A short time later Crispin found himself in a long, sleek Imperial craft cutting through the crowded harbour, past a cacophony of construction and the loading and unloading of barrels and crates of goods, out to where the noise receded and a clean wind was there to be caught by the white and purple sails.
On the deck, at the railing, Alixana was looking back at the harbour. Sarantium rose beyond it, brilliant in sunlight, domes and towers and the piled houses of wood and stone. They could hear another sound now: the chariots were in the Hippodrome today. Crispin looked up at the sun. They were probably up to the sixth or seventh race by now, the midday break to come, then the afternoon's running. Scortius of the Blues had still been missing as of last night. The City spoke of that as much as it talked of war.
He stood uncertainly a little behind the Empress. He didn't like boats, but this one was moving easily through the sea, expertly handled, and the wind was not yet strong. They were the only passengers, he realized. He made a concerted effort to bring his mind, his thinking, back from the scaffolding and his daughters, what he had expected would be the nature of today's demands upon him.
Without turning her head, Alixana said, "Have you sent to Varena to advise them what is coming? Your friends, family?"
Today's demands were evidently going to be otherwise.
He remembered this from before: she used directness as a weapon when she chose. He swallowed. What use dissembling? "I wrote two letters, to my mother and my dearest friend… but there isn't much point. They all know there is a threat."
"Of course they do. That's why the lovely young queen sent you here with a message, and then followed herself. What does she have to say about all… this?" The Empress gestured at the ships massed behind them in the harbour. Gulls wheeled in the sky, cutting across the line of their own wake in the sea.
"I have no idea," Crispin said truthfully. "I would assume you'd know that far better than I, thrice-exalted."
She looked over her shoulder at him then. Smiled a little. "You'll see better at the rail, unless it makes you unwell to look down at the waves. I ought to have asked before."
He shook his head and came resolutely forward to stand beside her. White water streamed away from the sides of the ship. The sun was high, glinting on the spray, making rainbows as he watched. He heard a snapping sound and looked up to see a sail fill. They picked up speed. Crispin put both hands on the railing.
Alixana murmured, "You warned them, I assume? In the two letters?"
He said, not fighting the bitterness, "Why should it matter? Whether I've sent warnings? Empress, what could ordinary people do if an invasion came? These are not people with any power, any ability to influence the world. They are my mother and my dearest friend."
She looked at him again for a moment, without speaking. She was hooded now, her dark hair bound up in a golden net. The severity of the look accented her features, the high cheekbones, perfect skin, enormous dark eyes. He thought suddenly of the slender, crafted rose he had seen in her room. She had asked him for something more permanent, the golden rose speaking to the fragility of beautiful things, a mosaic hinting at that which might last. A craft that aspired to endure.
He thought of Jad, slowly crumbling on a dome in a Sauradian chapel bordering the Aldwood, tesserae falling in the filtered light.
She said, "The world can be… influenced in unexpected ways, Caius Crispus. The Emperor has been hoping that letters were being sent, actually. That's why I asked. He is of the belief that the native Rhodians might welcome our arrival, given the chaos in Varena. And since we are sailing in the name of your queen, there is some hope that many of the Antae themselves might not fight. He wants them to have time to consider possible… interventions."
It suddenly occurred to him that she was speaking as if he knew an invasion had been announced. It hadn't been. Crispin looked at her, his emotions roiling again. "I see. So even letters home to loved ones are a part of the design?"
Her gaze met his. "Why should they not be? He thinks in that way. If we are unable to do so, does that make him wrong? The Emperor is trying to change the world as we know it. Is it a transgression to bring all the elements one can to something as large as this?"
Crispin shook his head and looked away, at the sea again. "I told you half a year ago, Majesty, I am an artisan. I can't even guess at these things."
"I wasn't asking you to," she said, mildly enough. Crispin felt himself flush. She hesitated. Looked out at the waves as well. Said, a little stiffly, "It is to be formally proclaimed this afternoon. In the Hippodrome by the Mandator after the last race of the day. An invasion of Batiara in the name of Queen Gisel, to reclaim Rhodias and remake a sundered Empire. Does it not sound glorious?"
Crispin shivered in the mild sunlight of that day, then felt a burning sensation, as if something had touched him, like a brand. He closed his eyes on a sudden, vivid image: flames ravaging Varena, taking the wooden houses like so much kindling for a summer bonfire.
They had all known, but…
But there was a tone in the voice of the woman beside him, something to be read in her profile now, even within the dark hood. He swallowed again, and said, "Glorious? Why do I imagine you don't find it so?"
No visible response, though he was watching for it. She said, "Because I am allowing you to see that, Caius Crispus. Though, to be entirely truthful, I'm not certain why. I confess that you… Look!"
She never finished that thought for him.
Broke off, instead, pointing. He had time to recollect that she was an actress, above all things, and then he looked. Saw dolphins breach the sea, tearing it sharply, their bodies arcing like the perfect curve of a dome, racing the ship through the ruffled water. Half a dozen of them, surfacing in sequences, as if choreographed in a theatre, one, then two, then a pause, then again, the sleek, exultant leap and splash of it.
Playful as… children? Exquisite as dancers, as the dancer beside him. Carriers of the souls of the dead, bearers of drowned Heladikos when he fell burning into the sea with the chariot of the sun. The paradox and the mystery of them. Laughter and darkness. Grace and death. She wanted dolphins for her rooms.
They watched for a long time, then there came a point when the dolphins did not leap with them any more and the sea rolled beneath and beside the ship, untorn, hiding things, as it always did.
"They do not like to come too near the island," said the Empress Alixana, turning her head to look towards the bow.
Crispin turned as well. "Island?" he said.
He saw land, unexpectedly near, densely forested with evergreen trees. A stony beach, a wooden dock for mooring the boat, two men waiting in Imperial livery. No other signs of human life. Gulls crying all about them in the morning.
"I had another reason for coming out this morning," said the woman beside him, not smiling now. She had lowered her hood. "The Emperor doesn't like my doing this. He believes it is… wrong. But there is someone I want to see before the army sails. A… reassurance. You and the dolphins were my excuse today. I believed you could be trusted, Caius Crispus. Do you mind?"
She didn't wait for an answer, of course, was simply giving him as much as she thought he needed to know. Grains doled out from the guarded storehouse of their knowledge. Valerius and Alixana. He wanted to be angry, but there was something in her manner, and in the mood from which she'd claimed him. She'd thought he could be trusted but hadn't said why she wanted to trust him.