The Sarantine Mosaic (104 page)

Mazendar was the only one of them worth listening to. Robazes could fight, and lead an army, but Mazendar had a mind. Shirvan said, gravely, ‘It will take us some time to assemble our army north. We will attend upon events in the west and make our decision accordingly.'

‘How large an army, my lord?' Robazes asked the soldier's question. He blinked in astonishment when Shirvan gave him a number. They had never sent so many men before.

Shirvan kept his expression grim and hard. People should see the countenance of the King of Kings and remember it and report it. Valerius of Sarantium was not the only ruler who could send large armies into the world. The king looked back at Mazendar. He had spoken of two suggestions.

The second concerned the queen of the Antae, in Sarantium.

Listening, the king nodded his head slowly. Was graciously pleased to agree that this proposal had virtue. Gave his consent.

Men went forth from that room. Events began to move at speed. The first signal fires were lit at darkfall that same day, sending messages of flame from hilltop to fortress tower to hilltop beyond, in all necessary directions.

The King of Kings spent much of the day with Mazendar and Robazes and the lesser generals and his treasury officials, and the afternoon in prayer before the palace's ember of the Holy Fire. At the dinner hour, he felt unwell, feverish. He spoke of this to no one, of course, but reclining upon a couch to dine he suddenly remembered—belatedly—the unexpectedly competent physician who was to be coming to Kabadh in the summer. He'd ordered the man to Sarantium in the interval, until after his necessary elevation in caste. He'd been an observing sort of man; the king had sought a way to utilize him. Kings needed to do that. Useful men had to be put to use.

Shirvan sipped at a bowl of green tea and then shook his head. The movement made him feel dizzy and so he stopped. That doctor would have left for the west already. For Sarantium itself. An unfortunate place to have him now.

It couldn't be helped. A ruler's own health and comfort surely had to give way to the needs of his people. There were burdens that came with royalty, and the King of Kings knew them all. One's personal concerns had to yield at certain times. Besides which, there simply
had
to be more than one effective doctor in Bassania. He resolved to have Mazendar initiate a proper search … it was not something he'd ever done, in fact.

But one grew older, good health became less sure. Azal hovered with black wings. Perun and the Lady waited for all men in judgement. One didn't have to … rush to them beforetimes, however.

A thought came to him as the dinner ended and he retired to his private quarters. His head was still hurting. Nevertheless, he sent for Mazendar. The vizier appeared almost immediately. It seemed to Shirvan at times that the man lived his life poised on the other side of a door, so swift was he always to appear.

The king recollected to his vizier the thought Mazendar had voiced in the morning, about the Antae queen. Then he reminded him of that physician from the south who was in Sarantium, or would be soon enough. He'd forgotten the man's name. It didn't matter; Mazendar would know it. The vizier, by a very great deal the quickest of those around him, smiled slowly and stroked his small beard.

‘The king is truly brother to the lords of creation,' he said. ‘The king's eyes are as the eagle's eyes and his thoughts are deep as the sea. I shall act upon this, at speed.'

Shirvan nodded, then rubbed at his forehead and finally had his physicians summoned. He didn't trust any of them very much, having had the three deemed best killed in Kerakek for their own failings, but
surely
those here at court were adequate to preparing a concoction of some kind that could ease this pain in his head and help him sleep.

They were, in fact. The King of Kings did not dream that night, for the first time in a long while.

CHAPTER VIII

I
n winter in Sarantium, when the enormous bulk of the Hippodrome stood quiet, the faction rivalry shifted to the theatres. The dancers, actors, jugglers, clowns vied in performance and the faction members in their assigned sections would produce acclamations (or loud denunciations) of an increasingly sophisticated nature. The rehearsals involved in achieving these spontaneous demonstrations could be quite demanding. If you knew how to follow directions, were willing to spend much of your free time practising, and had an acceptable voice, you could earn yourself a good spot for performances and privileged admission to the faction banquets and other events. There was no shortage of applicants.

