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
