The Tale of Krispos

by Harry Turtledove

  Indeed, Iakovitzes did grumble when he came to the inn a couple of hours later and discovered the arrangements Krispos had made. The grumble, though, was an abstracted one; most of his mind remained on the fat folder of documents he carried under one arm. He took negotiations seriously.

  “You’ll have to amuse yourself as best you can for a while, Krispos,” he said as they sat down to a dinner of steamed prawns in mustard sauce. “Phos alone knows how long I’m liable to be closeted with this Lexo from Khatrish. If he’s as bad as Sisinnios makes him out to be, maybe forever.”

  “If you please sir,” Krispos said hesitantly, “may I join you at your talks?”

  Iakovitzes paused with a prawn in midair. “Why on earth would you want to do that?” His eyes narrowed. No Videssian noble trusted what he did not understand.

  “To learn what I can,” Krispos answered. “Please remember, sir, I’m but a couple of seasons away from my village. Most of your other grooms know much more than I do, just because they’ve lived in Videssos the city all their lives. I ought to take whatever chances I have to pick up useful things to know.”

  “Hmm.” That watchful expression did not leave Iakovitzes’ face. “You’re apt to be bored.”

  “If I am, I’ll leave.”

  “Hmm,” Iakovitzes said again, and then, “Well, why not? I’d thought you content with the horses, but if you think you’re fit for more, no harm in your trying. Who can say? It may turn out to my advantage as well as yours.” Now Iakovitzes looked calculating, a look Krispos knew well. One of the noble’s eyebrows quirked upward as he went on, “I didn’t bring you here with that in mind, however.”

  “I know.” Krispos was beginning to learn to keep his own maneuvers hidden. Now his thoughts were that, if he made himself useful enough to Iakovitzes in other ways, the noble might give up on coaxing him into bed.

  “We’ll see how it goes,” Iakovitzes said. “Sisinnios is setting up the meeting with the Khatrisher for around the third hour of the day tomorrow—halfway between sunrise and noon.” He smiled a smile Krispos had seen even more often than his calculating look. “Reading by lamplight gives me a headache. I can think of a better way to spend the night…”

  Krispos sighed. Iakovitzes hadn’t given up yet.

  SISINNIOS SAID, “EXCELLENCY, I PRESENT TO YOU LEXO, WHO represents Gumush the khagan of Khatrish. Lexo, here is the most eminent Iakovitzes from Videssos the city, and his spatharios Krispos.”

  The title the eparch gave Krispos was the vaguest one in the Videssian hierarchy; it literally meant “sword bearer,” and by extension “aide.” An Avtokrator’s spatharios might be a very important man. A noble’s spatharios was not. Krispos was grateful to hear it all the same. Sisinnios could have introduced him as a groom and let it go at that.

  “And now, noble sirs, if you will excuse me, I have other business to which I must attend,” the eparch said. He left a little more quickly than was polite, but with every sign of relief.

  Lexo the Khatrisher was dressed in what would have been a stylish linen tunic but for the leaping stags and panthers embroidered over every inch of it. “I’ve heard of you, eminent sir,” he told Iakovitzes, bowing in his seat. His beard and mustaches were so full and bushy that Krispos could hardly see his lips move. Among Videssians, such unkempt whiskers were only for priests.

  “You have the advantage of me, sir.” Iakovitzes would not let a foreigner outdo him in courtesy. “I am willing to assume, however, that any emissary of your khagan is sure to be a most able man.”

  “You are too gracious to someone you do not know,” Lexo purred. His gaze swung to Krispos. “So, young fellow, you’re Iakovitzes’ spatharios, are you? Tell me, just where do you bear that sword of his?”

  The Khatrisher’s smile was bland. Even so, Krispos jerked as if stung. For a moment, all he could think of was wiping the floor with Lexo, who was more than twice his age and weighed more than he did though several inches shorter. But months of living with Iakovitzes had taught him the game was not always played with fists. Doing his best to pull his face straight, he answered, “Against his foes, and the Avtokrator’s.” He looked Lexo in the eye.

  “Your sentiments do you credit, I’m sure,” Lexo murmured. He turned back to Iakovitzes. “Well, eminent sir, how do you propose to settle what his excellency the good Sisinnios and I have been haggling over for months?”

