Krispos Rising

gesture of contempt was unmistakable. 'Enough, the two of you,' the Avtokrator said. 'Enough, I say. I don't care to have two of my favorite people at odds, and I will not tolerate it. Do you understand me?'

'Yes, your Majesty,' Krispos said.

'Majesty,' Skombros said, 'I promise I shall always give Krispos all the credit he deserves.'

'Excellent.' Anthimos beamed. Krispos knew the eunuch's words had been no apology. Skombros would never think he deserved any credit. But even Skombros' hatred did not trouble Krispos, not for the moment. The Emperor had called him and the vestiarios 'two of my favorite people.' While he loathed Skombros, for Anthimos to mention him in the same breath with the longtime chamberlain was progress indeed.

Slow and ponderous as a merchant ship under not enough sail, Skombros returned to his seat. He sank into it with a sigh of relief. His small, heavily lidded eyes sought Krispos. Krispos gave back a sunny smile and lifted his wine cup in salute. Without Skombros' rudeness, he might have needed much longer to be sure how Anthimos felt about him.

The eunuch's suspicious frown deepened. Krispos' smile got wider.

Mavros stamped snow from his boots. 'Warmer in here,' he said gratefully. 'All these horses are almost as good as a fireplace. Better, if you intend to go anyplace; you can't ride a fireplace.'

'No, and I can't fling you into a horse for your foolish jokes, either, however much I wish I could,' Krispos answered. 'Was making that one the only reason you came? If it was, you've done your damage, so good- bye.'

'Harumph.' Mavros drew himself up, a caricature of offended dignity. 'Just for that, I will go, and keep my news to myself.' He made as if to leave.

Krispos and several stable hands quickly called him back. 'What news?' Krispos said. Even here in Videssos the city, at the Empire of Videssos' heart, news came slowly in winter and was always welcome. Everyone who'd heard Mavros hurried over to find out what he'd dug up.

'For one thing,' he said, pleased at the size of his audience, 'that band of Haloga mercenaries under Harvas Black-Robe—remember, Krispos, we heard about them last winter back in Opsikion?—has plundered its way straight across Thatagush and out onto the Pardrayan steppe.'

'It'll plunder its way right on back, then,' Stotzas predicted. 'The steppe nomads don't have much worth stealing.'

'Who cares what happens in Thatagush, anyway?' someone else said. 'It's too far away to matter to anybody.' Several other people spoke up in agreement. Though he did not argue out loud, Krispos shook his head. Having known only his own village for so long, he found he wanted to learn everything he could about the wider world.

'My other bit of gossip you already know, Krispos, if you were at his Majesty's feast the night before last,' Mavros said.

Krispos shook his head again, this time more emphatically. 'No, I missed that one. Every so often, I feel the need to sleep.'

'You'll never succeed till you learn to rise above such weaknesses,' Mavros said with an airy wave of his hand. 'Well, this also has to do with a Haloga, or rather with a Halogaina.'

'A Haloga woman?' Two or three stable hands said it together, sudden keen interest in their voices. The big blond northerners often came to Videssos to trade or to hire on as mercenaries, but they left their wives and daughters behind.

Krispos tried to imagine what a Halogaina would look like. 'Tell me more,' he said. Again, his was not the only voice.

'Eyes the color of a summer sky, I heard, and the palest pink tips, and her hair gilded above and below,' Mavros said. It would be, wouldn't it? Krispos thought; that hadn't occurred to him. The stable hands murmured, each painting his own picture in his mind. Mavros went on, 'You could hardly blame Anthimos for trying her on then and there.' The murmurs got louder. 'I wouldn't blame him for keeping her for a week or a month or a year or—' Onorios was all but panting. He must have liked the picture his mind painted. But Krispos and Mavros said 'No' at the same time. They glanced at each other. Krispos dipped his head to Mavros, who, he knew, was better with words. 'His Majesty,' Mavros explained, 'only sleeps with a pleasure girl once. Anything more, he reckons, would constitute infidelity to the Empress.'

That got the yowls and whoops Krispos had known it would. 'Give me fidelity like that, any day,' Onorios said. 'Give it to me twice a day,' someone else said. 'Three times!' another groom added.

'The lot of you remind me of the rich old man who married a young wife and promised to kill her with passion,' Krispos said. 'He had her once, then fell asleep and snored all night long. When he finally woke up, she looked over at him and said, 'Good morning, killer.' '

The stable hands hissed at him. Grinning, he added, 'Besides, if we spent all our time in bed, we'd never get anything done, and Phos knows there's plenty to do here.' The men hissed again, but started drifting off toward their tasks.

'Not getting anything done doesn't seem to worry his Majesty,' Onorios said.

'Ah, but he has people to do things for him. Unless you hired a servant while I wasn't looking, you don't,' Krispos said.

'Afraid not, worse luck.' Onorios sadly clicked his tongue and went back to work.

'Look at this—this bloodsucking!' Petronas slammed a fist down on the pile of parchments in front of him. They were upside down to Krispos, but that did not matter because the Sevastokrator was in full cry. 'Thirty-six hundred goldpieces—fifty pounds of gold!—that cursed leech of a Skombros has siphoned off for his worthless slug of a nephew Askyltos. And another twenty pounds for the worthless slug's stinking father Evmolpos. When I show these accounts to my nephew—'

'What do you think will happen?' Krispos asked eagerly. 'Will he give Skombros the sack?'

But Petronas' rage collapsed into moroseness. 'No, he'll just laugh, curse it. He already knows Skombros is a thief. He doesn't care. What he won't see is that the Skotos-loving wretch is setting up his own relations as great men. Dynasties have died that way.'