The Tale of Krispos

by Harry Turtledove

  When Rhisoulphos came into the chamber where Dara was sitting, she looked up at him and said, “Why, Father? Why?” Her voice trembled; tears stood in her eyes, ready to fall.

  “I thought I could,” he answered with a shrug. “It appears I was wrong. I would have made your son my heir, for whatever that’s worth.”

  “Nothing,” Krispos said flatly. “Gnatios goes to the block tomorrow. Give me one good reason you shouldn’t follow him.”

  “Because I am Dara’s father,” Rhisoulphos said at once. “How would you dare to fall asleep beside her after you put me to death?”

  Krispos wanted to kick him—he was still smooth and still right. “As you say. But if you want to live, it will cost you your hair. You’ll go into a monastery for the rest of your days.”

  “I agree,” Rhisoulphos said, again without hesitation.

  Iakovitzes scowled furiously and held up his tablet so Krispos could read it. “Are you mad, Your Majesty? How many people have you clapped into monasteries, only to see them pop right out again?”

  “I wasn’t finished yet.” Krispos turned back to Rhisoulphos. “It won’t be the monastery of the holy Skirios for you. No matter what Iakovitzes thinks, I have learned better than that. If you want to live, you’ll serve the good god at a monastery in Prista.”

  For an instant, Rhisoulphos’ smooth façade cracked and revealed raw red rage. The town of Prista lay far to the north and west of Videssos the city, across the Videssian Sea. It sat on the southern tip of a peninsula that dangled down from the steppes of Pardraya and served as the Empire’s listening post for the plains. It was also the most Phos-forsaken spot in the Empire to which to exile a man.

  “Well, Rhisoulphos?” Krispos said.

  “Let it be as you say,” Rhisoulphos answered at last, his self-control restored. He nodded again to Krispos. “I appear to have underestimated you, Your Majesty. My only consolation is that I’m not the first to make that mistake.”

  Krispos paid hardly any attention to him after he said yes. He was looking at Dara instead, hoping she could accept the choice he’d made. After some endless time that was less than a minute, she, too, nodded. The gesture was eerily like her father’s. Krispos did not care. Now once more he blessed her good sense. She saw what had to be done.

  Krispos called Tyrovitzes. When the chamberlain came in, he told him, “We need a priest here, esteemed sir. Tell him to bring along scissors, razor, Phos’ holy scriptures, and a new blue robe: the eminent Rhisoulphos has decided to enter a monastery.”

  “Indeed, Your Majesty” was all Tyrovitzes said. He bowed and left the room.

  The eunuch chamberlain returned within an hour, a priest at his side. After praying, the priest told Rhisoulphos, “Bend your head.” Rhisoulphos obeyed. The priest used scissors first, then the razor. Lock by lock, Rhisoulphos’ iron-gray hair fell to the floor. When all his scalp was bare, the priest held out the scriptures to him and said, “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.”

  “I will observe it,” Rhisoulphos declared. Twice more the priest asked him; twice more he affirmed his will. If he did so with irony in his voice, the priest took no notice of it.

  After the third affirmation, the priest said, “Doff your garment.” Rhisoulphos obeyed. The priest gave him the monastic robe to put on. “As the garment of Phos’ blue covers your naked body, so may his righteousness enfold your heart and preserve it from all evil.”

  “So may it be,” Rhisoulphos said; he formally became a monk with those words.

  “Thank you, holy sir,” Krispos said to the priest. “Your temple will learn that I’m grateful. Tyrovitzes, escort him back, if you would be so kind, and settle those arrangements. You needn’t haggle overmuch.”

  “As you say, Your Majesty,” Tyrovitzes murmured. Krispos knew he would haggle anyhow, on general principles. Perhaps this way he would not skin the priest too badly.

  When the chamberlain had led the priest away, Krispos turned to Rhisoulphos. “Come with me, holy sir.”

  Rhisoulphos rose, but said, “A moment, if you please.” He put a hand on Dara’s shoulder. “Daughter, I wish it had turned out better. It could have.”

  She would not look at him. “I wish you would have left well enough alone,” she said in a voice filled with tears.

