Krispos the Emperor (61 page)

"That's all true enough," Olyvria said.

"In fact," Phostis went on, "following the gleaming path is almost like getting caught up in a new love affair, where you just notice everything that's good and kind about the person you love, but none of the flaws."

Olyvria gave him an unfathomable look. His analogy pleased him so much that he wondered what was troubling her until she asked, in rather a small voice, "And what does that say about us?"

"It says—uh—" Feeling his mouth hanging foolishly open, Phostis shut it. He kept it shut while he did some hard thinking. At last, much less sure of himself than he had been a moment before, he answered, "I think it says that we can't afford to take us for granted, or to think that, because we're happy now, we're always going to be happy unless we work to make that happen. The romances talk a lot about living happily ever after, but they don't say how it's done. We have to find that out for ourselves."

"I wish you'd stop poking fun at the romances, seeing as we're living one," Olyvria said, but she smiled to take any sting from her words. "Other than that, though, you make good sense. You seem to have a way of doing that."

"Thank you," he said seriously. Then he reached out and poked her in the ribs. She squawked and whipped her head around, curls flying. He drew her to him and drowned the squawk in a kiss. When at last he had to breathe, he asked her softly, "How are we doing now?"

"Now, well." This time, she kissed him. "As for the rest, ask me in twenty years."

He glanced up, just for a moment, to make sure the door was barred. "I will."

Imperial crown heavy on his head. Krispos sat on the throne in the Grand Courtroom, awaiting the approach of the ambassador for Khatrish. In front of the throne stood Barsymes, Iakovitzes, and Zaidas. Krispos hoped the three of them would be enough to protect him from Tribo's pungent sarcasm.

The fuzzy-bearded envoy advanced down the long central aisle of the courtroom between ranks of courtiers who scorned him as both barbarian and heretic. He managed to give the impression that their scorn amused him, which only irked them the more.

He prostrated himself at the proper place before Krispos' throne. Krispos had debated whether to have the throne rise while Tribo's head rested on the gleaming marble floor. In the end, he'd decided against it.

As before, when Tribo rose, he asked, "Has the gearing broken down, your Majesty, or are you just not bothering?"

"I'm not bothering." Krispos swallowed a sigh. So much for the fond hope Avtokrators nursed of overawing envoys from less sophisticated lands. He inclined his head to Tribo. "I've waited in eager curiosity for your words since you requested this audience, honored ambassador."

"You're wondering how I'll get on your nerves now, you mean." Mutters rose at Tribo's undiplomatic language. By his foxy grin, he reveled in them. But when he resumed, he spoke more formally: "I am bidden by the puissant khagan Nobad son of Gumush to extend Khatrish's congratulations to your Majesty for your victory over the Thanasiot heretics."

"The puissant khagan is gracious," Krispos said.

"The puissant khagan, for all his congratulations, is unhappy with your Majesty," Tribo said. "You've put out the fire in your own house, but sparks caught in the thatch of ours, and they're liable to burn down the roof. We still have plenty of trouble from the Thanasioi in Khatrish."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Krispos reflected that he wasn't even lying. Just as Videssian Thanasioi had spread the heresy to Khatrish. so foreign followers of the gleaming path might one day bring it back to the Empire. Krispos resumed, "I don't know what the khagan would have me do now, though, beyond what I've already done here in my own realm."

"He thinks it hardly just for you to export your problems and then forget about them when they trouble you no more," Tribo said.

"What would he have me do?" Krispos repeated. "Shall I ship imperial troops to your ports to help your soldiers root out the heretics? Shall I send in priests I reckon orthodox to uphold the pure and true doctrines?"

Tribo made a sour face. "Shall Videssos swallow up Khatrish, you mean. Thank you, your Majesty, but no. If I said aye to that, my khagan would likely tie me between horses and whip them to a gallop, one going one way and one the other ... unless he paused to think up a truly interesting and creative end for me. Khatrish has been free of the imperial yoke for more than three hundred years. For reasons you may not understand. we'd sooner keep it that way."

"As you will," Krispos said. "Your land and mine are at peace, and I'm happy with that. But if you don't want our warriors and you don't want our priests, honored ambassador, what do you expect us to do about the Thanasioi in Khatrish?"

"You ought to pay us an indemnity for inflicting the heresy on us," Tribo said. "The gold would help us take care of the problem for ourselves."

Krispos shook his head. "If we'd deliberately set the Thanasioi on you, that would be a just claim. But Videssos just fought a war to put them down here: we didn't want them around, either. I'm sorry they spread to Khatrish, but it was no fault of ours. Shall I bill the puissant khagan every time the Balancer heresy you love so well shows its head here in the Empire?"

"Your Majesty, I know you imperials have a saying, 'When in Videssos the city, eat fish.' But till now I hadn't known you hid a shark's dorsal fin under those fancy robes."

"From you, honored ambassador, that's high praise indeed," Krispos said, which only made Tribo look unhappier still. The Avtokrator went on, "Does your puissant khagan have any other business for you to set before me?"

