Krispos the Emperor k-3

by Harry Turtledove

  Outside in the inner ward, Livanios finished his speech. The Thanasiot soldiers cheered. Syagrios set a strong hand on Phostis' arm. "Come on. Now he'll have time to deal with the likes of you."

  Phostis wanted to jerk away, not just from the contempt in his keeper's voice but also from being handled as if he were only a slab of meat. Back at the palaces, anyone who touched him like that would be gone inside the hour, and with stripes on his back to reward his insolence. But Phostis wasn't back at the palaces; every day reminded him of that in a new way.

  Olyvria trailed along as Syagrios led him out to Livanios. The Thanasioi who still filled the courtyard made room for the ruffian and for Livanios' daughter to pass. Phostis they eyed with curiosity: some perhaps wondering who he was; and others, who knew that much, wondering what he was doing here. He wondered what he was doing here himself.

  Livanios' smile instantly changed him from stern soldier to trusted leader. He turned its full warmth on Phostis. "And here's the young majesty!" he exclaimed, as if Phostis were sovereign rather than prisoner. "How fare you, young majesty?"

  "Well enough, eminent sir," Phostis answered. He'd seen courtiers who could match Livanios as chameleons, but few who could top him.

  The Thanasiot leader said, "Save your fancy titles for the corrupt old court. I'm but another man making his way along the gleaming path that leads to Phos."

  "Yes, sir," Phostis said. He noticed Livanios did not reject that title of respect.

  "Father, I do think he'll choose to join you on the gleaming path," Olyvria said.

  "I hope he does," Livanios said, and then to Phostis: "I hope you do. Our brave and bright warriors surely kept your father from making life difficult for us this year. We have a whole season now in which to build and grow. We'll use it well, I assure you."

  "I don't doubt that," Phostis said. "Your little realm here already reminds me of the way the Empire is run."

  "Does it?" Livanios sounded pleased. "Maybe you can help keep it running as it should, as a matter of fact. Knowing your father, he's doubtless made sure you have some of the same skills he uses, though now you'd turn them to the cause of righteousness."

  "Well, yes, some," Phostis said, not caring to admit he'd disliked and scanted administering imperial affairs. He wanted Livanios to think of him as someone useful, not as foe or a potential rival to be disposed of.

  "Good, good." Livanios beamed. "We'll yet scour greed and miserliness and false doctrine from the face of the earth, and usher in such a reign of virtue that Phos' triumph over Skotos will be soon and certain."

  Olyvria clapped her hands in delight at the vision her father put forward. It excited Phostis, too; this was the way Digenis had spoken. Before, Livanios had seemed more an officer out for his own advantage than someone truly committed to Thanasios' preaching. If he meant to put it into effect, Phostis would have more reason to think hard about fully binding himself to the movement.

  Syagrios said, "We'll hit the imperials some more licks, too. I want to be in on that, by the good god."

  "There'll be slaughter aplenty for you, never fear," Livanios told him. Phostis' newly fired zeal chilled as suddenly as it had heated. How, he wondered, could you get rid of greed and at the same time maintain a red zest for slaughter? And how could the gleaming path simultaneously contain both righteousness and Syagrios?

  One thing was clear: he'd have time to find out. Now that his father's push had failed, he'd stay among the Thanasioi indefinitely. Had he really wanted that as much as he'd thought before he got it? He'd find that out, too.

  VI

  Krispos paced the palace corridors like a caged animal. The fall rains were done; now sleet and snow came down from the cold gray heavens. The occasional clear days or even, once or twice, clear weeks were salt in his wounds: If they but lasted, he could fare forth once more against the Thanasioi.

  One long stretch of good weather sorely tempted him, but he restrained himself: he knew too well it would not hold. But each successive bright morning gave a fresh twist of the knife. That once, he welcomed the blizzard that blew in. Though it trapped him, it let him feel sagacious.

  Now Midwinter's Day, the day of the winter solstice, drew near. Krispos ticked off the passing days on the calendar one by one, but somehow they raced too swiftly even so. He faced the coming solstice with more resignation than joy. Midwinter's Day was the greatest festival of the religious year, but he found himself in no mood to celebrate.

