Guy Kay - Sailing to Sarantium

Almost.

"How extremely tedious this suddenly becomes," said the Empress, her tone the embodiment of capricious boredom. "It is even worse than talk of which way to lay a piece of glass on some sticky bed. I do not think sticky beds are a fit subject here. Styliane's just married, after all."

It was the Strategos who flushed, not the elegant wife beside him, as the Emperor's own thoughtful expression broke into a smile, and laughter with an edge of malice rippled through the room.

Crispin waited for it to die. He said, not sure why he was doing so, "It was the thrice-exalted Empress who asked me to defend my views. My strong views, she called them. It was someone else who described them as a stupidity. In the presence of such greatness as I find myself, I dare choose no subjects, only respond when asked, as best I may. And seek to avoid the chasms of stupidity."

Alixana's expressive mouth quirked a little, but her dark eyes were unreadable. She was a small woman, exquisitely formed. "You have a careful memory, Rhodian. I did ask you, didn't I?"

Crispin inclined his head. "The Empress is generous to recall it. Lesser mortals cannot but recollect each word she breathes, of course." He was surprising himself with almost every word he spoke tonight.

Valerius, leaning back on the throne now, clapped his hands. "Well said, if shameless. The westerner may yet teach our courtiers a few things besides engineering and mosaic technique."

"My lord Emperor! Surely you have not accepted his prattle about the reverse-"

The relaxed demeanour disappeared. The grey gaze went knifing past Crispin.

"Siroes, when you presented your drawings and your plans to our architects and our self, you did say this device was new, did you not?"

The tone of the room changed dramatically. The Emperor's voice was icy. He was still leaning back in his throne, but the eyes had altered.

Crispin wanted to turn and see who this other mosaicist was but he dared not move. The man behind him stammered, "My lord. thrice-exalted lord, it has never been used in Sarantium. Never on any other dome. I proposed-"

"And what we have just heard of Rhodias? Five hundred years ago? The reasons why? Did you consider this?" "My lord, the affairs of the fallen west, I-"

"What?" Valerius II sat upright now. He leaned forward. A finger stabbed the air as he spoke. "This was Rhodias, artisan! Speak not to us of the fallen west. This was the Rhodian Empire at its apex! In the god's name! What did Saranios name this city when he drew the line with his sword from channel to ocean for the first walls? Tell me!"

There was fear now in the room, palpably. Crispin saw men and women, elegant and glittering, their eyes fixed on the floor like subdued children. "He… he… Sarantium, thrice-exalted." "And what else? What else? Say it, Siroes!"

"The… he called it the New Rhodias, thrice-great lord." The patrician voice was a croak now. "Glorious Emperor, we know, we all know there has never been a holy sanctuary on earth to match the one you have envisaged and are bringing into being. It will be the glory of Jad's world. The dome, the dome is unmatched in size, in majesty…"

"We can only bring it into being if our servants are competent. The dome Artibasos has designed is too big, you are now saying, to use proper mosaic technique upon? Is that it, Siroes?"

"My lord, no!"

"You are being given insufficient resources from the Imperial treasury? Not enough apprentices and craftsmen? Your own recompense is inadequate, Siroes?" The voice was cold and hard as a stone in the depths of winter.

Crispin felt fear and pity. He couldn't even see the man being so ruthlessly annihilated, but behind him he heard the sound of someone sinking to his knees.

"The Emperor's generosity surpasses my worth as much as he surpasses all those in this room in majesty, my thrice-exalted lord."

"We rather believe it does, in fact," said Valerius II icily. "We must reconsider certain aspects of our building plans. You may leave us, Siroes. We are grateful to the lady Styhane Daleina for urging your talents upon us, but it begins to appear that the scope of our Sanctuary might have you overmatched. It happens, it happens. You will be appropriately rewarded for what you have done to this point. Fear not."

Another piece of the puzzle. The aristocratic wife of the Strategos had sponsored this other mosaicist before the Emperor. Crispin's appearance tonight, his swift summons to court, had threatened that man, and so her, by extension.

It was appallingly true, what he'd conjectured earlier: he'd arrived here with allegiances and enemies before he'd even opened his mouth-or lifted his head from the floor. I could be killed here, he thought suddenly. Behind him he heard the silver doors opening. There were footsteps. A pause. The banished artisan would be doing his obeisance.

The doors closed again. Candles flickered in the draft. The light wavered, steadied. It was silent in the throne room, the courtiers chastened and afraid. Siroes, whoever he was, had left. Crispin had just ruined a man by answering a single question honestly without regard for tact or diplomacy. Honesty at a court was a dangerous thing, for others, for oneself. He kept his own eyes on the mosaic of the floor again. A hunting scene in the centre. An Emperor of long ago, in the woods with a bow, a stag leaping, the Imperial arrow in flight towards it. A death coming, if the scene continued.

The scene continued.

Alixana said, "If this distressing habit of spoiling a festive evening persists, my beloved, I shall join brave Leontes in regretting your new Sanctuary. I must say, paying the soldiers on time seems to cause so much less turmoil."

The Emperor looked unperturbed. "The soldiers will be paid. The Sanctuary is to be one of our legacies. One of the things that will send our names down the ages."

"A lofty ambition to now lay on the shoulders of an untried, ill-mannered westerner," said Styliane Daleina, tartness in her voice.

The Emperor glanced over at her, his expression blank. She had courage, Crispin had to concede, to be challenging him in this mood.

Valerius said, "It would be, were it on his shoulders. The Sanctuary has already risen, however. Our splendid Artibasos, who designed and built it for us, carries the burden of that-and the weight of his heroic dome, like some demigod of the Trakesian pantheon. The Rhodian, should he be capable, will attempt to decorate the Sanctuary for us, in a manner pleasing to Jad and ourselves."

"Then we must hope, thrice-exalted, he finds more pleasing manners in himself said the fair-haired woman.

Valerius smiled, unexpectedly. "Cleverly put," he said. This Emperor, Crispin was coming to realize, was a man who valued intelligence a great deal. "Caius Crispus, we fear you have earned the displeasure of one of the ornaments of our court. You must endeavour, while you labour among us, to make amends to her."

He didn't feel like making amends, as it happened. She had endorsed an incompetent for her own reasons and was now trying to make Crispin suffer the consequences. "It is a regret to me, already," he murmured. "I have no doubt the Lady Styliane is a jewel among women. Indeed, the pearl she wears about her throat, larger than any single womanly ornament I can see before me, is evidence and reflection of that." He knew what he was doing this time, as it happened. It was dangerously rash, and he didn't care. He didn't like this tall, arrogant woman with the perfect features and yellow hair and cold eyes and that stinging tongue.

He heard a collective intake of breath, could not mistake the sudden burning of anger in the woman's eyes, but it was the other woman he was really waiting on, and Crispin, turning to her, found what he was looking for: the briefest flicker of surprised, ironic understanding in the dark gaze of the Empress of Sarantium.