Pyrrhos looked as if a little more would drown him. “No, that’s fine, Thokyodes, thank you,” Krispos said. “I think he’s been cooled down very nicely.”
“Cooled down—ahhchoo!—am I?” Pyrrhos shouted. Water dripped from his beard and from the end of his nose. “Nay, I’ve just—ahhchoo!—begun to speak the truth about our imperial adulterer. Now hear me, people of Videssos—”
“Go home and dry off, holy sir,” someone called, not unkindly. “You’ll take a flux on the lungs if you go on like this.”
“Aye, your tale’s as soggy as your robe anyhow,” someone else said.
A woman added, “Save the fire in your belly to warm yourself.”
“No, the crew just doused that fire,” a man said. He chuckled at his own wit.
Pyrrhos had lived all his adult life in monasteries or attached to one temple or another. He was used to respect from the laity, not gibes—not even gibes kindly meant. But worse than those gibes was the laughter that sprang from so many throats at the spectacle of a furious, drenched, shivering holy man standing on his perch—it was an overturned box, Krispos saw—trying to keep on with his denunciation through teeth that chattered loud as the wooden finger cymbals Vaspurakaner dancers used to clack out their rhythm.
He might have stood up against being ignored: because they preached the virtues of a way of life more austere than most folk would willingly embrace, monks were often ignored. But laughter he could not endure. Glaring at the crowd in general and Krispos in particular, he awkwardly scrambled down from his box and stalked away. A fresh sneezing spasm robbed even his departure of dignity.
“Phos with you, drippy Pyrrhos!” a man with a loud voice yelled after him. New laughter rang out. Pyrrhos’ back, already stiff, jerked as if someone had stuck a knife into him. “Drippy Pyrrhos, good old drippy Pyrrhos,” the crowd sang. His departure turned to headlong retreat; by the time he reached the edge of the Forum of the Ox, he was all but running.
Geirrod turned to Krispos. “He’ll love you no better for this, Majesty,” the guardsman said. “Make a man out a fool and he’ll reckon himself at feud with you no less than if you’d slashed him with sword.”
“He’s already at feud with me, and with everyone else who won’t think and do just as he does,” Krispos answered. “Now, though, the good god willing, people won’t take him so seriously. The holy Pyrrhos—until lately, the most holy Pyrrhos—was someone whose notions you’d respect. But how much attention would you pay to good old drippy Pyrrhos?”
“Ahh, now I see it,” Geirrod said slowly. “You’ve poisoned his word.” He spoke in his own language to his fellow northerners. Their deep voices rose and fell; their eyes swung toward Krispos. Geirrod said, “Who but a Videssian would think to slay a man with laughter?” The other Halogai nodded solemnly.
A few feet away, Thokyodes gestured to his crew. The two men who had hauled the pump around now set it down with grunts of relief. The rest leaned on their fire axes, save for one who strolled off toward a fellow selling roasted chickpeas.
Thokyodes caught Krispos’ eye. When Krispos did not look away, the fire captain came over to him. “Well, Your Majesty, I hope we put out some trouble for you there,” he said. Thokyodes was Videssian and, by his accent, a city man. He required no explanations to understand what Krispos had planned.
“I think you did,” Krispos said. “You’ll be rewarded for it, too.”
“I thank you,” Thokyodes said briskly. He did not try to protest his own unworthiness. Business was business.
Krispos raised his voice and called out, “All right, folks, the show is over for today.” The crowd that had been listening to Pyrrhos rapidly melted away. A few people averted their faces as they went by Krispos, as if they did not want him to know they had been anywhere near someone who preached against him. More, though, went off chattering happily; as far as they were concerned, Pyrrhos’ harangue and Krispos’ response to it might have been arranged only for their amusement. City folk were like that, Krispos thought with a touch of exasperation.
By the time he and the Halogai got back to the palaces, winter’s short day was almost done. Longinos looked ready to burst from curiosity when Krispos came into the imperial residence. “Your Majesty, surely you didn’t—”
“—treat Pyrrhos as if he were a fire that needed putting out?” Krispos broke in. “Oh, but I did, esteemed sir.” He explained how Thokyodes and his crew had hosed down the cleric, finishing, “Most of the people who saw it got a good laugh out of it.”
