The woman’s hair was the same colour as her own. She was older, though. There was a faded scar on her forehead. Kasia smiled at her when she brought the melon but the woman didn’t smile back. A little later, however, she brought over a two-handled cup filled with hot spiced wine.
‘I didn’t order this,’ Kasia said, worriedly.
‘I know. You should have. Cold day. This’ll calm you. Your men’ll be back soon enough and they’ll be excited. They always are, after the chariots. You’ll have to get busy again, dear.’
She walked away, still without a smile, before Kasia could correct her. It had been a kindness, though. Dear. She had meant to be kind. That could still happen then, in cities.
The spiced wine was good. It smelled of harvests and warmth. Kasia sat quietly and finished it. She watched the open doorway to the street outside. A flow of people, back and forth, unending. From all over the world. She found herself thinking of her mother, and home, and then of where she was, right now. This moment. The place in the god’s world where she was. And then she thought about the night she had lain with Martinian-Crispin-and that made her flush again and feel extremely strange.
She did as Carullus had instructed and had the serving woman set her meal to the room charges and then she went back upstairs. She had a room of her own. A closed door with a new lock. No one would come in and use her, or order her to do something. A luxury so intense it was frightening. She sat at the small window, needle to hand again, the cloak warm across her knees, but the spiced wine after the other two cups had made her sleepy and she must have drifted off in the slant of sunlight there.
The hard knocking at the door woke her with a start and set her heart to hammering. She stood up hastily, wrapped herself in the cloak-an involuntary, protective gesture-crossed to the locked door. She didn’t open it. ‘Who is that?’ she called. She heard her voice waver. ‘Ah. They said he brought a whore.’ A clipped, eastern voice, educated, sour. ‘I want to see the westerner, Martinian. Open the door.’
She was the erimitsu, Kasia reminded herself then. She was. She was free, had rights under law, the innkeeper and his people were below. It was full daylight here. And Martinian might need her to keep her wits just now. She’d heard Morax talk to merchants and patricians often enough. She could do this.
She took a breath. ‘Who seeks him, may I ask?’
There was a short, dry laugh. ‘I don’t talk to prostitutes through locked doors.’
Anger helped, actually. ‘And I don’t open doors to ill-bred strangers. We have a problem, it appears.’
A silence. She heard a floorboard creak in the hallway. The man coughed. ‘Presumptuous bitch. I am Siroes, Mosaicist to the Imperial Court. Open the door.’
She opened the door. It might be a mistake, but Marti-Crispin- had been summoned here to do mosaic work for the Emperor and this man .. .
This man was small, plump and balding. He was dressed in a rich, very dark blue, calf-length linen tunic worked expensively in gold thread, a crimson cloak over that with an intricate design running across it in a band, also in gold. He’d a round, complacent face, dark eyes, long fingers, at odds with the general impression of rotund softness. On his hands she saw the same network of cuts and scars that Crispin bore. He was alone save for a servant, a little distance behind him in the empty hallway.
‘Ah,’ said the man named Siroes. ‘He likes skinny women. I don’t mind them. What do you charge for an afternoon encounter?’
It was important to be calm. She was a free citizen. ‘Do you insult all the women you meet? Or have I offended you somehow? I was told the Imperial Precinct was known for its courtesies. I appear to have been wrongly informed. Shall I call for the innkeeper to have you thrown out, or shall I simply scream?’