Krispos the Emperor k-3

by Harry Turtledove

  "You were stupid to try to break away there," she answered, again in that odd, dispassionate tone.

  "So I found out." The inside of Phostis' mouth tasted like something that had just been scraped out of a sewer.

  "Why did you do it?" she asked.

  "I don't know. Because I thought I might succeed, I suppose." Phostis thought a little, then added, "Syagrios would probably say because I'm young and stupid." What he thought about both Syagrios and his opinions he would not repeat to a woman, not even one who'd shown him her nakedness, who'd drugged him and stolen him.

  He could, at the moment, think of Olyvria's nakedness with absolute detachment. He knew he wasn't ruined for life, but he certainly was ruined for the evening. He wriggled around a little on the hard-packed ground, trying to find some position less uncomfortable than most of the others.

  "I'm sorry," Olyvria said, as contritely as if they were friends. "Did you want to rest?"

  "What I want to do and what I can do aren't the same," he answered.

  "I'm afraid I can't help that," she said, sharply now. "If you'd not been so foolish, I might have managed something, but since you were—" She shook her head. "Syagrios and our other friend are right—we have to get you safe to Livanios. I know he'll be delighted to see you."

  'To have me in his hands, you mean," Phostis retorted. "And what puts you so high in Livanios' council? How can you know what he will or won't be?"

  "It's not hard," Olyvria answered. "He's my father."

  Zaidas looked worn. He'd ridden hard to catch up with the army. Still in the saddle, he bowed his head to Krispos. "I regret, your Majesty, that I have had no success in locating your son by sorcerous means. I shall accept without complaint any penalty you see fit to exact for my failure."

  "Very well, then," Krispos said. Zaidas stiffened, awaiting the Avtokrator's judgment. Krispos delivered it in his most imperial voice: "I order you henceforth to be forcibly prevented from mouthing such nonsense." He started talking normally again. "Don't you think I know you're doing everything you know how to do?"

  "You're generous, your Majesty," the wizard said, not hiding his relief. He took the reins in his left hand for a moment so he could pound his right fist down onto his thigh. "You can't imagine how this eats at me. I'm used to success, by the lord with the great and good mind. Knowing a mage out there can thwart me makes me furious. I want to find out who he is and where he is so I can thrash him with my bare hands."

  His obvious anger made Krispos smile. "A man who believes he can't be beaten is most often proved right." But his grin soon slipped. "Unless, of course, he's up against something rather more than a man. If you were wrong back in the city and we do, in fact, face Harvas—"

  "That thought crossed my mind," Zaidas said. "Being beaten by one of that sort would surely salve my self-respect, for who among mortal men could stand alone against him? Before I rejoined you, I ran the same sorcerous tests I'd used at the Sorcerers' Collegium, and others besides. Whoever he may be, my foe is not Harvas."

  "Good," Krispos said. "That means Phostis does not lie under Harvas' hands—a fate I'd wish on no one, friend or foe."

  "There we agree," Zaidas answered. "We will all be better off if Harvas Black-Robe is never again seen among living men. But knowing he is not the agency of your son's disappearance hardly puts us closer to learning who is responsible."

  "Responsible? Who but the Thanasioi? That much I assume. What puzzles me—and you as well, obviously—is how they're able to hide him." Krispos paused, plucked at his beard, and listened over again in his mind to what Zaidas had just said. After a moment's thought, he slowly went on, "Knowing Harvas isn't responsible for stealing Phostis lifts a weight from my heart. Have you any way to learn by sorcery who is to blame?"

  The mage bared his teeth in a frustrated grimace that had nothing to do with a smile save in the twist of his lips. "Majesty, my sorcery can't even find your son, let alone who's to blame for absconding with him."

  "I understand that," Krispos said. "Not quite what I meant. Sometimes in ruling I find problems where, if I tried to solve them all at once with one big, sweeping law, a lot of people would rise up in revolt. But they still need solving, so I go about it a little at a time, with a small change here, another one there, still another two years later. Anyone who thinks he can solve a complicated mess in one fell swoop is a fool, if you ask me. Problems that grow up over years don't go away in a day."

  'True enough, your Majesty, and wise, too."

  "Ha!" Krispos said. "If you're a farmer, it's something you'd better know."

  "As may be," Zaidas answered. "I wasn't going to go on with flattery, believe me. I was just going to say I didn't see how your principle, though admirable, applies in this case."

