The Tale of Krispos

by Harry Turtledove

  His frown was almost a scowl. She should have known better than to bother him while he was working. “Yes?” he said curtly.

  Drina looked more than nervous—she looked frightened. She dropped to her knees and then to her belly in a full proskynesis. Krispos took a couple of seconds to wonder about the propriety of having the woman who warmed his bed prostrate herself before him. But by the time he decided she needn’t bother, she was already rising. But she kept her eyes to the floor, her voice was small and her stammer large as she began, “May it p-please Your Majesty—”

  With that start, it probably wouldn’t. Krispos almost said as much. The only thing that held him back was a strong suspicion she’d flee if he pressed her too hard. Since she’d braved bearding him at his work, whatever she had on her mind was important to her. Trying at least to sound neutral, he asked, “What’s troubling you, Drina?”

  “Your Majesty, I’m pregnant,” she blurted.

  He opened his mouth to answer her, but no words came out. After a little while, he realized she didn’t need to keep looking at the back of his throat. He needed two tries to close his mouth, but managed in the end. “You’re telling me it’s mine?” he got out at last.

  Drina nodded. “Your Majesty, I didn’t—I mean, I haven’t—so it must—” She spread her hands, as if that would help her explain better than her tongue, which seemed as fumbling as Krispos’.

  “Well, well,” he said, and then again, because it let him make noise without making sense, “Well, well.” Another pause and he produced a coherent sentence, then a second one: “I didn’t expect that to happen. If it was the night I think it was, I didn’t expect anything to happen.”

  “People never do, Your Majesty.” Drina tried a wary smile, but still looked ready to run away. “But it does happen, or there wouldn’t be any more people after a while.”

  The Thanasioi would like that, he thought. He shook his head. Drina was too much a creature of her body and her urges ever to make a Thanasiot, just as he was himself. “An imperial bastard,” he said, more to himself than to her.

  “Is it your first, Your Majesty?” she asked. Now fear and a peculiar sort of pride warred in her voice. She held her chin a little higher.

  “The first time I’ve fathered a child since Dara died, you mean? No,” Krispos said. “It happened twice before, as a matter of fact, but once the mother miscarried and the other time the babe lived but a couple of days. Phos’ choice, not mine, if that’s what you’re wondering. Both were years ago; I thought my seed had gone cold. I hope your luck will be better.”

  Hearing that, she let her face open up like a flower suddenly touched by the sun. “Oh, thank you, Your Majesty!” she breathed.

  “Neither you nor the child will ever want,” Krispos promised. “If you don’t know I care for my own, you don’t know me.” For the past twenty years, the whole Empire had been his own. Maybe that was why he worried so much about every detail of its life.

  “Everyone knows Your Majesty is kind and generous.” Drina’s smile got wider still.

  “Everyone doesn’t know any such thing,” he answered sharply. “So you don’t misunderstand, here are two things I won’t do: number one, I won’t marry you. I won’t let this babe disturb the succession if it turns out to be a boy. Trying to get me to break my word about that will be the fastest way you can think of to make me angry. Do you have that?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. The smile flickered.

  “I’m sorry to speak so plain to you, but I want to leave you in no doubt about these matters,” Krispos said. “Here is the second thing: if you have a swarm of relatives who descend on me looking for jobs with no work for high pay, they’ll go home to wherever they came from with stripes on their backs. I already told you I won’t stint on what I give you, and of course you may share that with whomever you like. But the fisc is not a toy and it does have a bottom. All right?”

  “Your Majesty, how can the likes of me argue with whatever you choose to do?” Drina sounded frightened again.

  The plain answer was that she couldn’t. Krispos didn’t say that; it would just have alarmed her further. What he did say was: “Go and tell Barsymes what you’ve just told me. Tell him I said you’re to be treated with every consideration, too.”

  “I will, Your Majesty. Thank you. Uh, Your Majesty—”

  “What now?” Krispos asked when she showed no sign of saying anything more than uh.

  “Will you still want me?” she said, and then stood there as if she wished the mosaic floor would open and swallow her up. Like most Videssians, she was olive-skinned; Krispos thought he saw her blush anyhow.

