Krispos the Emperor

XIII

A line of men and women and children trudging wearily down a dirt track, carrying such belongings as they could, the cows and goats and donkeys with them as thin and worn as they were. The only difference Krispos could see between them and the uprooted Thanasioi was the direction of their journey: they were moving west, not east.

No, there was another: they'd not rebelled to give him a reason to remove them from their old homes. But the land from which war and policy had removed the Thanasioi could not stay empty. That was asking for trouble. And so peasants who lived in a relatively crowded—and safely loyal—stretch of territory between Develtos and Opsikion east of Videssos the city were taking the place of the Thanasioi whether they liked the idea or not.

Phostis rode up alongside Krispos and pointed to the villagers on the way to resettlement. "Is that justice?" he asked.

"I just put the same question to myself," Krispos answered. "I don't think the answer is clear or easy. If you asked any one of them now, no doubt they'd curse me to the skies. But after two years, who can say? I've granted them tax exemptions for that long, and put them on half rates for three years more. I'm not moving them just to fill space—I want them to thrive."

"It may work out well enough for them," Phostis persisted, "but is it justice?"

"Probably not," Krispos answered, sighing. He fought back a smile; he'd managed to surprise Phostis. "Probably not," he repeated, "but is it justice to empty a land so no crops to speak of are raised on it, so it becomes a haven for brigands and outlaws, so it tempts the Makuraners to try to gobble it up? Makuran hasn't much troubled us lately, but that's because Rubyab King of Kings sees me as strong. It hasn't always been so."

"How do you aim to pay Rubyab back for sponsoring the Thanasioi?" Phostis asked.

Krispos took the change of subject to mean that Phostis thought he had a point. He answered, "I don't know right now. A big war, like the one we fought with Makuran a century and a half ago, could leave both lands prostrate for years. I don't want that. But believe me, that s not a debt to forget. Maybe it'll be one I leave to you to repay."

Phostis responded to that with a calculating look Krispos had seldom seen on him before he was kidnapped. "Fomenting the Vaspurakaners against Mashiz is likely to be worth trying."

"Aye, maybe, if the Makuraners commit some outrage in the princes' lands, or they're troubled with foes farther west," Krispos said. "But that's not as sure a bet as it looks, because the Makuraners are always on the watch for it. The beauty of Rubyab's ploy was that it used our own people against us: Videssos has known so much religious strife over the years that for a long time I didn't see the Makuraner hand in the Thanasiot glove."

"The beauty of it?" Phostis shook his head. "I don't see how you can use that word for something that caused so much trouble and death."

"It's like an unexpected clever move at the board game," Krispos said. "The board here, though, stretches all the way across the world, and you can change the rules you play by."

"And the pieces you take off the board are real people," Phostis said, "and you can't bring them back again and play them somewhere else."

"Can't I?" Krispos said. "What do you think this resettlement is, if not capturing a piece and playing it on a better square?"

He watched Phostis chew on that. The young man said, "I suppose I should have learned to stop arguing with you. No matter how well I start out. most of the time you end up turning things your way. Experience." By the way that sounded in his mouth, it might as well have been a filthy word. It was something he lacked, at any rate, which of itself made its possession suspect.

Krispos pulled a silk handkerchief from a pocket of his surcoat and dabbed at his dripping forehead. He'd left some of the imperial army back in and around Etchmiadzin, both to watch the border with Makuraner-held Vaspurakan and to help uprooted arrivals settle in. More troops were strung out along the line of travel between west and east. With what remained, he was drawing near Videssos the city.

That meant, of course, that he and his men were passing through the coastal lowlands. In late summer, there were other places he'd sooner have been; at the moment, he would have welcomed some of Skotos' ice, so long as he did not have to meet its master. It was so hot and sticky that sweat wouldn't dry; it just clung to you and rolled greasily along your skin.

"By the good god, I wish I didn't have to wear the imperial regalia," he said. "In this country, I'd sooner be dressed like them." He pointed to the peasants working in the fields to either side of the road. Some of them were in thin linen tunics that came down about half the distance from buttocks to knee. Others didn't even bother with that, but were content to wrap a loincloth around their middles.

Phostis shook his head. "If I dressed like that, it would mean I lived here all year around. I don't think I could stand that."

"You'd best be glad someone can," Krispos said. "The soil here is wonderful, and they get plenty of rain. The crops they bring in are bigger than anywhere else in the Empire. If it weren't for the lowlands, Videssos the city wouldn't have enough to eat."

"The peasants aren't fleeing from us the way they did when we set out," Katakolon said, stopping his horse by his father and brother.

"A good thing, too," Krispos answered. "One reason we have an army is to protect them. If they think soldiers are something they need to be protected from, we aren't doing the job as we should." He knew as well as anyone else that soldiers plundered peasants when they got the chance. The trick was not giving them the chance and making the peasants know they wouldn't get it. He wouldn't have to worry about that much longer on this campaign—almost home now. He said that aloud.

Katakolon leered at him. "You needn't be in such a swiv-et to get back to Drina, Father. Remember, she'll be out to here by now." He held a hand a couple of feet in front of his belly.

"She's not giving birth to a foal, by the good god," Krispos said. "If she were out to there, I might think you meant an elephant." He glared at his youngest, but couldn't help snorting as he went on, "And I'll thank you not to twit me any more about her having my by-blow. Only fool luck I'm not paying for six or seven of yours; Phos knows it's not your lack of effort."

"He's just giving you twit for twat, Father," Phostis said helpfully.

Beset from both sides, Krispos threw his hands in the air. "The two of you will be the death of me. If Evripos were here, I'd be altogether surrounded. I expect I shall be when we get back to the palaces. That's the first decent argument I've heard for making this march take longer."

"I thought it was an indecent argument," Katakolon said, not willing to be outdone by Phostis.

"Enough, enough!" Krispos groaned. "Have mercy on your poor decrepit father. I've got softening of the brain from too many years of staring at tax receipts and edicts; you can't expect me to throw puns about the way you do."

Just then, the scouts up ahead started raising a racket. One of them rode back to the van of the main body. Saluting Krispos, he said, "Your Majesty, the sharp-eyed among us have spied the sun glinting off the temple domes of Videssos the city."

Krispos peered ahead. He wasn't particularly sharp-sighted any longer; things in the distance got blurry for him. But whether he could see them or not, knowing the temples and their domes were so close made him feel the journey was coming to its end.

"Almost home," he said again. He looked from Phostis to Katakolon, daring them to make more wisecracks. They both kept quiet. He nodded, pleased with himself: the young bulls still respected the old bull's horns.