  "Someone's magic is keeping you from learning where Phostis is—am I right?" Krispos didn't wait for Zaidas' nod; he knew he was right. He continued, "Instead of looking for the lad for the moment, can you use your magic to learn what sort of sorcery shields him from you? If you can find out who's helping to conceal Phostis, that will tell us something we hadn't known and may help our physical search. Well? Can it be done?"

  Zaidas hesitated thoughtfully. At last he said, "The art of magecraft lost a great one when you were born without the talent, your Majesty. Your mind, if you will forgive a crude comparison, is as twisty as a couple of mating eels."

  "That's what comes of sitting on the imperial throne," Krispos answered. "Either it twists you or it breaks you. Does the idea have merit, then?"

  "It ... may," Zaidas said. "It certainly is a procedure I had not considered. I would not promise results, not before trial and not out here away from the resources of the Sorcerers' Collegium. If it works, it will require sorcery of the most delicate sort, for I would not want to alert my quarry to his being scrutinized in this fashion."

  "No, that wouldn't do." Krispos reached out and set a hand on Zaidas' arm for a moment. "If you think this worth pursuing, eminent and sorcerous sir, then do what you can. I have faith in your ability—"

  "More than I do, right now," Zaidas said, but Krispos neither believed him nor thought he believed himself.

  The Avtokrator said, "If the idea turns out not to work, we're no worse off: am I right?"

  "I think so, your Majesty," the wizard answered. "Let me explore what I have here and the techniques I might use. I'm sorry I can't give you a quick answer as to the practicability of your scheme, but it really does require more contemplation and research. I promise I'll inform you as soon as I either see a way to attempt it or discover I have not the skill, knowledge, or tools to undertake it."

  "I couldn't ask for more." Halfway through the sentence, Krispos found himself talking to Zaidas' back. The mage had swung his horse away. When he got hold of an idea, he worried it between his teeth—and ceased to worry about protocol or even politeness. In Krispos' mind, his long record of success would have justified far worse lapses of behavior than that.

  The Avtokrator soon forced magical schemes and even worry about Phostis to the back of his mind. Early that afternoon, the imperial army rode into Harasos, which let him see firsthand the devastation the Thanasioi had worked on the supply dumps there. In spite of himself, he was impressed. They'd done a job that would have warmed the heart of the most exacting military professional.

  Of course, the local quartermasters had made matters easier for them, too. Probably because the warehouses inside the shabby little town's shabby little wall were inadequate, sacks of grain and stacks of cut firewood had been stored outside. Burned black smears on the ground and a lingering smell of smoke showed where they'd rested.

  Next to the black smears was an enormous purple one. The broken crockery still in the middle of it said it had been the army's wine ration. Now the men would be reduced to drinking water before long, which would increase both grumbling and diarrhea.

  Krispos clicked his tongue between his teeth, sorrowing at the waste. The country hereabouts was not rich;
collecting this surplus had taken years of patient effort. It might have seen the district through a famine or. as here, kept the army going without its having to forage on the countryside.

  Sarkis rode up and looked over the damage with Krispos.

  The cavalry general pointed to what had been a corral. "See? They had beeves waiting for us, too."

  "So they did." Krispos sighed. "Now the Thanasioi will eat their share of them."

  "I thought they had scruples against feasting on meat," Sarkis said.

  'That's right, so they do. Well, they've slaughtered some—" The Avtokrator wrinkled his nose at the stench from the bloated carcasses inside the ruined fence. "—and driven off the rest. We'll have no use from them, that's certain."

  "Aye. Too bad." By his tone, Sarkis worried more about filling his own ample belly than the effect of the raid on the army as a whole.

  "We'll be able to bring in a certain amount of food by sea at Nakoleia," Krispos said. "By the good god, though, that'll be a long supply line for us to maintain. Will your men be able to protect the wagons as they make their way toward us?"

  "Some will get through, your Majesty. Odds are most will get through. If they hit us, though, we'll lose some," Sarkis answered. "And we'll lose men guarding those wagons, too. They'll be gone from your fighting force as sure as if the rebels shot 'em all in the throat."

  "Yes, that's true, too. Rude of you to remind me of it, though." Krispos knew how big a force he could bring to bear against the Thanasioi; he'd campaigned enough to make a good estimate of how many men Sarkis would have to pull from that force to protect the supply line against raiders. Less certain was how many warriors the rebels could array in line of battle. When he'd set out from Videssos the city, he'd thought he had enough men to win a quick victory. That looked a lot less likely now.

  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 any more, 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 inl
and 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 awhile 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.

  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!"