The Tale of Krispos

by Harry Turtledove

  “Better, I think,” Krispos said. “He’s hardly swearing at all when he gets back from the eparch’s residence these days. With him, that’s a very good sign.”

  “I’ll start packing, then.”

  “Go ahead, but don’t pack anything you might want before you go. He was like this once before, weeks ago, and then things fell apart again.” Krispos took a last luscious bite of blackberry tart and turned to Tanilis. “I wish your cook could come with me along with your son. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so well.”

  “I’ll tell Evtykhes you said so,” she said, smiling. “Your praise will please him more than what he gets from us—you’re not obliged to say kind things to him for politeness’ sake.”

  Krispos had not thought about that. The servants at Iakovitzes’ home were the only ones he’d known, and he was one among them. For that matter, Iakovitzes did not say kind things to anyone for politeness’ sake. He used the rough edge of his tongue, not the smooth, to keep his people in line.

  Tanilis said, “Though I must keep Evtykhes, Krispos, you will need more than you have if what we hope is to be accomplished. When you and Mavros do at last depart for the imperial city, I will send gold with you.”

  “My lady”—this time Krispos deliberately used her title rather than her name—“even with Mavros with me in Videssos, what’s to keep me from spending the gold just on women and wine?”

  “You are.” Tanilis looked him full in the face. Those huge dark eyes held his; he had the uneasy feeling she could peer deeper into him than he could himself. Now he was the first to lower his gaze.

  Mavros rose. “I’m off. If I’m to be leaving soon, I have some farewells to make.”

  Tanilis watched him go. “What was it you said about wine and women?” she asked Krispos. “Most of his farewells will be of that sort, I expect.”

  “He’s coming into a man’s years and a man’s pleasures,” Krispos replied from the peak of maturity that was twenty-two.

  “So he is,” Tanilis’ voice was musing. Her eyes met Krispos again, but she looked through him rather than into him, back toward the past. “A man. How strange. I must have been about the age he is now when I bore him.”

  “Surely younger,” Krispos said.

  She laughed, without mirth but also without bitterness. “You are gallant, but I know the count of years. They are part of me; why should I deny them?”

  Instead of answering, Krispos took a thoughtful sip from his wine cup. He’d made a mistake by breaking the rule of flattery he’d used on Iakovitzes. With someone like Tanilis, it did not do to make mistakes.

  Before long, Krispos got up to go, saying, “Thank you again for inviting me here, and for the aid you promise, and for this second wonderful feast.”

  “Truly, if it does not unduly anger your master, you would be well advised to stay till morning,” Tanilis said. “The ride back to Opsikion will be twice as long in the darkness, and there are brigands in the hills, try as we will to keep them down.”

  “Iakovitzes is angry most of the time, it seems. Unduly?” Krispos shrugged. “I expect I can talk him round. Thank you once more.”

  Tanilis called for Xystos. The servant took Krispos to the same guest chamber he had used before. That soft bed beckoned. He stripped off his clothes, slid under the single light blanket that was all he needed on a warm summer night, and fell asleep at once.

  He was a sound sleeper, a legacy of the many years he had gone to bed every night too tired to wake to anything less than an earthquake. The first he knew of anyone else’s being in the room was the bed shifting as the weight of another body settled onto it.

  He jerked upright. “Wha—” he said muzzily.

  Even the small, flickering flame of the lamp Tanilis held was enough to dazzle his sleep-dulled eyes. A secret smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “It’s—all right,” he answered after a moment, when he had full control of himself. Still not altogether sure why she had come—and not daring to be wrong here, where his head might answer for it—he pulled the blanket up to cover more of himself.

  That secret smile came out in the open. “Wise to be cautious. But never mind.” Then her expression changed. “What is that coin you wear round your neck?” she asked, her voice suddenly sharp and interested.

  “This?” Krispos’ hand closed over the goldpiece. “It’s just for luck.”

  “For more than luck, I think,” Tanilis said. “Please, if you would, tell me how you came by it.”

