Sailing to Sarantium (60 page)

In the wan light of a sunless dawn, the fur-cloaked court of Varena
and those of the Antae nobility who had travelled from afar now
gathered, mingling with Rhodians of repute and a quantity of clerics,
greater and lesser. There were a small number of places set aside for
the ordinary folk of Varena and its countryside, and many of these
had lined up since the night before to be present today. Most had
been turned away, of course, but they lingered outside in the chill,
talking, buying hot food and spiced wine and trinkets from quickly
erected booths in the grassy spaces around the sanctuary.

The still-bare mound of earth that covered the dead of the last
plague was an oppressive, inescapable presence in the north of the
yard. A few men and women could be seen walking over there at
intervals to stand silently in the hard wind.

There had been a persistent rumour that the High Patriarch himself
might make the trip north from Rhodias to honour the memory of King
Hildric, but this had not come to pass. The talk, both within and
without the sanctuary, was clear as to why.

The mosaicists-a celebrated pair, native to Varena-obedient to the
will of the young queen, had put Heladikos on the dome.

Athan, the High Patriarch, who had signed-under duress from the east,
it was generally believed-a Joint Pronouncement forbidding
representations of Jad's mortal son, could hardly attend at a
sanctuary that so boldly flouted his will. On the other hand, in the
reality of the Batiaran peninsula as it was under the Antae, neither
could he ignore a ceremony such as this. The Antae had come to the
faith of Jad for the son as much as the father, and they were not
about to leave Heladikos behind them, whatever the two Patriarchs
might say. It was a ... difficulty.

In the expected, equivocal resolution, half a dozen senior clerics
had made the muddy trip from Rhodias, arriving two days before, in
the midst of Dykania.

They sat now with grim, unhappy faces at the front of the sanctuary
before the altar and the sun disk, taking care not to look up at the
dome, where an image of golden Jad and an equally vivid, forbidden
rendering of his son carrying a torch of fire in his falling chariot
could be seen.

The mosaics had already been judged very fine by those who understood
such things, though some had disparaged the quality of the glass
pieces used. Perhaps more importantly, the new images overhead had
caused the pious folk of Varena, who had waited longest and been
rewarded with places at the back, to murmur in genuine wonder and
awe. Shimmering in the light of the candles the queen had ordered lit
for her mighty father, the torch of Heladikos seemed to flicker and
glow with a light of its own as the shining god and his doomed child
looked down on those gathered below.

Afterwards, rather too obvious analogies were made by a great many
and complex, competing morals drawn from the ferocious events of a
morning that began in cold, windy greyness, moved into a consecrated
space of candlelight and prayers, and ended with blood on the altar
and the sun disk beyond.

* * *

Pardos had already decided that this was the most important day of
his life. He had even half decided, frightening himself a little with
the immensity of the thought, that it might always be the most
important day of his life. That nothing would or could ever match
this morning.

With Radulph and Couvry and the others, he sat-they were sitting, not
standing!-in the section allocated to the artisans: carpenters,
masons, bricklayers, metal workers, fresco painters, glaziers,
mosaicists, all the others.

Labourers, on instructions from the court, had brought in and
carefully placed wooden benches all through the sanctuary over the
past few days. The sensation was odd, to be seated in a place of
worship. Clad in the new brown tunics and belts Martinian had bought
them for this morning, Pardos struggled furiously to both appear calm
and mature and see every single thing that happened in each moment
that passed.

Pardos knew he had to try to seem poised: he wasn't an apprentice any
more. Martinian had signed the papers for him and Radulph and Couvry
yesterday afternoon. They were formally attested craftsmen now, could
serve any mosaicist who would hire them, or even-though that would be
foolish-seek commissions on their own. Radulph was returning home to
Baiana; he'd always said he would. There would be plenty of work to
be found in that summer resort. He was Rhodian, his family knew
people. Pardos was Antae and knew no one outside Varena. He and
Couvry were staying on with Martinian-and with Crispin, if and when
he ever returned from the glories and terrors of the east. Pardos
hadn't expected to miss so acutely a man who had routinely threatened
him with mannings and dismemberments, but the fact was, he did.

