Krispos Rising

by Harry Turtledove

  Something else he did not know was whether he'd pleased her, or even how to find out. "Will we ... ?" he began. The rest of the question seemed stuck in his mouth.

  Zoranne did not help much. "I don't know. Will we?"

  "I hope so," Krispos blurted.

  "Men always hope so—that's what women always say, anyhow." She unbent a bit then. "Well, maybe we will—but not now. Now we ought to get back to where everyone else is."

  He opened the door. The freezing air outside hit him like a blow. Zoranne said, "We should go back separately. The grandmothers have enough to gossip about already."

  "Oh." Krispos had wanted to shout it from the housetops. If Zoranne didn't... "All right." He could not keep the disappointment out of his voice, though.

  "Come on," she said impatiently. "I told you this wouldn't be the last time." As a matter of fact, she hadn't quite said that before. Thus encouraged, Krispos willingly shut the door again and watched Zoranne slip off into the night.

  She kept her word, if not as often as Krispos would have liked. Every taste he had of her, every time the two of them managed not to be busy and to be able to find privacy, only made him want her more. Not knowing a better name, he thought of that as love.

  Then, for a while, his own afternoons were occupied: Varades taught him and a couple of younger boys their letters. He learned them without too much trouble; being able to read and write his own name was almost as exciting, in its own way, as sporting with Zoranne.

  He would have liked it even more had the village had anything much to read. "Why did you show us our letters if we can't use them?" he complained to Varades.

  "To give myself something to do, as much as any other reason," the veteran answered frankly. He thought for a moment. "Tell you what. We might beg a copy of Phos' scripture the next time a blue-robe comes around. I'll go through it with you, best I can."

  When Varades asked him, a couple of weeks later, the priest nodded. "I'll have one copied out for you straightaway," he promised. Krispos, who was standing behind Varades, felt like cheering until the man went on, "You understand, it will take a few months. The monasteries' scriptoria are always behind, I'm sorry to say."

  "Months!" Krispos said in dismay. He was sure he would forget everything before the book arrived.

  But he did not. His father made him scratch letters in the dirt every day. "High time we had somebody in the family who can read," Phostis said. "You'll be able to keep the tax man from cheating us any worse than tax men always do."

  Krispos got another chance to use his skill that spring, before either the scripture or the tax collector arrived. Zoranne's father Tzykalas had spent the winter months making half a dozen pairs of fancy boots. When the roads dried out enough to be passable, he took them to Imbros to sell. He came back with several goldpieces—and portentous news.

  "The old Avtokrator, Phos guard his soul, has died," he declared to the men he met in the village square.

  Everyone made the sun-sign. The passing of an Emperor was never to be taken lightly. Phostis put into words what they were all thinking: "His son's but a boy, not so?"

  Tzykalas nodded. "Aye, about the age of Krispos here, I'd say, judging by his coin." The cobbler dug it out of his pouch to show the other villagers the new portrait. "His name is—"

  "Let me read it!" Krispos exclaimed. "Please!" He held out his hand for the goldpiece. Reluctantly Tzykalas passed it to him. It was only a little wider than his thumbnail. All he could make out from the image was that the new Avtokrator was, as Tzykalas had said, too young to have a beard. He put the coin close to his face so he could make out the tiny letters of its inscription. "His name is Anthimos."

  "So it is," Tzykalas said grumpily. He snatched the goldpiece out of Krispos' hand. Too late, it occurred to the youth that he had just stolen a big part of Tzykalas' news. Too bad, he thought. No matter how he felt about Zoranne, he'd never been fond of her father. That was one reason he hadn't proposed to her: the idea of having the cobbler as a father-in-law was anything but appealing.

  What he wanted to do was go home and dig up the goldpiece he'd got from Omurtag so he could read it. He'd buried it beside the house for luck when his family came to this new village, and they'd never been desperate enough to make him dig it up and spend it. But no, he decided, not now; if he did leave, Tzykalas would only think him ruder yet.

