Sailing to Sarantium (45 page)

Later, scarred, craggy-faced Astorgus, once the most celebrated
charioteer in the City himself and now the Blues' factionarius, made
a speech announcing a new statue to Scortius for the spina in the
Hippodrome. There were already two of them, but both had been raised
by the pustulent Greens. This one, Astorgus declared, would be made
of silver not bronze, to the greater glory of the Blues and the
charioteer, both. There was a deafening roar of approval. One of the
younger serving boys in the kitchen, startled by the noise, dropped a
dish of candied fruit he was carrying out. Strumosus buffeted him
about the head and shoulders with a long-handled wooden spoon,
breaking the spoon. The spoons broke easily, as it happened. Kyros
had noticed that the cook seldom did much actual damage, for all the
apparent force of his blows.

When he had a moment, Kyros paused in the doorway again, looking at
Astorgus. The factionarius was drinking steadily but to little
evident effect. He had an easy, smiling word for everyone who stopped
by his seat at the table. A calm, immensely reassuring man. Strumosus
said Astorgus was the principal reason for the Blues' current
domination of the racing and many other matters. He had wooed
Scortius, Strumosus himself, was said to be working on other clever
schemes all the time. Kyros wondered, though: how would it feel to be
known as a competent administrator when you had once been the object
yourself of all the wild cheers, the statues raised, the enraptured
speeches and poems comparing you to eagles and lions, or to the great
Hippodrome figures of all the ages? Was it hard? It must be, he
thought, but couldn't really know, not from looking at Astorgus.

The banquet meandered its way to a vague close, as such events tended
to. A few quarrels, someone violently ill in a corner of the hall,
too sick to make it as far as the room set aside for vomiting.
Columella, the horse doctor, slumped in his seat morosely, chanting
verses from Trakesia long ago in a monotone. He was always like that
late at night. He knew more old poetry than Khardelos did. Those on
either side of him were fast asleep with their heads among the
platters on the table. One of the younger female dancers was doing a
sequence of movements by herself, over and over, face intent, hands
fluttering up like paired birds, then falling to rest at her sides as
she spun. Kyros seemed to be the only one watching her. She was
pretty, he thought. Another pair of dancers took her with them when
they left. Then Astorgus left, helping Columella along, and soon no
one was left in the hall. That had been a while ago.

As far as Kyros could judge, it had been a very successful banquet.
Scortius hadn't been there, of course. He had been summoned to the
Imperial Precinct, and so was forgiven his absence. An invitation
from the Emperor brought glory to them all.

On the other hand, the brilliant charioteer was also the reason
Strumosus-exhausted, dangerously irritable-and a handful of
unfortunate boys and undercooks were still awake in the kitchen in
the depths of an autumn night after even the most impassioned of the
partisans had staggered to their homes and beds. The Blues' staff and
administration were asleep by now across the courtyard in the
dormitory or their private quarters, if rank had earned them such.
The streets and squares beyond the gated compound were quiet at the
end of the festival. Slaves under the supervision of the Urban
Prefect's office would be out already, cleaning the streets. It was
cold outside now; a north wind had come slicing down out of Trakesia,
winter in it.

Ordinary life would resume with the sun. The parties were over.

But it seemed that Scortius had solemnly promised the master cook of
the Blues that he would come to the kitchens after the Emperor's
banquet and sample what had been offered tonight, comparing it to the
fare in the Imperial Precinct. He was late. It was late. It was very
late. No approaching footsteps could be heard outside.

They had all been enthused at the prospect of sharing the last of a
glorious day and night with the charioteer, but that had been a long
time ago. Kyros suppressed a yawn and eyed the low fire, stirring his
fish soup, careful not to let it boil. He tasted it, and decided
against adding any more sea salt. It was an extreme honour for one of
the scullion boys to be entrusted with supervising a dish and there
had been indignation when Kyros was given such tasks after barely a
year in the kitchen. Kyros himself had been astonished; he hadn't
known Strumosus was even aware of his presence.

