The Tale of Krispos

by Harry Turtledove

  “That’s good,” Krispos said automatically. Then the full meaning of what he’d heard sank in. He let loose with a yell that made his horse sidestep and switch its ears in reproach. “We have him!”

  But as Harvas had shown south of Imbros, he was general as well as wizard. Rear guards had to be beaten down; sorcerous screens had to be cautiously probed and even more cautiously eliminated. By the time night fell, he had succeeded in breaking off contact between his army and most of his Videssian pursuers, though the flying column still hung just off his right flank.

  Krispos made his way back to where the main imperial army was setting up camp. He smiled to find his own tent erect and waiting for him. He invited Mammianos over. When the fat general arrived, he clapped him on the back. “You couldn’t have done a better job of timing your attack on Harvas’ barricade,” he said.

  “I thank you kindly, Your Majesty.” But Mammianos did not sound as proud as he might have. In fact, he shuffled from foot to foot like an embarrassed schoolboy. “It, uh, wasn’t exactly my idea, though.”

  “Oh?” Krispos raised an eyebrow. “What then?”

  “Might as well hear it from me instead of somebody else, I suppose,” Mammianos said. He shifted his weight again before he went on. “That Zaidas—you know, the young wizard—he came up and told me he didn’t think things were going any too well for you this morning.”

  “He was right,” Krispos said, remembering the sound Trokoundos’ spine had made as it snapped and his own fear when the wizard died. Trokoundos had a wife—a widow, now—in Videssos the city. Krispos reminded himself to provide for her, not that gold could make up for the loss of her man.

  “I figured he might be, seeing as he was the one who sniffed out Harvas’ army down south of Imbros,” Mammianos said. “So I asked him if we could help you by having a go at the barricade, and he said yes. So we had a go, and maybe Harvas was distracted on account of trying to deal with your lot, because we broke through. The rest I guess you know.”

  “I’m just glad you listened to Zaidas,” Krispos said.

  Mammianos rumbled laughter. “Now that you mention it, Your Majesty, so am I.”

  Chapter XI

  KRISPOS AND TANILIS RODE SIDE BY SIDE. THEY’D RIDDEN side by side ever since the imperial army entered Kubrat. By now, more than a week later and half the way to the Astris River, no one even gave them a sidelong glance. No one had ever had the temerity to say anything to Krispos about it.

  Perhaps someone might have, had Tanilis not proven her worth so solidly. The mages from the Sorcerers’ Collegium—all, Krispos noted, save Zaidas—had muttered when she included herself in their labors against Harvas, but the mutters died away soon enough. Inside of a day she became as much their spearhead as Trokoundos had ever been. Again and again Harvas’ sorcerous assaults failed. Again and again his army, outflanked by the more mobile Videssians, had to retreat.

  “I think he’s falling back on Pliskavos,” Krispos said. “In all of Kubrat, it’s the only place where he could hope to stand siege.” The prospect of Harvas under siege still worried him. A siege would give the evil wizard the leisure he needed to exercise his ingenuity to the fullest. Krispos grimaced at the prospect of facing whatever that exercised ingenuity came up with.

  Tanilis’ gaze became slightly unfocused. “Yes,” she said, a few seconds too late for a proper reply. “He is falling back on Pliskavos.” She sounded as certain as if she’d said the sun would rise the next morning. A moment later she came back to herself, a small frown on her face. “I have a headache,” she remarked.

  Krispos passed her his canteen. “Here’s some wine,” he said. As she drank, he ran his hands over his arms, trying to smooth down the gooseflesh that had prickled up at her foretelling. He’d seen the mantic fit take her far more strongly than that, not least on the day when he’d first met her, the day she’d terrified him by calling him Majesty.

  Then he’d wondered if she saw true. Now he knew she did. Knowing that, he thought to take advantage of her gift. He called for a courier. “Get Sarkis over here,” he said. The courier saluted and rode away.

  He soon returned with the scout commander. “What can I do for you, Your Majesty?” Sarkis asked.

