Sailing to Sarantium (41 page)

And, stepping forward into the room, he thumped once on the floor
with his staff. The chattering of the courtiers had already stopped.
They'd aligned themselves, waiting, creating a pathway into the room.

'Martinian of Varena!' the herald declared, his voice resonant and
strong, the name ringing in the domed chamber.

Crispin stepped forward, his head whirling, aware of new scents and a
myriad of colours but not really seeing clearly yet. He took the
prescribed three steps, knelt, lowered his forehead to the floor.
Waited, counting ten to himself. Rose. Three more steps towards the
man sitting on the candlelit shimmer of gold that was a throne. Knelt
again, lowered his head again to touch the cool stone mosaics of the
floor. Counted, trying to slow his racing heart. Rose. Three more
steps, and a third time he knelt and abased himself.

This last time he stayed that way, as instructed, about ten paces
from the Imperial throne and the second throne beside it where a
woman sat in a dazzle of jewellery. He didn't look up. He heard a
mildly curious murmuring from the assembled courtiers, come from
their feast to see a new Rhodian at court. Rhodians were of interest,
still. There was a quip, a quicksilver ripple of feminine laughter,
then silence.

Into which a papery thin, very clear voice spoke. 'Be welcome to the
Imperial Court of Sarantium, artisan. On behalf of the Glorious
Emperor and the Empress Alixana I give you leave to rise, Martinian
of Varena.'

This would be Gesius, Crispin knew. The Chancellor. His patron, if he
had one. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath. And remained utterly
motionless, his forehead touching the floor. There was a pause.
Someone giggled.

'You been granted permission to rise,' the thin, dry voice repeated.
Crispin thought of the zubir in the wood. And then of Linon, the
bird-the soul-who had spoken in his mind to him, if only for a little
while. He had wanted to die, he remembered, when Ilandra died.

He said, not looking up, but as clearly as he could, 'I dare not, my
lord.'

A rustle, of voices, of clothing, like leaves across the floor. He
was aware of the mingled scents, the coolness of the mosaic, no music
now. His mouth was dry.

'You propose to remain prostrate forever?' Gesius's voice betrayed a
hint of asperity.

'No, good my lord. Only until I am granted the privilege of standing
before the Emperor in my own name. Else I am a deceiver and deserve
to die.'

That stilled them.

The Chancellor appeared to be momentarily taken aback. The voice that
next spoke was trained, exquisite, and a woman's. Afterwards, Crispin
would remember that he shivered, hearing her for the first time. She
said, 'If all who deceived in this room were to die, there would be
none left to advise or amuse us, I fear.'

It was remarkable, really, how a silence and a silence could be so
different. The woman-and he knew this was Alixana and that this voice
would be in his head now, forever-went on, after a gauged pause, 'You
would rather be named Caius Crispus, I take it? The artisan young
enough to travel when your summoned colleague deemed himself too
frail to make the journey to us?'

Crispin's breath went from him, as if he'd been hit in the stomach.
They knew. They knew. How, he had no idea. There were implications to
this, a frightening number of them, but he had no chance to work it
through. He fought for control, forehead touching the floor.

'The Emperor and Empress know the hearts and souls of men,' he
managed, finally. 'I have indeed come in my partner's stead, to offer
what assistance my meagre skills might avail the Emperor. I will
stand to my own name, as the Empress has honoured me by speaking it,
or accept what punishment is due my presumption.'

'Let us be extremely clear. You are not Martinian of Varena?' A new
voice, patrician and sharp, from near the two thrones.

Carullus had spent some of the time on the last stages of their
journey telling what he knew of this court. Crispin was almost
certain this would be Faustinus, the Master of Offices. Gesius's
rival, probably the most powerful man here-after the one on the
throne.

The one on the throne had said nothing at all yet. 'It seems one of
your couriers failed to ensure proper delivery of an Imperial
summons, Faustinus,' said Gesius in his bone-dry voice.

'It rather seems,' said the other man, 'that the Chancellor's eunuchs
failed to ensure that a man being formally presented at court was who
he purported to be. This is dangerous. Why did you have yourself
announced as Martinian, artisan? That was a deception.'