  "A boy for Avtokrator?" someone said. "That won't be good—who'll keep the plow's furrow straight till he learns how to guide it?"

  "That I can tell you," Tzykalas said, sounding important again. "The talk in Imbros is that Rhaptes' brother Petronas will be regent for his nephew until Anthimos comes of age."

  "Petronas, eh? Things won't be too bad, then." Drawn by the sight of several men standing around talking, Varades had come up in time to hear Tzykalas' last bit of news. The veteran went on, "I fought under him against Makuran. He's an able soldier, and no one's fool, either."

  "What if he seizes the throne for himself, then?" Krispos' father said.

  "What if he does, Phostis?" Varades said. "Why would it matter to the likes of us, one way or the other?"

  Krispos' father thought about it for a moment. He spread his hands. "There you have me, Varades. Why indeed?"

  Zoranne stood in the doorway of Tzykalas' house. She shook her head. "No."

  "Why not?" Surprised and irritated, Krispos waved his hand to show how empty the village was. "Everyone's in the farther fields for the rest of the day, and probably tomorrow, too. Even your father's gone off to buy some new awls, you said. We've never had a better chance."

  "No," she repeated.

  "Eat why not?" He put a hand on her arm.

  She didn't pull away, not physically, but she might as well have. He let his hand fall. "I just don't want to," she said.

  "Why?" he persisted.

  "Do you really want to know?" She waited till she saw him nod. "All right, I'll tell you why. Yphantes asked me to marry him the other day, and I told him yes."

  The last time Krispos had felt so stunned and breathless was when Idalkos kicked him in the pit of the stomach one day while they were wrestling. He'd never paid any particular attention to Yphantes before. Along with everyone else in the village, he'd been sad when the man's wife died in childbirth a couple of years before, but... "He's old," Krispos blurted.

  "He's years away from thirty," Zoranne said, "and he's already well set up. If I had to wait for you, I'd be past twenty myself by the time you were even close to where Yphantes is now, and that's too long a time."

  "But—but then you, but then you and he—" Krispos found he could not make his mouth work the way it was supposed to.

  Zoranne understood anyway. "What if we were?" she said defiantly. "You never gave me any promise, Krispos, or asked for one from me."

  "I never thought I needed to," he mumbled.

  "Too bad for you, then. No woman wants to be taken for granted. Maybe you'll remember that next time with someone else, and end up happier for it." Her face softened. "Krispos, we'll probably live here together in this village the rest of our lives. No point in us hating each other, is there? Please?"

  For want of anything better to say, he said, "All right." Then he turned and quickly walked away. If he had any tears, Zoranne was not going to see them. He owned too much pride for that.

  That evening he was so quiet that his sister teased him about it, and then he was quiet through the teasing, too. "Are you feeling well, Krispos?" Evdokia asked, real worry in her voice; when she could not get a rise out of him, something had to be wrong.

  "I'm all right," he said. "I just want you to leave me alone, that's all."

  "I know what it is," she said suddenly. "It's something to do with Zoranne, isn't it?"

  He very carefully put down the bowl of barley and turnip soup from which he had been eating; had he not been so deliberately careful with his hands, he might have thrown it at her. He got up and stamped out of the house, off into the woods.

/>   He took longer than he should have to realize that sitting by himself among the trees wasn't accomplishing anything, but after a while he did figure it out. It was quite dark when he finally came home. Then he almost turned around and went back; his father was waiting for him, a few steps outside the door.

  He kept on. He would have to deal with his father sooner or later; better sooner, he thought. "I'm sorry," he said.

  His father nodded, the motion barely visible in the gloom. "You should be." Phostis hesitated a moment before he said, "Evdokia was right, I gather—you've had some trouble with your girl?"

  "She's not my girl," Krispos said sullenly. "She's going to marry Yphantes."

  "Good," his father said. "I hoped she would. I told Yphantes as much, earlier this year. In the long run, it'll save you trouble, son, believe me."

