The Urban Prefect’s officer had been polite and formal with Crispin when he’d arrived with the factionarius. They’d spoken privately in the large room where the banquet had taken place. The man had not probed deeply, and Crispin had realized that the officer wasn’t certain he wanted to know too much about this murder attempt. Intuitively, Crispin had said nothing about the mosaicist dismissed by the Emperor or the aristocratic lady who might have felt herself diminished by this-or embarrassed by a reference to a necklace she wore. Both things had happened in public: the man would learn of them if he wanted to.
Would someone kill for such things?
The Emperor had refused to let his wife put on the necklace when it came.
There were threads to be untangled and examined here, but they were not about to reveal themselves when his brain was weary and vague with wine and an overwhelming night.
When the grey rumour of dawn showed in the east, they left the kitchen and went across the courtyard to join the administration and employees of the Blues in chapel for the faction’s early-morning invocation. Crispin discovered a genuine gratitude, almost a feeling of piety within himself as he chanted the antiphonal responses: for his life preserved, again; for the dome given to him tonight; for the friend Carullus was, and the friend the charioteer might become; for having survived an entry into court, questions in an Empress’s rooms, and swords in the night.
And finally-because the small graces of life really did matter to him- for the taste of a shrimp-stuffed whitefish in a sauce like a waking dream.
Scortius didn’t bother going home. He bade them good day outside the chapel and then went off to sleep in a room they reserved for him in the compound. The sun was just coming up. A small party of Blues escorted Crispin and Carullus to their inn as the bells summoning Sarantines to later morning prayers in other chapels began all around them.
The clouds were gone, swept away south; the day promised to be cold and bright. The City was stirring as they walked, rousing itself to the resumption of the mundane at the end of a festival. There was debris in the streets but less than he’d expected: workers had been busy in the night. Crispin saw men and women walking to chapels, apprentices running errands, a food market noisily opening up, shops and stalls displaying their wares under colonnades. Slaves and children hurried past carrying water and loaves of bread. There were lines of people already outside food stands, snatching the first meal of the day. A grey-bearded Holy Fool in a tattered and stained yellow robe was shuffling barefoot towards what was probably his usual station to harangue those who were not at prayer.
They reached the inn. Their escorts doubled back to the compound. Crispin and Carullus walked in. The common room was open, a fire going, a handful of people eating inside. The two men passed by that doorway and went up the stairs, moving slowly now.
‘Speak later?’ Carullus mumbled.
‘Of course. You’re all right?’ Crispin asked.
The soldier grunted wearily and unlocked the door to his room.
Crispin nodded his head, though the other man had already closed the door. He took out his key and headed for his own room farther down the hall. It seemed to take an oddly long time to get there. Noises from the street drifted up. Bells still ringing. It was morning, after all. He tried to remember the last time he’d stayed awake an entire night. He fumbled at the lock. It took some concentration but he managed to open the door. The shutters were blessedly closed against the morning, though bands of sunlight penetrated through the slats, stippling the darkness.
He dropped the key on the small table by the door and stumbled towards his bed, half asleep already. Then he realized-too late to check his motion-that there was someone in the room, on the bed, watching him. And then, in the bands of muted light, he saw the naked blade come up.
Some time earlier, still in the beclouded dark of night, a waiting soldier has handed the Emperor of Sarantium a fur-lined cloak as he emerges into the windy cold from the small chapel and the stone tunnel that leads through the Imperial Precinct walls.