Krispos the Emperor

by Harry Turtledove

  "Good," Krispos said, to see how Phostis would react. Phostis didn't react much at all, certainly not with the anger he would have shown a few months before. He just nodded and went on with his story. When he was finished, Krispos said, "So our troops have the upper hand?"

  "They did when Olyvria and I left to join you," Phostis said. "Uh, Father ..."

  "Yes?"

  "What do you think of the suggestion I made to Evripos, that Olyvria and I should marry at once to show the Thanasioi we've renounced their sect?"

  "Imperial marriages have a way of being made for reasons of state, but till now I'd never heard of one made for reasons of doctrine," Krispos answered. "Were the emergency worse, I might send the two of you back there to be wedded forthwith. As it is, I think you can wait till the campaign is over before you marry—assuming you still want to by then."

  Their expressions said they could imagine no other possibility. Krispos had a deeper imagination. If they still wanted to go through with it come fall, he didn't think he'd object—or that Phostis would listen if he tried. The lad had needed to take care of himself lately, and had discovered he could do it. Few discoveries were more important.

  Krispos said, "If you two like, you can spend the night in my pavilion." Then he saw their faces and laughed at himself. "No, you'll want a tent for yourselves, won't you? I would have, at your age."

  "Well, yes," Phostis said. "Thank you. Father."

  "It's all right," Krispos answered. At that moment, having Phostis back not only in one piece but opposed to the gleaming path, he could have refused him very little. He did add, "Before you repair to that tent, I trust you'll do me the honor of dining on army food and bad wine in the pavilion. I'll have Zaidas there, too; you said you wanted to talk with him, didn't you, Phostis? I'll see you around sunset."

  Even with Olyvria's hand warm in his, Phostis approached Krispos' tent with considerable trepidation. When he set sail for Videssos the city, she'd feared he would remember he was junior Avtokrator and forget he was her lover. Now, as the bright silks of the imperial pavilion drew near, he was afraid his father would turn him into a boy again, simply by refusing to imagine he could be anything else.

  The Halogai outside the entrance to the tent saluted him in imperial style, clenched right fists over their hearts. He watched them discreetly look Olyvria up and down, as men of any nation will when they see a pretty girl. One of them said something in his own language. Phostis understood it was about Olyvria but not what it meant; he had only a smattering of the Haloga tongue. He almost asked the guardsmen what it meant, but at the last minute decided not to make an issue of it—Haloga candor could be brutal.

  Inside the tent waited Krispos, Katakolon, Zaidas. Sarkis, and half a dozen helpings of bread and onions and sausage and salted olives. Olyvria's smile puzzled Phostis till he remembered she was an officer's daughter. No doubt the fare looked familiar.

  As they ate, Phostis and Olyvria retold their story for Zaidas; Sarkis and Katakolon had heard most of it in the afternoon. The mage, as usual, made a good audience. He clapped his hands when Olyvria again recounted knocking Syagrios out with the chamber pot, and when Phostis told how they'd decamped immediately thereafter.

  "That's the way to do it," he said approvingly. "When you need to get out in a hurry, spend what you have to and leave. What's the point to saving your gold but failing of your purpose? Which reminds me ..." He abruptly went serious and intent. "His Majesty the Avtokrator—"

  "Oh, just say, 'your father' and have done," Krispos broke in. "Otherwise you'll waste half the night in useless blathering."

  "As your Majesty the Avtokrator commands," Zaidas said. Krispos made as if to throw a crust of bread at him. Grinning, Zaidas turned back to Phostis. "Your father, I should say, tells me you learned something of importance about the techniques of Livanios' Makuraner wizard."

  "That's true, sorcerous sir." Phostis had to work to stay formal; he'd almost called the mage Uncle Zaidas. "One day— this was after I learned Artapan was from Makuran—I followed him and—" He described how he'd learned Artapan fortified his power with the death energies of Thanasioi who starved themselves to complete their renunciation of the world. "And if they weren't quite dead when he needed them so, he wasn't averse to holding a pillow over their heads, either."

  "That's disgusting," Katakolon said, sick horror in his voice.

  Zaidas, by contrast, sounded eager, like a hunting dog just catching a scent. "Tell me more," he urged.

