Zoticus did indeed look unsettled, notwithstanding his practical words: visibly trying to come to terms with which of the birds his guest seemed to have inwardly heard in the room’s deep silence.
Crispin-here only because Martinian had first denied being himself to an Imperial Courier, and then demanded Crispin come to learn about the roads to Sarantium-who had asked for no gift at all, now found himself conversing in his mind with a hostile, ludicrously sensitive bird made of leather and-what?-tin, or iron. He was unsure whether what he most felt was anger or anxiety.
‘More of the mint?’ the alchemist asked, after a silence.
‘I think not, thank you,’ said Crispin.
‘I had best explain a few matters to you. To clarify.’
‘To clarify. Yes. Please,’ Crispin said.
‘My heart,’ Linon repeated, in his mind this time, ‘is broken.’
‘You shut up,’ Crispin replied swiftly, with undeniable satisfaction.
Linon did not address him again. Crispin was aware of the bird, though, could almost feel an affronted presence at the edge of his thoughts like a night animal beyond a spill of torchlight. He waited while Zoticus poured himself a fresh cup. Then he listened to the alchemist in careful silence while the sun reached its zenith on an autumn day in Batiara and began its descent towards the cold dark. Metals to gold, the dead to life . . .
The old pagan who could breathe into crafted birds patrician voice, sight without eyes, hearing without ears, and the presence of a soul, told him a number of things deemed needful, in the wake of the gift he’d given.
Certain other understandings Crispin obtained only afterwards.
‘She wants you, the shameless whore! Are you going to? Are you?’
Keeping his expression bland, Crispin walked beside the carried litter of the Lady Massina Baladia of Rhodias, sleekly well-bred wife of a Senior, and decided it had been a mistake to wear Linon on a thong around his neck like an ornament. The bird was going into one of his travelling bags tomorrow, on the back of the mule plodding along behind them.
‘You must be so fatigued,’ the Senator’s wife was saying, her voice honeyed with commiseration. Crispin had explained that he enjoyed walking in the open country and didn’t like horses. The first was entirely untrue, the second was not. ‘If only I had thought to bring a litter large enough to carry both of us. And one of my girls, of course … we couldn’t possibly ride just alone!’ The Senator’s wife tittered. Amazingly.
Her white linen chiton, wildly inappropriate for travelling, had-quite unnoticed by the lady, of course-slipped upward sufficiently to reveal a well-turned ankle. She wore a gold anklet, Crispin saw. Her feet, resting on lambswool throws within the litter, were bare this mild afternoon. The toenails were painted a deep red, almost purple. They hadn’t been yesterday, in their sandals. She’d been busy last night at the inn, or her servant had been.
‘Mice and blood, I’ll wager she reeks of scent! Does she? Crispin, does she?’
Linon had no sense of smell. Crispin elected not to reply. The lady did, as it happened, have a heady aroma of spice about her today. Her litter was sumptuous, and even the slaves carrying it and accompanying her were appreciably better garbed-in pale blue tunics and dark blue dyed sandals- than was Crispin. The rest of their party-Massina’s young female attendants, three wine merchants and their servants journeying the short distance to Mylasia and then down the coast road, a cleric continuing towards Sauradia, and two other travellers heading for the same healing medicinal waters as the lady-walked or rode mules a little ahead or behind them on the wide, well-paved road. Massina Baladia’s armed and mounted escort, also clad in that delicately pale blue-which looked significantly less appropriate on them-rode at the front and back of the column.
None of the party was from Varena itself. None had any reason to know who Crispin was. They were three days out from Varena’s walls, still in Batiara and on a busy stretch of road. They had already been forced to step onto the gravel side-path several times as companies of archers and infantry passed them on manoeuvres. There was some need for caution on this road, but not the most extreme sort. The leader of the lady’s escort gave every indication of regarding a red-bearded mosaicist as the most dangerous figure in the vicinity.