The blacksmith walked off scratching his head.
Himerios didn't boast anything fancy enough to be called a residence. He lived in an ordinary house, one just like the others along its street. Its ground floor was built of the local golden sandstone, its upper story of timber now pale with years of weathering. The only opening in the ground floor was the doorway, and the door, of thick planks reinforced with iron, could have done duty in a fortress. The upper story boasted a couple of windows with stout wooden shutters that could be closed tight against the biting cold of winter. As usual in Skopentzana, the slates on the roof were steeply pitched, so snow would slide off instead of sticking.
Rhavas knocked on that formidable door. Two boys kicking a ball back and forth in the narrow, muddy street gave him an odd look; it wasn't the sort of neighborhood where priests appeared every day. A scrawny stray dog rooting through rubbish paid no attention to him. He preferred the dog's attitude.
When no one answered, Rhavas knocked again, harder. This time, the door creaked open. There stood Himerios, who stared with even more surprise than the boys showed. "Very holy sir!" the garrison commander exclaimed. "To what do I owe the honor of this visit?" He didn't say, What do you want from me? but that had to be what he meant.
"May I come in?" Rhavas asked.
"Well, yes, of course." Himerios stood aside to let Rhavas do so. The garrison commander was as tall and lean as Zautzes was short and squat. He even overtopped Rhavas, who was far from small, by a finger's breadth or two. He had a long, angular face, with a sharp nose and a mole on his right cheek just above his neatly trimmed fringe of lightly frosted beard.
Several stools and a table furnished the front room, along with one wooden chair near the hearth. Himerios waved Rhavas to the chair. Rhavas shook his head. He perched on a stool instead; the chair was plainly Himerios' special place. Sure enough, the officer—who wore a loose wool tunic over baggy breeches tucked into boots like most men in this cold northern city—sat down there.
"Ingegerd!" he called back to the kitchen. "The prelate's come to pay a call. Fetch us some wine and honey cakes, please."
"Yes, I will do that," his wife answered. Her name said she came from the Haloga country. So did the sonorously musical accent that flavored her Videssian.
She brought out the refreshments on a wooden tray a couple of minutes later. She was almost as tall as Rhavas herself, and exotically beautifuclass="underline" fair-haired, fair-skinned, with granite cheekbones and chin and with eyes bluer than the sky above Skopentzana. No matter how resigned to celibacy Rhavas was, his own eyes followed her emphatically curved shape as she served him and Himerios.
"Very holy sir," she murmured, and sketched the sun-sign. Unlike most Halogai, she'd given up the fierce gods of her homeland for the lord with the great and good mind.
After raising his hands to the heavens and spitting in ritual rejection of Skotos, Rhavas sipped the wine. It was sweet and strong and good—and he needed bracing. He took a bite from a honey cake. It was rich with walnuts and butter. He'd had to get used to that last; in Videssos the city, which favored olive oil instead, using butter branded one a barbarian. The stuff did stay fresh better here than down in the capital.
Himerios also ate and drank. So did Ingegerd, who'd sat down on a stool after setting the tray on the table. Haloga women had a reputation for forwardness of both the good and the bad sort; she evidently lived up to it. Rhavas clucked, but only to himself. Though her forwardness bent custom, it broke no religious law.
"Well, very holy sir, what's on your mind?" Himerios asked, setting his pewter goblet on his knee.
Before answering, Rhavas glanced toward Ingegerd. She looked back steadily, her sculptured features all serious attention. Himerios still gave no sign of sending her away. However strange it seemed to the prelate, the garrison commander evidently wanted his wife to hear. With a small shrug, Rhavas passed on the news: "The general Stylianos has rebelled against his Majesty, the Avtokrator Maleinos."
"Phos!" Himerios exclaimed, and then, hoping against hope, "You're sure?"
"As sure as needs be," Rhavas answered. "I have it just now from Zautzes the eparch, who has it from a courier up from the south. I saw the courier ride up to Zautzes' residence. He almost killed his horse getting here. He thought his news important. I did not hear it from his own lips or see the dispatch he bore, but I have no reason to doubt the eparch."
Ingegerd spoke with a man's, even a soldier's, directness: "This can only mean civil war. Who will win?"
Nine words, and she'd said everything that needed saying. Rhavas put the best face on things he could: "Maleinos has ruled for many years. Most people are loyal to him. And he holds Videssos the city. No one can claim to rule the Empire without ruling the capital, and Videssos the city is the greatest fortress in the world." Every word of that was true. It would have spelled the ruination of most uprisings before they were well begun. This one . . .
"Stylianos is Stylianos," Himerios said. "Videssos hasn't seen the likes of him for a long time." And that, unfortunately, was also true.
Ingegerd said something in her own language. Rhavas knew not a word of the Haloga tongue. He watched Himerios give him a sudden startled look. Did she just remind him I am Maleinos' cousin? To the ice with me if I don't think she did.
But Rhavas thought he would have stayed loyal to Maleinos even without a blood tie between them. He said, "You need to remember that the Avtokrator is Phos' vicegerent on earth. Maleinos is the legitimate ruler of the Empire; his father and grandfather ruled it before him. And what is Stylianos? A would-be usurper, someone who would topple Phos' vicegerent. Who would do such a thing? Only a man who has taken Skotos into his heart." Again, he ceremonially spat in rejection of the dark god.
So did Himerios and Ingegerd. All orthodox believers in Videssos had faith that in the end Phos would prevail over Skotos, good would prevail over evil. To believe otherwise was to fall into blackest heresy, and surely to forfeit one's soul to the ice of the dark god's hell.
All the same, Himerios said, "Suppose Stylianos wins, very holy sir? I'm not saying he will, mind you, but just suppose, all right? He'd become Avtokrator, right?"
"He would still be a usurper," Rhavas said stiffly. Maleinos' grandfather—his own grandmother's brother—had been a usurper, too, but he didn't bring that up. To be fair, he didn't even think of it.
"He wouldn't just be a usurper. He'd be the Avtokrator, too. He'd wear the red boots," Himerios persisted. "Wouldn't that make him Phos' vicegerent on earth?"
Rhavas was an honest man. He'd never imagined he would wish he weren't. Here, he did. Making a sour face, he answered, "Technically, yes, but the sin of rebellion would still lie heavily upon him. The patriarch might well require penance before he could worship in the High Temple."
Ingegerd spoke again in the Haloga tongue, sharply this time. Himerios gave her an impatient nod. Then he swung his attention back to Rhavas. "I do thank you for bringing me this news, very holy sir. Now, if civil war should come to Skopentzana, I will know what to do. Phos prevent it, but if it should . . ." He made the sign of the good god above his breast.
So did his wife. And so did Rhavas. The prelate left Himerios' house a few minutes later, certain the garrison commander had said he would act in Maleinos' interest. Rhavas had got all the way back to his own residence before he ran through Himerios' words in his mind once more. He stopped dead, his hand on the latch, realizing Himerios had in fact said no such thing.
"Trimmer. Accursed trimmer," Rhavas said scornfully. But how many others would also wait to see which way the wind was blowing before setting their own sails?