Krispos of Videssos

V

Petronas, as was his habit, woke soon after dawn. His back and shoulders ached; too many years of sleeping soft in Videssos the city—aye, and even when he took the field—left him unused to making do with a single blanket for a bedroll. At that, he was luckier than most of the men who still clove to him, for he had a tent to shelter him from the nighttime chill. Theirs were lost, booty now for the army that followed Krispos.

"Krispos!" Petronas mouthed the name, making it into a curse. He cursed himself, too, for he had first taken Krispos into his own household, then introduced him into Anthimos'.

He'd never imagined Krispos' influence with his nephew could rival his own—till the day he found himself, his head shorn, cast into the monastery of the holy Skirios. He ran a hand through his hair. Only now, most of a year after he'd slipped out of the monastery, did he have a proper man's growth once more.

He'd never imagined Krispos would dare seize the throne, or that Krispos could govern once he had it—everyone, he'd been sure, would flock to his own banner. But it had not happened so. Petronas cursed himself again, for putting that fat fool of a Mammianos in a place that had proven so important.

And with that fat fool, Krispos had beaten him twice now— and by the good god, Petronas had never imagined that! Just how badly he'd underestimated Krispos, and Krispos' knack for getting other people to do what he needed, was only now sinking in, when it was on the very edge of being too late.

Petronas clenched a fist. "No, by Phos, not too late!" he said out loud. He pissed in a chamber pot—likely the last of those left to his army—then decked himself in the full imperial regalia.

Seeing him in the raiment rightfully his could only hearten his men, he told himself.

He stooped to go out through the tent flap and walked over to his horse, which was tied nearby. He sprang onto the beast's back with a surge of pride—he might be nearing sixty, but he could still ride. He smiled maliciously to think of Gnatios, who quivered atop anything bigger than a mule.

But as Petronas rode through the camp, his smile faded. Years of gauging armies' tempers made him worry about this one. The men were restive and discouraged; he did not like the way they refused to meet his eye. When a soldier did look his way, he liked the fellow's stare even less. "By the ice, what are you gaping at?" he snarled.

The trooper looked apprehensive at being singled out. "B-begging your pardon, your Majesty, but why did you don black boots to wear with your fine robe and crown?"

"Are you mad?" Petronas took his left foot from the stirrup and kicked his leg up and down. "This boot's as red as a man's arse after a week in the saddle."

"Begging your pardon again, Majesty, but it looks black to me. So does the right one, sir—uh, sire. May the ice take me if I lie."

"Are you telling me I don't know red when I see it?" Petronas asked dangerously. He looked down at his boots. They were both a most satisfactory crimson, the exact imperial shade. Petronas had seen it worn by his father, by his brother, and by his nephew; it was as familiar to him as the back of his hand— more familiar than his own face, for sometimes he did not see a mirror for weeks at a stretch.

Instead of answering him directly, the trooper turned to his mates. "Tell his Majesty, lads. Are those boots red or are they black?"

"They're black," the soldiers said in one voice. Now it was Petronas' turn to stare at them; he could not doubt they meant what they said. One man added, "Seems an unchancy thing to me, wearing a private citizen's boots with all that fancy imperial gear."

Another said, "Aye, there's no good omen in that." Several troopers drew Phos' sun-circle over their hearts.

Petronas glanced at his boots again. They still looked red to him. If his men did not see them so—he shivered. That omen seemed bad to him, too, as if he had no right to the imperial throne. He clenched his teeth against the idea that Phos had turned away from him and toward that accursed upstart Krispos ...

The moment his rival's name entered his mind, he knew Phos was not the one who had arranged the omen. He shouted for his wizard. "Skeparnas!" When the mage did not appear at once, he shouted again, louder this time. "Skeparnas!"

Skeparnas picked his way through the soldiers. He was a tall, thin man with a long, lean face, a beard waxed to a point, and the longest fingers Petronas had ever seen. "How may I serve you, your Majesty?"

"What color are my boots?" Petronas demanded.

He'd seldom seen Skeparnas taken aback, but now the wizard blinked and drew back half a step. "To me, your Majesty, they look red," he said cautiously.

"To me, too," Petronas said. But before the words were out of his mouth, the soldiers all around set up a clamor, insisting they were black. "Shut up!" he roared at them. To Skeparnas he went on, more quietly, "I think Krispos magicked them, the stinking son of a spotted snake."

"Ahh." Skeparnas leaned forward, like a tower tilting after an earthquake. "Yes, that would be a clever ploy, wouldn't it?" His hands writhed in quick passes; those spidery fingers seemed almost to knot themselves together.

Suddenly Petronas' soldiers called out: "They're red now, your Majesty!"

"There, you see?" Petronas said triumphantly.

"A lovely spell, most marvelously subtle," Skeparnas said with a connoisseur's appreciation. "Not only did it have no hold on you, it was also made to be invisible to anyone who perceived it with a mage's eye, thus perhaps delaying its discovery and allowing it to work the maximum amount of confusion."

"Very fornicating lovely," Petronas snapped. He raised his voice to address his men. "You see, my heroes, there's no omen here. This was just more of Krispos' vile work, aiming to make you think something's wrong when it's not. Just a cheap, miserable trick, not worth fretting over."

He waited, hoping for an answering cheer. It did not come. Determinedly, though, he rode through the army as if it had. He waved to the men, making his horse rear and caracole.

"How do we know those boots weren't really black till the mage spelled 'em red again?" one soldier asked another as he came by. He rode on, but keeping his face still after that was as hard as if he'd taken a lance in the guts.

Trokoundos staggered, then steadied himself. "They've broken the spell," he gasped. "By the good god, I could do with a cup of wine." Greasy sweat covered his fine-drawn features.

Krispos poured with his own hand. "How much good do you think it's done?"

"No way to guess," Trokoundos said, gasping again after he'd drained the cup at a single long draft. "You know how it is, Majesty: If the soldiers are truly strong for Petronas, they'll stay with him come what may. If they're wavering, the least little thing could seem a bad omen to 'em."

"Aye." More and more, Krispos was coming to believe the art of leading men was a kind of magic, though not one sorcerers studied. What folk thought of a ruler, oftentimes, seemed more important than what he really was.

"Shall I try the spell again this afternoon, Majesty, or maybe tomorrow morning?" Trokoundos asked.

After some thought, Krispos shook his head. "That would make them sure it was our sorcery, I think. If it only happens the once, they can't be certain quite what it is."

"As you wish, of course," Trokoundos said. "What then?"

