Krispos the Emperor k-3

by Harry Turtledove

  "Well, yes, I suppose so, but really ..." Katakolon seemed to think that was a complete sentence. It probably meant something like just because they work doesn't mean you have any business going around using them.

  Krispos parried, "Maybe you'll learn something watching how I handle things. The way you go on, boy, you're going to sire enough bastards to make up your own cavalry company. Katakolon's Whoresons they could call themselves, and be ferocious-sounding and truthful at the same time."

  He'd hoped to abash his youngest son—he'd long since given up trying to shame him over venery—but the idea delighted Katakolon. He clapped his hands and exclaimed, "And if I sire a company, Father, the lads can father themselves a couple of regiments, and my great-grandsons will end up being the whole Videssian army."

  Every so often with Iakovitzes, Krispos had to throw his hands in the air and own himself beaten. Now he found himself doing the same with Katakolon. "You're incorrigible. Go tell Sarkis I want to see him, and try not to seduce anyone between this tent and that one."

  "Haloga guards are not to my taste," Katakolon replied with dignity bordering on hauteur. "Now, if their daughters and sisters took service with Videssos—" Krispos made as if to throw a folding chair at him. Laughing, the youth ducked out of the tent. Krispos remembered the exotically blond and pink Haloga doxy at a revel of Anthimos, a generation before. Katakolon surely would have liked her very well.

  Krispos forced his wits away from lickerish memories and back toward the map. As best he could tell, the Thanasioi were popping up everywhere at once. That made it hard for him to figure out how to fight them.

  One of the guards stuck his head into the tent. Krispos straightened, expecting him to announce Sarkis. But instead he said, "Your Majesty, the mage Zaidas would have speech with you."

  "Would he? Yes, of course I'll listen to what he has to say."

  As usual, Zaidas started to prostrate himself; as usual, Krispos waved for him not to bother. Both men smiled at the little ritual. But the wizard's lips quickly fell from their happy curve. He said, "May it please your Majesty, these past few days my magic has enabled me to track the whereabouts of the young Majesty Phostis."

  "He's not stayed in the same place all the while?" Krispos asked. "I thought he was still at Etchmiadzin." Because Zaidas hadn't detected any motion from Phostis since he'd managed to pierce the screen of Makuraner magic, Krispos had dared hope his heir was prisoner rather than convert to the gleaming path.

  "No, your Majesty, I'm afraid not. Here, let me show you." Zaidas drew from his belt pouch a square of leather. "This is from the tanned hide of a deer, the animal having been chosen because the melting tenderness of its gaze symbolically represents the affection you feel for your kidnapped son. See these marks—here, here, here?"

  Krispos saw the marks: they looked as if the deerskin had been burned here and there with the end of a hot awl. "I see them, magical sir, but I must say I don't grasp what they mean."

  "As you know, I've at last been able to locate Phostis

  through the law of contagion. Were he remaining in Etchmiadzin, the scorch marks you see would be virtually one on top of the other. As it was, their dispersal indicates he moved some considerable distance, most probably to the south and east, and then returned to the place whence he had departed."

  "I see." Krispos scowled down at the piece of deerskin.

  "And why do you think he's been making these—-movements?"

  "Your Majesty. I am sufficiently pleased to be able to infer that he has moved, or rather moved and returned. Why he has done so is beyond the scope of my art." Zaidas spoke with quiet determination, as if to say he did not want to know why Phostis had gone out from the Thanasiot stronghold and then back to it.

  The mage was both courtier and friend; no wonder he found discretion the easier path to take. Krispos said harshly, "Magical sir, isn't the likeliest explanation that he went out on a raid with the fanatics and then rode—rode home again?"

  "That is certainly a possibility which must be considered,"

  Zaidas admitted. "And yet, many other explanations are possible."

  "Possible, yes, but likely? What I said fits the facts better than anything else I can think of." Half -a lifetime of judging cases had convinced Krispos that the simplest explanation was most often the right one. What could be simpler than Phostis' joining the rebels and going out to fight for them? Krispos crumbled the deerskin in his fist and threw it to the ground. "I wish that cursed Digenis were still alive so I could have the pleasure of executing him now."

