Krispos the Emperor

first.'

He caught Krispos watching him with eyebrow upraised in speculation. Unabashed, the Avtokrator gave him a sober nod. 'You're learning, lad.'

'I will speak for the romances,' Olyvria said. 'Where but in them does the prisoner escape with the heresiarch's daughter who's fallen in love with him?'

Now Sarkis laughed out loud. 'By the good god, she's caught father and son in the same net.' He swigged wine, refilled his mug, and swigged again.

When Krispos turned his gaze on Olyvria, amusement sparked in his eyes. He dipped his head, as if she'd made a clever move at the board game. 'There is something to what you say, lady.'

'No, there's not,' Phostis insisted. 'In what romance isn't the woman a quivering wreck who requires some bold hero to rescue her? And in which of them does she rescue the hero by clouting the villain with a thundermug?'

'It seemed the handiest thing in the room,' Olyvria said amid general laughter. 'Besides, you can't expect a romance to have all the details straight.'

'You have to watch this one, brother,' Katakolon said. 'She's quick.'

The only things Katakolon looked for in his companions were looks and willingness. No wonder he went through them like a drunkard through a wine cellar, Phostis thought. But he didn't feel like quarreling with Katakolon, not tonight. 'I'll take my chances,' he said, and let it go at that.

Sarkis looked at the jar of wine in front of him, yawned, and shook his head. He climbed to his feet. 'I'm for bed, your Majesty,' he announced. He turned to Phostis. 'Good to have you back, and your quick lady.' He walked out into the night.

Zaidas also rose. 'I'm for bed, too. Would I had the power to store up sleep as a dormouse stores fat for its winter rest. Spurred not least by what you've said tonight, young Majesty, I think I shall be engaged in serious sorcery soon, at which time I will call on all my bodily reserves. The good god grant that they suffice.'

'How cozy—it's a family gathering now,' Krispos said when the mage left. He was not being sardonic; he beamed from Katakolon to Phostis and on to Olyvria. That took a weight of worry from Phostis; a young man will seldom turn aside from his beloved at his father's urging, but that is not an urging he ever cares to hear.

Then Katakolon also stood up. He clapped Phostis on the back, careful to stay away from the wounded shoulder. 'Wonderful you're here and mostly intact,' he said. He nodded to Olyvria and Krispos, then followed Sarkis and Zaidas out of the pavilion.

'He didn't say anything about bed,' Krispos said, half laughing, half sighing. 'He's probably out prowling for a friendly wench among the camp followers. He'll probably find one, too.'

'Now I know you believe our tale, your Majesty,' Olyvria said.

'How's that?' Krispos asked. Phostis recognized his tone; it was the one he always used when he was finding out what his sons had learned of their lessons.

'If you didn't, you'd not be sitting here with the two of us closer to you than your guards are,' she answered. 'We're desperate characters, after all, and if we can turn a chamber pot into a weapon, who knows what we might do with a spoon or an inkwell?'

'Who indeed?' Krispos said with a small chuckle. He turned to Phostis. 'She is quick—you'd better take good care of her.' He was quick himself; he didn't miss the yawn Olyvria tried to hide. 'Now you'd better take her back to your tent. Riding the courier circuit is wearing—I remember.'

'I'll do that, Father,' Phostis said. 'But may I come back here for a few minutes afterward?' Both Olyvria and Krispos looked at him in surprise. 'Something I want to ask you,' he said, knowing it was not an explanation.

Krispos had to know that, too, but he nodded. 'Whatever you like, of course.'

Olyvria asked questions all the way to the tent that had been set up for them. Phostis didn't answer any of them. He knew how much that irked her, but held his course regardless. The most he would say was, 'It's nothing to do with you.'

He walked back to the imperial pavilion almost as warily as he'd entered the tunnel that ran under Videssos the city. What he found here might be as dangerous as anything that had lurked there.

Salutes from the Halogai didn't make him any less nervous as he ducked his way into the pavilion. Krispos waited at the map table, a wine cup in his hand and curiosity on his face. Despite that curiosity, he waited quietly until Phostis had also filled a cup and taken a long draft. Then wine ran sweet down his throat, but gave him no extra courage. Too bad, he thought.

'Well.' Krispos said when Phostis lowered the wine cup from his lips, 'what's such a deep, dark secret that you can't speak of it in front of your lady love?'

Had Krispos sounded sarcastic, Phostis would have turned on his heel and strode out of the pavilion without answering. But he just seemed inquisitive—and friendly, too, which Phostis wasn't used to. He'd tried a dozen different ways of framing his question. When it escaped his lips, though, it did so without any fancy frame whatever: 'Are you my father?'

He watched Krispos suddenly seem to freeze in place, all except his eyes, which grew very wide. Then, as if to give himself time to think, the Avtokrator lifted his cup and drained it dry. 'I'd wondered what you wanted,' he said at last. 'I didn't expect you to ask me that.'

'Are you?' Phostis pressed.

As young men will of their fathers—or those they believe their fathers—he'd always thought of Krispos as old, but old in the sense of conservative and powerful rather than actually elderly. Now, as the lines on Krispos' face deepened harshly, Phostis saw with eerie certainty what he would look like as an old man.

'Are you?' Phostis said again.

Krispos sighed. His shoulders sagged. He laughed for a moment, quietly and to himself. Phostis almost hit him then. Krispos walked over to the wine jar, poured himself another cup from it, then peered into the dark ruby depths. When he looked up toward Phostis, he spoke in what was almost a whisper: 'Not a week's gone by, I think,