"I'm going to let Petronas stew in his own juice for a couple of days," Krispos answered. "When I do hit him again, I'll hit hard. People who know this country have already told me of other passes through the hills, and he doesn't have enough men to cover them all. If he stays where he is, I can leave enough men here to keep him from bursting out onto the plain again, while I take the rest around to hit him from behind."

"What if he flees?"

"If he flees now, after losing to me twice, he's mine," Krispos said. "Then it's just a matter of running him to earth."

While Petronas—he hoped—stewed, Krispos spent the next few days catching up on the dispatches that never stopped coming from the capital. He approved a commercial treaty with Khatrish, scribbled minor changes on an inheritance law before he affixed his seal to it, commuted one death sentence where the evidence looked flimsy, and let another stand.

He wrote to Mavros of his second victory, then read through his foster brother's gossipy reports of doings in Videssos the city. From them, and from Dara's occasional shorter notes, he gathered that Phostis, while still small, was doing well. That filled him with sober satisfaction; whether a baby lived to grow up was always a roll of the dice.

Mavros also forwarded dispatches from the war against Harvas Black-Robe. Krispos read and reread those. Agapetos' preemptive attack had bogged down, but he still stood on enemy soil. Maybe, Krispos thought, the peasants near the northern border would be able to get in a crop in peace.

Other documents also came from the city. Krispos began to dread opening the ones sealed with sky-blue wax. Every time he did, he read that Pyrrhos had deposed another priest or abbot for infractions that seemed ever more trivial. Casting a man from his temple for trimming his beard too close, for instance, left Krispos shaking his head. He wrote a series of increasingly blunt notes to the patriarch, urging Pyrrhos to show restraint.

But restraint did not seem to be part of Pyrrhos' vocabulary. Letters of protest also came to Krispos from ousted clerics, from clerics afraid they would be ousted, and from delegations of prominent citizens from several towns seeking protection for their local priests.

More and more, Krispos wished he could have retained Gnatios as ecumenical patriarch. He'd never imagined that one of his strongest allies could become one of his greatest embarrassments. And yet Pyrrhos remained zealous in his behalf. With Petronas and Gnatios still to worry about, Krispos put off a decision on his rigorist patriarch.

He sent a holding force under Sarkis against the pass through which Petronas had fled, then led the rest of the army north and west through another gap to get behind his rival. His part of the army was just entering that second pass when a courier from Sarkis galloped up on a blowing, foam-spattered horse. The man was panting as hard as if he'd done all that running himself. "Majesty!" he called. "Rejoice, Majesty! We're through!"

"You're through?" Krispos stared at him. "Sarkis forced the pass, you mean?" That was good luck past all expectation. Petronas knew how to find defensive positions. A handful of determined men could have held the pass for days, so long as they were not outflanked.

But the courier said, "Looks like Petronas' army's gone belly-up, the lord Sarkis told me to tell you. Some have fled, more are yielding themselves up. The fight isn't in 'em anymore, Majesty."

"By the good god," Krispos said softly. He wondered what part—if any—the magic he'd suggested had played. Have to ask some prisoners, he told himself before more urgent concerns drove the matter from his mind. "What's become of Petronas, then? Has he surrendered?"

"No, Majesty, no sign of him, nor of Gnatios, either. The lord Sarkis urges speed on you, to help round up as many flying soldiers as we may."

"Yes." Krispos turned to Thvari, the captain of his Haloga guards. "Will you and your men ride pack horses, brave sir, to help us move the faster?"

Thvari spoke to the guardsmen in their own slow, rolling speech. They shouted back, grinning and waving their axes. "Aye," Thvari said unnecessarily. He added, "We would not miss being in at the kill."

"Good." Krispos called orders to the army musicians. The long column briefly halted. The baggage-train handlers shifted burdens on their animals, freeing up enough to accommodate the Halogai. They waved away soldiers who wanted to help; men without their long-practiced skill at lashing and unlashing bundles would only have slowed them down.

The musicians blew At the trot. The army started forward again. The Halogai were no horsemen, but most managed to stay on their mounts and keep them headed in the right direction. That was plenty, Krispos thought. If they needed to fight, they would dismount.

"Where do you think Petronas will go if his army has broken up?" Krispos asked Mammianos.

The fat general tugged at his beard as he thought. "Some failed rebels might flee to Makuran, but I can't see Petronas as cat's-paw for the King of Kings. He'd sooner leap off a cliff, I think. He might do that anyway, your Majesty, to keep you from gloating over him."

"I wouldn't gloat," Krispos said.

Mammianos studied him. "Mmm, maybe not. But he would if he caught you, and we always reckon others from ourselves. Likeliest, though, Petronas'll try and hole himself up somewhere, do what he can against you. Let me think ... There's an old fortress not too far from here, place called—what in the name of the ice is the place called? Antigonos, that's what it is. That's as good a guess as any, and better than most."

"We'll head there, then," Krispos said. "Do you know the way?"

"I expect I could find it, but you'll have men who could do it quicker, I'll tell you that."

A few questions called to the soldiers showed Krispos that Mammianos was right. With a couple of locally raised men in the lead, the army pounded toward Antigonos. Krispos spent a while worrying what to do if Petronas was not in the fortress. Then he stopped worrying. His column was heading in the right direction to cut off fugitives anyhow.

The riders ran into several bands from Petronas' disintegrating army. None included the rival Emperor; none of his men admitted knowing where he had gone. From what they said, he and some of his closest followers had simply disappeared the morning before, leaving the rest of the men to fend for themselves. One trooper said bitterly, "If I'd known the bugger'd run like that, I never would have followed him."

"Petronas thinks of his own neck first," Mammianos said. Remembering his own dealings with Anthimos' uncle, Krispos nodded.

He and his men reached the fortress of Antigonos a little before sunset. The fortress perched atop a tall hill and surveyed the surrounding countryside like a vulture peering out from a branch on top of a high tree. The iron-faced wooden gate was slammed shut; a thin column of cooksmoke rose into the sky from the citadel.

"Somebody's home," Krispos said. "I wonder who." Beside him, Mammianos barked laughter. Krispos turned to the musicians. "Blow Parley."

The call rang out several times before anyone appeared on the wall to answer it. "Will you yield?" Krispos called, a minor magic of Trokoundos' projecting his voice beyond bowshot. "I still offer amnesty to soldiers and safe passage back to the monastery for Petronas and Gnatios."

"I'll never trust myself to you, wretch," shouted the man on the wall.

