The Tale of Krispos

by Harry Turtledove

  Sarkis said, “A pity the wars can’t be easy all the time, eh, Your Majesty?”

  “Maybe it’s just as well,” Krispos answered. Sarkis raised a bushy, gray-flecked eyebrow. Krispos explained, “If they were easy, I’d be tempted to fight more often. Who needs that?”

  “Aye, something to what you say.”

  Krispos raised his eyes from the ruined supply dump to the sky. He gauged the weather with skill honed by years on a farm, when the difference between getting through a winter and facing hunger often rode on deciding just when to start bringing in the crops. He didn’t like what his senses told him now. The wind had shifted so it was coming out of the northwest; clouds began piling up, thick and black, along the horizon there.

  He pointed to them. “We don’t have long to do what needs doing. My guess is, the fall rains start early this year.” He scowled. “They would.”

  “Nothing’s ever as simple as we wish, eh, Your Majesty?” Sarkis said. “We’ll just have to push on as hard as we can. Smash them once and the big worry goes, even if they keep on being a nuisance for years.”

  “I suppose so.” But Sarkis’ solution, however practical, left Krispos dissatisfied. “I don’t want to have to keep fighting and fighting a war. That will cause nothing but grief for me and for Phostis.” He would not say out loud that his kidnapped eldest might not succeed him. “Give a religious quarrel half a chance and it’ll fester forever.”

  “That’s true enough, as who should know better than one of the princes?” Sarkis said. “If you imperials would just leave our theology in peace—”

  “—the Makuraners would come in and try to convert you by force to the cult of the Four Prophets,” Krispos interrupted. “They’ve done that a few times, down through the years.”

  “And they’ve had no better luck than Videssos. We of Vaspurakan are stubborn folk,” Sarkis said with a grin that made Krispos remember the lithe young officer he’d once been. He remained solid and capable, but he’d never be lithe again. Well, Krispos wasn’t young anymore, either, and if he’d put on less weight than his cavalry commander, his bones still ached after a day in the saddle.

  He said, “If I had to rush back to Videssos the city from the borders of Kubrat now, I think I’d die before I got there.”

  Sarkis had been on that ride, too. “We managed it in our puppy days, though, didn’t we?” He looked down at his own expanding frontage. “Me, I’d be more likely to kill horses than myself. I’m as fat as old Mammianos was, and I haven’t as many years to give me an excuse.”

  “Time does go on.” Krispos looked northwest again. Yes, the clouds were gathering. His face twisted; that thought had too ominous a ring to suit him. “It’s moving on the army, same as it is on each of us. If we don’t want to get bogged down in the mud, we have to move fast. You’re right about that.”

  He wondered again whether he should have waited till spring to start campaigning against the Thanasioi. Losing a battle to the heretics would be bad enough, but not nearly so dangerous as having to withdraw in mud and humiliation.

  With deliberate force of will, he made his mind turn aside from that path. Too late now to concern himself with what he might have done had he made a different choice. He had to live with the consequences of what he had chosen, and do his best to carve those consequences into the shape he desired.

  He turned to Sarkis. “With the supply dump as ruined as it is, I see no point to encamping here. Spending a night by the wreckage wouldn’t be good for the soldiers’ spirit, either. Let’s push ahead on the route we’ve planned.”

  “Aye, Your Majesty. We ought to get to Rogmor day after tomorrow, maybe even tomorrow evening if we drive hard.” The cavalry commander hesitated. “Of course, Rogmor’s burned out, too, if you remember.”

  “I know. But from all I’ve heard, Aptos isn’t. If we move fast, we ought to be able to lay hold of the supplies there before we start running out of what we brought from Nakoleia.”

  “That would be good,” Sarkis agreed. “If we don’t, we’re liable to face the lovely choice between going hungry and pillaging the countryside.”

  “If we start pillaging our own land one day, we put ten thousand men into the camp of the Thanasioi by the next sunrise,” Krispos said, grimacing. “I’d sooner retreat; then I’d just seem cautious, not a villain.”

  “As you say, Your Majesty.” Sarkis dipped his head. “Let’s hope we have a swift, triumphant advance, so we needn’t worry about any of these unpleasant choices.”

