The Tale of Krispos

by Harry Turtledove

  “That’s fair enough, I suppose,” Barses said judiciously.

  “Whether it is or whether it’s not, out of my way before I fall asleep where I’m standing.” Krispos made as if to advance on the other grooms. Laughing again, they moved aside to let him by.

  ALL WINTER LONG, IAKOVITZES CAST LONGING LOOKS KRISPOS’ way. All winter long, Krispos pretended he did not see them. He tended his master’s horses. Iakovitzes usually took along a groom when he went to a feast, Krispos as often as anyone else. And when he feasted other nobles in turn, all the grooms attended so he could show them off.

  At first, Krispos viewed the Empire’s nobility with the same awe he had given Videssos the city when he was just arrived. His awe for the nobles soon wore off. He found they were men like any others, some clever, some plain, some downright stupid. As Barses said of one, “It’s a good thing for him he inherited his money, because he’d never figure out how to make any on his own.”

  By contrast, the more Krispos explored the city, the more marvelous he found it. Every alleyway had something new: an apothecary’s stall, perhaps, or a temple to Phos so small only a double handful of worshipers could use it.

  Even streets he knew well gave him new people to see: swarthy Makuraners in caftans and felt pillbox hats, big blond Halogai gaping at Videssos just as he had, stocky Kubratoi in furs. Krispos kept his distance from them; he could not help wondering if any had been among the riders who’d kidnapped him and his family or plundered the village north of the mountains.

  And there were the Videssians themselves, the people of the city: brash, bumptious, loud, cynical, nothing like the farm folk among whom he’d grown up.

  “To the ice with you, you blithering, bungling booby!” a shopkeeper shouted at an artisan one afternoon. “This pane of glass I ordered is half a foot too short!”

  “Up yours, too, friend.” The glassblower pulled out a scrap of parchment. “That’s what I thought: seventeen by twenty-two. That’s what you ordered, that’s what I made. You can’t measure, don’t blame me.” He was yelling, too. A crowd began to gather. People poked their heads out of windows to see what was going on.

  The shopkeeper snatched the parchment out of his hand. “I didn’t write this!”

  “It didn’t write itself, friend.”

  The glassblower tried to snatch it back. The shopkeeper jerked it away. They stood nose to nose, screaming at each other and waving their fists. “Shouldn’t we get between them before they pull knives?” Krispos said to the man beside him.

  “And wreck the show? Are you crazy?” By the fellow’s tone, he thought Krispos was. After a moment, he grudgingly went on, “They won’t go at it. They’ll just yell till it’s out of their systems, then go on about their business. You wait and see.”

  The local proved right. Krispos would have admitted it, but the man hadn’t stayed to see the results of his prediction. After things calmed down, Krispos left, too, shaking his head. His home village hadn’t been like this at all.

  He was almost to Iakovitzes’ house when he saw a pretty girl. She smiled when he caught her eye, strode up to him bold as brass. His home village hadn’t been like that, either.

  Then she said, “A piece of silver and I’m yours for the afternoon; three and I’m yours for the whole night, too.” She ran her hand along his arm. Her nails and lips were painted the same shade of red.

  “Sorry,” Krispos answered. “I don’t feel like paying for it.”

  She looked him up and down, then gave a regretful shrug. “No, I don’t expect you’d need to very often. Too bad. I would’ve enjoyed it more with someone who didn’t have to buy.” But when she saw he meant his no, she walked on down the street, swinging her hips. Like most people in the city, she didn’t waste time where she had no hope of profit.

  Krispos turned his head and watched her till she rounded a corner. He decided not to go back to Iakovitzes’ right away after all. It was too late for lunch, too early for supper or serious drinking. That meant a certain pert little barmaid he knew ought to be able to slip away for—for just long enough, he thought, grinning.

  SNOW GAVE WAY TO SLEET, WHICH IN TURN YIELDED TO RAIN. By the standards Krispos used to judge, Videssos the city had a mild winter. Even so, he was glad to see spring return. Iakovitzes’ horses were, too. They cropped the tender new grass till their dung came thin and green. Shoveling it made Krispos less delighted with the season.

