The cot was narrow for two; the cot, in truth, was narrow for one. They managed all the same. Tanilis was as Krispos remembered her, or even more so, an all but overwhelming blend of passion and technique. Soon his own excitement drove memory away, leaving only the moment.
Even after they were spent, they lay entangled—otherwise one of them would have fallen off the cot. Tanilis' hand stole down his side and stroked him with practiced art. "Another round?" she murmured, her breath warm in his ear.
"In a bit, maybe," he answered after taking stock of himself. "I'm older than I was when I visited Opsikion, you know. I wasn't spending long days in the saddle then, either." One of his eyebrows quirked upward against the velvety skin of her throat. "At least, not on horseback."
She bit him in the shoulder, hard enough to hurt. He started to yelp, but checked himself in time. The small pain seemed to spur him, though; sooner than he had expected, he found himself rising to the occasion once more. Tanilis let out a voiceless sigh as they began again.
From outside the tent one of the guardsmen called, "Majesty, a courier is here with a dispatch from the city."
Krispos did his best not to hear the Haloga. "Don't be foolish," Tanilis said; she retained as much self-control as Krispos remembered. She made a small pushing motion against his chest. "Go on; see what news the rider brings. I'll be here when you get back."
Knowing she was right helped only so much. More than a little grumpily, he separated from her, climbed off the cot, dressed, and went out into the night. "Here you are, your Majesty," the courier said, handing him a sealed roll of parchment. After a salute, the fellow twitched his mount's reins and headed out toward the long lines of tethered horses.
Krispos ducked back into the tent. As he did so, his cheeks started to flame. The Halogai had never been shy about sticking their heads inside when they needed him to come out. If they called now, it had to be because they knew what he was doing in there. "Oh, to the ice with it," he muttered. The longer he ruled, the more resigned he became to having no privacy.
The sight of Tanilis waiting for him drove such minor annoyances clean out of his mind. He yanked off his robe and let it fell to the ground. Tanilis frowned. "The dispatch—"
"Whatever it is, it will keep long enough."
She lowered her eyes in acquiescence. "Then hurry here, your Majesty." Krispos hurried.
Afterward, languid, he wanted to forget about the roll of parchment, but he knew Tanilis would think less of him for that—and he would think less of himself when morning came. He got into his robe again and broke the seal on the message. Tanilis projected an air of silent approval as she, also, put her clothes back on.
His impatient thoughts full of her, he hadn't bothered to hold the dispatch up to a lamp to find out who'd sent it. Now, as he read the note inside, he learned: "The Empress Dara to her husband Krispos, Avtokrator of the Videssians: Greetings. Yesterday I gave birth to our second son, as Mavros' mother Tanilis foretold. As we agreed, I've named him Evripos. He is large and seems healthy, and squalls at all hours of the day and night. The birth was hard, but all births are hard. The midwife acts pleased with him and me both. The good god grant that you are soon here in the city once more to see him and me."
Krispos had felt no guilt before. Now it all crashed down on him at once. When he said nothing for some time, Tanilis asked, "Is the news so very bad, then?" Wordlessly he passed the letter to her. She read quickly and without moving her lips, something Krispos still found far from easy. "Oh," was all she said when she was done.
"Yes," Krispos said: only two words between them, but words charged with a great weight of meaning.
"Shall I come here to your tent no more then, your Majesty?" Tanilis asked, her voice all at once cool and formal.
"That might be best," Krispos answered miserably.
"As you wish, your Majesty. Do recall, though, that you knew of the Empress'—your wife's—condition before this dispatch arrived. I grant that knowing and being reminded are not the same, but you had the knowledge. And now, by your leave—" She tossed Dara's letter onto the cot, strode briskly to the tent flap, ducked through it, and walked away.
Krispos stared after her. Minutes before they had been gasping in each other's arms. He picked up the letter to read it again. He had another son, and Dara was well. Good news, every bit of it. Even so, he crumpled the parchment into a ball and flung it to the ground.
Scouts pushed ahead before dawn the next morning, probing to make sure no ambushes lay ahead of the imperial army. The main force soon followed, a long column with its supply wagons, protected by a sizable knot of mounted men, rattling along in the middle.
The unwieldy arrangement never failed to make Krispos nervous. "If Harvas had even a few Kubrati horse-archers on his side, he could give us no end of grief," he remarked to Bagradas, who led the force guarding the baggage train. Concentrating on the army's affairs helped Krispos keep his mind off his own, and off the fact that today Tanilis had chosen not to ride beside him, but rather with the rest of the magicians.
Bagradas did not notice that—or if he did, had sense enough not to let on. He said, "Whatever Kubratoi still have fight in them want to come in on our side, your Majesty, not against us. We picked up another few dozen yesterday. Of course, when it comes to real fighting, they may do us as little good as that group that stayed with you out of the pass all the way up until things looked dangerous and then took off." The regimental commander lifted a cynical eyebrow.
"As long as they aren't raiding us, they can do as they please," Krispos said. "We brought along enough of our own folk to do our fighting for us." He lifted a hand from Progress' neck to pluck at his beard. "I wonder how that column I sent out is faring."
"My guess would be that they are still out swinging wide, your Majesty," Bagradas said. "If they turn north too close to us, Harvas might be able to position men in front of them."
"They were warned about that," Krispos said. One more thing to worry about—
He urged Progress ahead toward the group of sorcerers. They were, he saw without surprise, gathered around Tanilis. Zaidas, who had been animatedly chattering with her, looked over with almost comic startlement as Krispos rode up beside him.
"A good thing I'm not Harvas," Krispos remarked dryly. He bowed in the saddle to Tanilis. "My lady, may I speak with you?"
"Of course, your Majesty. You know you have only to command." She spoke without apparent irony and flicked the reins to get her horse into a trot and away from the wizards. Krispos did the same. Zaidas and the other wizards stared after them in disappointment. When enough clear space had opened up to give them some privacy, Tanilis inclined her head to Krispos. "Your Majesty?"
"I just wanted to say I feel bad about the way things ended between us last night."
"You needn't trouble yourself about it," she replied. "After all, you are the Avtokrator of the Videssians. You may do just as you wish."
"Anthimos did just as he wished," Krispos said angrily. "Look what it got him. I want to try to do what's right, so far as I can see what that is."
"You've chosen a harder road than he did." After a small pause, Tanilis went on in a dispassionate tone of voice, "Few would say that bedding a woman not your wife falls into that category."
"I know, I know, I know." He made a fist and slammed it down on his thigh just below the bottom edge of his coat of mail. "I don't make a habit of it, you know."
"I would have guessed that, yes." Now she sounded amused, perhaps not in an altogether pleasant way.
"It isn't funny, curse it." Doggedly, clumsily, he went ahead: "I'd known you—loved you for a while, though I know you didn't love me—for such a long time, and now I'd seen you again, when I never expected to, well, I never worried about what I was doing till I'd done it. Then that note came, and I got brought up short—"