The Tale of Krispos

by Harry Turtledove

  Krispos read through the message twice to make sure he’d missed nothing. He started to toss it down with the fish he’d caught, but decided it was too likely to be ruined by seawater. He stowed it in the tackle box instead. Then he seized the rowboat’s oars and headed back for the pier. The messenger and the Halogai followed in his wake.

  As soon as he reached the dock, he tossed the tackle box up onto the tarred timbers, then scrambled up after it. He grabbed the box and headed for the imperial residence at a trot that left the parasol-bearers hurrying after him and complaining loudly as they did their futile best to catch up. Even the Halogai who hadn’t gone to sea needed a hundred yards and more before they could assume their protective places around him.

  He’d taken the Thanasioi too lightly before. That wouldn’t happen now. He wrote and dictated orders far into the night; the only pauses he made were to gulp smoked pork and hard cheese—campaigning food—and pour down a couple of goblets of wine to keep his voice from going raw.

  Not until he’d got into bed, his thoughts whirling wildly as he tried without much luck to sleep, did he remember that he’d left the mullet of which he’d been so proud lying in the bottom of the boat.

  Chapter III

  CIVIL WAR. RELIGIOUS WAR. KRISPOS DIDN’T KNOW WHICH OF the two was worse. Now he had them both, wrapped around each other. Worse yet, fall was not far away. If he didn’t move quickly, rain would turn the westlands’ dirt roads to gluey mud that made travel difficult and campaigning impossible. That would give the heretics the winter to consolidate their hold on Pityos and the surrounding territory.

  But if he did move quickly, with a scratch force, he risked another defeat. Defeat was more dangerous in civil war than against a foreign foe; it tempted troops to switch sides. Figuring out which course to take required calculations more exacting than he’d needed in years.

  “I wish Iakovitzes were here,” he told Barsymes and Zaidas as he weighed his choices. “Come to that, I wish Mammianos were still alive. When it came to civil war, he always had a feel for what to do when.”

  “He was not young even in the first days of Your Majesty’s reign,” Zaidas said, “and he was always fat as a tun. Such men are prime candidates for fits of apoplexy.”

  “So the healer-priests advised me when he died up in Pliskavos,” Krispos said. “I understand that. I miss him all the same. Most of these young soldiers I deal with lack sense, it seems to me.”

  “This is a common complaint of the older against the young,” Zaidas said. “Moreover, most of the younger officers in your army have spent more time at peace than was usual in the tenure of previous Avtokrators.”

  Barsymes said, “Perhaps Your Majesty might do more to involve the young Majesties in the preparations against the Thanasioi.”

  “I wish I knew how to do that,” Krispos said. “If they were more like me at the same age, there’d be no problem. But—” His own first taste of combat had come at seventeen, against Kubrati raiders. He’d done well enough in the fighting, then puked up his guts afterward.

  “But,” he said again, shaking his head as if it were a complete sentence. He made himself amplify it. “Phostis has chosen now to get drunk on the lord with the great and good mind and on the words of this priest he’s been seeing.”

  “Will you reprove piety?” Barsymes asked, his own voice reproving.

  “Not at all, esteemed sir. Along with our common Videssian language, our common orthodox faith glues the Empire together. That, among other things, is what makes the Thanasioi so deadly dangerous: they seek to soak away the glue that keeps all Videssos’ citizens loyal to her. But neither would I have my heir make himself into a monk, not when Emperors find themselves forced to do unmonkish things.”

  “Forbid him to see this priest, then,” Zaidas suggested.

  “How can I?” Krispos said. “Phostis is a man in years and a man in spirit, even if not exactly the man I might have wished him to be. He would defy me, and he would be in the right. One of the things you learn if you want to stay Avtokrator is not to fight wars you have no hope of winning.”

  “You have three sons, Your Majesty,” Barsymes said. The vestiarios was subtle even by Videssian standards, but could be as stubborn in his deviousness as any blunt, straightforward, ironheaded barbarian.