The folk of Videssos the city packed the colonnaded sidewalks of Middle Street, cheering as the triumphal procession made its way toward the plaza of Palamas. Phostis rode near the head of the procession, Olyvria at his side. He wore a gilded mail shirt and helmet to let the people know who he was—and to make sure no diehard Thanasiot assassinated him for the greater glory of the gleaming path.

As he rode, he waved, which brought fresh applause from the crowd. He turned to Olyvria and said quietly, "I wonder how many of these same people were screaming for Thanasios and trying to burn down the city not long ago."

"A fair number, I'd say," she answered.

He nodded. "I think you're right." Rooting Thanasioi out from Videssos the city wasn't nearly so straightforward as uprooting and transplanting villages. Unless you caught someone setting fires or wrecking, how could you know what was in his heart? You couldn't; that was the long and short of it. Thanasios' followers surely lingered here. If they stayed quiet, they might go unnoticed for generations—those who cared to raise new generations, at any rate.

Middle Street showed few scars from the rioting. Countless fires burned in the city every day, for cooking and heating and at smithies and other workplaces. Whitewashed buildings were usually gray with soot in a few months' time. The soot that came from the rioters' blazes looked no different from any other after the fact.

The procession passed through the Forum of the Ox, about a third of the way from the Silver Gate in the great land wall to the plaza of Palamas. The stalls in the Forum of the Ox sold cheap goods to people who could afford no better. Most of the folk who packed the square wore either ragged tunics or gaudy finery whose "gold" threads were apt to turn green in a matter of days. Phostis would have bet that plenty of them had bawled for the gleaming path.

Now, though, they cried out Krispos' name as loudly as anyone else—and that despite some former market stalls that were now only charred ruins. "Maybe they'll come back to orthodoxy now that they've really seen what their heresy leads to," Phostis said. He spoke more softly still: "That's more or less what I did, after all."

"Maybe," Olyvria said, her voice so neutral he couldn't tell whether she agreed with him or not.

We'll know twenty years from now, he thought. Looking about as far ahead as he'd already lived felt strange, almost unnatural, to him, but he was beginning to do it. He didn't know whether that was because he'd started taking seriously the idea of ruling or simply because he was getting older.

Off to the north of Middle Street, between the Forum of the Ox and the plaza of Palamas, stood the huge mass of the High Temple. It was undamaged, not from any lack of malevolence on the part of the Thanasioi but because soldiers and ecclesiastics armed with stout staves had ringed it day and night until rioting subsided.

Phostis still felt uncomfortable as he rode past the High Temple: He looked on it as an enormous sponge that had soaked up endless gold that might have been better spent elsewhere. But he had returned to the faith that found deepest expression beneath that marvelous dome. He shook his head. Not all puzzles had neat solutions. This one, too, would have to wait for more years to do their work in defining his views.

The red granite facing of the government office building caught his eye and told him the plaza of Palamas was drawing near. Somewhere under there, in the jail levels below ground, Digenis the priest had starved himself to death.

"Digenis might have been right to be angry about how the rich have too much, but I don't think making everyone poor is the right answer," Phostis said to Olyvria. "Still, I can't hate him, not when I met you through him."

She smiled at that, but answered, "Aren't you putting your own affairs above those of the Empire there?"

He needed a moment to realize she was teasing. "As a matter of fact, yes," he said. "Or at least one affair. Katakolon's the fellow who keeps four of them in the air at the same time." She made a face at him, which let him think he'd come out best in that little skirmish.

Up ahead, a great roar announced that Krispos had entered the packed plaza of Palamas. With the Avtokrator marched servitors armed not with weapons but with sacks of gold and silver. Many an Emperor had kept the city mob happy with largess, and Krispos had shown over and over that he was able to profit from others' examples. Letting people squabble over money flung among them might keep them from more serious uprisings like the one Videssos the city had just seen.

Sky-blue ribbons—and Haloga guardsmen—kept the crowds from swamping the route the procession took to the western edge of the plaza. Krispos had ascended to a wooden platform whose pieces were stored in a palace outbuilding against time of need. Phostis wondered how many times Krispos had mounted that platform to speak to the people of the city. Quite a few, he thought.

He dismounted, then reached out to help Olyvria do the same. Grooms took their horses. Hand in hand, the two of them went up onto the platform themselves.

"It's a sea of people out there," Phostis exclaimed, looking out at the restless mass. Their noise rose and fell in almost regular waves, like the surf.

For the first time, Phostis had a chance to see that part of the procession which had been behind him. A parade was not a parade without soldiers. A company of Halogai marched around Krispos, Phostis, and Olyvria, for protection and show both. Behind them came several regiments of Videssians. some mounted, others afoot. They tramped along looking neither right nor left, as if the people of the city were not worth their notice. Not only were they part of the spectacle, they also served as a reminder that Krispos had powerful forces ready at hand should rioting break out again.

The Halogai formed up in front of the platform. The rest of the troops headed past the plaza of Palamas and into the palace quarter. Some had barracks there; others would be dismissed back to the countryside after the celebration was over.

Between one regiment and the next walked dejected Thanasiot prisoners. Some of them still showed the marks of wounds; none wore anything more than ragged drawers; all had their hands tied behind their backs. The crowd jeered them and pelted them with eggs and rotten fruit and the occasional stone.

Olyvria said, "A lot of Avtokrators would have capped this parade with a massacre."

"I know," Phostis said. "But Father has seen real massacres—ask him about Harvas Black-Robe some time. Having seen the beast, he doesn't want to give birth to it."

The prisoners took the same route out of the plaza as had the soldiers. Their fate would not be much different: they'd be sent off to live on the land with the rest of the uprooted Thanasioi, with luck in peace. Unlike the soldiers, though, they would get no choice about where they went.

Another contingent of Halogai entered the plaza of Palamas. The noise from the crowd grew quieter and took on a rougher edge. Behind the front of axe-bearing northerners rode Evripos. By the reaction, not everyone in Videssos the city was happy with the way he had put down the riots.

He rode as if blithely unaware of that, waving to the people as Krispos and Phostis had before him. The guardsmen who had surrounded him took their places with their countrymen while he climbed up to stand by Phostis and Olyvria.

Without turning his head toward Phostis, he said, "They're not pleased that I didn't give them all a kiss and send them to bed with a mug of milk and a spiced bun. Well, I wasn't any too pleased that they did their best to bring the city down around my ears."

"I can understand that," Phostis answered, also looking straight ahead.

Evripos' lip curled. "And you, brother, you come through this everyone's hero. You've married the beautiful girl, like someone out of a romance. Hardly seems fair, somehow." He did not try to hide his bitterness.

