Sailing to Sarantium

Sailing
to Sarantium

Book 4 of
the Historical Fantasy Series

By Guy
Gavriel Kay

For my sons,

Samuel Alexander and Matthew Tyler, with love, as I watch them

'...fashion everything

From nothing every day, and teach

The morning stars to sing.'

I imagine it is obvious from the tide of this work, but I owe a debt
of inspiration to William Butler Yeats, whose meditations in poetry
and prose on the mysteries of Byzantium led me there and gave me a
number of underlying motifs along with a sense that imagination and
history would be at home together in this milieu.

I have long believed that to do a variation in fiction upon a given
period, one must first try to grasp as much as possible about that
period. Byzantium is well served by its historians, fractious as they
might be amongst each other. I have been deeply enlightened and
focused by their writing and-via electronic mail-by personal
communications and generous encouragement offered by many scholars.
It hardly needs to be stressed, I hope, that those people I name here
cannot remotely bear any responsibility for errors or deliberate
alterations made in what is essentially a fantasy upon themes of
Byzantium.

I am happy to record the great assistance I have received from the
work of Alan Cameron on chariot racing and the Hippodrome factions;
Rossi, Nordhagen, and L'Orange on mosaics; Lionel Casson on travel in
the ancient world; Robert Browning, particularly on Justinian and
Theodora; Warren Treadgold on the military; David Talbot Rice,
Stephen Runciman,

Gervase Mathew and Ernst Kitzinger on Byzantine aesthetics; and the
broader histories of Cyril Mango, H.W Haussig, Mark Whittow, Averil
Cameron and G. Ostrogorsky. I should also acknowledge the aid and
stimulation I received from participating in the lively and usefully
disputatious scholarly mailing lists on the Internet relating to
Byzantium and Late Antiquity. My research methods will never be the
same.

On a more personal level, Rex Kay remains my first and most
astringent reader, Martin Springett brought his considerable skills
to preparing the map, and Meg Masters, my Canadian editor, has been a
calm, deeply valued presence for four books now. Linda McKnight and
Anthea Morton-Saner in Toronto and London are sustaining friends as
well as canny agents, and a sometimes demanding author is deeply
aware of both of these elements. My mother guided me to books as a
child and then to the belief I could write my own. She still does
that. And my wife creates a space into which the words and stories
can come. If I say I am grateful it grievously understates the truth.

. . . and we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For
on earth there is no such splendour or such beauty, and we were at a
loss how to describe it. We know only that God dwells there among
men, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other
nations. For we cannot forget that beauty.

-Chronicle of the Journey of Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kiev, to
Constantinople

Thunderstorms were common in Sarantium on midsummer nights,
sufficiendy so to make plausible the oft-repeated tale that the
Emperor Apius passed to the god in the midst of a towering storm,
with lightning flashing and rolls of thunder besieging the Holy City.
Even Pertennius of Eubulus, writing only twenty years after, told the
story this way, adding a statue of the Emperor toppling before the
bronze gates to the Imperial Precinct and an oak tree split asunder
just outside the landward walls. Writers of history often seek the
dramatic over the truth. It is a failing of the profession.

In fact, on the night Apius breathed his last in the Porphyry Room of
the Attenine Palace there was no rain in the City. An occasional
flash of lightning had been seen and one or two growls of thunder
heard earlier in the evening, well north of Sarantium, towards the
grainlands of Trakesia. Given the events that followed, that northern
direction might have been seen as portent enough.

The Emperor had no living sons, and his three nephews had rather
spectacularly failed a test of their worthiness less than a year
before and had suffered appropriate consequences. There was, as a
result, no Emperor Designate in Sarantium when Apius heard-or did not
hear-as the last words of his long life, the inward voice of the god
saying to him alone, 'Uncrown, the Lord of Emperors awaits you now.'

The three men who entered the Porphyry Room in the still-cool hour
before dawn were each acutely aware of a dangerously unstable
situation. Gesius the eunuch, Chancellor of the Imperial Court,
pressed his long, thin fingers together piously, and then knelt
stiffly to kiss the dead Emperor's bare feet. So, too, after him, did
Adrastus, Master of Offices, who commanded the civil service and
administration, and Valerius, Count of the Excubitors, the Imperial
Guard.

'The Senate must be summoned,' murmured Gesius in his papery voice.
'They will go into session immediately.'

'Immediately,' agreed Adrastus, fastidiously straightening the collar
of his ankle-length tunic as he rose. 'And the Patriarch must begin
the Rites of Mourning.'

'Order,' said Valerius in soldier's tones, 'will be preserved in the
City. I undertake as much.'

The other two looked at him. 'Of course,' said Adrastus, delicately.
He smoothed his neat beard. Preserving order was the only reason
Valerius had for being in the room just now, one of the first to
learn the lamentable situation. His remarks were ... a shade
emphatic.

The army was primarily east and north at the time, a large element
near Eubulus on the current Bassanid border, and another, mostly
mercenaries, defending the open spaces of Trakesia from the barbarian
incursions of the Karchites and the Vrachae, both of whom had been
quiescent of late. The strategos of either military contingent could
become a decisive factor-or an Emperor-if the Senate delayed.

