Krispos the Emperor k-3

by Harry Turtledove

"I've smelled worse, out in the fields at manuring time," Syagrios said. "The stink won't kill him, and it won't kill you, neither."

  Phostis had been aware of a foul smell since his wits returned. He hadn't realized he was the cause of it. He must have gone on fouling himself after Olyvria's potion—the one that was supposed to end his internal turmoil—forced him down into oblivion. I'll have revenge for that, by the good god, he thought. I'll— He gave up. No vengeance seemed savage enough to suit him.

  Olyvria said, "I wish he would have come and talked with me when he saw me by the baggage train. He recognized me, I know he did. I think I could have persuaded him to come with us of his own will. I know he follows Thanasios' gleaming path, at least in large measure."

  Syagrios gave a loud, skeptical grunt. "How d'you know that?"

  "He wouldn't bed me when he had the chance," Olyvria answered.

  Her companion grunted again, in a slightly different tone. "Well, maybe. It don't matter, though. Our orders was to snatch him fast as we could, and we done did it. Livanios will be happy with us."

  "So he will," Olyvria said.

  She and Syagrios went on talking, but Phostis stopped heeding them. He hadn't figured out for himself—though he supposed he should have—that his kidnappers were Thanasioi. As it did Olyvria, the irony of that struck him, though in his case the impact was far more forcible. Given any sort of choice in the matter, he would have picked a different way of coming into their number. But they had not given him any choice.

  He closed his lips on the gag and tried to draw a tiny bit of the cloth into his mouth. He needed several tries before he nipped it between upper and lower front teeth. After working awhile on chewing through it, he decided that was easier said than done. He labored instead to get it down so his mouth would be free. Just when he thought he'd succeed about the time he got to wherever Livanios was, the top edge of the gag slid down over his upper lip. Not only could he talk now if he had to, he could also breathe much more easily.

  Even though he could talk, he resolved not to, lest his captors gag him more securely. But his body tested his resolve in ways he hadn't anticipated. At last he said, "Could you people please stop long enough to let me make water?"

  Syagrios' startled jerk shook the whole wagon. "By the ice, how'd he get his mouth loose?" He turned around, then growled, "Well, why should we bother? You already stink."

  "We aren't just stealing him, Syagrios, we're bringing him to us," Olyvria said. "There's no one on the road; why shouldn't we just stand him up and let him do what needs doing? It won't take long."

  "Why should we? You didn't lift him in there, and you won't have to lift him out." The man grumbled a little longer, then said, "All right, have it your way." He must have pulled on the reins; the jingle of harness ceased as the wagon stopped. Phostis felt himself lifted by arms as thick and powerful as any Haloga's. He leaned against the side of the wagon on legs that did not want to hold him up. Syagrios said, "Go ahead and piss. Be quick about it."

  "It's not that simple for him, you know," Olyvria said. "Here, wait—I'll help." The wagon shifted behind Phostis as she got down. He listened to her come around and stand by him. She hiked up his robe so he wouldn't wet it. As if that weren't mortification enough, she took him in hand and said, "Go on; now you won't splash on your boots."

  Syagrios laughed coarsely. "You hold him like that for very long and he'll be too stiff to piss at all."

  Phostis hadn't even thought about that aspect of things; what rang through his mind was his father's voice back at Nakoleia, asking him if he wanted praise for piddling without getting his feet wet. At the moment, such praise would have been welcome. He relieved himself as fast as he could; never before had the phrase possessed such real and immediate meaning for him. His sigh when he was through was involuntary but heartfelt.

  The robe fluttered down around his tied ankles. Syagrios picked him up and, grunting, lifted him back into the wagon. The fellow talked like a villain and, without Phostis' excuse for filth, was none too clean, but he had brute strength to spare. He set Phostis down flat in the wagon bed, then returned to his place and got his team moving once more.

  "You want to gag him again?" he asked Olyvria.

  "No," Phostis said—quietly, so they would see he did not have to be gagged. Then he used a word most often perfunctory for an Avtokrator's son: "Please." It was not perfunctory now.

  "I think I'd better," Olyvria said after a brief pause. She must have swung round on the seat; her feet came down in the wagon close by Phostis' head. "I'm sorry," she told him as she slipped the gag over his mouth and tied it behind his neck, "but we just can't trust you yet."