"To the ice with the romances," Phostis said, but that wasn't what was bothering Evripos, and he knew it.

The low-voiced argument stopped then, because someone else ascended to the platform: Iakovitzes, gorgeous in robes just short in imperial splendor. He would not make a speech, of course, not without a tongue, but he had served in so many different roles during Krispos' reign that excluding him would have seemed unnatural.

He smiled at Olyvria, politely enough but without real interest. As he walked past Phostis and Evripos toward Krispos, he managed to pat each of them on the behind. Olyvria's eyes went wide. The two brothers looked at Iakovitzes, looked at each other, and started to laugh. "He's been doing that for as long as we've been alive," Phostis said.

"For a lot longer than that," Evripos said. "Father always tells of how Iakovitzes tried to seduce him when he was a boy, and then later when he was a groom in Iakovitzes' service, and even after he donned the red boots."

"He knows we care nothing for men," Phostis said. "If we ever made as if we wanted to go along, the shock might kill him. He's anything but young, even if he dyes his hairs and powders over his wrinkles to try to hide his years."

"I don't think you're right, Phostis," Evripos said. "If he thought we wanted to go along, he'd have our robes up and our drawers down before we could say 'I was only joking.' "

Phostis considered. "You may have something there." On a matter like that, he was willing to concede a point to his brother.

Olyvria stared at both of them, then at Iakovitzes. "That's— terrible," she exclaimed. "Why does your father keep him around?"

She made the mistake of speaking as if Iakovitzes couldn't hear her. He strolled back toward her, smiling now in a way that said he meant mischief. Alarmed, Phostis tried to head him off. Iakovitzes opened the tablet he always carried, wrote rapidly on the wax, and showed it to Phostis. "Does she read?"

"Yes, of course she does," Phostis said, whereupon Iakovitzes pushed past him toward Olyvria, scribbling as he walked.

He handed her the tablet. She took it with some apprehension, read aloud: "His Majesty keeps me around, as you say. for two reasons: first, because I am slyer than any three men you can name, including your father before and after he lost his head; and second, because he knows I would never try to seduce any wives of the imperial family."

Iakovitzes' smile got wider, and therefore more unnerving. He took back the tablet and started away. "Wait," Olyvria said sharply. Iakovitzes turned back, stylus poised like a sting. Phostis started to step between them again. But Olyvria said, "I wanted to apologize. I was cruel without thinking."

Iakovitzes chewed on that. He scribbled again, then proffered the tablet to her with a bow. Phostis looked over her shoulder. Iakovitzes had written, "So was I, to speak of your father so. In my book, the honors—or rather, dishonors—are even."

To Phostis' relief, Olyvria said, "Let it be so." Generations of sharp wits had picked quarrels with Iakovitzes, generally to end up in disarray. Phostis was glad Olyvria did not propose to make the attempt.

Iakovitzes nodded and walked back to Krispos' side. The Avtokrator held up a hand, waited for quiet. It came slowly, but did at length arrive. Into it Krispos said, "Let us have peace: peace in Videssos the city, peace in the Empire of Videssos. Civil war is nothing the Empire needs. The lord with the great and good mind knows I undertook it unwillingly. Only when those who followed what they called the gleaming path rose in rebellion, first in the westlands and then here in Videssos the city, did I take up arms against them."

"Does that mean you father would have let the Thanasioi alone if they'd been quiet, peaceful heretics?" Olyvria asked.

"I don't know. Maybe," Phostis said. "He's never persecuted the Vaspurakaners, that's certain." Phostis puzzled over that: Krispos always said religious unity was vital to holding the Empire together, but he didn't necessarily practice what he preached. Was that hypocrisy, or just pragmatism? Phostis couldn't answer, not without more thought.

He'd missed a few sentences. Krispos was saying "—shall rebuild the city so that no one may know it has come to harm. We shall rebuild the fabric of our lives in the same fashion. It will not be quick, not all of it, but Videssos is no child, to need everything on the instant. What we do, we do for generations."

Phostis still had trouble thinking in those terms. Next year felt a long way away to him; worrying about what would happen when his grandchildren were old felt as strange as worrying about what was on the other side of the moon.

He'd fallen behind again. "—but so long as you live at peace with one another, you need not fear spies will seek you out to do you harm," Krispos declared.

"What about tax collectors?" a safely anonymous wit roared from the crowd.

Krispos took no notice of him. "People of the city," he said earnestly, "if you so choose, you can be at one another's throats for longer than you care to imagine. If you start feuds now, they may last for generations after you are gone. I pray to Phos this does not happen." He let iron show in his voice: "I do not intend to let it happen. If you try to fight among yourselves, first you must overcome the soldiers of the Empire.

I say this as warning, not as threat. My view is that we have had enough of strife. May we be free of it for years to come."

He did not say "forever," Phostis noted, and wondered why. He decided Krispos didn't believe such things endured forever. By everything the Avtokrator had shown, he worked to build a framework for what would come after him. but did not necessarily expect that framework to become a solid wall: he knew too well that history gave no assurance of success.

"We shall rebuild, as I said, and we shall go on," Krispos said. "Together, we shall do as well as we can for as long as we can. The good god knows we can do no more." He stepped back on the platform, his speech done.

Applause filled the plaza of Palamas, more than polite, less than ecstatic. Along with Olyvria and Evripos, Phostis joined it. As well as we can for as long as we can, he thought. If Krispos had picked a phrase to summarize himself, he couldn't have found a better one.

Though Krispos waved for him not to bother, Barsymes performed a full proskynesis. "I welcome you back to the imperial residence, your Majesty," he said from the pavement. Then, still spry, he rose as gracefully as he had prostrated himself and added, "The truth is, life is on the boring side here when you take the field."

Krispos snorted. "I'm glad to be back, then, if only to give you something interesting to do."

"The cooks are also glad you've returned," the vestiarios said.

"They're looking for a chance to spread themselves, you mean," Krispos said. "Too bad. They can wait until the next time I dine with Iakovitzes; he'll appreciate it properly. As for me, I've got used to eating like a soldier. A bowl of stew, a heel of bread, and a mug of wine will suit me nicely."

Barsymes' shoulders moved slightly in what would have been a sigh in someone less exquisitely polite than the eunuch. "I shall inform the kitchens of your desires," he said. "The cooks will be disappointed, but perhaps not surprised. You have a habit of acting thus whenever you return from campaign."

"Do I?" Krispos said, irked at being so predictable. He was tempted to demand a fancy feast just to keep people guessing about him. The only trouble was, he really did want stew.

Barsymes said, "Perhaps your Majesty will not take it too much amiss if the stew be of lobster and mullet, though I know that diverges from what the army cooks ladled into your bowl."

