"But I suppose there is an element of spectacle. Well, I shall be certain to inform my husband that you'd like to accompany him to the next games day… it ought to be within a week or two if I understand the process rightly."
Rustem shook his head. Td really like to attend this afternoon."
Thenai's Sistina assumed a distressed expression. "I don't see any way to get a message to my husband in time. He's with the Imperial party, in the kathisma."
"I understand as much. I was wondering if Cleander might…? As a courtesy and great favour to me?"
The Senator's wife looked at him for a long moment. "Why today, so urgently, if I might ask?"
Which compelled an indiscretion. In light of the morning's open window and the fact that this was Bonosus's wife and Bonosus already knew, Rustem felt justified. The man's physician ought to be in attendance, in fact. No one else could possibly know the precise nature of his patient's injuries. It could be said he had duties and would be remiss in them did he not make his best effort to be present.
So he told the wife of Plautus Bonosus, in formal confidence, that his patient, Scortius of Soriyya, had violated medical advice and left his bed in the Senator's city home, where he had been recovering from wounds. Given the fact that there was racing today, it was not difficult to deduce why he had done so and where he would be.
The woman showed no reaction to learning this. The whole of Sarantium might be talking of this missing man, but either she'd already known where he was from her husband, or she was truly indifferent to the fate of these athletic sorts. She did, however, summon her stepson.
Cleander appeared sullenly in the doorway a short time later. It had occurred to Rustem that the boy might have breached this parental order already and been gone from the house, but it appeared that Bonosus's son had been sufficiently chastened by two violent incidents in one day and night to obey his father, for now.
His stepmother, with a few impressively precise questions, succeeded in unearthing from the flushed young man the fact that it was Cleander who had conveyed the charioteer to Rustem in the middle of the night, and from where and under what circumstances. Rustem hadn't expected this. She had made an impressive leap of reasoning.
He could not help but note the boy's discomfiture, but he also knew that he himself had betrayed no secret in this regard. He hadn't even known that the incident had taken place in front of the dancer's home. He hadn't asked, or cared.
The woman was disconcertingly clever, that was all. It came with her detachment and composure, he decided. Those able to modulate and control their inner passions, to view the world with a cold eye, were best equipped to think things through in this way. Of course that same coldness might also be a reason why the husband had a chest with certain implements and toys in another house in a distant part of town. On the whole, though, Rustem decided he approved of the Senator's wife. He had, in fact, attempted to structure his own professional demeanour in this same fashion.
It was unexpected to see it in a woman, mind you.
Also unexpected was the fact that she seemed to be coming with them to the Hippodrome.
Cleander's extreme discomfort changed-in the overheated manner of youth-to a stunned elation as he understood that his stepmother was undertaking to waive a part of his punishment in favour of the duties owed a guest and Rustem's own professed obligations as a physician.
She would accompany them, she said, to ensure Oleander's good behaviour and swift return home, and to assist the doctor if he needed any intervention. The Hippodrome could be a dangerous place for a foreigner, she said.
Cleander would go ahead of them, immediately, taking the steward and using his mother's name for any outlays required, employing whatever unsavoury contacts he undoubtedly had in and around the Hippodrome Forum to secure proper seating after the midday interval-not standing places, and most certainly not in any area containing faction partisans or anyone whose conduct might be disagreeable. And he would not, under any circumstances, wear green. Did Cleander understand?
Cleander did.
Would Rustem of Kerakek be pleased to take a modest midday meal with her while Cleander attended to these matters of seating and admission?
Rustem would.
They had ample time to dine, and then she would need more suitable clothing for a public appearance, she said, putting aside her writing and rising from her backless chair. Her manner was impeccably calm, precise, superbly efficient, her posture flawless. She put him in mind of those fabled matrons of Rhodias, in the days before it declined into Imperial decadence and then fell.
He wondered abruptly-startling himself, in fact-if either Katyun or Jarita could have grown into this poise and authority had they been raised in a different world. There were no women like this in Ispahani and certainly none in Bassania. Palace intrigues among the cloistered wives of the King of Kings were something else entirely. He thought, then, of his baby, his girl-and made himself stop doing that. Inissa was being taken from him, was gone, in the wake of his great good fortune.
Perun and Anahita guided the world, Azal needed to be kept constantly at bay. No man could say where his footsteps might lead him. Generosity needed to be embraced, even if there was a price to be paid.
Certain gifts were not offered twice. He could not let himself dwell upon Issa, or her mother.
He could think about Shaski and Katyun, for he would see them in Kabadh, soon enough. If the Lady wills it, he added hastily in his mind and turned quickly to face east, on the thought. He had been instructed to try to kill someone here. Generosity might now have conditions attached to it.
The wife of Plautus Bonosus was looking at him, eyebrows slightly arched. She was too well bred to say anything, however.
Hesitantly, Rustem murmured, "In my faith… the east… I was averting bad fortune. I had a reckless thought."
"Ah," said Thenais Sistina, nodding her head as if this were entirely clear to her. "We all have those, from time to time." She walked out of the room and he followed her.
In the kathisma, a very well-turned-out cluster of court figures was busily performing its assigned task. Gesius had been explicit and had ensured that many of the more decorative members of the Imperial Precinct were on hand this morning, dressed flamboyantly, glittering with jewellery and colour.
They managed-with polished ease-to both enjoy themselves and blur, with their highly visible and audible reactions to events below, the absence of the Empress, the Supreme Strategos, the Chancellor, and the Master of Offices. They also masked the steady, low-voiced dictation of the Emperor to the secretaries crouched against the front railing of the box, invisible to the stands.
Valerius had dropped the white handkerchief to start the program, had acknowledged his people's cheers with the ancient gesture of Emperors, and had taken his cushioned seat and immediately set to work, ignoring the chariots below and the noise all around. Whenever the Mandator, schooled to this, murmured discreetly at his elbow Valerius would stand up and salute whoever was currently doing a victory lap. For much of the morning it had been Crescens of the Greens. The Emperor didn't seem to notice, or care.
The mosaic image on the roof of the kathisma above them was of Saranios, who had founded this city and named it for himself, driving a quadriga and crowned not with gold but with a charioteer's victory laurel. The links in the symbolic chain were immensely powerfuclass="underline" Jad in his chariot, the Emperor as mortal servant and holy symbol of the god, the charioteers on the Hippodrome sands as the most dearly beloved of the people. But, thought Bonosus, this particular successor in the long chain of Emperors was… detached from the power of that association.