The Sarantine Mosaic

by Guy Gavriel Kay

  He watched Styliane turn to the tall man she’d married on Valerius’s orders. He was an observant man, Plautus Bonosus, had spent years reading small signals, especially at court. She was arriving, he decided, at the same conclusion he was.

  The army is here. Four words, with a world of meaning. An army could quell a civilian riot. Obvious. But there was more. The armies had been two weeks away and divided among leaders when Apius died without an heir. They were right here now, massed in and all about the City, preparing to sail west.

  And the man speaking of them, the man standing golden before the Golden Throne, was their dearly beloved Strategos. The army was here, and his, and the army would decide.

  ‘I will attend to the Emperor’s body,’ said Gesius very softly. Heads turned back to him. ‘Someone should,’ he added, and went out.

  BEFORE NIGHTFALL that day the Senate of Sarantium had been called into imperative session in its handsome, domed chamber. They accepted formal tidings from the Urban Prefect, clad in black, speaking nervously, of the untimely death of Jad’s most dearly beloved, Valerius II. A show-of-palms vote led to a resolution that the Urban Prefect, in conjunction with the Master of Offices, would conduct a full investigation into the circumstances of what appeared to be a foul assassination.

  The Urban Prefect bowed his acceptance and left.

  Amid noises of clashing weapons and shouting in the street outside, Plautus Bonosus spoke the formal words that convened the Senate to use its collective wisdom in choosing a successor for the Golden Throne.

  Three submissions were made to them from the mosaic star on the floor in the midst of their circle of seats. The Quaestor of the Sacred Palace spoke, then the principal adviser to the Eastern Patriarch, and finally Auxilius, Count of the Excubitors, a small, dark, intense man: he had broken the Victory Riot two years ago, with Leontes. All three speakers urged the Senate, with varying degrees of eloquence, to choose the same man.

  After they were done, Bonosus asked for further submissions from guests. There were none. He then invited his colleagues to make their own speeches and remarks. No one did. One Senator proposed that an immediate vote be taken. They heard a renewed sound of fighting just beyond their doors.

  With no one displaying any sign of disagreement to this proposition, a vote was, accordingly, proposed by Bonosus. The pebbles were distributed in pairs to all present: white meaning agreement with the only name put forward, black indicating a desire for further deliberation and other candidates to be considered.

  The motion passed, forty-nine Senators approving, one electing to demur. Auxilius, who had lingered in the visitors’ gallery, hastily left the chamber.

  As a consequence of this formal vote, Plautus Bonosus instructed the senatorial clerks to draw up a document under seal indicating that the august body of the Sarantine Senate was of the view that the successor to the lamented Valerius II, Jad’s Holy Emperor, regent of the god upon earth, ought to be Leontes, currently serving with honour as Supreme Strategos of the Sarantine army. The clerks were instructed to express the collective and fervent hope of the Senate that his would be a reign blessed by the god with glory and good fortune.

  The Senate adjourned.

  That same night, in the Imperial Chapel inside the walls of the Precinct, Leontes, often called ‘the Golden,’ was anointed Emperor by the Eastern Patriarch. Saranios had built that chapel. His bones lay within.

  It was decided that if the City grew quiet overnight there would be a public ceremony in the Hippodrome the next afternoon, to crown both the Emperor and his Empress. There always was. The people needed to see.

  Plautus Bonosus, escorted home that night by a contingent of Excubitors, fingered the unused white pebble in his pocket. On reflection, he cast it away into the darkness.

  The streets were indeed much calmer by then. The fires had been put out. Contingents of the army had been sent up from the harbour at sundown and from the temporary barracks outside the walls. The presence of heavily armed soldiers, marching in order, had ended the violence very smoothly. It had all gone smoothly today, Bonosus thought. Not like the last time there had been no heir. He was trying to understand why he felt so much bitterness. It wasn’t as if there was anyone else more suited to the porphyry robes of Empire than Leontes. That wasn’t the point though. Or was it?