"Perhaps I won't," Krispos admitted. "I did miss seafood." Barsymes nodded in satisfaction; Krispos might rule the Empire, but the vestiarios held sway here. Unlike some vestiarioi, he had the sense not to flaunt his power or push it beyond its limits—or perhaps he had simply decided Krispos would not let him get away with the liberties some vestiarioi had taken.

"The hour remains young," Barsymes said after a glance at the shadows. "Would your Majesty care for an early supper?"

"Thank you, no," Krispos said. "I could plunge into the pile of parchments that no doubt reaches tall as the apex of the High Temple's dome. I will do that ... tomorrow, or perhaps the day after. The pile won't be much taller by then. For now, though, I am going to march to the imperial bedchamber and do the one thing I couldn't in the field: relax." He paused. "No. I'm not."

"Your Majesty?" Barsymes said. "What, then?"

"I am going to the bedchamber." Krispos said. "I may even rest... presently. But first, please tell Drina I want to see her."

"Ah," Barsymes said; Krispos read approval in the nondescript noise. The vestiarios added, "It shall be just as you say, of course."

In the privacy of the bedchamber. Krispos took off his own boots. When his feet were free, he happily wiggled his toes. In the palaces, his doing something for himself rather than summoning a servant was as much an act of rebellion as a Thanasiot's taking a torch to a rich man's house. Barsymes had needed quite a while before he accepted that the Avtokrator was sometimes stubborn enough to insist on having his own way in such matters.

A tapping at the door sounded so tentative that Krispos wondered if he'd really heard it. He walked over and opened the door anyhow. Drina stood in the hall, looking nervous. "I'm not going to bite you," Krispos said. "It would spoil my appetite for the supper the esteemed Barsymes wants to stuff down me." She didn't laugh; he concluded she didn't get the joke. Swallowing a sigh, he waved her into the bedchamber.

She walked slowly. She was still a couple of months from giving birth, but her belly bulged quite noticeably even though she wore a loose-fitting linen smock. Krispos leaned forward over that belly to give her a light kiss, hoping to put her more at ease.

He succeeded, if not quite the way he thought he would. She smiled and said, "You didn't bump into my middle there. You know how to kiss a woman who's big with child."

"I should," Krispos said. "I've had practice, even if it was years ago. Sit if you care to; I know your feet won't be happy now. How are you feeling?"

"Well enough, thank you, your Majesty," Drina answered, sinking with a grateful sigh into a chair. "I only lost my breakfast once or twice, and but for needing the chamber pot all the time, I'm pretty well."

Krispos paced back and forth, wondering what to say next. He hadn't been in this situation for a long time, and had never expected to find himself in it again. It wasn't as if he loved Drina, or even as if he knew her well. He wished it were that way, but it wasn't. He'd just found her convenient for relieving the lust he still sometimes felt. Now he was discovering that convenience for the moment could turn into something else over the long haul. He used that principle every day in the way he ruled; he realized he should have applied it to his own life, too.

Well, he hadn't. Now he had to make the best of it. After a couple of more back and forths, he settled on, "Is everyone treating you well?"

"Oh, yes, your Majesty." Drina nodded eagerly. "Better than I've ever been treated before. Plenty of nice food—not that I haven't always eaten well, but more and better—and I haven't had to work too hard, especially since I started getting big." Her hands cupped her belly. She gave Krispos a very serious look. "And you warned me about putting on airs, so I haven't. I've been careful about that."

"Good. I wish everyone paid as much attention to what I say," Krispos said. Drina nodded, serious still. Even with thai intent expression, even pregnant as she was, she looked very young. Suddenly he asked, "How many years do you have, Drina?"

She counted on her fingers before she answered: "Twenty-two, I think, your Majesty, but I may be out one or two either way."

Krispos started pacing again. It wasn't that she didn't know her exact age; he wasn't precisely sure of his own. Peasants such as he and his family had been didn't worry over such things: you were as old as the work you could do. But twenty-two, more or less? She'd been born right around the time he took the throne.

"What am I to do with you?" he asked, aiming the question as much at himself, or possibly at Phos, as at her.

"Your Majesty?" Her eyes got large and frightened. "You said I'd not lack for anything . .." Her voice trailed away, as if reminding him of his own promise took all the courage she had, and as if she'd not be surprised if he broke it.

"You won't—by the good god I swear it. " He sketched the sun-circle over his heart to reinforce his words. "But that's not what I meant."

"What then?" Drina's horizons, like his when he'd been a peasant, reached no farther than plenty of food and not too much work. "All I want to do is take care of the baby."

"You'll do that, and with as much help as you need," he said. He scratched his head. "Do you read?"

"No, your Majesty."

"Do you want to learn how?"

"Not especially, your Majesty," Drina said. "Can't see that I'd ever have much call to use it."

Krispos clucked disapprovingly. A veteran resettled to his village had taught him his letters before his beard sprouted, and his world was never the same again. Written words bound time and space together in a way mere talk could never match. But if Drina did not care to acquire the skill, forcing it on her would not bring her pleasure. He scratched his head again.

"Your Majesty?" she asked. He raised an eyebrow and waited for her to go on. She did, nervously: "Your Majesty, after the baby's born, will you—will you want me again?"

It was a good question, Krispos admitted to himself. From Drina's point of view, it probably looked like the most important question in the world. She wanted to know whether she'd stay close to the source of power and influence in the Empire. The trouble was, Krispos had no idea what reply to give her. He couldn't pretend, to himself or to her, that he'd fallen wildly in love, not when he was more than old enough to be her father. And even if he had fallen wildly in love with her, the result would only have been grotesque. Older men who fell in love with girls got laughed at behind their backs.

She waited for his answer. "We'll have to see," he said at last. He wished he could do better than that, but he didn't want to lie to her, either.

"Yes, your Majesty," she said. The pained resignation in her voice cut like a knife. He wished he hadn't bedded her at all. But he hadn't the nature or temperament to make a monk. What was he supposed to do?

I should have remarried after Dara died, he thought. But he hadn't wanted to do that then, and a second wife might have created more problems—dynastic ones—than she solved. So he'd taken serving maids to bed every now and then ... and so he had his present problem.

"I told you before that I'd settle a fine dowry on you when you find yourself someone who can give you all the love and caring you deserve," he said. "I don't think you'll find an Emperor's bastard any obstacle to that."

"No, I don't think so, either," she agreed; she was ignorant, but not stupid. "The trouble is, I don't have anyone like that in mind right now."

