Krispos the Emperor k-3

by Harry Turtledove

  Phostis maintained what he hoped was a dignified silence. He feared hope outran reality. Dignity came easily when backed up with embroidered robes, unquestioned authority, and a fancy palace with scores of servants. It was harder to bring off for someone in a threadbare tunic with a rope round his ankle, and harder still when a few days before he'd fouled himself while in the power of the people he was trying to impress.

  The wagon rattled around another bend, which meant Phostis spent more time hiding—or was the proper expression being hidden? Even his grammar tutor would have had trouble deciding that—in the back of the wagon. This time, though, Syagrios grunted in satisfaction when the corner was safely turned; Olyvria softly clapped her hands together.

  "Come on up, you," Syagrios said. "We're just about there."

  Although he couldn't smell the sea, Phostis still thought there would be the port of Pityos. He'd never seen Pityos, but imagined it to be something on the order of Nakoleia, though likely even smaller and dingier.

  The town ahead was smaller and dingier that Nakoleia, but there its resemblance to Phostis' imaginings ceased. It was no port at all, just a huddle of houses and shops in a valley a little wider than most. A stout fortress with walls of forbidding gray limestone dominated the skyline as thoroughly as did the High Temple in Videssos the city.

  "What is this place?" Phostis asked. He regretted his tone at once; he'd plainly implied the town was unfit for human habitation. As a matter of fact, that was his opinion—how could anyone want to live out his life trapped in a single valley? And how could anyone trapped in a single valley have a life worth living? But letting his captors know what he thought seemed less that clever.

  Syagrios and Olyvria looked at each other across him. When she spoke, it was to her comrade: "He'll find out anyhow." Only when Syagrois reluctantly nodded did she answer Phostis: "The name of this town is Etchmiadzin."

  For a moment, he thought she'd sneezed. Then he said, "It sounds like a Vaspurakaner name."

  "It is," Olyvria said. "We're hard by the border here, and a fair number of princes still call this town home. More to the point, though, Etchmiadzin is where the pious and holy Thanasios first preached, and the chief center of those who follow his way."

  If Etchmiadzin was the chief center of the Thanasioi, Phostis was glad his kidnappers hadn't taken him to some outlying hamlet. Back at Videssos the city, he would have blurted out that thought, had it occurred to him. His friends and hangers-on—sometimes it was hard to tell the one group from the other—would have bawled laughter, probably drunken laughter, too. In his present circumstances, silence again seemed the smarter course.

  The people of Etchmiadzin went stolidly about their business, taking no notice of the incognito arrival in their midst of a junior Avtokrator. As Olyvria had said, a good many of them seemed to be of Vaspurakaner blood, broader-shouldered and thicker-chested than their Videssian neighbors. An old Vaspurakaner priest, his robe of different cut and a darker blue than those orthodox clerics wore, stumped down an unpaved street, leaning on a stick.

  The men on guard outside the fortress were about as far removed from the Halogai in the gilded mail shirts as was possible while still retaining the name of soldier. Not one fighter's kit matched his comrade's; the guards leaned and slouched at every angle save the perpendicular. But Phostis had seen the measuring stare in these wolves' eyes on the faces of the northern men in the capital as they sized up some new arrival at the palaces.

  As soon as the guards recognized Syagrios and Olyvria, though, they came to excited life, whooping, cheering, and pounding one another on the back. "By the good god, you did nab the little bugger!" one of them yelled, pointing toward Phostis. As a form of address, that hit a new low.

  "Inform my father that he's here, if you would, friends," Olyvria said; from her lips, as from Digenis', the greeting of the Thanasioi came fresh and sincere.

  The rough men hurried to do her bidding. Syagrios reined in and alighted from the wagon. "Give me your foot," he told Phostis. "You ain't gonna run away from here." As if reading his captive's mind, he added, "If you try to kick me in the face, boy, I won't just beat you. I'll stomp you so hard you won't breathe without hurting for the next year. You believe me?"

