The Tale of Krispos Read online

  “Why do you keep calling me that?” he snapped, irritation getting the better of his manners. “I’m just a groom, and glad to be one—otherwise I expect I’d be starving somewhere. Come to think of it, I’ve done that, too, once or twice. It doesn’t make you eminent, believe me.”

  Before he was halfway through, he knew he ought to keep quiet. If he offended a powerful local noblewoman like Tanilis, even Iakovitzes’ connections at the capital might not save him. The capital was too far away for them to do him much good here. Even as that thought ran through his mind, though, he kept on till he was done.

  Tanilis raised her head to look at him again. He started to stutter out an apology, then stopped. The last time he had seen that almost blind stare of perfect concentration was on the face of the healer-priest Mokios.

  This time he watched her eyes go huge and black, saw her expression turn fixed. Her lips parted. This time ice ran through him as he heard the word she whispered: “Majesty.”

  She slumped forward in a faint.

  Chapter V

  KRISPOS CAUGHT HER BEFORE SHE HIT HER HEAD ON THE bench in front of her. “Oh, Phos!” her son Mavros said. He rushed up to help take her weight. “Thanks for saving her there, uh, Krispos. Come on, let’s get her out of the temple. She should be better soon.”

  He sounded so matter-of-fact that Krispos asked, “This has happened before?”

  “Yes.” Mavros raised his voice to speak to the townsfolk who came hurrying up after Tanilis fell. “My mother just got out of her seat too quickly. Let us by, please, so we can get her to fresh air. Let us by, please.”

  He had to repeat himself several times before people moved aside. Even then, several women and a couple of men stayed with him. Krispos wondered why he did not shoo them away too, then realized they had to be part of Tanilis’ retinue. They helped clear a path so Krispos and Mavros could carry the noblewoman up the aisle.

  Tanilis muttered and stirred when the sun hit her face, but did not wake at once. Krispos and Mavros eased her to the ground. The women stood over her, exclaiming.

  One of the servants said to Mavros, “I wish we’d come from the house in town today, young master. Then she could go in the sedan chair.”

  “That would make fetching her home again easier, wouldn’t it? However…” Mavros shrugged whimsically. He turned to Krispos. “My mother sometimes…sees things, and sees them so strong she can’t withstand the force of the vision. I’ve grown used to it, watching it happen over the years, but I do wish she wouldn’t always pick such awkward times and places. Of course, what I wish has very little to do with anything.” He gave that shrug again.

  “That’s the way things often work.” Krispos decided he thought well of Mavros. The youngster had not only kept his head coping with an awkward situation, but was even able to make light of it. From everything Krispos had ever seen, that was harder.

  Mavros said, “Genzon, Naues, fetch the horses here from round the corner. The crowd’s thinning out; you shouldn’t have much trouble now.”

  “I’ll go with them, if you like,” Krispos said. “That way each man won’t have to lead so many.”

  “Thanks, that’s generous of you. Please, a moment first, though.” Mavros took a couple of steps away from his retinue and motioned for Krispos to follow. In a low voice, he asked, “What did my mother say to you, there in the temple? Her back was to me; I didn’t hear.”

  “Oh, that.” Krispos scratched his head, looking embarrassed. “Do you know, in all the hubbub since, it’s gone clean out of my mind.”

  He hurried after Genzon and Naues. He was unhappy about lying to Mavros, but he’d lied without hesitation. He needed to think much more about the unbelievably fascinating, unbelievably dangerous word Tanilis had spoken before he admitted to himself—let alone to anyone else—that he’d heard it.

  Most of the horses the servants loosed from the hitching rail were ponies for Tanilis’ female attendants. The four that were not were animals fine enough to have belonged in Iakovitzes’ stables. Four—that meant Tanilis was no mean rider, then. Krispos found himself unsurprised. She was plainly a woman of many accomplishments.

  She had managed to sit up by the time Krispos, Genzon, and Naues brought the horses back to the temple, but still did not seem fully aware of herself or her surroundings. Mavros clasped Krispos’ hand. “Thank you again. I’m grateful for all your help.”

  “My pleasure.” Krispos heard the dismissal in Mavros’ voice. He dipped his head and went back to Bolkanes’ inn.

