"What do you know?" she snapped. "You're a man." Since he had just told himself the same thing, he shut up. Nothing he said was apt to be right, so he leaned over her swollen belly to hug her. That was a better idea.
They waited together. After a while, a pain gripped Dara. She clenched her teeth and rode it out. Once it had passed, though, she lay down. She twisted back and forth, trying to find a comfortable position. With her abdomen enormous and labor upon her, there were no comfortable positions to find. Another pain washed over her, and another, and another. Krispos wished he could do something more useful than hold her hand and make reassuring noises, but he had no idea what that something might be.
Some time later—he had no idea how long—someone tapped on the bedchamber door. Krispos got up from the bed to open it. Barsymes stood there with a handsome middle-aged woman whose short hair was so black, Krispos was sure it was dyed. She wore a plain, cheap linen dress. The vestiarios said, "Your Majesty, the midwife Thekla."
Thekla had a no-nonsense air about her that Krispos liked. She did not waste time with a proskynesis, but pushed past Krispos to Dara. "And how are we today, dearie?" she asked.
"I don't know about you, but I'm bloody awful," Dara said.
Unoffended, Thekla laughed. "Your waters broke, right? Are the pangs coming closer together?"
"Yes, and they're getting harder, too."
"They're supposed to, dearie. That's how the baby comes out, after all," Thekla said. Just then Dara's face twisted as another pain began. Thekla reached under Dara's robes to feel how tight her belly grew. Nodding in satisfaction, she told Dara, "You're doing fine." Then she turned to Barsymes. "I don't want her walking to the Red Room. She's too far along for that. Go fetch the litter."
"Aye, mistress." Barsymes hurried away. Krispos judged Thekla's skill by the unquestioning obedience she won from the vestiarios.
Barsymes and a couple of the other chamberlains soon returned. "Put the edge of the litter right next to the side of the bed," Thekla directed. "Now, dearie, you just slide over. Go easy, go easy—there! That's fine. All right, lads, off we go with her." The eunuchs, faces red but step steady, carried the Empress out the door, down the hall, and to the Red Room.
Krispos followed. When he got to the entrance of the Red Room, Thekla said firmly, "You wait outside, if you please, your Majesty."
"I want to be with her," Krispos said.
"You wait outside, your Majesty," Thekla repeated.
This time the midwife's words carried the snap of command. Krispos said, "I am the Avtokrator. I give orders here. Why should I stay out?"
Thekla set hands on hips. "Because, your most imperial Majesty, sir, you are a pest-taken man, that's why." Krispos stared at her; no one had spoken to him like that since he wore the crown, and not for a while before then, either. In slightly more reasonable tones, Thekla went on, "And because it's woman's work, your Majesty. Look, before this is done, your wife is liable to shit and piss and puke, maybe all three at once. She's sure to scream, likely a lot. And I'll have my hands deeper inside her than you ever dreamed of being. Do you really want to watch?"
"It is not customary, your Majesty," Barsymes said. For him, that settled the matter.
Krispos yielded. "Phos be with you," he called to Dara, who was carefully wiggling from the litter to the bed in the Red Room. She started to smile at him, but a pain caught her and turned the expression to a grimace.
"Here, your Majesty, come with me," Barsymes said soothingly. "Come sit down and wait. I'll bring you some wine; it will help ease your worry."
Krispos let himself be led away. As he'd told Mavros, he ruled the Empire but his servants ruled the palaces. He drank the wine Barsymes set before him without noticing if it was white or red, tart or sweet. Then he simply sat.
Barsymes brought in a game board and pieces. "Would your Majesty care to play?" he asked. "It might help pass the time."
"No, not now, thank you. "Krispos' laugh was ragged. "Besides, Barsymes, you'd have a hard time losing gracefully today, for my mind wouldn't be on the board."
"If you notice how I lose, Majesty, then I don't do so gracefully enough," the vestiarios said. He seemed chagrined, Krispos noted, as if he thought he had failed in the quest for perfect service.
"Esteemed sir, just let me be, if you would," Krispos said. Barsymes bowed and withdrew.
Time crawled by. Krispos watched a sunbeam slide across the floor and start to climb the far wall. A servant came in to light lamps. Krispos only noticed him after he was gone.
