Proskynesis in a rowboat was impractical; the fellow with the parchment contented himself with dipping his head to Krispos. Panting, he said, 'May it please your Majesty, I bring a dispatch just arrived from the environs of Pityos.' He handed Krispos the parchment across the palm's breadth of water that separated their boats.
As often happened, Krispos had the bad feeling his Majesty was not going to be pleased. Scrawled on the outside of the parchment in a hasty hand was
Krispos flicked off the wax seal with his thumbnail, then used a scaling knife from the tackle box to slice through the ribbon that held the parchment closed. When he unrolled it, he found the message inside written in the same hand as the warning of urgency on the outer surface. It was also to the point:
Krispos read through the message twice to make sure he'd missed nothing. He started to toss it down with the fish he'd caught, but decided it was too likely to be ruined by seawater. He stowed it in the tackle box instead. Then he seized the row-boat's oars and headed back for the pier. The messenger and the Halogai followed in his wake.
As soon as he reached the dock, he tossed the tackle box up onto the tarred timbers, then scrambled up after it. He grabbed the box and headed for the imperial residence at a trot that left the parasol bearers hurrying after him and complaining loudly as they did their futile best to catch up. Even the Halogai who hadn't gone to sea needed a hundred yards and more before they could assume their protective places around him.
He'd taken the Thanasioi too lightly before. That wouldn't happen now. He wrote and dictated orders far into the night; the only pauses he made were to gulp smoked pork and hard cheese—campaigning food—and pour down a couple of goblets of wine to keep his voice from going raw.
Not until he'd got into bed, his thoughts whirling wildly as he tried without much luck to sleep, did he remember that he'd left the mullet of which he'd been so proud lying in the bottom of the boat.
Ill
Civil war. Religious war. Krispos didn't know which of the two was worse. Now he had them both, wrapped around each other. Worse yet, fall was not far away. If he didn't move quickly, rain would turn the westlands' dirt roads to gluey mud that made travel difficult and campaigning impossible. That would give the heretics the winter to consolidate their hold on Pityos and the surrounding territory.
But if he did move quickly, with a scratch force, he risked another defeat. Defeat was more dangerous in civil war than against a foreign foe; it tempted troops to switch sides. Figuring out which course to take required calculations more exacting than he'd needed in years.
'I wish Iakovitzes were here,' he told Barsymes and Zaidas as he weighed his choices. 'Come to that, I wish Mammianos were still alive. When it came to civil war, he always had a feel for what to do when.'
'He was not young even in the first days of your Majesty's reign,' Zaidas said, 'and he was always fat as a tun. Such men are prime candidates for fits of apoplexy.'
'So the healer-priests advised me when he died up in Pliskavos,' Krispos said. 'I understand that. I miss him all the same. Most of these young soldiers I deal with lack sense, it seems to me.'
'This is a common complaint of the older against the young,' Zaidas said. 'Moreover, most of the younger officers in your army have spent more time at peace than was usual in the tenure of previous Avtokrators.'
Barsymes said, 'Perhaps your Majesty might do more to involve the young Majesties in the preparations against the Thanasioi.'
'I wish I knew how to do that,' Krispos said. 'If they were more like me at the same age, there'd be no problem. But—' His own first taste of combat had come at seventeen, against Kubrati raiders. He'd done well enough in the fighting, then puked up his guts afterward.
'But,' he said again, shaking his head as if it were a complete sentence. He made himself amplify it. 'Phostis has chosen now to get drunk on the lord with the great and good mind and on the words of this priest he's been seeing.'
'Will you reprove piety?' Barsymes asked, his own voice reproving.
'Not at all, esteemed sir. Along with our common Videssi; language, our common orthodox faith glues the Empire together. That, among other things, is what makes the Thanasioi so deadly dangerous: they seek to soak away the glue that keeps all Videssos' citizens loyal to her. But neither would I have my heir make himself into a monk, not when Emperors find themselves forced to do unmonkish things.'
'Forbid him to see this priest, then,' Zaidas suggested.
'How can I?' Krispos said. 'Phostis is a man in years and a man in spirit, even if not exactly the man I might have wished him to be. He would defy me, and he would be in the right. One of the things you learn if you want to stay Avtokrator is not to fight wars you have no hope of winning.'
'You have three sons, your Majesty,' Barsymes said. The vestiarios was subtle even by Videssian standards, but could be as stubborn in his deviousness as any blunt, straightforward, ironheaded barbarian.
'Aye, I have three sons.' Krispos raised an eyebrow. 'Katakolon would no doubt be willing enough to go on campaign for the sake of the camp followers, but how much use he'd be in the field is another question. Evripos, now, Evripos is a puzzle even to me. He doesn't want to be like his brother, but envies him his place as eldest.'
Zaidas spoke in musing tones: 'If you ordered him to accompany the army you send forth, and gave him, say, spatharios' rank and a place at your side, that might make Phostis—what's the word I want?—thoughtful, perhaps.'
'Worried, you mean.' Krispos found himself smiling. Spatharios was about the most general title in the imperial hihierarchy; though it literally meant
