Krispos Rising

V

Krispos caught her before she hit her head on the bench in front of her. "Oh, Phos!" her son Mavros said. He rushed up to help take her weight. "Thanks for saving her there, uh, Krispos. Come on, let's get her out of the temple. She should be better soon."

He sounded so matter-of-fact that Krispos asked, "This has happened before?"

"Yes." Mavros raised his voice to speak to the townsfolk who came hurrying up after Tanilis fell. "My mother just got out of her seat too quickly. Let us by, please, so we can get her to fresh air. Let us by, please."

He had to repeat himself several times before people moved aside. Even then, several women and a couple of men stayed with him. Krispos wondered why he did not shoo them away too, then realized they had to be part of Tanilis' retinue. They helped clear a path so Krispos and Mavros could carry the noblewoman up the aisle.

Tanilis muttered and stirred when the sun hit her face, but did not wake at once. Krispos and Mavros eased her to the ground. The women stood over her, exclaiming.

One of the servants said to Mavros, "I wish we'd come from the house in town today, young master. Then she could go in the sedan chair."

"That would make fetching her home again easier, wouldn't it? However ..." Mavros shrugged whimsically. He turned to Krispos. "My mother sometimes ... sees things, and sees them so strong she can't withstand the force of the vision. I've grown used to it, watching it happen over the years, but I do wish she wouldn't always pick such awkward times and places. Of course, what I wish has very little to do with anything." He gave that shrug again.

"That's the way things often work." Krispos decided he thought well of Mavros. The youngster had not only kept his head coping with an awkward situation, but was even able to make light of it. From everything Krispos had ever seen, that was harder.

Mavros said, "Genzon, Naues, fetch the horses here from round the corner. The crowd's thinning out; you shouldn't have much trouble now."

"I'll go with them, if you like," Krispos said. "That way each man won't have to lead so many."

"Thanks, that's generous of you. Please, a moment first, though." Mavros took a couple of steps away from his retinue and motioned for Krispos to follow. In a low voice, he asked, "What did my mother say to you, there in the temple? Her back was to me; I didn't hear."

"Oh, that." Krispos scratched his head, looking embarrassed. "Do you know, in all the hubbub since, it's gone clean out of my mind."

He hurried after Genzon and Naues. He was unhappy about lying to Mavros, but he'd lied without hesitation. He needed to think much more about the unbelievably fascinating, unbelievably dangerous word Tanilis had spoken before he admitted to himself—let alone to anyone else—that he'd heard it.

Most of the horses the servants loosed from the hitching rail were ponies for Tanilis' female attendants. The four that were not were animals fine enough to have belonged in Iakovitzes' stables. Four—that meant Tanilis was no mean rider, then. Krispos found himself unsurprised. She was plainly a woman of many accomplishments.

She had managed to sit up by the time Krispos, Genzon, and Naues brought the horses back to the temple, but still did not seem fully aware of herself or her surroundings. Mavros clasped Krispos' hand. "Thank you again. I'm grateful for all your help."

"My pleasure." Krispos heard the dismissal in Mavros' voice. He dipped his head and went back to Bolkanes' inn.

Iakovitzes was not there; he was closeted with Lexo again. Krispos hoped his absentminded prayer had done his master some good. He went down to the taproom for some wine and for a chance to pick Bolkanes' brain.

Both came slower than he wanted. The inn was crowded with people celebrating the holy Abdaas' festal day less piously than those who had gone to the temple. The tables were all filled. Working his way up to the bar took patience, but patience Krispos had. "Red wine, please," he told Bolkanes.

The innkeeper dipped out a measure and filled an earthenware mug. Only when he slid it across the counter did he look up to see whom he was serving. "Oh, hello, Krispos," he said and then, to the next man who'd wormed his way forward, "What'll it be for you today, Rekilas?"

Having gained his spot at the bar, Krispos did not give it up. He waited while Bolkanes served two more men, then said, "I saw a truly striking noblewoman at the temple today. A man told me her name was—"

He broke off; someone had asked Bolkanes for a cup of something finer than he kept in the barrels at the bar, and the innkeeper had to hurry away to get what the fellow wanted. When he returned—and after he dealt with another customer—Krispos started to repeat himself, but Bolkanes had been listening, even if he was too busy to talk. He broke in: "That'd be Tanilis, I expect."

"Yes, that was the name," Krispos said. "Sounds like she's well known hereabouts."

"I should say so," Bolkanes agreed. "She has—hello, Zernes, more of the white for you? Coming right up." Zernes not only wanted more white wine but needed change from a goldpiece, and counted it three times once he got it. Half a dozen men were waiting by the time he got done. Eventually Bolkanes resumed. "Tanilis? Aye, she has huge tracts of land hereabouts. A good many said she'd lose everything, trying to run 'em herself after her husband—what was her husband's name, Apsyrtos?"

"Vledas, wasn't it?" Apsyrtos answered. "Let me have a cup of mead this time, will you?"

"You head'll hurt come morning, mixing 'em that way," Bolkanes warned, but he plied the dipper. When he was done, he turned back to Krispos. "Vledas, that was it. He died ten, twelve years ago now, it must be, and she's prospered since. Done well in good years and bad, they say, though naturally I couldn't testify to that. But her estates do keep growing. It's almost uncanny—just a woman, you know."

"Mm-hmm," Krispos said, though he had the feeling Tanilis was just a woman in the same way that Videssos was just a city.

Iakovitzes came in a little later. His good nature, always unreliable, had vanished altogether by the time he worked his way to the bar through the press of holiday drinkers. "Just because a holy man once cured a horse of fleas is no reason to turn a town on its ear," he growled.

"Is that what the holy Abdaas did?" Krispos asked.

"How should I know? In a backwoods bastion like this, I doubt one would need do much more to be reckoned a miracle-worker." Iakovitzes gulped his wine, then slammed the mug down on the bar for a refill.

Krispos thought of Tanilis again. He'd seen more than horse-doctoring. He wondered how he could find out more about her. If she was as grand a noblewoman as Bolkanes made her out to be—and nothing Krispos had seen left him doubting it—he could not just go and seek a meeting with her. She'd slap him down for such presumption. Approaching through her son seemed a better bet. Mavros, on brief acquaintance, had the feel of being someone Krispos could like. Bolkanes might know the amusements the youth favored when he came into town... .

