Krispos the Emperor

by Harry Turtledove

  "What am I supposed to do?" Krispos asked the statues and paintings and relics that lined that hallway. No answer came back to him. All he could think of was to go on himself, as well as he could for as long as he could.

  And after that? After that it would be in his sons' hands, and in the good god's. He remained confident Phos would continue to watch over Videssos. Of his sons he was less certain.

  Rain poured down in sheets, ran in wide, watery fishtails off the edges of roofs, and turned the inner ward of the fortress of Etchmiadzin into a thin soup of mud. Phostis closed the wooden shutter to the little slit window in his cell; with it open, things were about as wet inside as they were out in the storm.

  But with it closed, the bare square room was dark as night; fitfully flickering lamps did little to cut the gloom. Phostis slept as much as he could. Inside the cell in near darkness, he had little else to do.

  After a few days of the steady rain, he felt as full of sleep as a new wineskin is of wine. He went into the corridor in search of something other than food.

  Syagrios was dozing on a chair down the hall. Perhaps he'd had himself magically attuned to Phostis' door, for he came alert as soon as it opened, though Phostis had been quiet with it. The ruffian yawned, stretched, and said, "I was beginning to think you'd died in there, boy. In a little while, I was going to check for a stink."

  You might have found one, Phostis thought. Because the Thanasioi reckoned the body Skotos' creation, they neither lavished baths on it nor disguised its odors with sweet scents. Sometimes Phostis didn't notice the resulting stench, as he was part of it. Sometimes it oppressed him dreadfully.

  He said, "I'm going downstairs. I've grown too bored even to nap anymore."

  "You won't stay bored forever," Syagrios answered. "After the rain comes the clear, and when the clear comes, we go out to fight." He closed a fist and slammed it down on his leg. Syagrios was bored, too, Phostis realized: he hadn't had the chance to go out and hurt anything lately.

  A couple of torches had gone out along the corridor, leaving it hardly brighter than Phostis' cell. He lit a taper from the burning torch nearest the stairway and headed down the steep stone spiral. Syagrios followed him. As always, he was sweating by the time he reached the bottom; a misstep on the stairs and he would have got there much faster than he wanted to.

  Livanios' soldiers crowded the ground floor of the citadel.

  Some of them slept rolled in blankets, their worldly goods either under their heads in leather sacks that served for pillows or somewhere else close by. However much the Thanasioi professed to despise the things of the world, their fighters could still be tempted to take hold of things of the world that were not things of theirs.

  Some of the men who were awake threw dice; there coins and other things of the world changed hands in more generally accepted fashion. Phostis had been bemused the first time he saw Thanasiot soldiers gambling. He'd watched the dice many times since and concluded the men were soldiers first and followers of the gleaming path afterward.

  Off in a corner, a small knot of men gathered around a game board whereon two of their fellows dueled. Phostis made his way over to them. "If nobody's up for the next game, I challenge the winner," he said.

  The players looked up from their pieces. "Hullo, friend," one of them said, a Thanasiot greeting Phostis was still getting used to. "Aye, I'll take you on after I take care of Grypas here."

  "Ha!" Grypas returned to the board the prelate he'd captured from his opponent. "Guard your emperor, Astragalos; Phostis here will play me next."

  Grypas proved right; after some further skirmishing, Astragalos' emperor, beset on all sides, found no square where he could move without threat of capture. Muttering into his beard, the soldier gave up.

  Phostis sat in his place. He and Grypas returned the pieces to their proper squares on the first three rows on each man's side of the nine-by-nine board. Grypas glanced over at Phostis. "I've played you before, friend. I'm going to take winner's privilege and keep first move."

  "However you like," Phostis answered. Grypas advanced the foot soldier diagonally ahead of his prelate, freeing up the wide-ranging piece for action. Phostis pushed one of his own foot soldiers forward in reply.

  Grypas played like the soldier he was. He hurled men into the fight without much worry about where they would be three moves later. Phostis had learned in a subtler school. He lost a little time fortifying his emperor behind an array of goldpieces and silvers, but then started taking advantage of that safety.