  “So do I, child, so do I.” Rhisoulphos straightened, then dipped his head to Krispos. “Now I will accompany you.”

  More Halogai than the usual squad of guards stood outside the imperial residence. The extra men converged on Rhisoulphos. Krispos said, “Take the holy sir here to the Sea Lion, which is tied up at the Neorhesian harbor. Put him aboard; in fact, stay aboard with him until the Sea Lion sails for Prista in the morning.”

  The guardsmen saluted. “We obey, Majesty,” one of them said.

  “You have everything ready for me,” Rhisoulphos observed. “Nicely done.”

  “I try,” Krispos said shortly. He nodded to the Halogai. They took charge of the new-made monk. Krispos watched them march him down the path till it rounded a corner and took them out of his sight. He sighed and drank in a long lungful of sweet night air. Then he went back inside.

  When he walked into the audience chamber, Iakovitzes’ eyes flickered from him to Dara and back again. The Sevastos quickly got to his feet. “I’d best be going,” he wrote in large letters. He held up the tablet to show it to both Krispos and Dara, then bowed and left with what would have been unforgivable abruptness in most circumstances. As it was, Krispos did not blame Iakovitzes for being so precipitate. He just wished the Sevastos would have stayed longer.

  No help for it: he was alone with Dara after sending her father into exile. “I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it. “I didn’t see what else to do.”

  She nodded. “If you want to keep the throne, if you want to stay alive, you did what you had to do. I know that. But”—she turned her head away from him; her voice broke—“it’s hard.”

  “Aye, it is.” He came over to her and stroked her lustrous black hair. He was afraid she would shy from him, but she sat steady. He went on, “When I was a peasant, I used to think how easy the Avtokrator must have it. All he needs to do is give an order, and people do things for him.” He laughed briefly. “I wish it were that simple.”

  “I wish it were, too. But it’s not.” Dara looked up at him. “You seldom speak of your days on the farm.”

  “Most of them aren’t worth talking about. Believe me, this is better,” Krispos said. Dara did not pursue it, which suited him fine. The chief reason he rarely mentioned his early days to her was that he did not want to remind her how lowly his origins were. Since explaining would also have brought that to the fore, he was pleased to get away without having to.

  “Let’s go to bed,” Dara said. “The lord with the great and good mind knows I won’t sleep much with the baby kicking me and getting me up to make water half a dozen times a night, but I ought to try to get what I can.”

  “All right,” Krispos said. Before long, the last lamp was blown out and he lay in the darkness beside Dara. He remembered Rhisoulphos’ gibe. Was he safe next to her now, with Rhisoulphos on a ship bound for Prista? He must have decided he was, for he fell asleep while he was still mulling over the question, and did not wake the rest of the night.

  AT THE NORTHERN EDGE OF THE PALACE QUARTER, NOT FAR from the Sorcerers’ Collegium, was a small park known to city wits as the hunting ground. It was not stocked with boar or antlered stag. In the center of that hedge-surrounded patch of greensward stood a much-hacked oak stump whose height was convenient for a kneeling man’s neck.

  His back to the early-morning sun, Krispos waited not far from that stump. A couple of Haloga guards stood by, chatting with each other in their own language. They kept sneaking glances at the headsman, who was leaning his chin on the pommel of his sword. He was a tall man, almost as tall as a Haloga. Finally one of
the northerners could hold out no more. He walked over to the headsman and said, “Please, sir, may I try the heft of that great blade?”

  “Be my guest.”

  The headsman watched the guard get the feel of the two-handed grip, smiling at his whistle over the sword’s weight. The Haloga backed off and swung it a couple of times, first across at waist level, then up and down. He whistled again, gave it back. “A brave brand indeed, but too heavy for me.”

  “You handle it better than most,” the headsman said. “Must be that you’re used to the axe, which isn’t light, either. I’ve seen big strong men, but ones who’re used to these cavalry sabers that don’t weigh nothin’, almost fall over when they try my sword.”

  They went on talking for a few minutes, two professionals in related fields passing the time until one of them had to do his job. Then more Halogai brought Gnatios into the little park. He wore a plain linen robe, not even blue. His hands were tied behind him.