  He told her how Omurtag had given him the coin at the ransoming ceremony back when he was a boy. Her eyes glittered in the lamplight as she followed his account. When he thought he was done, she questioned him about the incident as closely as Iakovitzes had grilled Mavros on horses.

  Prodded so, he recalled more than he’d imagined he could, even to things like the expression on the Kubrati enaree’s face. The more he answered, though, the more glumly certain he became that she’d forgotten why she’d come to his bedroom in the first place. Too bad, he thought. The lamp’s warm light made her especially lovely.

  But she certainly seemed indifferent to their both being on the same bed. When she could pick no more memories from him, she said, “No wonder I saw as I did. The seeds of what you may be were sown long ago; at last they have grown toward the light of day.”

  He shrugged. At the moment, he cared little for the nebulous future. He was too busy thinking about what he wished he was doing in the very immediate present.

  “You’re rather a young man still, though, and not much worried about such things,” Tanilis said. He gulped, wondering if she could read his mind. Then he saw she was looking down at the thin blanket, which revealed his thoughts clearly enough. He felt himself flush, but the smile was back on her face. “I suppose that’s as it should be,” she said, and blew out the lamp.

  For a whole series of reasons, the rest of the evening proved among the most educational of Krispos’ life. Every woman he’d been with before Tanilis suddenly seemed a girl by comparison. They were girls, he realized: his age or younger, chosen for attractiveness, kept for enthusiasm. Now for the first time he learned what polished art could add.

  Looking back the exhausted morning after, he supposed Tanilis had taken him through his paces like Iakovitzes steering a jumper around a course. Had she taught him anything else that way, he was sure he would have resented her. He still did, a little, but resentment had to fight hard against languor.

  He’d wondered for some little while if art was all she brought to the game. She moved, she stroked, she lay back to receive his caresses in silence, a silence that persisted no matter what he did. And though all her ploys were far more than just enjoyable, he also thought they were rehearsed.

  Then at last some of his own urgency reached her. Kindled, she was less perfectly skilled than she had been before. Feeling her quiver beneath him, hearing her breath catch, made him want to forget all that perfect skill had wrought.

  He wondered if the quivers, if the gasps, were also products of her art. He shrugged as he fastened the bone catches of his tunic. Art that fine was indistinguishable from reality; it was as if an icon of Petronas could move and speak with the Sevastokrator’s voice.

  Later, as he walked down the hall behind a servant toward the small dining chamber for breakfast, he decided he was wrong. If he’d altogether failed to please her, he doubted she’d give herself to him again.

  She waited for him in the dining room, her self-possession absolute as usual. “I trust you slept well,” she said in a tone any polite hostess might have used. Before he could answer, she went on, “Do try some of the honey on your bread. It’s clover and orange together, and very fine.”

  He dipped it from the pot and tried it. It was good. He tried—as best he could with men and women of her household bustling in and out—to learn how she felt about the night before. She was impervious. That seemed ominous.<
br />
  Then Mavros came in, looking rather the worse for wear, and Krispos had to give up. Tanilis showed more interest in her son’s boasting than she’d given to Krispos’ discreet questions.

  Only as Krispos was saying his farewells did she give him even the smallest reason for hope. “Feel free to invite yourself here next time; you need not wait upon a formal invitation.”

  “Thank you, Tanilis, I’ll do that,” he said, and watched her face closely. Had she shown any trace of disappointment, he would never have gone back to the villa again. She nodded and smiled instead.

  He made himself wait four days before he rode back again. Evtykhes the cook hadn’t had anything special planned but, like Iakovitzes’ chef, he could make the ordinary interesting.

  What happened later that night was even more interesting, and not even slightly ordinary. “Don’t delay so long the next time,” Tanilis said as she slid out of the guest room bed to return to her own chamber. “Or did you think I was seeking to entrap you with my charms?”

  Krispos shook his head. Tanilis slipped away without asking anything further of him. He was not nearly sure he had truthfully answered her last question; indeed, he hadn’t trusted his voice not to give him away.

  Even so, he knew he would come to the villa again, and in less than four days. Did that mean he was entrapped? Maybe it did, he thought wryly. He was sure he’d never found such tempting bait.

