Krispos stopped. His mouth hung open. His eyes went wide. "What are you gawping at?" Iakovitzes wrote. "It had better be Phos' holy light, to account for that idiotic expression you're wearing."
"It's the next best thing," Krispos assured him. He raised his voice: "Barsymes! Are you still there? Ah, good. I want you to draft me a note to the most holy patriarch Pyrrhos. Here's what you need to say—"
Barsymes stuck his head into the audience chamber. "The most holy patriarch Pyrrhos is here to see you, your Majesty."
"Good. He should be done to a turn by now." Krispos had put off four days of increasingly urgent requests from the patriarch for an audience. He turned to Iakovitzes, Mammianos, and Rhisoulphos. "Excellent and eminent sirs, I ask you to bear careful witness to what takes place here today, so that you may take oath on it at need."
The three nobles nodded, formally and solemnly. Mammianos said, "This had better work."
"The beauty of it is, I 'm no worse off if it doesn't," Krispos answered. "Now to business. I hear Pyrrhos coming."
The patriarch prostrated himself with his usual punctiliousness. He glanced at the three high-ranking men who sat to Krispos' left, but only for a moment. His eyes sparked as he swung them back to Krispos. "Your Majesty, I must vehemently protest this recent decision of yours." He drew out the note Krispos had sent him. "Oh? Why is that, most holy sir?"
Pyrrhos' jaw set. He knew when he was being toyed with. With luck, he did not know why. He ground out, "Because, your Majesty, you have restored to the monk Gnatios—the treacherous, wicked monk Gnatios—as much liberty as is enjoyed by the other brethren of the monastery dedicated to the sacred memory of the holy Skirios. Moreover, you have done so without consulting me." Plainer than words, his face said what he would have answered had Krispos consulted him.
"The monk Gnatios did a great service for me and for the Empire," Krispos said. "Because of that, I've decided to overlook his past failings."
"I haven't," Pyrrhos said. "This interference in the internal affairs of the temples is unwarranted and intolerable."
"In this special case, I judged not. And let me remind you that the Avtokrator is Avtokrator over all the Empire, cities and farms and temples alike. Most holy sir, I have the right if I choose to use it, and I choose to use it here."
"Intolerable," Pyrrhos repeated. He drew himself up. "Your Majesty, if you persist in you pernicious course, I have no choice but to submit to you my resignation in protest thereof."
Off to Krispos' left, someone sighed softly. He thought it was Rhisoulphos. It was all the applause he would ever get, but it was more than enough. "I'm sorry to hear that from you, most holy sir," he said to Pyrrhos. Just by a hair's breath, the patriarch began to relax. But Krispos was not finished. "I accept your resignation. These gentlemen will attest you offered it of your own free will, with no coercion whatsoever."
Iakovitzes, Mammianos, and Rhisoulphos nodded, formally and solemnly.
"You—planned this," Pyrrhos said in a ghastly voice. He saw everything, too late.
"I did not urge you to resign," Krispos pointed out. "You did it yourself. Now that you have done it, Barsymes will prepare a document for you to sign."
"And if I refuse to set my signature upon it?"
"Then you have resigned even so. As I said, holy sir—"
Pyrrhos scowled at the abrupt devaluation of his title. "—you resigned of your own accord, in front of witnesses. That may be smoothest all around. I would have removed you if you insisted on staying on—you promised to practice theological economy and tolerate what you could, but none of your sermons has shown even one drop of tolerance."
Pyrrhos said, "I see everything now. You will replace me with that panderer to evil, Gnatios. Without your knowing it, the dark god has taken hold of your heart."
Krispos leaned forward and spat on the floor. "That to the dark god! Look at your cousin here, holy sir. Remember what Harvas Black-Robe did to him. Would he fall into any trap Skotos might lay?"
"Were it baited with a pretty boy, he might," Pyrrhos said.
Iakovitzes used a two-fingered gesture common on the streets of Videssos the city. Pyrrhos gasped. Krispos wondered when that gesture had last been aimed at a patriarch—no, an ex-patriarch, he amended. Iakovitzes wrote furiously and passed his tablet to Rhisoulphos. Rhisoulphos read it: " 'Cousin, the only bait you need is the hope of tormenting everyone who disagrees with you. Are you sure you have not swallowed it?' "
"I know I believe the truth; thus anyone who holds otherwise embraces falsehood," Pyrrhos said, "I see now that that includes those here. Majesty, you may ban me from preaching in the High Temple, but I shall take my message to the streets of the city—"
Now Krispos knew Pyrrhos was no intriguer. A man wiser in the ways of stirring up strife would never have warned what he planned to do. Krispos said, "If what you believe is the truth, holy sir, and if I have fallen into evil, how do you explain the vision that bade you help me like a son?"
Pyrrhos opened his mouth, then closed it again. Rhisoulphos leaned over to whisper to Krispos, "If nothing else, your Majesty, you've confused him."
Grateful even for so much, Krispos nodded. He told Pyrrhos, "Holy sir, I'm going to give you an honor guard of Halogai to escort you to the monastery of the holy Skirios. If you do decide to yell something foolish to the people in the street, they'll do what they have to, to keep you quiet." Pyrrhos could not terrify the heathen northerners with threats of Skotos' ice.
He could not be intimidated, either. "Let them do as they will."
"The monastery of the holy Skirios, eh?" Mammianos said. One eyelid rose, men fell. "I'm sure the holy sir and Gnatios will have a good deal to say to each other."
Having planted his barb, the fat general leaned back to enjoy it. Pyrrhos did not disappoint him. The cleric's glare was as cold and withering as the fiercest of ice storms. Mammianos affected not to notice it. He went on, "Of course, Gnatios will have the blue boots back soon enough."
'The good god shall judge between us in the world to come," Pyrrhos said. "I rest content with that." He turned to Krispos. "Phos shall judge you, as well, your Majesty."
"I know," Krispos answered. "Unlike you, holy sir, I'm far from sure of my answers. I do the best I can, even so."
Pyrrhos surprised him by bowing. "So the good god would expect of you. May your judgment be better in other instances than it is with me. Now summon your northerners, if you feel you must. Wherever you send me, I shall continue to praise Phos' holy name." He sketched the sun-circle over his heart.
In an abstract way, Krispos respected Pyrrhos' sincere piety. He did not let that respect blind him. When Pyrrhos departed from the imperial residence, he did so under guard. Iakovitzes nodded approval. "Just because someone sounds humble is no sure reason to trust him," he wrote.
"From what I've seen at the throne, there's no sure reason to trust anyone."
To his secret dismay, both Rhisoulphos and Mammianos nodded at that. Iakovitzes wrote, "You're learning." Krispos supposed he was, but did not care for the lessons his office taught him.
For the first time since Harvas' magic turned back the imperial army on the borders of Kubrat, Trokoundos seemed something more than gloomy. "I hope you intend to reward Gnatios for what he ferreted out," he told Krispos. "Without it, we'd still be stumbling around like so many blind men."
"I have a reward in mind, yes," Krispos said; at that moment, a synod of prelates and abbots was contemplating Gnatios' name for the patriarchate once more, along with those of two other men whom the assembled clerics knew they had better ignore. "Now that you know more of Harvas, will he be easier to defeat?"