Krispos Rising

II

For some years, the Kubratoi did not raid into Videssos. Sometimes, in absent moments, Krispos wondered if Phos had heard his thought and struck fear into the wild men's hearts. Once, when he was about twelve, he said as much to one of the retired veterans, a tough graybeard called Varades.

Varades laughed till tears came. "Ah, lad, I wish it were that easy. I'd sooner spend my time thinking bad thoughts at my foes than fighting, any day. But more likely, I reckon, is that old Omurtag still hasn't gone through all the gold Rhaptes sent him to buy you back. When he does—"

"When he does, we'll drive the Kubratoi away!" Krispos made cut-and-thrust motions with the wooden sword he was holding. Grown men, these days, practiced with real weapons; the veterans had been issued enough for everyone. A spear and a hunting bow hung on the wall of Krispos' house.

"Maybe," Varades said. "Just maybe, if it's a small band bent on robbery instead of a full-sized invasion. The Kubratoi know how to fight; not much else, maybe, but that for certain. You farmers won't ever be anything but amateur soldiers, so I wouldn't even try taking 'em on without a good advantage in numbers."

"What then?" Krispos said. "If there's too many, do we let them herd us off to Kubrat again?"

"Better that than getting killed to no purpose and having them herd off your mother and sisters even so."

Krispos' second sister, Kosta, had just turned two. He thought of her being forced to trek north, and of his mother trying to care for her and Evdokia both. After a moment, he thought of his mother trying to do all that while mourning his father and him. He did not like any of those thoughts.

"Maybe the Kubratoi just won't come," he said at last.

Varades laughed again, as boisterously as before. "Oh, aye, and maybe one of the village jackasses'd win all the hippodrome races down in Videssos the city. But you'd better not count on it." He grew serious. "I don't want you to mistake my meaning, boy. Sooner or later, they'll come. The whoresons always do."

By the time Krispos was fourteen, he was close to being as tall as his father. The down on his face began to turn dark; his voice cracked and broke, generally at moments when he least wanted it to.

He was already doing a man's work in the fields. Now, though, Varades and the other veterans let him start using real arms. The wire-wound hilt of a steel sword felt nothing like the wooden toy he'd swung before. With it in his hand, he felt like a soldier—more, like a hero.

He felt like a hero, that is, until Idalkos—the veteran who had given him the blade—proceeded to disarm him half a dozen times in the next ten minutes. The last time, instead of letting him pick up the sword and go on with the lesson, Idalkos chased him halfway across the village. "You'd better run!" he roared, pounding after Krispos. "If I catch you, I'll carve hams off you." Only one thing saved Krispos from being even more humiliated than he was: the veteran had terrorized a good many people the same way—some of them Phostis' age.

Finally, puffing, Idalkos stopped. "Here, come back, Krispos," he called. "You've had your first lesson now, which is that it's not as easy as it looks."

"It sure isn't," Krispos said. As he walked slowly back toward Idalkos, he heard someone giggle. His head whipped around. There in her doorway stood Zoranne the daughter of Tzykalas the cobbler, a pretty girl about Krispos' age. His ears felt on fire. If she'd watched his whole ignominious flight—

"Pay the chit no mind," Idalkos said, as if reading his thoughts. "You did what you had to do: I had a sword and you didn't. But suppose you didn't have room to run. Suppose you were in the middle of a whole knot of men when you lost your blade. What would you do then?"

Die, Krispos thought. He wished he could die, so he wouldn't have to remember Zoranne's giggle. But that wasn't the answer Idalkos was looking for. "Wrestle, I suppose," he said after a moment.

"Would you?" Krispos put down the sword. He set himself, leaning forward slightly from the waist, feet wide apart. "Here, I'm an old man. See if you can throw me."

Krispos sprang at him. He'd always done well in the scuffles among boys. He was bigger and stronger than the ones his own age, and quicker, too. If he could pay back Idalkos for some of his embarrassment—

The next thing he knew, his face was in the dirt, the veteran riding his back. He heard Zoranne laugh again and had to fight back tears of fury. "You fight dirty," he snarled.

"You bet I do," Idalkos said cheerfully. "Want to learn how? Maybe you'll toss me right through a dung heap one fine day, impress your girl there."

"She's not my girl," Krispos said as the veteran let him up. Still, the picture was attractive—and so was the idea of throwing Idalkos through a dung heap. "All right, show me what you did."

"A hand on the arm, a push on the back, and then you twist-so—and take the fellow you're fighting down over your leg. Here, I'll run you through it slow, a couple of times."

"I see," Krispos said after a while. By then they were both filthy, from spilling each other in the dirt. "Now how do I block it when someone tries to do it to me?"

Idalkos' scar-seamed face lit up. "You know, lad, I've taught my little trick to half a dozen men here, maybe more. You're the first one with the wit to ask that question. What you do is this... ."

That was the start of it. For the rest of that summer and into fall, until it got too cold to spend much time outside, Krispos learned wrestling from Idalkos in every spare moment he had. Those moments were never enough to suit him, not squeezed as they were into the work of the harvest, care for the village's livestock, and occasional work with weapons other than Krispos' increasingly well-honed body.

"Thing is, you're pretty good, and you'll get better," Idalkos said one chilly day in early autumn. He flexed his wrist, winced, flexed it again. "No, that's not broken after all. But I won't be sorry when the snow comes, no indeed I won't—give me a chance to stay indoors and heal up till spring."

All the veterans talked like that, and all of them were in better shape than any farmer their age—or ten years younger, too. Just when someone started to believe them, they'd do something like what Idalkos had done the first time they wrestled.

So Krispos only snorted. "I suppose that means you'll be too battered to come out with the rest of us on Midwinter's Day," he said, voice full of syrupy regret.

"Think you're smart, don't you?" Idalkos made as if to grab Krispos. He sprang back—one of the things he'd learned was to take nothing for granted. The veteran went on, "The first year I don't celebrate Midwinter's Day, sonny, you go out to my grave and make the sun-sign over it, 'cause that's where I'll be."