Krispos started slightly to recognize Petronas' voice. It, too, carried; Well, Krispos thought, I've known he had a mage along since he broke the spell on his boots. He touched the amulet he wore with his lucky goldpiece. Petronas used wizards for purposes darker than extending the range of his voice. Without Trokoundos by him, Krispos would have feared to confront his foe so closely.

"I could have ordered you killed the moment I took the throne." Krispos wondered if he should have done just that. Shrugging to himself, he went on, "I have no special yen for your blood. Only pledge you'll live quietly among the monks and let me get on with running the Empire."

"My Empire," Petronas roared.

"Your empire is that fortress you're huddling in," Krispos said. "The rest of Videssos acknowledges me—and my patriarch." If he was stuck with Pyrrhos, he thought, he ought to get some use out of him, even if only to make Petronas writhe in his cage.

"To the ice with your patriarch, the Phos-drunk fanatic!"

Krispos smiled. For once, he and Petronas agreed on something. He had no intention of letting his rival know it. He said, "You're walled up as tightly here as you would be in the monastery of the holy Skirios. How do you propose to get away? You might as well give up and go back to the monastery."

"Never!" Petronas stamped down off the wall. His curses remained audible. He must have noticed that and signaled to his magician, for they cut off in the middle of a foul word.

Krispos nodded to Trokoundos, who chanted a brief spell. When Krispos spoke again, a moment later, his voice had only its usual power once more. "He won't be easy to pry out of there."

"Not without a siege train, which we don't have with us," Mammianos agreed. "Not unless we can starve him out, anyway."

Rhisoulphos stood close by, looking up at the spot on the wall that Petronas had just vacated. He shook his head at Mammianos' words. "He has supplies for months in there. He spent the winter strengthening the place against the chance that the war would turn against him."

"Smart of him." Mammianos also glanced toward the fortress of Antigonos. "Aye, he's near as clever as he thinks he is."

"We'll send for a siege train, by the good god, and sit round the fortress till it gets here," Krispos said. "If Petronas wants to play at being Avtokrator inside till the rams start pounding on the walls, that's all right with me."

"Your sitting here may be just what he wants," Trokoundos said. "Remember that he tried once to slay you by sorcery. Such an effort would be all the easier to repeat with you close by. We've just seen his mage is still with him."

"I can't very well leave before he's taken, not if I intend to leave men of mine behind here," Krispos said.

Mammianos and Rhisoulphos both saluted him, then looked at each other as if taken by surprise. Mammianos said, "Majesty, you may not be trained to command, but you have a gift for it."

"As may be." Krispos did not show how pleased he was. He turned to Trokoundos. "I trust you have me better warded than I was that night."

"Oh, indeed. The protections I gave you then were the hasty sort one uses in an emergency. I thank the lord with the great and good mind that they sufficed. But since you gained the throne, I and my colleagues have hedged you round with far more apotropaic incantations."

"With what?" Krispos wanted to see if the wizard could repeat himself without tripping over his tongue.

But Trokoundos chose to explain instead: "Protective spells. I believe they will serve. With magecraft, one is seldom as sure as one would like,"

"Come to that, we aren't sure Petronas and his wizard will attack me," Krispos said.

"He will, your Majesty," Rhisoulphos said positively. "What other chance in all the world has he now to become Avtokrator?"

"Put that way—" Krispos clicked his tongue between his teeth. "Aye, likely he will. Here I stay, even so. Trokoundos will keep me safe." What he did not mention was his fear that, if he returned to Videssos the city, Petronas might suborn some soldiers and get free once more.

"Maybe," Mammianos said hopefully, "he hasn't had the chance to fill the cisterns in there too full. Summers hereabouts are hot and dry. With luck, his men will get thirsty soon and make him yield."

"Maybe." But Krispos doubted it. He'd seen that Petronas could be matched as a combat soldier. For keeping an army in supplies, though, he had few peers. If he'd taken refuge in the fortress of Antigonos, he was ready to stand siege there.

Krispos ringed his own army round the base of the fortress' hill. He staged mock attacks by night and day, seeking to wear down the defenders. Trokoundos wore himself into exhaustion casting one protective spell after another over Krispos and over the army as a whole. That Petronas' mage bided his time only made Trokoundos certain the stroke would be deadly when it came.

The siege dragged on. The healer-priests were much busier with cases of dysentery than with wounds. A letter let Krispos know that a train of rams and catapults had set out from Videssos the city for Antigonos. Behind a white-painted shield of truce, a captain approached the fortress and read the letter in a loud voice, finishing "Beware, rebels! Your hour of justice approaches!" Petronas' men jeered him from the walls.

Trokoundos redoubled his precautions, festooning Krispos with charms and amulets until their chains seemed heavier than chain mail. "How am I supposed to sleep, wearing all this?" Krispos complained. "The ones that don't gouge my back gouge my chest."

With a look of martyred patience, Trokoundos said, "Your Majesty, Petronas must know he cannot hope to last long once the siege engines arrive. Therefore he will surely try to strike you down before that time. We must be ready."

"Not only will I be ready, I'll be stoop-shouldered, as well," Krispos said. Trokoundos' martyred look did not change. Krispos threw his hands in the air and walked off, clanking as he went.

But that night, alone at last in his tent, he tossed and turned until a sharp-pointed amethyst crystal on one of his new amulets stabbed him just above his right shoulder blade. He swore and clapped his other hand to the injury. When he took it away, his palm was wet with blood.

"That fornicating does it!" he snarled. He threw aside the light silk coverlet and jumped to his feet. He took off the offending chain and flung it on the floor. It knocked over one of the other charms that ringed the bed like a fortress' wall. Finally, breathing hard, Krispos lay down again. "Maybe Petronas' wizard will pick tonight to try to kill me," he muttered, "but one piece more or less shouldn't matter much. And if he does get me, at least I'll die sound asleep."

What with his fury, naturally, he had trouble drifting off even after the chain was gone. He tossed and turned, dozed and half woke. His shoulder still hurt, too.

Some time toward morning, a tiny crunch made him open his eyes yet again. He was frowning even as he came fully awake— the crunch had sounded very close, as if it was inside the tent. A servant who disturbed him in the middle of the night—especially the middle of this miserable night—would regret the day he was born.

But the man crouching not three paces away was no servant of his. He was all in black—even his face was blacked, likely with charcoal. His right hand held a long knife. And under one of his black boots lay the crushed remains of one of Trokoundos' charms. Had he not trod on it, Krispos would never have known he was there until that knife slid between his ribs or across his throat.

