Guy Kay - Sailing to Sarantium

"You heard of that? Even in Batiara? Under the Antae?"

"Of course we did. The High Patriarch is in Rhodias, my lady."

"And did the king of the Antae… or his daughter after. swear a similar oath to uphold?"

A stunningly dangerous woman. "You know they did not, my lady. The Antae came to Jad by way of the Heladikian teachings."

"And have not changed their doctrines, alas."

Crispin spun around.

The Empress merely turned her head and smiled at the man who had entered-as silently as she had-and had just spoken from the farthest door of the room.

For the second time, his heart racing, Crispin set down his wine and bowed to conceal a mounting unease. Valerius had changed neither his clothing nor his manner. He crossed to the wall himself and poured his own cup of wine. The three of them were alone, no servants in the room.

The Emperor sipped from his cup and looked at Crispin, waiting. An answer seemed to be expected.

It was very late; an utterly unanticipated mood seized Crispin, though it was one his mother and friends would all have claimed they knew. He murmured, "One of the Antae's most venerated clerics has written that heresies are not like clothing styles or beards, my lord, to go in and out of fashion by the season or the year."

Alixana laughed aloud. Valerius smiled a little, though the grey eyes remained attentive in the round, soft face. "I read that," he said. "Sybard of Varena. A Reply to a Pronouncement. An intelligent man. I wrote to him, saying as much, invited him here."

Crispin hadn't known that. Of course he hadn't known that.

What he did know-what everyone seemed to know-was that Valerius's manifest ambitions in the Batiaran peninsula derived much of their credibility from the religious schisms and the declared need to rescue the peninsula from "error." It was odd, and at the same time of a piece with what he was already learning about the man, that the Emperor might anchor a possible reconquest of Rhodias and the west in religion, and at the same time praise the Antae cleric whose work challenged, point by point, the document that gave him that anchor.

"He declined the invitation," said Alixana softly, "with some unkind words. Your partner Martinian also declined our invitation. Why, Rhodian, do none of you want to come to us?"

"Unfair, my heart. Caius Crispus has come, on cold autumn roads, braving a barber's razor and our court… only to find himself beset by a mischievous Empress with an impious request."

"Better my mischief than Styliane's malice," said Alixana crisply, still leaning back against the table. Her tone changed, slyly. It was interesting: Crispin knew the shadings of this voice, already. He felt as if he always had. "If heresies change by the season," she murmured, "may not the decorations of my walls, my lord Emperor? You have already conquered here, in any case."

She smiled sweetly, at both of them. There was a brief silence.

"What poor man," said the Emperor finally, shaking his head, his expression bemused, "may hope to be wise enough to have rejoinders for you?"

His Empress's smile deepened. "Good. I may do it, then? I do want dolphins here. I shall make arrangements for our Rhodian to-"

She stopped. An Imperial hand was uplifted across the room, straight as a judge's, halting her. "After," said Valerius sternly. "After the Sanctuary. The chooses to do so. It is a heresy, seasonal or otherwise, and the weight of it, discovered, would fall on the artisan not the Empress. Consider. And decide after."

"After," said Alixana, "is likely to be a long time from now. You have built a very large Sanctuary, my lord. My chambers here are lamentably small." She made a moue of displeasure.

Crispin had an emerging sense that this was both a normal byplay for the two of them and something contrived to divert him. Why the latter, he wasn't sure, but the thought produced an opposite effect: he remained uneasy and alert.

And there came, just then, a knocking at the outer door.

The Emperor of Sarantium looked over quickly, and then he smiled. He looked younger when he did, almost boyish. "Ah! Perhaps I am wise enough, after all. An encouraging thought. It appears," he murmured, "that I am about to win a wager. My lady, I shall look forward to your promised payment."

Alixana looked put out. "I cannot believe she would do this. It must be something else. Something…" She trailed off, biting at her lower lip. The lady-in-waiting had appeared at the inner doorway, eyebrows raised in inquiry. The Emperor set down his drink and silently withdrew past her, out of sight into the interior room. He was smiling as he went, Crispin saw.

Alixana nodded to her woman. The lady-in-waiting hesitated, and gestured towards her mistress and then at her own hair. "My lady..?"

The Empress shrugged, impatience flitting across her face. "People have seen more than my unbound hair, Crysomallo. Leave it be."

Crispin stepped reflexively back towards the table with the rose as the door opened. Alixana stood not far away, imperious, for all the intimacy of her appearance. It did occur to him that whoever this was it could hardly be an intruder, else they'd not have gained entry into this palace, let alone caused the guards to tap on the door so late at night.

The woman stepped back a little and a man entered the room behind her, though only a pace or two. He cradled a small ivory box in both hands. He handed it to Crysomallo, and then, turning towards the Empress, performed a full court obeisance, head touching the floor three times. Crispin wasn't certain, but he had a sense that such ceremony was excessive here, exaggerated. When the visitor finally straightened and then stood at Alixana's gesture, Crispin recognized him: the lean, narrow-faced man who'd been standing behind the Strategos Leontes in the audience chamber.

"You are a late visitor, secretary. Could this be a personal gift from you, or has Leontes something private he wishes said?" The Empress's tone was difficult to read: perfectly courteous, but no more than that.

"His lady wife does, thrice-exalted. I bring a small gift from Styliane Daleina to her thrice-revered and beloved Empress. She would be honoured beyond her worth should you deign to accept it." The man looked quickly around as he finished speaking, and Crispin had the distinct sense that the secretary was memorizing the room. He could not miss the Empress's unbound hair, or the privacy of this situation. Clearly, Alixana did not care in the least. Crispin wondered, again, what game he'd become a small piece in, how he was being deployed now and to what end.

The Empress nodded at Crysomallo, who unclasped a golden latch on the box and opened it. The woman was unable to hide her astonishment. She held up the object within. The small gift. There was a silence.

"Oh, dear," said the Empress of Sarantium softly. "I have lost a wager."

"My lady?" The secretary's brow furrowed. It was not what he'd expected to hear.

"Never mind. Tell the Lady Styliane we are pleased with her gesture and by the. celerity with which she chose to send it to us, keeping a hard-working scribe awake so late at night as a messenger. You may go."

That was all. Courtesy, crispness, a dismissal. Crispin was still trying to absorb the fact that the staggeringly opulent pearl necklace he'd seen on Styliane Daleina-the one he'd drawn unwanted attention to-had just been presented to the Empress. The worth of it was past his ability even to imagine. He had a certainty, though-an absolute conviction-that had he not spoken as he had, earlier, this would not have happened.

"Thank you, most gracious lady. I shall hasten to relay your kind words. Had I known I might be interrupting

"Come, Pertennius. She knew you would interrupt and so did you. You both heard me summon the Rhodian in the throne room."