A louder murmur of sound. There was no heir; everyone knew it. Fotius saw people streaming into the forum from all directions. News of this sort would take no time at all to travel. He took a breath, struggling to hold down a renewed panic. The Emperor was dead. There was no Emperor in Sarantium.

The mounted man again lifted a hand for stillness. He sat his horse straight as a spear, clad as his soldiers were. Only the black horse and a border of silver on his overtunic marked his rank. No pretension here. A peasant from Trakesia, a farmer's son come south as a lad, rising in the army ranks through hard work and no little courage in battle. Everyone knew this tale. A man among men, that was the word on Valerius of Trakesia, Count of the Excubitors.

Who now said, "There will be clerics in all the chapels and sanctuaries of the City, and others will join you here, to lead mourning rites in the Hippodrome under Jad's sun." He made the sign of the sun disk. "Jad guard you, Count Valerius!" someone cried. The man on the horse appeared not to hear. Bluff and burly, the Trakesian never courted the crowd as others in the Imperial Precinct did. His Excubitors did their duties with efficiency and no evident partisanship, even when men were crippled and sometimes killed by them. Greens and Blues were dealt with alike, and sometimes even men of rank, for many of the wilder partisans were sons of aristocracy. No one even knew which faction Valerius preferred, or what his beliefs were, in the manifold schisms of Jaddite faith, though there was the usual speculation. His nephew was a patron of the Blues, that was known, but families often divided between the factions.

Fotius thought about going home to his wife and son after morning prayers at the little chapel he liked, near the Mezaros Forum. There was a greyness in the eastern sky. He looked over at the Hippodrome and saw that the Excubitors, as promised, were opening the gates.