Petronas welcomed him affably enough, waved him to a seat beside Anthimos’, which was even more splendid than the one in which Petronas sat—the Sevastokrator did not believe in giving unintentional offense. After Eroulos refilled Anthimos’ wine cup, Petronas said, “And what can I do for you today, nephew and Majesty?”
Anthimos sipped, glanced from Petronas to Skombros, licked his lips, and took a hefty swig of wine. Thus fortified, he said, “My vestiarios here would like to, ah, try to repair any ill-feeling that may exist between the two of you. May he speak?”
“You are my Avtokrator,” Petronas declared. “If it be your will that he speak to me, of course I shall hear him with all the attention he merits.” He turned his head toward Skombros and waited expectantly.
“I thank you, your Imperial Highness. You are gracious to me,” Skombros said, his sexless voice soft and persuasive. “As I seem somehow to have offended your Imperial Highness—and that was never my intent, for my concern, as yours, is solely for the comfort and especially for the glory of his Imperial Majesty whom we both serve—I thought it best at this time to offer my deepest and most sincere apologies for whatever I have done to disturb your Imperial Highness’ tranquility and to tender my assurances that any such disturbance was purely inadvertent on my part and shall not be repeated.”
He paused to take a deep breath. Krispos did not blame him; he could not have brought out such a long sentence to save his life. He doubted whether he could have written one so complex.
Petronas was more used to the grandiloquence of formal Videssian speech. Nodding to the vestiarios, he began, “Esteemed sir—”
From behind that newly installed screen, a soft chorus of female voices chanted, “You have five chins, and a lard belly below them.” Krispos happened to be taking a sip of wine; he all but choked on it. But for the content of what that hidden chorus sang, its response was much like that of a temple choir to the prayers of a priest.
Skombros sat perfectly still, but could not help the flush that rose from his neck to the roots of his hair. Anthimos looked about in surprise, as if unsure where the chorus was or whether he’d truly heard it. And Petronas seemed to shake himself. “I’m sorry,” he told Skombros. “I must have been woolgathering. What was it you wanted?”
The vestiarios tried again. “Your Imperial Highness, I ah, wanted to apologize for, ah, anything I may have done to, ah, offend you, and I certainly want to assure you I, ah, meant no harm.” This time, Krispos noted, his delivery was less polished than before.
Petronas nodded. “Esteemed sir—”
“You have five chins, and a lard belly below them.” The voices of the chorus rang out once more.
This time Krispos was ready for them and kept his face straight. Anthimos stared again, then giggled. Hearing that, Skombros seemed to wilt. Petronas prompted him, “You were saying?”
“Does it matter?” Skombros asked bleakly.
“Why, esteemed sir—”
The chorus took up where the Sevastokrator left off: “You have five chins, and a lard belly below them.”
Anthimos giggled again, louder. Ignoring all courtly etiquette, Skombros heaved his bulk out of his chair and stalked toward the door. “Dear me,” Petronas exclaimed as the eunuch slammed it behind him. “Do you think I said something wrong?”
Chapter IX
MAVROS, AS WAS HIS WAY, HEARD THE NEWS FIRST. “SKOMBROS resigned his position last night.”
“What, the esteemed sir?” Krispos whistled the choral response.
“Aye, the very same.” Mavros laughed—that story had spread through the palace complex like wildfire. “Not only that, he’s had himself tonsured and fled into a monastery. So, they tell me, have his nephew Askyltos and his brother-in-law Evmolpos.”
“If I were wearing their robes, I’d flee to a monastery, too,” Krispos said. “Petronas respects the good god’s followers, so he might leave them there and not take their heads now that their protector’s fallen.”
“So he might.” Mavros sound regretful. Then he brightened. “Now that their protector’s fallen, who’s to be the new vestiarios?” Grinning, he pointed at Krispos.
“We’ll see. It’s the Avtokrator’s choice, of course.” For all his own good times with Anthimos, for all Petronas’ urging, he knew the Emperor might just choose another eunuch as his new chamberlain. That would be easiest, and Anthimos liked doing things the easiest way.
But a couple of hours later, while Krispos was making sure the new horseshoes on Petronas’ favorite hunter were firmly nailed in place, Onorios came up to him and said, “There’s a eunuch outside who wants to talk with you.”