Snow started falling six weeks before Midwinter's Day, the day of the winter solstice. Most of the veterans had served in the far west against Makuran. They complained about what a hard winter it was going to be. No one who had spent time in Kubrat paid any attention to them. The farmers went about their business, mending fences, repairing plows and other tools, doing woodwork ... and getting ready for the chief festival of their year.

Midwinter's Day dawned freezing but clear. Low in the south, the sun hurried across the sky. The villagers' prayers went with it, to keep Skotos from snatching it out of the heavens altogether and plunging the world into eternal darkness.

As if to add to the light, bonfires burned in the village square. Krispos ran at one, his hide boots kicking up snow. He leaped over the blaze. "Burn, ill-luck!" he shouted when he was right above it. A moment later, more snow flew as he thudded down.

Evdokia came right behind him. Her wish against bad luck came out more as a scream—this was the first year she was big enough to leap fires. Krispos steadied her when she landed clumsily. She grinned up at him. Her cheeks glowed with cold and excitement.

"Who's that?" she said, peering back through the shimmering air above the flames to see who came next. "Oh, it's Zoranne. Come on, let's get out of her way."

Pushed by his sister, Krispos walked away from the fire. His eyes were not the only ones in the village that followed Zoranne as she flew through the air over it. She landed almost as heavily as Evdokia had. If Evdokia hadn't made him move, he thought, he could have been the one to help Zoranne back up.

"Younger sisters really are a nuisance," he declared loftily.

Evdokia showed him he was right: she scooped up a handful of snow and pressed it against the side of his neck, then ran away while he was still writhing. Bellowing mingled outrage and laughter, he chased her, pausing a couple of times to make a snowball and fling it at her.

One snowball missed Evdokia but caught Varades in the shoulder. "So you want to play that way, do you?" the veteran roared. He threw one back at Krispos. Krispos ducked. The snowball hit someone behind him. Soon everyone was throwing them—at friends, foes, and whoever happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. People's hats and sheepskin coats were so splashed with white that the village began to look as if it had been taken over by snowmen.

Out came several men, Phostis among them, wearing dresses they must have borrowed from a couple of the biggest, heaviest women in the village. They put on a wicked burlesque of what they imagined their wives and daughters did while they were out working in the fields. It consisted of gossiping, pointing fingers while they gossiped, eating, and drinking wine, lots of wine. Krispos' father did a fine turn as a tipsy lady who was talking so furiously she never noticed falling off her stool but lay on the ground, still chattering away.

The male spectators chortled. The women pelted the actors with more snowballs. Krispos ducked back into his house for a cup of wine for himself. He wished it was hot, but no one wanted to stay indoors and tend a pot of mulled wine, not today.

The sun set as he came back to the square. The village's women and girls were having their revenge. Dressed in men's short tunics and doing their best not to shiver, several of them pretended to be hunters bragging about the immense size of their kill—till one of them, fastidiously holding it by the tail, displayed a mouse.

This time, the watching women cheered and most of the men jeered and threw snow. Krispos did neither. One of the female "hunters" was Zoranne. The tunic she wore came down only to mid-thigh; her nipples, stiff from the cold, pressed against its thin fabric. As he looked and looked, he felt a heat grow in him that had nothing to do with the wine he'd drunk.

At last the women skipped away, to thunderous applause. More skits came in quick succession, these mocking the foibles of particular villagers: Tzykalas' efforts to grow hair on his bald head—in the skit, he raised a fine crop of hay—Varades' habit of breaking wind, and more.

Then Krispos watched in dismay as a couple of fanners, plainly intended to be Idalkos and him, practiced wrestling. The embrace in which they ended was more obscene than athletic The villagers whooped and cheered them on.

Krispos stamped away, head down. He was at an age when he could laugh at others, but could not bear to have them laugh at him. All he wanted to do was get away from the hateful noise Because he was not watching where he was going, he almost ran into someone coming back toward the center of the village. "Sorry," he muttered and kept walking.

"What's wrong, Krispos?" He looked up, startled. It was Zoranne's voice. She'd changed back into her own long skirt and a coat, and looked a good deal warmer for it. "What's wrong?" she said again.

"Those stupid jokers back there, that's what," he burst out, "making as if when Idalkos and I wrestle, we don't just wrestle." Half his rage evaporated as soon as he said out loud what was bothering him. He began to feel foolish instead.

Zoranne did not help by starting to laugh. "It's Midwinter's Day, Krispos," she said. "It's all in fun." He knew that, which only made matters worse. She went on, "Anything can happen on Midwinter's Day, and no one will pay any mind to it the day after. Am I right?"

"I suppose so." He sounded surly, even to himself. "Besides," she said, "it's not as if what they made out was true, is it?"

"Of course not," he said, so indignantly that his changing voice left the last word a high-pitched squeak. As if from nowhere, the memory of Iakovitzes' hand on his back stirred in his mind. Maybe that was part of why the skit had got under his skin so.

She did not seem to notice. "Well, then," she said. Back by the bonfires, most of the villagers erupted in laughter at some new skit. Krispos realized how quiet it was out here near the edge of the village, how alone he and Zoranne were. The memory of how she'd looked capering in that brief tunic rose again. Without his conscious mind willing it, he took a step toward her. At the same moment, she was taking a step toward him. They almost bumped into each other. She laughed again. "Anything can happen on Midwinter's Day," she said softly.

When Krispos fled that embarrassing skit, he hadn't worried about picking a direction. Perhaps not surprisingly, he'd ended up not far from his own house; as usual, his father had preferred one on the outskirts of the village. Suddenly that seemed like a blessing from Phos. Krispos gathered his courage, reached out, and took Zoranne's arm. She pressed herself to his side.

His heart hammering, he led her to his doorway. They went inside together. He quickly shut the door behind them to keep the heat from the firepit in the middle of the floor from getting out.

"We'd better hurry," he said anxiously.

Just then, more laughter came from the center of the village. Zoranne smiled. "We have some time, I think." She shrugged off her coat, got out of her skirt. Krispos tried to undress and watch her at the same time, and almost fell over. Finally, after what seemed much too long, they sank to the straw bedding.

Krispos soon learned what everyone must: that knowing how man and woman join is not enough to keep that first joining from being one surprise after another. Nothing he thought he knew made him ready for the taste of Zoranne's soft skin against his lips; the feel of her breast in his hand; the way the whole world seemed to disappear but for her body and his.