  He stopped when he saw Krispos. “Please, Your Majesty, I beseech you—” He fell to his knees. “Have mercy, in the name of Phos, in the name of the service I gave you in the matter of Harvas—”

  Krispos bit his lip. He’d come to witness the execution because he thought he owed Gnatios that much. But did he owe him mercy—again? He shook his head. “May Phos judge you more kindly than I must, Gnatios, in the name of the service you gave me in the matter of Petronas, and in the matter of Rhisoulphos. Who would be next?” He turned to the guardsmen. “Take him to the stump.”

  They dragged Gnatios the last few feet, not kindly but not cruelly either, just going about their business. One told him, “Hold still and it will be over soonest.”

  “Aye, he’s right,” the headsman said. “You’d not want to twist and maybe make me have to strike twice.”

  Still not roughly, the guards forced Gnatios’ head down to the stump. His eyes were wide and bright and staring, with white all around the iris. He sucked in great noisy gulps of air; his chest rose and fell against the thin fabric of his robe in an extremity of fear. “Please,” he mouthed over and over again. “Oh, please.”

  The headsman stepped up beside the oak stump. He swung the two-handed sword over his head. Gnatios screamed. The sword came down. The scream cut off abruptly as the heavy blade bit through flesh and bone. Gnatios’ head rolled away, cleanly severed at the first stroke. Krispos was appalled to see its eyes blink twice as it fell from the stump.

  Every muscle in Gnatios’ body convulsed at the instant of beheading. It jerked free of the Halogai. Blood fountained from the stump of his neck as his heart gave a couple of last beats before it realized he was dead. His bowels and bladder emptied, befouling his robe and adding their stenches to the hot iron smell of blood.

  Krispos turned away, more than a little sickened. He’d read of bloodthirsty tyrants who liked nothing better than seeing the heads of their enemies—real or imagined—roll. All he wondered was whether the chunk of bread he’d had on the way over would stay down. Watching a helpless man die was worse than anything the battlefield had shown him. How Harvas could have struck down a whole city grew only more mysterious, and more dreadful.

  Krispos turned to the headsman, who stood proudly, expecting praise, conscious of a job well done. “He didn’t suffer,” Krispos said—the best he could do. The headsman beamed, so it must have been enough. Krispos went on, “Take the head”—he would not look at it—“to the Milestone. I’m going back to the imperial residence.”

  “As you say, Your Majesty.” The headsman bowed. “Your presence here honored me this morning.”

  Not long after Krispos returned to the residence, Barsymes asked him what he wanted for lunch. “Nothing, thanks,” he said. The vestiarios did not change expression, but still conveyed that his answer was not an acceptable response. Krispos felt he had to explain. “You needn’t fear I’ll make a bloodthirsty tyrant, esteemed sir. I find I don’t have the stomach for it.”

  “Ah.” Now Barsymes’ voice showed he understood. “Will you return to the army later today, then?”

  “I have a couple of things to do before I go. Do I remember rightly that Pyrrhos, while he was patriarch, condemned the hierarch Savianos for some tiny lapse or other?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty, that’s so.” Barsymes’ eyes narrowed. “Am I to infer, then, that you will name Savianos ecumenical patriarch rather than restoring Pyrrhos to his old throne?”

  “That’s just what I intend to do, if he wants the job. I’ve had a bellyful of quarrelsome clerics. Will you arrange to have Savianos brought here as quickly as you can?”

  “I shall have to find out in which monastery he’s been confined, but yes, I will deal with that at once.”

  Toward evening that day Savianos prostrated himself before Krispos. “How may I serve Your Majesty?” he asked as he rose. His face was craggy and intelligent; beyond that, Krispos had learned better than to guess character from features.

  He came straight to the point: “Gnatios’ head went up on the Milestone this morning. I want you to succeed him as ecumenical patriarch.”

  Savianos’ shaggy gray eyebrows leaped like startled gray caterpillars. “Me, Your Majesty? Why me? For one thing, I’m more nearly of Gnatios’ theological bent than Pyrrhos’, and I even spoke against Pyrrhos when you named him patriarch. For another, why would I want the patriarchal throne if you just killed the man who was on it? I have no interest in making the headsman’s acquaintance just because I somehow offended you.”

