'Huzza' for cheaper furs!' Krispos produced the necessary document. Anthimos signed it with ink of imperial scarlet.
Krispos sent Petronas a dozen goldpieces. The Sevastokrator returned them with a note saying, 'You need these more than I do, but I'll remember the thought.' Since that was true, Krispos was glad to have them back. And since Petronas understood why he'd sent them, he got all the benefits of generosity without actually having to pay for it.
The singer opened the golden ball, read 'Fourteen pieces of gold,' screamed—right on key—and kissed Krispos on the mouth. He would have enjoyed the kiss more had the singer been a woman. Other than that, the performer's reaction left nothing to be desired. The fellow ran through the hall, musically shrieking at the top of his lungs.
Fourteen goldpieces was nothing worth shrieking about for most of Anthimos' guests. As Krispos had expected, seeing someone get so excited about what they thought of as so little amused them mightily. Moreover, what the singer now had wasn't so little for him at all.
Laughing at himself—he hadn't had to worry about kisses from men since he left Iakovitzes' service—Krispos took a long pull at his wine. He'd learned to nurse his cups at Anthimos' affairs. Tonight, though, he hadn't done as good a job as usual; he could feel his head starting to spin.
He picked his way through the crowd back to the Emperor. 'May I be excused, your Majesty?'
Anthimos pouted. 'So early?' It was somewhere near midnight.
'You have a midmorning meeting with Gnatios, if you'll remember, Majesty.' Krispos grinned a wry grin. 'And while
'Oh, very well,' Anthimos said grouchily. Then his eyes lit up. 'Here, give me the bowl. I'll hand out chances myself for the rest of the evening.' That was entertainment far less ribald than most of what he favored, but it was something new and therefore intriguing.
Krispos gladly surrendered the crystal bowl. The cool, sweet air of the spring night helped clear his head. The racket from the revel faded behind him as he walked to the imperial residence. The Haloga guards outside the entrance nodded as he went by them; they were long since used to him now.
He had just climbed into bed when the bell on the scarlet cord rang. He scowled as he scrambled into his robe in the dark; what was Anthimos doing back in his bedchamber already? The only thing he could think of was that the Emperor had sneaked after him to twit him for going to sleep so soon. That was the sort of thing Anthimos might do, but not when he'd been so excited about dealing out little gold balls.
Several lamps glowed in the imperial bedroom, but Anthimos was not there. The Empress sat up in bed. 'I can't seem to get to sleep tonight, Krispos,' Dara said. 'Could you please fetch me a cup of wine? My serving maids are all asleep, and I heard you just coming in. Do you mind?'
'Of course not, Majesty,' Krispos said. He told the truth—a vestiarios had better not mind doing what the Empress of Videssos asked of him. 'I'll be back directly.'
He found a jar of wine in the dining room and poured a cup from it. 'My thanks,' Dara said when he brought it to her. She tossed it down almost as quickly as Anthimos might have. She was as bare as she'd been the morning Krispos first came into the imperial bedchamber, but did not bother to pull up the sheet; to her, he might as well have been a eunuch. Holding out the cup, she told him, 'Fetch me another, please.'
'Of course,' he repeated.
She drained the cup a second time as fast as she had the first, set it down empty on the night table by the bed. 'Tell me,' she said, 'do you expect his Imperial Majesty to return any time soon?'
'I don't know when his Majesty will come back,' Krispos answered. 'When I left the feast, he still seemed to be enjoying himself.'
'Oh,' Dara said tonelessly. 'He usually returns not long after you do, I've noticed. Why not tonight?'
'Because I have to be up early tomorrow morning, to make sure everything is ready for his Majesty's meeting with the patriarch. His Majesty was kind enough to let me leave before him.'
'Oh,' Dara said again. Without warning, tears started streaming from her eyes. They ran down her cheeks and splashed on her uncovered breasts. That Krispos should see her upset bothered her more than him seeing her nude; she choked out, 'Go away!'
He all but fled. One foot was already out in the hall when the Empress said, 'No, wait. Come back, please.'
Reluctantly he turned. He would sooner have faced a wolf alone and unarmed than the distraught Empress. But he did not dare disobey her, either. 'What's wrong, your Majesty?' he asked in the same soft, calm tone he would have used to try to talk the wolf out of ripping his throat open. Now she raised the sheet to her neck; if not as a man, she was aware of him as a person rather than a faceless servant.
'What's wrong?' she echoed bitterly. 'What could possibly be wrong, with me trapped here in the imperial residence and my husband at hunts or the horse races by day and his cursed revels by night?'
'But—he is the Avtokrator,' Krispos said.
'And so he can do just as he pleases. I know,' Dara said. 'Sometimes I think he is the only free man in all the Empire of Videssos. And I am his Empress. Am I free? Ha! A tradesman's wife has more freedom than I do, far more.'
Krispos knew she was right. Except for rare ceremonial appearances in the Grand Courtroom, the Empress lived a sheltered, indeed a sequestered life, always screened away from the wider world by her maidservants and the palace eunuchs. As gently as he could, he said, 'But surely you knew this would be so when you consented to be his Majesty's bride?'
'There wasn't much consent to it,' Dara said. 'Do you know what a bride show is, Krispos? I was one of a long line of pretty girls, and Anthimos happened to pick me. I was so surprised, I couldn't even talk. My father owns estates in the westlands, not far from the border with Makuran. He was thrilled—he'd have an Avtokrator for a grandson. But I—haven't even managed—to do that as I—should have.' She started to cry again.
'You still have time,' Krispos said. 'You're younger than I am.'
