Sailing to Sarantium (32 page)

'Oh, dear Jad. Oh, Jad. Go to sleep ...' He struggled to remember her
name. He felt drugged, heavy, he wanted that palace again. Wanted it
like some men want the juice of poppies, endlessly.

She was silent, motionless. 'I'm afraid,' she said.

'We're all afraid. Go to sleep.'

'No. I mean, I would comfort you, but I'm afraid.'

'Oh.' It became unfairly needful to order his thoughts. To be here.
His jaw hurt, his heart. 'People I loved died. You can't comfort me.
Go to sleep.'

'Your . .. children?'

Every word spoken was drawing him farther from that palace. 'My
daughters. Last summer.' He took a breath. 'I am ashamed to be here.
I let them die.' He had never said this. But it was true. He had
failed them. And had survived.

'Let them die? Of the plague'?' the Inicii woman on his bed said,
incredulous. 'No one can save anyone from that.'

'I know. Jad. I know. It doesn't matter.'

After a moment, she said, 'And your ... their mother?'

He shook his head.

The god-cursed shutter was still banging. He wanted to go out into
the savage night and rip it from the wall and lie down in the icy
wind with Ilandra. 'Kasia,' he said. That was her name. 'Go to sleep.
It isn't your duty to comfort here.'

'Not a duty,' she said.

So much anger in him. 'Jad's blood! What do you propose? That your
lovemaking skills transport me to joy?'

She went rigid. Drew a breath. 'No. No. No, I ... have no skills.
That wasn't. .. what I meant.'

He closed his eyes. Why did he have to even address these things now?
So vivid, so rich a dream: on tiptoe, within his arms, a gown he
remembered, the necklace, a scent, softness of parted lips.

She was dead, a ghost, a body in a grave. I am afraid, Kasia of the
Inicii had said. Crispin let out a ragged breath. That shutter still
banging along the wall outside. Over and over and over. So inane. So
... ordinary. He shifted in the bed.

'Sleep here then,' he said. 'There is nothing to fear. What happened
today is over now.' A lie. It didn't end until you died. Life was an
ambush, wounds waiting for you.

He turned on his side, facing the door, making room for her. She
didn't move at first, then he felt her slide under both blankets. Her
foot touched his, moved quickly away, but he realized from the icy
touch how cold she must have been with the fire dead. It was the
bottom of the night. Spirits in the wind? Souls? He closed his eyes.
They could lie together. Share mortal warmth. Men bought tavern girls
on winter nights for no more than this sometimes.

The zubir had been there in the palace and had disappeared. No
obstacle. Nothing between. But there was. Of course there was.
Imbecile, he could hear a voice saying. Imbecile. Crispin lay still
for another long moment then, slowly, he turned.

She was lying on her back, staring up at darkness, still afraid. She
had thought for a long time that she would die today, he knew. Die
brutally. He tried to comprehend what such an expectation would be
like. Moving as if through water, or in dream, he laid a hand to her
shoulder, her throat, brushed some of the long golden hair back from
her cheek. She was so young. He took another breath, deeply unsure,
even now, still half lost in another place, but then he touched one
small, firm breast through the thinness of her tunic. She never took
her eyes from his.

'Skills are a very small part of it,' he said. His own voice sounded
odd. Then he kissed her, as gently as he could.

He tasted salt again as he had in the dream. Drew back, looking down
at her, at the tears. But she lifted a hand, touched his hair, then
hesitated as if unsure what to do next, how to move-how to be-when it
was by choice. The pain of others, he thought. The night so dark with
the sun beneath the world. He lowered his head very slowly and kissed
her again, then moved and brushed her nipple with his lips, through
the tunic. Her hand stayed in his hair, tightening. Sleep was a
refuge, he thought, walls were, wine, food, warmth, and this. And
this. Mortal bodies in the dark.

'You are not at Morax's,' he said. Her heart was so fast, he could
feel it. The year she must have lived through. He intended to be
careful, patient, but it had been a long time for him, and his own
gathering urgency surprised and then mastered him. She held him close
after, her body softer than he would have guessed, hands unexpectedly
strong against his back. They slept like that for a while and
later-nearer morning when they both awoke-he guided their pace more
attentively, and in time he heard her begin to make her own sequence
of discoveries, on a taken breath and another-like a climber reaching
one ridge and then a higher one-before the god's sun finally rose in
testament to battles won again, if at cost, in the night.