  “Gnatios didn’t meet the headsman for offending me. He met him for plotting against me. If you plan on meddling in politics after you put on the blue boots, you’d best stay where you are.”

  “If I’d wanted to meddle in politics, I’d have become a bureaucrat, not a priest,” Savianos said.

  “Good enough. As for the other, I remember your speaking up for Gnatios. That took courage. It’s one of the reasons I want you to be patriarch. And my own beliefs aren’t as, as”—Krispos groped for a word—“rigid as Pyrrhos’. I didn’t object to Gnatios’ doctrines, only to his treason. So, holy sir, shall I submit your name to the synod?”

  “You really mean it,” Savianos said in a wondering tone. He studied Krispos, giving him a more thorough and critical scrutiny than he was used to getting since he’d become Avtokrator. At last, with a nod, the priest said, “No, you’re not one to butcher for the sport of it, are you?”

  “No,” Krispos answered at once, queasily remembering how Gnatios’ head had blinked as it bounced from the stump onto the grass.

  “No,” Savianos agreed. “All right, Your Majesty, if you want to give it to me, I’ll take it on. Shall we aim to work without biting each other’s tails?”

  “By the good god, that’s just what we need to do.” Krispos felt like cheering. He’d said that to Pyrrhos and Gnatios both, time and again; each in his own way had chosen to ignore it. Now an ecclesiastic was saying it for himself! “Holy sir—most holy sir to be—I already feel I’ve picked the right man.”

  Savianos’ chuckle had a wry edge to it. “Don’t praise the horse till you’ve ridden him. If you tell me as much three years from now, we’ll both have reason to be pleased.”

  “I’m pleased right now. Let me come up with a couple of truly ghastly names to go along with the rules of the synod and I’ll be able to get back to the army knowing the temples are in good hands.”

  After Savianos left the imperial residence, Krispos summoned the grand drungarios of the fleet, a solidly built veteran sailor named Kanaris. That meeting was much shorter than the one with Savianos. But then, unlike Savianos, Kanaris did not need to be persuaded—when he heard what Krispos wanted, he rushed away as fast as he could go, all eager to start at once. Krispos wished he could look forward to the ride back to the army with equal anticipation.

  THE RIDE NORTH WAS AS FAST AS THE RIDE SOUTH HAD BEEN, but even harder to endure. Krispos had hoped he would be inured to the endless rolling, jouncing hours in the saddle, but i
t was not so. By the time he returned to camp, his best walk was a spraddle-legged shamble. Sarkis and the squad of scouts were in hardly better shape. The worst of it was, Krispos knew more long days of riding lay ahead.

  The soldiers cheered as he rode up to the imperial tent. He waved back to them and put all the exuberance he had left into that wave. They would have been less flattered to know why he was so pleased, but he kept that to himself. He’d most dreaded coming upon their broken remnants as he hurried north.

  “Things have been quiet while you were gone,” Mammianos reported that evening, when Krispos met with his officers. “A few skirmishes here, a few there, but nothing major. Oh, the wizards have had a bit to do, too, so they have.”

  Krispos glanced at Trokoundos. “Aye, a bit to do,” the mage said. Krispos concealed a start at the sound of his voice—he sounded more than tired, he sounded old. Battling Harvas had taken its toll on him. But he continued with sober pride, “Everything the Skotos-lover has hurled at us, we have withstood. I’ll not deny he’s cost us a handful of men, but only a handful. Without us, the army would be in ruins.”

  “I believe you, magical sir,” Krispos said. “All Videssos owes you and your fellows a great debt of thanks. With everything safe here, I can give you my own news from the capital.” Everyone leaned toward him. “First, Gnatios is patriarch no more. He plotted against me once too often, and I took his head.”

  Only nods greeted that announcement, not exclamations of surprise. Krispos nodded, too. Trokoundos and Mammianos had both known why he’d returned to the city in such a hurry, and he hadn’t ordered either one of them to keep quiet about it. For that matter, he often thought ordering a Videssian to keep quiet about anything was a waste of breath.