The Blues and Greens were separated in the theatres as they were in the Hippodrome, standing off to the sides of the curved audience space, nowhere near each other. The Urban Prefecture was not deficient in rudimentary good sense, and the Imperial Precinct had made it abundantly clear that an excess of violence could darken the theatres for the whole of a winter. A grim prospect; sufficiently so to ensure a certain level of decorum—most of the time.

The court and visiting dignitaries, along with high-ranking civil servants and military officers, had the only seats, in the centre down front. Behind them was standing space for the non-aligned theatre-goers, prioritized by guild seniority or military rank, and here, too, could be found the couriers of the Imperial Post. Farther up in
the middle came ordinary soldiers and sailors and citizens and, in this enlightened reign (rather too much so for the more fiery of the clerics), even the Kindath in their blue robes and silver caps. The occasional Bassanid or pagan traders from Karch or Moskav with a curiosity about what happened here might find a few spots assigned them towards the very back.

The clergy themselves were never at the theatre, of course. Women were very nearly naked there sometimes. They had to be careful with the northerners, actually: the girls could excite them a little too much, a different sort of disruption ensuing.

While the Principal Dancers—Shirin and Tychus for the Greens, Clarus and Elaïna for the Blues—led their colours in performance once or twice a week and the Accredited Musicians coordinated the acclamations and the younger partisans goaded and brawled with each other in various smoky cauponae and taverns, the leaders of the two factions spent the winter aggressively preparing for spring and what
really
mattered in Sarantium.

The chariots were the heart of the City's life and everyone knew it.

There was, in truth, a great deal to be done in a winter. Riders would be recruited from the provinces, dropped or sent away for various reasons, or subjected to additional training. The younger ones, for example, were endlessly drilled in how to fall from a chariot and how to arrange a spill if one was needed. Horses were evaluated, retired, groomed, and exercised; new ones were bought by agents. The faction cheiromancers still cast their attacking and warding spells (with an eye to useful deaths and fresh graves beyond the walls).

Every so often the two faction managers would meet at some neutral tavern or bathhouse and carefully negotiate,
over heavily watered wine, a transaction of some kind or other. Usually this involved the lesser colours—the Reds and Whites—for neither leader would want to run the risk of losing such an exchange in an obvious way.

This, in fact, was how it came to pass that young Taras of the Reds, some time after the end of his first season in the City, found himself brusquely informed by the Green factionarius one morning after chapel services that he'd been dealt to the Blues and Whites for a right-side trace horse and two barrels of Sarnican wine, and was expected to clear out his gear and head for the Blues' compound that same morning.

It wasn't said in an unkind way. It was brief, utterly matter-of-fact, and the factionarius had already turned to discuss a new shipment of Arimondan leather with someone else by the time Taras had fully grasped what he'd been told. Taras stumbled out of the factionarius's very crowded office. No one met his eye.

It was true that he hadn't been with them for long, and had only been riding for the Reds, and he was shy by nature, so Taras was certainly not a well-known figure in the compound. But it still seemed to him—young and not yet accustomed to the hard ways of the City—that his former comrades might have shown a little less enthusiasm when word of the transaction reached the banquet hall and the main barracks. It wasn't pleasant to hear people
cheering
when they heard the tidings.

The horse was said to be a very good one, agreed, but Taras was a man, a charioteer, someone who'd had a bed in the room with them, had dined at the table, done his very best all year in a difficult, dangerous place far from his home. The celebration wounded him, he had to admit it.

The only ones who even bothered to come by to wish him luck as he was packing his things were a couple of
the grooms, an undercook he'd gone drinking with on occasion, and one of the other Red riders. In fairness, he had to acknowledge that Crescens, their burly First, did pause in his drinking long enough to note Taras crossing the banquet hall with his things and call a jocular farewell across the crowded room.

He got Taras's name wrong, but he always did that.

It was raining outside. Taras tugged down the brim of his hat and turned up his collar as he went through the yard. He belatedly remembered that he'd forgotten to take his mother's remedy against all possible ailments. He'd probably get sick now, on top of everything else.

