Tanilis' admiring glance that evening made the purchase seem worthwhile. She was worth admiring herself, in a thin dress of white linen that emphasized how small her waist was. More gold shone on her wrists and around her neck.
"You are welcome, as always," she said, holding out her hand.
Krispos took it. "Thank you, my ... Tanilis." His tongue slipped by accident, but he watched her eyes fall as she heard the last two words together. Maybe his hope of the previous visit had not been so foolish after all.
But if that was so, she gave no hint of it during dinner. Indeed, she said very little. Mavros did most of the talking; he bubbled with excitement at the prospect of heading west for the city. "When will we leave?" he asked. "Do you know? How fare Iakovitzes' talks with the Khatrisher?"
"Better, I think," Krispos said. "He's hardly swearing at all when he gets back from the eparch's residence these days. With him, that's a very good sign."
"I'll start packing, then."
"Go ahead, but don't pack anything you might want before you go. He was like this once before, weeks ago, and then things fell apart again." Krispos took a last luscious bite of blackberry tart and turned to Tanilis. "I wish your cook could come with me along with your son. I don't think I've ever eaten so well."
"I'll tell Evtykhes you said so," she said, smiling. "Your praise will please him more than what he gets from us—you're not obliged to say kind things to him for politeness' sake."
Krispos had not thought about that. The servants at Iakovitzes' home were the only ones he'd known, and he was one among them. For that matter, Iakovitzes did not say kind things to anyone for politeness' sake. He used the rough edge of his tongue, not the smooth, to keep his people in line.
Tanilis said, "Though I must keep Evtykhes, Krispos, you will need more than you have if what we hope is to be accomplished. When you and Mavros do at last depart for the imperial city, I will send gold with you."
"My lady—" This time Krispos deliberately used her title rather than her name—"even with Mavros with me in Videssos, what's to keep me from spending the gold just on women and wine?"
"You are." Tanilis looked him full in the face. Those huge dark eyes held his; he had the uneasy feeling she could peer deeper into him than he could himself. Now he was the first to lower his gaze.
Mavros rose. "I'm off. If I'm to be leaving soon, I have some farewells to make."
Tanilis watched him go. "What was it you said about wine and women?" she asked Krispos. "Most of his farewells will be of that sort, I expect."
"He's coming into a man's years and a man's pleasures," Krispos replied from the peak of maturity that was twenty-two.
"So he is," Tanilis' voice was musing. Her eyes met Krispos again, but she looked through him rather than into him, back toward the past. "A man. How strange. I must have been about the age he is now when I bore him."
"Surely younger," Krispos said.
She laughed, without mirth but also without bitterness. "You are gallant, but I know the count of years. They are part of me; why should I deny them?"
Instead of answering, Krispos took a thoughtful sip from his wine cup. He'd made a mistake by breaking the rule of flattery he'd used on Iakovitzes. With someone like Tanilis, it did not do to make mistakes.
Before long, Krispos got up to go, saying, "Thank you again for inviting me here, and for the aid you promise, and for this second wonderful feast."
"Truly, if it does not unduly anger your master, you would be well advised to stay till morning," Tanilis said. "The ride back to Opsikion will be twice as long in the darkness, and there are brigands in the hills, try as we will to keep them down."
"Iakovitzes is angry most of the time, it seems. Unduly?" Krispos shrugged. "I expect I can talk him round. Thank you once more."
Tanilis called for Xystos. The servant took Krispos to the same guest chamber he had used before. That soft bed beckoned. He stripped off his clothes, slid under the single light blanket that was all he needed on a warm summer night, and fell asleep at once.
He was a sound sleeper, a legacy of the many years he had gone to bed every night too tired to wake to anything less than an earthquake. The first he knew of anyone else's being in the room was the bed shifting as the weight of another body settled onto it.
He jerked upright. "Wha—" he said muzzily.
Even the small, flickering flame of the lamp Tanilis held was enough to dazzle his sleep-dulled eyes. A secret smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to startle you."
"It's—all right," he answered after a moment, when he had full control of himself. Still not altogether sure why she had come—and not daring to be wrong here, where his head might answer for it—he pulled the blanket up to cover more of himself.
That secret smile came out in the open. "Wise to be cautious. But never mind." Then her expression changed. "What is that coin you wear round your neck?" she asked, her voice suddenly sharp and interested.
"This?" Krispos' hand closed over the goldpiece. "It's just for luck."
"For more than luck, I think," Tanilis said. "Please, if you would, tell me how you came by it."
He told her how Omurtag had given him the coin at the ransoming ceremony back when he was a boy. Her eyes glittered in the lamplight as she followed his account. When he thought he was done, she questioned him about the incident as closely as Iakovitzes had grilled Mavros on horses.
Prodded so, he recalled more than he'd imagined he could, even to things like the expression on the Kubrati enaree's face. The more he answered, though, the more glumly certain he became that she'd forgotten why she'd come to his bedroom in the first place. Too bad, he thought. The lamp's warm light made her especially lovely.
But she certainly seemed indifferent to their both being on the same bed. When she could pick no more memories from him, she said, "No wonder I saw as I did. The seeds of what you may be were sown long ago; at last they have grown toward the light of day."
He shrugged. At the moment, he cared little for the nebulous future. He was too busy thinking about what he wished he was doing in the very immediate present.
"You're rather a young man still, though, and not much worried about such things," Tanilis said. He gulped, wondering if she could read his mind. Then he saw she was looking down at the thin blanket, which revealed his thoughts clearly enough. He felt himself flush, but the smile was back on her face. "I suppose that's as it should be," she said, and blew out the lamp.
For a whole series of reasons, the rest of the evening proved among the most educational of Krispos' life. Every woman he'd been with before Tanilis suddenly seemed a girl by comparison. They were girls, he realized: his age or younger, chosen for attractiveness, kept for enthusiasm. Now for the first time he learned what polished art could add.
Looking back the exhausted morning after, he supposed Tanilis had taken him through his paces like Iakovitzes steering a jumper around a course. Had she taught him anything else that way, he was sure he would have resented her. He still did, a little, but resentment had to fight hard against languor.
He'd wondered for some little while if art was all she brought to the game. She moved, she stroked, she lay back to receive his caresses in silence, a silence that persisted no matter what he did. And though all her ploys were far more than just enjoyable, he also thought they were rehearsed.
Then at last some of his own urgency reached her. Kindled, she was less perfectly skilled than she had been before. Feeling her quiver beneath him, hearing her breath catch, made him want to forget all that perfect skill had wrought.