The Tale of Krispos

by Harry Turtledove

  “I thought the same thing,” Mavros said. “I talked with your friend Trokoundos and a couple of other mages. From what they say, the spell that knocked over the wall wasn’t battle magic, strictly speaking. Harvas or whoever did it must have spirited his soldiers past the frontier and got them to Develtos with no one the wiser. That made the sorcery a lot easier, because the garrison wasn’t expecting attack and didn’t get into that excited state until the stones came crashing down onto them.”

  “Which was too late,” Krispos said. Mavros nodded. Krispos added, “The next question is, how did Harvas get his army over the border like that?”

  Mavros had no answer. Neither did anyone else. Krispos knew Trokoundos had interrogated Agapetos with the same double mirror arrangement he’d used on Gnatios. Even sorcerously prodded, the general had no idea how Harvas’ men eluded his. Maybe magic had played a part there, too, but nobody could be sure.

  Krispos said, “By the good god, I hope Harvas and his murderers can’t spring out of nowhere in front of Videssos the city and smash through the walls here.” The imperial capital’s walls were far stronger than those of a provincial town like Develtos, so much so that no foreign foe had ever taken the city. Nor had any Videssians, save by treachery. Harvas Black-Robe, though, was looking like a foe of an uncommon sort.

  “Now we’ll have wizards ever on the alert here,” Mavros said. “Taking us by surprise won’t be as easy as it was in Develtos. And surprise, the mages say, was the main reason he succeeded there.”

  “Yes, yes.” Krispos still fretted. Maybe that was because he was so new on the throne, he thought; with more experience, he might have a better sense of just how dangerous Harvas truly was. All the same, like any sensible man, he preferred to be ready for a threat that wasn’t there than to ignore one that was. He said, “I wish Petronas wouldn’t have picked now to rebel. If he gave up, I’d be happy to let him keep his head. Harvas worries me more.”

  “Even after you’re buying Harvas off?”

  “Especially after I’m buying Harvas off.” Krispos plucked at his thick, curly beard, then snapped his fingers in sudden decision. “I’ll even tell Petronas as much, in writing. If he and Gnatios will come back to the monastery, I won’t take any measures against them.” He raised his voice to call for a secretary.

  Before the scribe arrived, Mavros asked, “And if he says no?”

  “Then he says no. How am I worse off?”

  Mavros considered, then judiciously pursed his lips. “Put that way, I don’t suppose you are.”

  When the secretary came in, he set down his tablet and stylus so he could prostrate himself before Krispos. Krispos waited impatiently till the man had got to his feet and taken up his writing tools once more. He had given up on telling underlings not to bother with the proskynesis. All it did was make them uneasy. He was the Avtokrator, and the proskynesis was the way they were accustomed to showing the Avtokrator their respect.

  After he was done dictating, Krispos said, “Let me hear that once more, please.” The secretary read him his words. He glanced over at Mavros. The Sevastor nodded. Krispos said, “Good enough. Give me a fair copy of that, on parchment. I’ll want it today.” The scribe bowed and hurried away.

  Krispos rose, stretched. “All that talking has made me thirsty. What do you say to a cup of wine?”

  “I generally say yes, and any excuse will do nicely,” Mavros answered, grinning. “Are you telling me your poor voice is too worn and threadbare to call Barsymes? I’ll do it for you, then.”

  “No, wait,” Krispos said. “Let’s scandalize him and get it ourselves.” He knew it was a tiny rebellion against the stifling ceremony that hedged him round, but even a tiny rebellion was better than none.

  Mavros rolled his eyes. “The foundations of the state may crumble.” Not least because he had trouble taking things seriously himself, he sympathized with his foster brother’s efforts to keep some of his humanity intact.

  Chuckling like a couple of small boys sneaking out to play at night, Avtokrator and the Sevastos tiptoed down the hall toward the larder. They even stopped chuckling as they sneaked past the chamber where Barsymes was directing a cleaning crew. The vestiarios’ back was to them; he did not notice them go by. The cleaners needed his direction, for thick dust lay over the furnishings inside the chamber and the red-glazed tile that covered its floor and walls. The Red Room was only used—indeed, was only opened—when the Empress was with child. The baby—Krispos’ heir, if it was a boy—would be born there.

  I wonder if it’s mine, he thought for the thousandth time. For the thousandth time, he told himself it did not matter—and tried to make himself believe it.

  The wine, successfully gained and successfully drunk, helped him shove the unanswerable question to the back of his mind once more. He picked up the jar. “Another cup?” he asked Mavros.

  “Thank you. That would be lovely.”

  Barsymes stalked into the larder while Krispos was still pouring. The eunuch’s long smooth disapproving face got longer and more disapproving. “Your Majesty, you have servants precisely for the purpose of serving you.”

  Had he sounded angry, Krispos would have gotten angry in return. But he only sounded sad. Absurdly, Krispos felt guilty. Then he was angry, angry at his own feeling of guilt. “You’d like to wipe my arse for me, too, wouldn’t you?” he snarled.