  He got up, came around the desk, and put an arm around her. “I expect so, now and again,” he said. “But if you have some young man waiting under the Amphitheater for the next race, so to speak, don’t be shy about saying so. I wouldn’t have you do anything you don’t care to.” He’d watched Anthimos take advantage of so many women that moderation came easy to him: anything Anthimos did was a good bet to have been wrong.

  “It’s not that,” Drina said quickly. “I just—worry that you’ll forget about me.”

  “I already said I wouldn’t. I do keep my word.” Thinking she needed more reassurance than words, he patted her on the backside. She sighed and snuggled against him. He let her stay for a bit, then said, “Go on, go see Barsymes. He’ll take care of you.”

  Snuffling a little, Drina went. Krispos stood in the study, listening to her footsteps fade as she walked down the hall. When he couldn’t hear them anymore, he returned to his seat and to the customs reports he’d been reviewing. But he soon found he had to shove aside the parchments: he couldn’t concentrate on what was in them.

  “An imperial bastard,” he said quietly. “My bastard. Well, well, what am I going to do about that?”

  He was a man who believed in making plans as implicitly as he believed in Phos. Fathering a child at his age wasn’t in any of those he’d made so far. No help for it, he told himself. I’ll have to come up with some new ones.

  He knew he might not need them; so many children never lived to grow up. As in so many things, though, better to have and not need than to need and not have. Besides, you always hoped your children lived unless you were a fanatical Thanasiot who thought all life ought to vanish from the earth and be quick about it, too.

  If he had a daughter, things would stay simple. When she grew up, he’d do his best to make sure she married someone well disposed to him. That was what marriages were for, after all: joining together families that could be useful to each other.

  If he had a son, now…He clicked his tongue between his teeth. That would complicate matters. Some Avtokrators had their bastards made into eunuchs; some had risen to high rank in the temples or at the palace. It was certainly one way of guaranteeing the boy would never challenge his legitimate sons for the throne: being physically imperfect, eunuchs could not claim imperial rank in Videssos or Makuran or any other country he knew of.

  Krispos made that clicking noise again. He wasn’t sure he had the stomach for that, no matter how expedient it might be. He stared down at the delicately veined marble desktop, wondering what to do. He was so lost in his thoughts, the tap on the door frame made him jump. He looked up. This time it was Barsymes.

  “I am given to understand congratulations are in order, Your Majesty?” the vestiarios said carefully.

  “Thank you, esteemed sir. I’m given to understand the same thing myself.” Krispos managed a rueful laugh. “Life has a way of going off on its own path, not the one you’d choose for it.”

  “Very true. As you have requested, every care will be given to the mother-to-be. As part of that care, I gather you will want to ensure, so far as is feasible, that she does not acquire an exaggerated notion either of her own station or that of her offspring.”

  “You’ve hit in the center of the target, Barsymes. Can you imagine me, say, disinheriting the sons I have for the sake of a by-blow? N
ot a cook could find a better recipe for civil war after I’m gone.”

  “What you say is true, Your Majesty. And yet—” Barsymes stepped out into the hallway, looked right and left. Even after he was sure no one save Krispos could hear him, he lowered his voice. “And yet, Your Majesty, one of your sons may be lost to you, and you’ve not expressed entire satisfaction with any of them.”

  “But why should I expect the next one to be any better?” Krispos said. “Besides, I’d have to wait twenty years to have any idea what sort of man he is, and who says I have twenty years left? I might, aye, but the odds aren’t the best. So I’d sooner discommode the one young bastard than the three older legitimate boys.”

  “I would not think of faulting the logic; I merely wondered if Your Majesty had fully considered the situation. I see you have: well and good.” The vestiarios ran pale tongue across paler lips. “I also wondered if you were, ah, besotted with the mother of the child-to-be.”

  “So I’d do stupid things to keep her happy, you mean?” Krispos said. Barsymes nodded. Krispos started to laugh, but restrained himself—that would have been cruel. “No, esteemed sir. Drina’s very pleasant, but I’ve not lost my head.”

