The Sarantine Mosaic (23 page)

‘I know. But there is a crowd.'

Crispin was painfully aware that no one in this courtyard could be considered an ally, though. Most of them were staying illegally and would want to continue to be able to do so. He was a threat to more than Morax right now.

‘All of the … my lord, in autumn, or winter, almost all the Imperial Inns allow honest travellers to stay. A courtesy.'

‘Honest travellers. Indeed. I see. I will be prompt to offer this in your defence, should the Chancellor ask. I have put you another question, though: what do you do with thieves here? And how do you recompense aggrieved patrons who are here legitimately?'

Crispin saw Morax glance quickly again at Erytus. The innkeeper was almost cringing.

It was the merchant who spoke. ‘What compensation would assuage you, Martinian? I will accept responsibility for my nephew.'

Crispin, who had spoken of recompense in the fervent hope of hearing exactly this, turned to Erytus and let the anger seem to drift from his voice. ‘An honourable thing to say, but he is of age, is he not? He answers for himself, surely.'

‘He should. But his … failings are manifest here. A grief to his parents. And to myself, I assure you. What will serve to make this right?'

‘We hang thieves back home,' one of the Karchites growled. Crispin glanced over. It was the one who'd raised his beer mug to him, earlier. He had a bright,
inebriated glint in his eye. The prospect of violence, to cheer a dull night.

‘We hang 'em here, too!' said someone else, unseen, at the back of the crowd. There was a sharp murmur. An edge of excitement now. Torches danced, pressed nearer in the cold.

‘Or cut off their hands,' said Crispin, feigning indifference. He pushed away a torch that came too close to his face. ‘I care not what the course of law dictates here. Do with him what you will. Erytus, you are an honest man, I can see it. You cannot redress the risk to my Permit, but match the sum in the purse—the sum I would have lost— and I will accept that.'

‘Done,' said the merchant, without a pause. He was a dried out, humourless man, but impressive in his way.

Crispin said, trying to keep the same casual tone, ‘And then buy me the girl who saved my purse. I will let you fix your price with the 'keeper. Don't let him cheat you.'

‘What?'
said Morax.

‘The
girl
!' said the wife from behind him, urgently.

‘But …'

‘Done,' said Erytus, again, quite calmly. He looked faintly disapproving and relieved, at the same time.

‘I will need household servants when I reach the City, and I owe her for this.' They would think he was a greedy Rhodian pig; that was all right, that was fine. Crispin bent down and hooked the satchel strap from the fingers of the prone man. He straightened, and looked at Morax.

‘I am aware that you are not the only 'keeper to do this. Nor am I, by nature, a teller of tales. I would suggest you be
extremely
fair with Erytus of Megarium in naming your price, and I am prepared to report that because of the intervention of one of your honest and well-trained serving girls no lasting harm has been done.'

‘No hanging?' the Karchite complained. Erytus looked over at him stonily.

Crispin smiled thinly. ‘I have no idea what they will do to him. I don't care. I won't be here to see it. The Emperor has summoned me and I will not linger, even for justice and a hanging. I do understand that the good-hearted Morax,
deeply
contrite at our having been driven outside into the cold, now offers Candarian wine to all those who feel the need of warmth. Am I correct, 'keeper?'

There was a burst of raucous laughter and agreement from the men crowded around them. Crispin let his smile deepen as he met a few glances.

‘Nicely done, again. Mice and blood! Will I be forced to respect you?'

‘How would we ever deal with that?'

‘Husband! Husband!' the wife was saying urgently, for the third or fourth time. Her face was a blotchy red in the torchlight. She was staring at Kasia, Crispin saw. The girl looked stunned, uncomprehending. Either she was, or she was an extremely good actress.

Morax didn't turn to his wife. He drew a shaky breath and took Crispin by the elbow, walking him a little way into the dark.

‘The Chancellor? The Master of Offices … ?' he whispered.

‘… have more pressing concerns. I will not trouble them with this. Erytus makes good my risk of loss, and you sell the girl with all her countersigned papers as compensation. Make the price fair, Morax.'

