The Tale of Krispos

by Harry Turtledove

  Although he did not leap to his feet, ever so slowly Krispos did begin to mend. Had he stayed as weak and limp as he was when the magic laid him low, he likely would have died, of slow starvation or from fluid puddling in his flaccid lungs. The milestones he reached were small ones, at first so small he scarcely noticed them himself, for who pays attention to being able to blink, or to cough? From blinking and coughing, though, he progressed to swallowing on his own, and then, later still, to chewing soft food.

  He still could not speak. That required control more delicate than his muscles could yet achieve. Being able to smile again, and to frown, seemed as valuable to him. Babies used no more to let people know how they felt.

  Krispos especially valued the return of expressiveness to his face when Dara visited him. She did not go into his chamber often, certainly not as often as Anthimos had after he was laid low. But where Anthimos lost interest in him because his condition changed so slowly, Dara kept coming back.

  Once in a while she would take a bowl and spoon from one of the eunuchs, prop Krispos up with pillows, and feed him a meal. Barsymes, Tyrovitzes, Longinos, and the rest of the chamberlains were gentler and neater than she was. Krispos did not care. He was part of their duty; she helped him only because she wanted to. Being able to smile back at her let her know he understood that.

  Though he could not answer, she talked at him while she visited. He picked up palace gossip, and snatches of what went on in the wider world, as well. Petronas, he learned, was advancing in Makuraner-held Vaspurakan, but slowly. The breakthrough, the advance on Mashiz of which the Sevastokrator dreamed, was nowhere in sight. Some of his generals had started to grumble. He’d even sent one packing—a certain Mammianos now found himself commanding the western coastal lowlands, a rich province but one peaceful for so long as to be a graveyard for a fighting soldier.

  If Petronas himself never came back from his western campaign, Krispos would not have shed a tear—had his condition allowed it, he might have danced around the room. He did hope Mavros was all right.

  Krispos was less delighted to learn that Petronas’ plan for handling Kubrat looked to be working exactly as the Sevastokrator had predicted. Harvas Black-Robe’s Haloga mercenaries, falling on the Kubratoi from the north, left them too distracted to launch any large raids against the Empire.

  “They say Malomir may even lose his throne,” Dara told Krispos one warm summer evening. Wanting to hear more, he widened his eyes and did his best to look attentive. But instead of going on about the affairs of the Kubratoi, Dara looked out toward the hallway. “Quiet tonight,” she said. Mixed anger and hurt showed in her eyes, a blend Krispos had seen there before. “Why shouldn’t it be quiet? Anthimos has been out carousing since a little past noon, and the good god alone knows when he’ll decide to honor us by coming back. So a great many folk, I have no doubt, have gone off to pursue their own pleasures.”

  The Empress’ laugh was full of self-mockery. “And with you in this state, Krispos, I can’t even do that, can I? I find I’ve missed you, more than I thought I would. Don’t you wish we could…” Dara’s voice sank to a throaty whisper as she described what she wished they could do. Either her imagination was very fertile, or she’d been thinking for a long time.

  Krispos felt heat rise in him that had nothing to do with the weather. Something else also rose; those parts of him not under full conscious control had always been less subject to Petronas’ magic than the rest.

  Dara saw what her words had done. After another quick glance to the door, she reached out and stroked him through the bedclothes. “What a shame to waste it,” she said. She stood up, hurried out of the room.

  When she came back, she blew out the lamps. She went outside again, looked in, and nodded. “Dark enough,” Krispos heard her say. She walked over to the bed and drew back the covers. “The door to my bedchamber is closed,” she murmured to Krispos. “Anyone will think I’m there. And no one can see in here from the hallway. So, if we’re quiet…”

  She slipped off her drawers. She did not get out of her gown, but hiked it up so she could lower herself onto Krispos. She moved slowly, to keep the bed from creaking. Even so, he knew he would explode too soon to please her. Nothing he could do about that, though, he thought through building ecstasy.

  Suddenly Dara froze, stifling a gasp that had nothing to do with passion. Krispos heard sandals in the hallway. Tyrovitzes walked past the door. Dara started to slide away, but the movement made the bed frame start to groan. She froze again. Krispos could not move at all, but felt himself shrinking inside her as fear overpowered lust.

