Sailing to Sarantium (58 page)

'We, ah, must dine together, Rhodian, 'Pertennius said, after a
moment.

'We must,' Crispin agreed enthusiastically. 'Leontes spoke so highly
of you!'

Leontes's secretary hesitated another moment, his high forehead
furrowing. He looked as if there were a great many questions he had a
mind to ask, but then he bowed to Shirin and stepped out onto the
portico. She closed the door carefully behind him and stood there,
resting her head against it, her back to Crispin. Neither of them
spoke. They heard a jingle of harness from the street and the muted
sound of Pertennius riding off.

'Oh, Jad!' said Zoticus's daughter, voice muffled against the heavy
door. 'What must you think of me?'

'I really don't know,' said Crispin carefully. 'What should I think
of you? That you give friendly greetings? They say the dancers of
Sarantium are dangerous and immoral.'

She turned at that, leaning back against the door. 'I'm not. People
would like me to be, but I'm not.' She had not adorned herself, or
painted her face. Her dark hair was quite short. She looked very
young.

He could remember her kiss. A deception, but a practised one.
'Really?'

She flushed again, but nodded. 'Truly. You ought to be able to guess
why I did what I did. He's been calling almost every day since the
end of summer. Half the men in the Imperial Precinct expect a dancer
to go on her back and spread her legs if they wave a jewel or a
square of silk at her.'

Crispin didn't smile. 'They said that of the Empress, in her day,
didn't they?'

She looked wry; he saw her father, abruptly, in the expression. 'In
her day it might have been true. When she met Petrus she changed.
That's what I understand.' She pushed herself off from the door. 'I'm
being ungracious. Your cleverness just now saved me some real
awkwardness. Thank you. Pertennius is harmless, but he tells tales.'

Crispin looked at her. He was remembering the secretary's hungry
expression last night, eyes passing from the Empress to himself and
back to Alixana, with her long hair unbound. 'He may not be so
harmless. Tale-tellers aren't, you know, especially if they are
bitter.'

She shrugged. 'I'm a dancer. There are always rumours. Will you take
wine? Do you really come from my bastard of a so-called father?'

The words were rightly spoken, tossed away.

Crispin blinked. 'Yes I will and yes I do. I wouldn't have been able
to invent a tale like that,' he said, also mildly.

She went past him and he followed her down the corridor. There was a
doorway at the end of the hallway, opening to a courtyard with a
small fountain and stone benches, but it was too cold to sit outside.
Shirin turned in to a handsome room where a fire had been laid. She
clapped her hands once, and murmured quiet instructions to the
servant who immediately appeared. She seemed to have regained her
self-possession.

Crispin found that he was struggling to keep his own.

Lying on a wooden and bronze trunk set against the wall by the fire,
on its back as if it were a discarded toy, was a small leather and
metal bird.

Shirin turned from the servant and followed his gaze. 'That actually
was a gift from my endlessly doting father.' She smiled thinly. 'The
only thing I've ever received from him in my life. Years ago. I wrote
to him that I'd come to Sarantium and been accepted as a dancer by
the Greens. I'm not sure why I bothered to tell him, but he did
reply. That one time. He told me not to become a prostitute and sent
me a child's toy. It sings if you wind it up. He makes them, I
gather. A pastime of sorts? Did you ever see any of his birds?'

Crispin swallowed, and nodded his head. He was hearing-could not help
but hear-a voice crying in Sauradia.

'I did,' he said finally. 'When I visited him before leaving Varena.'
He hesitated, then took the chair she gestured towards, nearest the
fire. Courtesy for guests on a cold day. She took the seat opposite,
legs demurely together, her dancer's posture impeccable. He went on,
'Zoticus, your father ... is actually a friend of my colleague.
Martinian. I'd never met him before, to be honest. I can't actually
tell you very much, only report that he seemed well when I saw him. A
very learned man. We . . . spent part of an afternoon together. He
was kind enough to offer me some guidance for the road.'

'He used to travel a great deal, I understand,' Shirin said. Her
expression grew wry again. 'Else I'd not be alive, I suppose.'

