The Tale of Krispos (23 page)

The thought so startled him that he missed her reply. She saw that, too, and repeated herself: “If Petronas would tell you, I daresay you’d learn a great deal. A regent who can keep the reins of power even after his ward comes of age—and in such a way that the ward does not hate him—is a man to be reckoned with.”

“I suppose so.” Krispos knew he sounded abstracted and hoped Tanilis would not figure out why. Loving her could only complicate his life, the more so as he knew she did not love him.

S
LOW AS THE FLOW OF SYRUP ON ICE, NEWS DRIPPED INTO
Opsikion through the winter. Krispos heard of the death of khagan Omurtag weeks after it happened; a son named Malomir ascended to the rule of Kubrat. In Thatagush, north and east of Khatrish, a band of Haloga raiders under a chief called Harvas Black-Robe sacked a whole string of towns and smashed the army that tried to drive them away. Some nobles promptly joined forces with the Halogai against their khagan. The King of Kings of Makuran sent a peace embassy to Videssos the city. Petronas sent it back.

“By the lord with the great and good mind, I gave Petronas what he wanted here,” Iakovitzes said when that report reached him. “Now let’s see what he does with it.” His chuckle had a gloating tone to it. “Not as much as he wants, I’ll wager.”

“No?” Krispos helped his master out of a chair. The noble could walk with a stick these days, but he still limped badly; his left calf was only half as big around as his right. Krispos went on carefully, “The Sevastokrator strikes me as a man who generally gets what he wants.”

“Oh, aye, he is. Here, I’m all right now. Thanks.” Iakovitzes hissed as he put weight on his healing leg. Ordanes had given him a set of exercises to strengthen it. He swore through clenched teeth every time he began them, but never missed a day.

Now he took a couple of steps toward the stairway that led up to his room before he continued. “But what Petronas wants is to overthrow Makuran, and that won’t happen. Stavrakios the Great couldn’t do it, not when the Empire of Videssos ran all the way up to the border of the Haloga country. I suppose the Makurani King of Kings dreams of worshiping their Four Prophets in the High Temple in Videssos the city, and that won’t happen, either. If Petronas can bite off a chunk of Vaspurakan, he’ll have done something worthwhile, at any rate. We can use the metals there and the men, even if they are heretics.”

A guardsman coming off duty threw open the door to Bolkanes’ taproom. Though he slammed it again right away, Krispos and Iakovitzes both shivered at the icy blast he let in. He stood in the front hall brushing snow off his clothes and out of his beard.

“Beastly weather,” Iakovitzes said. “I could ride now, but what’s the point? The odds are too good I’d end up a block of ice somewhere halfway between here and the city, and that would be a piteous waste. Come to think of it, you’d freeze, too.”

“Thank you for thinking of me,” Krispos said mildly.

Iakovitzes cocked an eyebrow. “You’re getting better at that innocent-sounding comeback, aren’t you? Do you practice in front of a mirror?”

“Er—no.” Krispos knew his fencing with Tanilis helped sharpen both his wits and his wit. He hadn’t realized anyone else would notice.

“Maybe it’s the time you spend knocking around with Mavros,” Iakovitzes said. Krispos blinked; his master’s guess was good enough to startle him. Iakovitzes went on, “He has a noble’s air to him, even if he is young.”

“I hadn’t really noticed,” Krispos said. “I suppose he gets it from his mother.”

“Maybe.” As he did whenever a woman was mentioned, Iakovitzes sounded indifferent. He reached the stairway. “Give me your hand, will you, for the way up?” Krispos complied. Chill or no, Iakovitzes was sweating by the time he got to the top of the stairs; his leg still did not take kindly to such work.

Krispos went through the usual small wrestling match he needed to get the noble to let go. “After a year with me, excellent sir, don’t you believe I’m not interested?” he asked.

“Oh, I believe it,” Iakovitzes said. “I just don’t take it seriously.” Having had, if not Krispos, then at least the last word, he hobbled down the hall toward his room.

R
AIN PATTERED ON THE SHUTTERS OF THE BEDROOM WINDOW
. “The second storm in a row with no snow in it,” Tanilis said. “No sleet in this one either, or none to speak of. Winter is finally losing its grip.”

“So it is.” Krispos kept his voice noncommittal. The imminent return of good weather meant too many different things now for him to be sure how he felt about it.

