The Tale of Krispos Read online

  “But it’s the truth!” Krispos said, appalled. “Excellent sir, you’ve not seen us till now. Our old tax collector, Zabdas, would recognize how many faces he knew aren’t here today, truly he would.”

  Malalas yawned. “A likely tale.”

  “But it’s the truth!” Krispos repeated. The villagers backed him up: “Aye, sir, it is!” “By Phos, we had many dead, a healer-priest among ’em—” “My wife—” “My father—” “My son—” “I could hardly walk for a month, let alone farm.”

  The tax collector raised a hand. “This matters not at all.”

  Krispos grew angry. “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?” He ducked under Malalas’ canopy, stabbed a finger down at the register on the tax man’s knees. “Varades is dead. Phostis—that’s my father—is dead, and so are my mother and sister. Tzykalas’ son of the same name is dead…” He went through the whole melancholy list.

  None of it moved Malalas a hairsbreadth. “As you say, young man, I am new here. For all I know—in fact, I think it likely—the people you name may be hiding in the woods, laughing up their sleeves. I’ve seen that happen before, believe you me.”

  Krispos did believe him. Had he not ferreted out such cheats, he would not have been so arrogantly certain of what was happening here. Krispos wished those cheats down to Skotos’ ice, for they’d made the tax man blind to any real problems a village might have.

  “The full proportion named is due and shall be collected,” Malalas went on. “Even if every word you say is true, taxes are assessed by village, not by individual. The fisc has need of what you produce, and what the fisc needs, it takes.” He nodded back toward the waiting soldiers. “Pay peaceably, or it will be the worse for you.”

  “Pay peaceably, and it will be the worse for us,” Krispos said bitterly. Taxes were assessed collectively, he knew, to make sure villagers tolerated no shirkers among them and so they would have to make good the labor of anyone who left. To use the law to force them to make up for disaster was savagely unjust.

  That did not stop Malalas. He announced the amount due from the village: so many goldpieces, or their equivalent in the crops just harvested, all of which were carefully and accurately listed in the register.

  The villagers brought what they had set aside for the annual assessment. With much sweat and scraping, they had amassed an amount just short of what they’d paid the year before. Zabdas surely would have been satisfied. Malalas was not. “We’ll have the rest of it now,” he said.

  Guarded by his soldiers, the clerks he’d brought along swarmed over the village like ants raiding a pot of lard. They opened storage pit after storage pit and shoveled the grain and beans and peas into leather sacks.

  Krispos watched the systematic plundering. “You’re worse thieves than the Kubratoi!” he shouted to Malalas.

  The tax man spoiled it by taking it for a compliment. “My dear fellow, I should hope so. The barbarians have rapacity, aye, but no system. Do please note, however, that we are not arbitrary. We take no more than the Avtokrator Anthimos’ law ordains.”

  “You please note, excellent sir”—Krispos made the title into a curse—“that what the Avtokrator’s law ordains will leave some of us to starve.”

  Malalas only shrugged. For a moment, red fury so filled Krispos that he almost shouted for the villagers to seize weapons and fall on the tax collector and his party. Even if they massacred them, though, what good would it do? It would only bring more imperial soldiers down on their heads, and those troops would be ready to kill, not merely to steal.

  “Enough, there!” Malalas called at length, after one of his clerks came up to whisper in his ear. “No, we don’t need that barley—fill in the pit again. Now let us be off. We have another of these miserable little hamlets to visit tomorrow.”

  He remounted. So did his clerks and the cavalrymen who had protected them. Their harness jingled as they rode out of the village. The inhabitants stared after them, then to the emptied storage pits.

  For a long time, no one spoke. Then Domokos tried to put the best light he could on things: “Maybe if we’re all very watchful, we can…” His voice trailed away. Not even he believed what he was saying.

  Krispos trudged back to his house. He picked up a trowel, went around to the side of the house away from the square, bent down, and started digging. Finding what he was looking for took longer than he’d expected; after a dozen years, he’d forgotten exactly where he’d buried that lucky goldpiece. At last, though, it lay gleaming on his muddy palm.

