The Sarantine Mosaic (139 page)

They said he had let her live.

More justice than she deserved, was the general view in the Hippodrome. Both brothers were dead, however, and the loathed Calysian. One wouldn't ever want to make the mistake of thinking that Leontes— Valerius III—was soft in any way.

The number of armed soldiers present here was evidence of that.

And so, too, was the Mandator's first public announcement after the Investiture Ceremony was done. His words were caught and relayed by official speakers through the vast stands, and their import was clear, and exhilarating.

It seemed their new Emperor would not be lingering long among them. The Bassanid army was in Calysium, had overrun Asen (again) and was said to be marching and riding towards Eubulus even now.

The Emperor, who had been their Supreme Strategos four days before, was disinclined to indulge them in this.

He would lead the assembled armies of Sarantium himself. Not overseas to Rhodias, but north and east. Not over the dangerous, dark waters but up in spring weather along the wide, smoothly paved Imperial Road to deal with the cowardly, truce-breaking soldiers of King Shirvan. An Emperor in the field himself! It had been a very long time. Valerius III, the sword of Sarantium, the sword of holy Jad. There was something awesome and thrilling in just thinking about it.

The easterners had thought to take advantage of Leontes and the army sailing west, had vilely breached the Eternal Peace they'd sworn by their own pagan gods to keep. They would learn the dimensions of their mistake, the Mandator proclaimed, his words picked up and echoed through the Hippodrome.

Eubulus would be defended, the Bassanids driven back across the border. And more. Let the King of Kings defend Mihrbor now, the Mandator cried. Let him
try
to defend it against what Sarantium would bring against him. The time was done when they would pay monies to Kabadh to buy a peace. Let Shirvan sue for mercy. Let him pray to his gods. Leontes the Golden, who was now an Emperor, was coming after him.

The noise that greeted this was loud enough, some thought, to reach the very sky and the god behind the bright sun overhead.

As for Batiara, the Mandator continued, when the shouting subsided enough for his voice to be heard and relayed again, look who was Empress of Sarantium now. Look who might deal with Rhodias and Varena, which were her own! This Empress had a crown of her own and had brought it here to them, was daughter of a king, a queen in her own name. The citizens of Sarantium could believe that Rhodias and the west might be theirs, after all, with no brave
soldiers dying on distant western battlefields, or on the trackless seas.

The acclamations that accompanied this were as loud as the ones before, and—the perceptive noted—they were led by the aforementioned soldiers this time.

It was a glittering day, and so most of the histories would describe it. The weather mild, the god's sun shining upon them all. The Emperor magnificent, the new Empress as golden as he, tall for her sex, utterly regal in her bearing and blood.

There were always fears and doubts in a time of change. The half-world might creep closer, ghosts and daemons be seen, when the great of the world died and their souls departed, but who could be
truly
fearful, standing in the Hippodrome in sunshine, looking at these two?

One lamented a dead Emperor, and might wonder about the still-absent figure of his Empress, the one who had been a dancer in her day, born right here in the Hippodrome (not like the new Empress, not like her at all). One might pause to consider the colossal fall of the Daleinoi and the sudden shifting of a theatre of war … but in the stands that day there was an undeniable feeling of uplift, of exuberance, something new beginning, and there was nothing compelled or contrived about the approval that resounded.

Then the Mandator declared that the racing season would resume as soon as the period of mourning was over and paused to announce that Scortius of the Blues was healing and well, and that Astorgus, the Blues' factionarius, and Crescens of the Greens had agreed to humbly accept judicial admonishment and had made peace with each other. And as he gestured, those two well-known men stood forward, stepping up upon raised platforms in their factions' sections to be seen. They made the charioteers' open-palmed gesture towards each other and then
turned and bowed together towards the kathisma, and eighty thousand people went wild. The holy Patriarch took pains to keep his countenance inscrutable behind his white beard as the crowd celebrated its chariots and horses and the ceremony came to a close.

Nothing at all was said that afternoon, by the Mandator or anyone else, about changes in the doctrines of Jad regarding depictions of the god himself in holy places and elsewhere.

There would be time to present such complex matters to the people, carefully, in the sanctuaries and chapels. The Hippodrome that day was not a place for nuances and subtleties of faith. Timing, as any good general knew, was the essence of a campaign.

Valerius III, wearing the full weight of the garments of Imperial power, stood up easily, as if they were no burden in the least, and saluted his people as they saluted him. Then he turned and extended a hand to his Empress and they walked together from the kathisma through the door at the back and out of sight. The cheering did not stop.

All was well. All would be well, one might truly believe. Fotius accepted a swift, entirely unexpected embrace from the young clothmaker, and returned it, then they both turned to hug others beside them in the stands, all of them shouting the Emperor's name in the clear, bright light.

Over the course of an exhausting ten days in the Blues' compound, Rustem of Kerakek had developed a hypothesis about Sarantines and their physicians. In essence, the instructions of the doctors were accepted or ignored as the patients saw fit.

It was entirely otherwise in Bassania. At home, the doctor was at risk when he took on the care of a patient. By speaking the formal words of acceptance, a physician
placed his own worldly goods and even his life at hazard. If the sick person failed to follow precisely the doctor's instructions, this commitment, this hazarding, was negated.

Here, doctors risked nothing but the possibility of a poor reputation, and based on what he'd seen here (in an admittedly short while), Rustem didn't think that constituted much of a concern at all. None of the physicians he'd observed at work seemed to know much more than an inadequately digested muddle of Galinus and Merovius, supplemented by vastly too much letting of blood and their own cobbled-together medications, most of which were noxious in some degree or other.

