The Sarantine Mosaic by Guy Gavriel Kay

had a recent wound on his chin. The eastern accent was pronounced. ‘I said my name is Tilliticus. Sarantine Imperial Post. I’m looking for a man named Martinian. An artisan. They said he’d be here.’
    Pardos, intimidated, could only gesture towards the sanctuary. Martinian, as it happened, was asleep on his stool in the doorway, his much-abused hat pulled over his eyes to block the afternoon sunlight.
    â€˜Deaf and mute. I see,’ said the courier. He clumped off through the grass towards the building.
    â€˜I’m not,’ said Pardos, but so softly he wasn’t heard. Behind the courier’s back, he flapped urgently at two of theother apprentices, trying to signal them to wake Martinian before this unpleasant man appeared in front of him.
    HE HAD NOT BEEN ASLEEP . From his favourite position— on a pleasant day, at any rate—in the sanctuary entrance, Martinian of Varena had noticed the courier riding up from a distance. Grey and white showed clearly against green and blue in sunlight.
    He and Crispin had used that concept, in fact, for a row of Blessed Victims on the long walls of a private chapel in Baiana years ago. It had been only a partial success—at night, by candlelight, the effect was not what Crispin had hoped it would be—but they’d learned a fair bit, and learning from errors was what mosaic work was about, as Martinian was fond of telling the apprentices. If the patrons had had enough money to light the chapel properly at night, it might have been different, but they’d known the resources when they made their design. It was their own fault. One always had to work within the constraints of time and money. That, too, was a lesson to be learned—and taught.
    He watched the courier stop by Pardos at the lime kiln and he tipped his hat forward over his eyes, feigning sleep. He felt a peculiar apprehension. No idea why. And he was never able to give an adequate explanation afterwards, even to himself, as to why he did what he did next that autumn afternoon, altering so many lives forever. Sometimes the god entered a man, the clerics taught. And sometimes daemons or spirits did. There were powers in the half-world, beyond the grasp of mortal men.
    He was to tell his learned friend Zoticus, over a mint infusion some days later, that it had had to do with feeling old that day. A week of steady rain had caused his finger joints to swell painfully. That wasn’t really it, however. He was hardly so weak as to let such a thing lead him into somuch folly. But he truly didn’t know why he’d chosen— with no premeditation whatsoever—to deny being himself.
    Did a man always understand his own actions? He would ask Zoticus that as they sat together in the alchemist’s farmhouse. His friend would give him a predictable reply and refill his cup with the infusion, mixed with something to ease the ache in his hands. The unpleasant courier would be long gone by then, to wherever his postings had taken him. And Crispin, too, would be gone.
    Martinian of Varena feigned sleep as the easterner with the nose and cheekbones of a drinker approached him and rasped, ‘You! Wake! I’m looking for a man named Martinian. An Imperial Summons to Sarantium!’
    He was loud, arrogant as all Sarantines seemed to be when they came to Batiara, his words thick with the accent. Everyone heard him. He meant for them to hear him. Work stopped inside the sanctuary being expanded to properly house the bones of King Hildric of the Antae, dead of the plague a little more than a year ago.
    Martinian pretended to rouse himself from an afternoon doze in the autumn light. He blinked owlishly up at the Imperial Courier, and then pointed a stiff finger into the sanctuary—and up towards his longtime friend and colleague Caius Crispus. Crispin was just then attempting the task of making muddy brown tesserae appear like the brilliant glowing of Heladikos’s