  The eunuch did not even glance in, but kept walking. Dara and Krispos stayed motionless until he came back, crunching on an apple. Once more, he paid no attention to the dark doorway. The sound of his footsteps and his chewing faded.

  When everything was quiet again, Dara did get off the bed. She covered Krispos once more. Linen rustled against her skin as she slid her drawers up her legs. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “That was a bad idea.” She slipped away. This time, she did not return.

  Too late, Krispos was aroused again, with nothing whatever he could do about it. A bad idea indeed, he thought, more than a little annoyed. It had left everyone unsatisfied.

  SUMMER WORE ON. ONE MORNING, KRISPOS WOKE UP ON HIS stomach. For a moment, he thought nothing of it. Then he realized he had rolled over in his sleep. He tried to roll back again and succeeded after an effort that left him panting.

  Not long after that, his speech returned, first as a hoarse whisper, then, little by little, tones that sounded more as he remembered he should. As control slowly returned to his arms and legs, he sat up in bed and then, wobbly as any toddler, stood on his own two feet.

  That made Anthimos notice him again. “Splendid,” the Avtokrator said. “Good to see you on the mend. I look forward to having you serve me again.”

  “I look forward to it, too, Your Majesty,” Krispos said, and found himself meaning it. After months of forced inactivity, he would have looked forward to a long, hot stint in the fields. No, he thought; maybe to a short stint. He did look forward to returning to the imperial bedchamber, both when Anthimos was occupying it and even more when he wasn’t.

  He found himself weak and clumsy as a pup. He began to exercise. At first, the least labor was plenty to wear him out. His strength slowly returned. A few weeks before the fall rains came, he went back to work. He bought handsome presents for the chamberlains who had cared for him so well and so long.

  “This was not necessary,” Barsymes said as he unwrapped a heavy gold chain. “The relief of having you on duty once more and no longer needing to try to keep up with his Majesty at those feasts of his…” The eunuch shook his head. But his long face, usually sour, wore a small, grudging smile. Krispos decided he had spent his money wisely.

  He soon reconnected himself to the tendrils of the grapevine. He hardly needed to, for the first piece of news that came in was on everyone’s lips: not only had Harvas Black-Robe’s Halogai smashed the Kubratoi again, they had seized Pliskavos, the capital and the only real city Kubrat boasted. “By sorcery, I hear they took it,” Longinos said, lowering his voice at the word and sketching the sun-sign over his heart.

  The bare mention of magic was enough to make Krispos shudder. All the same, he shook his head. “Sorcery doesn’t work well in battle,” he said. “Everyone is too keyed up for it to stick, or so I’ve been told.”

  “And I,” Longinos agreed. “But I also know that my sources in the north do not lie.”

  The palace eunuchs heard everything, and usually knew truth from rumor. Krispos scratched his head and worried a little. He sent a note to Iakovitzes. If anyone really knew what was happening north of the Paristrian mountains, the little noble was the man.

  The next day, one of Iakovitzes’ retainers brought an answering note: “Everything’s gone to the ice up there. Harvas is a worse murderer than any of the khagans ever dreamed of being. Maybe he is a wi
zard, too. I can’t think of any other way for him to have won so quickly and easily.”

  Krispos worried a little more, but only for a couple of days. Then he found something more important to worry about. A messenger sailed into Videssos the city from the westlands with word that Petronas was on his way home.

  That news dismayed Anthimos, too. “He’ll be impossible,” the Emperor said, pacing back and forth the next morning while Krispos tried to dress him. “Impossible, I tell you. He’s fought Makuran all summer long and he hasn’t gained two towns worth having. He’ll be humiliated and he’ll take it out on me.”

  On you? Krispos thought. But he held his tongue. Since he recovered enough to talk, he’d told no one the Sevastokrator was to blame for his collapse. He had no proof save Mavros’ word, and Mavros was with Petronas in the west. But he exercised harder than ever and began working with his sword again.

