Kay, Guy Gavriel – Sarantine Mosaic 01 – Sailing to Sarantium

‘Jad curse you with cataracts and baldness,’ she said furiously, in that low, utterly magnificent voice.

The Emperor of Sarantium, so addressed by his wife as he came back into the room, was laughing with delight. ‘I am balding,’ he said. ‘A wasted curse. And if I develop cataracts you’ll have to surrender me to the physi­cians for treatment, or guide me through life with a tongue to my ear.’

Alixana’s expression, seen in profile, arrested Crispin for a moment. He was pretty certain it was an unguarded look, something disturbingly intimate. Something caught in his own heart, the past snagging on the present.

‘Clever of you, love,’ Alixana murmured, ‘to have anticipated this.’

Valerius shrugged. ‘Not really. Our Rhodian shamed her with a gen­erous gift after publicly exposing an error of presumption. She ought not to have worn jewellery exceeding the Empress’s and she knew it.’

‘Of course she knew. But who was going to say so, in that company?’

Both turned, as if cueing each other, to look at Crispin. Both smiled this time.

Crispin cleared his throat. ‘An ignorant mosaicist from Varena, it seems, who now wishes to ask if he is likely to die for his transgressions.’

‘Oh, certainly you are. One of these days,’ said Alixana, still smiling. ‘We all do. Thank you, though. I owe you for an unexpected gift, and I do extravagantly admire a pearl like this. A weakness. Crysomallo?’

The lady-in-waiting, smiling with pleasure herself, walked over with the box. She withdrew the necklace again, undid the clasp, and moved behind the Empress.

‘Not yet,’ said Valerius, touching the woman’s shoulder. ‘I’d like Gesius to have it looked at before you put it on.’

The Empress looked surprised. ‘What? Really? Petrus, you think …?’

‘No, I don’t, in fact. But let it be examined. A detail.’

‘Poison is scarcely a detail, my heart.’

Crispin saw Crysomallo blink at that and hurriedly replace the neck­lace in its box. She wiped her fingers nervously against the fabric of her robe. The Empress seemed more intrigued than anything else, not alarmed at all-so far as he could tell.

‘We live with these things,’ Alixana of Sarantium said quietly. ‘Do not trouble yourself, Rhodian. As for your own safety … you did discomfit a number of people this evening. I would think a guard might be appro­priate, Petrus?’

She had turned as she spoke, to the Emperor. Valerius said simply, ‘It is already in place. I spoke with Gesius before coming here.’

Crispin cleared his throat. Things happened swiftly around these two, he was beginning to realize. ‘I should feel. .. awkward with a guard fol­lowing me about. Is it permissible to make a suggestion?’

The Emperor inclined his head. Crispin said, ‘I mentioned the soldier who brought me here. His name is-‘

‘-Carullus, of the Fourth Sauradian, here to speak with Leontes. Probably about the soldiers’ payment. You did mention him. I have named him and his men as your guards.’

Crispin swallowed. By rights, the Emperor should not have even recalled the existence let alone the name of an officer mentioned once, in passing. But it was said of this man that he forgot nothing, that he never slept, that-indeed-he held converse, took counsel, with spirits of the half-world, dead predecessors, walking the palace corridors by night.

‘I am grateful, my lord,’ Crispin said, and bowed. ‘Carullus is by way of being a friend now. His company is a comfort here in the City. I will walk easier for his presence.’

‘Which is to my advantage, of course,’ said the Emperor, with a slight smile. ‘I want your attention on your labours. Would you like to see the new Sanctuary?’

‘I am eager to do so, my lord. The first morning when it is possible to be allowed-‘

‘Why wait? We’ll go now.’

It was long past the middle of the night. Even the Dykania revels would be ended by now. The bakers at their ovens, the Sleepless Ones at their vigils, street cleaners, city guards, prostitutes of either sex and their clients, these would be the people still awake and abroad. But this was an Emperor who never slept. So the tale ran.