Phostis didn’t for a moment imagine Krispos wouldn’t find out. He did not see eye to eye with his father, but he did not underestimate him, either. Nobody incapable stayed on the throne of Videssos for more than twenty years. When Krispos set his mind to learning something, sooner or later he would. And when he did…
Phostis wasn’t sure what the consequences of that would be, but he was sure they’d be unpleasant—for him. They wouldn’t stop at scolding, either. Ruining a campaign was worse than a scolding matter. It was the sort of matter that would put his head on the block were he anyone but a junior Avtokrator. Given his father’s penchant for evenhanded—at the moment, Phostis thought of it as heavyhanded—justice, it might put his head on the block anyway.
He wondered whether he ought to pass his father’s order on to Noetos. If he truly adhered to the principles of the Thanasioi, how could he hinder the cause of his fellow believers? But if he had any thought for his own safety, how could he not transmit the order? Krispos would descend on him like an avalanche for that. And if his father’s suspicions were aroused, his own role in the matter of the supply dumps grew more likely to emerge.
What to do? No more time for thought—there was the rearguard commander’s banner, blue sunburst on gold. The reversed imperial colors marked the rear of the army, and out from under the banner, straight toward him, rode Noetos, a solid, middle-aged officer like so many who served under Krispos, unflappable rather than brilliant. He saluted and called out in a ringing voice, “How may I serve you, young Majesty?”
“Uh,” Phostis said, and then “Uh” again; he still hadn’t made up his mind. In the end, his mouth answered, not his brain. “My father bids you to be especially alert for anyone sneaking out of Nakoleia, lest the stranger prove a Thanasiot spy.” He hated himself as soon as he had spoken, but that was too late—the words were gone.
They proved not to matter, though. Noetos saluted again, clenched fist over his heart, and said, “You may tell his imperial Majesty the matter is already being attended to.” Then one of the officer’s eyelids fell and rose in an unmistakable wink. “You can also tell Krispos not to go trying to teach an old fox how to rob henhouses.”
“I’ll—pass on both those messages,” Phostis said faintly.
He must have looked a trifle wall-eyed, for Noetos threw back his head and let go with one of those deep, manly chortles that never failed to turn Phostis’ stomach. “You do that, young Majesty,” he boomed. “This’d be your first campaign, wouldn’t it? Aye, of course it would. Good for you. You’ll learn some things you’d never find out in the palaces.”
“Yes, I’m discovering that,” Phostis said. He started back toward the front of the army. That was a slower trip than the one from the front to the rear guard, for now he was moving with the stream and gaining more slowly on any point within it. He had the time to think he could have used before. He certainly was learning new things away from the palaces, not least among them how to be afraid much of the time. He doubted that was what Noetos had meant.
The baggage train traveled in the center of the strung-out army, the safest position against attack. Beeves shambled along, lowing. Wagons rattled and squeaked and jounced; ungreased axles squealed loud and shrill enough to set Phostis’ teeth on edge. Some of the wagons carried hard-baked bread; others fodder for the horses; others arrows tied in neat sheaves of twenty, ready to be popped into empty quivers; still others carried the metal parts and tackle for siege engines whose timbers would be cut and trimmed on the spot under direction of the military engineers.
Noncombatants traveled with the baggage train. Healer-priests in robes of blue rode mules that alternated between walk and trot to keep up with the longer-legged horses. A few merchants with stocks of fancy goods for officers who could afford them preferred buggies to horseback. So did some of the loose women any army attracts, though others rode astride with as much aplomb as any man.
Some of the courtesans gave Phostis professionally interested smiles. He was used to that, and found it unsurprising: after all, he was young, reasonably well favored, rode a fine horse, and dressed richly. If a woman was mercenary or desperate enough to sell her body to live, he made a logical customer. As for buying such a woman, though—he left that to his brothers.
Then one of the women not only waved but smiled and called out to him. He intended to ignore her as he had all the others, but something about her—maybe the unusual combination of creamy skin and black, black hair that framed her face in ringlets—seemed familiar. He took a longer look…and almost steered his horse into a boulder by the side of the road. He’d seen Olyvria, naked and stretched out on a bed, somewhere under Videssos the city.
