Krispos the Emperor (58 page)

"Maybe," Olyvria said, her voice so neutral he couldn't tell whether she agreed with him or not.

We'll know twenty years from now,
he thought. Looking about as far ahead as he'd already lived felt strange, almost unnatural, to him, but he was beginning to do it. He didn't know whether that was because he'd started taking seriously the idea of ruling or simply because he was getting older.

Off to the north of Middle Street, between the Forum of the Ox and the plaza of Palamas, stood the huge mass of the High Temple. It was undamaged, not from any lack of malevolence on the part of the Thanasioi but because soldiers and ecclesiastics armed with stout staves had ringed it day and night until rioting subsided.

Phostis still felt uncomfortable as he rode past the High Temple: He looked on it as an enormous sponge that had soaked up endless gold that might have been better spent elsewhere. But he had returned to the faith that found deepest expression beneath that marvelous dome. He shook his head. Not all puzzles had neat solutions. This one, too, would have to wait for more years to do their work in defining his views.

The red granite facing of the government office building caught his eye and told him the plaza of Palamas was drawing near. Somewhere under there, in the jail levels below ground, Digenis the priest had starved himself to death.

"Digenis might have been right to be angry about how the rich have too much, but I don't think making everyone poor is the right answer," Phostis said to Olyvria. "Still, I can't hate him, not when I met you through him."

She smiled at that, but answered, "Aren't you putting your own affairs above those of the Empire there?"

He needed a moment to realize she was teasing. "As a matter of fact, yes," he said. "Or at least one affair. Katakolon's the fellow who keeps four of them in the air at the same time." She made a face at him, which let him think he'd come out best in that little skirmish.

Up ahead, a great roar announced that Krispos had entered the packed plaza of Palamas. With the Avtokrator marched servitors armed not with weapons but with sacks of gold and silver. Many an Emperor had kept the city mob happy with largess, and Krispos had shown over and over that he was able to profit from others' examples. Letting people squabble over money flung among them might keep them from more serious uprisings like the one Videssos the city had just seen.

Sky-blue ribbons—and Haloga guardsmen—kept the crowds from swamping the route the procession took to the western edge of the plaza. Krispos had ascended to a wooden platform whose pieces were stored in a palace outbuilding against time of need. Phostis wondered how many times Krispos had mounted that platform to speak to the people of the city.
Quite a few,
he thought.

He dismounted, then reached out to help Olyvria do the same. Grooms took their horses. Hand in hand, the two of them went up onto the platform themselves.

"It's a sea of people out there," Phostis exclaimed, looking out at the restless mass. Their noise rose and fell in almost regular waves, like the surf.

For the first time, Phostis had a chance to see that part of the procession which had been behind him. A parade was not a parade without soldiers. A company of Halogai marched around Krispos, Phostis, and Olyvria, for protection and show both. Behind them came several regiments of Videssians. some mounted, others afoot. They tramped along looking neither right nor left, as if the people of the city were not worth their notice. Not only were they part of the spectacle, they also served as a reminder that Krispos had powerful forces ready at hand should rioting break out again.

The Halogai formed up in front of the platform. The rest of the troops headed past the plaza of Palamas and into the palace quarter. Some had barracks there; others would be dismissed back to the countryside after the celebration was over.

Between one regiment and the next walked dejected Thanasiot prisoners. Some of them still showed the marks of wounds; none wore anything more than ragged drawers; all had their hands tied behind their backs. The crowd jeered them and pelted them with eggs and rotten fruit and the occasional stone.

Olyvria said, "A lot of Avtokrators would have capped this parade with a massacre."

"I know," Phostis said. "But Father has seen real massacres—ask him about Harvas Black-Robe some time. Having seen the beast, he doesn't want to give birth to it."

The prisoners took the same route out of the plaza as had the soldiers. Their fate would not be much different: they'd be sent off to live on the land with the rest of the uprooted Thanasioi, with luck in peace. Unlike the soldiers, though, they would get no choice about where they went.

Another contingent of Halogai entered the plaza of Palamas. The noise from the crowd grew quieter and took on a rougher edge. Behind the front of axe-bearing northerners rode Evripos. By the reaction, not everyone in Videssos the city was happy with the way he had put down the riots.

He rode as if blithely unaware of that, waving to the people as Krispos and Phostis had before him. The guardsmen who had surrounded him took their places with their countrymen while he climbed up to stand by Phostis and Olyvria.

Without turning his head toward Phostis, he said, "They're not pleased that I didn't give them all a kiss and send them to bed with a mug of milk and a spiced bun. Well, I wasn't any too pleased that they did their best to bring the city down around my ears."

"I can understand that," Phostis answered, also looking straight ahead.

Evripos' lip curled. "And you, brother, you come through this everyone's hero. You've married the beautiful girl, like someone out of a romance. Hardly seems fair, somehow." He did not try to hide his bitterness.

"To the ice with the romances," Phostis said, but that wasn't what was bothering Evripos, and he knew it.

The low-voiced argument stopped then, because someone else ascended to the platform: Iakovitzes, gorgeous in robes just short in imperial splendor. He would not make a speech, of course, not without a tongue, but he had served in so many different roles during Krispos' reign that excluding him would have seemed unnatural.

He smiled at Olyvria, politely enough but without real interest. As he walked past Phostis and Evripos toward Krispos, he managed to pat each of them on the behind. Olyvria's eyes went wide. The two brothers looked at Iakovitzes, looked at each other, and started to laugh. "He's been doing that for as long as we've been alive," Phostis said.

"For a lot longer than that," Evripos said. "Father always tells of how Iakovitzes tried to seduce him when he was a boy, and then later when he was a groom in Iakovitzes' service, and even after he donned the red boots."

"He knows we care nothing for men," Phostis said. "If we ever made as if we wanted to go along, the shock might kill him. He's anything but young, even if he dyes his hairs and powders over his wrinkles to try to hide his years."

"I don't think you're right, Phostis," Evripos said. "If he thought we wanted to go along, he'd have our robes up and our drawers down before we could say 'I was only joking.' "

Phostis considered. "You may have something there." On a matter like that, he was willing to concede a point to his brother.

Olyvria stared at both of them, then at Iakovitzes. "That's— terrible," she exclaimed. "Why does your father keep him around?"

She made the mistake of speaking as if Iakovitzes couldn't hear her. He strolled back toward her, smiling now in a way that said he meant mischief. Alarmed, Phostis tried to head him off. Iakovitzes opened the tablet he always carried, wrote rapidly on the wax, and showed it to Phostis. "Does she read?"

"Yes, of course she does," Phostis said, whereupon Iakovitzes pushed past him toward Olyvria, scribbling as he walked.

He handed her the tablet. She took it with some apprehension, read aloud: "His Majesty keeps me around, as you say. for two reasons: first, because I am slyer than any three men you can name, including your father before and after he lost his head; and second, because he knows I would never try to seduce any wives of the imperial family."

Iakovitzes' smile got wider, and therefore more unnerving. He took back the tablet and started away. "Wait," Olyvria said sharply. Iakovitzes turned back, stylus poised like a sting. Phostis started to step between them again. But Olyvria said, "I wanted to apologize. I was cruel without thinking."

Iakovitzes chewed on that. He scribbled again, then proffered the tablet to her with a bow. Phostis looked over her shoulder. Iakovitzes had written, "So was I, to speak of your father so. In my book, the honors—or rather, dishonors—are even."

To Phostis' relief, Olyvria said, "Let it be so." Generations of sharp wits had picked quarrels with Iakovitzes, generally to end up in disarray. Phostis was glad Olyvria did not propose to make the attempt.