  Her fingers were smooth and warm and briskly capable; had she given him the chance, he would have bitten them to the bone. He didn't get the chance. He was already discovering she knew how to do much more than lie temptingly naked on a bed.

  That discovery would have surprised his brothers even more than it did him. Evripos and Katakolon were convinced lying naked on a bed was all women were good for. Since he was less concerned about finding them there, he found it easier to envision them doing other things. But not even he had imagined finding one who made such an effective kidnapper.

  Olyvria got back up beside Syagrios. She remarked, apparently to no one in particular, "If he gets that one off, he'll regret it."

  "I'll make him regret it." Syagrios sounded as if he looked forward to doing just that. Phostis, who had already started working on the new gag. decided not to go on. He chose to believe Olyvria had given him a hint.

  The day was the longest, driest, hungriest, and generally most miserable he'd ever endured. After some endless while, he began to see real black rather than gray through the blindfold. The air grew cooler, almost chilly. Night, he thought. He wondered if Syagrios would drive straight on till dawn. If Syagrios did, Phostis wondered if he would still be alive by the time his eyes saw gray once more.

  But not long after dark, Syagrios stopped. He picked Phostis up, leaned him against the side of the wagon, then descended, picked him up again, and slung him over his shoulder like a sack of chickpeas. Behind him, Olyvria got the horses moving at a slow walk.

  From ahead came a metallic squawk of rusty hinges, then the scrape of something moving against resistance from dirt and gravel: a gate opening, Phostis thought "Hurry up," an unfamiliar male voice said.

  "Here we go," Syagrios answered. He picked up his pace. By their hoofbeats, so did the horses behind him. As soon as they stopped, the gate went scrape-squeak. Closing. Phostis thought. The slam of a bar falling into place confirmed that. "Ah, good," Syagrios said. "Think we can untie him for now and take the rag off his eyes?"

  "I don't see why not," the other man said. "If he gets away from this place, by the good god, he's earned it. And didn't I hear he's halfway set foot on the gleaming path himself?"

  "Aye, I've heard that, too." Syagrios laughed. "Thing is, I didn't get to be as old as I am believing everything I hear."

  "Set him down so I can cut the ropes easier," Olyvria said. Syagrios put Phostis onto the ground more carefully than if he'd been chickpeas, but not much. Somebody—presumably Olyvria—slit his bonds, then slid the blindfold from his face.

  He blinked; his eyes filled with tears. After a day in enforced darkness, even torchlight seemed shockingly bright. When he tried to lever himself up, neither arms nor legs would obey him. He set his teeth against the pain of returning blood. Pins and needles was too mild a phrase for it; it felt more like nails and spikes. They got worse with every passing moment, until he wondered if the maltreated members would fall off.

  "It will ease soon," Olyvria assured him.

  He wondered how she could know—had she ever been trussed up like a suckling pig on its way to market? But she was right. After a little while, he tried again to stand. This time he made it, though he swayed like a tree in a windstorm.

  "He don't look too good," said the fellow who went with this ... farmhouse,
Phostis supposed it was, though the man, lean, pale, and furtive, looked more like a sneakthief than a farmer.

  "He'll be hungry," Syagrios said, "and tired." Syagrios seemed very much the stalwart bruiser Phostis had expected. He wasn't even of average height for a Videssian, but had shoulders as wide as any Haloga's and arms thick with corded muscle. At some time in the unknown past, his nose had intercepted a chair or other instrument of strong opinion.

  A big gold hoop dangled piratically from his left ear. Phostis pointed at it. "I thought folk who followed the gleaming path didn't wear ornaments like that."

  Syagrios' startled stare quickly slid into a scowl. "None of your cursed business what I wear or don't—" he began, folding one big hand into a fist.

  "Wait," Olyvria said. "This is something he needs to know." She turned to Phostis. "You're right and yet you're wrong. When we go among men not of our kind, sometimes lack of ostentation can betray us. We have the right to disguise our appearance, just as we may deny our creed to save ourselves."