  Phostis did, as fully as he believed in the lord with the great and good mind, not least because Syagrios looked achingly eager to do as he'd threatened. So the heir to the imperial throne sat quietly while the driver cut through the rope. Perhaps he and Syagrios shared the Thanasiot theology. That would never make them friends. Phostis had made orthodox enemies when orthodox himself; he saw no reason why one Thanasiot should not despise another as a man, even if they held to the same dogmas.

  The guards came straggling back, one a few paces behind the other. The fellow who got back to his post first waved to usher Olyvria, Syagrios, and even Phostis into the fortress. Syagrios shoved Phostis forward, none too gently. "Get moving, you."

  He got moving. More soldiers—no, warriors was probably a better word for them, as they had ferocity but seemed without discipline—traded strokes or shot at propped up bales of hay or simply sat around and chattered in the inner ward. They waved to Syagrios, nodded respectfully to Olyvria, and paid Phostis no attention whatever. In his plain, cheap tunic, he did not look as if he deserved attention.

  The iron-fronted door to the keep was open. Propelled by another shove from Syagrios, Phostis plunged into gloom. He stumbled, not sure where he was going and even less sure of his footing. Olyvria murmured, "Turn left at the first opening."

  He obeyed gratefully. Only when he was inside the chamber did he think to wonder if Syagrios was really as harsh and Olyvria as kindly as they appeared to be. Snapping him back and forth between them like a ball thrown in a bath house struck him as a good way to weaken whatever resolve he had left.

  "Come in, young majesty, come in!" exclaimed the slim little man sitting in a high-backed chair at the far end of the chamber. So this was Livanios, then. He sounded as cordial as if he and Phostis were old friends, not captor and captive. The smile on his face was warm and inviting—was, in fact, Olyvria's smile set in a face framed by a neat, graying beard and marred from a couple of sword cuts. It made Phostis want to trust him—and made him want to distrust himself on account of that.

  The chamber itself had been set up to imitate, as closely as was possible in the keep of a fortress in the middle of the back of beyond, the Grand Courtroom in the palace compound back at Videssos the city. To someone who had never seen the real Grand Courtroom, it might have been impressive. Phostis, who'd grown up there, found it ludicrous. Where was the marble double colonnade that led the eye to the distant throne? Where were the elegant and richly clad courtiers who took their place along the way to the Emperor? The handful of rudely staring soldiers made a poor substitute. Nor were the ragged priest and the nondescript fellow in a striped caftan adequate replacements for the ecumenical patriarch and the lofty Sevastos who stood before the Avtokrator's high seat.

  Phostis knew a weird mental shift as he reminded himself he'd come to despise the pomp and ostentation that surrounded his father. He also wondered why the leader of the radically egalitarian Thanasioi wanted to mimic that pomp.

  He had, however, bigger worries. Livanios brought them into sudden sharp focus, saying, "So how much will your father give to have you back. I don't mean gold; we of the gleaming path despise gold. But surely he will yield land and influence to restore you to his side."

  "Will he? I wonder." Phostis' bitterness was not altogether feigned. "We've always quarreled, my father and I. For all I know, he's glad to have me gone. Why not? He has two other sons, both of them more to his liking."

  "You undervalue yourself in his eyes," Livanios said. "He's turned the countryside around the imperial army upside down searching for you."

  "He searches sorcerously as well, and with the same determination," the man in the caftan said. His Videssian held a vanishing trace of accent.

  Phostis
shrugged. Maybe what he heard was true, maybe not. Either way, it mattered little. He said, "Besides, what makes you think I want to go back to my father? By all I've heard of you Thanasioi, I'd sooner live out my days with you than smother myself in things back at the palace."

  He didn't know whether he was telling the truth, telling part of the truth, or flat-out lying. The doctrines of the Thanasioi drew him powerfully. Of so much he was sure. But would men who observed all those fine-sounding principles stoop to something so sordid as kidnapping? Maybe they would, if their faith let them pretend to be orthodox to preserve themselves. If so, they were the best actors he'd ever run across. They even fooled him.

  Livanios said, "I've heard somewhat of this from my daughter and the holy Digenis both. The possibilities are ... interesting. You'd truly rather live out your days in the want that is our lot than in the luxury you've always known?"

