Lord of Emperors

It seemed the sea salt had been forgotten after all, or forgiven.

The dinner had begun on a high-pitched note of distraction and excitement, the guests chattering furiously about the arrival and immediate departure of the Supreme Strategos and his wife with the young western queen. Gisel of the Antae had arrived to join the banquet here. An unanticipated presence, a gift of sorts offered by Shirin to her other guests: the chance to dine with royalty. But the queen had then accepted a suggestion made by the Strategos that she return with him to the Imperial Precinct to discuss the matter of Batiara—her own country, after all—with certain people there.

The implication, not lost on those present, and relayed to a keenly interested Strumosus in the kitchen by the clever dark-haired girl, was that the certain person might be the Emperor himself.

Leontes had expressed distress and surprise, the girl said, that the queen had not been consulted or even apprised to this point and vowed to rectify the omission. He was impossibly wonderful, the girl had added.

So, in the event, there was no royalty at the U-shaped table arrangement in the dining room after all, only the memory of royalty among them and royalty’s acid, castigating tone directed at the most important soldier in the Empire. Strumosus, learning of the queen’s departure, had been predictably disappointed but then unexpectedly thoughtful. Kyros was just sorry not to have seen her. You missed a lot in the kitchen sometimes, attending to the pleasure of others.

The dancer’s servants and the ones she’d hired for the day and the boys they’d brought with them from the compound seemed to have finished clearing the tables. Strumosus eyed them carefully as they assembled now, straightening tunics, wiping at spots on cheek or clothing.

One tall, very dark-eyed, well-made fellow—no one Kyros knew—met the chef’s glance as Strumosus paused in front of him and murmured, with an odd half-smile, ‘Did you know that Lysippus is back?’

It was said softly, but Kyros was standing beside the cook, and though he turned quickly and busied himself with dessert trays he had good ears.

He heard Strumosus, after a pause, say only, ‘I won’t ask how you came by that knowledge. There’s sauce on your forehead. Wipe it off before you go back out.’

Strumosus moved on down the line. Kyros found himself breathing with difficulty. Lysippus the Calysian, Valerius’s grossly fat taxation master, had been exiled after the Victory Riot. The Calysian’s personal habits had been a cause of fear and revulsion among the lower classes of the City; his had been a name used to threaten wayward children.

He had also been Strumosus’s employer before he was exiled.

Kyros glanced furtively over at the chef, who was sorting out the last of the serving boys now. This was just a rumour, Kyros reminded himself, and the tidings might be new to him but not necessarily to Strumosus. In any case, he had no way to sort out what it might mean, and it was none of his affair in any possible way. He was unsettled, though.

Strumosus finished arranging the boys to his satisfaction and sent them parading back out to the diners with ewers of sweetened wine and the great procession of desserts: sesame cakes, candied fruit, rice pudding in honey, musk melon, pears in water, dates and raisins, almonds and chestnuts, grapes in wine, huge platters of cheeses—mountain and lowland, white and golden, soft and hard—with more honey for dipping, and his own nut bread. A specially baked round loaf was carried up to the bride and groom with two silver rings inside that were the chef’s gift to them.

When the last platter and tray and flask and beaker and serving dish had gone out and no sounds of catastrophe emerged from the dining hall, Strumosus finally allowed himself to sit on a stool, a cup of wine at his elbow. He didn’t smile, but he did set down his wooden spoon. Watching from the corner of his eye, Kyros sighed. They all knew what the lowered spoon meant. He allowed himself to relax.

‘I imagine,’ said the chef to the room at large, ‘that we have done enough to let the last of the wedding day be mild and merry and the night be what it will.’ He was quoting some poet or other. He often did. Meeting Kyros’s glance, Strumosus added, softly, ‘Rumours of Lysippus bubble up like boiled milk every so often. Until the Emperor revokes his exile, he isn’t here.’

Which meant he knew Kyros had overheard. He didn’t miss much, Strumosus. The chef looked away and around the crowded kitchen. He lifted his voice, ‘A serviceable afternoon’s work, all of you. The dancer should be happy out there.’

‘She says to tell you that if you do not come rescue her immediately she will scream at her own banquet and blame you. You understand,’ added the bird, silently, ‘that I don’t like being made to talk to you this way. It feels unnatural.’

As if there was anything remotely natural about any of these exchanges, Crispin thought, trying to pay attention to the conversation around him.

He could hear Shirin’s bird as clearly as he’d heard Linon—provided he and the dancer were sufficiently close to each other. At a distance, Danis’s inward voice faded and then disappeared. No thoughts he sent could be heard by the bird—or by Shirin. In fact, Danis was right. It was unnatural.

Most of the guests were back in Shirin’s reception room. The Rhodian tradition of lingering at table—or couch in the old-style banquets—was not followed in the east. When the meal was done and people were drinking their last cups of mixed or honey-sweetened wine, Sarantines tended to be on their feet again, sometimes unsteadily.

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