The Senate was an ineffectual, dithering body of frightened men. It
was likely to delay unless given extremely clear guidance. This, too,
the three officials in the room with the dead man knew very well.

'I shall,' said Gesius casually, 'make arrangements to have the noble
families apprised. They will want to pay their respects.'

'Naturally,' said Adrastus. 'Especially the Daleinoi. I understand
Flavius Daleinus returned to the City only two days ago.'

The eunuch was too experienced a man to actually flush.

Valerius had already turned for the doorway. 'Deal with the nobility
as you see fit,' he said over his shoulder. 'But there are five
hundred thousand people in the City who will fear the wrath of Holy
Jad descending upon a leaderless Empire when they hear of this death.
They are my concern. I will send word to the Urban Prefect to ready
his own men. Be thankful there was no thunderstorm in the night.'

He left the room, hard-striding on the mosaic floors,
burly-shouldered, still vigorous in his sixtieth year. The other two
looked at each other. Adrastus broke the shared gaze, glancing away
at the dead man in the magnificent bed, and at the jewelled bird on
its silver bough beside that bed. Neither man spoke.

Outside the Attenine Palace, Valerius paused in the gardens of the
Imperial Precinct only long enough to spit into the bushes and note
that it was still some time before the sunrise invocation. The white
moon was over the water. The dawn wind was west; he could hear the
sea, smell salt on the breeze amid the scent of summer flowers and
cedars.

He walked away from the water under the late stars, past a jumble of
palaces and civil service buildings, three small chapels, the
Imperial Silk Guild's hall and workspaces, the playing fields, the
goldsmiths' workshops, and the absurdly ornate Baths of Marisian,
towards the Excubitors' barracks near the bronze gates that led out
to the City.

Young Leontes was waiting outside. Valerius gave the man precise
instructions, memorized carefully some time ago in preparation for
this day.

His prefect withdrew into the barracks and Valerius heard, a moment
later, the sounds of the Excubitors-his men for the last ten
years-readying themselves. He drew a deep breath, aware that his
heart was pounding, aware of how important it was to conceal any such
intensities. He reminded himself to send a man running to inform
Petrus, outside the Imperial Precinct, that Jad's Holy Emperor Apius
was dead, that the great game had begun. He offered silent thanks to
the god that his own sister-son was a better man, by so very much,
than Apius's three nephews.

He saw Leontes and the Excubitors emerging from the barracks into the
shadows of the pre-dawn hour. His features were impassive, a
soldier's.

 

It was to be a race day at the Hippodrome, and Astorgus of the Blues
had won the last four races run at the previous meeting. Fotius the
sandal-maker had wagered money he couldn't afford to lose that the
Blues' principal charioteer would win the first three races today,
making a lucky seven in a row. Fotius had dreamt of the number twelve
the night before, and three quadriga races meant Astorgus would drive
twelve horses, and when the one and the two of twelve were added
together . . . why, they made a three again! If he hadn't seen a
ghost on the roof of the colonnade across from his shop yesterday
afternoon, Fotius would have felt entirely sure of his wager.

He had left his wife and son sleeping in their apartment above the
shop and made his way cautiously-the streets of the City were
dangerous at night, as he had cause to know-towards the Hippodrome.
It was long before sunrise; the white moon, waning, was west towards
the sea, floating above the towers and domes of the Imperial
Precinct. Fotius couldn't afford to pay for a seat every time he came
to the racing, let alone one in the shaded parts of the stands. Only
ten thousand places were offered free to citizens on a race day.
Those who couldn't buy, waited.

Two or three thousand others were already in the open square when he
arrived under the looming dark masonry of the Hippodrome. Just being
here excited Fotius, driving away a lingering sleepiness. He hastily
took a blue tunic from his satchel and pulled it on in exchange for
his ordinary brown one, modesty preserved by darkness and speed. He
joined a group of others similarly clad. He had made this one
concession to his wife after a beating by Green partisans two years
before during a particularly wild summer season: he wore unobtrusive
garb until he reached the relative safety of his fellow Blues. He
greeted some of the others by name and was welcomed cheerfully.
Someone passed him a cup of cheap wine and he took a drink and passed
it along.

A tipster walked by selling a list of the day's races and his
predictions. Fotius couldn't read, so he wasn't tempted, though he
saw others handing over two copper folles for a sheet. Out in the
middle of the Hippodrome forum a Holy Fool, half naked and stinking,
had staked a place and was already haranguing the crowd about the
evils of racing. The man had a good voice and offered some
entertainment... if you didn't stand downwind. Street vendors were
already selling figs and Candaria melons and grilled lamb. Fotius had
packed himself a wedge of cheese and some of the bread ration from
the day before. He was too excited to be hungry, in any case.

Not far away, near their own entrance, the Greens were clustered in
similar numbers. Fotius didn't see Pappio the glassblower among them,
but he knew he'd be there. He'd made his bet with Pappio. As dawn
approached, Fotius began-as usual-to wonder if he'd been reckless
with his wager. That spirit he'd seen, in broad daylight...

It was a mild night for summer, with a sea wind. It would be very hot
later, when the racing began. The public baths would be crowded at
the midday interval, and the taverns.