Iakovitzes had said something that Krispos missed in his musing. "I crave pardon."

His master frowned. "For all the attention you paid me there, I thought for a moment I was back talking with Lexo. He started in on his stinking tribal lays again today, the blackguard, until I asked him if he was willing to listen while I read to him from the histories of the reign of Stavrakios the Great. After that he came rather closer to reason, though not close enough. By Phos, I'll poison the bastard if his delays make me spend the winter in this miserable place."

A day before, Krispos would have agreed. After Videssos the city, Opsikion was small and backward and not very interesting—in a word, provincial. Now, with Tanilis' mystery before him, he hoped Iakovitzes would stay a while longer. "Drive him wild, Lexo," he whispered, too low for his master to hear.

Bolkanes was rolling a fresh barrel of wine from the top of the cellar stairs to the taproom when Krispos walked into the inn a couple of afternoons later. "Want some help with that?"

Krispos asked. Without waiting for an answer, he hurried forward.

"You would come in after I've done the hard part myself." Bolkanes wiped sweat from his forehead. "I can manage from here. Anyhow, a fellow's waiting for you at the bar. Been here an hour, maybe a bit longer."

"For me?" Krispos hadn't thought anyone in Opsikion knew him well enough to find him worth waiting for. He walked into the taproom. The tall, lanky man standing at the bar turned at the sound of his footsteps. "Naues!" Krispos said, then added with sudden doubt, "Or are you Genzon?"

Tanilis' servitor smiled. "I'm Genzon. I don't blame you for having to ask. Things were hurried and confused at the temple the other day."

"So they were." Krispos hesitated. "I hope your mistress is improved?"

"Yes, thank you." Genzon's prominent larynx bobbed as he swallowed the last of the wine in his cup. "She thanks you, also, for the care and concern you showed. To show her gratitude further, she bids you dine with her this evening, if you care to."

"She does?" Krispos blurted. Try as he would, he was still new to the notion of keeping thoughts to himself. He needed a moment to let urbanity return. "I'd be delighted. Can you give me a little while to change?"

"Certainly. What are a few more minutes, save a chance for another cup of wine?" Genzon nodded to Bolkanes, who, along with his tapman, was wrestling the new barrel into place under the bar.

Krispos told the innkeeper, "Please let Iakovitzes know I've been asked away for the evening." As soon as he was sure Bolkanes had heard, he walked over to the stairway. He would not run, not where Genzon could see him, but he bounded up the steps two at a time.

For once, he wished he could borrow Iakovitzes' clothes. He usually thought them gaudy, but now he wanted to put on something that would impress Tanilis. Since Iakovitzes was more than half a foot shorter than he was, and correspondingly narrower as well, borrowing a tunic was impractical. He threw on his own best one, of a sober dark blue, and a pair of breeches that matched it. He went downstairs so fast he had to grab at the railing to keep from landing on his head.

"Let me saddle my horse and I'll meet you out front," he called to Genzon. Tanilis' man nodded. Krispos went out to the stables behind the inn. He quickly put the saddle on his horse, made sure the cinch was tight—he'd learned about that back at the village, fortunately, or Iakovitzes' grooms never would have let him live it down—mounted, and walked the horse up to the street.

Genzon came out a couple of minutes later. "Good-looking animal," he said as he swung himself aboard his own mount.

"My master knows horses," Krispos said.

"Yes, I can see that. Nice smooth gait, too." Genzon started to say something more, visibly decided not to. Krispos thought he could guess the question Genzon swallowed: Why was the groom being invited to dine with his mistress, and not the visiting noble from the capital? As he had only hopes and wild speculations himself, he did not want to try to answer that.

Genzon led him out of Opsikion by the south gate. The road soon twisted away from the sea and ran up into the hills. Krispos' horse did not falter at the steep stretches. Indeed, the beast seemed to relish the challenge. Have to give him more exercise, Krispos thought.

Some of the hillsides were terraced. Up on the slopes, Krispos saw peasants weeding crops and pruning vines. They were too wrapped up in their tasks to look down at him. Watching them sent a remembered ache through his shoulders. Farming was the longest, hardest work there was. Having lived the peasant's life for so many years, he knew how lucky he was to have escaped it.

He wondered how his sister and brother-in-law were doing. He supposed he was an uncle by now, and hoped Evdokia had come through childbirth safely.

"All this is Tanilis' land," Genzon remarked.

"Is it?" Krispos said politely. He wondered what the scores, what the hundreds of people who worked it thought of that. Did she protect her peasants from the state's demands, or impose her own alongside them?

He hoped she looked after the people under her control. But, as he could not have a year before, he also wondered whether nobles who too effectively shielded their peasants from the state were good for Videssos. If nobles turned into petty kings on their own domains, how could the central government hope to function? He shook his head, thankful the problem was Anthimos'—or perhaps Petronas"—and not his.

He and Genzon rode on for some time. The sun was falling toward the jagged western horizon when Genzon pointed, saying, "There is Tanilis' villa."

The building ahead was so large Krispos had taken it for a fortress. It was well sited for one, on top of a rise that commanded the surrounding countryside. But as Krispos drew near, he saw it was too lightly made, with too many windows and too many doors, to serve as a stronghold.

He wondered how many peasants had gone hungry because they were busy building it instead of working their fields, then wondered again if such a thought had ever crossed one of the owners' minds. He doubted it. No one who owned a home like this—it made Iakovitzes' house look like Krispos' old cottage by comparison—had ever been a peasant.

Someone came out of the villa. As Krispos got closer, he saw it was Mavros. Tanilis' son recognized him—or more likely Genzon—a moment later. He waved. Genzon and Krispos waved back. They urged their horses into a trot.

Mavros came down to meet them. "About time you turned up," he said, grinning. "Mother's starting to fret and the cook's getting nervous. Never mind. You're here now, and that's what counts."

Boys hurried up to take the newcomers' horses and lead them back to the stables. Krispos expected his mount would get better care here than at Bolkanes'. Not that he had anything against the innkeeper, but Tanilis did not have to worry about how every copper was spent.

"You can have the rest of the day off, Genzon," Mavros said. The retainer dipped his head in thanks. Mavros turned to Krispos as Genzon hurried off. "Now you on the other hand, sirrah, you are in my mother's clutches."

