Guy Kay - Sailing to Sarantium

Kyros wheeled around awkwardly to look at the outside door. Strumosus quickly set down his cup and the wine flask he was holding. Three men bulked in the entranceway, then they burst inside, making the space seem suddenly small. One was Scortius. His clothing was torn, he held a knife in his hand. One of the others gripped a drawn sword: a big man, an apparition, dripping blood, with blood on the sword.

Kyros, his jaw hanging open, heard the Glory of the Blues, their own beloved Scortius, rasp harshly, "We're being pursued! Get help. Quickly!" He said it in a gasp; they had been running.

It occurred to Kyros only later that if Scortius had been a different sort of man he might have shouted for aid himself. Instead, it was Rasic who sprang for the inner doorway and sprinted across the banquet room towards the exit nearest the dormitory, screaming in a blood-chilling voice, "Blues! Blues! We are attacked! To the kitchen! Up, Blues!"

Strumosus of Amoria had already seized his favourite chopping knife. There was a mad glint in his eye. Kyros looked around and grabbed for a broom, pointing the shaft towards the empty doorway. There were sounds outside now, in the darkness. Men moving, and the dogs were barking.

Scortius and his two companions came farther into the room. The wounded one with the sword waited calmly, nearest the door, first target of any rush.

Then the sounds of movement in the courtyard ceased. No one could be seen for a moment. There was a frozen interval, eerie after the explosion of action. Kyros saw that the two undercooks and the other boys had each grabbed some sort of weapon. One held an iron poker from the fire. Blood from the wounded man was dripping steadily onto the floor at his feet. The dogs were still barking.

A shadow moved in the darkness of the portico. Another big man.

Kyros saw the dark outline of his blade. The shadow spoke, with a northern accent: "We want only Rhodian. No quarrel with Blues or other two men. Lives be spared if you send him out to us."

Strumosus laughed aloud.

"Fool! Do you understand where you are, whoever you are? Ignorant louts! Not even the Emperor sends soldiers into this compound."

"We have no wish to be here. Send Rhodian and we go. I hold my men so you can-"

The man on the portico-whoever he was-never finished that sentence, or any other in his days under Jad's sun or the two moons or the stars.

"Come, Blues!" Kyros heard from outside. A wild, exultant cry from many throats. "On, Blues! We are attacked!"

A howling came from the north end of the courtyard. Not the dogs. Men. Kyros saw the big, shadowy figure with the sword break off and half turn to look. Then he staggered suddenly sideways. He fell with a sequence of clattering sounds. Other shadows sprang onto the portico. A heavy staff rose and fell, dark against the darkness, once and then again above the downed man. There was a crunching sound. Kyros turned away, swallowing hard.

"Ignorant men, whoever they are. Or were," said Strumosus in a matter-of-fact voice. He set his knife down on the table, utterly unruffled.

"Soldiers. On leave in the City. Hired for some money. It wouldn't have taken much, if they'd been drinking with borrowed money." It was the bleeding man. Looking at him, Kyros saw that his wounds were in shoulder and thigh, both. He was a soldier himself. His eyes were hard now, angry. Outside, the tumult grew. The other intruders were fighting to get out of the compound. Torches were being brought at a run; they made streams of orange and smoke in the courtyard beyond the open doorway.

"Ignorant, as I say," said Strumosus. "To have followed you in here."

"They killed two of my men, and your fellow at the gates," said the soldier. "He tried to stop them."

Kyros shuffled to a stool and sat down heavily, hearing that. He knew who had been on gate duty. Short straw on a banquet night. He was beginning to feel sick.

Strumosus showed no reaction at all. He looked at the third figure in the kitchen, a smooth-shaven, very well-dressed man with flaming red hair and a grim face.

"You are the Rhodian they wanted?"

The man nodded briefly.

"Of course you are. Do tell me, I pray you," said the master cook of the Blues, while men fought and died in the dark outside his kitchen, "have you ever tasted lamprey from the lake near Baiana?"

There followed a brief silence in the room. Kyros and the others were moderately familiar with this sort of thing; no one else could possibly be.

"I'm… ah, very sorry," said the red-haired man, eventually, with a composure that did him credit, "I cannot say I have."

Strumosus shook his head in regret. "A very great pity," he murmured. "Neither have I. A legendary dish, you must understand. Aspalius wrote of it four hundred years ago. He used a white sauce. I don't, myself, actually. Not with lamprey."

This produced a further, similar, silence. A number of torches were in the courtyard now as more and more of the Blues appeared in hastily thrown-on boots and clothing. The latecomers had missed the battle, it seemed. No one was resisting now. Someone had silenced the dogs. Kyros, peering through the doorway, saw Astorgus coming quickly across and then up the three steps to the portico. The factionarius paused there, looking down at the fallen man for a moment, then entered the kitchen.

"There are six dead intruders out there," he said, to no one in particular. His face showed anger but no fatigue.

"All dead?" It was the big soldier. "I'm sorry for that. I had questions."

"They entered our compound," Astorgus said flatly. "With swords. No one does that. Our horses are here." He stared at the wounded man a moment, assessing. Then looking back over his shoulder, he snapped, "Toss the bodies outside the gate and notify the Urban Prefect's officers. I'll deal with them when they arrive. Call me when they do. Someone get Columella in here, and send for the doctor." He turned to Scortius.

Kyros couldn't decipher his expression. The two men looked at each other for what seemed a long time. Fifteen years ago Astorgus had been exactly what Scortius was now: the most celebrated chariot-racer in!" the Empire.

"What happened?" the older man asked, finally. "Jealous husband? Again?"

In fact, he had assumed that to be the case, at first.

A measure of his success in the dark after the racing and the feasts had always been due to the fact that he was not a man who actively pursued women. Notwithstanding this, it would have been an inaccuracy to suggest that he didn't desire them acutely, or that his pulse did not quicken when certain invitations were waiting for him at his home when he returned from the Hippodrome or the stables.

That evening-end of the Dykania revels, end of the racing season- when he came home to change for the Imperial banquet, a brief, unsigned, unscented note had been among those waiting for him on the marble table inside the entranceway. He hadn't needed a signature, or scent. The laconic, entirely characteristic phrasing told him that he'd conquered more than Crescens of the Greens in the first race that afternoon.

"If you are equal to avoiding a different set of dangers," the neat, small handwriting read, "my maidservant will be waiting on the eastern side of the Traversite Palace after the Emperor's feast. You will know her. She is to be trusted. Are you?"

No more than that.

The remaining letters were set aside. He had wanted this woman for a long time. Wit drew him, of late, and her demeanour of serene, amused detachment, the aura of… difficulty about her. He was fairly certain that the withdrawn manner was only a public one. That there was a great deal beneath that formal austerity. That perhaps even her extremely powerful husband had never fathomed that.

He thought he might discover-or begin discovering-if this was so tonight. The prospect had enlivened the whole of the Emperor's banquet with an intense, private anticipation. The privacy of it was central, of course. Scortius was the most discreet of men: another reason the notes came; another reason, perhaps, he hadn't been killed before this.