He crossed the room, opened the door. Elita entered hurriedly, closed the door behind her. Took one quick, frightened look at the bed, saw that Alixana was there. She dropped to her knees before Rustem and seized one of his hands in both of hers and kissed it. Then turned towards the bed, still on her knees, looking at the ragged, dirty, crop-haired woman sitting there.
‘Oh, my lady,’ she whispered. ‘What are we to do?’
And she took a dagger from her belt, laying it on the floor. Then she wept.
SHE HAD LONG BEEN one of the most trusted women of the Empress Alixana. Took a pleasure in that fact that was almost certainly reprehensible in the eyes of Jad and his clerics. Mortals, especially women, were not to puff themselves up with the sin of pride.
But there it was.
She had been the last person awake in the house, having offered to tend the downstairs fire and put out the lamps before going up to the doctor’s bed. She had sat in the front room alone for a time in the dark, watching white moonlight through the high window. Had heard footsteps in the other ground-floor rooms, heard them cease as the others went to their beds. She had remained where she was for a time, anxiously. She had to wait, but feared to wait too long. Finally, she had walked down the main-floor hallway and opened a bedroom door, silently.
She had prepared an excuse—not a good one—if he was still awake.
The steward who ran this house for Plautus Bonosus was an efficient but not an especially clever man. Still, something had been said when the soldiers left—a misunderstanding that could have been amusing but wasn’t, at all, with so desperately much at stake. An exchange that might be fatal, if he put the pieces together.
There was a huge reward on offer, incomprehensibly large, in fact, proclaimed by heralds throughout the City all day. What if the steward woke in the night with a blinding thought? If a daemon or ghost came to him carrying a dream? If he realized under the late moons that the soldier at the door hadn’t been calling the grey-bearded doctor a whore but had been referring to a woman upstairs? A woman. The steward might wake, wonder, feel the slow licking of curiosity and greed, rise up in the dark house, go down the hallway with a lamp lit from his fire. Open the front door. Call for a guard of the Urban Prefecture, or a soldier.
It was a risk. It was a risk.
She had walked into his room, silent as a ghost herself, looked down upon him where he lay sleeping on his back. Sought a way to make her heart grow hard.
Loyalty, real loyalty, sometimes required a death. The Empress (she would always call her that) was still in the house. It was not a night to take chances. They might trace the steward’s murder to her but sometimes the death required was one’s own.
‘MY LADY, I could not kill him. I tried, I went to do it, but … ’
The girl was weeping. The blade on the floor before her was innocent of blood, Rustem saw. He looked at Alixana.
‘I ought to have known better,’ Alixana murmured, still wrapped in the bed linens, ‘than to make you a soldier in the Excubitors.’ And she smiled, faintly.
Elita looked up, biting at her lower lip.
‘I don’t think we need his death, my dear. If the man somehow wakes in the night with a vision and goes for the door and a guard … you can run them through with a sword.’
‘My lady. I don’t have …’
‘I know, child. I am telling you we need not murder to defend against this chance. If he were going to rethink that conversation, he’d have done it by now.’
Rustem, who knew a little of sleep and dreams, was less sure, but said nothing.
Alixana looked at him. ‘Doctor, will you let two women share your bed? I fear it will be less exciting than the words suggest.’
Rustem cleared his throat. ‘You must sleep, my lady. Lie in the bed. I will take a chair, and Elita can have a pillow by the fire.’
‘You need rest as well, physician. People’s lives will depend on you in the morning.’
‘And I will do what I can do. I have spent nights in chairs before.’
It was true. Chairs, worse places. Stony ground with an army in Ispahani. He was bone-weary. Saw that she was, as well.
‘I am taking your bed from you,’ she murmured, lying down. ‘I ought not to do that.’
She was asleep when she finished the sentence.
Rustem looked at the servant who had been on the edge of murdering for her. Neither of them spoke. He gestured at one of the pillows and she took it and went to the hearth and lay down. He looked at the bed, and crossed there and covered the sleeping woman with one blanket, then took another and carried it to the girl by the fire. She looked up at him. He draped it over her.
