Sailing to Sarantium (55 page)

He'd heard about this inn for years. Had been invited by various
couriers to come by if ever he was in the City, to share a flask or
three with them. When he'd been younger, he'd understood that a drink
with certain of the riders would likely be followed by a trip
upstairs for some privacy, which never did hold any appeal for him.
As he grew older the invitations lost that nuance and suggested only
that he was a useful and easygoing companion to those enduring the
steady hardship of the road.

He paused on the threshold before going in, his eyes slowly adjusting
to the closed shutters and the loss of light. The first part of his
new thought hadn't been especially complicated: after the experiences
of the morning it was obvious he had a better chance of learning
something from someone who knew him than by continuing to ask
questions of sullen strangers near the harbour. Vargos had to admit
that he wouldn't have answered any such questions himself. Not from
the Urban Prefect's men, not from an inquisitive Inicii new to the
City.

The deeper idea-the thing given to him on the street-was that he was
now looking for someone in particular, and thought he might find him
here, or receive word of him.

The Courier's Rest was a good-sized inn, but it wasn't crowded at
this hour. Some men were having their midday meal late, scattered
among the tables, singly and in pairs. The man behind the stone
counter looked up at Vargos and nodded politely. This wasn't a
caupona; he was nowhere near the harbour. Civility might be
cautiously assumed here.

'Fuck that barbarian up the backside,' said someone in the shadows.
'What's he think he's doing in here?'

Vargos shivered then, unable to stop himself. Fear, undeniably, but
something else as well. He felt in that moment as if the half-world
had brushed close to him, forbidden magic, a primitive darkness in
the midst of the City, in the crisp, clear day. He would have to pray
again, he thought, when this was over.

He knew the voice, remembered it.

'Buying a drink or a meal if he likes, you drunken shit. What are you
doing here someone might ask?' The man serving drinks and food glared
across the counter top at the shadowed figure.

'What am I doing here? This been my inn ever since I joined the
Post!'

'And now you aren't in the Post. Notice I haven't booted you out?
I've more than half a mind to. So watch your fucking tongue,
Tilliticus.'

Vargos had never claimed his thoughts proceeded at any speed. He
needed to ... work things through. Even after he heard the known
voice and then the confirming name, he walked to the counter, ordered
a cup of wine, watered it, paid for it, took his first sip, before
anything coalesced properly in his mind, the recognized voice merging
with the summoned recollection from the army camp. He turned. Offered
another silent prayer of thanks, before he spoke.

He was quite sure of himself now, as it happened.

'Pronobius Tilliticus?' he said quietly.

'Fuck you, yesh,' said the shadowy figure at the corner table.

Some men turned to glance at the other man, distaste in their
expressions.

'I remember you,' said Vargos. 'From Sauradia. You're an Imperial
Courier. I used to work the road there.'

The other man laughed, too loudly. He was clearly not sober. 'You 'n
me both, then. I used to work the road, too. On a horse, on a woman.
Fading on the road.' He laughed again.

Vargos nodded. He could see more clearly now in the muted light.
Tilliticus was alone at his table, two flasks in front of him, no
food. 'You aren't a courier any more?'

He pretty much knew the answer to this already, with a few other
things. Holy Jad had sent him here. Or, he hoped it was Jad.

'Dishmished,' said Tilliticus. 'Five days ago. Last pay, no notice.
Dishmished. Like that. Want a drink, barbarian?'

'I have one,' Vargos said. He felt something cold in himself now:
anger, but a different sort than he was accustomed to. 'Why were you
dismissed?' He needed to be sure.

'Late with a post, though it's none of anyone's fucking business.'

'Everyone fucking knows,' another man said grimly. 'You might mention
fraud at the hospice, throwing away posted letters, and spreading
disease while you're at it.'

'Bugger you,' said Pronobius Tilliticus. 'As if you never slept with
a poxed whore? None of that would've mattered if the Rhodian catamite
...' He fell silent.

'If the Rhodian hadn't what?' Vargos said quiedy.