The knifeman's dark face twisted in dismay as he saw Krispos wake. Krispos' face twisted, too. The assassin sprang toward him. Krispos flung his coverlet in the fellow's face and shouted as loud as he could. Outside the tent, his Haloga guard also cried out.

While the assassin was clawing free of the coverlet, Krispos seized his knife arm with both hands. His foe kicked him in the shin, hard enough to make his teeth click together in anguish. He tried to knee the knifeman in the crotch. The fellow twisted to one side and took the blow on the point of his hip.

With a sudden wrench, he tried to break Krispos' grip on his wrist. But Krispos had wrestled since before his beard came in. He hung on grimly. The assassin could do what he pleased, so long as he did not get that dagger free.

Thunnk! The abrupt sound of blade biting into flesh filled Krispos' ears and seemed to fill the whole tent. Hot blood sprayed his belly. The assassin convulsed in his arms. A latrine stench said the man's bowels had let go. The knife dropped from his hands. He crumpled to the ground.

"Majesty!" Vagn cried, horror on his face as he saw Krispos spattered with blood. "Are you hale, Majesty?"

"If my leg's not broken, yes," Krispos said, giving it a gingerly try. The pain did not get worse, so he supposed he'd taken no real damage. He looked down at the knifeman and at the spreading pool of blood. He whistled softly. "By the good god, Vagn, you almost cut him in two."

Instead of warming to the praise, the Haloga hung his head. He thrust his dripping axe into Krispos' hands. "Kill me now, Majesty, I beg you, for I failed to ward you from this, this—" His Videssian failed him; to show what he meant, he bent down and spat in the dead assassin's face. "Kill me, I beg you."

Krispos saw he meant it. "I'll do no such thing," he said.

"Then I have no honor." Vagn drew himself up, absolute determination on his face. "Since you do not grant me this boon, I shall slay myself."

"No, you—" Krispos stopped before he called Vagn an idiot. Filled with shame as he was, the northerner would only bear up under insults like a man bearing up under archery and would think he deserved each wound he took. Krispos tried to get the shock of battling the assassin out of his mind, tried to think clearly. The harsh Haloga notion of honor served him well most of the time; now he had to find a way around it. He said, "If you didn't ward me, who did? The knifeman lies dead at your feet. I didn't kill him."

Vagn shook his head. "It means nothing. Never should he have come into this tent."

"You were at the front. He must have got in at the back, under the canvas." Krispos looked at the assassin's contorted body. He thought about what it must have taken, even dressed in clothes that left him part of the night, to come down from the fortress and sneak through the enemy camp to its very heart. "In his own way, he was a brave man."

Vagn spat again. "He was a skulking murderer and should have had worse and slower than I gave him. Please, Majesty, I beg once more, slay me, that I may die clean."

"No, curse it!" Krispos said. Vagn turned and walked to the tent flap. If he left, Krispos was sure he would never return alive. He said quickly, "Here, wait. I know what I'll do—I'll give you a chance to redeem yourself in your own eyes."

"In no way can I do that," Vagn declared.

"Hear me out," Krispos said. When Vagn took another step toward the flap, he snapped, "I order you to listen." Reluctantly the Haloga stopped. Krispos went on, "Here's what I'd have you do: first, take this man's head. Then, unarmored if you like, carry it up to the gates of Antigonos and leave it there to show Petronas the fate his assassin earned. Will that give you back your honor?"

Vagn was some time silent, which only made the growing hubbub outside the imperial tent seem louder. Then, with a grunt, the Haloga chopped at the knifeman's neck. The roof of the tent was too low to let him take big, full swings with his ax, so the beheading required several strokes.

Krispos turned away from the gory job. He threw on a robe and went out to show the army he was still alive. The men whom his outcry had aroused shouted furiously when he told how the assassin had crept into his tent. He was just finishing the tale when Vagn emerged, holding the man's head by the hair. The soldiers let out such a lusty cheer that the guardsman blinked in surprise. Their approval seemed to reach him where Krispos' had not; as the cheering went on and on, he stood taller and straighten Without a word, he began to tramp toward the fortress of Antigonos.

"Wait," Krispos called. "Do it by daylight, so Petronas can see just what gift you bring him."

"Aye," Vagn said after a moment's thought. "I will wait." He set down the assassin's head, lightly prodding it with his foot. "So will he." The joke struck Krispos as being in poor taste, but he was glad to hear the Haloga make it.

Trokoundos plucked at Krispos' sleeve. "We were right in guessing Petronas aimed to treacherously slay you," he said, "wrong only in his choice of stealth over sorcery. But had we relied on his using stealth, he surely would have tried with magic."

"I suppose so," Krispos said. "And as for that, you can cheer up. Without your magecraft, I'd be a dead man right now."

"What do you mean?" Trokoundos scratched his shaven head. "After all, Petronas did but send a simple knifeman against you."

"I know, but if the fellow hadn't stepped on one of those charms you insisted on scattering everywhere, I never would have woke up in time to yell."

"Happy to be of service, your Majesty," Trokoundos said in a strangled voice. Then he saw how hard Krispos' face was set against laughter. He allowed himself a dry chuckle or two, but still maintained his dignity.

Too bad for him, Krispos thought. He laughed out loud.

When the siege train reached the fortress of Antigonos, Krispos watched the soldiers on the walls watching his artisans assemble the frames for stone-throwing engines, the sheds that would protect the men who swung rams against stones or boiling oil from above.

The assassin's head still lay outside the gate. Petronas' men had let Vagn come and go. By now even the flies had tired of it.

As soon as the first catapult was done, the craftsmen who had built it recruited a squad of common soldiers to drag up a large stone and set it in the leathern sling at the end of the machine's throwing arm. Winches creaked as the crew tightened the ropes that gave the catapult its hurling power.

The throwing arm jerked forward. The catapult bucked. The stone flew through the air. It crashed against the wall of the fortress with a noise like thunder. The soldiers began to haul another rock into place.

Krispos sent a runner to the engines' crew with a single word: "Wait." Then one of his men advanced toward the fortress with a white-painted shield of truce. After some shouting back and forth, Petronas came up to the battlements.

"What do you want of me?" he called to Krispos, or rather toward Krispos' banner. As at the last parley, his wizard amplified his voice to carry so far.

Trokoundos stood by Krispos to perform the same service for him. "I want you to take a good look around, Petronas. Look carefully—I give you this last chance to yield and save your life. See the engines all around. The rams and stone-throwers will pound down your walls while the dart-shooters pick off your men from farmer than they can shoot back."

Petronas shook his fist. "I told you I would never yield to you?"

"Look around," Krispos said again. "You're a soldier, Petronas. Look around and see what chance you have of holding out. I tell you this: once we breach your walls—and we will— we'll show no mercy to you or anyone else." Maybe, he thought, Petronas' men would force him to give up even if he did not want to.

But Petronas led his tiny empire still. He made a slow circuit of the wall, then returned at last to the spot from which he had set out. "I see the engines," he said. By his tone, he might have been discussing the heat of the day.

"What will you do, Petronas?" Krispos asked.

Petronas did not answer, not with words. He scrambled up from the walkway to the wall itself and stood there for most of a minute looking out at the broad expanse of land that, so unaccountably, he did not rule. Then, slowly and deliberately, with the same care he gave to everything he did, he dove off.

Inside and outside the fortress of Antigonos, men cried out in dismay. But when some of Krispos' soldiers rushed toward the crumpled shape at the base of the wall, Petronas' men shot at them. "The truce is still good," Krispos shouted. "We won't hurt him further, by the good god—we'll save him if we can."

"There's a foolish promise," Mammianos observed. "Better to put him out of his misery and have done. I daresay that's what he'd want."

Krispos realized he was right. The pledge, though, was enough to give the rebels an excuse to hold their fire. When his own men did nothing but crowd round Petronas, Krispos thought they were only showing their share of Mammianos' rough wisdom. Then a sweating, panting trooper ran up to him and gasped out, "Majesty, he landed on his head, poor sod."

Of itself, Krispos' hand shaped the sun-circle over his heart. "The war is over," he said. He did not know what to feel. Relief, yes, that so dangerous a foe was gone. But Petronas had also raised him high, in his own household and then in Anthimos'. That had been in Petronas' interest, too, but Krispos could not help remembering it, could not help remembering the years in which he and Petronas had worked together to manage Anthimos. He sketched the sun-sign again. "I would have let him live," he murmured, as much to himself as to the men around him.

"He gave you his answer to that," Mammianos said. Krispos had to nod.

Without their leader, Petronas' men felt the urge to save their lives. The strong gate to the fortress of Antigonos opened. A soldier came out with a shield of truce. The rest of the garrison filed slowly after him. Krispos sent in troopers to make Antigonos his own once more.

The gleam of a shaven pate caught his eye. He smiled, not altogether kindly. To his bodyguards, he said, "Fetch me Gnatios."

Now in sandals and a simple blue monk's robe rather than the patriarchal regalia Krispos would have bet he'd had inside the fortress, Gnatios looked small, frail, and frightened between the two burly Halogai who marched him away from his fellows. He cast himself down on the ground in front of Krispos. "May your Majesty's will be done with me," he said, not lifting his face from the dust.

"Get up, holy sir," Krispos said. As Gnatios rose, he went on, "You would have done better to keep faith with me. You would still wear the blue boots now, not Pyrrhos."

A spark of malicious amusement flared in Gnatios' eyes. "From all I've heard, Majesty, your patriarch has not succeeded in delighting you."

"He's not betrayed me, either," Krispos said coldly.

Gnatios wilted again. "What will you do with me, your Majesty?" His voice was tiny.

"Taking your head here and now would likely cause me more scandal than you're worth. I think I'll bring you back to the city. Recant—say, in the Amphitheater, with enough people watching so you can't go back on your word again—and publicly recognize Pyrrhos as patriarch, and for all of me you can live out the rest of your days in the monastery of the holy Skirios."

Gnatios bowed in submission. Krispos had been sure he would. Pyrrhos now, Pyrrhos would have gone to the headsman singing hymns before he changed his views by the breadth of a fingernail paring. That made him stronger than Gnatios; Krispos was less ready to say it made him better. It certainly made him harder to work with.

"If ever you're outside the monastery without written leave from me and Pyrrhos both, Gnatios, you'll meet the man with the axe then and there," Krispos warned.

"That walls me up for life," Gnatios said, a last, faint protest.

"Likely it does." Krispos folded his arms. He was ready to summon an executioner at another word from Gnatios. Gnatios saw that. He bit his lip till a bead of blood showed at the corner of his mouth, but he nodded.

"Take him away," Krispos told the Halogai. "While you're about it, put him in irons." Gnatios made an indignant noise. Krispos ignored it, continuing, "He's already escaped once, so I'd sooner not give him another chance." Then he turned to Gnatios. "Holy sir, I pledged I would not harm you. I said nothing of your dignity."

"I can see why," Gnatios said resentfully.

"A chopped dignity grows back better than a chopped neck," Krispos said. "Remember that. Soon enough you'll be back at your chronicle."

"There is that." Krispos was amused to see Gnatios brighten at the thought. Political priest and born intriguer though he was, he was also a true scholar. He went off with the Halogai without another word of complaint.

Krispos scanned the men still emerging from the fortress of Antigonos. When at last they stopped coming, he frowned. He walked toward them. Halogai fell in around him. "Where's Petronas' wizard?" he demanded.

The men looked around among themselves, then back toward the fortress. "Skeparnas?" one said with a shrug. "I thought he was with us, but he doesn't seem to be." Others spoke up in agreement.

"I want him," Krispos said. He wondered if he looked as savagely eager as he felt. Petronas' wizard had cost him a season of lying in bed limp as a dead fish; only Trokoundos' counter-magic kept the fellow from taking his life. Sorcery that aimed at causing death was a capital offense.

When Krispos summoned him, Trokoundos studied with narrowed eyes the group of ragged, none too clean men who had come out of the fortress. "He might be hiding in plain sight," he explained to Krispos, "using another man's semblance to keep from being seen."

The mage took out two coins. "The one in my left hand is gilded lead. When I touch it against the true goldpiece in my right hand while reciting the proper spell, by the law of similarity other counterfeits will also be exposed."

He began to chant, then touched the two coins, false and true, together. A couple of men's hair suddenly went from black to gray, which made the Halogai round Krispos guffaw. But other than that, no one's features changed. "He is not here," Trokoundos said. He frowned, his eyes suddenly doubtful. "I do not think he is here—"

He touched the coins of gold and lead against each other once more and held them in his closed fist. Now he used a new chant, harsh and sonorous, insisting, demanding.

"By the good god," Krispos whispered. In the crowd of soldiers and others who had come out of the fortress, one man's features were running like wax over a fire. Before his eyes, the fellow grew taller, leaner. Trokoundos let out a hoarse shout of triumph.