  He almost threw the coin away; at that moment, anything with an Avtokrator’s face on it was hateful to him. Common sense, however, soon prevailed. “Might be a good while before I see another one of these,” he muttered. He struck the goldpiece in the pouch he wore on his belt.

  He went into his house again. From their places on the wall he took down spear and sword. The sword he belted on next to his pouch. The spear would also do for a staff. He went outside. Clouds were building in the north. The fall rains had not yet started, but they would soon. When the roads turned to mud, a staff would be handy.

  He looked around. “Anything else I need?” he asked out loud. He ducked inside one last time, came out with half a loaf of bread. Then he walked back to the village square. Domokos and Evdokia were still standing there, along with several other people. They were talking about Malalas’ visit, in the soft, stunned tones they would have used after a flood or other natural disaster.

  Domokos raised an eyebrow when he saw the gear Krispos carried. “Going hunting?” he asked his brother-in-law.

  “You might say so,” Krispos answered. “Hunting something better than this, anyhow. If the Empire can rob us worse than the wild men ever did, what’s the use of farming? A long time ago, I wondered what else I could do. I’m off for Videssos the city, to try to find out.”

  Evdokia took his arm. “Don’t go!”

  “Sister, I think I have to. You and Domokos have each other. Me—” He bit his lip. “I tear myself up inside every time I go home. You know why.” He waited until Evdokia nodded. Her face was twisted, too. He went on, “Besides, I’ll be one less mouth to feed here. That’s bound to help—a little, anyhow.”

  “Will you soldier, then?” Domokos asked.

  “Maybe.” Krispos still did not like the idea. “If I can’t find anything else, I guess I will.”

  Evdokia embraced him. “Phos guard you on the road and in the city.” Krispos saw by how quickly she stopped arguing that she realized he was doing what he needed to do.

  He hugged her, too, felt the swell of her growing belly against him. He clasped Domokos’ hand. Then he walked away from them, away from everything he’d ever known, west toward the highway that led south to the city.

  FROM THE VILLAGE TO THE IMPERIAL CAPITAL WAS A JOURNEY of about ten days for a man in good condition and serious about his walking. Krispos was both, but took three weeks to get there. He stopped to help gather beans for a day here, to cut timber for an afternoon there, for whatever other odd jobs he could find. He got to Videssos the city with food in his belly and some money in his pouch besides his goldpiece.

  He had already seen marvels on his way south, for as the road neared the city it came down by the sea. He’d stopped and stared for long minutes at the sight of water that went on and on forever. But that was a natural wonder, and now he was come to one worked by man: the walls of Videssos.

  He’d seen city walls before, at Imbros and at several towns he’d passed on his journey. They’d seemed splendid things then, huge and strong. Next to the walls he approached now, they were as toys, and toddlers’ toys at that.

  Before Videssos’ outer wall was a broad, deep ditch. That outwall loomed, five or six times as tall as a man. Every fifty to a hundred yards stood square or hexagonal towers that were taller still. Krispos would have thought those works could hold out Skotos himself, let alone any mortal foe the city might face.

  But behind that outer wall stood ano
ther, mightier yet. Its towers were sited between those of the outwall, so some tower bore directly on every inch of ground in front of the wall.

  “Don’t stand there gawking, you miserable bumpkin,” someone called from behind Krispos. He turned and saw a gentleman with a fine hooded cloak to keep him dry. The rain had started the night before; long since soaked, Krispos had stopped caring about it.

  His cheeks hot, he hurried toward the gate. That proved a marvel in itself, with valves of iron and bronze and wood thick as a man’s body. Peering up as he walked under the outwall, he saw troopers looking down at him through iron gates. “What are they doing up there?” he asked a guardsman who was keeping traffic moving smoothly through the gate.

  The guard smiled. “Suppose you were an enemy and somehow you’d managed to batter down the outer door. How would you like to have boiling water or red-hot sand poured down on your head?”

  “Not very much, thanks.” Krispos shuddered.

