Sailing to Sarantium (49 page)

Valerius grinned suddenly, the boyish look returning. 'You lost a
wager, my love. Do not fall asleep.'

With real astonishment, Crispin saw the Empress of Sarantium's colour
heighten. She sketched a brief, mocking homage, though. 'My lord the
Emperor commands his subjects in all possible things.'

'Of course I do,' said Valerius.

'I shall leave you,' said his Empress, turning. Crysomallo preceded
her through the inner door. Crispin caught a glimpse of another
fireplace and a wide bed beyond, frescoes and many-coloured fabric
hangings on the walls. He realized in that moment that he was about
to be alone with the Emperor, after all. His mouth grew dry again
with the implications of that.

Alixana turned in the doorway. She paused, as if in thought. Then
laid a finger against one cheek and shook her head, as if in
self-reproach. 'I nearly forgot,' she said. 'Silly of me. Too
distracted by a pearl and the thought of dolphins. Do tell us,
Rhodian, your message from the queen of the Antae. What does Gisel
say?'

The sensation, after the apprehension of expecting to be private with
Valerius to convey exactly this, was very much as if a pit had gaped
open beneath his feet, sprung by the lever of that exquisite voice.
Crispin's heart lurched; he felt as if he were falling into
emptiness.

'Message?' he echoed, wittily.

The Emperor murmured, 'My love, you are capricious and cruel and
terribly unfair. If Gisel gave Caius Crispus any message at all, it
would have been for my ears alone.'

Holy Jad, Crispin thought, helplessly. They were too quick. They knew
too much. It was overwhelming.

'Of course she gave him a message.' Alixana's tone was mild, but her
eyes remained on Crispin's face, attentive and thoughtful, and there
was no amusement in them now, he saw.

He took a steadying breath. He had seen a zubir in the Aldwood. He
had walked into the forest expecting to die and had come out alive,
having encountered something beyond the mortal. Every living moment
that followed that time in the mist was a gift. He found he could
master fear, remembering that.

He said quietly, 'Is that why you asked me here, my lady?'

The Empress's mouth twitched wryly. 'That, and the dolphins. I do
want them.'

Valerius said matter-of-factly 'We have people in Varena, of course.
A number of the queen's own guard were killed one night this autumn.
Murdered in their sleep. Quite extraordinary. Such a thing only
happens when you need a secret kept. Our people in Varena addressed
themselves to the matter. It was not difficult for them to learn
about the much-talked-about arrival of the courier with our
invitation. He conveyed its content publicly, it seems? And for
reasons not immediately clear, it was an invitation you took upon
yourself, by deception, instead of Martinian. That was of interest.
Resources were deployed. You were evidently seen returning home that
same night very late, with a royal escort. Meeting someone in the
palace? Then came the deaths in the night. Conclusions were plausibly
drawn from all of this and posted to us.'

It was spoken as calmly, as precisely, as a dictated military report.
Crispin thought of Queen Gisel: beset on all sides, struggling to
find a path, a space for herself, survival. Brutally overmatched.

If he had a choice, he didn't know what it was. He looked from the
Emperor to the Empress of Sarantium, met Alixana's steady gaze this
time, and said nothing at all.

It seemed he didn't need to. The Empress said calmly, 'She asked you
to tell the Emperor that instead of an invasion a wedding might
deliver Batiara more surely to him, with less blood shed on all
sides.'

There seemed so little point, really, to resisting, but still he
would not speak. He lowered his head, but before he did, he saw her
sudden, brilliant smile. Heard Valerius cry, 'I am accursed! The one
night I win a wager she wins a larger one!'

The Empress said, 'She did want it relayed only to the Emperor,
didn't she?'

Crispin lifted his head, made no reply.

He might die here now, he knew.

'Of course she did. What else could she have done?' Alixana's tone
was matter-of-fact, no emotion in it at all. 'She would want to avoid
an invasion at almost any cost.'

'She would, I would,' said Crispin finally, as calmly as he could.
'Wouldn't any man? Or woman?' He took a breath. 'I will say one
thing, something I myself believe to be true: Batiara might possibly
be taken in war, but it cannot be held. The days of one Empire, east
and west, are over. The world is not what it was.'

