Wasn't raising that very question the point of the skit?
Most of the people in the square seemed to think so. They roared their approval. Some of them threw coins to the mimes. More than once, Rhavas caught the glint of gold in the air. Either some folk were already too drunk to know what they were doing or they knew exactly what they were doing and hated the civil war very much indeed.
The prelate had thought that would be the last skit, but it wasn't. One more came after it. Half a dozen men holding hands in a ring impersonated the walls of Skopentzana. Two men inside the ring showed it was Skopentzana: one wore a pasteboard model of the temple on his head, the other a model of the eparch's palace.
There was a spirited struggle outside "Skopentzana." Half the contestants wore blond wigs to impersonate Halogai. The other half wore bushy false beards and furs and leather to impersonate Khamorth nomads. What the struggle was about was which group would get to sack the city. They finally compromised and destroyed it together.
People laughed at that skit, too, but nervously. Like a lot of the others, it held an uncomfortable amount of truth. Skopentzana was vulnerable. How soon the barbarians beyond the border would realize that and how long the city would stay ungarrisoned . . . Not even Rhavas, who was usually an astute judge of matters political, had any idea.
The "Halogai" in the troupe swept off their wigs and bowed as the crowd in the square cheered them. Not to be outdone, the "Khamorth" swept off their beards and bowed even lower. Here and there, latecomers started jumping over fires again. Men and women who'd already done that began drifting out of the square. Taverns always did a roaring business on Midwinter's Day. Brothels didn't. On this day as on no other, men seldom needed to pay for that.
Rhavas' shadow stretched long before him. He glanced back over his shoulder at the sun. It stood about as far above the horizon as it would get, but that wasn't very far. The prelate shrugged. More than once, he'd celebrated Midwinter's Day here in the midst of a snowstorm. People leaped over bonfires then the same way they did in good weather. Mime troupes performed the same way, too. The only difference was, the audience had to crowd closer to see what sort of outrageousness they were perpetrating.
He looked around for Ingegerd, wondering if she would want to drink some wine with him. That wasn't sinful, especially since Himerios had asked him to look after her. If anything sinful happened later, he could blame it on the wine and on Midwinter's Day. Even his stern rectitude had, or could have, cracks.
But Ingegerd had slipped away. Ashamed of himself for the direction in which his thoughts had veered, Rhavas sketched the sun-circle over his heart. "Penance," he muttered. "Heavy penance."
He kicked at the paving stones, humiliated by his own weakness. He murmured Phos' creed again and again. He'd almost just failed a great test in his own life. He owed Ingegerd a debt of thanks for not staying with him—a debt he could never tell her about.
If he looked around a little, he could find some other woman with whom he might take his pleasure. That never occurred to him. He did not want a woman for the sake of having a woman. He wanted one woman in particular, a much more pernicious and dangerous affliction.
He never thought to wonder whether Ingegerd wanted him. That in itself was a telling measure of how little experience he had. Because he was so inexperienced, though, he didn't realize that it was.
"Phaos' blessings on you, very holy sir," somebody said at his elbow.
He started, then gathered himself. "And on you," he told the man. If he remembered rightly, the fellow sold fancy saddles.
The man eyed him for a moment, then breathed beer fumes into his face as he said, "It's Midwinter's Day, very holy sir. You're supposed to be happy. The way you look, somebody's just about to pound a live crawdad up your arse."
Part of Rhavas wondered how the saddler knew what sort of expression a man in that situation would wear. He almost asked, but at the last minute he held back. He was afraid the fellow would tell him. Instead, the saddler just stood there, awaiting his reply. Slowly, he said, "If the Empire were happier, I would be happier as well."
"Ah. The Empire." The other man had surely lived in the Empire of Videssos all his life. By the way he said its name, he might have heard of it for the first time from Rhavas' lips. "Well, now, very holy sir, that's a pretty big thought, that is. I don't know that I could worry about the whole Empire all by myself."
"There we differ, then," Rhavas said. For a wonder, the other man took the hint. He lurched off to bore someone else.
Rhavas thought about going to a tavern and drinking himself blind. No shame attached even to a cleric who did that on Midwinter's Day. No public shame, that is—the prelate would have been ashamed of himself for such a lapse from asceticism. For one of the few times in his life, he stood irresolute.
He was still standing there, watching the sun scurry across the sky toward the southwestern horizon, when a courier came into the square. The rider made slow going against the throng celebrating Midwinter's Day. "What's the news?" a drunk bawled.
And the courier answered him: "The Khamorth! The Khamorth are over the border!"
III
A servant in Zautzes' residence lit lamps. Sunset was coming soon, and twilight wouldn't last long. Lamplight made a sorry substitute for daylight, but on Midwinter's Day daylight would not serve. Rhavas was glad he hadn't decided to soak himself in the sweet blood of the grape. With this news, he needed to be able to think straight.
Zautzes stared at the courier like a frog in a street puddle staring at a wagon bearing down on it. He plainly had been less moderate than Rhavas. He blinked and blinked, trying to make his wits work. Another servant brought wine for the courier and the prelate and more wine for the eparch. Zautzes gulped thirstily. Rhavas left his own goblet untouched. He asked, "Where have the nomads crossed the border?"
Before he answered, the courier sipped from his winecup. Unlike Zautzes, he'd earned the right to drink. "Where have they crossed, very holy sir?" he echoed. "Ask me where they haven't—that'll be a shorter list. From what I've heard, they're over it all the way from the Astris—not far from Videssos the city—up here to the northeast. They're over, and their cursed wheeled carts are over, and their flocks are over. They've come to stay, unless we can throw 'em out."
"Phos!" Rhavas muttered. He felt like drinking now, though he still refrained. This was every Avtokrator's nightmare, come to life before his eyes.
"Throwing them back won't be easy," Zautzes said, "not with things, uh, being in the mess they're in." He still had his wits sufficiently about him to watch what he said and how he said it.
"Not with Maleinos and Stylianos at each other's throats, you mean." Rhavas had no compunction about telling the truth as he saw it. He seldom did. "This is a time when they need to set the needs of the Empire above their own ambitions."
"Good luck!" Zautzes said with a fine sardonic relish that wouldn't have been out of place even in the capital.
Rhavas scowled back at him. Zautzes gave back a stare more owlish than froggy. He might have said, Go ahead. Tell me I'm wrong. Rhavas couldn't, and he knew it, and he hated the knowledge. To a man with his eye on the throne, his imperial rival would loom larger than any foreign invaders.
The courier looked from the eparch to the prelate and back again. "Most honorable sir, very holy sir, what are we going to do?" he asked, showing a touching confidence that the two high officials would be able to tell him what he wanted to know.