"That's for Phos to do with us, not we with him," Phostis said.
Syagrios liked that; his laugh blew grapey fumes into Phostis' face. He pointed toward the gates. "Back to your cage now, and you can see how Phos settles you there."
Phostis kept walking toward the fortress. He'd learned that giving any sign Syagrios' jabs hurt guaranteed he'd keep getting them. As he went through the gates, he also noticed how much like home the fortress was becoming in his mind. Just because it's familiar doesn't mean they can make you belong here, he told himself.
But were they making him? He still hadn't settled that question in his own mind. If he followed Thanasios' gleaming path, oughtn't he be here of his own free will?
In the inner yard, Livanios was watching some of his recruits throw javelins. The light spears thumped into bales of hay propped against the far wall. Some missed and bounced back.
Ever alert, Livanios turned his head to see who the newcomers were. "Ah, the young Majesty," he said. Phostis didn't care for the way he used the title; it was devoid even of scornful courtesy. The heresiarch sounded as if he wondered whether Phostis, instead of proving useful, might be turning into a liability. That made Phostis nervous. If he wasn't useful to Livanios, how long would he last?
"Take him up to his chamber, Syagrios," Livanios said; he might have been speaking of a dog, or of a sack of flour.
As the door to his little cell closed behind him, Phostis realized that, if he didn't care to abandon his fleshly form as the Thanasioi advocated for their most pious folk, he might have to take some most un-Thanasiot actions. As soon as that thought crossed his mind, he remembered Olyvria's lips sweet against his. The Thanasioi would not have approved of that, not even a little.
He also remembered whose daughter Olyvria was. If he tried to escape, would she betray him? Or might she help? He stamped on the cold floor. He just did not know.
VIII
Krispos was wading through changes in a law that dealt with tariffs on tallow imported from the northeastern land of Thatagush when Barsymes tapped at the open door of his study with one knuckle. He looked up. The vestiarios said, "May it please your Majesty, a messenger from the mage Zaidas at the government office building."
"Maybe it will please me, by the good god," Krispos said. "Send him in."
The messenger quickly prostrated himself, then said, "Your Majesty, Zaidas bids me tell you that he has at last succeeded in commencing a sorcerous interrogation of the rebel priest Digenis."
"Has he? Well, to the ice with tallow."
"Your Majesty?"
"Never mind." The less the messenger knew about the dickering with Thatagush, the happier he'd be. Krispos got up and accompanied him out of the study and out of the imperial residence. Haloga guards fell in with him as he went down the broad steps outside. He felt a childish delight in having caught his parasol bearers napping, as if he'd put one over on Barsymes.
He hadn't gone to listen to Digenis since the day of Iakovitzes' return. He'd seen no point to it: he'd already heard all the Thanasiot platitudes he could stomach, and Digenis refused to yield the truths he wanted to learn.
He was shocked at how the priest had wasted away. In his peasant days, he'd seen men and women lean with hunger after a bad harvest, but Digenis was long past leanness: everything between his skeleton and his skin seemed to have disappeared. His eyes shifted when Krispos came into his cell, but did not catch fire as they had before.
"He is very weak, your Majesty; his will at last begins to fail," Zaidas said quietly. "Otherwise I doubt even now I could have found a way to coax answers from him."
"What have you done?" Krispos asked. "I see no apparatus for the two-mirror test."
"No." By his expression, Zaidas would have been glad never to try the two-mirror test again. "This is half magic, half healing art. I laced the water he drinks with a decoction of henbane, having first used sorcery to remove the taste so he would notice nothing out of the ordinary."
"Well done." After a moment, Krispos added, "I do hope the technique for that is not so simple as to be available to any poisoner who happens to take a dislike to his neighbor—or to me.
"No, your Majesty," Zaidas said, smiling. "In any case, the spell, because it goes against nature, is easy to detect by sorcery. Digenis, of course, was not in a position to do so."
"And a good thing, too," Krispos said. "All right, let's see if he'll give forth the truth now. What questions have you put to him thus far?"
