Sailing to Sarantium

by Guy Gavriel Kay

  Someone laughed nervously and was quickly silent. The big, frank-looking, handsome man beside the woman looked briefly uneasy. But from the name that had been spoken, Crispin now knew who these two people were. The pieces slotting into place. He had a puzzle-solving mind. Always had. Needed it now.

  He was looking at Carullus’s beloved Strategos, the man the tribune had come from Sauradia to see, the greatest soldier of the day. This tall man was Leontes the Golden, and beside him was his bride. Daughter of the wealthiest family in Sarantium. A prize for a triumphant general. She was, Crispin had to concede. She was a prize. Styliane Daleina was magnificent, and the single, utterly spectacular pearl that gleamed in the golden necklace at her throat might even be . . .

  An idea came to him in that moment, anger-driven. Inwardly he winced at his own subversive thought, and he kept silent. There were limits to recklessness.

  Styliane Daleina was entirely unruffled by the Empress’s remark. She would be, Crispin realized: she’d revealed her knowledge of him freely with the insult. She would have been ready for a retort. He had an abrupt sense that he was now another very minor piece in a complex game being played between two women.

  Or three. He was carrying a message.

  ‘He can beard himself like a Holy Fool if he chooses,’ said the Emperor of Sarantium mildly, ‘if he has the skills to assist with the Sanctuary mosaics.’ Valerius’s voice was quiet, but it cut through all other sounds. It would, Crispin thought. Everyone in this room would be tuned to its cadences.

  Crispin looked at the Emperor, pushing the women from his mind. ‘You have spoken persuasively about engineering and moonlight,’ said Valerius of Sarantium. ‘Shall we converse a moment about mosaic?’

  He sounded like a scholar, an academician. He looked like one. It was said that this man never slept. That he walked one or another of his palaces all night dictating, or sat reading dispatches by lanternlight. That he could engage philosophers and military tacticians in discourse that stretched the limits of their own understanding. That he had met with the aspiring architects of his new Great Sanctuary and had reviewed each drawing they presented. That one of them had killed himself when the Emperor rejected his scheme, explaining in precise detail why he was doing so. This much had reached even Varena: there was an Emperor in Sarantium now with a taste for beauty as well as power.

  ‘I am here for no other reason, thrice-exalted,’ Crispin said. It was more or less the truth.

  ‘Ah,’ said Styliane Daleina quickly. ‘Another Rhodian trait. Here to converse he tells us—no deeds. Thus, the Antae conquered with such ease. It is all so familiar.’

  There was laughter again. In its own way, this second interruption was intensely revealing: she had to feel utterly secure, either in her own person or that of her husband, the Emperor’s longtime friend, to break into a colloquy of this sort. What was unclear was why the woman was attacking him. Crispin kept his gaze on the Emperor.

  ‘There are a variety of reasons why Rhodias fell,’ said Valerius II mildly. ‘We are discussing mosaics, however, for the moment. Caius Crispus, what is your opinion as to the new reverse transfer method of laying tesserae in sheets in the workshop?’

  Even with all he’d heard about this man, the technical precision of this question—coming from an Emperor after a banquet, in the midst of his courtiers—caught Crispin completely by surprise. He swallowed. Cleared his throat.

  ‘My lord, it is both suitable and useful for mosaics on very large walls and floors. It enables a more uniform setting of the glass or stone pieces where that is desired, and relieves much of the need for speed in setting tesserae directly before the setting bed dries. I can explain, if the Emperor wishes.’

  ‘Not necessary. I understand this. What about using it on a dome?’

  Crispin was to wonder, afterwards, how the ensuing events would have unfolded had he tried to be diplomatic in that moment. He didn’t try. Events unfolded as they did.

  ‘On a dome?’ he echoed, his voice rising. ‘Thrice-exalted lord, only a fool would even suggest using that method on a dome! No mosaicist worth the name would consider it.’

  Behind him someone made what could only be called a spluttering sound.

  Styliane Daleina said icily, ‘You are in the presence of the Emperor of Sarantium. We whip or blind strangers who presume so much.’

  ‘And we honour those,’ said the Empress Alixana, in her exquisite voice, ‘who honour us with their honesty when directly asked for it. Will you say why you offer this . . . very strong view, Rhodian?’