  IAKOVITZES LOOKED UP FROM HIS BREAKFAST PORRIDGE AS Krispos walked toward his table in Bolkanes’ taproom. The noble’s eyebrows rose. “Good of you to join me,” he said. “Such rare signs give me hope you do still remember you work for me.”

  Krispos felt his ears grow hot. He grunted—the safest response he could think of—and sat down.

  Nothing was guaranteed safe with Iakovitzes. “Much as I hate to disrupt the lecherous tenor of your ways,” he went on, “I fear your little arrangement with that laundress or whatever she is at Mavros’ place will have to end.”

  Krispos had found no way to keep people from knowing how often he rode out to Tanilis’ villa. Those visits—and the overnight stays that went with them—had to set tongues wagging. To make sure they did not wag in the wrong—or rather, the right—direction, he’d let on that he was having an affair with one of the servant girls. Now he said, still cautiously, “Oh? Why is that, excellent sir?”

  “Because I’ve finally settled with that puff-adder of a Lexo, that’s why.”

  “Have you really?” Krispos said in genuine surprise.

  “Yes, I have really, and on more than decent terms. If you’d been around here as you were supposed to be instead of exercising your private parts, this might not have come as such a startling development to you.”

  Krispos hung his head at the rebuke. The acid in Iakovitzes’ voice made it sting more than it might have otherwise, but he knew it was deserved. He also knew a certain amount of relief. If Iakovitzes was heading back to Videssos the city, he would have to accompany the noble. Not even Tanilis could think differently. A more convenient end to their liaison was hard to imagine.

  Iakovitzes went on, “Since you do get out to Mavros’ villa, however, be so good as to let him know I shall be departing shortly. Why I don’t leave you here and head back just with him I couldn’t say, let me tell you.”

  At first, the scolding washed over Krispos. If Iakovitzes meant to fire him, he would have done it long since. And even if the noble did give him the boot, Tanilis would still back him—or would she? Krispos grew more sober as he pondered that. If his fortunes changed, her vision might, too.

  He decided he ought to stay in Iakovitzes’ good graces after all, or as many of them as he could keep without letting the noble seduce him. “What were the terms you finally agreed to with Lexo, excellent sir?” he asked.

  “As if you care,” Iakovitzes jeered, but he was too full of himself to resist bragging about what he’d done. “The Khatrishers will all pull back of the Akkilaion by the end of next year, and three parts in four of the indemnity we pay for their leaving will go straight to the herders who get displaced, not to Gumush the khagan. I had to pay Lexo a little extra on the side to get him to go along with that, but it’s money well spent.”

  “I see what you’re saying.” Krispos nodded. “If the indemnity stays with the local Khatrishers, they’ll end up spending most of it here in Opsikion, so in the long run it’ll come back to the Empire.”

  “Maybe that’s why I keep you around in spite of the all-too-numerous faults you insist on flaunting,” Iakovitzes said, “for your peasant shrewdness. Even Lexo didn’t pick up the full import of that clause, and he’s been in the business of cheating Videssos a good many years now. Aye, I snuck it past him, I did, I did.” Nothing put Iakovitzes in a better mood than gloating over how he’d outsmarted an opponent.

  “When do you sign the pact?” Krispos asked.

  “Already did it—signed and sealed. I have one copy up in my room, and Lexo’s got the other one wherever he keeps it.” Iakovitzes knocked back a large cup of wine. Only when he swayed as he got to his feet did Krispos realize it was not his first, or even his third; his speech was perfectly clear. As the noble headed for the door, he said over his shoulder, “Come to think of it, I’m going across the square to the eparch’s residence and rub the Khatrisher’s nose in the break he gave me. Want to tag along?”

  “Are you sure that’s wise, excellent sir?” Krispos said, in lieu of publicly asking his master whether he’d lost his mind. If Iakovitzes angered Lexo enough—and he could do it if anyone could—what was to keep the Khatrisher from tearing up his signed and sealed copy and either starting the war Petronas did not want or at least forcing negotiations open again?