  "I sympathize, your Majesty, and believe me, I fully appreciate the gravity of the problem this presents."

  "Problem, yes." That was a nice, bloodless way to put it. What were you supposed to do when your son and heir turned against you? However fond he was of making plans, Krispos hadn't made one for that set of circumstances. Now, of necessity, he began to. How would Evripos shape as heir? He'd be delighted, certainly. But would he make a good Avtokrator? Krispos didn't know.

  Zaidas must have been thinking along with him. The wizard said, "No need to deal with this on the instant, your Majesty.

  Perhaps the campaign will reveal the full circumstances of what's gone on."

  "It probably will," Krispos said gloomily. "The trouble is, the full circumstances may be ones I'd sooner not have learned."

  Before Zaidas could answer that, Katakolon led Sarkis into the imperial pavilion. The youth nodded easily to the mage; Zaidas, having been around the palaces since before Katakolon was born, was familiar to him as the furniture. Sarkis sketched a salute, which Zaidas returned. They'd both prospered handsomely under Krispos; if either was jealous of the other, he hid it well.

  "What's toward, your Majesty?" Sarkis said, and then, "Anything to eat in here? I'm peckish."

  Krispos pointed to a bowl of salted olives. The cavalry general picked up a handful of them and popped them into his mouth one after another, spitting the seeds on the ground. As soon as he finished his first helping, he took another.

  "Here." Krispos pointed to the map. "Some things occurred to me—late, perhaps, but better late than not at all. The trouble with this campaign is that the Thanasioi know just where we are. If they don't want to meet us in the field, they don't have to. They can just divide themselves up and raid endlessly: even if we smash some of their bands, we haven't done anything to break the back of the movement."

  "Truth," Sarkis mumbled around an olive. "It's the curse of fighting folk who are only one step up from hill bandits. We move slow, with horns playing and banners waving, while they bounce over the landscape like fleas on a hot griddle. Belike they have spies in camp, too, to let them know right where we are at any hour of the day or night."

  "I'm sure they do," Krispos said. "Here's what I have in mind, then: suppose we detach, say, fifteen hundred men from this force, take 'em back to the coast, and put 'em on board ship. Don't tell them where to land in advance; let the drungarios in charge of the fleet pick a coastal town—Tavas, Nakoleia, or Pityos—after they've set out. The detachment would be big enough to do us some good when it landed, maybe big enough to force Livanios to concentrate quickly against it ... at which point, the good god willing, we'd be close enough to hit him with the rest of the army. Well?" He knew he was an amateur strategist, and wasn't in the habit of giving orders for major moves till he'd talked them over with professionals.

  Sarkis absently popped another olive into his mouth. "It would keep the spies from knowing what was going on, which I like. But you ought to pick out the target town in advance and give it to the drungarios as a sealed order—"

  "Sealed magically, too," Zaidas put in, "to prevent scrying as well as spying."

  "Aye, sealed magically, by all means," Sarkis said. "No one would see the order save you and. say, one spatharios—" He glanced over at Katakolon. "—until the drungarios opened it. That way you could make sure the main army was at the right place at the right time."

  "Thank yo
u, eminent sir; you've closed a loophole. We'll do it as you suggest. What I mostly want is to make the Thanasioi react to us for once instead of the other way round. Let them counter our mischief for a change."

  Krispos looked from Sarkis to Zaidas to Katakolon. They all nodded. His son asked, "Which town will you choose for the landing?"

  Sarkis turned away from Katakolon so the youth would not see him smile. Krispos saw, though. Gently he answered. "I'm not going to tell you, because this tent just has cloth walls and I don't know who's walking by with his ear bent. The less we blab, the less there is for unfriendly people to learn from us."

  "Oh." Katakolon still had trouble realizing this wasn't a large, elaborate game. Then he said, "Couldn't you have Zaidas create a zone of silence around the pavilion?"

  "I could," Krispos said. "But I won't, because it's far more trouble than it's worth. Besides, another mage would be apt to notice the zone of silence and wonder what we were brewing up behind it. This way, everything stays nice and ordinary and no one suspects we have anything sneaky in mind—which is the best way to pull off something sneaky, assuming you want to."

