The Tale of Krispos (132 page)

The argument was ugly but potent. Olyvria bit her lip and looked to Phostis. He felt he was called to save her from some dreadful fate, even though she and Syagrios were in truth on the same side. He flung the best rhetorical brickbat he could find: “Saving others from sin doesn’t excuse sins of your own.”

“Boy, you can talk about sin when you find out what it is,” Syagrios said scornfully. “You’re as milk-fed now as when you came out from between your mother’s legs. And how do you think you got in there to come out, eh, if there’d been no heavy breathing awhile before?”

Phostis
had
thought about that, as uneasily as most people when making similar contemplations. He started to shoot back that his parents had been honestly married when he was conceived, but he wasn’t even sure of that. And rumor in the palace quarter said—whispered, when he was suspected of being in earshot—Krispos and Dara had been lovers while the previous Avtokrator—and Dara’s previous husband—Anthimos still held the throne. Glaring at Syagrios wasn’t the response Phostis would have liked to make, but seemed the best one available.

As wet will not stick to a duck’s oiled feather, so glares slid off Syagrios. He threw back his head and laughed raucously at Phostis’ discomfiture. Then he spun on his heel and swaggered away through the slush, as if to say Phostis wouldn’t know what to do with a chance to sin if one fell into his lap.

“Cursed ruffian,” Phostis growled—but softly, so Syagrios would not hear. “By the good god, he knows enough of sin to spend eternity in the ice; the gleaming path should be ashamed to call him its own.”

“He’s not a Thanasiot, not really, though he’ll quarrel over the workings of the faith like any Videssian.” Olyvria’s voice was troubled, as if she did not care for the admission she was about to make. “He’s much more a creature of my father’s.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” Phostis freighted the words with as much irony as they would bear. Only after they had passed his lips did he wish he’d held them in. Railing at Livanios would not help him with Olyvria.

She sounded defensive as she answered, “Surely Krispos also has men to do his bidding, no matter what it may be.”

“Oh, he does,” Phostis said. “But he doesn’t wrap himself in piety while he’s about it.” In some surprise, he listened to himself defending his father. This wasn’t the first time he’d had good things to say about Krispos since he’d ended up in Etchmiadzin. He hadn’t had many when he was back in the imperial capital under Krispos’ eye—and his thumb.

Olyvria said, “My father seeks to liberate Videssos so the gleaming path may become a reality for everyone. Do you deny it’s a worthy goal?”

He seeks power, like any other ambitious man,
Phostis thought. Before he could say it aloud, he started to laugh. Olyvria’s eyes raked him. “I wasn’t laughing at you,” he assured her quickly. “It’s just that we sound like a couple of little squabbling children: ‘My father can do this.’ ‘Well,
my
father can do that.’”

“Oh.” She smiled back, her good humor restored. “So we do. What would you rather talk about than what our fathers can do?”

The challenging way she threw the question at him reminded him of the first time he’d seen her, in the tunnel under Videssos the city. If he was to become a proper Thanasiot, as Olyvria had put it in her argument with Syagrios, he ought to have forgotten that, or at most remembered it as a test he’d passed. But he’d discovered before he ever heard of Thanasios that he did not have a temper approaching the monastic. He did not remember just the test; he remembered
her.

And so he did not answer in words. Instead, he reached out and slipped an arm around her waist. If she’d pulled back, he was ready to apologize profusely. He was even ready to produce a convincing stammer. But she didn’t pull back. Instead, she let him draw her to him.

In Videssos the city, they would have been nothing out of the ordinary: a young man and a young woman happy with each other and not paying much attention to anything else. Even in Etchmiadzin, a few people on the street smiled as they walked by. Others, though, glowered in pious indignation at such a public display of affection.
Crabs,
he thought.

After a few steps, though, Olyvria pulled away. He thought she’d seen the disapproving faces, too. But she said, “Strolling with you like this is very pleasant, but I can’t feel happy about pleasure, if you know what I mean, just after we’ve come away from the celebration of the Last Meal.”