  But Iakovitzes said, “Let him wallow in his own stupidity.” He went out the door almost at a run.

  Krispos heard the rumble and jingle of an approaching heavy wagon without listening to it; it was just one of the noises that went with staying in a city. Then he heard someone shout, “Watch out, you bloody drunken twit! Look over this—” That was harder to ignore; it came from right in front of the inn. At the cry of agony that followed hard on its heels, Krispos and everyone else in the taproom dashed out to see what had happened.

  The wagon was full of blocks of gray limestone from one of the quarries in the hills back of Opsikion, and drawn by a team of six draft horses. Iakovitzes lay thrashing on the ground between the near wheeler and the wagon’s right front wheel. Another yard forward and it would have rolled over his body.

  Krispos ran forward and dragged his master away from the wagon. Iakovitzes shrieked again as he was moved. “My leg!” He clutched at it. “My leg!”

  The white-faced driver gabbled, “Fool walked right in front of me. Right in front of me like I wasn’t there, and this maybe the biggest, noisiest rig in town. Right in front of me! One of the horses must have stepped on him, or maybe more than one. Lucky I was fast on the brake, or all you could do with him is clean him off the cobbles. Right in front of me!”

  A couple of passers-by confirmed that Iakovitzes had not noticed the wagon at all. “Way he was going,” one said, “he wouldn’t have noticed Phos coming down from heaven for him.” A couple of more pious souls made the sun-sign over their hearts at the mention of the good god’s name.

  Krispos tugged up Iakovitzes’ robe so he could see how badly the noble was hurt. The unnatural bend between knee and ankle of his master’s left leg and the enormous black bruise that spread over the leg as he watched told him everything he needed to know. “It’s broken,” he said.

  “Of course it’s broken, you wide-arsed imbecile!” Iakovitzes screamed, pain and fury making him even louder and shriller than usual. “You think I need you to tell me that?” The inventive curses that spewed from him in the next couple of minutes proved his wits were intact, even if he did have cuts over both eyes and a bruise on one cheek. He finally slowed down enough to snarl, “Why are all you incest-loving cretins just standing around gapin
g? Someone fetch me a healer-priest!”

  One of the locals trotted away. Iakovitzes kept swearing; Krispos did not think he repeated himself once in the quarter of an hour till the priest arrived. Some of the onlookers who might normally have gone about their business stayed to listen instead.

  “What happened here?” the healer-priest asked when he finally arrived.

  Several people in the crowd started to explain as they stood aside to let the priest—Sabellios, his name was—pass. From the ground, Iakovitzes yelled, “I broke my miserable leg, that’s what. Why don’t you stop gabbing there and start healing?”

  “He’s like that, holy sir,” Krispos whispered to Sabellios as the healer-priest crouched beside him.

  “It’s not easy to be happy with a broken leg,” Sabellios observed. “Easy, sir, easy,” he went on to Iakovitzes, for the noble gasped and swore anew as the healer-priest set his hands on either side of the fracture.

  Like the other healers Krispos had seen, Sabellios spoke Phos’ creed again and again as he sank into his trance. Then the words trailed away, leaving nothing between Sabellios’ will and the injury he faced. Krispos muttered with awe as he watched the swelling around the broken bone recede and the purple-black bruise fade.

  The healer-priest released his hold. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his blue robe. “I have done what I can,” he said in the worn voice every healer used just after his work was done. Krispos noted the effort he needed to raise his head to look up at the spectators who still ringed him and Iakovitzes. “One of you should go and bring Ordanes the physician here. He has a gentler touch for setting bones than I do.”

  “Setting bones?” Iakovitzes hissed from between clenched teeth. “Aren’t you going to heal the break?”

  Sebellios stared at him. “Heal—a fracture?”

  “Why not?” Iakovitzes said. “I had it done for me once in Videssos the city, after I took a fall when my cursed mount couldn’t leap a stream during a hunt. Some blue-robe from the Sorcerers’ Collegium did it for me—Heraklonas, I think his name was.”