  “By looking at the facts instead of haggling.” Iakovitzes leaned forward, discarding formal ways like a cast-off cloak. He touched the folder the eparch had given him. “The facts are here, you will agree. I have here copies of all documents pertaining to the border between Videssos and Khatrish for as long as your state has been such, rather than merely nomad bandits too ignorant to sign a treaty and too treacherous to honor one. The latter trait, I notice, you still display.”

  Krispos waited for Lexo to explode, but the envoy’s smile did not waver. “I’d heard you were charming,” he said evenly.

  Just as he was armored against insult, so was Iakovitzes against irony. “I don’t care what you’ve heard, sir. I’ve heard—these documents say, loud and clear—that the proper frontier between our lands is the Akkilaion River, not the Mnizou as you have claimed. How dare you contradict them?”

  “Because the memories of my people are long,” Lexo said. Iakovitzes snorted. Lexo took no notice, but went on, “Memories are like leaves, you know. They pile up in the forests of our minds, and we go scuffing through them.”

  Iakovitzes snorted again, louder. “Very pretty. I hadn’t heard Gumush was sending out poets to speak for him these days. I’d have thought their disregard for the truth disqualified them.”

  “You flatter me for my poor words,” Lexo said. “Should you desire true poetry, I will give you the tribal lays of my folk.”

  He began to declaim, partly in his lisping Videssian, more often in a speech that reminded Krispos of the one the Kubratoi used among themselves. He nodded, remembering that the ancestors of both Khatrishers and Kubratoi had come off the Pardrayan steppe long ago.

  “I could go on for some while,” Lexo said after going on for some while, “but I hope you get the gist: that the great raid of Balbad Badbal’s son reached the Mnizou and drove all Videssians over it. Thus it is only just for Khatrish to claim the Mnizou as its southern boundary.”

  “Gumush’s grandfather didn’t, nor his father either,” Iakovitzes replied, unmoved by his opponent’s oratory. “If you stack the treaties they signed against your tribal lays, the treaties weigh heavier.”

  “How can any man presume to know where the balance between them lies, any more than a man can know the Balance between Phos and Skotos in the world?” Lexo said. “They both have weight; that is what Sisinnios would not see nor admit.”

  “Believe in the Balance and go to the ice, they teach us in Videssos,” Iakovitzes said, “so I’ll thank you not to drag your eastern heresy into a serious argument. Just as Phos will vanquish Skotos in the end, so shall our border be restored to its proper place, which is to say, the Akkilaion.”

  “Just as my doctrine is your heresy, the reverse also applies.” Where his faith was questioned, Lexo lost his air of detached amusement. In a sharper voice than he’d used before, he went on, “I might also point out that the land between the Mnizou and the Akkilaion has quite as many Khatrishers herding as it does Videssians farming. The concept of the Balance seems relevant.”

  “Throw precedent into your cursed Balance,” Iakovitzes suggested. “It will weigh down on the side of truth—the side of Videssos.”

  “The lay of Balbad Badbal’s son, as I have suggested”—irony again, this time laid on heavily enough to make Iakovitzes scowl—“is precedent older than any in that stack of moldering parchments in which you set your stock.”

  “That lay is a lie,” Iakovitzes growled.

  “Sir, it is not.” Lexo met Iakovitzes’ glare with his own. Had they been wearing swords, they might have used those, too.

&
nbsp; In their duel, they’d so completely forgotten about Krispos that they both stared at him when he asked, “Is age the most important thing that goes into a precedent?”

  “Yes,” Lexo said in the same breath Iakovitzes used to say, “No.”

  “If it is,” Krispos went on, “shouldn’t Videssos claim all of Khatrish? The Empire ruled it long before the Khatrishers’ forefathers arrived there.”

  “Not the same thing at all—” Lexo began, while Iakovitzes burst out, “By the good god, so we—” He, too, stopped before his sentence was done. Sheepishness did not suit his sharp-featured face, but it was there. “I think we’ve just been whirled round on ourselves,” he said, much more quietly than he had been speaking.

