Harry Turtledove - Krispos of Videssos

"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.

VI

Krispos shaded his eyes with a hand as he looked northward. The horizon ahead was still smooth. He sighed and shook his head. "When I start seeing the mountains, I'll know I'm close to the country where I grew up," he said.

"Close also to where the trouble is," Sarkis observed.