  One fine morning when such shoveling was someone else’s concern, he started out on an errand of his own—not the little barmaid, with whom he had broken up, but a more than reasonable substitute. He opened Iakovitzes’ front door, then drew back in surprise. What looked like a parade was coming up to the house.

  The city folk loved parades, so this one, not surprisingly, had a fair-sized crowd around it. Krispos needed a moment to see that at its heart were bearers with—he counted quickly—eleven silk parasols. The Avtokrator of Videssos rated only one more.

  As Krispos realized who Iakovitzes’ visitor had to be, a gorgeously robed servitor detached himself from the head of the procession. He declared, “Forth comes his illustrious Highness the Sevastokrator Petronas to call upon your master Iakovitzes. Be so good, fellow, as to announce him.”

  Properly, that was Gomaris’ job. Krispos fled without worrying about such niceties. If the Emperor’s uncle wanted something done, niceties did not matter.

  By luck, Iakovitzes was up and about and had even finished breakfast. He frowned when Krispos burst into the waiting room where he was having a second cup of wine. When Krispos gasped out the news, he frowned again, in a very different way.

  “Oh, plague! This place looks like a sty. Well, it can’t be helped, not if Petronas wants to show up before anyone’s awake.” Iakovitzes gulped his wine and fixed Krispos with a glare. “What are you doing just standing around? Go tell his illustrious Highness I’m delighted to receive him—and any other sweet lies you can think up on the way.”

  Krispos dashed back to the door, expecting to relay the polite message to the Sevastokrator’s man. Instead, he almost ran head-on into Petronas himself. Petronas’ robe, of crimson shot with gold and silver thread, made his servant’s shabby by comparison.

  “Careful, there; don’t hurt yourself,” the Sevastokrator said, chuckling, as Krispos almost fell over himself trying to stop, bow, and go to his right knee all at once.

  “H-highness,” Krispos stammered. “My master is d-delighted to receive you.”

  “Not this early, he isn’t.” Petronas’ voice was dry.

  From his perch on one knee, Krispos glanced up at the most powerful man in the Empire of Videssos. The images he’d seen back in his village hadn’t suggested that the Sevastokrator owned a sense of humor. They also made him out to be a few years younger than he was; Krispos guessed he was past fifty rather than nearing it. But his true features conveyed the same sense of confident competence as had his portraits.

  Now he reached out to tap Krispos on the shoulder. “Come on, young fellow, take me to him. What’s your name, anyhow?”

  “Krispos, Highness,” Krispos said as he got to his feet. “This way, if you please.”

  Petronas fell into step with him. “Krispos, while I’m engaged with your master, can you see to it that my retinue gets some wine, and maybe cheese or bread, as well? Just standing there and waiting for me to finish is boring duty for them.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Krispos promised.

  Iakovitzes, he saw as he led the Sevastokrator into the waiting room, had slipped into a new robe himself. It was also crimson, but not so deep and rich a shade as Petronas’. Moreover, while Iakovitzes still wore sandals, Petronas had on a pair of black boots with red trim. Only Anthimos was entitled to boots scarlet from top to toe.

  When Krispos stuck his head into the kitchen with word of what Petronas wanted, the cook who had fixed Iakovitzes’ breakfast yelped in dismay. Then he started slicing onion rolls and hard cheese like a man possessed.
He shouted for someone to give him a hand.

  Krispos filled wine cups—cheap earthenware cups, not the crystal and silver and gold from which Iakovitzes’ fancy guests drank—and set them on trays. Other servants whisked them away to Petronas’ men. Having done his duty, Krispos slipped out a side door to go meet his girl.

  “You’re late,” she said crossly.

  “I’m sorry, Sirikia.” He kissed her, to show how sorry he was. “Just as I was leaving to see you, Petronas the Sevastokrator came to visit my master, and they needed my help for a little while.” He hoped she would imagine more intimate help than standing in the kitchen pouring wine.

  Evidently she did, for her annoyance vanished. “I met the Sevastokrator once,” she told Krispos. She was just a seamstress. Though he would not have said so out loud, he doubted her until she proudly explained: “On Midwinter’s Day a couple of years ago, he pinched my bottom.”

  “Anything can happen on Midwinter’s Day,” he agreed soberly. He smiled at her. “I thought Petronas was a man of good taste.”