It was difficult doing this with his head on the floor. 'I did not,'
he said. 'It seems that-regrettably-the herald must have ... misheard
my name when I spoke it to him. I did say who I am. My name is Caius
Crispus, son of Horius Crispus. I am a mosaicist, and have been all
my grown life. Martinian of Varena is my colleague and partner and
has been so for twelve years.'

'Heralds,' said the Empress softly, in that astonishing, silken
voice, 'are of little use if they err in such a fashion. Would you
not agree, Faustinus?' Which offered its clue, of course, as to who
appointed the heralds here, Crispin thought. His mind was racing. It
occurred to him he was making enemies with every word he spoke. He
still had no idea how the Empress-and so the Emperor, he had to
assume-had known his name. 'I shall inquire into this, naturally,
thrice-exalted.' Faustinus's sharp tone was abruptly muted.

'There does not appear to be,' a new voice, blunt and matter-of-fact,
inserted itself, 'any great difficulty here. An artisan was requested
from Rhodias, an artisan has answered. An associate of the named one.
If he is adequate to the tasks allotted him, it hardly matters, I
would say. It would be a misfortune to mar a festive mood, my lord
Emperor, with wrangling over a triviality. Are we not here to amuse
ourselves?'

Crispin didn't know who this man-the first to directly address
Valerius-would be. He heard two things, though. One, after a
heartbeat, was a ripple of agreement and relief, a restoration of
ease in the room. Whoever this was had a not-inconsiderable stature.

The other sound he caught, a few moments later, was a slight, almost
undetectable creaking noise in front of him.

It would have meant nothing at all to virtually any other person in
Crispin's awkward position here, forehead pressed to the floor. But
it did mean something to a mosaicist. Disbelieving at first, he
listened. Heard suppressed laughter from right and left, quick
whispers to hush. And the soft, steady creaking sound continuing
before him.

The court had been diverting itself tonight, he thought. Good food,
wine, amorous, witty talk, no doubt. It was night-a festival night.
He pictured female hands laid expectantly on male forearms, scented,
silk-clad bodies leaning close as they watched. A Rhodian needing a
measure of chastisement might offer wonderful sport. He didn't feel
like offering them sport.

He was here at the Sarantine court in his own family name, son of a
father who would have been proud beyond words in this moment, and he
wasn't inclined to be the mark for a jest.

He was a contrary man. He'd admitted it already, long ago. It was
self-destructive at times. He'd acknowledged that, too. He was also
the direct descendant of a people who'd ruled an empire far greater
than this one, at a time when this city was no more than a gathering
of wind-blown huts on a rocky cliff.

'Very well, then,' said the Chancellor Gesius, his voice almost but
not quite as dry as it had been. 'You have permission to rise, Caius
Crispus, Rhodian. Stand now before the all-powerful, Jad's Beloved,
the high and exalted Emperor of Sarantium.' Someone laughed.

He stood, slowly. Facing the two thrones.

The one throne. Only the Empress sat before him. The Emperor was
gone.

High and exalted, Crispin thought. How terribly witty.

He was expected to panic, he knew. To look befuddled, disoriented,
even terrified, perhaps wheel about in a stumbling bear-like circle
looking for an Emperor, reacting in slack-jawed confusion when he did
not find him.

Instead, he glanced upwards in relaxed appraisal. He smiled at what
he saw when he did so. Jad could sometimes be generous, it seemed,
even to lesser, undeserving mortals.

'I am humbled beyond all words,' he said gravely, addressing the
figure on the golden throne overhead, halfway to the height of the
exquisite little dome. 'Thrice-exalted Emperor, I shall be honoured
to assist in any mosaic work you or your trusted servants might see
fit to assign me. I might also be able to propose measures to improve
the effect of your elevation on the glorious Imperial throne.'

'Improve the effect?' Faustinus again, the sharp voice aghast. Around
the room, a sudden tidal murmuring. The joke was spoiled. The
Rhodian, for some reason, hadn't been fooled.

Crispin wondered what the effect of this artifice had been over the
years. Barbarian chieftains and kings, trade emissaries, long-robed
Bassanid or fur-clad Karchite ambassadors, all would have belatedly
looked up to see Jad's Holy Emperor suspended in the air on his
throne, invisibly held aloft, elevated as much above them in his
person as he was in his might. Or so the message would have been,
behind the sophisticated amusement.

