Harry Turtledove - Krispos of Videssos

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.