Like the fire captain, Longinos caught on in a hurry. “Hard to take a laughingstock seriously, eh, Your Majesty?”
“Just so, esteemed sir. I remembered how much trouble Petronas had, trying to get rid of Skombros when he was vestiarios. No matter how plainly he showed Anthimos that Skombros was a scoundrel, Anthimos stood by him. But when he arranged to have Skombros laughed at, he was out of the palaces within a week.”
“Ah, yes, Skombros,” Longinos murmured. By his voice, he might have forgotten that the eunuch who was once Petronas’ rival as the chief power behind Anthimos’ throne had ever existed. Krispos was undeceived. Longinos went on, “The good god willing, Your Majesty, Pyrrhos will have been dealt with as, ah, thoroughly as Skombros was.”
Krispos sketched the sun-sign. “May it be so.”
IRON-SHOD HOOVES CLATTERED ON COBBLESTONES. CHAIN MAIL jingled. “Eyes to the right!” an officer bawled. As the regiment rode past the reviewing stand, the lead troopers looked over to Krispos and saluted.
He put his fist over his heart in return. The crowd that lined both sides of Middle Street cheered. The soldiers, most of them in Videssos the city for the first time, grinned at the cheers and went back to gaping at the wonders of the imperial capital. Awed expressions aside, the young men from the westlands’ central plateau looked like solid troops, well mounted and in good spirits despite the long, grueling slog that had at last brought them here to the city.
A raindrop splashed off Krispos’ cheek, then another and another. The soldiers riding by reached up to tug the hoods of their surcoats lower on their foreheads. Some spectators opened umbrellas; other retreated under the colonnades that flanked the thoroughfare.
When the last horse had trotted past, Krispos stepped down from the reviewing stand with a sigh of relief. By then he was just about as wet as Pyrrhos had been after Thokyodes turned the pump on him. He was glad to mount Progress and head back to the imperial residence. A brisk toweling, a bowl of hot mutton stew, and a fresh robe worked wonders for his attitude. After all, he thought, it had been rain, not snow. Winter’s grip would ease soon. When the roads dried, the army he was assembling here would move north against Harvas. He hoped to have seventy thousand men under arms. Surely the Empire’s full weight, backed by the cleverest mages of the Sorcerers’ Collegium, could overcome one wicked wizard who somehow refused to die.
Barsymes carried away the silver bowl that had held stew. He paused in the doorway. “Majesty, do I need to remind you that the envoy of the King of Kings of Makuran has arranged for an audience with you this afternoon?”
“I remember,” Krispos said, not altogether happily. He wished he could forget about Videssos’ great western neighbor, the more so as he was concentrating so much of his army against the Empire’s northern foe. He had already discovered that wishes availed little in statecraft.
Chihor-Vshnasp, the Makuraner envoy, was an elegant man of middle years, with a long rectangular face, deep hollows under his cheekbones, and large, soulful brown eyes that looked perfectly candid. Looks, Krispos knew, were not to be trusted. When Chihor-Vshnasp performed the proskynesis before him, the ambassador’s headgear, a brimless gray felt hat that looked like nothing so much as a bucket, fell from his head and rolled a few feet away. “That happens every time you come to see me,” Krispos observed.
“So it does, Your Majesty. A small indignity of no import between friends.” Chihor-Vshnasp retrieved the errant hat and replaced it
on his head. His Videssian was excellent; only a trace of his native hiss said he was not an educated native of Videssos the city. He went on, “I bring you the greetings of his puissant Majesty Nakhorgan, King of Kings, pious, beneficent, to whom the God and his Prophets Four have granted many years and wide domains.”
“I am always glad to have the greetings of his puissant Majesty,” Krispos said. “In your next dispatch to Mashiz, please send him mine.”
Chihor-Vshnasp bowed in his seat. “He will be honored to receive them. He also wishes me to convey to you his hope for your success against the vicious barbarians who assail your northern frontier. Makuran has suffered inroads from such savages; his puissant Majesty knows what Videssos is enduring now and sympathizes with your pain.”
“His puissant Majesty is very kind.” Krispos thought he had caught the drift of the conversation. He hoped he was wrong.
