The Sarantine Mosaic (87 page)

‘Lysurgos Matanios once said that it is a finer thing to see a friend well wed than to sip from even the rarest wine,' Leontes said, lifting his cup. ‘It is a pleasure to enjoy both today,' he added, pausing to drink. There was laughter: well-bred from the courtiers, more obviously excited from the theatre and army people.

‘He always uses that line,' murmured Bonosus to Rustem, drily. ‘I wish I knew why he was
here
,
though.'

As if answering, the Strategos went on. ‘It seemed proper to stop and lift a cup in honour of the marriage
of the only man in the army who could talk so much and so well and so much and … so much, that he extracted the arrears of payment for the soldiers from the Precinct coffers. I do not urge anyone ever to put themselves in the position of being persuaded by the tribune of the Fourth Sauradian to do
anything
… unless they have a great deal of time to spare.'

Laughter again. The man was smooth as a courtier but his manner was direct and unassuming, the teasing rough and easy as a soldier's. Rustem watched the military men in the room as they gazed at the speaker. There was adoration written in their features. The wife, motionless as a statue now, seemed vaguely bored.

‘And I fear,' Leontes was saying, ‘that we do
not
have a great deal of time today, so the Lady Styliane and I are not able to join you in sampling the delights prepared by Strumosus of the Blues in a Green household. I do commend the factions for this rare conjunction and hope it bodes well for a peaceful racing season.' He paused, an eyebrow raised for emphasis: this was an authority figure, after all. ‘We came that we might salute the groom and his bride in Jad's most holy name, and to convey a piece of information that may add in some small way to the felicity of the day.'

He paused again, sipped his wine. ‘I addressed the bridegroom as tribune of the Fourth Sauradian just now. I was behind the tidings, as it happens. It seems that some Supreme Strategos or other, anxious to put a certain mellifluous voice far away from his overburdened ears, rashly signed papers this morning affirming the promotion of the tribune Carullus of Trakesia to his new rank and appointment … as chiliarch of the Second Calysian, such position to be assumed in thirty days … which will allow the new chiliarch time here with his
bride, and a chance to lose some of his increased pay at the Hippodrome.'

There was a shout of pleasure and laughter, nearly drowning out the last words. The bridegroom came quickly forward, his face flushed, and knelt before the Strategos.

‘My lord!' he said, looking up, ‘I am … I am speechless!'

Which elicited its own burst of laughter from those who knew the man. ‘However,' added Carullus, lifting a hand, ‘I do have a question I must ask.'

‘Speechlessly?' said Styliane Daleina, from behind her husband. Her first comment, softly spoken, but everyone heard it. Some people did not need to raise their voices to be heard.

‘I lack that skill, my lady. I must use my tongue, though with far less skill than my betters. I only wish to ask if I may decline the promotion.'

Silence fell. Leontes blinked.

‘This is a surprise,' he said. ‘I would have thought …' He let the sentence trail off.

‘My great lord, my commander … if you wish to reward an unworthy soldier, it will be by allowing him, at any rank at all, to fight at your side in the next campaign. I do not believe I am saying anything untoward if I suggest that Calysium, with the Everlasting Peace signed in the east, will be no such place. Is there nowhere in … in the west where I might serve with you, my Strategos?'

At the reference to Bassania, Rustem heard the Senator beside him shift a little, uneasily, and clear his throat softly. But nothing of note had been said. Yet.

The Strategos smiled a little now, his composure regained. He reached down, and in a gesture almost fatherly, ruffled the hair of the soldier kneeling before him. His men loved him, it was said, the way they loved their god.

Leontes said, ‘There is no campaign declared anywhere, chiliarch. Nor is it my practice to send newly married officers to a war front when there are alternatives, as there always are.'

‘Then I
can
be attached to you, since there is no war front,' said Carullus, and he smiled innocently. Rustem snorted; the man had audacity.

‘Shut up
,
you idiot!' The entire room heard the red-haired mosaicist. The laughter that followed affirmed as much. It had been intended, of course. Rustem was quickly coming to realize how much of what was being said and done was carefully planned or cleverly improvised theatre. Sarantium, he decided, was a stage for performances. No wonder an actress could command so much power here, induce such prominent people to grace her home—or become Empress, if it came to that. Unthinkable in Bassania, of course. Utterly unthinkable.

The Strategos was smiling again, a man at ease, sure of his god—and of himself, Rustem thought.
A righteous
man. Leontes glanced across at the mosaicist and lifted his cup to him.

‘It is good advice, soldier,' he said to Carullus, still kneeling before him. ‘You will know the pay difference between legate and chiliarch. You have a bride now, and should have strong children to raise soon enough, in Jad's holy service and to honour his name.'

He hesitated. ‘If there
is
a campaign this year—and let me make it clear that the Emperor has offered no indications yet—it might be in the name of the poor, wronged queen of the Antae, which means Batiara, and I will
not
have a newly married man beside me there. The east is where I want you for now, soldier, so speak of this no more.' The words were blunt, the manner almost paternal—though he wouldn't be older than the soldier before him, Rustem thought. ‘Rise up, rise up,
bring us your bride that we may salute her before we go.'

‘I can just
see
Styliane doing that,' the Senator beside Rustem murmured under his breath.

‘Hush,' said his wife, suddenly. ‘And look again.'

Rustem saw it too.

Someone had now come forward, past Styliane Daleina, though pausing gracefully beside her for an instant, so that Rustem was to carry a memory for a long time of the two of them next to each other, golden and golden.

‘Might the poor, wronged queen of the Antae have any voice at all in this? In whether war is brought to her own country in her name,' said this new arrival. Her voice—speaking Sarantine but with a western accent— was clear as a bell, bright anger in it, and it cut into the room like a knife through silk.