  The vestiarios said nothing, did not even change his expression. Krispos felt his own face go hot with shame. Barsymes and the other chamberlains had wiped his arse for him, and tended all his other needs, no matter how ignoble, a couple of summers before when he lay paralyzed from Petronas’ wizardry. He hung his head. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

  “Many men would not have remembered,” Barsymes said evenly. “I see you do. Can we bargain, Your Majesty? If your need to be free of us grows so pressing from time to time, will you tolerate us more readily the rest of the time on account of these occasional escapes?”

  “I think so,” Krispos said.

  “Then I will essay not to be aggrieved when I see you occasionally serving yourself, and I hope you will remain sanguine when I and the rest of your servants perform our office.” Bowing, Barsymes withdrew.

  Once the vestiarios was gone, Mavros said, “Who rules here, you or him?”

  “I notice you lowered your voice before you asked me that,” Krispos said, laughing. “Is it for fear he’ll hear?”

  Mavros laughed, too, but soon sobered. “There have been vestiarioi who controlled affairs far beyond the palaces—Skombros, for one.”

  “Me for another,” Krispos reminded him. “I haven’t seen any of that from Barsymes, the lord with the great and good mind be praised. As long as he runs the palace, he’s content to let me have the rest of the Empire.”

  “Generous of him.” Mavros emptied his cup and picked up the jar of wine. “I’m going to pour myself another. Can I do the same for you? That way he’ll have nothing with which to be offended.”

  Krispos held out his own cup. “Go right ahead.”

  THE IMPERIAL COURIER SAT GRATEFULLY IN FRONT OF A ROARING fire. Outside, mixed sleet and rain poured down. Krispos knew that meant spring was getting closer. Given a choice between snow and this horrible stuff, he would have preferred snow. Instead, he would get weeks of slush and glare ice and mud.

  The courier undid his waterproof message pouch and handed Krispos a rolled parchment. “Here you are, Your Majesty.”

  Even had the fellow’s face not warned Krispos that Petronas was not about to come back to his monastery, the parchment would have done the job by itself. It was bound with a scarlet ribbon and sealed with scarlet wax, into which had been pressed a sunburst signet. It was not the imperial seal—Krispos wore that on the middle finger of his right hand—but it was an imperial seal.

  “He says no, does he?” Krispos asked.

  The courier set down the goblet of hot wine laced with cinnamon from which he’d been drinking. “Aye, Majesty, that
much I can tell you. I haven’t seen the actual message, though.”

  “Let’s see how he says no, then.” Krispos cracked the sealing wax, slid the ribbon off the parchment, and unrolled it. He recognized Petronas’ firm, bold script at once—his rival had responded to him in person.

  The response sounded like Petronas, too, Petronas in an overbearing mood: “‘Avtokrator of the Videssians Petronas, son of Agarenos Avtokrator, brother of Rhaptes Avtokrator, uncle to Anthimos Avtokrator, crowned without duress by the true most holy ecumenical patriarch of the Videssians Gnatios, to the baseborn rebel, tyrant, and usurper Krispos: Greetings.’”

  Krispos found reading easier if he did it aloud in a low voice. He didn’t realize the courier was listening until the man remarked, “I guess he wouldn’t say you aye after a start like that, would he?”

  “Doesn’t seem likely.” Krispos read on: “‘I know that advice is a good and goodly thing: I have, after all, read the books of the learned ancients and Phos’ holy scriptures. But at the same time, I reckon that this condition obtains when matters may be remedied. But when the times themselves are dangerous and drive one into the worst and most terrible circumstances, then, I think, advice is no longer so useful. This is most true of advice from you, impious and murderous wretch, for not only did you conspire to confine me unjustly in a monastery, but you also pitilessly slew my nephew the Avtokrator.’

  “That, by the way, is not so,” Krispos put in for the courier’s benefit. He resumed. “‘So, accursed enemy, do not urge me to deliver my life into your hands once more. You will not persuade me. I, too, am a man with a sword at my belt, and I will struggle against one who has sought to lay my family low. For either I shall regain the imperial glory and furnish you, murderer, a full requital, or I shall perish and gain freedom from a disgusting and unholy tyranny.’”

  The courier’s eyes were wide by the time Krispos rolled up the parchment once more. “That’s the fanciest, nastiest ‘no’ I ever heard, Your Majesty.”

  “Me, too.” Krispos shook his head. “I didn’t really think he’d say yes. A pity you and your comrades got drenched carrying the letters there and back again, but it was worth a try.”

  “Oh, aye, Majesty,” the courier said, “I’ve done my soldiering time, fighting against Makuran on the Vaspurakaner frontier. Anything you can try to keep from having a war is worth doing.”

  “Yes.” But Krispos had begun to wonder just how true that was. He’d certainly believed it back in his days at the farming village. Now, though, he was sure he would have to fight Petronas. Just as Petronas could not trust him, he knew a victory by his former patron would only bring him to a quick end, or more likely a slow one.

  And he would have to fight a war against Harvas Black-Robe. Though he paid Harvas tribute for the moment, that was only buying time, not solving the problem. If he let a wild wolf like Harvas run loose on his border, more peasants who wanted nothing but peace would be slaughtered or ruined than if he fought to keep them safe. He also knew the ones who were ruined and the loved ones of those slaughtered in his war would never understand that. He wouldn’t have himself, back in the days before he wore a crown.