  The gate guard laughed. “Neither would I.” He pointed to Krispos’ spear. “Have you come to join up? You’ll get better gear than that, I promise you.”

  “I might, depending on what kind of other luck I find here,” Krispos said.

  By the way the gate guard nodded, Krispos was sure he’d heard those words or ones much like them many times. The fellow said, “They use the meadow south of here, down by the sea, for a practice field. If you do need to look for an officer, you can find one there.”

  “Thanks. I’ll remember,” Krispos said. Everyone seemed to want to push him toward a soldier’s life. He shook his head. He still did not want to be a soldier. Surely in a city as great as Videssos was said to be, a city as great as her walls proclaimed her to be, he would be able to find something, anything, else to do with his life. He walked on.

  The valves of the inner wall’s gates were even stouter than those of the outwall. As Krispos passed under the inner wall, he looked up and saw another set of murder-holes. Feeling quite the city sophisticate, he gave the soldiers over his head a friendly nod and kept going. A few more steps and he was truly inside Videssos the city.

  Just as he had in front of the walls, he stopped in his tracks to stare. The only thing with which he could think to compare the view was the sea. Now, though, he gazed on a sea of buildings. He had never imagined houses and shops and golden-domed temples to Phos stretching as far as the eye could reach.

  Again someone behind him shouted for him to get moving. He took a few steps, then a few more, and soon found himself walking through the streets of the city. He had no idea where he was going; for the moment, one place seemed as good as another. It was all equally strange, and all equally marvelous.

  He flattened himself against the front of a shop to let a mule-drawn cart squeeze past. In his village, the driver would have been someone he knew. Even in Imbros, the fellow probably would have raised a finger to his forehead in thanks. Here, he paid Krispos no mind at all, though the squeaking wheels of his cart almost brushed the newcomer’s tunic. By the set look on his face, he had someplace important to go and not enough time to get there.

  That seemed to be a characteristic of the people on the streets. Living in the most splendid city in the world, they gave it even less notice than Krispos had the familiar houses of his village. They did not notice him, either, except when his slow walk exasperated them. Then they sidestepped and scooted past him with the adroitness, almost, of so many dancers.

  Their talk, the snatches of it that he picked up over the squeal of axles, the banging of coppersmiths’ hammers, and the patter of the rain, had the same quick, elusive quality to it as their walk. Sometimes he had to think to understand it, and some of what he heard eluded him altogether. It was Videssian, aye, but not the Videssian he had learned from his parents.

  He wandered for a couple of hours. Once he found himself in a large square that he thought was called the Forum of the Ox. He did not see any oxen in it, though everything else in the world seemed to be for sale there.

  “Fried squid!” a vendor shouted.

  A twist of breeze brought the savory scent of hot olive oil, breading, and seafood to Krispos’ nose. His stomach growled. Sightseeing, he realized suddenly, was hungry work. He wasn’t sure what a squid was, but asked, “How much?”

  “Three coppers apiece,” the man answered.

  Krispos still had some small change in his pouch from the last job he’d done before he got to the city. “Give me two.”

  The vendor plucked them from his brazier with a pair of tongs. “Mind your fingers, now, pal—they’re hot,” he said as he exchanged them for Krispos’ coins.

  Krispos almost dropped them, but not because they were hot. He shifted his spear to the crook of his elbow so he could point. “Can I eat these—these—” He did not even know the right word.

  “The tentacles? Sure—a lot of people say they’re the best part.” The local gave him a knowing smile. “Not from around these parts, are you?”

  “Er, no.” Krispos lost himself in the crowd; he did not want the squid-seller watching while he nerved himself to eat what he’d bought. The meat inside the breadcrumbs proved white and chewy, without any pronounced flavor; the tentacles weren’t much different, so far as he could tell, from the rest. He licked his fingers, flicked at his beard to dislodge stray crumbs, and walked on.

  Darkness began to fall. Krispos knew just enough of cities to try to find an inn. At last he did. “How much for a meal and a room?” he asked the tall thin man who stood behind a row of wine and beer barrels that served as a bar.