  “Time to send out another column,” Krispos said, and watched Sarkis grin. “Harvas is on his way back to Pliskavos.” Sarkis caught his certainty and glanced over to Tanilis. Krispos nodded. He went on, “If we can put a few thousand men into the place before he gets there, say, or burn down a good part of it—”

  Sarkis’ grin got wider. “Aye, Your Majesty, we can try that. We can swing wide and get around behind his men, the good god willing. Horses go faster than shank’s mare. It should work. I’ll get right on it.”

  “Good.” Krispos grinned, too, savagely. Let Harvas find out for a change what being hunted was like, feel what it meant to move to someone else’s will, to move in fear lest the tiniest error bring the fabric of all his designs down in ruin. He’d inflicted misery on Videssos for too long—perhaps for the whole span of his unnatural life. Only fitting and proper to mete misery out to him at last.

  The column clattered away from the main Videssian army late that afternoon, heading off to the west to circle round Harvas’ Halogai. The troopers who stayed on the primary line of march whooped as their comrades departed. One outflanking move had forced Harvas out of his strong position in the pass. Another might ruin him altogether. The soldiers were cheerful as they encamped for the night.

  As was his habit, Krispos picked a line at random and patiently advanced toward the cookpot at the end of it. Anthimos, with his love of rare delicacies, would have turned up his toes at army fare. Used to worse for much of his life, Krispos minded it not at all. Peas, beans, onions, and cheese made a savory stew, enlivened, as it had seldom been in his peasant days, with small chunks of salty sausage and beef. He slapped his stomach and raised a belch. The men around him laughed. They knew they ate better because he shared their food.

  After he had eaten, Krispos walked along the lines of tethered horses, stopping to chat now and then with a trooper grooming his mount or prying a pebble out from under a horseshoe. His years as a groom after he came to Videssos the city made him easy with horsy talk, though he was not one of the fairly common breed who cared for nothing else by day or night. For the most part, the men treated their animals well; their lives might depend on keeping the beasts in good condition.

  The short, full darkness of summer night had fallen by the time Krispos made his way back to his own tent, which stood, as always, in the center of the camp. The Haloga guardsmen in front of it came to attention as he approached. “As you were,” he said, and ducked through the flap. Unlike the heavy canvas under which most of the troopers sweltered, his summer tent was of silk. He got whatever breeze there was. Tonight there was no breeze.

  He was not ready to sleep yet, not quite. He sat down in a folding chair of wood and wicker, set his chin in his hand, and thought about what the coming days would bring. He no longer believed Harvas would be able to enspell his army this side of Pliskavos. He’d had to summon most of the sorcerous talent in the Empire to match the undying renegade, but he’d done it. He thought Harvas was beginning to understand that, too. If his magic would not serve him, that left his soldiers. Some time soon he might try battle. If he found a piece of ground that suited him—

  Outside the tent, the sentries shifted their weight. Their boots scuffed the dirt; their mail shirts rang softly. The small sounds so close by made Krispos glance up toward the entrance. His right hand stole toward the hilt of his saber. Then one of the sentries said, “How do we serve you, my lady?”

  In all the sprawling imperial camp, there was only one “my lady.” Tanilis said, “I would speak with his Majesty, if he will see me.”

  One of the guardsmen stuck his head into the tent. Before he could speak Krispos said, “Of course I will see the lady.” He felt his heartbeat shift from walk to trot. However they rode durin
g the day, Tanilis had not come to his tent at night before.

  The guard held the flap wide for her. Silk rustled as it fell after she came in. Krispos got to his feet, taking a step toward a second chair so he could unfold it for her. Before he reached it, Tanilis went smoothly to her knees and then to her belly. Her forehead touched the ground in the most graceful act of proskynesis he had ever seen.

  He felt his face grow hot. “Get up,” he said, his voice so soft the guards could not listen but rough with emotions he was still sorting through. “It’s not right—not fitting—for you to prostrate yourself before me.”

  “And wherefore not, Your Majesty?” she asked as she rose with the same liquid elegance she had used in the proskynesis. “You are my Avtokrator; should I not grant you the full honor your station deserves?”

