'Ha!' Grypas returned to the board the prelate he'd captured from his opponent. 'Guard your emperor, Astragalos; Phostis here will play
Grypas proved right; after some further skirmishing, Astragalos' emperor, beset on all sides, found no square where he could move without threat of capture. Muttering into his beard, the soldier gave up.
Phostis sat in his place. He and Grypas returned the pieces to their proper squares on the first three rows on each man's side of the nine-by-nine board. Grypas glanced over at Phostis. 'I've played you before, friend. I'm going to take winner's privilege and keep first move.'
'However you like,' Phostis answered. Grypas advanced the foot soldier diagonally ahead of his prelate, freeing up the wide-ranging piece for action. Phostis pushed one of his own foot soldiers forward in reply.
Grypas played like the soldier he was. He hurled men into the fight without much worry about where they would be three moves later. Phostis had learned in a subtler school. He lost a little time fortifying his emperor behind an array of goldpieces and silvers, but then started taking advantage of that safety.
Before long, Grypas was gnawing his mustache in consternation. He tried to fight back by returning to the fray pieces he'd taken from Phostis, but Phostis had not left himself as vulnerable as Astragalos had before. He beat the soldier without much trouble.
As the dejected man got up from the board, Syagrios sat down across it from Phostis. He leered at the junior Avtokrator. 'All right, youngster, let's see how tough you are.'
'I'll keep first move against you, by the good god,' Phostis said. Around them, bets crackled back and forth. Over the long winter, they'd shown they were the two best players in the fortress. Which of them was better than the other swung from day to day.
Phostis stared over the grid at his unkempt opponent. Who would have guessed that a man with the looks of a bandit and habits to match made such a cool, precise player? But the pieces on the board cared nothing for how a man looked or even how he acted when he wasn't at the game. And Syagrios had already showed he had more wit behind that battered face than anyone who judged by it alone would guess.
The ruffian had a special knack for returning captured pieces to the board with telling effect. If he set down a horseman, you could be sure it threatened two pieces at once, both of them worth more than it. If a siege engine went into action, your emperor would be in trouble soon.
His manner at the game betrayed his origins. Whenever Phostis made a move he didn't like, he'd growl, 'Oh, you son of a whore!' It had been unnerving at first; by now, Phostis took no more notice of it than of the twitches and tics of some of his opponents back in Videssos the city.
He took far fewer chances against Syagrios than he had against Grypas. In fact, he took no chances at all that he could see: give Syagrios an opening and he'd charge right through. Syagrios treated him with similar caution. The game, as a result, was slow and positional.
Finally, with returned foot soldiers paving the way, Syagrios broke up Phostis' fortress and sent his emperor scurrying for safety. When he was trapped in a corner with no hope of escape, Phostis took him off the board and said, 'I surrender.'
'You made me sweat there, by the good god.' Syagrios thumped his chest with a big fist, then boomed out, 'Who else wants a go at me?'
Astragalos said, 'Let Phostis take you on again. That'll make a more even match than the rest of us are apt to give you.'
Phostis had stood up. He looked around to see if anybody else wanted to play Syagrios. When no one made a move, he sat back down again. Syagrios leered at him. 'I ain't gonna give you first move, either, boy.'
'I didn't expect you would,' Phostis answered, altogether without ironic intent: any man who didn't look out for himself wasn't likely to find anyone to do it for him.
After a game as hard-fought as the first one, he got his revenge. Syagrios leaned over the board and punched him on the meaty part of his arm. 'You're a sneaky little bastard, you know that ? To the ice with whose son you are. That ain't horse manure between your ears, you know?'
'Whatever you say.' Compliments from Syagrios made Phostis even more nervous than the abuse that usually filled the ruffian's mouth. Phostis stood up again and said, 'You can take on the next challenger.'
'Why's that?' Syagrios demanded. Quitting while you were winning was bad form.
'If I don't leave about now, you'll have to wipe up the floor under me,' Phostis answered, which made Syagrios and several of the other men around the game board laugh. With the fortress of Etchmiadzin packed full of fighters, the humor there was decidedly coarse.
In better weather, Phostis would have wandered out into the inner ward to make water against the wall. There was, however, an oversufficiency of water in the inner ward already. He headed off to the garderobe instead. The chamber, connected as it was to a cesspit under the keep, was so noisome that he avoided it when he could. At the moment, however, he had little choice.
Wooden stalls separated one hole in the long stone bench from another, an unusual concession to delicacy but one Phostis appreciated. Three of the four were occupied when he went in; he stepped into the fourth, which was farthest from the doorway.
As he was easing himself, he heard a couple of people come in behind him. One of them let out an unhappy grunt. 'All full,' he said. By the slight accent he gave his words, Phostis recognized him as Livanios' pet wizard.
The other was Livanios. 'Don't worry, Artapan,' he said easily. 'You won't burst in the next couple of minutes, and neither shall I.'
'Don't use my name,' the wizard grumbled.
Livanios laughed at him. 'By the good god, if we have spies in the latrine, we're doomed before we start. Here, this fellow's coming out. You go ahead; I'll wait.'
Phostis had already set his clothes to rights, but he waited, too, waited until he heard Livanios go into a stall and shut the door. Then he all but jumped out of the one he'd been in and hurried away from the garderobe. He didn't want either Livanios or Artapan to know he'd heard.
Now that he knew the wizard's name, he also recognized the accent that had tantalized him for so long.