The disguised wizard's face worked horribly as he realized he was discovered. His talonlike fingers stabbed at Trokoundos. The smaller mage groaned and staggered; goldpiece and lead counterfeit fell to the ground. But Trokoundos, too, was a master mage: had he been less, Anthimos would never have chosen him as instructor in the sorcerous arts. He braced himself against empty air and fought back. A moment later Skeparnas bent as if under a heavy weight.

The sorcerers' duel caught up both men—they were so perfectly matched that neither could work great harm unless the other blundered. Neither had any thought for his surroundings; each, of necessity, focused solely on his foe.

Krispos shoved his Halogai toward Skeparnas. "Capture or slay that man!" The imperial guardsmen obeyed without question or hesitation.

They were almost upon the wizard before he knew they were there. He started to send a spell their way, but in tearing his attention from Trokoundos, he left himself vulnerable to the other mage's sorcery. He was screaming as he turned and tried to run. The axes of the Halogai rose and fell. The scream abruptly died.

Trokoundos lurched like a drunken man. "Wine, someone, I beg," he croaked. Krispos undid his own canteen and passed it to the mage. Trokoundos drained it dry. He sank to his knees, then to his haunches. Worried, Krispos sat beside him. He had to lean close to hear Trokoundos whisper, "Now I understand what getting caught in an avalanche must be like."

"Are you all right?" Krispos asked. "What do you need?"

"A new carcass, for starters." With visible effort, Trokoundos drew up the corners of his mouth. "He was strong as a plow mule, was Skeparnas. Had the northerners not distracted him ... well, your Majesty, let me just say I'm glad they did."

"So am I." Krispos glanced over to Skeparnas' body. The rest of the men from the fortress had pulled back as if the wizard were dead of plague. "I think we can guess his conscience was troubling him."

"He didn't seem anxious to meet you, did he?" Trokoundos' smile, though still strained, seemed more firmly attached to his face now. He got to his feet, waving off Krispos' effort to help. Trokoundos' gaze also went to Skeparnas' sprawled corpse. He wearily shook his head. "Aye, your Majesty, I'm very glad the Halogai distracted him."

Krispos looked over the Cattle-Crossing east to Videssos the city. Behind its seawalls, nearly as massive as the great double rampart that shielded its landward side, the city reared on seven hills. Gilded spheres atop the spires of innumerable temples to Phos shone under the warm summer sun, as if they were so many tiny suns themselves.

As he climbed down into the imperial barge that would carry him across the strait to the capital, Krispos thought, I'm going home. The notion still felt strange to him. He'd needed many years in Videssos the city before it, rather than the village from which he sprang, seemed his right and proper place in the world. But his dwelling was there, his wife, his child. Probably his child, at any rate—certainly his heir. Sure as sure, that all made home.

The rowers dug in. The barge glided through the light chop of the Cattle-Crossing toward the city. Krispos was so happy to see it draw near that he ignored his stomach's misgivings over being at sea.

The barge drew to a halt in front of the westernmost gate in the seawall, the gate closest to the palaces. The two valves swung open just as the barge arrived. By now Krispos had come to expect imperial ceremonial to operate so smoothly. The barge captain waved to his sailors. They tied up the barge, set a gangplank in place, then turned and nodded to Krispos. He strode up the plank and into the city.

Along with some of his palace servitors, a delegation of nobles awaited Krispos within the gate. They prostrated themselves before him, shouting, "Thou conquerest, Krispos Avtokrator!" For once, he thought, bemused, the ancient acclamation was literally true. "Thou conquerest!" his greeters cried again as they rose.

Among them he saw Iakovitzes. Clad in bright silks, impeccably groomed, the noble looked himself again, though he was no longer plump. But he perforce stood mute while his companions cried out praise for the Emperor. The unfairness of that tore at Krispos. He beckoned to Iakovitzes, giving him favor in the eyes of his fellows. Iakovitzes' chest puffed out with pride as he came up to Krispos and bowed before him.

"Now the small war, the needful war, is done," Krispos said. "Now we can start the greater fight and give you the vengeance you deserve. By the lord with the great and good mind, I pledge again that you will have it."

He'd thought that would give the nobles and servants another chance to cheer. Instead they stood silently, as if bereft of their tongues as Iakovitzes. Iakovitzes himself unhooked from his belt a tablet ornamented with enamelwork and precious stones; his stylus looked to be made of gold. When the noble opened the tablet, Krispos' nose told him the wax was perfumed. Maimed Iakovitzes might be, but he'd adapted to his injury with panache.

He wrote quickly. "Then you haven't heard, your Majesty? How could you not have?"

"Heard what?" Krispos said when he'd read the words.

Several people guessed what he meant and started to answer, but Iakovitzes waved them to silence. His stylus raced over the wax with tiny slithery sounds. When he was done, he handed the tablet to Krispos. "About ten days ago, Agapetos was heavily defeated north of Imbros. Mavros gathered what force he could and set out to avenge the loss."

Krispos stared at the tablet as if the words on it had betrayed him. "The good god knows, enough couriers brought me dispatches from the city while I was in the westlands. Set against this news, every word they carried was so much gossip and fiddle-faddle. So why was I not told?" His gaze fastened on Barsymes.

The vestiarios' face went pale as milk. "But Majesty," he quavered, "the Sevastos assured me he was keeping you fully informed before he departed for the frontier and promised to continue doing so while on campaign."

"I don't believe you," Krispos said. "Why would he do anything so—" He groped for a word "—so foolhardy?" But that was hardly out of his mouth before he saw an answer. His foster brother had known Krispos did not want him to go out of the city to fight, but not why. If Mavros thought Krispos doubted his courage or ability, he might well have wanted to win a victory just to prove him wrong. And he would have to do it secretly, to keep Krispos from stopping him.

But Krispos knew Mavros was able and brave—would he have named him Sevastos otherwise? What he feared was for his foster brother's safety. Tanilis was not the sort to send idle warnings.

The taste of triumph turned bitter in his mouth. He turned and dashed back through the seawall gate, ignoring the startled cries that rose behind him. The captain and crew of the imperial barge gaped to see him reappear. He ignored their surprise, too. "Row back across the Cattle-Crossing fast as you can," he told the captain. "Order Mammianos to ready the whole army to cross to this side as fast as boats can bring it here. Tell him I intend to move north against Harvas the instant the whole force is here. Do you have all that?"