  Phostis bit down hard on that one. A Videssian's faith was his proudest possession; many had been martyred for refusing to compromise the creed. Letting a man—or a woman— dissemble in time of danger went square against everything he'd ever been taught ... but also made good sense from a practical standpoint.

  Slowly he said, "My father will have a hard time sifting those who follow Thanasios' ways from the generality, then." Krispos wouldn't have looked for that. Most heresies, believing themselves orthodox, trumpeted their tenets and made themselves easy targets. But suppressing the Thanasioi would be like striking smoke, which gave way before blows yet was not destroyed.

  "That's right," Olyvria said. "We'll give the imperial army more trouble than it can handle. Before long, we'll give the whole Empire more trouble than it can handle." Her eyes sparkled at the prospect.

  Syagrios turned to the fellow who'd let them into the courtyard. "Where's the food?" he boomed, slapping his bulging belly with the palm of one hand. No matter what Olyvria said, Phostis had trouble picturing him as an ascetic.

  "I'll get it," the skinny man said, and went into the house.

  "Phostis needs it more than you," Olyvria said to Syagrios.

  "So?" he answered. "I was the one with the wit to ask for it. Of course, our friend here wasn't likely to listen to the likes of him." Phostis thought he deliberately avoided naming the other man. That showed more wit than he'd credited Syagrios with having. If he ever escaped ... but did he want to escape? He shook his head, bewildered. He didn't know what he wanted.

  He didn't know what he wanted, that is, until the fellow who looked like a thief came out with a loaf of black bread, some runny yellow cheese, and a jar of the sort that commonly held cheap wine. Then his growling stomach and spit-filled mouth loudly made their wishes known.

  He ate like a starving badger. The wine mounted from his belly to his head. He felt more nearly human that he had since he was drugged, but that wasn't saying much. He asked, "May I have a cloth or a sponge and some water to wash myself? And some clean clothes, if there are any?"

  The skinny fellow looked at Syagrios. Syagrios, for all his bluster, looked at Olyvria. She nodded. The skinny fellow said to Phostis, "You're my size, near enough. You can wear one of my old tunics. I'll get it. There's a pitcher and a sponge on a stick in the privy."

  Phostis waited until he had the rough, colorless homespun garment in his hands, then headed for the privy. The robe he wore was worth dozens of the one he put on, but he made the exchange with nothing but delight.

  He looked down at himself as he came out of the privy. He was no peacock, like some of the young men who swaggered around Videssos the city displaying themselves and their finery on holidays. Even if he'd had such longings—as Katakolon did, to some degree—Krispos wouldn't have let him indulge them. Having been born on a farm, Krispos still kept the poor man's scorn for fancy clothes he couldn't afford himself. Nonetheless, Phostis was sure he'd never worn anything so plain in his whole life.

  The thin man pointed at him. "See! Without the embroidered robes, he looks like anybody else. That's what Thanasios says, bless him—take away the riches that separate one man from another and we're all pretty much the same. What we have to do is make sure nobody has riches. The lord with the great and good mind will love us for that."

  "Other way to make us all the same is let everybody have riches." Syagrios cast a covetous eye on the befouled robe Phostis had been so happy to remove. "Clean that up and it'd bring a pretty piece of change."

  "No," Olyvria said. "Try to sell it and you shout 'Here I am!' to Krispos' spies. Livanios ordered us to destroy everything Phostis had when we took him, and that's what we'll do."

  "All right, all right," Syagrios said, voice surly. "Still seems a waste, though."

  The skinny man rounded on him. "Your theology's not all it should be. The goal is the destruction of riches, says Thanasios, not the equality, for Phos best loves those who give up all they have for the sake of his truth."

  "Oh, I don't know about that," Syagrios said. "If all were alike, poor or rich, we wouldn't be jealous of each other, and if jealousy ain't a sin, what is, eh?" He set hands on hips and smiled triumphantly at the thin man.

  "I'll tell you what," the other answered hotly, ready as any Videssian to do battle for the sake of his dogmas.

  "No, you won't." Olyvria's tone reminded Phostis of the one Krispos used when delivering judgment from the imperial throne. "The forces of materialism are stronger than we are. If we quarrel among ourselves, we are lost ... so we shall not quarrel."

