Krispos the Emperor (46 page)

Maybe he frowned, for Olyvria said, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said, and then again, more firmly, "Nothing." Anthimos wasn't around any more to claim him and, even if Krispos never had quite warmed to him—all at once, he wondered if he saw a new reason for that—he'd named him junior Avtokrator before he was out of swaddling clothes. Krispos wouldn't dispossess him of the succession now, especially when he'd escaped from danger by his own efforts—and those of Olyvria.

She was looking off to starboard again. Land now was just a strip of green and occasional brown on the horizon there; they were too far out to sea to make out any detail. Smiling, she turned to Phostis. "If nothing's wrong, you can prove it."

He started to say, "How am I supposed to do that?" Before he got out more than a couple of words, she took off her hat. shook down her hair, and then pulled her tunic up over her head. Sure enough, he found a way to show her everything was all right.

"Your Majesty!" That was Zaidas, calling from outside the imperial pavilion before the army got moving on a day full of muggy heat. "I've news, your Majesty!"

Inside the pavilion, Krispos was wearing a decidedly unimperial pair of linen drawers and nothing more.
To the ice with ceremony,
he thought, and called, "Well, come in and tell it, then." He smiled at Zaidas' pop-eyed expression. "Never mind the proskynesis, sorcerous sir. Just brush aside the mosquito netting and let me know what you've learned."

Zaidas inhaled portentously. "May it please your Majesty, my sorcery shows your son Phostis has traveled from Etchmiadzin down to Pityos on the coast."

"Has he?" Krispos growled. As usual with news prefaced by that formula, it pleased him not at all. "Bloody good thing I ordered the fleet to Tavas, then. The only reason I can find for him to go down to the port is to try and forestall us. But Livanios sent him to the wrong place, by Phos." He smacked one fist into the other palm. "The Thanasioi have spies among us, sure enough, but they didn't learn enough, not this time."

"No, your Majesty," Zaidas agreed. He hesitated, then went on, "Your Majesty, I might add that Phostis' sorcerous trace, if you will forgive an inexact expression, has itself become inexact."

"More interference from that accursed Makuraner." Krispos made it statement, not question.

But Zaidas shook his head. "I think not, your Majesty. It's almost as if the trace is attenuated by—water, perhaps. I'm puzzled to come up with any other explanation, yet the heretics would scarcely send Phostis out by sea, would they?"

"Not a chance," Krispos said, his voice flat. "Livanios isn't such a fool; I wish to Phos he were. Keep searching. The lord with the great and good mind willing, you'll come up with something that makes better sense. Believe me, sorcerous sir, I still have full confidence in you."

"More than I have in myself sometimes." Zaidas shook his head. "I'll do my best for you."

Krispos started sweating hard as soon as he put on his gilded mail shirt. He sighed; summer felt as if it were here already. He went out to stand in line with the soldiers for his morning bowl of porridge. The cooks never knew which line he'd pick. The food in all of them was better for it. This morning, for instance, the barley porridge was thick with onions and cloves of garlic, and almost every spoonful had a bit of chopped ham with an intensely smoky flavor.

He emptied the bowl. "If I'd eaten this well on my farm, I'd never have wanted to come to Videssos the city," he remarked.

Several of the soldiers nodded. Life on a farm, as Krispos knew, was seldom easy. That was one of the big reasons men left the country: if nothing else, soldiers ate regularly. But while farm work was harder day in and day out, soldiers sometimes earned their keep harder than any man who lived off the land.

The army's discipline, not bad when the men set out from the capital, had improved steadily since. Everyone knew his place, and went to it with a minimum of fuss. The cooks' kettles went back onto the supply wagons, the troopers mounted their horses, and the army pushed on through the lowlands toward Tavas.

Krispos rode at the head of the main body, a few hundred yards behind the vanguard. Peasants looked up from the fields in wonder as he went by, as if he were some kind of being altogether different from themselves. Had Anthimos' father Rhaptes ever happened to parade past the village where Krispos had grown to manhood, he was sure he would have gaped the same way.

