Krispos the Emperor k-3

by Harry Turtledove

  "That's true," Krispos said as he handed the tablet to Barsymes. The vestiarios quickly read it, then nodded his agreement. Krispos thought back over the histories and chronicles he'd read. He said, "This seems to me to be something new. Aye, the King of Kings and his folk have fooled us many times, but mainly that's meant fooling us about what Makuran intends, to do. Here, though, Rubyab's seen deep into our soul, seen how to make ourselves our own worst foes. That's more dangerous than any threat Makuran has posed in a long time."

  Iakovitzes wrote, "There was a time, oh, about a hundred fifty years ago, when the men from Mashiz came closer to sacking Videssos the city than any Videssian likes to think about. Of course, we'd been meddling in their affairs before then, so I suppose they were out for revenge."

  "Yes, I've seen those tales, too," Krispos said, nodding. "The question, though, is what we do about it now." He eyed Iakovitzes. "Suppose I send you back to Mashiz with a formal note of protest to Rubyab King of Kings?"

  "Suppose you don't, your Majesty," Iakovitzes wrote, and underlined the words.

  "One thing we ought to do is get this tale told as widely as possible." Barsymes said. "If every official and every priest in every town lets the people know Makuran is behind the Thanasioi, they'll be less inclined to go over to the heretics."

  "Some of them will, anyhow," Krispos said. "Others will have heard too many pronouncements from the pulpit and from the city square to take special notice of one more. No, don't look downhearted, esteemed sir. It's a good plan, and we'll use it. I just don't want anyone here expecting miracles."

  "No matter what the priests and the officials say, what we must have is victory," Iakovitzes wrote. "If we can make the Thanasioi stop hurting us, people will see us as the stronger side and pretend they never had a heretical notion in all their born days. But if we lose, the rebels' power will grow regardless of who's behind them."

  "Not so long till spring, either," Krispos said. "May the good god grant us the victory you rightly say we need." He turned to Barsymes. "Summon the most holy patriarch Oxeites to the palaces, if you please. What words can do. they shall do."

  "As you say, your Majesty." The vestiarios turned to go.

  "Wait." Krispos stopped him in midstride. "Before you draft the note, why don't you fetch all three of us a jar of something sweet and strong? Today, by the good god, we've earned a taste of celebration."

  "So we have, your Majesty," Barsymes said with the hint of a smile that was as much as he allowed himself. "I'll attend to that directly."

  The jar of wine became two and then three. Krispos knew he would pay for it in the morning. He'd been a young man when he discovered he couldn't come close to roistering with Anthimos. Older now, he had less capacity than in those days, and less practice at carousing, too. But every so often, once or twice a year, he still enjoyed letting himself go.

  Barsymes, abstemious in pleasure as in most things, bowed his way out halfway down the second jar, presumably to write the letter ordering Oxeites to appear at the palace. Iakovitzes stayed and drank: he was always game for a debauch, and held his wine better than Krispos. The only sign he gave of its effects was that the words he wrote grew large and sprawling. Syntax and venom remained unchanged.

  "Why don't you write like you're drunk?" Krispos asked some time after dinner; by then he'd forgotten what he'd eaten.

  Iakovitzes replied, "You drink with your mouth and then try to talk through it; no wonder you've started mumbling. My hand hasn't touched a drop."

  As the night hours advanced, one of the chamberlains sent to Iakovitzes' house. A couple of his muscular grooms came to the imperial residence to escort their master home. He patted them both and went off humming a dirty song.

  The hallway swayed around Krispos as he walked back from his farewells to Iakovitzes at the entrance: he felt like a beamy ship trying to cope with quickly shifting winds. In such a storm, the imperial bedchamber seemed a safe harbor.

  After he closed the door behind him, he needed a few seconds to notice Drina smiling at him from the bed. The night was chilly; she had the covers drawn up to her neck. "Barsymes is up to his old tricks again," Krispos said slowly, "and he thinks I'm up to mine."

  "Why not, your Majesty?" the serving maid said. "You never know till you try." She threw off the bedclothes. The smile was all she was wearing.