Given this, it made sense that patients would form their own decisions about whether to heed their physicians or not.

Rustem wasn't used to it, and wasn't inclined to accept it.

As an example, as the
prime
example, from the outset he had firmly instructed the attendants caring for Scortius the charioteer that visitors were limited to one in the morning and one after midday, and only for short periods and with no wine at all to be brought or consumed. He had, as a precaution, relayed these directives to Strumosus (since at least some of the wine came from the casks by the kitchen) and to Astorgus, the factionarius. The latter was soberly attentive and had promised to do his best to enforce compliance. He had, Rustem knew, a profoundly vested interest in the recovery of the invalid charioteer.

They
all
did.

The problem was that the patient didn't see himself as an invalid, or requiring any extremes of care, even after almost dying twice in a short while. A man who would slip from his room out a window and down a tree and over a wall and walk the length of the city to race horses
in the Hippodrome with broken ribs and an unhealed wound was unlikely (Rustem had to concede) to take kindly to a limitation on wine or the number of visitors, particularly female, who attended at his bedside.

At least he had stayed in the bed, Astorgus had pointed out wryly, and mostly by himself. There
had
been reports of nighttime activities inconsistent with a healing regimen.

Rustem, still caught up in the bewildering intensity of the past few days and the arrival of his family, found it more difficult than usual to project the proper outrage and authority. He was acutely aware, among other things, that if he or his women or children left this guarded compound they were at grave risk of assault in the streets. Bassanids here, since the news of the border attack, and then the departure of the Sarantine army north, led by the Emperor himself, were in a precarious circumstance, and there had been killings. His own decision not to return home was reinforced by the painful understanding that the King of Kings would have ordered the northern attack while fully aware that this would be a consequence for those of his people in the west. Including the man who had saved his own life.

Rustem owed a great deal to the Blues' faction, and he knew it.

Not that he'd been lax in his recompense. He'd treated the wounded of the riot here on a steady, day-long basis, attending upon them at night, awakened by messengers as needed. He was seriously short of sleep, but knew he could last this way for some time yet.

He took a particular pleasure in the recovery of the young fellow from the kitchen. There had been early and grave signs of infection there, and Rustem had spent one full night awake and very busy by the young man's bedside when the wound changed colour and fever rose.
The chef, Strumosus, had come in and out several times, watching in silence, and the other kitchen worker, Rasic, had actually made himself a bed on the floor of the hallway outside. And then, in the midst of the crisis night for the wounded man, Shaski had also appeared. He had gotten out of his bed without either of his mothers knowing and had come, barefoot, to bring his father a drink in the middle of the night, knowing, somehow, exactly where Rustem was. Somehow. Rustem had— unspeaking, at first—accepted the drink and brushed the child's head with a gentle hand and told him to go back to his room, that everything was all right.

Shaski had gone sleepily to bed without saying or doing anything more, as those nearby observed the boy's arrival and departure with expressions that Rustem suspected he and his family would have to grow accustomed to. It was one of the reasons he was taking them all away.

The young man, Kyros, had his fever break towards morning and the wound progressed normally after that. The greatest risk he endured was that the idiot doctor, Ampliarus, might slip into the room unnoticed and pursue his mad fixation with bleeding those already wounded.

Rustem had been present, and undeniably amused (though he'd tried to conceal it, of course), when Kyros regained consciousness just before dawn. Rasic, the friend, had been sitting by the bed then, and when the sick man opened his eyes, the other one let out a cry that brought others hurrying into the room, forcing Rustem to order all of them out in his sternest manner.

Rasic, evidently seeing this order as applying to those other than himself, remained, and went on to tell the patient what Strumosus had said about him outside the gates while Kyros was unconscious, and
thought to be dead. Strumosus entered in the midst of this recitation. Paused, briefly, in the doorway.

‘He's lying, as usual,' the little chef said peremptorily, coming into the room as Rasic stopped, briefly fearful, then grinning. ‘The way he lies about girls. I
wish
you would all keep a firmer grip on the world as Jad made it, not the one in your dreams. Kyros
might
have some excuse, with whatever potions our Bassanid has been pushing down his throat, but Rasic has no justification whatever. A genius?
This
lad? My own legacy? I am insulted by the thought! Does any of that make the
least
sense to you, Kyros?'

The crippled boy, pale, but clearly lucid, shook his head slightly on the pillow, but he was smiling, and then Strumosus was, as well.

‘Really!' the little chef said. ‘The idea's absurd. If I have a legacy it is almost certainly going to be my fish sauce.'

‘Of course it is,' Kyros whispered. He was still smiling. So was Rasic, flashing crooked teeth. So was Strumosus.

‘Get some rest, lad,' the chef said. ‘We'll all be here when you awake. Come Rasic, you too. Go to bed. You'll work a triple shift tomorrow, or something.'

There were times, Rustem thought, when his profession offered great rewards.

Then there were moments when it felt as if it would be less of a struggle to walk straight into the teeth of a sandstorm.

Scortius could make him feel like that. As now, for example. Rustem walked into the man's sick-room to change his dressing (every third day now) and found
four
chariot-racers sitting and standing about, and not one, not two, but three dancers in further attendance, with one of them—clad in an
entirely
inadequate fashion—offering a performance not at all calculated to