“Oh. That.” As it has a way of doing, the wider world intruded itself on Phostis’ thoughts. He remembered the joy Laonikos and Siderina had shown when they swallowed the last wine and bread they would taste on earth. “It’s still hard to imagine that impinging on me. Like Syagrios, if in lesser measure, I fear I’m a creature of this world.”

“In lesser measure,” Olyvria agreed. “Well, so am I, if the truth be told. Maybe when I’m older the world will repel me enough to make me want to leave it, but for now, even if everything Thanasios says about it is true, I can’t force my flesh to turn altogether away from it.”

“Nor I,” Phostis said. The fleshly world intruded again, in a different way this time: He stepped up to Olyvria and kissed her. Her lips were for a moment still and startled under his; he was a little startled himself, because he hadn’t planned to do it But then her arms enfolded him as his did her. Her tongue touched his, just for a couple of heartbeats.

At that, they broke apart from each other, so fast Phostis couldn’t tell which of them drew back first. “Why did you do that?” Olyvria asked in a voice that was all breath.

“Why? Because—” Phostis stopped. He didn’t know why, not in the way he knew how mulberries tasted or where in Videssos the city the High Temple stood. He tried again: “Because—” Another stumble. Once more: “Because of all the folk in Etchmiadzin, you’re the only one who’s shown me any true kindness.” That was indeed part of the truth. The rest Phostis did not care to examine quite so closely; it was as filled with carnality as the upper part of his mind was with the notion that carnality and sinfulness were one and the same.

Olyvria considered what he’d said. Slowly she nodded. “Kindness is a virtue that moves you forward on the gleaming path, a reaching out from one soul to another,” she said. But her eyes slipped away from his as she spoke. He watched her lips. They seemed slightly softer, slightly fuller than they had before his touched them. He wondered if she, too, was having trouble reconciling what she believed with what she felt.

They walked on aimlessly for a while, not touching, both of them thoughtful. Then, over a low rooftop, Phostis saw the bulk of the fortress. “We’d better get back,” he said. Olyvria nodded, as if relieved to have a definite goal for her feet.

As if he were a conjured demon, Syagrios popped out of a wineshop not far outside the fortress’ walls. He might have started shirking his watchdog duties, but he didn’t want Livanios finding out about that. The ruffian glanced mockingly at the two of them. “Well, have you settled all the doings of the lord with the great and good mind?”

“That’s for Phos to do with us, not we with him,” Phostis said.

Syagrios liked that; his laugh blew grapey fumes into Phostis’ face. He pointed toward the gates. “Back to your cage now, and you can see how Phos settles you there.”

Phostis kept walking toward the fortress. He’d learned that giving any sign Syagrios’ jabs hurt guaranteed he’d keep getting them. As he went through the gates, he also noticed how much like home the fortress was becoming in his mind.
Just because it’s familiar doesn’t mean they can make you belong here,
he told himself.

But were they making him? He still hadn’t settled that question in his own mind. If he followed Thanasios’ gleaming path, oughtn’t he be here of his own free will?

In the inner yard, Livanios was watching some of his recruits throw javelins. The light spears thumped into bales of hay propped against the far wall. Some missed and bounced back.

Ever alert, Livanios turned his head to see who the newcomers were. “Ah, the young Majesty,” he said. Phostis didn’t care for the way he used the title; it was devoid even of scornful courtesy. The heresiarch sounded as if he wondered whether Phostis, instead of proving useful, might be turning into a liability. That made Phostis nervous. If he wasn’t useful to Livanios, how long would he last?

“Take him up to his chamber, Syagrios,” Livanios said; he might have been speaking of a dog, or of a sack of flour.

As the door to his little cell closed behind him, Phostis realized that, if he didn’t care to abandon his fleshly form as the Thanasioi advocated for their most pious folk, he might have to take some most un-Thanasiot actions. As soon as that thought crossed his mind, he remembered Olyvria’s lips sweet against his. The Thanasioi would not have approved of that, not even a little.