As it does, it returned all too quickly. "You're squashing me," Zoranne said. Brisk and practical, she sat up and picked bits of straw from her hair, then from his.

Given a little more time and a little less nervousness, he might have enjoyed that. As it was, her touch made him spring up and scramble into his clothes. She dressed, too—not with that frantic haste, but not taking her time, either.

Something else he did not know was whether he'd pleased her, or even how to find out. "Will we ... ?" he began. The rest of the question seemed stuck in his mouth.

Zoranne did not help much. "I don't know. Will we?"

"I hope so," Krispos blurted.

"Men always hope so—that's what women always say, anyhow." She unbent a bit then. "Well, maybe we will—but not now. Now we ought to get back to where everyone else is."

He opened the door. The freezing air outside hit him like a blow. Zoranne said, "We should go back separately. The grandmothers have enough to gossip about already."

"Oh." Krispos had wanted to shout it from the housetops. If Zoranne didn't... "All right." He could not keep the disappointment out of his voice, though.

"Come on," she said impatiently. "I told you this wouldn't be the last time." As a matter of fact, she hadn't quite said that before. Thus encouraged, Krispos willingly shut the door again and watched Zoranne slip off into the night.

She kept her word, if not as often as Krispos would have liked. Every taste he had of her, every time the two of them managed not to be busy and to be able to find privacy, only made him want her more. Not knowing a better name, he thought of that as love.

Then, for a while, his own afternoons were occupied: Varades taught him and a couple of younger boys their letters. He learned them without too much trouble; being able to read and write his own name was almost as exciting, in its own way, as sporting with Zoranne.

He would have liked it even more had the village had anything much to read. "Why did you show us our letters if we can't use them?" he complained to Varades.

"To give myself something to do, as much as any other reason," the veteran answered frankly. He thought for a moment. "Tell you what. We might beg a copy of Phos' scripture the next time a blue-robe comes around. I'll go through it with you, best I can."

When Varades asked him, a couple of weeks later, the priest nodded. "I'll have one copied out for you straightaway," he promised. Krispos, who was standing behind Varades, felt like cheering until the man went on, "You understand, it will take a few months. The monasteries' scriptoria are always behind, I'm sorry to say."

"Months!" Krispos said in dismay. He was sure he would forget everything before the book arrived.

But he did not. His father made him scratch letters in the dirt every day. "High time we had somebody in the family who can read," Phostis said. "You'll be able to keep the tax man from cheating us any worse than tax men always do."

Krispos got another chance to use his skill that spring, before either the scripture or the tax collector arrived. Zoranne's father Tzykalas had spent the winter months making half a dozen pairs of fancy boots. When the roads dried out enough to be passable, he took them to Imbros to sell. He came back with several goldpieces—and portentous news.

"The old Avtokrator, Phos guard his soul, has died," he declared to the men he met in the village square.

Everyone made the sun-sign. The passing of an Emperor was never to be taken lightly. Phostis put into words what they were all thinking: "His son's but a boy, not so?"

Tzykalas nodded. "Aye, about the age of Krispos here, I'd say, judging by his coin." The cobbler dug it out of his pouch to show the other villagers the new portrait. "His name is—"

"Let me read it!" Krispos exclaimed. "Please!" He held out his hand for the goldpiece. Reluctantly Tzykalas passed it to him. It was only a little wider than his thumbnail. All he could make out from the image was that the new Avtokrator was, as Tzykalas had said, too young to have a beard. He put the coin close to his face so he could make out the tiny letters of its inscription. "His name is Anthimos."

"So it is," Tzykalas said grumpily. He snatched the goldpiece out of Krispos' hand. Too late, it occurred to the youth that he had just stolen a big part of Tzykalas' news. Too bad, he thought. No matter how he felt about Zoranne, he'd never been fond of her father. That was one reason he hadn't proposed to her: the idea of having the cobbler as a father-in-law was anything but appealing.

What he wanted to do was go home and dig up the goldpiece he'd got from Omurtag so he could read it. He'd buried it beside the house for luck when his family came to this new village, and they'd never been desperate enough to make him dig it up and spend it. But no, he decided, not now; if he did leave, Tzykalas would only think him ruder yet.

"A boy for Avtokrator?" someone said. "That won't be good—who'll keep the plow's furrow straight till he learns how to guide it?"

"That I can tell you," Tzykalas said, sounding important again. "The talk in Imbros is that Rhaptes' brother Petronas will be regent for his nephew until Anthimos comes of age."

"Petronas, eh? Things won't be too bad, then." Drawn by the sight of several men standing around talking, Varades had come up in time to hear Tzykalas' last bit of news. The veteran went on, "I fought under him against Makuran. He's an able soldier, and no one's fool, either."

"What if he seizes the throne for himself, then?" Krispos' father said.

"What if he does, Phostis?" Varades said. "Why would it matter to the likes of us, one way or the other?"

Krispos' father thought about it for a moment. He spread his hands. "There you have me, Varades. Why indeed?"

Zoranne stood in the doorway of Tzykalas' house. She shook her head. "No."

"Why not?" Surprised and irritated, Krispos waved his hand to show how empty the village was. "Everyone's in the farther fields for the rest of the day, and probably tomorrow, too. Even your father's gone off to buy some new awls, you said. We've never had a better chance."

"No," she repeated.

"Eat why not?" He put a hand on her arm.

She didn't pull away, not physically, but she might as well have. He let his hand fall. "I just don't want to," she said.

"Why?" he persisted.

"Do you really want to know?" She waited till she saw him nod. "All right, I'll tell you why. Yphantes asked me to marry him the other day, and I told him yes."

The last time Krispos had felt so stunned and breathless was when Idalkos kicked him in the pit of the stomach one day while they were wrestling. He'd never paid any particular attention to Yphantes before. Along with everyone else in the village, he'd been sad when the man's wife died in childbirth a couple of years before, but... "He's old," Krispos blurted.

"He's years away from thirty," Zoranne said, "and he's already well set up. If I had to wait for you, I'd be past twenty myself by the time you were even close to where Yphantes is now, and that's too long a time."

