst in. We were neither robbed nor killed. We were
accosted in a holy place by slovenly horsemen under an incompetent
dung-faced tribune, and a man personally summoned by Valerius II to
Sarantium was struck by a weapon in the face. Do you prefer a
reprimand leavened by my conceding I provoked you, or castration and
death, Tribune?'

There was a satisfying period of silence. Crispin brought up a hand
and tenderly touched his jaw.

He looked over and up at the horseman, squinting into the light. Odd
specks and colours danced erratically in his vision. 'Of course,' he
added, 'you could turn back west, kill the clerics-all of them will
know the story by now-and claim we were all robbed and violated and
killed by those evil brigands on the road. You could do that, you
dried-out rat dropping.'

'Stop insulting me,' Carullus said, but without force this time. He
rode some further distance in silence. 'I had forgotten about the
fucking cleric,' he admitted, at length.

'You forgot about who signed my Permit, too,' Crispin said. 'And who
requested me to come to the City. You've read the papers. Get on with
it, Tribune: give me half a reason to be forgiving. You might
consider begging.'

Instead, Carullus of the Fourth Sauradian began to swear.
Impressively, in fact, and for quite some time. Finally he swung down
from his horse, gestured at someone Crispin couldn't see, and handed
off the reins to the soldier who hurried up. He began walking
alongside Crispin's litter. 'Rot your eyes, Rhodian. We can't, have
civilians-especially foreigners-insulting army officers! Can't you
see that? The Empire is six months behind in their pay. Six months,
with winter coming! Everything's going for buildings.' He said the
word like another obscenity. 'Have you any notion what morale is
like?'

'The man. The girl,' Crispin said, ignoring this. 'Where are they?
Are they hurt?'

'They're here, they're here. She's not been touched, we've no time
for play. You are late, I told you. That's why we were riding to look
for you. An undignified, Jad-cursed order if ever there was one.'

'Oh, shit yourself! The courier was late. I wrapped up affairs and
left five days after he came! It was past the season for sailing. You
think I wanted to be on this road? Find him and ask questions.
Titaticus, or something. An idiot with a red nose. Kill him with your
helmet. How is Vargos?'

Carullus looked back over his shoulder. 'He's on a horse.'

'What? Riding?'

The tribune sighed. 'Tied across the back of one. He was... worked
over a little. He struck me after you fell. He can't do that!'

Crispin tried to sit up, and failed, miserably. He closed his eyes
and opened them again when this seemed practical. 'Listen to me
carefully. If that man has been seriously injured, I will have your
rank and your pension revoked, if not your life. This is an oath. Get
him in a litter and have him tended to. Where's the nearest physician
who doesn't kill people?'

'At camp. He struck me,' Carullus repeated, plaintively. But he
turned, after a moment, and gestured again, behind him. When another
soldier trotted up on his horse, Carullus murmured a rapid volley of
instructions, too softly for Crispin to hear. The cavalryman muttered
unhappily but turned to obey.