  Not even previewing the mime troupes that would perform in the Amphitheater restored his good humor. Among other things, Midwinter's Day gave folk more license than any other festival, and a good many of the skits poked fun at him for failing to put down the Thanasioi. More than one teased him for losing Phostis, too.

  Not only would he have to watch this foolishness from the imperial box on the spine of the Amphitheater, he'd have to be seen to laugh. An Avtokrator who couldn't take what the mimes dished out quickly forfeited the city mob's fickle favor.

  He took advantage of the imperial dignity to complain loud and often. At last Mystakon, the eunuch chamberlain who had most often served Phostis, said, "May it please your Majesty, I am of the opinion that the young Majesty, were he able, would gladly assume the duty you find onerous."

  Krispos felt his cheeks flame. "Yes, no doubt you're right," he mumbled. After that, he bottled his forebodings up inside himself.

  Perhaps in one of Barsymes' efforts to cheer him, the serving maid Drina showed up in his bed again after a particularly trying day. This time he actively wanted her, or at least his mind did. His body, however, failed to rise to the occasion despite her ingenuity.

  When it became clear nothing was going to happen, she said, "Now don't you fret, your Majesty. It happens to everyone now and again." She spoke so matter-of-factly, he got the idea she was talking from experience. She added, "I'll tell you something else, too: you foolish men make more of a much about it than women ever do. It's just one of those things."

  "Just one of those things," Krispos echoed between clenched teeth. Drina wrapped a robe around her and slipped out of the imperial bedchamber, leaving him alone in the darkness. "Just one of those things," he repeated, staring up at the ceiling. "Just one more thing that doesn't work."

  Maybe Drina knew better than to gossip, or maybe—and more likely, given the way news of any sort raced through the palaces—the servitors knew better than to show the Avtokrator they knew anything. Back in his own days as vestiarios, he'd chattered about Anthimos, though never where Anthimos could listen. At any rate, he heard no sniggers, which relieved him in a way altogether different from the one he'd sought with Drina.

  Compared to failing in bed, the ordeal of facing public mockery on Midwinter's Day suddenly seemed much more bearable. When the day finally dawned, cold and clear, he let Barsymes pour him into his finest ceremonial robe as if it were chain mail to armor him against the taunts he expected.

  The procession from the palaces to the Amphitheater took him past bonfires blazing in the plaza of Palamas. People dressed in their holiday best—women with lace at their throat and ankles, perhaps with a couple of bodice buttons undone or skirts slit to show off a pretty calf; men in robes with fur collars and cuffs—leapt over the fires, shouting "Burn, ill-luck!"

  "Go on, your Majesty, if you care to," Barsymes urged. "It will make you feel better."

  But Krispos shook his head. "I've seen too much to believe ill-luck's so easy to get rid of, worse luck for me."

  Preceded by the dozen parasol bearers protocol required, flanked by bodyguards, the Avtokrator crossed the racetrack that circled the floor of the Amphitheater and took his place on the seat at the center of the spine. Looking up to the top of the great oval was like looking up from the bottom of a soup tureen, save that the Amphitheater was filled with people, not soup. To the folk in the top rows, Krispos could have been only a scarlet dot; to anyone shortsighted up there, he was surely invisible.

  But everyone in the A
mphitheater could hear him. He thought of that as magic of a sort, though in fact it was nothing more—or less—than cleverly crafted acoustics. When he spoke from the Emperor's seat, it was as if he spoke straight into the ear of all the tens of thousands of men, women, and children who packed the arena.

  "People of Videssos," he said, and then again, after his first words won quiet, "people of Videssos, after today the sun, the symbol of the lord with the great and good mind, turns to the north once more. Try as Skotos will, he has not the power to pull it from the sky. May the solstice and the days that follow it give everyone a lesson: even when darkness seems deepest, longer, brighter days lie ahead. And when darkness seems deepest, we celebrate to show we know it cannot rule us. Now let the Midwinter's Day festivities begin!"

  He knew the cheer that rose had more to do with his opening the festival than with what he'd said. Nonetheless, the noise avalanched down on him from all sides until his head rang with it; just as from the Emperor's seat his voice flew throughout the Amphitheater, so every sound within the stone bowl was focused and magnified there.

