‘Mice and blood, artisan. You are still an imbecile. You do know what this means for tomorrow?’
‘Of course I do. No help for it. We won’t be able to stay. I count on you to protect us all.’ He meant it ironically but it didn’t quite come out that way The bird made no reply.
There was a god’s tree somewhere in that forest beyond the road and tomorrow was the Day of the Dead. And despite what Zoticus had advised him, they were going to have to be away from here and travelling at sunrise or before.
He went inside with the innkeeper. Sent the girl upstairs with the key. Sat again at his table in the common room to drink a flask or two of the wine, prudently watered, and earn what goodwill he could from those who shared in the liquid bounty. He kept his purse on him this time, with his money, his Permit, and the bird.
After a time, Erytus of Megarium reappeared, having concluded an encounter with Morax. He presented Crispin with certain papers that indicated that the Inici slave girl, Kasia, was now the legal property of the artisan, Martinian of Varena. Erytus also insisted on finalizing the financial compensation upon which they had agreed. Crispin allowed him to count the contents of his purse; Erytus produced his own, and matched it. The Karchite merchants watched them but were too far away to see anything clearly.
Erytus accepted only a very small cup of wine, in earnest of goodwill. He looked weary and unhappy. He extended renewed apologies for his nephew’s disgraceful conduct and rose to leave a few moments later. Crispin stood and exchanged a bow with him. The man had behaved impeccably. Crispin had, in fact, relied upon that.
Looking at the papers and the quite heavy purse on the table beside him, Crispin sipped the good wine. He expected the Megarium party to be gone even before he was in the morning-if the nephew was allowed to leave. He suspected that some further outlays on Erytus’s part would achieve that end, if they hadn’t done so already. He found himself hoping so. The young man was a rogue, but he’d been seduced into this crime, had his skull dented for it, and would doubtless suffer extremely at his family’s hands. Crispin did not particularly want to be the agency of his being hanged from a pagan oak in Sauradia.
He looked around. The revived Karchites and several of the other guests-including a cheerful, grey-clad courier-were quaffing Candarian red wine unwatered, downing it like beer. He managed not to wince at the sight, raising his own glass in a genial salute. He felt very far from his own world. Ordinary circumstances had been left a long way or, at home, behind city walls. Where he ought to have stayed, shaping images of beauty with such materials as came to hand. There was no beauty here.
It occurred to him that he ought not to leave his new slave alone for too long, even with a lock on the door. There wasn’t much he could do if she went missing now and never turned up. He went upstairs.
‘Are you going to stick it in her?’ Linon cackled suddenly. The crude-ness and the patrician voice and Crispin’s mood were all janglingly at odds with each other. He made no reply.
The girl had the key. He knocked softly and called to her. She unbolted to his voice and opened the door. He stepped inside and closed and bolted it again. It was very dark in the room. She had lit no candles, had closed the shutters again and latched them. He could hear the rain outside. She stood very near to him, not speaking. He was embarrassed, surprisingly aware of her, still wondering why he had done what he had done tonight. She knelt with a rustle, a blurred female shape, and then bent her head to kiss his foot before he could withdraw. He stepped quickly back, clearing his throat, uncertain what to say.
He gave her the topmost blanket from the bed and bade her sleep on the servants pallet by the far wall. She never spoke. Aside from that instruction, neither did he. He lay in the bed listening to the rain for a long time. He thought of the queen of the Antae, whose foot he himself had kissed, before this journey had begun. He remembered a Senator’s wife, tapping at his door. Another inn. Another country. He finally fell asleep. He dreamt of Sarantium, of making a mosaic there, with brilliant tesserae and all the shining jewels he needed: images on a towering dome of an oak tree in a grove, lightning bolts in a livid sky.