Harry Turtledove - Krispos of Videssos

"No, let him go back by himself," Krispos said. He succeeded in surprising his chamberlain, no easy feat. With a bow of acquiescence and an expression that spoke volumes, Barsymes led Gnatios toward the door of the imperial residence.

Krispos listened to the two sets of footsteps fading down the hall. He turned to Iakovitzes. "Well, what now?"

"Do you mean, what now as in giving Gnatios the High Temple back, or what now as in Harvas?" Iakovitzes wrote.

"I don't know," Krispos said, "and by the good god, I never expected the two questions to be wrapped up with each other." He sighed. "Let's talk about the patriarch first. Pyrrhos must go." In the two weeks since Krispos went up into the imperial niche at the High Temple, two more fights had broken out there— both of them, fortunately, small.

Iakovitzes scribbled. "Aye, my dear cousin's not the most yielding sort, is he? If you do want Gnatios back, maybe you can keep him in line by threatening to feed him to the Halogai the first time the word treason so much as tiptoes across the back of his twisty little mind."

"Something to that." Krispos remembered how Gnatios had cringed from a guardsman's axe the night he seized the Empire. He looked down at the tablet in his lap, then admiringly over to Iakovitzes. "Do you know, I hear your voice whenever I read what you write. Your words on wax or parchment capture the very tone of your speech. Whenever I try to set thoughts down, they always seem so stiff and formal. How do you do it?"

"Genius," Iakovitzes wrote. Krispos made as if to break the tablet over his head. The noble reclaimed it, then wrote a good deal more. He handed it to Krispos. "If you must have a long answer, for one thing, I came to writing earlier in life than you and have used it a good deal longer. For another, this is my voice now. Shall I be silent merely because I can no longer utter the more or less articulate croaks that most men use for speech?"

"I see the answer is no," Krispos said, thinking that Iakovitzes was about as unyielding as his cousin Pyrrhos. Refusing to yield to adversity struck him as more admirable than refusing to yield to common sense. The thought of Iakovitzes' adversity led to the one who had caused it. "Now, what of Harvas?"

Bright fear widened Iakovitzes' eyes, then left them as he visibly took a grip on himself. He bent over the tablet, used the blunt end of his stylus to smooth down the wax and give himself room to write. At last he passed Krispos his words. "Fight him as best we can. What else is there? Now that we have some notion of what he is, perhaps the wizards will better be able to arm themselves against him."

Krispos thumped himself on the forehead with the heel of his hand. "By the lord with the great and good mind, I haven't any mind at all. Gnatios has to tell his tale to Trokoundos before the day is through." He shouted for Barsymes again. The vestiarios transcribed his note and took it to a courier for delivery to Trokoundos.

That accomplished, Krispos leaned back on the couch. He had the battered feeling of a man to whom too much had happened too fast. If Harvas or Rhavas or whatever his proper name was had been perfecting his dark sorcery over half a dozen men's lives, no wonder he'd overcome a mere mortal like Trokoundos.

"To the ice with Harvas or Rhavas or whatever his proper name is," he muttered.

"What about Pyrrhos?" Iakovitzes wrote.

"You like to poke people with pointy sticks, just to see them jump," Krispos said. Iakovitzes' look of shocked indignation might have convinced someone who hadn't met him more than half a minute before. Krispos went on, "I don't wish the ice for Pyrrhos. I just wish he'd go back to his monastery and keep quiet. I'm not even likely to get that, worse luck. He won't bend, the stiff-necked old—"

Krispos stopped. His mouth hung open. His eyes went wide. "What are you gawping at?" Iakovitzes wrote. "It had better be Phos' holy light, to account for that idiotic expression you're wearing."

"It's the next best thing," Krispos assured him. He raised his voice: "Barsymes! Are you still there? Ah, good. I want you to draft me a note to the most holy patriarch Pyrrhos. Here's what you need to say—"

Barsymes stuck his head into the audience chamber. "The most holy patriarch Pyrrhos is here to see you, your Majesty."

"Good. He should be done to a turn by now." Krispos had put off four days of increasingly urgent requests from the patriarch for an audience. He turned to Iakovitzes, Mammianos, and Rhisoulphos. "Excellent and eminent sirs, I ask you to bear careful witness to what takes place here today, so that you may take oath on it at need."

The three nobles nodded, formally and solemnly. Mammianos said, "This had better work."

"The beauty of it is, I 'm no worse off if it doesn't," Krispos answered. "Now to business. I hear Pyrrhos coming."

The patriarch prostrated himself with his usual punctiliousness. He glanced at the three high-ranking men who sat to Krispos' left, but only for a moment. His eyes sparked as he swung them back to Krispos. "Your Majesty, I must vehemently protest this recent decision of yours." He drew out the note Krispos had sent him. "Oh? Why is that, most holy sir?"

Pyrrhos' jaw set. He knew when he was being toyed with. With luck, he did not know why. He ground out, "Because, your Majesty, you have restored to the monk Gnatios—the treacherous, wicked monk Gnatios—as much liberty as is enjoyed by the other brethren of the monastery dedicated to the sacred memory of the holy Skirios. Moreover, you have done so without consulting me." Plainer than words, his face said what he would have answered had Krispos consulted him.

"The monk Gnatios did a great service for me and for the Empire," Krispos said. "Because of that, I've decided to overlook his past failings."

" I haven't," Pyrrhos said. "This interference in the internal affairs of the temples is unwarranted and intolerable."

"In this special case, I judged not. And let me remind you that the Avtokrator is Avtokrator over all the Empire, cities and farms and temples alike. Most holy sir, I have the right if I choose to use it, and I choose to use it here."

"Intolerable," Pyrrhos repeated. He drew himself up. "Your Majesty, if you persist in you pernicious course, I have no choice but to submit to you my resignation in protest thereof."

Off to Krispos' left, someone sighed softly. He thought it was Rhisoulphos. It was all the applause he would ever get, but it was more than enough. "I'm sorry to hear that from you, most holy sir," he said to Pyrrhos. Just by a hair's breath, the patriarch began to relax. But Krispos was not finished. "I accept your resignation. These gentlemen will attest you offered it of your own free will, with no coercion whatsoever."

Iakovitzes, Mammianos, and Rhisoulphos nodded, formally and solemnly.

"You—planned this," Pyrrhos said in a ghastly voice. He saw everything, too late.

"I did not urge you to resign," Krispos pointed out. "You did it yourself. Now that you have done it, Barsymes will prepare a document for you to sign."

"And if I refuse to set my signature upon it?"

"Then you have resigned even so. As I said, holy sir—"

Pyrrhos scowled at the abrupt devaluation of his title. "—you resigned of your own accord, in front of witnesses. That may be smoothest all around. I would have removed you if you insisted on staying on—you promised to practice theological economy and tolerate what you could, but none of your sermons has shown even one drop of tolerance."

Pyrrhos said, "I see everything now. You will replace me with that panderer to evil, Gnatios. Without your knowing it, the dark god has taken hold of your heart."

Krispos leaned forward and spat on the floor. "That to the dark god! Look at your cousin here, holy sir. Remember what Harvas Black-Robe did to him. Would he fall into any trap Skotos might lay?"