He felt himself turn crimson. What did she expect him to do, ride over and ask how she’d been since she put some clothes on? Maybe she did, because she kept on waving. He looked straight ahead and dug his knees into his horse’s ribs, urging the beast up into a fast canter that hurried it away from the baggage train and the now-dressed wench.
He thought hard as he drew near Krispos. What was Olyvria doing here, anyhow? The only answer that occurred to him was spying for Digenis. He wondered if she’d somehow sailed with the imperial army. If not, she’d made better time overland than he’d have thought possible for anyone but a courier.
He wondered if he ought to tell his father about her—she certainly was the sort of person about whom Krispos worried. But his father had no reason to believe he knew anything about her, and she was likely a Thanasiot herself. He had no reason to give her away, not even his own advantage.
Krispos rode at the head of the army. Phostis came up and delivered both messages from Noetos. Krispos laughed when he heard the second one. “He is an old fox, by the good god,” he said. Then he turned serious again. “I would have failed in my duty, though, if I’d failed to give him that order. There’s a lesson you need to remember, son: an Avtokrator can’t count on things happening without him. He has to make sure they happen.”
“Yes, Father,” Phostis said, he hoped dutifully. He knew Krispos lived by the principles he espoused. His father had given the Empire of Videssos two decades of stable government, but at the cost of turning fussy, driven, and suspicious.
He’d also developed an alarming facility for picking thoughts out of Phostis’ head. “You no doubt have in mind that you’ll do it all differently when your backside warms the throne. I tell you, lad, there are but two ways, mine and Anthimos’. Better you should shoulder the burden yourself than let it fall on the Empire.”
“So you’ve said, more than once,” Phostis agreed: more than a thousand times, he meant. Hearing the resignation in his voice. Krispos sighed and returned his attention to the road ahead.
Phostis started to carry the argument further, but forbore. He’d been about to put forward the wisdom and reliability of a small group of trusted advisors who might carry enough of the administrative burden to keep it from overwhelming an Avtokrator. Before he spoke, though, he remembered the false friends and sycophants he’d already had to dismiss, people who sought to use him for their own gain. Just because advisors were trusted did not mean they wouldn’t be venal.
He jerked on the reins; his horse snorted indignantly as he pulled its head away from that of Krispos’ mount. But conceding his father a point always annoyed him. By riding away from Krispos, he wouldn’t have to concede anything, either to his father or to himself.
By the end of the day, the imperial army had moved far enough inland to make sunset a spectacle very different from what Phostis was used to. Having land all around seemed suddenly confining, as if he were closed off from the infinite possibilities for travel available at Videssos the city. Even the sounds were strange: night birds unknown in the imperial capital announced their presence with trills and strange drumming noises.
Krispos’ tent, however, did its best to re-create the splendor of the imperial palaces, using canvas rather than stone. Torches and bonfires held night at bay; officers go
ing in and out took the place of the usual run of petitioners. Some emerged glum, others pleased, again as it would have been back in the city.
As in the capital, Phostis had no choice but to establish his own lodging uncomfortably close to that of his father. Also as in Videssos the city, he did choose to stay as far from Krispos as he could. The servitors who raised his tent carefully did not raise their eyebrows when he ordered them to place it to the rear and off to one side of Krispos’ larger, grander shelter.
Phostis ate from the cookpot the Halogai set up in front of Krispos’ pavilion. He ran no risk of bumping into his father there; by all accounts, Krispos’ habit on campaign was to share the rations of his common soldiers, so he was probably off somewhere standing in line with a bowl and a spoon like any cavalry trooper.
Had he sampled his own guards’ stew that evening, he would not have been happy with it. It had a sharp, bitter undertaste that made Phostis’ tongue want to shrivel up. The Halogai liked it no better than he, and were less restrained in suggesting appropriate redress.