Unfortunately, he was right. Chihor-Vshnasp continued, “I add my hopes to his: may your war be successful. Since you have invested so much of Videssos’ strength in it, no doubt you will vanquish your foes. Without peace with Makuran, there can be no doubt that some of your armies would have remained in the westlands. Indeed, your decision to commit them speaks well of your confidence in the enduring amity between our two great empires.”
Now Krispos knew what was coming. The only question was how expensive it would prove. “Should I think otherwise?” he asked.
“Not all leaders of Videssos have felt as you do,” Chihor-Vshnasp reminded him. “Only yesterday, it seems, the Sevastokrator Petronas launched an unprovoked assault against Makuran.”
“I opposed that war,” Krispos said.
“I remember, and I honor you for it. Nonetheless, you must be aware of what would happen if his puissant Majesty Nakhorgan, King of Kings, chose this summer to avenge himself for the insult offered to Makuran. With your forces directed away from your western border, our brave horsemen would charge ahead, sweeping all before them.”
Krispos wanted to bite his lip. He held his face still instead. “You’re right, of course,” he said. Chihor-Vshnasp’s iron-gray eyebrows arched. That was not how the game was played. Krispos went on, “If his puissant Majesty really intended to invade Videssos, you wouldn’t come here to warn me. How much does he want for being talked out of it?”
Those eyebrows rose again; the envoy was an artist with them. He said, “It is an intolerable affront to the God and his Prophets Four that Makuran should remain bereft of the valley that contains the great cities of Hanzith and Artaz.”
Between them, the two little Vaspurakaner town might have held half as many people as, say, Opsikion. “Makuran may have them back.” Krispos said, abandoning with a sentence the valley that was the sole fruit of Petronas’ war of three years before, the war Petronas had thought would take him all the way to Mashiz.
“Your Majesty is gracious and generous,” Chihor-Vshnasp said with a small smile. “With such goodwill, all difficulties between nations may yet fall by the wayside, and peace and harmony prevail. Yet his puissant Majesty the King of Kings Nakhorgan remains aggrieved that you love other sovereigns more than him.”
“How can you say such a thing?” Krispos cried, the picture of shock and dismay. “No ruler could be dearer to my heart than your master.”
Chihor-Vshnasp sadly shook his head. “Would that his puissant Majesty could believe you! Yet he has seen you fling great sums of gold to this wretch known as Harvas Black-Robe, who rewarded you with nothing but treachery. And his puissant Majesty, the good and true friend of Videssos, has not known so much as a copper of your great bounty.”
“How many coppers would satisfy him?’’ Krispos asked dryly.
“You paid Harvas a hundred pounds of gold, not so? Surely a good and true friend is worth three times as much as a lying barbarian who takes your money and then does as he would have had you never paid him. Indeed, Your Majesty, I reckon that a bargain.”
“A bargain?” Krispos clapped a dramatic hand to his forehead. “I reckon that an outrage. His puissant Majesty is looking to suck Videssos’ blood and asks us to give him a solid gold straw with which to drink.”
The dickering went on for several days. Krispos knew he would have to pay Nakhorgan more than he had given Harvas; the King of Kings’ honor demanded it. But paying Nakhorgan a lot more than he had given Harvas went against Krispos’ grain. For his part, Chihor-Vshnasp haggled more like a rug merchant than a Makuraner grandee.
At last they settled on a hundred fifty pounds of gold: 10,800 goldpieces. “Excellent, Your Majesty,” Chihor-Vshnasp said when they reached agreement.
Krispos did not think it was excellent; he’d hoped to get away with something closer to a hundred twenty-five pounds. But Chihor-Vshnasp knew too well how badly he needed peace with Makuran. He said, “His puissant Majesty has an able servant in you.”
“You give me credit beyond my worth,” Chihor-Vshnasp said, but his voice had a purr in it, like a stroked cat’s.
“No indeed,” Krispos said. “I will order the gold sent out today.”
“And I shall inform his puissant Majesty that it has begun its journey to him.” Looking as pleased with himself as if the hundred fifty pounds of gold were going to him instead of his master, Chihor-Vshnasp made his elaborate farewells and departed.