He also remembered whose daughter Olyvria was. If he tried to escape, would she betray him? Or might she help? He stamped on the cold floor. He just did not know.

Chapter
VIII

K
RISPOS WAS WADING THROUGH CHANGES IN A LAW THAT
dealt with tariffs on tallow imported from the northeastern land of Thatagush when Barsymes tapped at the open door of his study with one knuckle. He looked up. The vestiarios said, “May it please Your Majesty, a messenger from the mage Zaidas at the government office building.”

“Maybe it
will
please me, by the good god,” Krispos said. “Send him in.”

The messenger quickly prostrated himself, then said, “Your Majesty, Zaidas bids me tell you that he has at last succeeded in commencing a sorcerous interrogation of the rebel priest Digenis.”

“Has he? Well, to the ice with tallow.”

“Your Majesty?”

“Never mind.” The less the messenger knew about the dickering with Thatagush, the happier he’d be. Krispos got up and accompanied him out of the study and out of the imperial residence. Haloga guards fell in with him as he went down the broad steps outside. He felt a childish delight in having caught his parasol-bearers napping, as if he’d put one over on Barsymes.

He hadn’t gone to listen to Digenis since the day of Iakovitzes’ return. He’d seen no point to it: he’d already heard all the Thanasiot platitudes he could stomach, and Digenis refused to yield the truths he wanted to learn.

He was shocked at how the priest had wasted away. In his peasant days, he’d seen men and women lean with hunger after a bad harvest, but Digenis was long past leanness: everything between his skeleton and his skin seemed to have disappeared. His eyes shifted when Krispos came into his cell, but did not catch fire as they had before.

“He is very weak, Your Majesty; his will at last begins to fail,” Zaidas said quietly. “Otherwise I doubt even now I could have found a way to coax answers from him.”

“What have you done?” Krispos asked. “I see no apparatus for the two-mirror test.”

“No.” By his expression, Zaidas would have been glad never to try the two-mirror test again. “This is half magic, half healing art. I laced the water he drinks with a decoction of henbane, having first used sorcery to remove the taste so he would notice nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Well done.” After a moment, Krispos added, “I do hope the technique for that is not so simple as to be available to any poisoner who happens to take a dislike to his neighbor—or to me.”

“No, Your Majesty,” Zaidas said, smiling. “In any case, the spell, because it goes against nature, is easy to detect by sorcery. Digenis, of course, was not in a position to do so.”

“And a good thing, too,” Krispos said. “All right, let’s see if he’ll give forth the truth now. What questions have you put to him thus far?”

“None of major import. As soon as I saw he was at last receptive, I sent for you at once. I suggest you keep your questions as simple as you can. The henbane frees his mind, but also clouds it—both far more strongly than wine.”

“As you say, sorcerous sir.” Krispos raised his voice. “Digenis! Do you hear me, Digenis?”

“Aye, I hear you.” Digenis’ voice was not only weak from weeks of self-imposed starvation but also dreamy and faraway.

“Where’s Phostis—my son? The son of the Avtokrator Krispos,” Krispos added, in case the priest did not realize who was talking to him.

Digenis answered, “He walks the golden path to true piety, striding ever farther from the perverse materialistic heresy that afflicts too many soulblind folk throughout the Empire.” The priest held his convictions all the way down to his heart, not merely on the surface of his mind. Krispos had already been sure of that.

He tried again: “Where is Phostis physically?”

“The physical is unimportant,” Digenis declared. Krispos glanced over at Zaidas, who bared his teeth in an agony of frustration. But Digenis went on, “If all went as was planned, Phostis is now with Livanios.”

Krispos had thought as much, but hearing the plan had been kidnap rather than murder lifted fear from his heart. Phostis could easily have been dumped in some rocky ravine with his throat cut; only the wolves and ravens would have been likely to discover him. The Avtokrator said, “What does Livanios hope to do with him? Use him as a weapon against me?”

