The Tale of Krispos (29 page)

“Highness?” The question caught Krispos by surprise. He answered slowly, “Not much, though, come to think of it, I guess you’d say I was Iakovitzes’ body servant for a while there in Opsikion when he was laid up with a broken leg. I sort of had to be.”

“So you did,” Petronas agreed. “That may suffice. Indeed, I think it would. As here, in the post I have in mind you would be involved in overseeing others as much as with actually serving.”

“What post is that?” Krispos asked. “Not your steward, surely. Or are you angry at Eroulos for something I don’t know about?” If the Sevastokrator was displeased with Eroulos, the gossip of his household had not heard of it. That was possible, Krispos supposed, but unlikely.

And Petronas shook his head. “No, Eroulos suits me right well. I was thinking of rather a grander place for you. How would you like to be Anthimos’ vestiarios one day?”

Krispos said the first thing that popped into his head: “Doesn’t the vestiarios have to be a eunuch?” He felt his testicles creep up toward his belly as he spoke the word; he had all he could do to keep from shaping his hands into a protective cup over his crotch.

“It’s usual, but by no means mandatory. I daresay we can manage to keep you entire.” Petronas laughed, then went on, “I’m sorry; I’d not seen you look frightened before. I want you to think on this, though, even if I cannot promise you the office soon—or at all.”

“
You
can’t promise, Highness?” Krispos said, startled at the admission. “How could you lack the power? Aren’t you both Sevastokrator and the Avtokrator’s uncle? Wouldn’t he heed you?”

“In this, perhaps not. His chamberlain also has his ear, you see, and so may not be easily displaced.” Petronas took a slow, deep, angry breath. “That cursed Skombros is sly as a fox, too. He plots to weaken me and aggrandize his own worthless relations. I would not be surprised to learn he dreams of putting one of them on the throne, the more so as the Avtokrator’s lady, the empress Dara, has yet to conceive.”

“And so you want Anthimos to have a vestiarios loyal to you and without schemes of his own,” Krispos said. “Now I understand.”

“Yes, exactly so,” Petronas said.

“Thank you for your trust in me.”

“I place no great trust in any man,” the Sevastokrator answered, “but in this I do trust: that having raised you, I can cast you down at need. Do you understand that, as well, Krispos?” His voice, though still quiet, had gone hard as stone.

“Very well, Highness.”

“Good. I think the best way to do this—if, as I say, it can be done at all—is to place you in Anthimos’ eye from time to time. You seem to think clearly, and to be able to put your thoughts into words that, although they lack polish, carry the ring of conviction. Living as he does among eunuchs, the Avtokrator is unused to plain ideas plainly stated, save perhaps from me. They may prove an exotic novelty, and Anthimos is ever one to be drawn to the new and exotic. Should he wish to see more of you, and then more again—well, that is as the good god wills.” Petronas set a large, heavy hand on Krispos’ shoulder. “Shall we try? Is it a bargain?”

“Aye, Highness, it is,” Krispos said.

“Good,” Petronas repeated. “We shall see what we shall see.” He turned and tramped back toward the stable entrance without a backward glance.

More slowly, Krispos came after him. So the Sevastokrator expected him to remain a pliant creature, did he, even after becoming vestiarios? Krispos had said he understood that. He’d said nothing about agreeing with it.

Chapter
VIII

T
HE HUNTERS AMBLED ALONG ON THEIR HORSES, LAUGHING
and chatting and passing wineskins back and forth. They sighed with relief as they rode under a stand of trees that shielded them from the pounding summer sun. “Who’ll give us a song?” Anthimos called out.

Krispos thought of a tune he’d known back in his village. “There was a young pig who got caught in a fence,” he began. “A silly young pig without any sense…” If the pig had no sense, neither did the men who tried various unlikely ways of getting it loose.

When he was through, the young nobles who filled the hunting party gave him a cheer. The song was new to them; they’d never had to worry about pigs themselves. Krispos knew he was no great minstrel, but he could carry a tune. Past that, no one much cared. The wineskins had gone back and forth a good many times.

One of the nobles cast a glance at the sun, which was well past noon. “Let’s head back to the city, Majesty. We’ve not caught much today, and we’ve not much time to catch more.”

“No, we haven’t,” Anthimos agreed petulantly. “I’ll have to speak to my uncle about that. This park was supposed to have been restocked with game. Krispos, mention it to him when we return.”

“I will, Majesty.” But Krispos was willing to believe it had been restocked. The way the Avtokrator and his companions rode thundering through woods and meadow, no animals in their right minds would have come within miles of them.

Grumbling still, Anthimos swung his horse’s head toward the west. The rest of the hunters followed. They grumbled, too, and loudly, when they rode back out into the sunshine.

All at once, the grumbles turned to shouts of delight—a stag sprang out of the brush almost in front of the hunters’ faces and darted across the grass.

“After him!” Anthimos yelled. He dug spurs into his horse’s flank. Someone loosed an arrow that flew nowhere near the fleeing stag.