‘My lord, you want …
that
girl, of all of them?'

‘I can hardly use all of them, 'keeper. That is the one who saved my purse.' He let himself smile again. ‘She's a favourite of yours?'

The innkeeper hesitated. ‘Yes, my lord.'

‘Good,' said Crispin briskly. ‘You
ought
to lose something in this, if only a yellow-haired bed-partner. Pick another of your girls to mount in the dark while your wife sleeps.' He paused, his smile disappearing. ‘I am being generous, 'keeper.'

He was, and Morax knew it. ‘I don't … that is, she isn't … my wife …' The innkeeper fell silent. He drew a shaky breath. ‘Yes, my lord,' he said. Tried to smile. ‘I do have other girls here.'

Crispin knew what that meant, as it happened.

‘
I told you
,' Linon said.

‘
No help for it
,' he replied, silently. There were questions embedded in this that he could not answer. Aloud, he said, ‘I mean it, Morax … a
very
fair price for Erytus. And serve out the wine.'

Morax swallowed, and nodded unhappily. Crispin was uncontrite. The expensive wine would be the innkeeper's only real loss, and Crispin needed the other patrons to feel kindly towards him now, and for Morax to know that they did.

It began to rain. Crispin looked up. Dark clouds blotted all the sky. The forest was north, very near, a presence. Someone approached them from beyond the torches: a hefty, reassuring figure, with Crispin's cloak in his hands. Crispin smiled briefly at him. ‘It's all right, Vargos. We're going inside.' Vargos nodded, his expression watchful.

They had picked up Thelon of Megarium and were carrying him in. His uncle and cousins walked beside him; servants carried torches. The girl, Kasia, lingered uncertainly, and so did the innkeeper's wife, her gaze poisonous.

‘What is happening?'

‘You heard. We are going in.'

‘Go upstairs, Kitten,' Crispin said mildly, walking back towards the light. ‘You are being sold to me. You have no
more tasks in this inn, do you understand?' She didn't move for a moment, her eyes enormous, then she nodded once, jerkily, like a rabbit. She was shivering, he saw. ‘Wait for me in the room. I've some good wine promised me, before I come up. Warm the bed. Don't fall asleep.' It was important to be casual about this. She was a slave, bought on impulse; he knew nothing more than that.

‘About the wine, my lord?' Morax's voice at his elbow was low, complicitous. ‘The Candarian? It is wasted on almost all of them, my lord.' That happened to be true.

‘I don't care,' Crispin replied icily.

That happened to be untrue. He found it almost painful. Candarian island wine was celebrated, it was
far
too good to waste. Under ordinary circumstances.

‘Mice and blood, artisan. You are still an imbecile. You do know what this means for tomorrow?'

‘Of course I do. No help for it. We won't be able to stay. I count on you to protect us all.'
He meant it ironically but it didn't quite come out that way. The bird made no reply.

There was a god's tree somewhere in that forest beyond the road and tomorrow was the Day of the Dead. And despite what Zoticus had advised him, they were going to have to be away from here and travelling at sunrise or before.

He went inside with the innkeeper. Sent the girl upstairs with the key. Sat again at his table in the common room to drink a flask or two of the wine, prudently watered, and earn what goodwill he could from those who shared in the liquid bounty. He kept his purse on him this time, with his money, his Permit, and the bird.

After a time, Erytus of Megarium reappeared, having concluded an encounter with Morax. He presented Crispin with certain papers that indicated that the Inici slave girl, Kasia, was now the legal property of the artisan,
Martinian of Varena. Erytus also insisted on finalizing the financial compensation upon which they had agreed. Crispin allowed him to count the contents of his purse; Erytus produced his own, and matched it. The Karchite merchants watched them but were too far away to see anything clearly.

Erytus accepted only a very small cup of wine, in earnest of goodwill. He looked weary and unhappy. He extended renewed apologies for his nephew's disgraceful conduct and rose to leave a few moments later. Crispin stood and exchanged a bow with him. The man had behaved impeccably. Crispin had, in fact, relied upon that.

