Gnatios appeared a few minutes later. Even fresh-roused from sleep, he looked clever and elegant, if none too happy. Krispos and Mavros bowed. As Gnatios responded with a bow of his own, Krispos saw him take in their dirty faces and torn robes. But his voice was smooth as ever as he asked, 'What has so distressed his Majesty that he must have a response in the middle of the night?'
'Let us speak privately, not in this doorway,' Krispos said. The patriarch considered, then shrugged. 'As you wish.' He led them to a small chamber, lit a couple of lamps, then closed and barred the door. Folding his arms across his chest, he said, 'Very well, let me ask you once more, if I may, esteemed and eminent sir: what theological concern has Anthimos so vexed he must needs rout me out of bed for his answer?'
'Most holy sir, you know as well as I that Anthimos never worried much about theology,' Krispos said. 'Now he doesn't worry about it at all. Or rather, he worries in the only way that truly matters—he's walking the narrow bridge between the light above and the ice below.' He saw Gnatios' eyebrows shoot up. He nodded. 'Yes, most holy sir, Anthimos is dead.'
'And you, most holy sir, have been addressing the Avtokrator of the Videssians by a title far beneath his present dignity,' Mavros added. His voice was hard, but one corner of his mouth could not help twitching upward with mischief.
Suave and urbane as he normally was, the patriarch goggled at that. 'No,' he whispered.
' Yes,' Krispos said, and for the half-dozenth time that night told how Anthimos had perished. Listening to himself, he discovered he did have the story down pat; only a few words were different from the ones he'd used with Iakovitzes and Dara. He finished, 'And that is why we've come to you now, most holy sir: to have you set the crown on my head at the High Temple in the morning.'
Gnatios had regained his composure while Krispos spoke Now he shook his head and repeated, 'No,' this time loudly and firmly. 'No, I will not crown a jumped-up stableboy like you, no matter what has befallen his Majesty. If you speak the truth and he has died, others are far more deserving of imperial rank.'
'By which you mean Petronas—your cousin Petronas,' Krispos said. 'Let me remind you, most holy sir, that Petronas now wears the blue robe.'
'Vows coerced from a man have been set aside before,' Gnatios said. 'He would make a better Avtokrator than you, as you must admit.'
'I admit nothing of the sort,' Krispos growled, 'and you're mad if you think I'd give over the throne to a man whose first act upon it would be to take my head.'
'You're mad if you think I'll crown you,' Gnatios retorted.
'If you don't, Pyrrhos will,' Krispos said.
That ploy had worked before with Gnatios, but it failed now. The ecumenical patriarch drew himself up. 'Pyrrhos is but an abbot. For a coronation to have validity, it must be at my hands, the patriarch's hands, and they shall not grant it to you.'
Just then Badourios knocked urgently on the door. Without waiting for a reply, the priest tried the latch. When he found the door barred, he called through it: 'Most holy sir, there's an unseemly disturbance building in the street outside.'
'What's happening in the street outside does not concern me,' Gnatios said angrily. 'Now go away.'
Krispos and Mavros looked at each other. 'Maybe what's happening in the street
The lines on Gnatios' forehead and those running down from beside his nose to the outer ends of his mouth deepened in suspicion. 'As you wish,' he said reluctantly.
Krispos heard the deep-voiced shouting as soon as he was out of the chamber. He looked at Mavros again. They both smiled. Gnatios scowled at each of them in turn.
When the three men got to the front entrance, the shouting abruptly stopped. Gnatios stared out in dismay at the whole regiment of imperial guards, hundreds of armed and armored Halogai drawn up in line of battle before the patriarchal mansion. He turned to Krispos, nervously wetting his lips. 'You would not, ah, loose the barbarians here on, ah, holy ground?'
'How could you think such a thing, most holy sir?' Krispos sounded shocked. He made sure he sounded shocked. 'We were just having a nice peaceable talk in there, weren't we?'
Before Gnatios could answer, one of the Halogai detached himself from their ranks and strode toward the mansion. As the warrior drew closer, Krispos saw it was Thvari. Gnatios stood his ground, but still seemed to shrink from the northerner, who along with his mail shirt and axe also bore a large, round bronze-faced shield.
Thvari swung up his axe in salute to Krispos. 'Majesty,' he said soberly. His gaze swung to Gnatios. He must not have liked what he saw on the patriarch's face, for his already wintry eyes grew colder yet. The axe twitched in his hands, as if with a life of its own.
Gnatios' voice went high. 'Call him off me,' he said to Krispos. The axe twitched again, a bigger movement this time. Krispos said nothing. Gnatios watched the axe blade with fearful fascination. He jumped when it moved again. 'Please call him off me,' he said shrilly; a moment later, perhaps realizing what was wrong, he added, 'Your Majesty.'
'That will be all, Thvari. Thank you,' Krispos said. The Haloga nodded, turned, and stalked back to his countrymen.
'There,' Gnatios said to Krispos, though his eyes stayed on Thvari till the northerner was back into the ranks of the guardsmen. 'I've publicly acknowledged you. Are you satisfied?'
'You haven't yet honored his Majesty with a proskynesis,' Mavros observed.
Gnatios looked daggers at him and opened his mouth to say something defiant. Then he glanced over to the Halogai massed in the street. Krispos watched the defiance drain out of him. Slowly he went to his knees, then to his belly. 'Majesty,' he said as his forehead touched the floor.
'Get up, most holy sir,' Krispos said. 'So you agree I am the rightful Avtokrator, then?' He waited for Gnatios to
