Krispos stamped away, head down. He was at an age when he could laugh at others, but could not bear to have them laugh at him. All he wanted to do was get away from the hateful noise Because he was not watching where he was going, he almost ran into someone coming back toward the center of the village. "Sorry," he muttered and kept walking.
"What's wrong, Krispos?" He looked up, startled. It was Zoranne's voice. She'd changed back into her own long skirt and a coat, and looked a good deal warmer for it. "What's wrong?" she said again.
"Those stupid jokers back there, that's what," he burst out, "making as if when Idalkos and I wrestle, we don't just wrestle." Half his rage evaporated as soon as he said out loud what was bothering him. He began to feel foolish instead.
Zoranne did not help by starting to laugh. "It's Midwinter's Day, Krispos," she said. "It's all in fun." He knew that, which only made matters worse. She went on, "Anything can happen on Midwinter's Day, and no one will pay any mind to it the day after. Am I right?"
"I suppose so." He sounded surly, even to himself. "Besides," she said, "it's not as if what they made out was true, is it?"
"Of course not," he said, so indignantly that his changing voice left the last word a high-pitched squeak. As if from nowhere, the memory of Iakovitzes' hand on his back stirred in his mind. Maybe that was part of why the skit had got under his skin so.
She did not seem to notice. "Well, then," she said. Back by the bonfires, most of the villagers erupted in laughter at some new skit. Krispos realized how quiet it was out here near the edge of the village, how alone he and Zoranne were. The memory of how she'd looked capering in that brief tunic rose again. Without his conscious mind willing it, he took a step toward her. At the same moment, she was taking a step toward him. They almost bumped into each other. She laughed again. "Anything can happen on Midwinter's Day," she said softly.
When Krispos fled that embarrassing skit, he hadn't worried about picking a direction. Perhaps not surprisingly, he'd ended up not far from his own house; as usual, his father had preferred one on the outskirts of the village. Suddenly that seemed like a blessing from Phos. Krispos gathered his courage, reached out, and took Zoranne's arm. She pressed herself to his side.
His heart hammering, he led her to his doorway. They went inside together. He quickly shut the door behind them to keep the heat from the firepit in the middle of the floor from getting out.
"We'd better hurry," he said anxiously.
Just then, more laughter came from the center of the village. Zoranne smiled. "We have some time, I think." She shrugged off her coat, got out of her skirt. Krispos tried to undress and watch her at the same time, and almost fell over. Finally, after what seemed much too long, they sank to the straw bedding.
Krispos soon learned what everyone must: that knowing how man and woman join is not enough to keep that first joining from being one surprise after another. Nothing he thought he knew made him ready for the taste of Zoranne's soft skin against his lips; the feel of her breast in his hand; the way the whole world seemed to disappear but for her body and his.
As it does, it returned all too quickly. "You're squashing me," Zoranne said. Brisk and practical, she sat up and picked bits of straw from her hair, then from his.
Given a little more time and a little less nervousness, he might have enjoyed that. As it was, her touch made him spring up and scramble into his clothes. She dressed, too—not with that frantic haste, but not taking her time, either.
Something else he did not know was whether he'd pleased her, or even how to find out. "Will we ... ?" he began. The rest of the question seemed stuck in his mouth.
Zoranne did not help much. "I don't know. Will we?"
"I hope so," Krispos blurted.
"Men always hope so—that's what women always say, anyhow." She unbent a bit then. "Well, maybe we will—but not now. Now we ought to get back to where everyone else is."
He opened the door. The freezing air outside hit him like a blow. Zoranne said, "We should go back separately. The grandmothers have enough to gossip about already."
"Oh." Krispos had wanted to shout it from the housetops. If Zoranne didn't... "All right." He could not keep the disappointment out of his voice, though.
"Come on," she said impatiently. "I told you this wouldn't be the last time." As a matter of fact, she hadn't quite said that before. Thus encouraged, Krispos willingly shut the door again and watched Zoranne slip off into the night.
She kept her word, if not as often as Krispos would have liked. Every taste he had of her, every time the two of them managed not to be busy and to be able to find privacy, only made him want her more. Not knowing a better name, he thought of that as love.
Then, for a while, his own afternoons were occupied: Varades taught him and a couple of younger boys their letters. He learned them without too much trouble; being able to read and write his own name was almost as exciting, in its own way, as sporting with Zoranne.
He would have liked it even more had the village had anything much to read. "Why did you show us our letters if we can't use them?" he complained to Varades.
"To give myself something to do, as much as any other reason," the veteran answered frankly. He thought for a moment. "Tell you what. We might beg a copy of Phos' scripture the next time a blue-robe comes around. I'll go through it with you, best I can."
When Varades asked him, a couple of weeks later, the priest nodded. "I'll have one copied out for you straightaway," he promised. Krispos, who was standing behind Varades, felt like cheering until the man went on, "You understand, it will take a few months. The monasteries' scriptoria are always behind, I'm sorry to say."
"Months!" Krispos said in dismay. He was sure he would forget everything before the book arrived.
But he did not. His father made him scratch letters in the dirt every day. "High time we had somebody in the family who can read," Phostis said. "You'll be able to keep the tax man from cheating us any worse than tax men always do."
Krispos got another chance to use his skill that spring, before either the scripture or the tax collector arrived. Zoranne's father Tzykalas had spent the winter months making half a dozen pairs of fancy boots. When the roads dried out enough to be passable, he took them to Imbros to sell. He came back with several goldpieces—and portentous news.
"The old Avtokrator, Phos guard his soul, has died," he declared to the men he met in the village square.
Everyone made the sun-sign. The passing of an Emperor was never to be taken lightly. Phostis put into words what they were all thinking: "His son's but a boy, not so?"
Tzykalas nodded. "Aye, about the age of Krispos here, I'd say, judging by his coin." The cobbler dug it out of his pouch to show the other villagers the new portrait. "His name is—"
"Let me read it!" Krispos exclaimed. "Please!" He held out his hand for the goldpiece. Reluctantly Tzykalas passed it to him. It was only a little wider than his thumbnail. All he could make out from the image was that the new Avtokrator was, as Tzykalas had said, too young to have a beard. He put the coin close to his face so he could make out the tiny letters of its inscription. "His name is Anthimos."
"So it is," Tzykalas said grumpily. He snatched the goldpiece out of Krispos' hand. Too late, it occurred to the youth that he had just stolen a big part of Tzykalas' news. Too bad, he thought. No matter how he felt about Zoranne, he'd never been fond of her father. That was one reason he hadn't proposed to her: the idea of having the cobbler as a father-in-law was anything but appealing.
What he wanted to do was go home and dig up the goldpiece he'd got from Omurtag so he could read it. He'd buried it beside the house for luck when his family came to this new village, and they'd never been desperate enough to make him dig it up and spend it. But no, he decided, not now; if he did leave, Tzykalas would only think him ruder yet.