"Oh? Why?" Krispos had—and ruthlessly stifled—a sudden, hungry vision of Tanilis clutching him, and him clutching back.

"The ice take me if I can tell you." Mavros shrugged in cheerful incomprehension. Krispos wished he could stay so jolly in the face of the unknown. In the life he'd led, unknown and dangerous were the same word. To Mavros, raised lacking for nothing, the world seemed a sunnier place. He went on, "She'll explain in her own good time, I'm sure. Me, I expect it has to do with whatever she said at the temple the other day. What was that, anyhow?"

"Hasn't she told you?" Krispos asked, surprised.

"She doesn't remember, not exactly. Her—visions are like that sometimes." Mavros shrugged again. "Whatever it was, it was something strong. Some of the old servants say the place hasn't been turned upside down like this since the Avtokrator Sermeios dined here in my grandfather's time."

"Since an Avtokrator—" Krispos echoed weakly. He tried to laugh, but only managed a ghastly chuckle. "I'm no Avtokrator, believe me."

"I believe you," Mavros said at once, but not so it sounded like an insult. "You seem a good fellow, though. I think so myself, and my mother wouldn't have invited you here if she'd seen anything wicked, now would she?"

"No," Krispos said. That he was going to eat where an Avtokrator had dined was stirring enough—but after all, Petronas had broken bread at Iakovitzes' house, and he was Emperor in all but name. But that an imperial-size fuss was being made over him—he wanted another try at laughing over that. He was sure he could do a proper job the second time around.

Mavros said, "Come in, come in. The longer I leave you standing around here, the longer everyone inside stands around fussing. The cook'll stop palpitating every time anything gets near done, which will be a great relief to everyone."

Krispos made the sun-sign over his heart as he walked beneath the image of Phos that hung above the door. The floor of the entrance hall was gleaming marble. "Is that you, son?" Tanilis' voice floated down it as Mavros slammed the door. "Where can Krispos be?"

"With me, as a matter of fact," Mavros said. Krispos heard Tanilis exclaim. Mavros told him, "Come on, she's out in the garden."

Krispos got a brief glimpse into each room that opened on the hallway as he hurried after Mavros. What he saw reminded him of Iakovitzes' splendid furnishings, but showed better taste and more money. That enormous round table inlaid with gold and ivory ... not even an Avtokrator would have felt ashamed to eat a meal from a table like that.

The garden was also larger and finer than Iakovitzes', although, to be just, Krispos had never seen his master's garden in full bloom. Tanilis extended a slim hand. Krispos bowed over it. Rings glinted on her fingers. "Thank you, my lady, for inviting me here," he said. "This is—marvelous."

"It pleases me that you so say so, eminent sir. Surely, though, you must have seen homes far finer in Videssos the city."

He noted the title by which she addressed him. She might not remember everything, he thought, but she hasn't forgotten everything, either. Then his attention came back to what she'd said. "In truth, no," he said slowly. "The wonder of Videssos the city isn't any one home in it, but that there are so many homes, so many people, all in the same place."

"A thoughtful answer," Tanilis said. "I've never seen the city."

"Nor I." Mavros' face lit. "I'd love to go there one day, though it's hard for me to imagine a city bigger than Opsikion."

Krispos smiled. No matter how rich and easy Mavros' life was, he knew some things Tanilis' son did not. "If Videssos the city were a wolf, it could swallow a mouse like Opsikion without even chewing," he said.

Mavros whistled, soft and low, and shook his head. "Hard to believe."

"From everything your father said, it's true," Tanilis said. "Vledas went to the city once, when he was not much older than you are now, and never stopped talking about it to the day he died."

"I don't remember," Mavros said wistfully. He would have been a small boy when Vledas died, Krispos realized. He was surprised to think himself luckier in any way than this rich youth, but he'd known his father until he was a man grown.

Had Phostis died while he was young, say in Kubrat, who would have been there to keep him from doing all sorts of stupid things later? Most likely he would have ended up marrying Zoranne and staying a farmer all his life. A good part of a year away from the ceaseless labor that was farming, he no longer thought it the only right and proper way to live.

"You will see Videssos one day, too, son." Tanilis' voice was hollow; her eyes did not quite focus on Mavros. Krispos felt the hair on his arms trying to prickle upright. The oracular tone faded as she went on, "But for now, a shorter journey. Shall we go inside and eat?"

The cook, a nervous little man named Evtykhes, stopped fidgeting and sighed with relief as he saw his charges sit down around a small table topped with mother-of-pearl—it shimmered and almost seemed to shift in the glow of the lamps other servants set out.

"Soup?" Evtykhes asked. At Tanilis' nod, he dashed back to the kitchen. A boy appeared with the steaming bowls so quickly that Krispos suspected the cook was trying to make sure everyone kept sitting.

Back in his village, Krispos would have lifted the soup bowl straight to his lips. In taverns and eateries in the city, he still did. But he had learned to use a spoon at Iakovitzes'. Since Tanilis and Mavros ate with theirs, he imitated them. By the time he got to the bottom of the bowl, the soup was cold. Maybe the nobles didn't mind that, but he did. His breath went out in a silent sigh.

He was more used to his fork and was reaching for it when he saw Tanilis and Mavros pick up asparagus with their fingers. He imitated them again. Manners were confusing things.

The food kept coming: broiled duck in a glaze of candied berries, mushrooms stuffed with turtle meat, pureed chestnuts, a salad of oranges and apples, and at last a roast kid with a sweet-and-sour sauce and chopped onions. Mavros and Krispos ate ravenously, the one because he was still growing, the other because he'd learned to do so whenever he got the chance as a hedge against the hunger that was sure to follow. Tanilis sampled a little of every course and sent warm praise back to the cook after each one.

"By the good god," she said, watching her son and Krispos devastate the plate of cheese and strawberries that appeared after the kid, "I could get fat just from being in the same room with the two of you."

"You'd have to blame Krispos, then," Mavros said—rather blurrily, as his mouth was full. "If it came from being in the same room with me, it would've happened long ago."

Krispos eyed Tanilis, who was so perfectly and elegantly shaped that she might have been turned on a lathe. The phrase fit in more ways than one, he thought, for she plainly maintained her figure with a craftsman's disciplined artifice. He told her, "I don't think Phos—or you—would allow such a mishap."