  "When you what?" Krispos stared at him, appalled. That moment of shock also let him notice something he'd missed before: both his father and his sister knew about Zoranne. "How did you find out about us? We were so careful—"

  "Maybe you think so," Phostis said, "but I'd bet the only person in the village who doesn't know is Tzykalas, and he would if he weren't a fool who'd sooner talk than see. I'd be just as well pleased not to have a marriage connection with him, I can tell you."

  Krispos had been angry at his father often enough. Till now, he'd never imagined wanting to hate him. In a voice like ice, he asked, "Is that why you egged Yphantes on?"

  "That's part of the reason, aye," Phostis answered calmly. Before Krispos' rage could overflow, he went on, "But it's not the biggest part. Yphantes needs to marry. He needs a wife to help him now and he needs to get an heir to carry on. And Zoranne needs to marry; at fourteen, a girl's a woman, near enough. But you, son, you don't need to marry. At fourteen, a man's still a boy."

  "I'm not a boy," Krispos snarled.

  "No? Does a man pitch a tantrum when he's teased? You were acting the way Kosta does when I tell her I won't carry her piggyback any more. Am I wrong or am I right? Think before you answer me."

  That last sentence kept Krispos from blowing up in fury. He did think; in cold—or at least cooler—blood, what he'd done seemed foolish. "Right, I suppose, Father, but—"

  "But me no buts. Finding a girl who'll say yes to you is wonderful; Phos knows I don't deny it. Why, I remember—" His father stopped, laughed a small, self-conscious laugh. "But never mind me. Just because she says yes doesn't mean you want to live with her the rest of your life. That should take more looking than just one girl, don't you think?"

  Krispos remembered his own misgivings about Tzykalas the day before. Without much wanting to, he found himself nodding. "I guess so."

  "Good." His father put a hand on his shoulder, the way he'd been doing since Krispos was a little boy. "What you have to remember is, bad as you feel today, today's not forever. Things'll feel better inside you after a while. You just have to learn the patience to wait till they do."

  Krispos thought about that. It made sense. Even so, though... "It sounds like something that's easier to tell someone else than to do," he said.

  "Doesn't it just?" Phostis laughed that small laugh again. "And don't I know it?"

  Greatly daring, Krispos asked, "Father, what was she like?"

  "She?"

  "The one you talked about—sort of talked about—a few minutes ago."

  "Oh." Phostis walked farther away from the house. He glanced back toward it before going on more quietly, "Her name was Sabellia. Your mother knows of her. Truly, I don't think Tatze'd mind my speaking about her, save only that no woman ever really takes kindly to her man going on about times before he was with her. Can't say I blame her; I'm as glad she doesn't chatter on about her old flames, too. But Sabellia? Well, I must have been right around your age when I met her ..."

  Krispos rubbed his chin. Whiskers rasped under his fingers, not the fuzz he'd had since his voice started changing but the beginnings of a real man's crop. About time, he thought. A couple of fifteen-year-olds grew beards as good as his, though he'd had two more summers in which to raise his.

  He rubbed again. A beard, even a thin one, was a useful thing to be thoughtful with. Last time out in the woods, somewhere not far from here, he'd spotted an elm branch that had exactly the right curve for a plow handle. He would have paid more attention to it had he not been with a girl.

  That oak looked familiar, or so he thought till he got close to it. He walked on. He didn't remember the hazel tree beyond the oak. Sighing, he kept walking. By now he was sure he had come too far, but he didn't want to go back, either. It would have been too much like an admission of failure.

  Faint in the distance, he heard noise ahead. He frowned. Few villagers came this far east of home. He'd brought Likinia out here precisely because he had felt sure they'd get to be alone. He supposed men from the next village over could be doing some lumbering, but they'd have to drag the wood a long way back if they were.

  The noise didn't sound like lumbering, anyhow. He heard no axes, no sounds of falling branches or toppling trees. As he moved closer, a horse neighed softly. That confused him worse than ever. A horse would have been handy for hauling timber, but there was no timber.

