Krispos the Emperor Read online

  "Alabaster, you say?" Krispos waited for Zaidas to nod, then continued: "Some of the ceiling panels in the imperial residence are also of alabaster, to let in more light. Why don't, ah, victory and amity always dwell under my roof?" He thought of his unending disagreements with Phostis.

  "When properly evoked, I said, the stone brings forth those virtues," Zaidas answered, smiling. "The evocation is not easy, nor is the effect lasting."

  "Oh." Krispos hoped he didn't sound too disappointed. "Well, go ahead and do what you need to do, then."

  The wizard prayed over the gleaming slab of nicomar and anointed it with sweet-smelling oil, as if it were being made a prelate or an Emperor. Krispos wondered if he would be able to feel the change in the stone, as even a person of no sorcer-ous talent could feel the curative current that passed between a healer-priest and his patient. To him, though, the nicomar remained simply a stone. He had to trust that Zaidas knew what he was about.

  With a final pass that seemed to require nearly jointless fingers, Zaidas said, "The good god willing, we are now ready to proceed. First I shall examine the letter known to have been written by Harvas."

  He set the nicomar over the place where he had previously splashed his magical liquid. Fierce red light blazed through the stone. Krispos said, "This tells us what we already knew."

  "So it does, your Majesty," Zaidas answered. "It also tells me the nicomar is performing as it should." He lifted the thin slab of stone and held it over a brass brazier from which the pungent smoke of frankincense coiled slowly toward the ceiling. Before Krispos could ask what he was doing, he explained: "I fumigate the nicomar to remove from it the influence of the parchment it just touched. Thus on the crucial test to come, the workings of the law of contagion shall not be permitted to influence the result. Do you see?"

  Without waiting for Krispos' reply, the wizard set the polished alabaser down on the letter from Taronites. Krispos waited for another flash of red. But only a steady blue light penetrated the nicomar. "What does that mean?" Krispos asked, half hoping, half dreading Zaidas would tell him something other than the obvious.

  But the wizard did not. "Your Majesty, it means that, so far as my sorcery can determine, no relationship whatever exists between the Thanasioi and Harvas."

  "I still find that hard to believe," Krispos said.

  "As I told you before, so do I," Zaidas answered. "But if you have a choice between believing whatever you happen to feel at the moment and that which has evidence to support it, which course will you take? I trust I know you well enough to know what you would say were it a matter of law rather than one of magic."

  "There you have me," Krispos admitted. "You are so confident in what these conjurations tell you, then?"

  "I am, your Majesty. Were it anyone but Harvas, the first lest alone would have contented me. With the confirmation of its import by the nicomar, I would stake my life on the accuracy of what I have divined today."

  "You may be doing just that, you know," Krispos said with u grim edge to his voice.

  Zaidas looked startled for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, that's so, isn't it? Harvas on the loose once more would terrify the bravest." He spat on the floor between his feet to show his rejection of the evil god Skotos, the god Harvas had for a patron. "But by Phos, the lord with the great and good mind, I tell you again that Harvas is in no way connected to the Thanasioi. Misguided they may be; guided amiss by Harvas they are not."

  He sounded so certain that Krispos had to believe him despite his own misgivings. As the sorcerer had said, evidence counted for more than vague feelings. And if Harvas' dread hand did not lie behind the Thanasioi, why, how dangerous could they possibly be? The Avtokrator smiled. Over the past couple of decades, he'd faced and overcome enough merely human foes to trust he had their measure.

  "Thank you for relieving my mind, excellent sir. Your reward will not be small," he told Zaidas. Then, because the wizard had a habit of putting such rewards into the treasury of the Sorcerers' Collegium, he added, "Keep some for yourself this time, my friend. I command it."

  "You needn't fear for that, your Majesty," Zaidas said. "In fact, I have already received the same instruction from one I reckon higher in rank than you."

  Normally, the only entity a Videssian would reckon higher in rank than his Avtokrator was Phos. Krispos, though, knew perfectly well about whom Zaidas was talking. Chuckling, he said, "Tell Aulissa I say she is a good, sensible woman and makes you an excellent wife. Be sure you listen to her, too."

