“That that cursed pool—may Skotos’ ice cover it all year around—is just another way, and a particularly vile one, for him to be unfaithful to me.”
“How am I supposed to tell him that? If I sound like a priest, he’s more likely to shave my head and put me in a blue robe than to listen to me. And besides…” He paused to make sure no one was outside to hear, then went on, “Besides, things being as they are, I’m hardly the one to tell him anything of the kind.”
“But he listens to you,” Dara said. “He listens to you more than to anyone else these days. If you can’t get him to pay heed, no one can. I know it’s not fair to ask you—”
“You don’t begin to.” Krispos had thought defending Anthimos to Dara was curious. Now she wanted him to get Anthimos to be more faithful to her so she would have less time and less desire to give to him because she would be giving more to her husband. He had not been trained in fancy logic at the Sorcerers’ Collegium, but he knew a muddle when he stepped into one. He also knew that explaining it to her would be worse than a waste of time—it would make her furious.
Sighing, he tried another tack. “He listens to me when he feels like it. Even on the business of the Empire, that’s not nearly all the time. When it comes to…things he really likes, he pays attention only to himself. You know that, Dara.” He still spoke her name but seldom. When he did, it was a way to emphasize that what he said was important.
“Yes, I do know,” she said in a low voice. “That’s so even now that Petronas is locked up for good. All Anthimos cares about is doing just what he wants.” Her eyes lifted and caught Krispos’. She had a way of doing that which made it next to impossible for him to tell her no. “At least try to get him to set his hand to the Empire. If he doesn’t, who will?”
“I’ve tried before, but if you’ll remember, I was the one who ended up hashing things out with Chihor-Vshnasp.”
“Try again,” Dara said, those eyes meltingly soft. “For me.”
“All right, I’ll try,” Krispos said with no great optimism. Again he thought how strange it was for Dara to use her lover to improve her husband. He wondered just what that meant—probably that Anthimos was more important to her than he was. Whatever his flaws, the Avtokrator was handsome and affable—and without him, Dara would be only a westlands noble’s daughter, not the Empress of Videssos. Having gained so much status through his connections to others, Krispos understood how she could fear losing hers if the person from whom it derived was cast down.
She smiled at him, differently from a moment before. “Thank you, Krispos. That will be all for now, I think.” Now she spoke as Empress to vestiarios. He rose, bowed, and left her chamber, angry at her for changing moods so abruptly but unable to show it.
Having nothing better to do, he went to bed. Some time in the middle of the night, the small silver bell in his bedchamber rang. He wondered whether Anthimos was summoning him, or Dara. Either way, he thought grouchily as he dressed and tried to rub the sleep from his eyes, he would have to please and obey.
It was Dara; the Emperor was still out roistering. Even the comfort of her body, though, could not completely make up for the way she’d treated him earlier. As he had with Tanilis, he wanted to be more than a bedwarmer for her. That she sometimes remembered him as a person only made it worse when she forgot. One day, he thought, he’d have to talk with her about that—if only he could figure out how.
KRISPOS CARRIED THE LAST OF THE BREAKFAST DISHES TO THE kitchens on a tray, then went back to the dining room, where Anthimos was leaning back in his chair and working lazily on his first morning cup of wine. He’d learned the Avtokrator was more willing to conduct business now than at any other time of day. Whether “more willing” really meant “willing” varied from day to day. I’ll see, Krispos thought.
“Your Majesty?” he said.
“Eh? What is it?” Anthimos sounded either peevish or a trifle the worse for wear. The latter, Krispos judged: the Emperor did not bounce back from his debauches quite as readily these days as he had when Krispos first became vestiarios. That was hardly surprising. Someone with a less resilient constitution might well have been dead by now if he abused himself as Anthimos did.
All that was beside the point—the Avtokrator in a bad mood was less likely to want to listen to anything that had to do with imperial administration. Nonetheless, Krispos had promised Dara he’d try—and if Anthimos was going to keep other people from becoming Emperor, he’d just have to handle the job himself. Krispos said, “Your Majesty, the grand logothete of the treasury has asked me to bring certain matters to your attention.”
