Harry Turtledove - Krispos Rising

"Truth to tell, I wonder." Petronas gave that snort again. "Very well, there is something to what you say. Any officer who does not point out what he sees as error to his commander is derelict in duty. But one who disobeys after his commander makes up his mind ..."

"I understand," Krispos said quickly.

"See that you do, lad. See that you do, and one day before too long maybe you'll stop smelling of horse manure and take on the scents of perfumes and powders instead. What do you say to that?"

"It's the best reason I've heard yet for wanting to stay in the stables."

This time Petronas' laughter came loud and booming. "You were born a peasant, weren't you? We'll see if we can't make a vestiarios of you all the same."

Krispos hunted with the Avtokrator, went to chariot races at the Amphitheater in the boxes reserved for Anthimos' close comrades, and attended the feasts to which he was invited. As summer moved toward fall, the invitations came more often. He always found himself among the earliest to leave the night-long revels, but he was one of the few at them who took their day work seriously.

Anthimos certainly did not. In all the time Krispos saw him, he gave scant heed to affairs of state. Depending on who had been at him last, he would say "Go see my uncle" or "Ask Skombros about that—can't you see I'm busy?" whenever a finance minister or diplomat did gain access to him and tried to get him to attend to business. Once, when a customs agent waylaid him outside the Amphitheater with a technical problem, he turned to Krispos and asked, "How would you deal with that?"

"Let me hear the whole thing over again," Krispos said. The customs man, glad for any audience, poured out his tale of woe.

When he was done, Krispos said, "If I follow you rightly, you're saying that duties and road tolls at some border stations away from the sea or river transport should be lowered to increase trade through them."

"That's exactly right, excellent—Krispos, was it?" the customs agent said excitedly. "Because moving goods by land is so much more expensive than by water, many times they never go far from the sea. Lowering duties and road tolls would help counteract that."

Krispos thought of the Kalavrian merchants at Develtos and of the mother-of-pearl for which they had charged outrageous prices. He also thought of how seldom traders with even the most ordinary good had visited his village, of how many things he'd never seen till he came to Videssos the city. "Sounds good to me," he said.

"So ordered!" Anthimos declared. He took the parchment from which the customs agent had been citing figures and scrawled his signature at the bottom of it. The bureaucrat departed with a glad cry. Anthimos rubbed his hands together, pleased with himself. "There! That's taken care of."

His cronies applauded. Along with the rest of them, Krispos accompanied the Avtokrator to the next feast he'd laid on. He was troubled all through it. Problems like the one he'd handled today should have been studied, considered, not attacked on the spur of the moment—if they were attacked at all. More often than not, Anthimos did not care to bother.

He disapproved of the Emperor for his offhandedness about such concerns, but had trouble disliking him. Anthimos would have made a fine innkeeper, he thought—the young man had a gift for keeping everyone around him happy. Unfortunately, being Avtokrator of the Videssians required rather more than that.

Which did not stop Krispos from enjoying himself immensely whenever he was in Anthimos' company—the Emperor kept coming up with new ways to make his revels interesting. He had a whole series of feasts built around colors: one day everything was red, the next yellow, and the next blue. At that last feast, even the fish were cooked in blue sauce, so they looked as if they'd come straight from the sea.

The Avtokrator's chances were never the same twice, either. Remembering what had happened to Pagras, the poor fellow who picked for himself "seventeen wasps" did not dare open the jar that held them. Finally Anthimos, sounding for once most imperial, had to order him to break the seal. The wasps proved to be exquisite re-creations in gold, with emeralds for eyes and delicate filigree wings.

Krispos rarely drew a chance. Skombros kept the crystal bowl and its hollow golden balls away from him. That did not bother him. He was just glad the vestiarios did not try slipping poison into his soup. Perhaps Skombros feared Petronas' revenge. In any case, he made do with black looks from afar. Sometimes Krispos returned them. More often he pretended not to see, which seemed to irk Skombros more.

Such byplay went straight by Anthimos. After a while, though, he did notice that Krispos had not had his hand in the bowl for weeks. "Go on over to him, Skombros," he said one night. "Let's see how his luck is doing."

"His luck is good, in that he enjoys your Majesty's favor," Skombros said. Nevertheless, he took Krispos the crystal bowl, thrusting it almost into his face. "Here, groom."

"Thank you, esteemed sir." Anyone who had not seen Krispos and Skombros before would have reckoned his tone perfectly respectful. Almost hidden by fat, a muscle twitched near the eunuch's ear as he set his jaw.

Krispos twisted open a gold ball. This was Anthimos' day for the number forty-three. The chances had already allotted forty-three goldpieces to one man, forty-three yards of silk to another, forty-three parsnips to a third. "Forty-three pounds of lead," Krispos read.

Laughter erupted around him. "What a pity," Skombros said, just as if he meant it. A puffing servant brought out the worthless prize. The vestiarios went on, "I trust you will know what to do with it."

"As a matter of fact, I was thinking of giving it to you," Krispos said.

"A token of esteem? A crude joke, but then I would have expected no more from you." At last the eunuch let his scorn show.

"No, not at all, esteemed sir," Krispos answered smoothly. "I just thought you would be used to carrying around the extra weight."

Several people who heard Krispos took a step or two away from him, as if they'd just realized he carried a disease they might catch. He frowned, remembering his family and the all too real disease they'd taken. Skombros' anger, though, might be as dangerous as cholera. The vestiarios' face was red but otherwise impassive as he deliberately turned his broad back on Krispos.

Anthimos had been too far away to hear Skombros and Krispos sniping at each other, but the chamberlain's gesture of contempt was unmistakable. "Enough, the two of you," the Avtokrator said. "Enough, I say. I don't care to have two of my favorite people at odds, and I will not tolerate it. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, your Majesty," Krispos said.

"Majesty," Skombros said, "I promise I shall always give Krispos all the credit he deserves."

"Excellent." Anthimos beamed. Krispos knew the eunuch's words had been no apology. Skombros would never think he deserved any credit. But even Skombros' hatred did not trouble Krispos, not for the moment. The Emperor had called him and the vestiarios "two of my favorite people." While he loathed Skombros, for Anthimos to mention him in the same breath with the longtime chamberlain was progress indeed.

Slow and ponderous as a merchant ship under not enough sail, Skombros returned to his seat. He sank into it with a sigh of relief. His small, heavily lidded eyes sought Krispos. Krispos gave back a sunny smile and lifted his wine cup in salute. Without Skombros' rudeness, he might have needed much longer to be sure how Anthimos felt about him.

The eunuch's suspicious frown deepened. Krispos' smile got wider.

Mavros stamped snow from his boots. "Warmer in here," he said gratefully. "All these horses are almost as good as a fireplace. Better, if you intend to go anyplace; you can't ride a fireplace."