"None of major import. As soon as I saw he was at last receptive, I sent for you at once. I suggest you keep your questions as simple as you can. The henbane frees his mind, but also clouds it—both far more strongly than wine."
"As you say, sorcerous sir." Krispos raised his voice. "Digenis! Do you hear me, Digenis?"
"Aye, I hear you." Digenis' voice was not only weak from weeks of self-imposed starvation but also dreamy and far away.
"Where's Phostis—my son? The son of the Avtokrator Krispos," Krispos added, in case the priest did not realize who was talking to him.
Digenis answered, "He walks the golden path to true piety, striding ever farther from the perverse materialistic heresy that afflicts too many soulblind folk throughout the Empire." The priest held his convictions all the way down to his heart, not merely on the surface of his mind. Krispos had already been sure of that.
He tried again: "Where is Phostis physically?"
"The physical is unimportant," Digenis declared. Krispos glanced over at Zaidas, who bared his teeth in an agony of frustration. But Digenis went on, "If all went as was planned, Phostis is now with Livanios."
Krispos had thought as much, but hearing the plan had been kidnap rather than murder lifted fear from his heart. Phostis could easily have been dumped in some rocky ravine with his throat cut; only the wolves and ravens would have been likely to discover him. The Avtokrator said, "What does Livanios hope to do with him? Use him as a weapon against me?"
"Phostis has a hope of assuming true piety," Digenis said. Krispos wondered if he'd confused him by asking two questions at once. After a few heartbeats, the priest resumed, "For a youth, Phostis resists carnality well. To my surprise, he declined the body of Livanios' daughter, which she offered to see if he could be tempted from the gleaming path. He could not. He may yet prove suitable for an imminent union with the good god rather than revolting and corruptible flesh."
"An imminent union?" All faiths used words in special ways. Krispos wanted to be sure he understood what Digenis was talking about. "What's an imminent union?"
"That which I am approaching now," Digenis answered. "The voluntary abandonment of the flesh to free the spirit to fly to Phos."
"You mean starving yourself to death," Krispos said. Somehow Digenis used his emaciated neck for a nod. Slow horror trickled through Krispos as he imagined Phostis wasting away like the Thanasiot priest. No matter that he and the young man quarreled, no matter even that Phostis might not be his by blood: he would not have wished such a fate on him.
Digenis began to whisper a Thanasiot hymn. Seeking to rock him out of the holy smugness he maintained even in the face of approaching death, Krispos said, "Did you know Livanios uses magic of the school of the Prophets Four to hide Phostis' whereabouts?"
"He is cursed with ambition," Digenis answered. "I knew the spoor, I recognized the stench. He prates of the golden path, but Skotos has filled his heart with greed for power."
"You worked with him, knowing he was evil by your reckoning?" That surprised Krispos; he'd expected the renegade priest to have sterner standards for himself. "And you still claim you walk Thanasios' gleaming path? Are you not a hypocrite?"
"No, for Livanios' ambition furthers the advance of the holy Thanasios' doctrines, whereas yours leads only to the further aggrandizement of Skotos," Digenis declared. "Thus evil is transmuted into good and the dark god confounded."
"Thus sincerity turns to expedience," Krispos said. He'd already gained the impression that Liv
anios cared more for Livanios than for the gleaming path. In a way, that made the heresiarch more dangerous, for he was liable to be more flexible than an out-and-out fanatic. But in another way, it weakened Livanios: fanatics, by the strength of their beliefs, could sometimes make their followers transcend difficulties from which an ordinary thoughtful man would flinch.
Krispos thought for a while, but could not come up with any more questions about Phostis or the rebels in the field. Turning to Zaidas, he said, "Squeeze all you can from him about the riots and the city and those involved. And then—" He paused.
"Yes, what then, your Majesty?" the mage asked. "Shall we let him continue his decline until he stops breathing one day before long?"
"I'd sooner strike off his head and put it up on the Milestone," Krispos said grimly. "But if I did that now, with him looking as he does, all the Thanasioi in the city would have themselves a new martyr. I'd just as soon do without that, if I could. Better to let him die in quiet and disappear: the good god willing, folk will just forget about him."
