Krispos the Emperor

by Harry Turtledove

  Phostis still distrusted his own flesh, too. But he was coming to the sometimes reluctant conclusion that it was part of what made him himself, not just an unfortunate adjunct to his spirit that ought to be discarded as quickly as possible.

  Almost as vividly as if he were in her arms again, he remembered the feel of Olyvria's warm, sweet body pressed against him. Sometimes he was not so reluctant about that conclusion, too. He knew he wanted her again, when and as he got the chance.

  Digenis would not have approved. He knew that, too. Now, though, he hadn't talked with the fiery priest, or come under the spell of his words, for several months. And he'd seen far more of the way the Thanasioi ran their lives than he had when he'd listened to Digenis back in Videssos the city. Much of it he still found admirable—much of it, but a long way from all. Reality had a way of intruding on Digenis' bright word-pictures, no less than on those of the romancers.

  If Olyvria was heading back toward the fortress of Etchmiadzin, Phostis decided he ought to stay away awhile longer, so as not to make anyone there draw a connection between them. It was a nice calculation. If he just followed her back, he might arouse suspicion. If he stayed away too long, Syagrios would track him like hound after hare. He didn't want Syagrios to have to do that; it would anger the ruffian, and Phostis cherished the limited freedom he'd so slowly regained.

  He had a few coins in his belt pouch, winnings at the battle game. He spent a silver piece on a leg of roasted fowl and a hard roll, then carefully put the coppers from his change back into the pouch. He'd learned about haggling: it was what you did when you were short of money. He'd got good at it. Despite Krispos' firm hand, he'd never been short of money before he ended up in Etchmiadzin.

  He was chewing on the roll when Artapan strode by. The wizard, full of his own affairs, didn't notice him. Phostis decided to try to find out where he was going in such a hurry. Ever since he'd realized Artapan was from Makuran, he'd wondered just how the mage fit into Livanios' plans ... or perhaps how Livanios fit into Artapan's plans. Maybe now he could learn.

  He'd followed the wizard for half a furlong before he realized he was liable to get in trouble if Artapan did discover him dogging his tracks. He tried to be sneakier, keeping people and, once, a donkey cart between the mage and him, dodging from doorway to doorway.

  After another couple of minutes, he concluded he could do just about anything short of walking up, tapping Artapan on the shoulder, and asking him for the time of day. Artapan plainly had something on his mind. He looked neither to the left nor to the right, and marched down the muddy streets of Etchmiadzin as if they were cobblestoned boulevards.

  The wizard rapped on the door of a house separated from its neighbors by dank, narrow alleys. After a moment, he went inside. Phostis ducked into one of the alleys. He promptly regretted it: someone was in the habit of dumping slops there. The stink almost made him cough. He jammed a sleeve into his mouth and breathed hard through his nose till the spasm passed.

  But he did not leave. A little slit window let him hear what was going on inside. He wouldn't have put a window there, but maybe it had been made before anyone started emptying chamber pots in the alley.

  Artapan was saying, "How fare you today, supremely holy Tzepeas?"

  The answer came in a dragging whisper: "Soon I shall be free. Skotos and his entrapping world cling hard to me; already most who abandon what is falsely called nourishment for as long as I have are on the journey behind the sun. But still I remain wrapped in the flesh that disfigures the soul."

  What do you want with one who has starved himself to the point of death? Phostis almost shouted it at the Makuraner wizard. If he's chosen to do it, let him alone with his choice.

  "You want, then, to leave this world?" Artapan's accented voice held wonder. Phostis wondered about that: the Four Prophets had their holy ascetics, too. "What will you find, do you think?"

  "Light!" Just for a word, Tzepeas' voice came strong and clear, as if he were a well-fed man rather than a shivering bag of bones. As he continued, it faded again. "I shall be part of Phos' eternal light. Too long have I lingered in this sin-filled place."

  "Would you seek help in leaving it?" Artapan had moved while Tzepeas was talking. Now he sounded as if he was right beside the starving Thanasiot.

  "I don't know," Tzepeas said. "Is it permitted?"