A horse. He'd been dealt for a
horse
. There was a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. He could still remember his family's pride when the Greens' recruiter in Megarium had invited him to the City a year ago. ‘Work hard, and who knows what might happen,' the man had said.

At the compound entrance one of the guards stepped out of the hut and unlocked the gates. He waved casually and ducked back in out of the rain. They might not yet know what had happened. Taras didn't tell them. Outside, two young boys in blue tunics were standing in the laneway, getting wet.

‘You Taras?' one of them asked, chewing at a stick of skewered lamb.

Taras nodded.

‘Let's go, then. Take you there.' The boy flipped the remains of his skewer into the gutter, which was running with rainwater.

An escort. Two street urchins. How flattering, Taras thought.

‘I
know
where the Blues' compound is,' he muttered under his breath. He felt flushed, light-headed. Wanted to be alone. Didn't want to
look
at anyone. How was he going
to tell his mother about this? The very thought of dictating such a letter to a scribe made his heart beat painfully.

One of the boys kept pace with him through the puddles; the other disappeared after a while into the misty rain, obviously bored, or just cold. One urchin, then. A triumphant procession for the great charioteer just acquired for a horse and some wine.

At the gates to the Blues' compound—his new home now, hard as it was to think that way—Taras had to give his name twice and then explain, excruciatingly, that he was a charioteer and had been … recruited to join them. The guards looked dubious.

The boy beside Taras spat into the street. ‘Fucking unlock the gate. It's raining and he's who he says he is.'

In that order
,
Taras thought glumly, water dripping from his hat and down the back of his neck. The metal gates were reluctantly swung open. No word of welcome, of course. The guards didn't even believe he was a chariot-racer. The compound's courtyard—almost identical to that of the Greens—was muddy and deserted in the wet, cold morning.

‘You'll be in that barracks,' the boy said, pointing off to the right. ‘Don't know which bed. Astorgus said drop your stuff and see him. He'll be eating. Banquet hall's that way.' He went off through the mud, not looking back.

Taras carried his gear to the indicated building. A long, low sleeping quarters, again much like the one he'd lived in this past year. Some servants were moving about, tidying up, arranging bed linens and discarded clothing. One of them looked over indifferently as Taras appeared in the doorway. Taras was about to ask which bed was his, but suddenly the prospect seemed too humiliating. That could wait. He dropped his wet bags near the door.

‘Keep an eye on these for me,' he called out with what he hoped sounded like authority. ‘I'll be sleeping in here.'

He shook the rain off his hat, put it back on his head, and went out again. Dodging the worst puddles, he angled across the courtyard a second time, towards the building the boy had indicated. Astorgus, the factionarius, was supposed to be in there.

Taras entered a small but handsomely decorated front room. The double doors leading to the hall itself were closed; it was quiet beyond, at this hour of a grey, wet morning. He looked around. There were mosaics on all four walls here, showing great charioteers—all Blues, of course—from the past. Glorious figures. Taras knew them all. All the young riders did; these were the shining inhabitants of their dreams.

Work hard, and who knows what might happen.

Taras felt unwell. He saw a man, warmed by two fires, sitting on a high stool at a desk near the interior doors that led to the dining hall itself. There was a lamp at his elbow. He looked up from some writing he was doing and arched an eyebrow.

‘Wet, aren't you?' he observed.

‘Rain tends to be wet,' Taras said shortly. ‘I'm Taras of the … I'm Taras of Megarium. New rider. For the Whites.'

‘Are you?' the man said. ‘Heard of you.' At least
someone
had, Taras thought. The man looked Taras up and down, but he didn't snicker or look amused. ‘Astorgus is inside. Get rid of that hat and go on in.'

Taras looked for somewhere to put his hat.

‘Give it to me.' The secretary—or whatever he was—took it between two fingers as if it were a rancid fish and dropped it on a bench behind his desk. He wiped his fingers on his robe and bent to his work again. Taras sighed, pushed his hair out of his eyes, and opened the heavy oak doors to the banquet hall. Then he froze.