"But—but then you, but then you and he—" Krispos found he could not make his mouth work the way it was supposed to.

Zoranne understood anyway. "What if we were?" she said defiantly. "You never gave me any promise, Krispos, or asked for one from me."

"I never thought I needed to," he mumbled.

"Too bad for you, then. No woman wants to be taken for granted. Maybe you'll remember that next time with someone else, and end up happier for it." Her face softened. "Krispos, we'll probably live here together in this village the rest of our lives. No point in us hating each other, is there? Please?"

For want of anything better to say, he said, "All right." Then he turned and quickly walked away. If he had any tears, Zoranne was not going to see them. He owned too much pride for that.

That evening he was so quiet that his sister teased him about it, and then he was quiet through the teasing, too. "Are you feeling well, Krispos?" Evdokia asked, real worry in her voice; when she could not get a rise out of him, something had to be wrong.

"I'm all right," he said. "I just want you to leave me alone, that's all."

"I know what it is," she said suddenly. "It's something to do with Zoranne, isn't it?"

He very carefully put down the bowl of barley and turnip soup from which he had been eating; had he not been so deliberately careful with his hands, he might have thrown it at her. He got up and stamped out of the house, off into the woods.

He took longer than he should have to realize that sitting by himself among the trees wasn't accomplishing anything, but after a while he did figure it out. It was quite dark when he finally came home. Then he almost turned around and went back; his father was waiting for him, a few steps outside the door.

He kept on. He would have to deal with his father sooner or later; better sooner, he thought. "I'm sorry," he said.

His father nodded, the motion barely visible in the gloom. "You should be." Phostis hesitated a moment before he said, "Evdokia was right, I gather—you've had some trouble with your girl?"

"She's not my girl," Krispos said sullenly. "She's going to marry Yphantes."

"Good," his father said. "I hoped she would. I told Yphantes as much, earlier this year. In the long run, it'll save you trouble, son, believe me."

"When you what?" Krispos stared at him, appalled. That moment of shock also let him notice something he'd missed before: both his father and his sister knew about Zoranne. "How did you find out about us? We were so careful—"

"Maybe you think so," Phostis said, "but I'd bet the only person in the village who doesn't know is Tzykalas, and he would if he weren't a fool who'd sooner talk than see. I'd be just as well pleased not to have a marriage connection with him, I can tell you."

Krispos had been angry at his father often enough. Till now, he'd never imagined wanting to hate him. In a voice like ice, he asked, "Is that why you egged Yphantes on?"

"That's part of the reason, aye," Phostis answered calmly. Before Krispos' rage could overflow, he went on, "But it's not the biggest part. Yphantes needs to marry. He needs a wife to help him now and he needs to get an heir to carry on. And Zoranne needs to marry; at fourteen, a girl's a woman, near enough. But you, son, you don't need to marry. At fourteen, a man's still a boy."

"I'm not a boy," Krispos snarled.

"No? Does a man pitch a tantrum when he's teased? You were acting the way Kosta does when I tell her I won't carry her piggyback any more. Am I wrong or am I right? Think before you answer me."

That last sentence kept Krispos from blowing up in fury. He did think; in cold—or at least cooler—blood, what he'd done seemed foolish. "Right, I suppose, Father, but—"

"But me no buts. Finding a girl who'll say yes to you is wonderful; Phos knows I don't deny it. Why, I remember—" His father stopped, laughed a small, self-conscious laugh. "But never mind me. Just because she says yes doesn't mean you want to live with her the rest of your life. That should take more looking than just one girl, don't you think?"

Krispos remembered his own misgivings about Tzykalas the day before. Without much wanting to, he found himself nodding. "I guess so."

"Good." His father put a hand on his shoulder, the way he'd been doing since Krispos was a little boy. "What you have to remember is, bad as you feel today, today's not forever. Things'll feel better inside you after a while. You just have to learn the patience to wait till they do."

Krispos thought about that. It made sense. Even so, though... "It sounds like something that's easier to tell someone else than to do," he said.

"Doesn't it just?" Phostis laughed that small laugh again. "And don't I know it?"

Greatly daring, Krispos asked, "Father, what was she like?"

"She?"

"The one you talked about—sort of talked about—a few minutes ago."

"Oh." Phostis walked farther away from the house. He glanced back toward it before going on more quietly, "Her name was Sabellia. Your mother knows of her. Truly, I don't think Tatze'd mind my speaking about her, save only that no woman ever really takes kindly to her man going on about times before he was with her. Can't say I blame her; I'm as glad she doesn't chatter on about her old flames, too. But Sabellia? Well, I must have been right around your age when I met her ..."

Krispos rubbed his chin. Whiskers rasped under his fingers, not the fuzz he'd had since his voice started changing but the beginnings of a real man's crop. About time, he thought. A couple of fifteen-year-olds grew beards as good as his, though he'd had two more summers in which to raise his.

He rubbed again. A beard, even a thin one, was a useful thing to be thoughtful with. Last time out in the woods, somewhere not far from here, he'd spotted an elm branch that had exactly the right curve for a plow handle. He would have paid more attention to it had he not been with a girl.

That oak looked familiar, or so he thought till he got close to it. He walked on. He didn't remember the hazel tree beyond the oak. Sighing, he kept walking. By now he was sure he had come too far, but he didn't want to go back, either. It would have been too much like an admission of failure.

Faint in the distance, he heard noise ahead. He frowned. Few villagers came this far east of home. He'd brought Likinia out here precisely because he had felt sure they'd get to be alone. He supposed men from the next village over could be doing some lumbering, but they'd have to drag the wood a long way back if they were.

The noise didn't sound like lumbering, anyhow. He heard no axes, no sounds of falling branches or toppling trees. As he moved closer, a horse neighed softly. That confused him worse than ever. A horse would have been handy for hauling timber, but there was no timber.

What did that leave? His frown deepened—the most obvious answer was bandits. He hadn't thought the nearby road had enough traffic to support a robber band, but he could have been wrong. He kept moving toward the noise, but now with all the caution he could muster. He just wanted to see if these really were bandits and then, if they were, to get back to the village and bring as many armed men here as he could.