  "Of course," the wizard answered smoothly. "But a moment and you shall meet your good god face to face."

  "My good god?" Tzepeas said indignantly. "He is the good god, the lord with the great and good mind. He—" The zealot's voice, which had risen again, suddenly broke off. Phostis heard a couple of very faint thumps, as if a man with no muscles left was trying to struggle against someone far stronger than he.

  The thumps soon ceased. Artapan began a soft chant, partly in the Makuraner tongue—which Phostis did not understand— and partly in Videssian. Phostis knew he was missing some of what the mage said, but what he heard was quite enough: unless he'd gone completely mad, he could only conclude Artapan was using Tzepeas' death energy to further his own sorceries.

  Phostis' stomach lurched harder than it ever had while sailing on the Videssian Sea. He sickly wondered how many starving Thanasioi hadn't finished the course they set out to travel, but were instead shoved from it by the Makuraner wizard for his own purposes. The one was bad enough; the other struck Phostis as altogether abominable. And who would ever know?

  Artapan came out of the house. Phostis flattened himself against the wall. The wizard walked on by. He wasn't quite rubbing his hands with glee, but he gave that impression. Again, he had no time to look around for details as small as Phostis.

  Phostis waited until he was sure Artapan was gone, then cautiously emerged from the alley. "What do I do now?" he said out loud. His first thought was to run to Livanios with the story as fast as his legs would carry him. A version of the tale he'd tell formed in his mind: After I'd had your daughter, I found out your pet wizard was going around killing devout Thanasioi before they could die on their own. He shook his head. Like a lot of first thoughts, that one needed some work.

  All right, suppose he managed not to mention Olyvria and also managed to convince Livanios he was telling the truth about Artapan. What then? How much good would that do him? If Livanios didn't know what the mage was up to, maybe quite a lot. But what if he did?

  In that case, the only thing Phostis saw in his own future was a lot more trouble—something he'd not imagined possible when he woke up after Olyvria drugged him. And he could not tell whether Livanios knew or not.

  It came down to the question he'd been asking himself ever since he learned Artapan's name: was Livanios the wizard's puppet, or the other way round? He didn't know the answer to that, either, or how to find out.

  From Olyvria, he thought. But even she might well not know for certain. She'd know what her father thought, but that might not be what was so. Videssian history was littered with men who'd thought themselves in charge—until the worlds they'd made crashed down around them. Anthimos had been sure he held a firm grip on the Empire—until Krispos took it away from him.

  And so, when Phostis got back to the fortress, he did not go looking for Livanios. Instead, he headed over to the corner where, as usual, several men gathered around a couple of players hunched over the game board.

  The soldiers moved away from him, wrinkling their noses. One of them said. "You may have been born a toff, friend, but you smell like you've been wading in shit."

  Phostis remembered the stinking alleyway where he'd stood. He should have done a better job of cleaning his shoes after he came out. Then he thought of what Artapan had done in the house by the alleyway. How was he supposed to clean that from his memory?

  He looked at the soldier. "Maybe I have," he said.

  IX

  WALL, ROOFS, STREETS, NEW LEAVES—ALL GLISTENED WITH rain under the bright sun. It made them seem to Krispos brighter and more vivid than they really were, as if the shower—or
perhaps the season—had washed the whole world clean.

  The clouds that had dropped the rain on Videssos the city were now just small, gray, fluffy lumps diminishing toward the east. The rest of the sky was the glorious blue the enamel makers kept trying—and failing—to match with glass paste.

  With the wary eye of one who has had to watch the weather for the sake of his crops, Krispos looked not east at the receding rain clouds but west, whence new weather would come. He tasted the breeze between his tongue and the roof of his mouth. That it came straight off the sea gave it a salt tang he'd not had to worry about in his peasant days, but he'd learned to allow for that. He sucked in another breath, tasting that one, too.

  When at last he spat it out, he'd made up his mind. "Spring is really here," he declared.

  "Your Majesty has in the past been remarkably accurate with such predictions," Barsymes said, as close as he ever came to alluding to Krispos' decidedly unimperial birth.