  Though he'd known in advance his speech would be largely ignored, he spoke, as always, from the center of what most concerned him at the moment. The people would forget his words the moment they were gone; he tried to take them to heart. When things seemed blackest, carrying on was never easy. But if you didn't carry on, how could you make your way to better times?

  Squeals of glee greeted the first mime troupe to appear. The crowd's laughter dinned around Krispos as the performers, some dressed as soldiers, others as horses, pretended to be stuck in the mud. Even if they did lampoon his ill-fated campaign in the westlands, he found himself amused at first. Their act was highly polished, as were most that appeared in the Amphitheater. Rotten fruit and sometimes stones greeted troupes that did not live up to what the city folk thought their due.

  The next group of mimes put on a skit whose theme puzzled Krispos. One of their number wore a costume that turned him into a skeleton. The other three seemed to be servants. They brought him ever more elaborate meals, finally wheeling out a prop feast that looked sumptuous enough to feed half the people in the Amphitheater. But the fellow in the skeleton suit refused everything with comic vehemence, and finally lay stiff and still in the dirt of the racetrack. His underlings picked him up and hauled him away.

  The audience didn't quite know what to make of that show, j either. Most of them sat on their hands. A few roared laughter; a couple of shouts of "Blasphemy!" rang out.

  Krispos got up and walked over to Oxeites the patriarch, who sat a few yards down the spine from his own place. "Blasphemy?" he asked. "Where is the blasphemy—for that matter, where is the point?—in refusing food, most holy sir? Or does the blasphemy lie in mocking that refusal?"

  "Your Majesty, I do not know." The patriarch sounded worried to admit it. Well he might; if he could not untie a theological knot, who in Videssos the city could?

  All the performers in the professional mime troupes were male. It wasn't that way in peasant villages like the one where Krispos had grown up; he smiled to remember the village women and girls doing wicked impressions of their husbands and brothers. But the fellow who played a woman in the next troupe seemed so feminine and so voluptuous that the Avtokrator, who knew perfectly well what he was, found lubricious thoughts prancing through his mind all the same.

  The performer turned his—or her—wiles on another member of the troupe, one dressed in a robe of priestly blue. The cleric proved slaveringly eager to oblige.

  The crowd howled laughter. No one yelled "Blasphemy!" Krispos turned to Oxeites again. He contented himself with raising a questioning eyebrow; if he spoke from the Emperor's seat, the whole Amphitheater would hear him.

  Oxeites coughed in embarrassment. "There was, your Majesty, an, ah, unfortunate incident concerning celibacy while you were, ah, on campaign."

  Krispos walked over to the patriarch's chair so he could talk without being overheard. "I saw no written reports on this, most holy sir. Did you think it would escape my notice? If so, do not make such a mistake again. When a priest drags the reputation of the temples through the bathhouses, I will find out about it. Have I made myself clear enough?"

  "Y-yes, your Majesty." The patriarch was as pale as the pearls that ran riot over his regalia. Keeping unsavory secrets secret was part of the game of Videssian bureaucracy, secular and ecclesiastical alike. Getting found out meant you'd lost a round in that game.

  The Avtokrator began to hope the mimes, poke fun at him as they might, would largely forget Phostis' kidnapping. That hope lasted until the next troupe came on and lampooned him for misplacing his eldest son; by the way the actor in fancy robes portrayed Krispos, his heir might have been a gold coin that had fallen through a hole in his belt pouch. The fellow kept looking behind prop bushes and under stones, as if certain he'd turn up the vanished heir in a moment.

  The audience thought it all very funny. Krispos looked over to see how his other two sons were taking the mimes. He'd seldom seen such rage on Katakolon's face; his youngest son seemed ready to grab a bow and do his best to slaughter the whole troupe. The pretty girl next to Katakolon had her face carefully blank, as if she wanted to laugh but didn't dare.

  A few seats away, Evripos was laughing as hard as some tinker up near the top row of the Amphitheater. He happened to catch Krispos' eye. He choked and grew sober as abruptly as if he'd been caught in some unnatural act. Krispos nodded grimly, as if to say Evripos had better keep himself quiet. He knew his second son hungered for the throne; in Evripos' shoes, he would have hungered for it, too. But displaying exultation because his brother had disappeared would not do.