He went back to the window. Looked out, saw the trees in the garden below made silver by the white moon. He closed the window, drew the curtains. The breeze was strong now, the night colder. He sank down in the chair.
It came to him, with finality, that he was going to have to change his life again, what he had thought was to be his life.
HE SLEPT. When he woke, both women were gone.
A greyness was filtering palely through the curtains. He drew them back and looked out. It was almost day, but not quite, the hovering hour before dawn. There was a knocking at the door. He realized that was what had awakened him. He looked over, saw that the door was unlocked, as was usual.
He was about to call for whoever it was to come in when he remembered where he was.
He rose quickly. Elita had replaced her pillow and blanket on the bed. Rustem crossed there. Climbed in and under the sheets. There was a scent, faint as a dream receding, of the woman who was gone.
‘Yes?’ he called. He had no idea where she was, or if he ever would know.
Bonosus’s steward opened the door, impeccably dressed already, composed and calm as ever, dry in his manner as a bone. Rustem had seen a knife in this room last night, meant for this man’s heart while he slept. He had been that close to dying. So had Rustem, a different way—if a deception had failed.
The steward paused deferentially on the threshold, hands clasped before him. There was an odd look in his eye, however. ‘My deepest apologies, but some people are at the door, doctor.’ His voice was practised, murmurous. ‘They say they are your family.’
HE BROKE STRIDE only long enough to throw on a robe. Dishevelled, unshaven, still bleary-eyed, he bolted past the startled man and tore down the hallway and then the stairs in a manner worlds removed from anything resembling dignity.
He saw them from the first landing, where the stairway doubled back, and he stopped, looking down.
They were all in the front hallway. Katyun and Jarita, one visibly anxious, the other hiding the same apprehension. Issa in her mother’s arms. Shaski was a little ahead of the others. He was gazing up fixedly, eyes wide, an intent, frightening expression on his features that only changed, only melted away—Rustem saw it—when his father appeared on the stairs. And Rustem knew, in that moment he knew as surely as he knew anything on earth, that Shaski was the reason, the only reason, the four of them were here and the knowledge hit him in the heart like nothing ever had.
He went the rest of the way down to the ground floor and stood gravely before the boy, hands clasped in front of himself, very like the steward, in fact.
Shaski looked up at him, his face white as a flag of surrender, the small, thin body taut as a bowstring. (We must bend, my little one, we must learn to bend or we break.) He said, his voice quivering, ‘Hello, Papa. Papa, we can’t go home.’
‘I know,’ said Rustem softly.
Shaski bit his lip. Stared at him. Huge eyes. Hadn’t expected this. Had expected punishment, very likely. (We must learn to be easier, little one.) ‘Or … or to Kabadh? We can’t go there.’
‘I know,’ said Rustem again.
He did know. He also understood, after what he’d learned in the night, that Perun and the Lady had intervened here beyond any possible measure of his worthiness. There was something constricting in his c
hest, a pressure needing release. He knelt down on the floor and he opened his arms.
‘Come to me,’ he said. ‘It is all right, child. It will be all right.’
Shaski made a sound—a wail, a heart’s cry—and ran to his father then, a small bundle of spent force, to be gathered and held. He began to weep, desperately, like the child he still was, despite everything else he was and would be.
Clutching the boy to him, lifting him, not letting go, Rustem stood up and went forward and drew both his wives into that embrace and his infant daughter, as the morning came.
IT SEEMED THEY HAD INQUIRED of Bassanid mercantile agents on the other bank, and one of them had known where Rustem the physician was staying. Their escorts, the two soldiers who had crossed with them from Deapolis on a fishing boat before daylight (two others remaining behind), were waiting outside in front of the house.
Rustem had them admitted. Given what he now knew, it was not a time for Bassanids to be on the streets of Sarantium. One of them, he saw with astonishment (he had thought himself to have reached a place beyond surprise now), was Vinaszh, the garrison commander of Kerakek.