The senior physician at the army base was a Bassanid, and skilful.
The former was strictly against regulations, the latter so rare-and
valuable-as to have caused the military governor commanding southern
Sauradia to ignore all applicable bureaucratic and ecumenical rules.
He wasn't, as it happened, the only senior military official in the
Empire to take this view. There were openly pagan physicians,
Bassanids worshipping Perun and Anahita, Kindaths with their moon
goddesses, all through the army. As between a regulation and a good
doctor... there was no decision at all.

Unfortunately, from a practical viewpoint, the physician took a
careful look at the mildly admonished Inicii servant, examined a red
sampling of his urine, and declared he was unable to ride a horse for
a fortnight. This meant they had to commandeer a cart or a wagon for
him. And since the girl was travelling east as well and women
couldn't ride horses, the wagon had to be large enough for two.

Then the artisan revealed that he had an acute dislike of riding, and
since they were using wheeled transport in any case ...

The military governor had his secretary sign the papers, wasting no
more time than absolutely necessary on this distraction. The Emperor
in his supreme wisdom wanted this man for something to do with the
newest sanctuary in Sarantium. The newest, insanely expensive
sanctuary. He had-through the lofty offices of the Chancellor-ordered
good soldiers to spend their time tracking a Rhodian artisan on the
road. A four-person military carriage was only one more insult.

In the prevailing circumstances the governor proved amenable to a
diffident-if loquacious-suggestion from one of the tribunes of the
Fourth Sauradian, the man who had found this party.

Carullus proposed that he accompany the artisan, following in the
wake of a rapidly couriered letter from the governor, to add a direct
personal appeal to the Master of Offices and to the Supreme
Strategos, Leontes, that the arrears of pay be attended to as
expeditiously as possible. The god knew, Carullus could talk, the
governor thought glumly, dictating his letter for the military
messenger. Might as well put his tongue to use.

It also appeared that the Rhodian had not, after all, been lax in
responding to his invitation. The postal courier charged with the
Imperial papers had taken an unconscionably long time to reach
Varena. His name and civil service number were, as usual, on the
envelope below the broken seal-the governors secretary had recorded
them. Tilliticus. Pronobius Tilliticus.

The governor spent an irritated moment pondering what sort of foolish
mother gave her son a name almost identical to that for female
genital organs in current military slang. Then he dictated a
postscript, suggesting to the Master of Offices that the courier be
reprimanded. He was unable to resist adding an offer that important
communications west to the Antae kingdom in Batiara might better be
entrusted to the military. Despite his recently chronic stomach
pains, the governor did smile sourly to himself, dictating that part
of the letter. He sent off the messenger.

The artisan's party stayed at the camp for two nights only, though
the physician was unhappy about this speed. During the brief stay a
notary attended upon the Rhodian to record and archive in his
files-and forward copies, as requested, to the civil registry in the
City-documents attesting to the freed status of the woman, Kasia of
the Inicii.

At the same time, the recruiting centurion of the Fourth Sauradian
cavalry dealt with the necessary protocols for the military
conscription of the man, Vargos-a procedure that released him from
his contract with the Imperial Post and triggered the immediate right
to all moneys owing under his civil contract. Paperwork arranging the
transfer of the appropriate sums to the military paymaster in the
City was also processed. The centurion was entirely happy to do this,
in fact... relations between the military and the civil service were
about as cordial here as they were anywhere else. Which was to say,
not at all.

The centurion was markedly less enthused about signing the release of
the same fellow from his all-too-transitory military service. Had his
instructions not been explicit about this, he might well have
demurred. The man was strong and fit, and once he recovered from his
accidental injuries would make an excellent soldier. They'd been
coping with desertions-with pay more than half a year in arrears, it
was not in the least surprising-and all the units were undermanned.

It was not to be. Both Carullus and the governor appeared anxious to
get the red-bearded Rhodian and his party on their way. Imperial
papers signed by Chancellor Gesius himself could have that sort of
effect, the centurion supposed. The governor was near enough to his
retirement to have an extreme disinclination to ruffle feathers in
the City.