  “That hope is all very well,” Krispos said, “but we also have to plan ahead so misfortune, if it comes, doesn’t catch us by surprise and strike us in a heap because we were napping instead of thinking.”

  “Sensible.” Sarkis chuckled. “Seems to me I’ve told you that a good many times over the years—but then, you generally are sensible.”

  “Am I? I’ve heard what was meant to be greater flattery that I liked less.” Krispos tasted the word. “‘He was sensible.’ I’d sooner see that than most of the lies stonecutters are apt to put on a memorial stele.”

  Sarkis made a two-fingered gesture to turn aside even the implied mention of death. “May you outlast another generation of stonecutters, Your Majesty.”

  “And stump around Videssos as a spry eighty-year-old, you mean? It could happen, I suppose, though the lord with the great and good mind knows most men aren’t so lucky.” Krispos looked around to make sure neither Evripos nor Katakolon was in earshot, then lowered his voice all the same. “If that does prove to be my fate, I doubt it will delight my sons.”

  “You’d find a way to handle them,” Sarkis said confidently. “You’ve handled everything the good god has set in your path thus far.”

  “Which is no promise the prize will be mine next time out,” Krispos answered. “As long as I remember that, I’m all right, I think. Enough jabbering for now; the sooner we get to Aptos, the happier I’ll be.”

  After serving under Krispos for his whole reign, Sarkis had learned the trick of understanding when the Emperor meant more than he said. He set spurs to his horse—despite advancing years and belly, he still had a fine seat and enjoyed a spirited mount—and hurried away at a bounding canter. A moment later, the horns of the military musicians brayed out a new command. The whole army picked up the pace, as if fleeing the storm clouds piling up behind.

  Harasos lay at the inland edge of the coastal plain. From it, the road toward Rogmor climbed onto the central plateau that took up the majority of the westlands: drier, hillier, poorer country than the lowlands. Along riverbanks and in places that drew more rain than most, farmers brought in one crop a year, as they did in the country where Krispos had grown up. Elsewhere on the plateau, grass and scrub grew better than grain, and herds of sheep and cattle ambled over the ground.

  Krispos eyed the plateau country ahead with suspicion, not because it was poor but because it was hilly. He much preferred a horizon that stretched out for miles on every side. Attackers had to work to set an ambush in country like that. Here sites for ambuscades came up twice in every mile.

  He ordered the vanguard strengthened, lest the Thanasioi delay the army on its push to Rogmor. When the whole strung-out force ascended to the plateau, he breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief and a prayer of thanks to Phos. Had he commanded the heretics, he would have hit the imperial army as early and as hard as he could: delaying it on its march now would be worth as much as a great battle later. Thinking thus, he made sure his own saber slid smoothly from its scabbard. Though no great champion, he fought well enough when combat came his way.

  The leader of the Thanasioi thought with him strategically, but not in terms of tactics. Not long after the army from Videssos the city reached the plateau, some sort of disturbance broke out at the rear. Krispos’ force stretched for more than a mile. He needed a while to find out what was happening: as if the army were a long, thin, rather stupid dragon, messages from the tail took too long to get up to the head.

&
nbsp; When at last he was sure the disturbance really meant fighting, he ordered the musicians to halt his whole force. No sooner had their peremptory notes rung out than he wondered if he’d made a mistake. But what else could he do? Leaving the rear to fend for itself while the van kept moving forward was an invitation to getting destroyed.

  He turned to Katakolon, who sat his horse a few yards away. “Get back there at the gallop, find out what’s truly going on, and let me know. At the gallop, now!”

  “Aye, Father!” Eyes snapping with excitement, Katakolon dug spurs into the horse’s side. It squealed an indignant protest at such treatment, but bounded off with such celerity that Katakolon almost went over its tail.

  The Avtokrator’s youngest son returned faster than Krispos would have thought possible. His anger faded when he saw Katakolon had in tow a messenger he recognized as one of Noetos’ men. “Well?” he barked.