  She thought that over for a moment, blinked, and threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Krispos, you say the sweetest things!” The rest of the morning passed most enjoyably.

  Gomaris spotted Krispos on his way back to the grooms’ quarters that afternoon. “Not so fast,” the steward said. “Iakovitzes wants to see you.”

  “Why? He knows this was my morning off.”

  “He didn’t tell me why. He just told me to look out for you. Now I’ve found you. He’s in the small waiting room—you know, the one next to his bedchamber.”

  Wondering what sort of trouble he was in, and hoping his master did remember he’d had the morning free, Krispos hurried to the waiting room. Iakovitzes was sitting behind a small table with several thick scrolls of parchment, looking for all the world like a tax collector. At the moment, his scowl made him look like a tax collector visiting a village badly in arrears.

  “Oh, it’s you,” he said as Krispos walked in. “About time. Go pack.”

  Krispos gulped. “Sir?” Of all the things he’d expected, being so baldly ordered to hit the streets was the last. “What did I do, sir? Can I make amends for it?”

  “What are you talking about?” Iakovitzes said peevishly. After a few seconds, his face cleared. “No, you don’t know what I’m talking about. It seems there’s some sort of squabble going on between our people and the Khatrishers over who owns a stretch of land between two little streams north of the town of Opsikion. The local eparch can’t make the Khatrishers see sense—but then, trying to dicker with Khatrishers’d drive Skotos mad. Petronas doesn’t want this mess blowing up into a border war. He’s sending me to Opsikion to try to make sense of it.”

  The explanation left Krispos as confused as before. “What does that have to do with me packing?”

  “You’re coming with me.”

  Krispos opened his mouth, then closed it again when he discovered he had nothing worthwhile to say. This would be travel on far more comfortable terms than the slog from his village to Videssos the city. Once he got to Opsikion, he could also hope to learn a good deal about what Iakovitzes was doing and how he did it. The more he learned, he was discovering, the more possibilities opened up in his life.

  On the other hand, Iakovitzes would surely use the trip as one long chance to try to get him into bed. He had trouble gauging just how big a nuisance that would be, or how annoyed Iakovitzes might get when he kept saying no.

  An opportunity, a likelihood of trouble. As far as he could tell, they balanced. He certainly had no other good options, so he said, “Very well, excellent sir. I’ll pack at once.”

  THE ROAD DIPPED ONE LAST TIME. SUDDENLY, INSTEAD OF MOUNTAINS and trees all around, Krispos saw ahead of him hills dipping swiftly toward the blue sea. Where land and water met stood Opsikion, its red tile roofs glowing in the sun. He reined in his horse to admire the view.

  Iakovitzes came up beside him. He also stopped. “Well, that’s very pretty, isn’t it?” he said. He let go of the reins with his right hand. As if by accident, it fell on Krispos’ thigh.

  “Yes, it is,” Krispos said, sighing. He dug his heels into his horse’s flanks. It started forward, almost at a trot.

  Also sighing, Iakovitzes followed. “You are the most stubborn man I’ve ever wanted,” he said, his voice tight with irritation.

  Krispos did not answer. If Iakovitzes wanted to see stubbornness, he thought, all he needed to do was peer at his reflection in a stream. In the month they’d taken to ride east from Videssos the city to Opsikion, he’d tried seducing Krispos every night and most afternoons. That he’d got nowhere did not stop him; neither did the several times he’d bedded other, more complacent, partners.

  Iakovitzes pulled alongside again. “If I didn’t find you so lovely, curse it, I’d break you for your obstinacy,” he snapped. “Don’t push me too far. I might anyhow.”

  Krispos had no doubt Iakovitzes meant what he said. As he had before, he laughed. “I was a peasant taxed off my farm. How could you break me any lower than that?” As long as Iakovitzes knew he was not afraid of such threats, Krispos thought, the peppery little man would hesitate before he acted on them.

  So it proved now. Iakovitzes fumed but subsided. They rode together toward Opsikion.

  As they were in none-too-clean travelers’ clothes, the gate guards paid no more attention to them than to anyone else. They waited while the guards poked swords into bales of wool a fuzzy-bearded Khatrisher merchant was bringing to town, making sure he wasn’t smuggling anything inside them. The merchant’s face was so perfectly innocent that Krispos suspected him on general principles.

