Harry Turtledove - Krispos of Videssos

Fool, Krispos said to himself, would you rather have discovered she was guilty ?

He stepped out into the night. His Haloga guard stiffened to attention. "I'm going over to Mammianos' tent," Krispos said. The guardsman nodded and saluted.

Mammianos' guards were Videssians. They, too, saluted as Krispos came up. "I'd like to see your master," he said. One of the guards went into the tent. He emerged a moment later and held the flap wide.

Mammianos had a roasted chicken leg in one hand and a cup of wine in the other. He gestured to a platter on the ground in front of him. "Plenty more where this came from, your Majesty. Help yourself."

"Later, maybe," Krispos said. "First I want to known the latest word on Harvas' movements."

"I talked with some scouts not a quarter of an hour ago." Mammianos paused for another bite. "They've pushed into the woods that start north of Imbros. By all the signs, Harvas' raiders are in full retreat. The men had that Zaidas with them, so I don't think Harvas could have cozened them the way he did poor Mavros."

"If they aren't making a stand in the woods, that means they have to go all the way back to the mountain pass, doesn't it?"

"I think so, yes." Mammianos paused again, this time thoughtfully. "Once past the woods, there's no place between here and the mountains where I'd care to fight with footsoldiers against horse, at any rate."

"Good enough," Krispos said. "I'm going to leave the army in your hands for a while, then—maybe a week, maybe a little longer. I have to get back to Videssos the city as fast as I can; I've had word of a plot against me."

Too late, he wonder if Mammianos was part of the conspiracy. If so, the army might not be his when he came back to it. But the fat general had certainly had countless chances to overthrow him and had used none of them. Now he only nodded gravely and said, "Gnatios has decided he'd sooner be Emperor-maker than patriarch after all, has he? Or is it someone new this time?"

"No, it's Gnatios," Krispos said. He doubted Mammianos once more, but only for a moment. The general needed no guilty knowledge to make that guess, just the keen political sense he'd shown as long as Krispos had known him.

Mammianos sighed. "He's just like Petronas, Gnatios is: thinks he's cleverer than anyone else. Will you finally go and settle him for good?"

"Yes," Krispos said. "He's wriggled out of what he deserves too often, and then gone and deserved it again. I'll ride the courier relays down to the city and drop on him before he realizes I've come. Meanwhile, I want you to press ahead. If Harvas has fallen back to the pass, don't try to force your way through into Kubrat. We came to grief with that last year. But don't let him back into Videssos, either. With the men and mages you have, that should be no problem."

"No indeed, Majesty," Mammianos agreed. "But it's an expensive way to keep him out, if you'll forgive my being so bold as to say so."

"I know," Krispos said. "I'm beginning to have an idea about that, but it's not ripe yet. I'll talk more about it with you after I get back."

"As you say, Majesty." Mammianos tossed aside a bare bone.

"Now, would you care for a chunk of this bird? The white wine I have here goes nicely with it, too. You wouldn't want to set out riding on an empty stomach, would you?"

"No, I suppose not." Krispos ate and drank with Mammianos. Through a mouthful of meat, he said, "I'll even sleep here through the night. Can't go far in the darkness, anyhow."

"True, true. If you don't want anything more there, I'll finish that off for you. All, thanks very much." With a little help from Krispos, Mammianos had completely devoured the chicken. He sighed. "I'm still hungry."

"I envy you your appetite," Krispos said. Mammianos chuckled hoarsely. "I'm getting old, your Majesty. Nice one of my appetites works as it did when I was young, or maybe even better. It's not the one I would have chosen, but then, the choice wasn't up to me."

Krispos went back to his own tent a few minutes later. "I want to be roused at first light," he told the guard. "Tell your relief to have Progress saddled and ready for me."

"It shall be done, Majesty," the guardsman promised. Done it was, but when Krispos went to climb aboard Progress, he found the scout commander Sarkis and a squad of his men waiting, each of them already mounted. "Best we ride back to the city with you, your Majesty, to keep you safe."

Krispos glared. "By the good god, excellent sir, can I do nothing secret?"

"Not if it puts you in danger," Sarkis answered firmly. His men nodded. Krispos glared again. It did no good. He spurred Progress, moving quickly into a trot and then a gallop. The scouts' horses were nothing special to look at, but had no trouble keeping pace.

Every couple of hours, he and his unwanted companions changed mounts at a courier relay station. His backside and inner thighs grew chafed and sore long before the end of the first day in the saddle—riding hard from dawn to dusk was far different from ambling along at the slow pace of the imperial army. But the miles melted away.

That night Krispos slept like a dead man. The attendants at the relay station had to shake him awake when morning came. He rose grumpily from his bedroll, but managed to say, "Thanks for not worrying about my imperial dignity there."

One of the attendants grinned. "Majesty, right now you smell more like a horse than an Avtokrator, if you know what I mean."

"I hadn't even noticed," Krispos said; after so long in close contact with horses, his nose no longer reported their presence. "It's not a bad smell." He'd spent years in the stables, first for Iakovitzes, then for Petronas. Sarkis and the scouts were ready to go when Krispos mounted his latest horse. He scowled at them for being so fresh. His own rear end gave a painful protest as he settled himself in the saddle. He did his best to ignore it. His best was not good enough.

His eyes blurred with tears from the wind of his passage. He rode on. One of the horses he took had a gait hard enough to shake his teeth and his kidneys loose. He rode on. A scout's horse went lame. The fellow rode double to the next station. He got a fresh animal and they all rode on.

When Krispos stopped at last on that second day, he dismounted with the slow, brittle caution of a man twice his age. Even the iron-arsed scouts were less limber than when they'd set out. But Sarkis said, "One day more and we're in the city."

"A good thing, too," Krispos said feelingly, "for I'd never make two days more." None of the scouts laughed at him. That was the best sign he'd done enough to win their respect.

Everyone grumbled the next morning, but everyone wearily scrambled onto a horse and rode south. The horses were fresh. They went hard to the next station, but then got to rest. There was no rest for Krispos and the scouts.

Just when he was convinced he'd been on horseback forever and would stay on horseback forevermore, the walls of Videssos appeared on the southwestern horizon ahead. It was late afternoon. "Under three days," Sarkis said. "Your Majesty, were I the head of the imperial courier service, I'd hire you."

"Oh, no you wouldn't, for it's not work I'd ever seek," Krispos retorted. The scouts laughed. Krispos spurred his horse on toward the capital.

X

Gnatios stood at the altar in the center of the High Temple, chanting the sunset prayers that thanked Phos for the day's light and bid the sun to return safely on the morrow. The benches were mostly empty; only a few pious souls joined him in the day's last liturgy.

Still wearing the trousers and tunic in which he'd ridden, Krispos strode up the temple aisle toward the ecumenical patriarch. He felt bowlegged and wondered if it showed. Behind him, sabers drawn, came Sarkis and the squad of scouts. Behind them tramped a squad of Halogai, part of the company that had been left behind to protect Dara and Phostis.