  He opened the other chair. She sat in it. He went back to the one in which he had been sitting. His thoughts refused to muster themselves into any kind of order. At last he said, “It’s not the same. You knew me before I was Emperor. By the lord with the great and good mind, my lady, you knew me before I was much of anything.”

  “I gave you leave long ago, as a friend, to call me by my name. I could scarcely deny my Emperor the same privilege.” A tiny smile tugged up the corners of Tanilis’ mouth. “And you seem to have become quite a lot of something, if I may take a friend’s privilege and point it out.”

  “Thank you.” Krispos spoke carefully, to ensure that he did not stammer. Being with Tanilis took him back to the days when he had been more nearly boy than man. He did not want to show that, not to her of all people. Now he made himself think clearly and said, “And thank you also for making sure I left Opsikion—and you—that spring, whether I wanted to or not.”

  She inclined her head to him. “Now you have come into a man’s wisdom, to see why I did as I did. I could tell that Opsikion was too small for you—and I, at the time I was rather too large. You were not yet what you would become.”

  Her words so paralleled his own thoughts that he nodded in turn. As he did, he gazed at her. She had held her beauty well enough to remain more than striking even in harshest daylight. Lamps were kinder; now she seemed hardly to have aged a day.

  Seeing her, hearing her, also reminded him of how they had spent a good part of their time together. He’d gone on campaign before without seriously wanting to bring a woman into his tent to keep his cot warm. Part of that, he admitted to himself with a wry grin, was nervousness about Dara. But another part, a bigger part, came from fondness for his wife.

  Now he found he wanted Tanilis. None of what he felt for Dara had gone away. It just did not seem relevant anymore. He’d known Tanilis, known her body, long before he’d ever imagined he would meet Dara. Wanting to take her to bed again did not feel like being unfaithful; it felt much more like picking up an old friendship.

  He did not stop to wonder what his taking Tanilis to bed would feel like to Dara. He got up, stretched, and walked over to the map table in one corner of the tent. Videssos had not ruled in Kubrat for three hundred years; the imperial archives nevertheless held detailed if archaic maps of the land, stored against the day when it might become a province of the Empire once more.

  But he only glanced at the ragged parchment with its ink going brown and pale from age. He stretched again, then walked about as if at random. It was no accident, though, that he ended up behind Tanilis’ chair. He rested a hand on her shoulder.

  She twisted her head up and back to look at him. Her small smile grew. She made a pleased noise, almost a purr, deep in her throat. Her hand covered his. Her skin was smooth, her flesh soft. A ruby ring on her index finger caught the dim lamplight and glowed like warm blood.

  Krispos bent down and lightly kissed her. “Like old times,” he said.

  “Aye, like old times.” Her pleased purr got louder. Her eyes were almost all pupil. Then, suddenly, those huge eyes seemed to be looking past Krispos, or through him. “For a little while,” she said in a voice altogether different from the one she’d used a moment before. That distant expression faded before Krispos was quite sure he’d seen it. Her voice returned to normal, too, or better than normal. “Kiss me again,” she told him.

  He did, gladly. When the kiss ended, she got to her feet. Afterward he was never sure which of them took the first step toward the cot. She pulled her robe over her head, slid out of her drawers, and lay down to wait while he undressed. She did not wait long. “Do you want to blow out the lamps?” she whispered.

  “No,” he answered as softly. “For one thing, it would tell the guardsmen just what we’re doing. For another, you’re beautiful and I want to see you.” Even more than her face, her body had retained its youthful tautness.

  Her eyes lit. “No wonder I recall you so happily.” She held up her arms to him. He got down beside her.

  The cot was narrow for two; the cot, in truth, was narrow for one. They managed all the same. Tanilis was as Krispos remembered her, or even more so, an all but overwhelming blend of passion and technique. Soon his own excitement drove memory away, leaving only the moment.

  Even after they were spent, they lay entangled—otherwise one of them would have fallen off the cot. Tanilis’ hand stole down his side and stroked him with practiced art. “Another round?” she murmured, her breath warm in his ear.

  “In a bit, maybe,” he answered after taking stock of himself. “I’m older than I was when I visited Opsikion, you know. I wasn’t spending long days in the saddle then, either.” One of his eyebrows quirked upward against the velvety skin of her throat. “At least, not on horseback.”

