Krispos the Emperor

The question cut to the root. Ambition for a better life had driven Krispos from his farm to Videssos; while he was one of Iakovitzes' grooms, ambition had led him to wrestle a Kubrati champion and gained him the notice of the then-Emperor Anthimos' uncle Petronas, who administered Videssos in his nephew's name; ambition led him to let Petronas use him to supplant Anthimos' previous vestiarios; and then, as vestiarios himself, to take ever more power into his own hands, supplanting first Petronas and then Anthimos.

He said, 'Son, I know you want the red boots. Well, so does Phostis, and I have but the one set to give. What would you have me do?'

'Give them to me, by Phos,' Evripos answered. 'I'd wear them better than he would.'

'I have no way to be sure of that—nor do you,' Krispos said. 'For that matter, a day may come when Katakolon here begins to think past the end of his prick. He might prove a better ruler than either of you two. Who can say?'

'Him?' Evripos shook his head. 'No, Father, forgive me, but I don't see it.'

'Me?' Katakolon seemed as bemused as his brother. 'I've never thought much of wearing the crown. I always figured the only way it would come to me was if Phostis and Evripos were dead. I don't want it badly enough to wish for that. And since I'm not likely to be Avtokrator, why shouldn't I enjoy myself?'

As Avtokrator and voluptuary both, Anthimos had been anything but good for the Empire. But as Emperor's brother, Katakolon would be relatively harmless if he devoted himself to pleasure. If he did lack ambition, he might even be safer as a voluptuary. The chronicles had shown Krispos that rulers had a way of turning suspicious of their closest kin: who else was likelier both to accumulate power and to use it against them?

'Maybe it's because I grew up on a farm,' Krispos began, and both Evripos and Katakolon rolled their eyes. Nonetheless, the Avtokrator persisted: 'Maybe that's why I think waste is a sin Phos won't forgive. We never had much; if we'd wasted anything, we would have starved. The lord with the great and good mind knows I'm glad it isn't so with you boys: being hungry is no fun. But even though you have so much, you should still work to make the most you can of your lives. Pleasure is all very well in its place, but you can do other things when you're not in bed.'

Katakolon grinned. 'Aye, belike: you can get drunk.'

'Another sermon wasted, Father,' Evripos said acidly. 'How does that fit into your scheme of Worths?'

Without answering, Krispos pushed past his two younger sons and down the corridor. Phostis was unenthusiastic about ruling, Evripos embittered, and Katakolon had other things on his mind. What would Videssos come to when the common fate of mankind took his own hand from the steering oar?

Men had been asking that question, on one scale or another, for as long as there were men. If the head of a family died and his relatives were less able then he, the family might fall on hard times, but the rest of the world went on. When an able Emperor passed from the scene, families past counting might suffer because of it.

'What am I supposed to do?' Krispos asked the statues and paintings and relics that lined that hallway. No answer came back to him. All he could think of was to go on himself, as well as he could for as long as he could.

And after that? After that it would be in his sons' hands, and in the good god's. He remained confident Phos would continue to watch over Videssos. Of his sons he was less certain.

Rain poured down in sheets, ran in wide, watery fishtails off the edges of roofs, and turned the inner ward of the fortress of Etchmiadzin into a thin soup of mud. Phostis closed the wooden shutter to the little slit window in his cell; with it open, things were about as wet inside as they were out in the storm.

But with it closed, the bare square room was dark as night; fitfully flickering lamps did little to cut the gloom. Phostis slept as much as he could. Inside the cell in near darkness, he had little else to do.

After a few days of the steady rain, he felt as full of sleep as a new wineskin is of wine. He went into the corridor in search of something other than food.

Syagrios was dozing on a chair down the hall. Perhaps he'd had himself magically attuned to Phostis' door, for he came alert as soon as it opened, though Phostis had been quiet with it. The ruffian yawned, stretched, and said, 'I was beginning to think you'd died in there, boy. In a little while, I was going to check for a stink.'

You might have found one, Phostis thought. Because the Thanasioi reckoned the body Skotos' creation, they neither lavished baths on it nor disguised its odors with sweet scents. Sometimes Phostis didn't notice the resulting stench, as he was part of it. Sometimes it oppressed him dreadfully.

He said, 'I'm going downstairs. I've grown too bored even to nap anymore.'

'You won't stay bored forever,' Syagrios answered. 'After the rain comes the clear, and when the clear comes, we go out to fight.' He closed a fist and slammed it down on his leg. Syagrios was bored, too, Phostis realized: he hadn't had the chance to go out and hurt anything lately.

A couple of torches had gone out along the corridor, leaving it hardly brighter than Phostis' cell. He lit a taper from the burning torch nearest the stairway and headed down the steep stone spiral. Syagrios followed him. As always, he was sweating by the time he reached the bottom; a misstep on the stairs and he would have got there much faster than he wanted to.

Livanios' soldiers crowded the ground floor of the citadel.

Some of them slept rolled in blankets, their worldly goods either under their heads in leather sacks that served for pillows or somewhere else close by. However much the Thanasioi professed to despise the things of the world, their fighters could still be tempted to take hold of things of the world that were not things of theirs.

Some of the men who were awake threw dice; there coins and other things of the world changed hands in more generally accepted fashion. Phostis had been bemused the first time he saw Thanasiot soldiers gambling. He'd watched the dice many times since and concluded the men were soldiers first and followers of the gleaming path afterward.

Off in a corner, a small knot of men gathered around a game board whereon two of their fellows dueled. Phostis made his way over to them. 'If nobody's up for the next game, I challenge the winner,' he said.

The players looked up from their pieces. 'Hullo, friend,' one of them said, a Thanasiot greeting Phostis was still getting used to. 'Aye, I'll take you on after I take care of Grypas here.'