“Thanks. I’ll see him in a minute.” Krispos had one more hoof to check. As he’d expected, the blacksmith had done a good job. Knowing was better than expecting, though. When he was through, he walked out to see the Emperor’s servant.
It was the tall, thin eunuch who had taken Krispos to his first revel with Anthimos the summer before. Now the fellow made no snide remarks about the smell of the stables. Instead, he bowed low. “Krispos, his Imperial Majesty bids you join his household as vestiarios, head of his domestic staff.”
“He honors me. Tell me your name, please, esteemed sir. If we are both of His Majesty’s household, I should know you.”
The eunuch straighted. “I am called Barsymes,” he said with the first approval Krispos had heard from him. “Now if you will follow me, ah—” He stopped, frowning. “Should I call you ‘esteemed sir’ or ‘eminent sir’? You are vestiarios, a post traditionally held by an esteemed sir, and yet you”—he hesitated again—“you have a beard. The proper protocol is a puzzlement.”
Krispos started to laugh, then realized he would be worrying about just such concerns himself in his new post. “Either way is all right with me, Barsymes,” he said.
“I have it!” The eunuch looked as pleased as his doleful features would allow. “Now if you will come with me, esteemed and eminent sir…”
Krispos obediently followed. If Barsymes had found a formula that satisfied him, well and good. They scuffed through snow together for a while before Krispos said, “I hope you and your comrades will not be troubled, serving with…serving with someone who has a beard.”
“It is the Avtokrator’s will,” Barsymes said, which was no answer at all. He walked on, not looking at Krispos. After a while, he decided to continue. “We do remember that you mocked Skombros for being a eunuch.”
“Only when he mocked me first for being a groom,” Krispos said.
“Yes, there is some truth in that,” Barsymes said judiciously, “though by now you will have noted, esteemed and eminent sir, that your condition is rather easier to change than Skombros’.” Being without any better reply, Krispos could only nod. He felt a little easier when Barsymes went on, half to himself, “Still, you may indeed be entitled to the benefit of the doubt.”
They passed through a grove of cherry trees, bare-branched and skeletal with winter. Armed Halogai stood outside the entrance to the elegant little building in the center of the grove. Krispos had seen some of them before, guarding Anthimos’ revels. Most of them had been drunk then. Now they looked sober and reliable. He knew little of soldiers’ ways, but the difference seemed remarkable.
As if reading his mind, Barsymes said, “Any guard who fails of alertness while protecting their Majesty’s residence is forthwith banished back to Halogaland, forfeiting all pay and benefactions earned here.”
“A good plan.” Krispos wondered why it didn’t hold wherever the Emperor was. Knowing Anthimos, probably because when he was having a good time, he wanted everyone else to have one, too.
The Halogai nodded to Barsymes and gave Krispos curious looks as he walked up the stairs with the eunuch. One of the guards said something in his own language. The others laughed. Krispos had no trouble imagining several rough jokes, most of them at his expense. He sighed. However much it meant to him, this business of taking over a eunuch’s post brou
ght complications.
His eyes needed a moment to adjust to the dimmer light inside the imperial residence, and a moment more to notice that what light there was came neither from torches nor, for the most part, from windows. Instead, panes of alabaster scraped to translucent thinness were set into the ceiling.
The pale, clear light that filtered through them displayed to best advantage the treasures set along both sides of the central hallway. Barsymes pointed to some of them as he led Krispos past. “Here is the battle helmet of a Makuraner King of Kings, taken centuries ago after a tremendous victory not far from Mashiz…. This is the chalice from which the assembled prelates of Phos drank together in ritual renunciation of Skotos at the great synod not long after the High Temple was built…. Here is a portrait of the Emperor Stavrakios, most often called the Conqueror….”
The portrait drew Krispos’ eye. Stavrakios wore the red boots, the imperial crown, and a gilded mail shirt, but he did not look like an Emperor to Krispos. He looked like a veteran underofficer about to give his troops a hard time for a sloppy piece of drill.
