The Tale of Krispos

by Harry Turtledove

  He could not be intimidated, either. “Let them do as they will.”

  “The monastery of the holy Skirios, eh?” Mammianos said. One eyelid rose, then fell. “I’m sure the holy sir and Gnatios will have a good deal to say to each other.”

  Having planted his barb, the fat general leaned back to enjoy it. Pyrrhos did not disappoint him. The cleric’s glare was as cold and withering as the fiercest of ice storms. Mammianos affected not to notice it. He went on, “Of course, Gnatios will have the blue boots back soon enough.”

  “The good god shall judge between us in the world to come,” Pyrrhos said. “I rest content with that.” He turned to Krispos. “Phos shall judge you, as well, Your Majesty.”

  “I know,” Krispos answered. “Unlike you, holy sir, I’m far from sure of my answers. I do the best I can, even so.”

  Pyrrhos surprised him by bowing. “So the good god would expect of you. May your judgment be better in other instances than it is with me. Now summon your northerners, if you feel you must. Wherever you send me, I shall continue to praise Phos’ holy name.” He sketched the sun-circle over his heart.

  In an abstract way, Krispos respected Pyrrhos’ sincere piety. He did not let that respect blind him. When Pyrrhos departed from the imperial residence, he did so under guard. Iakovitzes nodded approval. “Just because someone sounds humble is no sure reason to trust him,” he wrote.

  “From what I’ve seen at the throne, there’s no sure reason to trust anyone.”

  To his secret dismay, both Rhisoulphos and Mammianos nodded at that. Iakovitzes wrote, “You’re learning.” Krispos supposed he was, but did not care for the lessons his office taught him.

  FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE HARVAS’ MAGIC TURNED BACK THE imperial army on the borders of Kubrat, Trokoundos seemed something more than gloomy. “I hope you intend to reward Gnatios for what he ferreted out,” he told Krispos. “Without it, we’d still be stumbling around like so many blind men.”

  “I have a reward in mind, yes,” Krispos said; at that moment, a synod of prelates and abbots was contemplating Gnatios’ name for the patriarchate once more, along with those of two other men whom the assembled clerics knew they had better ignore. “Now that you know more of Harvas, will he be easier to defeat?”

  “Knowing a bear has teeth, Your Majesty, doesn’t take those teeth away,” Trokoundos said. At Krispos’ disappointed look, he went on, “Still, since we know where he grew them, perhaps we can do something more about them. Perhaps.”

  “Such as?” Krispos asked eagerly.

  “It’s a fair guess, Majesty, that if he follows Skotos and draws his power from the dark god, his spells will invert the usages with which we’re familiar. That may make them easier to meet than if he, say, truly clove to the Haloga gods or the demons and spirits the steppe nomads revere. Magic from the nomads or the northerners can come at you from any direction, if you know what I mean.”

  “I think so,” Krispos said. “But if their mages or shamans or what have you can invoke their gods and demons and have magic work, does that make those gods and demons as true as Phos and Skotos?”

  Trokoundos tugged thoughtfully at his ear. “Majesty, I think that’s a question better suited to the patriarch’s wisdom, or that of an ecumenical synod, than to one who aspires to nothing more than competent wizardry.”

  “As you wish. In any case, it takes us off the track. You know the direction from which Harvas’ spells will come, you say?”

  “So I believe, Your Majesty. This aids us to a point, but only to a point. Harvas’ strength and skill must still be overcome. The one, I have already seen, is formidable. As for the other, three centuries ago it sufficed to free him from a warded cell. He can only have refined it in all the years since. That he remains alive to torment us proves he has refined it.”

  “What shall we do, then?” Krispos asked. He’d hoped having a handle on Harvas would give the mages of Videssos the means to defeat him with minimal risk to themselves or to the Empire. But he’d long since found that things in the real world had a way of being less simple and less easy than in storytellers’ tales. This looked like another lesson from that school.

  Trokoundos’ words confirmed his own thoughts. “The best we can, Your Majesty, and pray to the lord with the great and good mind that it be enough.”