  Petronas’ imminent return made Anthimos start an incessant round of revels, as if he feared he would never get another chance once his uncle was back. Krispos’ lingering weakness gave him the perfect excuse not to accompany his master to his carousings. As he’d hoped, the silver bell in his chamber sometimes rang even when the Avtokrator was away from the imperial residence.

  After that dangerous fiasco while he’d been recovering, Dara took fewer chances. Her summonses most often came well after midnight, when the rest of the household could be counted on to be asleep. Sometimes, though, she called him openly in the early evening, just for the sake of talk. He did not mind; on the contrary. He’d learned from Tanilis that talk was intercourse, too.

  “What do you think it will be like, having Petronas back again?” Dara said on one of those early visits, a few days before the Sevastokrator was due.

  “Perhaps I’m not the one to ask,” Krispos answered cautiously. “You know he and I didn’t agree about his campaign. I will say that the Empire doesn’t seem to have fallen apart while he was gone.” That was as far as he was willing to go. He did not know how the Empress felt about Petronas.

  He found out. “I wish the Makurani had slain him,” she said. “He’s done everything he could to keep Anthimos first a boy and then a voluptuary, so he can go on holding all the power in the Empire in his own fists.”

  Since that was inarguably true, and since Petronas had got Krispos the post of vestiarios the better to control the Emperor, he kept quiet.

  Sighing, Dara went on, “I hoped that with Petronas away from the city, Anthimos might come into his own and act as an Avtokrator should. But he hasn’t, has he?” She sadly shook her head. “I suppose I shouldn’t have expected it. By now he is as his uncle made him.”

  “He’s afraid of the Sevastokrator, too,” Krispos said. “That’s one of the reasons he let Petronas go fight in the westlands, for fear he’d have used his army here in the city if he were thwarted.”

  “I knew that,” Dara said. “I didn’t know anyone else did. I think he was right to be afraid. If Petronas seized the throne, what would become of Anthimos, or me—or you, come to that?”

  “Nothing good,” Krispos answered. Dara was not made for convent life—the best she could hope for—and Anthimos even less for the monastery. Krispos knew he himself would not be lucky enough to have a monastic cell saved for him. He continued, “But Anthimos has the power to override anything the Sevastokrator does, if only he can find the will to use it.”

  “If only.” A world of cynical doubt lay behind Dara’s words.

  “But he almost did, this past spring,” Krispos said, not thinking until later how odd it was for him to be defending his lover’s husband to her. “Then Petronas came up with using Harvas’ brigands against Kubrat, and that gave Anthimos an excuse for backing down, so he did. But I don’t think he would have, otherwise.”

  “What do you think would have happened then?”

  “Ask the lord with the great and good mind, not me. Anthimos is Avtokrator, aye, but Petronas had brought all those troops into the city. They might have obeyed Anthimos and, then again, they might not. The only soldiers I’m sure are loyal to him are the Halogai in the guards regiment, and they wouldn’t have been enough by themselves. Maybe it’s just as well he changed his mind.”

  “Yielding once makes yielding the next time easier.” Dara turned her head to make an automatic scan of the doorway. Mischief sparked in her eyes; her voice dropped. “As I should know, and you, as well.”

  Krispos was glad enough to change the subject. Smiling with her, he said, “Aye, Your Majesty, and I’m glad that’s so.” But he knew that was not what Dara had meant at first, and knew she’d been right.

  He wondered what Anthimos would require to stiffen his back so he would not yield to Petronas in a pinch. The threat of something worse happening if he yielded than if he didn’t, Krispos supposed, or else a feeling that he could get away with defying his uncle. Unfortunately, Krispos had no idea where Anthimos could come up with either of those.

  IF PETRONAS WAS NOT RETURNING FROM MAKURAN IN TRIUMPH, he did his best to make sure the people of Videssos did not know it. He paraded two regiments of tough-looking troops from the Silver Gate up Middle Street to the palace quarter, with carts carrying booty and a few dejected Makuraner prisoners stumbling along in chains between mounted companies of his men. He himself headed to procession on his splendid but otherwise useless show horse.