A little before noon, a messenger on a lathered, blowing horse caught up with the army from behind. The animal gulped in great draughts of air as the fellow brought it down to a slow trot beside the Avtokrator's horse. He pulled out a sealed tube of oiled leather and handed it to Krispos. "From the city, your Majesty."

The seal was a sunburst stamped into the sky-blue wax that was an imperial prerogative, which meant the dispatch came from Evripos. Krispos could think of only one reason why his son would send out an urgent message. Filled with foreboding, he broke the seal.

His son's script still retained some of the copybook clarity that years of quickly scribbling will erode. The words were as legible as they were unwelcome: "Evripos to his father. Greetings. Riots flared here night before last, and have grown worse rather than better since. Forces under my command are doing all they can to restore order. I shall send more news as it becomes available. Phos guard you and this city both. Farewell."

"Do you know anything of this?" Krispos asked the messenger, waving the parchment in his direction.

"No, your Majesty, I'm sorry but I don't," the man answered. "I'm but the latest of a string of relay riders. I hear tell from the fellow who gave me the tube that there's some sort of trouble back at the city. Is that so?"

"Aye, that's so," Krispos answered grimly. He'd known the Thanasioi might try that ploy to distract him and, prepared for it as well as he could. Whether
well as he could
was
well enough
would come clear before long.

Then he thought of something else, something that chilled him: was Phostis on the sea to go to the capital and lead the rioters against loyal troops? If he was, he might throw the city into worse turmoil than even Krispos had expected.
Have to warn Evripos about that,
the Avtokrator thought.

"Is there a reply, your Majesty?" the messenger asked.

"Yes, by the good god, there is," Krispos said. But before he could give it, another dispatch rider rode up on an abused horse and waved a message tube in his face. He didn't like the fearful look in the newcomer's eyes. "Rest easy there, you. I've never been in the habit of blaming the messenger for the word he brings."

"Aye, your Majesty," the second rider said, but he didn't sound convinced. He thrust out the message tube as if it held poison.

Krispos took it, then asked, "You know what's in it?" The messenger nodded. Krispos said, "Speak it to me plain, then. By the lord with the great and good mind, I swear no harm nor blame shall fall on you because of it."

He'd never seen a man who so obviously wanted to be somewhere, anywhere, else. The dispatch rider licked his lips, looked this way and that, but found no escape. He sucked in a deep breath, then let it all out in five blurted words: "Your Majesty, Garsavra is fallen."

"What?" Krispos gaped at him, more in disbelief than horror. So did everyone close enough to hear. Lying where the Eriza and Arandos rivers came together, Garsavra was one of the two or three greatest towns in the westlands. The army was already west of it; they'd forded the northern reaches of the Eriza day before yesterday.

Krispos opened the message tube. It confirmed what the dispatch rider had said, and added details. Outriding news of their coming, the Thanasioi had swept down on the town at sunrise. They'd burned and killed and maimed; they'd thrown the local prelate headfirst off the roof of the temple by the central square, then set fire to the building. Few survivors would have their souls burdened by a surplus of material goods for years to come.

Krispos stared at the parchment in his left hand. He wanted to tear it into a thousand pieces. With a deliberate effort of will, he checked himself: some of the information it held might be valuable. As steadily as he could, he told the messenger, "You have my thanks for your courage in bringing this to me. What is your rank?"

"I'm on the books as a file closer, your Majesty," the man answered.

"You're a file leader now," Krispos told him.

One of the scouts from the vanguard came riding back to the main body. He waited to catch Krispos' eye, then said, "May it please your Majesty, we've rounded up a Thanasiot riding at us under shield of truce. He says he bears a message for you from Livanios."

Too much was falling on Krispos too fast. He had the feeling of a tavern juggler who has reached out for one plate he's tossed away, only to have all the others that were up in the air smash down on his head before he can snatch back his hand. "Bring me this Thanasiot," he said heavily. "Tell him I'll honor his truce sign, which is likely more courtesy than he'd give to one of ours. Tell him just that way."