Tanilis sat up in bed and ran a hand through her hair. The gesture, artfully artless, made her bare breasts rise for Krispos’ admiration. At the same time, though, she said, “When the rain finally stops, I will be going back to my villa. I don’t think you would be wise to visit me there.”

Krispos had known she would tell him that, sooner or later. He’d thought he was ready. Actually hearing the words, though, was like taking a blow in the belly—no matter how braced he was, they still hurt. “So it’s over,” he said dully.

“This part of it,” Tanilis agreed.

Again, he’d thought he could accept that, thought he could depart with Iakovitzes for Videssos the city without a backward glance. Had his master not broken his leg, that might well have been true. But wintering in Opsikion, passing so much more time with Tanilis, made it harder than he’d expected. All his carefully cultivated sangfroid deserted him. He clutched her to him. “I don’t want to leave you!” He groaned.

She yielded to his embrace, but her voice stayed detached, logical. “What then? Would you turn aside from what I and others have seen for you, would you abandon this”—she touched the goldpiece Omurtag had given him—“to stay in Opsikion? And if you would, would I look on you with anything but scorn because of it?”

“But I love you!” Krispos said.

Down deep, he’d always been sure telling her that would be a mistake. His instinct proved sound. She answered, “If you stayed here because of that, I surely could never love you. I am already fully myself, while you are still discovering what you can be. Nor in the long run would you be happy in Opsikion, for what would you be here? My plaything, maybe, granted a small respect reflected from the larger one I have earned, but laughed at behind people’s hands. Is that the most you want for yourself, Krispos?”

“Your plaything?” That made him angry enough not to listen to the rest of what she said. He ran a rough hand along the supple curves of her body, ending at the edge of the neatly trimmed hair that covered her secret place. “Is that all this has meant? Is that all I’ve been to you?”

“You know better, or you should,” Tanilis said calmly. “How could I deny you’ve pleased me? I would not want to deny it. But it is not enough. You deserve to be more than a bedwarmer, however fine a bedwarmer you are. And if you stayed with me, you would not find it easy to be anything else. Not only do I have far more experience and vastly greater wealth than you, I do not care to yield to anyone the power I’ve earned by my own efforts over the years. So what would that leave you?”

“I don’t care,” Krispos said. Though he sounded full of fierce conviction, even he knew that was not true.

So, obviously, did Tanilis. “Do you not? Very well, then, let us suppose you stay here and that you and I are wed, perhaps on the next feast day of the holy Abdaas. Come the morning after, what do you propose to say to your new stepson, Mavros?”

“My—” Krispos gulped. He had no trouble imagining Mavros his brother. But his stepson? He could not even make himself say the word. He started to laugh, instead, and poked Tanilis in the ribs. She was not usually ticklish, but he caught her by surprise. She yipped and wiggled away.

“Mavros my—” He tried again, but only ended up laughing harder. “Oh, a pestilence, Tanilis, you’ve made your point.”

“Good. There’s always hope for anyone who can see plain sense, even if I did have to bludgeon you to open your eyes.” She turned her head.

“What is it?” Krispos asked.

“I was just listening. I don’t think the rain will let up for a while yet.” Now her hand wandered, came to rest. She smiled a catlike smile. “By the feel of things, neither will you. Shall we make the most of the time we have left?”

He did not answer, not with words, but he did not disagree.

“L
ET ME GIVE YOU A HAND, EXCELLENT SIR,” KRISPOS SAID AS A
pair of stable boys led out his master’s horse, his own, and their pack animals.

“Nonsense,” Iakovitzes told him. “If I can’t mount for myself, I surely won’t be able to ride back to the city. And if I can’t do that, I’m faced with two equally unpalatable alternatives: take up residence here, or throw myself off a promontory into the sea. On the whole, I believe I’d prefer throwing myself into the sea. That way I’d never have to find out what’s become of my house while I’ve been gone.” The noble gave a shudder of exquisite dread.

“When you wrote you’d been hurt, the Sevastokrator pledged to look after your affairs.”

“So he did,” Iakovitzes said with a skeptical grunt. “The only affairs Petronas cares anything about, though, are his own.” He scowled at the boy who held his horse. “Back away, there. If I can’t manage, high time I found out.”