  The soldiers were still moving through the streets in tightly banded, efficient clusters. He couldn’t remember ever seeing the army making itself so obvious within the City. Walking with his escort (he had declined a litter) he saw that the patrols were knocking on doors, entering houses.

  He knew why. There was a heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He’d been trying to suppress certain thoughts, but not very successfully. He understood too well what was taking place. This happened, it had to happen, whenever a violent change of this sort occurred. Valerius, unlike Apius before him, or his own uncle, had not passed to the god in peace, in old age, to lie serenely in state in the Porphyry Room robed for his passage. He had been murdered. Certain things—certain other deaths, if Bonosus was honest with himself—would have to follow upon that.

  One, in particular.

  And so, these soldiers, spreading through the City with their torches, combing the the lanes and alleys near the harbour, porticoes of the wealthy, warrens within the Hippodrome, chapels, taverns, cauponae (even though those were closed by order tonight), inns and guildhouses and workshops, bakeries and brothels, probably even down into the cisterns … and entering citizens’ homes in the night. The heavy knock on the door in the dark.

  Someone had disappeared, needed to be found.

  Nearing his own doorway, Bonosus saw that the house was properly barricaded against a riot. The leader of his escort knocked, politely in this case, and declared their identity.

  Locks were unbolted. The door was opened. Bonosus saw his son. Cleander was weeping, his eyes swollen and red. Bonosus, with no premonition at all, asked him why, and Cleander told him.

  Bonosus went into his house. Cleander thanked the guards and they went away. He closed the door. Bonosus sat down heavily on a bench in the hallway. His whirling thoughts were stilled. He had no thoughts at all. An emptiness.

  Emperors died, before their time. So did others. So did others. The world was what it was.

  ‘There’s a riot in the Hippodrome. And there was another bird in the City today!’ Shirin said urgently, as soon as Crispin entered his house and saw her waiting in the front room, pacing before the fire. She was agitated: had spoken the words with a servant still in the hallway.

  ‘Another bird!’ Danis echoed, silently, almost as upset. Mice and blood, Linon would have said. And called him an imbecile for walking the streets alone just now.

  Crispin took a deep breath. The half-world. Did you ever leave it, once you entered? Did it ever leave you?

  ‘I know about the fighting,’ he said. ‘It is in the streets now.’ He turned and dismissed the servant. Then registered something. ‘You said a bird was here. Not any more?’

  ‘I don’t feel it now,’ Danis said in his mind. ‘It was here, and then it was … gone.’

  ‘Gone away? From the City?’

  He could see the anxiety in the woman, feel it coming from the bird.

  ‘More than that, I think. I think it is … gone. It didn’t fade. It was just there and then, not there?’

  Crispin needed wine. He saw Shirin looking at him closely. The clever, observant gaze. All flash and play removed from her now.

  ‘You know about this,’ she said. Not a question. Zoticus’s daughter. ‘You don’t seem … surprised.’

  He nodded. ‘I know something. Not very much.’

  She looked pale and cold, even near the fire. She said, hugging herself with her hands, ‘I had two separate messages, two of my … informants. They both say the Senate is being summoned. They also say … they say that the Emperor may be dead.’ He wasn’t sure, but he thought she might have been crying. It was Danis he heard n
ext, in silence:

  ‘They said he was murdered.’

  Crispin took a breath. He could feel his heart beating, still too fast. He looked at Shirin, slender, graceful, afraid. He said, ‘I suspect … that might be true.’

  When the Huntress shoots him he dies.

  There was more sorrow in him than he would ever have expected.

  She bit her lip. ‘The bird? That Danis felt? She said it was … a bad presence.’

  No reason, really, not to say this much. Not to her. She was here with him, in the half-world. Her father had drawn them both into it. ‘It belonged to Lecanus Daleinus. Who escaped his prison today and came here.’

  Shirin sat down suddenly, on the nearest bench. Still hugging herself. She was very white. ‘The blind one? The burned … ? He left the isle?’

  ‘Had help, obviously.’

  ‘From?’

  Crispin drew another breath. ‘Shirin. My dear. If your tidings are true and Valerius is dead, there are going to be questions asked of me. Because of where I was this morning. You are … better off not knowing. Can say you don’t know. That I refused to tell.’