  “Aye, I have three sons.” Krispos raised an eyebrow. “Katakolon would no doubt be willing enough to go on campaign for the sake of the camp followers, but how much use he’d be in the field is another question. Evripos, now, Evripos is a puzzle even to me. He doesn’t want to be like his brother, but envies him his place as eldest.”

  Zaidas spoke in musing tones: “If you ordered him to accompany the army you send forth, and gave him, say, spatharios’ rank and a place at your side, that might make Phostis—what’s the word I want?—thoughtful, perhaps.”

  “Worried, you mean.” Krispos found himself smiling. Spatharios was about the most general title in the imperial hierarchy; though it literally meant sword bearer, aide more accurately reflected its import. An Emperor’s spatharios, even when not also the Emperor’s son, was a very prominent personage indeed. Krispos’ smile got wider. “Zaidas, perhaps I’ll dispatch you instead of Iakovitzes on our next embassy to the King of Kings. You have the plotter’s instinct.”

  “I’d not mind going, Your Majesty, if you think I could serve you properly,” the wizard answered. “Mashiz is the home of many clever mages, of a school different from our own. I’d learn a great deal on such a journey, I’m certain.” He sounded ready to leave on the instant.

  “One of these years, then, I may send you,” Krispos said. “You needn’t go pack, though; as things stand, I need you too much by my side.”

  “It shall be as Your Majesty wishes, of course,” Zaidas murmured.

  “Shall it?” Krispos said. “On the whole, I’ll not deny it has been as I wish, more often than not. But I have the feeling that if I ever start to take success for granted, it will run away from me and I’ll never see it again.”

  “That feeling may be the reason you’ve held the throne so long, Your Majesty,” Barsymes said. “An Avtokrator who takes anything for granted soon finds the high seat slipping out from under his fundament. I watched it happen with Anthimos.”

  Krispos glanced at the eunuch in some surprise; Barsymes seldom reminded him of having served his predecessor. He cast about for what Barsymes, in his usual oblique way, might be trying to tell him. At last he said, “Anthimos’ example taught me a lot about how best not to be an Avtokrator.”

  “Then you have drawn the proper lesson from it,” Barysmes said approvingly. “In that regard, his career had a textbook perfection whose like would be difficult to find.”

  “So it did.” Krispos’ voice was dry. Had Anthimos granted to ruling even a tithe of the attention he gave to wine, wenching, and revelry, Krispos might never have tried to supplant him—and if he had, he likely would have failed. But that was grist for the historians now, too. He said, “Esteemed sir, draft for me a letter of appointment for Evripos, naming him my spatharios for the upcoming campaign against the Thanasioi.”

  “Not one for Phostis as well, Your Majesty?” the vestiarios asked.

  “Oh, yes, go ahead and draft that one, too. But don’t give it to him until he finds out his brother was named to the post. Stewing him in his own juices is the point of the exercise, eh?”

  “As you say,” Barsymes answered. “Both documents will be ready for your signature this afternoon.”

  “Excellent. I rely on your discretion, Barsymes. I’ve never known that reliance to be misplaced.” When he was new on the throne, Krispos would have added that it had better not be misplaced here, either. Now he let Barsymes add those last words for himself, as he knew the vestiarios would. Little by little, over the years, he’d picked up some deviousness himself.

  PHOSTIS BOWED LOW BEFORE DIGENIS. GULPING A LITTLE, HE told the priest, “Holy sir, I regret I will not be able to hear your wisdom for s
ome time to come. I depart soon with my father and the armament he has readied against the Thanasioi.”

  “If it suited you, lad, you could remain in the city and learn despite his wishes.” Digenis studied him. The priest’s thin shoulders moved in a silent sigh. “But I see the world and its things still hold you in their grip. Do as you feel you must, then; all shall surely result as the lord with the great and good mind desires.”

  Phostis accepted the priest’s calling him merely lad, though by now Digenis of course knew who he was. He’d thought about telling Digenis to address him as Your Majesty or young Majesty, but one of the reasons he visited the priest again and again was to rid himself of the taint of sordid materialism and learn humility. Humility did not go hand in hand with ordering a priest about.

  But even though he sought humility, he embraced it only so far. Trying to justify himself, he said earnestly, “Holy sir, if I let Evripos serve as my father’s aide, it might give my father cause to have him succeed, rather than me.”