She looked down at her wine cup. "A compliment and a truth together—indeed, the good god aids a man who helps himself."

"Then he aids me now." Mavros popped the last strawberry into his mouth.

"Son, you are incorrigible," Tanilis said fondly.

"It does seem that way," Mavros agreed.

Krispos sipped his own wine: something thick and sweet now, to complement the sharp taste of the cheese. He said, "Phos is the only one who knows why he does as he does. My lady, I hope you will be kind enough to tell me why you've been so good to me. I told you at the temple, I'm only a groom, and lucky to be that. I feel I'm taking advantage of you." And if one day you feel the same way, he did not add, you could cause me untold grief.

Tanilis waited until a servant left with the last plates. She got up and closed the door to the small dining chamber after the man departed. Only then did she answer, her voice low, "Tell me truly, Krispos, have you never wondered if you might one day be more than what you are now? Truly?"

Despite that double admonition, "No" was the first answer that rose to his lips. But before he spoke it aloud, he thought of Pyrrhos calling his name that rainy night in the monastery. A moment later, he remembered how both Pyrrhos and the Kubrati enaree had looked at him during the ceremony when Iakovitzes ransomed the stolen peasants. The word Tanilis had spoken in the temple also echoed in his head.

"I've ... wondered," he said at last.

"And that you should wonder is plain to anyone who can ... see as I do." Tanilis used the same sort of hesitation he had.

Mavros looked ready to burst from curiosity. "What did you say to him back in the temple?" he asked her. "I think you know again."

Instead of answering, she glanced toward Krispos. He hesitated, then gave his head a tiny shake. New-come from the farm though he might be, he knew that word was dangerous. Tanilis' nod of understanding was equally small. "I do, and you will, too, son," she said. "But not yet."

"Thank you so much," Mavros said. The words were sarcastic; the tone was not. Krispos decided Mavros was too good-natured ever to grow skilled at using the stinging wit Iakovitzes relished.

"Since you did see ... what you saw, what do you want from me?" Krispos asked Tanilis.

"To profit from your rise, of course," she answered. He blinked; he had not expected her to be so direct. She went on, "For me, for my family, what we have now is as much as we ever will have. That, too, I have seen—unless we tie ourselves to one with higher hopes. That one, I think, is you."

Krispos looked around the room. He thought of the house of which that rich room was a part, of the vast estates surrounding that house. Why, he wondered, would anyone want more than this? He still wanted more than he had, but he did not have much, and that at the whim of his bad-tempered master. If Tanilis would help him get more, he'd play along. If she thought him a hand-puppet to move only at her bidding, she might get a surprise one day.

He knew better than to say that aloud. "What do you want from me?" he repeated. "And how will you help in this ... rise ... you saw?"

"The first thing I want is that you not grow too confident in your rise," she warned. "Nothing seen ahead of time is definite. If you think a thing will come to pass without your working toward it, that is the surest way I know to make certain it will never be."

The night the Kubratoi swept down on his village had taught Krispos once and for all that nothing in life was definite. He nodded. "What else?"

"That you take Mavros back to Videssos the city with you and reckon him your younger brother henceforth," Tanilis said. "The connections he makes there will serve him and you for the rest of his life."

"Me? The city? Really?" Mavros threw back his head and yowled with delight.

"He's welcome to go to Videssos by me," Krispos said, "but I'm not the one who'd have to choose to take him along. Iakovitzes would." He glanced over at Tanilis' son and tried to see him through Iakovitzes' eyes. "It might not be hard to get my master to ask him to go back with us, but—" He stopped. He would not speak ill of Iakovitzes, not before these people he hardly knew.

"I know of his habits," Tanilis said. "To his credit, he does not pretend to be other than what he is. Mavros, I think, will be able to take care of himself, and he's as good with horses—your master's other passion, are they not?—as anyone his age near Opsikion."

"That will help," Krispos agreed. He chuckled—one more handsome youth for Meletios and some of the other grooms to worry about. Growing serious again, he went on, "Besides Mavros, how will you aid me?" He felt he was horse trading with Tanilis, the only trouble being that she promised delivery of most of the horse some years from now. He wanted to make as sure as possible of the part he could see now.

"Gold, counsel, loyalty until your death or mine," Tanilis said. "If you like, I will take oath by the lord with the great and good mind."

Krispos thought that over. "If your word is bad, will your oath make it better?"

Tanilis lowered her eyes. Her hair hid her face. Even so, Krispos felt he had passed a test.

Mavros said plaintively, "Will the two of you please quit making deep plans without me? If I'm suddenly to leave for Videssos the city, shouldn't I know why?"

"You might be safer if you didn't," Tanilis said. But she must have seen the justice of her son's protest, for she pointed at Krispos and whispered the word she had spoken to him inside the temple.

Mavros' eyes widened. "Him?" he squeaked. Krispos did not blame him for sounding amazed. He did not believe the prediction either, not down deep.

But Tanilis answered,"It may be so." If all she'd said tonight was true, she would try to help it be so. Was she, then, simply following the path she had seen or trying to force it into existence? Krispos went round that dizzy loop of thought two or three times before he gave it up. Tanilis went on, "None of us should say that word again, not until the proper time comes, if it ever does."

"You're right." Mavros shook his head in wonder and grinned at Krispos. "I always figured I'd need a miracle to get me to Videssos the city, but I didn't know what one looked like till now."

Krispos snorted. "I'm no miracle." But he found himself grinning back. Mavros would make him a lively brother. He turned to Tanilis. "My lady, may I beg an escort from you? Otherwise, in the dark, I'd need a miracle to get back to Opsikion, let alone the city."

"Stay the night," she said. "I expected you would; the servants have readied a chamber for you." She rose and walked over to the dining room's doors. The small noise of their opening summoned two men. She nodded to one. "Xystos, please lead the eminent sir to his bedchamber."

"Certainly." Xystos bowed, first to Tanilis, then to Krispos. "Come with me, eminent sir."

As Krispos started to follow the servant away, Tanilis said, "Since we are become partners in this enterprise, Krispos, take a partner's privilege and use my name."

"Thank you, uh, Tanilis," Krispos said. Her encouraging smile seemed to stay with him after he turned a corner behind Xystos.