  Even through the haze of wine, memory stabbed at Krispos: Dara had always been in the habit of sleeping without clothes. Drina was larger, softer, simpler—his wife the Empress had always been prickly as a hedgehog. As he seldom did these days, he let himself remember how much he missed her.

  Watching Drina flip away the covers like that took him back almost a quarter of a century to the night he and Dara had joined on this very bed. Even after so long, a remembered thrill of fear ran through him—had Anthimos caught them, he would not be here now, or certain vital parts of him would not. And with the fear came the memory of how excited he'd been.

  The memory of past excitement—and Drina there waiting for him—were enough to summon up at least the beginning of excitement now. He pulled off his robe and tugged at the red boots. "We'll see what happens," he said. "I make no promises: I've drunk a lot of wine."

  "Whatever happens is all right, your Majesty," Drina said, laughing. "Haven't I told you before that you men worry too much about these things?"

  "Women have probably been saying that since the start of time," he said as he lay down beside her. "My guess is that the next man who believes it will be the first."

  But oddly, knowing she had no great expectations helped him perform better than he'd expected himself. He didn't think she was pretending when she gasped and quivered under him; he could feel her secret place clench around him, again and again. Spurred by that, he, too, gasped and quivered a few seconds later.

  "There—you see, your Majesty?" Drina said triumphantly.

  "I see," Krispos said. "This was already a good day; you've made it better still."

  "I'm glad." Drina let out a squeak. "I'd better get up, or else I'll leave stains on the sheet for the washerwomen to giggle at."

  "Do they do that?" Krispos asked. He fell asleep in the middle of her answer.

  By the time spring drew near in Etchmiadzin, Phostis knew every little winding street in town. He knew where the stonecutters had their shops, and the harnessmakers, and the bakers. He knew the street on which Laonikos and Siderina were busy dying—knew it and kept away from it.

  He got more and more chances to wander where he would without Syagrios. Etchmiadzin's wall was too high to jump from without breaking his neck, its single gate too well guarded for him to think of bolting through it and away. And as the weather got better, Syagrios was more and more closeted with Livanios, planning the upcoming summer's campaign.

  Phostis did his best to stay out of Livanios' way. The less he reminded the heresiarch of his presence, the less likely Livanios was to think of him, think of the danger he might represent, and put him out of the way.

  Just wandering, however, was beginning to pall. When he'd had Syagrios at his elbow every hour of the day and night, he was sure just getting away from the ruffian for a little while would bring peace to his soul. And so it had ... for a little while. But the taste of freedom, however small, served only to whet his appetite for more. He was no longer a glad explorer of Etchmiadzin's back alleys. He paced them more like a wildcat searching for an opening in its cage.

  He hadn't found one yet. Maybe around the next corner, he told himself for the hundredth time. He went round the next corner—and almost walked into Olyvria, who was coming around it the other way.

  They both sidestepped in the same direction, which meant they almost bumped into each other again. Olyvria started to laugh. "Get out of my way, you," she said, miming a push at his chest.

  He made as if to stumble backward from it, then bowed extravagantly. "I humbly crave your pardon, my lady; I had no intention of disturbing your glorious progress," he cried. "I
pray that you find it in your heart to forgive me!"

  "We'll see about that," she said darkly.

  By then they were both laughing. Phostis came back up to her and slipped an arm around her waist. She snuggled against him; her chin fit nicely on the top of his shoulder. He wanted to kiss her, but held back—she was still nervous about it. From her perspective, he supposed she had reason to be.

  "What are you doing here?" they both asked in the same breath. That made them laugh again.

  "Nothing much," Phostis answered. "Keeping away from mischief as best I can. What about you?"

  Olyvria was carrying a canvas bag. She pulled a shoe out of it and held it up so close to Phostis' face that his eyes crossed. "I broke off the heel, see?" she said. "There's a little old Vaspurakaner cobbler down this street who does wonderful work. Why not? He's been doing it longer than both of us put together have been alive. Anyway, I was taking it to him."

  "May I accompany you on your journey?" he asked grandly.

