Crispin is a master mosaicist, creating beautiful art with colored stones and glass. Summoned to Sarantium by imperial request, he bears a Queen's secret mission, and a talisman from an alchemist. Once in the fabled city, with its taverns and gilded sanctuaries, chariot races and palaces, intrigues and violence, Crispin must find his own source of power in order to survive-and unexpectedly discovers it high on the scaffolding of his own greatest creation.
The second volume of the Sarantine Mosaic continues the adventure of the provincial mosaic-maker Crispin in the imperial capital Sarantium, a fantasy-fiction version of Byzantine Constantinople. At center stage is Crispin's involvement with Rustem of Bassania and his family, who, after saving the Bassanian emperor's life, have been sent to Sarantium as spies. (This is a reward?) When Rustem enters the city, his bodyguard is killed, and he becomes part of the circle that includes Crispin, Crispin's rescued slave-girl mistress, the exiled queen of Antae, and a fine and authentically limned lot of soldiers, chariot racers, ordinary people, and members of the imperial household.
