There was a guard at the window on the peristyle court. He was there to make sure that no one slipped in that way in a desperate attempt to get the Director’s approval of a plan or document. Perennius nodded to the soldier.
The man laid a brawny arm across the opening as the agent stepped toward it. “Keep clear, buddy,” the guard snapped. “Go see them if you need to get in.” He nodded toward the ushers in the passage. They were already hedged about by men who felt they had to talk to Navigatus.
“Calm down,” Perennius said. He felt unusually calm himself, now that he had taken care of his business with Zopyrion. It was a state almost like that following orgasm, the relaxation which follows the draining of all the self’s resources into a single triumphant moment. It took the edge off the sword of his temper, though the iron baton which remained could be nasty enough in all truth. Perennius reached out to the stone frame, holding his orders closed in his hand.
Navigatus reclined on the other side of the drawing room. He faced three-quarters away from the agent. Unexpectedly, one of the other heads within was turned toward Perennius rather than toward the Director. The man staring at the agent was six feet four inches tall, but much thinner-framed than the norm of protein-fed barbarians of that height. He was starkly bald with only a hint of eyebrows like those which regrow after facial burns. The eye contact surprised Perennius. Its intensity shocked him, stiffening the agent with a gasp which convinced the guard to get involved again.
“Hey there,” the soldier said. He set his left palm at the lower end of the agent’s breastbone. “Get the hell back, I—”
Perennius gripped the other’s wrist with his own left hand and squeezed. There was no emotion in his response. That part of the agent’s body was working on instinct. His right hand slapped the wooden tablet three times against the sill. The sharp rattle of sound cut through the buzz of concurrent conversations. It drew all eyes toward Perennius, as it had been intended to do. That was no longer an intellectual act either. The agent’s conscious mind was focused on the bald, spare man who looked at him and looked away, just as Navigatus shouted, “Aulus! By Pollux, everybody make way for my friend here!” The Director rose to his feet with a touch of awkwardness because in reclining he had slowed the circulation to his left leg.
Perennius laughed. “Say, I’ll come through the window,” he called, “if it won’t earn me a foot of steel up the ass.” He released the guard, looking at the man with interest for the first time. Perennius’ grip on the soldier’s wrist had paralyzed the man as small bones, already in contact, had grated closer. “Christ the Savior, you bastard!” the soldier hissed as he massaged the injured limb with his good hand. Perennius had been distracted or he would not have squeezed so hard. Still, no permanent harm done, the agent thought as he swung himself over the waist-high sill to meet his superior.
The two men clasped and kissed, to the amazement of most of the others in the room. Navigatus was not, all things considered, a particularly arrogant man, but he had a strong sense of formality. He wore his toga on all public occasions. His subordinates and those outsiders seeking audiences with him had learned early that if they wished to be recognized, they too had best don the uncomfortable woolen garment. Even then the Director tended to keep his distance; though so far as Perennius knew, Marcus had never gotten to the point of greeting everyone through his usher as if direct verbal contact would somehow soil him. Seeing Navigatus embracing the agent and his travel stains was more of a surprise than word of another attempted coup would have been.
Much more of a surprise than that.
Navigatus continued to hold the agent by one hand as he turned to his head usher. “Delius,” he said, “clear this – no, Aulus and I will go out in the garden, that’s what we’ll do. Close that – ” he pointed at the window opening into the garden – “and see that we’re not disturbed.”