  Olyvria gave Phostis a curious look. "You never spoke to me of this before," she said.

  "I know I didn't. I didn't even like to think about it. And besides, I didn't think saying anything would be safe in Etchmiadzin. Too many ears around." And even after they became lovers, he hadn't trusted her, not completely, not until she set upon Syagrios. That, though, he kept to himself.

  "Go on," Zaidas said. "All the ears here are friendly."

  In as much detail as he could, prompted by sharp questions from the mage, Phostis recounted following Artapan down the street, standing in the stinking alley listening to him talk with Tzepeas, and the Thanasiot's premature and assisted death. "That isn't the only time I saw him hovering over people who were on the point of starving, either," he said. "Remember,

  Olyvria? He kept hanging around Strabon's house while he was dying."

  "He did," she said, nodding. "With Strabon and others. I never thought much about it—wizards have their ways, that's all."

  Zaidas stirred in his seat, but didn't say anything. For a man of his age he was, Phostis thought, reasonably normal save for his sorcerous talent. But then, he was the only wizard Phostis knew well. Who could say what others were like?

  "Did he pray as he—ended—this heretic's life?" Zaidas asked. "Either to Phos or to the Four Prophets, I mean?"

  "He spoke some in Makuraner, but since I don't understand it, I don't know what he said. I'm sorry," Phostis answered.

  "Can't be helped," the mage said. "It probably doesn't matter in any case. As you've noted for yourself, the transition from life to death is a powerful source of magical energy. We who follow Phos are forbidden to exploit it, lest we grow to esteem the power so much that we fall into injustice, slaying for the sake of magic alone. I was given to understand that prohibition also applied to followers of the Prophets Four, but I may be wrong. On the other hand, Artapan—that was the name, not so?—may be as much a heretic by Mashiz's standards as the Thanasioi are by ours."

  Krispos said, "This would all be very interesting if we were hashing it out as an exercise at the Sorcerers' Collegium, sorcerous sir, but how does it affect us here in the wider world? Suppose Artapan is using magic fueled by death? Does that make him more dangerous? How do we counteract his magic if it does?"

  Behind her hand, Olyvria whispered, "Your father drives straight for the heart of a question."

  "That he does." Phostis scratched at the side of his jaw. "He gets frustrated when others don't follow as quickly, as they often don't." He wondered if that accounted for some of his father's impatience with him. But how could someone just coming into manhood be expected to stay with the schemes of a grown man with the full power of experience who was also one of the master schemers that Videssos, a nation of schemers, had ever known?

  Zaidas missed the byplay and spoke straight to Krispos: "Your Majesty, a mage who uses death energy in his thauma-turgy gains strength, aye, but he also becomes more vulnerable to others' magic. That sort of compensation is nothing surprising. Wizardry, no matter what the ignorant may think, offers no free miracles. What you gain in one area, you lose in another."

  "That's not just wizardry—that's life," Krispos said. "If you've chosen to take on a big flock of sheep, you won't be able to plant as much barley."

  Sarkis chuckled. "How many years on the throne, your Majesty, to have you still talking like a peasant? A proper Emperor now, one from the romances, would say you can't war in east and west at the same time, or some such."
>
  "To the ice with the romances," Phostis broke in. "The next one that tells a copper's worth of truth will be the first."

  He caught Krispos watching him with eyebrow upraised in speculation. Unabashed, the Avtokrator gave him a sober nod. "You're learning, lad."

  "I will speak for the romances," Olyvria said. "Where but in them does the prisoner escape with the heresiarch's daughter who's fallen in love with him?"

  Now Sarkis laughed out loud. "By the good god, she's caught father and son in the same net." He swigged wine, refilled his mug, and swigged again.

  When Krispos turned his gaze on Olyvria, amusement sparked in his eyes. He dipped his head, as if she'd made a clever move at the board game. "There is something to what you say, lady."

  "No, there's not," Phostis insisted. "In what romance isn't the woman a quivering wreck who requires some bold hero to rescue her? And in which of them does she rescue the hero by clouting the villain with a thundermug?"

