The conversation around him was sporadic and desultory. Men seldom spoke with much energy amid the enveloping heat of the steam. It was easier to drift, eyes closed, into reverie. He heard bodies shift and rise, others enter and subside as cooler air came briefly in with the opening door and then the heat returned. His body was slick with perspiration, languorous with an indolent calm. Bathhouses such as this, he decided, were among the defining achievements of modern civilization.
In fact, he thought dreamily, the mist here had nothing in common with the chill, half-worldly fog of that distant wilderness in Sauradia. He heard the hiss of steam again as someone poured more water, and he smiled to himself. He was in Sarantium, eye of the world, and much had already begun.
‘I should be greatly interested to know your views on the indivisibility of the nature of Jad,’ someone murmured. Crispin didn’t even open his eyes. He’d been told about this sort of thing. The Sarantines were said to be passionate about three subjects: the chariots, dances and pantomimes, and an endless debating about religion. Fruit-sellers would harangue him, Carullus had cautioned, regarding the implications of a bearded or a beardless Jad; sandalmakers would propound firm and fierce opinions on the latest Patriarchal Pronouncement about Heladikos; a whore would want his views on the status of icons of the Blessed Victims before deigning to undress.
He wasn’t surprised, therefore, to hear well-bred men in a steam room discoursing this way. What did surprise him was his ankle being nudged by a foot and the same voice adding, ‘It is unwise, actually, to fall asleep in the steam.’
Crispin opened his eyes.
He was alone in the swirling mist with one other person. The question about the god had been addressed to him.
The questioner, loosely wrapped in his own white sheet, sat eyeing him with a very blue gaze. He had magnificent golden hair, chiselled features, a scarred and honed body, and he was the Supreme Strategos of the Empire.
Crispin sat up. Very quickly. ‘My lord!’ he exclaimed.
Leontes smiled. ‘An opportunity to talk,’ he murmured. He used an edge of the sheet to wipe sweat from his brow.
‘Is this a coincidence?’ Crispin asked, guardedly.
The other man laughed. ‘Hardly. The City is rather too large for that. I thought I’d arrange a moment to learn your views on some matters of interest.’
His manner was courteous in the extreme. His soldiers loved him, Carullus had said. Would die for him. Had died-on battlefields as far west as the Majriti deserts and north towards Karch and Moskav.
No visible arrogance here at all. Unlike the wife. Even so, the utterly confident control behind this encounter was provoking. There had been at least six men and an attendant slave in the steam a few moments ago …
‘Matters of interest? Such as my opinion of the Antae and their readiness for invasion?’ This was blunt, he knew, and probably unwise.
On the other hand, everyone knew his nature at home, they might as well start finding out here.
Leontes merely looked puzzled. ‘Why would I ask you that? Do you have military training?’
Crispin shook his head.
The Strategos looked at him. ‘Would you have knowledge of town walls, water sources, road conditions, paths through mountains? Which of their commanders deviate from the usual arraying offerees? How many arrows their archers carry in a quiver? Who commands their navy this year and how much he knows about harbours?’
Leontes smiled suddenly. He had a brilliant smile. ‘I can’t imagine you could help me, actually, even if you wanted to. Even if any such thing as an invasion was being contemplated. No, no, I confess I’m more interested in your faith and your views on images of the god.’
A memory clicked into place then, like a key in a lock. Irritation gave way to something else.
‘You disapprove of them, might I guess?’
Leontes’s handsome face was guileless. ‘I do. I share the belief that to render the holy in images is to debase the purity of the god.’
‘And those who honour or worship such images?’ Crispin asked. He knew the answer. He had been through this before, though not perspiring in steam and not with a man such as this.