"You are wise and cruel," Digenis said. "Skotos speaks through your lips."
"If I thought that were so, I'd step down from the throne and cast off my crown this instant," Krispos said. "My task is to rule the Empire as well as I can devise, and pass it on to my heir so he may do likewise. Having Videssos torn apart in religious strife doesn't seem to me to be part of that bargain."
"Yield to the truth and there will be no strife." Digenis began whispering hymns again in his dusty voice.
"This talk has no point," Krispos said. "I'd sooner build than destroy, and you Thanasioi feel the opposite. I don't want
the land burned over, nor do I want it vacant of Videssians who slew themselves for piety's sake. Other folk would simply steal what we've spent centuries building. I will not have that, not while I live."
Digenis said, "The lord with the great and good mind willing, Phostis will prove a man of better sense and truer piety."
Krispos thought about that. Suppose he got his son back, but as a full-fledged fanatical Thanasiot? What then? If that's so, he told himself, it's as well I had three boys, not one. If Phostis came back a Thanasiot, he'd live out his days in a monastery, whether he went there of his own free will of not. Krispos promised himself that: he wouldn't turn the Empire over to someone more interesting in wrecking than maintaining it.
Time enough to worry about that if he ever saw Phostis again, though. He turned to Zaidas. "You've done well, sorcerous sir. Knowing what you've learned now, you should have a better chance of pinpointing Phostis' whereabouts."
"I'll bend every effort toward that end," the mage promised.
Nodding, Krispos stepped out of Digenis' cell. The head gaoler came up to him and said, "A question, your Majesty?" Krispos raised an eyebrow and waited. The gaoler said, "That priest in there, he's getting on toward the end. What happens if he decides he doesn't care to starve himself to death and wants to start eating again?"
"I don't think that's likely to happen." If nothing else, Krispos respected Digenis' sense of purpose. "If it does, though, by all means let him eat; this refusal to take food is his affair, not mine. But notify me immediately."
"You'll want to ask him more questions, your Majesty?" the gaoler said.
"No, no; you misunderstand. That priest is a condemned traitor. If he wants to carry out the sentence of death on himself in his own way, I am willing to permit it. But if his will falters, he'll meet the headsman on a full stomach."
"Ah," the gaoler said. "The wind sits so, eh? Very well, your Majesty, it shall be as you say."
In his younger days, Krispos would have come back with something harsh, like It had better be. More secure in his power now, he headed upstairs without a backward glance. As long as the gaoler felt no other result than the one he desired was possible, that result was what Krispos would get.
The Halogai who had waited outside the government office building took their places around Krispos and those who had gone down with him into the gaol. "Is the word good. Majesty?" one of the northerners asked.
"Good enough, anyhow," the Avtokrator answered. "I know now Phostis was snatched, not killed, and I have a good notion of where he's been taken. As for getting him back—time will tell about that." And about what sort of person he'll be when I do get him back, he added to himself.
The guardsmen cheered, their deep-voiced shouts making passersby's heads turn to find out what news was so gladsome. Some people exclaimed to see Krispos out and about without his retinue of parasol bearers. Others exclaimed at the Halogai. The men from the north—tall, fair, gloomy, and slow-spoken— never failed to fascinate the Videssians, whose opposites they were in almost every way.
Struck by sudden curiosity, Krispos turned to one of the northerners and said. "Tell me, Trygve, what do you make of the folk of Videssos the city?"
Trygve pursed his lips and gave the matter some serious thought. At last, in his deliberate Videssian, he answered, "Majesty, the wine here is very fine, the women looser than they are in Halogaland. But everyone, I t'ink, here talks too much." Several other guardsmen nodded in solemn agreement. Since Krispos had the same opinion of the city folk, he nodded, too.
Back at the imperial residence, he gave the news from Digenis to Barsymes. The vestiarios' smile, unusually broad, filled his face full of fine wrinkles. He said, "Phos be praised that the young Majesty is thought to be alive. The other palace chamberlains, I know, will be as delighted as I am."
