Krispos the Emperor (55 page)

"Come on, move!" a soldier shouted, with the air of a man who's already shouted the same thing twenty times and expects to shout it another twenty before the day is through.

The woman in faded gray wool, her head covered by a white scarf, sent the horseman a look of hatred. Back bent under the bundle she bore, she trudged away from the thatch-roofed hut that had housed her since she wed, away from the village that had housed her family for untold generations. Tears carved tracks through the dust on her cheeks. "The good god curse you to the ice forever," she snarled.

The imperial trooper said, "If I had a goldpiece for every time I've been cursed these past weeks, I'd be rich enough to buy this whole province."

"And heartless enough to rule it," the peasant woman retorted.

To her obvious dismay, the trooper thought that was funny: Having no choice—the soldier and his comrades confronted the villagers with sabers and drawn bows and implacable purpose—she kept walking, three children trailing behind her, and then her husband, who carried an even bigger pack on his back and held lead ropes for a couple of scrawny goats.

Phostis watched the family join the stream of unwilling peasants shambling east. Soon they were gone from sight, as one drop of water loses itself in a river. For a little while longer, he could hear the goats bleating. Then their voices, too, were lost amid murmurs and complaints and lowing cattle and creaking axles from richer farmers' carts and the endless shuffle of feet.

This had to be the dozenth village he'd watched empty. He wondered why he kept making himself witness the process over and over again. The best answer he came up with was that he was partly responsible for what was happening to these people, and so he had the obligation to understand it to the fullest, no matter how pained and uncomfortable it made him.

That afternoon, as the sun sank toward the not so distant mountains of Vaspurakan, he rode with another company that descended on another village. As the peasants were forcibly assembled in the marketplace, a woman screamed, "You have no right to treat us so. We're orthodox, by the good god. This for the gleaming path!" She spat in the dust.

"Is that so?" Phostis worriedly asked the officer in charge of the company.

"Young Majesty, you just wait till they're all gathered here and then you'll see for yourself," the captain answered.

The people kept coming until at last the village marketplace was full. Phostis frowned. He told the officer, "I don't see anything that makes them look either orthodox or Thanasiot."

"You don't know what to look for, then," the man replied. He waved at the glum crowd. "Do you see more men or women, young Majesty?"

Phostis hadn't noticed one way or the other. Now he examined villagers with a new eye. "More women, I'd say."

"I'd say so, too, young Majesty," the captain said, nodding. "And note the men, how many of them are either graybeards or else striplings with the down just sprouting on their cheeks and chins. Not a lot of fellows in their prime, are there? Why do you suppose that is?"

Phostis studied the shouting, sweating crowd once more. "I see what you're saying. Why, though?"

The officer glanced upward for a moment, perhaps in lieu of calling the heir to the imperial throne dense. "Young Majesty, it's on account of most of the men in their prime were in Livanios' army, and we either killed 'em or caught 'em. So you can believe that skirt is orthodox if you choose, but me, I have to doubt it."

Orthodox or heretic—and Phostis found the company commander's logic compelling—the villagers, carrying and leading what they could, shuffled away on the first stage of their journey to new homes at the far end of the Empire. Some of the company quartered themselves in abandoned houses. Phostis went back with the rest to the main imperial camp.

The place was becoming more like a semipermanent town than the encampment of an army on the march. Krispos' men fanned out from it every day to resettle villagers who followed—or might follow—the gleaming path. Supply wagons rumbled in every day—with occasional lapses as unsubdued Thanasioi raided them—to keep the army fed. Tents were not pitched at random, but in clumps with ways—almost streets—through them. Phostis had no trouble finding his way to the tent he shared with Olyvria.

When he ducked through the flap, she was lying on her bedroll. Her eyes were closed, but came open as soon as he walked in, so he did not think she'd been asleep. "How are you?" she asked listlessly.

"Worn," he answered. "Saying you're going to resettle some peasants is one thing; it sounds simple and practical enough. But seeing what it entails—" He shook his head. "Ruling is a hard, cruel business."

