Krispos went on more earnestly, 'I can't give you orders, excellent sir, but I can ask if you'd treat one of your animals the way you're treating yourself. There's no point to it, the more so since with the fall rains starting you're not going anyplace anyhow.'
'Mrmm,' Iakovitzes said—a noise a long way from any sort of agreement, but one that, when the noble changed the subject, showed Krispos he had got through.
Iakovitzes continued to mend. Eventually, as Ordanes had predicted, he was able to move about with his sticks, lifting and planting them and his splinted leg so heavily that once people in the taproom directly below his chamber complained to Bolkanes about the racket he made. Since the innkeeper was getting, if not rich, then at least highly prosperous from his noble guest's protracted stay, he turned a deaf ear to the complaints. By the time Iakovitzes could stump about the inn, the rains made sure he did not travel much farther. Outside large towns, Videssos had few paved roads; dirt was kinder to horses' hooves. The price of that kindness was several weeks of impassable soup each fall and spring. Iakovitzes cursed every day that dawned gray and wet, which meant he did a lot of cursing.
Krispos tried to rebuke him. 'The rain's a blessing to farmers, excellent sir, and without farmers we'd all starve.' The words were several seconds out of his mouth before he realized they were his father's.
'If you like farmers so bloody well, why did you ever leave that pissant village you sprang from?' Iakovitzes retorted. Krispos gave up on changing his master's attitude; trying to get Iakovitzes to stop cursing was like trying to fit the moon in a satchel. The noble's bad temper seemed as constant as the ever-shifting phases of the moon.
And soon enough, Krispos came to curse the fall rains, too. As Iakovitzes grew more able to care for himself, Krispos found himself with more free time. He wanted to spend as much time as he could with Tanilis, both for the sake of his body's pleasure and, increasingly, to explore the boundaries of their odd relationship. Riding even as far as her villa, though, was not to be undertaken lightly, not in the fall.
Thus he was overjoyed, one cold blustery day when the rain threatened to turn to sleet, to hear her say, 'I think I will go into Opsikion soon, to spend the winter there. I have a house, you know, not far from Phos' temple.'
'I'd forgotten,' Krispos admitted. That night, in the privacy of the guest chamber, he said, 'I hope I'll be able to see you more often if you come to town. This miserable weather—'
Tanilis nodded. 'I expect you will.'
'Did you—' Krispos paused, then plunged: 'Did you decide to go into Opsikion partly on account of me?'
Her laugh was warm enough that, though he flushed, he did not flinch. 'Don't flatter yourself too much, my— well, if I call you my dear, you
'Oh.' Krispos thought for a moment. 'Couldn't you stay here and foresee what you need to know?'
'The gift comes as it will, not as I will,' Tanilis said. 'Besides, I like to see new faces every so often. If I'd prayed at the chapel here, after all, instead of coming into Opsikion for the holy Abdaas' day, I'd not have met you. You might have stayed a groom forever.'
Reminded of Iakovitzes' jibe, Krispos said, 'It's an easier life than the one I had before I came to the city.' He also thought, a little angrily, that he would have risen further even if Tanilis hadn't met him. That he kept to himself. Instead, he said, 'If you come to Opsikion, you might want to bring that pretty little laundress of yours— Phronia's her name, isn't it?—along with you.'
'Oh? And why is that?' Tanilis' voice held no expression whatever.
Krispos answered quickly, knowing he was on tricky ground. 'Because I've spread the word around that she's the reason I come here so often. If she's in Opsikion, I'll have a better excuse to visit you there.'
'Hmm. Put that way, yes.' Tanilis' measuring gaze reminded Krispos of a hawk eyeing a rabbit from on high. 'I would not advise you to use this story to deceive me while you carry on with Phronia. I would not advise that at all.'
A chill ran down Krispos' spine, though he had no interest in Phronia past any young man's regard for a pretty girl. Since that was true, the chill soon faded. What remained was insight into how Tanilis thought. Krispos' imagination had not reached to concealing one falsehood within another, but Tanilis took the possibility for granted. That had to mean she'd seen it before, which in turn meant other people used such complex ploys.
'What was that for?' Tanilis asked.
Wishing she weren't so alert, he said, 'Only that you've taught me many things.'
'I've certainly intended to. If you would be more than a groom, you need to know more than a groom.'
Krispos nodded before the full import of what she'd said sank in. Then he found himself wondering whether she'd warned him about Phronia just to show him how a double bluff worked. He thought about asking her but decided not to. She might not have meant that at all. He smiled ruefully. Whatever else she was doing, she was teaching him to distrust first impressions ... and second ... and third... . After a while, he supposed, reality might disappear altogether, and no one would notice it was gone.
He thought of how Iakovitzes and Lexo had gone back and forth, quarreling over what was thought to be true at least as much as over what was true. To prosper in Videssos the city, he might need every bit of what Tanilis taught.
Since Opsikion lay by the Sailors' Sea, Krispos thought winter would be gentler there. The winter wind, though, was not off the sea, but from the north and west; a breeze from his old home, but hardly a welcome one.
Eventually the sea froze, thick enough for a man to walk on, out to a distance of several miles from shore. Even the folk of Opsikion called that a hard winter. To Krispos it was appalling; he'd seen frozen rivers and ponds aplenty, but the notion that the sea could turn to ice made him wonder if the Balancer heretics from Khatrish might not have a point. The broad, frigid expanse seemed a chunk of Skotos' hell brought up to earth.
Yet the locals took the weather in stride. They told stories of the year an iceberg, perhaps storm-driven from Agder or the Haloga country, smashed half the docks before shattering against the town's seawall. And the eparch Sisinnios sent armed patrols onto the ice north of the city.