The bedroom was larger than the one Krispos had at Bolkanes' inn. Xystos bowed again and shut the door behind him. Krispos used the chamber pot. He took off his clothes, blew out the lamp Xystos had left, and lay down on the bed. It was softer than any he'd known before—and this, he thought, was only a guest room.

Even in darkness, he did not fall asleep at once. With his mind's eye, he kept seeing the smile Tanilis had given him as he left the dining room. Maybe she would slip in here tonight, to seal with her body the strange bargain they had made. Or maybe she would send in a serving girl, just as a kindness to him. Or maybe ...

Maybe I'm a fool, he told himself when he woke the next morning, still very much alone in bed. He used the chamber pot again, dressed, and ran fingers through his hair.

He was going to the door when someone tapped on it. "Oh, good, you're awake," Mavros said when he opened it a moment later. "If you don't mind breakfasting on hard rolls and smoked mutton, we can eat while we ride back to town."

"Good enough." Krispos thought of how often he'd gone out to work in the fields after breakfasting on nothing. He knew Mavros had never missed a meal. He kept quiet, not just for politeness' sake but also because he'd long since decided hunger held no inherent virtue—life was better with a full belly.

They washed down the rolls and mutton with a skin of wine. "That's a very nice animal you're riding," Krispos said after a while.

"Isn't he?" Mavros beamed. "I'm not small, but my weight doesn't faze him a bit, no even when I'm in mail shirt and helmet. " He took the reins in his left hand so he could draw a knife and make cut-and-thrust motions as if it were a sword. "Maybe one of these days I'll ride him to war against Makuran or Kubrat—or even Khatrish, if your master's mission fails. Take that, vile barbarian!" He stabbed a bush by the side of the road.

Krispos smiled at his enthusiasm. "Real fighting's not as ... neat as you make it out to be."

"You've fought, then?" At Krispos' nod, Mavros' eyes went big and round. "Tell me about it!"

Krispos tried to beg off, but Mavros kept urging him until he baldly recounted the villagers' massacre of the Kubrati raiders. "Just our good luck there was only the one little band," he finished. "If the riders a couple of days later had been wild men instead of Videssian cavalry, I wouldn't be here now to give you the tale."

"I've heard true warriors don't speak much of glory," Mavros said in a rather subdued voice.

"What they call glory, I think, is mostly the relief you feel after you've fought and lived through it without getting maimed. If you have."

"Hmm." Mavros rode on in silence for some time after that. Before he and Krispos got to Opsikion, though, he was slaying bushes again. Krispos did not try to dissuade him. He suspected Mavros would make a better soldier than he did himself—the young noble seemed inclined to plunge straight ahead without worrying about consequences, a martial trait if ever there was one.

They got to Opsikion a little before midmorning. Being with Mavros got Krispos through the south gate with respectful salutes from the guards. When they came to Bolkanes' inn, they found Iakovitzes just sitting down to breakfast—unlike most folk, he did not customarily rise at dawn.

He fixed Krispos with a glare. "Nice of you to recall who your master is." His eyes flicked to Mavros. Krispos watched his expression change. "Or have you been cavorting with this magnificent creature?"

"No," Krispos said resignedly. "Excellent sir, let me present Mavros to you. He is the son of the noblewoman Tanilis, and is interested in returning to Videssos with us when your mission is done. He'd make a fine groom, excellent sir; he knows horses."

"Tanilis' son, eh?" Iakovitzes rose to return Mavros' bow; he'd evidently learned who Tanilis was. But he went on,"When it comes to grooms for my stables, I don't care if he's the Avtokrator's son, not that Anthimos has one."

He shot several searching questions at Mavros, who answered them without undue trouble. Then he went outside to look over the youth's mount. When he came back, he was nodding. "You'll do, if you're the one who's been tending that animal."

"I am," Mavros said.

"Good, good. You'll definitely do. We may even get to leave before fall comes; Lexo may see reason after all. At least I'm beginning to hope so again." Iakovitzes looked almost cheerful for a moment as he sat down. Then he found something new to complain about. "Oh, a plague! My sausage is cold. Bolkanes!"

As the innkeeper hurried up, Mavros whispered to Krispos, "Is your master always like that?"

"Now that you mention it, yes," Krispos whispered back.

"I wonder if I want to see Videssos the city enough to work for him." But Mavros was joking. He raised his voice to a normal level. "I'm going to ride home now, but I'll be in town a lot. If I'm not, just send a messenger for me and I'll come ready to travel." Bowing again to Iakovitzes, he left the taproom.

Around a mouthful of fresh, steaming sausage, Iakovitzes said, "So now you're hobnobbing with young nobles, are you, Krispos? You're coming up a bit in your choice of friends."

"If I hadn't spent these last months with you, excellent sir, I wouldn't have had any idea how to act around him," Krispos said. Flattery that was also true, he'd found, worked best.

It worked now. Iakovitzes' gaze lost the piercing quality it had when he was suspicious about something. "Hrmp," he said, and went back to his breakfast.

Three days later, Mavros brought Krispos another dinner invitation. Krispos went out and bought a new tunic, a saffron-yellow one that went well with his olive skin. After he paid for it, he felt odd. It was the first time he'd got a shirt just for the sake of having something new.

Tanilis' admiring glance that evening made the purchase seem worthwhile. She was worth admiring herself, in a thin dress of white linen that emphasized how small her waist was. More gold shone on her wrists and around her neck.

"You are welcome, as always," she said, holding out her hand.

Krispos took it. "Thank you, my ... Tanilis." His tongue slipped by accident, but he watched her eyes fall as she heard the last two words together. Maybe his hope of the previous visit had not been so foolish after all.

But if that was so, she gave no hint of it during dinner. Indeed, she said very little. Mavros did most of the talking; he bubbled with excitement at the prospect of heading west for the city. "When will we leave?" he asked. "Do you know? How fare Iakovitzes' talks with the Khatrisher?"

"Better, I think," Krispos said. "He's hardly swearing at all when he gets back from the eparch's residence these days. With him, that's a very good sign."

"I'll start packing, then."

"Go ahead, but don't pack anything you might want before you go. He was like this once before, weeks ago, and then things fell apart again." Krispos took a last luscious bite of blackberry tart and turned to Tanilis. "I wish your cook could come with me along with your son. I don't think I've ever eaten so well."