Not right now. She was twenty-two; not right now didn't look that different from forever to her. Nor, in fairness, could she look past her confinement. Her whole world would turn upside down once she held her baby in her arms. She'd need time to see how things had changed.

"We'll see," Krispos said again.

"All right," She accepted that; she had no choice.

Krispos knew it wasn't fair for her. Most Avtokrators would not have given that a first thought, let alone a second, but he knew about unfairness from having been on the receiving end. If he hadn't been unjustly taxed off his farm, he never would have come to Videssos the city and started on the road that led to a crown.

But what was he to do? Say he loved her when he didn't? That wouldn't be right—or fair—either. He was uneasily aware that providing for Drina and her child wasn't enough, but he didn't see what else he could do.

She wasn't a helpless maiden, not by a long shot. Her eyes twinkled as she asked, "What do the young Majesties think of all this? Evripos has known for a long time, of course; he just laughs whenever he sees me."

"Does he?" Krispos didn't know whether to be miffed or to laugh himself. "If you must know, Phostis and Katakolon seem to be of a mind that I'm a disgusting old lecher who should keep his drawers on when he goes to bed."

Drina dismissed that with one word: "Pooh."

Krispos couldn't even glow with pride, as another man might have. He'd spent too many years on the throne weighing everything he heard for flattery, doing his best not to believe all the praise that poured over him like honey, thick and sweet. He thought some of the man he had been still remained behind the imperial facade he'd built up—but how could you be sure?

He started pacing again. Sometimes you think too much, he told himself. He knew it was true, but it was so ingrained in him that he couldn't change. At last, too late, he told Drina, "Thank you."

"I should thank you, your Majesty, for not ignoring me or casting me out of the palaces or putting me in a sack and throwing me into the Cattle-Crossing because my belly made me a nuisance to you," Drina said.

"You shame me," Krispos said. He saw she didn't understand, and felt bound to explain: "When I'm thanked for not being a monster, it tells me I've not been all the man I might be."

"Who is?" she said. "And you're the Avtokrator. All the things you keep in your head, your Majesty—I'd go mad if I tried it for a day. I was just glad you saw fit to remember me at all, and do what you can for me."

Krispos pondered that. An Avtokrator could do what he chose—he needed to look no further than Anthimos" antics to be reminded of that. The power made responsibility hard to remember. Seen from that viewpoint, maybe he wasn't doing so badly after all.

"Thank you," he said to Drina again, this time with no hesitation at all.

A boys' choir sang hymns of thanksgiving. The sweet, almost unearthly notes came echoing back from the dome of the High Temple, filing the worship area below with joyous sound.

Phostis, however, listened without joy. He knew he was no Thanasiot. All the same, the countless wealth lavished on the High Temple still struck him as excessive. And when Oxeites lifted up his hands to beseech Phos' favor, all Phostis could think of was the ecumenical patriarch's cloth-of-gold sleeves and the pearls and precious gems mounted on them.

Only because of the peace he'd made with Krispos had he come here. He recognized that celebrating his safe return to Videssos the city at the most holy shrine of the Empire's faith was politically and theologically valuable, so he endured it. That did not mean he liked it.

Beside him, though, awe turned Olyvria's face almost into that of a stranger. Her eyes flew like butterflies, landing now here, now there, marveling at the patriarch's regalia, at the moss-agate and marble columns, at the altar, at the rich woods of the pews, and most of all, inevitably, at the mosaic image of Phos, stern in judgment, that looked down on his worshipers from the dome.

"It's so marvelous," she whispered to Phostis for the third time since the -service began. "Every city in the provinces says its main temple is modeled after this one. What none of them says is that all their models are toys."

Phostis grunted softly, back in his throat. What she found wondrous was cloying to him. Then, of themselves, his eyes too went up to the dome. No man could be easy meeting the gaze of that Phos: the image seemed to see inside his head, to know and note every stain on his soul. Even Thanasios would have quailed under that inspection. For the sake of the image in the dome, Phostis forgave the rest of the temple.

The choirmaster brought down his hands. The boys fell silent. Their blue silk robes shimmered in the lamplight as the echoes of their music slowly faded. Oxeites recited Phos' creed. The notables who filled the temple joined him at prayer. Those echoes also reverberated from the dome.

The patriarch said, "Not only do we seek thy blessing, Phos, we also humbly send up to thee our thanks for returning to us Phostis son of Krispos, heir to the throne of Videssos, and granting him thine aid through all the troubles he has so bravely endured."

"He's never been humble in his life, surely not since he donned the blue boots," Phostis murmured to Olyvria.

"Hush," she murmured back; the Temple had her in its spell.

Oxeites went on, "Surely, lord with the great and good mind, thou also viewest with favor the ending of the Empire's trial of heresy, and the way in which its passing was symbolized by the recent union of the young Majesty and his lovely bride."

A spattering of applause rose from the assembled worshipers, vigorously led by Krispos. Phostis was convinced Oxeites would not know a symbol if it reached up and yanked him by the beard; he suspected the Avtokrator of putting words in his patriarch's mouth.

"We thank thee. Phos, for thy blessings of peace and prosperity, and once more for the restoration of the young Majesty to the bosom of his family and to Videssos the city," Oxeites said in ringing tones.

The choir burst into song again. When the hymn was finished, the patriarch dismissed the congregation: the thanksgiving service was not a full and formal liturgy. Phostis blinked against the late summer sun as he walked down the broad, wide stairs outside the High Temple. Katakolon poked him in the ribs and said, "The only bosom you care about in your family is Olyvria's."

"By the good god, you're shameless," Phostis said. He couldn't help laughing, even so. Because Katakolon had no malice in him, he could get away with outrages that would have landed either of his brothers in trouble.

In the courtyard outside the High Temple, people of rank insufficient to get them into the thanksgiving service cheered as Phostis came down from the steps and walked over to his horse. He waved to them, all the while wondering how many had shouted for the gleaming path not long before.

The Haloga guard who held the horse's head said, "You talk to your god only a little while today." He sounded approving, or at least relieved.

Phostis handed Olyvria up onto her mount, then swung into the saddle himself. The Halogai formed up around the imperial party for the return to the palaces. Olyvria rode at Phostis' left.

To his right was Evripos. His older younger brother curled his lip and said, "You're back. Hurrah." Then he looked straight ahead and seemed to concentrate solely on his horsemanship.

"Wait a minute," Phostis said harshly. "I'm sick of cracks like that from you. If you wanted me to be gone and stay gone, you had your chance to do something about it."

"I told you then, I don't have that kind of butchery in me." Evripos answered.

"Well then, quit talking to me as if you wish you did."