  "Oh," Katakolon said again.

  Without warning, Syagrios came through the door into Phostis' little cubicle in the keep at Etchmiadzin. "Get your imperial backside out of bed," he growled. "You've got work to do."

  Phostis' first muzzy thought on waking was relief that Olyvria wasn't lying on the pallet beside him. His next, as his head cleared a little, was curiosity. "Work?" he said. "What kind of work?" He crawled out from under the blanket, stretched, and tried to pull wrinkles out of his tunic. He'd slept on his beard wrong; parts of it were sticking out from his face like spikes.

  "Come down and get some wine and porridge in you and we'll talk," Syagrios said. "No point to telling you anything now—you don't have any brains before breakfast."

  Since that was more or less true, Phostis answered it with as dignified a silence as he could muster. The dignity would have been easier to maintain had he not made a hash of buckling one sandal. Syagrios laughed raucously.

  On the way downstairs, the ruffian asked, "How's the arm?"

  Phostis raised it and bent it at odd angles till he caught his breath at a sharp stab of pain. "It's still not perfect, not by a long shot," he answered, "but I'm getting to where I can use it well enough."

  "Good," Syagrios said, and then nothing more until he and Phostis were down in the kitchens. If he'd hoped to pique Phostis' interest, he succeeded. The younger man would have gone through his morning porridge twice as fast had he not kept pestering Syagrios with questions. The ruffian, who drank more breakfast than he ate, was gleefully noncommunicative until Olyvria came in and joined the two of them at table. Seeing her made Phostis stop asking so many questions, but didn't make him eat any faster.

  "Have you told him?" Olyvria asked Syagrios.

  "No, he hasn't told me," Phostis said indignantly; were curiosity an itch, he would have been scratching with both hands.

  Syagrios gave him an evil leer before he answered Olyvria. "Not a word. I figured I'd let him stew in his own juice a while longer."

  "I think I'm done to a turn now," Phostis said. "What in the name of the lord with the great and good mind is going on? What are you supposed to tell me, Syagrios?" He knew he was being too eager, but couldn't help himself.

  "All right, boy, you want to know that bad, you oughta know," Syagrios said. But instead of telling Phostis whatever it was he wasn't saying, he got up and, with slow deliberation, poured himself another mug of wine. Phostis looked a mute appeal to Olyvria, but she didn't say anything, either. Syagrios came swaggering back, sat down again, and noisily swigged from the mug. Only when he was through did he come to the point. "Your father, lad, is getting cute."

  Phostis had heard his father described in many ways. Till that moment, cute had never been one of them. Cautiously, he asked, "What's he done?"

  "That's just it—we don't quite know." By Syagrios' scowl, he thought he had every right to know everything Krispos did. He went on, "He's sent a force out of the Videssian Sea, same as he did last fall when we snagged you. This time, though, we don't know ahead of time which town he's gonna land at."

  "Ah." Phostis hoped he sounded wise. But he wasn't all that wise, for he had to ask another question. "What has that to do with me?"

  "Suppose you're an imperial soldier," Syagrios said. "That makes you pretty fornicating dumb to start with, right? All right, now suppose you land in a town and you're getting ready to do whatever they tell you to do and here comes the Avtokrator's son, saying to the ice with your officers and come on and join the gleaming path. What you gonna do then?"

  "I ... see," Phostis said slowly. And he did, too; had he been as enamored of the gleaming path as Syagrios thought he was, he could have done his father a lot of harm. But he also saw a problem. "You said you didn't know where these troops are going to land?"

  "Naah, we don't." No doubt about it: Syagrios was indignant about that. He continued, "But we think—and it's only a think, worse luck—like I say, we think he's gonna try and send 'em in at Pityos. It's what Livanios would do if he wore the red boots. He likes to strike for the heart, Livanios does."

  Phostis nodded; the ruffian's reasoning made sense to him. too. He said, "So you'll send me to Pityos, then? Will I go alone?"

  Syagrios and Olyvria both laughed at that. She said, "No, Phostis. While we're sure enough you follow the gleaming path to send you out, we're not sure enough to send you alone.