“Maybe if so bad next time, we cut up cook and mingle his meat with the mush,” one of them said. The rest of the northerners nodded so soberly that Phostis, who had at first smiled, began to wonder if the Haloga was joking.
He’d hardly finished supper when his guts knotted and cramped. He made for the latrines at a dead run and barely managed to hike up his robes and squat over a slit trench before he was noisomely ill. Wrinkling his nose at the stench, he got painfully to his feet. A Haloga crouched a few feet away. Another came hurrying up a moment later. Before he could tear down his breeches, he cried in deep disgust, “Oh, by the gods of the north, I’ve gone and shit myself!”
Phostis made several more trips out to the slit trenches as the night wore on. He began to count himself lucky that he hadn’t had to echo the Haloga’s melancholy wail. More often than not, several guardsmen were at the latrine with him.
Finally, some time past midnight, he found himself alone in the darkness out there. He’d gone a good ways away from his tent in the hope of finding untrodden, unbefouled ground. Just as he started to squat, someone called from beyond the slit trenches: “Young Majesty!”
His head went up in alarm—it was a woman’s voice. But what he had to do was more urgent than any embarrassment. When he’d finished, he wiped sick sweat from his forehead and started slowly back toward his tent.
“Young Majesty!” The call came again.
This time he recognized the voice: it was Olyvria’s. “What do you want with me?” he growled. “Haven’t you seen me mortified enough, here and back in the city?”
“You misunderstand, young Majesty,” she said in injured tones. She held up something; in the dark, he couldn’t tell what it was. “I have here a decoction of the wild plum and black pepper that will help relieve your distress.”
Had she offered him her body, he would have laughed at her. He’d already declined that when he was feeling perfectly fine. But at the moment, he would have crowned her Empress for something that stopped his insides from turning inside out.
He hurried over to her, skipping across slit trenches as he went. She held a small glass vial out to him; distant torchlight reflected faintly from it. He yanked off the stopper, raised the vial to his lips, and drank.
“Thank you,” he said—or started to. For some reason, his mouth didn’t want to work right. He stared at the vial he still held in his hand. All at once, it seemed very far away, and receding quickly. Agonizingly slow, a thought trickled across his brain: I’ve been tricked. He turned and tried to run, but felt himself falling instead. I’ve been— Unconsciousness seized him before he could find the word stupid.
Chapter IV
“LET’S GET MOVING,” KRISPOS SAID IRRITABLY. “WHERE’S PHOSTIS taken himself off to, anyhow? If he thinks I’ll hold up the whole army for his sake, he’s wrong.”
“Maybe he’s fallen into the latrine,” Evripos said. Bad food was a risk on campaign; plenty of Halogai had been running back and forth in the night. The gibe might have been funny had Evripos sounded less hopeful it was true.
Krispos said, “I haven’t time for anyone’s nonsense today, son—his or yours.” He turned to one of his guardsmen. “Skalla, stick your head into his tent and rout him out.”
“Aye, Majesty.” Like a lot of his fellows, Skalla looked even fairer—paler was probably a better word—than usual this morning. He strode off to do Krispos’ bidding, but returned to the imperial pavilion a moment later with a puzzled expression on his face. “Majesty, he is not there. The coverlet is thrown back as if he’d got out of his cot, but he is not there.”
“Well, the ice take it, where is he, then?” Krispos snapped. What Evripos had said sparked a thought. He told Skalla, “Pick a squad of guards and go up and down the slit trenches in a hurry, to make sure he wasn’t taken ill there.”
“Aye, Majesty.” Skalla’s voice was doleful. For one thing, now that morning had come, the latrines were busy. Anyone who spotted Phostis there would have raised an uproar. For another…
“Pick men the flux missed,” Krispos said. “I wouldn’t want the stink to make them sick all over again.”
“I thank you, Majesty.” The Halogai were not what one would call a cheerful folk, but Skalla seemed more pleased with the world.
That did not mean he and the squad of guardsmen had any luck turning up Phostis. When he came back to report failure to Krispos, the Avtokrator said, “I’m not going to wait for him, by the good god. Let’s get everyone moving. He’ll turn up—where else is he going to go? And when he does, I shall have a word or two with him—a pungent word or two.”