  Before long, Grypas was gnawing his mustache in consternation. He tried to fight back by returning to the fray pieces he'd taken from Phostis, but Phostis had not left himself as vulnerable as Astragalos had before. He beat the soldier without much trouble.

  As the dejected man got up from the board, Syagrios sat down across it from Phostis. He leered at the junior Avtokrator. "All right, youngster, let's see how tough you are."

  "I'll keep first move against you, by the good god," Phostis said. Around them, bets crackled back and forth. Over the long winter, they'd shown they were the two best players in the fortress. Which of them was better than the other swung from day to day.

  Phostis stared over the grid at his unkempt opponent. Who would have guessed that a man with the looks of a bandit and habits to match made such a cool, precise player? But the pieces on the board cared nothing for how a man looked or even how he acted when he wasn't at the game. And Syagrios had already showed he had more wit behind that battered face than anyone who judged by it alone would guess.

  The ruffian had a special knack for returning captured pieces to the board with telling effect. If he set down a horseman, you could be sure it threatened two pieces at once, both of them worth more than it. If a siege engine went into action, your emperor would be in trouble soon.

  His manner at the game betrayed his origins. Whenever Phostis made a move he didn't like, he'd growl, "Oh, you son of a whore!" It had been unnerving at first; by now, Phostis took no more notice of it than of the twitches and tics of some of his opponents back in Videssos the city.

  He took far fewer chances against Syagrios than he had against Grypas. In fact, he took no chances at all that he could see: give Syagrios an opening and he'd charge right through. Syagrios treated him with similar caution. The game, as a result, was slow and positional.

  Finally, with returned foot soldiers paving the way, Syagrios broke up Phostis' fortress and sent his emperor scurrying for safety. When he was trapped in a corner with no hope of escape, Phostis took him off the board and said, "I surrender."

  "You made me sweat there, by the good god." Syagrios thumped his chest with a big fist, then boomed out, "Who else wants a go at me?"

  Astragalos said, "Let Phostis take you on again. That'll make a more even match than the rest of us are apt to give you."

  Phostis had stood up. He looked around to see if anybody else wanted to play Syagrios. When no one made a move, he sat back down again. Syagrios leered at him. "I ain't gonna give you first move, either, boy."

  "I didn't expect you would," Phostis answered, altogether without ironic intent: any man who didn't look out for himself wasn't likely to find anyone to do it for him.

  After a game as hard-fought as the first one, he got his revenge. Syagrios leaned over the board and punched him on the meaty part of his arm. "You're a sneaky little bastard, you know that ? To the ice with whose son you are. That ain't horse manure between your ears, you know?"

  "Whatever you say." Compliments from Syagrios made Phostis even more nervous than the abuse that usually filled the ruffian's mouth. Phostis stood up again and said, "You can take on the next challenger."

  "Why's that?" Syagrios demanded. Quitting while you were winning was bad form.

  "If I don't leave about now, you'll have to wipe up the floor under me," Phostis answered, which made Syagrios and several of the other men around the game board laugh. With the fortress of Etchmiadzin packed full of fighters, t
he humor there was decidedly coarse.

  In better weather, Phostis would have wandered out into the inner ward to make water against the wall. There was, however, an oversufficiency of water in the inner ward already. He headed off to the garderobe instead. The chamber, connected as it was to a cesspit under the keep, was so noisome that he avoided it when he could. At the moment, however, he had little choice.

  Wooden stalls separated one hole in the long stone bench from another, an unusual concession to delicacy but one Phostis appreciated. Three of the four were occupied when he went in; he stepped into the fourth, which was farthest from the doorway.

  As he was easing himself, he heard a couple of people come in behind him. One of them let out an unhappy grunt. "All full," he said. By the slight accent he gave his words, Phostis recognized him as Livanios' pet wizard.

  The other was Livanios. "Don't worry, Artapan," he said easily. "You won't burst in the next couple of minutes, and neither shall I."

  "Don't use my name," the wizard grumbled.

  Livanios laughed at him. "By the good god, if we have spies in the latrine, we're doomed before we start. Here, this fellow's coming out. You go ahead; I'll wait."

