The Tale of Krispos Read Online Free PDF Page B

split second, Krispos hung back. Then he thought that he had been chosen for his boldness. He straightened his back, put his chin up, and walked over to Omurtag. The tight-stretched hides vibrated under his feet, as if they were an enormous drumhead.
    “We have your people,” Omurtag intoned, taking hold of Krispos’ arm with his left hand. His grip was firm and hard. His right hand plucked a dagger from his belt, set it at the boy’s throat. Krispos stood very still. The khagan went on, “They are ours, to do with as we will.”
    “The Empire has gold and will pay for their safe return.” Iakovitzes sounded, of all things, bored. Krispos was suddenly sure he’d performed this ceremony many times before.
    “Let us see that gold,” the khagan said. His voice was still formal, but anything but bored. He stared avidly at the pouch Iakovitzes withdrew from within a fold of his robe.
    The Videssian envoy drew out a single bright coin, gave it to Omurtag. “Let this goldpiece stand for all, as the boy does,” Iakovitzes said.
    Omurtag passed the coin to the
enaree.
He muttered over it; the hand that was not holding it moved in tiny passes. Krispos saw the Videssian priest scowl, but the man held his peace. The
enaree
spoke in the Kubrati tongue. “He declares it is good gold,” Omurtag said to Iakovitzes.
    “Of course it’s good gold,” Iakovitzes snapped, breaking the ritual. “The Empire hasn’t coined anything else for hundreds of years. Should we start now, it would be for something more important than ransoming ragged peasants.”
    The khagan laughed out loud. “I think your tongue was stung by a wasp one day, Iakovitzes,” he said, then returned to the pattern of the ceremony. “He declares it is good gold. Thus the people are yours.” He gently pushed Krispos toward Iakovitzes.
    The envoy’s touch was warm, alive. He moved his hand on Krispos’ back in a way that was strange and familiar at the same time. “Hello, pretty boy,” Iakovitzes murmured. Krispos recognized the tone and realized why the caress had that familiarity to it: his father and mother acted like this with each other when they felt like making love.
    Having lived all his life in a one-room house with his parents, having slept in the same bed with them, he knew what sex was about. That variations could exist, variations that might include him and Iakovitzes, had not occurred to him before, though. Now that it did, he found he did not much care for it. He moved half a step away from the Avtokrator’s envoy.
    Iakovitzes jerked back his hand as if surprised to discover what it had been up to. Glancing at him, Krispos doubted he was. His face was a mask that must have taken years to perfect. Seeing Krispos’ eye upon him, he gave a tiny shrug.
If you don’t want it, too bad for you,
he seemed to say.
    Aloud, the words he spoke were quite different. “It is accomplished,” he said loudly. Then he turned to the crowd of peasants gathered in front of the platform. “People of Videssos, you are redeemed!” he cried. “The Phos-guarded Avtokrator Rhaptes redeems you from your long and horrid captivity in this dark and barbarous land, from your toil under the degrading domination of brutal and terrible masters. Masters? No, rather let me call them robbers, for they robbed you of the liberty rightfully yours…”
    The speech went on for some time. Krispos was at first impressed and then overwhelmed with the buckets of big words Iakovitzes poured over the heads of the farmers.
Over our heads is right,
the boy thought. He was missing one word in three, and doubted anyone else in the crowd was doing much better.
    He yawned. Seeing that, Omurtag grinned and winked. Iakovitzes, caught up now in the full flow of his rhetoric, never noticed.
    The khagan waggled a finger. Krispos walked back over to him. Again Iakovitzes paid no attention, though Krispos felt the eyes of both priest and
enaree
upon him.
    “Here, lad,” Omurtag said—softly,