Down a side corridor, Krispos came upon Evripos and Katakolon arguing about something or other. He didn't ask what; when the mood struck them, they could argue over the way a lamp flame flickered. He'd had no brothers himself, only two sisters younger than he, both many years dead now. He supposed he should have been glad his sons kept their fights to words and occasional fists rather than hiring knifemen or poisoners or wizards.
Both youths glanced warily in his direction as he approached. Neither one looked conspicuously guilty, so each of them felt the righteousness of his own cause—though Evripos, these days, was developing the beginning of a pretty good stone face.
Krispos said, "Digenis has cracked at last, thank the good god. By what he said, Phostis is held in some Thanasiot stronghold, but is alive and likely to stay that way."
Now he studied Evripos and Katakolon rather than the other way round. Katakolon said, "That's good news. By the time we're done smashing the Thanasioi next summer, we should have him back again." His expression was open and happy; Krispos didn't think he was acting. He was sure he couldn't have done so well at Katakolon's age ... but then, he hadn't been raised at court, either.
Evripos' features revealed nothing whatever. His eyes were watchful and hooded. Krispos prodded to see what lay behind the mask. "Aren't you glad to be sure your elder brother lives?"
"For blood's sake, aye, but should I rejoice to see my ambition thwarted?" Evripos said. "Would you, in my boots?"
The question cut to the root. Ambition for a better life had driven Krispos from his farm to Videssos; while he was one of Iakovitzes' grooms, ambition had led him to wrestle a Kubrati champion and gained him the notice of the then-Emperor Anthimos' uncle Petronas, who administered Videssos in his nephew's name; ambition led him to let Petronas use him to supplant Anthimos' previous vestiarios; and then, as vestiarios himself, to take ever more power into his own hands, supplanting first Petronas and then Anthimos.
He said, "Son, I know you want the red boots. Well, so does Phostis, and I have but the one set to give. What would you have me do?"
"Give them to me, by Phos," Evripos answered. "I'd wear them better than he would."
"I have no way to be sure of that—nor do you," Krispos said. "For that matter, a day may come when Katakolon here begins to think past the end of his prick. He might prove a better ruler than either of you two. Who can say?"
"Him?" Evripos shook his head. "No, Father, forgive me, but I don't see it."
"Me?" Katakolon seeme
d as bemused as his brother. "I've never thought much of wearing the crown. I always figured the only way it would come to me was if Phostis and Evripos were dead. I don't want it badly enough to wish for that. And since I'm not likely to be Avtokrator, why shouldn't I enjoy myself?"
As Avtokrator and voluptuary both, Anthimos had been anything but good for the Empire. But as Emperor's brother, Katakolon would be relatively harmless if he devoted himself to pleasure. If he did lack ambition, he might even be safer as a voluptuary. The chronicles had shown Krispos that rulers had a way of turning suspicious of their closest kin: who else was likelier both to accumulate power and to use it against them?
"Maybe it's because I grew up on a farm," Krispos began, and both Evripos and Katakolon rolled their eyes. Nonetheless, the Avtokrator persisted: "Maybe that's why I think waste is a sin Phos won't forgive. We never had much; if we'd wasted anything, we would have starved. The lord with the great and good mind knows I'm glad it isn't so with you boys: being hungry is no fun. But even though you have so much, you should still work to make the most you can of your lives. Pleasure is all very well in its place, but you can do other things when you're not in bed."
Katakolon grinned. "Aye, belike: you can get drunk."
"Another sermon wasted, Father," Evripos said acidly. "How does that fit into your scheme of Worths?"
Without answering, Krispos pushed past his two younger sons and down the corridor. Phostis was unenthusiastic about ruling, Evripos embittered, and Katakolon had other things on his mind. What would Videssos come to when the common fate of mankind took his own hand from the steering oar?
Men had been asking that question, on one scale or another, for as long as there were men. If the head of a family died and his relatives were less able then he, the family might fall on hard times, but the rest of the world went on. When an able Emperor passed from the scene, families past counting might suffer because of it.
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