With no one displaying any sign of disagreement to this proposition, a vote was, accordingly, proposed by Bonosus. The pebbles were distributed in pairs to all present: white meaning agreement with the only name put forward, black indicating a desire for further deliberation and other candidates to be considered.
The motion passed, forty-nine Senators approving, one electing to demur. Auxilius, who had lingered in the visitors" gallery, hastily left the chamber.
As a consequence of this formal vote, Plautus Bonosus instructed the senatorial clerks to draw up a document under seal indicating that the august body of the Sarantine Senate was of the view that the successor to the lamented Valerius II, Jad's Holy Emperor, regent of the god upon earth, ought to be Leontes, currently serving with honour as Supreme Strategos of the Sarantine army. The clerks were instructed to express the collective and fervent hope of the Senate that his would be a reign blessed by the god with glory arid good fortune.
The Senate adjourned.
That same night, in the Imperial Chapel inside the walls of the Precinct, Leontes, often called the Golden, was anointed Emperor by the Eastern Patriarch. Saranios had built that chapel. His bones lay within.
It was decided that if the City grew quiet overnight there would be a public ceremony in the Hippodrome the next afternoon, to crown both the Emperor and his Empress. There always was. The people needed to see.
Plautus Bonosus, escorted home that night by a contingent of Excubitors, fingered the unused white pebble in his pocket. On reflection, he cast it away into the darkness.
The streets were indeed much calmer by then. The fires had been put out. Contingents of the army had been sent up from the harbour at sundown and from the temporary barracks outside the walls. The presence of heavily armed soldiers, marching in order, had ended the violence very smoothly. It had all gone smoothly today, Bonosus thought. Not like the last time there had been no heir. He was trying to understand why he felt so much bitterness. It wasn't as if there was anyone else more suited to the porphyry robes of Empire than Leontes. That wasn't the point though. Or was it?
The soldiers were still moving through the streets in tightly banded, efficient clusters. He couldn't remember ever seeing the army making itself so obvious within the City. Walking with his escort (he had declined a litter) he saw that the patrols were knocking on doors, entering houses.
He knew why. There was a heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He'd been trying to suppress certain thoughts, but not very successfully. He understood too well what was taking place. This happened, it had to happen, whenever a violent change of this sort occurred. Valerius, unlike Apius before him, or his own uncle, had not passed to the god in peace, in old age, to lie serenely in state in the Porphyry Room robed for his passage. He had been murdered. Certain things-certain other deaths, if Bonosus was honest with himself-would have to follow upon that.
One, in particular.
And so, these soldiers, spreading through the City with their torches, combing the lanes and alleys near the harbour, porticoes of the wealthy, warrens within the Hippodrome, chapels, taverns, cauponae (even though those were closed by order tonight), inns and guildhouses and workshops, bakeries and brothels, probably even down into the cisterns… and entering citizens" homes in the night. The heavy knock on the door in the dark.
Someone had disappeared, needed to be found.
Hearing his own doorway, Bonosus saw that the house was properly barricaded against a riot. The leader of his escort knocked, politely in this case, and declared their identity.
Locks were unbolted. The door was opened. Bonosus saw his son. Oleander was weeping, his eyes swollen and red. Bonosus, with no premonition at all, asked him why, and Cleander told him.
Bonosus went into his house. Cleander thanked the guards and they went away. He closed the door. Bonosus sat down heavily on a bench in the hallway. His whirling thoughts were stilled. He had no thoughts at all. An emptiness.
Emperors died, before their time. So did others. So did others. The world was what it was.
'There's a riot in the Hippodrome. And there was another bird in the City today!" Shirin said urgently, as soon as Crispin entered his house and saw her waiting in the front room, pacing before the fire. She was agitated: had spoken the words with a servant still in the hallway.
'Another bird!" Danis echoed, silently, almost as upset. Mice and blood, Linon would have said. And called him an imbecile for walking the streets alone just now.
Crispin took a deep breath. The half-world. Did you ever leave it, once you entered? Did it ever leave you?
"I know about the fighting," he said. "It is in the streets now." He turned and dismissed the servant. Then registered something. "You said a bird was here. Not any more?"
'I don't feel it now," Danis said in his mind. 'It was here, and then it was…gone.
"Gone away? From the City?"
He could see the anxiety in the woman, feel it coming from the bird.
'More than that, I think. I think it is…gone. It didn't fade. It was just there and then, not there?
Crispin needed wine. He saw Shirin looking at him closely. The clever, observant gaze. All flash and play removed from her now.
"You know about this," she said. Not a question. Zoticus's daughter. "You don't seem… surprised."
He nodded. "I know something. Not very much."
She looked pale and cold, even near the fire. She said, hugging herself with her hands, "I had two separate messages, two of my… informants. They both say the Senate is being summoned. They also say… they say that the Emperor may be dead." He wasn't sure, but he thought she might have been crying. It was Danis he heard next, in silence:
'They said he was murdered.
Crispin took a breath. He could feel his heart beating, still too fast. He looked at Shirin, slender, graceful, afraid. He said, "I suspect… that might be true."
When the Huntress shoots him he dies.
There was more sorrow in him than he would ever have expected.
She bit her lip. "The bird? That Danis felt? She said it was… a bad presence."
No reason, really, not to say this much. Not to her. She was here with him, in the half-world. Her father had drawn them both into it. "It belonged to Lecanus Daleinus. Who escaped his prison today and came here."
Shirin sat down suddenly, on the nearest bench. Still hugging herself. She was very white. "The blind one? The burned…? He left the isle?"
"Had help, obviously."
"From?"
Crispin drew another breath. "Shirin. My dear. If your tidings are true and Valerius is dead, there are going to be questions asked of me. Because of where I was this morning. You are… better off not knowing. Can say you don't know. That I refused to tell."
Her expression changed. You were on that island? Oh, Jad! Crispin, they will… you aren't going to be stupid are you?"
He managed a faint smile. "For a change, you mean?"
She shook her head fiercely. "No jesting. At all! If the Daleinoi have killed Valerius, they will be… He saw something else occur to her. "Where is Alixana? If they killed Valerius"
She let the thought hang in the air and fade away. Men and women lived, died. Faded away. He didn't know what to say. What he could say. A robe discarded on a stony strand. They would find it. Might even have done so by now. Shall the maiden never walk the bright fields again?
"You had better stay here tonight," he said, finally. "The streets will be dangerous. You shouldn't have come out, you know."