  "It matters more this year than most," Krispos said, "for as soon as I can be sure—or at least can expect—the roads will stay dry, I have to move against the Thanasioi. The less chance they have of getting loose and raiding, the better off the west-lands and the whole Empire will be."

  "The city has stayed quiet since Midwinter's Day, for which Phos be praised."

  "Aye." Whenever Krispos prayed, he made a point of reminding the good god how grateful he was for that. He still did not completely trust the calm that had prevailed through winter and now up to the borderland of spring: he kept wondering whether he was walking on a thin crust of ice over freezing water—the images from Skotos' hell seemed particularly fitting. If the crust ever broke, he might be dragged down to doom. But so far it had held.

  "I believe your Majesty handled the matter of the priest Digenis with as much discretion as was practicable," the vestiarios said.

  "Just letting him go out like a guttering taper, you mean? All he wanted to do was raise a ruction. Smothering his end in silence is the best revenge on him; if Phos is kind, the chroniclers will forget his name as the people have—so far— forgotten to rally to the cause he preached."

  Barsymes looked at him out of the corners of his eyes that had seen so much. "And when you fare forth on campaign, your Majesty, will you then leave Videssos the city ungarrisoned?"

  "Oh, of course," Krispos answered, and laughed to make sure his vestiarios knew he was not in earnest. "Wouldn't that be lovely, beating the Thanasioi in the field and coming back to find my capital closed against me? It won't happen, not if I can find any way around it."

  "Whom shall you name to command the city garrison?" Barsymes asked.

  "Do you know, esteemed sir, I was thinking of giving the job to Evripos." Krispos spoke in a deliberately neutral tone. If Barsymes had anything to say against the appointment of his middle son, he didn't want to intimidate the eunuch into keeping his mouth shut.

  Barsymes tasted the appointment with the same sort of thoughtful attention Krispos had given to the weather. After a similar pause for that consideration, the vestiarios answered, "That may serve very nicely, your Majesty. By all accounts, the young Majesty acquitted himself well in the westlands."

  "He did," Krispos agreed. "Not only that, soldiers followed where he led, which is a magic that can't be taught. I'll also leave behind some steady officer who can try to keep him from doing anything too rash if the need arises."

  "That's sensible," Barsymes replied, saying by not saying that he would have reckoned Krispos daft for doing anything else. "It will be valuable experience for the young Majesty, especially if—if other matters do not eventuate as we would desire."

  "Phostis still lives," Krispos said suddenly. "Zaidas' sorcery continues to confirm that, and he's fairly sure Phostis is in Etchmiadzin, where the rebels seem to have their headquarters. He's made real headway in penetrating the masking sorcery since we realized it springs from Makuran." His briefly kindled enthusiasm faded fast. "Of course, he has no way of telling what Phostis believes these days."

  There lay the nut of it, as was Krispos' way, in one sentence. The Avtokrator shook his head. Phostis was so young; who could say what latest enthusiasm he'd seized on? At that same age, Krispos knew he'd had a good core of solid sense. But at just past twenty, he'd been a peasant still, and he could imagine no stronger dose of reality than that. Phostis had grown up in the palaces, where flights of fancy were far more easily sustained. And Phostis had always taken pleasure in going dead against whatever Krispos had in mind.

  "What of Katakolon?" Barsymes asked.

  "I'll take him with me—I'll need one spatharios. at any rate," Krispos said. "He did tolerably well in the westlands himself, and rather better than that during the Midwinter's Day riots. One thing these past few months have taught me: all my sons need such training in command as I can give them. Counting on Phos' mercy instead of providing for the times to come is foolish and wasteful."

  "Few have accused your Majesty of harboring those traits— none truthfully."

  "For which, believe me, you have my thanks," Krispos said. "Find Evripos for me, would you? I've not yet told him what I have in mind."

  "Of course, your Majesty." Barsymes went back inside the imperial residence. Krispos stood and enjoyed the sunshine. The cherry trees around the residence were putting on leaves; soon, for a few glorious weeks, they'd be a riot of sweet pink and white blossoms. Krispos' thoughts drifted away from them and back toward raising troops, moving troops, supplying troops ...