  She bit him in the shoulder, hard enough to hurt. He started to yelp, but checked himself in time. The small pain seemed to spur him, though; sooner than he had expected, he found himself rising to the occasion once more. Tanilis let out a voiceless sigh as they began again.

  From outside the tent one of the guardsmen called, “Majesty, a courier is here with a dispatch from the city.”

  Krispos did his best not to hear the Haloga. “Don’t be foolish,” Tanilis said; she retained as much self-control as Krispos remembered. She made a small pushing motion against his chest. “Go on; see what news the rider brings. I’ll be here when you get back.”

  Knowing she was right helped only so much. More than a little grumpily, he separated from her, climbed off the cot, dressed, and went out into the night. “Here you are, Your Majesty,” the courier said, handing him a sealed roll of parchment. After a salute, the fellow twitched his mount’s reins and headed out toward the long lines of tethered horses.

  Krispos ducked back into the tent. As he did so, his cheeks started to flame. The Halogai had never been shy about sticking their heads inside when they needed him to come out. If they called now, it had to be because they knew what he was doing in there. “Oh, to the ice with it,” he muttered. The longer he ruled, the more resigned he became to having no privacy.

  The sight of Tanilis waiting for him drove such minor annoyances clean out of his mind. He yanked off his robe and let it fall to the ground. Tanilis frowned. “The dispatch—”

  “Whatever it is, it will keep long enough.”

  She lowered her eyes in acquiescence. “Then hurry here, Your Majesty.” Krispos hurried.

  Afterward, languid, he wanted to forget about the roll of parchment, but he knew Tanilis would think less of him for that—and he would think less of himself when morning came. He got into his robe again and broke the seal on the message. Tanilis projected an air of silent approval as she, also, put her clothes back on.

  His impatient thoughts full of her, he hadn’t bothered to hold the dispatch up to a lamp to find out who’d sent it. Now, as he read the note inside, he learned: “The Empress Dara to her husband Krispos, Avtokrator of the Videssians: Greetings. Yesterday I gave birth to our second son, as Mavros’ mother Tanilis foretold. As we agreed, I’ve named him Evripos. He is large and seems healthy, and squalls at all hours of the day and night. The birth was h
ard, but all births are hard. The midwife acts pleased with him and me both. The good god grant that you are soon here in the city once more to see him and me.”

  Krispos had felt no guilt before. Now it all crashed down on him at once. When he said nothing for some time, Tanilis asked, “Is the news so very bad, then?” Wordlessly he passed the letter to her. She read quickly and without moving her lips, something Krispos still found far from easy. “Oh,” was all she said when she was done.

  “Yes,” Krispos said: only two words between them, but words charged with a great weight of meaning.

  “Shall I come here to your tent no more then, Your Majesty?” Tanilis asked, her voice all at once cool and formal.

  “That might be best,” Krispos answered miserably.

  “As you wish, Your Majesty. Do recall, though, that you knew of the Empress’—your wife’s—condition before this dispatch arrived. I grant that knowing and being reminded are not the same, but you had the knowledge. And now, by your leave—” She tossed Dara’s letter onto the cot, strode briskly to the tent flap, ducked through it, and walked away.

  Krispos stared after her. Minutes before they had been gasping in each other’s arms. He picked up the letter to read it again. He had another son, and Dara was well. Good news, every bit of it. Even so, he crumpled the parchment into a ball and flung it to the ground.

  SCOUTS PUSHED AHEAD BEFORE DAWN THE NEXT MORNING, probing to make sure no ambushes lay ahead of the imperial army. The main force soon followed, a long column with its supply wagons, protected by a sizable knot of mounted men, rattling along in the middle.

  The unwieldy arrangement never failed to make Krispos nervous. “If Harvas had even a few Kubrati horse-archers on his side, he could give us no end of grief,” he remarked to Bagradas, who led the force guarding the baggage train. Concentrating on the army’s affairs helped Krispos keep his mind off his own, and off the fact that today Tanilis had chosen not to ride beside him, but rather with the rest of the magicians.