  Crispin hesitated. ‘The court of the glorious Emperor, on a Dykania night . . . do you really wish such a discussion?’

  ‘The Emperor does,’ said the Emperor.

  Crispin swallowed again. Martinian, he thought, would have done this much more tactfully.

  He wasn’t Martinian. Directly to Valerius of Sarantium he spoke one of the tenets of his soul. ‘Mosaic,’ he said, more softly now, ‘is a dream of light. Of colour. It is the play of light on colour. It is a craft . . . I have sometimes dared call it an art, my lord . . . built around letting the illumination of candle, lantern, sun, both moons dance across the colours of the glass and gemstones and stones we use. . . to make something that partakes, however slightly, of the qualities of movement that Jad gave his mortal children and the world. In a sanctuary, my lord, it is a craft that aspires to evoke the holiness of the god and his creation.’

  He took a breath. It was incredible to him that he was saying these things aloud, and here. He looked at the Emperor.

  ‘Go on,’ said Valerius. The grey eyes were on his face, intent, coolly intelligent.

  ‘And on a dome,’ said Crispin, ‘on the arch of a dome—whether of sanctuary or palace—the mosaicist has a chance to work with this, to breathe a shadow of life into his vision. A wall is flat, a floor is flat—’

  ‘Well, they ought to be,’ said the Empress lightly. ‘I’ve lived in some rooms . . .’

  Valerius laughed aloud. Crispin, in mid-flight, paused, and had to smile. ‘Indeed, thrice-gracious lady. I speak in principle, of course. These are ideals we seldom attain.’

  ‘A wall or a floor is flat, in its conception,’ said the Emperor. ‘A dome . . . ?’

  ‘The curve and the height of a dome allow us the illusion of movement through changing light, my lord. Opportunities beyond price. It is the mosaicist’s natural place. His . . . haven. A painted fresco on a flat wall can do all a mosaic can, and—though many in my guild would call this heresy—it can do more at times. Nothing on Jad’s earth can do what a mosaicist can do on a dome if he sets the tesserae directly on the surface.’

  A voice from behind him, refined and querulous: ‘I will be allowed to speak to this crass western stupidity, I dare trust, thrice-exalted lord?’

  ‘When it is done, Siroes. If it is stupid. Listen. You will be asked questions. Be prepared to answer them.’

  Siroes. He didn’t know the name. He ought to, probably. He hadn’t prepared himself as well as he should have . . . but he had not expected to be here at court a day after arriving in the City.

  He was also angry now. Crass? Too many insults at once. He tried to hold down his temper, but this was the place where his soul resided. He said, ‘East or west has nothing to do with any of this, my lord. You described the reverse transfer as new. Someone has misled you, I am afraid. Five hundred years ago mosaicists were laying reversed sheets of tesserae on walls and floors in Rhodias, Mylasia, Baiana. Examples still exist, they are there to be seen. There are no such examples on any dome in Batiara. Shall I tell the thrice-exalted Emperor why?’

  ‘Tell me why,’ said Valerius.

  ‘Because five hundred years ago mosaicists had already learned that laying stone and gems and glass flat on sticky sheets and then transferring that relinquished all the power the curves of the dome gave them. When you set a tessera by hand into a surface you position it. You angle it, turn it. You adjust it in relation to the piece besi
de it, and the one beside that and beyond it, towards or away from the light entering through windows or rising from below. You can build up the setting bed into a relief, or recede it for effect. You can—if you are a mosaicist, and not merely someone sticking glass in a pasty surface—allow what you know of the proposed location and number of candles in the room below and the placement of the windows around the base of the dome and higher up, the orientation of the room on holy Jad’s earth, and the risings of his moons and the god’s sun . . . you allow light to be your tool, your servant, your . . . gift in rendering what is holy.’

  ‘And the other way?’ It was Gesius the Chancellor this time, surprisingly. The elderly eunuch’s spare, gaunt features were thoughtful, as if chasing a nuance through this exchange. It wouldn’t be the subject that engaged him, Crispin suspected, but Valerius’s interest in it. This was a man who had survived to serve three Emperors.

  ‘The other way,’ he said softly, ‘you turn that gift of a high, curved surface into . . . a wall. A badly made wall that bends. You forego the play of light that is at the heart of mosaic. The heart of what I do. Or have always tried to do, my lord. My lord Emperor.’

