The Tale of Krispos

by Harry Turtledove

  “However you like,” Phostis answered. Grypas advanced the foot soldier diagonally ahead of his prelate, freeing up the wide-ranging piece for action. Phostis pushed one of his own foot soldiers forward in reply.

  Grypas played like the soldier he was. He hurled men into the fight without much worry about where they would be three moves later. Phostis had learned in a subtler school. He lost a little time fortifying his emperor behind an array of goldpieces and silvers, but then started taking advantage of that safety.

  Before long, Grypas was gnawing his mustache in consternation. He tried to fight back by returning to the fray pieces he’d taken from Phostis, but Phostis had not left himself as vulnerable as Astragalos had before. He beat the soldier without much trouble.

  As the dejected man got up from the board, Syagrios sat down across it from Phostis. He leered at the junior Avtokrator. “All right, youngster, let’s see how tough you are.”

  “I’ll keep first move against you, by the good god,” Phostis said. Around them, bets crackled back and forth. Over the long winter, they’d shown they were the two best players in the fortress. Which of them was better than the other swung from day to day.

  Phostis stared over the grid at his unkempt opponent. Who would have guessed that a man with the looks of a bandit and habits to match made such a cool, precise player? But the pieces on the board cared nothing for how a man looked or even how he acted when he wasn’t at the game. And Syagrios had already showed he had more wit behind that battered face than anyone who judged by it alone would guess.

  The ruffian had a special knack for returning captured pieces to the board with telling effect. If he set down a horseman, you could be sure it threatened two pieces at once, both of them worth more than it. If a siege engine went into action, your emperor would be in trouble soon.

  His manner at the game betrayed his origins. Whenever Phostis made a move he didn’t like, he’d growl, “Oh, you son of a whore!” It had been unnerving at first; by now, Phostis took no more notice of it than of the twitches and tics of some of his opponents back in Videssos the city.

  He took far fewer chances against Syagrios than he had against Grypas. In fact, he took no chances at all that he could see: give Syagrios an opening and he’d charge right through. Syagrios treated him with similar caution. The game, as a result, was slow and positional.

  Finally, with returned foot soldiers paving the way, Syagrios broke up Phostis’ fortress and sent his emperor scurrying for safety. When he was trapped in a corner with no hope of escape, Phostis took him off the board and said, “I surrender.”

  “You made me sweat there, by the good god.” Syagrios thumped his chest with a big fist, then boomed out, “Who else wants a go at me?”

  Astragalos said, “Let Phostis take you on again. That’ll make a more even match than the rest of us are apt to give you.”

  Phostis had stood up. He looked around to see if anybody else wanted to play Syagrios. When no one made a move, he sat back down again. Syagrios leered at him. “I ain’t gonna give you first move, either, boy.”

  “I didn’t expect you would,” Phostis answered, altogether without ironic intent: any man who didn’t look out for himself wasn’t likely to find anyone to do it for him.

  After a game as hard-fought as the first one, he got his revenge. Syagrios leaned over the board and punched him on the meaty part of his arm. “You’re a sneaky little bastard, you know that? To the ice with whose son you are. That ain’t horse manure between your ears, you know?”

  “Whatever you say.” Compliments from Syagrios made Phostis even more nervous than the abuse that usually filled the ruffian’s mouth. Phostis stood up again and said, “You can take on the next challenger.”

  “Why’s that?” Syagrios demanded. Quitting while you were winning was bad form.

  “If I don’t leave about now, you’ll have to wipe up the floor under me,” Phostis answered, which made Syagrios and several of the other men around the game board laugh. With the fortress of Etchmiadzin packed full of fighters, the humor there was decidedly coarse.

  In better weather, Phostis would have wandered out into the inner ward to make water against the wall. There was, however, an oversufficiency of water in the inner ward already. He headed off to the garderobe instead. The chamber, connected as it was to a cesspit under the keep, was so noisome that he avoided it when he could. At the moment, however, he had little choice.

  Wooden stalls separated one hole in the long stone bench from another, an unusual concession to delicacy but one Phostis appreciated. Three of the four were occupied when he went in; he stepped into the fourth, which was farthest from the doorway.