  "I will pass your words to her as you say them," Zaidas promised. "With some other women. I might not, for fear of inflaming their notions of how important they are in the scheme of things. But since my dear Aulissa is as sensible as you say, I know she'll accept the compliment for what it's worth and not a copper more."

  "The two of you are a good deal alike that way," Krispos said. "You're lucky to have each other."

  Even when Dara was still alive, he'd sometimes envied Zaidas and Aulissa their tranquil happiness. They seemed to know each other's needs and adjust to each other's foibles as if they were two halves of the same person. His own marriage had not been like that. He and Dara got along well enough on the whole, but they'd always had their fall storms and wintry blizzards along with the warmth of summer. Zaidas and his wife seemed to live in late spring the year round.

  The wizard said, "Besides, your Majesty, Aulissa has noted that Sotades is now twelve years old. The boy will soon begin his serious schooling, which, as she pointed out, requires serious quantities of gold."

  "Ah, yes," Krispos said wisely, though as Avtokrator he had not had to worry about the expense of educating his sons: every scholar in the city was eager to have any or all of them as his pupils. Having taught the Emperor's child could only improve a savant's reputation . . . and one of those children would likely be Avtokrator himself one day. In Krispos' experience, scholars were no more immune to seeking influence than any other men.

  "I am relieved for you, your Majesty, and for the Empire of Videssos," Zaidas said, nodding toward the table where he'd carried out his magic.

  "I'm relieved, too." Krispos picked up the letter from Harvas which the wizard had used and quickly read it. It was the one wherein Harvas declared he had cut out Iakovitzes' tongue because the diplomat's freedom with it displeased him. Krispos was not sorry to put down the parchment. That had been far from the worst of Harvas' atrocities. Being spared the worry of another round of them was worth a goodly sum of gold.

  When the Avtokrator left the conjuration chamber, the Haloga guard fell in behind him. The two axemen who had stood watch at the doorway preceded him out of the Sorcerers' Collegium. The parasol bearers had been sitting around outside the building and passing the time with the rest of the squad of imperial guards. Their canopies fluttered in agitation when the Avtokrator reappeared. After a moment, though, they formed themselves into the neat pairs that always accompanied Krispos in public.

  On the trip back to the palace compound, their presence was pure ostentation, for almost the entire short journey was under covered colonnades. Not for the first time—not for the hundredth—Krispos wished he'd been able to get away with cutting the stifling ceremonial that surrounded him every hour of the day and night. But by the horror that thought evoked in the palace staff, in officials of the government, and even among his guards, he might have proposed offering sacrifice to Skotos on the altar of the High Temple. Fights against custom just were not winnable.

  He turned around, glanced back north toward the Sorcerers' Collegium. He would reward Zaidas well indeed, not least for relieving his mind. If the Thanasioi had come up with their foolish heresy all on their own, he was sure he would have no trouble putting them down. In his two decades and more as Avtokrator, after all, he'd gone from one triumph to another. Why should this struggle be any different?

  II

  FROM THE OUTSIDE, PHOS' HIGH TEMPLE SEEMED MORE MASSIVE than beautiful. The heavy buttresses that carried the w
eight of the great central dome to the ground reminded Phostis of the thick, columnar legs of an elephant; one of the immense beasts had been imported to Videssos the city from the southern shore of the Sailors' Sea when he was a boy. It hadn't lived long, save in his memory.

  A poem he'd read likened the High Temple to a glowing pearl concealed within an oyster. He didn't care as much for that comparison. The Temple's exterior was not rough and ugly, as oysters were, just plain. And its interior outshone any pearl.

  Phostis climbed the stairway from the paved courtyard surrounding the High Temple up to the narthex or outer hall. Being only a junior Avtokrator, he was less hemmed round with ceremony than his father; only a pair of Haloga guardsmen flanked him on the stairs.