  Syagrios and the skinny fellow both glared at her, but neither one of them carried the argument any further. Phostis was impressed. He wondered what power Olyvria had over her henchmen. Whatever it was, it worked. Maybe she carried an amulet ... or would a heretic's charm be efficacious? Then again, were the Thanasioi heretics or the most perfect of the orthodox?

  Before Phostis could formulate an answer to either of those questions, the skinny man jerked a thumb in his direction and said, "What do we do with this one tonight?"

  "Keep watch on him," Olyvria said. "Tomorrow we move on."

  "I'm going to tie him up, too, just in case," the skinny fellow said. "If he gets loose, the imperial executioners have a lot of ways to keep you alive when you'd rather be dead."

  "I don't think we need to do that," Olyvria said. This time, though, her tone was doubtful, and she looked to Syagrios for support. The short, muscular man shook his head; he sided with the thin fellow. Olyvria's mouth twisted, but she gave over arguing. With a shrug, she turned to Phostis and said, "I think you'd be safe unbound, but they don't trust you enough yet. Try not to hate us for it."

  Phostis also shrugged. "I won't deny I've thought long and hard about becoming one of you Thanasioi, but I never thought I'd be ... recruited ... this way. If you expect me to be happy about it, I fear you're in for disappointment."

  "You're honest, at any rate," Olyvria said.

  Syagrios snorted. "He's but a babe, same as you, lass. He don't believe nothin' bad can happen to him, not in his guts, not in his balls. You're young, you say what you want and don't give a fart for what happens next on account of you think you're gonna live forever anyways."

  That was the most words Phostis had heard from Syagrios at any one time. Try as he would, he couldn't keep his face straight. His laughter had a high, hysterical edge to it, but it was laughter.

  "What's so funny?" Syagrios growled. "You laugh at me, you'll go to the ice. I've sent better and tougher men there than you, by the good god."

  When Phostis tried to stop laughing, he found it wasn't easy. He had to take a deep breath, hold it, and let it out slowly before the fit would pass. At last, carefully, he said, "I will apologize, Syagrios. It's just that—that—I never expected you to talk like—like—my father." He held his breath again to stave off another wild attack of laughter.

  "Huh." Syagrios' smile revealed several broken teeth a
nd a couple of gaps. "Yeah, maybe that is funny. I guess if you've been around awhile, you start thinkin' one kind o' way."

  Before Phostis could answer that or even think about it very much, the skinny man came up to him with a fresh length of rope. "Put your hands behind you," he said. "I won't tie 'em as tight as they was before. I—"

  Phostis made his move. The romances he'd read insisted a man whose cause was just could overcome several villains. The writers of those romances had never run into the skinny fellow. Phostis' eyes must have given him away, for the thin man kicked him square in the crotch almost before he managed to raise an arm. He fell in a moaning heap and threw up most of the food he'd eaten. He knew he ought not to writhe and clutch at himself, but he could not help it. He'd never known such pain.

  "You were right," Olyvria told the skinny man, her voice curiously neutral. "He needs to be tied tonight."

  Skinny nodded. He waited for Phostis' thrashings to cease, then said, "Get up, you. Don't be stupid about it, either, or I'll give you another dose."

  Swiping at his mouth with the sleeve of his homespun tunic, Phostis struggled to his feet. He had needed to get used to Digenis' addressing him as lad rather than young Majesty, now he hurt too much to bridle at being roughly called you. At the thin man's gesture, he put his hands behind his back and let himself be tied. Maybe the rope wasn't as tight as it had been before. It was none too loose, either.

  His kidnappers brought out a blanket that smelled of horse and draped it over him once he'd lain down. The two men went inside the farmhouse, leaving Olyvria behind for the first watch. She had both a hunting bow and a knife that would have made a decent shortsword.

  "You keep an eye on him," Syagrios called from the doorway. "If he tries to get loose, hurt him and holler for us. We can't let him get away."

  "I know," Olyvria said. "He shan't."

  By the way she handled the bow, Phostis could see she knew what to do with it. He had no doubt she'd shoot him to keep him from escaping. With the dull, sickening ache still in his stones, he wasn't going anywhere anyhow, not for a while. He said as much to Olyvria.