  "I hoped you would," she answered, and dropped the wounded shoe back into the bag. Arm in arm, they walked down the little lane.

  "Oh, this place," Phostis said when they reached the cobbler's shop. "Yes, I went by here." Over the door hung a boot carved from wood. To one side of it the wall bore the word shoon in Videssian, to the other what was presumably the same message in the square, blocky characters the "princes" of Vaspurakan used to write their language.

  Phostis peered through one of the narrow windows set into the front wall, Olyvria into the other. "I don't see anyone in there," she said, frowning.

  "Let's find out." Phostis reached for the latch and pulled the door open. A bell rang. The rich smell of leather filled his nose. He motioned for Olyvria to precede him into the cobbler's shop. The door swung shut behind them.

  "He's not here." Olyvria said disappointedly. All the candles and lamps were out; even with them burning, Phostis would have found the shop too dim. Awls and punches, little hammers and trimming knives hung in neat rows on pegs behind the cobbler's bench. No one came out from the back room to answer the bell.

  "Maybe he was taken ill," Phostis said. Something else ran through his mind: Or maybe he'd rather starve himself to death than work any more. But no, probably not. She'd said he was a Vaspurakaner, not a Thanasiot.

  "Here's a scrap of parchment." Olyvria pounced on it. "See if you can find pen and ink. I'll leave him the shoe and a note." She clicked her tongue between her teeth. "I hope he reads Videssian. I'm not sure. Someone could easily have painted that word on the wall for him."

  "Here." Phostis discovered a little clay jar of ink and a reed pen below the tools. "He reads something, anyhow, or I don't think he'd have these."

  "That's true. Thanks." Olyvria scribbled a couple of lines, put her broken shoe on the bench, and secured the parchment to it with a long rawhide lace. "There. That should be all right. If he can't read Videssian, he ought to know someone who can. I hope he's well."

  A donkey went by outside. Its hooves made little wet sucking noises as it lifted them from the mud one after another. It let out a braying squeal of discontent at being ridden in such dreadful conditions. "Ahh, quit your bellyaching," growled the man on its back, who was plainly used to its complaints. The donkey brayed again as it squelched past the cobbler's shop.

  But for the donkey, everything was still save far off in the distance, where a dog barked. Olyvria took a small step toward the door. "I suppose I should get back," she said.

  "Wait," Phostis said.

  She raised a questioning eyebrow. He put his arms around her and bent his face down to hers. Before their lips touched, she pulled back a little and whispered, "Are you sure?" In the murky light, the pupils of her eyes were enormous.

  He wondered how she meant that, but it could have only one answer. "Yes, I'm sure."

  "Well, then." Now she moved forward to kiss him.

  She hesitated once more, just for a heartbeat, when his hand closed on the firm softness of her breast. But then she molded herself against him. They sank down to the rammed-earth floor of the cobbler's shop together, fumbling at each other's garments.

  It was the usual clumsy first time, made more frantic than usual by fear that someone—most likely the cobbler—would walk through the door at the most inopportune moment possible. "Hurry!" Olyvria gasped.

  Phostis did his best to oblige. Afterward, because he'd rushed so, he wasn't sure he'd fully satisfied her. At the time, he didn't worry about it. His mouth slid from hers to her breasts and down the rounded slope of her belly. Her hand was urgent on him. She lay on her rumpled dress. A fold of it got distractingly between them when he scrambled above her. He leaned on one elbow to yank it out of the way. He kissed her again as he slid inside.

  When he was through, he sat back on his haunches, enormously pleased with the entire world. Olyvria hissed, "Get dressed, you lackwit," which brought him back to himself in a hurry. They both dressed quickly, then spent another minute or so dusting off each other's clothes. Olyvria stirred the dirt of the floor around with her foot to cover up the marks they'd left. She looked Phostis over. "Your elbow's dirty." She licked a fingertip with a catlike dab of her tongue and rubbed it clean.

  He held the door for her. They both almost bounded out of the cobbler's shop. Once out on the street again, Phostis said, "Now what?"