Carullus, for his own part, was apparently going with the artisan to
Sarantium, leading an escort himself. The centurion had no idea why.

In fact, there were several reasons, the tribune of the Fourth
Sauradian cavalry thought, during the days of travelling east and
then, in Trakesia, curving gradually down south. A tribune commanded
five hundred men was much more significant than any messenger bearing
yet another letter of complaint. He could have a legitimate
expectation of at least being received and obtaining a formal answer
as to the arrears for the Sauradian troops. The Master of Offices
might not give him more than platitudes, but Carullus had hopes of
seeing either Leontes himself or one of his personal cadre of
officers and getting a clearer picture.

In addition, he hadn't been to Sarantium in years, and the chance to
visit the City was too appealing to be passed up. He'd calculated
that they could arrive-even moving slowly-before the season-ending
races in the Hippodrome during the Dykania Festival. Carullus had a
lifelong passion for the chariots and his beloved Greens that found
little satisfaction in Sauradia.

Beyond this, he had developed an unanticipated but quite genuine
liking for the red-bearded Rhodian he'd clipped with his helmet.
Martinian of Varena was not an especially genial man-not that
Carullus really needed other people to keep a conversation going-but
the artisan could hold his wine almost as well as a soldier, knew a
number of startlingly obscene western songs, and showed none of the
arrogance most Rhodians displayed when confronting an honest Imperial
soldier. He also swore with an inventiveness of phrase worth copying.

In addition, Carullus had reluctantly come to acknowledge to
himself-looking around to determine the whereabouts of certain others
in the party as they rode-that he was being continually assailed by
an entirely new emotion.

It was the most unexpected thing.

 

For centuries, the journals and correspondence of seasoned travellers
had made it clear that the most imposing way to first see Sarantium
was from the deck of a ship at sunset.

Sailing east, the god's sun behind you lighting the domes and towers,
gleaming on the seaward walls and the cliffs that lined the infamous
channel-the Serpent's Tooth-into the celebrated harbour, there was no
way, all travellers reported, to escape the awe and majesty
Saranios's city evoked. Eye of the world, ornament of Jad.

The gardens of the Imperial Precinct and the flat churkar ground
where the Emperors played or watched the imported Bassanid game of
horses and mallets, could be seen from far out at sea, amid the
gold-and bronze-roofed palaces-the Traversite, Attenine, Baracian,
all of them. The mighty Hippodrome could be descried, just beyond:
and across the forum from it-in this year of the reign of the great
and glorious beloved of Jad, the thrice-exalted Valerius II, Emperor
of Sarantium, heir of Rhodias-could be seen the tremendous golden
dome, the latest wonder of the world, stretching across the new
Sanctuary of Jad's Holy Wisdom.

From out at sea, sailing to Sarantium, all of this and more would
spread itself out for the traveller like a feast for the famished
eye, too dazzling, too manifold and vividly manifest to be compassed.
Men had been known to cover their faces with their cloaks in awe, to
close their eyes, turn away, to kneel in prayer on the ship's deck,
to weep.
Oh City, City, my eyes are never dry when I remember you.
My heart is a bird, winging home
.

Then the ships would be met by the small harbour boats, officials
would board, papers would be cleared, customs documents affirmed,
cargoes examined and duly taxed, and finally they would be permitted
to sail up the curve of the Serpent's Tooth-the great chains drawn
back in this time of peace-passing between the narrow cliffs, looking
up at walls and guards on each side, thinking of Sarantine Fire
unleashed on hapless foes who thought to take Jad's holy and defended
City. Awe would give way to-or be joined by-a proper measure of fear.
Sarantium was no harbour or haven for the weak.

To port, as instructed by the Harbour Master with shouts and signal
horns and flares, and then, papers examined and cleared yet again,
the traveller could at last set foot on land, upon the thronged,
noisy docks and quays of Sarantium. One could stride unsteadily away
from the water after so long at sea and come into the City that was,
and had been for more than two hundred years, both the crowning glory
of Jad and the eastern Empire and the most squalid, dangerous,
overcrowded, turbulent place on earth.