  We have to be sure you will say what you're supposed to. So I shall accompany you to Pityos ... and so will Syagrios."

  "All right," he answered mildly. He had no idea how things would go once he got to Pityos; he wasn't even sure whether Olyvria was on his side or her father's. He'd find out in due course, he supposed. Either way, he intended to try to escape. Etchmiadzin was in the heart of Thanasiot country—even if he got out of town, he'd be hunted down before he could go far.

  But Pityos, now, Pityos lay by the sea. He was no great sailor, but he could manage a small boat. The good god willing, he wouldn't have to. If imperial soldiers were heading into the port, all he'd have to do was go over to them rather than persuade them to come over to the gleaming path. It seemed too easy to be true.

  "When will we leave?" he asked, careful now to sound casual. "I'll need a little while to think about what I'm going to say. I don't suppose I'll be talking much to the officers?"

  "Not bloody likely," Syagrios agreed, rumbling laughter. "You're after the odds and sods, the poor buggers who make a living—and a bad one—from soldiering. With any luck, they'll rise up and slaughter the proud bastards who give 'em orders. Most of those midwife's mistakes have it coming, anyways." While he might not have been a proper Thanasiot as far as theology went, Syagrios had unbounded contempt for anyone in authority.

  Olyvria actually answered Phostis' question: "We want to leave tomorrow. It's several days' ride down to the coast; you can work on what you'll say as we go."

  "However you like." Phostis laughed. "The lord with the great and good mind knows I haven't much to pack."

  "Nor should you, if you follow the gleaming path," Olyvria said.

  Phostis had to work hard not to stare at her. Now she sounded the way she had when she'd first fetched him to Etchmiadzin. What had become of the passion she'd shown? Was she dissembling now because Syagrios sat next to her? Or had she seduced Phostis to win him to the gleaming path when more honest methods failed?

  He simply could not tell. In a certain sense, it didn't matter. When he got to Pityos, he was going to try to escape, no matter what. If she stood in his way then, he'd do it alone. But he knew some trust would go out of him forever if the girl he loved turned out only to have been using him for her own purposes.

  He hoped she'd sneak up to his cubicle that night, both because he wanted her and so he could ask her the questions he couldn't speak with Syagrios listening. But she kept to herself. When mor
ning came, Phostis packed a spare tunic he'd come by, belted on the sword he'd left in the little room ever since he came back from the raid on Aptos, and went downstairs.

  Syagrios was already down in the kitchens eating. He flipped Phostis a wide-brimmed hat of woven straw like the one that sat at a jaunty angle on his own head. When Olyvria came down, she was wearing one like it, too, and mannish tunic and trousers suitable for riding.

  "Good," Syagrios said, nodding approval when he saw her. "We'll take enough food here to keep us going till we get to Pityos, then stuff it into our saddlebags and be on our way. The bread'll go stale, but who cares?"

  Phostis took several loaves, some cheese, some onions, and a length of hard, dry pork sausage flavored with fennel. He paused before some round pastries dusted with powdered sugar. "What's in these?" he asked.

  "Take a few; they're good," Olyvria said. "They're made from chopped dates and nuts and honey. We must have a new cook out of Vaspurakan, because that's where they come from."

  "True enough," Syagrios agreed. "You ever hear a Videssian who wants them, he'll call 'em 'princes' balls.' " He guffawed. Phostis smiled. Olyvria did her best to pretend she hadn't heard.

  Phostis fed his foul-tempered horse one of the pastries in the hope of sweetening its disposition. The beast tried to bite his hand. He jerked it back just in time. Syagrios laughed again. Had Phostis been in any other company, he would have named his horse for the ruffian.

  The ride into Pityos was a pleasant five days. The upland plateaus still wore their bright green coat of spring grass and shrubs; another month or two would go by before the vicious summer sun began baking everything brown. Fritillaries and hairstreaks flitted from one clump of red or yellow restharrow to another, and then on to white-flowered fenugreek. Swallows and skylarks swooped after the insects.

  About halfway through the first day's ride, Syagrios dismounted to go off behind a bush some little distance from the road. Without turning her head toward Phostis. Olyvria said quietly, "It will be all right."