on his way. By the time he got to the door, he was running.
'He didn't seem to want his chance. What a pity,' Anthimos said. The Emperor's smile was not altogether pleasant. 'Let's let someone else have a go. I know! How about Krispos?'
Anger filled Krispos as Skombros approached. Was this his reward for rescuing Anthimos—a chance to be one of the butts for the Avtokrator's jokes? He wanted to kick the crystal bowl out of Skombros' hands. Instead, grim- faced, he drew out a ball and opened it. The parchment inside was folded.
Skombros watched, cool and contemptuous, as Krispos fumbled with it. 'Do you read, groom?' he asked, not bothering to keep his voice down.
'I read, eunuch,' Krispos snapped. Nothing whatever changed in Skombros' face, but Krispos knew he had made an enemy. He finally got the parchment open. 'Ten—' His voice suddenly broke, as if he were a boy. '—ten pounds of silver.'
'How fortunate of you,' Skombros said tonelessly.
Anthimos rushed up and planted a wine-soaked kiss on Krispos' cheek. 'Good for you!' he exclaimed. 'I was hoping you'd get a good one!'
Krispos hadn't known there were any good ones. He stood, still dazed, as a servant brought him a fat, jingling sack. Only when he felt the weight of it in his hands did he believe the money was for him. Ten pounds of silver was close to half a pound of gold: thirty goldpieces, he worked out after a little thought.
To Tanilis, a pound and a half of gold—108 goldpieces—had been enough to set up Krispos as a man with some small wealth of his own. To Anthimos, thirty goldpieces—and belike three hundred, or three thousand—was a party favor. For the first time, Krispos understood the difference between the riches Tanilis' broad estates yielded and those available to a man with the whole Empire as his estates. No wonder Anthimos thought nothing of a chamber pot made of gold.
A couple of more chances were given out. One man found himself the proud possessor of ten pounds of feathers—a much larger sack than Krispos'. Another got ten free sessions at a fancy brothel. 'You mean I have to pay if I want to go back a second night?' the braggart asked, whereupon the fellow who had won the feathers poured them over his head.
Ten pounds of feathers let loose seemed plenty to fill up the room. People flung them about as if they were snow. Servants did their best to get rid of the blizzard of fluff, but even their best took a while to do any good. While most of the servitors plied brooms and pillowcases, a few brought in the next courses of food.
Anthimos pulled a last bit of down from his beard and let it float away. He looked over toward the new trays. 'Ah, beefribs in fish sauce and garlic,' he said. 'My chef does them wonderfully well. They're far from a neat dish, but oh so tasty.'
The ribs would be anything but neat, Krispos thought as he walked toward them—they were fairly swimming in the pungent fermented fish sauce—but they did smell good. One of the men with whom he'd hunted got to them first. The fellow picked up a rib and took a big bite.
The rib vanished. The young noble's teeth came together with a loud click. He'd drunk enough wine that he stared foolishly at his dripping but otherwise empty hand. Then his gaze swung to Krispos. 'I did have one, didn't I?' He sounded anything but sure.
'I certainly thought you did,' Krispos said. 'Here, let me try.' He took a rib off the tray. It felt solid and meaty in his hand. He lifted it to his mouth. As soon as he tried to bite it, it disappeared.
Some of the people watching made Phos' sun-sign. Others, wiser in the ways of Anthimos' feasts, looked to the Avtokrator.
A small-boy grin was on his face. 'I told the cooks to make them rare, but not so rare as that,' he said.
'I suppose you're going to say you told them to get the plaster goose livers you served last time well done,' someone called out.
'Half a dozen of my friends broke teeth on those livers,' the Emperor said. 'This is a safer joke. Skombros thought of it.'
The eunuch looked smug and, also pleased that Krispos had been one of the people his trick had deceived. Krispos stuck his fingers in his mouth to clean them of fish sauce and juice from the ribs. What he was able to taste was delicious. He thought how unfair it was for some sneaky bit of sorcery to deprive him of the tender meat.
He picked up another rib. 'Some people,' Skombros announced to no one in particular, 'have more stubbornness than sense.' The vestiarios settled back in his chair, perfectly content to let Krispos make as thorough a fool of himself as he wanted.
This time, though, Krispos did not try to take a bite off the rib. He'd already seen that doing that did not work—bringing his jaws together seemed to activate the spell. Instead, he picked up a knife from the serving table and sliced a long strip of meat off each side of the bone.
He raised one of the strips to his mouth. If the meat vanished despite his preparations, he knew he was going to look foolish. He bit into it, then grinned as he started to chew. He'd hoped cutting it off the bone would sever the spell that made it disappear.
Slowly and deliberately, he ate all the meat he'd sliced away. Then he dealt with another rib, put the meat he'd carved from it on a small plate, and carried the plate to Anthimos. 'Would you like some, your Majesty? You were right; they are very tasty.'
'Thank you, Krispos; don't mind if I do.' Anthimos ate, then wiped his fingers. 'So they are.'
Krispos asked, 'Do you think your esteemed—' Eunuchs had a special set of honorifics that applied to them alone, '—vestiarios would care for some?'
The Avtokrator glanced over to Skombros, who stared back stonily. Anthimos laughed. 'No, he's a good fellow, but he has plenty of meat on his bones already.' Krispos shrugged, bowed, and walked away, as if the matter were of no importance. He could not think of a better way to twist the knife in Skombros' huge belly.
After Krispos showed how to eat the ribs, they vanished into the revelers rather than into thin air. Servants took away the trays. A new set of minstrels circulated through the crowd. Another erotic troupe followed them, then a group of dancers replaced the horizontal cavorters. All the acts did what they did very well. Krispos smiled