  As he was easing himself, he heard a couple of people come in behind him. One of them let out an unhappy grunt. “All full,” he said. By the slight accent he gave his words, Phostis recognized him as Livanios’ pet wizard.

  The other was Livanios. “Don’t worry, Artapan,” he said easily. “You won’t burst in the next couple of minutes, and neither shall I.”

  “Don’t use my name,” the wizard grumbled.

  Livanios laughed at him. “By the good god, if we have spies in the latrine, we’re doomed before we start. Here, this fellow’s coming out. You go ahead; I’ll wait.”

  Phostis had already set his clothes to rights, but he waited, too, waited until he heard Livanios go into a stall and shut the door. Then he all but jumped out of the one he’d been in and hurried away from the garderobe. He didn’t want either Livanios or Artapan to know he’d heard.

  Now that he knew the wizard’s name, he also recognized the accent that had tantalized him for so long. Artapan was from Makuran. Phostis wondered what a mage from Videssos’ perennial enemy was doing in Livanios’ camp. Why couldn’t Livanios find a proper Thanasiot mage?

  After a few seconds, he stopped wondering. To one raised in the palaces, to one who had, however unwillingly, soaked up a good deal of history, the answer fairly shouted at him: Artapan was there serving the interests of Rubyab King of Kings. And how could Rubyab’s interest be better served than by keeping Videssos at war with itself?

  Two other questions immediately sprang from that one. The first was whether Livanios knew he was being used. Maybe he didn’t, maybe he was Makuran’s willing cat’s-paw, or maybe he was out to exploit Rubyab’s help at the same time Rubyab used him. Phostis had a tough time seeing Livanios as a witless dupe. Choosing between the other two alternatives was harder.

  Phostis set them aside. To him, the second question carried greater weight: if the Thanasioi were flourishing thanks to aid from Makuran, what did that say about the truth of their teachings? That one was hard enough to break teeth when you bit into it. Would Thanasios’ interpretation of the faith have grown and spread without the foreign—no, no mincing words—without the enemy—help? Was it at bottom a religious movement at all, or rather a political one? If it was just political, why did it have such a strong appeal to so many Videssians?

  Without even bothering to get a taper, Phostis went upstairs and into his room. All at once, he didn’t care how gloomy it was in there. In fact, he hardly noticed. He sat down on the battered old stool. He had a lot to think about.

  SOMEWHERE AMONG THE GEARS AND LEVERS BEHIND THE WALL of the Grand Courtroom, a servitor stood in frustrated uselessness. Much to the fellow’s dismay, Krispos had ordered him not to raise the throne on high when the ambassador from Khatrish prostrated himself. “But it’s the custom!” the man had wailed.

  “But the reason behind the custom is to overawe foreign envoys,” Krispos had answered. “It doesn’t overawe Tribo—it just makes him laugh.”

  “But it’s the custom,” the servitor had repeated. To him, reasons were irrelevant. Raising the throne was what he’d always done, so raising the throne was what he had to do forever.

  Even now, as Tribo approached the throne and cast himself down on his belly, Krispos wondered if the throne would rise beneath him in spite of orders. Custom d
ied hard in the Empire, when it died at all.

  To his relief, he remained at his usual elevation. As the ambassador from Khatrish got to his feet, he asked, “Mechanism in the throne break down?”

  I can’t win, Krispos thought. Khatrishers seemed to specialize in complicating the lives of their Videssian neighbors. Krispos did not reply: he stood—or rather sat—on the imperial dignity, though he had the feeling that would do him about as much good as the climbing throne had before.

  Sure enough, Tribo let out a knowing sniff when he saw he wouldn’t get an answer. He said, “May it please Your Majesty, the Thanasioi are still troubling us.”

  “They’re still troubling us, too, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Krispos said dryly.

  “Well, yes, but it’s different for you Videssians, you see, Your Majesty. You grew the murrain your very own selves, so of course it’s still spreading through your flocks. We don’t take kindly to having our cows infected, too, though, if you take my meaning.”

  A Videssian would have used a comparison from agriculture rather than herding, but Krispos had no trouble following Tribo. “What would you have me do?” he asked. “Shut the border between our states and ban shipping, too?”

