Sailing to Sarantium. Guy Gavriel Kay

      The condition of Daleinus’s body and what remained of his clothing when the dead man was carried on a bier to his home, and then later to his final resting place in the family mausoleum, was such that a widely reported rumour about his attire that morning was also not amenable to official confirmation.

      The clothing had all burned—with or without the much-discussed strip of purple—and most of the elegant aristocrat’s skin had been charred black or scorched entirely away. What remained of his face was horrifying, the features beneath the once-distinguished silver hair a melted ruin. His oldest son and the nephew had also died, and four of his entourage. The surviving son, it was reported, was now blind and unfit to be seen. He was expected to take clerical vows and withdraw from the City.

      Sarantine Fire did that to men.

      It was one of the secrets of the Empire, shielded with ferocity, for it was the weapon that had guarded the City—thus far—from incursions over the water. Terror ran before that molten, liquid fire that set ships and men alight, burning upon the sea.

      It had never, in living memory or in any of the military chronicles, been used within the walls, or indeed in any land engagement of the armies.

      This, of course, directed informed suspicion upon the Strategos of the Navy and, indeed, any other military commanders who might have been able to suborn the naval engineers entrusted with the technique of training the liquid fire through a hose, or launching it through space upon the seafaring enemies of Sarantium.

      In due course a number of appropriate persons were subjected to expert questioning. Their deaths did not, however, serve the ultimate goal of determining who it was who had arranged the hideous assassination of a distinguished patrician. The Strategos of the Navy, a man of the old school, elected to end his life, but left behind a letter declaring his innocence of any crimes and his mortal shame that such a weapon, entrusted to his care, had been used in this way. His death was, accordingly, not a useful one either.

      It was reliably reported that three men had wielded the siphon apparatus. Or five. That they were wearing the colours and had the Bassanid-style clothing and the barbarian moustaches and long hair of the most extreme Green partisans. Or of the Blues. Further, that they wore the light brown tunics with black trim of the Urban Prefect’s men. It was recounted that they had fled east down an alley. Also west. Or through the back of a house on the exclusive, shaded street where the Daleinoi’s City mansion could be found. It was declared, with conviction, that the assassins had been Kindath in their silver robes and blue caps. No evident motive commended itself for this, but those worshippers of the two moons might well do evil for its own sake. Some ensuing, sporadic attacks in the Kindath Quarter were judged excusable by the Urban Prefect, as a way of discharging tensions in the City.

      All the licensed foreign merchants in Sarantium were advised to keep to their allotted quarters of the City until further notice. Some of those who recklessly did not— curious, perhaps, to observe the unfolding events of those days—suffered predictable, unfortunate consequences.

      The assassins of Flavius Daleinus were never found.

      In the meticulous tally of the dead in that difficult time, ordered and executed by the Urban Prefect at the command of the Master of Offices, there was a report of three bodies found washed ashore four days later by soldiers patrolling the coast to the east of the triple walls. They were naked, skin bleached grey-white by the sea, and sea creatures had been at their faces and extremities.

      No connection was ever made between this finding and the events of the terrible night the Emperor Apius went to the god, to be followed in the morning by the noble Flavius Daleinus. What connection could have been made? Bodies were found by fishermen in the water and along the stony beaches east all the time.

      In the private, perhaps petty way of an intelligent man without any real power, Plautus Bonosus rather enjoyed the expression on the Imperial Chancellor’s face when the Master of Offices appeared in the Senate Chamber that morning, shortly after Gesius had arrived.

      The tall, thin eunuch pressed his fingers together and inclined his head gravely, as if Adrastus’s arrival was a source of support and consolation to him. But Bonosus had been watching his face when the ornate doors— rather the worse for their earlier battering—were pried open by the guards.

      Gesius had been expecting someone else.

      Bonosus had a pretty good idea who that might have been. It was going to be interesting, he thought, when all the players in this morning’s pantomime were assembled. Adrastus, clearly, had arrived on his own behalf. With the two most powerful—and dangerous—strategoi and their forces each more than two weeks’ hard marching from Sarantium, the Master of Offices had a legitimate pathway to the Golden Throne—if he moved decisively. His lineage among the ‘Names’ was impeccable, his experience and rank unsurpassed, and he had the usual assortment of friends. And enemies.

      Gesius, of course, could not even imagine Imperial status for himself, but the Chancellor could engineer a succession—or try to do so—that would ensure his own continuance at the heart of power in the Empire. It would be far from the first time one of the Imperial eunuchs had orchestrated affairs of succession.

      Bonosus, listening to the bland shuffle of speeches from his colleagues—variations on a theme of grievous loss and momentous decisions to come—signalled a slave for a cup of chilled wine and wondered who would take a wager with him.

      A charming blond boy—from Karch in the far north, by his colouring—brought his wine. Bonosus smiled at him, and idly watched the boy walk back to the near wall. He reviewed, again, the state of his own relations with the Daleinoi. No conflicts that he knew. Two shared—and profitable—backings of a spice ship to Ispahani some years ago, before his appointment. His wife reported that she greeted the lady wife of Flavius Daleinus when they met at the baths they both preferred, and that she was always responded to politely and by name. This was good.

      Bonosus expected that Gesius would win this morning. That his patrician candidate would emerge as the Emperor Designate, with the eunuch retaining his position as Imperial Chancellor. The conjoined power of the Chancellor and the wealthiest family in the City were more than a match for Adrastus’s ambition, however silken might be the manner and the intricate webs of intelligence spun by the Master of Offices. Bonosus was prepared to risk a sizeable sum on the affair, if he could find a taker.

      Later, he, too, would have cause to be privately grateful—amid chaos—that a wager had not taken place that day.

      Watching as he sipped his wine, Bonosus saw Gesius, with the smallest, elegant gesture of his long fingers, petition Oradius to be allowed to speak. He saw the Master of the Senate bob his head up and down like a street puppet in immediate acknowledgement. He’s been bought, he decided. Adrastus would have his supporters here too. Would doubtless make his own speech soon. It was going to be interesting. Who could squeeze the hapless Senate harder? No one had tried to bribe Bonosus. He wondered if he ought to be flattered or offended.

      As another rote eulogy of the dead, thrice-exalted, luminous, never-to-be-equalled Emperor came to a platitudinous close, Oradius gestured with deference towards the Chancellor. Gesius bowed graciously and moved to the white marble speaker’s circle in the centre of the mosaics on the floor.

      Before the Chancellor began, however, there came another rapping at the door. Bonosus turned, expectantly. This was remarkably well timed, he noted with admiration. Flawlessly, in fact. He wondered how Gesius had done it.

      But it was not Flavius Daleinus who entered the room.

      Instead, an extremely agitated officer of the Urban Prefecture told the assembled Senate about Sarantine Fire loosed in the City and the death of an aristocrat.

      A short time after that, with a grey-faced, visibly aged Chancellor being offered assistance on a bench by Senators and slaves, and the Master of Offices displaying either stupefied disbelief or brilliant acting skills, the august Senate of the Empire heard a mob outside its much-abused doors for the second time that day.

      This time there was a difference. This time there was only one