On the way there he stopped at another chapel-a larger one, with marble and some painted decoration, including the remains of a wall fresco behind the altar of Heladikos aloft, almost entirely rubbed out- and in the dimness and the quiet between services he prayed before the disk and the altar for guidance through and out of the half-world into which he seemed to have walked.
He would not pray to the zubir, whatever ancient power of his own people it represented, but within himself Vargos sensed a terrible awareness of it, immense and dark as the forests on the borders of his childhood.
Carullus was still in his room, evidendy sleeping off wounds and treatment, when Crispin came downstairs just past midday. He felt muzzy-headed and disoriented himself, and not only from the wine he’d had last night. In fact, the wine was the least of his afflictions. He tried to put his aching head around some of the things that had happened in the two palaces and the Sanctuary and in the street afterwards, and then to come to terms with who had been in his room-on his bed-when he’d stumbled back at dawn. The conjured image of Styliane Daleina, beautiful as an enamelled icon, only made him feel more unsettled.
He did what he’d always done at such times as this, back home. He went to the baths.
The innkeeper, eyeing Crispin’s unshaven scowl with a knowing expression, was able to offer a suggestion. Crispin looked about for Vargos who was also-unaccountably-absent. He shrugged, ill-tempered and querulous, and went out alone, blinking and squinting, into the irritating brightness of the autumn day.
Or, not really alone. Two of Carullus’s soldiers came with him, swords in scabbards. Imperial orders from the night before. He was to have a guard now. Someone wanted him dead. Not the other mosaicist, not the lady, if he could believe her. He did believe her, but was aware that he had no very good reason for doing so.
On the way, passing the windowless facade of a holy retreat for women, he thought of Kasia-and then backed away from that as well. Not today. He wasn’t deciding anything significant today. She needed clothing, though, he knew that much. Considered sending one of the soldiers to the market to buy her some apparel while he bathed, and his first faint smile of the day came with the image of one of Carullus’s men judiciously selecting among women’s undergarments in the street market.
He did get a minor, useful idea, however, and at the baths he asked for paper and a stylus. He sent a messenger running to the Imperial Precinct with a note for the eunuchs of the Chancellor’s office. The clever men who had shaved and attired him last night would be more than adequate to choosing clothing for a young woman newly arrived in the City. Crispin entreated their aid. On further reflection, he set a budget for the purchases.
Later that afternoon, Kasia-dealing with some unexpected discoveries of her own-would find herself accosted at the inn by a swirling, scented coterie of eunuchs from the Imperial Precinct and spirited away by them for the surprisingly involved task of acquiring proper garb for life in Sarantium. They were amusing and solicitous, clearly enjoying the exercise and their own wittily obscene disagreements over what was suitable for her. Kasia found herself flushed and even laughing during the escapade. None of them asked what her life in Sarantium was to fee, which was a relief, because she didn’t know.
In the baths, Crispin had himself oiled, massaged, scraped down, and then subsided blissfully into the soothing, fragrant hot pool. There were others there, talking quietly. The familiar drone of murmurous voices almost lulled him back to sleep. He revived with a cool immersion in the adjacent pool, then made his way, wrapped in a white sheet like a spectral figure, towards the steam room, where half a dozen similarly shrouded men could be seen through the mist, lounging on marble benches, when he opened the door.
Someone shifted wordlessly to make room for him. Someone else gestured vaguely, and the naked attendant poured another ewer of water over the hot stones. With a sizzling sound, steam rose up to enclose the small chamber even more densely. Crispin mentally declined the associations with a fogbound morning in Sauradia and leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes.