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without surprise, gathered around Tanilis. Zaidas, who had been animatedly
chattering with her, looked over with almost comic startlement as Krispos rode
up beside him.
"A good thing I'm not Harvas," Krispos remarked dryly. He bowed in the saddle
to Tanilis. "My lady, may I speak with you?"
"Of course, your Majesty. You know you have only to command." She spoke
without apparent irony and flicked the reins to get her horse into a trot and
away from the wizards. Krispos did the same. Zaidas
and the other wizards stared after them in disappointment. When enough clear
space had opened up to give them some privacy, Tanilis inclined her head to
Krispos. "Your Majesty?"
"I just wanted to say I feel bad about the way things ended between us last
night."
"You needn't trouble yourself about it," she replied. "After all, you are the
Avtokrator of the Videssians.
You may do just as you wish."
"Anthimos did just as he wished," Krispos said angrily. "Look what it got him.
I want to try to do what's right, so far as I can see what that is."
"You've chosen a harder road than he did." After a small pause, Tanilis went
on in a dispassionate tone of voice, "Few would say that bedding a woman not
your wife falls into that category."
"I know, I know, I know." He made a fist and slammed it down on his thigh just
below the bottom edge of his coat of mail. "I don't make a habit of it, you
know."
"I would have guessed that, yes." Now she sounded amused, perhaps not in an
altogether pleasant way.
"It isn't funny, curse it." Doggedly, clumsily, he went ahead: "I'd known
you loved you for a while, though I know you didn't love me for such a long
time, and now I'd seen you again, when I never expected to, well, I never
worried about what I was doing till I'd done it. Then that note came, and I
got brought up short "
"Aye, you did." Tanilis studied him. "I might have guessed your marriage was
one of convenience only, but two sons born close together argues against that,
the more so as you've spent a good part of your reign in the field."
"Oh, there's something of convenience in it, for me and for her both," Krispos
admitted, "but there turns out to be more to it than that, too." He laughed
without mirth. "You noticed that, didn't you? But all the same, when we'd made
love and the courier brought the letter, I had no business treating you the
way I
did. That's not right, either, and I'm sorry for it."
Tanilis rode on for a little while in silence. Then she remarked, "I think
riding into battle might be easier for you than saying what you just said." .
Krispos shrugged. "One thing I'm sure of is that putting a crown on my head
doesn't make me right all the time. The lord with the great and good mind
knows I didn't learn much from Anthimos about how to rule, but I learned that.
And if I was wrong, what's the point in being ashamed to say so?"
"Wherever you learned to rule, Krispos " He warmed to hear her use his name
again, rather than his title, " you appear to have learned a good deal. Shall
we return to being friends, then?"
"Yes," he answered with relief. "How could I be your enemy?"
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Mischief sparkled in Tanilis' eyes. "Suppose I came to your tent again
tonight. Would you take up saber and shield to drive me away?"
In spite of all his good intentions, his manhood stirred at the thought of her
coming to his tent again. He ignored it.
I'm too old to let my prick do my thinking for me, he told himself firmly. A
moment later he added, I hope.
Aloud, he said, "If you're trying to tempt me, you're doing a good job." He
managed a smile.
"I would not seek to tempt you into something you find improper," Tanilis
answered seriously. "If that is
how it is, let it be so. I said back in Opsikion, all those years ago, that we
would not suit each other over the long haul. It still seems true."
"Yes," Krispos said again, with no small regret. He still wondered if he and
Dara suited each other over the long haul. Ever since he became Emperor, he'd
been away on campaign so much that they'd had scant chance to find out. He
went on, "I'm glad we can be friends."
"So am I." Tanilis looked around at the Kubrati countryside through which they
were riding. Her voice sank to a whisper. "Being friendless in such a land
would be a dreadful fate."
"It's not that bad," Krispos said, remembering his childhood years north of
the mountains. "It's just different from Videssos." The sky was a paler,
damper blue than inside the Empire. The land was a different shade of green,
too, deeper and more like moss; the gray-green olive trees that gave Videssos
so much of its distinctive tint would not grow here. The winters, Krispos
knew, had a ferocity worse than any Videssos suffered.
But perhaps Tanilis was not seeing the material landscape that was all Krispos
could perceive. "This land hates me," she said, shivering though the day was
warm. Her sepulchral tone made Krispos want to shiver, too. Then Tanilis
brightened, or rather grew intent on her prey. "If we can pull Harvas down,
let it hate me as much as it will."
With that Krispos could not argue. He gazed out at Kubrat again. Far off in
the northwest, he spied a rising smudge of dirty gray smoke against the
horizon. He pointed to it. "Maybe that's the work of the column I sent out,"
he said hopefully.
Tanilis' gaze swung that way. "Aye, it is your column," she said, but she did
not sound hopeful. Krispos tried to make himself believe she was still
fretting over the way the land affected her.
But the next morning, as the main body of the army was getting ready to break
camp, riders began straggling in from the west. Krispos did not want to talk
with the first few of them; as he'd learned, men who got away first often had
no idea what had really gone wrong if anything had.
Sarkis came in about midmorning. A fresh cut seamed one cheek; his right
forearm was bandaged. "I'm sorry, Majesty," he said. "I was the one who made
the mistake."
"You own up to it, anyhow," Krispos said. "Tell me what happened."
"We came across a village a town, almost that isn't on our old maps," the
scout commander answered. "I'm not surprised it looked as if the Halogai were
still building it: longhouses are their style, anyhow. Not a lot of men were
in it, but those who were came boiling out, and their women with them, armed
and fighting as fierce as they were."
Sarkis picked at a flake of dried blood on his face. "Majesty, beating them
wasn't the problem. We had plenty of men for that. But I knew our true goal
was Pliskavos and I wanted to get there as quick as I
could. So instead of doing much more than skirmishing and setting the village
ablaze "
"We saw the smoke," Krispos broke in.
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