'Maybe.' As he did whenever a woman was mentioned, Iakovitzes sounded indifferent. He reached the stairway. 'Give me your hand, will you, for the way up?' Krispos complied. Chill or no, Iakovitzes was sweating by the time he got to the top of the stairs; his leg still did not take kindly to such work.
Krispos went through the usual small wrestling match he needed to get the noble to let go. 'After a year with me, excellent sir, don't you believe I'm not interested?' he asked.
'Oh, I believe it,' Iakovitzes said. 'I just don't take it seriously.' Having had, if not Krispos, then at least the last word, he hobbled down the hall toward his room.
Rain pattered on the shutters of the bedroom window. 'The second storm in a row with no snow in it,' Tanilis said. 'No sleet in this one either, or none to speak of. Winter is finally losing its grip.'
'So it is.' Krispos kept his voice noncommittal. The imminent return of good weather meant too many different things now for him to be sure how he felt about it.
Tanilis sat up in bed and ran a hand through her hair. The gesture, artfully artless, made her bare breasts rise for Krispos' admiration. At the same time, though, she said, 'When the rain finally stops, I will be going back to my villa. I don't think you would be wise to visit me there.'
Krispos had known she would tell him that, sooner or later. He'd thought he was ready. Actually hearing the words, though, was like taking a blow in the belly—no matter how braced he was, they still hurt. 'So it's over,' he said dully.
'This part of it,' Tanilis agreed.
Again, he'd thought he could accept that, thought he could depart with Iakovitzes for Videssos the city without a backward glance. Had his master not broken his leg, that might well have been true. But wintering in Opsikion, passing so much more time with Tanilis, made it harder than he'd expected. All his carefully cultivated sangfroid deserted him. He clutched her to him. 'I don't want to leave you!' He groaned.
She yielded to his embrace, but her voice stayed detached, logical. 'What then? Would you turn aside from what I and others have seen for you, would you abandon this—' She touched the goldpiece Omurtag had given him. '—to stay in Opsikion? And if you would, would I look on you with anything but scorn because of it?'
'But I love you!' Krispos said.
Down deep, he'd always been sure telling her that would be a mistake. His instinct proved sound. She answered, 'If you stayed here because of that, I surely could never love you. I am already fully myself, while you are still discovering what you can be. Nor in the long run would you be happy in Opsikion, for what would you be here? My plaything, maybe, granted a small respect reflected from the larger one I have earned, but laughed at behind people's hands. Is that the most you want for yourself, Krispos?'
'Your plaything?' That made him angry enough not to listen to the rest of what she said. He ran a rough hand along the supple curves of her body, ending at the edge of the neatly trimmed hair that covered her secret place. 'Is that all this has meant? Is that all I've been to you?'
'You know better, or you should,' Tanilis said calmly. 'How could I deny you've pleased me? I would not want to deny it. But it is not enough. You deserve to be more than a bedwarmer, however fine a bedwarmer you are. And if you stayed with me, you would not find it easy to be anything else. Not only do I have far more experience and vastly greater wealth than you, I do not care to yield to anyone the power I've earned by my own efforts over the years. So what would that leave you?'
'I don't care,' Krispos said. Though he sounded full of fierce conviction, even he knew that was not true.
So, obviously, did Tanilis. 'Do you not? Very well, then, let us suppose you stay here and that you and I are wed, perhaps on the next feast day of the holy Abdaas. Come the morning after, what do you propose to say to your new stepson, Mavros?'
'My—' Krispos gulped. He had no trouble imagining Mavros his brother. But his stepson? He could not even make himself say the word. He started to laugh, instead, and poked Tanilis in the ribs. She was not usually ticklish, but he caught her by surprise. She yipped and wiggled away. 'Mavros my—' He tried again, but only ended up laughing harder. 'Oh, a pestilence, Tanilis, you've made your point.'
'Good. There's always hope for anyone who can see plain sense, even if I did have to bludgeon you to open your eyes.' She turned her head.
'What is it?' Krispos asked.
'I was just listening. I don't think the rain will let up for a while yet.' Now her hand wandered, came to rest. She smiled a catlike smile. 'By the feel of things, neither will you. Shall we make the most of the time we have left?'
He did not answer, not with words, but he did not disagree.
'Let me give you a hand, excellent sir,' Krispos said as a pair of stable boys led out his master's horse, his own, and their pack animals.
'Nonsense,' Iakovitzes told him. 'If I can't mount for myself, I surely won't be able to ride back to the city. And if I can't do that, I'm faced with two equally unpalatable alternatives: take up residence here, or throw myself off a promontory into the sea. On the whole, I believe I'd prefer throwing myself into the sea. That way I'd never have to find out what's become of my house while I've been gone.' The noble gave a shudder of exquisite dread.
'When you wrote you'd been hurt, the Sevastokrator pledged to look after your affairs.'
'So he did,' Iakovitzes said with a skeptical grunt. 'The only affairs Petronas cares anything about, though, are his own. He scowled at the boy who held his horse. 'Back away, there. If I can't manage, high time I found out.'
The stable boy retreated. Iakovitzes set his left foot in the stirrup, swung up and onto the horse's back. He winced as the newly healed leg took all his weight for a moment, but then he was mounted and grinning in triumph. He'd boarded the horse before, every day for the past week, but each time seemed a new adventure, both to him and to everyone watching.
'Now where's that Mavros?' he said. 'I'm still not what you'd call comfortable up here. Anyone who thinks I'll waste time waiting that I could use riding will end up disappointed, I promise you that.'
Krispos did not think Iakovitzes was speaking to him in particular; he sounded more as if he were warning the