"I—think so, your Majesty." Stammering a little, the barge captain repeated his orders. Krispos nodded curtly. The captain bawled orders to his men. They cast off the ropes that held the barge next to the wall, then backed oars. As if it were a fighting galley, the imperial barge pivoted almost in its own length, then streaked toward the westlands.

Krispos stood back. Barsymes stood in the gateway. "What of the celebratory procession down Middle Street tomorrow, your Majesty?" he said. "What of the festival of thanksgiving at the High Temple? What of the distribution of largess to the people?"

"Cancel everything," Krispos snapped. After a moment he reconsidered. "No, go on and pay out the largess—that'll keep the city folk happy enough for a while. But with the northern frontier coming to pieces, I don't think we have much to celebrate."

"As you wish, your Majesty," Barsymes said with a sorrowful bow: he lived for ceremonial. "What will you do with your brief time in the city, then?"

"Talk with my generals," Krispos said—the first thing that entered his mind. He went on, "See Dara for a bit." Not only did he miss her, he knew he had to stay on good terms with her, the more so now that her father was with him. As something close to an afterthought, he added, "I'll see Phostis, too."

"Very well, your Majesty." Now Barsymes sounded as if all was very well; with no chance for a child of his own, the eunuch doted on Phostis. "As your generals are still on the far side of the Cattle-Crossing, shall I conduct you to the imperial residence in the meantime?"

"Good enough." Krispos smiled at the vestiarios' unflagging efficiency. Barsymes waved. A dozen parasol-bearers—the imperial number—lined up in front of Krispos. He followed the colorful silk canopies toward the grove of cherry trees that surrounded his private chambers—not, he thought, that anything having to do with the Emperor's person was what would be reckoned private for anyone else.

The Halogai outside the residence sprang to attention when they saw the parasol-bearers. "Majesty!" they shouted.

"Your brothers fought bravely, battling the rebel," Krispos said.

Grins split the northerners' faces. "Hear how he speaks in our style," one said. Krispos grinned, too, glad they'd noticed. He climbed the steps and strode into the imperial residence.

Barsymes bustled past him. "Let me fetch the nurse, your Majesty, with your son." He hurried down the hall, calling for the woman. She came out of a doorway. Phostis was in her arms.

She squeaked when she saw Krispos. "Your Majesty! We hadn't looked for you so soon. But come see what a fine lad your son's gotten to be." She held out the baby invitingly. Krispos took him. The bit of practice he'd had holding Phostis before he went on campaign came back to him. He had a good deal more to hold now.

He lifted the baby up close to his face. As he always did, he tried to decide whom Phostis resembled. As if deliberately to keep him in the dark, Phostis still looked like his mother—and like himself. His features seemed far more distinctly his own than they had when he was newborn. He did have his mother's eyes, though—and his grandfather's.

Phostis was looking at Krispos, too, without recognition but with interest. When his eyes met Krispos', he smiled. Delighted, Krispos smiled back.

"See how he takes to you?" the nurse crooned. "Isn't that sweet?"

The baby's face scrunched up in fierce concentration. Krispos felt the arm he had under Phostis' bottom grow warm and damp. He handed him back to the nurse. "I think he's made a mess." A moment later any possible doubt left him.

"They have a habit of doing that," the nurse said. Krispos nodded; with a farm upbringing, he was intimately familiar with messes of every variety. The nurse went on, "I'll clean him up. I expect you want to see your lady, anyhow."

"Yes," Krispos said. "I don't think I'll be in the city very long." That did not surprise the nurse, but then, she'd known about the disaster near Imbros longer than he had.

Barsymes said, "Her Majesty will be at the needle this time of day." He led Krispos past the portrait of Stavrakios. Krispos wondered how the tough old Avtokrator would have judged his first war.

The sewing room had a fine north-facing window. Dara sat by it, bent close to her work. The tapestry on which she labored might not be finished in her lifetime; when one day it was, it would hang in the Grand Courtroom. She knew sober pride that the finest embroiderers in the city judged her skill great enough to merit inclusion in such a project.

She did not notice the door open behind her. Only when Krispos stepped between her and the window and made the light change did she look up; even after that, she needed a moment to return from the peacock whose shining feathers spread wider with each stitch she took.

"It's beautiful work," Krispos said.

She heard the praise in his voice, nodded without false modesty. "It was going well today, I thought." She jabbed needle into linen, set the tapestry aside, and got to her feet. "Which doesn't mean I can't put it down to hail a conqueror." Smiling now, she squeezed him hard enough to make the air whoosh from his lungs, then tilted her face up for a kiss.

"Aye, one victory won," he said after a bit. His hands lingered, not wanting to draw away from her. He saw that pleased her, but saw also by the way her eyebrows lowered slightly and pinched together that she was not altogether content. He thought he knew why. His tone roughened. "But, also, I learn just now, a loss in the north to balance it."

That further sobered her. "Yes," she said. Then, after a pause, she asked, "How do you mean, you just now learn?

Surely Mavros sent word on to you of what had happened to Agapetos."

"Not a whisper of it," Krispos said angrily, "nor that he aimed to take the field himself. I think he hid it from me on purpose because he knew I'd forbid him on account of his mother's letter."

"I'd forgotten that." Dara's eyes went wide. "What will you do, then?"

"Go after him and—I hope—rescue him from his folly." Krispos scowled, irritated as much with himself as with Mavros. "I wish I'd flat-out told him what Tanilis wrote. But I was afraid he'd sally forth then just to prove he wouldn't let her run his life. And so I didn't spell things out—and he's sallied forth anyhow."

He misliked that; it had the air of the working out of some malign fate. He drew the sun-circle over his heart to turn aside the evil omen.

Dara also signed herself. She said, "Not all foretelling is truth, for which the lord with the great and good mind be praised. Who could bear to live, knowing that someone less man the good god knew what was to come? Maybe Tanilis felt a mother's fear and made too much of it. Now that I have Phostis, I know how that can be."

"Maybe." But Krispos did not believe it. Tanilis had called him "Majesty" when only a madman could have imagined he would ever dwell in the imperial residence, wearing imperial robes. Only a madman—or one who saw true.

"Have you further need for my services, Majesties?" Barsymes asked. Krispos and Dara, their eyes on each other, shook their heads at the same time. "Then if you will excuse me—" The vestiarios bowed his way out.

No sooner had he gone than Dara demanded, "And how many willing, pretty country girls kept your bed warm while you were away in the westlands?"