'I believe that,' said Alixana, surprising him, again.

'And I do not,' said the Emperor flatly. 'Else I would not be
devising as I am. I will be dead one day and lying in my tomb, and I
would have it said of Valerius II that he did two things in his days
beneath Jad's sun. Brought peace and splendour to the warring schisms
and sanctuaries of the god's faith, and restored Rhodias to the
Empire and to glory. I will lie easy with Jad if these two things are
so.'

'And otherwise?' The Empress had turned to her husband. Crispin had a
sense he was party now to a long conversation, oft repeated.

'I do not think in terms of otherwise,' said Valerius. 'You know
that, love. I never have.'

Then marry her,' said his wife, very softly.

'I am married,' said the Emperor, 'and I do not think in terms of
otherwise.'

'Not even to lie easy with the god after you die?' Dark eyes holding
cool grey in a room of candles and gold. Crispin swallowed hard and
wished he were elsewhere, anywhere that was not here. He had not
spoken a word of Gisel's message, but they seemed to know it all, as
if his silence meant nothing. Except to himself.

'Not even for that,' said Valerius. 'Can you truly doubt?'

After a long moment, she shook her head. 'Not truly,' said the
Empress Alixana. There was a silence. She went on. 'In that case,
however, we ought to consider inviting her here. If she can survive
somehow and get away, her royalty becomes a tool against whoever
usurps the Antae throne-and someone surely would-if she were gone.'

Valerius smiled then, and Crispin-for reasons he did not immediately
grasp-felt a chill, as if the fire had died. The Emperor didn't look
boyish now. 'An invitation went west some time ago, love. I had
Gesius send it to her.'

Alixana went very still, then shook her head back and forth, her
expression a little odd now. 'We are all foolish if we try to stay
apace with you, are we not, my lord? Whatever jests or wagers you
might enjoy making. Do you weary of being cleverer than anyone?'

Crispin, appalled at what he'd just heard, burst out, 'She can't
possibly come! They'll kill her if she even mentions it.'

'Or let her come east and denounce her as a traitor, using that as an
excuse to seize the throne without shedding royal blood. Useful in
keeping you Rhodians quiescent, no?' Valerius's gaze was cool,
detached, sorting through some gameboard problem late at night. 'I
wonder if the Antae nobles are clever enough to do it that way. I
doubt it, actually.' These were real lives, though, Crispin thought,
horrified: a young queen, the people of a war-torn, plague-stricken
land. His home.

'Are they only pieces of a puzzle, my lord Emperor? All those living
in Batiara, your army, your own people exposed in the east if the
soldiers go west? What will the King of Kings in Bassania do when he
sees your armies leave the border?' Crispin heard his own reckless
anger.

Valerius was unruffled. He said, reflectively, 'Shirvan and the
Bassanids receive four hundred and forty thousand gold solidi a year
from our treasury. He needs the money. He's under pressure from the
north and south and he's building, too, in Kabadh. Maybe I'll send
him a mosaicist.'

'Siroes?' the Empress murmured drily.

Valerius smiled a little. 'I might.'

'I rather suspect you won't have the chance,' Alixana said.

The Emperor looked at her a moment. He turned back to Crispin. 'I had
an impression in the throne room earlier that you were of the same
cast of mind as I am, solving Scortius's challenge. Are your tesserae
not ... pieces of a puzzle, as you put it?'

Crispin shook his head. 'They are glass and stone, not mortal souls,
my lord.'

'True enough,' agreed Valerius, 'but then you aren't an Emperor. The
pieces change when you rule. Be grateful your craft spares you some
decisions.'

It was said-had been said quietly for years-that this man had
arranged the murder by fire of Flavius Daleinus on the day his uncle
was elevated to the Purple. In this moment Crispin could believe it.

He looked at the woman. He was aware that they had played him like a
musical instrument between them tonight, but he also sensed that
there was no malice in it. There seemed to be a casual amusement
even, and a measure of frankness that might reflect trust, or respect
for Rhodian heritage... or perhaps simply an arrogant indifference to
what he thought or felt.