"I'll tell Evtykhes you said so," she said, smiling. "Your praise will please him more than what he gets from us—you're not obliged to say kind things to him for politeness' sake."

Krispos had not thought about that. The servants at Iakovitzes' home were the only ones he'd known, and he was one among them. For that matter, Iakovitzes did not say kind things to anyone for politeness' sake. He used the rough edge of his tongue, not the smooth, to keep his people in line.

Tanilis said, "Though I must keep Evtykhes, Krispos, you will need more than you have if what we hope is to be accomplished. When you and Mavros do at last depart for the imperial city, I will send gold with you."

"My lady—" This time Krispos deliberately used her title rather than her name—"even with Mavros with me in Videssos, what's to keep me from spending the gold just on women and wine?"

"You are." Tanilis looked him full in the face. Those huge dark eyes held his; he had the uneasy feeling she could peer deeper into him than he could himself. Now he was the first to lower his gaze.

Mavros rose. "I'm off. If I'm to be leaving soon, I have some farewells to make."

Tanilis watched him go. "What was it you said about wine and women?" she asked Krispos. "Most of his farewells will be of that sort, I expect."

"He's coming into a man's years and a man's pleasures," Krispos replied from the peak of maturity that was twenty-two.

"So he is," Tanilis' voice was musing. Her eyes met Krispos again, but she looked through him rather than into him, back toward the past. "A man. How strange. I must have been about the age he is now when I bore him."

"Surely younger," Krispos said.

She laughed, without mirth but also without bitterness. "You are gallant, but I know the count of years. They are part of me; why should I deny them?"

Instead of answering, Krispos took a thoughtful sip from his wine cup. He'd made a mistake by breaking the rule of flattery he'd used on Iakovitzes. With someone like Tanilis, it did not do to make mistakes.

Before long, Krispos got up to go, saying, "Thank you again for inviting me here, and for the aid you promise, and for this second wonderful feast."

"Truly, if it does not unduly anger your master, you would be well advised to stay till morning," Tanilis said. "The ride back to Opsikion will be twice as long in the darkness, and there are brigands in the hills, try as we will to keep them down."

"Iakovitzes is angry most of the time, it seems. Unduly?" Krispos shrugged. "I expect I can talk him round. Thank you once more."

Tanilis called for Xystos. The servant took Krispos to the same guest chamber he had used before. That soft bed beckoned. He stripped off his clothes, slid under the single light blanket that was all he needed on a warm summer night, and fell asleep at once.

He was a sound sleeper, a legacy of the many years he had gone to bed every night too tired to wake to anything less than an earthquake. The first he knew of anyone else's being in the room was the bed shifting as the weight of another body settled onto it.

He jerked upright. "Wha—" he said muzzily.

Even the small, flickering flame of the lamp Tanilis held was enough to dazzle his sleep-dulled eyes. A secret smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"It's—all right," he answered after a moment, when he had full control of himself. Still not altogether sure why she had come—and not daring to be wrong here, where his head might answer for it—he pulled the blanket up to cover more of himself.

That secret smile came out in the open. "Wise to be cautious. But never mind." Then her expression changed. "What is that coin you wear round your neck?" she asked, her voice suddenly sharp and interested.

"This?" Krispos' hand closed over the goldpiece. "It's just for luck."

"For more than luck, I think," Tanilis said. "Please, if you would, tell me how you came by it."

He told her how Omurtag had given him the coin at the ransoming ceremony back when he was a boy. Her eyes glittered in the lamplight as she followed his account. When he thought he was done, she questioned him about the incident as closely as Iakovitzes had grilled Mavros on horses.

Prodded so, he recalled more than he'd imagined he could, even to things like the expression on the Kubrati enaree's face. The more he answered, though, the more glumly certain he became that she'd forgotten why she'd come to his bedroom in the first place. Too bad, he thought. The lamp's warm light made her especially lovely.

But she certainly seemed indifferent to their both being on the same bed. When she could pick no more memories from him, she said, "No wonder I saw as I did. The seeds of what you may be were sown long ago; at last they have grown toward the light of day."

He shrugged. At the moment, he cared little for the nebulous future. He was too busy thinking about what he wished he was doing in the very immediate present.

"You're rather a young man still, though, and not much worried about such things," Tanilis said. He gulped, wondering if she could read his mind. Then he saw she was looking down at the thin blanket, which revealed his thoughts clearly enough. He felt himself flush, but the smile was back on her face. "I suppose that's as it should be," she said, and blew out the lamp.

For a whole series of reasons, the rest of the evening proved among the most educational of Krispos' life. Every woman he'd been with before Tanilis suddenly seemed a girl by comparison. They were girls, he realized: his age or younger, chosen for attractiveness, kept for enthusiasm. Now for the first time he learned what polished art could add.

Looking back the exhausted morning after, he supposed Tanilis had taken him through his paces like Iakovitzes steering a jumper around a course. Had she taught him anything else that way, he was sure he would have resented her. He still did, a little, but resentment had to fight hard against languor.

He'd wondered for some little while if art was all she brought to the game. She moved, she stroked, she lay back to receive his caresses in silence, a silence that persisted no matter what he did. And though all her ploys were far more than just enjoyable, he also thought they were rehearsed.

Then at last some of his own urgency reached her. Kindled, she was less perfectly skilled than she had been before. Feeling her quiver beneath him, hearing her breath catch, made him want to forget all that perfect skill had wrought.

He wondered if the quivers, if the gasps, were also products of her art. He shrugged as he fastened the bone catches of his tunic. Art that fine was indistinguishable from reality; it was as if an icon of Petronas could move and speak with the Sevastokrator's voice.

Later, as he walked down the hall behind a servant toward the small dining chamber for breakfast, he decided he was wrong. If he'd altogether failed to please her, he doubted she'd give herself to him again.

She waited for him in the dining room, her self-possession absolute as usual. "I trust you slept well," she said in a tone any polite hostess might have used. Before he could answer, she went on, "Do try some of the honey on your bread. It's clover and orange together, and very fine."

He dipped it from the pot and tried it. It was good. He tried—as best he could with men and women of her household bustling in and out—to learn how she felt about the night before. She was impervious. That seemed ominous.

