Harry Turtledove - Krispos Rising

Before long, a couple did avail themselves of the pillows. Krispos found himself watching without having intended to. He tore his gaze away. A moment later, he found his eyes sliding that way again. Annoyed at himself, he turned his back on the whole wall.

Most of the revelers took no special notice of the entwined pair, by the way they went on about their business, they'd seen such displays often enough not to find them out of the ordinary. A few offered suggestions. One made the man pause in what he was doing long enough to say, "Try that yourself if you're so keen on it. I did once, and I hurt my back." Then he fell to once more, matter-of-fact as if he were laying bricks.

Not far from Anthimos sat one who did nothing but watch the sportive couple. The robes he wore were as rich as the Avtokrator's and probably cost a good deal more, for they needed to be larger to cover his bulk. His smooth, beardless face let Krispos count his chins. Another eunuch, he thought, and then, Well, let him watch—it's probably as close as he can come to the real thing.

Some of the entertainment was more nearly conventional. Real musicians took up the instruments Anthimos and his cronies had set down. Acrobats bounced among the guests and sometimes sprang over them. The only thing remarkable about the jugglers, aside from their skill, was that they were all women, all lovely, and all bare or nearly so.

Krispos admired the aplomb one of them showed when a man came up behind her and fondled her breast. The stream of fruit she kept in the air never wavered—until a very ripe peach landed splat ! on the fellow's head. He swore and raised a fist to her, but the storm of laughter in the room made him lower it again, his dripping face like thunder.

"Zotikos draws the first chance of the evening!" Anthimos said loudly. More laughter came. Krispos joined in, though he wasn't quite sure what the Avtokrator meant. Anthimos went on, "Here, Skombros, go ahead and give him a real one."

The eunuch who had stared so avidly at the couple making love now rose from his seat. So this was Petronas' rival, Krispos thought. Skombros walked over to a table and picked up a crystal bowl full of little golden balls. With great dignity, he carried it over to Zotikos, who was trying to comb peach fragments out of his hair and beard.

Krispos watched curiously. Zotikos took one of the balls from the bowl. He twisted it between his hands. It came open. He snatched out the little strip of parchment inside. When he scanned it, his face fell.

Skombros delicately plucked the parchment from his fingers. The eunuch's voice was loud, clear, and musical as a middle-range horn's as he read what was written there: "Ten dead dogs."

More howls of laughter, and some out and out howls. Servants brought Zotikos the dead animals and dropped them at his feet. He stared at them, at Skombros, and at the bare-breasted juggler who had started his humiliation for the evening. Then, cursing, he stormed out of the hall. A chorus of yips pursued him and sped him on his way. By the time he got to the door, he was running.

"He didn't seem to want his chance. What a pity," Anthimos said. The Emperor's smile was not altogether pleasant. "Let's let someone else have a go. I know! How about Krispos?"

Anger filled Krispos as Skombros approached. Was this his reward for rescuing Anthimos—a chance to be one of the butts for the Avtokrator's jokes? He wanted to kick the crystal bowl out of Skombros' hands. Instead, grim-faced, he drew out a ball and opened it. The parchment inside was folded.

Skombros watched, cool and contemptuous, as Krispos fumbled with it. "Do you read, groom?" he asked, not bothering to keep his voice down.

"I read, eunuch," Krispos snapped. Nothing whatever changed in Skombros' face, but Krispos knew he had made an enemy. He finally got the parchment open. "Ten—" His voice suddenly broke, as if he were a boy. "—ten pounds of silver."

"How fortunate of you," Skombros said tonelessly.

Anthimos rushed up and planted a wine-soaked kiss on Krispos' cheek. "Good for you!" he exclaimed. "I was hoping you'd get a good one!"

Krispos hadn't known there were any good ones. He stood, still dazed, as a servant brought him a fat, jingling sack. Only when he felt the weight of it in his hands did he believe the money was for him. Ten pounds of silver was close to half a pound of gold: thirty goldpieces, he worked out after a little thought.

To Tanilis, a pound and a half of gold—108 goldpieces—had been enough to set up Krispos as a man with some small wealth of his own. To Anthimos, thirty goldpieces—and belike three hundred, or three thousand—was a party favor. For the first time, Krispos understood the difference between the riches Tanilis' broad estates yielded and those available to a man with the whole Empire as his estates. No wonder Anthimos thought nothing of a chamber pot made of gold.

A couple of more chances were given out. One man found himself the proud possessor of ten pounds of feathers—a much larger sack than Krispos'. Another got ten free sessions at a fancy brothel. "You mean I have to pay if I want to go back a second night?" the braggart asked, whereupon the fellow who had won the feathers poured them over his head.

Ten pounds of feathers let loose seemed plenty to fill up the room. People flung them about as if they were snow. Servants did their best to get rid of the blizzard of fluff, but even their best took a while to do any good. While most of the servitors plied brooms and pillowcases, a few brought in the next courses of food.

Anthimos pulled a last bit of down from his beard and let it float away. He looked over toward the new trays. "Ah, beefribs in fish sauce and garlic," he said. "My chef does them wonderfully well. They're far from a neat dish, but oh so tasty."

The ribs would be anything but neat, Krispos thought as he walked toward them—they were fairly swimming in the pungent fermented fish sauce—but they did smell good. One of the men with whom he'd hunted got to them first. The fellow picked up a rib and took a big bite.

The rib vanished. The young noble's teeth came together with a loud click. He'd drunk enough wine that he stared foolishly at his dripping but otherwise empty hand. Then his gaze swung to Krispos. "I did have one, didn't I?" He sounded anything but sure.

"I certainly thought you did," Krispos said. "Here, let me try." He took a rib off the tray. It felt solid and meaty in his hand. He lifted it to his mouth. As soon as he tried to bite it, it disappeared.

Some of the people watching made Phos' sun-sign. Others, wiser in the ways of Anthimos' feasts, looked to the Avtokrator.

A small-boy grin was on his face. "I told the cooks to make them rare, but not so rare as that," he said.

"I suppose you're going to say you told them to get the plaster goose livers you served last time well done," someone called out.

"Half a dozen of my friends broke teeth on those livers," the Emperor said. "This is a safer joke. Skombros thought of it."

The eunuch looked smug and, also pleased that Krispos had been one of the people his trick had deceived. Krispos stuck his fingers in his mouth to clean them of fish sauce and juice from the ribs. What he was able to taste was delicious. He thought how unfair it was for some sneaky bit of sorcery to deprive him of the tender meat.

He picked up another rib. "Some people," Skombros announced to no one in particular, "have more stubbornness than sense." The vestiarios settled back in his chair, perfectly content to let Krispos make as thorough a fool of himself as he wanted.

This time, though, Krispos did not try to take a bite off the rib. He'd already seen that doing that did not work—bringing his jaws together seemed to activate the spell. Instead, he picked up a knife from the serving table and sliced a long strip of meat off each side of the bone.