And now he was afraid, because it truly was very difficult to
understand why the god might have helped him in this way, and try as
he might not to do so he kept thinking and thinking now of the
Aldwood and the zubir and that leather and metal bird Crispin had
carried in around his neck and left behind.

The man at the table in the corner made no reply. It didn't matter.
Vargos pushed himself off from the bar and went back out the door. He
looked around, squinting in the sunlight, and saw one of the Urban
Prefect's men at the end of the street in his brown and black
uniform. He went over to him and reported that the person who had
hired the soldiers who'd killed three men last night could be found
at the table immediately to the right of the door in The Courier's
Rest. Vargos identified himself and told the man where he could be
found if needed. He watched as the young officer walked into the
tavern, and then he headed back through the streets towards the inn.

On the way there he stopped at another chapel-a larger one, with
marble and some painted decoration, including the remains of a wall
fresco behind the altar of Heladikos aloft, almost entirely rubbed
out-and in the dimness and the quiet between services he prayed
before the disk and the altar for guidance through and out of the
half-world into which he seemed to have walked.

He would not pray to the zubir, whatever ancient power of his own
people it represented, but within himself Vargos sensed a terrible
awareness of it, immense and dark as the forests on the borders of
his childhood.

 

Carullus was still in his room, evidendy sleeping off wounds and
treatment, when Crispin came downstairs just past midday. He felt
muzzy-headed and disoriented himself, and not only from the wine he'd
had last night. In fact, the wine was the least of his afflictions.
He tried to put his aching head around some of the things that had
happened in the two palaces and the Sanctuary and in the street
afterwards, and then to come to terms with who had been in his
room-on his bed-when he'd stumbled back at dawn. The conjured image
of Styliane Daleina, beautiful as an enamelled icon, only made him
feel more unsettled.

He did what he'd always done at such times as this, back home. He
went to the baths.

The innkeeper, eyeing Crispin's unshaven scowl with a knowing
expression, was able to offer a suggestion. Crispin looked about for
Vargos who was also-unaccountably-absent. He shrugged, ill-tempered
and querulous, and went out alone, blinking and squinting, into the
irritating brightness of the autumn day.

Or, not really alone. Two of Carullus's soldiers came with him,
swords in scabbards. Imperial orders from the night before. He was to
have a guard now. Someone wanted him dead. Not the other mosaicist,
not the lady, if he could believe her. He did believe her, but was
aware that he had no very good reason for doing so.

On the way, passing the windowless facade of a holy retreat for
women, he thought of Kasia-and then backed away from that as well.
Not today. He wasn't deciding anything significant today. She needed
clothing, though, he knew that much. Considered sending one of the
soldiers to the market to buy her some apparel while he bathed, and
his first faint smile of the day came with the image of one of
Carullus's men judiciously selecting among women's undergarments in
the street market.

He did get a minor, useful idea, however, and at the baths he asked
for paper and a stylus. He sent a messenger running to the Imperial
Precinct with a note for the eunuchs of the Chancellor's office. The
clever men who had shaved and attired him last night would be more
than adequate to choosing clothing for a young woman newly arrived in
the City. Crispin entreated their aid. On further reflection, he set
a budget for the purchases.

Later that afternoon, Kasia-dealing with some unexpected discoveries
of her own-would find herself accosted at the inn by a swirling,
scented coterie of eunuchs from the Imperial Precinct and spirited
away by them for the surprisingly involved task of acquiring proper
garb for life in Sarantium. They were amusing and solicitous, clearly
enjoying the exercise and their own wittily obscene disagreements
over what was suitable for her. Kasia found herself flushed and even
laughing during the escapade. None of them asked what her life in
Sarantium was to be, which was a relief, because she didn't know.

In the baths, Crispin had himself oiled, massaged, scraped down, and
then subsided blissfully into the soothing, fragrant hot pool. There
were others there, talking quietly. The familiar drone of murmurous
voices almost lulled him back to sleep. He revived with a cool
immersion in the adjacent pool, then made his way, wrapped in a white
sheet like a spectral figure, towards the steam room, where half a
dozen similarly shrouded men could be seen through the mist, lounging
on marble benches, when he opened the door.