  Iakovitzes was not there; he was closeted with Lexo again. Krispos hoped his absentminded prayer had done his master some good. He went down to the taproom for some wine and for a chance to pick Bolkanes’ brain.

  Both came slower than he wanted. The inn was crowded with people celebrating the holy Abdaas’ festal day less piously than those who had gone to the temple. The tables were all filled. Working his way up to the bar took patience, but patience Krispos had. “Red wine, please,” he told Bolkanes.

  The innkeeper dipped out a measure and filled an earthenware mug. Only when he slid it across the counter did he look up to see whom he was serving. “Oh, hello, Krispos,” he said and then, to the next man who’d wormed his way forward, “What’ll it be for you today, Rekilas?”

  Having gained his spot at the bar, Krispos did not give it up. He waited while Bolkanes served two more men, then said, “I saw a truly striking noblewoman at the temple today. A man told me her name was—”

  He broke off; someone had asked Bolkanes for a cup of something finer than he kept in the barrels at the bar, and the innkeeper had to hurry away to get what the fellow wanted. When he returned—and after he dealt with another customer—Krispos started to repeat himself, but Bolkanes had been listening, even if he was too busy to talk. He broke in: “That’d be Tanilis, I expect.”

  “Yes, that was the name,” Krispos said. “Sounds like she’s well known hereabouts.”

  “I should say so,” Bolkanes agreed. “She has—hello, Zernes, more of the white for you? Coming right up.” Zernes not only wanted more white wine but needed change from a goldpiece, and counted it three times once he got it. Half a dozen men were waiting by the time he got done. Eventually Bolkanes resumed. “Tanilis? Aye, she has huge tracts of land hereabouts. A good many said she’d lose everything, trying to run ’em herself after her husband—what was her husband’s name, Apsyrtos?”

  “Vledas, wasn’t it?” Apsyrtos answered. “Let me have a cup of mead this time, will you?”

  “You head’ll hurt come morning, mixing ’em that way,” Bolkanes warned, but he plied the dipper. When he was done, he turned back to Krispos. “Vledas, that was it. He died ten, twelve years ago now, it must be, and she’s prospered since. Done well in good years and bad, they say, though naturally I couldn’t testify to that. But her estates do keep growing. It’s almost uncanny—just a woman, you know.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Krispos said, though he had the feeling Tanilis was just a woman in the same way that Videssos was just a city.

  Iakovitzes came in a little later. His good nature, always unreliable, had vanished altogether by the time he worked his way to the bar through the press of holiday drinkers. “Just because a holy man once cured a horse of fleas is no reason to turn a town on its ear,” he growled.

  “Is that what the holy Abdaas did?” Krispos asked.

  “How should I know? In a backwoods bastion like this, I doubt one would need do much more to be reckoned a miracle-worker.” Iakovitzes gulped his wine, then slammed the mug down on the bar for a refill.

  Krispos thought of Tanilis again. He’d seen more than horse-doctoring. He wondered how he could find out more about her. If she was as grand a noblewoman as Bolkanes made her out to be—and nothing Krispos had seen left him doubting it—he could not just go and seek a meeting with her. She’d slap him down for such presumption. Approaching through her son seemed a better bet. Mavros, on brief acquaintance, had the feel of being so
meone Krispos could like. Bolkanes might know the amusements the youth favored when he came into town….

  Iakovitzes had said something that Krispos missed in his musing. “I crave pardon.”

  His master frowned. “For all the attention you paid me there, I thought for a moment I was back talking with Lexo. He started in on his stinking tribal lays again today, the blackguard, until I asked him if he was willing to listen while I read to him from the histories of the reign of Stavrakios the Great. After that he came rather closer to reason, though not close enough. By Phos, I’ll poison the bastard if his delays make me spend the winter in this miserable place.”

  A day before, Krispos would have agreed. After Videssos the city, Opsikion was small and backward and not very interesting—in a word, provincial. Now, with Tanilis’ mystery before him, he hoped Iakovitzes would stay a while longer. “Drive him wild, Lexo,” he whispered, too low for his master to hear.