  The Khatrisher envoy flinched, as Krispos had known he would: Khatrish needed trade with Videssos much more than Videssos with Khatrish. “Let’s not be hasty, Your Majesty. All I want is to hear you say again that you and your ministers don’t have anything to do with spreading the cursed heresy, so I can take the word to my khagan.”

  Barsymes and Iakovitzes stood in front of the imperial throne. Krispos could see only their backs and the sides of their faces. He often made a game of trying to figure out from that limited view what they were thinking. He guessed Iakovitzes was amused—he admired effrontery—and Barsymes outraged—the normally self-controlled eunuch was fairly quivering in his place. Krispos needed a moment to realize why: Barsymes reckoned it an insult for him to have to deny anything more than once.

  His own notion of what was insulting was more flexible, even after twenty years and more on the throne. If the envoy wanted another guarantee, he could have it. Krispos said, “You can tell Nobad son of Gumush that we aren’t exporting this heresy to Khatrish on purpose. We wish it would go away here, and we’re trying to get rid of it. But we aren’t in the habit of stirring up sectarian strife, even if it might profit us.”

  “I shall send exactly that word to the puissant khagan, Your Majesty, and I thank you for the reassurance,” Tribo said. He glanced toward the throne. Under his shaggy beard, a frown twisted his mouth. “Your Majesty? Did you hear me, Your Majesty?”

  Krispos still didn’t answer. He was listening to what he’d just said, not to the ambassador from Khatrish. Videssos might fight shy of turning its neighbors topsy-turvy with religious war, but would Makuran? Didn’t the Thanasiot mage who hid Phostis use spells that smelled of Mashiz? No wonder Rubyab’s mustaches had twitched!

  Iakovitzes spun where he stood so he faced Krispos. The assembled courtiers murmured at the breach of etiquette. Iakovitzes had a fine nose for intrigue. His upraised hand and urgent expression said he’d just smelled some. Krispos would have bet a counterfeit copper against a year’s tax receipts it was the same odor that had just filled his own nostrils.

  He realized he had to say something to Tribo. After a few more seconds, he managed, “Yes, I’m glad you’ll reassure your sovereign we are doing everything we can to fight the Thanasiot doctrine, not to spread it. This audience now is ended.”

  “But, Your Majesty—” Tribo began indignantly. Then, with a glare, he bowed to inflexible Videssian custom. When the Avtokrator spoke those words, an envoy had no choice but to prostrate himself once more, back away from the throne until he had gone far enough that he could turn around, and then depart the Grand Courtroom. He left in a manifest snit; evidently he’d had a good deal more on his mind than he got the chance to say.

  I’ll have to make it up to him, Krispos thought; keeping Khatrish friendly was going to be all the more important in the months ahead. But for now even the urgency of that paled. As soon as Tribo left the Grand Courtroom, Krispos also made his way out, at a pace that set the tongues of the assembled nobles and prelates and ministers wagging.

  Politics was a religion of its own in Videssos; before long, many of those officials would figure out what was going on. Something obviously was, or the Avtokrator would not have left so unceremoniously. For the moment, though, they were at a loss as to what.

  Iakovitzes half trotted along in Krispos’ wake. He knew what was going through the Emperor’s mind. Barsymes plainly didn’t, but he would sooner have gone before the torturers in their red leather than question Krispos where anyone else could hear him. What he’d have to say in private about cutting short the Khatrisher’s audience was liable to be pointed.

  Krispos swept across the rain-slicked flags of the path that led through the cherry orchard and to the imperial residence. The cherry trees were still bare-branched, but before too long they’d grow leaves and then the pink and white blossoms that would make the orchard fragrant and lovely for a few brief weeks in spring.

  As soon as he was inside, Krispos burst out, “That bastard! That sneaky, underhanded son of a snake, may he shiver in the ice for all eternity to come.”

  “Surely Tribo did not so offend you with his remark concerning the throne?” Barsymes asked. No, he didn’t know why Krispos had left on the run.