  "I just don't know," Olyvria answered after a small pause. "I have to think." Her voice was quiet, almost toneless, as if she'd left behind all her exuberance, all her mischief, with the broken shoe. "I didn't—quite—expect to do that."

  Phostis hadn't seen her at a loss before; he didn't know what to make of it. "I didn't expect to, either." He knew his grin was foolish, but he couldn't help it "I'm glad we did, though."

  She glared at him. "Of course you are. Men always are." Then she softened, a little, and let her hand rest on his arm for a moment. "I'm not angry, not really. We have to see what happens later, that's all."

  Phostis knew what he would like to have happen later, but also had a good notion that mentioning it straight out would make it less likely. Instead, he spoke obliquely. "The flesh is hard to ignore."

  "Isn't it?" Olyvria glanced back at the cobbler's shop. "If we ... well, if we do that again, we'll have to find a better place for it. My heart was in my mouth every second."

  "Yes, I know. Mine, too." But they'd joined anyhow. Like Olyvria, Phostis saw he was going to have to do some hard thinking about that. By every Thanasiot standard, they'd just committed a good-sized sin. He didn't feel sinful, though. He felt relaxed and happy and ready to tackle anything the world threw at him.

  Olyvria might have plucked that thought right out of his brain. She said, "You don't have to worry if you're with child till the moon spins through its phases."

  That sobered him. He didn't have to worry about conceiving, not directly, but if Olyvria's belly started to swell, what would Livanios do? He might force a marriage on them, if that fit into his own schemes. But if it didn't... He might act like any outraged father, and beat Phostis within an inch of his life or even kill him. Or he might give him over to the clergy. The priests of the Thanasioi took a very dim view of carnal pleasures. Their punishments might make him wish Livanios had personally attended to the matter—and, to add humiliation to anguish, would have the vociferous approval of most of the townsfolk.

  "Whatever happens, I'll take care of you," he said at last.

  "How do you propose to manage that?" she asked with a woman's bitter practicality. "You can't even take care of yourself."

  Phostis flinched. He knew she spoke the truth, but having his nose rubbed in it stung. As the Avtokrator's son, he'd never really had to worry about taking care of himself. He was taken care of, simply by virtue—or fault—of his birth. Here in Etchmiadzin, he was also taken care of: as a prisoner. The amount of freedom he'd lost was smaller than it seemed at first glance.

  At Krispos' insistence, he'd studied logic. He saw only one possible conclusi
on. "I'll have to get out. If you like, I'll take you with me."

  As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew he should have kept them in there. Having her laugh at him would be bad enough. Having her tell her father would be a thousand times worse.

  She didn't laugh. She said, "Don't try to run. You'd just be caught, and then you'd never get another chance."

  "But how can I stay here?" he demanded. "Even under the best of circumstances, I'm—" He hesitated, but finished the thought as he'd intended. "—I'm not a Thanasiot, nor likely to become one. I know that now."

  "I know what you mean," Olyvria answered unhappily. Phostis noted she had not said she agreed with him. She shook her head. "I'd better go." She hurried away.

  He started to call after her, but in the end did not. He kicked at the gluey ground underfoot. In the romances, all your problems were supposed to be over when you made love to the beautiful girl. Olyvria was pretty enough, no doubt about that. But as far as Phostis could see, making love to her had only complicated his life further.

  He wondered why the romances were so popular if they were also so far removed from actuality. That notion disturbed him; he thought the popular should match the real. Then he realized that simple paintings in bright colors might be easier to appreciate than more highly detailed ones—and honey was sweeter than the usual mix of flavors life presented.

  None of which helped him in his present complexities. Here at last he'd found a woman who, he believed, wanted him only for himself, not because of the rank he held or the advantage she might gain from sleeping with him—and who was she? Not just the woman who had kidnapped him and who was the daughter of the rebel who held him prisoner. That would have been muddle enough by itself. But there was more. For all her fencing with him about it, he knew she took Thanasiot principles seriously—a lot more seriously than Livanios, if Phostis was any judge. And Thanasios, to put it mildly, had not thought well of the flesh.