Harry Turtledove - Krispos Rising

Krispos did hit him then, not too hard. They scuffled good-naturedly for a couple of minutes. Krispos finally got a hammerlock on Mavros. Mavros was whimpering, without much conviction, when Eroulos came up to the two of them. "If you're quite finished ..." the steward said pointedly.

"What is it?" Krispos let go of Mavros, who somehow contrived to look innocent and rub his wrist at the same time.

The theatrics were wasted; Eroulos took no notice of him. He spoke to Krispos instead, "Go back to the Grand Courtroom at once. One of his Imperial Majesty's servants is waiting for you there."

"For me?" Krispos squeaked.

"I am not in the habit of repeating myself," Eroulos said. Krispos waited no longer. He dashed for the Grand Courtroom. Mavros might have waved good-bye. Krispos did not turn his head to see.

The guards outside Petronas' wing of the Grand Courtroom swung down their spears when they saw someone running toward them. Recognizing Krispos, they relaxed. One of them pointed to a man leaning against the side of the building. "Here's the fellow been waiting for you."

"You are Krispos?" Anthimos' servitor was tall, thin, and erect, but his hairless cheeks and sexless voice proclaimed him a eunuch. "I was given to understand that you were the Sevastokrator's chief groom, not that you would stink of horses yourself." His own scent was of attar of roses.

"I work," Krispos said shortly.

The eunuch's sniff told what he thought of that. "In any event, I am commanded to bid you come to a festivity his Imperial Majesty will hold tomorrow evening. I shall return then to guide you. I most respectfully suggest that, no matter how virtuous you deem your labors, the odor of the stables would be out of place."

Krispos felt his cheeks heat. Biting back an angry retort, he nodded. The eunuch's bow was fluid perfection, or would have been had he not made it so deep as to suggest scorn rather than courtesy.

"You don't want to get into a meaner-than-thou contest with a eunuch," one of the guards remarked after the Avtokrator's servant was too far away to hear. "You'll regret it every time."

"You'd be mean, too, if you'd had that done to you," another guard said. All the troopers chuckled. Krispos also smiled, but he thought the guard was right. Having lost so much, eunuchs could hardly be blamed for getting their own back in whatever petty ways they could devise.

He knocked off a little early the next afternoon to go from the stables to a bathhouse; he would not give that supercilious eunuch another chance to sneer at him. He oiled himself, scraped his skin with a curved strigil, and paid a boy a copper to get the places he could not reach. The cold plunge and hot soak that followed left him clean and helped loosen tired, tight muscles. He was all but purring as he walked back to the Grand Courtroom.

This time he waited for the Avtokrator's eunuch to arrive. The eunuch gave a disapproving sniff; perhaps, Krispos thought, he was seeking the lingering aroma of horse. "Come along," he said, sounding no happier for failing to find it.

Krispos had never been to—had never even seen—the small building to which his guide led him. He was not surprised; the palace quarter held dozens of buildings, large and small, he'd never been to. Some of the large ones were barracks for the regiments of imperial guards. Some of the small ones held soldierly supplies. Others were buildings former Emperors had used, but that now stood empty, awaiting the pleasure of an Avtokrator yet to come. This one, secluded among willows and pear trees, looked to be where Anthimos himself awaited pleasure.

Krispos heard the music when he was still walking the winding path under the trees. Whoever was playing, he thought, had more enthusiasm than skill. Raucous voices accompanied the musicians. He needed a moment to recognize the tavern song they were roaring out. Only when they came to the refrain—"The wine gets drunk but you get drunker! "—was he sure. Loud applause followed.

"They seem to have started already," he remarked.

The eunuch shrugged. "It's early yet. They'll still have their clothes on, most of them."

"Oh." Krispos wondered whether he meant most of the revelers or most of their clothes. He supposed it was about the same either way.

By then they were at the door. A squad of guardsmen stood just outside, big blond Haloga mercenaries with axes. An amphora of wine almost as tall as they were stood beside them, its pointed end rammed into the ground. One of them saw Krispos looking at it. The northerner's wide, foolish grin said he'd already made use of the dipper that stuck out of the jug, and his drawling Haloga accent was not the only thing that thickened his speech. "A good duty here, yes it is."

Krispos wondered what Petronas would do if he caught one of his own guards drunk on duty. Nothing pleasant, he was certain. Then the eunuch took him inside, and all such musings were swept away.

"It's Krispos!" Anthimos exclaimed. He set down the flute he'd been playing—no wonder the music sounded ragged, Krispos thought—and rushed up to embrace the newcomer. "Let's have a cheer for Krispos!"

Everyone obediently cheered. Krispos recognized some of the young nobles with whom he'd hunted, and a few people who had been at some of the wilder feasts he'd gone to with Iakovitzes. Most of the folk here, though, were strange to him, and by the look of some of them, he would have been as glad to have them stay so.

Torches of spicy-smelling sandalwood lit the chamber. It was strewn with lilies and violets, roses and hyacinths, which added their sweet scents to the air. Many of the Emperor's guests were also drenched in perfume. Krispos admitted to himself that his eunuch guide had been right—the odor of horse did not belong here.

"Help yourself to anything," Anthimos said. "Later you can help yourself to anybody." Krispos laughed nervously, though he did not think the Avtokrator was joking.

He took a cup of wine and a puffy pastry that proved to be stuffed with forcemeat of lobster. As Petronas had in the Hall of the Nineteen Couches, a noble rose to give a toast. He had to wait a good deal longer for quiet than the Sevastokrator had. Getting some at last, he called, "Here's to Krispos, who saved his Majesty and saved our fun with him!"

This time the cheers were louder. No one here, Krispos thought, would be able to revel like this without Anthimos' largess. Had the wolf killed Anthimos, Petronas would surely have taken the throne for himself. After that, most of the people here tonight would have counted themselves lucky not to be whipped out of the city.

Anthimos set down his golden cup. "What goes in must come out," he declared. He picked up a chamber pot and turned his back on his guests. The chamber pot was also gold, decorated with fancy enamelwork. Krispos wondered how many like it the Avtokrator had. For golden chamber pots, he thought, he'd been taxed off his land.

The notion should have made him furious. It did anger him, but less than he would have thought possible. He tried to figure out why. At last he decided that Anthimos just was not the sort pf young man who inspired fury. All he wanted to do was enjoy himself.

A very pretty girl put her hand on Krispos' chest. "Do you want to?" she asked, and waved to a mountain of pillows piled against one wall.

He stared at her. She was worth staring at. Her green silk gown was modestly cut, but thinned to transparency in startling places. But that was not why he gaped. His rustic standards had taken a beating since he came to Videssos. Several times he'd gone off with female entertainers after a feast, and once with the bored wife of one of the other guests. But "In front of everyone?" he blurted.

She laughed at him. "You're a new one here, aren't you?" She left without even giving him a chance to answer. He took another cup of wine and drank it quickly to calm his shaken nerves.