That might even be true, Krispos thought. He imagined Gnatios scribbling in the scriptorium or in his own monastic cell, pausing to seek out the telling phrase that would make Krispos relent, or at least read further. He'd succeeded in the latter, if not in the former; Krispos' eyes kept moving down the parchment.
" 'Let me speak plainly, your Majesty,' " Gnatios wrote. " 'The cause of Videssos' present crisis is rooted three hundred years in the past, in the theological controversies that followed the invasions off the Pardrayan steppe, the invasions that raped away the lands now known as Thatagush, Khatrish, and Kubrat. As a result, you will need to consider those controversies and their consequences in contemplating combat against Harvas Black-Robe.' "
The jingling alliteration, though very much the vogue in sophisticated Videssian circles, only irritated Krispos. So did Gnatios' confident "as a result..." Of course the past shaped the present. Krispos enjoyed histories and chronicles for exactly that reason. But if Gnatios claimed the Empire's current problems were in fact three hundred years old, he also needed to say why he thought so.
And he did not. Krispos tried to find his reasons for holding back. Two quickly came to mind. One was that the deposed patriarch was lying. The other was that he thought he had the truth, but feared to set it down on parchment lest Krispos use it and keep him mewed up in the monastery all the same.
If that was what troubled him, he was naive—Krispos could send him back to the monastery of the holy Skirios after hearing what he had to say as easily as he could after reading his words. Gnatios was many things, Krispos thought, but hardly naive. Most likely, that meant he was lying.
"Bring me pen and ink, please, Barsymes," Krispos said. When the eunuch returned, he took them and wrote, "I still forbid your release. Krispos Avtokrator." He gave the parchment to Barsymes. "Arrange to have this returned to the holy sir, if you would."
"Certainly, your Majesty. Shall I reject out of hand any further petitions from him?"
"No," Krispos said after thinking it over. "I'll read them. I don't have to do anything about them, after all." Barsymes dipped his head and carried the petition away.
Krispos whistled between his teeth. Gnatios was everything Pyrrhos was not: he was smooth, suave, rational, and tolerant. He was also pliable and devious. Krispos had taken great and malicious glee in confining him to the monastery of the holy Skirios for a second time after Petronas' rebellion failed. Now he wondered whether Gnatios had learned enough humility in the monastery to serve as patriarch once more.
When that occurred to him, he also wondered whether he'd lost his own mind. The monastery had changed Petronas not at all, save only to fill him with a brooding desire for vengeance. If Pyrrhos was intolerable on the patriarch throne, what would Gnatios be but intolerable in some different way? Surely it would be better to replace Pyrrhos with an amiable nonentity, the priestly equivalent of barley porridge.
Yet somehow the idea of restoring Gnatios, once planted, would not go away. Krispos got up, still whistling, and went to the sewing room to ask Dara what she thought of it. She jabbed her needle into the linen fabric on her lap and stared up at him. "I can see why you want Pyrrhos out," she said, "but Gnatios has kept trying to wreck you ever since you took the crown."
"I know," Krispos said. "But Petronas is dead, so Gnatios has no reason—well, less reason—for treachery now. He made Anthimos a good patriarch."
"You should have struck off his head when he surrendered at Antigonos. Then your own wouldn't be filled with this moonshine now."
Krispos sighed. "No doubt you're right. His petitions are probably moonshine, too."
"What petitions?" Dara asked. After Krispos explained, her lip curled in a noblewoman's sneer. "If he knows so much about these vast secrets he's keeping, let him tell them. They'd have to be vast indeed to earn him his way out of his cell."
"By the good god, so they would." Krispos bent down to kiss Dara. "I'll summon him and hear him out. If he has nothing, I can send him back to the monastery for good."
"Even that's better than he deserves." Dara did not sound quite happy at having her sarcasm taken literally. "Remember where you'd be, remember where we'd all be—" She patted her belly. "—if he'd had his way."
"I'll never forget it," Krispos promised. He made a wry face. "But I also remember what Iakovitzes told me, and Trokoundos, too: that Gnatios is no one's fool. I don't have to like him, I don't have to trust him, but I have the bad feeling that I may need him." Dara stabbed her needle into the cloth again. "I don't like it."
"I don't either." Krispos raised his voice to call for Barsymes. When the eunuch came into the sewing room, he said, "Esteemed sir, I'm sorry, but I've changed my mind. I think I'd best talk, or rather listen, to Gnatios after all."
"Very well, your Majesty. I shall see to it at once." Barsymes could make his voice toneless as well as sexless, but Krispos had now had years to learn to read it. He found no disapproval there. More than anything else, that convinced him he was doing the right thing.
VIII
Freezing rain pelted down. Gnatios shivered in his blue robe as he walked up to the imperial residence. The troop Halogai who surrounded him—Krispos was taking no chances on any schemes the ex-patriarch might have hatched—bore the nasty weather with the resigned air of men who had been through worse.
Krispos met Gnatios just inside the entranceway to the residence. Wet and dripping, Gnatios prostrated himself on the chilly marble floor. "Your Majesty is most gracious to receive me," he said through chattering teeth.
"Rise, holy sir, rise." Gnatios looked bedraggled enough to make Krispos feel guilty. "Let's get you dry and warm; then I'll hear what you have to say." At his nod, a chamberlain brought towels and furs to swaddle Gnatios.
Krispos led Gnatios down the hall and into a chamber fitted out for audiences. Gnatios' step was sure, but then, Krispos remembered, he'd been here many times before. Iakovitzes waited inside the chamber. He rose and bowed as Krispos led in the former patriarch. Krispos said, "Since I intend to name Iakovitzes as Sevastos to succeed Mavros, I thought he should hear you along with me."
Gnatios bowed to Iakovitzes. "Congratulations, your Highness, if I may anticipate your coming into your new office," he murmured.
Iakovitzes' stylus raced over wax. He held up what he'd written so Krispos and Gnatios both could read it. "Never mind the fancy talk. If you know how to hurt Harvas, tell us. If you don't, go back to your bleeding cell."
"That's how it is, holy sir," Krispos agreed.
"I am aware of it, I assure you," Gnatios said. For once his clever, rather foxy features were altogether serious. "In truth, I do not know how to hurt him, but I think I know who—'what' may be the better word—he is. I rely on your Majesty's honor to judge the value of that."
"I'm glad you do, since you have no other choice save silence," Krispos said. "Now sit, holy sir, and tell me your tale."
"Thank you, your Majesty." Gnatios perched on a chair. Krispos sat down beside Iakovitzes on the couch that faced it. Gnatios said, "As I have written, this tale begins three hundred years ago."
"Go on," Krispos said. He was glad he had Iakovitzes with him. He'd enjoyed the histories and chronicles he'd read, but the noble was a truly educated man. He'd know if Gnatios tried to sneak something past.
Gnatios said, "Surely you know, your Majesty, of the Empire's time of troubles, when the barbarians poured in all along our northern and eastern frontiers and stole so many lands from us."
"I should," Krispos said. "The Kubratoi kidnapped me when I was a boy, and I aided Iakovitzes in his diplomatic dealings with Khatrish some years ago. I know less of Thatagush, and worry about it less, too, since its borders don't touch ours."