He was not close to the Red Room. Barsymes, clever as usual, had made sure of that. Moreover, the door to the birthing chamber was closed. Whatever cries and groans Dara made, for a long time he did not hear them. But as the lamps' flickering light grew brighter than the failing day, she shrieked with such anguish that he sprang from his chair and dashed down the hall.
Thekla was indeed a veteran of her trade. She knew who pounded on that door, and why. "Nothing to worry about, your Majesty," she called. "I was just turning the baby's head a little so it'll pass through more easily. The babe has dark hair, a lot of it. Won't be too much longer now."
He stood outside the door, clenching and unclenching his fists. Against Petronas or Harvas, he could have charged home at the head of his troops. Here he could do nothing—as Thekla had said, this was woman's work. Waiting seemed harder to bear than battle.
Dara made a noise he had never heard before, part grunt, part squeal, a sound of ultimate effort. "Again!" he heard Thekla say. "Hold your breath as long as you can, dearie—it helps the push." That sound burst from Dara once more. "Again!" Thekla urged. "Yes, that's the way."
Krispos heard Dara gasp, strain—and then exclaim in excitement. "Your Majesty, you have a son," Thekla said loudly. A moment later, the high, thin, furious cry of a newborn baby filled Krispos' ears.
He tried the door. It was locked. "We're not ready for you yet, your Majesty," Thekla said, annoyance and amusement mixed in her voice. "She still has the afterbirth to pass. You'll see the lad soon enough, I promise. What will you call him?"
"Phostis," Krispos answered. He heard Dara say the name inside the Red Room, too. Sudden tears stung his eyes. He wished his father had lived to see a grandson named for him.
A few minutes later Thekla opened the door. The lamplight showed her dress splashed with blood—no wonder she hadn't worn anything fancy, Krispos realized. Then Thekla held out to him his newborn son, and all such thoughts vanished from his mind.
The baby was swaddled in a blanket of soft lamb's wool. "Five fingers on each hand, five toes on each foot," Thekla said. "A little on the scrawny side, maybe, but that's to be expected when a child comes early." The midwife fell silent when she saw Krispos wasn't listening.
He peered down at Phostis' red, wrinkled little face. Part of that was the awe any new father feels on holding his firstborn for the first time. Part, though, was something else, something colder. He searched those tiny, new-formed features, trying to see in them either Anthimos' smooth, smiling good looks or his own rather craggier appearance. So far as he could tell, the baby looked like neither of its possible fathers. Phostis' eyes seemed shaped like Dara's, with the inner corner of each lid folding down very slightly.
When he said that out loud, Thekla laughed. "No law says a boy child can't favor his mother, your Majesty," she said. "Speaking of which, she'll want another look at the baby, too, I expect, and maybe a first try at nursing him." She stepped aside to let Krispos go into the Red Room.
The chamber stank; Thekla had meant her warning. Krispos did not care. "How are you?" he asked Dara, who was still lying on the bed on which she had given birth. She looked pale and utterly exhausted; her hair, soaked with sweat, hung limply. But she managed a worn smile and held out her hands for Phostis. Krispos gave her the baby.
"He doesn't weigh anything," Dara exclaimed.
Krispos nodded; his arms hardly noticed Phostis was gone. He saw Dara giving Phostis th
e same careful scrutiny he had, no doubt for the same reason. He said, "I think he looks like you."
Dara's eyes went wary as she glanced at him. He smiled back, though he wondered if he would ever be sure who Phostis' father really was. As he had so often before, he told himself it did not matter. As he had so often before, he almost made himself believe it.
"Hold him again, will you?" Dara said. Phostis squalled at being passed back and forth. Krispos clumsily rocked him in his arms. Dara unfastened her dress and tugged it off one shoulder to bare a breast. "I'll take him now. Let's see if this will make him happy."
Phostis rooted, found the nipple, and began to suck. "He likes them," Krispos said. "I don't blame him—I like them, too."
Dara snorted. Then she said, "Ask the kitchen to send me supper, would you, Krispos? I'm hungry now, though I wouldn't have believed it if you'd told me I would be."