  “I’m not talking about Tribo, I’m talking about Rubyab the fornicating King of Kings,” Krispos said. “Unless I’ve lost all of my mind, he’s using the Thanasioi for his stalking horse. How can Videssos hope to deal with Makuran if we tie ourselves up in knots?”

  Barsymes had been in the palaces longer than Krispos; he was anything but a stranger to devious machinations. As soon as this one was pointed out to him, he nodded emphatically. “I have no doubt but that you’re right, Your Majesty. Who would have looked for such elaborate deceit from Makuran?”

  Iakovitzes held up a hand to gain a pause while he wrote something in his tablet. He passed it to Krispos. “We Videssians pride ourselves as the sneakiest folk on earth, but down deep somewhere we ought to remember the Makuraners can match us. They’re not barbarians we can outmaneuver in our sleep. They’ve proved it, to our sorrow, too many times in the past.”

  “That’s true,” Krispos said as he handed the tablet to Barsymes. The vestiarios quickly read it, then nodded his agreement. Krispos thought back over the histories and chronicles he’d read. He said, “This seems to me to be something new. Aye, the King of Kings and his folk have fooled us many times, but mainly that’s meant fooling us about what Makuran intends to do. Here, though, Rubyab’s seen deep into our soul, seen how to make ourselves our own worst foes. That’s more dangerous than any threat Makuran has posed in a long time.”

  Iakovitzes wrote, “There was a time, oh, about a hundred fifty years ago, when the men from Mashiz came closer to sacking Videssos the city than any Videssian likes to think about. Of course, we’d been meddling in their affairs before then, so I suppose they were out for revenge.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen those tales, too,” Krispos said, nodding. “The question, though, is what we do about it now.” He eyed Iakovitzes. “Suppose I send you back to Mashiz with a formal note of protest to Rubyab King of Kings?”

  “Suppose you don’t, Your Majesty,” Iakovitzes wrote, and underlined the words.

  “One thing we ought to do is get this tale told as widely as possible,” Barsymes said. “If every official and every priest in every town lets the people know Makuran is behind the Thanasioi, they’ll be less inclined to go over to the heretics.”

  “Some of them will, anyhow,” Krispos said. “Others will have heard too many pronouncements from the pulpit and from the city square to take special notice of one more. No, don’t look downhearted, esteemed sir. It’s a good plan, and we’ll use it. I just don’t want anyone here expecting miracles.”
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  “No matter what the priests and the officials say, what we must have is victory,” Iakovitzes wrote. “If we can make the Thanasioi stop hurting us, people will see us as the stronger side and pretend they never had a heretical notion in all their born days. But if we lose, the rebels’ power will grow regardless of who’s behind them.”

  “Not so long till spring, either,” Krispos said. “May the good god grant us the victory you rightly say we need.” He turned to Barsymes. “Summon the most holy patriarch Oxeites to the palaces, if you please. What words can do, they shall do.”

  “As you say, Your Majesty.” The vestiarios turned to go.

  “Wait.” Krispos stopped him in midstride. “Before you draft the note, why don’t you fetch all three of us a jar of something sweet and strong? Today, by the good god, we’ve earned a taste of celebration.”

  “So we have, Your Majesty,” Barsymes said with the hint of a smile that was as much as he allowed himself. “I’ll attend to that directly.”

  The jar of wine became two and then three. Krispos knew he would pay for it in the morning. He’d been a young man when he discovered he couldn’t come close to roistering with Anthimos. Older now, he had less capacity than in those days, and less practice at carousing, too. But every so often, once or twice a year, he still enjoyed letting himself go.

  Barsymes, abstemious in pleasure as in most things, bowed his way out halfway down the second jar, presumably to write the letter ordering Oxeites to appear at the palace. Iakovitzes stayed and drank: he was always game for a debauch, and held his wine better than Krispos. The only sign he gave of its effects was that the words he wrote grew large and sprawling. Syntax and venom remained unchanged.

  “Why don’t you write like you’re drunk?” Krispos asked some time after dinner; by then he’d forgotten what he’d eaten.

  Iakovitzes replied, “You drink with your mouth and then try to talk through it; no wonder you’ve started mumbling. My hand hasn’t touched a drop.”