  "I fear more for my soul than for my body," Phostis said. "My body is but a garment that will wear out all too soon. When it's tossed on the midden, what difference if it once was stained with fancy dyes? My soul, though—my soul goes on forever." He sketched Phos' sun-sign above his breast.

  Livanios, the priest, Olyvria, even Syagrios also traced quick circles. The man in the caftan did not. Phostis wondered about that. An imperfectly pious Thanasiot struck him as a contradiction in terms. Or perhaps not—that label fit him pretty well. Was he claiming more belief than he really felt to get Livanios to treat him mildly? He had trouble reading his own heart.

  "What shall we do with you?" Livanios said musingly. By his tone, Phostis would have bet the heretics' leader was wondering about the same questions that had gone through his own mind. Livanios went on, "Are you one of us, or do we treat you merely as a piece in the board game, to be placed in the square of greatest advantage to us at the proper time?"

  Phostis nodded at the analogy; whatever else could be said about him, Livanios knew how to compare ideas. Pieces taken off the board in the Videssian game of stylized combat were not gone for good, but could be returned to action on the side of the player who had captured them. That made the board game harder to master, but also made it a better model for the involuted intricacies of Videssian politics and civil strife.

  "Father, may I speak?" Olyvria said.

  Livanios laughed. "When have I ever been able to tell you no? Aye, say what's in your mind."

  "There is a middle way in this, then," she said. "No one of spirit, whether he followed the gleaming path or not, could be happy with us after we stole him away and brought him here against his will. But once here, how could one of good will not see how we truly live our lives in conformity to Phos' holy law?"

  "Many might fail to see that," Livanios said dryly. "Among them I can name Krispos, his soldiers, and the priests he has in his retinue. But I see you're not yet finished. Say on, by all means."

  "What I was going to suggest was not clapping Phostis straightaway into a cell. If and when we do return him to the board, we don't want him turning back against us the instant he finds the chance."

  "Can't just let him run loose, neither," Syagrios put in. "He tried to get away once, likely thought about it a lot more'n that. You're just askin' to have him run back home to his papa if he gets on a horse without nobody around him."

  Phostis kicked himself for a fool for trying to make a break at the farm house. The skinny fellow had kicked him, too, a lot harder.

  Olyvria said, "I wasn't going to suggest we let him run loose. You're right, Syagrios; that's dangerous. But if we take him around Etchmiadzin and to other places where the gleaming path is strong, we can show him the life he was on the edge of embracing for himself before we lay hold of him. Once he sees it, as I said, once he accepts it, he may become fully one of us regardless of how he got here."

  "That might have some hope of working," Livanios said, and Phostis' heart leaped. The heresiarch, however, was very Videssian in his ability to spot betrayal before it sprouted: "It might also give him an excuse for hypocrisy and let him pick his own time and place to flee us."

  "Aye, that's so, by the good god," Syagrios growled.

  Steepling his fingers, Livanios turned to Phostis. "How say you, young Majesty?" In his mouth the title was, if not mocking, at least imperfectly respectful. "This affects you, after all."

  "So it does." Phostis tried to match dry with dry. If he'd thought fulsome promises would have kept him out of a small, dark, dank chamber, he would have used them. But he guessed Livanios would assume fulsome promises to be but fulsome lies. He shrugged and answered, "The choice is yours. If you don't trust me, you won't believe what I say in any case."

  "You're clever enough, aren't you?" Sitting in his high-backed chair, Livanios reminded Phostis of a smug cat who'd appointed himself judge of mice. Phostis had never been a mouse before; he didn't care for the sensation. Livanios went on, "Well, we can see how it goes. All right, young majesty, no manacles for you." Not now, Photis heard between the words. "We'll let you see us—with suitable keepers, of course—and we'll see you. Later on we'll decide what's to be done with you in the end."

  The priest who stood in front of Livanios smiled as widely as his pinched features would permit and made the sun-sign once more. The man in the caftan, who stood at Livanios' right, half turned and said, "Are you sure this is wise?'

  "No," Livanios answered frankly; he did not seem annoyed to have his decision questioned. "But I think the reward we may reap repays the risk."