“Phostis has a hope of assuming true piety,” Digenis said. Krispos wondered if he’d confused him by asking two questions at once. After a few heartbeats, the priest resumed, “For a youth, Phostis resists carnality well. To my surprise, he declined the body of Livanios’ daughter, which she offered to see if he could be tempted from the gleaming path. He could not. He may yet prove suitable for an imminent union with the good god rather than revolting and corruptible flesh.”

“An imminent union?” All faiths used words in special ways. Krispos wanted to be sure he understood what Digenis was talking about. “What’s an imminent union?”

“That which I am approaching now,” Digenis answered. “The voluntary abandonment of the flesh to free the spirit to fly to Phos.”

“You mean starving yourself to death,” Krispos said. Somehow Digenis used his emaciated neck for a nod. Slow horror trickled through Krispos as he imagined Phostis wasting away like the Thanasiot priest. No matter that he and the young man quarreled, no matter even that Phostis might not be his by blood: he would not have wished such a fate on him.

Digenis began to whisper a Thanasiot hymn. Seeking to rock him out of the holy smugness he maintained even in the face of approaching death, Krispos said, “Did you know Livanios uses magic of the school of the Prophets Four to hide Phostis’ whereabouts?”

“He is cursed with ambition,” Digenis answered. “I knew the spoor; I recognized the stench. He prates of the golden path, but Skotos has filled his heart with greed for power.”

“You worked with him, knowing he was evil by your reckoning?” That surprised Krispos; he’d expected the renegade priest to have sterner standards for himself. “And you still claim you walk Thanasios’ gleaming path? Are you not a hypocrite?”

“No, for Livanios’ ambition furthers the advance of the holy Thanasios’ doctrines, whereas yours leads only to the further aggrandizement of Skotos,” Digenis declared. “Thus evil is transmuted into good and the dark god confounded.”

“Thus sincerity turns to expedience,” Krispos said. He’d already gained the impression that Livanios cared more for Livanios than for the gleaming path. In a way, that made the heresiarch more dangerous, for he was liable to be more flexible than an out-and-out fanatic. But in another way, it weakened Livanios: fanatics, by the strength of their beliefs, could sometimes make their followers transcend difficulties from which an ordinary thoughtful man would flinch.

Krispos thought for a while, but could not come up with any more questions about Phostis or the rebels in the field. Turning to Zaidas, he said, “Squeeze all you can from him about the riots and the city and those involved. And then—” He paused.

“Yes, what then, Your Majesty?” the mage asked. “Shall we let him continue his decline until he stops breathing one day before long?”

“I’d sooner strike off his head and put it up on the Milestone,” Krispos said grimly. “But if I did that now, with him looking as he does, all the Thanasioi in the city would have themselves a new martyr. I’d just as soon do without that, if I could. Better to let him die in quiet and disappear: the good god willing, folk will just forget about him.”

“You are wise and cruel,” Digenis said. “Skotos speaks through your lips.”

“If I thought that were so, I’d step down from the throne and cast off my crown this instant,” Krispos said. “My task is to rule the Empire as well as I can devise, and pass it on to my heir so he may do likewise. Having Videssos torn apart in religious strife doesn’t seem to me to be part of that bargain.”

“Yield to the truth and there will be no strife.” Digenis began whispering hymns again in his dusty voice.

“This talk has no point,” Krispos said. “I’d sooner build than destroy, and you Thanasioi feel the opposite. I don’t want the land burned over, nor do I want it vacant of Videssians who slew themselves for piety’s sake. Other folk would simply steal what we’ve spent centuries building. I will not have that, not while I live.”

Digenis said, “The lord with the great and good mind willing, Phostis will prove a man of better sense and truer piety.”

Krispos thought about that. Suppose he got his son back, but as a full-fledged fanatical Thanasiot? What then?
If that’s so,
he told himself,
it’s as well I had three boys, not one.
If Phostis came back a Thanasiot, he’d live out his days in a monastery, whether he went there of his own free will or not. Krispos promised himself that: he wouldn’t turn the Empire over to someone more interesting in wrecking than maintaining it.