'I,' said Alixana decisively, 'am going to my bath and bed. Wagers
seem to have cancelled each other, good my lord. If you return very
late, speak with Crysomallo or whoever is awake to ascertain my...
state.' She smiled at her husband, catlike, controlled again, and
turned to Crispin. 'Fear me not, Rhodian. I owe you for a necklace
and some diversion, and one day perhaps will have more of you.'

'Dolphins, my lady?' he asked.

She didn't answer. Went through the open inner door and Crysomallo
closed it.

'Drink your wine,' said the Emperor, after a moment. 'You look like
you need it. Then I will show you a wonder of the world.'

I have seen one, Crispin thought. Her scent lingered.

It occurred to him that he could have safely said it aloud, but he
did not. They both drank. Carullus had told him, at some point in
their journey here, that there was a judicial edict in the City that
no other woman could wear the Empress Alixana's perfume. 'What about
the men?' Crispin could remember saying carelessly, eliciting the
soldier's booming laugh. It seemed a long time ago.

Now, so far enmeshed in intricacies he could not even properly grasp
what was happening, Crispin took his cloak again and followed
Valerius II of Sarantium out of the Empress's private chambers and
down corridors, where he was soon lost. They went outside-though not
through the main entranceway-and the Emperor's guards conducted them
with torches across a dark garden space and along a stone path with
statuary strewn about them, looming and receding in the windy,
beclouded night Crispin could hear the sea.

They came to the wall of the Imperial Precinct and went along it on
the path until they came to a chapel, and there they entered.

There was a cleric awake among the burning candles-one of the
Sleepless Ones, by his white robes. He showed no surprise at seeing
the Emperor at this time of night. He made obeisance, and then-with
no words spoken-unhooked a key from his belt and led them to a small,
dark door at the back behind the altar of the god and the golden disk
of the sun.

The door opened into a short stone corridor, and Crispin, bending to
protect his head, realized they were passing through the wall. There
was another low door at the end of that brief passage; the cleric
unlocked it, too, with the same key, and stood aside.

The soldiers paused as well, and so Crispin followed the Emperor
alone into the Sanctuary of Jad's Holy Wisdom in the depths of night.

He straightened up and looked around him. There were lights burning
wherever he looked, thousands of them, it seemed, even though this
space was not yet consecrated or complete. His gaze went upwards and
then upwards and slowly he apprehended the stupendous, the
transcendent majesty of the dome that had been achieved here. And
standing very still where they had stopped, Crispin understood that
here was the place where he might achieve his heart's desire, and
that this was why he had come to Sarantium.

He had collapsed and fallen down in the small roadside chapel in
Sauradia, his strength obliterated by the power of the god that had
been achieved overhead, stern with judgement and the weight of war.
He did not fall here, or feel inclined to do so. He wanted to soar,
to be given the glory of flight-Heladikos's fatal gift from his
father-that he might fly up past all these burning lights and lay his
fingers tenderly upon the vast and holy surface of this dome.

Overmastered by so many things-past, present, swift bright images of
what might be-Crispin stood gazing upwards as the small door was
closed behind them. He felt as if he were being buffeted-a small
craft in a storm-by waves of desire and awe. The Emperor remained
silent beside him, watching his face in the rippled light of a
thousand thousand candles burning beneath the largest dome ever built
in all the world.

At length, at great length, Crispin said the first thing that came to
his lips among the many whirling thoughts, and he said it in a
whisper, not to disturb the purity of that place: 'You do not need to
take Batiara back, my lord. You, and whoever it was built this for
you, have your immortality.'

The Sanctuary seemed to stretch forever, so high were the four arches
on which the great dome rested, so vast the space denned beneath that
dome and the semi-domes supporting it, so far did naves and bays
recede into darkness and flickering light. Crispin saw green marble
like the sea in one direction, defining a chapel, blue-veined white
marble elsewhere, pale grey, crimson, black. Brought here from
quarries all over the world. He couldn't even conceive of the cost.
Two of those towering arches rested on a double ascension of marble
pillars with balconies dividing the two courses, and the intricacy of
the masons' work on those stone balustrades-even in this first
glimpse of them-made Crispin want to weep for the sudden memory of
his father and his father's craft.