A Burning Sea by Theodore Brun (snow like ashes series TXT) 📗

into the shape of a crescent moon, the centrepiece of the airy dining hall in which Arbasdos had chosen to receive his old ally.

Emperor Leo lay on a plump couch, drinking wine flavoured with storax from a long-stemmed goblet, exchanging pleasantries with his wife, the Basílissa Maria, and private jokes with his host.

The scent of a dozen lamps filled Katāros’s nostrils. Cinnamon, aloeswood and ambergris mingled with the aroma of pine chips crushed with myrtle leaves. In large stone vases around the room were expansive arrangements of white lilies and narcissus flowers. Silanos had arranged everything to appeal to the senses: the young musician hidden behind a screen strumming at a lyre and humming a meandering melody; the heat from the braziers in each corner balanced the cool air stirring off the waters of the Golden Horn through silk veils as fine as spider’s webs. As the sun sank below the western hills, dusk came like a murmur.

Katāros himself hovered like another scent, in attendance should he be called upon for counsel. He did his best to avoid catching the eye of Silanos who was similarly concealed in the shadows and likely to come over and bore him in whispers if he thought Katāros was looking for conversation.

Instead his gaze returned to Leo, this Isaurian general who had risen so high in so short a time that he was said now to be the very vessel of God. Yet he was not prepossessing in any obvious way. He was not particularly handsome in looks, nor noble in demeanour, nor severe in aspect. His nose was broad-bridged and ended bluntly, his eyes were steady, his beard and moustache dark and oiled, his hair fell to his shoulders and was circled by a ruby-encrusted crown. He was altogether ordinary, yet something in him held a man’s gaze. Maybe the power of the imperial crown had a sort of enchantment all of its own. Or maybe it was his air of self-assurance, which seemed to surround him like a cloak. He knew himself and his capabilities exactly. He was a man without doubt.

Both emperor and empress were arrayed in rich, heavy silks of purple. Leo’s wife, Maria, was handsome enough but too thin in the face to be called beautiful, although she had grace about her. Her jet-black hair, common to all Cilicians, was interwoven with golden threads and fashioned in a style not unlike Katāros’s own. Eunuchs and empresses, he thought ruefully. More alike than either would care to admit.

Their daughter the basílopoúla, Princess Anna, was hardly more than a girl – sixteen at most – and she spent most of the evening blushing behind her veil and looking away whenever her future husband’s gaze ventured anywhere near her. Katāros wondered what Arbasdos would make of that, especially if what he had heard of the general was true. But then this marriage was to seal a friendship, not to serve the general’s notoriously insatiable appetites. Doubtless he would look elsewhere for that.

Still, whatever awkwardness existed between the future bride and her high-ranking betrothed, the rest of the company seemed at ease and spoke freely together.

Daniel the eparch was the senior official overseeing the administration of the city. His gluttony was something astonishing to behold but Silanos had made ample provision for it. The eparch greeted every course with a great sigh of pleasure and was always first to whichever new dish was laid before them – something that put his wife into paroxysms of shame since the emperor was supposed to be served first. Leo, apparently, didn’t care.

As for the patriarch Germanus, Katāros held a special loathing for him, despite what they had in common. Or rather, lacked in common. A wizened old stick, he possessed a long thin nose like a heron’s beak, down which he had made a lifelong habit of peering at his inferiors. He even picked at his food like a bird, with sudden snatching movements of his silver-plate fork, and when the talk moved around the table he would squint at the next speaker, struggling to identify who it was. His opinions were a good deal stronger than his eyes.

Katāros watched wave after wave of food served and taken away. Even he would have struggled to name half of what he saw. There was a spiny-headed gurnard, a sweet-and-sour dish swimming in a sauce of saffron and spikenard and vinegared mushrooms; an entire sucking pig slathered in honey vinegar; fried steaks of sea bass; loins of wild Anatolian gazelles served with celery root and fennel; a foamy dish called aphraton made from chicken and egg whites; sweetmeats and frittered fruit pieces; mountains of figs and peaches. And of course wines by the dozen: rose wine, violet wine, chamomile wine, twelve-spice wine, wormwood wine. Katāros felt nauseous just watching, and the guests touched barely half of it, except for the eparch who manfully rose to the challenge. Katāros had counted seven courses when Emperor Leo rapped on the marble table.

‘Dear friends,’ he began, as the small company fell silent. ‘How fortunate we are to call each other that. Don’t you agree, Arbasdos?’

‘With all my heart, Majesty.’

‘You’ve honoured us here tonight. No, spoiled us, damn it! Where’s that genius Silanos?’

The steward emerged from his niche. ‘Majesty.’

‘I salute you, my friend.’ The emperor raised his cup.

‘You flatter, Majesty.’ Silanos scraped out an obsequious bow, then retreated into obscurity.

Leo’s smile faded and he gazed into his cup. ‘We are fortunate, yes. And happy, too. The empire is vulnerable. You and I, dear friend, we knew we had to act and God has seen fit to bless what we have done.’ He smiled down at Arbasdos. ‘That’s why it gives me joy to entrust into your hands what is most precious to me in all the world.’ His eyes fell now to Princess Anna, who sat gazing lovingly up at her father. ‘My heart’s blood. I could not give you up to any man but this one. My prayer is that your