Guy Kay - Sailing to Sarantium

"And that taught you how to win a chariot race?" Valerius's brief pique had passed. He was engaged again, Crispin saw. Beside him, Alixana's dark gaze was unreadable.

"It taught me how a better man than I might do so. A mosaicist, as I told you, my lord, sees the changing colours and light of Jad's world with some. precision. He must, or will fail at his own tasks. I spent a part of the afternoon watching what happened when the chariots went past the far stands and people turned to follow their passage."

Valerius was leaning forward now, his brow furrowed in concentration. He held up a hand suddenly. "Wait! I'll hazard this. Wait. Yes… the impression is brighter, paler when they look straight ahead-faces towards you-and darker when their heads turn away, when you see hair and head-coverings?"

Crispin said nothing. Only bowed. Beside him, Scortius of the Blues wordlessly did the same.

"You have earned your own ruby, my lord," said the charioteer.

"I have not. I still don't… You now, Scortius. Explain!"

The Soriyyan said, "When I reached the kathisma turn, my lord Emperor, the stands to my right were many-hued, quite dark as I drove past Crescens to the inside. They ought not to have been, with the Firsts of the Greens and Blues right beneath them. Their faces ought to have been turned directly to us as we went by, offering a brightness in the sunlight. There is never time to see actual faces in a race, only an imprests the Rhodian said-of light or dark. The stands before the turn were dark. Which meant the watchers were turned away from us. Why would they turn away from us?"

"A collision behind you," said the Emperor of Sarantium, nodding his head slowly, his fingers steepled together now, arms on the arms of his throne. "Something more compelling, even more dramatic than the two champions in their duel."

"A violent collision, my lord. Only that would divert them, turn their heads away. You will recall that the original accident happened before Crescens and I moved up. It appeared a minor one, we both saw it and avoided it. The crowd would have seen it as well. For the Hippodrome to be turned away from the two of us, something violent had to have happened since that first collision. And if a third-or a fourth-chariot had smashed into the first pair, then the Hippodrome crews were not going to be able to clear the track."

"And the original accident was on the inside," said the Emperor, nodding again. He was smiling with satisfaction now, the grey eyes keen. "Rhodian, you understood all of this?"

Crispin shook his head quickly. "Not so, my lord. I guessed only the simplest part of it. I am. humbled to have been correct. What Scortius says he deduced, in the midst of a race, while controlling four horses at speed, fighting off a rival, is almost beyond my capacity to comprehend."

"I actually realized it too late," Scortius said, looking rueful. "If I had truly been alert, I'd not have been going by Crescens on the inside at all. I'd have stayed outside him around the turn and down the far straight. That would have been the proper way to do it. Sometimes," he murmured, "we succeed by good fortune and the god's grace as much as anything else."

No one said anything to this, but Crispin saw the Supreme Strategos, Leontes, make a sign of the sun disk. After a moment, Valerius looked over and nodded to his Chancellor. Gesius, in turn, gestured to another man who walked forward from the single door behind the throne. He was carrying a black silk pillow. There was a ruby on it in a golden band. He came towards Crispin. Even at a distance Crispin saw that this shining prize for an Emperor's idle amusement at a banquet would be worth more money than he'd ever possessed in his life. The attendant stopped before him. Scortius, on Crispin's right, was smiling broadly. Good fortune and the god's grace.

Crispin said "No man is less worthy of this gift, though I hope to please the Emperor in other ways as I serve him."

"Not a gift, Rhodian. A prize. Any man-or woman-here might have won it. They all had a chance before you, earlier tonight."

Crispin bowed his head. A sudden thought came to him, and before he could resist it, he heard himself speaking again. "Might I… might I be permitted to make of this a gift, then, my lord?" He stumbled over the words. He was successful but not wealthy. Neither was his mother, aging, nor Martinian and his wife.

"It is yours," said the Emperor, after a brief, repressive silence. "What one owns one may give."

It was true, of course. But what did one own if life, if love, could be taken away to darkness? Was it all not just… a loan, a leasehold, transitory as candles?

Not the time, or the place, for that.

Crispin took a deep breath, forcing himself towards clarity, away from shadows. He said, knowing this might be another mistake, "I should be honoured if the Lady Styliane would accept this from me, then. I would, not have even had the chance to speak to this challenge had she not, thought so kindly of my worth. And I fear my own impolitic words earlier might have distressed a fellow artisan she values. May this serve to make my amends?" He was aware of the charioteer beside him, the man's drop-jawed gaze, a flurry of incredulous sound among the courtiers. "Nobly said!" cried Faustinus from by the two thrones.

It occurred to Crispin that the Master of Offices, powerful in his control of the civil service, might not be an especially subtle man. It also occurred to him in that same moment-noting Gesius's thoughtful expression and the Emperor's suddenly wry, shrewd one-that this might not be accidental.

He nodded at the attendant-vividly clad in silver-and the man carried the pillow over to the golden-haired lady standing near the thrones. Crispin saw that the Strategos, beside her, was smiling but that Styliane Daleina herself had gone pale. This might indeed have been an error; he had no sure instincts here at all.

She reached forward, however, and took the ruby ring, held it in an open palm. She had no real choice. Exquisite as it was, beside the spectacular pearl about her throat it was almost a trifle. She was the daughter of the wealthiest family in the Empire. Even Crispin knew this. She needed this ruby about as much as Crispin needed… a cup of wine.

Bad analogy, he thought. He did need one, urgently.

The lady looked across the space of the room at him for a long moment, and then said, all icy, composed perfection, "You do me too much honour in your turn, and honour the memory of the Empire in Rhodias with such generosity. I thank you." She did not smile. She closed her long fingers, the ruby nestled in her palm.

Crispin bowed.

"I must say, "interjected the Empress of Sarantium, plaintively, "that I am desolate now beyond all words. Did I, too, not urge you to speak, Rhodian? Did I not stop our beloved Scortius to give you an opportunity to show your cleverness? What gift will you make to me, dare I ask?"

"Ah, you are cruel, my love," said the Emperor beside her. He looked amused again.

"I am cruelly scorned and overlooked," said his wife.

Crispin swallowed hard. "I am at the service of the Empress in all things I may possibly do for her."

"Good!" said Alixana of Sarantium, her voice crisp, changing on the instant, as if this was exactly what she'd wanted to hear. Very good. Gesius, have the Rhodian conducted to my rooms. I wish to discuss a mosaic there before I retire for the night."

There was another rustle of sound and movement. Lanterns nickered. Crispin saw the sallow-faced man near the Strategos pinch his lips together suddenly. The Emperor, still amused, said only, "I have summoned him for the Sanctuary, beloved. All other diversions must follow our needs there."

"I am not," said the Empress of Sarantium, arching her magnificent eyebrows, "a diversion."