He had been a part, in Sarantium, of something colossal, a shared vision on the largest possible scale, aspiring towards the more-than-human-and it was not to be. His part of that would have been destroyed by now.
Here, his striving was as ambitious (he knew it, Martinian, silent each time he looked, would know it) but it was entirely, profoundly, resolutely mortal in its scale.
And because of that, perhaps, it might last.
He didn't know. (How could a man know?) But here in this soft, kind light Crispin had set stones and glass for a year and a little more (summer again, the leaves dark green outside, bees in the wildflowers and the hedgerows) to leave something behind him when he died. Something that might tell those who came after that a certain Caius Crispus of Varena, son of Horius Crispus the mason, had lived, had been here on the god's earth for his allotted time and had known a little of human nature, and of art.
Gathered in this, he had passed a year. And there was nothing left to be done now. He had just finished the last thing, which no one had ever done in a mosaic before.
He was still on the rungs of a ladder beneath the northern wall, the one just done. He tugged at his beard, which was long again, as was his hair, not nearly as orderly as they ought to be for a man of wealth and distinction, but he'd been… occupied. He turned, a hand hooked through the ladder for balance, and looked across to the southern doors, at the arc of the wall above them, where he'd done the first of his two panels.
Not Jad. Not Heladikos. Nothing aspiring to holiness or faith. But there, in great and glittering splendour on the wall, in the carefully judged fall of light through the seasons and days (and there were brackets he'd hung himself, for lanterns in the night), were the Emperor of Sarantium, Valerius III, who had been Leontes the Golden, and his Empress, Gisel, who had sent the materials (tesserae like gems) and the promise that had set him free.
They were flanked by their court, but the work was done in such a way that only the two central figures were individually rendered, brought to vivid, golden life (and both of them were golden, their hair, their adornments, the gold in their robes). The courtiers, men and women, were hieratic, uniform, done after the old style, individual traits receding, only subtle differences of footwear and garb, stance and hair colour to offer a sense of movement for the eye, which was brought back, always, to the two figures at the centre. Leontes and Gisel, tall and young and magnificent, in the glory of their coronation day (which he had not seen, but that didn't matter, it didn't matter at all), preserved here (given life here) until the stones and glass fell or the building burned or the world ended. The lord of Emperors could come, would come, and age them, take them both away, but this could still be here.
That panel was done. He had made it first. It was… as he had wanted it to be.
He stepped down then, walked across the centre of the small chapel, where the god's altar had stood long ago, to the other side and stepped up on the ladder there, a few steps off the ground, and swung himself around and looked back at the northern wall from exactly the same perspective.
Another Emperor, another Empress, their court. Same colours, almost exactly. And an utterly different work, asserting something (for those who could look, and see) worlds apart, with love.
Valerius II, who had been Petrus of Trakesia in his youth, stood centred here, as Leontes was on the opposite wall, not tall, not golden at all, not young. Round-faced (as he had been), receding hair (as it had been), the wise, amused grey eyes gazing out upon Batiara, where the Empire had begun, the Empire he'd dreamed of reclaiming.
Beside him was his dancer.
And through tricks of line and light and glass and craft the watcher's eye would rest here upon Alixana, even more than upon the Emperor beside her, and find it difficult to leave. There is beauty, one might be made to think, and there is this, which is something more.
The gaze would move on, however (and come back), because around these two, for ages after to see them and see into them, were the men and women of this court, and here Crispin had done it differently.
This time each figure in the panel was unique in his rendering or hers. Stance, gesture, eyes, mouth. A hurried glance upon entering might see the two works as the same. A moment's pause would show them otherwise. Here, the Emperor and Empress were jewels within a crown of others, each of their attendants given their own brightness or shadow. And Crispin-their creator here, their lord-had set their names, in Sarantine, into the drapes and folds of their clothing, that those who came after might know: for naming, and so remembering, was at the heart of this for him.
Gesius, the aged Chancellor, pale as parchment, keen as a knife's edge; Leontes the Strategos (here, too, and so present on each wall); the Eastern Patriarch Zakarios, white of hair and beard, a sun disk in his long fingers. Beside the holy man (not by accident, there were no accidents here), a small, dark, muscular figure with a silver helmet, a brilliant blue tunic, and a whip in one hand. An even smaller figure, startlingly barefoot among the courtiers, had wide-open eyes and brown hair in comical disarray and the name written here was "Artibasos'.
There was a burly, black-haired, ruddy soldier next to Leontes, not as tall but broader of build, clad not as a courtier but in the colours of the Sauradian cavalry, an iron helmet under one arm. A thin, pale man was beside him (thinner and more pale with the craft of that proximity), sharp of feature, long of nose, watchful. An unsettling face, bitterness in his gaze as he looked towards the pair in the centre. His name was written on a rolled parchment he held.
To the other side were the women.
Nearest to and a little behind the Empress was a lady even taller than Gisel on the opposite wall, as golden, and-it could be said-even more fair, at least as seen by the one who had rendered them both. Arrogant in her stance and tilt of head, a fierce, uncompromising blue in her gaze. A single small ruby worn, oddly, about her throat. A hint of fire in it, but curious for its modesty, given the rest of her jewellery and the dazzle of gold and gems worn by the other ladies on the wall.
One of whom stood next to this golden one, less tall, dark hair showing beneath a green, soft cap, clad in a green robe and a jewelled belt. One could see laughter here, and grace in the way one hand curved up and outward in a gesture of the stage. Another dancer, you might conclude, even before reading the explanation of her name.
To the very edge of the scene, strangely situated on the womens" side of the composition, stood another man, a little detached from the court lady nearest him. He might have been called an afterthought if precision of design had not shown so plainly here. Instead, one might think him… out of place. But present. He was there. A big man, this one was, dressed entirely properly, though the silk of his garments draped a little awkwardly on his body. The anger that showed in him might perhaps have been caused by this.
He had red hair and was the only figure there shown with a beard, other than Zakarios, but this was not a holy man.
He was turned inward, looking towards the centre like the scribe, staring at the Emperor or Empress (difficult to tell which). Indeed, it could be observed, upon study of the elements here, that the line of this man's gaze was a balancing one, against that of the lean, thin-faced one on the other side of the panel, and that-perhaps-this was why he was where he was.