  “Ah,” Barsymes said again. He seldom showed much emotion, and this moment was no exception to the rule; nonetheless, Krispos thought he heard relief in that single syllable.

  I’ve not lost my head. That might have been the watchword for his reign, and for his life. If it had left him on the cold-blooded side, it had also given the Empire of Videssos more than two decades of steady, sensible rule. There were worse exchanges.

  He remembered the thought he’d had before. “Esteemed sir, may I ask a question that might perturb you? Please understand my aim is not to cause you pain, but to learn.”

  “Ask, Your Majesty,” Barsymes replied at once. “You are the Avtokrator; you have the right.”

  “Very well, then. To make sure dynastic problems don’t come up, Avtokrators have been known to make eunuchs of their bastard offspring. You know your life as only one who lives it can. What have you to say of it?”

  The vestiarios gave the question his usual grave consideration. “The pain of the gelding does not last forever, of course. I have never known desire, so I do not particularly pine for it, though that is not true of all my kind. But being set aside forever from the general run of mankind—there is the true curse of the eunuch, Your Majesty. So far as any of us knows, it has no balm.”

  “Thank you, esteemed sir.” Krispos put the thought in the place where bad ideas belong. He felt an urgent need to change the subject. “By the good god!” he exclaimed, as heartily as he could. Barsymes raised an interrogative eyebrow. He explained: “No matter how smoothly things go, I’ll never hear the end of teasing about this from my sons. I’ve given them a hard time about their affairs, but now I’m the one who’s gone and put a loaf in a serving maid’s oven.”

  “I pray Your Majesty to forgive me, but you’ve forgotten something,” Barsymes said. Now it was Krispos’ turn to look puzzled. The vestiarios went on, “Think what the eminent Iakovitzes will say.”

  Krispos thought. After a moment, he pushed back his seat and hid under the desk. He’d seldom made Barsymes laugh, but he added one to the short list. He laughed, too, as he reemerged, but he still dreaded what would happen the next time he saw his special envoy.

  PHOSTIS MADE SURE THE SWORD FIT LOOSE IN ITS SHEATH. IT was not a fancy weapon with a gold-chased hilt like the one he’d carried before he was kidnapped: just a curved blade, a leather-wrapped grip, and an iron hand guard. It would slice flesh as well as any other sword, though.

  The horse they gave him wasn’t fit to haul oats to the imperial stables. It was a scrawny, swaybacked gelding with scars on its knees and an evil glint in its eye. By the monster of a bit that went with the rest of its tack, it must have had a mouth made of wrought iron and a temper worthy of Skotos. But it was a horse, and the Thanasioi let him ride it. That marked a change for the better.

  It would have been better still had Syagrios not joined the band to which Phostis had been attached. “What, you thought you’d be rid of me?” he boomed when Phostis could not quite hide his lack of enthusiasm. “Not so easy as that, boy.”

  Phostis shrugged, in control of himself again. “If nothing else, we can spar at the board game,” he said.

  Syagrios laughed in his face. “I never bother with that dung when I’m out fighting. It’s for slack times, when there’s no real blood to be spilled.” His narrow eyes lit up with anticipation.

  The raiders rode out of Etchmiadzin that afternoon, a party of about twenty-five heading south and east toward territory the men of the gleaming path did not control. Excitement ran high; everyone was eager to bring Thanasios’ doctrines a step closer to reality by destroying the material goods of those who did not follow them.

  The band’s leader, a tough-looking fellow named Themistios, seemed almost as unsavory as Syagrios. He put the theology in terms no one could fail to follow: “Burn the farms, burn the monasteries, kill the animals, kill the people. They go straight to the ice. Any of us who fall, we walk the gleaming path beyond the sun and stay with Phos forever.”

  “The gleaming path!” the raiders bawled. “Phos bless the gleaming path!”

  Phostis wondered how many such bands were sallying forth from Etchmiadzin and other Thanasiot strongholds, how many men stormed into the Empire with murder and martyrdom warring for the uppermost place in their minds. He also wondered where the main body of Livanios’ men would fare. Syagrios knew. But Syagrios, however much he liked to brag and jeer, knew how to keep his mouth shut about things that mattered.

