"Ah." Now Barsymes' voice showed he understood. "Will you return to the army later today, then?"
"I have a couple of things to do before I go. Do I remember rightly that Pyrrhos, while he was patriarch, condemned the hierarch Savianos for some tiny lapse or other?"
"Yes, your Majesty, that's so." Barsymes' eyes narrowed. "Am I to infer, then, that you will name Savianos ecumenical patriarch rather than restoring Pyrrhos to his old throne?"
"That's just what I intend to do, if he wants the job. I've had a bellyful of quarrelsome clerics. Will you arrange to have Savianos brought here as quickly as you can?"
"I shall have to find out in which monastery he's been confined, but yes, I will deal with that at once."
Toward evening that day Savianos prostrated himself before Krispos. "How may I serve your Majesty?" he asked as he rose. His face was craggy and intelligent; beyond that, Krispos had learned better than to guess character from features.
He came straight to the point: "Gnatios' head went up on the Milestone this morning. I want you to succeed him as ecumenical patriarch."
Savianos' shaggy gray eyebrows leaped like startled gray caterpillars. "Me, your Majesty? Why me? For one thing, I'm more nearly of Gnatios' theological bent than Pyrrhos', and I even spoke against Pyrrhos when you named him patriarch. For another, why would I want the patriarchal throne if you just killed the man who was on it? I have no interest in making the headsman's acquaintance just because I somehow offended you."
"Gnatios didn't meet the headsman for offending me. He met him for plotting against me. If you plan on meddling in politics after you put on the blue boots, you'd best stay where you are."
"If I'd wanted to meddle in politics, I'd have become a bureaucrat, not a priest," Savianos said.
"Good enough. As for the other, I remember your speaking up for Gnatios. That took courage. It's one of the reasons I want you to be patriarch. And my own beliefs aren't as, as—" Krispos groped for a word. "—rigid as Pyrrhos'. I didn't object to Gnatios' doctrines, only to his treason. So, holy sir, shall submit your name to the synod?"
"You really mean it," Savianos said in a wondering tone. He studied Krispos, giving him a more thorough and critical scrutiny than he was used to getting since he'd become Avtokrator. At last, with a nod, the priest said, "No, you're not one to butcher for the sport of it, are you?"
"No," Krispos answered at once, queasily remembering how Gnatios' head had blinked as it bounced from the stump onto the grass.
"No," Savianos agreed. "All right, your Majesty, if you want to give it to me, I'll take it on. Shall we aim to work without biting each other's tails?"
"By the good god, that's just what we need to do." Krispos felt like cheering. He'd said that to Pyrrhos and Gnatios both, time and again; each in his own way had chosen to ignore it. Now an ecclesiastic was saying it for himself! "Holy sir—most holy sir to be—I already feel I've picked the right man."
Saviano's chuckle had a wry edge to it. "Don't praise the horse till you've ridden him. If you tell me as much three years from now, we'll both have reason to be pleased."
"I'm pleased right now. Let me come up with a couple of truly ghastly names to go along with the rules of the synod and I'll be able to get back to the army knowing the temples are in good hands."
After Savianos left the imperial residence, Krispos summoned the grand drungarios of the fleet, a solidly built veteran sailor named Kanaris. That meeting was much shorter than the one with Savianos. But men, unlike Savianos, Kanaris did not need to be persuaded—when he heard what Krispos wanted, he rushed away as fast as he could go, all eager to start at once.
Krispos wished he could look forward to the ride back to the army with equal anticipation.
The ride north was as fast as the ride south had been, but even harder to endure. Krispos had hoped he would be inured to the endless rolling, jouncing hours in the saddle, but it was not so. By the time he returned to camp, his best walk was a spraddle-legged shamble. Sarkis and the squad of scouts were in hardly better shape. The worst of it was, Krispos knew more long days of riding lay ahead.
The soldiers cheered as he rode up to the imperial tent. He waved back to them and put all the exuberance he had left into that wave. They would have been less flattered to know why he was so pleased, but he kept that to himself. He'd most dreaded coming upon their broken remnants as he hurried north.
"Things have been quiet while you were gone," Mammianos reported that evening, when Krispos met with his officers. "A few skirmishes here, a few there, but nothing major. Oh, the wizards have had a bit to do, too, so they have."
Krispos glanced at Trokoundos. "Aye, a bit to do," the mage said. Krispos concealed a start at the sound of his voice—he sounded more than tired, he sounded old. Battling Harvas had taken its toll on him. But he continued with sober pride, "Everything the Skotos-lover has hurled at us, we have withstood. I'll not deny he's cost us a handful of men, but only a handful. Without us, the army would be in ruins."
"I believe you, magical sir," Krispos said. "All Videssos owes you and your fellows a great debt of thanks. With everything safe here, I can give you my own news from the capital." Everyone leaned toward him. "First, Gnatios is patriarch no more. He plotted against me once too often, and I took his head."
Only nods greeted that announcement, not exclamations of surprise. Krispos nodded, too. Trokoundos and Mammianos had both known why he'd returned to the city in such a hurry, and he hadn't ordered either one of them to keep quiet about it. For that matter, he often thought ordering a Videssian to keep quiet about anything was a waste of breath.
He went on, "Next, I bring word of the eminent Rhisoulphos. He turns out to have given up the soldier's life for that of a monk, and is spending his days in Phos' service at a monastery in Prista."
That produced all the reaction he could have wanted.
"Prista?" Bagradas burst out. "By the good god, what's he doing in Prista? How'd he get there?" Several other officers loudly wondered the same thing. Krispos did not answer. One by one the soldiers and mages noticed he was not answering. They started to use their brains instead of their mouths. No Videssian of reasonable rank ignored politics; ignoring politics was unsafe. Before long they reached the proper conclusion. "I'm to keep my regiment, then?" Bagradas asked.
"I'd say it's very likely," Krispos agreed with a straight face.
"A nice bit of work, that, your Majesty," Mammianos said. Almost everyone echoed him. Nobles and courtiers had an artist's appreciation for underhandedness brought off with panache.
"I did one more brief bit of business while I was in the capital," Krispos said. "I ordered Kanaris to send a fleet of dromons up the Astris River. If the Halogai want to cross into Kubrat to fight for Harvas, why should we let them have an easy time of it?"
Fierce growls of approval rose from the officers. "Aye, let's see 'em take on our dromons with the canoes they hollow out of logs," Mammianos said.
"All this may hurt Harvas indirectly, but how do we do more than that?" Sarkis asked. "We can't go through him; we tried that last summer." He pointed to a map that a couple of stones held down and unrolled on Krispos' portable desk. "The next pass north into Kubrat is easily eighty miles east of here. That's too far to coordinate with a flying column, and if we set the whole army moving, what's to keep Harvas from shifting, too, on his side of the mountains?"
"We could double back—" Mammianos began. Then he shook his head. "No, it's too complicated, too likely to go wrong. Besides, if we march away from here, what's to keep Harvas from just jumping right back down into Videssos?"