"You haven't eaten for quite a while," Krispos said. As he hurried off to do what Dara had asked, he paused and thanked Thekla.
"My pleasure, your Majesty," the midwife said. "Phos grant that the Empress and your son do well. No reason she shouldn't, and he's not too small to thrive, I'd say."
Chamberlains and maidservants congratulated Krispos on having a son as he walked to the kitchens. He wondered how they knew; a baby girl's cry would have sounded the same as Phostis'. But palace servants had their own kind of magic. The moment Krispos walked through the door, a grinning cook pressed into his hands a tray with a jar of wine, some bread, and a covered silver dish on it. "For your lady," the fellow said.
Krispos carried the tray to Dara himself. Barsymes saw him and said not a word. When he got back to the Red Room, he helped her sit up and poured wine for her. He poured for himself, as well; the cook had thoughtfully set two goblets on the tray. He raised his. "To Phostis," he said.
"To our son," Dara agreed. That was not quite what Krispos had said, but he drank her toast.
Dara attacked her meal—it proved to be roast kid in fermented fish sauce and garlic—as if she'd had nothing for days. Krispos watched her eat and watched Phostis, who was dozing on the bed next to her, turn his head from side to side. Thekla had been right; for a baby, Phostis did have a lot of hair. Krispos stood up and reached out a gentle hand to touch it. It was soft and fine as goose down. Phostis squirmed. Krispos took his hand away.
Dara sopped up the last of the sauce with the heel of her bread. She finished her wine and set the goblet down with a sigh. "That helped," she said. "A bath and about a month of sleep and I'll be—not good as new, but close enough." She sighed again. "Thekla says it's better for a baby to nurse with his own mother the first few days, so I won't get that sleep right away. Afterward, though, a wet nurse can get up with him when he howls."
"I've been thinking," Krispos said in an abstracted tone that showed he'd hardly heard what she said.
"What about?" she asked cautiously. Without seeming to notice what she did, she moved closer to Phostis, as if to protect him.
"I think we ought to declare the baby co-Avtokrator even before I go out on campaign against Petronas," he answered. "It will let the whole Empire know I intend my family to hold this throne for a long time."
Dara's face lit up. "Yes, let's do that," she said at once. Even more gently than Krispos had, she touched Phostis' head, murmuring, "Sleep well, my tiny Emperor." Then, after a little while, she added, "I was afraid you were thinking something else."
Krispos shook his head. Even since he'd known Dara was pregnant, he'd also known he'd have to act as if her child was surely his. Now that the boy was born, he would not stint. If anything, he would make a show of favoring him, to make sure no one else had any doubts—or at least any public doubts—about Phostis' paternity.
What he did was everyone's affair. What he thought was his own.
IV
Barsymes carried a medium-size silver box and a folded sheet of parchment in to Krispos. The vestiarios looked puzzled and a bit worried. "The Halogai just found this on the steps, your Majesty. As they do not read, they asked me what the parchment said. I saw it had your name on the outside, so I brought it here."
"Thank you," Krispos said. Then he frowned. "What do you mean, the Halogai found it on the steps? Who brought it there?"
"I don't know, your Majesty. Neither do the guardsmen. From what they say, it wasn't there one moment and was the next."
"Magic," Krispos said. He stared suspiciously at the box. After almost killing him once by sorcery, did Petronas think he would fall into the trap again? If so, he would be disappointed. "Send someone for Trokoundos, Barsymes. Until he tells me it's all right, that box will stay closed."
"No doubt you are wise, your Majesty. I shall send someone directly."
Krispos even wondered if unfolding the parchment was safe. He grew impatient waiting for Trokoundos to come, though, and opened it up. Nothing lethal or sorcerous—nothing at all-happened when he did. The note inscribed within was written in a crabbed, antique hand. Though it was not signed, it could only have come from Harvas Black-Robe; it read: "I accept your purchase of a year's peace with gold. Your envoy has left my court and wends his way homeward. I believe you will find him much improved on account of that which is enclosed herewith."
When Trokoundos arrived, Krispos showed him the parchment and explained his own suspicions. The mage nodded. "Quite right, your Majesty. If that box hides sorcery, be sure I shall bring it to light."