  “And so?” Digenis said. “Would the Empire crumble to pieces on account of that? Is your brother so wicked and depraved that he would cast it all into the fire to feed his own iniquity? Better even perhaps that he should, so the generations which come after us would have fewer material possessions with which to concern themselves.”

  “Evripos isn’t wicked,” Phostis said. “It’s just that—”

  “That you have become accustomed to the idea of one day setting your baser parts on the throne,” the priest interrupted. “Not only accustomed to it, lad, but infatuated with it. Do I speak the truth or a lie?”

  “The truth, but only after a fashion,” Phostis said. Digenis’ eyebrow was silent but nonetheless eloquent. Flustered, Phostis floundered for justification: “And remember, holy sir, if I succeed, you will already have imbued me with your doctrines, which I will be able to disseminate throughout the Empire. Evripos, though, remains attached to the sordid matter that Skotos set before our souls to entice them away from Phos’ light.”

  “This is also a truth, however small,” Digenis admitted, with the air of a man making a large concession. “Still, lad, you must bear in mind that any compromise with Skotos that you form in your mind will result in compromising your soul. Well, let it be; each man must determine for himself the proper path to renunciation, and that path is often—always—strait. If you do accompany your father on this expedition of his, what shall your duties be?”

  “For a good part of it, probably nothing at all,” Phostis answered, explaining, “We’ll go by ship to Nakoleia, to reach the borders of the revolted province as quickly as we can. Then we march overland to Harasos, Rogmor, and Aptos; my father is arranging for supplies to be ingathered at each. From Aptos we’ll strike toward Pityos. That’s the leg of the journey where we’ll most likely start real fighting.”

  In spite of his efforts to sound disapproving, he heard the excitement in his own voice. War, to a young man who has never seen it face-to-face, owns a certain glamour. Krispos never talked about fighting, save to condemn it. To Phostis, that was but another reason to look forward to it.

  The priest just shook his head. “How your grand cavalcade of those who love too well their riches shall progress concerns me not at all. I fear for your soul, lad, the only piece of you truly deserving of our care. Without a doubt you will abandon my teachings and return to your old corrupt ways, just as a moth seeks a flame or a fly, a cow turd.”

  “I’ll do no such thing,” Phostis said indignantly. “I’ve discovered a great deal from you, holy sir, and would not think of turning aside from your golden words.”

  “Ha!” Digenis said. “Do you see? Even your promises of piety betray the greed that remains yet in your heart. Golden words? To the ice with gold! Yet still it holds you in its honeyed grip, sticking you down so Skotos may seize you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Phostis said, humble now. “It was only a figure of speech. I meant no harm by it.”

  “Ha!” Digenis repeated. “There are tests to see whether you have truly embraced piety or are but dissembling, perhaps even to yourself.”

  “Give me one of those tests, then,” Phostis said. “By the lord with the great and good mind, holy sir, I’ll show you what I’m made of.”

  “You are less easy to test than many might be, you know, lad,” the priest said. At Phostis’ puzzled look, he explained: “Another young man I might send past a chamber wherein lay some rich store of gold or gems. For those who came to manhood in hunger and want, such would be plenty to let me look into their hearts. But you? Gold and jewels have been your baubles since you were still pissing on your father’s floor. You might easily remain ensnared in spiritual error and yet pass them by.”

  “So I might,” Phostis admitted. Almost in despair, he cried out, “But I would prove myself to you, holy sir, if only I knew how.”

  Digenis smiled. He pointed to a curtained doorway in the rear wall of the dingy temple over which he presided. “Go through there, then, and it may be you shall learn something of yourself.”

  “By the good god, I will!” But when Phostis pulled aside the curtain, only blank blackness awaited him. He hesitated. His guardsmen waited for him outside the temple, the greatest concession they would make. Assassins might await him in the darkness. He steadied himself: Digenis would not betray him so. Very conscious of the weight of the priest’s gaze on his back, he plunged ahead.