That made Evripos look his way again, though still without anything that could be called friendliness. "Brother of mine, just because I won't shed blood of my blood, that doesn't mean I want to clasp you to my bosom, if I can steal the patriarch's phrase."

"That's not enough," Phostis said.

"It's all I care, to make it," Evripos answered.

"It's not enough, I tell you," Phostis said, which succeeded in gaining Evripos' undivided attention. Phostis went on, "One of these days, if I live, I'm going to wear the red boots. Unless Olyvria and I have a son of our own, you'll be next in line for them. Even if we do, he'd be small for a long time. The day may come when you decide blood doesn't matter, or maybe you'll think you can just shave my head and pack me off to a monastery: you'd get the throne and salve your tender conscience at the same time."

Evripos scowled. "I wouldn't do that. As you said, I had my chance."

"You wouldn't do it now," Phostis returned. "What about ten years from now, or twenty, when you feel you can't stand being second in line for another heartbeat? Or what happens if I decide I can't trust you to stay in your proper place? I might strike first, little brother. Did you ever think of that?"

Evripos was good at using his face to mask his thoughts. But Phostis had watched him all his life, and saw he'd succeeded in surprising him. The surprise faded quickly. Evripos studied Phostis as closely as he was studied in turn. Slowly, he said, "You've changed." It sounded like an accusation.

"Have I, now?" Phostis tried to keep anything but the words themselves from his voice.

"Aye, you have." It was accusation. "Before you got kidnapped, you didn't have the slightest notion what you were for, what you wanted. You knew what you were against—"

"Anything that had to do with Father," Phostis interrupted.

"Just so," Evripos agreed with a thin smile. "But being against is easy. Finding, knowing, what you truly do want is harder."

"You know what you want," Olyvria put in.

"Of course I do," Evripos said. The red boots hung unspoken in the air. "But it looks like I can't have that. And now that Phostis knows what he wants, too, and what it means to him, it makes him ever so much more dangerous to me than he was before."

"So it does," Phostis said. "You can do one of two things about it, as far as I can see: you can try to take me out, which you say you don't want to do, or you can work with me. We spoke of that before I got kidnapped; maybe you remember. You scoffed at me then. Do you sing a different tune now? The second man in all the Empire can find or make a great part for himself."

"But it's not the first part," Evripos said.

"I know that's what you want," Phostis answered, saying it for his brother. "If you look one way, you see one person ahead of you. But if you look in the other direction, you see everyone else behind. Isn't that enough?"

Enough to make Evripos thoughtful, at any rate. When he answered, "It's not what I want," the words lacked the hostility with which he'd spoken before.

Krispos rode ahead of the younger members of the imperial family. As he clattered down the cobblestones in front of the government office building where Digenis had been confined, a man strolling along the sidewalk sang out, "Phos bless you, your Majesty!" Krispos sent him a wave and kept on riding.

"That's what I want." Now Evripos' voice ached with envy. "Who's going to cheer a general or a minister? It's the Avtokrator who gets the glory, by the good god."

"He gets the blame, too," Phostis pointed out. "If I could, I'd give you all the glory, Evripos; for all I care, it can go straight to the ice. But there's more to running the Empire than having people cheer you in the streets. I didn't take it seriously before I got snatched, but my eyes have been opened since then."

He wondered if that would mean anything to his brother. It seemed to, for Evripos said, "So have mine. Don't forget, I was running Videssos the city while Father went on campaign. Even without the riots, I'll not deny that was a great bloody lot of work. All jots and tittles and parchments that didn't mean anything till you'd read them five times, and sometimes not then."

Phostis nodded. He often wondered if he wanted to walk in Krispos' footsteps and pore over documents into the middle of the night. That, surely, was why the Empire of Videssos had developed so large and thorough a bureaucracy over the centuries: to keep the Avtokrator from having to shoulder such burdens.

As if Krispos had spoken aloud, Phostis heard his opinion of that: Aye, and if you let the pen-pushers and seal-stampers run affairs without checking up on them, how do you know when they're bungling things or cheating you? The good god knows we need them, and he also knows they need someone looking over them. Anthimos almost brought the Empire to ruin because he wouldn't attend to his ruling.

"I wouldn't be Anthimos," Phostis protested, just as if Krispos had spoken out loud. Olyvria, Evripos, and Katakolon all gave him curious looks. He felt his cheeks heat.

Evripos said, "Well, I wouldn't, either. If I tried to live that life after Father died, I expect he'd climb out of the tomb and wring my neck with bony fingers." He dropped his voice and sent a nervous glance up ahead toward Krispos; Phostis guessed he was only half joking.

"Me, I'm just as glad I'm not likely to wear the red boots," Katakolon said. "I like a good carouse now and then; it keeps you from going stale."

"A good carouse now and then is one thing," Phostis said. "From all the tales, though, Anthimos never stopped, or even slowed down."

"A short life but a merry one," Katakolon said, grinning.

"You let Father hear that from you and your life may be short, but it won't be merry," Phostis answered. "He's not what you'd call fond of Anthimos' memory."

Katakolon looked forward again; he did not want to rouse Krispos' wrath. Phostis suddenly grasped another reason why Krispos so despised the predecessor whose throne and wife he'd taken: no doubt he'd wondered all the years since Anthimos had left behind a cuckoo's egg for him to raise as his own.

And yet, of the three young men, Phostis was probably most like Krispos in character, if perhaps more inclined to reflection and less to action. Evripos was devious in a different way, and his resentment that he hadn't been born first left him sour. And Katakolon—Katakolon had a blithe disregard for consequences that set him apart from both his brothers.

Without warning, Evripos said, "You'll give me room to make something for myself, make something of myself, when the red boots go on your feet?"

"I've said so all along," Phostis answered. "Would an oath make you happier?"

"Nothing along those lines would truly make me happy," Evripos said. "But one of the things I've seen is that sometimes there's nothing to be done about the way things are ... or nothing that isn't worse, anyhow. Let it be as you say, brother of mine; I'll serve you, and do my best to recall that everyone else serves me as well as you."

The two of them solemnly clasped hands. Olyvria exclaimed in delight; even Katakolon looked unwontedly sober. Evripos' palm was warm in Phostis'. By her expression, Olyvria thought all the troubles between them were over. Phostis wished he thought the same. As far as he could see, he and Evripos would be watching each other for the rest of their lives, no matter what promises they made each other. That, too, came with being part of the imperial family.

Had Evripos said something like Good to have that settled once and for all, Phostis would have suspected him more, not less. As it was, his younger brother just flicked him a glance to see how seriously he took the gesture of reconciliation. For a moment, their eyes met. They both smiled, again for a moment only. They might not trust each other, but they understood each other.

