And so that hidden knowledge and those transmuted souls passed from the created world where men and women lived and died, and the birds of Zoticus the alchemist were not seen or known again under sun or moons. Except for one.
When autumn came round again, in a mortal world greatly changed by then, those coming at dawn on the Day of the Dead to perform the ancient, forbidden rites found no dead man, no crafted birds in the grass. There was a staff, and an empty pack with a leather strap, and they wondered at those. One man took the staff, another the pack, when they were done with what they had come there to do.
Those two, as it happened, were to know good fortune all their days, afterwards, and then their children did, who took the staff and the pack when they died, and then their children’s children.
There were powers greater than royalty in the world.
‘I should be exceedingly grateful,’ said the cleric Maximius, principal adviser to the Eastern Patriarch, ‘if someone would explain to us why a cow so absurdly large is to be placed on the dome of the Sanctuary of Jad’s Holy Wisdom. What does this Rhodian think he is about?’
There was a brief silence, worthy of the arch, acidic tones in which the comment had been made.
‘I believe,’ said the architect Artibasos gravely, after a glance at the Emperor, ‘that the animal might be a bull, in fact.’
Maximius sniffed. ‘I am, of course, entirely happy to defer to your knowledge of the farmyard. The question remains, however.’
The Patriarch, in a cushioned seat with a back, allowed himself a small smile behind his white beard. The Emperor remained expressionless.
‘Deference becomes you,’ said Artibasos, mildly enough. ‘It might be worth cultivating. It is customary-except perhaps among clerics-to have opinions preceded by knowledge.’
This time it was Valerius who smiled. It was late at night. Everyone knew the Emperor’s hours, and Zakarios, the Eastern Patriarch, had long since made his adjustments to them. The two men had negotiated a relationship built around an unexpected personal affection and the real tension between their offices and roles. The latter tended to play itself out in the actions and statements of their associates. This, too, had evolved over the years. Both men were aware of it.
Excepting the servants and two yawning Imperial secretaries standing by in the shadows, there were five men in the room-a chamber in the smaller Traversite Palace-and they had each, at some point, spent a measure of time examining the drawings that had brought them here. The mosaicist was not here. It was not proper that he be present for this. The fifth man, Pertennius of Eubulus, secretary to the Supreme Strategos, had been making notes as he studied the sketches. Not a surprise: the historian’s mandate here was to chronicle the Emperor’s building projects, and the Great Sanctuary was the crown jewel among them.
Which made the preliminary drawings for the proposed dome mosaics of extreme significance, both aesthetic and theological.
Zakarios, behind his thick, short, steepled fingers, shook his head as a servant offered wine. ‘Bull or cow,’ he said, ‘it is unusual.. . much of the design is unusual. You will agree, my lord?’ He adjusted the ear flap of his cap. He was aware that the unusual headgear with its dangling chin strings did no favours to his appearance, but he was past the age when such things mattered and was rather more concerned with the fact that it was not yet winter and he was already cold all the time, even indoors.
‘One could hardly fail to agree,’ Valerius murmured. He was clad in a dark blue wool tunic and the new style of trousers, belted, tucked into black boots. Working garb, no crown, no jewels. Of all those in the room, he was the only one who seemed oblivious to the hour. The blue moon was well over to the west, above the sea by now. ‘Would we have preferred a more ‘usual’ design for this Sanctuary?’
‘This dome serves a holy purpose,’ the Patriarch said firmly. ‘The images thereon-at the very summit of the Sanctuary-are to inspire the devout to pious thoughts. This is not a mortal palace, my lord, it is an evocation of the palace of Jad.’