"No, your Majesty," Tribo answered. "I shall convey to him your stubborn refusal to act as justice would dictate, and warn you that I cannot answer for the consequences."

From the Makuraner ambassador, that would have meant war. But Videssos badly outweighed Khatrish, and the two nations, despite bickering, had not fought for generations. So Krispos said, "Do tell his puissant self that I admire his gall, and that if I could afford to subsidize it, I would. As is, he'll just have to smuggle more and hope he makes it up that way."

"I shall convey your insulting and degrading remarks along with your refusal." Tribo paused. "He may take you up on that smuggling scheme."

"I know. I'll stop him if I can." Krispos mentally began framing orders for more customs inspectors and tighter vigilance along the Khatrisher border. All the same, he knew the easterners would get some untaxed amber through.

Tribo prostrated himself again, then rose and walked away from the throne backward until he'd withdrawn far enough to turn around without offending court etiquette. He was too accomplished a diplomat to do anything so rude as sticking his nose in the air as he marched off, but so accomplished a mime that he managed to create that impression without the reality.

The courtiers began streaming out after the ambassador left the Grand Courtroom. Their robes and capes of bright, glisten ing silk made them seem a moving field of springtime flowers.

Zaidas turned to Krispos and made small, silent clappiny motions. "Well done, your Majesty," he said. "It's not every day that the envoy from Khatrish, whoever he may be, leaves an audience in such dismay."

"Khatrishers are insolent louts with no respect for their betters," Barsymes said. 'They disrupt ceremonial merely for the sake of disruption." By his tone, the offense ranked somewhere between heresy and infanticide on his scale of enormities.

"I don't mind them that much," Krispos said. "They just have a hard time taking anything seriously." He'd lost his own war against ceremonial years before; if he needed a reminder, the weight of the crown on his head gave him one. Seeing other folk strike blows against the foe—the only foe, in the Empire or out of it that had overcome him—let him dream about renewing the struggle himself one day. He was, sadly, realist enough to know he did but dream.

Iakovitzes opened his table, plucked out a stylus, and wrote busily: "I don't like Khatrishers because they're too apt to cheat when they dicker with us. Of course, they say the same of Videssos."

"And they're probably as right as we are," Zaidas murmured.

Krispos suspected Iakovitzes didn't like Khatrishers because they took the same glee he did in flouting staid Videssian custom—and sometimes upstaged him while they were at it. That was something he wouldn't say out loud, for fear of finding out he was right and wounding Iakovitzes in the process.

The Grand Courtroom continued to empty. A couple of men came forward instead of leaving; they carried rolled and sealed parchments in their outstretched right hands. Haloga guardsmen kept them from getting too close. One of the northerners glanced back at Krispos. He nodded. The Haloga took the petitions and carried them over to him. They'd go into one of the piles on his desk. He wondered when he'd have the chance to read them.
They'll reach the top one of these days,
he thought.

The petitioners walked down the long aisle toward the doorway. Krispos rose, stretched, and descended the stairs from the throne. Iakovitzes wrote another note: "You know, it might not be so bad if the Thanasioi give the Khatrishers all the trouble they can handle and a bit more besides. Let Tribo say what he will; the day may come when the khagan really has to choose between going under and calling on Videssos for aid."

"That would be excellent," Barsymes said. "Krispos brought Kubrat back under Videssian rule; why not Khatrish, as well?"

Why not?
Krispos thought. Videssos had never abandoned her claim to Kubrat or Khatrish or Thatagush, all lands overwhelmed by Khamorth nomads off the plains of Pardraya three hundred years before. To restore two of them to the Empire ... he might go down in the chronicles as Krispos the Conqueror.

That, however, assumed the Khatrishers were ripe to be conquered. "I don't see it," Krispos said, not altogether regretfully. "Khatrish somehow has a way of fumbling through troubles and coming out on the other side stronger than it has any business being. They're more easygoing about their religion than we are, too, so heresy has a harder time inciting them."

"They certainly didn't—don't—care for the Thanasioi," Zaidas said. Krispos guessed the idea of conquest appealed to him, too.

"We'll see what happens, that's all," the Avtokrator said. "If it turns to chaos, we may try going in. We'd have to be careful even so, though, to make sure the Khatrishers don't unite again—against us. Nothing like a foreign foe to make the problems you have with your neighbors look small."

"Remember also, your Majesty, the Thanasioi dissemble," Barsymes said. "Even if the Khatrishers seem to put down the heresy of the gleaming path for the time being, it may yet spring to life a generation from now."

"A generation from now?" Krispos snorted. "Odds are that'll be Phostis' worry, not mine." A year before, the idea of passing the Empire on to his eldest—if Phostis was
his
eldest—had filled him with dread. Now ... "I expect he'll take care of it," he said.

Harry Turtledove has lived in Southern California all his life. He has a Ph.D. in history from UCLA and has taught at UCLA, California State. Fullerton, and California State University, Los Angeles. He has published in both history and speculative fiction. He is married to novelist Laura Frankos. They have three daughters: Alison. Rachel, and Rebecca.