  "It seemed the handiest thing in the room," Olyvria said amid general laughter. "Besides, you can't expect a romance to have all the details straight."

  "You have to watch this one, brother," Katakolon said. "She's quick."

  The only things Katakolon looked for in his companions were looks and willingness. No wonder he went through them like a drunkard through a wine cellar, Phostis thought. But he didn't feel like quarreling with Katakolon, not tonight. "I'll take my chances," he said, and let it go at that.

  Sarkis looked at the jar of wine in front of him, yawned, and shook his head. He climbed to his feet. "I'm for bed, your Majesty," he announced. He turned to Phostis. "Good to have you back, and your quick lady." He walked out into the night.

  Zaidas also rose. "I'm for bed, too. Would I had the power to store up sleep as a dormouse stores fat for its winter rest. Spurred not least by what you've said tonight, young Majesty, I think I shall be engaged in serious sorcery soon, at which time I will call on all my bodily reserves. The good god grant that they suffice."

  "How cozy—it's a family gathering now," Krispos said when the mage left. He was not being sardonic; he beamed from Katakolon to Phostis and on to Olyvria. That took a weight of worry from Phostis; a young man will seldom turn aside from his beloved at his father's urging, but that is not an urging he ever cares to hear.

  Then Katakolon also stood up. He clapped Phostis on the back, careful to stay away from the wounded shoulder. "Wonderful you're here and mostly intact," he said. He nodded to Olyvria and Krispos, then followed Sarkis and Zaidas out of the pavilion.

  "He didn't say anything about bed," Krispos said, half laughing, half sighing. "He's probably out prowling for a friendly wench among the camp followers. He'll probably find one, too."

  "Now I know you believe our tale, your Majesty," Olyvria said.

  "How's that?" Krispos asked. Phostis recognized his tone; it was the one he always used when he was finding out what his sons had learned of their lessons.

  "If you didn't, you'd not be sitting here with the two of us closer to you than your guards are," she answered. "We're desperate characters, after all, and if we can turn a chamber pot into a weapon, who knows what we might do with a spoon or an inkwell?"

  "Who indeed?" Krispos said with a small chuckle. He turned to Phostis. "She is quick—you'd better take good care of her." He was quick himself; he didn't miss the yawn Olyvria tried to hide. "Now you'd better take her back to your tent. Riding the courier circuit is wearing—I remember."

  "I'll do that, Father," Phostis said. "But may I come back here for a few minutes afterward?" Both Olyvria and Krispos looked at him in surprise. "Something I want to ask you," he said, knowing it was not an explanation.

  Krispos had to know that, too, but he nodded. "Whatever you like, of course."

  Olyvria asked questions all the way to the tent that had been set up for them. Phostis didn't answer any of them. He knew how much that irked her, but held his course regardless. The most he would say was, "It's nothing to do with you."

  He walked back to the imperial pavilion almost as warily as he'd entered the tunnel that ran under Videssos the city. What he found here might be as dangerous as anything that had lurked there.

  Salutes from the Halogai didn't make him any less nervous as he ducked his way into the pavilion. Krispos waited at the map table, a wine cup in his hand and curiosity on his face. Despite that curiosity, he waited quietly until Phostis had also filled a cup and taken a long draft. Then wine ran sweet down his throat, but gave him no extra courage. Too bad, he thought.

  "Well." Krispos said when Phostis lowered the wine cup from his lips, "what's such a deep, dark secret that you can't speak of it in front of your lady love?"

  Had Krispos sounded sarcastic, Phostis would have turned on his heel and strode out of the pavilion without answering. But he just seemed inquisitive—and friendly, too, which Phostis wasn't used to. He'd tried a dozen different ways of framing his question. When it escaped his lips, though, it did so without any fancy frame whatever: "Are you my father?"

  He watched Krispos suddenly seem to freeze in place, all except his eyes, which grew very wide. Then, as if to give himself time to think, the Avtokrator lifted his cup and drained it dry. "I'd wondered what you wanted," he said at last. "I didn't expect you to ask me that."

  "Are you?" Phostis pressed.