The scout saluted and rode ahead. He came back a few minutes later with one of Livanios' irregulars. The Thanasiot carried a white-painted round target on his left arm. He smiled at Krispos' somber face and said, "I'd wager you have the news already. Am I right, friend?"

"I'm no friend of yours," Krispos said. "Give me your master's message."

The Thanasiot handed him a tube no different from those he'd had from his own couriers save in the seal: the image of a leaping flame stamped into scarlet wax. Krispos broke it and angrily threw the little pieces of wax down onto the ground. The parchment inside was sealed with the identical mark. Krispos cracked it. unrolled the parchment, and scanned the message it contained:

Livanios who treads the gleaming path to the false Avtokrator and servant of Skotos Krispos: Greetings. Know that I write this from the ruins of Garsavra, which city has been purified and cleansed of its sinful materialism by warriors true to the lord with the great and good mind. Know further that all cities of the westlands are liable to the same penalty, which Phos' soldiers may deliver at any time which suits them.

And know further, miscalled ruler destined for the ice, your corrupt and gold-bloated regime is henceforward and ever after banished from these westlands. If you would preserve even a fragment of your illicit and tyrannical rule, withdraw at once over the Cattle-Crossing, yielding this land to those who shall hold it in triumph, peace, and piety. Repent of your wealth and other sins before Phos' final judgment descends upon you. Cast aside your greed and surrender yourself to the gleaming path. I am yours in Phos. Farewell.

Krispos slowly and deliberately crumpled the parchment, then turned to the Thanasiot messenger and said, "My reply is one word: no. Take it and be thankful your life goes with it."

"I don't fear death—death liberates me from Skotos," the messenger retorted. "You call down doom on your own head." He twitched the reins, dug his heels into his horse's sides, and rode away singing a hymn.

"What did the whoreson want of you?" Sarkis asked. When Krispos told him, his fleshy face darkened with anger. "By the good god, a bragging fool ought to know better than to taunt a force that's bigger than his, especially when we stand closer to Etchmiadzin than he does."

"Maybe we stand closer to it," Krispos said bleakly. "You've said all along Livanios is no fool. Surely he'll have withdrawn after the rape of Garsavra. I don't want to chase him back to his stronghold; I want to force him to battle outside of it."

"How do you propose to do that?" Sarkis said. "The cursed Thanasioi move faster than we; they aren't even burdened by loot, because they burn it instead of carrying it along with them."

"I know." Krispos' scowl was black as winter midnight. "I suppose you were right before, though: We have to try. Livanios can't be smart all the time—I hope. If we march smartly, we may come to grips with him up on the plateau. Worth a try, anyhow."

"Aye." Sarkis nodded vigorously. "Our cavalry at Tavas can hold its own against anything the Thanasioi have around there—and now we know where their main force has been lurking."

"So we do," Krispos said. "It's a bloody big cloud for such a thin silver lining." He leaned over, spat down onto the ground as if in ritual rejection of Skotos, then began issuing the orders that would shift the army's line of march from the coast and up into the central highlands. Changing the troops' destination was the easy part. Making sure they would have food and their animals fodder along the new track was much more involved.

What with everything that came after, he forgot to send Evripos a reply.

Phostis guided the fishing boat up to the little quay from which his father would row out to see what he could catch. He threw out a line, scrambled up onto the dock, and made the boat fast.

He was just helping Olyvria up onto the planks when an indignant palace servitor opened the seawall gate and exclaimed, "Here, who do you think you are? This dock's not for just anyone. It's reserved for the Avtokrator, Phos bless him, so you can kindly take your smelly little boat somewhere else."

"It's all right, Soranos," Phostis answered. "I don't think Father will mind."

He wasn't in the least put out that Soranos hadn't recognized him. He was grimy, shaggy, wearing a cheap, ragged long tunic, and sunburned. In fact, he was sunburned in some tender spots under the tunic, too, thanks to frolicking with