She didn’t seem to care. Appeared to find it amusing, in fact, that he withheld himself, standing rigid before her. She took her time, quite deliberately, body fitted close against his, tongue brushing his lips, pushing between them, then moving down to his throat. He heard her soft laughter, the breath warm against his skin.
‘I do hope she left some life in you,’ murmured the aristocratic wife of the Supreme Strategos of the Empire, and proceeded to slip a hand down the front of his tunic to his waist-and past it-by way of inquiry.
This time Crispin did step back, breathing hard, but not before she’d touched him through the silk of his garment. He saw her smile, the small, even teeth. She was exquisite, was Styliane Daleina, like pale glass, pale ivory, like one of the knife blades made in the far west of the world, in Esperana, where they crafted such things to be works of beauty as well as agents of death.
‘Good,’ she said, again. She looked at him, assured, amused, daughter of wealth and power, wedded to it. He could taste her, feel where her mouth had been along his throat. She said, musingly, ‘I will disappoint you, I now fear. How can I compete with the actress in this? It was said in her youth that she lamented holy Jad had granted her an insufficiency of orifices for the acts of love.’
‘Stop it!’ Crispin rasped. ‘This is a game. Why are you playing it? Why are you here?’ She smiled again. White teeth, hands coming up into her hair, long, wide sleeves of the robe falling back to show bare, slender arms. He said, in anger, fighting desire, ‘Someone tried to kill me tonight.’
‘I know,’ said Styliane Daleina. ‘Does it excite you? I hope it does.’
‘You know? What else do you know about it?’ Crispin said. Even as he spoke, she began to unpin her golden hair.
She paused. Looked at him, a different expression in her eyes this time. ‘Rhodian, had I wished you dead, you would be. Why would a Daleinus hire drunks in a caupona? Why would I trouble to kill an artisan?’
‘Why would you trouble to come uninvited to his room?’ Crispin snapped.
She laughed again at that. Her hands were busy another moment, collecting pins; then she shook her head and the richness of her hair spilled down, falling about her shoulders, filling the hood of her robe.
‘Must the actress be allowed all the interesting men?’ she said.
Crispin shook his head, the familiar anger rising now. He sought refuge in it. He say it again: this is a game you are playing. You are not here because you want to be bedded by a foreign artisan.’ She hadn’t stepped back. There was very little space between them and her scent enveloped them both. A dark redness, heady as poppies, as unmixed wine. Very different from the Empress’s. It had to be. Carullus and then the eunuchs had told him that.
Deliberately, Crispin sat down on the wooden chest under the window. He took a deep breath. ‘I have asked some questions. They seem reasonable in the circumstances. I’m waiting,’ he said, and then added, ‘My lady.’
‘So am I,’ she murmured, one hand pushing her hair back. But the voice had changed again, responding to his tone. There was a silence in the room. Crispin heard a cart rumble past in the street below. Someone shouted. It was morning. Bands of light and dark fell across her body. The effect, he thought, was quite beautiful.
She said, ‘You may be inclined to underestimate yourself, Rhodian. You have little concept of what the patterns are at this court. No one is summoned as swiftly as you were. Ambassadors wait weeks, artisan. But the Emperor is infatuated with his Sanctuary. In one single night you have been invited to court, given control of the mosaics there, had private counsel with the Empress, and caused the dismissal of the man who was doing the work before you came.’
‘Your man,’ Crispin said.
‘After a fashion,’ she said carelessly. ‘He had done some work for us. I judged it of some use to have Valerius in our debt for finding him a craftsman. Leontes disagreed with that, but had his own reasons for preferring Siroes. He has . . . views on what you and the other artisans should be permitted to do in the sanctuaries.’