Harry Turtledove - Krispos Rising

Krispos waited for Lexo to explode, but the envoy's smile did not waver. "I'd heard you were charming," he said evenly.

Just as he was armored against insult, so was Iakovitzes against irony. "I don't care what you've heard, sir. I've heard—these documents say, loud and clear—that the proper frontier between our lands is the Akkilaion River, not the Mnizou as you have claimed. How dare you contradict them?"

"Because the memories of my people are long," Lexo said. Iakovitzes snorted. Lexo took no notice, but went on, "Memories are like leaves, you know. They pile up in the forests of our minds, and we go scuffing through them."

Iakovitzes snorted again, louder. "Very pretty. I hadn't heard Gumush was sending out poets to speak for him these days. I'd have thought their disregard for the truth disqualified them."

"You flatter me for my poor words," Lexo said. "Should you desire true poetry, I will give you the tribal lays of my folk."

He began to declaim, partly in his lisping Videssian, more often in a speech that reminded Krispos of the one the Kubratoi used among themselves. He nodded, remembering that the ancestors of both Khatrishers and Kubratoi had come off the Pardrayan steppe long ago.

"I could go on for some while," Lexo said after going on for some while, "but I hope you get the gist: that the great raid of Balbad Badbal's son reached the Mnizou and drove all Videssians over it. Thus it is only just for Khatrish to claim the Mnizou as its southern boundary."

"Gumush's grandfather didn't, nor his father either," Iakovitzes replied, unmoved by his opponent's oratory. "If you stack the treaties they signed against your tribal lays, the treaties weigh heavier."

"How can any man presume to know where the balance between them lies, any more than a man can know the Balance between Phos and Skotos in the world?" Lexo said. "They both have weight; that is what Sisinnios would not see nor admit."

"Believe in the Balance and go to the ice, they teach us in Videssos," Iakovitzes said, "so I'll thank you not to drag your eastern heresy into a serious argument. Just as Phos will vanquish Skotos in the end, so shall our border be restored to its proper place, which is to say, the Akkilaion."

"Just as my doctrine is your heresy, the reverse also applies." Where his faith was questioned, Lexo lost his air of detached amusement. In a sharper voice than he'd used before, he went on, "I might also point out that the land between the Mnizou and the Akkilaion has quite as many Khatrishers herding as it does Videssians farming. The concept of the Balance seems relevant."

"Throw precedent into your cursed Balance," Iakovitzes suggested. "It will weigh down on the side of truth—the side of Videssos."

"The lay of Balbad Badbal's son, as I have suggested —" Irony again, this time laid on heavily enough to make Iakovitzes scowl "—is precedent older than any in that stack of moldering parchments in which you set your stock."

"That lay is a lie," Iakovitzes growled.

"Sir, it is not." Lexo met Iakovitzes' glare with his own. Had they been wearing swords, they might have used those, too.

In their duel, they'd so completely forgotten about Krispos that they both stared at him when he asked, "Is age the most important thing that goes into a precedent?"

"Yes," Lexo said in the same breath Iakovitzes used to say, "No."

"If it is," Krispos went on, "shouldn't Videssos claim all of Khatrish? The Empire ruled it long before the Khatrishers' forefathers arrived there."

"Not the same thing at all—" Lexo began, while Iakovitzes burst out, "By the good god, so we—" He, too, stopped before his sentence was done. Sheepishness did not suit his sharp-featured face, but it was there. "I think we've just been whirled round on ourselves," he said, much more quietly than he had been speaking.

"Perhaps we have," Lexo admitted. "Shall we thank your spatharios for the treatment?" He nodded to Krispos. "I must also crave your pardon, young sir. I see you do have some use beyond the ornamental."

"Why, so he does." Krispos would have been happier with Iakovitzes' agreement had his master sounded less surprised.

Lexo sighed. "If you set aside your folder there, eminent sir, I will sing you no more lays."

"Oh, very well." Iakovitzes seldom yielded anything with good grace. "Now, though, I have to find some other way to make you see that those herders you spoke of will have to fare north of the Akkilaion where they belong."

"I like that." Lexo's tone said he did not like it at all. "Why shouldn't your farmers be the ones to move?"

"Because nomads are nomads, of course. It's much harder to pack up good farmland and ride away with it."

The bargaining began again, in earnest this time, now that each man had seen he could not presume too far on the other. That first session yielded no agreement, nor did the second, nor the sixth. "We'll get our answer, though," Iakovitzes said one evening back at Bolkanes' inn. "I can feel it."

"I hope so." Krispos picked at the mutton in front of him—he was tired of fish.

Iakovitzes eyed him shrewdly. "So now you are bored, eh? Didn't I warn you would be?"

"Maybe I am, a little," Krispos said. "I didn't expect we would be here for weeks. I thought the Sevastokrator sent you here just because Sisinnios wasn't making any progress with Lexo."

"Petronas did, Sisinnios wasn't, and I am," Iakovitzes said. "These disputes take years to develop; they don't go away overnight. What, did you expect Lexo all of a sudden to break down and concede everything on account of the brilliance of my rhetoric?"

Krispos had to smile. "Put that way, no."

"Hrmmp. You might have said yes, to salve my self-respect. But schedules for how the Khatrishers withdraw, how much we pay them to go, and whether we pay the khagan or give the money direct to the herders who will be leaving—all such things have plenty of room in them for horse trading. That's what Lexo and I are doing now, seeing who ends up with a swaybacked old nag."

"I guess so," Krispos said. "I'm afraid it's not very interesting to listen to, though."

"Go ahead and do something else for a while, then," Iakovitzes said. "I expected you to give up long before this. And you've even been useful in the dickering a couple of times, too, which I didn't expect at all. You've earned some time off."

So Krispos, instead of closeting himself with the diplomats, went wandering through Opsikion. After those of Videssos the city, its markets seemed small and for the most part dull. The only real bargains Krispos saw were fine furs from Agder, which lay in the far northeast, near the Haloga country. He had more money now than ever before, and less to spend it on, but he could not come close to affording a snow-leopard jacket. He came back to the furriers' stall several times, to peer and to wish.

He bought a coral pendant to take back to his seamstress friend. He almost paid for it with his lucky goldpiece. Since it had stopped being his only goldpiece, he'd kept it wrapped in a bit of cloth at the bottom of his pouch. Somehow it got loose. He noticed just in time to substitute another coin.

The jeweler weighed that one to make sure it was good. When he saw it was, he shrugged. "Gold is gold," he said as he gave Krispos his change.

"Sorry," Krispos said. "I just didn't want to part with that one."

"I've had other customers tell me the same thing," the jeweler said. "If you want to make sure you don't spend it by mistake, why not wear it on a chain around your neck? Wouldn't take me long to bore through it, and here's a very nice chain. Or if you'd rather have this one ..."

Krispos came out of the shop with the lucky goldpiece bumping against his chest under his tunic. It felt odd there for the first few days. After that, he stopped noticing he was wearing it. He even slept with it on.