  The curtain fell back into place behind him. As soon as he turned a corner, the inside of the passage was so absolutely black that he whispered Phos’ creed to hold away any supernatural evils that might dwell there. He took a step, then another. The passage sloped steeply down. To keep from breaking his neck, he put his arms out to either side and shifted this way and that until one outstretched finger brushed a wall.

  That wall was rough brick. It scraped his fingertips, but he was glad to feel it, even so; without it, he would have groped around as helplessly as a blind man. In effect, he was a blind man here.

  He walked slowly down the corridor. In the darkness, he could not be sure whether it was straight or followed a gently curving path. He was certain it ran under more buildings than just the temple to Phos. He wondered how old it was and why it had been built. He also wondered if even Digenis knew the answers to those questions.

  His eyes imagined they saw shifting, swirling colored shapes, as if he had shut them and pressed knuckles hard against his eyelids. If any beings phantasmagorical did lurk down here, they could be upon him before he decided they were something more than figments of his imagination. He said the creed under his breath again.

  He had gone—well, he didn’t know how far he had gone, but it was a goodly way—when he saw a tiny bit of light that neither shifted nor swirled. It spilled out from under the bottom of a door and faintly illuminated the floor just in front of it. Had the tunnel been lit, he never would have noticed the glow. As things were, it shouted its presence like an imperial herald.

  Phostis’ fingers slid across planed boards. After so long scratching over brick, the smoothness was welcome. Whoever was on the other side of the door must have had unusually keen ears, for no sooner had his hand whispered over it than she called, “Enter in friendship, by the lord with the great and good mind.”

  He groped for a latch, found it, and lifted it. The door moved smoothly on its hinges. Though but a single lamp burned in the chamber, its glow seemed bright as the noonday sun to his light-starved eyes. What he saw, though, left him wondering if those eyes were playing tricks on him: a lovely young woman bare on a bed, her arms stretched his way in open invitation.

  “Enter in friendship,” she repeated, though he was already inside. Her voice was low and throaty. As he took an almost involuntary step toward her, the scent she wore reached him. Had it had a voice, that would have been low and throaty, too.

  A second, longer look told him she was not quite bare after all: a thin gold chain girded her slim waist. Its glint in the lamplight ma
de him take another step toward the bed. She smiled and moved a little to make room beside her.

  His foot was already uplifted for a third step—which would have been the last one he needed—when he caught himself, almost literally, by the scruff of the neck. He swayed off balance for a moment, but in the end that third step went back rather than ahead.

  “You are the test against which Digenis warned me,” he said, and felt himself turn red at how hoarse and eager he sounded.

  “Well, what if I am?” The girl’s slow shrug was a marvel to behold. So was the long, slow stretch that followed it. “The holy sir promised me you would be comely, and he told the truth. Do as you will with me; he shall never know, one way or the other.”

  “How not?” he demanded, his suspicions aroused now along with his lust. “If I have you here, of course you’ll bear the tale back to the holy sir.”

  “By the lord with the great and good mind, I swear I will not,” she said. Her tone carried conviction. He knew he should not believe her, but he did. She smiled, seeing she’d got through to him. “We’re all alone, only the two of us down here. Whatever happens, happens, and no one else will ever be the wiser.”

  He thought about that, decided he believed her again. “What’s your name?” he asked. It was not quite a question out of the blue.

  The girl seemed to understand that. “Olyvria,” she answered. Her smile grew broader. As if by their own will rather than hers, her legs parted a little.

  When Phostis raised his left foot, he did not know whether he would go toward her or away. He turned, took two quick strides out of the chamber, and closed the door behind him. He knew that if he looked on her for even another heartbeat, he would take her.

  As he leaned against the bricks of the passageway and tried to find a scrap of his composure, her voice pursued him: “Why do you flee from pleasure?”

  Not until she asked him did he fully comprehend the answer. Digenis’ test was marvelous in its simplicity: only his own conscience stood between himself and an act that, however sweet, went square against everything the priest had been telling him. Digenis’ teaching must have had its effect, too: regardless of whether the priest learned what he’d been up to, Phostis knew he would always know. Since he found that reason enough to abstain, he supposed he had met the challenge.