"Aye. He never showed a sign of it that I saw. If he'd had it, he wouldn't have gone out from the city. I know he didn't fear for himself; he was wild to be a soldier when I met him." Krispos smiled, remembering Mavros hacking at bushes as they rode from Tanilis' villa into Opsikion. "But he never would have taken a whole army into danger."
"No doubt you're right." Dara hesitated, then asked, "Have you thought about appointing a new Sevastos?"
"I expect I'll get around to it one of these days." The matter seemed less urgent to Krispos than it had when he'd named Mavros to the post. Now that no rebel was moving against him, he had less need to act in two places at the same time, and thus less need for so powerful a minister. Thinking out loud, he went on, "Most likely I'd pick Iakovitzes. He's served me well and he knows both the city and the wider world."
"Oh." Dara nodded. "Yes, he would make a good choice."
The words were commonplace. Something in the way she said them made him glance sharply at her. "Did you have someone else in mind?"
She was swarthy enough to make her flush hard to spot, but he saw it. Her voice became elaborately casual. "Not that so much, but my father was curious to learn if you were thinking of someone in particular."
"Was he? He was curious to learn if I was thinking of him in particular, you mean."
"Yes, I suppose I do." That flush grew deeper. "I'm sure he meant nothing out of ordinary by asking."
"No doubt. Tell him this for me, Dara: tell him I think he might make a good Sevastos, if only I could trust him with my back turned. As things are now, I don't know that I can, and his sneaking questions through you doesn't make me think any better of him. Or am I wrong to be on my guard?" Dara bit her lip. Krispos said, "Never mind. You don't have to answer. That question puts you in an impossible spot."
"You already know my father is an ambitious man," Dara said. "I will pass on to him what you've told me."
"I'd be grateful if you would." Krispos let it go at that. Pushing Dara too hard was more likely to force her away than to bind her to him.
To give himself something impersonal to do, he read through Tanilis' letter again. He wished she could face Harvas in the field. If anyone could best him, she might be that person. Not only would her gifts of foreknowledge warn her of his ploys, but the loss he'd inflicted on her would focus her sorcerous skill against him as a burning glass focused the rays of the sun.
Then Krispos put the letter aside. From what he'd seen thus far, unhappily, no Videssian wizard could face Harvas Black-Robe in the field. That left Krispos a cruel dilemma: how was he to overcome Harvas' Halogai if the evil mage's magic worked and his own did not?
Posing the question was easy. Finding an answer anywhere this side of catastrophe, up till now, had been impossible.
Trokoundos looked harassed. Every time Krispos had seen him this fall and winter, he'd looked harassed. Krispos understood that. As much as he could afford to, he even sympathized with Trokoundos. He kept summoning the wizard to ask him about Harvas, and Trokoundos had no miracles to report.
"Your Majesty, ever since I returned from the campaign, the Sorcerers' Collegium has hummed like a hive of bees, trying to unravel the secrets behind Harvas' spells," Trokoundos said. "I've had myself examined under sorcery and drugs to make sure my recall of what I witnessed was perfectly exact, in the hope that some other mage, given access to my observations, might find the answer that has eluded me. But—" He spread his hands.
"All your bees have made no honey," Krispos finished for him.
"No, your Majesty, we have not. We are used to reckoning ourselves the finest wizards in the world. Oh, maybe in Mashiz the King of Kings of Makuran has a stable to match us, but that a solitary barbarian mage should have the power to baffle us—" Trokoundos' heavy-lidded eyes flashed angrily. Being beaten so ate at his pride.
"You have no idea, then, how he does what he does?" Krispos asked.
"I did not quite say that. What makes his magic effective is easy enough to divine. He is very strong. Strength may accrue to any man of any nation—even, perhaps, such strength as his. But he also possesses technique refined beyond any we can match here in Videssos the city. How he acquired that, and how we may meet it... well, an answer there will go far toward piecing the puzzle together. But we have none."
Krispos said, "Not too long ago I got a note from our dear friend Gnatios. He claims he has your answers all tied up with a scarlet ribbon. Of course, he would claim dung was cherries if he thought he saw a copper's worth of advantage in it."
"He's a trimmer, aye, but he's no fool," Trokoundos said seriously, echoing Iakovitzes. "What answer did he give? By the lord with the great and good mind, I'll seize whatever I can find now."
"He gave none," Krispos said. "He just claimed he had one. As best I could tell, his main aim was escaping the monastery. He thinks I forget the trouble he's caused me. If he hadn't got Petronas loose, I could have turned on Harvas close to half a year sooner. "Would you have won on account of that?" Trokoundos asked.
"Up till this instant I'd thought so," Krispos answered. "If I couldn't beat him then with the full power of Videssos behind me, how may I hope to next spring? Or are you telling me I shouldn't go forth at all? Should I wait here in the city and stand siege?"
"No. Better to meet Harvas as far from Videssos the city as you may. How much good did walls do either Develtos or Imbros?"
"None at all." Krispos started to say something more, then stopped, appalled, and stared at Trokoundos. Videssos the city's walls were incomparably greater than those of the two provincial towns. Imagining them breached was almost more than Krispos could do. That was not quite the mental image that dismayed him. Winter was the quiet time of year on the farm, the time when people would do minor repairs and get ready for the busyness that would return with spring. In his mind's eye he saw Harvas' Halogai sitting round their hearths, some with skins of ale, others with their feet up, and every last one of them sharpening stakes, sharpening stakes, sharpening stakes ... Of itself, his anus tightened.
"What is it, your Majesty?" Trokoundos asked. "For a moment there you looked—frightened and frightening at the same time."
"I believe it." Krispos was glad he'd had no mirror in which to watch his features change. "This I vow, Trokoundos: we'll meet Harvas as far from Videssos the city as we can."
Progress paced down Middle Street at a slow walk. Beside the big bay gelding, eight servants tramped along with the imperial litter. Their breath, the horse's, and Krispos' rose in white, steaming clouds at every exhalation.
The city was white, too, white with new-fallen snow. Over his imperial robes, Krispos wore a coat of soft, supple otter furs. He still shivered; he'd lost track of his nose a while before. Dara had a brazier inside the litter. Krispos hoped it did her some good.
Only the Haloga guardsmen who marched ahead of and behind Krispos and his lady literally took winter in their stride. Marched, indeed, was not the right word: they strutted, their heads thrown back, chests thrust forward, backs as resolutely straight as the columns that supported the colonnades running along either side of Middle Street. Their breath fairly burst from their nostrils; they took in great gulps of the air Krispos reluctantly sipped. This was the climate they were made for.
Narvikka turned his head back. "W'at a fine morning!" he boomed. The rest of the northerners nodded. Some of them wore braids like Vagn's, tied tight with crimson cords; these bobbed like horses' tails to emphasize their agreement. Krispos shivered again. Inside the litter, Dara sneezed. He didn't like that. With her pregnant, he wanted nothing out of the ordinary.