Crispin blinked. That might need thinking about. Later. ‘It was Siroes who hired those soldiers, then?’ he guessed. ‘I had no intention of ruining anyone’s career.’
‘You did, however,’ said the woman. The aristocratic coolness he remembered from before was in her voice again. ‘Quite completely. But no, I can attest that Siroes was not in a position to hire assassins tonight. Trust me in this.’
Crispin swallowed. There was nothing reassuring in her tone, but there was a note of truth. He decided he didn’t want to ask why she was so certain.
‘Who was it, then?’
Styliane Daleina raised her hands, palms out, an elegant, indifferent gesture. ‘I have no idea. Run down the table of your enemies. Pick a name. Did the actress like my necklace? Did she put it on?’
‘The Emperor wouldn’t let her,’ Crispin said, deliberately.
And saw that he’d surprised her. ‘Valerius was there?’
‘He was there. No one went down on her knees.’
She was amazingly self-possessed. A lifetime of dealing with intrigue and lesser mortals. She smiled a little. ‘Not yet,’ she said, the timbre of her voice lower, the glance direct. It was a game, and he knew it, but entirely against his will, Crispin felt the stirrings of desire again.
As carefully as he could, he said, ‘I am unused to being offered love-making on so little acquaintance, except by whores. My lady, I am generally disinclined to accept their offers as well.’
She gazed at him, and Crispin had a sense that-perhaps for the first time-she was taking the trouble to shape an evaluation of the man in the room with her. She had been standing. Now she sank down onto the end of the bed, not far from the chest where he sat. Her knee brushed his, then withdrew a little.
‘Would that please you?’ she murmured. ‘To treat me like a whore, Rhodian? Put my face hard to the pillow, take me from behind? Hold me by the hair as I cry out, as I say shocking, exciting things to you? Shall I tell you what Leontes likes to do? It will surprise you, perhaps. He rather enjoys-‘
‘No!’ Crispin rasped, a little desperately. ‘What is this about’? Does it amuse you to play the wanton? Do you wander the streets soliciting lovers? There are other bedrooms in this inn.’
Her expression was impossible to read. He hoped his tunic was concealing the evidence of his arousal. He dared not look down to check.
She said, ‘What is this about, he asks. I have assumed you to be intelligent, Rhodian. You gave some sign of it in the throne room. Are you stupid with exhaustion now? Can you not guess that there might be people in this city who think an invasion of Batiara a destructive folly? Who might assume that you-as a Rhodian-might share that belief and have some desire to save your family and your country the consequences of an invasion?’
The words were knives, sharp and precise, almost military in their directness. She added, in the same tone, ‘Before you became hopelessly enmeshed in the devices of the actress and her husband, it made some sense to assess you.’
Crispin rubbed a hand across his eyes and forehead. She’d given him a partial explanation, after all. A renewal of anger chased fatigue. ‘You bed all those you recruit?’ he said, staring coldly at her.
She shook her head. ‘You are not a courteous man, Rhodian. I bed where my pleasure leads me.’ Crispin was unmoved by the reproof. She spoke, he thought, with the untrammelled assurance of one never checked in her wishes. The actress and her husband.
‘And plot to undermine your Emperor’s designs?’
‘He killed my father,’ said Styliane Daleina bluntly, sitting on his bed, pale hair framing the exquisite, patrician face. ‘Burned him alive with Sarantine Fire.’
‘An old rumour,’ Crispin said, but he was shaken, and trying to hide it. ‘Why are you telling me this?’
She smiled, quite unexpectedly. ‘To arouse you?’
And he had to laugh. Try as he might to hold back, the effortless shift of tone, the irony of it, was too witty. ‘Immolation is unexciting for me, I fear. Do I take it the Supreme Strategos shares the view that no war ought to be waged in Batiara? He has sent you here?’