"I suppose so." Olyvria sounded indifferent.

Phostis asked, "How are
you?"
She'd wept through the night when she learned her father's fate. In the days since then, she'd been like this—very quiet, more than a little withdrawn from what happened around her. He hadn't touched her, except accidentally, since he'd held her while she cried herself out that night.

Now she answered, "All right," as she had whenever he'd asked her since then. The response was as flat and unemphatic as everything else she'd said lately.

He wanted to shake her, to force some life into her. He did not think that was a good idea. Instead, he unrolled his own blanket. Under a surcoat, his mail shirt jingled as he sat down beside her. He said, "How are you really?"

"All right," she repeated, as indifferently as before. But now a small spark came into her eyes. "I'll truly be all right in time; I'm sure I will. It's just that... my life has turned upside down these past weeks. No, even that's not right. First it turned upside down—I turned it upside down—and then it flipped again, when, when—"

She didn't go on, not with words, but she started to cry again, as she had not done since Krispos, sparing Phostis that duty, brought her word of what he'd ordered done to Livanios. Phostis thought there might be healing in these tears. He held his arms open, hoping she would come to him. After a few seconds, she did.

When she was through, she dried her eyes on the fabric of his surcoat. "Better?" he asked, patting her back as if she were a child.

"Who can say?" she answered. "I made the choice; I have to live with it. I love you. Phostis, I do, but I hadn't thought through everything that might happen after I got onto that fishing boat with you. My father—" She started to cry again.

"That would have happened anyhow, I think," he said. "You didn't have anything to do with it. Even when we were on the worst of terms—which seemed like much of the time—I knew my father did what he did well. I doubt the Thanasioi would have won the civil war even with us, and if they lost it ... Early in his reign, my father paid a price for showing his enemies more mercy than they deserved. One of the things that set him apart from most people is that he learns from his mistakes. He gives rebels no second chance these days."

"But my father wasn't just a rebel," she said. "He was my father."

To that, Phostis had no good answer. Luckily for him, he didn't have to grope for a poor one. From outside the tent, a Haloga guard called, "Young Majesty, here's a man would have speech with you."

"I'm coming," Phostis answered. To Olyvria, he added in a low voice, "Probably a messenger from my father. Who else would disturb me?"

He climbed to his feet. Tired as he was, the iron he wore felt doubly heavy. He blinked against the bright afternoon sunshine as he stepped outside, then stopped in surprise and horror. "You!" he gasped.

"You!" Syagrios roared. The ruffian wore a long-sleeved tunic to cover the knife he'd strapped to his forearm. He flipped it into his hand now, and stabbed Phostis in the belly with it before the Haloga guard could spring between them.

As Phostis remembered, Syagrios was strong as a bear. He cried out when the tip of the knife bit him and grabbed Syagrios' right arm with both hands.

"I'll get you," Syagrios panted. "I'll get you and then I'll get that little whore you're swiving. I'll—"

Phostis never did find out what Syagrios would do next. The guardsman's frozen surprise did not last longer than a heartbeat. Syagrios screamed hoarsely as the Haloga's axe went into his back. He broke free of Phostis and whirled, trying to come to grips with the northerner. The Haloga struck him again, this time full in the face. Blood sprayed over Phostis. Syagrios crumpled. The guardsman methodically smote him again and again until he stopped twitching.

Olyvria burst out of the tent, a knife in her hand, her eyes wild. The guardsman, however, needed no help. Olyvria gulped at Syagrios' dreadful wounds. Though an officer's daughter, she wasn't altogether accustomed to fighting's grim aftermath.

Then the Haloga turned to Phostis. "Are you yet hale, young Majesty?"

"I don't know." Phostis yanked up his mail shirt and surcoat together. He had a bleeding scratch a couple of inches above his navel, but nothing worse. He let the mail shirt fall back down with a clink of iron rings.

