Harry Turtledove - Krispos the Emperor

But not long after dark, Syagrios stopped. He picked Phostis up, leaned him against the side of the wagon, then descended, picked him up again, and slung him over his shoulder like a sack of chickpeas. Behind him, Olyvria got the horses moving at a slow walk.

From ahead came a metallic squawk of rusty hinges, then the scrape of something moving against resistance from dirt and gravel: a gate opening, Phostis thought "Hurry up," an unfamiliar male voice said.

"Here we go," Syagrios answered. He picked up his pace. By their hoofbeats, so did the horses behind him. As soon as they stopped, the gate went scrape-squeak. Closing. Phostis thought. The slam of a bar falling into place confirmed that. "Ah, good," Syagrios said. "Think we can untie him for now and take the rag off his eyes?"

"I don't see why not," the other man said. "If he gets away from this place, by the good god, he's earned it. And didn't I hear he's halfway set foot on the gleaming path himself?"

"Aye, I've heard that, too." Syagrios laughed. "Thing is, I didn't get to be as old as I am believing everything I hear."

"Set him down so I can cut the ropes easier," Olyvria said. Syagrios put Phostis onto the ground more carefully than if he'd been chickpeas, but not much. Somebody—presumably Olyvria—slit his bonds, then slid the blindfold from his face.

He blinked; his eyes filled with tears. After a day in enforced darkness, even torchlight seemed shockingly bright. When he tried to lever himself up, neither arms nor legs would obey him. He set his teeth against the pain of returning blood. Pins and needles was too mild a phrase for it; it felt more like nails and spikes. They got worse with every passing moment, until he wondered if the maltreated members would fall off.

"It will ease soon," Olyvria assured him.

He wondered how she could know—had she ever been trussed up like a suckling pig on its way to market? But she was right. After a little while, he tried again to stand. This time he made it, though he swayed like a tree in a windstorm.

"He don't look too good," said the fellow who went with this ... farmhouse, Phostis supposed it was, though the man, lean, pale, and furtive, looked more like a sneakthief than a farmer.

"He'll be hungry," Syagrios said, "and tired." Syagrios seemed very much the stalwart bruiser Phostis had expected. He wasn't even of average height for a Videssian, but had shoulders as wide as any Haloga's and arms thick with corded muscle. At some time in the unknown past, his nose had intercepted a chair or other instrument of strong opinion.

A big gold hoop dangled piratically from his left ear. Phostis pointed at it. "I thought folk who followed the gleaming path didn't wear ornaments like that."

Syagrios' startled stare quickly slid into a scowl. "None of your cursed business what I wear or don't—" he began, folding one big hand into a fist.

"Wait," Olyvria said. "This is something he needs to know." She turned to Phostis. "You're right and yet you're wrong. When we go among men not of our kind, sometimes lack of ostentation can betray us. We have the right to disguise our appearance, just as we may deny our creed to save ourselves."

Phostis bit down hard on that one. A Videssian's faith was his proudest possession; many had been martyred for refusing to compromise the creed. Letting a man—or a woman— dissemble in time of danger went square against everything he'd ever been taught ... but also made good sense from a practical standpoint.

Slowly he said, "My father will have a hard time sifting those who follow Thanasios' ways from the generality, then." Krispos wouldn't have looked for that. Most heresies, believing themselves orthodox, trumpeted their tenets and made themselves easy targets. But suppressing the Thanasioi would be like striking smoke, which gave way before blows yet was not destroyed.

"That's right," Olyvria said. "We'll give the imperial army more trouble than it can handle. Before long, we'll give the whole Empire more trouble than it can handle." Her eyes sparkled at the prospect.

Syagrios turned to the fellow who'd let them into the courtyard. "Where's the food?" he boomed, slapping his bulging belly with the palm of one hand. No matter what Olyvria said, Phostis had trouble picturing him as an ascetic.

"I'll get it," the skinny man said, and went into the house.

"Phostis needs it more than you," Olyvria said to Syagrios.

"So?" he answered. "I was the one with the wit to ask for it. Of course, our friend here wasn't likely to listen to the likes of him." Phostis thought he deliberately avoided naming the other man. That showed more wit than he'd credited Syagrios with having. If he ever escaped ... but did he want to escape? He shook his head, bewildered. He didn't know what he wanted.

He didn't know what he wanted, that is, until the fellow who looked like a thief came out with a loaf of black bread, some runny yellow cheese, and a jar of the sort that commonly held cheap wine. Then his growling stomach and spit-filled mouth loudly made their wishes known.

He ate like a starving badger. The wine mounted from his belly to his head. He felt more nearly human that he had since he was drugged, but that wasn't saying much. He asked, "May I have a cloth or a sponge and some water to wash myself? And some clean clothes, if there are any?"

The skinny fellow looked at Syagrios. Syagrios, for all his bluster, looked at Olyvria. She nodded. The skinny fellow said to Phostis, "You're my size, near enough. You can wear one of my old tunics. I'll get it. There's a pitcher and a sponge on a stick in the privy."

Phostis waited until he had the rough, colorless homespun garment in his hands, then headed for the privy. The robe he wore was worth dozens of the one he put on, but he made the exchange with nothing but delight.

He looked down at himself as he came out of the privy. He was no peacock, like some of the young men who swaggered around Videssos the city displaying themselves and their finery on holidays. Even if he'd had such longings—as Katakolon did, to some degree—Krispos wouldn't have let him indulge them. Having been born on a farm, Krispos still kept the poor man's scorn for fancy clothes he couldn't afford himself. Nonetheless, Phostis was sure he'd never worn anything so plain in his whole life.

The thin man pointed at him. "See! Without the embroidered robes, he looks like anybody else. That's what Thanasios says, bless him—take away the riches that separate one man from another and we're all pretty much the same. What we have to do is make sure nobody has riches. The lord with the great and good mind will love us for that."

"Other way to make us all the same is let everybody have riches." Syagrios cast a covetous eye on the befouled robe Phostis had been so happy to remove. "Clean that up and it'd bring a pretty piece of change."

"No," Olyvria said. "Try to sell it and you shout 'Here I am!' to Krispos' spies. Livanios ordered us to destroy everything Phostis had when we took him, and that's what we'll do."

"All right, all right," Syagrios said, voice surly. "Still seems a waste, though."

The skinny man rounded on him. "Your theology's not all it should be. The goal is the destruction of riches, says Thanasios, not the equality, for Phos best loves those who give up all they have for the sake of his truth."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Syagrios said. "If all were alike, poor or rich, we wouldn't be jealous of each other, and if jealousy ain't a sin, what is, eh?" He set hands on hips and smiled triumphantly at the thin man.

"I'll tell you what," the other answered hotly, ready as any Videssian to do battle for the sake of his dogmas.

"No, you won't." Olyvria's tone reminded Phostis of the one Krispos used when delivering judgment from the imperial throne. "The forces of materialism are stronger than we are. If we quarrel among ourselves, we are lost ... so we shall not quarrel."