Guy Kay - Lord of Emperors

"Then kill me! I do not wish to live to see-"

'Stop!" Crispin cried. Leontes would give the order, he knew it.

He looked around frantically and saw, with desperate relief, that Vargos had come down from the scaffolding. He nodded urgently at the big man and Vargos came quickly forward. He bowed. Then, expressionlessly, without warning, he simply picked up the small architect, threw him over his shoulder, and carried the struggling, loudly protesting Artibasos off into the dimness of the Sanctuary.

Sound carried extremely well in this space-the building had been brilliantly designed. They could hear the architect cursing and shouting for a long time. Then a door was opened and closed, in the shadows of some recess, and there was silence. No one moved. Morning sunlight fell through high windows.

Crispin was remembering the bathhouse again. His first conversation with this man, in the drifting steam. He ought to have known, he thought. Ought to have been prepared for this. He'd been warned by Styliane and even by Leontes himself that afternoon, half a year ago: I'm interested in your views on images of the god.

"As I told you, we attach no consequences to those things done before our time." The Emperor was explaining again. "But there have been… lapses in the true faith, failures of proper observance. Images of the god are not to be created. Jad is ineffable and mysterious, entirely beyond our grasp. For a mortal man to dare picture the god behind the sun is a heresy. And to exalt mortal men in a holy place is arrogant presumption. It always has been, but those… before us simply did not understand it."

They will come down, here and elsewhere, in the lands we rule.

"You are… changing our faith, my lord."

It was, barely, possible to shape words.

"An error, artisan. We change nothing. With the wisdom of the Eastern Patriarch and his advisers to guide us-and we expect the Patriarch in Rhodias to agree-we will restore a proper understanding. We must worship Jad, not an image of the god. Otherwise we are no better than the pagans before us with their offerings to statues in the temples."

"No one… worships this image above us, my lord. They are only made mindful of the power and majesty of the god."

"You would instruct us in matters of faith, Rhodian?" It was the dark-bearded cleric this time. The Patriarch's assistant.

It was all without meaning, these words. One could argue against this as easily as one fought against plague. It was as final. The heart could cry. There was nothing at all to be done.

Or, almost nothing.

Martinian used to say that there was always some kind of choice. And here, now, one might yet try to do a single thing. Crispin drew a deep breath, for this would go against everything in his nature: pride and rage, the deep sense of himself as above all such pleading. But there was something too large at stake now.

He swallowed hard and said, ignoring the cleric, looking directly at Leontes, "My lord Emperor, you were good enough to say you… owed me greatly, for services?"

Leontes returned his gaze. His heightened colour was receding. "I did."

"Then I have a request, my lord." The heart could cry. He kept his eyes on the man in front of him. If he looked overhead he was afraid he would shame himself and weep.

Leontes's expression was benign. A man accustomed to dealing with requests. He lifted a hand. "Artisan, do not ask for this to be saved… it cannot be."

Crispin nodded. He knew. He knew. He would not look up above.

He shook his head. "It is… something else."

"Then ask," the Emperor said, with an expansive gesture. "We are aware of your services to our beloved predecessor, and that you have performed honourably by your own understanding."

By his own understanding.

Crispin said, speaking slowly, "There is a chapel of the Sleepless Ones, in Sauradia, on the Imperial Road. Not far from the eastern military camp." He heard his own voice as if from far away. Carefully, carefully, he did not look overhead.

"I know it," said the man who had commanded armies there.

Crispin swallowed again. Control. It was necessary to keep one's control. "It is a small chapel, inhabited by holy men of great piety. There is…" He took a breath. "There is a… decoration there, on the dome, a rendering of Jad done long ago by artisans of a piety as… as they understood it… almost unimaginable."

"I believe I have seen it." Leontes was frowning.

"It is… it is falling down, my lord. They were gifted and devout beyond words, but their… understanding of… technique was imperfect, so long ago."

"And so?"

"And so I… my request of you, thrice-exalted lord, is that this image of the god be allowed to fall down in its own time. That the holy men who live there in peace and offer their night-long prayers for all of us, and travellers on the road, not be forced to see their chapel dome stripped bare."

The cleric quickly began to speak, but Leontes held up a hand. Pertennius of Eubulus had said nothing the entire time, Crispin realized. He seldom did. An observer, a chronicler of wars and buildings. Crispin knew what else the man chronicled. He wished he'd hit him harder the night before. He wished he'd killed him, in fact.

"It is falling, this… rendering?" The Emperor's voice was precise.

"Piece by piece," Crispin said. "They know it, the holy ones. It grieves them, but they see it as the will of the god. Perhaps… it is, my lord." He could hate himself for saying that last, but he wanted this to happen. He needed it to happen. He did not speak of Pardos and a winter spent in restoration. It was not a lie, any of what he said.

"Perhaps it is," the Emperor agreed, nodding his head. "The will of Jad. A sign for all of us of the virtue of what we are doing now." He looked back at the cleric, who dutifully nodded as well.

Crispin lowered his eyes. Looked at the floor. Waited.

"This is your request of us?"

"It is, my lord."

"Then it shall be so." The soldier's voice, crisp with command. "Pertennius, you will have documents prepared and filed appropriately. One to be delivered above our own seal for the clerics there to keep in their possession. The decoration in that chapel shall be permitted to come down by itself, as a holy sign of the error of all such things. And you will record it as such in your chronicle of our reign."

Crispin looked up.

He was gazing at the Emperor of Sarantium, golden and magnificent-looking very much the way the god of the sun was rendered in the west, in fact-but he was really seeing the image of Jad in that chapel by the road in the wilderness, the god pale and dark, suffering and maimed in the terrible defence of his children.

"Thank you, my lord," he said.

He looked upwards then, after all. Despite everything. Couldn't help himself. A death. Another death. She had warned him. Styliane. He looked, but did not weep. He had wept for Ilandra. For the girls.

And thinking so, he realized that there was one last small thing-terribly small, a gesture, no more-that he could still do, after all.

He cleared his throat. "Have I leave to withdraw, my lord?"

Leontes nodded. "You have. You do understand we are very well disposed towards you, Caius Crispus?"

Using Crispin's name, even. Crispin nodded. "I am honoured, my lord." He bowed formally.

And then he turned and walked to the scaffolding, which was not far away.

"What are you doing?" It was Pertennius, as Crispin reached the ladder and placed a foot upon it.

Crispin didn't turn around.

"I have work to do. Up there." His daughters. Today's task, memory and craft and light.

"They will only bring it down!" The secretary's voice was uncomprehending.