‘Commander? How does this come to be?’ It was strange to be speaking his own tongue again.
Vinaszh, wearing Sarantine trousers and a belted tunic and not a uniform, thank the Lady, smiled a little before answering: the weary but satisfied expression of a man who has achieved a difficult task.
‘Your son,’ he said, ‘is a persuasive child.’
Rustem was still holding Shaski. The boy’s arms were around his neck, his head on his father’s shoulder. He had stopped crying. Rustem looked over at the steward and said, in Sarantine, ‘Is it possible to offer a morning meal to my family, and to these men who have escorted them?’
‘Of course it is,’ said Elita, before the steward could answer. She was smiling at Issa. ‘I will arrange it.’
The steward looked briefly irritated by the woman’s presumption. Rustem had a sudden, vivid image of Elita standing over the man’s body in the night, a blade in her hand.
‘I would also like a message taken to the Senator, as soon as possible. Conveying my respects and requesting an opportunity to attend upon him later this morning.’
The steward’s expression became grave. ‘There is a difficulty,’ he murmured.
‘How so?’
‘The Senator and his family will not be receiving visitors today, or for the next few days. They are in mourning. The lady Thenaïs is dead.’
‘What? I was with her yesterday!’
‘I know that, doctor. It seems she went to the god in the afternoon, at home.’
‘How?’ Rustem was genuinely shocked. He felt Shaski stiffen.
The steward hesitated. ‘I am given to understand there was … a self-inflicted injury.’
Images again. From the day that yesterday had been. A shadowy, high-ceilinged interior space within the Hippodrome, motes of dust drifting where light fell, a woman more rigid than even he himself was, confronting a chariot-racer. Another drawn blade.
We must learn to bend, or we break.
Rustem took a deep breath. He was thinking very hard. Bonosus could not be intruded upon, but the need for protection was real. Either the steward would have to make arrangements here himself for guards, or else …
It was an answer. It was an obvious answer.
He looked back at the man. ‘I am deeply saddened to hear of this. She was a woman of dignity and grace. I will need a different message sent now. Please have someone inform the acting leader of the Blue faction that I and my family and our two companions request admission into the compound. We will need an escort, of course.’
‘You are leaving us, doctor?’
The man’s expression was impeccable. He had been very nearly killed in his sleep last night. He’d never have awakened. Someone might have been knocking at the steward’s bedroom door, finding his body even now, raising a terrible cry.
The world was a place beyond man’s capacity to ever fully grasp. It had been made that way.
‘I believe we must leave,’ he said. ‘It appears our countries might be at war again. Sarantium will be dangerous for Bassanids, however innocent we might be. If the Blues are willing, we might be better defended within the compound.’ He looked at the man. ‘We pose a danger here to all of you now, of course.’
The steward—not a subtle thinker—had not considered that. It showed in his face.
‘I will have your message sent.’
‘Tell them,’ added Rustem, setting Shaski down beside him, a hand across the boy’s shoulders, ‘that I will, of course, offer my professional assistance for the duration of any stay.’
He looked over at Vinaszh, the man who had set all of this in motion one afternoon in winter when the wind had been blowing from the desert. The commander spoke Sarantine, it appeared: he had followed this. ‘I left two men on the other shore,’ he murmured.
‘It might be unsafe for you to go back to them. Wait and see. I have asked for you to be admitted with us. This place is a guarded compound, and they have reason to be well disposed towards me.’
‘I heard. I understand.’
‘But I have no right to act for you, it occurs to me. You have brought me my family, unlooked for. For many reasons I want them with me now. I owe you more than I can ever repay, but I do not know your wishes. Will you return home? Does duty demand as much? Did you … I don’t know if you have heard about a possible war in the north.’
‘There were rumours on the other bank last night. We obtained civilian clothing, as you see.’ Vinaszh hesitated. He removed his rough cloth cap and scratched his head. ‘I … I told you your son was very persuasive.’