  Iakovitzes did not take kindly to waiting. “Here, you?” he called to one of the guards in peremptory tones. “Stop messing about with that fellow and see to us.”

  The guard set hands on hips and looked Iakovitzes over. “And why should I, small stuff?” Without waiting for a reply, he started to turn back to what he’d been doing.

  “Because, you insolent, ill-smelling, pock-faced lout, I am the direct representative of his illustrious Highness the Sevastokrator Petronas and of his Imperial Majesty the Avtokrator Anthimos III, come to this miserable latrine trench of a town to settle matters your eparch has botched, bungled, and generally mishandled.”

  Iakovitzes bit off each word with savage relish. As he spoke, he unrolled and displayed the large parchment that proved he was what he claimed. It was daubed with seals in several colors of wax and bore the Avtokrator’s signature in appallingly official scarlet ink.

  The gate guard went from furious red to terrified white in the space of three heartbeats. “Sorry, Brison,” he muttered to the wool merchant. “You’ve just got to hang on for a bit.”

  “Now there’s a fine kettle of crabs,” Brison said in a lisping accent. “Maybe I’ll pass the time mixing my horses around so you won’t be sure which ones you’ve checked.” He grinned to see how the gate guard liked that idea.

  “Oh, go to the ice,” the harassed guard said. Brison laughed out loud. Ignoring him, the guard turned to Iakovitzes. “I—I crave pardon for my rough tongue, excellent sir. How may I help you?”

  “Better.” Iakovitzes nodded. “I won’t ask for your name after all. Tell me how to reach the eparch’s residence. Then you can go back to your petty games with this chap here. I suggest that while you’re at it, you sword his beard as well as his wool.”

  Brison laughed again, quite merrily. The gate guard stuttered out directions. Iakovitzes rode past them. He kept his eyes straight ahead, not deigning to acknowledge either man any further. Krispos followed.

  “I put that arrogant bastard in chain mail in his place nicely enough,” Iakovitzes said once he and Krispos got into town, “but Khatrishers are too light-minded to notice when they’ve been insulted. Cheeky buggers, the lot of them.” Failing to get under someone’s skin always annoyed him. He swore softly as he rode down Opsikion’s main street.

  Krispo
s paid his master little attention; he was resigned to his bad temper. Opsikion interested him more. It was a little larger than Imbros; a year ago, he thought, it would have seemed enormous to him. After Videssos, it reminded him of a toy city, small but perfect. Even Phos’ temple in the central square was modeled after the great High Temple of the capital.

  The eparch’s hall was across the square from the temple. Iakovitzes took out his frustration over leaving Brison in good spirits by baiting a clerk as mercilessly as he had the gate guard. His tactics were cruel, but also effective. Moments later, the clerk ushered him and Krispos into the eparch’s office.

  The local governor was a thin, sour-looking man named Sisinnios. “So you’ve come to dicker with the Khatrishers, have you?” he said when Iakovitzes presented his impressive scroll. “May you get more joy from it than I have. These days, my belly starts paining me the day before I talk with ’em and doesn’t let up for three days afterward.”

  “What’s the trouble, exactly?” Iakovitzes asked. “I presume we have documents to prove the land in question is ours by right?” Though he phrased it as a question, he spoke with the same certainty he would have used in reciting Phos’ creed. Krispos sometimes thought nothing really existed in Videssos without a document to show it was there.

  When Sisinnios rolled his eyes, the dark bags under them made him look like a mournful hound. “Oh, we have documents,” he agreed morosely. “Getting the Khatrishers to pay ’em any mind is something else again.”

  “I’ll fix that,” Iakovitzes promised. “Does this place boast a decent inn?”

  “Bolkanes’ is probably the best,” Sisinnios said. “It’s not far.” He gave directions.

  “Good. Krispos, go set us up with rooms there. Now, sir”—this he directed to Sisinnios—“let’s see these documents. And set me up a meeting with this Khatrisher who ignores them.”

  Bolkanes’ inn proved good enough, and by the standards of Videssos the city absurdly cheap. Taking Iakovitzes literally, Krispos rented separate rooms for his master and himself. He knew Iakovitzes would be irked, but did not feel like guarding himself every minute of every night.