The Strategos turned, clearly startled, swiftly concealing it. An instant later he bowed formally and his wife—smiling a little to herself, Rustem saw— sank down with perfect grace, and then the entire room did so.

The woman paused, waiting for this acknowledgement to pass. She hadn't been at the wedding ceremony, must have just this moment arrived. She, too, was clad in white under a jewelled collar and stole. Her hair was gathered under a soft hat of a dark green shade and as she shed an identically hued cloak now for a servant to take, it could be seen that her long, floor-length garment had a single vertical stripe down one side, and it was porphyry, the colour of royalty everywhere in the world.

As the guests rose in a rustle of sound, Rustem saw that the mosaicist and the younger fellow from Batiara who'd saved Rustem's life this morning remained where they were, kneeling on the dancer's floor. The stocky
young man looked up, and Rustem was startled to see tears on his face.

‘The Antae queen,' said the Senator in his ear. ‘Hildric's daughter.' Confirmatory, but hardly needed: physicians draw conclusions from information gathered. They had spoken of this woman in Sarnica, too, her lateautumn flight from assassination, sailing into exile in Sarantium. A hostage for the Emperor, a cause of war if he needed one.

He heard the Senator speak to his son again. Cleander muttered something fierce and aggrieved behind him but made his way out of the room, obeying his father's orders. The boy hardly seemed to matter just now. Rustem was staring at the Antae queen, alone and far from her home. She was poised, unexpectedly young, regal in her bearing as she surveyed a glittering crowd of Sarantines. But what the doctor in Rustem—the physician at the core of what he was—saw in the clear blue northern eyes across the room was the masked presence of something else.

‘Oh dear,' he murmured, involuntarily, and then became aware that the wife of Plautus Bonosus was looking at him again.

A feast for fifty people was not, Kyros knew, particularly demanding for Strumosus, given that they often served four times that number in the Blues' banquet hall. There was some awkwardness in using a different kitchen, but they'd been over here a few days earlier and Kyros—given larger responsibilities all the time—had done the inventory, allocated locations, and supervised the necessary rearrangements.

He'd somehow overlooked the absence of sea salt and knew Strumosus wouldn't soon forget it. The master chef was not—to put it mildly—tolerant of mistakes. Kyros
would have run back to their own compound to fetch it himself, but running was one thing he wasn't at all good for, given the bad foot he dragged about with him. He'd been busy by then with the vegetables for his soup in any case, and the other kitchen boys and undercooks had their own duties. One of the houseservants had gone, instead— the pretty, dark-haired one the others were all talking about when she wasn't nearby.

Kyros seldom engaged in that sort of banter. He kept his passions to himself. As it happened, for the last few days—since their first visit to this house—his own daydreams had been about the dancer who lived here. This might have been disloyal to his own faction, but there was no one among the Blue dancers who moved or sounded or looked like Shirin of the Greens. It made his heartbeat quicken to hear the ripple of her laughter from another room and sent his thoughts at night down corridors of desire.

But she did that for most of the men in the City, and Kyros knew it. Strumosus would have declared this a boring taste, too easy, no subtlety in it. The reigning dancer in Sarantium? What an
original
object of passion! Kyros could almost hear the chef's astringent voice and mocking applause, the back of one hand slapping into the palm of the other.

The banquet was nearly done. The boar, stuffed with thrushes and wood pigeons and quail eggs, served whole on an enormous wooden platter, had occasioned an acclamation they'd heard even in the kitchen. Shirin had earlier sent the black-haired girl to report that her guests were in paroxysms of delight over the sturgeon—king of fish!—served on a bed of flowers, and the rabbit with Soriyyan figs and olives. Their hostess had conveyed her own impression of the soup earlier. The exact words, relayed by the same girl with dimpled mirth, were that
the Greens' dancer intended to wed the man who'd made it before the day was done. Strumosus had pointed with his spoon to Kyros and the dark-haired girl had grinned at him, and winked.

Kyros had immediately ducked his head down over the herbs he was chopping as raucous, teasing voices were raised all around, led by his friend Rasic. He had felt the tips of his ears turning red but had refused to look up. Strumosus, walking past, had rapped him lightly on the back of the head with his long-handled spoon: the chef's version of a benign, approving gesture. Strumosus broke a great many wooden spoons in his kitchen. If he hit you gently enough for the spoon to survive you could deduce that he was pleased.

It seemed the sea salt had been forgotten after all, or forgiven.

The dinner had begun on a high-pitched note of distraction and excitement, the guests chattering furiously about the arrival and immediate departure of the Supreme Strategos and his wife with the young western queen. Gisel of the Antae had arrived to join the banquet here. An unanticipated presence, a gift of sorts offered by Shirin to her other guests: the chance to dine with royalty. But the queen had then accepted a suggestion made by the Strategos that she return with him to the Imperial Precinct to discuss the matter of Batiara—her own country, after all—with certain people there.

The implication, not lost on those present, and relayed to a keenly interested Strumosus in the kitchen by the clever dark-haired girl, was that the certain person might be the Emperor himself.

Leontes had expressed distress and surprise, the girl said, that the queen had
not
been consulted or even apprised to this point and vowed to rectify the omission. He was impossibly wonderful, the girl had added.

So, in the event, there was no royalty at the U-shaped table arrangement in the dining room after all, only the memory of royalty among them and royalty's acid, castigating tone directed at the most important soldier in the Empire. Strumosus, learning of the queen's departure, had been predictably disappointed but then unexpectedly thoughtful. Kyros was just sorry not to have seen her. You missed a lot in the kitchen sometimes, attending to the pleasure of others.