  BOLKANES WAS ROLLING A FRESH BARREL OF WINE FROM THE top of the cellar stairs to the taproom when Krispos walked into the inn a couple of afternoons later. “Want some help with that?” Krispos asked. Without waiting for an answer, he hurried forward.

  “You would come in after I’ve done the hard part myself.” Bolkanes wiped sweat from his forehead. “I can manage from here. Anyhow, a fellow’s waiting for you at the bar. Been here an hour, maybe a bit longer.”

  “For me?” Krispos hadn’t thought anyone in Opsikion knew him well enough to find him worth waiting for. He walked into the taproom. The tall, lanky man standing at the bar turned at the sound of his footsteps. “Naues!” Krispos said, then added with sudden doubt, “Or are you Genzon?”

  Tanilis’ servitor smiled. “I’m Genzon. I don’t blame you for having to ask. Things were hurried and confused at the temple the other day.”

  “So they were.” Krispos hesitated. “I hope your mistress is improved?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Genzon’s prominent larynx bobbed as he swallowed the last of the wine in his cup. “She thanks you, also, for the care and concern you showed. To show her gratitude further, she bids you dine with her this evening, if you care to.”

  “She does?” Krispos blurted. Try as he would, he was still new to the notion of keeping thoughts to himself. He needed a moment to let urbanity return. “I’d be delighted. Can you give me a little while to change?”

  “Certainly. What are a few more minutes, save a chance for another cup of wine?” Genzon nodded to Bolkanes, who, along with his tapman, was wrestling the new barrel into place under the bar.

  Krispos told the innkeeper, “Please let Iakovitzes know I’ve been asked away for the evening.” As soon as he was sure Bolkanes had heard, he walked over to the stairway. He would not run, not where Genzon could see him, but he bounded up the steps two at a time.

  For once, he wished he could borrow Iakovitzes’ clothes. He usually thought them gaudy, but now he wanted to put on something that would impress Tanilis. Since Iakovitzes was more than half a foot shorter than he was, and correspondingly narrower as well, borrowing a tunic was impractical. He threw on his own best one, of a sober dark blue, and a pair of breeches that matched it. He went downstairs so fast he had to grab at the railing to keep from landing on his head.

  “Let me saddle my horse and I’ll meet you out front,” he called to Genzon. Tanilis’ man nodded. Krispos went out to the stables behind the inn. He quickly put the saddle on his horse, made sure the cinch was tight—he’d learned about that back at the village, fortunately, or Iakovitzes’ grooms never would have let him live it down—mounted, and walked the horse up to the street.

  Genzon came out a couple of minutes later. “Good-looking animal,” he said as he swung himself aboard his own mount.

  “My master knows horses,” Krispos said.

  “Yes, I can see that. Nice smooth gait, too.” Genzon started to say something more, visibly decided not to. Krispos thought he could guess the question Genzon swallowed: Why was the groom being invited to dine with his mistress, and not the visiting noble from the capital? As he had only hopes and wild speculations himself, he did not want to try to answer that.

  Genzon led him out of Opsikion by the south gate. The road soon twisted away from the sea and ran up into the hills. Krispos’ horse did not falter at the steep stretches. Indeed, the beast seemed to relish the challenge. Have to give him more exercise, Krispos thought.

  Some of the hillsides were terraced. Up on the slopes, Krispos saw peasants weeding crops and pruning vines. They were too wrapped up in their tasks to look down at him. Watching them sent a remembered ache through his shoulders. Farming was the longest, hardest work there was. Having lived the peasant’s life for so many years, he knew how lucky he was to have escaped it.

  He wondered how his sister and brother-in-law were doing. He supposed he was an uncle by now, and hoped Evdokia had come through childbirth safely.

  “All this is Tanilis’ land,” Genzon remarked.

  “Is it?” Krispos said politely. He wondered what the scores, what the hundreds of people who worked it thought of that. Did she protect her peasants from the state’s demands, or impose her own alongside them?

  He hoped she looked after the people under her control. But, as he could not have a year before, he also wondered whether nobles who too effectively shielded their peasants from the state were good for Videssos. If nobles turned into petty kings on their own domains, how could the central government hope to function? He shook his head, thankful the problem was Anthimos’—or perhaps Petronas’—and not his.

