Harry Turtledove - Krispos Rising

The moon shone through patchy clouds. In its pale light, the snow the Emperor had colored looked almost black, making a strange border to the path. When Krispos got back to the imperial residence, he found that the Haloga guards had another word for it. "Isn't that the stupidest-looking thing you ever saw?" one of them said, pointing.

Krispos looked back toward the feast-hall, at the long blackish ribbon against the proper white snow that had come drifting down from Phos' sky. "Now that you mention it, yes."

The Halogai laughed. One of them, a veteran who'd served the Emperor for years, thumped him on the back. "You all right, Krispos," he said in his northern accent. "We make jokes like that with Skombros, he tell Anthimos, maybe we all shipped back to Halogaland." The rest of the guardsmen nodded.

"Thank you, Vagn," Krispos said; praise from the big blond warriors always pleased him. "You'll go home one day, I suppose, but better it's when you want to."

Vagn thumped him again, this time almost hard enough to pitch him down the steps into the snow. "Aye, you understand honor," the Haloga boomed in delight. He swung up his axe in salute, then held the door wide, as he might have for Anthimos. "Go in, warm yourself."

Krispos was glad to take Vagn's advice. The heating ducts under the floor gave some relief from the chill outside, but when he got to his room he lit a brazier all the same. He warmed his hands over it, stayed close by the welcome heat until his ears and nose began to thaw. Just as he started to take off his coat, the bell by his bed rang.

This time he knew Anthimos had not followed him home. But by now he was used to late-night summonses from the Empress; every so often, she liked to talk with him. "Your Majesty," he said as he came into the imperial bedchamber.

Dara waved him to a chair by the side of the bed. She was sitting up, but on this cold night she'd drawn blankets and furs over her shoulders. Krispos left the door open. Sometimes maidservants or eunuchs up raiding the larder peered in at them. Once Anthimos had come in while he and Dara were talking about horses. That was a nervous moment for Krispos, but the Avtokrator, far from being angry, had flopped down on the other side of the bed and argued with them till dawn.

Before Krispos sat down, he asked, "May I bring you anything, Majesty?"

"No, I thank you, but not tonight. Is his Majesty on his way, too?"

Remembering how Anthimos had been engaged when he left, Krispos answered, "I don't think so."

Something in his voice must have told more than he'd intended. "Why? What was he doing?" Dara asked sharply. When he could not come up with a plausible lie on the spur of the moment, she said, "Never mind. I suspect I can figure it out for myself." She turned her head away from him for a moment, "I find I've changed my mind. I might like some wine after all. Bring the jar, not just a cup."

"Yes, your Majesty." Krispos hurried away.

When he came back, Dara said, "You may get another cup for yourself, if you care to."

"No, thank you. I had enough at—" Reminding Dara of the revel did not seem a good idea. "I've had enough," Krispos said, and let it go at that.

"Have you? How lucky you are." The Empress drank, wordlessly held out the cup to Krispos. He refilled it. She drank about half, then slammed the cup down so hard that wine splashed onto the night table. "What's the use? Sober or drunk, I still know."

Krispos found a rag and walked up to the night table to wipe away the spilled wine. "Know what, your Majesty?"

"What do you think, Krispos?" Dara said bitterly. "Shall I spell it out in words a child can understand? All right, if you want me to: know that my husband—the Avtokrator, his Majesty, whatever you want to call him—is out enjoying himself with ... no, let's mince no words at all, shall we? ... is out fornicating with some new harlot. Again. For, let me see, the third night this week, or is it the fourth? I do lose track sometimes. Or am I wrong, Krispos?" She looked up at him, her eyes brimming but her face tensed with the effort to hold back the tears. "Can you tell me I'm wrong?"

Now Krispos could not meet her gaze, nor answer in words. Facing the wall, he shook his head.

"So that is what I know," Dara said. "I've known it for years. By the Lord with the great and good mind, I've known it since a couple of days after they put the flower crowns of marriage on us in the High Temple. Most of the time, I manage not to think of it, but when I can't help it—" She stopped for most of a minute. "When I can't help it, it's very bad. And I don't know why."

"Your Majesty?" Krispos said.

"Why?" Dara repeated. "Why does he do it? He doesn't hate me. He's even kind to me, when he's here and when he remembers to be. So why, then, Krispos? Can you tell me?"

Krispos turned back toward her. "Your Majesty, if you'll forgive my speaking up so bold, I've wondered over that since the first morning I saw you."

She might not have heard him. "Can it be that he doesn't want me? Could I repel him so?" Suddenly she swept the coverings from the bed. Beneath them, as usual, she wore nothing. "Would I—do I—repel you, Krispos?"

"No, your Majesty." His throat was dry. He'd seen the Empress nude countless times. Now she was naked. He watched her nipples stiffen from the chill in the room—or for another reason. He spoke her name for the first time. "Oh, no, Dara," he breathed.

"Lies come easy, with words," she said softly. "Shut the doors; then we'll see."

He almost went through the doorway instead of merely to it. He knew she wanted him more for revenge on Anthimos than for himself. And if he was caught in her bed, he might stay on as vestiarios, but likely after he was made like the others who had held that office.

But he wanted her. He'd been uneasily aware of that for months, however hard he tried to suppress it even from himself. Anthimos, he thought, would be occupied for some time yet. A eunuch or maidservant coming by would think the Empress here alone—he hoped. He closed the doors.

Dara felt the danger, too. "Hurry!" She held out her arms to him.

Slipping out of his robe was the work of a moment. He got down on the bed beside her. She clutched him as if she were drowning at sea and he a floating spar." Hurry," she said again, this time into his ear. He did his best to oblige.

He thought of the sea once more as he separated from her some time later—the stormy sea. His lips were bruised; he began to feel the scratches she'd clawed in his back. And he'd wondered if she was without passion! "His Majesty," he said sincerely, "is a fool."

"Why?" Dara asked.

"Why do you think?" He stroked her midnight hair. She purred and snuggled against him. But, reluctantly, he left the bed. "I'd better dress." He got into his robe as fast as he'd taken it off. Dara slid back under the covers. He opened the doors again, then loosed a great sigh of relief out into the empty hallway. "We got away with it."

"So we did." Dara's eyes shone. She gestured him back to the chair that was his correct place in this room. "I'm glad we did."

"Glad we got away with it?" Krispos' shudder was not altogether exaggerated. "If we hadn't..." He'd already thought once about consequences of not getting away with it. Once was plenty.

Dara shook her head. "I'm glad we did ... what we did." She cocked her head and studied him. "You're different from Anthimos." Her voice was low; no one coming down the hall could have made out her words.

"Am I?" Krispos said, as neutral a response as he could find. Silence stretched between them. Finally, because she seemed to want him to, he asked, "How?"

"Everything he does, everything he has me do, is for his pleasure first, mine only afterward, if at all," Dara said.