He was flat on his belly by the time he wriggled up to the last brush that screened him from the noise-makers, whoever they were. Slowly, slowly, he raised his head until he could peer between two leafy branches whose shadows helped hide his face.

"Phos!" His lips shaped the word, but no sound came from between them. The men relaxing by the side of the road were not bandits. They were Kubratoi.

His lips moved silently again—twelve, thirteen, fourteen Kubratoi. The village had not had any word of invasion, but that meant nothing. The first word of trouble they'd had when he was a boy was the wild men howling out of darkness. He shivered; suddenly, reliving the terror of that night, he felt like a boy again.

The remembered fear also told him what he had wondered before—why the Kubratoi were sitting around taking their ease instead of storming straight for the village. They would hit at night, just as that other band had. With the advantage of surprise, with darkness making them seem three times as many as they really were, they would be irresistible.

Krispos gauged the shadows around him as he slithered backward even more carefully than he had approached. The sun was not far past noon. He could deal with the Kubratoi as he'd intended to treat the bandits. The villagers had learned weapons from the veterans settled with them to be ready for just this sort of moment.

Soon Krispos was far enough away from the wild men to get back to his feet. Fast and quiet as he could, he headed toward the village. He thought about cutting back to the road and running down it. That would be quickest—if the Kubratoi didn't have a sentry posted somewhere along there to make sure no one gave the alarm. He decided he could not take the chance. Through the woods it would have to be.

He burst out of the forest an hour and a half later, his tunic torn, his arms and face scratched. His first try at a cry of alarm yielded only a rusty croak. He rushed over to the well, drew up the bucket, and drank deep. "The Kubratoi!" he shouted, loud as he could.

The men and women who heard him spun and stared. One of them was Idalkos. "How many, boy?" he barked. "Where?"

"I saw fourteen," Krispos told him. "Down at the edge of the road ..." He gasped out the story.

"Only fourteen, you say?" A fierce light kindled in Idalkos' eyes. "If that's all there really are, we can take 'em."

"I thought so, too," Krispos said. "You get the people here armed. I'll go out to the fields and bring in the rest of the men."

"Right you are." Idalkos had been an underofficer for many years; when he heard orders that made sense, he started carrying them out without worrying about where they came from. Krispos never noticed he'd given an order. He was already running toward the largest group of men that he saw, shouting as he ran.

"The Kubratoi!" someone said fearfully. "How can we fight the Kubratoi?"

"How can we not?" Krispos shot back. "Do you want to go back to the other side of the mountains again? There's only a dozen or so of them, and they won't be expecting us to hit first. With three times as many men as they have, how can we lose? Idalkos thinks we can win, too."

That brought around some of the farmers who stood there indecisively. Soon they all went pounding back toward the village. Idalkos and a couple of other men were already passing out weapons when they got there. Krispos found himself clutching a shield and a stout spear.

"We go through the woods?"

Idalkos made it sound like a question, but Krispos did not think he was really asking. "Aye," he said. "If they have someone watching the road, he could ride back and warn the rest."

"Right you are," Idalkos said again. He went on, "And speaking of warning—Stankos, you saddle up one of those mules and ride for Imbros, fast as you can, cross-country. If you see the whole landscape crawling with Kubratoi, come back. I'm not sending you out to get yourself killed. But if you think you can make it through, well, I wouldn't mind seeing a few garrison soldiers up this way. How about the rest of you, lads?"

Nods and nervous grins showed him his guess was good. The villagers had nerved themselves to fight, but they were not eager.

Or most of them, the older, more settled farmers, were not. They kept looking back at the fields; their homes; their wives and daughters, who crowded round the knot of would-be warriors, some just standing silently, others wringing their hands and trying not to weep.

Krispos, though, was almost wild with excitement. "Come on!" he shouted.

Some of the other young men also raised a cry. They pelted after Krispos into the woods. The rest of the villagers followed more slowly. "Come on, come on, if we all fight we can do it," Idalkos said. He and Varades and the rest of the veterans kept their amateur companions moving.

Before long, Idalkos had pushed his way up beside Krispos. "You're going to have to lead us, at least till we get to the buggers," he said. "You're the one who knows where they are. It'd be good if we tried to get as quiet as we could before we're close enough that they're likely to hear us."

"That makes sense," Krispos said, wondering why he hadn't thought of it himself. "I'll remember."

"Good." Idalkos grinned at him. "Glad you're not too proud to use a notion just on account of somebody else thought of it."

"Of course not," Krispos said, surprised. "That would be stupid."

"So it would, but you'd be amazed how many captains are idiots."

"Well, but then I'm no cap—" Krispos paused. He seemed to be leading the villagers, if anyone was. He shrugged. It was only because he'd been the one to find the Kubratoi, he thought.

He was still a mile away from the wild men when he walked past the elm with the curving branch he'd been looking for. He tried to note just where the tree was. Next time, he told himself, he'd find it on the first try.

A few minutes later, he stopped and waited for everyone to catch up. Only then did he think to wonder if there would be a next time after the fight ahead. He sternly suppressed that thought. Turning to the farmers, he said,"It isn't far. From here on out, pretend you're hunting deer—quiet as you go."

"Not deer," Varades said. "Wolves. The Kubratoi have teeth. And when we hit 'em, we all yell 'Phos!' That way nobody has any doubts about who's who. Nothing to make you want to piss your breeches faster'n almost getting killed by your own side."

The villagers stole forward. Soon Krispos heard men chattering, heard a horse snort. His comrades heard, too, and looked at one another. The Kubratoi were making no secret of where they were. "Quiet as we can now," Krispos whispered. "Pass it along." The whisper traveled through the group.

Try as they would, the farmers could not keep their presence secret as long as they wanted. They were still more than a hundred yards from the Kubratoi when the buzz of talk from the wild men suddenly changed. Idalkos bared his teeth, as if he were a fox realizing a rabbit had taken its scent. "Come on, lads," he said. "They know we're here. Phos!" The last word was a bellowed war cry.

"Phos!" The villagers shouted, too. They crashed through the brash toward the Kubratoi. "Phos!" Krispos yelled as loud as anyone. The idea of rushing into battle was enormously exciting. Soon, he thought, he would be a hero.

