Guy Kay - Sailing to Sarantium

It was spoken as calmly, as precisely, as a dictated military report. Crispin thought of Queen Gisel: beset on all sides, struggling to find a path, a space for herself, survival. Brutally overmatched.

If he had a choice, he didn't know what it was. He looked from the Emperor to the Empress of Sarantium, met Alixana's steady gaze this time, and said nothing at all.

It seemed he didn't need to. The Empress said calmly, "She asked you to tell the Emperor that instead of an invasion a wedding might deliver Batiara more surely to him, with less blood shed on all sides."

There seemed so little point, really, to resisting, but still he would not speak. He lowered his head, but before he did, he saw her sudden, brilliant smile. Heard Valerius cry, "I am accursed! The one night I win a wager she wins a larger one!"

The Empress said, "She did want it relayed only to the Emperor, didn't she?"

Crispin lifted his head, made no reply.

He might die here now, he knew.

"Of course she did. What else could she have done?" Alixana's tone was matter-of-fact, no emotion in it at all. "She would want to avoid an invasion at almost any cost."

"She would, I would," said Crispin finally, as calmly as he could. "Wouldn't any man? Or woman?" He took a breath. "I will say one thing, something I myself believe to be true: Batiara might possibly be taken in war, but it cannot be held. The days of one Empire, east and west, are over. The world is not what it was."

"I believe that," said Alixana, surprising him, again.

"And I do not," said the Emperor flatly. "Else I would not be devising as I am. I will be dead one day and lying in my tomb, and I would have it said of Valerius II that he did two things in his days beneath Jad's sun. Brought peace and splendour to the warring schisms and sanctuaries of the god's faith, and restored Rhodias to the Empire and to glory. I will lie easy with Jad if these two things are so."

"And otherwise?" The Empress had turned to her husband. Crispin had a sense he was party now to a long conversation, oft repeated.

"I do not think in terms of otherwise," said Valerius. "You know that, love. I never have."

Then marry her," said his wife, very softly.

"I am married," said the Emperor, "and I do not think in terms of otherwise."

"Not even to lie easy with the god after you die?" Dark eyes holding cool grey in a room of candles and gold. Crispin swallowed hard and wished he were elsewhere, anywhere that was not here. He had not spoken a word of Gisel's message, but they seemed to know it all, as if his silence meant nothing. Except to himself.

"Not even for that," said Valerius. "Can you truly doubt?"

After a long moment, she shook her head. "Not truly," said the Empress Alixana. There was a silence. She went on. "In that case, however, we ought to consider inviting her here. If she can survive somehow and get away, her royalty becomes a tool against whoever usurps the Antae throne-and someone surely would-if she were gone."

Valerius smiled then, and Crispin-for reasons he did not immediately grasp-felt a chill, as if the fire had died. The Emperor didn't look boyish now. "An invitation went west some time ago, love. I had Gesius send it to her."

Alixana went very still, then shook her head back and forth, her expression a little odd now. "We are all foolish if we try to stay apace with you, are we not, my lord? Whatever jests or wagers you might enjoy making. Do you weary of being cleverer than anyone?"

Crispin, appalled at what he'd just heard, burst out, "She can't possibly come! They'll kill her if she even mentions it."

"Or let her come east and denounce her as a traitor, using that as an excuse to seize the throne without shedding royal blood. Useful in keeping you Rhodians quiescent, no?" Valerius's gaze was cool, detached, sorting through some gameboard problem late at night. "I wonder if the Antae nobles are clever enough to do it that way. I doubt it, actually." These were real lives, though, Crispin thought, horrified: a young queen, the people of a war-torn, plague-stricken land. His home.

"Are they only pieces of a puzzle, my lord Emperor? All those living in Batiara, your army, your own people exposed in the east if the soldiers go west? What will the King of Kings in Bassania do when he sees your armies leave the border?" Crispin heard his own reckless anger.

Valerius was unruffled. He said, reflectively, "Shirvan and the Bassamds receive four hundred and forty thousand gold solidi a year from our treasury. He needs the money. He's under pressure from the north and south and he's building, too, in Kabadh. Maybe I'll send him a mosaicist."

"Siroes?" the Empress murmured drily.

Valerius smiled a little. "I might."

"I rather suspect you won't have the chance," Alixana said.

The Emperor looked at her a moment. He turned back to Crispin. "I had an impression in the throne room earlier that you were of the same cast of mind as I am, solving Scortius's challenge. Are your tesserae not… pieces of a puzzle, as you put it?"

Crispin shook his head. "They are glass and stone, not mortal souls, my lord."

"True enough," agreed Valerius, "but then you aren't an Emperor. The pieces change when you rule. Be grateful your craft spares you some decisions."

It was said-had been said quietly for years-that this man had arranged the murder by fire of Flavius Daleinus on the day his uncle was elevated to the Purple. In this moment Crispin could believe it.

He looked at the woman. He was aware that they had played him like a musical instrument between them tonight, but he also sensed that there was no malice in it. There seemed to be a casual amusement even, and a measure of frankness that might reflect trust, or respect for Rhodian heritage… or perhaps simply an arrogant indifference to what he thought or felt.

"I," said Alixana decisively, "am going to my bath and bed. Wagers seem to have cancelled each other, good my lord. If you return very late, speak with Crysomallo or whoever is awake to ascertain my… state." She smiled at her husband, catlike, controlled again, and turned to Crispin. "Fear me not, Rhodian. I owe you for a necklace and some diversion, and one day perhaps will have more of you."

"Dolphins, my lady?" he asked.

She didn't answer. Went through the open inner door and Crysomallo closed it.

"Drink your wine," said the Emperor, after a moment. "You look like you need it. Then I will show you a wonder of the world."

I have seen one, Crispin thought. Her scent lingered.

It occurred to him that he could have safely said it aloud, but he did not. They both drank. Carullus had told him, at some point in their journey here, that there was a judicial edict in the City that no other woman could wear the Empress Alixana's perfume. "What about the men?" Crispin could remember saying carelessly, eliciting the soldier's booming laugh. It seemed a long time ago.

Now, so far enmeshed in intricacies he could not even properly grasp what was happening, Crispin took his cloak again and followed Valerius II of Sarantium out of the Empress's private chambers and down corridors, where he was soon lost. They went outside-though not through the main entranceway-and the Emperor's guards conducted them with torches across a dark garden space and along a stone path with statuary strewn about them, looming and receding in the windy, beclouded night Crispin could hear the sea.

They came to the wall of the Imperial Precinct and went along it on the path until they came to a chapel, and there they entered.

There was a cleric awake among the burning candles-one of the Sleepless Ones, by his white robes. He showed no surprise at seeing the Emperor at this time of night. He made obeisance, and then-with no words spoken-unhooked a key from his belt and led them to a small, dark door at the back behind the altar of the god and the golden disk of the sun.