Along with the rest of the imperial party, they rode through the plaza of Palamas and into the palace quarter. After the raucous bustle of the rest of the city, quiet enfolded them there like a cloak. Phostis felt he was coming home. That had special meaning to him after what he'd gone through the past few months.

He'd always used his bedchamber in the imperial residence as a refuge from Krispos. Now that Olyvria shared it with him, he sometimes thought he never wanted to come out again. It wasn't that they spent all their time making love, delightful though that was. But he'd also found in her somebody he liked talking with more than anyone else he'd ever known.

He let himself tip over backward onto the bed like a falling tree. The thick goose down of the mattress absorbed his weight; it was like falling into a warm, dry snowbank. With him sprawled across the middle of the bed, Olyvria sat at its foot. She said, "All of this—" She waved to show she meant not just the room, not just the palace, but also the service and the procession through the streets of the city. "—still feels unreal to me."

"You'll have the rest of your days to get used to it," Phostis answered. "A lot of it is foolish and boring to go through: even Father thinks so. But ceremony is the glue that holds Videssos together, so he does go through with it, and then grumbles when no one outside the palaces can hear him."

"That's hypocrisy," Olyvria frowned: like Phostis. she still had some Thanasiot righteousness clinging to her.

"I've told him as much," Phostis said. "He just shrugs and says things would go worse if he didn't give the people what they expected of him." Before he'd been kidnapped, he would have rolled his eyes at that. Now, after a small pause for thought, he admitted, "There may be something to it."

"I don't know." Olyvria's frown deepened. "How can you live with yourself after doing things you don't believe in year after year after year?"

"I didn't say Father doesn't believe in them. He does, for the sake of the Empire. I said he doesn't like them. It's not quite the same thing."

"Close enough, for anyone who's not a theologian and used to splitting hairs." But Olyvria changed the subject, which might have meant she yielded the point. "I'm glad you made peace with your brother—or he with you, however you want to look at it."

"So am I," Phostis said. Not wanting to deceive Olyvria about his judgment of that peace, he added. "Now we'll see how long it lasts."

She took his meaning at once. "Oh," she said in a crestfallen voice. "I'd thought you put more faith in it than that."

"Hope, yes. Faith?" He shrugged, then repeated, "We'll see how long it lasts. The good god willing, it'll hold forever. If it doesn't—"

"If it doesn't, you'll do what you have to do," Olyvria said.

"Aye, what I have to do," Phostis echoed. He'd come safe out of Etchmiadzin by that rule, but if you cared to, you could use it to justify anything. He sighed, then said, "You know what the real trouble with Thanasiot doctrine is?"

"What?" Olyvria asked. "The ecumenical patriarch could come up with a hundred without thinking."

"Oxeites does quite a lot without thinking," Phostis said. "He's not good at it."

Olyvria giggled, deliciously scandalized. "But what's yours?" she asked.

"The real trouble with Thanasiot doctrine," Phostis declared, as if pontificating before a synod, "is that it makes the world and life out to be simpler than they are. Burn and wreck and starve and you've somehow made the world a better place? But what about the people who don't want to be burned out and who like to eat till they're fat? What about the Makuraners, who would pick up the pieces if Videssos fell apart—and who tried to make it fall apart? The gleaming path takes none of them into account. It just goes on along the track it thinks right, regardless of any complications."

"That's all true enough," Olyvria said.

"In fact," Phostis went on, "following the gleaming path is almost like getting caught up in a new love affair, where you just notice everything that's good and kind about the person you love, but none of the flaws."

Olyvria gave him an unfathomable look. His analogy pleased him so much that he wondered what was troubling her until she asked, in rather a small voice, "And what does that say about us?"

"It says—uh—" Feeling his mouth hanging foolishly open, Phostis shut it. He kept it shut while he did some hard thinking. At last, much less sure of himself than he had been a moment before, he answered, "I think it says that we can't afford to take us for granted, or to think that, because we're happy now, we're always going to be happy unless we work to make that happen. The romances talk a lot about living happily ever after, but they don't say how it's done. We have to find that out for ourselves."

"I wish you'd stop poking fun at the romances, seeing as we're living one," Olyvria said, but she smiled to take any sting from her words. "Other than that, though, you make good sense. You seem to have a way of doing that."

"Thank you," he said seriously. Then he reached out and poked her in the ribs. She squawked and whipped her head around, curls flying. He drew her to him and drowned the squawk in a kiss. When at last he had to breathe, he asked her softly, "How are we doing now?"

"Now, well." This time, she kissed him. "As for the rest, ask me in twenty years."

He glanced up, just for a moment, to make sure the door was barred. "I will."

Imperial crown heavy on his head. Krispos sat on the throne in the Grand Courtroom, awaiting the approach of the ambassador for Khatrish. In front of the throne stood Barsymes, Iakovitzes, and Zaidas. Krispos hoped the three of them would be enough to protect him from Tribo's pungent sarcasm.

The fuzzy-bearded envoy advanced down the long central aisle of the courtroom between ranks of courtiers who scorned him as both barbarian and heretic. He managed to give the impression that their scorn amused him, which only irked them the more.

He prostrated himself at the proper place before Krispos' throne. Krispos had debated whether to have the throne rise while Tribo's head rested on the gleaming marble floor. In the end, he'd decided against it.

As before, when Tribo rose, he asked, "Has the gearing broken down, your Majesty, or are you just not bothering?"

"I'm not bothering." Krispos swallowed a sigh. So much for the fond hope Avtokrators nursed of overawing envoys from less sophisticated lands. He inclined his head to Tribo. "I've waited in eager curiosity for your words since you requested this audience, honored ambassador."

"You're wondering how I'll get on your nerves now, you mean." Mutters rose at Tribo's undiplomatic language. By his foxy grin, he reveled in them. But when he resumed, he spoke more formally: "I am bidden by the puissant khagan Nobad son of Gumush to extend Khatrish's congratulations to your Majesty for your victory over the Thanasiot heretics."

"The puissant khagan is gracious," Krispos said.

"The puissant khagan, for all his congratulations, is unhappy with your Majesty," Tribo said. "You've put out the fire in your own house, but sparks caught in the thatch of ours, and they're liable to burn down the roof. We still have plenty of trouble from the Thanasioi in Khatrish."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Krispos reflected that he wasn't even lying. Just as Videssian Thanasioi had spread the heresy to Khatrish. so foreign followers of the gleaming path might one day bring it back to the Empire. Krispos resumed, "I don't know what the khagan would have me do now, though, beyond what I've already done here in my own realm."

"He thinks it hardly just for you to export your problems and then forget about them when they trouble you no more," Tribo said.

