She only smiled and said, "Babies are like that." She turned toward the sun and closed her eyes. "During the winter, you think it will never get warm and dry again. I'd like to be a lizard and just stand here and bask." But after she'd basked for a minute or two, her smile faded. "I always used to wish winter would end as soon as it could. Now I half want it to last longer— the good weather means you'll be going out on campaign, doesn't it?"
"You know it does," Krispos said. "Unless we get another rainstorm, the roads should be dry enough to travel by the end of the week."
Dara nodded. "I know. Will you be angry if I tell you I'm worried?"
"No," he answered after some thought. "I'm worried, too." He looked north and east. He couldn't see much, not with the cherry trees that surrounded the imperial residence in such riotous pink bloom, but he knew Harvas was there waiting for him. The knowledge was anything but reassuring.
"I wish you could stay here behind the safety of the city's walls," Dara said.
He remembered his awe on the day he first came to Videssos the city and saw its massive double ring of fortifications. Surely even Harvas could find no way to overthrow them. Then he remembered other things as welclass="underline" Develtos, Imbros, and Trokoundos' warning that he should meet Harvas as far from the city as he could. Trokoundos had a way of knowing what he was talking about.
"I don't think there's safety anywhere, not while Harvas is on the loose," he said slowly. After a moment, Dara nodded again. He saw how much it cost her.
Phostis wiggled in his arms. He set the boy down. A Haloga took out his dagger, undid the sheath from his belt, and tossed it near Phostis. Gold inlays ornamented the sheath, their glitter drew Phostis, who picked it up and started chewing on it.
"It's brass and leather," Krispos told him. "You won't likeit." A moment later Phostis made a ghastly face and took the sheath out of his mouth. A moment after that, he started gnawing on it again.
From behind Dara, Barsymes said, "Here are some proper toys." He rolled a little wooden wagon to Phostis. Inside it were two cleverly carved horses. Phostis picked them up, then threw them aside. He raised the wagon to his mouth and began to chew on a wheel.
"Stick him by a river, he'll cut down trees like a beaver," a Haloga said. Everyone laughed except Barsymes, who let out an indignant sniff.
Krispos watched Phostis playing in the sunshine. He suddenly bent down to run a hand through the little boy's thick black hair. He saw Dara's eyes widen with surprise; he seldom showed Phostis physical affection. But he knew beyond any possible doubt that, even if Phostis happened to be Anthimos' son rather than his own, he would far, far sooner, see him ruling the Empire of Videssos than Harvas Black-Robe.
IX
The imperial army was like a city on the march. As far as Krispos could see in any direction were horses and helmets and spearpoints and wagons. They overflowed the road and moved northward on either side. Yet even in the midst of so many armed men, Krispos did not feel altogether secure. He had gone north with an army before and come back defeated.
"What are our chances, Trokoundos?" he asked, anxious to be reassured.
The wizard's lips twitched; Krispos had asked the same question less than an hour before. As he had before, Trokoundos answered: "Were no magic to be used by either side, Majesty. I could hope to ascertain that for you. As it is, spells yet to be cast befog any magic I might use. I assure you, though, Harvas enters this campaign as blind as we do."
Krispos wondered how true that was. Harvas might have no sorcerous foretelling, but he'd lived as long as five or six ordinary men. On how much of that vast experience could he draw, to scent what his foes would do next?
"Will we have enough mages to hold him in check?"
"There, your Majesty, I can be less certain," Trokoundos said. "By the lord with the great and good mind, though, we now have a better notion of how to try to cope with him, thanks to the researches of Gnatios."
"Thanks to Gnatios," Krispos repeated, not altogether happily. Now instead of a patriarch who backed him absolutely but thought nothing of setting the whole Empire ablaze for the sake of perfect orthodoxy, he had once more a patriarch who was theologically moderate but not to be trusted out of sight—or in it, for that matter. He hoped the trade would prove worthwhile.
Trokoundos continued, "When I faced Harvas last year, I took him for a barbarian wizard, puissant but—why are you laughing, your Majesty?"
"Never mind," Krispos said, laughing still. "Go on, please."
"Ahem. Well, as I say, I reckoned Harvas Black-Robe to be powerful but unschooled. Now I know this is not the case—just the reverse obtains, in fact. Having now, thanks to Gnatios, a better notion of the sort of magic he employes, and having also with me more—and more potent—colleagues, I do possess some hope that we shall be able to defend against his onslaughts."
All the finest mages of the Sorcerers' Collegium rode with the army. If Trokoundos could but hope to withstand Harvas by their combined efforts, that in itself spoke volumes about the evil wizard's strength. They were not volumes Krispos cared to read. He said, "Can we sorcerously strike back at the northerners who follow Harvas?"
"Your Majesty, we will try," Trokoundos said. "The good god willing, we will distract Harvas from the magics he might otherwise hurl at us. Past that, I have no great hope. Because battle so inflames men's passions, magic more readily slips aside from them then and is more easily countered. That is why battle magic succeeds so seldom ... save Harvas'." Krispos wished the wizard had not tacked on that codicil.
Rhisoulphos rode by at a fast trot. "Why aren't you with your regiment?" Krispos called.
His father-in-law reined in and looked around, as if wondering who presumed to address him with such familiarity. His face cleared when he saw Krispos. "Greetings, your Majesty," he said, saluting. "I just gave a courier a note to a friend in the city, and now I am indeed returning to my men. By your leave ..."He waited for Krispos' nod, then dug his heels into his horse's flanks and urged the animal on again.
Krispos followed him with his eyes. Rhisoulphos did not look back. He rode as if in a competition of horsemanship, without a single wasted motion. "He's so smooth," Krispos said, as much to himself as to Trokoundos. "He rides smoothly, he talks smoothly, he has smooth good looks and smooth good sense."
"But you don't like him," Trokoundos said. It was not a question.
"No, I don't. I want to. I ought to. He's Dara's father, after all. But with so much smoothness on the top of him, who can be sure what's underneath? Petronas guessed wrong and paid for it, too."
"Set next to Harvas—"
"Every other worry is a small one. I know. But I have to keep an eye on the small things, too, for fear they'll grow while my back was turned. I wonder who he was writing to. You know, Trokoundos, what I really need is a spell that would give me eyes all around my head and let me stay awake day and night both. Then I'd sleep better—except I wouldn't sleep, would I?" Krispos stopped. "I've confused myself."
Trokoundos smiled. "Never mind, your Majesty. No wizard can give you what you asked for, so there's no point in fretting over it."
"I suppose not. Fretting over Rhisoulphos, though, is something else again." Krispos looked ahead once more, but the general had vanished—smoothly—among the swarms of riders heading north.
The army did not cover much more ground in a day than a walking man might have. When the troopers moved, they set a decent pace. But getting them moving each morning and getting them into camp every night ate away at the time they were able to spend on the road. That had also been true of the forces Krispos led against Petronas and against Harvas the summer before, but to a lesser degree. One of the things a huge army meant was huge inefficiency.