"No. No priest of Phos could do such a thing without yielding his soul to the certainty of Skotos' ice," Pyrrhos said.
Iakovitzes steepled his fingertips. "I suppose not." He turned his smile, charming and cynical at the same time, on Krispos. "So, young man, now that you are here—for good or ill—what would you?"
"I came to Videssos the city for work," Krispos said slowly. "The abbot tells me you're hiring grooms. I've lived on a farm all my life but for the last couple of weeks. You won't find many city-raised folk better with beasts than I am."
"There is probably a good deal of truth in that." Iakovitzes raised an eyebrow. "Did my cousin the most holy abbot—" He spoke with such fulsome sincerity that the praise sounded like sarcasm, "—also, ah, warn you that I sometimes seek more from my grooms than skill with animals alone?"
"Yes," Krispos said flatly, then kept still.
Finally, Iakovitzes prompted him: "And so?"
"Sir, if that's what you want from me, I expect you'll be able to find it elsewhere with less trouble. I do thank you for the breakfast, and for your time. Thank you as well, holy sir," Krispos added for Pyrrhos' benefit as he stood to go.
"Don't be hasty." Iakovitzes jumped to his feet, too. "I do need grooms, as a matter of fact. Suppose I take you on with no requirement past caring for the beasts, with room and board and—hmm—a goldpiece a week."
"You pay the others two," Pyrrhos said.
"Dear cousin, I thought you priests reckoned silence a virtue," Iakovitzes said. It was the sweetest snarl Krispos had heard. Iakovitzes turned back to him. "Very well, then, two goldpieces a week, though you lacked the wit to ask for them yourself."
"Just the beasts?" Krispos said.
"Just the beasts"—Iakovitzes sighed—"though you must not hold it against me if from time to time I try to find out whether you've changed your mind."
"Will you hold it against me if I keep saying no?"
Iakovitzes sighed again. "I suppose not."
"Then we've got ourselves a bargain." Krispos stuck out his hand. It almost swallowed Iakovitzes', though the smaller man's grip was surprisingly strong.
"Gomaris!" Iakovitzes shouted. The man who had let in Krispos and Pyrrhos appeared a moment later, panting a little. "Gomaris, Krispos will be one of the grooms from now on. Why don't you find him some clothes better than those rags he has on and then get him settled in with the rest of the lads?"
"Of course. Come along, Krispos, and welcome to the household." Gomaris waited till he was halfway down the hall, then added softly, "Whatever else it is around here, it's rarely dull."
"That," said Krispos, "I believe."
"Here comes the farm boy."
Krispos heard the whisper as he came into the stable. By the way Barses and Meletios sniggered at each other, he had been meant to hear. He scowled. They were both younger than he, but they were also from the city, and from families of more than a little wealth. So were most of Iakovitzes' grooms. They seemed to enjoy making Krispos' life miserable.
Barses took a shovel off the wall and thrust it at Krispos. "Here you are, farm boy. Since you've lived with manure all your life, you can clean out the stalls today. You're used to smelling like the hind end of a horse." His handsome face split in a wide, mocking grin.
"It's not my turn to shovel out today," Krispos said shortly.
"Oh, but we think you should do it anyway," Barses said. "Don't we, Meletios?" The other groom nodded. He was even handsomer than Barses; almost pretty, in fact.
"No," Krispos said.
Barses' eyes went wide in feigned surprise. "The farm boy grows insolent. I think we'll have to teach him a lesson."
"So we will," Meletios said. Smiling in anticipation, he stepped toward Krispos. "I wonder how fast farm boys learn. I've heard they're not too bright."
Krispos' frown deepened. He'd known for a week that the hazing he'd been sweating out would turn physical sooner or later. He'd thought he was ready—but two against one wasn't how he'd wanted it to happen. He held up a hand. "Wait!" he said in a high, alarmed voice. "I'll clean 'em. Give me the shovel."
Barses held it out. His face showed an interesting mix of amusement, triumph, and contempt. "You'd best do a good job, too, farm boy, or we'll make you lick up whatever you—"
Krispos snatched the shovel from his hands, whirled, and rammed the handle into the pit of Meletios' stomach. The groom closed up on himself like a bellows, gasping uselessly for air.
Krispos threw the shovel aside. "Come on!" he snarled at Barses. "Or aren't you as good with your hands as you are with your mouth?"
"You'll see, farm boy!" Barses sprang at him. He was strong and fearless and knew something of what he was doing, but he'd never been through anything like the course in nasty fighting Krispos had taken from Idalkos. In less than two minutes he was down in the straw beside Meletios, groaning and trying to hold his knee, his groin, his ribs, and a couple of dislocated fingers, all at the same time.
Krispos stood over the other two grooms, breathing hard. One of his eyes was half closed and a collarbone had gotten a fearful whack, but he'd dished out a lot more than he'd taken. He picked up the shovel and tossed it between Meletios and Barses. "You can shovel out for yourselves."
Meletios grabbed the shovel and started to swing it at Krispos' ankles. Krispos stamped on his hand. Meletios shrieked and let go. Krispos kicked him in the ribs with force nicely calculated to yield maximum hurt and minimum permanent damage. "Come to think of it, Meletios, you do the shoveling today. You just earned it."
Even through his pain, Meletios let out an indignant squawk and cast a look of appeal toward Barses.
The other groom was just sitting up. He shook his head, then grimaced as he regretted the motion. "I'm not going to argue with him, Meletios, and if you have any sense, you won't, either." He managed a lopsided grin. "Nobody with any sense is going to argue with Krispos, not after today."
The harassment did not disappear. With a dozen grooms ranging from their mid-teens up to Krispos' age, and all living in one another's pockets, that would hardly have been possible. But after Krispos dealt with Barses and Meletios, he was accepted as one of the group and got to hand it out as well as take it.
Not only that, he got himself listened to, where before the other grooms had paid no attention to what he thought. Thus when they were hashing over the best way to treat a horse with a mild but stubborn fever, one of them turned to Krispos and asked,"What would you have done about this in that backwoods place you came from?"
"The green forage is all very well," he said after a little thought, "and the wet, sloppy food and gruel, but we always said there was nothing like beer to speed things along."
"Beer?" The grooms whopped.
Barses asked, "For us or the animal?"
Krispos laughed, too, but said, "For the animal. A bucket or three ought to do the job."
"He means it," Meletios said in surprise. He turned thoughtful. He was all business where horses were concerned. Iakovitzes tolerated no groom who was not, whatever other charms he might have. In a musing tone, Meletios went on, "What say we try it? I don't see how it could do any harm."
So a couple of buckets of beer went into the horse's trough every morning, and if the grooms bought a bit more than the sick animal really needed, why, only they knew about that. And after a few days, the horse's condition did improve: his breathing slowed, his eyes brightened, and his skin and mouth lost the dry look and feel they'd had while he was ill.
"Well done," Barses said when the horse was clearly on the mend. "Next time I take a fever, you know what to do with me, though I'd sooner have wine, I think." Krispos threw a clod of dirt at him.