  “Perhaps we have,” Lexo admitted. “Shall we thank your spatharios for the treatment?” He nodded to Krispos. “I must also crave your pardon, young sir. I see you do have some use beyond the ornamental.”

  “Why, so he does.” Krispos would have been happier with Iakovitzes’ agreement had his master sounded less surprised.

  Lexo sighed. “If you set aside your folder there, eminent sir, I will sing you no more lays.”

  “Oh, very well.” Iakovitzes seldom yielded anything with good grace. “Now, though, I have to find some other way to make you see that those herders you spoke of will have to fare north of the Akkilaion where they belong.”

  “I like that.” Lexo’s tone said he did not like it at all. “Why shouldn’t your farmers be the ones to move?”

  “Because nomads are nomads, of course. It’s much harder to pack up good farmland and ride away with it.”

  The bargaining began again, in earnest this time, now that each man had seen he could not presume too far on the other. That first session yielded no agreement, nor did the second, nor the sixth. “We’ll get our answer, though,” Iakovitzes said one evening back at Bolkanes’ inn. “I can feel it.”

  “I hope so.” Krispos picked at the mutton in front of him—he was tired of fish.

  Iakovitzes eyed him shrewdly. “So now you are bored, eh? Didn’t I warn you would be?”

  “Maybe I am, a little,” Krispos said. “I didn’t expect we would be here for weeks. I thought the Sevastokrator sent you here just because Sisinnios wasn’t making any progress with Lexo.”

  “Petronas did, Sisinnios wasn’t, and I am,” Iakovitzes said. “These disputes take years to develop; they don’t go away overnight. What, did you expect Lexo all of a sudden to break down and concede everything on account of the brilliance of my rhetoric?”

  Krispos had to smile. “Put that way, no.”

  “Hrmmp. You might have said yes, to salve my self-respect. But schedules for how the Khatrishers withdraw, how much we pay them to go, and whether we pay the khagan or give the money direct to the herders who will be leaving—all such things have plenty of room in them for horse trading. That’s what Lexo and I are doing now, seeing who ends up with a swaybacked old nag.”

  “I guess so,” Krispos said. “I’m afraid it’s not very interesting to listen to, though.”

  “Go ahead and do something else for a while, then,” Iakovitzes said. “I expected you to give up long before this. And you’ve even been useful in the dickering a couple of times, too, which I didn’t expect at all. You’ve earned some time off.”

  SO KRISPOS, INSTEAD OF CLOSETING HIMSELF WITH THE DIPLOMATS, went wandering through Opsikion. After those of Videssos the city, its markets seemed small and for the most part dull. The only real bargains Krispos saw were fine furs from Agder, which lay in the far northeast, near the Haloga country. He had more money now than ever before, and less to spend it on, but he could not come close to affording a snow-leopard jacket. He came back to the furriers’ stall several times, to peer and to wish.

  He bought a coral pendant to take back to his seamstress friend. He almost paid for it with his lucky goldpiece. Since it had stopped being his only goldpiece, he’d kept it wrapped in a bit of cloth at the bottom of his pouch. Somehow it got loose. He noticed just in time to substitute another coin.

  The jeweler weighed that one to make sure it was good. When he saw it was, he shrugged. “Gold is gold,” he said as he gave Krispos his change.

  “Sorry,” Krispos said. “I just didn’t want to part with that one.”

  “I’ve had other customers tell me the same thing,” the jeweler said. “If you want to make sure you don’t spend it by mistake, why not wear it on a chain around your neck? Wouldn’t take me long to bore through it, and here’s a very nice chain. Or if you’d rather have this one…”

  Krispos came out of the shop with the lucky goldpiece bumping against his chest under his tunic. It felt odd there for the first few days. After that, he stopped noticing he was wearing it. He even slept with it on.

  By that time, Iakovitzes had lost some of his earlier optimism. “That pox-brained Khatrisher is a serpent,” he complained. “Just when I think I have something settled, he throws a coil around it and drags it back into confusion.”

  “Do you want me to join you again?” Krispos asked.

  “Eh? No, that’s all right. Good of you to ask, though; you show more loyalty than most your age. You’d probably be more help if you spent the time praying for me. Phos may listen to you; that stubborn donkey of a Lexo surely won’t.”