  Many nobles hired bodyguards; none of the other people heading for the service paid Phostis any special heed. The High Temple was not crowded in any case, not for an early afternoon liturgy on a day of no particular ritual import. Instead of going up the narrow way to the screened-off imperial niche, Phostis decided to worship with everyone else in the main hall surrounding the altar. The Halogai shrugged and marched in with him.

  He'd been going into the High Temple for as long as his memory reached, and longer. He'd been just a baby when he was proclaimed Avtokrator here. For all that infinite familiarity, though, the Temple never failed to awe him.

  The lavish use of gold and silver sheeting; the polished moss-agate columns with the acanthus capitals; the jewels and mother-of-pearl inserts set into the blond oak of the pews; the slabs of turquoise, pure white crystal, and rose quartz laid into the walls to simulate the sky at morning, noon, and eventide— for all these he had perspective; he had grown up among similar riches and lived with them still. But they served only to lead the eye up and up to the great dome that surmounted the altar and the mosaicwork image of Phos in its center.

  The dome itself had the feel of a special miracle. Thanks to the sunbeams that penetrated the many small windows set into its base, it seemed to float above the rest of the Temple rather than being a part of it. The play of light off the gold-faced tesserae set at irregular angles made its surface sparkle and shift as one walked along far beneath it. Phostis could not imagine how the merely material might better represent the transcendence of Phos' heaven.

  But even the glittering surround of the dome was secondary to Phos himself. The lord with the great and good mind stared down at his worshipers with eyes that not only never closed but also seemed to follow as they moved. If anyone concealed a sin, that Phos would see it. His long, bearded visage was stern in judgment. In his left hand, the good god held the book of life, wherein he recorded each man's every action. With death came the accounting: those whose evil deeds outweighed the good would fall to the eternal ice, while those who had worked more good than wickedness shared heaven with their god.

  Phostis felt the weight of Phos' gaze each time he entered the High Temple. The lord with the great and good mind shown in the dome would surely grant justice, but mercy? Few men are arrogant enough to demand perfect justice, for fear they might get it.

  The power of that image reached even the heathen Halogai. They looked up, trying to test their stares against the eternal eyes in the dome. As generations of men and women had learned before them, the test was more than any a mere man could successfully undertake. When they had to lower their gaze, they did so almost furtively, as if hoping no one had noticed them withdrawing from a struggle.

  "It's all right, Bragi, Nokkvi," Phostis murmured as he sat between them. "No man can count himself worthy to confront the good god."

  The big blond northerners scowled. Bragj's cheeks went red; with his fair, pale skin, the flush was easy to track. Nokkvi said, "We are Halogai, young Majesty. Our life is to fear nothing, to let nothing overawe us. In this picture dwells magic, to make us reckon ourselves less than what we are." His fingers writhed in an apotropaic sign.

  "Measured against the good god, we are all less than we think ourselves to be," Phostis answered quietly. "That is what the image in the dome shows us."

  Both his guards shook their heads. Before they could argue further, though, a pair of blue-robed priests, their pates shaven, their beards bushy and untrimmed, advanced down the aisle toward the altar. Each wore on his left breast a cloth-of-gold circlet, symbol of the sun, the greatest source of Phos' lights. The gem-encrusted thuribles they swung emitted great clouds of sweetly fragrant smoke.

  As the priests passed each row of pews, the congregants sitting in it rose to their feet to salute Oxeites, ecumenical patriarch of the Videssians, who followed close behind them. His robe was of gold tissue, heavily overlain with pearls and precious stones. In all the Empire, only the Avtokrator himself possessed more splendid raiment. And, just as footgear all of red was reserved for the Emperor alone, so only the patriarch had the privilege of wearing sky-blue boots.

  A choir of men and boys sang a hymn of praise to Phos as Oxeites took his place behind the altar. Their sweet notes echoed and reechoed from the dome, as if emanating straight from the good god's lips. The patriarch raised both hands over his head, looked up toward the image of Phos. Along with everyone in the High Temple save only his own two bodyguards, Phostis imitated him.

  "We bless thee, Phos, lord with the great and good mind," Oxeites intoned, "by thy grace our protector, watchful beforehand that the great test of life may be decided in our favor."

