As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew he should have kept them in there. Having her laugh at him would be bad enough. Having her tell her father would be a thousand times worse.
She didn't laugh. She said, 'Don't try to run. You'd just be caught, and then you'd never get another chance.'
'But how can I stay here?' he demanded. 'Even under the best of circumstances, I'm—' He hesitated, but finished the thought as he'd intended. '—I'm not a Thanasiot, nor likely to become one. I know that now.'
'I know what you mean,' Olyvria answered unhappily. Phostis noted she had not said she agreed with him. She shook her head. 'I'd better go.' She hurried away.
He started to call after her, but in the end did not. He kicked at the gluey ground underfoot. In the romances, all your problems were supposed to be over when you made love to the beautiful girl. Olyvria was pretty enough, no doubt about that. But as far as Phostis could see, making love to her had only complicated his life further.
He wondered why the romances were so popular if they were also so far removed from actuality. That notion disturbed him; he thought the popular should match the real. Then he realized that simple paintings in bright colors might be easier to appreciate than more highly detailed ones—and honey was sweeter than the usual mix of flavors life presented.
None of which helped him in his present complexities. Here at last he'd found a woman who, he believed, wanted him only for himself, not because of the rank he held or the advantage she might gain from sleeping with him—and who was she? Not just the woman who had kidnapped him and who was the daughter of the rebel who held him prisoner. That would have been muddle enough by itself. But there was more. For all her fencing with him about it, he knew she took Thanasiot principles seriously—a lot more seriously than Livanios, if Phostis was any judge. And Thanasios, to put it mildly, had not thought well of the flesh.
Phostis still distrusted his own flesh, too. But he was coming to the sometimes reluctant conclusion that it was part of what made him himself, not just an unfortunate adjunct to his spirit that ought to be discarded as quickly as possible.
Almost as vividly as if he were in her arms again, he remembered the feel of Olyvria's warm, sweet body pressed against him. Sometimes he was not so reluctant about that conclusion, too. He knew he wanted her again, when and as he got the chance.
Digenis would not have approved. He knew that, too. Now, though, he hadn't talked with the fiery priest, or come under the spell of his words, for several months. And he'd seen far more of the way the Thanasioi ran their lives than he had when he'd listened to Digenis back in Videssos the city. Much of it he still found admirable—much of it, but a long way from all. Reality had a way of intruding on Digenis' bright word-pictures, no less than on those of the romancers.
If Olyvria was heading back toward the fortress of Etchmiadzin, Phostis decided he ought to stay away awhile longer, so as not to make anyone there draw a connection between them. It was a nice calculation. If he just followed her back, he might arouse suspicion. If he stayed away too long, Syagrios would track him like hound after hare. He didn't want Syagrios to have to do that; it would anger the ruffian, and Phostis cherished the limited freedom he'd so slowly regained.
He had a few coins in his belt pouch, winnings at the battle game. He spent a silver piece on a leg of roasted fowl and a hard roll, then carefully put the coppers from his change back into the pouch. He'd learned about haggling: it was what you did when you were short of money. He'd got good at it. Despite Krispos' firm hand, he'd never been short of money before he ended up in Etchmiadzin.
He was chewing on the roll when Artapan strode by. The wizard, full of his own affairs, didn't notice him. Phostis decided to try to find out where he was going in such a hurry. Ever since he'd realized Artapan was from Makuran, he'd wondered just how the mage fit into Livanios' plans ... or perhaps how Livanios fit into Artapan's plans. Maybe now he could learn.
He'd followed the wizard for half a furlong before he realized he was liable to get in trouble if Artapan did discover him dogging his tracks. He tried to be sneakier, keeping people and, once, a donkey cart between the mage and him, dodging from doorway to doorway.
After another couple of minutes, he concluded he could do just about anything short of walking up, tapping Artapan on the shoulder, and asking him for the time of day. Artapan plainly had something on his mind. He looked neither to the left nor to the right, and marched down the muddy streets of Etchmiadzin as if they were cobblestoned boulevards.
The wizard rapped on the door of a house separated from its neighbors by dank, narrow alleys. After a moment, he went inside. Phostis ducked into one of the alleys. He promptly regretted it: someone was in the habit of dumping slops there. The stink almost made him cough. He jammed a sleeve into his mouth and breathed hard through his nose till the spasm passed.
But he did not leave. A little slit window let him hear what was going on inside. He wouldn't have put a window there, but maybe it had been made before anyone started emptying chamber pots in the alley.
Artapan was saying, 'How fare you today, supremely holy Tzepeas?'
The answer came in a dragging whisper: 'Soon I shall be free. Skotos and his entrapping world cling hard to me; already most who abandon what is falsely called nourishment for as long as I have are on the journey behind the sun. But still I remain wrapped in the flesh that disfigures the soul.'
'You want, then, to leave this world?' Artapan's accented voice held wonder. Phostis wondered about that: the Four Prophets had their holy ascetics, too. 'What will you find, do you think?'
'Light!' Just for a word, Tzepeas' voice came strong and clear, as if he were a well-fed man rather than a shivering bag of bones. As he continued, it faded again. 'I shall be part of Phos' eternal light. Too long have I lingered in this sin-filled place.'
'Would you seek help in leaving it?' Artapan had moved while Tzepeas was talking. Now he sounded as if he was right beside the starving Thanasiot.
'I don't know,' Tzepeas said. 'Is it permitted?'
'Of course,' the wizard answered smoothly. 'But a moment and you shall meet your good god face to