  Krispos knew his master was just grumbling. He went to the temple across from Sisinnios’ residence just the same. Phos was the lord of the good; Videssos’ case here, he was convinced, was good; how, then, could his god fail to heed him?

  The crowd round the temple was thicker than he’d seen it before. When he asked a man why, the fellow chuckled and said, “Guess you’re not from these parts. This is the festal day of the holy Abdaas, Opsikion’s patron. We’re all come to give thanks for his protection for another year.”

  “Oh.” Along with everyone else—everyone in the whole town, he thought, as three people stepped on his toes, one after the other—Krispos filed into the temple.

  He had worshiped at the High Temple in the capital several times. The sternly beautiful gaze of the mosaic image of Phos in the dome there never failed to fill him with awe. Opsikion was only a provincial town. As he was depicted here, the lord with the great and good mind looked more cross than majestic. Krispos did not much care. Phos was Phos, no matter what his image looked like.

  Krispos feared, though, that he would have to pay homage to the good god standing up. The benches had all but filled by the time he got to them. The last few rows had some empty places, but the press of people swept him past them before he could claim one. He was still a villager at heart, he thought wryly; a born city man would have been quicker.

  Too late—by now he was most of the way down toward the altar. With sinking hope, he peered around for some place, any place, to sit. The woman sitting by the aisle was also looking around, perhaps for a friend who was late. Their eyes met.

  “Excuse me, my lady.” Krispos looked away. He knew a noblewoman when he saw one, and knew better than to bother her by staring.

  Thus he did not see her pupils swell till, like a cat’s, each filled for a moment its whole iris, did not see her features go slack and far away in that same instant, took no notice of the word she whispered. Then she said something he could not ignore: “Would you care to sit here, eminent sir?”

  “My lady?” he said foolishly.

  “There’s room by me, eminent sir, I think.” The woman pushed at the youth next to her, a lad five or six years younger than Krispos: a nephew, maybe, he thought, for the boy resembled her. The push went down the row. By the time it reached the end, there was indeed room.

  Krispos sat, gratefully. “Thank you very much, ah—” He stopped. She might—she probably would—think him forward if he asked her name.

  But she did not. “I am Tanilis, eminent sir,” she said, and modestly cast down her eyes. Before she did, though, he saw how large and dark they were. With them still lowered, she went on, “This is my son Mavros.”


  The youth and Krispos exchanged nods. Tanilis was older than he’d thought; at first glance, he’d guessed her age to be within a few years of his.

  He was still not used to being called sir. Eminent sir was for the likes of Iakovitzes, not him: how could he become a noble? Why, then, had Tanilis used it? He started to tell her, as politely as he could, that she’d made a mistake, but the service began and robbed him of the chance.

  Phos’ creed, of course, he could have recited asleep or awake; it was engrained in him. The rest of the prayers and hymns were hardly less familiar. He went through them, rising and taking his seat at the proper times, most of his mind elsewhere. He barely remembered to ask Phos to help Iakovitzes in his talks with Lexo, which was why he had come to the temple in the first place.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he kept watching Tanilis. Her profile was sculptured, elegant; no loose flesh hung under her chin. But, though artfully applied powder almost hid them, the beginnings of lines bracketed her mouth and met at the corners of her eyes. Here and there a white thread ran through her piled-up curls of jet. He supposed she might be old enough to have a son close to his age. She was beautiful, even so.

  She seemed to take no notice of his inspection, giving herself wholly to the celebration of Phos’ liturgy. Eventually Krispos had to do the same, for the hymns of praise for the holy Abdaas were Opsikion’s own; he had not met them before. But even as he stumbled through them, he was aware of her beside him.

  The worshipers spoke Phos’ creed one last time. From his place at the altar, the local prelate lifted up his hands in blessing. “Go now, in peace and goodness,” he declared. The service was over.

  Krispos rose and stretched. Tanilis and her son also stood up. “Thanks again for making room for me,” he told them, as he turned to go.

  “The privilege was mine, eminent sir,” Tanilis said. Her ornate gold earrings tinkled softly as she looked down to the floor.