  It was a cynical, jaded court. He was speaking from the soul, with too much passion. Far too much. He sounded ridiculous. He felt ridiculous, and he had no clear idea why he was giving vent in this way to deeply private feelings. He rubbed at his bare chin.

  ‘You treat the rendering of holy images in a sanctuary as . . . play?’ It was the tall Strategos, Leontes. And from the blunt, unvarnished soldier’s tone, Crispin realized that this was the man who’d intervened earlier. One western artisan is like another, he’d suggested then. Why do we care which one came?

  Crispin took a breath. ‘I treat the presence of light as something to glory in. A source of joy and gratitude. What else, my lord, is the sunrise invocation? The loss of the sun is a grave loss. Darkness is no friend to any of Jad’s children, and this is even more true for a mosaicist.’

  Leontes looked at him, a slight furrow in the handsome brow. His hair was yellow as wheat. ‘Darkness is sometimes an ally to a soldier,’ he said.

  ‘Soldiers kill,’ Crispin murmured. ‘It may be a necessary thing, but it is no exaltation of the god. I would imagine you agree, my lord.’

  Leontes shook his head. ‘I do not. Of course I do not. If we conquer and reduce barbarians or heretics, those who deride and deny Jad of the Sun, do we not exalt him?’ Crispin saw a thin, sallow-faced man lean forward, listening intently.

  ‘Is imposing worship the same as exalting our god, then?’ More than a decade of debating with Martinian had honed him for this sort of thing. He could almost forget where he was.

  Almost.

  ‘How extremely tedious this suddenly becomes,’ said the Empress, her tone the embodiment of capricious boredom. ‘It is even worse than talk of which way to lay a piece of glass on some sticky bed. I do not think sticky beds are a fit subject here. Styliane’s just married, after all.’

  It was the Strategos who flushed, not the elegant wife beside him, as the Emperor’s own thoughtful expression broke into a smile, and laughter with an edge of malice rippled through the room.

  Crispin waited for it to die. He said, not sure why he was doing so, ‘It was the thrice-exalted Empress who asked me to defend my views. My strong views, she called them. It was someone else who described them as a stupidity. In the presence of such greatness as I find myself, I dare choose no subjects, only respond when asked, as best I may. And seek to avoid the chasms of stupidity.’

  Alixana’s expressive mouth quirked a little, but her dark eyes were unreadable. She was a small woman, exquisitely formed. ‘You have a careful memory, Rhodian. I did ask you, didn’t I?’

  Crispin inclined his head. ‘The Empress is generous to recall it. Lesser mortals cannot but recollect each word she breathes, of course.’ He was surprising himself with almost every word he spoke tonight.

  Valerius, leaning back on the throne now, clapped his hands. ‘Well said, if shameless. The westerner may yet teach our courtiers a few things besides engineering and mosaic technique.’

  ‘My lord Emperor! Surely you have not accepted his prattle about the reverse—’

  The relaxed demeanour disappeared. The grey gaze went knifing past Crispin.

  ‘Siroes, when you presented your drawings and your plans to our architects and ourself, you did say this device was new, did you not?’

  The tone of the room changed dramatically. The Emperor’s voice was icy. He was still leaning back in his throne, but the eyes had altered.

  Crispin wanted to turn and see who this other mosaicist was but he dared not move. The man behind him stammered, ‘My lord . . . thrice-exalted lord, it has never been used in Sarantium. Never on any other dome. I proposed—’

  ‘And what we have just heard of Rhodias? Five hundred years ago? The reasons why? Did you consider this?’

  ‘My lord, the affairs of the fallen west, I—’

  ‘What?’ Valerius II sat upright now. He leaned forward. A finger stabbed the air as he spoke. ‘This was Rhodias, artisan! Speak not to us of the fallen west. This was the Rhodian Empire at its apex! In the god’s name! What did Saranios name this city when he drew the line with his sword from channel to ocean for the first walls? Tell me!’

  There was fear now in the room, palpably. Crispin saw men and women, elegant and glittering, their eyes fixed on the floor like subdued children.

  ‘He . . . he . . . Sarantium, thrice-exalted.’