“Barsymes!” Krispos called.
The vestiarios appeared in the doorway, prompt and punctual as usual. “How may I help you, Your Majesty?”
“What in Skotos’ cursed name does puissant mean?”
PHOSTIS TODDLED OUT OF THE IMPERIAL RESIDENCE ON UNCERTAIN legs. He blinked at the bright spring sunshine, then decided he liked it and smiled. One of the Halogai grinned and pointed. “The little Avtokrator, he has teeth!”
“Half a dozen of them,” Krispos agreed. “Another one’s on the way, too, so he’ll chew your greaves off if you let him get near you.”
The guardsmen drew back in mock fright, laughing all the while. Phostis charged toward the stairs. He’d only been able to walk without holding on to something for about a week, but he had the hang of it. Going down stairs was something else again. Phostis’ plan was to walk blithely off the first one he came to, just to see what would happen. Krispos caught him before he found out.
Far from feeling rescued, Phostis squirmed and kicked and squawked in Krispos’ arms. “Aren’t you the ungrateful one?” Krispos said as he carried the toddler to the bottom of the stairway. “Would you rather I’d let you smash your silly head?”
By all indications, Phostis would have preferred exactly that. When Krispos put him down at the base of the stairs, he refused to stay there. Instead, he started to climb back toward the top. He had to crawl to do it; the risers were too tall for him to raise his little legs from one to the next. Krispos followed close behind, in case ascent turned to sudden and unplanned descent. Phostis reached the top unscathed—then spun around and tried to jump down. Krispos caught him again.
In the entranceway to the residence, someone clapped. Krispos looked up and saw Dara. “Bravely done, Krispos,” she called, mischief in her voice. “You’ve saved the heir to the state.” The Halogai bowed as she came out into the sunshine. Now no robe, no matter how flowing, could conceal her swelling abdomen.
Krispos looked down at Phostis. “The heir to the state won’t live to inherit it unless somebody keeps an eye on him every minute of the day and night.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wondered if Dara would take them the wrong way; he’d lived in Videssos the city too long to be unaware that plotting, even ahead of the races in the Amphitheater, was its favorite sport.
She only smiled and said, “Babies are like that.” She turned toward the sun and closed her eyes. “During the winter, you think it will never get warm and dry again. I’d like to be a lizard and just stand here and bask.” But after she’d basked for a minute or two, her smile faded. “I always used to wish winter would end as soon as it could. Now I half want it to last longer—
the good weather means you’ll be going out on campaign, doesn’t it?”
“You know it does,” Krispos said. “Unless we get another rainstorm, the roads should be dry enough to travel by the end of the week.”
Dara nodded. “I know. Will you be angry if I tell you I’m worried?”
“No,” he answered after some thought. “I’m worried, too.” He looked north and east. He couldn’t see much, not with the cherry trees that surrounded the imperial residence in such riotous pink bloom, but he knew Harvas was there waiting for him. The knowledge was anything but reassuring.
“I wish you could stay here behind the safety of the city’s walls,” Dara said.
He remembered his awe on the day he first came to Videssos the city and saw its massive double ring of fortifications. Surely even Harvas could find no way to overthrow them. Then he remembered other things as well: Develtos, Imbros, and Trokoundos’ warning that he should meet Harvas as far from the city as he could. Trokoundos had a way of knowing what he was talking about.
“I don’t think there’s safety anywhere, not while Harvas is on the loose,” he said slowly. After a moment, Dara nodded again. He saw how much it cost her.
Phostis wiggled in his arms. He set the boy down. A Haloga took out his dagger, undid the sheath from his belt, and tossed it near Phostis. Gold inlays ornamented the sheath. Their glitter drew Phostis, who picked it up and started chewing on it.
“It’s brass and leather,” Krispos told him. “You won’t like it.” A moment later Phostis made a ghastly face and took the sheath out of his mouth. A moment after that, he started gnawing on it again.
From behind Dara, Barsymes said, “Here are some proper toys.” He rolled a little wooden wagon to Phostis. Inside it were two cleverly carved horses. Phostis picked them up, then threw them aside. He raised the wagon to his mouth and began to chew on a wheel.
The Tale of Krispos Page 69