Then the brush was gone. Before Krispos could do more than catch sight of the Kubratoi, an arrow hissed past his face and another grazed his arm. He heard a meaty thunk as a shaft pierced a man beside him. The farmer fell, shrieking and writhing and clawing at it. Fear and pain suddenly seemed realer than glory.

Whether for glory or not, the fight was still before him. Peering over the top of his shield, he rushed at the nearest wild man. The Kubrati snatched for an arrow. Perhaps realizing he could not shoot before Krispos was upon him, he threw down the arrow and grabbed his sword.

Krispos thrust with his spear. He missed. The Kubrati closed with him. As much by luck as by skill, he turned the fellow's first slash with his shield. The Kubrati cut at him again. He backpedaled, trying to get room to use the spearhead against the wild man. The Kubrati pursued. Feinting with the sword, he stuck out a foot and tripped Krispos.

He managed to keep his shield above him as he went down. Two villagers drove the wild man away before he could finish Krispos. Krispos scrambled to his feet. A couple of Kubratoi were down for good, and two or three villagers. He saw a man from north of the mountains trading sword strokes with Varades. Fighting a veteran, the wild man was fully occupied. He never noticed Krispos until the youth's spear tore into his side.

The wild man granted, then stared in absurd surprise at the red-dripping spearpoint that burst out through his belly. Then Varades' sword bit his neck. More blood sprayed; some splashed Krispos in the face. The Kubrati folded in on himself and fell.

"Pull your spear out, boy!" Varades yelled in Krispos' ear. "You think they're going to wait for you?" Gulping, Krispos set a foot on the wild man's hip and yanked the spear free. The soft resistance the Kubrati's flesh gave reminded him of nothing so much as butchering time. No, no glory here, he thought again.

All across the small field, the villagers were swarming over the Kubratoi, two against one here, three against one there. Individually, each Kubrati was a better warrior than his foes. The wild men seldom got the chance to prove it. Soon only four or five of them were left on their feet. Krispos saw one look around, heard him yell something to his comrades.

Though he'd never learned the Kubrati tongue, he was sure he knew what the wild man had said. He shouted, "Don't let them make it back to their horses! They still might get away."

As he spoke, the Kubratoi broke off combat and ran toward the tethered animals. Along with the rest of the villagers, Krispos dashed after them. He wondered why they hadn't mounted and fled when they first heard the villagers coming; probably, he supposed, because they'd imagined formers would be easy meat. That had been true a decade ago. It wasn't true any more.

Krispos speared one of the Kubratoi in the back. The man flung his arms wide. Three villagers piled onto him. His scream cut off. In a moment, the rest of the Kubratoi were dragged down and slain. A couple of villagers took cuts in the last frantic seconds of the fight, but none seemed serious.

Krispos could hardly believe the little battle had ended so abruptly. He stared this way and that for more wild men to kill. All he saw was farmers doing the same thing. "We won!" he said. Then he started to laugh, surprised at how surprised he sounded.

"We won!" "By Phos, we won!" "We beat 'em!" The villagers took up the cry. They embraced, slapped one another on the back, showed off cuts and braises. Krispos found himself clasping hands with Yphantes. The older farmer wore an enormous grin. "I saw you get two of the bastards, Krispos," he said. "By the good god, you made me jealous. I think I wounded one, but I'm not even sure of that."

"Aye, he fought well," Idalkos said.

Praise from the veteran made Krispos glow. He also found he did not mind praise from Yphantes. Whether or not the man who had married Zoranne was jealous of Krispos, Krispos was no longer jealous of him. Zoranne remained special in his memory, but only because she had been his first. What he'd felt for her at fourteen seemed very far away after three years of growth and change.

Such thoughts fled as Krispos saw his father coming up with right hand clutched to left shoulder. Blood trickled between

Phostis' fingers and splashed his tunic. "Father!" Krispos exclaimed . "Are you—"

Phostis cut him off. "I'll live, boy. I've done worse to myself with a sickle more than once. I've said often enough that I'm not cut out for this soldiering business."

"You're alive. That's what counts," Idalkos said. "And while you may not want to soldier, Phostis, your boy here has the knack for it, I'd say. He sees what needs doing and he does it—and if it's giving an order, men listen to him. That's Phos' own gift, nothing else—I've seen officers without it. If ever he wanted to head to Videssos the city, the army'd be glad to have him."

"The city? Me?" Krispos had never even imagined traveling to the great imperial capital. Now he tasted the idea. After a moment, he shook his head. "I'd sooner farm. It's what I know. Besides, I don't fancy killing any more than my father does."

"Neither do I," Idalkos said. "That doesn't mean it isn't needful sometimes. And, like I told you, I think you'd make a good soldier."

"No, thanks. All I really want to make is a good crop of beans this year, so we don't go hungry when winter comes." Krispos spoke as firmly as he could, both to let Idalkos know he meant what he said and to reinforce that certainty in his own mind.

The veteran shrugged. "Have it your way. If you want to go on being a farmer, though, we'd best make sure these were the only Kubratoi operating around here. The first thing we'll do is strip the bodies." Some of the villagers had already started taking care of that. Idalkos went on, "The cuirasses and the bows are better than what we already have. The swords are more for fighting from horseback like the Kubratoi do than afoot, but we'll still be able to use 'em."

"Aye, but what about the wild men now?" Krispos demanded. "We were both worried they'd have a scout close to the village. If he got away and warned another, bigger band—"

"Then the swords and arrows we're gathering won't matter, because we don't have enough men to hold off a big, determined band. So if there is a scout, he'd best not get away." Idalkos cocked his head. "Well, brave captain Krispos, how would you go about making sure he doesn't?"

In a tone of voice only slightly different, the veteran's question would have been mockery. As it was, though, he seemed rather to be setting Krispos a problem, the way Varades sometimes had when he gave the youth a long, hard word to spell out. Krispos thought hard. "If most of us march down the road toward the village," he said at last, "anybody would be sure to notice us. A rider could get away easy enough by going wide around us, but he'd come back to the road after he did, to find out what had happened to his friends. So maybe we ought to set some archers in ambush just up ahead there, before the bugger could round that bend and see what we've done to the rest of the wild men."