Time enough to worry about that if he ever saw Phostis again, though. He turned to Zaidas. “You’ve done well, sorcerous sir. Knowing what you’ve learned now, you should have a better chance of pinpointing Phostis’ whereabouts.”

“I’ll bend every effort toward that end,” the mage promised.

Nodding, Krispos stepped out of Digenis’ cell. The head gaoler came up to him and said, “A question, Your Majesty?” Krispos raised an eyebrow and waited. The gaoler said, “That priest in there, he’s getting on toward the end. What happens if he decides he doesn’t care to starve himself to death and wants to start eating again?”

“I don’t think that’s likely to happen.” If nothing else, Krispos respected Digenis’ sense of purpose. “If it does, though, by all means let him eat; this refusal to take food is his affair, not mine. But notify me immediately.”

“You’ll want to ask him more questions, Your Majesty?” the gaoler said.

“No, no; you misunderstand. That priest is a condemned traitor. If he wants to carry out the sentence of death on himself in his own way, I am willing to permit it. But if his will falters, he’ll meet the headsman on a full stomach.”

“Ah,” the gaoler said. “The wind sits so, eh? Very well, Your Majesty, it shall be as you say.”

In his younger days, Krispos would have come back with something harsh, like
It had better be.
More secure in his power now, he headed upstairs without a backward glance. As long as the gaoler felt no other result than the one he desired was possible, that result was what Krispos would get.

The Halogai who had waited outside the government office building took their places around Krispos and those who had gone down with him into the gaol. “Is the word good, Majesty?” one of the northerners asked.

“Good enough, anyhow,” the Avtokrator answered. “I know now Phostis was snatched, not killed, and I have a good notion of where he’s been taken. As for getting him back—time will tell about that.”
And about what sort of person he’ll be when I do get him back,
he added to himself.

The guardsmen cheered, their deep-voiced shouts making passersby’s heads turn to find out what news was so gladsome. Some people exclaimed to see Krispos out and about without his retinue of parasol-bearers. Others exclaimed at the Halogai. The men from the north—tall, fair, gloomy, and slow-spoken—never failed to fascinate the Videssians, whose opposites they were in almost every way.

Struck by sudden curiosity, Krispos turned to one of the northerners and said, “Tell me, Trygve, what do you make of the folk of Videssos the city?”

Trygve pursed his lips and gave the matter some serious thought. At last, in his deliberate Videssian, he answered, “Majesty, the wine here is very fine, the women looser than they are in Halogaland. But everyone, I t’ink, here talks too much.” Several other guardsmen nodded in solemn agreement. Since Krispos had the same opinion of the city folk, he nodded, too.

Back at the imperial residence, he gave the news from Digenis to Barsymes. The vestiarios’ smile, unusually broad, filled his face full of fine wrinkles. He said, “Phos be praised that the young Majesty is thought to be alive. The other palace chamberlains, I know, will be as delighted as I am.”

Down a side corridor, Krispos came upon Evripos and Katakolon arguing about something or other. He didn’t ask what; when the mood struck them, they could argue over the way a lamp flame flickered. He’d had no brothers himself, only two sisters younger than he, both many years dead now. He supposed he should have been glad his sons kept their fights to words and occasional fists rather than hiring knifemen or poisoners or wizards.

Both youths glanced warily in his direction as he approached. Neither one looked conspicuously guilty, so each of them felt the righteousness of his own cause—though Evripos, these days, was developing the beginning of a pretty good stone face.

Krispos said, “Digenis has cracked at last, thank the good god. By what he said, Phostis is held in some Thanasiot stronghold, but is alive and likely to stay that way.”

Now he studied Evripos and Katakolon rather than the other way round. Katakolon said, “That’s good news. By the time we’re done smashing the Thanasioi next summer, we should have him back again.” His expression was open and happy; Krispos didn’t think he was acting. He was sure he couldn’t have done so well at Katakolon’s age…but then, he hadn’t been raised at court, either.