Martinian had taught them patience, discipline, order, the balance
between the imagined and the possible. Crispin had been teaching
Pardos to see.

He was trying to apply those lessons now, observing the colours worn
by the burly Antae leaders and those of the well-born Rhodians who
were present here, men and women both. Martinian's wife, beside him,
had a shawl of a wonderfully deep red colour over her dark grey robe.
It looked like summer wine. Crispin's mother, on Martinian's other
side, wore a long blue cloak so dark it made her white hair seem to
gleam in the candlelight. Avita Crispina was a small woman, composed
and straight-backed, with a scent of lavender about her. She had
greeted Pardos and Radulph and Couvry by name and offered them
felicitations as they walked in together: they'd had no idea, any of
them, that she'd even known they existed.

To the left of the raised altar, close to where the clerics would
chant the rites of the day and of Hildric's memorial service, the
most important members of the court were seated beside and behind the
queen. The men were bearded, unsmiling, clad soberly in browns and
russets and dark greens-hunting colours, Pardos thought. He
recognized Eudric, yellow-haired and battle-scarred-handsome for all
that-once commander of the northern cohorts that did battle with the
Inicii, now Chancellor of the Antae realm. Most of the others he
didn't know. He thought some of the men looked distinctly
uncomfortable without their swords. Weapons were forbidden in the
chapel, of course, and Pardos saw hands straying restlessly to gold
and silver belts and finding nothing there.

The queen herself sat on an elevated seat set among the first row of
the new wooden benches on that side. She was exquisite and a little
frightening in the white robes of mourning with a white silk veil
hiding her face. Only the almost-throne itself and a single band of
dark purple in the soft hat that held the veil in place marked her as
royalty today. Wives and mothers and daughters had always worn the
veil, Martinian had told them, in the glory days of Rhodias when a
man was buried or at his memorial. The queen, so garbed and hidden,
raised above everyone else, seemed to Pardos to be a figure out of
history or from the tales of other, fantastic worlds, told around
night fires.

Martinian, of course, was the only one of them who'd ever spoken to
her in the palace, when he and Crispin were commissioned to the work,
and afterwards as he requested funds and reported progress. Radulph
had seen her once, up close, as she rode back through the city from a
royal hunt beyond the walls. Pardos never had. She was beautiful,
Radulph had said.

In the strangest way, you could almost tell that now, even if you
couldn't see her face, Pardos thought. It occurred to him that
dressing in white amid those clad in deeper autumn colours was an
effective way to draw the eye. He considered that, how it might be
used, and thought of Crispin as he did.

There was a rustling sound and he turned quickly to the front. The
three clerics who would conduct the rites-the celebrated Sybard of
Varena from the court, and two from this sanctuary-stepped forward
from behind the sun disk and paused, in yellow, in blue, in yellow,
until the murmurous sounds grew slowly quieter and then stopped. In
the flicker of candle and olive oil lamp, under the god and his son
on the small dome, they raised their hands, six palms held outwards
in the blessing of Jad.

What followed was not holy.

Afterwards, Pardos understood that the clerics' gestures had been
chosen as a pre-arranged signal. Some device for co-ordinating
actions had been needed, and everyone knew how this ceremony would
begin.

The brown-bearded, big-shouldered man who stood up, just as the
clerics were about to start the rites, was Agila, the Master of
Horse, though Pardos knew that only later. The burly Antae took two
heavy-booted strides towards the altar from beside the queen and
threw back his fur-lined cloak in the full view of all those
assembled.

He was perspiring heavily, his colour was high, and he was wearing a
sword.

The clerics' hands remained in the air like six forgotten appendages
as they faltered into silence. Four other men, Pardos saw, his heart
now beginning to pound, also stood up from the back of the royal
section and moved into the aisles between the rows of benches. Their
cloaks were also withdrawn; four swords were revealed, and then
unsheathed. This was heresy, a violation. It was worse.