  All the worshipers repeated Phos' creed. It was the first prayer a Videssian heard, being commonly uttered over a new-horn babe; it was the first prayer a child learned; it was the last utterance a believer gasped out before dying. To Phostis, it was as utterly familiar as the shape of his own hands.

  More prayers and hymns followed. Phostis continued to make his responses without much conscious thought. The ritual was comforting; it lifted him out of himself and his petty cares of the moment, transformed him into part of something great and wise and for all practical purposes immortal. He cherished that feeling of belonging, perhaps because he found it here so much more easily than in the palaces.

  Oxeites had the congregation repeat the creed with him one lust time, then motioned for the worshipers to be seated. Phostis almost left the High Temple before the patriarch began his sermon. Sermons, being by their nature individual and specific, took him out of the sense of belonging he sought from worship. But since he had nowhere to go except back to the palaces, he decided to stay and listen. Not even his father could rebuke him for piety.

  The ecumenical patriarch said. "I would like to have all of vou gathered together with me today pause for a moment and contemplate the many and various ways in which the pursuit of wealth puts us in peril of the eternal ice. For in acquiring great stores of gold and gems and goods, we too easily come to consider their accumulation an end in itself rather than a means through which we may provide for our own bodily survival and prepare a path for our progeny."

  Our progeny? Phostis thought, smiling. The Videssian clergy was celibate; if Oxeites was preparing a path for his progeny, he had more sins than greed with which to concern himself.

  The patriarch continued, "Not only do we too readily value goldpieces for their own sake, those of us who do gain riches, whether honestly or no, often also endanger ourselves and our hope of joyous afterlife by grudging those who lack a share, however small, of our own good fortune."

  He went on in that vein for some time, until Phostis felt ashamed to have a belly that was never empty, shoes on his feet, and thick robes and hypocausts to warm him through the winter. He raised his eyes to the Phos in the dome and prayed to the lord with the great and good mind to forgive him his prosperity.

  But as his gaze descended from the good god to the ecumenical patriarch, he suddenly saw the High Temple in a new, disquieting light. Till this moment, he'd always taken for granted the flood of goldpieces that had been required to erect the Temple in the first place and the further flood that had gone into the precious stones and metals that made it the marvel it w
as. If those uncounted thousands of goldpieces had instead fed the hungry, shod the barefoot, clothed and warmed the shivering, how much better their lot would have been!

  He knew the temples aided the poor; his own father told and retold the story of spending his first night in Videssos the city in the common room of a monastery. But for Oxeites, who wore cloth-of-gold, to urge his listeners to give up what they had to aid those who had not struck Phostis as nothing less than hypocrisy. And worse still, Oxeites himself seemed to have no sense of that hypocrisy.

  Anger drove shame from Phostis. How did the ecumenical patriarch have the crust to propose that others give up their worldly goods when he said not a word about those goods the temples owned? Did he think they somehow acquired immunity from being put to good use—being put to the very use he himself advocated—because they were called holy?

  By the tone of his sermon, he very likely did. Phostis tried to understand his way of thinking, tried and failed. The junior Avtokrator again glanced up toward the famous image of Phos. How did the lord with the great and good mind view calls to poverty from a man who undoubtedly possessed not just one but many sets of regalia, the value of any of which could have supported a poor family for years?

  Phostis decided the good god would set down grim words for Oxeites in his book of judgment.

  The patriarch kept preaching. That he did not realize the contradiction inherent in his own views irked Phostis more with every word he heard. He hadn't enjoyed the courses in logic Krispos ordained for him, but they'd left their mark. He wondered if next he would hear a raddled whore extolling the virtues of virginity. It would, he thought, be hardly less foolish than what he was listening to now.

  "We bless thee, Phos, lord with the great and good mind, by thy grace our protector, watchful beforehand that the great test of life may be decided in our favor," Oxeites proclaimed for the last time. Even without his robes, he would have been tall and slim and distinguished, with a pure white beard and silky ryebrows he surely combed. When he wore the patriarchal vestments, he seemed to the eye the very image of holiness. But his words rang hollow in Phostis' heart.