Someone shifted wordlessly to make room for him. Someone else
gestured vaguely, and the naked attendant poured another ewer of
water over the hot stones. With a sizzling sound, steam rose up to
enclose the small chamber even more densely. Crispin mentally
declined the associations with a fogbound morning in Sauradia and
leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes.

The conversation around him was sporadic and desultory. Men seldom
spoke with much energy amid the enveloping heat of the steam. It was
easier to drift, eyes closed, into reverie. He heard bodies shift and
rise, others enter and subside as cooler air came briefly in with the
opening door and then the heat returned. His body was slick with
perspiration, languorous with an indolent calm. Bathhouses such as
this, he decided, were among the defining achievements of modern
civilization.

In fact, he thought dreamily, the mist here had nothing in common
with the chill, half-worldly fog of that distant wilderness in
Sauradia. He heard the hiss of steam again as someone poured more
water, and he smiled to himself. He was in Sarantium, eye of the
world, and much had already begun.

'I should be greatly interested to know your views on the
indivisibility of the nature of Jad,' someone murmured. Crispin
didn't even open his eyes. He'd been told about this sort of thing.
The Sarantines were said to be passionate about three subjects: the
chariots, dances and pantomimes, and an endless debating about
religion. Fruit-sellers would harangue him, Carullus had cautioned,
regarding the implications of a bearded or a beardless Jad;
sandalmakers would propound firm and fierce opinions on the latest
Patriarchal Pronouncement about Heladikos; a whore would want his
views on the status of icons of the Blessed Victims before deigning
to undress.

He wasn't surprised, therefore, to hear well-bred men in a steam room
discoursing this way. What did surprise him was his ankle being
nudged by a foot and the same voice adding, 'It is unwise, actually,
to fall asleep in the steam.'

Crispin opened his eyes.

He was alone in the swirling mist with one other person. The question
about the god had been addressed to him.

The questioner, loosely wrapped in his own white sheet, sat eyeing
him with a very blue gaze. He had magnificent golden hair, chiselled
features, a scarred and honed body, and he was the Supreme Strategos
of the Empire.

Crispin sat up. Very quickly. 'My lord!' he exclaimed.

Leontes smiled. 'An opportunity to talk,' he murmured. He used an
edge of the sheet to wipe sweat from his brow.

'Is this a coincidence?' Crispin asked, guardedly.

The other man laughed. 'Hardly. The City is rather too large for
that. I thought I'd arrange a moment to learn your views on some
matters of interest.'

His manner was courteous in the extreme. His soldiers loved him,
Carullus had said. Would die for him. Had died-on battlefields as far
west as the Majriti deserts and north towards Karch and Moskav.

No visible arrogance here at all. Unlike the wife. Even so, the
utterly confident control behind this encounter was provoking. There
had been at least six men and an attendant slave in the steam a few
moments ago ...

'Matters of interest? Such as my opinion of the Antae and their
readiness for invasion?' This was blunt, he knew, and probably
unwise.

On the other hand, everyone knew his nature at home, they might as
well start finding out here.

Leontes merely looked puzzled. 'Why would I ask you that? Do you have
military training?'

Crispin shook his head.

The Strategos looked at him. 'Would you have knowledge of town walls,
water sources, road conditions, paths through mountains? Which of
their commanders deviate from the usual arraying offerees? How many
arrows their archers carry in a quiver? Who commands their navy this
year and how much he knows about harbours?'

Leontes smiled suddenly. He had a brilliant smile. 'I can't imagine
you could help me, actually, even if you wanted to. Even if any such
thing as an invasion was being contemplated. No, no, I confess I'm
more interested in your faith and your views on images of the god.'

A memory clicked into place then, like a key in a lock. Irritation
gave way to something else.

'You disapprove of them, might I guess?'

Leontes's handsome face was guileless. 'I do. I share the belief that
to render the holy in images is to debase the purity of the god.'