The steward, hearing them speak in Bassanid, turned politely away and crooked a finger at one of the younger servants: a messenger.
Rustem stared at the commander. ‘He is an unusual child.’
He was still holding the boy, not letting go. Katyun watched them, her head turning from one man to the other. Jarita had dried her tears, was making the baby be silent.
Vinaszh was still grappling with something. He cleared his throat, then did it again. ‘He said … Shaski said … told us that an ending was coming. To Kerakek. Even … Kabadh.’
‘We can’t go home, Papa.’ Shaski’s voice was calm now, a certainty in it that could chill you if you thought about it at all. Perun defend you, Anahita guard us all. Azal never know your name.
Rustem looked at his son. ‘What kind of ending?’
‘I don’t know.’ The admission bothered the boy, it was obvious. ‘From … the desert.’
From the desert. Rustem looked at Katyun. She shrugged, a small gesture, one he knew so well.
‘Children have dreams,’ he said, but then he shook his head. That was dishonest. An evasion. They were only here with him because of Shaski’s dreams, and last night Rustem had been told—quite explicitly and by someone who would know—that he was probably a dead man if he went to Kabadh now.
He had declined to try to assassinate someone. And the orders had come from the king.
Vinaszh, son of Vinaszh, the garrison commander of Kerakek, said, softly, ‘If your intention is to stay here, or go elsewhere, I humbly ask permission to journey with you for a time. Our paths may part later, but we will offer our assistance now. I believe … I accept what the child sees. It happens, in the desert, that some people have this … knowing.’
Rustem swallowed. ‘We? You speak for the other three?’ ‘They share my thought about the boy. We have journeyed with him. Things may be seen.’
As simple as that.
Rustem still had his hand across Shaski’s too-thin shoulders. ‘You are deserting the army.’ Harsh word. Needed to be used, brought into the open here.
Vinaszh winced. Then straightened, his gaze direct. ‘I have promised to properly discharge my men, which is in my power as their commander. The formal letters will be sent back.’
‘And for yourself
?’
There was no one who could write such a letter for the commander. The other man drew a breath. ‘I will not go back.’ He looked down at Shaski, and he smiled a little. Said nothing more.
A life changed, changed utterly.
Rustem looked around the room, at his wives, his infant daughter, the man who had just thrown in his lot with them, and in that very moment—he would say as much long afterwards, telling the tale—the thought came to him where they would go.
He had already been in the distant east, he’d tell guests, over wine in another land, why not journey as far to the west?
Beyond Batiara, well beyond it, was a country still taking shape, defining itself, a frontier, open spaces, the sea on three sides, it was said. A place where they might begin anew, have a chance to see what Shaski was, among other things.
They would need physicians in Esperana, wouldn’t they?
THEY WERE ESCORTED down through the city, the streets quiet, unnaturally so, to the Blues’ compound just before midday. On orders from the factionarius Astorgus— released only that morning from the Urban Prefecture— half a dozen men were sent across the straits with a note from Vinaszh to fetch his other two men from their inn in Deapolis.
On his arrival in the compound, after they were welcomed (respectfully) and given rooms, and just before he went to see his patients, Rustem learned from the small chef who had been in charge last night that the search for the missing Empress had been called off just before dawn.
It seemed that there had been further changes in the Imperial Precinct during the night.
SHASKI LIKED THE HORSES. So did little Issa. A smiling groom with straw in his hair carried her as he rode on one of them and they walked a slow circle around the open yard, the baby’s whoops of laughter filling the compound, making people smile as they went about the tasks of a brightening day.
CHAPTER XV
In the morning the eunuchs, almost invariably the first to hear tidings in the palaces, told Crispin what had happened in the night.
Their collective mood was entirely different from the subdued apprehension of the evening before. You could have called it exhilarated. A colour of sunrise, unlooked for, if one’s mind worked that way. Crispin felt his dreams slipping away in the fierce, hard brightness of what they said, the sudden swirl of activity all around, like cloths unfurling.
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