Sure enough, Anthimos’ smile, lively enough a moment before, became fixed on his face. “I’m not really much interested right at the moment in what the grand logothete is worrying about.”
“He thinks it important, Your Majesty. After listening to him, so do I,” Krispos said.
Anthimos finished his cup of wine. His mobile features assumed a martyred expression. “Go on, then, if you must.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty. The logothete’s complaint is that nobles in some of the provinces more remote from Videssos the city are collecting taxes from the peasants on their lands but not turning the money over to the treasury. Some of the nobles are also buying up peasant holdings next to their lands, so that their estates grow and those of the free peasants who make up the backbone of the army suffer.”
“That doesn’t sound very good,” the Emperor said. The trouble was, he didn’t sound very interested.
“The grand logothete wants you to put out a law that would stop the nobles from getting away with it, with punishments harsh enough to make even the hardest thief think twice before he tries cheating the fisc. The logothete thinks it’s urgent, Your Majesty, and it’s costing you money you could be using to enjoy yourself. He’s written a draft of the law, and he wants you to review it—”
“When I have the time,” Anthimos said, which meant somewhere between later and never. He peered down into his empty cup, held it out to Krispos. “Fill this up again for me, will you? That’s a good fellow.”
Krispos filled the cup. “Your Majesty, the grand logothete gave me his draft. I have it here. I can show it to you—”
“When I have the time, I said.”
“When will that be, Your Majesty? This afternoon? Tomorrow? Next month? Three years from now?” Krispos felt his temper slipping. He knew it was dangerous, but could not help it. Part of it was pent-up frustration over Anthimos’ refusal to do anything that didn’t gratify him right then and there. He’d been trying to change that ever since he became vestiarios. More irritation sprang from the anger he hadn’t been able to let out at Dara the night before.
“You want to give me this stupid law your boring bureaucrat dreamed up?” Anthimos was angry, too, scowling at Krispos; not even Petronas had spoken to him like that. Breathing hard, he went on, “Bring it to me now, this instant. I’ll show you what I think of it, by Phos.”
In his relief, Krispos heard the Emperor’s words without paying attention to the way he said them. “Thank you, Your Majesty. I’ll fetch it right away.” He hurried to his chamber and brought Anthimos the parchment. “Here you are, Your Majesty.”
The Avtokrator unrolled the document and gave it one quick, disdainful glance. He ripped it in half, then in quarters, then in eighths. Then, with more methodical care than he ever gave to government, he tore each part into a multitude of tiny pieces and flung them about the room, until it looked as though a sudden interior blizzard had struck.
“There’s what I think of this stupid law!” he shouted.
“Why, you—” Of itself, Krispos’ fist clenched and drew back. Had Anthimos been any other man in all the Empire save who he was, that fist would have crashed into his nastily grinning face. A cold, clear sense of self-preservation made Krispos think twice. Very carefully, as if it belonged to someone else, he lowered his hand and made it open. Even more carefully, he said, “Your Majesty
, that was foolish.”
“And so? What are you going to do about it?” Before Krispos could answer, Anthimos went on, “I’ll tell you what: quick now, get broom and dustpan and sweep up every one of these miserable little pieces and dump ’em in the privy. That’s just where they belong.”
Krispos stared at him. “Move, curse you,” Anthimos said. “I command it.” Even if he would not act like an Emperor, he sounded like one. Krispos had to obey. Hating himself and Anthimos both, he swept the floor clean. The Avtokrator stood over him, making sure he found every scrap of parchment. When he was finally satisfied, he said, “Now go get rid of them.”
Normally Krispos took no notice of the privies’ stench; stench and privies went together. This time, though, he was on business different from the usual, and the sharp reek bit into his nostrils. As the torn-up pieces of law fluttered downward to their end, he thought that Anthimos would have done the same thing to the whole Empire, were it small enough to take in his two hands and tear.
