Polio came in bearing a bronze lamp, shielding the wick with his long fingers. “Shall I call for the cook?”
“No, let’s see what we have first. Light the way for me, Polio. Kassander is an impatient son of a bitch, but even he doesn’t turn out at this hour on a whim.”
The two men walked along the passageway in a fluttering globe of yellow lamplight while their shadows capered around them. Polio was a spare, elderly man with a broad grey beard. He wore a slave-collar, but it was chased with gold, and from his shoulders hung a himation of fine white linen.
Karnos wore a food-stained chiton of plain undyed wool. He was a broad, beefy man with a round paunch and a close-cropped black beard. His hair, worn long, was dressed with oil and he bore several rings on each hand. His bare feet slapped on the stone floor.
“Was he alone?”
“He came with an escort of spearmen, master, but they remained outside.”
“Fuck – then it’s official. Rouse the household and lay out my council robes, and a good cloak.”
“Some food, perhaps -”
“Wine – lots of it. The good stuff. It must be bad news; no-one ever brings good tidings in the dark. We’ll have it in the study. And have some sent out to the escort.”
A wide space surrounded by pale-pillared colonnades, open to the sky. Karnos gritted his teeth against the cold. There was the rill of water from the courtyard fountain, the glow of the solitary lamp kept burning by the gate-shrine, and a brazier for the doorman, the coals dull and almost dead. Beside it stood a large shadow, red-lit by the charcoal, and to one side the slim shape of a shivering slave-girl, a glass jug in her fists.
“Leave us, Crania,” Karnos said crisply. The girl fled, feet pattering on the chill stone.
“Kassander?”
The shadow resolved itself into a massive cloaked figure, as broad as Karnos but taller.
“You keep buying up all the pretty girls, Karnos. How many do you have stashed away here now?”
“If you want one, I’ll lend her to you – now what’s the news that has me shivering like a spent horse here in the night with Phobos leering down at me?”
Kassander drained his cup. “Word from the east. Hal Goshen has surrendered to him.”
Karnos leant against a marble pillar, the last of the bedroom’s warmth sucked out of him. “Ah, hell.” He rubbed one hairy-knuckled hand over his face, and seemed to feel the weight of his years and the loom of the winter weigh down his very bones.
“I told them, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did,” Kassander said. “You have been proved right at every turn. There’s good in that – it means they may pay heed to you now.”
Karnos raised his head sharply, a sneer splitting his beard. “You think so? Brother, you have a faith in the rationality of men that makes me wonder whether to laugh or weep.”
“If this does not unite the League, nothing will. This could be good news, Karnos – it may be the turning point.”
“Ever the optimist, eh? Who else knows this?”
“It’ll be all over the city by dawn. I’ve already sent couriers to the hinterland, and the Kerusia is being waked as we speak.”
“Come inside with me. My prick has shrivelled up like a raisin in this cold – or maybe it’s your news has done it.” Kassander followed him like an obedient bear, tossing his cup into the courtyard pool with a silver splash.
“Light, light!” Karnos roared. “Am I to stagger around in the dark in my own home? Bring a lamp there!”
Polio appeared again. He bowed to Kassander, who nodded curtly in reply. “Master, your study fire has been lit, and -”
“Have my clothes laid out there, Polio, and rouse out the stables. I want the black gelding warmed up and shining, my best harness. I’ll be going to the Empirion with the dawn.”
Polio bowed again, handed his lamp to Karnos, and glided away.
The household was coming to life, slaves scurrying everywhere with lamps in their hands, unintelligible shouts emanating from the kitchens at the back of the house. Karnos and Kassander strode along the corridors, oblivious, until a heavy door was swung back to reveal a firelit room, littered with scrolls and papers, and a wide-eyed slave who bowed deeply, placed a tumble of clothing on the desk and fled, mumbling inanities.
“You’ve too many slaves,” Kassander said, unlooping the end of his cloak from his arm. “They’re underfoot like damned cockroaches. Can’t you hire some free-men to light your fires and groom your horses?”
“Free men have loyalties and families and worries of their own,” Karnos said, sweeping the piled papers from two iron-framed chairs. “Slaves only have to worry about their job. They do that well, and they have no other worries in the world.” He threw off his woollen chiton and stood naked in the firelight, then began to dress in the clothing the slave had abandoned.
“You’d have been Speaker far sooner if the world did not look askance at the harem you have here. There’s jokes about you and your insatiable prick scrawled across every wineshop wall in the Mithannon.”
“Insatiable, eh?” Karnos said with a grin. His head emerged from the neck of a black linen chiton. “I like that. The people love a politician whose vices are out in the open, Kassander – they know he has less to hide. Me, I love women -”
“Then marry one.”
“Are you insane? No, no. I flirt with power and I fuck slaves. Good decent women are too dangerous for a man like me. And I’m near forty now – too old to be learning the ways of a wife. Have a seat. No, you make my blood run cold merely by mentioning it – and you know the regard I have for your sister -”
“She thinks the sun rises and sets on you, Haukos knows why.”
“She is the very picture of a virtuous lady, a credit to your family. If I married her, she’d – well, you know what would happen. No, one day soon she will see sense and marry some other worthy fellow who will come home sober every night and plant her with babies. Enough.” He patted down his fine chiton and stepped into a pair of beaten sandals. “Now where is the fucking wine? Polio!”
The wine arrived, borne by an absurdly pretty girl whose tunic barely reached her thighs. Polio stood over her like a stern father.
“Master, will that be all?”
“For now. We’ll eat later – have the cook run up some of that good broth we had yesterday. And make sure no-one comes near this door, Polio.”
Polio bowed and withdrew, as stately as a grey-bearded king.
Karnos sat down and poured two clay cups of wine. He stuck his fingers into his own glass and flicked a few drops into the fire. “For Phobos, the rotten bastard – a libation.”
Kassander did the same with a big man’s slow smile. “For Haukos, who has not turned his face from us yet.”
“Your sunny disposition makes me want to puke,” Karnos said. “What are the details of the thing, or don’t we know them yet?”
Kassander leaned back in his chair with a sigh, making the ironwork creak under his bulk.
“The same story we’ve seen before. Scare the little people with the size of his army, offer them easy terms, and move on.”
“He had only just arrived before their walls,” Karnos said, punching his knee. “I thought we had time – Phaestus assured us he would hold out.”
“Phaestus was overruled, and declared ostrakr. Sarmenian was installed as governor.”
“Sarmenian! That rat-faced prick. I had him to dinner last month and he was full of shit about how Hal Goshen would halt the invader in his tracks. Bastard. He has a tiny cock, too; Grania told me.”
“Whatever the size of his instrument, he now rules Hal Goshen as tyrant, under Corvus. But there’s more, Karnos.”
“I see it in your face. You’re saving the best for last, you big fuck. Well, toss it at me if you must.”
“Rictus of Isca was at Hal Goshen. He has thrown in his lot with the invader.”
Karnos stood up. He set his wine cup on the desk, spilling some of the berry-dark liquid on the papers there. He stood before the fire and stared blindly into the flames whilst Kassander wiped up the spill doggedly with the hem of his cloak.