Then Mavros came in, looking rather the worse for wear, and Krispos had to give up. Tanilis showed more interest in her son's boasting than she'd given to Krispos' discreet questions.

Only as Krispos was saying his farewells did she give him even the smallest reason for hope. "Feel free to invite yourself here next time; you need not wait upon a formal invitation."

"Thank you, Tanilis, I'll do that," he said, and watched her face closely. Had she shown any trace of disappointment, he would never have gone back to the villa again. She nodded and smiled instead.

He made himself wait four days before he rode back again. Evtykhes the cook hadn't had anything special planned but, like Iakovitzes' chef, he could make the ordinary interesting.

What happened later that night was even more interesting, and not even slightly ordinary. "Don't delay so long the next time," Tanilis said as she slid out of the guest room bed to return to her own chamber. "Or did you think I was seeking to entrap you with my charms?"

Krispos shook his head. Tanilis slipped away without asking anything further of him. He was not nearly sure he had truthfully answered her last question; indeed, he hadn't trusted his voice not to give him away.

Even so, he knew he would come to the villa again, and in less than four days. Did that mean he was entrapped? Maybe it did, he thought wryly. He was sure he'd never found such tempting bait.

Iakovitzes looked up from his breakfast porridge as Krispos walked toward his table in Bolkanes' taproom. The noble's eyebrows rose. "Good of you to join me," he said. "Such rare signs give me hope you do still remember you work for me."

Krispos felt his ears grow hot. He grunted—the safest response he could think of—and sat down.

Nothing was guaranteed safe with Iakovitzes. "Much as I hate to disrupt the lecherous tenor of your ways," he went on, "I fear your little arrangement with that laundress or whatever she is at Mavros' place will have to end."

Krispos had found no way to keep people from knowing how often he rode out to Tanilis' villa. Those visits—and the overnight stays that went with them—had to set tongues wagging. To make sure they did not wag in the wrong—or rather, the right—direction, he'd let on that he was having an affair with one of the servant girls. Now he said, still cautiously, "Oh? Why is that, excellent sir?"

"Because I've finally settled with that puff-adder of a Lexo, that's why."

"Have you really?" Krispos said in genuine surprise.

"Yes, I have really, and on more than decent terms. If you'd been around here as you were supposed to be instead of exercising your private parts, this might not have come as such a startling development to you."

Krispos hung his head at the rebuke. The acid in Iakovitzes' voice made it sting more than it might have otherwise, but he knew it was deserved. He also knew a certain amount of relief. If Iakovitzes was heading back to Videssos the city, he would have to accompany the noble. Not even Tanilis could think differently. A more convenient end to their liaison was hard to imagine.

Iakovitzes went on, "Since you do get out to Mavros' villa, however, be so good as to let him know I shall be departing shortly. Why I don't leave you here and head back just with him I couldn't say, let me tell you."

At first, the scolding washed over Krispos. If Iakovitzes meant to fire him, he would have done it long since. And even if the noble did give him the boot, Tanilis would still back him—or would she? Krispos grew more sober as he pondered that. If his fortunes changed, her vision might, too.

He decided he ought to stay in Iakovitzes' good graces after all, or as many of them as he could keep without letting the noble seduce him. "What were the terms you finally agreed to with Lexo, excellent sir?" he asked.

"As if you care," Iakovitzes jeered, but he was too full of himself to resist bragging about what he'd done. "The Khatrishers will all pull back of the Akkilaion by the end of next year, and three parts in four of the indemnity we pay for their leaving will go straight to the herders who get displaced, not to Gumush the khagan. I had to pay Lexo a little extra on the side to get him to go along with that, but it's money well spent."

"I see what you're saying." Krispos nodded. "If the indemnity stays with the local Khatrishers, they'll end up spending most of it here in Opsikion, so in the long run it'll come back to the Empire."

"Maybe that's why I keep you around in spite of the all-too-numerous faults you insist on flaunting," Iakovitzes said: "for your peasant shrewdness. Even Lexo didn't pick up the full import of that clause, and he's been in the business of cheating Videssos a good many years now. Aye, I snuck it past him, I did, I did." Nothing put Iakovitzes in a better mood than gloating over how he'd outsmarted an opponent.

"When do you sign the pact?" Krispos asked.

"Already did it—signed and sealed. I have one copy up in my room, and Lexo's got the other one wherever he keeps it." Iakovitzes knocked back a large cup of wine. Only when he swayed as he got to his feet did Krispos realize it was not his first, or even his third; his speech was perfectly clear. As the noble headed for the door, he said over his shoulder, "Come to think of it, I'm going across the square to the eparch's residence and rub the Khatrisher's nose in the break he gave me. Want to tag along?"

"Are you sure that's wise, excellent sir?" Krispos said, in lieu of publicly asking his master whether he'd lost his mind. If Iakovitzes angered Lexo enough—and he could do it if anyone could—what was to keep the Khatrisher from tearing up his signed and sealed copy and either starting the war Petronas did not want or at least forcing negotiations open again?

But Iakovitzes said, "Let him wallow in his own stupidity." He went out the door almost at a run.

Krispos heard the rumble and jingle of an approaching heavy wagon without listening to it; it was just one of the noises that went with staying in a city. Then he heard someone shout, "Watch out, you blood drunken twit! Look over this—" That was harder to ignore; it came from right in front of the inn. At the cry of agony that followed hard on its heels, Krispos and everyone else in the taproom dashed out to see what had happened.

The wagon was full of blocks of gray limestone from one of the quarries in the hills back of Opsikion, and drawn by a team of six draft horses. Iakovitzes lay thrashing on the ground between the near wheeler and the wagon's right front wheel. Another yard forward and it would have rolled over his body.

Krispos ran forward and dragged his master away from the wagon. Iakovitzes shrieked again as he was moved. "My leg!" He clutched at it. "My leg!"

The white-faced driver gabbled, "Fool walked right in front of me. Right in front of me like I wasn't there, and this maybe the biggest, noisiest rig in town. Right in front of me! One of the horses must have stepped on him, or maybe more than one. Lucky I was fast on the brake, or all you could do with him is clean him off the cobbles. Right in front of me!"