Crispin hesitated. This woman's history was not something to which he
was entitled. But there was the bird, silenced, lying on the trunk. A
pastime of sorts. 'Your mother ... told you this?'

Shirin nodded. Her short black hair bobbed at her shoulders with the
movement. Crispin could see her appeal: a dancer's grace, quick
energy, effervescence. The dark eyes were compelling. He could
imagine her in the theatre, neat-footed and alluring.

She said,'To be just, my mother never said anything bad about him
that I can recall. He liked women, she said. He must have been a
handsome man, and persuasive. My mother had been intending to
withdraw from the world among the Daughters of Jad when he passed
through our village.'

'And after?' Crispin said, thinking about a grey-bearded pagan
alchemist on an isolated farm amid his parchments and artifacts.

'Oh, she did retreat to them. She's there now. I was born and raised
among holy women. They taught me my prayers and my letters. I was...
everyone's daughter, I suppose.'

'Then how . . . ?'

'I ran away.'

Shirin of the Greens smiled briefly. She might be young, but it was
not an innocent smile. The houseservant appeared with a tray. Wine,
water, a bowl of late-season fruit. Zoticus's daughter dismissed her
and mixed the wine herself, bringing his cup across. He caught her
scent again, the Empress's.

Shirin sat down once more, looking across the room at him,
appraisingly. 'Who are you?' she asked, not unreasonably. She tilted
her head a little sideways. Her glance went briefly past him, then
returned.

'Is this the new regimen? You silence me except when you need my
opinion? How gracious. And, yes, really, who is this vulgar-looking
person?'

Crispin swallowed. The bird's aristocratic voice was vividly clear
now in his mind. They were in the same room. He hesitated, then sent,
inwardly,
'Can you hear what I am saying?'

No response. Shirin watched him, waiting.

He cleared his throat. 'My name is Caius Crispus. Of Varena. I'm an
artisan. A mosaicist. Invited here to help with the Great Sanctuary.'

A hand flew to her mouth. 'Oh! You're the one someone tried to kill
last night!'

'He is? Wonderful! A splendid fellow to be alone with, I must
say.'

Crispin tried to ignore that. 'Word travels so quickly?'

'In Sarantium it does, especially when it involves the factions.'
Crispin was abruptly reminded that this woman, as Principal Dancer,
was as important to the Greens in her way as Scortius was to the
Blues. Seen in that light, there was no surprise in her being well
informed. She leaned back a little, her expression openly curious
now, watching Crispin's face.

'You can't be serious? With that hair? Those hands? And look at
the left one, he's been in a fight. Attractive? Hah. It must be your
time of month!'

Crispin felt himself flushing. He looked down, involuntarily, at his
large, scarred hands. The left one was visibly swollen. He felt
excruciatingly awkward. He could hear the bird, but not Shirin's
replies, and neither of them had any idea he was listening to half
their exchanges.

She seemed amused at his sudden colour. She said, 'You dislike being
talked about? It can be useful, you know. Especially if you are new
to the City.'

Crispin took a needed drink of wine. 'It depends what... people are
saying, I suppose.'

She smiled. She had a very good smile. 'I suppose. I do hope you
weren't injured?'

'Is it the Rhodian accent? Is that it? Keep your legs closed,
girl. We know nothing about this man.'

Crispin began to wish Shirin would silence the bird, or that he had a
way to do so. He shook his head, trying to concentrate. 'Not injured,
no, thank you. Though two of my companions died, and a young man at
the gates to the Blues' compound. I have no idea who hired those
soldiers.' They would know, soon enough, he thought. He had battered
a man senseless just now.

'You must be a terribly dangerous mosaicist?' Shirin's dark eyes
flashed. There was a teasing irony in the tone. The report of deaths
seemed not to disturb her. This was Sarantium, he reminded himself.

'Oh, gods! Why not just undress right here and lie down? You could
save the long walk all the way to the bed-'

Crispin breathed a sigh of relief as the bird was silenced again. He
looked down at his wine cup, drained it. Shirin rose smoothly, took
the cup. She used less water this time filling it, he saw.

'I didn't think I was dangerous at all,' he said as she brought it to
him and sat down again.

Her smile was teasing again. 'Your wife doesn't think so?'