'What are you doing? ' the court cleric cried sharply, his voice
shrill with outrage. Gisel the queen did not move, Pardos saw. The
big, bearded man stood almost directly in front of her, but facing
the body of the sanctuary.

He heard Martinian say softly under his breath, 'Jad shelter us. Her
guards are outside. Of course.'

Of course. Pardos knew the rumours and the fears and the
threats-everyone did. He knew the young queen never took food or
drink that had not been prepared by her own people and tasted first
by them, that she never ventured forth, even within the palace,
without a cadre of armed guards. Except here. In the sanctuary:
veiled in mourning on her father's memorial day, in the sight of her
people both high and low and of the holy clerics and the watching
god, in a consecrated space where arms were forbidden, where she
could assume she would be safe.

Except she couldn't.

'What,' rasped the muscular, sweating man in front of the queen,
ignoring the cleric, 'does Batiara say about treason? What do the
Antae do to rulers who betray them?' The words rang harshly in the
holy space, ascended to the dome.

'What are you saying? How dare you come armed into a sanctuary?' The
same cleric as before. A brave man, Pardos thought. It was said
Sybard had challenged the Emperor of Sarantium on a question of
faith, in writing. He would not be afraid here, Pardos thought. His
own hands were trembling.

The bearded Antae reached into his cloak and pulled out a
bunched-together sheaf of parchments. 'I have papers!' he cried.
'Papers that prove this false queen, false daughter, false whore, has
been preparing to surrender us all to the Inicii!'

'That,' said Sybard the cleric with astonishing composure, as a
shocked swell of sound ran through the sanctuary, 'is undoubtedly a
lie. And even if it were not so, this is not the place or time to
deal with it.'

'Be silent, you gelded lapdog of a whore! It is Antae warriors who
decide when and where a lying bitch dog meets her fate!'

Pardos swallowed hard. He felt stunned. The words were savage,
unthinkable. This was the queen he was describing in that way.

Two things happened very quickly then, almost in the same moment. The
bearded man drew his sword, and an even bigger, shaven-headed man
behind the queen stood up and moved forward, placing himself directly
in front of her. His face was expressionless.

'Stand aside, mute, or you will be slain,' said the man with the
sword. Throughout the sanctuary people had risen and now began
pushing towards the doors. There was a scraping of benches, a babble
of sound.

The other man made no movement, shielding the queen with only his
body. He was weaponless.

'Put down your sword!' cried the cleric again from the altar. 'This
is madness in a holy place!'

'Kill her, already!' Pardos heard then, a flat, low tone, but quite
distinct, from among the Antae seats near Gisel.

Someone screamed then. The movement of retreating bodies made the
candles flicker. The mosaics overhead seemed to shift and alter in
the eddies of light.

The queen of the Antae stood up.

Her back straight as a spear shaft, she lifted her two hands and drew
back her veil, and then removed the soft hat with the emblem of
royalty around it and laid it gently down on the raised chair so that
every man and woman there could see her face.

It was not the queen.

The queen was youthful, golden-haired. Everyone knew. This woman was
no longer young, and her hair was a dark brown with grey in it. There
was a cold, regal fury in her eyes, though, as she said to the man
before her, beyond the intervening mute, 'You are unmasked, Agila, in
treachery. Submit yourself to judgement.'

Pardos was watching the perspiring man named Agila as he lost what
remained of his self-control. He could see it happen-the dropping
jaw, the gaping, astonished eyes, then the foul, obscene cry of rage.

The unarmed mute was the first to die, being nearest. Agila's sword
swept in a vicious backhand that took the man at an angle across the
upper chest, biting deeply into his neck. Agila tore the blade back
and free as the man fell, soundlessly, and Pardos saw blood fly
through holy space to spatter the clerics, the altar, the holy disk.
Agila stepped right over the toppled body and plunged his sword
straight into the heart of the woman who had impersonated the queen,
balking him.

She screamed as she died, taken by agony, twisting and falling
backwards onto the bench beside her chair. One hand clutched at the
blade in her breast as if pulling it to herself. Pardos saw Agila rip
it back, savagely, slicing her palm open.