A couple of passers-by confirmed that Iakovitzes had not noticed the wagon at all. "Way he was going," one said, "he wouldn't have noticed Phos coming down from heaven for him." A couple of more pious souls made the sun-sign over their hearts at the mention of the good god's name.

Krispos tugged up Iakovitzes' robe so he could see how badly the noble was hurt. The unnatural bend between knee and ankle of his master's left leg and the enormous black bruise that spread over the leg as he watched told him everything he needed to know. "It's broken," he said.

"Of course it's broken, you wide-arsed imbecile!" Iakovitzes screamed, pain and fury making him even louder and shriller than usual. "You think I need you to tell me that?" The inventive curses that spewed from him in the next couple of minutes proved his wits were intact, even if he did have cuts over both eyes and a bruise on one cheek. He finally slowed down enough to snarl, "Why are all you incest-loving cretins just standing around gaping? Someone fetch me a healer-priest!"

One of the locals trotted away. Iakovitzes kept swearing; Krispos did not think he repeated himself once in the quarter of an hour till the priest arrived. Some of the onlookers who might normally have gone about their business stayed to listen instead.

"What happened here?" the healer-priest asked when he finally arrived.

Several people in the crowd started to explain as they stood aside to let the priest—Sabellios, his name was—pass. From the ground, Iakovitzes yelled, "I broke my miserable leg, that's what. Why don't you stop gabbing there and start healing?"

"He's like that, holy sir," Krispos whispered to Sabellios as the healer-priest crouched beside him.

"It's not easy to be happy with a broken leg," Sabellios observed. "Easy, sir, easy," he went on to Iakovitzes, for the noble gasped and swore anew as the healer-priest set his hands on either side of the fracture.

Like the other healers Krispos had seen, Sabellios spoke Phos' creed again and again as he sank into his trance. Then the words trailed away, leaving nothing between Sabellios' will and the injury he faced. Krispos muttered with awe as he watched the swelling around the broken bone recede and the purple-black bruise fade.

The healer-priest released his hold. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his blue robe. "I have done what I can," he said in the worn voice every healer used just after his work was done. Krispos noted the effort he needed to raise his head to look up at the spectators who still ringed him and Iakovitzes. "One of you should go and bring Ordanes the physician here. He has a gentler touch for setting bones than I do."

"Setting bones?" Iakovitzes hissed from between clenched teeth. "Aren't you going to heal the break?" Sebellios stared at him. "Heal—a fracture?"

"Why not?" Iakovitzes said. "I had it done for me once in Videssos the city, after I took a fall when my cursed mount couldn't leap a stream during a hunt. Some blue-robe from the Sorcerers' Collegium did it for me—Heraklonas, I think his name was."

"You were most fortunate to be treated by such a master of the art, excellent sir," the healer-priest said. "As with most of my brethren, my power is over flesh, not bone, which I have neither the strength nor the knowledge to heal. Bone, you see, is partly dead, so it lacks the vitality upon which the healing gift draws. No one in Opsikion—perhaps no one in any city save Videssos—can heal a broken bone. I am sorry to have to be the one to tell you that."

"Then what am I supposed to do?" Iakovitzes howled, anger now overcoming pain.

"Fear not, sir," Sebellios said. "Ordanes is a skilled bone-setter, and I can abate any fever you might contract during the healing process. Surely in two or three months you will be walking again and, if you exercise your leg once the splints come off, you may not even limp."

"Two or three months?" Iakovitzes rolled his eyes like a trapped animal. "How long before I can ride?"

Sebellios pursed his lips. "Somewhere near the same length of time, I should say. Controlling one's horse puts considerable strain on the lower leg, as you must know."

"Two or three months?" Iakovitzes repeated it unbelievingly. "You're saying it'll be winter by the time I'm up and about?"

"Well, yes, probably," Sebellios said. "What of it?"

"No ships in winter—too many storms. No good going overland, either, or not much—snowdrifts piled twice as high as a man." Iakovitzes had been speaking softly, almost to himself. Now, suddenly, he screamed. "You mean to tell me I'm stuck in this backwoods Phos-forsaken shitpot pesthole of an excuse for a town until spring ?"

"Hello, hello." A fat bald man pushed through the crowd and grinned down at Iakovitzes. "My, you sound cheerful today. Nothing like breaking a leg to do that to a man, is there?"

"I'd sooner break your neck," Iakovitzes snarled. "Which icepit did Skotos let you out of?"

"Name's Ordanes," the fat man answered calmly—he was, Krispos saw, one of the rare men Iakovitzes could not infuriate with a few ill-chosen words. "I'll set that leg for you, if you like—I expect you'll need it whole so as you can get back to cramming both feet into your face." As Iakovitzes gaped and spluttered, the physician went on, "I'll need a couple of stout souls here to help hold him down. He'll like this even less than he likes anything else."

"I'm one," Krispos said. "He's my master."

" Lucky you." Ordanes lowered his voice so Iakovitzes would not hear. "Hate to tell you this, young fellow, but you and your master are going to be stuck here a goodish while. That's what I heard him yelling about before, isn't it?"

Krispos nodded.

"If you're his man, you'll have to wait on him like he was a baby for a while, because for the first month or so he shouldn't even be out of bed, not if he expects those bones to heal straight. Think you're up to it? I don't envy you, and that's a fact."

The idea of waiting on Iakovitzes hand and foot for a solid month was more nearly appalling than appealing. All the same, Krispos said, "I'm up to it. He took me into his service from the streets of Videssos the city when I had nothing to my name but what I was wearing. I owe him more than a little for that; wouldn't do to repay him by running off when he really needs me."

"Hmm." Ordanes' eyes were tracked with red, half hidden in folds of fat, and very knowing. "Seems to me he's better served by his man than you are by your master, but that's none of my affair." The physician looked up at the crowd of spectators. "Come on, people, don't just stand there. Lend a hand, will you? Wouldn't you want somebody to help if it were your leg? You, there, and you there in the blue tunic."

As the men bent to hold Iakovitzes, Krispos realized one of his questions had just been answered for him. If he was not leaving Opsikion any time soon, he would see Tanilis again... . And again and again, he thought.

Iakovitzes hissed and then groaned as Ordanes set to work. Despite the noble's anguish, Krispos had all he could do to keep from giggling. Tanilis was a much more alluring prospect in bed than his master.