  Soon Phostis’ concerns became more immediate. Not least among them was seeing if he couldn’t inconspicuously vanish from the raiding band. He couldn’t. The horsemen kept him in their midst; Syagrios clung to him like a leech. Maybe when the fighting starts, he thought.

  For the first day and a half of riding, they remained in territory under Thanasiot rule. Peasants waved from the fields and shouted slogans at the horsemen as they trotted past. The riders shouted back less often as time went by: muscles unused since fall were claiming their price. Phostis hadn’t been so saddle sore in years.

  Another day on horseback brought the raiders into country where, instead of cheering, the peasants fled at first sight of them. That occasioned argument among Phostis’ companions: some wanted to scatter and destroy the peasants and their huts, while others preferred to press ahead without delay.

  In the end, Themistios came down in favor of the second group. “There’s a monastery outside Aptos I want to hit,” he declared, “and I’m not going to waste my time with this riffraff till it’s smashed. We can nail peasants on the way home.” With a large, juicy target thus set before them, the raiders stopped arguing. It would have taken a very bold man to quarrel with Themistios, anyhow.

  They came to the monastery a little before sunset. Some of the monks were still in the fields. Howling like demons, the Thanasioi rode them down. Swords rose, fell, and rose again smeared with scarlet. Instead of prayers to Phos, screams rose into the reddening sky.

  “We’ll burn the building!” Themistios shouted. “Even monks have too fornicating much.” He spurred his horse straight toward the monastery gate and got inside before the startled monks could slam it shut against him. His sword forced back the first blue-robe who came running up, and a moment later more of his wolves were in there with him.

  Several of the raiders carried smoldering sticks of punk. Oil-soaked torches caught quickly. Syagrios pressed one into Phostis’ hand. “Here,” he growled. “Do some good with this.” Or else, his voice warned. So did the way he cocked his sword.

  Phostis threw the torch at a wall. He’d hoped it would fall short, and it did, but it rolled up against the wood. Flames crackled, caught, and began to spread. Syagrios pounded him on the back, as if he’d just been initiated into the brotherhood of wreckers. Shuddering, he realized
he had.

  A monk waving a cudgel rushed at him, shouting something incoherent. He wanted to tell the shaven-headed holy man it was all a dreadful mistake, that he didn’t want to be here and hadn’t truly intended to harm the monastery. But the monk didn’t care about any of that. All he wanted to do was smash the closest invader—who happened to be Phostis.

  He parried the blue-robe’s first wild swipe, and his second. “By the good god, cut him!” Syagrios shouted in disgust. “What do you think—he’s going to get tired and go away?”

  Phostis didn’t quite parry the third blow. It glanced off his shin, hard enough to make him bite his lip against the pain. He realized with growing dismay that he couldn’t just try to hold off the monk, not when the fellow wanted nothing more than to kill him.

  The monk drew back his club for yet another swing. Phostis slashed at him, feeling the blade bite. Behind him, Syagrios roared with glee. Phostis would cheerfully have killed the ruffian for forcing him into a position where he either had to hurt the monk or get himself maimed or killed.

  None of the other raiders had any such compunctions. Several had dismounted, the better to torture the monks they overcame. Screams echoed down the halls that had resounded with hymns of praise to Phos. Watching the Thanasioi at their work—or was it better called sport?—Phostis felt his stomach lurch like a horse stepping into a snow-covered hole.

  “Away! Away!” Themistios shouted. “It’ll burn now, and we have more to do before we head home.”

  What does he have in mind? Phostis thought. About the only thing that fit in with what the raiders had done at the monastery was torching a home for penniless widows and orphans. Videssos the city had several such; he wondered if Aptos was a big enough town to boast any.

  He never got the chance to find out, for as he and the Thanasioi rode away from the monastery, a troop of imperial soldiers came storming after them from out of Aptos. Faint in the distance but growing louder fast, Phostis heard a wary cry he’d never imagined could sound so welcome: “Krispos! The Avtokrator Krispos! Krispos!”