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essentially done. Valerius's Sanctuary was complete in its execution. It was,
in fact, ready for him: to house the ruined body.
Only the mosaics and the altars and whatever tomb or memorial they now needed
remained to be achieved. Then the clerics would come in and they would hang
the sun disks in their proper locations and consecrate this as a holy place.
Crispin gazed at what he had journeyed here to achieve, and it seemed to him
as if, in some deep, ultimately inexplicable fashion, just to look was enough
to steady him. He felt the images of the day before recede- Lecanus Daleinus
in his hut, men dying in that clearing, Alixana dropping her cloak on the
beach, the screaming in the streets and the burning fires, Gisel of the Antae
in her carried litter, eyes alight as they went through the dark, and then in
a purple-draped room where Valerius lay dead-all the whirling visions fell
away, leaving him gazing up at what he had made here. The apex of what he
could do, being a fallible mortal under Jad.
You had to live, Crispin thought, in order to have anything to say about
living, but you needed to find a way to withdraw to accomplish that saying. A
scaffolding overhead, he thought, was as good a place as any for that and
better, perhaps, than most.
He went forward, surrounded and eased by the familiar sounds of work, thinking
about his girls now, reclaiming their faces, which he would try to render
today, next to Ilandra and not far from where Lmon lay on the grass.
But before he reached the ladder, before he began to climb to his place above
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the world, someone spoke from behind one of the vast pillars.
Crispin turned quickly, knowing the voice. And then he knelt, and lowered his
head to touch the perfect marble floor.
One knelt before Emperors in Sarantium.
'Rise, artisan,' said Leontes, in the brisk tone of a soldier. 'We owe you
greatly, it seems, for services last night.'
Crispin stood up slowly and looked at the other man. All around the
Sanctuary the noises were coming to a halt. The others were watching them, had
now seen who was here. Leontes wore boots and a dark green tunic with a
leather belt. His cloak was pinned at his shoulder with a golden ornament, but
the effect was unassuming. Another man at work. Behind the Emperor, Crispin
saw a cleric he vaguely recognized, and a secretary he knew very well.
Pertennius had a bruised and swollen jaw. His eyes were icy cold as he looked
at Crispin. Not surprisingly.
Crispin didn't care.
He said, 'The Emperor is gracious beyond my deserving. I simply tried to
assist my queen in her desire to pay homage to the dead. What came
of it has nothing to do with me, my lord. It would be a presumption to claim
otherwise.'
Leontes shook his head. 'What came of it would not have happened without you.
The presumption is to pretend otherwise. Do you always deny your own role in
events?'
'I deny that I had any intended role in ... events. If people make use of me
it is a price I pay to have the chance to do my work.' He wasn't sure why he
was saying this.
Leontes looked at him. Crispin was remembering another conversation with this
man, amid the steam of a bathhouse half a year ago, both of them naked under
sheets. What we build-even the Emperor's Sanctuary-
we hold precariously and must defend. A man had come in to kill
Crispin that day.
The Emperor said, 'And was this true yesterday morning, as well? When you went
to the isle?'
They knew about that. Of course they did. It was hardly likely to have been
kept secret. Alixana had warned him.
Crispin met the other man's blue gaze. 'It is exactly the same, my lord. The
Empress Alixana asked me to accompany her.'
'Why?'
He didn't think they would do anything to him now. He wasn't certain
(how could one be?), but he didn't think so. He said, 'She wished to show me
dolphins in the sea.'
'Why?' Blunt and assured. Crispin remembered that immense self-
confidence. A man never defeated in the field, they said.
'I do not know, my lord. Other things happened, it was never explained.'
A lie. To Jad's anointed Emperor. He would lie for her, however.
Dolphins were a heresy. He would not be the one to betray her. She was gone,
had not reappeared. Would have no power at all now even if she did trust them
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