KRISPOS WAS STUBBORN. ALL THROUGH HIS LIFE, THAT HAD served him well. Now he brought his stubbornness to bear on Anthimos. Whenever laws were proposed or other matters came up that required a decision from the Emperor, he kept on presenting them to Anthimos, in the hope that he could wear him down and gradually accustom him to performing his duties.
But Anthimos proved just as mulish as he was. The Avtokrator quit paying day-to-day affairs even the smallest amount of attention he had once given them. He ripped no more edicts to shreds, but he did not sign them or affix the imperial seal to them, either.
Krispos took to saying, “Thank you, Your Majesty,” at the end of each day’s undone business.
Sarcasm rolled off Anthimos like water from a goose’s feathers. “My pleasure,” he’d answer day by day. The response made Krispos want to grind his teeth—it kept reminding him of all that Anthimos really cared about.
Yet Anthimos could work hard when he wanted to. That irked Krispos more than anything. He watched the Avtokrator patiently studying magic on his own because it interested him; he’d always known how much ingenuity Anthimos put into his revels. He could have been a capable Emperor. That, worse luck, did not interest him.
Krispos regretted trying to get him to handle routine matters when something came up that was not routine. Urgent dispatches from the northern frontier told of fresh raids of Harvas Black-Robe’s Halogai. Though Anthimos had strengthened the border after forcing Petronas into the monastery, the raiding bands coming south were too large and too fierce for the frontier troops to handle.
Anthimos refused to commit more soldiers. “But Your Majesty,” Krispos protested, “this is the border because of which you toppled your uncle when he would not protect it.”
“That was part of the reason, aye.” Anthimos gave Krispos a measuring stare. “Another part was that he wouldn’t leave me alone. You seem to have forgotten that—you’ve grown almost as tiresome as he was.”
The warning there was unmistakable. The troops did not go north. Krispos sent a message by imperial courier to the village where he’d grown up, urging his brother-in-law Domokos to bring Evdokia and their children down to Videssos the city.
A little more than a week later, a worn-looking courier brought his blowing horse up to the imperial residence and delivered Domokos’ reply. “‘We’ll stay here,’ he told the rider who spoke with him, esteemed and eminent sir,” the fellow said, consulting a scrap of parchment. “‘We’re already too beholden to you,’ he said, and, ‘We don’t care to depend on your charity when we can make a go of things where we are.’ That’s what he said, just as the other courier wrote it down.”
“Thank you,” Krispos said abstractedly, respecting his brother-in-law’s pride and cursing him for being an obstinate fool at the same time. Meanwhile, the courier stood waiting. After a moment, Krispos realized why. He gave the man a goldpiece. The courier saluted in delight and hurried away.
Krispos decided that if he could not go through Anthimos to protect the farmers near the northern border, he would have to go around him. He spoke with Dara. She agreed. They asked to meet with Ouittios, one of the generals who had served under Petronas.
To their dismay, Ouittios refused to come. “He will not see you, except at the Avtokrator’s express command,” the general’s adjutant reported. “If you will forgive his frankness, and me for relaying it, he fears being entrapped into what will later be called treason, as Petronas was.”
Krispos scowled when he heard that, but had to admit it made sense from Ouittios’ point of view. A couple of other attempted contacts proved similarly abortive. “This desperately needs doing, and I can’t get it done,” Krispos complained to Mavros after yet another high-ranking soldier refused to have anything to do with him.
“If you like, I think I can put you in touch with Agapetos,” Mavros said. “He has lands around Opsikion. He used to know my father; my mother would speak of him from time to time. Do you want me to try?”
“Yes, by the good god, and quick as you can,” Krispos said.