  Phostis had already set his clothes to rights, but he waited, too, waited until he heard Livanios go into a stall and shut the door. Then he all but jumped out of the one he'd been in and hurried away from the garderobe. He didn't want either Livanios or Artapan to know he'd heard.

  Now that he knew the wizard's name, he also recognized the accent that had tantalized him for so long. Artapan was from Makuran. Phostis wondered what a mage from Videssos' perennial enemy was doing in Livanios' camp. Why couldn't Livanios find a proper Thanasiot mage?

  After a few seconds, he stopped wondering. To one raised in the palaces, to one who had, however unwillingly, soaked up a good deal of history, the answer fairly shouted at him: Artapan was there serving the interests of Rubyab King of Kings. And how could Rubyab's interest be better served than by keeping Videssos at war with itself?

  Two other questions immediately sprang from that one. The first was whether Livanios knew he was being used. Maybe he didn't, maybe he was Makuran's willing cat's-paw, or maybe he was out to exploit Rubyab's help at the same time Rubyab used him. Phostis had a tough time seeing Livanios as a witless dupe. Choosing between the other two alternatives was harder.

  Phostis set them aside. To him, the second question carried greater weight: if the Thanasioi were flourishing thanks to aid from Makuran, what did that say about the truth of their teachings? That one was hard enough to break teeth when you bit into it. Would Thanasios' interpretation of the faith have grown and spread without the foreign—no, no mincing words— without the enemy—help? Was it at bottom a religious movement at all, or rather a political one? If it was just political, why did it have such a strong appeal to so many Videssians?

  Without even bothering to get a taper, Phostis went upstairs and into his room. All at once, he didn't care how gloomy it was in there. In fact, he hardly noticed. He sat down on the battered old stool. He had a lot to think about.

  Somewhere among the gears and levers behind the wall of the Grand Courtroom, a servitor stood in frustrated uselessness. Much to the fellow's dismay, Krispos had ordered him not to raise the throne on high when the ambassador from Khatrish prostrated himself. "But it's the custom!" the man had wailed.

  "But the reason behind the custom is to overawe foreign envoys," Krispos had answered. "It doesn't overawe Tribo—it just makes him laugh."

  "But it's the custom," the servitor had repeated. To him, reasons were irrelevant. Raising the throne was what he'd always done, so raising the throne was what he had to do forever.

  Even now, as Tribo approached the throne and cast himself down on his belly, Krispos wondered if the throne would rise beneath him in spite of orders. Custom died hard in the Empire, when it died at all.

  To his relief, he remained at his usual elevation. As the ambassador from Khatrish got to his feet, he asked, "Mechanism in the throne break down?"

  I can't win, Krispos thought. Khatrishers seemed to specialize in complicating the lives of their Videssian neighbors. Krispos did not reply: he stood—or rather sat—on the imperial dignity, though he had the feeling that would do him about as much good as the climbing throne had before.

  Sure enough, Tribo let out a knowing sniff when he saw he wouldn't get an answer. He said, "May it please your Majesty, the Thanasioi are still troubling us."

  "They're still troubling us, too, in case you hadn't noticed," Krispos said dryly.

  "Well, yes, but it's different for you Videssians, you see, your Majesty. You grew the murrain your very own selves, so of course it's still spreading through your flocks. We don't take kindly to having our cows infected, too, though, if you take my meaning."

  A Videssian would have used a comparison from agriculture rather than herding, but Krispos had no trouble following Tribo. "What would you have me do?" he asked. "Shut the border between our states and ban shipping, too?"

  The Khatrisher envoy flinched, as Krispos had known he would: Khatrish needed trade with Videssos much more than Videssos with Khatrish. "Let's not be hasty, your Majesty. All I want is to hear you say again that you and your ministers don't have anything to do with spreading the cursed heresy, so I can take the word to my khagan."

  Barsymes and Iakovitzes stood in front of the imperial throne. Krispos could see only their backs and the sides of their faces. He often made a game of trying to figure out from that limited view what they were thinking. He guessed Iakovitzes was amused—he admired effrontery—and Barsymes outraged—the normally self-controlled eunuch was fairly quivering in his place. Krispos needed a moment to realize why: Barsymes reckoned it an insult for him to have to deny anything more than once.

