"By the letter you sent, on the day Evripos was born, the army was fighting its way north from the mountains into Kubrat. And I wasn't doing anything more with Tanilis then than traveling in the same army." What he'd been doing when her letter arrived ... but she hadn't asked him that.
"Then," she said, a word that spoke volumes all by itself. She went on bitterly, "You even had the brass to acclaim her to the people today."
He wondered how she'd learned that. Nothing in Videssos the city flew faster than gossip. He said, "Whatever you think of me, whatever you think of her, she deserved to be acclaimed to them. I told you once, you'd be a widow now if not for her."
Dara gave him a long, cold, measuring stare. "That might be better. I warned you not to trifle with me."
Krispos remembered what Rhisoulphos had asked him—how would he dare fall asleep beside her? He said, "Careful, there. You'd have had no joy bargaining with Harvas Black-Robe over the fate of the Empire."
"I would have bargained with someone besides Harvas." She was angry enough to add one thing more: "I still may. I brought you the throne, after all."
"And you think you can take it away again, is that what you're saying? That the only reason I belong on it is because I married you?" He shook his head. "Maybe that was so two years ago. I don't think it is anymore. I beat Petronas, I beat Harvas. People are used to me with a crown on my head, and they see I can manage well enough." Now he glared coldly at her. "And so, if I wanted to, I expect I could send you to a convent, go on about my affairs here, and get away with it quite handily. Do you doubt me?"
"You wouldn't."
"To save myself, I would. But I don't want to. If we only had a marriage of convenience—" As he groped for the phrase, he remembered Tanilis using it. He shook his head, wishing he hadn't come up with the memory at exactly this moment. "—I think I could put you aside now and not have much trouble over it. I just told you that. I could have arranged it as I was on the way home from Kubrat. I came back here, though, because I love you, curse it."
Dara was not ready to give in, or to let him down easy. "I suppose you'd say the same thing if Tanilis had come back with you."
He winced, as if from a low blow. For all his wishing that Tanilis had lived, he hadn't thought about how he would handle her and Dara both. Badly was the answer that sprang to mind; between the two of them, they'd have made mincemeat of him in short order. Dara was doing a good job by herself.
He answered as best he could: "Might-have-beens don't matter. They aren't real, so how can you tell what's true about them? That just makes for more arguments. We don't need more arguments right now."
"Don't we? I trusted you, Krispos. How am I ever supposed to trust you again, now that I know you've been unfaithful?"
"It comes in time, if you give it a chance," he said. "I grew to trust you, for instance."
"Me? What about me?" Dara's eyes flashed dangerously. "Don't go twisting things. I've never been unfaithful to you, by the good god, and you'd better know it, too."
"I'm not twisting things, and I do know that," Krispos said. "But you were unfaithful to Anthimos with me, so I've known all along that you could be unfaithful to me, too. It used to worry me. It used to worry me a lot. It took a long time for me to decide I didn't need to worry about it anymore."
"You never let on," Dara said slowly. She looked at him as if she were seeing him for the first time. "You never let on at all."
"What would have been the point? I always figured that showing I was worried would have made things worse, not better, so I just kept quiet."
"Yes, that's like you, isn't it? You would have just kept quiet about Tanilis, too, and gone about your business." But some of the heat finally left Dara's voice. She kept studying Krispos. In spite of her temper—and in spite of the good reason he'd given her for losing it—she was thoroughly practical down deep. Krispos waited. At last she said, "Well, you may as well have a look at Evripos."
"Thank you." The two words took in much more than her last sentence alone. He'd known her a long time. He counted on her to hear that.
Not a servant was in sight when Krispos and Dara emerged from the imperial bedchamber. His mouth twisted wryly. He said, "All the eunuchs and women must be afraid to get anywhere near us. What with the row we were having, I can't blame them."
"Neither can I," Dara said, with the first half smile she'd given him. "They're probably waiting to find out which one of us comes out of there alive—if either of us does."
The nursery was around a couple of corners from the bedchamber. Only when Krispos and Dara rounded the last corner did they encounter Barsymes in the hallway. The vestiarios bowed. "Your Majesties," he said. With the subtle shifts of tone of which he was a master, he managed to make the innocuous greeting mean something like, Are your majesties done sticking knives in each other yet?
"It's—" Krispos started to say it was all right, but it wasn't. Maybe in time it would be. "It's better, esteemed sir." He glanced toward Dara, wondering if she would make a liar of him.
"It's some better, esteemed sir," she said carefully. Krispos clicked his tongue between his teeth. That would have to do.
"I'm pleased to hear it, your Majesties." Barsymes actually did sound pleased. He had to see the palm-size patch of red on Krispos' cheek, but he made sure he did not notice it. He bowed again. "If you will excuse me—" He walked past Krispos and Dara. Palace servants had a magic all their own. Within minutes everyone in the imperial residence would know what the vestiarios knew.
Krispos opened the nursery door and let Dara precede him through it. The woman sitting inside quickly got up and started to prostrate herself. "Nevermind, Iliana," Krispos said. The wet nurse smiled, pleased he remembered her name. He went on, "Everything's quiet, so Evripos must be asleep."
"So he is, your Majesty," Iliana said. She smiled again, in a different way this time: the haggard smile of anyone who takes care of a baby. She pointed to the cradle against one wall.
Krispos walked over to it and peered in. Evripos lay on his stomach. His right thumb was in his mouth. His odor, the peculiar mix of inborn baby sweetness and stale milk, wafted up to Krispos. Krispos said the first thing that came into his mind. "He doesn't have as much hair as Phostis did."
"No, he doesn't," Dara agreed.
"I think he's going to look like you, your Majesty," Iliana said to Krispos. She seemed oblivious to the fight he and Dara had just had. If she'd been here by herself with Evripos all the while, maybe she was. If so, she had to be the only person in the imperial residence who was. She continued, "His face is longer than Phostis' was at the same age, and I think he'll have your nose."
Krispos examined Evripos again. He found himself shrugging. For one thing, he'd been in the field when Phostis was this age, so comparing the two little boys was hard for him. For another, he didn't think Evripos' button of a nose looked anything like his own formidable beak. He asked, "How old is he now?"
"Six weeks, a couple of days more," Dara answered. "He's a bigger baby than Phostis was."
"Second babes often are," Iliana put in.
"Maybe he does look like me," Krispos said. "We'll have to train him to be always at his brother's right hand when the time comes for Phostis to rule." That won him a genuinely grateful look from Dara: here with a son surely his, he said nothing of removing Phostis from the succession.