  By the time the last troupe made its bows and left the Amphitheater, the year's shortest day was almost done. By then, several troupes had satirized Phostis' kidnapping. Krispos endured it as best he could. Evripos sat so still, he might have been carved from stone.

  To end the show, Krispos spoke to the crowd. "Tomorrow the sun will come sooner and leave the sky later. Once again Skotos—" He spat in rejection of the evil god. "—has failed to steal the light. May Phos bless you all, and may your days also be long and filled with light."

  The crowd cheered, almost universally forgetting they'd giggled at the Avtokrator's expense bare minutes before. That was the way of crowds, Krispos knew. He'd started learning how to manipulate the Videssian mob while still a groom in Petronas' service, to help push out Anthimos' then-vestiarios so he could take the eunuch's place. The decades that had passed since had done little to increase his respect for the people in a collective body.

  He got up from the Emperor's seat and took a few steps away from the acoustical focus. Only then could he privately talk aloud, even to himself. "Well, it's over," he said. He'd got through it, his family had got through it, and he didn't think any of the skits had done him permanent harm. Given the way the preceding few months had gone, he could hardly have hoped for better.

  Twilight deepened quickly as, in the company of parasol bearers and Haloga bodyguards, he made his way out of the Amphitheater. He, of course, had his own special exit. Had he wanted to, he could have gone straight back to the palaces under a covered way. But walking through the plaza of Pala-mas, as he had on the way to the mime show in the Amphitheater, gave him a chance to finger the pulse of the city. Ceremonial separated him from his subjects too much as things were. When he got a chance like this, he took it, and so he headed back toward the imperial residence through the square.

  More bonfires burned there now than had when he went into the Amphitheater. People coming out of the mime show queued up to jump over them and burn away the year's accumulated misfortune. A few turned their heads as the Emperor and his retinue went by. One or two even called out, "Joy on the day, your Majesty!"

  "And to you and yours," he called back. On impulse, he added, "May I beg to steal a place in line?"

  Men and women scrambled out of the way to give him what he'd asked fo
r. Some of the Halogai stayed close by him; others, knowing Videssian ways, hurried to the far side of the fire. Krispos took a running start. The scarlet imperial boots were less than perfect footgear for running, but he managed. Leaping with all his strength, he yelled, "Burn, ill-luck!" as he soared over and through the flames. Maybe, as he'd said earlier in the day, it would do no good. But how could it do harm?

  He landed heavily, staggering. One of the guardsmen grabbed his arm and steadied him. "Thanks," he said. His heart pounded, his breath came quick. A run and a jump—was that exerting himself? When he first took the throne, he'd have laughed at the idea. Now it seemed less funny. He shrugged. The only alternative to getting older was not getting any older. This wasn't perfect, but it was better.

  A couple of bonfires over, a young man stooped to ignite a torch. He waved it over his head. Sparks flew through the night. The young man weaved among slower-moving people in the square. Still waving his torch, he shouted, "The gleaming path! Phos bless the gleaming path!"

  For a moment, the cry did not register with Krispos. Then he stopped in midstride, stared, and pointed toward the young man. "That is a Thanasiot. Arrest him!"

  Thinking back afterward, he realized he could have handled things better. Some of his guards dashed after the Thanasiot. So did some people in the crowd. Others, mistaking Krispos' target, chased the wrong man—several wrong men—and got in the way of those pursuing the right one. Shouts and fistfights erupted.

  The young heretic kept right on running and kept right on chanting the Thanasiot war cry. To Krispos' horror, he cast his torch into one of the wood-and-canvas market stalls that were closed for the Midwinter's Day celebration. Flames clung and began to grow.

  All at once Krispos, a lump of ice in his belly, wished the holiday had seen a blizzard or, better yet, a driving rainstorm.

  Rain in the westlands when I didn t want it, he thought wildly, but none now when I can really use it. The weather was not playing fair.

  Neither were the Thanasioi. That first arsonist, no longer obvious for what he was as soon as he'd thrown his torch, vanished into the crowd. But others of his kind dashed here and there, waving torches and yelling acclaim for the gleaming path. In fewer than half a dozen minutes, more than half a dozen fires began to burn.