With Mavros as go-between, Agapetos agreed to come to the imperial residence and listen to Krispos and Dara. Even so, the general’s hard, square face was full of suspicion as he eased himself down into a chair. Suspicion turned to surprise when he found out why he’d been summoned. “You want me to go up there and fight?” he said, scratching an old scar on his cheek. “I figured you were out to disband troops, not put them to proper use. So did everybody, after what happened with Petronas. Why this sneaking around behind his Majesty’s back?”
“Because I put his back up, that’s why. He just won’t take care of things in the north, since I’m the one who argued too hard that he ought to,” Krispos answered. “I’d sooner wait till he comes round on his own, but I don’t think we have the time. Do you?”
“No,” Agapetos answered at once. “I know we don’t. I’m only surprised you do, too. After what befell the Sevastokrator, like I said before, if you’ll excuse me for speaking out so plainly, I would’ve figured you to be out to weaken the army more, not give it useful work to do.”
“Petronas did not fall because he was a soldier,” Dara said. “He fell because he was a rebellious soldier, one who valued his own wishes above those of his overlord. Surely the same is not true of you, excellent sir?”
Agapetos’ chuckle was more grim than amused. “If it were, Your Majesty, do you think I’d be dunce enough to admit it? All right, though, I take your point. But what happens to me when the Avtokrator finds out I’ve obeyed the two of you rather than him?”
“If you win, how can he blame you?” Krispos asked. “Even if he tries, we and your success will both shield you from him. And if you lose, you may well end up dead, in which case you’ll worry about Phos’ wrath, not Anthimos’.”
“For all those fancy robes, you think like a soldier,” Agapetos said. “All right, we’ll try it your way. Anthimos said he wouldn’t mind having you as Emperor, didn’t he? I can see why. And I wouldn’t mind having a go at the Halogai, truth to tell. Those axes the imperial guardsmen carry are fearsome enough, aye, but how would they fare against cavalry that knows something of discipline? It will be interesting to find out, yes it will.”
Krispos could see him planning his new campaign, as if he were a carpenter picturing a new chair in his mind before he built it. “How many men will you take?” he asked.
“My whole army,” Agapetos answered. “Say, seventy-five hundred troopers. That’s plenty and then some to control raiding bands like the ones I expect we’ll be seeing. The only time you need more is if you try to do something really enormous, the way Petronas did last year against Makuran. And look what that got him—no headway to speak of, and a blue robe and a cell at the end of it.”
“His ambition earned him that, excellent Agapetos,” Dara said. “I already asked you once if you had that kind of ambition, and you said no. You should be safe enough then, not so?”
The general said, “I expe
ct you’re right. Besides, from everything I’ve heard, this is something that needs taking care of, the sooner the better. If I set out inside the next ten days, will that suit you?”
Krispos and Dara looked at each other. Krispos had hoped for something more rousing, perhaps a cry of, I’ll ride for the frontier before the sun sets! But he had seen enough since he came to the capital to understand that large organizations usually moved slower than small ones. “It will do,” he said. Dara nodded.
“Well, with your leave, I’ll be off, then,” Agapetos said, rising from his chair. “I’ve a deal to make ready before we ride out.” He dipped his head to Krispos, bowed deeply to Dara, and stamped away.
“I hope he’ll serve,” Krispos said when the general was gone. “From everything Harvas has done, he’s a soldier who fights hard and moves fast. I just hope Agapetos understands that.”
“The Halogai are foot soldiers,” Dara said. “How can they move faster than our horsemen? More likely they’ll flee at word of Agapetos’ approach.”
“You’re probably right,” Krispos said. He could not help thinking, though, that Harvas Black-Robe’s Halogai had already beaten the Kubratoi, and the Kubratoi raised no mean cavalry, even if, as Agapetos had said, they lacked discipline.
He made himself shake off his worries. He’d done the best he could to protect the northern frontier. He’d certainly done more than Anthimos had. If Agapetos’ army did not suffice, then Videssos would have a full-sized war on its hands. Not even Anthimos could ignore that—he hoped.
The Tale of Krispos Page 38
