Petronas did not deign to come to the imperial residence to visit Krispos. He was frequently there nonetheless, trying to talk his nephew round to letting him continue his war against Makuran. Whenever he saw Krispos, he stared through him as if he did not exist.
Despite all Krispos’ urging, he could tell Anthimos was wavering. Anthimos was far more used to listening to Petronas than to Krispos…and Petronas commanded his armies. Glumly, Krispos braced himself for another defeat, and wondered if he would keep his post.
Then, much delayed on account of the vile winter weather, word reached Videssos the city from what had been the frontier with Kubrat. Bands of Harvas Black-Robe’s Halogai had crossed the border in several places, looted villages on Videssian soil, massacred their inhabitants, and withdrawn.
Krispos made sure Anthimos read through the reports, which described the slaughter of the villagers in lurid detail. “This is dreadful!” the Emperor exclaimed, sounding more than a little sickened. He shoved the parchments aside.
“So it is, Your Majesty,” Krispos said. “These northerners seem even more vicious than the Kubratoi.”
“They certainly do.” With a sort of horrid fascination, Anthimos picked up the reports and read them again. He shuddered and threw them down. “By the sound of things, they might have been doing Skotos’ work.”
Krispos nodded. “That’s well put, Your Majesty. They do seem to be killing just for the sport of it, don’t they? And remember, if you will, whose advice caused you to make those butchers the neighbors of the Empire. Also remember who wants you to go right on ignoring them so he can keep up his pointless war with Makuran.”
“We’ll have to find you a wife one day, Krispos,” Anthimos said with a dry chuckle. “That was one of the smoothest ‘I told you so’s’ I’ve ever heard.” Krispos dutifully smiled, thinking it was not in the Avtokrator to stay serious about anything for long.
But Anthimos was serious. The next day, Petronas came to talk about the campaign he planned in the west. Anthimos wordlessly handed him the dispatches from the northern frontier. “Unfortunate, aye, but what of them?” Petronas said when he was done reading. “By the nature of things, we’ll always have barbarians on that border, and barbarians, being barbarians, will probe at us from time to time.”
“Exactly so,” Anthimos said. “And when they probe, they should run up against soldiers, not find all of them away in the west. Uncle, I forbid you to attack Makuran until these new barbarians of yours learn we will respond to their raids and can keep them in check.”
Out in the corridor, Krispos whistled a long, low, quiet note. That was stronger language than he’d ever expected Anthimos to use to Petronas. He plied his dust rag with new enthusiasm.
“You forbid me, Your Majesty?” Petronas’ voice held a tone Krispos had heard there before, of grown man talking to beardless youth.
Usually Anthimos either did not catch it or paid it no mind. This time, it must have rankled. “Yes, by the good god, I forbid you, Uncle,” he snapped back. “I am the Avtokrator, and I have spoken. Do you propose to disobey my express command?”
Krispos waited for Petronas to try to jolly him round, as he had so often. But the Sevastokrator only said, “I will always obey you, Majesty, for as long as you are Emperor.” The feet of his chair scraped on polished marble as he rose. “Now if you will excuse me, I have other business to attend to.”
Petronas walked past Krispos as if he were not there; had he stood in the middle of the corridor, he suspected the Sevastokrator would have walked over him rather than swerve aside. A couple of minutes later, Anthimos came out of the room where he’d met with Petronas. In a most unimperial gesture, he wiped his forehead with his sleeve.
“Whew!” he said. “Standing up to my uncle is bloody hard work, but by Phos, I did it! He said he’d obey.” He sounded proud of himself. Krispos did not blame him.
Being who he was, Anthimos celebrated what he saw as his triumph over Petronas with a jar of wine, and then with another one. Thus fortified, he headed off for an evening of revels, dragging Krispos along.
Krispos did not want to revel. The more he listened to Petronas’ words in his mind, the less they seemed a promise to obey. He had no trouble escaping the carouse; for one of the rare times since Krispos had known him, Anthimos drank himself insensible. Krispos ducked out of the feast and hurried back to the imperial residence.
