Harry Turtledove - Krispos Rising

Though he could not answer, she talked at him while she visited. He picked up palace gossip, and snatches of what went on in the wider world, as well. Petronas, he learned, was advancing in Makuraner-held Vaspurakan, but slowly. The breakthrough, the advance on Mashiz of which the Sevastokrator dreamed, was nowhere in sight. Some of his generals had started to grumble. He'd even sent one packing—a certain Mammianos now found himself commanding the western coastal lowlands, a rich province but one peaceful for so long as to be a graveyard for a righting soldier.

If Petronas himself never came back from his western campaign, Krispos would not have shed a tear—had his condition allowed it, he might have danced around the room. He did hope Mavros was all right.

Krispos was less delighted to learn that Petronas' plan for handling Kubrat looked to be working exactly as the Sevastokrator had predicted. Harvas Black-Robe's Haloga mercenaries, falling on the Kubratoi from the north, left them too distracted to launch any large raids against the Empire.

"They say Malomir may even lose his throne," Dara told Krispos one warm summer evening. Wanting to hear more, he widened his eyes and did his best to look attentive. But instead of going on about the affairs of the Kubratoi, Dara looked out toward the hallway. "Quiet tonight," she said. Mixed anger and hurt showed in her eyes, a blend Krispos had seen there before. "Why shouldn't it be quiet? Anthimos has been out carousing since a little past noon, and the good god alone knows when he'll decide to honor us by coming back. So a great many folk, I have no doubt, have gone off to pursue their own pleasures." The Empress' laugh was full of self-mockery. "And with you in this state, Krispos, I can't even do that, can I? I find I've missed you, more than I thought I would. Don't you wish we could ..." Dara's voice sank to a throaty whisper as she described what she wished they could do. Either her imagination was very fertile, or she'd been thinking for a long time.

Krispos felt heat rise in him that had nothing to do with the weather. Something else also rose; those parts of him not under full conscious control had always been less subject to Petronas' magic than the rest.

Dara saw what her words had done. After another quick glance to the door, she reached out and stroked him through the bedclothes. "What a shame to waste it," she said. She stood up, hurried out of the room.

When she came back, she blew out the lamps. She went outside again, looked in, and nodded. "Dark enough," Krispos heard her say. She walked over to the bed and drew back the covers. "The door to my bedchamber is closed," she murmured to Krispos. "Anyone will think I'm there. And no one can see in here from the hallway. So, if we're quiet..."

She slipped off her drawers. She did not get out of her gown, but hiked it up so she could lower herself onto Krispos. She moved slowly, to keep the bed from creaking. Even so, he knew he would explode too soon to please her. Nothing he could do about that, though, he thought through building ecstasy.

Suddenly Dara froze, stifling a gasp that had nothing to do with passion. Krispos heard sandals in the hallway. Tyrovitzes walked past the door. Dara started to slide away, but the movement made the bedframe start to groan. She froze again. Krispos could not move at all, but felt himself shrinking inside her as fear overpowered lust.

The eunuch did not even glance in, but kept walking. Dara and Krispos stayed motionless until he came back, crunching on an apple. Once more, he paid no attention to the dark doorway. The sound of his footsteps and his chewing faded.

When everything was quiet again, Dara did get off the bed. She covered Krispos once more. Linen rustled against her skin as she slid her drawers up her legs. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "That was a bad idea." She slipped away. This time, she did not return.

Too late, Krispos was aroused again, with nothing whatever he could do about it. A bad idea indeed, he thought, more than a little annoyed. It had left everyone unsatisfied.

Summer wore on. One morning, Krispos woke up on his stomach. For a moment, he thought nothing of it. Then he realized he had rolled over in his sleep. He tried to roll back again and succeeded after an effort that left him panting.

Not long after that, his speech returned, first as a hoarse whisper, then, little by little, tones that sounded more as he remembered he should. As control slowly returned to his arms and legs he sat up in bed and then, wobbly as any toddler, stood on his own two feet.

That made Anthimos notice him again. "Splendid," the Avtokrator said. "Good to see you on the mend. I look forward to having you serve me again."

"I look forward to it, too, your Majesty," Krispos said, and found himself meaning it. After months of forced inactivity, he would have looked forward to a long, hot stint in the fields. No , he thought; maybe to a short stint. He did look forward to returning to the imperial bedchamber, both when Anthimos was occupying it and even more when he wasn't.

He found himself weak and clumsy as a pup. He began to exercise. At first, the least labor was plenty to wear him out. His strength slowly returned. A few weeks before the fall rains came, he went back to work. He bought handsome presents for the chamberlains who had cared for him so well and so long.

"This was not necessary," Barsymes said as he unwrapped a heavy gold chain. "The relief of having you on duty once more and no longer needing to try to keep up with his Majesty at those feasts of his ..." The eunuch shook his head. But his long face, usually sour, wore a small, grudging smile. Krispos decided he had spent his money wisely.

He soon reconnected himself to the tendrils of the grapevine. He hardly needed to, for the first piece of news that came in was on everyone's lips: not only had Harvas Black-Robe's Halogai smashed the Kubratoi again, they had seized Pliskavos, the capital and the only real city Kubrat boasted. "By sorcery, I hear they took it," Longinos said, lowering his voice at the word and sketching the sun-sign over his heart.

The bare mention of magic was enough to make Krispos shudder. All the same, he shook his head. "Sorcery doesn't work well in battle," he said. "Everyone is too keyed up for it to stick, or so I've been told."

"And I," Longinos agreed. "But I also know that my sources in the north do not lie." The palace eunuchs heard everything, and usually knew truth from rumor. Krispos scratched his head and worried a little. He sent a note to Iakovitzes. If anyone really knew what was happening north of the Paristrian mountains, the little noble was the man.

The next day, one of Iakovitzes' retainers brought an answering note: "Everything's gone to the ice up there. Harvas is a worse murderer than any of the khagans ever dreamed of being. Maybe he is a wizard, too. I can't think of any other way for him to have won so quickly and easily."

Krispos worried a little more, but only for a couple of days. Then he found something more important to worry about. A messenger sailed into Videssos the city from the westlands with word that Petronas was on his way home.

That news dismayed Anthimos, too. "He'll be impossible," the Emperor said, pacing back and forth the next morning while Krispos tried to dress him. "Impossible, I tell you. He's fought Makuran all summer long and he hasn't gained two towns worth having. He'll be humiliated and he'll take it out on me."

On you? Krispos thought. But he held his tongue. Since he recovered enough to talk, he'd told no one the Sevastokrator was to blame for his collapse. He had no proof save Mavros' word, and Mavros was with Petronas in the west. But he exercised harder than ever and began working with his sword again.