  He sighed. Being Avtokrator meant having to worry about things you'd rather ignore. He wondered if the rebels he'd put down ever realized how much work the job of ruling the Empire really was. He certainly hadn't, back when he took it away from Anthimos.

  If I thought Livanios wouldn't botch things, I ought to give him the crown and let him see how he likes it, he thought angrily. But he knew that would never happen: the only way Livanios would take the crown from him was by prying it out of his dead fingers.

  "What is it, Father?" Evripos asked, coming up in Barsymes' wake. The wariness in his voice was different from what Krispos was used to hearing from Phostis. Phostis and he simply disagreed every chance they got. Evripos resented being born second; it made his opinions not worth serious disagreement.

  Or it had made them so. Now Krispos explained what he had in mind for his son. "This is serious business," he emphasized. "If real trouble does come, I won't want you throwing out orders at random. That's why I'll leave a steady captain with you. I expect you to heed his advice on matters military."

  Evripos had puffed out his chest with pride at the trust Krispos placed in him. Now he said, "But what if I think he's wrong, Father?"

  Obey him anyhow, Krispos started to say. But the words did not pass his lips. He remembered when Petronas had maneuvered him into the position of vestiarios for Anthimos. The then-Avtokrator's uncle had made it very clear that he expected nothing but obedience to him from Krispos. He remembered asking Petronas a question very similar to the one he'd just heard from Evripos.

  "You have command," he said slowly. "If you think your advisor is wrong, you'd better do what you reckon right. But you have to remember, son, that with command comes responsibility. If you choose to go against the officer I give you and your course goes wrong, you will answer to me. Do you understand?"

  "Aye, Father, I do. You're telling me I'd better be sure—and even if I am sure, I'd better be right. Is that the meat of it?"

  "That's it exactly," Krispos agreed. "I'm not putting you in this place as part of a game, Evripos. The post is not only real but also important. A mistake would be important, too, in how much damage it could do. So if you go off on your own, against the advice of a man older and wiser than you are, what you do had better not turn out badly, for your sake and the Empire's both."

  With the prickliness of youth, Evripos bristled like a hedgehog. "How do you know this officer you'll appoint for me will be smarter than I am?"

  "I didn't say th
at. You're as smart as you'll ever be, son, and I have no reason to doubt that's very smart indeed. But you're not as wise as you're going to be, say, twenty years from now. Wisdom comes from using the wits you have to think on what's happened to you during your life, and you haven't lived long enough yet to have stored up much of it."

  Evripos looked eloquently unconvinced. Krispos didn't blame him; at Evripos' age, he hadn't believed experience mattered, either. Now that he had a good deal of it, he was sure he'd been wrong before—but the only way for Evripos to come to the same conclusion was with the slow passage of the years. He couldn't afford to wait for that.

  His middle son said, "Suppose this officer you name suggests a course I think is wrong, but I go along with it for fear of what you've just said. And suppose it does turn out to be the wrong course. What then, Father?"

  "Maybe you should be pleading your case in the courts, not commanding men in the field," Krispos said. But the question was too much to the point to be answered with a sour joke. Slowly, the Avtokrator went on, "If I put you in the post, you will be the commander. When the time comes, making the judgment will be up to you. That's the hardest burden anyone can lay on a man. If you don't care to bear it, speak up now."

  "Oh, I'll bear it. Father. I just wanted to be sure I understood what you were asking of me," Evripos said.

  "Good," Krispos said. "I'll give you one piece of advice and one only—I know how you won't much care to listen. It's just this: if you have to decide, do it firmly. No matter how much doubt, no matter how much fear and trembling you feel, don't let it show. Half the business of leading people is just keeping up a solid front."

  "That may be worth remembering," Evripos said, as big a concession as Krispos knew he was likely to get. His son asked, "What will Katakolon be doing while I'm here in the city?"

  "He'll go the westlands as my spatharios. Another campaign will do him good, I think."