  Her expression changed. ‘You were on that island? Oh, Jad! Crispin, they will … you aren’t going to be stupid are you?’

  He managed a faint smile. ‘For a change, you mean?’

  She shook her head fiercely. ‘No jesting. At all! If the Daleinoi have killed Valerius, they will be … ’ He saw something else occur to her. ‘Where is Alixana? If they killed Valerius … ’

  She let the thought hang in the air and fade away. Men and women lived, died. Faded away. He didn’t know what to say. What he could say. A robe discarded on a stony strand. They would find it. Might even have done so by now. Shall the maiden never walk the bright fields again?

  ‘You had better stay here tonight,’ he said, finally. ‘The streets will be dangerous. You shouldn’t have come out, you know.’

  She nodded. ‘I know.’ And then, after a moment, ‘Have you any wine?’

  A blessedly clever woman. He gave an order to the servant, for wine and water and for food. The eunuchs had staffed this house for him. His people were very good. In the late-afternoon streets outside there was fighting. Soldiers were assembling Senators, escorting them to the Senate Chamber and then returning to the streets to achieve order in a dangerous time.

  Not long after darkfall they had done so, and had set about their other task.

  WHEN THE HARD KNOCKING came at his door Crispin was waiting for it. He had left Shirin for long enough to wash and change his clothing: he had still been wearing the nondescript tunic he’d donned for work, the one he’d been wearing on the isle. He put on his best tunic and trousers now, with a leather belt, not at all certain why he was doing so. He went to answer the knocking himself, nodding for the servant to stand back. He swung the door open, was briefly blinded by torches.

  ‘Shall I hit you with my helmet?’ Carullus asked, on the threshold.

  Memory. Relief. And then swift sorrow: loyalties so hopelessly entangled here. He couldn’t even sort out his own. He knew that Carullus must have specifically asked to lead this detail to his door. He wondered who had granted that approval. Where Styliane was, just now.

  ‘Your wife,’ he said calmly, ‘would probably be upset if you did. She was the last time, remember?’

  ‘Believe me, I remember.’ Carullus stepped inside. Spoke a word to his men and they waited on the threshold. ‘We’re doing a search of the entire city. Every house, not just yours.’

  ‘Oh. Why would mine have been singled out?’

  ‘Because you were with the Emp … with Alixana this morning.’

  Crispin looked at his friend. Saw worry in the big man’s eyes, but also something else: an undeniable excitement. Dramatic times, the most dramatic imaginable, and he was one of Leontes’s own guard now.

  ‘I was with the Empress.’ Crispin emphasized the word, aware he was being perverse. ‘She took me to see dolphins, and then to the prison isle. We saw Lecanus Daleinus in the morning and when we came back, after a meal elsewhere, he was gone. Two of the guards on duty were dead. The Empress went away with one soldier alone. Didn’t come back on the ship. They will know all that in the palace by now. What has happened, Carullus?’

  ‘Dolphins?’ said other man, as if nothing else had registered.

  ‘Dolphins. For a mosaic.’

  ‘They’re heresy. Forbidden.’

  ‘Will she be burned for it?’ Crispin asked coldly. Couldn’t help but ask.

  He saw his friend’s eyes flicker.

  ‘Don’t be an idiot. What has happened?’ Crispin said. ‘Tell me.’

  Carullus stepped past him into the front room, saw Shirin there, by the fire. He blinked.

  ‘Good evening, soldier,’ she murmured. ‘I haven’t seen you since your wedding. Are you well? And Kasia?’

  ‘I … yes, um, yes, we are. Thank you.’ Carullus stammered, for once at a loss for words.

  ‘I have been told that the Emperor was killed today,’ she said, giving him no respite. ‘Is it true? Tell me it isn’t.’

  Carullus hesitated, then he shook his head. ‘I wish I could. He was burned in a tunnel between palaces. By Lecanus Daleinus, who did indeed escape the isle today. And by Lysippus, the Calysian, who was exiled, as you know, but slipped secretly back into the city.’