  He and Genzon rode on for some time. The sun was falling toward the jagged western horizon when Genzon pointed, saying, “There is Tanilis’ villa.”

  The building ahead was so large Krispos had taken it for a fortress. It was well sited for one, on top of a rise that commanded the surrounding countryside. But as Krispos drew near, he saw it was too lightly made, with too many windows and too many doors, to serve as a stronghold.

  He wondered how many peasants had gone hungry because they were busy building it instead of working their fields, then wondered again if such a thought had ever crossed one of the owners’ minds. He doubted it. No one who owned a home like this—it made Iakovitzes’ house look like Krispos’ old cottage by comparison—had ever been a peasant.

  Someone came out of the villa. As Krispos got closer, he saw it was Mavros. Tanilis’ son recognized him—or more likely Genzon—a moment later. He waved. Genzon and Krispos waved back. They urged their horses into a trot.

  Mavros came down to meet them. “About time you turned up,” he said, grinning. “Mother’s starting to fret and the cook’s getting nervous. Never mind. You’re here now, and that’s what counts.”

  Boys hurried up to take the newcomers’ horses and lead them back to the stables. Krispos expected his mount would get better care here than at Bolkanes’. Not that he had anything against the innkeeper, but Tanilis did not have to worry about how every copper was spent.

  “You can have the rest of the day off, Genzon,” Mavros said. The retainer dipped his head in thanks. Mavros turned to Krispos as Genzon hurried off. “Now you on the other hand, sirrah, you are in my mother’s clutches.”

  “Oh? Why?” Krispos had—and ruthlessly stifled—a sudden, hungry vision of Tanilis clutching him, and him clutching back.

  “The ice take me if I can tell you.” Mavros shrugged in cheerful incomprehension. Krispos wished he could stay so jolly in the face of the unknown. In the life he’d led, unknown and dangerous were the same word. To Mavros, raised lacking for nothing, the world seemed a sunnier place. He went on, “She’ll explain in her own good time, I’m sure. Me, I expect it has to do with whatever she said at the temple the other day. What was that, anyhow?”

  “Hasn’t she told you?” Krispos asked, surprised.

  “She doesn’t remember, not exactly. Her—visions are like that sometimes.” Mavros shrugged again. “Whatever it was, it was something strong. Some of the old serv
ants say the place hasn’t been turned upside down like this since the Avtokrator Sermeios dined here in my grandfather’s time.”

  “Since an Avtokrator—” Krispos echoed weakly. He tried to laugh, but only managed a ghastly chuckle. “I’m no Avtokrator, believe me.”

  “I believe you,” Mavros said at once, but not so it sounded like an insult. “You seem a good fellow, though. I think so myself, and my mother wouldn’t have invited you here if she’d seen anything wicked, now would she?”

  “No,” Krispos said. That he was going to eat where an Avtokrator had dined was stirring enough—but after all, Petronas had broken bread at Iakovitzes’ house, and he was Emperor in all but name. But that an imperial-size fuss was being made over him—he wanted another try at laughing over that. He was sure he could do a proper job the second time around.

  Mavros said, “Come in, come in. The longer I leave you standing around here, the longer everyone inside stands around fussing. The cook’ll stop palpitating every time anything gets near done, which will be a great relief to everyone.”

  Krispos made the sun-sign over his heart as he walked beneath the image of Phos that hung above the door. The floor of the entrance hall was gleaming marble. “Is that you, son?” Tanilis’ voice floated down it as Mavros slammed the door. “Where can Krispos be?”

  “With me, as a matter of fact,” Mavros said. Krispos heard Tanilis exclaim. Mavros told him, “Come on, she’s out in the garden.”

  Krispos got a brief glimpse into each room that opened on the hallway as he hurried after Mavros. What he saw reminded him of Iakovitzes’ splendid furnishings, but showed better taste and more money. That enormous round table inlaid with gold and ivory…not even an Avtokrator would have felt ashamed to eat a meal from a table like that.

  The garden was also larger and finer than Iakovitzes’, although, to be just, Krispos had never seen his master’s garden in full bloom. Tanilis extended a slim hand. Krispos bowed over it. Rings glinted on her fingers. “Thank you, my lady, for inviting me here,” he said. “This is—marvelous.”