Harry Turtledove - Krispos of Videssos

"May Phos be with you, your Majesty!" the people shouted back.

Savianos stepped close to Krispos. "You've made them like you, your Majesty,'" he said, too quietly for anyone but Krispos to hear in the turmoil.

Krispos eyed him curiously. "Not 'love,' most holy sir? Most men would say that, if they aimed to pay a compliment."

"Let most men say what they will and curry favors as they will," Savianos answered. "Wouldn't you like to have at least one man around who tells you what he thinks to be the truth?"

"Now I have two," Krispos said. It was Savianos' turn to look curious. Krispos went on, "Or has Iakovitzes died in the last quarter of an hour?" He knew perfectly well that Iakovitzes hadn't died. Were the Sevastos still able to speak, he'd have been on the platform with Krispos and the patriarch.

Savianos dipped his head. "There you have me, your Majesty." One of his bushy eyebrows lifted. "At least I won't envenom it before I give it to you."

"Ha! I ought to tell him you said that, just to see some venom come your way. But since the good god knows you're not altogether wrong, I'll let you get away with it."

"Your Majesty is merciful," Savianos said. His eyebrow went up again.

"Oh, hogwash," Krispos said with a snort. He and his patriarch smiled at each other. Then he turned to face the crowd once more. He raised his hands. A few at a time, people noticed him, pointed. The plaza of Palamas grew if not quiet, quieter. "People of the city, soldiers of the Empire, as far as I'm concerned, this gathering is done," he said. "Go on and celebrate!"

One last cheer, louder than the rest, filled the square and reverberated from the Milestone and the outer wall of the Amphitheater. Krispos waved to the crowd, then started for the stairs that led down from the platform. "And how will you celebrate, your Majesty?" Savianos called after him.

"Not with revels like the ones Anthimos enjoyed," Krispos answered. "Me, I'm just another man with a family, coming back from the war. All I want to do right now is see my new baby and my wife."

The palm of Dara's hand cracked against Krispos' cheek. He caught her wrist before she could hit him again. "Let me go, you bastard!" she screamed. "You think you can pull off your robe as soon as you go on campaign, do you? And with Mavros' mother, of all people? By the good god, she must be old enough to be your mother, too."

Hardly, Krispos thought, but he knew better than to say that out loud. What he did say was, "Will you listen to me, please?" He was more than a little appalled. He'd thought of so much on the campaign just past; he hadn't thought that rumors about Tanilis and him would get back to Videssos the city so fast.

"What's there to listen to, curse you?" Dara tried to kick him in the shins. "Did you take her to bed with you or not?"

"Yes, but—" She punctuated the sentence by trying to kick him again. This time she succeeded.

"Aii!" he said. The pain roused his own anger. When she started screaming at him again, he outyelled her. "If it weren't for Tanilis, I'd be dead now, and the whole army with me."

"Bugger the army, and bugger you, too."

"Why are you so furious at me?" he demanded. "Anthimos was unfaithful to you twice a day—three or four times, when he could manage that many—and you put up with him for years."

Dara opened her mouth to screech more abuse at him but hesitated. He enjoyed a moment of relief—the first moment he'd enjoyed since he walked into the imperial residence. In slightly softer tones than she'd used thus far, she said, "I expected it from Anthimos. I didn't expect it from you."

Krispos heard the hurt in her voice along with the outrage. "I didn't expect it from me, either, not exactly," he said. "It's just that, well, Tanilis and I knew each other a long time ago, before I ever came to the palaces."

" Knew each other?" Now it was all outrage again. "That makes it worse, not better. If you missed her so much, why didn't you just send for her when you got the urge?"

"It wasn't like that," Krispos protested. "And it wasn't as if I set out to seduce her for the first time. It was just—" The more he talked, the deeper in trouble he found himself. He gave up and spread his hands in defeat. "I made a mistake. What can I say? The only thing I can think of is that it's not the sort of mistake I'm likely to make again."

Dara twisted the knife. "There aren't another threescore women you knew in those long-lost and forgotten days out there pining for you now?" But then she hesitated again. "I don't think I ever heard Anthimos say he made a mistake."

One of the things Krispos had learned from repeated meetings with his officers was to change the subject when he didn't have all the answers. He said, "Dara, could I please see my new son?"

He'd hoped that would further soften her. It didn't work. Instead, she flared up again. " Your new son? And what were you doing while I was panting like a dog and screaming like a man on the rack to make your son come into the world? You don't need to tell me with whom you were doing it. I already know that."

"By the letter you sent, on the day Evripos was born, the army was fighting its way north from the mountains into Kubrat. And I wasn't doing anything more with Tanilis then than traveling in the same army." What he'd been doing when her letter arrived ... but she hadn't asked him that.

" Then," she said, a word that spoke volumes all by itself. She went on bitterly, "You even had the brass to acclaim her to the people today."

He wondered how she'd learned that. Nothing in Videssos the city flew faster than gossip. He said, "Whatever you think of me, whatever you think of her, she deserved to be acclaimed to them. I told you once, you'd be a widow now if not for her."

Dara gave him a long, cold, measuring stare. "That might be better. I warned you not to trifle with me."

Krispos remembered what Rhisoulphos had asked him—how would he dare fall asleep beside her? He said, "Careful, there. You'd have had no joy bargaining with Harvas Black-Robe over the fate of the Empire."

"I would have bargained with someone besides Harvas." She was angry enough to add one thing more: "I still may. I brought you the throne, after all."

"And you think you can take it away again, is that what you're saying? That the only reason I belong on it is because I married you?" He shook his head. "Maybe that was so two years ago. I don't think it is anymore. I beat Petronas, I beat Harvas. People are used to me with a crown on my head, and they see I can manage well enough." Now he glared coldly at her. "And so, if I wanted to, I expect I could send you to a convent, go on about my affairs here, and get away with it quite handily. Do you doubt me?"

"You wouldn't."

"To save myself, I would. But I don't want to. If we only had a marriage of convenience—" As he groped for the phrase, he remembered Tanilis using it. He shook his head, wishing he hadn't come up with the memory at exactly this moment. "—I think I could put you aside now and not have much trouble over it. I just told you that. I could have arranged it as I was on the way home from Kubrat. I came back here, though, because I love you, curse it."

Dara was not ready to give in, or to let him down easy. "I suppose you'd say the same thing if Tanilis had come back with you."

He winced, as if from a low blow. For all his wishing that Tanilis had lived, he hadn't thought about how he would handle her and Dara both. Badly was the answer that sprang to mind; between the two of them, they'd have made mincemeat of him in short order. Dara was doing a good job by herself.

He answered as best he could: "Might-have-beens don't matter. They aren't real, so how can you tell what's true about them? That just makes for more arguments. We don't need more arguments right now."