"What would he have me do?" Krispos repeated. "Shall I ship imperial troops to your ports to help your soldiers root out the heretics? Shall I send in priests I reckon orthodox to uphold the pure and true doctrines?"

Tribo made a sour face. "Shall Videssos swallow up Khatrish, you mean. Thank you, your Majesty, but no. If I said aye to that, my khagan would likely tie me between horses and whip them to a gallop, one going one way and one the other ... unless he paused to think up a truly interesting and creative end for me. Khatrish has been free of the imperial yoke for more than three hundred years. For reasons you may not understand. we'd sooner keep it that way."

"As you will," Krispos said. "Your land and mine are at peace, and I'm happy with that. But if you don't want our warriors and you don't want our priests, honored ambassador, what do you expect us to do about the Thanasioi in Khatrish?"

"You ought to pay us an indemnity for inflicting the heresy on us," Tribo said. "The gold would help us take care of the problem for ourselves."

Krispos shook his head. "If we'd deliberately set the Thanasioi on you, that would be a just claim. But Videssos just fought a war to put them down here: we didn't want them around, either. I'm sorry they spread to Khatrish, but it was no fault of ours. Shall I bill the puissant khagan every time the Balancer heresy you love so well shows its head here in the Empire?"

"Your Majesty, I know you imperials have a saying, 'When in Videssos the city, eat fish.' But till now I hadn't known you hid a shark's dorsal fin under those fancy robes."

"From you, honored ambassador, that's high praise indeed," Krispos said, which only made Tribo look unhappier still. The Avtokrator went on, "Does your puissant khagan have any other business for you to set before me?"

"No, your Majesty," Tribo answered. "I shall convey to him your stubborn refusal to act as justice would dictate, and warn you that I cannot answer for the consequences."

From the Makuraner ambassador, that would have meant war. But Videssos badly outweighed Khatrish, and the two nations, despite bickering, had not fought for generations. So Krispos said, "Do tell his puissant self that I admire his gall, and that if I could afford to subsidize it, I would. As is, he'll just have to smuggle more and hope he makes it up that way."

"I shall convey your insulting and degrading remarks along with your refusal." Tribo paused. "He may take you up on that smuggling scheme."

"I know. I'll stop him if I can." Krispos mentally began framing orders for more customs inspectors and tighter vigilance along the Khatrisher border. All the same, he knew the easterners would get some untaxed amber through.

Tribo prostrated himself again, then rose and walked away from the throne backward until he'd withdrawn far enough to turn around without offending court etiquette. He was too accomplished a diplomat to do anything so rude as sticking his nose in the air as he marched off, but so accomplished a mime that he managed to create that impression without the reality.

The courtiers began streaming out after the ambassador left the Grand Courtroom. Their robes and capes of bright, glisten ing silk made them seem a moving field of springtime flowers.

Zaidas turned to Krispos and made small, silent clappiny motions. "Well done, your Majesty," he said. "It's not every day that the envoy from Khatrish, whoever he may be, leaves an audience in such dismay."

"Khatrishers are insolent louts with no respect for their betters," Barsymes said. 'They disrupt ceremonial merely for the sake of disruption." By his tone, the offense ranked somewhere between heresy and infanticide on his scale of enormities.

"I don't mind them that much," Krispos said. "They just have a hard time taking anything seriously." He'd lost his own war against ceremonial years before; if he needed a reminder, the weight of the crown on his head gave him one. Seeing other folk strike blows against the foe—the only foe, in the Empire or out of it that had overcome him—let him dream about renewing the struggle himself one day. He was, sadly, realist enough to know he did but dream.

Iakovitzes opened his table, plucked out a stylus, and wrote busily: "I don't like Khatrishers because they're too apt to cheat when they dicker with us. Of course, they say the same of Videssos."

"And they're probably as right as we are," Zaidas murmured.

Krispos suspected Iakovitzes didn't like Khatrishers because they took the same glee he did in flouting staid Videssian custom—and sometimes upstaged him while they were at it. That was something he wouldn't say out loud, for fear of finding out he was right and wounding Iakovitzes in the process.

The Grand Courtroom continued to empty. A couple of men came forward instead of leaving; they carried rolled and sealed parchments in their outstretched right hands. Haloga guardsmen kept them from getting too close. One of the northerners glanced back at Krispos. He nodded. The Haloga took the petitions and carried them over to him. They'd go into one of the piles on his desk. He wondered when he'd have the chance to read them. They'll reach the top one of these days, he thought.

The petitioners walked down the long aisle toward the doorway. Krispos rose, stretched, and descended the stairs from the throne. Iakovitzes wrote another note: "You know, it might not be so bad if the Thanasioi give the Khatrishers all the trouble they can handle and a bit more besides. Let Tribo say what he will; the day may come when the khagan really has to choose between going under and calling on Videssos for aid."

"That would be excellent," Barsymes said. "Krispos brought Kubrat back under Videssian rule; why not Khatrish, as well?"

Why not? Krispos thought. Videssos had never abandoned her claim to Kubrat or Khatrish or Thatagush, all lands overwhelmed by Khamorth nomads off the plains of Pardraya three hundred years before. To restore two of them to the Empire ... he might go down in the chronicles as Krispos the Conqueror.

That, however, assumed the Khatrishers were ripe to be conquered. "I don't see it," Krispos said, not altogether regretfully. "Khatrish somehow has a way of fumbling through troubles and coming out on the other side stronger than it has any business being. They're more easygoing about their religion than we are, too, so heresy has a harder time inciting them."

"They certainly didn't—don't—care for the Thanasioi," Zaidas said. Krispos guessed the idea of conquest appealed to him, too.

"We'll see what happens, that's all," the Avtokrator said. "If it turns to chaos, we may try going in. We'd have to be careful even so, though, to make sure the Khatrishers don't unite again—against us. Nothing like a foreign foe to make the problems you have with your neighbors look small."

"Remember also, your Majesty, the Thanasioi dissemble," Barsymes said. "Even if the Khatrishers seem to put down the heresy of the gleaming path for the time being, it may yet spring to life a generation from now."

"A generation from now?" Krispos snorted. "Odds are that'll be Phostis' worry, not mine." A year before, the idea of passing the Empire on to his eldest—if Phostis was his eldest—had filled him with dread. Now ... "I expect he'll take care of it," he said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Harry Turtledove has lived in Southern California all his life. He has a Ph.D. in history from UCLA and has taught at UCLA, California State. Fullerton, and California State University, Los Angeles. He has published in both history and speculative fiction. He is married to novelist Laura Frankos. They have three daughters: Alison. Rachel, and Rebecca.