inches off my prong to have saved the Avtokrator the way you did.'
Krispos looked the fellow over. He was scarcely out of his teens, yet he rode a fine horse that he surely owned, unlike Krispos' borrowed gelding. His shirt was silk, his riding breeches fine leather, and his spurs silver. His round, plump face said he'd never known a day's hunger. Even if he hadn't saved Anthimos, he was assured a more than comfortable life.
'I mean no disrespect, excellent sir, but I'm not sure the price you name is high enough,' Krispos answered after a moment's pause. 'I need the luck more than you do, you see, having started with so much less of it. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to my master's stables.'
The noble stared after him as he rode away. He suspected—no, he was certain—he should have held his tongue. He was already far better at that than most men his age. Now he saw he would have to grow better still.
'So when does the most holy Gnatios set the crown on your head?' Mavros asked when he saw Krispos coming out of Petronas' stables a couple of days after the hunt.
'Oh, shut up,' Krispos told his adopted brother. He was not worried about Mavros' betraying him; he just wanted him off his back. Mavros' teasing was the most natural thing in the world. Though Krispos hadn't bragged about what he'd done, the story was all over the palaces.
'Shut up? This humble spatharios hears and obeys, glad only that your magnificence has deigned to grant him to boon of words.' Mavros swept off his hat and folded himself like a clasp knife in an extravagant bow.
Krispos wanted to hit him. He found himself laughing instead. 'Humble, my left one.' He snorted. Mavros had trouble taking anything seriously; after a while, so did anyone who came near him.
'Your left one would look very fine in a dish of umbles,' Mavros said.
'Someone ought to run a currycomb over your tongue,' Krispos told him.
'Is this another of your innovations in equestrian care?' Mavros stuck out the organ in question and crossed his eyes to look down at it. 'Yes, it does seem in need of grooming. Go ahead; see if you can put a nice sheen on its coat.'
Krispos did hit him then, not too hard. They scuffled good-naturedly for a couple of minutes. Krispos finally got a hammerlock on Mavros. Mavros was whimpering, without much conviction, when Eroulos came up to the two of them. 'If you're quite finished ...' the steward said pointedly.
'What is it?' Krispos let go of Mavros, who somehow contrived to look innocent and rub his wrist at the same time.
The theatrics were wasted; Eroulos took no notice of him. He spoke to Krispos instead, 'Go back to the Grand Courtroom at once. One of his Imperial Majesty's servants is waiting for you there.'
'For me?' Krispos squeaked.
'I am not in the habit of repeating myself,' Eroulos said. Krispos waited no longer. He dashed for the Grand Courtroom. Mavros might have waved good-bye. Krispos did not turn his head to see.
The guards outside Petronas' wing of the Grand Courtroom swung down their spears when they saw someone running toward them. Recognizing Krispos, they relaxed. One of them pointed to a man leaning against the side of the building. 'Here's the fellow been waiting for you.'
'You are Krispos?' Anthimos' servitor was tall, thin, and erect, but his hairless cheeks and sexless voice proclaimed him a eunuch. 'I was given to understand that you were the Sevastokrator's chief groom, not that you would stink of horses yourself.' His own scent was of attar of roses.
'I work,' Krispos said shortly.
The eunuch's sniff told what he thought of that. 'In any event, I am commanded to bid you come to a festivity his Imperial Majesty will hold tomorrow evening. I shall return then to guide you. I most respectfully suggest that, no matter how virtuous you deem your labors, the odor of the stables would be out of place.'
Krispos felt his cheeks heat. Biting back an angry retort, he nodded. The eunuch's bow was fluid perfection, or would have been had he not made it so deep as to suggest scorn rather than courtesy.
'You don't want to get into a meaner-than-thou contest with a eunuch,' one of the guards remarked after the Avtokrator's servant was too far away to hear. 'You'll regret it every time.'
'You'd be mean, too, if you'd had that done to you,' another guard said. All the troopers chuckled. Krispos also smiled, but he thought the guard was right. Having lost so much, eunuchs could hardly be blamed for getting their own back in whatever petty ways they could devise.
He knocked off a little early the next afternoon to go from the stables to a bathhouse; he would not give that supercilious eunuch another chance to sneer at him. He oiled himself, scraped his skin with a curved strigil, and paid a boy a copper to get the places he could not reach. The cold plunge and hot soak that followed left him clean and helped loosen tired, tight muscles. He was all but purring as he walked back to the Grand Courtroom.
This time he waited for the Avtokrator's eunuch to arrive. The eunuch gave a disapproving sniff; perhaps, Krispos thought, he was seeking the lingering aroma of horse. 'Come along,' he said, sounding no happier for failing to find it.
Krispos had never been to—had never even seen—the small building to which his guide led him. He was not surprised; the palace quarter held dozens of buildings, large and small, he'd never been to. Some of the large ones were barracks for the regiments of imperial guards. Some of the small ones held soldierly supplies. Others were buildings former Emperors had used, but that now stood empty, awaiting the pleasure of an Avtokrator yet to come. This one, secluded among willows and pear trees, looked to be where Anthimos himself awaited pleasure.
Krispos heard the music when he was still walking the winding path under the trees. Whoever was playing, he thought, had more enthusiasm than skill. Raucous voices accompanied the musicians. He needed a moment to recognize the tavern song they were roaring out. Only when they came to the refrain—'The wine gets drunk but you get drunker! '—was he sure. Loud applause followed.
'They seem to have started already,' he remarked.
The eunuch shrugged. 'It's early yet. They'll still have their clothes on, most of them.'