He was glad the bird was silent. 'My wife died two summers ago, and
my daughters.'

Her expression changed. 'Plague?'

He nodded.

'I'm sorry.' She looked at him a moment. 'Is that why you came?'

Jad's bones. Another too-clever Sarantine woman. Crispin said,
honestly, 'It is almost why I didn't come. People urged me to do so.
The invitation was really for Martinian, my partner. I passed myself
off as him, on the road.'

Her eyebrows arched. 'You presented yourself at the Imperial Court
under a false name? And lived? Oh, you are a dangerous man, Rhodian.'

He drank again. 'Not exactly. I did give my own name.' Something
occurred to him. 'In fact, the herald who announced me may also have
lost his position because of that.'

'Also?'

This was becoming complex, suddenly. After the wine at the baths, and
now here, his head wasn't as clear as it needed to be. 'The . . .
previous mosaicist for the Sanctuary was dismissed by the Emperor
last night.'

Shirin of the Greens eyed him closely. There was a brief silence. A
log crackled on the fire. She said, thoughtfully, 'No shortage of
people who might have hired soldiers, then. It isn't difficult, you
know.'

He sighed. 'So I am learning.'

There was more, of course, but he decided not to mention Styliane
Daleina or a hidden blade in the steam. He looked around the room,
saw the bird again. Linon's voice-the same patrician accent all the
alchemist's birds had-but a character entirely other. Not a surprise.
He knew, now, what these birds were, or once had been. He was quite
certain this woman didn't. He had no idea what to do.

Shirin said,' And so, before someone appears to attack you in my
house for some good reason or other, what message did a loving father
have for his daughter?'

Crispin shook his head. 'None, I fear. He gave me your name in case I
should need assistance.'

She tried to hide it, but he saw the disappointment. Children, absent
parents. Inward burdens carried in the world. 'Did he say anything
about me, at least?'

She's a prostitute, Crispin remembered the alchemist murmuring with a
straight face, before amending that description slightly. He cleared
his throat again. 'He said you were a dancer. He didn't have any
details, actually.'

She reddened angrily. 'Of course he has details. He knows I'm First
of the Greens. I wrote him that when they named me. He never
replied.' She tossed her head. 'Of course he has so many children
scattered all over. From his travels. I suppose we all write letters
and he just answers the favoured ones.'

Crispin shook his head. 'He did say his children didn't write to him.
I couldn't tell if he was serious.'

'He never replies,' Shirin snapped. 'Two letters and one bird, that
is all I have ever had from my father.' She picked up her own wine
cup. 'I suppose he sent birds to all of us.'

Crispin suddenly remembered something. 'I don't. . . believe so.'

'Oh? And how would you know?' Anger in her voice.

'He told me he'd only ever given away one of his birds.'

She grew still. 'He said that?'

Crispin nodded.

'But why? I mean . . .?'

He had a guess, actually. He said, 'Are any of your . . . siblings
here in the City?'

She shook her head. 'Not any I know of.'

'That might be why. He did say he'd always planned to journey to
Sarantium and never had. That it was a disappointment. Perhaps your
being here . . .?'

Shirin looked over at her bird, then back to Crispin. Something
seemed to occur to her. She said, with an indifferent shrug, 'Well,
why sending a mechanical toy would be so important to him, I have no
idea.'

Crispin looked away. She was dissembling, but she had to do that. So
was he, for that matter. He was going to need time, he thought, to
sort this through as well. Every encounter he had in this city seemed
to be raising challenges of one sort or another. He sternly reminded
himself that he was here to work. On a dome. A transcendent dome high
above all the world, a gift to him from the Emperor and the god. He
was not going to let himself become trammelled in the intrigues of
this city.

He rose on that thought, resolutely. He'd intended to go to the
Sanctuary this afternoon. This visit was to have been a minor
interlude, a dutiful call. 'I ought not to outstay your welcome to an
uninvited stranger.'

She stood up quickly, her first awkward motion. It made her seem
younger.

He approached, became aware of her perfume again. And had to ask,
against his own better judgement. 'I ... was given to understand
earlier that only the Empress Alixana was allowed that particular ..
. scent. Is it indiscreet to ask ... ?'