Seeing a light under the closed door of the bedchamber the Emperor and Empress used, he softly tapped at the door. Dara opened it a moment later. She smiled. “You grow bold,” she said. “Good.” She pressed herself against him and tilted her face up for a kiss.
He gladly gave it, but then stepped away from her. “Tell me what you think of this,” he said, and repeated Anthimos’ conversation with Petronas as exactly as he could.
By the time he was done, Dara’s expression had gone from lickerish to worried. “He’ll obey as long as Anthimos is Emperor, he said? What happens if Anthimos isn’t Emperor anymore?”
“That’s just what I thought,” Krispos said. “I wanted to be sure I wasn’t imagining things. If Petronas wants to overthrow the Avtokrator, it shouldn’t be hard for him. Most of the soldiers and almost all the high officers look to him, not to Anthimos. Till now, though, he hasn’t wanted to.”
“Why should he have bothered?” Dara said. “Anthimos was always pliant enough to suit him—till now, as you say. How are we going to stop him?” Her worry was fast becoming fear.
“We have to convince Anthimos that his uncle hasn’t meekly backed down,” Krispos said. “We ought to be able to manage that, the more so since I’m sure it’s true. And if we do—” He paused, thinking hard. “How does this sound…?”
Frowning, Dara listened to what he proposed. At one point, she raised a hand to stop him. “Not Gnatios,” she said.
“No, by the good god, and I’m twice an idiot now for thinking of him,” Krispos exclaimed, mentally kicking himself. Dara looked a question at him, but he did not explain. Instead, he went on, “I keep forgetting that even holy men have politics. The abbot Pyrrhos would serve as well, then, and he’d leap at the chance.” He finished setting forth his scheme.
“Maybe,” Dara said. “Maybe. And maybe, right now, looks better than any other chance we have. Let’s try it.”
“HOW MAY I SERVE YOU, YOUR MAJESTY?” PETRONAS ASKED offhandedly. His indifference, Krispos thought, was enough by itself to damn him and confirm all suspicions. If the Sevastokrator no longer cared what Anthimos did, that could only be because he was preparing to dispense with him.
“Uncle, I think I may have been hasty the other day,” Anthimos said. Dara had suggested that he sound nervous; he was having no trouble following the suggestion.
“You certainly were,” Petronas rumbled. No, no sign of give there, Krispos thought. The Sevastokrator went on, “That’s what you get for heeding the rascal who keeps pretending to dust outside there.” Krispos felt his ears blaze. So he hadn’t gone unnoticed, then. Even so, he did not stop listening.
“Er, yes,” Anthimos said—nervously. “Well, I hope I can make amends.”
“It’s rather late for that,” Petronas said. Krispos shivered. He only hoped he and Dara were not too late to save Anthimos’ crown.
“I know I have a lot to make amends for,” the Emperor said. “Not just for ordering you to stand down the other day, but for all you’ve done for me and for the Empire as regent when my father died and also since I’ve come of age. I want to reward you as you deserve, so, if it please you, I’d like to proclaim you co-Avtokrator before the whole court three days from now. Having done so much of the work for so long, you deserve your full share of the title.”
Petronas stayed quiet so long that Krispos felt his hands curl into tight fists, then his nails biting into his palms. The Sevastokrator could seize the full imperial power for himself—would he be content with the offer of part of it, legally given? He asked, “If I am to rule alongside you, Ant
himos, does that mean you’ll no longer try to meddle in the army and its business?”
“Uncle, you know more of such things than I do,” Anthimos said.
“You’d best believe I do,” Petronas growled. “High time you remembered it, too. Now the question is, do you mean all you say? I know how to find out, by the lord with the great and good mind. I’ll say yes to you, lad—if you cast that treacherous scoundrel of a Krispos from the palaces.”
“The moment I set the crown on your head, Uncle, Krispos will be cast not only from the palaces but from the city,” Anthimos promised. Krispos and Dara had planned to have the Emperor tell Petronas just that. The risk remained that Anthimos would do exactly as he’d promised. If he feared Petronas more than he trusted his wife, his chamberlain, and his own abilities, he might pay the price for what he reckoned security.
