The Sarantine Mosaic (91 page)

And it was the ease of this on both their parts, the effortless deception done together, that made Gisel suddenly afraid, as if the walls of this warm room had given way to reveal the vast, cold sea beyond.

She had sent an artisan here half a year ago with an offer of marriage for this man. The woman, the Empress, knew of it. The artisan
had
told her about that. They had both anticipated—or deduced it—Caius Crispus said, before he had even spoken with them. She believed him. Seeing them now, the Emperor feigning surprise, Alixana offering the illusion of full welcome, she believed him implicitly.

‘Forgive us, thrice-exalted, this unplanned intrusion,' said Leontes briskly. ‘It is royalty I bring you, the queen of the Antae. It is past time, in my view, she was here among us. I will accept any fault attached to this.'

His manner was blunt and direct. No trace of the suave, courtly pacing and tone he'd revealed in the dancer's home. But he
had
to know this was no surprise, didn't he? Or was she wrong about that? Gisel stole a quick glance at Styliane Daleina: nothing to be read in those features.

The Emperor gestured in a distracted way, and servants hastened to offer seats to the two women. Styliane smiled a little to herself, holding a private amusement close, as she crossed the room and accepted a cup of wine and a chair.

Gisel also sat down. She was looking at the Empress. Doing so, she felt a faint but very real horror at her own folly of the year before. She had proposed that this woman—old, childless, surely worn out and tiresome by now—might be expendable.

Folly was not, really, an adequate word. Alixana of Sarantium, polished and smooth as a pearl, glittered with light where it reflected from her jewels and found her dark eyes. There was amusement there too, but of a very different sort from what could be seen in the Strategos's wife.

‘No intrusion, Leontes,' she murmured now, speaking first. Her voice was low, honeyed, calm. ‘You honour us, of
course, all three of you. You have come from a wedding, I see. Will you take wine and share some further music here and then tell us about it?'

‘Please,' said Valerius II earnestly, Emperor of half the world. ‘Regard yourselves as invited and honoured guests!'

They were perfect, the two of them. Gisel made her decision.

Ignoring an offered cup, she rose smoothly from her seat, clasped her hands before her and murmured, ‘The Emperor and Empress are far too good. They even allow me the flattering illusion that this visit was unanticipated. As if anything that transpires in great Sarantium could possibly pass unnoticed by their all-seeing eyes. I am deeply grateful for this courtesy.'

She saw the thin, aged Chancellor Gesius look suddenly thoughtful where he sat warming himself near the fire. There were only five other guests here, all superbly dressed and barbered men, and the balding, plump musician. Leontes looked irate suddenly, even though he'd surely have
had
to be the one who'd warned Valerius they were coming. Styliane was smiling again, behind her wine cup and her rings.

Valerius and Alixana laughed aloud. Both of them.

‘And so we learn our lesson,' the Emperor said, a hand rubbing at his soft chin. ‘Like impish children caught out by their tutor. Rhodias is older than Sarantium, the west came long before the east, and the queen of the Antae, who was daughter to a king before she ruled in her own name, was always likely to be aware of courtly practices.'

‘You are clever and beautiful, child,' said Alixana. ‘A daughter such as I might wish to have had.'

Gisel drew a breath. There could not possibly be anything sincere in this, but the woman had just casually
drawn attention to their ages, her own childlessness, Gisel's appearance.

‘Daughters are seldom in demand at a court,' she murmured, thinking as quickly as she could. ‘We are only tools for marriage most of the time. A complication in other ways, unless there are also sons to smooth a succession.' If Alixana could be direct, so could she. There was an undeniable ripple of excitement within her: she had been here almost half a year, doing nothing, suspended like an insect in Trakesian amber. What she did now might end in death, but she realized she was prepared to court that.

This time it was Gesius who smiled briefly, she saw. She was conscious of his measuring gaze upon her.

‘We are aware, of course, of your difficulties at home,' said Valerius. ‘Indeed, we have spent a winter pondering ways of addressing them.'