Iakovitzes nodded and walked back to Krispos' side. The Avtokrator held up a hand, waited for quiet. It came slowly, but did at length arrive. Into it Krispos said, "Let us have peace: peace in Videssos the city, peace in the Empire of Videssos. Civil war is nothing the Empire needs. The lord with the great and good mind knows I undertook it unwillingly. Only when those who followed what they called the gleaming path rose in rebellion, first in the westlands and then here in Videssos the city, did I take up arms against them."

"Does that mean you father would have let the Thanasioi alone if they'd been quiet, peaceful heretics?" Olyvria asked.

"I don't know. Maybe," Phostis said. "He's never persecuted the Vaspurakaners, that's certain." Phostis puzzled over that: Krispos always said religious unity was vital to holding the Empire together, but he didn't necessarily practice what he preached. Was that hypocrisy, or just pragmatism? Phostis couldn't answer, not without more thought.

He'd missed a few sentences. Krispos was saying "—shall rebuild the city so that no one may know it has come to harm. We shall rebuild the fabric of our lives in the same fashion. It will not be quick, not all of it, but Videssos is no child, to need everything on the instant. What we do, we do for generations."

Phostis still had trouble thinking in those terms. Next year felt a long way away to him; worrying about what would happen when his grandchildren were old felt as strange as worrying about what was on the other side of the moon.

He'd fallen behind again. "—but so long as you live at peace with one another, you need not fear spies will seek you out to do you harm," Krispos declared.

"What about tax collectors?" a safely anonymous wit roared from the crowd.

Krispos took no notice of him. "People of the city," he said earnestly, "if you so choose, you can be at one another's throats for longer than you care to imagine. If you start feuds now, they may last for generations after you are gone. I pray to Phos this does not happen." He let iron show in his voice: "I do not intend to let it happen. If you try to fight among yourselves, first you must overcome the soldiers of the Empire.

I say this as warning, not as threat. My view is that we have had enough of strife. May we be free of it for years to come."

He did not say "forever," Phostis noted, and wondered why. He decided Krispos didn't believe such things endured forever. By everything the Avtokrator had shown, he worked to build a framework for what would come after him. but did not necessarily expect that framework to become a solid wall: he knew too well that history gave no assurance of success.

"We shall rebuild, as I said, and we shall go on," Krispos said. "Together, we shall do as well as we can for as long as we can. The good god knows we can do no more." He stepped back on the platform, his speech done.

Applause filled the plaza of Palamas, more than polite, less than ecstatic. Along with Olyvria and Evripos, Phostis joined it.
As well as we can for as long as we can,
he thought. If Krispos had picked a phrase to summarize himself, he couldn't have found a better one.

Though Krispos waved for him not to bother, Barsymes performed a full proskynesis. "I welcome you back to the imperial residence, your Majesty," he said from the pavement. Then, still spry, he rose as gracefully as he had prostrated himself and added, "The truth is, life is on the boring side here when you take the field."

Krispos snorted. "I'm glad to be back, then, if only to give you something interesting to do."

"The cooks are also glad you've returned," the vestiarios said.

"They're looking for a chance to spread themselves, you mean," Krispos said. "Too bad. They can wait until the next time I dine with Iakovitzes; he'll appreciate it properly. As for me, I've got used to eating like a soldier. A bowl of stew, a heel of bread, and a mug of wine will suit me nicely."

Barsymes' shoulders moved slightly in what would have been a sigh in someone less exquisitely polite than the eunuch. "I shall inform the kitchens of your desires," he said. "The cooks will be disappointed, but perhaps not surprised. You have a habit of acting thus whenever you return from campaign."

"Do I?" Krispos said, irked at being so predictable. He was tempted to demand a fancy feast just to keep people guessing about him. The only trouble was, he really did want stew.

Barsymes said, "Perhaps your Majesty will not take it too much amiss if the stew be of lobster and mullet, though I know that diverges from what the army cooks ladled into your bowl."