"Aye, here we are. Look, young Majesty." The northerner poked the mail shirt with a forefinger. "You had luck with you. The knife went into a ring—see the bright cuts here and here? It went in, but could go no farther. Had it slid between two rings, more of your gore would have spilled."

"Yes." Phostis started to shake. So much luck in life—a fingernail's breadth to either side and he'd be lying on the ground beside dead Syagrios, trying to hold his guts in. Maybe a healer-priest would have been able to save him, but he was ever so glad he didn't have to make the test. He told the guard, "My thanks for slaying him, Viggo."

The Haloga guardsman looked disgusted with himself. "I should never have let him draw near enough to stab you. I thank the gods you were not worse hurt." He lifted Syagrios' corpse by the heels and dragged it away. The ruffian's blood soaked blackly into the thirsty soil.

By then, curious and concerned faces pressed close; the fight and the outcries had raised a crowd as if by magic. Phostis waved to show he was all right. "No harm done," he called, "and the madman got what he deserved." He pointed to the trail Syagrios left behind, as if he were a snail filled with blood rather than slime. The soldiers cheered.

Phostis waved again, then ducked back into the tent. Olyvria followed. Phostis looked again at the little cut he'd taken. He didn't require much imagination to make it bigger in his mind's eye. If the knife had slipped between rings, or if he'd taken off the mail shirt, the better to comfort Olyvria ... He shuddered. He didn't even want to think about that.

"I fought with him during the battle," he said. "I guessed he'd flee, but he must have been wild for revenge."

"You never wanted to cross Syagrios," Olyvria agreed soberly. "And—" She hesitated, then went on, "And I'd known he wanted me for a long time."

"Oh." Phostis made a sour face at that. But it made sense— how doubly mortifying and infuriating to be struck down by someone you lusted after. "No wonder he didn't run, then." His laugh was shaky. "I wish he would have—he came too close to getting his vengeance and letting the air out of me in the process."

Katakolon stuck his head into the tent. "Ah. good, you still have your clothes on," he said. "Father's right behind me, and I don't suppose you'd care to be caught as I was."

Before Phostis could do more than gape at that or ask any of the myriad questions that suggested themselves, Krispos came in. "I'm glad you're all right," he said, folding Phostis into a bear hug. When he let Phostis go, he stood back and eyed him quizzically. "Someone didn't care for you there, son."

"No, he didn't," Phostis agreed. "He helped kidnap me—" He watched Krispos, but the Avtokrator's eyes never moved toward Olyvria: discipline and style. "—and he was my, I guess you'd say keeper, in Etchmiadzin. He couldn't have been very happy when I escaped."

"Your keeper, eh? So that was Syagrios?" Krispos asked.

Phostis nodded, impressed at his memory for detail. He said, "He was a bad man, but not of the worst. He played the board game well, and he drew the arrow from my shoulder when I got shot while I was along with the Thanasiot raiding party."

"A slim enough eulogy, but the best he'll get, and likely better than he deserves, too," Krispos said. "If you think I'll say I'm sorry he's gone, you can think again: good riddance, say I. I just praise the good god that you weren't hurt." He embraced Phostis again.

"I'm glad you're not ventilated, too," Katakolon said. "It's good having you back, especially in one piece." He ducked to get out of the tent. Krispos followed a moment later.

"What was that your brother said about getting caught with his clothes off?" Olyvria kept her voice low so no one but Phostis would hear, but she couldn't stop the giggle that welled up from deep inside.

"I don't know," Phostis said. "As a matter of fact, I don't think I want to know. Knowing Katakolon, it was probably something spectacular. Sometimes I think he takes after Anthimos, even if—" He'd been about to say something like
even if I'm the one Anthimos might have fathered.
That was just what he didn't want to say to Olyvria.

"Even if what?" she asked.

"Even if Anthimos was four years dead before Katakolon was born," Phostis finished, more smoothly than he would have thought possible.

"Oh." Olyvria sounded disappointed, which meant his answer had convinced her. He nodded to himself. Krispos would have approved. And he'd lived through a completely unexpected attack. He approved of that himself.