Guy Kay - Sailing to Sarantium

There were swords across the square, real men carrying them, whatever might be said about the half-world spirits all around. Scortius stood in darkness with the moons set and the stars furtive behind swift clouds. A cold wind blew from the north-where Death was said to dwell in the old tales of Soriyya, the tales told before Jad had come to the people of the south, along with the legend of his son.

What was happening on that portico was none of his business, and he had his own dangers to negotiate through the streets. He was unarmed, save for the trivial knife, could hardly help two defenceless men against sword-wielding attackers.

Some situations required a sense of self-preservation.

He was, alas, deficient in this regard.

"Watch out!" he roared at the top of his voice, bursting out from behind the screening trees.

He drew his little knife as he emerged. Having calmly decided just a moment ago that he was not going to run he seemed to be running after all, and the wrong way entirely. It did occur to him-a small, belated sign of functioning intelligence-that he was being unwise.

"Assassins!" he cried. "Get inside!"

The two men on the portico turned towards him as he sprinted across the square. He saw a low, covered pile of bricks just in time and leaped it, clipping his ankle, almost falling when he landed. He swore like a sailor in a dockside caupona, at himself, at their slowness. Watching as he ran-for enemies, for movement, for more of the accursed bricks-he saw the nearest soldier turn and draw his sword along the western side of the portico. He was close enough to hear the sound as blade slid free of scabbard.

His fervent hope-and inadequate plan-was that the third man had not bolted the door to the Sanctuary, that they could get inside before the assassins closed in. It struck him-rather late-that he could have shouted the same warning and not come charging like a schoolboy into the midst of things himself. He was the toast of Sarantium, the Emperor's dinner companion, Glory of the Blues, wealthy beyond all youthful dreams.

Pretty much the same person he'd been fifteen years ago, it seemed. Unfortunately, perhaps.

He bounded up onto the porch, wincing as he landed on the bruised ankle, went straight past the two men and grabbed at the handle of the massive door. Gripped, turned.

Locked. He rattled and jerked the handle uselessly, pounded once on the door, then wheeled around. Saw the two men clearly for the first time. Knew them both. Neither had made any intelligently responsive move. Paralysed with fear, both of them. Scortius swore again.

The soldiers had encircled them. Predictably. The leader, a big, rangy man, stood directly in front of the portico steps between cloth-covered mounds of something or other and looked up at the three of them. His eyes were dark in the darkness. He held his heavy sword lightly, as if it weighed nothing at all.

"Scortius of the Blues!" he said, his voice odd.

There was a silence. Scortius said nothing, thinking fast.

The soldier went on, still in that bemused tone, "You cost me a fortune this afternoon, you know." A Trakesian voice. He'd guessed this might be it: soldiers on city leave, hired in a caupona to kill and disappear.

"These men are both under the protection of the Emperor," Scortius snapped icily. "You touch either of them, or me, at absolute cost of your lives. No one will be able to protect you. Anywhere in the Empire or beyond. Do you understand me?"

The man's sword did not move. His voice did, however, shifting upwards in surprise. "What? You thought we were here to harm them?"

Scortius swallowed. His knife hand fell to his side. The other two men on the portico were looking at him with curiosity. So were the soldiers below. The wind blew, stirring the coverings on the mounds of bricks and tools. Leaves skittered across the square. Scortius opened his mouth, then closed it, finding nothing to say.

He had made several different, very swift assumptions since emerging from the Imperial Precinct and seeing men waiting in the dark. None of them appeared to have been correct.

"Um, charioteer, may I present to you Carullus, tribune of the Fourth Sauradian cavalry," said the red-headed mosaicist-for it was he who stood on the portico. "My escort on the last part of the journey here, and my guardian in the City. He did lose a lot of money on the first race this afternoon, as it happens."

"I am sorry to hear it," said Scortius, reflexively. He looked at Caius Crispus of Varena, and then at the celebrated architect, Artibasos, standing beside him, rumpled and observant. The builder of this new Sanctuary.

And he was now fairly certain who it was they'd been bowing to while he watched from across the way. He was attaining understanding late here, it seemed. The Bassanids had a philosophic phrase about that, in their own tongue; he'd heard it often from their traders in Soriyya in the seasons when there hadn't been a war. He didn't much feel like being philosophic at the moment.

There was another silence. The north wind whistled through the pillars, flapping the covers over the brick and masonry again. No movement from by the Bronze Gates: they would have heard him shouting but hadn't bothered to do anything about it. Events outside the Imperial Precinct rarely disturbed the guards; their concern was in keeping those events outside. He had careened across the open square, roaring like a madman, waving a dagger, banging his ankle… to no effect whatsoever. Standing in darkness on the still-unfinished portico of the Great Sanctuary of Jad's Holy Wisdom, Scortius received a swift, unsettling image of the elegant woman he'd lately left. The scent and the touch of her.

He imagined her observing his conduct just now. He winced at the thought of her arched eyebrows, the quirked, amused mouth, and then- failing to see any obvious alternatives-he began to laugh.

Earlier that same night, walking with an escort from the Attenine towards the Traversite Palace, where the Empress of Sarantium had her favoured autumn and winter quarters, Crispin had found himself thinking of his wife.

This happened all the time, but the difference-and he was aware of it-was that in his mind the image of Ilandra appeared now as a shield, a defence, though he remained unsure what it was he feared. It was windy and cold crossing the gardens; he wrapped himself in the cloak they'd given him.

Guarded by the dead, hiding behind the memory of love, he was conducted to the smaller of the two main palaces under swiftly moving clouds and the westered, sunken moons and entered, and walked marble corridors with lanterns burning on the walls and paused before soldiers at the doorway of an Empress who had summoned him, so late at night, to her private quarters.

He was expected. The nearest soldier nodded, expressionless, and opened the door. Crispin passed into a space of firelight, candlelight, and gold. The eunuchs and soldiers remained outside. The door was closed behind him. Ilandra's image slowly faded as a lady-in-waiting approached, silk-clad, light on slippered feet, and offered him a silver cup of wine.

He accepted, with real gratitude. She took his cloak and laid it on a bench against the wall by the fire. Then she smiled at him sidelong and withdrew through an inner door. Crispin stood alone and looked around in the light of myriad candles. A room in sumptuous good taste; a little ornate to a western eye, but the Sarantines tended to be. Then he caught his breath.

There was a golden rose on a long table by the wall to his left. Slender as a living flower, seemingly as pliant, four buds on the long stem, thorns among the small, perfect leaves, all of gold, all four buds rendered in stages of unfolding, and a fifth, at the crown, fully opened, achieved, each thin, exquisite petal a marvel of the goldsmith's craft, with a ruby at the centre of it, red as a fire in the candlelight.