He hadn't actually wanted to be here at the beginning. As a boy he'd
planned to be a charioteer, of course: all of them did. Later, he'd
expected to follow his father as an animal trainer for the Blues, but
reality had descended upon that idea when Kyros was still very young.
A trainer dragging a clubbed foot around with him was unlikely to
survive even a season among the big cats and bears. Kyros's father
had appealed to the faction administration to find another place for
his son when Kyros was of age. The Blues tended to look after their
own. Administrative wheels had turned, on a minor scale, and Kyros
had been assigned to apprentice in the great kitchen with the newly
recruited master cook. You didn't have to run, or dodge dangerous
beasts there.

Other than the cook.

Strumosus reappeared in the doorway from the portico outside. Rasic,
with his uncanny survival instinct, had already stopped his
muttering, without turning around. The chef looked fevered and
overwrought, but he often did, so that didn't signify greatly.
Kyros's mother would have paled to see Strumosus walking to and from
the hot kitchens and the cold courtyard at such an hour as this. If
the noxious vapours didn't afflict you in the black depths of night
then the spirits of the half-world would, she firmly believed.

Strumosus of Amoria had been hired by the Blues-at a cost rumoured to
be outrageous-from the kitchens of the exiled Lysippus, once Quaestor
of Imperial Revenue, banished in the wake of the Victory Riot. The
two factions competed in the hippodromes with their chariots, in the
theatres of the Empire, with their poets' declamations and group
chants, and-not at all infrequently-in the streets and alleyways with
cudgels and blades. Cunning Astorgus had decided to take the
competition into the kitchens of the faction compounds, and
recruiting Strumosus-though he was prickly as a Soriyyan desert
plant-had been a brilliant stroke. The City had talked about nothing
else for months; a number of patricians had discovered a hitherto
unknown affiliation to the Blues and had happily fattened themselves
in the faction's banquet hall while making contributions that went a
long way towards fattening Astorgus's purse for the horse auctions or
the wooing of dancers and charioteers. The Blues appeared to have
found yet another way to fight-and defeat-the Greens.

Blues and Greens had fought side by side two years ago, in the
Victory Riot, but that astonishing, almost unprecedented fact hadn't
done anything to stop them from dying when the soldiers had come into
the Hippodrome. Kyros remembered the riot, of course. One of his
uncles had been killed by a sword in the Hippodrome Forum and his
mother had taken to her bed for two weeks after that. The name of
Lysippus the Calysian had been one to spit upon in Kyros's household,
and in a great many others, of all ranks and classes.

The Emperor's taxation master had been ruthless, but they always
were, taxation masters. It was more than that. The stories of what
went on after darkfall in his city palace had been ugly and
disturbing. Whenever young people of either sex went missing eyes
were cast at those blank, windowless stone walls. Wayward children
were threatened with the gross Calysian to frighten them into
obedience.

Strumosus hadn't added anything to the rumours, being
uncharacteristically reticent on the subject of his former employer.
He'd arrived in the Blues' kitchens and cellars, spent a day glaring
at what he found, thrown out almost all of the implements, much of
the wine, dismissed all but two of the undercooks, terrified the
boys, and-within days-had begun producing meals that dazzled and
amazed.

He was never happy, of course: complaining endlessly, verbally and
physically abusing the staff he hired, hectoring Astorgus for a
larger budget, offering opinions on everything from poets to the
proper diet for the horses, moaning about the impossibility of subtle
cooking when one had to feed so many uneducated chewers of food.
Still, Kyros had noted, for all the flow of grievances, there never
did seem to be an end to the changing dishes they prepared in the
great kitchen, and Strumosus didn't seem at all financially
constrained in his market purchases of a morning.

That was one of Kyros's favourite tasks: accompanying the cook to
market just after the invocation in chapel, watching him appraise
vegetables and fish and fruit, squeezing and smelling, sometimes even
listening to food, devising the day's meals on the spot in the light
of what he found.

In fact, it was most likely because of his obvious attention at such
times, Kyros later decided, that the cook had elevated him from
washing platters and flasks to supervising some of the soups and
broths. Strumosus almost never addressed Kyros directly, but the
fierce, fat little man seemed always to be talking to himself at the
market as he moved swiftly from stall to stall, and Kyros, keeping up
as best he could with his bad foot, heard a great deal and tried to
remember. He had never imagined, for example, that the difference in
taste between the same fish caught across the bay near Deapolis and
one netted on this side, near the cliffs east of the City, could be
so great.