  “Five pieces of silver,” the innkeeper said flatly.

  Krispos flinched. Not counting his goldpiece, he did not have that much. No matter how he haggled, he could not bring the fellow down below three. “Can I sleep in the stables if I tend your animals or stand guard for you?” he asked.

  The innkeeper shook his head. “Got a horseboy, got a bouncer.”

  “Why are you so dear?” Krispos said. “When I bought squid cheap this afternoon, I figured everything else’d be—how would you say it?—in proportion.”

  “Aye, squid and fish and clams are cheap enough,” the innkeeper said. “If you just want a good fish stew, I’ll give you a big bowl for five coppers. We have lots of fish here. How not? Videssos is the biggest port in the world. But we have lots of people, too, so space, now, space’ll cost you.”

  “Oh.” Krispos scratched his head. What the innkeeper said made a strange kind of sense, even if he was not used to thinking in those terms. “I’ll take that bowl of stew, and thank you. But where am I supposed to sleep tonight? Even if it wasn’t raining, I wouldn’t want to do it on the streets.”

  “Don’t blame you.” The innkeeper nodded. “Likely you’d get robbed the first night—doesn’t matter how sharp your spear is if you’re not awake to use it. Armed that way, though, you could try the barracks.”

  “Not till I’ve tried everything else,” Krispos said stubbornly. “If I sleep in the barracks once, I’ll end up sleeping there for years. I just want a place to set my head till I find steady work.”

  “I see what you’re saying.” The innkeeper walked over to the fireplace, stirred the pot that hung over it with a wooden spoon. “Your best bet’d likely be a monastery. If you help with the chores, they’ll house you for a while, and feed you, too. Not a nice stew like this”—he ladled out a large, steaming bowlful—“but bread and cheese and beer, plenty to keep you from starving. Now let’s see those coppers, if you please.”

  Krispos paid him. The stew was good. The innkeeper gave him a heel of bread to sop up the last of it. He wiped his mouth on his damp sleeve, waited until the innkeeper was done serving another customer. Then he said, “A monastery sounds like a good idea. Where would I find one?”

  “There must be a dozen of ’em in the city.” The innkeeper stopped to think. “The one dedicated to the holy Pelagios is closest, but it’s small and hasn’t the room to take in many off the street. Better you shoul
d try the monastery of the holy Skirios. They always have space for travelers.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do that. How do I get there?” Krispos made the innkeeper repeat the directions several times; he wanted to be sure he had them straight. Once he was, he stood in front of the fire to soak up as much warmth as he could, then plunged into the night.

  He soon regretted it. The directions might have served well enough by daylight. In the dark, with half the firepots that should have lit the streets doused by rain, he got hopelessly lost. The innkeeper’s fire quickly became only a wistful memory.

  Few people were out and about so late. Some traveled in large bands and carried torches to light their way. Others walked alone, in darkness. One of those followed Krispos for blocks and sank back into deeper shadow whenever Krispos turned to look his way. Farm boy or not, he could figure out what that meant. He lowered his spear and took a couple of steps toward the skulker. The next time he looked around, the fellow was gone.

  The longer Krispos walked, the more he marveled at how many streets, and how many miles of streets, Videssos the city had. From the way his feet felt, he had tramped all of them—and none twice, for nothing looked familiar. Had he stumbled on another inn, he would have spent his lucky goldpiece without a second thought.

  Instead, far more by luck than design, he came upon a large low structure with several gates. All but one were barred and silent. Torches burned there, though, and a stout man in a blue robe stood in the gateway. He was armed with an even stouter cudgel, which he hefted when Krispos walked into the flickering circle of light the torches cast.

  “What building is this?” he asked as he approached. He trailed his spear, to look as harmless as he could.

  “This is the monastery that serves the memory of the holy Skirios, may Phos hallow his soul for all eternity,” the watchman replied.

  “May he indeed!” Krispos said fervently. “And may I beg shelter of you for the night? I’ve wandered the streets searching for this monastery for—for—well, it seems like forever.”