  His own notion of what was insulting was more flexible, even after twenty years and more on the throne. If the envoy wanted another guarantee, he could have it. Krispos said, "You can tell Nobad son of Gumush that we aren't exporting this heresy to Khatrish on purpose. We wish it would go away here, and we're trying to get rid of it. But we aren't in the habit of stirring up sectarian strife, even if it might profit us."

  "I shall send exactly that word to the puissant khagan, your Majesty, and I thank you for the reassurance," Tribo said. He glanced toward the throne. Under his shaggy beard, a frown twisted his mouth. "Your Majesty? Did you hear me, your Majesty?"

  Krispos still didn't answer. He was listening to what he'd just said, not to the ambassador from Khatrish. Videssos might fight shy of turning its neighbors topsy-turvy with religious war, but would Makuran? Didn't the Thanasiot mage who hid Phostis use spells that smelled of Mashiz? No wonder Rubyab's mustaches had twitched!

  Iakovitzes spun where he stood so he faced Krispos. The assembled courtiers murmured at the breach of etiquette. Iakovitzes had a fine nose for intrigue. His upraised hand and urgent expression said he'd just smelled some. Krispos would have bet a counterfeit copper against a year's tax receipts it was the same odor that had just filled his own nostrils.

  He realized he had to say something to Tribo. After a few more seconds, he managed, "Yes, I'm glad you'll reassure your sovereign we are doing everything we can to fight the Thanasiot doctrine, not to spread it. This audience now is ended."

  "But your Majesty—" Tribo began indignantly. Then, with a glare, he bowed to inflexible Videssian custom. When the Avtokrator spoke those words, an envoy had no choice but to prostrate himself once more, back away from the throne until he had gone far enough that he could turn around, and then depart the Grand Courtroom. He left in a manifest snit; evidently he'd had a good deal more on his mind than he got the chance to say.

  I'll have to make it up to him, Krispos thought; keeping Khatrish friendly was going to be all the more important in the months ahead. But for now even the urgency of that paled. As soon as Tribo left the Grand Courtroom, Krispos also made his way out, at a pace that set the tongues of the assemble
d nobles and prelates and ministers wagging.

  Politics was a religion of its own in Videssos; before long, many of those officials would figure out what was going on. Something obviously was, or the Avtokrator would not have left so unceremoniously. For the moment, though, they were at a loss as to what.

  Iakovitzes half trotted along in Krispos' wake. He knew what was going through the Emperor's mind. Barsymes plainly didn't, but he would sooner have gone before the torturers in their red leather than question Krispos where anyone else could hear him. What he'd have to say in private about cutting short the Khatrisher's audience was liable to be pointed.

  Krispos swept across the rain-slicked flags of the path that led through the cherry orchard and to the imperial residence. The cherry trees were still bare-branched, but before too long they'd grow leaves and then the pink and white blossoms that would make the orchard fragrant and lovely for a few brief weeks in spring.

  As soon as he was inside, Krispos burst out, "That bastard! That sneaky, underhanded son of a snake, may he shiver in the ice for all eternity to come."

  "Surely Tribo did not so offend you with his remark concerning the throne?" Barsymes asked. No, he didn't know why Krispos had left on the run.

  "I'm not talking about Tribo, I'm talking about Rubyab the fornicating King of Kings," Krispos said. "Unless I've lost all of my mind, he's using the Thanasioi for his stalking horse. How can Videssos hope to deal with Makuran if we tie ourselves up in knots?"

  Barsymes had been in the palaces longer than Krispos; he was anything but a stranger to devious machinations. As soon as this one was pointed out to him, he nodded emphatically. "I have no doubt but that you're right, your Majesty. Who would have looked for such elaborate deceit from Makuran?"

  Iakovitzes held up a hand to gain a pause while he wrote something in his tablet. He passed it to Krispos. "We Videssians pride ourselves as the sneakiest folk on earth, but down deep somewhere we ought to remember the Makuraners can match us. They're not barbarians we can outmaneuver in our sleep. They've proved it, to our sorrow, too many times in the past."