He set to work with powders and jars of bright-colored liquids. After a few minutes one of the liquids suddenly went from blue to red. Trokoundos grunted. "Ha! There is magic here, your Majesty." He made quick passes, all the while chanting under his breath.
Krispos watched the red liquid turn blue again. He asked, "Does that mean the spell is gone?"
"It should, your Majesty." But Trokoundos did not sound sure. He explained. "The only spell I detected was one of preservation, such as some fancy fruiterers use to let rich clients have their wares fresh but out of season. Forgive me, but I cannot imagine how such a spell could be harmful in any way. Whether it was or not, though, I have dispersed it."
"Then nothing should happen if I open the box?" Krispos persisted.
"Nothing should." Trokoundos took out more sorcerous apparatus. "If anything does, I am prepared to meet it."
"Good." Krispos flipped the catch that held the box shut. As he did so, Trokoundos stepped up to protect him from whatever was inside. He opened the lid. Inside the box was a curiously curved piece of meat, bloody at the thick end.
Trokoundos' brows came together at the anticlimax. "What is that?" he demanded.
Krispos needed a minute to recognize it, too. But he had butchered a good many cows and sheep and goats in his farming days. This was too small to have come from a cow, but a sheep had one much like it... "It's a tongue," he said. Then horror ran through him as he remembered the note that had accompanied this gift. "It's—Iakovitzes' tongue," he choked out. He slammed the lid shut, turned his head, and vomited on the fine mosaic floor.
Near the south end of Videssos the city's wall was a broad field where soldiers often exercised. Several regiments of horsemen, lancers and archers both, were drawn up in formation there. Their banners rippled in the spring breeze. They saluted as Krispos and Agapetos rode past in review.
Krispos was saying "Draw out whatever garrison troops you think the towns can spare, if they're men who'd be any good in the field. The Kubrati nomads always liked to play the raid-and-run game. Now it'll be our turn. If Harvas thinks he can sell us peace at the price of maiming an ambassador, we'll teach him different. The way I see it, he's stolen a hundred pounds of gold. We'll take it back from his land."
"Aye, Majesty," Agapetos said. "But what happens if one of my raiding bands comes up against too many men for them to handle?"
"Then pull back," Krispos told him. "Your job is to keep Harvas and his cutthroats too busy in their own country to come down into the Empire. I won't be able to send you muc
h support, not until Petronas is beaten. After that, the whole army will move to the northern frontier, but until then, you're on your own."
"Aye, Majesty. I shall do as you require." Agapetos saluted, then raised his right arm high. Trumpets brayed brassily, pipes skirled, and drums thuttered. The cavalry regiments rolled forward. Krispos knew they were good troops. Agapetos was a good soldier, too; Videssian generals made a study of the art of war and learned scores of tricks for gaining the most with the smallest expenditure of manpower.
Then why am I worried? Krispos asked himself. Maybe it was because the competent, serious Videssian soldiers had not faced warriors like Harvas' Halogai before. Maybe it was because competent, serious Agapetos had already let Harvas trick him once. And maybe, Krispos thought, it's for no reason at all. No matter how well he acts the part, Harvas isn't Skotos come again. He can be beaten. In the end, even Skotos will be beaten.
Then why am I worried? he asked again. Angry at himself, he yanked Progress' head around sharply enough to draw a reproachful snort from the horse. He rode back to the city at a fast trot. He knew he should already have been in the westlands, moving against Petronas. But for Harvas' latest outrage, that campaign would have begun a fortnight before.
Krispos rode not to the palaces, but to the Sorcerers' Collegium north of the palace quarter. Iakovitzes had reached the capital the night before, more dead than alive. The Empire's most skillful healer-priests taught at the Collegium, passing on their art to each new generation in turn. The desperately ill came there, too, in hope of cures no one less skilled could give. Iakovitzes fell into the latter group.
"How is he?" Krispos demanded of Damasos, the head of the healing faculty.
The skin under Damasos' eyes was smudged with fatigue, part of the price a healer-priest paid for his gift. "Majesty," he began, and then paused to yawn. "Your pardon, Majesty. I think he may yet recover, Majesty. We are at last to the point where we may attempt the healing of the wound itself."
Krispos of Videssos Page 10