  ‘And what else? What else? Say it, Siroes!’

  ‘The . . . he called it the New Rhodias, thrice-great lord.’ The patrician voice was a croak now. ‘Glorious Emperor, we know, we all know there has never been a holy sanctuary on earth to match the one you have envisaged and are bringing into being. It will be the glory of Jad’s world. The dome, the dome is unmatched in size, in majesty . . .’

  ‘We can only bring it into being if our servants are competent. The dome Artibasos has designed is too big, you are now saying, to use proper mosaic technique upon? Is that it, Siroes?’

  ‘My lord, no!’

  ‘You are being given insufficient resources from the Imperial treasury? Not enough apprentices and craftsmen? Your own recompense is inadequate, Siroes?’ The voice was cold and hard as a stone in the depths of winter.

  Crispin felt fear and pity. He couldn’t even see the man being so ruthlessly annihilated, but behind him he heard the sound of someone sinking to his knees.

  ‘The Emperor’s generosity surpasses my worth as much as he surpasses all those in this room in majesty, my thrice-exalted lord.’

  ‘We rather believe it does, in fact,’ said Valerius II icily. ‘We must reconsider certain aspects of our building plans. You may leave us, Siroes. We are grateful to the lady Styliane Daleina for urging your talents upon us, but it begins to appear that the scope of our Sanctuary might have you overmatched. It happens, it happens. You will be appropriately rewarded for what you have done to this point. Fear not.’

  Another piece of the puzzle. The aristocratic wife of the Strategos had sponsored this other mosaicist before the Emperor. Crispin’s appearance tonight, his swift summons to court, had threatened that man, and so her, by extension.

  It was appallingly true, what he’d conjectured earlier: he’d arrived here with allegiances and enemies before he’d even opened his mouth—or lifted his head from the floor. I could be killed here, he thought suddenly.

  Behind him he heard the silver doors opening. There were footsteps. A pause. The banished artisan would be doing his obeisance.

  The doors closed again. Candles flickered in the draft. The light wavered, steadied. It was silent in the throne room, the courtiers chastened and afraid. Siroes, whoever he was, had left. Crispin had just ruined a man by answering a single question honestly without regard for tact or diplomacy. Honesty at a court was a dangerous thing, for others, for oneself. He kept his own eyes on the mosaic of the floor
again. A hunting scene in the centre. An Emperor of long ago, in the woods with a bow, a stag leaping, the Imperial arrow in flight towards it. A death coming, if the scene continued.

  The scene continued.

  Alixana said, ‘If this distressing habit of spoiling a festive evening persists, my beloved, I shall join brave Leontes in regretting your new Sanctuary. I must say, paying the soldiers on time seems to cause so much less turmoil.’

  The Emperor looked unperturbed. ‘The soldiers will be paid. The Sanctuary is to be one of our legacies. One of the things that will send our names down the ages.’

  ‘A lofty ambition to now lay on the shoulders of an untried, ill-mannered westerner,’ said Styliane Daleina, tartness in her voice.

  The Emperor glanced over at her, his expression blank. She had courage, Crispin had to concede, to be challenging him in this mood.

  Valerius said, ‘It would be, were it on his shoulders. The Sanctuary has already risen, however. Our splendid Artibasos, who designed and built it for us, carries the burden of that—and the weight of his heroic dome, like some demigod of the Trakesian pantheon. The Rhodian, should he be capable, will attempt to decorate the Sanctuary for us, in a manner pleasing to Jad and ourselves.’

  ‘Then we must hope, thrice-exalted, he finds more pleasing manners in himself,’ said the fair-haired woman.

  Valerius smiled, unexpectedly. ‘Cleverly put,’ he said. This Emperor, Crispin was coming to realize, was a man who valued intelligence a great deal. ‘Caius Crispus, we fear you have earned the displeasure of one of the ornaments of our court. You must endeavour, while you labour among us, to make amends to her.’

  He didn’t feel like making amends, as it happened. She had endorsed an incompetent for her own reasons and was now trying to make Crispin suffer the consequences. ‘It is a regret to me, already,’ he murmured. ‘I have no doubt the Lady Styliane is a jewel among women. Indeed, the pearl she wears about her throat, larger than any single womanly ornament I can see before me, is evidence and reflection of that.’