Kay, Guy Gavriel – Sarantine Mosaic 01 – Sailing to Sarantium

Petrus gestured, his soft hands spreading a little apart. ‘Truthfully? I’m not certain. I said it was complex. We will, indeed, have to talk further. But tonight you are allowed an evening of leisure, and I may permit myself the same, with your leave. I took the liberty of commanding ale for you, Uncle. It is on the sideboard beside the wine. Have I your gracious leave to depart?’

Valerius didn’t really want him to go, but what was he to do? Ask the other man to sit with him for a night and hold his hand and tell him being Emperor would be all right? Was he a child?

‘Of course. Do you want Excubitors?’

Petrus began shaking his head, then caught himself. ‘Probably a wise idea, actually. Thank you.’

‘Stop by the barracks. Tell Leontes. In fact, a rotating guard of six of them for you, from now on. Someone used Sarantine Fire here today’

Petrus’s too-quick gaze showed he didn’t quite know how to read that comment. Good. It wouldn’t do to be utterly transparent to his nephew.

‘Jad guard and defend you all your days, my Emperor.’

‘His eternal Light upon you.’ And for the first time ever, Valerius the Trakesian made the Imperial sign of blessing over another man.

His nephew knelt, touched forehead to floor three times, palms flat beside his head, then rose and walked out, calm as ever, unchanged though all had changed.

Valerius, Emperor of Sarantium, successor to Saranios the Great who had built the City, and to a line of Emperors after him, and before him in Rhodias, stretching back almost six hundred years, stood alone in an elegant chamber where oil lanterns hung from the ceiling and were set in brackets on the walls and where half a hundred candles burned extrav­agantly. His bedroom for tonight was somewhere nearby. He wasn’t sure where. He wasn’t familiar with this palace. The Count of the Excubitors had never had reason to enter here. He looked around the room. There was a tree near the courtyard window, made of beaten gold, with mechan­ical birds in the branches. They glittered in the flickering light with jew­els and semi-precious stones. He supposed they sang, if one knew the trick. The tree was gold. It was entirely of gold. He drew a breath.

He went to the sideboard and poured himself a flask of ale. He sipped, then smiled. Honest Trakesian brew. Trust Petrus. It occurred to him that he should have clapped hands for a slave or Imperial officer, but such things slowed matters down and he had a thirst. He’d a right to one. It had been a day of days, as the soldiers said. Petrus had spoken true-he was entitled to an evening without further planning or tasks. Jad knew, there would be enough to deal with in the days to come. For one thing, certain people would have to be killed-if they weren’t dead already. He didn’t know the names of the men who’d wielded that liquid fire in the City-he didn’t want to know-but they couldn’t live.

He walked from the sideboard and sank down into a deep-cushioned, high-backed chair. The fabric was silk. He’d had little experience of silk in his life. He traced the material with a calloused finger. It was soft, smooth. It was… silken. Valerius grinned to himself. He liked it. So many years a soldier, nights on stony ground, in bitter winter or the southern desert storms. He stretched out his booted feet, drank deeply again, wiped his lip with the back of a scarred, heavy hand. He closed his eyes, drank again. He decided he wanted his boots removed. Carefully, he placed the ale flask on an absurdly delicate three-legged ivory table. He sat up very straight, took a deep breath and then clapped his hands three times, the way Apius–Jad guard his soul!-used to do.

Three doors burst open on the instant.

A score of people sprang into the room and flung themselves prostrate on the floor in obeisance. He saw Gesius and Adrastus, then the Quaestor of the Sacred Palace, the Urban Prefect, the Count of the Imperial Bed- chamber-Hilarinus, whom he didn’t trust-the Quaestor of Imperial Revenue. All the highest officers of the Empire. Flattened before him on a green and blue mosaic floor of sea creatures and sea flowers.

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