Sailing to Sarantium. Guy Gavriel Kay

turned, scratched where he imagined things biting him, then felt something doing so and swore. After a few moments, surprised at his own irresolution, he got up again, walked quickly across the cold floor, and slid home the bolt on the door. Then he crawled back into the bed.

      He had not made love to a woman since Ilandra died.

      He was still awake some time later, watching the shape of the waning blue moon slide across the window, when he heard the handle tried, then a very soft tapping at the door.

      He didn’t move, or speak. The tapping came again, twice more—light, teasing. Then it stopped, and there was silence again in the autumn night. Remembering many things, Crispin watched the moon leave the window, trailing stars, and finally fell asleep.

      HE WOKE TO MORNING noises in the yard below. In the moment he opened his eyes, surfacing from some lost dream, he had a swift, sure realization about Zoticus’s bird, and some wonder that it had taken him so long.

      He was not greatly surprised to discover, when he went downstairs for watered ale and a morning meal, that the Lady Massina Baladia of Rhodias, the Senator’s wife, and her mounted escorts and her servants had already left, at first daybreak.

      There was a mild, unexpected regret here, but it had been almost intolerable to envisage his re-entry into this sphere of mortal life as a coupling with a jaded Rhodian aristocrat playing bed games on a country night—not even knowing his true name. In another way, it might have been easier that way, but he wasn’t . . . detached enough for that.

      On the road again in the chill early-morning breeze, he soon caught up with the merchants and the cleric who had waited for him at the inn up the road. Settling into the long day’s striding, he remembered his realization upon first awakening. He drew a breath, released Linon from silence in the bag on the mule’s back, and asked a question.

      ‘How dazzlingly brilliant of you,’ the bird snapped icily. ‘She did come last night, didn’t she? I was right, wasn’t I?’

      White clouds were overhead, swift before the north wind. The sky was a light, far blue. The sun, safe returned from its dark journey under the icy cold rim of the world, was rising directly in front of them, bright as a promise. Black crows dotted the stubble of the fields. A pale frost glinted on the brown grass beside the road. Crispin looked at it all in the early light, wondering how he’d achieve that rainbow brilliance of colour and gleaming with glass and stone. Had anyone ever done frost-tipped autumn grass on a dome?

      He sighed, hesitated, then replied honestly, ‘She did. You were right. I locked the door.’

       ‘Pah! Imbecile. Zoticus would have kept her busy all night long and sent her back to her own room exhausted.’

       ‘I’m not Zoticus.’

      A feeble answer and he knew it. The bird only laughed sardonically. But he wasn’t really up to sparring this morning. Memories were too much with him.

      It was colder today, especially when the clouds passed in front of the rising sun. His feet were cold in their sandals; boots tomorrow, he thought. The fields and the vineyards on the north side of the road were bare now, of course, and did nothing to stay the wind. He could see the first dark smudge of forests in the far distance now, north-east: the wild, legendary woods that led to the border and then Sauradia. The road would fork today, south towards Mylasia, where he could have caught a ship earlier in the year for a swift sailing to Sarantium. His slow course overland would angle north, towards that untamed forest, and then east again, the long Imperial road marching along its southernmost edgings.

      He slowed a little, opened one of his bags as the mule paced stolidly along over the flawlessly fitted stone slabs of the road, and took out his brown woollen cloak. After a moment, he reached into the bag again and withdrew the bird on its leather thong, dropping it around his neck again. An apology, of sorts.

      He’d expected Linon’s brittle, waspish tone after the inflicted silence and blindness. He was already growing used to that. What he needed to do now, Crispin thought, closing and retying the bag and then wrapping himself in the cloak, was come to terms with a few other aspects of this journey east under an assumed name, bearing a message from the queen of the Antae for the Emperor in his head, and a creature of the half-world around his neck. And among the things now to be dealt with was the newly apprehended fact that the crafted bird he was carrying with him was undeniably and emphatically female.

      TOWARDS MIDDAY, they came to a tiny roadside chapel. In Memory of Clodius Paresis, an inscription over the arched doorway said. With Jad now, in Light.

      The merchants and the cleric wanted to pray. Crispin, surprising himself, went in with them while the servants watched the mules and goods outside. No mosaics here. Mosaic was expensive, a luxury. He made the sign of the sun disk before the peeling, nondescript fresco of fair-haired, smooth-cheeked Jad on the wall behind the altar stone, and knelt behind the cleric on the stone floor, joining the others in the sunrise rites.

      It was rather late in the day, perhaps, but there were those who believed the god was tolerant.

      Chapter III

      Kasia took the pitcher of beer, only slightly watered because the four merchants at the large table were regular patrons, and headed back from the kitchen towards the common room.

      ‘Kitten, when you’ve done with that, you can attend to our old friend in the room above. Deana will finish your tables tonight.’ Morax gestured straight overhead, smiling meaningfully. She hated when he smiled, when he was so obviously being pleasant. It usually meant trouble.

      This time it almost certainly meant something worse.

      The room overhead, directly above the warmth of the kitchen, was reserved for the most reliable—or generous—patrons of the inn. Tonight it held an Imperial Courier from Sarnica named Zagnes, many years on the road, decent in his manner and known to be easy on the girls, sometimes just wanting a warm body in his bed of an autumn or winter night.

      Kasia, newest and youngest of the serving girls at the inn, endlessly slated for the abusive patrons, had never been sent to him before. Deana, Syrene, Khafa—they all took turns when he was staying here, even fought for the chance of a calm night with Zagnes of Sarnica.

      Kasia got the rough ones. Fair skinned, as were most of the Inicii, she bruised easily, and Morax was routinely able to extract additional payment from her men for damage done to her. This was an Imperial Posting Inn; their travellers had money, or positions to protect. No one really worried about injuries to a bought serving girl, but most patrons—other than the genuine aristocrats, who didn’t care in the least—were unwilling to appear crude or untutored in the eyes of their fellows. Morax was skilled at threatening outraged indignation on behalf of the entire Imperial Posting Service.

      If she was being allowed a night with Zagnes in the best room it was because Morax was feeling a disquiet about something concerning her. Or—a new thought—because they didn’t want her bruised just now.

      For some days, she had seen small gatherings break up and whispering stop suddenly as she entered a room, had been aware of eyes following her as she did her work. Even Deana had stopped tormenting her. It had been ten days, at least, since pig swill had been dumped on the straw of her pallet. And Morax himself had been far too kind—ever since a visit late one night from some of the villagers, walking up the road to the inn under carried torches and the cold stars.