Krispos Rising

night.

She kept her word, if not as often as Krispos would have liked. Every taste he had of her, every time the two of them managed not to be busy and to be able to find privacy, only made him want her more. Not knowing a better name, he thought of that as love.

Then, for a while, his own afternoons were occupied: Varades taught him and a couple of younger boys their letters. He learned them without too much trouble; being able to read and write his own name was almost as exciting, in its own way, as sporting with Zoranne.

He would have liked it even more had the village had anything much to read. 'Why did you show us our letters if we can't use them?' he complained to Varades.

'To give myself something to do, as much as any other reason,' the veteran answered frankly. He thought for a moment. 'Tell you what. We might beg a copy of Phos' scripture the next time a blue-robe comes around. I'll go through it with you, best I can.'

When Varades asked him, a couple of weeks later, the priest nodded. 'I'll have one copied out for you straightaway,' he promised. Krispos, who was standing behind Varades, felt like cheering until the man went on, 'You understand, it will take a few months. The monasteries' scriptoria are always behind, I'm sorry to say.'

'Months!' Krispos said in dismay. He was sure he would forget everything before the book arrived.

But he did not. His father made him scratch letters in the dirt every day. 'High time we had somebody in the family who can read,' Phostis said. 'You'll be able to keep the tax man from cheating us any worse than tax men always do.'

Krispos got another chance to use his skill that spring, before either the scripture or the tax collector arrived. Zoranne's father Tzykalas had spent the winter months making half a dozen pairs of fancy boots. When the roads dried out enough to be passable, he took them to Imbros to sell. He came back with several goldpieces—and portentous news.

'The old Avtokrator, Phos guard his soul, has died,' he declared to the men he met in the village square.

Everyone made the sun-sign. The passing of an Emperor was never to be taken lightly. Phostis put into words what they were all thinking: 'His son's but a boy, not so?'

Tzykalas nodded. 'Aye, about the age of Krispos here, I'd say, judging by his coin.' The cobbler dug it out of his pouch to show the other villagers the new portrait. 'His name is—'

'Let me read it!' Krispos exclaimed. 'Please!' He held out his hand for the goldpiece. Reluctantly Tzykalas passed it to him. It was only a little wider than his thumbnail. All he could make out from the image was that the new Avtokrator was, as Tzykalas had said, too young to have a beard. He put the coin close to his face so he could make out the tiny letters of its inscription. 'His name is Anthimos.'

'So it is,' Tzykalas said grumpily. He snatched the goldpiece out of Krispos' hand. Too late, it occurred to the youth that he had just stolen a big part of Tzykalas' news. Too bad, he thought. No matter how he felt about Zoranne, he'd never been fond of her father. That was one reason he hadn't proposed to her: the idea of having the cobbler as a father-in-law was anything but appealing.

What he wanted to do was go home and dig up the goldpiece he'd got from Omurtag so he could read it. He'd buried it beside the house for luck when his family came to this new village, and they'd never been desperate enough to make him dig it up and spend it. But no, he decided, not now; if he did leave, Tzykalas would only think him ruder yet.

'A boy for Avtokrator?' someone said. 'That won't be good—who'll keep the plow's furrow straight till he learns how to guide it?'

'That I can tell you,' Tzykalas said, sounding important again. 'The talk in Imbros is that Rhaptes' brother Petronas will be regent for his nephew until Anthimos comes of age.'

'Petronas, eh? Things won't be too bad, then.' Drawn by the sight of several men standing around talking, Varades had come up in time to hear Tzykalas' last bit of news. The veteran went on, 'I fought under him against Makuran. He's an able soldier, and no one's fool, either.'

'What if he seizes the throne for himself, then?' Krispos' father said.

'What if he does, Phostis?' Varades said. 'Why would it matter to the likes of us, one way or the other?'

Krispos' father thought about it for a moment. He spread his hands. 'There you have me, Varades. Why indeed?'

Zoranne stood in the doorway of Tzykalas' house. She shook her head. 'No.'

'Why not?' Surprised and irritated, Krispos waved his hand to show how empty the village was. 'Everyone's in the farther fields for the rest of the day, and probably tomorrow, too. Even your father's gone off to buy some new awls, you said. We've never had a better chance.'

'No,' she repeated.

'Eat why not?' He put a hand on her arm.

She didn't pull away, not physically, but she might as well have. He let his hand fall. 'I just don't want to,' she said.

'Why?' he persisted.

'Do you really want to know?' She waited till she saw him nod. 'All right, I'll tell you why. Yphantes asked me to marry him the other day, and I told him yes.'

The last time Krispos had felt so stunned and breathless was when Idalkos kicked him in the pit of the stomach one day while they were wrestling. He'd never paid any particular attention to Yphantes before. Along with everyone else in the village, he'd been sad when the man's wife died in childbirth a couple of years before, but... 'He's old,' Krispos blurted.

'He's years away from thirty,' Zoranne said, 'and he's already well set up. If I had to wait for you, I'd be past twenty myself by the time you were even close to where Yphantes is now, and that's too long a time.'

'But—but then you, but then you and he—' Krispos found he could not make his mouth work the way it was