  "They would never take such a chance back in—"

  Livanios held up a hand. "Never mind what they would do there. You are here, and I hope you will remember it." He might listen to his adviser's opinion, but kept a grip on authority. The man in the caftan put both hands in front of him and bowed almost double, acknowledging that authority.

  "If he is to be enlarged, even in part, where shall we house him?" Olyvria asked her father.

  "Take him up to a chamber on the highest floor here," Livanios answered. "With a guard in the corridor, he'll not escape from there unless he grows wings. Syagrios, when he is out and about, you'll be his principal keeper. I charge you not to let him flee."

  "Oh, he won't." Syagrios looked at Phostis as if he hoped the younger man would try to get away. Phostis had never seen anyone who actually looked forward to hurting him before. His testicles crawled up into his belly.

  He said, "I don't want to go anywhere right now, except maybe to sleep."

  "Spoken like a soldier," Livanios said with a laugh. Syagrios shook his head, denying Phostis deserved the name. Phostis didn't know if he did or not. He might have found out, had the Thanasioi not kidnapped him. But could he have fought against them? He didn't know that, either. He contented himself with ostentatiously ignoring Syagrios. That made Livanios laugh harder.

  "If he wants to sleep, he may as well," Olyvria said. "By your leave, Father, I'll take him up to one of the rooms you suggested."

  Livanios waved an airy hand as if he were the Avtokrator granting a boon. Having watched Krispos all his life, Phostis had seen the gesture better done. Olyvria led him toward the spiral stairway. Syagrios pulled an unpleasantly long, unpleas-

  antly sharp knife from his belt and followed the two of them. The ruffian, Phostis thought, was not subtle in his messages.

  Doing his best to keep on pretending Syagrios did not exist, Phostis turned to Olyvria and said, "Thank you for keeping me out of the dungeon, at any rate." He wondered why she'd taken his side; from a young man raised in the palaces, calculation of advantage came naturally as breathing.

  "It's simple enough: I think that, given the chance, you will take your place on the gleaming path," Olyvria answered. "Once you forgive us for the unkind way we had to grab you, you'll see—I'm sure you'll see—how we live in accord with Phos' teachings, far more so than those who pride themselves on how fat their bellies are or how many horses or mistresses they own."

  "How could anyone doubt surfeit is wrong?" Phostis said, and Olyvr
ia beamed. But Phostis wondered if sufficiency was wrong, too: the glutton deserved the scorn he got, but was having a belly not growling with hunger every hour of the day also something to condemn? He knew what his father's answer would have been. Then again, he also remained sure his father did not have all the answers.

  In normal circumstances, he might have enjoyed arguing the theology of it, especially with an attractive young woman. The knife Syagrios held a couple of feet from his kidneys reminded him how abnormal these circumstances were. Theological disputation would have to wait.

  The way he wobbled by the time he got to the head of the stairs also reminded him he was not all he could have been. His own belly grumbled and cried out for more nourishment than he'd had lately.

  The chamber to which Olyvria led him was severely simple. It held a straw pallet covered with linen ticking, a blanket that looked as if it had seen better years, a couple of three-legged stools, and a chamber pot with some torn rags beside it. The rest—floors, wall, ceiling—was blocks of bare gray stone. Livanios did not have to fret about his growing wings, either: even if he did sprout feathers, he couldn't have slipped through the slit window that gave the little room what light it had.

  The door had no bar on the outside, but it had none on the inside, either. Syagrios said, "Someone will be in the hall watching you most of the time, boy. You'll never know when.

  Even if you do get lucky, someone will catch you in the stairs or in the hall or in the ward. You can't run. Get used to it."

  Olyvria added, "Our hope is that you won't want to run, Phostis, that you'll find you've gained by coming here, no matter how little you care for the way you traveled. When you see Etchmiadzin, when you see the gleaming path as it leads toward Phos and his eternal life, we hope you'll become one of us."

  She sounded very earnest. Phostis had trouble believing she was acting—but she'd fooled him before. He wondered if her father truly wanted him to take his place on the gleaming path. As things stood, Livanios led the Thanasioi, at least in battle. But an Avtokrator's son had a claim on leadership merely because of who he was. Maybe Livanios thought Phostis would be a pliant puppet. Phostis had his own opinion of that.