The day Strumosus found sea bass from Spinadia in the market was the
first time Kyros saw a man actually weep at the sight of food.
Strumosus's fingers as he caressed the glistening fish reminded Kyros
of a Holy Fool's clasp on his sun disk. He and the others in the
kitchen were permitted to sample the dish-baked lightly in salt,
flavoured with herbs-after the dinner party that night was over, and
Kyros, tasting, began to comprehend a certain way of living life. He
would sometimes date the beginning of his adulthood to that evening.

At other times he would consider that his youth properly ended at the
conclusion of Dykania later that same year, waiting for Scortius the
charioteer in the depths of a cold night, when they heard a sudden,
urgent cry and then running feet in the courtyard.

Kyros wheeled around awkwardly to look at the outside door. Strumosus
quickly set down his cup and the wine flask he was holding. Three men
bulked in the entranceway, then they burst inside, making the space
seem suddenly small. One was Scortius. His clothing was torn, he held
a knife in his hand. One of the others gripped a drawn sword: a big
man, an apparition, dripping blood, with blood on the sword.

Kyros, his jaw hanging open, heard the Glory of the Blues, their own
beloved Scortius, rasp harshly, 'We're being pursued! Get help.
Quickly!' He said it in a gasp; they had been running.

It occurred to Kyros only later that if Scortius had been a different
sort of man he might have shouted for aid himself. Instead, it was
Rasic who sprang for the inner doorway and sprinted across the
banquet room towards the exit nearest the dormitory, screaming in a
blood-chilling voice, 'Blues! Blues! We are attacked! To the kitchen!
Up, Blues!'

Strumosus of Amoria had already seized his favourite chopping knife.
There was a mad glint in his eye. Kyros looked around and grabbed for
a broom, pointing the shaft towards the empty doorway. There were
sounds outside now, in the darkness. Men moving, and the dogs were
barking.

Scortius and his two companions came farther into the room. The
wounded one with the sword waited calmly, nearest the door, first
target of any rush.

Then the sounds of movement in the courtyard ceased. No one could be
seen for a moment. There was a frozen interval, eerie after the
explosion of action. Kyros saw that the two undercooks and the other
boys had each grabbed some sort of weapon. One held an iron poker
from the fire. Blood from the wounded man was dripping steadily onto
the floor at his feet. The dogs were still barking.

A shadow moved in the darkness of the portico. Another big man.

Kyros saw the dark outline of his blade. The shadow spoke, with a
northern accent: 'We want only Rhodian. No quarrel with Blues or
other two men. Lives be spared if you send him out to us.'

Strumosus laughed aloud.

'Fool! Do you understand where you are, whoever you are? Ignorant
louts! Not even the Emperor sends soldiers into this compound.'

'We have no wish to be here. Send the Rhodian and we go. I hold my
men so you can-'

The man on the portico-whoever he was-never finished that sentence,
or any other in his days under Jad's sun or the two moons or the
stars.

'Come, Blues!' Kyros heard from outside. A wild, exultant cry from
many throats. 'On, Blues! We are attacked!'

A howling came from the north end of the courtyard. Not the dogs.
Men. Kyros saw the big, shadowy figure with the sword break off and
half turn to look. Then he staggered suddenly sideways. He fell with
a sequence of clattering sounds. Other shadows sprang onto the
portico. A heavy staff rose and fell, dark against the darkness, once
and then again above the downed man. There was a crunching sound.
Kyros turned away, swallowing hard.

'Ignorant men, whoever they are. Or were,' said Strumosus in a
matter-of-fact voice. He set his knife down on the table, utterly
unruffled.

'Soldiers. On leave in the City. Hired for some money. It wouldn't
have taken much, if they'd been drinking with borrowed money.' It was
the bleeding man. Looking at him, Kyros saw that his wounds were in
shoulder and thigh, both. He was a soldier himself. His eyes were
hard now, angry. Outside, the tumult grew. The other intruders were
fighting to get out of the compound. Torches were being brought at a
run; they made streams of orange and smoke in the courtyard beyond
the open doorway.