Looking at the papers and the quite heavy purse on the table beside him, Crispin sipped the good wine. He expected the Megarium party to be gone even before he was in the morning—if the nephew was allowed to leave. He suspected that some further outlays on Erytus's part would achieve that end, if they hadn't done so already. He found himself hoping so. The young man was a rogue, but he'd been seduced into this crime, had his skull dented for it, and would doubtless suffer extremely at his family's hands. Crispin did not particularly want to be the agency of his being hanged from a pagan oak in Sauradia.

He looked around. The revived Karchites and several of the other guests—including a cheerful, grey-clad courier—were quaffing Candarian red wine unwatered, downing it like beer. He managed not to wince at the sight, raising his own glass in a genial salute. He felt very far from his own world. Ordinary circumstances had been left a long way off, at home, behind city walls. Where he ought to have stayed, shaping images of beauty with such materials as came to hand. There was no beauty here.

It occurred to him that he ought not to leave his new slave alone for too long, even with a lock on the door.
There wasn't much he could do if she went missing now and never turned up. He went upstairs.

‘Are you going to stick it in her?'
Linon cackled suddenly. The crudeness and the patrician voice and Crispin's mood were all janglingly at odds with each other. He made no reply.

The girl had the key. He knocked softly and called to her. She unbolted to his voice and opened the door. He stepped inside and closed and bolted it again. It was very dark in the room. She had lit no candles, had closed the shutters again and latched them. He could hear the rain outside. She stood very near to him, not speaking. He was embarrassed, surprisingly aware of her, still wondering why he had done what he had done tonight. She knelt with a rustle, a blurred female shape, and then bent her head to kiss his foot before he could withdraw. He stepped quickly back, clearing his throat, uncertain what to say.

He gave her the topmost blanket from the bed and bade her sleep on the servant's pallet by the far wall. She never spoke. Aside from that instruction, neither did he. He lay in the bed listening to the rain for a long time. He thought of the queen of the Antae, whose foot he himself had kissed, before this journey had begun. He remembered a Senator's wife, tapping at his door. Another inn. Another country. He finally fell asleep. He dreamt of Sarantium, of making a mosaic there, with brilliant tesserae and all the shining jewels he needed: images on a towering dome of an oak tree in a grove, lightning bolts in a livid sky.

They would burn him in the City for such an impiety, but this was only a dream. No one died for his dreams.

He woke in the darkness before dawn. After a moment of disorientation, he swung out of bed and crossed the cold floor to the window. He opened the shutters. The rain had stopped again, though water was still dripping
off the roof. A heavy fog had drifted in; he could scarcely see the courtyard below. There were men stirring down there—Vargos would be among them, readying the mule—but sounds were muted and distant. The girl was awake, standing beside her pallet, a pale, thin figure, ghostlike, silently watching him.

‘Let's go,' he said, after a moment.

Not long afterwards they were on the road, three of them walking east in a mist-shrouded half-world as dawn came without a sunrise on the Day of the Dead.

CHAPTER IV

V
argos of the Inicii was not a slave.

Many of the Posting Inns' servants-for-hire along the main Imperial roads were, of course, but Vargos had chosen this job of his own will, as he was quick to point out to those who erred in addressing him. He'd signed his second five-year indenture with the Imperial Post three years ago, carried his copy of the paper on his person, though he couldn't read it, and collected a payment twice a year, in addition to his guaranteed room and board. It wasn't much, but over the years he'd bought new boots twice, a woollen cloak, several tunics, an Esperanan knife, and he could offer a copper follis or two to a whore. The Imperial Post preferred slaves, naturally, but there weren't enough of them, since the Emperor Apius had elected to pacify the northern barbarians rather than subdue them, and stout men were badly needed for parties on the roads. Some of those stout men, including Vargos, were northern barbarians.

At home, Vargos's father had often expressed—generally with spilled ale and a table-thumping fist—his views on working or soldiering for Sarantium's fat-rumped catamites, but Vargos had been of the habit of disagreeing with his parent on occasion. Indeed, it had been after the last such discussion that he had left their village one night and begun his journey south.