Skalla nodded; from everything Krispos had gleaned of how life worked in Halogaland, sons there knew better than to give already grizzled fathers more gray hair. He let out a mordant chuckle—it sounded too good to be true.
The imperial army did not get moving as fast as he would have wanted; it was newly mustered and still shaking down. He’d been sure Phostis would appear before the troops really started heading south and west. But his eldest did not appear. Evripos opened his mouth to say something that surely would have proved ill-advised. Krispos’ glare made certain it never crossed the barrier of his son’s lips.
By the time the army had been an hour on the road, Krispos’ anger melted into worry. He sent couriers to each regiment to summon Phostis by name. The couriers returned to him. Phostis did not. Krispos turned to Evripos. “Fetch me Zaidas, at once.” Evripos did not argue.
The wizard, not surprisingly, had a good notion of why he’d been summoned. He came straight to the point. “When was the young man last seen?”
“I’ve been trying to find out,” Krispos answered. “He seems to have been taken with the same flux that seized a fair number of the Halogai last night. Several of them saw him once, or more than once, squatting over a latrine trench. No one, though, has any clear memory of spotting him there after about the seventh hour of the night.”
“An hour or so past midnight, then? Hmm.” Zaidas’ eyes went far away, into a place Krispos could not follow. Despite that, though, he was a thoroughly practical man. “The first thing to determine, Your Majesty, is whether he be alive or dead.”
“You’re right, of course.” Krispos bit his lip. For all his quarrels with his eldest, for all his doubts as to whether Phostis was his eldest, he discovered he feared for Phostis’ life as might any father, true or adoptive. “Can you do that at once, eminent and sorcerous sir?”
“A hedge wizard could do as much, Your Majesty, with the abundance of Phostis’ effects present here,” the mage answered, smiling. “An elementary use of the law of contagion: these effects, once handled by the young Majesty, retain an affinity for him and will demonstrate it under sorcerous prodding…assuming, of course, that he yet remains among the living.”
“Aye, assuming,” Krispos said harshly. “Find out at once, then, if we can go on making that assumption.”
�
�Of course, Your Majesty. Have you some artifact of your son’s that I might use?”
Krispos pointed. “There’s his bedding, slung over the back of the horse he should be riding. Will that do?”
“Excellently.” Zaidas rode over to the animal at which Krispos had pointed and pulled a coverlet from the lump of cinched-down bedding. “This is a very basic spell, Your Majesty, one that requires no apparatus, merely a concentration of my will to increase the strength of the link between the blanket here and the young Majesty.”
“Just get on with it,” Krispos said.
“As you say.” Zaidas laid the blanket across his knees, as he switched the reins to his left hand. He chanted briefly in the archaic dialect of Videssian most often used in the liturgy for Phos’ Temple, at the same time moving his right hand in small, swift passes above the coverlet.
The square of soft wool rippled gently, like the surface of the sea when stirred by a soft breeze. “Phostis is alive,” Zaidas declared in a voice that brooked no contradiction. “Had he left mankind, the coverlet would have lain quiescent, as it did before I completed the incantation.”
“Thank you, eminent and sorcerous sir,” Krispos said. Some of the great weight of worry he’d borne rolled off his shoulders—some, but far from all. The next question followed like one winter storm rolling into Videssos the city hard on the heels of another: “Having found that he is among the living, can you now learn among which living folk he is at the moment?”
Zaidas nodded, not in answer, Krispos thought, but to show he’d expected the Avtokrator would ask that. “Yes, Your Majesty, I can do so,” he said. “It’s not quite so simple a spell as the one I just used, but one like it springs from the workings of the law of contagion.”
“I don’t care if it springs from the ground when you pour pig manure around the place where you planted it,” Krispos answered. “If you can work your magic while we move, so much the better. If not, I’ll give you all the guards you need for as long as you need them.”
The Tale of Krispos Page 97