  The messenger saluted. “May it please Your Majesty, we were attacked by a band of perhaps forty. They came close enough to shoot arrows at us; when we rode out to drive them off, most fled but a few stayed behind and fought with the saber to help the others escape.”

  “Casualties?” Krispos asked.

  “We lost one killed and four wounded, Your Majesty,” the messenger answered. “We killed five of theirs, and several more were reeling in the saddle as they rode away.”

  “Did we capture any of them?” Krispos demanded.

  “We were still in pursuit when I left to bring this word to you. I know of no prisoners, but my knowledge, as I say, is incomplete.”

  “I’ll ride back and find out for myself.” Krispos turned to Katakolon. “Tell the musicians to order the advance.” As his son hurried off to obey, he told the messenger, “Take me to Noetos. I’ll hear his report of the action directly.”

  Krispos fumed as he rode toward the rear of the army. Forty men had held him up for a solid hour. A few more such pinpricks and the army would go hungry before it got to Aptos. Better cavalry screens, he told himself. Raiders had to be beaten back before they reached the main body. Screening parties could fight and keep moving, or fall back on their comrades if hard-pressed.

  He hoped the rear guard had managed to lay hold of some Thanasioi. One interrogation was worth a thousand guesses, especially when he knew so little about the enemy. He knew the methods his men would use to wring truth out of any captives. They did not please him, but any man taken in arms against the Avtokrator of the Videssians was on the face of it a traitor and rebel, not to be coddled if that meant danger to the Empire.

  One of the wounded imperials lay on a wagon, a blue-robed healer-priest bent over him. The soldier thrashed feebly; an arrow protruded from his neck. Krispos reined in to watch the healer-priest at work. He wondered why the blue-robe hadn’t drawn the arrow, then decided it was all that kept the wounded man from bleeding to death in moments. This would be anything but an easy healing.

  The priest repeated the creed again and again. “We bless thee, Phos, lord with the great and good mind, by thy grace our protector, watchful beforehand that the great test of life may be decided in our favor.” As he used the prayers to sink down toward the healing trance, he set one hand on the trooper’s neck, the other on the arrow that bobbed back and forth as the fellow fought to breathe.

  All at once, the blue-robe jerked the arrow free. The trooper let out a bubbling shriek. Bright blood spurted, splashing against the priest’s face. So far as breaking his concentration went, it might have been water, or nothing at all.

  As abruptly as if the blue-robe had turned a spigot, the spurting stopped. Awe prickled through Krispos, as it always did when he watched a healer-priest at work. He thought the air above the injured trooper should have shimmered, as if from the heat of a fire, so strong was the force of healing that passed between priest and soldier. But the eye, unlike other, less easily nameable senses, perceived nothing.

  The healer-priest released his hold on the injured man and sat up. The blue-robe’s face was white and drained, a token of what the healing had cost him. A moment later, the soldier sat, too. A pale scar marred the skin of his neck; by its seeming, he might have worn it for years. Wonder filled his face as he picked up the bloodstained arrow the priest had pulled from his neck.

  “Thank you, holy sir,” he said, his voice as unhurt as the rest of him. “I thought I was dead.”

  “As I think I am now,” the healer croaked. “Water, I pray you, or wine.” The trooper pulled free the flask that still dangled from his belt, handing it to the man who had saved him. The blue-robe’s larynx worked as he threw back his head and gulped down great drafts.

  Krispos urged his horse forward, glad the soldier was hale. Healer-priests were better suited to dealing with the consequences of skirmishes than battles, for they quickly exhausted their powers—and themselves. In large conflicts, they helped only the most desperately hurt, leaving the rest to those who fought wounds with sutures and bandages rather than magic.

  Noetos rode toward Krispos. Saluting, he said, “We drove the bastards off with no trouble, Your Majesty. Sorry we had to slow you down to do it.”

  “Not half so sorry as I am,” Krispos answered. “Well, the good god willing, that won’t happen again.” He explained his plan to extend the cavalry screen around the army. Noetos nodded with sober approval. Krispos went on, “Did your men capture any of the rebels?”