"Maybe we should." Grinning, Idalkos gave Krispos a Videssian military salute, clenched fist over heart. He turned to Phostis. "Skotos take you, man, why couldn't you have raised a son who was discontented with following in his father's footsteps?"

"Because I raised one with sense instead," Krispos' father said. "Better to be turning up the ground than to have it tossed on top of you on account of you've been killed too young."

Krispos nodded vigorously. Idalkos sighed. "All right, all right. It's a good scheme, anyhow; I think it'll work." He started yelling to the villagers. A couple of them cut branches and vines to make travois on which to drag back their dead and the three or four men hurt too badly to walk. They left the horses of the Kubratoi for the ambush party to fetch back, and the wild men's corpses for ravens' meat.

When Krispos watched his plan unfold, he felt the same awe that seeing the seeds he had planted grow to maturity always gave him. Just as he'd guessed, a lone Kubrati was sitting on his horse a couple of miles closer to the village than his comrades had rested. The rider started violently at the sight of spear-waving Videssians bearing down on him. He kicked his horse to a trot, then to a gallop. The villagers gave chase, but could not catch him.

As Krispos had expected, the Kubrati rode back to the road. The youth and Idalkos grinned at each other as they watched the column of dust the wild man's horse kicked up fade in the distance. "That should do for him," Krispos said happily. "Now we can head for home."

They arrived not long after sunset—a little before the raiders would have hit the village if they still lived. In the fading light, Krispos saw women and children waiting anxiously outside their homes, wondering whether husbands, fathers, sons, and lovers would come back again.

As one, the returning men shouted, "Phos!" Not only was it a cry no Kubratoi would make, their loved ones recognized their voices. Shouting themselves, they rushed toward the victorious farmers. Some of their glad cries turned to wails as they saw not all the men had come home safe. For most of them, though, it was a time of joy.

Embracing his mother, Krispos noticed how far he had to stoop to kiss her. Stranger still was the kiss he got from Evdokia. In the passage from one day to the next, he'd paid scant heed to the way his sister had grown, but suddenly she felt like a woman in his arms. He needed a moment to realize she was as old now as Zoranne had been on that Midwinter's Day.

As if the thought of Zoranne were enough to conjure her up, he found himself kissing her next. Their embrace was awkward; he had to lean over her belly, now big with child, to reach her lips.

Close by the two of them, a woman shouted, "Where's my Hermon?"

"It's all right, Ormisda," Krispos told her. "He's one of the archers we left behind to trap the wild man we couldn't catch. Anyone you don't see here is waiting in that ambush."

"Oh, Phos be praised!" Ormisda said. She kissed Krispos, too, though she was close to three times his age. More people kissed him—and one another—over the next hour than he'd seen during half a dozen Midwinter's Day's rolled into one.

Then, in the middle of the celebration, the archers returned to the village. Though everyone fell on them with happy shouts—Ormisda almost smothered Hermon against her ample bosom—they hung back from fully joining the rest of the villagers. Krispos knew what that had to mean. "He got away," he said.

He knew it sounded like an accusation. So did the archers. They hung their heads. "We must have shot twenty arrows at him and his horse," one of them said defensively. "Some hit, too—the yells he let out had to be curses."

"He got away," Krispos repeated. It was the worst thing he could think of to say. No, not so; a moment later he found something worse yet: "He'll bring the rest of the Kubratoi down on us."

The celebration died very quickly after that.

The next five days passed in a blur of apprehension for Krispos. That was true of most of the villagers, but Krispos' dread had two causes. Like everyone else, he was sure the Kubratoi would exact a terrible revenge for the slaughter of their raiding party. But that, for him, was only secondary, for his father's wounded shoulder had gone bad.

Phostis, as was his way, tried to make light of the injury. But he could barely use his left arm and quickly came down with a fever. None of the poultices the village women applied to the wound did any good. Phostis had always been burly, but now, with shocking suddenness, the flesh seemed to melt from his bones.

Thus Krispos was almost relieved when, late that fifth afternoon, a lookout posted in a tall tree shouted, "Horsemen!" Like the rest of the men, he dashed for his weapons—against Kubratoi, at least, he could hit back. And in the heat of fighting, he would have no time to worry about his father.

The lookout shouted again. "Hundreds of horsemen!" His voice wobbled with fear. Women and children were already streaming into the forest, to hide as best they could. "Hundreds and hundreds!" the lookout cried.

Some of the farmers threw down spears and bows and bolted with the women. Krispos grabbed at one who ran in front of him, but Idalkos shook his head. "What's the use?" the veteran said. "If they outnumber us that bad, a few more on our side won't matter much. We can't win; all we can do is hurt the bastards as bad as we're able."

Krispos clutched his spear shaft so tight his knuckles whitened on it. Now he did not need the lookout to know the wild men were coming. He could hear the hooves of their horses, quiet now but growing louder with dreadful speed.

He set himself. Take one out with the spear, he thought, then drag another one off his horse and stab him. After that—if he still lived after that—he'd see what other damage he could do.

"Won't be long now, lads," Idalkos said, calm as if the villagers were drawn up for parade. "We'll yell 'Phos!' again, just like we did the first time, and pray for the good god to watch over us."

"Phos!" That was not one of the farmers standing in ragged line in front of their houses. It was the lookout. He sounded so wild and shrill that Krispos wondered if he had lost his mind. Then the man said, "They're not Kubratoi, they're Videssian troopers!"

For a moment, the villagers stared at one another, as if the lookout had shouted in a foreign tongue. Then they cheered louder than they had after they first beat the Kubratoi. Idalkos' voice rose above the rest. "Stankos!" he said. "Stankos brought us our soldiers back!"

"Stankos!" everyone shouted. "Hurrah for Stankos!" "Good old Stankos!"

Stankos, Krispos thought, was getting more praise jammed into a few minutes than he'd had in the past five years. Krispos shouted the farmer's name, too, over and over, till his throat turned raw. He had stared death in the face since the lookout called. Nothing could ever frighten him worse. Now he, also, knew what reprieve felt like.