  As the soldiers tramped through the city, a herald cried out, “Glory to his illustrious Highness the Sevastokrator Petronas, the pale death of the Makurani! Phos’ sun shines through him, the conqueror of Artaz and Hanzith, of Fis and Bardaa and Thelaw!”

  “Glory!” shouted the soldiers. By the way they yelled and the herald proclaimed the names of the places Petronas had captured, anyone who did not know better would have taken them for great cities rather than Vaspurakaner hamlets that, all added together, might have produced a town not much smaller than, say, Imbros or Opsikion.

  And, while Phos’ sun may have shone through Petronas, it could not penetrate the thick gray clouds that overhung Videssos the city. Rain drenched the Sevastokrator’s parade. Some Videssians stood under umbrellas and awnings and colonnades to cheer Petronas’ troopers. More stayed indoors.

  Krispos wore a wide-brimmed hat of woven straw to keep off the worst of the rain as he watched Petronas dismiss his soldiers to their barracks once they had traversed the plaza of Palamas and gotten out of the public eye. Then the Sevastokrator, cold water dripping from his beard, booted his horse into a slow trot—the only kind the animal possessed—and rode for his lodging in the building that housed the Grand Courtroom.

  Anthimos received Petronas the next day. At Krispos’ suggestion, he did so in the Grand Courtroom. Seated on the throne, decked in the full gorgeous imperial regalia, with chamberlains and courtiers and Haloga guardsmen formed up on all sides, the Avtokrator stared, still-faced, as Petronas walked up the long aisle toward him.

  As custom required, Petronas halted about ten feet from the base of the throne. He went to his knees and then to his belly in full proskynesis before his nephew. As he started to go down, he spied Krispos, who was standing to the Emperor’s right. His eyes widened, very slightly. Krispos’ lips curved open in a show of teeth that was not a smile.

  Petronas kept control of his voice. “Majesty,” he said, face to the marble floor.

  “Arise,” Anthimos answered, a beat later than he might have: a subtle hint that Petronas did not enjoy his full favor, but one no courtier would fail to notice.

  Petronas could not have failed to notice either, but gave no sign as he got to his feet. Nor did he give any sign that he had failed to accomplish all he’d hoped in the west. “Your Majesty, a promising start has been achieved against the vain followers of the Four Prophets,” he declared. “When weather permits us to resume the campaign next spring, even grander triumphs will surely follow.”

  Standing close by Anthimos, Krispos stiffened. He had not thought the Sevastokrator would so boldly try to brazen
out his failure and go on as if nothing had happened. The whispers that ran through the Grand Courtroom, soft as summer breeze through leaves, said the same. But while Anthimos sat on the imperial throne, Petronas had in truth controlled the Empire for well over a decade. How would the Avtokrator respond now?

  Not even Krispos knew. The ancient formality of the court kept his head still, but his eyes slid toward Anthimos. Again the Emperor hesitated, this time, Krispos was sure, not to make a point but because he was uncertain what to say. At last he replied, “Next year’s campaigning season is still a long way away. Between now and then, we shall decide the proper course to take.”

  Petronas bowed. “As Your Majesty wishes, of course.” Krispos felt like cheering. For all his encouragement, and for all that he knew Dara had given, even getting Anthimos to temporize was a victory.

  The rest of the court sensed that, too. Those soft whispers began again. Petronas withdrew from before the imperial throne, bowing every few paces until he had retreated far enough to turn and march away. But as he strode from the Grand Courtroom, he did not have the air of a defeated man.

  KRISPOS SHOOK HIS HEAD. “PLEASE GIVE MY REGRETS TO HIS Imperial Highness, excellent Eroulos. I was ill almost all summer, and I fear I am too feeble to travel to the Sevastokrator’s lodgings.” That was the politest way he could find to say he did not trust Petronas enough to visit him.

  “I will pass your words on to my master,” Eroulos said gravely. Krispos wondered what part Petronas’ steward had played in the sorcerous attempt on his life. He liked Eroulos, and thought Eroulos liked him. But Eroulos was Petronas’ man, loyal to the Sevastokrator. Faction made friendship difficult.