“Come along,” Barsymes said when Krispos paused to study that tough face. He followed the eunuch down the hall, thinking that Anthimos did not look like his idea of an Emperor, either. He laughed at himself. Maybe he just didn’t know what an Emperor was supposed to look like.
Another eunuch heard Barsymes and Krispos coming and stuck his head out a doorway. “You have him, eh?” he said. “Very well. His Majesty will be glad to see him.” If the eunuch himself was glad to see Krispos, he concealed it magnificently.
The fellow’s head disappeared again. Krispos heard his voice, too low to make out words, then Anthimos’, louder: “What’s that, Tyrovitzes? He’s here? Well, bring him in.” Barsymes heard, also, and led Krispos forward.
Anthimos sat at a small table eating cakes. Krispos went down on his belly in a full proskynesis. “Your Imperial Majesty,” he murmured.
“Get up, get up,” the Emperor said impatiently. “The bowing and scraping can stop when you’re in here. You’re part of my household now. You didn’t bow and scrape when you were in your parents’ household, did you?”
“No, Your Majesty,” Krispos said. He wondered what his father would have made of having his household compared to the Avtokrator’s. Most likely, Phostis would have laughed himself silly. That Anthimos could make the comparison only showed how little he realized what a special life he led.
The Emperor said, “Anything special you think you’ll need, Krispos?”
“Having you remember I’m more used to tending horses than people would help a lot, Your Majesty,” Krispos answered. Anthimos stared at him, then let out a startled laugh. Krispos went on, “I’m sure your other servants will help me learn what I need to know as fast as I can.”
Anthimos glanced toward Barsymes. “Of course, Your Majesty,” the eunuch said in his neutral voice.
“Good. That’s settled, then,” the Emperor said. Krispos hoped it was. Anthimos went on, “Take Krispos to his room, Barsymes. He can have the rest of today and tomorrow to move in; I expect the rest of you will be able to care for me and Dara till morning after next.”
“We shall manage, Your Majesty,” Barsymes agreed. “Now if you will excuse us? This way, Krispos.” As he led Krispos down the hall, he explained, “The vestiarios’ bedchamber is next to that of the Avtokrator, so that he may most conveniently attend his master at any hour of the day or night.” The eunuch opened a door. “You will stay here.”
Krispos gasped. He’d never seen such a profusion of gold and fine silks. Petronas surely had more, but did not flaunt it so. And the feather bed in the center of the room looked thick enough to smother in.
“You will understand, I hope,” Barsymes said, seeing his expression, “that Skombros, having no hope of progeny, saw no point in stinting his personal comfort. The failing is not unique to us eunuchs, but is perhaps more common among us.”
“I suppose so,” Krispos said, still stunned by the room’s opulence. Near that fabulous feather bed, a little silver bell hung from a red cord that ran up into the ceiling and disappeared. He pointed to it. “What’s that for?”
“The cord runs to the imperial bedchamber next door. When that bell rings, you must attend.”
“All right.” Krispos hesitated, then went on, “Thanks, Barsymes. You’ve helped.” He held out his hand.
The eunuch took it. His palms were smooth, but his grip showed surprising strength. “Not all of us were enamored of Skombros,” he remarked. “If you do not despise us for what we are, we may be able to work together well enough.”
“I hope so.” Krispos was not making idle chitchat; as at Petronas’ stables, he knew he would fail if the people he was supposed to oversee turned against him. And eunuchs, unlike the straightforward stable hands, moved with proverbial guile; he was not sure he was ready to counter their machinations. With luck, he wouldn’t have to.
He was relieved to escape the room that had been Skombros’ and was now his, though he wondered how the ex-vestiarios enjoyed a bare monastery cell, so different from this splendor. The image of Stavrakios caught his eye again as he walked down the hall. Imagining what that warrior-Emperor would have said about Skombros’ luxuries—or Anthimos’—gave him something to smile about while he went back to say good-bye to his friends and collect his belongings.
At the stables, after the inevitable round of congratulations and back-slapping, he managed to get Stotzas off to one side for a few minutes. “Do you want my job now that I’m leaving?” he asked the senior groom. “The good god knows you’re the best man with horses here, and I’d be pleased to speak with Petronas for you.”