The stable boy retreated. Iakovitzes set his left foot in the stirrup, swung up and onto the horse’s back. He winced as the newly healed leg took all his weight for a moment, but then he was mounted and grinning in triumph. He’d boarded the horse before, every day for the past week, but each time seemed a new adventure, both to him and to everyone watching.

“Now where’s that Mavros?” he said. “I’m still not what you’d call comfortable up here. Anyone who thinks I’ll waste time waiting that I could use riding will end up disappointed, I promise you that.”

Krispos did not think Iakovitzes was speaking to him in particular; he sounded more as if he were warning the world at large. Krispos checked one last time to make sure all their gear was properly stowed on the packhorses’ backs, then climbed onto his own beast.

Bolkanes came to bid his longtime guests farewell. He bowed to Iakovitzes. “A pleasure to serve you, eminent sir.”

“I should hope so. I’ve made your fortune,” Iakovitzes answered, gracious to the end.

As the innkeeper beat a hasty retreat, Mavros rode up on a big bay gelding. He looked very young and jaunty, with two pheasant plumes sticking up from his broad-brimmed hat and his right hand on the hilt of his sword. He waved to Krispos and dipped his head in Iakovitzes’ direction. “You look like you were all set to take off without me.”

“I was,” Iakovitzes snapped.

If he thought to intimidate the youth, he failed. “Well, no need for that now, seeing as I’m here,” Mavros said easily. He turned to Krispos. “My mother said to be sure to tell you good-bye from her. Now I’ve done it.”
One more chore finished,
his attitude seemed to say.

“Ah. That’s kind of her,” Krispos said. Although he hadn’t seen or heard from Tanilis in more than a month, she was in his thoughts every day, the memory of her as liable to sudden twinges as was Iakovitzes’ leg. A limp in the heart, though, did not show on the outside.

“If you two are done nattering like washerwomen, shall we be off?” Iakovitzes said. Without waiting for an answer, he used knees and reins to urge his horse forward. Krispos and Mavros rode after him.

Opsikion’s gate guards still had not learned to take any special notice of Iakovitzes, who, after all, had not come near the edge of the city since the summer before. But the feisty noble had no cause for complaint about the treatment he was afforded. Being with Mavros drew him such a flurry of salutes and guardsmen springing to attention that he said, not altogether in jest, “Anthimos should come here, to see what respect is.”

“Oh, I expect he gets treated about as well in his hometown,” Mavros said. Iakovitzes had to look at him sharply to catch the twinkle in his eye. The noble allowed himself a wintry chuckle, the most he usually gave wit not his own.

That chuckle, Krispos thought, was the only thing wintry about the day. It was mild and fair. New bright green covered the ground to either side of the road. Bees buzzed among fresh-sprouted flowers. The sweet, moist air was full of the songs of birds just returned from their winter stay in warmer climes.

Though the road climbed swiftly into the mountains, this near Opsikion it remained wide and easy to travel, if not always straight. Krispos was startled when, with the sun still nearer noon than its setting, Iakovitzes reined in and said, “That’s enough. We’ll camp here till morning.” But when he watched his master dismount, he hardly needed to hear the noble go on, “My thighs are as raw as a dockside whore’s the night after the imperial fleet rows into port.”

“No wonder, excellent sir,” Krispos said. “Flat on your back as you were for so long, you’ve lost your hardening.”

“I don’t know about that,” Mavros said. “I’ve had some lovely hardenings flat on my back.”

Again, Iakovitzes’ basilisk glare failed to wilt him. The noble finally grunted and hobbled off into the bushes, unbuttoning his fly as he went. Watching that slow, spraddling gait, Krispos whistled softly. “He is saddle-sore, isn’t he? I guess he thought it couldn’t happen to him.”

“Aye, looks like he’ll have to get used to it all over again. He won’t be back from watering the grass right away, either.” Mavros lowered his voice as he reached into a saddlebag. “Which means now is as good a time as any to pass this on to you from my mother. A parting gift, you might say. She told me not to give it to you when anyone else could see.”

Krispos reached out to take the small wooden box Mavros held. He wondered what sort of last present Tanilis had for him and wondered even more, briefly alarmed, how much she’d told Mavros about what had passed between the two of them. Mavros as stepson, indeed, Krispos thought—she’d known how to cool him down, sure enough.
Maybe, though,
he said to himself,
it’s like one of the romances minstrels sing, and she does love me but can’t admit it except by giving me this token once I’m safely gone.