wasn't willing to bet on either.
As if to rub in his determination, Digenis said, 'I shall praise Phos' holy name for every pang you inflict on me.' He began to sing a hymn at the top of his lungs.
'Oh, shut up,' Krispos said. Digenis kept on singing. Someone scratched at the door to the cell. Axe ready to strike, a Haloga pulled it open. A priest started to walk in, then drew back in alarm at the upraised axe blade. 'Come on, come on,' Krispos told him. 'Don't stand there dithering—just tell me what you want.'
'May it please your Majesty,' the priest began nervously, and Krispos braced for trouble. The blue-robe tried again: 'M-may it please your Majesty, I am Soudas, an attendant at the High Temple. The most holy ecumenical patriarch Oxeites, who was commemorating the day by celebrating a special liturgy there, directed me to come to you on hearing that the holy priest Digenis had been captured, so to speak, in arms, and bade me remind your Majesty that ecclesiastics are under all circumstances immune from suffering bodily torment.'
'Oh, he did? Oh, they are?' Krispos glared at the priest, who looked as if he wished he could sink through the floor— though that would only have put him in a deeper level of the jail. 'Doesn't the most holy ecumenical patriarch recall that I took the head of one of his predecessors for treason no worse than this Digenis has committed?'
'If you mentioned the fate of the formerly most holy Gnatios—may Phos grant his soul mercy—I was instructed to point out that, while capital punishment remains your province, it is a matter altogether distinct from torture.'
'Oh, it is?' Krispos made his glare fiercer still. It all but shriveled Soudas, but the priest managed a shaky nod. Krispos dropped his scowl to his red boots; could he have scowled at his own face, he would have done it. The part of him that weighed choices like a grocer weighing out lentils swung into action. Could he afford a row with the regular temple hierarchy while at the same time fighting the Thanasiot heretics? Reluctantly, he decided he could not. Growling like a dog that has reached the end of its chain and so cannot sink its teeth into a man it wants to bite, he said, 'Very well, no torture. You may tell the patriarch as much. Generous of him to let me use my own executioners as I see fit.'
Soudas bobbed his head in what might have been a nod, then wheeled about and fled. Digenis hadn't missed a note of his hymn. Krispos tried to console himself by doubting whether the renegade would have broken under torment. But he craved the chance to find out.
The Avtokrator swung toward Zaidas. The wizard had listened to his talk with the priest. Zaidas was anything but a fool; he could figure out for himself that the burden on him had just grown heavier. If he couldn't pry secrets from Digenis, those secrets would stay unknown for good. The wizard licked his lips. No, he was not long on confidence.
Digenis ended his hymn. 'I care not if you go against the patriarch,' he said. 'His doctrine is false in any case, and I do not fear your torments.'
Krispos knew a strong temptation to break Digenis on the rack, to tear at his flesh with red-hot pincers, not so much in the hope that he would tell where Phostis was—if in fact he knew—but to see if he so loudly despised torment after suffering a good deal of it. Krispos had enough control over himself to recognize the temptation as base and put it aside, but he felt it all the same.
Digenis not only remained defiant but actually seemed to seek out martyrdom. 'Your refusal to liberate me from my polluting and polluted envelope of flesh is but another proof of your own foul materialism, your rejection of the spiritual for the sensual, the soul for the penis, the—'
'When you go to the ice, I hope you bore Skotos with your stupid maunderings,' Krispos said, a sally that succeeded in making Digenis splutter in outrage and then, better still, shut up. The Emperor added, 'I've wasted enough time on you.' He turned to Zaidas. 'Try anything and everything you think might work. Bring in whatever colleagues you need to give you aid. One way or another, I will have answers from this one before the dark god takes him forever.'
'Aye, your Majesty.' Zaidas' voice was low and troubled. 'The good god willing, others from the Sorcerers' Collegium will have more success than I at smashing through his protective shell of fanaticism.'
Accompanied by his bodyguards, Krispos left the cell and the subterranean jail. About halfway up the stairs to the entrance hall, one of the Halogai said, 'Forgive me. Majesty, but may I ask if I heard the blue-robe aright? Did he not blame you there for failing to flay him?'
'Aye, that's just what he did, Frovin,' Krispos answered.
The northerner's blue eyes mirrored his confusion. 'Majesty, I do not understand. I do not fear hurt and gore; that were unmanly. But neither do I run forth and embrace them like man clasping maid.'
'Nor do I,' Krispos said. 'A streak of martyrdom runs through some of the pious in Videssos, though. Me, I'd sooner live for the good god than die for him.'
'Spoken like a man of sense,' Frovin said. The other bodyguards rumbled approval, down deep in their chests.
When he went outside, the gray light of winter dawn was building. The air smelled of smoke, but with stoves, fireplaces, and braziers by the tens of thousands, the air of Videssos the city always had a smoky tang to it. No great curtains of black billowed up into the lightening sky. If the Thanasioi had thought to burn down the city, thus far they'd failed.
Back in the plaza of Palamas, Evripos still slept. To Krispos' surprise, he found Katakolon in earnest conversation with Thokyodes the fire captain. 'If you're sure everything's out in that district, why don't you get some rest?' his youngest son was saying. 'You won't do us or the city any good if you're too worn to answer the next summons.'
'Aye, that's good advice, young Majesty,' Thokyodes answered, saluting. 'We'll kip right out here, if that suits —and if you can find us some blankets.'
'Barsymes!' Katakolon called. Krispos nodded approvingly—Katakolon might not know where things were, but he knew who would. His son spotted him. 'Hello, Father. Just holding things together as best I could; Barsymes told me you were busy with that madman of a priest.'
'So I was. I thank you for the help. Do we have the upper hand?'
'We seem to,' Katakolon said, more caution in his voice than Krispos was used to hearing there.
'Good enough,' Krispos said. 'Now let's see if we can keep it.'