None of the hunters—not even Krispos, who should have paused to wonder—bothered to ask himself why the stag had burst from cover so close to them. They were young enough, and maybe drunk enough, to think of it as the perfect ending the day deserved. They were altogether off guard, then, when the pack of wolves that had been chasing the stag ran onto the meadow right under their horses’ hooves.

The horses screamed. Some of the men screamed, too, as their mounts leaped and reared and bucked and did their best to throw them off. The wolves yelped and snarled; they’d been intent on their quarry and were at least as taken aback as the hunters by the sudden encounter. The stag bounded into the woods and vanished.

Maybe only Krispos saw the stag go. His mount was a sturdy gelding, fast enough and strong enough, but with no pretense to fine breeding. Thus he was in the rear of the hunters’ pack when they encountered the wolves, and on a beast that did not have to be coaxed out of hysteria if a leaf blew past its nose.

No one, of course, rode a higher-bred horse than Anthimos’. Iakovitzes could not have thrown a finer fit than that animal did. Anthimos was a fine rider, but fine riders fall, too. He landed heavily and lay on the ground, stunned. Some of the other hunters cried out in alarm, but most were too busy trying to control their own mounts and fight off the wolves that snapped at their horses’ legs and bellies and hindquarters to come to the Emperor’s aid.

A big wolf padded toward him. It drew back for a moment when he groaned and stirred, then came forward again. Its tongue lolled from its mouth, red as blood.
Ah, crippled prey,
that lupine smile seemed to say.
Easy meat.

Krispos shouted at the wolf. In the din, the shout was one among many. He had a bow, but did not trust it; he was no horse-archer. He drew out an arrow and shot anyway. In a romance, his need would have made the shaft fly straight and true.

He missed. He came closer to hitting Anthimos than the wolf. Cursing, he grabbed the mace that swung from his belt for finishing off large game—in the unlikely event he ever killed any, he thought, disgusted with himself for his poor shooting.

He hurled the mace with all his strength. It spun through the air. The throw was not what he’d hoped, either—in his mind, he’d seen the spiky knob smashing in the wolf’s skull. Instead, the wooden handle struck it a stinging blow on the nose.

That sufficed. The wolf yelped in startled pain and sat back on its haunches. Before it worked up the nerve to advance on the Avtokrator again, another hunter managed to get his horse between it and Anthimos. Iron-shod hooves flashed near its face. It snarled and ran off.

Someone who was a better archer than Krispos drove an arrow into another wolf’s belly. The wounded animal’s howls of pain made more of the pack take to their heels. A couple of wolves got all the way round the hunters and picked up the stag’s scent again. They loped after it. As far as Krispos was concerned, they were welcome to it.

The hunters leaped off their horses and crowded round the fallen Emperor. They all yelled when, after a minute or two, he managed to sit. Rubbing his shoulder, he said, “I take it back. This preserve has quite enough game already.”

Even the Avtokrator’s feeblest jokes won laughter. “Are you all right, Your Majesty?” Krispos asked along with everyone else.

“Let me find out.” Anthimos climbed to his feet. His grin was shaky. “All in one piece. I didn’t think I would be, not unless that cursed wolf was big enough to swallow me whole. It looked to have the mouth for the job.”

He tried to bend down, grunted, and clutched his ribs. “Have to be careful there.” A second, more cautious, try succeeded. When he straightened again, he was holding the mace. “Whose is this?”

Krispos had to give his fellow hunters credit. He’d thought some ready-for-aught would speak up at once and claim he’d saved the Avtokrator. Instead, they all looked at one another and waited. “Er, it’s mine,” Krispos said after a moment.

“Here, let me give it back to you, then,” Anthimos said. “Believe me, I won’t forget where it came from.”

Krispos nodded. That was an answer Petronas might have given. If the Avtokrator had some of the same stuff in him as the Sevastokrator, Videssos might fare well even if something befell Anthimos’ capable uncle.

“Let’s head back toward the city,” Anthimos said. “This time I really mean it.” One of the young nobles had recaptured the Emperor’s horse. He grimaced as he got into the saddle, but rode well enough.

All the same, the hunting party remained unusually subdued, even when they were back inside the palace quarter. They all knew they’d had a brush with disaster.

Krispos tried to imagine what Petronas would have done if they’d come back with the news that Anthimos had got himself killed in some fribbling hunting accident. Of course, the accident would have made the Sevastokrator Emperor of Videssos. But it would also have raised suspicions that it was no accident, that Petronas had somehow arranged it. Under such circumstances, would the Sevastokrator be better off rewarding the witnesses who established his own innocence or punishing them to show they should have protected Anthimos better?

Krispos found himself unsure of the answer and glad he did not have to find out.

As the hunting band broke up, a noble leaned over to Krispos and said quietly, “I think I’d give a couple of inches off my prong to have saved the Avtokrator the way you did.”

Krispos looked the fellow over. He was scarcely out of his teens, yet he rode a fine horse that he surely owned, unlike Krispos’ borrowed gelding. His shirt was silk, his riding breeches fine leather, and his spurs silver. His round, plump face said he’d never known a day’s hunger. Even if he hadn’t saved Anthimos, he was assured a more than comfortable life.