  “Aye, we got one in the pursuit after I sent Barisbakourios to you,” Noetos said. “Shall we squeeze the Thanasiot cheese till the whey runs out of him?” A couple of his lieutenants were close by; they chuckled grimly at the rearguard commander’s truth in jest’s clothing.

  “Presently, at need,” Krispos said. “Let’s see what magic can do with him first. Bring him here. I want to see him.”

  Noetos called orders. Some of his troopers frogmarched a young man in peasant homespun into the Avtokrator’s presence. The captive must have taken a fall from his horse. His tunic was out at both elbows and over one knee; he was bloody in all three of those places and a couple of others, as well. Serum oozed down into one eye from a scrape on his forehead.

  But he remained defiant. When one of the guards growled, “Down on your belly before his Majesty, wretch,” he bent his head, sure enough, but only to spit between his feet as if in rejection of Skotos. All the soldiers snarled then, and roughly forced him into a proskynesis in spite of his struggles.

  “Haul him to his feet,” Krispos said, thinking the cavalrymen were likely to have done worse to their prisoner had they not been under his eye. When the ragged, battered youth—he might have been Evripos’ age, more likely Katakolon’s—was on his feet, Krispos asked him, “What have I done to you, that you treat me like the dark god?”

  The prisoner worked his jaw, perhaps preparing to spit once more. “You don’t want to do that, sonny,” one of the troopers said.

  The young man spat anyhow. Krispos let his captors shake him a little, but then raised a hand. “Hold on. I want this question answered as freely as may be, given what’s happened here. What have I done, to be hated so? We’ve been at peace most of the years since he was born; taxes are lower now than then. What does he have against me? What do you have against me, sirrah? You may as well speak your mind; the headsman’s shadow already falls across your fate.”

  “You think I fear death?” the prisoner said. “By the good god, I laugh at death—it takes me out of this trap of Skotos, the world, and sends me on to Phos’ eternal light. Do your worst to me; that’s but for a moment. Then I shake free of the dung we call a body, like a butterfly bursting from its cocoon.”

  His eyes blazed, though he kept blinking the one beneath the scrape. The last set of eyes Krispos had seen burning with such fanaticism had belonged to the priest Pyrrhos, first his benefactor, then his ecumenical patriarch, and at last such a ferocious and inflexible champion of orthodoxy that he’d had to be deposed.

  Krispos said, “Very well, young fellow”—he realized he w
as speaking as if to one of his sons who’d been foolish—“you despise the world. Why do you despise my place in it?”

  “Because you’re rich, and wallow in your gold like a hog in mud,” the young Thanasiot answered. “Because you choose the material over the spiritual, and give over your soul to Skotos in the process.”

  “Here, you speak to his Majesty with respect, or it’ll go the harder for you,” one of the cavalrymen growled. The prisoner spat on the ground again. His captor backhanded him across the face. Blood started from the corner of his mouth.

  “Enough of that,” Krispos said. “He’ll be one of many who feel that way. He’s eaten up bad doctrine and sickened on it.”

  “Liar!” the young man shouted, careless of his own fate. “You’re the one with false teachings poisoning your mind. Abandon the world and the things of the world for the true and lasting life, the one yet to come.” He could not raise his arms, but lifted his eyes to the heavens. “We bless thee, Phos, lord with the great and good mind—”

  Hearing the heretic pray to the good god with the identical words he himself used, Krispos wondered for a moment if the fellow could be right. Pyrrhos, in his day, might have come close to saying yes, but not even the rigorously ascetic Pyrrhos could have countenanced destroying all the things of this world for the sake of the afterlife. How were men and women to live and raise families if they wrecked their farms or shops, abandoned parents or children?

  He put the question to the prisoner: “If you Thanasioi had your way, wouldn’t you soonest let mankind die out in a single generation’s time, so no one would be left alive to commit any sins?”

  “Aye, that’s so,” the youth answered. “It won’t be so simple; we know that—most folk are too cowardly, too much in love with materialism—”

  “By which it sounds as if you mean a full belly and a roof over one’s head,” Krispos broke in.

  “Anything that ties you to the world is evil, is from Skotos,” the prisoner insisted. “The purest among us stop taking food and let themselves starve, the better to join Phos as soon as they may.”