He said mildly, still looking upwards, not at the Master of Offices,
'A mosaicist spends much of his life going up and down on a variety
of platforms and hoists. I can suggest some contrivances the Imperial
engineers might employ to silence the mechanism, for example.'

He was, as he spoke, aware of the Empress regarding him from her
throne. It was impossible not to be aware of her. Alixana wore a
headdress more richly ornamented with jewellery than any single
object he'd ever seen in his life.

He kept his gaze fixed overhead. 'I should add that it might have
been more effective to position the thrice-exalted Emperor directly
in the moonlight now entering from the southern and western windows
in the dome. Note how the light falls only on the glorious Imperial
feet. Imagine the effect should Jad's Beloved be suspended at this
moment in the luminous glow of a nearly full blue moon. A turn and a
half less, I surmise, on the cables, and that would have been
achieved, my lord.'

The murmuring took a darker tone. Crispin ignored it. 'Any competent
mosaicist will have tables of both moons' rising and setting, and
engineers can work from those. When we have set tesserae on some
sanctuary or palace domes in Batiara it has been our good
fortune-Martinian's and mine-to achieve pleasing effects by being
aware of when and where the moons will lend their light through the
seasons. I should be honoured,' he concluded, 'to assist the Imperial
engineers in this matter.'

He stopped, still looking up. The murmuring also stopped. There was a
silence that partook of a great many things then in the candlelit
throne room of the Attenine Palace, among the jewelled birds, the
golden and silver trees, the censers of frankincense, the exquisite
works of ivory and silk and sandalwood and semi-precious stone.

It was broken, at length, by laughter.

Crispin would always remember this, too. That the first sound he ever
heard from Petrus of Trakesia, who had placed his uncle on the
Imperial throne and then taken it for himself as Valerius II, was
this laughter: rich, uninhibited, full-throated amusement from
overhead, a man suspended like a god, laughing like a god above his
court, not quite in the fall of the blue moonlight.

The Emperor gestured and they lowered him until the throne settled
smoothly to rest beside the Empress again. No one spoke during this
descent. Crispin stood motionless, hands at his side, his heart still
racing. He looked at the Emperor of Sarantium. Jad's Beloved.

Valerius II was soft-featured, quite unprepossessing, with alert grey
eyes and the smooth-shaven cheeks that had led to the attack on
Crispin's own beard. His hairline was receding though the hair
remained a sandy brown laced with grey. He was past his forty-fifth
year now, Crispin knew. Not a young man, but far from his decline. He
wore a belted tunic in textured purple silk, bordered at hem and
collar with bands of intricately patterned gold. Rich, but without
ornament or flamboyance. No jewellery, save one very large seal ring
on his left hand.

The woman beside him took a different approach in the matter of her
raiment and adornment. Crispin had actually been avoiding looking
directly at the Empress. He couldn't have said why. Now he did so,
aware of her dark-eyed, amused gaze resting upon him. Other images,
auras, awarenesses impinged as he briefly met that gaze and then cast
his eyes downwards. He felt dizzied. He had seen beautiful women in
his day, and much younger ones. There were extraordinary women in
this room.

The Empress held him, however, and not merely by virtue of her rank
or history. Alixana-who had been merely Aliana of the Blues once, an
actress and dancer-was dressed in a dazzle of crimson and gold silk,
the porphyry in the robe over her tunic used as an accent, but
present, unavoidably present, defining her status. The headdress
framing her very dark hair and the necklace about her throat were
worth more, Crispin suspected, than all the jewellery in the regalia
of the queen of the Antae back home. He felt, in that moment, a shaft
of pity for Gisel: young and besieged and struggling for her life.

Her head held high despite the weight of ornament she carried, the
Empress of Sarantium glittered in his sight, and the clever,
observant amusement in her dark eyes reminded him that there was no
one on earth more dangerous than this woman seated beside the
Emperor.

He saw her open her mouth to speak, and when someone, astonishingly,
forestalled her he saw, because he was looking, the quick pursing of
lips, the briefly unveiled displeasure.