  As young men will of their fathers—or those they believe their fathers—he'd always thought of Krispos as old, but old in the sense of conservative and powerful rather than actually elderly. Now, as the lines on Krispos' face deepened harshly, Phostis saw with eerie certainty what he would look like as an old man.

  "Are you?" Phostis said again.

  Krispos sighed. His shoulders sagged. He laughed for a moment, quietly and to himself. Phostis almost hit him then. Krispos walked over to the wine jar, poured himself another cup from it, then peered into the dark ruby depths. When he looked up toward Phostis, he spoke in what was almost a whisper: "Not a week's gone by, I think, since I took the crown that I haven't asked myself the same question ... and I just don't know."

  Phostis had expected a yes or no, something he could get his teeth into either way. Being left with more uncertainty was— maddening. "How can you not know?" he cried.

  "If you thought to ask the question, son, the answer should be plain enough," Krispos said. He drank some of the wine— maybe he was looking for courage there, too. "Your mother was Anthimos' Empress; if it hadn't been for her, Anthimos would have slain me by magic the night I took the throne. She'd been his Empress for some years before she was mine, and never conceived. None of the other women he had—and believe me, he had a great flock of them—ever quickened, either. But what does that prove? Nothing for certain. I think you're likely to be mine, but that's the most I can say with any hope for truth."

  Phostis did some more quiet calculating. If Krispos had sired him, he'd likely done it before he took the throne from Anthimos ... and before he'd married Dara. He'd done it adulterously, in other words—and so had Phostis' mother.

  He shied away from that thought; it was too uncomfortable to examine straight on. Instead, he said, "You always say I look like Mother."

  "Oh, you do, lad—the eyes especially. That tiny fold of skin on the inner corner comes straight from her. So does the shape of your face, and so does your nose. She's the reason you don't have a great beak like mine." Krispos put thumb and forefinger on the tip of his nose.

  "Unless you had nothing to do with the way my nose looks at all," Phostis said.

  "There is that chance," Krispos agreed. "But if you don't take after me, you don't look like Anthimos, either. You might be handsomer if you did; nothing wrong with the way he looked. You favor Dara, though. You always have, ever since you were a baby."

  In his mind's eye, Phostis had a sudden, vivid picture of

  Krispos studying the infant he'd been, trying to trace resemblances. "No wonder you sometimes treated me as if I were the cuckoo's egg," he said.

/>   "Did I?" Krispos peered down into his wine cup again. He sighed deeply. "I'm sorry, son; I truly am. I've always tried to be just with you, to put aside whatever doubts I had."

  "Just? I'd say you were that," Phostis answered. "But you didn't often—" He broke off. How was he supposed to explain to Krispos that justice sufficed in the courts, but families needed more? The closest he could come was to say, "You always did seem easier with Evripos and Katakolon."

  "Maybe I was ... maybe I am. Not your fault, though—the trouble's been mine." If without great warmth, Krispos had the strength to meet troubles head on. "Where do we go from here?" he asked. "What would you have of me?"

  "Can you take me for what I am instead of for whose son I might be?" Phostis said. "In every way that matters, I'm yours." He told Krispos how he'd found himself imitating him while a prisoner, and how so much of what Krispos said made more sense afterward.

  "I know why that is," Krispos said. Phostis made a questioning noise. Krispos went on, "It's because the only experience anyone can really learn from is his own. I was probably just wasting breath beforehand when I preached at you: you couldn't have had any idea what I was talking about. And when my words did prove of some use to you—nothing could make me prouder."

  He folded Phostis into a bear hug. For a moment, resentment flared in the younger man: where had embraces like this been when he was a boy and needed them most? But he'd already worked out the answer to that for himself. He wasn't pleased with Krispos for acting as he had over the years, but now that, too, made more sense.

  Phostis said, "Can we go on as we did before? Even with doubts, I can't think of anyone I'd rather have for my father than you—and that includes Anthimos."

  "That cuts both ways—son," Krispos said. "With me or in spite of me, you've made yourself a man. Let's hope it's not as it was. Let's hope it's better. So it may prove, for much of the poison between us is out in the open now."

  "Phos grant that it be so—Father," Phostis said. They embraced again. When they separated, Phostis found himself yawning. He said, "Now I'm going back to my tent for the night."