  BAD WEATHER SETTLED IN NOT LONG BEFORE MIDWINTER’S DAY. Blizzard after blizzard roared into Videssos the city from the northwest, off the Videssian Sea. On Midwinter’s Day itself, the snow blew so hard and quick that even Krispos, with the best seat in the Amphitheater, made out little of the skits performed on the track before him. The people in the upper reaches of the huge oval stadium could have discerned only drifting white.

  The final troupe of mimes changed its act at the last minute. They came out carrying canes and tapped their way through their routine, as if they’d all suddenly been stricken blind. On the spine of the Amphitheater, Krispos laughed loudly. So did many in his entourage, and in the first few rows of seats around the track. Everyone else must have wondered what was funny—which was just the point the mimes were making. Krispos laughed even more when he worked that out.

  On the way back to the palaces after the show in the Amphitheater was done, he leaped over a bonfire to burn away misfortune for the coming year. That fire was but one of many that blazed each Midwinter’s Day. This year, though, the good-luck bonfires brought misfortune with them. Whipped by winter gales, two got out of control and ignited nearby buildings.

  Now Krispos saw through swirling snow the smudges of smoke he’d feared during the religious riots Pyrrhos had caused. The snow did little to slow the flames. Firefighting teams dashed through the city with hand pumps to shoot water from fountains and ponds, with axes and sledgehammers to knock down homes and shops to build firebreaks. Krispos had no great hope for them. When fire got loose, it usually pleased itself, not any man.

  The teams amazed him. They succeeded in stopping one of the fires before it had eaten more than a block of buildings. The other blaze, by luck, had started near the city wall. It burned what it could, then came to the open space inside the barrier and died for lack of fuel.

  Krispos presented a pound of gold to the head of the team that beat the first fire, a middle-aged fellow with a fine head of silver hair and a matter-of-fact competence that suggested years as a soldier. Nobles and logothetes in the Grand Courtroom applauded the man, whose name was Thokyodes.

  “Along with this reward from the grateful state,” Krispos said, “I also give you ten goldpieces from my private purse.”

  More applause rose. Thokyodes clenched his right fist over his heart in salute—he was a veteran, then. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” he said, pleased but far from obsequious.

  “Maybe you’ll use one of those ten on a potion to make your eyebrows grow back faster,” Krispos said, soft enough that only he and the team leader heard.

  Not a bit put out, Thokyodes laughed and ran the palm of his hand across his forehead. “Aye, I do look strange without ’em, don’t I? They got singed right off me.” He made no effort to keep his voice down. “Fighting fires is just like fighting any other foe. The closer you get, the better you do.”

  “You did the city a great service,” Krispos said.

  “Couldn’t’ve done it without my crew. By your leave, Your Majesty, I’ll share this with all of them.” Thokyodes held up the sack of goldpieces.

  “It’s your money now, to do with as you please,” Krispos said. The applause that rang out this time was unrehearsed, sincere, and startled. Few of the courtiers, men who had far more than this fireman, would have been as generous, and they knew it. Krispos wondered if he would have matched the man had fate led him to an ordinary job instead of the throne. He hoped so, but admitted to himself that he was not sure.

  “I think you would have,” Dara said when he wondered again later in the day, this time aloud. “This I’ll tell you—Harvas wouldn’t.”

  “Harvas? Harvas
would have stood next to the fire with his cheeks puffed out, to blow it along.” Krispos smiled at his conceit. A moment later the smile blew out. He sketched Phos’ sun-circle. “By the good god, how do I know his magic didn’t help the blazes spread?”

  “You don’t, but if you start seeing him under our bed whenever anything goes wrong, you’ll have your head down there all the time, because we don’t need Harvas to know misfortune.”

  “That’s true,” Krispos said. “You have good sense.” His smile came back, this time full of gratitude. Harvas was quite bad enough without a fearful imagination making him worse.

  Dara said, “I do try. It’s nice that you notice. I remember when—” She stopped without telling Krispos what she remembered when. It had to do with Anthimos, then. Krispos did not blame her for steering away from that time; it had not been happy for her. But that meant several years of her life, the ones before Krispos became vestiarios, were almost blank to him, which occasionally led to awkward pauses like this one.