It might have been a joke; she kept her tone light. But Krispos did not think it was. After being married to Anthimos, Dara could hardly be blamed for doubting his fidelity when he was not under her eye—maybe even when he was. After a little thought he answered, "Do you think I'd be stupid enough to do anything like that when your father was in camp with me for most of the campaign?"

"No, I suppose not," she said judiciously. She set hands on hips and looked up as she had to do to meet his eyes. "You slept alone, then, all the time you were away from the city?"

"I said so."

"Prove it."

Krispos let a long, exasperated breath hiss out. "How am I supposed to—?" In the middle of his sentence, he saw a way. Four quick steps took him to the door. He slammed and barred it. As quickly, he returned to her side and took her in his arms. His lips came down on hers.

Some while later she said, "Get off me, will you? Not only is the floor hard, it's cold, and I expect I have the marks of mosaic tiles on my backside, too."

Krispos sat back on his haunches. Dara drew one leg up past him and rolled away. He said, "Yes, as a matter of feet, you do."

"I thought as much," she said darkly. But in spite of herself, she could not contrive to sound annoyed. "I hadn't looked for your proof to be so—vehement."

"That?" Krispos raised an eyebrow. "After going without for so long, that was just the beginning of my proof."

"Braggart," she said before her eyes left his face. Then her brows also lifted. "What have we here?" Smiling, she reached out a hand to discover what they had there. That, too, rose to the occasion. Before they began again, she said, "Can the second part of your proof wait till we go to the bedchamber? It would be more comfortable there."

"So it would," Krispos said. "Why not?" An advantage of the imperial robes was that they slid off—and now on—quickly and easily. Their principal disadvantage became obvious when the weather got cold. Peasants sensibly labored in tunics and trousers. Krispos shivered when he thought of rounding up sheep in winter with an icy wind whistling up a robe and howling around his private parts.

That was not a worry at the moment. Serving maids grinned as Krispos and Dara headed for the bedchamber hand in hand. Krispos carefully took no notice of the grins. He had begun to resign himself to the prospect of a life led with scant privacy. That had been easy for Anthimos, who'd owned no inhibitions of any sort. It could still sometimes unnerve Krispos. He wondered if the servants kept count.

When he was behind a closed door again, such trivial concerns vanished. He doffed his robe a second time, then helped Dara off with hers. They lay down together. This time they made slower, less driven love, kissing, caressing, joining together, and then separating once more to spin it out and make it last.

As the afterglow faded, Krispos said, "I think I'll bring your father along with me when I take the army north."

Beside him, Dara laughed. "You needn't do it for my sake. I couldn't hope for more or better proof than you've given me. Or could I?" Her hand lazily toyed with him. "Shall we see what comes up?"

"I think you'll have to get your comeuppance another time," he said.

She snorted, gave him an almost painful squeeze, then sat up. Abruptly she was serious. "As I think on it, having my father with you might be a good idea. If he stayed here in the city while you were away, he could forget on whose head the crown properly belongs."

"I can see that," Krispos said. "He's an able man, and able, too, to keep his own counsel. Maybe that comes of his living by the western frontier; from all I've seen, it's rare among folk here in the city. People here show off what they know, to make themselves seem important."

"You've always been able to keep secret what needs keeping," Dara said. Krispos nodded; the very bed in which they lay testified to that. Dara went on, "Why are you surprised others can do the same?"

"I didn't say that." Krispos paused to put what he felt into words. "It was easier for me because people looked down at me for so long. They didn't take me seriously for a long time— I don't think Petronas took me seriously until the siege train came up to Antigonos. But he'd known your father for years, and your father managed to keep his trust till the instant he came over to me."

"He's always held things to himself," Dara said. "He can be ... surprising."

"I believe you." Krispos did not want Rhisoulphos to surprise him. The more he thought about it, the more keeping his father-in-law under his eye seemed a good idea. He let out a long sigh.

"What's the matter?" Dara asked in some concern. "You're not usually one to be sad afterward."

"I'm not—not about that. I just wish I could have more than moments stolen now and again when I didn't have to fret about every single thing that went on in the palaces and in the city and in the Empire and in all the lands that touch on the Empire— and in all the lands that touch on those lands, too, by the good god," Krispos added, remembering that the first he'd heard of Harvas Black-Robe was when his raiders ravaged Thatagush, far to the northeast of Videssian territory.

Dara said, "You could do as Anthimos did, and simply not fret about things."

"Look where that got Anthimos—aye, and the Empire, too," Krispos said. "No, I'm made so I have to fret over anything I know of that needs fretting over."

"And over things you don't know but wish you could find out," Dara said.

Krispos' wry chuckle acknowledged the hit. "Think how much grief I could have saved everyone if I'd known Gnatios was going to help Petronas escape from his monastery. As it worked out in the end, I'd even have saved Petronas grief."

Dara shook her head. "No. He lived for power, not for the trappings but for the thing itself. You saw that. You would have let him live on as a monk, but he'd sooner have died—and he did."

Krispos thought about it and decided she was right. "If he'd given me the same choice, I'd have yielded up my hair and forgotten the world."

"Even though that means giving up women, as well?" Dara asked slyly. She slid her thigh over till it brushed against his.

He blinked at her. "Which of us missed the other more?"

"I don't know. That we missed each other at all strikes me as a good sign. We have to live with each other; more pleasant if we're able to enjoy it."

"Something to that," Krispos admitted. He took stock of himself. "If you wait just a bit longer, I might manage another round of proof."

"Might you indeed?" Dara got up on hands and knees, bent her head over him. "Maybe I can help speed that wait along."

"Maybe you can... Oh, yes." He reached out to stroke her. Her curls twisted round his fingers like black snakes.

Later, he lay back and watched the bedchamber grow shadowy as afternoon slid toward evening. Hunger eventually overcame his lassitude. He started to reach up to the scarlet bellpull, then stopped and got into his robe first. He was not Anthimos, after all.

Moving just as slowly, Dara also dressed. "What will you do after supper?" she asked once he'd told Barsymes what he wanted.

"Spend the night staring at maps with my generals," Krispos said. To please her, he tried to sound glum. But he looked forward, not to the campaign that lay ahead, but to the planning that went into it. He'd never seen a map before he came to Videssos the city. That there could be pictures of the world fascinated him; establishing on one of those pictures where he would be day by day gave him a truly imperial feeling of power.

"Think what you could be doing instead," Dara said.

"If you think so, you flatter me," he told her. "I'm surprised I can walk." She stuck out her tongue at him. He laughed. Despite the hard news that began it, this had not been a bad day.