“Hate to wait that long,” Petronas said; then, at last, “Oh, very well, nephew, keep him another three days if it makes you happy. We have ourselves a bargain.” The Sevastokrator got to his feet and triumphantly strode out of the chamber in which he had talked with Anthimos. Seeing Krispos outside, he spoke to him for the first time since he’d returned from the west: “Three days, wretch. Start packing.”
His head lowered, Krispos dusted the gilded frame of an icon of Phos. He did not reply. Petronas laughed at his dismay and strutted past him down the corridor.
FINE SNOW FELL OUTSIDE THE GRAND COURTROOM AS THE GRANDEES and high ministers of the Empire gathered to see Petronas exalted. Inside, heat ducts that ran under the floor from a roaring furnace kept the throne room warm.
When all the officials and nobles were in their places, Krispos nodded to the captain of Anthimos’ Haloga bodyguards. The captain nodded to his men. Axes held at present-arms before them, they slow-marched out in double row to form an aisle down the center of the hall, through which the Avtokrator and his party would advance. Their gilded chain mail glittered in the torchlight.
Once that aisle was made, Anthimos, Dara, Pyrrhos, and Krispos walked along it toward the throne—no, thrones now, Krispos saw, for a second high seat had been placed beside the first; if there were to be co-Avtokrators, each required his own place of honor. A crown lay on that second seat.
Silks rustled as courtiers prostrated themselves when Anthimos passed them. As they rose, the nobles whispered among themselves. “Where’s Gnatios?” Krispos heard one say to the fellow beside him. “Ought to have the patriarch here to crown a new Emperor.”
“He’s down with the flux, poor chap,” the other grandee answered. “Pyrrhos is a very holy man in his own right. The good god won’t mind.”
Everyone at the patriarchal mansion was down with the flux, Krispos thought. Considering the number of goldpieces he’d spent to make sure a particular potion got into the mansion’s kitchen, he was not surprised. Poor Gnatios and his clerical colleagues would be dashing to the outhouse for the next several days.
Anthimos climbed the three steps to the thrones and seated himself in the one that had always been his. Dara stood at his right hand on the highest step, Pyrrhos in the center of the lowest step. Krispos was also to the Emperor’s right, but off the steps altogether. He had helped plan the spectacle that was to come, but it was Anthimos’ to play out.
The Avtokrator sat unmoving, staring without expression back toward the entrance to the Grand Courtroom. Beside and in front of him, Dara and Pyrrhos might also have been statues. Krispos wanted to fidget. With an effort, he controlled himself.
Petronas came into the Grand Courtroom. His robe, of scarlet silk encrusted with gold and gems, was identical to Anthimos’. Only his bare head declared that he was not yet Avtokrator. Marching with military precision, he approached the thrones. A tiny frown crossed his face when he saw Krispos, but then his eyes went back to the crown waiting for him on the throne that was to be his. He looked at Krispos again and smiled, unpleasantly.
Then, for the last time, he performed the proskynesis before his nephew. He rose and bowed to Anthimos as to an equal. “Majesty,” he said. His voice was strong and proud.
“Majesty,” Anthimos echoed. Some of the courtiers started whispering again, thinking that the formal recognition of Petronas’ elevation. But Anthimos went on in a musing tone, “Majesty is the word we use to denote the sovereign of the state, the power that is his, a signpost of the imperial office, if you will, rather like the red boots only the Avtokrator is privileged to wear.”
Petronas gravely nodded. Krispos watched him go from attention to at ease. If Anthimos was going to make a speech before he got around to the coronation, Petronas would endure it in dignified comfort.
And Anthimos was going to make a speech. He continued, “The Empire, of course, is indivisible. Ought not its sovereignty and the acknowledgment of that sovereignty to be the same? Many would say no, for Videssos has known co-Avtokrators before; the creation of another would be no innovation on the ancient customs of our state.”
Petronas nodded once more, this time, Krispos thought, with a trace of smugness. Anthimos was still speaking. “And yet, those former Avtokrators surely each had reasons they reckoned pressing when they invested their colleagues with a share of the imperial dignity: perhaps to give a son or other chosen successor a taste of responsibility before the passing of the senior partner.