  ‘No one else?’

  ‘Two … Excubitors were also there.’ Carullus looked uncomfortable.

  ‘A vast plot, then. Those four?’ Shirin’s expression was guileless. ‘Are we safe now? I heard the Senate was sitting.’

  ‘You are well informed, my lady. They were.’

  ‘And?’ Crispin asked.

  ‘They have adjourned for the night. Leontes was named by them and is being anointed Emperor tonight. It will be announced tomorrow morning, with his coronation and that of the new Empress in the kathisma.’

  That note again, an excitement the man could not suppress. Carullus loved Leontes, and Crispin knew it. The Strategos had even come to his wedding, promoted him there in person, and had then appointed him to his personal guard.

  ‘Meanwhile,’ said Crispin, not fighting the bitterness, ‘all the soldiers in Sarantium are hunting for the old Empress.’

  Carullus looked at him. ‘Please tell me you don’t know where she is, my friend.’

  There was something painful lodged in Crispin’s breast, like a stone.

  ‘I don’t know where she is, my friend.’

  They stared at each other in silence.

  ‘She says to be careful. And to be fair.’

  Crispin wanted to snarl an oath. He did not. Danis was right, or Shirin was. He gestured with one hand. ‘Search the house, have them search.’

  Carullus cleared his throat and nodded. Crispin looked at him, then added, ‘And thank you for doing this yourself. Do you need me to come somewhere for questioning?’

  ‘Not that fair!’ Danis exclaimed sharply.

  Carullus hesitated another moment, then shook his head. He returned to the hallway and opened the outside door. They heard him giving orders. Six men came in. Two went upstairs, the others went towards the back, on the ground floor.

  Carullus came back into the front room. ‘You might be questioned later. I have no orders about that now. You went to the isle with her, saw Lecanus, then he was gone, and then she left. How?’

  ‘I told you. With one Excubitor. I don’t know his name. I don’t even know that she left. She may still be on the isle, Carullus. They will kill her when they find her, won’t they?’

  His friend swallowed. Looked quite miserable.

  ‘I have no idea,’ he said.

  ‘Of course you do,’ Shirin snapped. ‘It just isn’t your fault, you want to say. Or Leontes’s, of course. Nothing’s his fault.’

  ‘I don’t … I truly don’t think he had anything to do with this,’ the big soldier said.

  Crispin looked at the other man. His closest friend here. Ka
sia’s husband. As honest and decent a person as he knew. ‘No, I don’t think he knew anything about it.’

  ‘Poor helpless man. It must have been Styliane, then,’ said Shirin, still furious. ‘She is the Daleinoi in our day. One brother blind and imprisoned, the other a complete fool.’

  Crispin looked at her. So did Carullus. The two men exchanged glances. Crispin said, ‘My dear, please leave that thought in this room. You told me not to be stupid, earlier. Let me say the same to you.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Carullus said soberly.

  ‘Jad rot you both!’ Danis said in silence, and Crispin heard the pain in the bird that could not be spoken by the woman.

  ‘We are all unhappy tonight,’ Carullus added. ‘These are not easy times.’

  ‘Unhappy? I could laugh! The man is in his glory!’ Danis said, with a savagery unknown for her.

  It wasn’t true, or not entirely true, but Crispin had no way to say so aloud. He looked at Shirin, and belatedly, in the lamplight, he realized that she was weeping.

  ‘You will hunt her down like some beast,’ she said bitterly. ‘All of you. An army of soldiers after one woman whose husband has just been killed, whose life died with him. And then what? Send her back to a hovel in the Hippodrome? Make her dance naked for their amusement? Or are you to quietly kill her when you find her? Spare poor, virtuous Leontes the details?’

  It was a woman speaking, and a performer, Crispin understood finally. Fear and this unexpected depth of rage, thinking of the other dancer who had defined, for all of them, the City and the world.

  But even here there were layers, because if Leontes was oblivious to what had happened, Styliane was not. It wasn’t just about men pursuing a helpless woman. It was also about two women at war, and only one of them could live now.