There was little point, really, in not responding to this, either.

‘We have spent a winter,' Gisel murmured, ‘doing the same thing. It might have been appropriate to do so together? We did accept an invitation to come here in order to do that.'

‘Indeed? Is that so? It is my understanding,' said a man dressed in figured silk of a deep green, ‘that our invitation and an Imperial ship were what saved your life, queen of the Antae.' His tone, eastern, patrician, was just barely acceptable in this company. The Master of Offices paused, then added, ‘You do have a savage history in your tribe, after all.'

This she would not countenance. East and the fallen west again? The glorious Sarantine heirs of Rhodias, the primitive barbarians from the northern forests? Not still, not here. Gisel turned her gaze to him.

‘Somewhat,' she said coldly. ‘We are a warlike, conquering people. Of course succession here in
Sarantium always proceeds in a more orderly fashion. No deaths
ever
attend upon a change of Emperors, do they?'

She knew what she was saying. There was a little silence. Gisel became aware that glances were being cast—quickly, and then away—towards Styliane Daleina, who had seated herself behind the Empress. She made a point of not looking that way.

The Chancellor gave a dry cough behind his hand. Another of the seated men glanced quickly at him and then gestured briefly. The musician, with alacrity and evident relief, made a hasty obeisance and left the room with his instrument. No one paid him the least attention. Gisel was still glaring at the Master of Offices.

The Emperor said, in a thoughtful voice, ‘The queen is correct, of course, Faustinus. Indeed, even my uncle's ascension was accompanied by some violence. Styliane's own dear father was killed.'

So much cleverness here. This was not a man, Gisel thought, to allow a nuance to slip by, if he could make it his own. She understood this, as it happened: her father had been much the same. It gave her some confidence, though her heart was racing. These were dangerous, subtle people, but she was the daughter of one herself. Perhaps she was one herself? They could kill her, and they might, but they could not strip her of pride and all legacies. She
was
aware of a bitter irony, however: she was defending her people against an allegation that they were murderous, barbaric, when she herself had been the intended victim of an assassination—in a holy, consecrated place.

‘Times of change are seldom without their casualties,' said the Chancellor softly, his first words. His voice was thin as paper, very clear.

‘The same must be said of war,' said Gisel, her tone blunt. She would
not
let this become an evening discussion
of philosophers. She had sailed here for a reason, and it was not merely to save her life, whatever anyone might think or say. Leontes was looking at her, his expression betraying surprise.

‘Truly so,' said Alixana, nodding her head slowly. ‘One man burns and dies or thousands upon thousands do. We make our choices, don't we?'

One man burns and dies.
Gisel looked quickly at Styliane this time. Nothing to be seen. She knew the story, everyone did. Sarantine Fire in a morning street.

Valerius was shaking his head. ‘Choices, yes, my love, but they are not arbitrary ones if we are honourable. We serve the god, as we understand him.'

‘Indeed, my lord,' said Leontes crisply, as if trying to draw a sword through the seductive softness of the Empress's voice. ‘A war in the name of holy Jad is
not
as other wars.' He glanced at Gisel again. ‘Nor can it be said that the Antae are unfamiliar with invasions.'

Of course they weren't. She'd implied as much herself. Her people had conquered the Batiaran peninsula, sacking Rhodias, burning it. Which made it difficult to argue against the idea of an invading army, or ask for mercy. She wasn't doing that. She was trying to steer this towards a truth she knew: if they invaded—and even if this tall, golden general succeeded in the beginning—they would not hold. They would never hold against the Antae, with the Inicii on the borders and Bassania creating another war front as it grasped the implications of a reunited Empire. No, the reclaiming of Rhodias could happen in only one way. And she, in her youth, in her person, a life that could end with a cup of poisoned wine or a silent, secret blade, was that way.

She had such a narrow, twisting path to try to walk here. Leontes, the handsome, pious soldier gazing at her now, was the one who would bring ruin to her
country if the Emperor gave him word.
In the name of holy Jad
,
he'd said. Did that make the dead less dead? She could ask them that, but it wasn't the question that mattered now.

