Crispin said nothing. He saw the Empress smile thinly. Without turning, Alixana said, ‘You knew he was bearded? You have been making inquiries, Styliane? Even newly married? How very characteristic of the Daleinoi.’
Someone laughed nervously and was quickly silent. The big, frank-looking, handsome man beside the woman looked briefly uneasy. But . from the name that had been spoken, Crispin now knew who these two people were. The pieces slotting into place. He had a puzzle-solving mind. Always had. Needed it now.
He was looking at Carullus’s beloved Strategos, the man the tribune had come from Sauradia to see, the greatest soldier of the day. This tall man was Leontes the Golden, and beside him was his bride. Daughter of the wealthiest family in Sarantium. A prize for a triumphant general. She was, Crispin had to concede. She was a prize. Styliane Daleina was magnificent, and the single, utterly spectacular pearl that gleamed in the golden necklace at her throat might even be …
An idea came to him in that moment, anger-driven. Inwardly he winced at his own subversive thought, and he kept silent. There were limits to recklessness.
Styliane Daleina was entirely unruffled by the Empress’s remark. She would be, Crispin realized: she’d revealed her knowledge of him freely with the insult. She would have been ready for a retort. He had an abrupt sense that he was now another very minor piece in a complex game being played between two women.
Or three. He was carrying a message.
‘He can beard himself like a Holy Fool if he chooses,’ said the Emperor of Sarantium mildly, ‘if he has the skills to assist with the Sanctuary mosaics.’ Valerius’s voice was quiet, but it cut through all other sounds.
It would, Crispin thought. Everyone in this room would be tuned to its cadences.
Crispin looked at the Emperor, pushing the women from his mind. ‘You have spoken persuasively about engineering and moonlight,’ said Valerius of Sarantium. ‘Shall we converse a moment about mosaic?’
He sounded like a scholar, an academician. He looked like one. It was said that this man never slept. That he walked one or another of his palaces all night dictating, or sat reading dispatches by lanternlight. That he could engage philosophers and military tacticians in discourse that stretched the limits of their own understanding. That he had met with the aspiring architects of his new Great Sanctuary and had reviewed each drawing they presented. That one of them had killed himself when the Emperor rejected his scheme, explaining in precise detail why he was doing so. This much had reached even Varena: there was an Emperor in Sarantium now with a taste for beauty as well as power.
‘I am here for no other reason, thrice-exalted,’ Crispin said. It was more or less the truth.
‘Ah,’ said Styliane Daleina quickly. ‘Another Rhodian trait. Here to converse he tells us-no deeds. Thus, the Antae conquered with such ease. It is all so familiar.’
There was laughter again. In its own way, this second interruption was intensely revealing: she had to feel utterly secure, either in her own person or that of her husband, the Emperor’s longtime friend, to break into a colloquy of this sort. What was unclear was why the woman was attacking him. Crispin kept his gaze on the Emperor.
‘There are a variety of reasons why Rhodias fell,’ said Valerius II mildly. ‘We are discussing mosaics, however, for the moment. Caius Crispus, what is your opinion as to the new reverse transfer method of laying tesserae in sheets in the workshop?’
Even with all he’d heard about this man, the technical precision of this question-coming from an Emperor after a banquet, in the midst of his courtiers-caught Crispin completely by surprise. He swallowed. Cleared his throat.
‘My lord, it is both suitable and useful for mosaics on very large walls and floors. It enables a more uniform setting of the glass or stone pieces where that is desired, and relieves much of the need for speed in setting tesserae directly before the setting bed dries. I can explain, if the Emperor wishes.’
‘Not necessary. I understand this. What about using it on a dome?’