  “That’s why the Empire needs an Emperor,” he said to himself: “to see farther and wider than the peasants can.”

  “Aye, Majesty. Phos grant that you do,” the courier said. Krispos sketched the sun-circle over his heart, hoping the good god would hear the fellow’s words.

  THE RAINS DRAGGED ON. IN SPITE OF THEM, KRISPOS SENT OUT couriers ordering his forces to assemble at Videssos the city and in the westlands. Spies reported that Petronas was also mustering troops. Krispos was glumly certain Petronas had spies of his own. He did his best to confuse them, shuttling companies back and forth and using regimental standards for companies and the other way round.

  Thanks to the civil war, his strength in the north and east were less than it should have been. Thus he breathed a long sigh of relief when Iakovitzes wrote: “Harvas has agreed to a year’s truce, at the highest price you would suffer me to pay him. By the lord with the great and good mind, Majesty, I would sooner gallop a ten-mile steeplechase with a galloping case of the piles than chaffer again with that black-robed bandit. I told him as much, in so many words. He laughed. His laugh, Majesty, is not a pleasant thing. Skotos might laugh so, to greet a damned soul new-come to the ice. Never shall I be so glad as the day I leave his court to return to the city. Phos be praised, that day will come soon.”

  When Krispos showed Mavros the letter, the Sevastos whistled softly. “We’ve both seen Iakovitzes furious often enough, but I don’t think I ever heard him sound frightened before.”

  “Harvas has done it to him,” Krispos said. “It’s been building all winter. Just one more sign we should be fighting Harvas now. May the ice take Petronas for keeping me from what truly needs doing.”

  “We settle him this year,” Mavros said. “After that, Harvas will have his turn.”

  “So he will.” Krispos glanced outside. The sky was still cloudy, but held patches of blue. “Before long we can move on Petronas. One thing at a time, I learned on the farm. If you try to do a lot of things at once, you end up botching all of them.”

  Mavros glanced at him, mobile features sly. “Perhaps Videssos should draw its Emperors from the peasantry more often. Where would a man like Anthimos have learned such a simple lesson?”

  “A man like Anthimos wouldn’t have learned it on the farm, either. He’d have been one of the kind—and there are plenty of them, the good god knows—who go hungry at the end of winter because they haven’t raised enough to carry them through till spring, or because they were careless with their storage pits and let half their grain spoil.”

  “You’re probably right,” Mavros said. “I’ve always thought—”

  Krispos never found out what his foster brother had always thought. Barsymes came into the chamber and said, “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but her Majesty the Empress must see you at once.”

  “I’ll come as soon as I’m done with Mavros here,” Krispos said.

  “This is not a matter that will wait on your convenience, Your Majesty,” Barsymes said. “I’ve sent for the midwife.”

  “The—” Krispos found his mouth hanging open. He made himself shut it, then tried again to speak. “The midwife? The baby’s not due for another month.”

  “So her Majesty said.” Barsymes’ smile was always wintry, but now, like the weather, it held a promise of spring. “The baby, I fear, is not listening.”

  Mavros clapped Krispos on the shoulder. “May Phos grant you a son.”

  “Yes,” Krispos said absently. How was he supposed to stick to his one-thing-at-a-time dictum if events kept getting ahead of him? With some effort, he figured out the one thing he was supposed to do next. He turned to Barsymes. “Take me to Dara.”

  “Come with me,” the vestiarios said.

  They walked down the hall together. As they neared the imperial bedchamber, Krispos saw a serving maid mopping up a puddle. “The roof stayed sound all winter,” he said, puzzled, “and it’s not even raining now.”

  “Nor is that rain,” Barsymes answered. “Her Majesty’s bag of waters broke there.”

  Krispos remembered births back in his old village. “No wonder you called the midwife.”

  “Exactly so, Your Majesty. Fear not—Thekla has been at her trade more than twenty years. She is the finest midwife in the city; were it otherwise, I should have sent for someone else, I assure you.” Barsymes stopped outside the bedchamber door. “I will leave you here until I come to take her Majesty to the Red Room.”

  Krispos went in. He expected to find Dara lying in bed, but instead she was pacing up and down. “I thought I would wait longer,” she said. “I’d felt my womb tightening more often than usual the last couple of days, but I didn’t think anything of it. Then—” She laughed. “It was very strange—it was as if I was making water and couldn’t stop myself. And after I was done dripping…now
I know why they call them labor pains.”

  No sooner had she finished speaking than another one took her. Her face grew closed, secret, and intent. Her hands found Krispos’ arms and squeezed hard. When the pain passed, she said, “I can tolerate that, but my labor’s just begun. I’m afraid, Krispos. How much worse will they get?”

  Krispos helplessly spread his hands, feeling foolish and useless and male. He had no idea how bad labor pains got—how could he? He remembered village women shrieking as they gave birth, but that did not seem likely to reassure Dara. He said, “Women are meant to bear children. It won’t be worse than you can take.”

  “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.