  He wondered if every second husband and second wife endured them. Probably, he thought. It would have been more awkward yet had her marriage to Anthimos been a good one. A lot more awkward, he realized with an inward chuckle, because then she would not have told him Anthimos intended to kill him. “Can’t get much more awkward than that,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Than what?” Dara asked.

  “Never mind.”

  WHENEVER FAT LONGINOS BURST IN ON HIM ON THE DEAD RUN, Krispos braced for trouble. The chamberlain, to his disappointment, did not disappoint him. “Majesty,” Longinos gasped, wiping his brow with a silken kerchief—only a fat eunuch could have been sweaty after so trivial an exertion; it was freezing outside and not a great deal warmer inside the imperial residence. “Majesty, the most holy patriarch Pyrrhos—I’m sorry, Your Majesty, I mean the monk Pyrrhos—is preaching against you in the street.”

  “Is he, by the good god?” Krispos sprang up from his desk so quickly that a couple of tax registers fluttered to the floor. He let them lie there. So Pyrrhos’ indignation at being removed from the patriarchal throne really had overcome his longtime loyalty, had it? “What’s he saying?”

  “He’s spewing forth a great vomit of scandal, Your Majesty, over, ah, over your, ah, your relationship with her Majesty the Empress Dara before you, ah, rose to the imperial dignity.” Longinos sounded indignant for his master’s sake, though he had known Krispos and Dara were lovers long before they were man and wife.

  “Is he?” Krispos said again. “He’ll spew forth his life’s blood before I’m through with him.”

  Longinos’ eyes went large with dismay. “Oh, no, Your Majesty. To cut down one but lately so high in the temples, one still with many backers who—begging your pardon, Your Majesty—deem him more holy than the present wearer of the blue boots…Your Majesty, it would mean more blood than Pyrrhos’ alone. It would mean riots.”

  He’d found the word he needed to stop Krispos in his tracks. Dividing the city—dividing the Empire—against itself was the one thing Krispos could not afford. “But,” he said, as if arguing with himself, “I can’t afford to let Pyrrhos defame me, either. If that nonsense goes on for long, it’ll bring some would-be usurper out of the woodwork, sure as sure.”

  “Indeed, Your Majesty,” Longinos said. “Were you ten years on the throne rather than two—not even two—you might let him rant, confident he would be ignored. As it is—”

  “Aye. As it is, people will listen to him. They’ll take him seriously, too, thanks to his piety.” Krispos snorted. “As if anyone could take Pyrrhos any way but seriously. I’ve hardly seen him smile in all the years I’ve known him, the somber old—” He stopped, laughing out loud. When he could speak again, he asked, “Where is Pyrrhos giving this harangue of his?”

  “In the Forum of the Ox, Your Majesty,” Longinos said.

  “All right; he should be easy enough to find there. Now, esteemed sir, this is what I want you to do—” He spoke for several minutes, finishing. “Do you think you should have something in writing from me, to make sure my orders get carried out?”

  “Yes, that would be best.” Longinos looked half amused, half scandalized. Krispos wrote quickly and handed him the scrap of parchment. The eunuch read it over, shook his head, then visibly pulled himself together. “I shall have this delivered immediately, Your Majesty.”

  “See that you do,” Krispos said. Longinos hurried away, calling for a courier. Krispos prided himself on not wasting time, so he reviewed another tax document before he ambled out to the entrance to the imperial residence. The Halogai there stood to stiff attention. “As you were, lads,” he told them. “We’re going for a walk.”

  “Where are your parasol-bearers, then, Majesty?” Geirrod asked.

  “They’d just get in the way today,” Krispos said. The Halogai stirred at that. A couple of them ran fingers down the edges of their axeblades to make sure the weapons were sharp. One must have found a tiny nick, for he took out a whetstone and went to work with it. When he checked again, the axe passed his test. He put away the stone.

  “Where to, Majesty?” Geirrod said.

  “The Forum of the Ox,” Krispos answered lightly. “Seems the holy Pyrrhos isn’t taking kindly to not being patriarch anymore. He’s saying some rather rude things about me there.”

  The Halogai stirred again, this time in anticipation. “You want us to curb his tongue for him, eh?” said the one who had sharpened his axe. He examined his edge anew, as if to make certain it could bite through a holy man’s neck.