‘Why have you not spoken with me before?' she said, fighting a sudden, rising panic, looking at Valerius again, the calm, soft-faced man she had invited to marry her. She still had difficulty meeting the gaze of the Empress, though Alixana—of all of them—had been the most welcoming. Nothing here could be taken for what it seemed to be, she kept telling herself. If there was any truth to cling to, it was that.

‘We were in negotiation with the usurpers,' Valerius said with brutal frankness.
He uses directness as a tool
,
she thought.

‘Ah,' she said, hiding discomfiture as best she could. ‘Were you? How very … prudent.'

Valerius shrugged. ‘An obvious course. It was winter. No armies travel, but couriers do. Foolish not to learn as much as we could about them. And they would have known if we had received you formally here, of course. So we didn't. We did have you watched, guarded against assassination all winter. You must be aware of that. They have spies here—just as you did.'

She ignored that last. ‘They wouldn't have known if we had met like this,' she said. Her heart was still pounding.

‘We assumed,' said the Empress gently, ‘that you would refuse to be received in any way but as a visiting queen. Which was—and is—your right.'

Gisel shook her head. ‘Should I insist on ceremony when people die?'

‘We all do that,' said Valerius. ‘It is all we have at such times, isn't it? Ceremony?'

Gisel looked at him. Their eyes met. She thought suddenly of the cheiromancers and the weary clerics
and an old alchemist in a graveyard outside the city walls. Rituals and prayers, when they raised the mound of the dead.

‘You should know,' the Emperor went on, his voice still mild, ‘that Eudric in Varena, who calls himself regent now, by the way, has offered an oath of fealty to us and— something new—to begin paying a formal tribute, twice annually. In addition, he has invited us to place advisers in his court, both religious and military.'

Details, a great many of them. Gisel closed her eyes.
You should know.
She hadn't, of course. She was half a world away from her throne and had spent a winter waiting to be seen here in the palace, to have a role to play, to justify her flight. Eudric had won, then. She had always thought he would.

‘His conditions,' the Emperor continued, ‘were the predictable ones: that we recognize him as king, and accomplish a single death.'

She opened her eyes and looked at him again, unflinching. This was familiar territory, easier for her than they might guess. There had been wagers back home that she would die before winter. They had tried to kill her in the sanctuary. Two people she loved had been slain there, for her.

She was her father's daughter. Gisel lifted her chin and said hardily, ‘Indeed, my lord Emperor? Sarantine Fire? Or just a knife in the night for me? A small price to pay for such resounding glory, isn't it? A fealty oath! Tribute, advisers? Religious
and
military? Great Jad be praised! The poets will sing and the years resound with the splendour of it. How could you refuse such glory?'

A rigid silence followed. Valerius's expression changed, only a little, but watching the grey eyes Gisel understood how people might fear this man. She could hear the crackle of the fire in the stillness.

It was Alixana, predictably, who dared speak. ‘You are bested, love,' she said lightly. ‘She is too clever for you.
Now
I understand why you won't cast me aside to marry her, or even properly receive her at court.'

Someone made a choking sound. Gisel swallowed, hard.

Valerius turned to his wife.

He said nothing, but his expression changed yet again, became odd now, strangely intimate. And a moment later it was Alixana who coloured a little and then looked down.

‘I see,' she said quietly. ‘I hadn't actually thought … ' She cleared her throat, fingered the necklace she wore. ‘That wasn't … necessary,' she murmured, still looking down. ‘I am not so fragile as that. My lord.'

Gisel had no idea what this meant, suspected no one else did. An intensely private exchange in a public space. She looked from one to the other again and then—quite suddenly—she
did
understand. Was sure of it.

Things were not what she had taken them to be.

She hadn't been invited to the Imperial Precinct before tonight, not because of negotiations with the usurpers in Varena or any rigidities of protocol, but because the Emperor Valerius was shielding his wife from Gisel's youthful presence and what—in purely formal terms—it meant, or could mean.