“You’re a gentleman, lad, and I’m pleased you asked, but no thanks,” Stotzas said. “You’re right, it’s the horses I fancy, and I’d have less time for ’em if I had to worry about bossing the men around instead.”
Krispos nodded. He’d thought Stotzas would say that, but he hadn’t been sure; if the graybeard wanted the job, he deserved it. Since he didn’t, Krispos had someone else in mind to recommend to the Sevastokrator.
When he got back to his apartment in the Grand Courtroom, he discovered he needed more than one duffel bag for what he had inside. He smiled to himself as he went back to the stables to borrow Petronas’ brown gelding one last time. The horse snorted reproachfully as he loaded it with his worldly goods.
“Oh, hush,” he told it. “Better your back than mine.” The horse did not seem convinced, but let him lead it over to the imperial residence.
THE BELL BESIDE KRISPOS’ BED RANG. AT FIRST, HE TRIED TO fit the sound into his dream. The bell kept ringing. He woke with a start. Anthimos was calling him!
He sprang out of bed naked, threw on a robe, shoved his feet into sandals, and dashed for the imperial bedchamber. “Your Majesty,” he said, puffing. “How may I serve you?”
Wearing no more than Krispos had, Anthimos was sitting up in bed—a bed that looked comfortable enough, but not nearly so magnificent as the one Krispos had appropriated from Skombros. The Avtokrator grinned at his new vestiarios. “I’ll have to get used to your appearing so quickly,” he said, which eased Krispos’ mind—he hadn’t taken too long to wake, then. Anthimos went on, “Time to face the day.”
“Certainly, Your Majesty.” The eunuchs had spent the previous afternoon talking themselves hoarse about the Emperor’s routine. Krispos hoped he remembered it. Beside the bed stood a chamber pot; first things first, for Emperor as for peasant. Bowing, Krispos lifted it and handed it to Anthimos.
While the Avtokrator stood up and used it, Krispos got him clean drawers and a fresh robe. He helped Anthimos dress, then ceremoniously escorted him to a mirror of polished silver. Anthimos made a face at his reflection while Krispos combed his hair and beard. “Looks like me,” the Emperor said when he was done. “Eyes aren’t even too bloodshot—but then, I got to sleep early last night.” He turned back to the bed. “Didn’t I, Dara?”
> “What’s that?” Buried in blankets to the crown of her head, Anthimos’ Empress sounded more than half asleep herself.
“Didn’t I get to bed early last night?” the Avtokrator repeated. “I’ve even found an advantage to it—my eyes look much clearer than usual this morning.”
Dara rolled over and sat up. Krispos did his best not to stare—like Anthimos, she slept nude. Then she noticed him, squeaked, and yanked the blankets up to her chin.
Anthimos laughed. “No need for such worries, my dear. This is Krispos, the new vestiarios.”
Keeping his eyes on his own toes, Krispos said in his most formal voice, “I did not mean to startle you, Your Majesty.”
“It’s—all right,” Dara said after a moment. “Seeing the beard caught me by surprise, that’s all. His Majesty said you were a whole man, but it must have slipped my mind. Go ahead with what you were doing; I’ll summon a maidservant.” She had a bellpull on her side of the bed, too, with a green cord. She held the blankets in place with one hand, reached out with the other.
Krispos fetched the Emperor’s red boots from the closet and helped Anthimos into them. They were tight, and pulling them onto the imperial feet took some work. The maidservant came in while he was still fighting to get them on. She paid no attention to Krispos’ beard. Indeed, with him bent down in front of the Emperor, she could hardly have noticed whether he had one—or whether he had horns and fangs, for that matter. She chose a gown from Dara’s closet and whisked away the bedclothes so she could dress the empress.
Dara again glanced nervously toward Krispos, but relaxed when she saw him intent on his own duties. He did his best to take no special notice of her. If she had been easy in the presence of the former vestiarios, he did not want to rob her of that ease.
At the same time, even the brief, self-conscious glimpses he’d had of her showed she was a dazzling young woman. She was small and dark, with lustrous, almost blue-black hair that crackled as her maidservant brushed it. She had an aquiline profile, with high, sculptured cheekbones and a strong, rather pointed chin. Her body was as lovely as her face.
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