  But Krispos said, “No, no. I don’t aim to harm the holy sir, just to shut him up.”

  “Better you should kill him,” Geirrod said. “Then he’ll not trouble you ever again.” The rest of the guardsmen nodded.

  Krispos wished he could view the world with the ferocious simplicity the Halogai used. In Videssos, though, few things were as simple as they seemed. Without answering Geirrod, Krispos strode down the stairs. The northerners came after him, surrounding him to hold potential assassins at bay.

  The Forum of the Ox was a mile and half, perhaps two miles east down Middle Street from the palace quarter. Krispos walked briskly to keep warm. He was glad of his escort as he passed through the plaza of Palamas; as usual, the Halogai marched in a way that said they would trample anyone who did not get clear. Crowds melted before them, as if by magic.

  He hurried down Middle Street. He wanted to catch Pyrrhos in the act of preaching against him; whatever punishment he might mete out after the fact, no matter how savage, would not have the effect he wanted. Making a martyr out of the prelate was the last thing he had in mind.

  A few hundred yards past the government office building, Middle Street jogged to the south. The Forum of the Ox lay not far ahead. Krispos sped up till he was almost trotting. To have Pyrrhos get away from him now would be unbearably frustrating. He hoped again that his orders had gone through on time.

  In ancient days, the Forum of the Ox had been Videssos the city’s chief cattle market. It was still an important trading center for goods bulkier, more mundane, and less expensive than those sold in the plaza of Palamas: livestock, grain, cheap pottery, and olive oil. People here stared at Krispos’ escort before they got out of the way. In the plaza of Palamas, close by the palaces, they were used to seeing the Avtokrator. He was a much less frequent visitor in this poorer part of the city.

  A quick glance around the square showed him what he sought: a knot of men and women gathered around a man in a blue monk’s robe. The monk—even across the square, Krispos recognized Pyrrhos’ tall, thin frame and lean face—stood on a barrel or box or stone that raised him head and shoulders above his audience. Krispos pointed. “Over there.” The Halogai nodded. They moved on Pyrrhos with the directness of a pack of wolves advancing on a wisent.

  Pyrrhos was a trained orator. Long before he reached the rear edge of the crowd that listened to the cleric, Krispos could hear what he was saying. So could
half the people in the Forum of the Ox. “He must have learned his corruption from the master he formerly served, for surely depravity was the name by which Anthimos was better known. Yet in his own way, Krispos outdid Anthimos in vice, first seducing the previous Avtokrator’s wife, then using her against her husband to climb over his dead body to the throne. How will—how can—Phos bless our efforts with such a man inhabiting the palaces?”

  Pyrrhos must have seen Krispos and his bodyguards approach, but he did not pause in his address. Krispos already knew he had courage. Pyrrhos also did not suddenly break off his speech to point out to his audience that the adulterous monster he had been denouncing was here. That, in his sandals, Krispos might have tried, if he truly aimed to overthrow someone. But Pyrrhos did not deviate from what he had decided to say: his mind was made up, which left no room in it for change.

  Krispos folded his arms to listen. Pyrrhos continued his harangue as if the Avtokrator were not there. He paid even less attention to the squad of firemen who dashed into the Forum of the Ox. Others round the square glanced up in some alarm at the sight of the men armed with Haloga-style axes and with a hand pump carried by two men who were sweating even in the chill of winter. Especially after the close escape on Midwinter’s Day, fire was a constant fear in the city.

  But the fire team made straight for the crowd round the gesticulating monk. “Make way!” the fire captain shouted.

  People tumbled away from the crew. “Where’s the fire?” somebody yelled.

  “Right here!” Thokyodes yelled back. “Leastways, I got orders to put out this incendiary here.” He waved to his crew. One of them swung the pump handle up and down. The other turned his hose toward Pyrrhos.

  Cold water from the hand pump’s wooden tub gushed forth. The people nearest Pyrrhos stampeded away from him, cursing and spluttering as they went. Pyrrhos himself tried to speak on through his drenching, but started to sneeze whether he wanted to or not. The fire team kept hosing him down until the tub was empty. Then Thokyodes looked over to Krispos. “Shall we fill ’er up again, Your Majesty?”