  What did that leave? His frown deepened—the most obvious answer was bandits. He hadn't thought the nearby road had enough traffic to support a robber band, but he could have been wrong. He kept moving toward the noise, but now with all the caution he could muster. He just wanted to see if these really were bandits and then, if they were, to get back to the village and bring as many armed men here as he could.

  He was flat on his belly by the time he wriggled up to the last brush that screened him from the noise-makers, whoever they were. Slowly, slowly, he raised his head until he could peer between two leafy branches whose shadows helped hide his face.

  "Phos!" His lips shaped the word, but no sound came from between them. The men relaxing by the side of the road were not bandits. They were Kubratoi.

  His lips moved silently again—twelve, thirteen, fourteen Kubratoi. The village had not had any word of invasion, but that meant nothing. The first word of trouble they'd had when he was a boy was the wild men howling out of darkness. He shivered; suddenly, reliving the terror of that night, he felt like a boy again.

  The remembered fear also told him what he had wondered before—why the Kubratoi were sitting around taking their ease instead of storming straight for the village. They would hit at night, just as that other band had. With the advantage of surprise, with darkness making them seem three times as many as they really were, they would be irresistible.

  Krispos gauged the shadows around him as he slithered backward even more carefully than he had approached. The sun was not far past noon. He could deal with the Kubratoi as he'd intended to treat the bandits. The villagers had learned weapons from the veterans settled with them to be ready for just this sort of moment.

  Soon Krispos was far enough away from the wild men to get back to his feet. Fast and quiet as he could, he headed toward the village. He thought about cutting back to the road and running down it. That would be quickest—if the Kubratoi didn't have a sentry posted somewhere along there to make sure no one gave the alarm. He decided he could not take the chance. Through the woods it would have to be.

  He burst out of the forest an hour and a half later, his tunic torn, his arms and face scratched. His first try at a cry of alarm yielded only a rusty croak. He rushed over to the well, drew up the bucket, and drank deep. "The Kubratoi!" he shouted, loud as he could.

  The men and women who heard him spun and stared. One of them was Idalkos. "How many, boy?" he barked. "Where?"

  "I saw fourteen," Krispos told him. "Down at the edge of the road ..." He gasped out the story.

  "Only fourteen, you say?" A fierce light kindled in Idalkos' eyes. "If that's all there really are, we can take 'em."

  "I thought so, too," Krispos said. "You get the people here armed. I'll go out to the fields and bring in the r
est of the men."

  "Right you are." Idalkos had been an underofficer for many years; when he heard orders that made sense, he started carrying them out without worrying about where they came from. Krispos never noticed he'd given an order. He was already running toward the largest group of men that he saw, shouting as he ran.

  "The Kubratoi!" someone said fearfully. "How can we fight the Kubratoi?"

  "How can we not?" Krispos shot back. "Do you want to go back to the other side of the mountains again? There's only a dozen or so of them, and they won't be expecting us to hit first. With three times as many men as they have, how can we lose? Idalkos thinks we can win, too."

  That brought around some of the farmers who stood there indecisively. Soon they all went pounding back toward the village. Idalkos and a couple of other men were already passing out weapons when they got there. Krispos found himself clutching a shield and a stout spear.

  "We go through the woods?"

  Idalkos made it sound like a question, but Krispos did not think he was really asking. "Aye," he said. "If they have someone watching the road, he could ride back and warn the rest."

  "Right you are," Idalkos said again. He went on, "And speaking of warning—Stankos, you saddle up one of those mules and ride for Imbros, fast as you can, cross-country. If you see the whole landscape crawling with Kubratoi, come back. I'm not sending you out to get yourself killed. But if you think you can make it through, well, I wouldn't mind seeing a few garrison soldiers up this way. How about the rest of you, lads?"

  Nods and nervous grins showed him his guess was good. The villagers had nerved themselves to fight, but they were not eager.

  Or most of them, the older, more settled farmers, were not. They kept looking back at the fields; their homes; their wives and daughters, who crowded round the knot of would-be warriors, some just standing silently, others wringing their hands and trying not to weep.

  Krispos, though, was almost wild with excitement. "Come on!" he shouted.