Before long, the Videssian cavalrymen pounded into the village. Stankos was with them, riding a borrowed horse. Half a dozen farmers pulled him off the beast, as if he were a Kubrati. The pounding he got was almost as hard as if he had been.

Krispos quickly counted the troopers. As best he could tell, there were seventy-one of them. So much for the lookout's frightened hundreds and hundreds, he thought.

The horsemen's captain bemusedly watched the villagers caper about. "You don't seem to have much need for us," he remarked.

"No, sir." Idalkos stiffened to attention. "We thought we did, when we didn't know for sure how many Kubratoi were about. You gave us a bad turn there—our lookout mistook you for a band of the wild men."

"By the bodies, I saw you'd dealt with the ones you found," the captain said. "Far as we know, that's the lot of mem. I'd say they were just out for a little thievery. There's no general invasion, or anything like that."

A small band operating on its own, Krispos thought. The day he first picked up a sword, that was what Varades had told him the peasants might be able to handle. The veteran had known what he was talking about.

The Videssian captain turned to a priest beside him. "Looks like we won't need you today, Gelasios, except maybe for a prayer of thanksgiving."

"Nor am I sorry," Gelasios answered. "I can heal wounded men, aye, but I also think on the suffering they endure before I come to them, so I am just as well pleased not to ply my trade.'

"Sir!" Krispos said. He had to repeat himself before the priest looked his way. "You're a healer, holy sir?"

"What of it, young man?" Gelasios said. "Phos be praised, you seem hale enough."

"Not me," Krispos said impatiently. "My father. This way."

Without looking to see whether Gelasios followed, he hurried toward his house. When he threw open the door, a new smell came out with the usual odors of stale smoke and food, a sweetish, sickly smell that made his stomach want to turn over.

"Yes, I see," Gelasios murmured at Krispos' elbow. The priest's nostrils flared wide, as if to gauge from the scent of corruption how great a challenge he faced. He went inside, stooping a little to get through the doorway. Now it was Krispos' turn to follow him.

Gelasios stooped beside Phostis, who lay near the edge of the straw bedding. Bright with fever, Phostis' eyes stared through the priest. Krispos bit his lip. In those sunken eyes, in the way his father's skin clung tight to bones beneath it, he saw the outline of coming death.

If Gelasios saw it, too, he gave no sign. He pulled Phostis' tunic aside, peeled off the latest worthless poultice to examine the wound. With the poultice came a thick wave of that rotting smell. Krispos took an involuntary step backward, then checked, hating himself—what was he doing, retreating from his father?

"It's all right, lad," Gelasios said absently, the first sign since he'd come into the house that he remembered Krispos was with him. He forgot him again, an instant later, and seemed to forget Phostis, too. His eyes went upward, as if to see the sun through the thatched roof of the cottage. "We bless thee, Phos, Lord with the great and good mind," he intoned, "by thy grace our protector, watchful beforehand that the great test of life may be decided in our favor."

Krispos echoed his prayer. It was the only one he knew all the way through; everyone in the whole Empire, he supposed, had Phos' creed by heart.

Gelasios said the prayer again, and again, and again. The priest's breathing grew slow and deep and steady. His eyes slid shut, but Krispos was somehow sure he remained very much aware of self and surroundings. Then, without warning, Gelasios reached out and seized Phostis' wounded shoulder.

The priest's hands were not gentle. Krispos expected his father to shriek at that rough treatment, but Phostis lay still, locked in his fever dream. Though Gelasios no longer prayed aloud, his breathing kept the same rhythm he had established.

Krispos looked from the priest's set face to his hands, and to the wound beneath them. The hair on his arms and at the nape of his neck suddenly prickled with awe—as he watched, that gaping, pus-filled gash began to close.

When only a thin, pale scar remained, Gelasios lifted his hands away from Phostis' shoulder. The flow of healing that had passed from him to Krispos' father stopped with almost audible abruptness. Gelasios tried to rise; he staggered, as if he felt the force of that separation.

"Wine," he muttered hoarsely. "I am fordone."

Only then did Krispos realize how much energy the healing had drained from Gelasios. He knew he should rush to fulfill the priest's request, but he could not, not at once. He was looking at his father. Phostis' eyes met his, and there was reason in them. "Get him his wine, son," Phostis said, "and while you're at it, you might bring some for me."

"Yes, Father, of course. And I pray your pardon, holy sir." Krispos was glad for an excuse to rummage for clean cups and the best skin of wine in the house: it meant no one would have to see the tears on his face.

"Phos' blessings on you, lad," Gelasios said. Though the wine put some color back in his face, he still moved stiffly, as if he had aged twenty years in the few minutes he'd needed to heal Phostis. Seeing the concern on Krispos' face, he managed a wry chuckle. "I'm not quite so feeble as I appear—a meal and good night's sleep, and I'll be well enough. Even without, at need I could heal another man now, likely two, and take no lasting harm."

Too abashed to speak, Krispos only nodded. His father said, "I just praise Phos you were here to heal me, holy sir. I do thank you for it." He twisted his head so he could peer down at his shoulder and at the wound there that, by the look of it, could have been five years old. "Isn't that fine?" he said to no one in particular.

He stood, more smoothly than Gelasios had. They walked out into the sunlight together. The men of the village raised a cheer to see Phostis returned to health. Somebody called, "And Tatze would have been such a tempting widow, too!" They all laughed, Phostis louder than anyone.

Krispos came out behind the two older men. While most of the villagers were still making much of his father, Idalkos beckoned to him. The veteran had been talking with the commander of the Videssian cavalry force. "I've told this gentleman—his name is Manganes—something about you," he said to Krispos. "He says—"

"Let me put it to him myself," Manganes said crisply. "From what your fellow villager here says, Krispos—do I have your name right?—you sound like a soldier the imperial army could use. I'd even offer you, hmm, a five goldpiece enlistment bonus if you rode back to Imbros with us now."

Without hesitating, Krispos shook his head. "Here I stay, sir, all the more so since, by your kindness and Gelasios' healing magic, my father has been restored to me."

"As you wish, young man," Manganes said. He and Idalkos both sighed.