Harry Turtledove - Krispos Rising

All at once, the grumbles turned to shouts of delight—a stag sprang out of the brush almost in front of the hunters' faces and darted across the grass.

"After him!" Anthimos yelled. He dug spurs into his horse's flank. Someone loosed an arrow that flew nowhere near the fleeing stag.

None of the hunters—not even Krispos, who should have paused to wonder—bothered to ask himself why the stag had burst from cover so close to them. They were young enough, and maybe drunk enough, to think of it as the perfect ending the day deserved. They were altogether off guard, then, when the pack of wolves that had been chasing the stag ran onto the meadow right under their horses' hooves.

The horses screamed. Some of the men screamed, too, as their mounts leaped and reared and bucked and did their best to throw them off. The wolves yelped and snarled; they'd been intent on their quarry and were at least as taken aback as the hunters by the sudden encounter. The stag bounded into the woods and vanished.

Maybe only Krispos saw the stag go. His mount was a sturdy gelding, fast enough and strong enough, but with no pretense to fine breeding. Thus he was in the rear of the hunters' pack when they encountered the wolves, and on a beast that did not have to be coaxed out of hysteria if a leaf blew past its nose.

No one, of course, rode a higher-bred horse than Anthimos'. Iakovitzes could not have thrown a finer fit than that animal did. Anthimos was a fine rider, but fine riders fall, too. He landed heavily and lay on the ground, stunned. Some of the other hunters cried out in alarm, but most were too busy trying to control their own mounts and fight off the wolves that snapped at their horses' legs and bellies and hindquarters to come to the Emperor's aid.

A big wolf padded toward him. It drew back for a moment when he groaned and stirred, then came forward again. Its tongue lolled from its mouth, red as blood. Ah, crippled prey , that lupine smile seemed to say. Easy meat.

Krispos shouted at the wolf. In the din, the shout was one among many. He had a bow, but did not trust it; he was no horse-archer. He drew out an arrow and shot anyway. In a romance, his need would have made the shaft fly straight and true.

He missed. He came closer to hitting Anthimos than the wolf. Cursing, he grabbed the mace that swung from his belt for finishing off large game—in the unlikely event he ever killed any, he thought, disgusted with himself for his poor shooting.

He hurled the mace with all his strength. It spun through the air. The throw was not what he'd hoped, either—in his mind, he'd seen the spiky knob smashing in the wolf's skull. Instead, the wooden handle struck it a stinging blow on the nose.

That sufficed. The wolf yelped in startled pain and sat back on its haunches. Before it worked up the nerve to advance on the Avtokrator again, another hunter managed to get his horse between it and Anthimos. Iron-shod hooves flashed near its face. It snarled and ran off.

Someone who was a better archer than Krispos drove an arrow into another wolf's belly. The wounded animal's howls of pain made more of the pack take to their heels. A couple of wolves got all the way round the hunters and picked up the stag's scent again. They loped after it. As far as Krispos was concerned, they were welcome to it.

The hunters leaped off their horses and crowded round the fallen Emperor. They all yelled when, after a minute or two, he managed to sit. Rubbing his shoulder, he said, "I take it back. This preserve has quite enough game already."

Even the Avtokrator's feeblest jokes won laughter. "Are you all right, your Majesty?" Krispos asked along with everyone else.

"Let me find out." Anthimos climbed to his feet. His grin was shaky. "All in one piece. I didn't think I would be, not unless that cursed wolf was big enough to swallow me whole. It looked to have the mouth for the job."

He tried to bend down, grunted, and clutched his ribs. "Have to be careful there." A second, more cautious, try succeeded. When he straightened again, he was holding the mace. "Whose is this?"

Krispos had to give his fellow hunters credit. He'd thought some ready-for-aught would speak up at once and claim he'd saved the Avtokrator. Instead, they all looked at one another and waited. "Er, it's mine," Krispos said after a moment.

"Here, let me give it back to you, then," Anthimos said. "Believe me, I won't forget where it came from."

Krispos nodded. That was an answer Petronas might have given. If the Avtokrator had some of the same stuff in him as the Sevastokrator, Videssos might fare well even if something befell Anthimos' capable uncle.

"Let's head back toward the city," Anthimos said. "This time I really mean it." One of the young nobles had recaptured the Emperor's horse. He grimaced as he got into the saddle, but rode well enough.

All the same, the hunting party remained unusually subdued, even when they were back inside the palace quarter. They all knew they'd had a brush with disaster.

Krispos tried to imagine what Petronas would have done if they'd come back with the news that Anthimos had got himself killed in some fribbling hunting accident. Of course, the accident would have made the Sevastokrator Emperor of Videssos. But it would also have raised suspicions that it was no accident, that Petronas had somehow arranged it. Under such circumstances, would the Sevastokrator be better off rewarding the witnesses who established his own innocence or punishing them to show they should have protected Anthimos better?

Krispos found himself unsure of the answer and glad he did not have to find out.

As the hunting band broke up, a noble leaned over to Krispos and said quietly, "I think I'd give a couple of inches off my prong to have saved the Avtokrator the way you did."

Krispos looked the fellow over. He was scarcely out of his teens, yet he rode a fine horse that he surely owned, unlike Krispos' borrowed gelding. His shirt was silk, his riding breeches fine leather, and his spurs silver. His round, plump face said he'd never known a day's hunger. Even if he hadn't saved Anthimos, he was assured a more than comfortable life.

"I mean no disrespect, excellent sir, but I'm not sure the price you name is high enough," Krispos answered after a moment's pause. "I need the luck more than you do, you see, having started with so much less of it. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to my master's stables."

The noble stared after him as he rode away. He suspected—no, he was certain—he should have held his tongue. He was already far better at that than most men his age. Now he saw he would have to grow better still.

"So when does the most holy Gnatios set the crown on your head?" Mavros asked when he saw Krispos coming out of Petronas' stables a couple of days after the hunt.

"Oh, shut up," Krispos told his adopted brother. He was not worried about Mavros' betraying him; he just wanted him off his back. Mavros' teasing was the most natural thing in the world. Though Krispos hadn't bragged about what he'd done, the story was all over the palaces.

"Shut up? This humble spatharios hears and obeys, glad only that your magnificence has deigned to grant him to boon of words." Mavros swept off his hat and folded himself like a clasp knife in an extravagant bow.

Krispos wanted to hit him. He found himself laughing instead. "Humble, my left one." He snorted. Mavros had trouble taking anything seriously; after a while, so did anyone who came near him.

"Your left one would look very fine in a dish of umbles," Mavros said.

"Someone ought to run a currycomb over your tongue," Krispos told him.

"Is this another of your innovations in equestrian care?" Mavros stuck out the organ in question and crossed his eyes to look down at it. "Yes, it does seem in need of grooming. Go ahead; see if you can put a nice sheen on its coat."