“My uncle Petronas, who stands before me now, is, as you all know, already familiar with the power inherent in the throne,” Anthimos said. Petronas nodded yet again. His nephew went on, “Indeed, for many years the administration of the state and of its armies was entrusted to him. At first this was because of my youth, later not least on account of his own desire to continue what he had begun.”
Petronas stood patiently, waiting for Anthimos to come to the point. Now Anthimos did: “In his control of the armies, my uncle has fought against our ancient foe Makuran. Having failed to win any victories to speak of in his first year, he seeks a second year of campaigning, and this at a time when other barbarians, brought near our northern frontier at his urging, now threaten us.”
The smile suddenly faded from Petronas’ face. Anthimos took no notice, continuing, “When I urged him to consider this, he held it to be of scant import, and as much as told me he would use his influence over our soldiery to topple me from my throne if I failed to do as he wished.” Anthimos raised his voice, called to the Halogai in the Grand Courtroom, “Soldiers of Videssos, who is your Avtokrator, Anthimos or Petronas?”
“Anthimos!” the northerners cried, so loud that echoes rang from the walls and high ceilings. “Anthimos!”
The Emperor rose from his throne. “Then seize this traitor here, who sought to terrify me into granting him a share of the imperial power to which he has no right!”
“Why, you—” Petronas sprang toward his nephew. Dara screamed, throwing herself in front of Anthimos. Before Petronas could reach the steps that led up to the throne, though, Krispos grappled with him, holding him in place until three Halogai, axes upraised, came clattering from their posts nearest the imperial seat.
“Yield or die!” one shouted to Petronas, who was still struggling against Krispos’ greater strength. All the rest of the imperial guards also held their axes above their heads, ready to loose massacre in the Grand Courtroom if any of Petronas’ backers among the Empire’s assembled nobles and commanders sought to rescue the Sevastokrator. No one did.
Krispos thought Petronas’ fury so great he would die before he gave up. But the Sevastokrator was a veteran soldier, long used to calculating the odds of success in battle. Although hatred burned in his eyes, he checked himself, stepped back from Krispos, and bent his head to the big blond axemen. “I yield,” he choked out.
“You’d better, Uncle,” Anthimos said, sitting once more. “By the good god, I’d sooner see Krispos here on the throne than you.” From her place just below him, Dara nodded vigorously. He went on, “And since you have yielded, you must be placed in circumstances where you can no longer threaten us. W
ill you now willingly surrender up your hair and join the brotherhood of monks at a monastery of our choosing, there to spend the rest of your days in contemplation of the lord with the great and good mind?”
“Willingly?” By now Petronas had enough aplomb back to raise an ironic eyebrow. “Aye, considering the alternative, I’ll abandon my hair willingly enough. Better to have my hair trimmed than my neck.”
“Pyrrhos?” Anthimos said.
“With pleasure, Your Majesty.” The abbot stepped down onto the floor of the Grand Courtroom. In the pouch on his belt he carried scissors and a glitteringly sharp razor. He bowed to Petronas and held up a copy of Phos’ scriptures. Formality kept from his voice any gloating he might have felt as he said, “Petronas, behold the law under which you shall live if you choose. If in your heart you feel you can observe it, enter the monastic life; if not, speak now.”
Petronas took no offense at being addressed so simply—if he was to become a monk, the titles he had enjoyed were no longer his. He did permit himself one meaningful glance at the axemen around him, then replied, “I shall observe it.”
“Shall you truly?”
“I shall truly.”
“Truly?”
“Truly.”
After Petronas affirmed his pledge for the third time, Pyrrhos bowed again and said, “Then lower your proud head, Petronas, and yield your hair in token of submission to Phos, the lord with the great and good mind.” Petronas obeyed. Graying hair fell to the marble floor as the abbot plied his scissors. When he had it cropped short, he switched to the razor.
The crown Petronas had expected to wear lay on a large cushion of scarlet satin. After Pyrrhos was done shaving Petronas’ head, he climbed the steps to that second throne and lifted the cushion. Beneath it, folded flat, was a robe of coarse blue wool. The abbot took it and returned to Petronas.
The Tale of Krispos Page 36