“I mean no disrespect, excellent sir, but I’m not sure the price you name is high enough,” Krispos answered after a moment’s pause. “I need the luck more than you do, you see, having started with so much less of it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my master’s stables.”

The noble stared after him as he rode away. He suspected—no, he was certain—he should have held his tongue. He was already far better at that than most men his age. Now he saw he would have to grow better still.

“S
O WHEN DOES THE MOST HOLY GNATIOS SET THE CROWN ON
your head?” Mavros asked when he saw Krispos coming out of Petronas’ stables a couple of days after the hunt.

“Oh, shut up,” Krispos told his adopted brother. He was not worried about Mavros’ betraying him; he just wanted him off his back. Mavros’ teasing was the most natural thing in the world. Though Krispos hadn’t bragged about what he’d done, the story was all over the palaces.

“Shut up? This humble spatharios hears and obeys, glad only that your magnificence has deigned to grant him the boon of words.” Mavros swept off his hat and folded himself like a clasp knife in an extravagant bow.

Krispos wanted to hit him. He found himself laughing instead. “Humble, my left one.” He snorted. Mavros had trouble taking anything seriously; after a while, so did anyone who came near him.

“Your left one would look very fine in a dish of umbles,” Mavros said.

“Someone ought to run a currycomb over your tongue,” Krispos told him.

“Is this another of your innovations in equestrian care?” Mavros stuck out the organ in question and crossed his eyes to look down at it. “Yes, it does seem in need of grooming. Go ahead; see if you can put a nice sheen on its coat.”

Krispos did hit him then, not too hard. They scuffled good-naturedly for a couple of minutes. Krispos finally got a hammerlock on Mavros. Mavros was whimpering, without much conviction, when Eroulos came up to the two of them. “If you’re quite finished…” the steward said pointedly.

“What is it?” Krispos let go of Mavros, who somehow contrived to look innocent and rub his wrist at the same time.

The theatrics were wasted; Eroulos took no notice of him. He spoke to Krispos instead, “Go back to the Grand Courtroom at once. One of his Imperial Majesty’s servants is waiting for you there.”

“For me?” Krispos squeaked.

“I am not in the habit of repeating myself,” Eroulos said. Krispos waited no longer. He dashed for the Grand Courtroom. Mavros might have waved good-bye. Krispos did not turn his head to see.

The guards outside Petronas’ wing of the Grand Courtroom swung down their spears when they saw someone running toward them. Recognizing Krispos, they relaxed. One of them pointed to a man leaning against the side of the building. “Here’s the fellow been waiting for you.”

“You are Krispos?” Anthimos’ servitor was tall, thin, and erect, but his hairless cheeks and sexless voice proclaimed him a eunuch. “I was given to understand that you were the Sevastokrator’s chief groom, not that you would stink of horses yourself.” His own scent was of attar of roses.

“I work,” Krispos said shortly.

The eunuch’s sniff told what he thought of that. “In any event, I am commanded to bid you come to a festivity his Imperial Majesty will hold tomorrow evening. I shall return then to guide you. I most respectfully suggest that, no matter how virtuous you deem your labors, the odor of the stables would be out of place.”

Krispos felt his cheeks heat. Biting back an angry retort, he nodded. The eunuch’s bow was fluid perfection, or would have been had he not made it so deep as to suggest scorn rather than courtesy.

“You don’t want to get into a meaner-than-thou contest with a eunuch,” one of the guards remarked after the Avtokrator’s servant was too far away to hear. “You’ll regret it every time.”

“You’d be mean, too, if you’d had that done to you,” another guard said. All the troopers chuckled. Krispos also smiled, but he thought the guard was right. Having lost so much, eunuchs could hardly be blamed for getting their own back in whatever petty ways they could devise.

He knocked off a little early the next afternoon to go from the stables to a bathhouse; he would not give that supercilious eunuch another chance to sneer at him. He oiled himself, scraped his skin with a curved strigil, and paid a boy a copper to get the places he could not reach. The cold plunge and hot soak that followed left him clean and helped loosen tired, tight muscles. He was all but purring as he walked back to the Grand Courtroom.

This time he waited for the Avtokrator’s eunuch to arrive. The eunuch gave a disapproving sniff; perhaps, Krispos thought, he was seeking the lingering aroma of horse. “Come along,” he said, sounding no happier for failing to find it.

Krispos had never been to—had never even seen—the small building to which his guide led him. He was not surprised; the palace quarter held dozens of buildings, large and small, he’d never been to. Some of the large ones were barracks for the regiments of imperial guards. Some of the small ones held soldierly supplies. Others were buildings former Emperors had used, but that now stood empty, awaiting the pleasure of an Avtokrator yet to come. This one, secluded among willows and pear trees, looked to be where Anthimos himself awaited pleasure.

Krispos heard the music when he was still walking the winding path under the trees. Whoever was playing, he thought, had more enthusiasm than skill. Raucous voices accompanied the musicians. He needed a moment to recognize the tavern song they were roaring out. Only when they came to the refrain—” The wine gets drunk but you get drunker!”—was he sure. Loud applause followed.