"What do you mean, why? So you can stop him, of course." Dara needed a moment to see that the question went deeper. She took a deep breath, looked away from Krispos, let it out, and looked back. "Why? Because ..." She stopped again, visibly willed herself to continue. "Because if I am to be Empress of Videssos, I would sooner be your Empress than his."
His eyes met hers. Those words, he knew, were irrevocable. She nodded, her resolve firming as she saw he understood. "Strange," he said. "I always thought you preferred him."
"If you're that big a fool, maybe I've picked the wrong man after all." Dara slipped into his arms for a brief embrace. Drawing back, she said, "No time for more, not now. When you return ..."
She let the words hang. It was his turn to nod. When he came back, they would need each other, she him to keep what she already had, he her to add legitimacy to what he'd gained. When he came back ... "What will you do if Anthimos walks into this chamber instead of me?"
"Go on, as best I can," she said at once. He grimaced, nodding again. Tanilis would have said the same thing, for the same reason: ambition bound the two of them as much as affection. She went on, "But I will pray to Phos that it be you. Go now, and may the Lord with the great and good mind go with you."
"I'll get my sword," Krispos said. Dara bit her lip—that brought home what she was setting in motion. But she did not say no. Too late for that, he thought. She made a little pushing gesture, urging him out of the room. He hurried away. As he trotted the few steps back to his own chamber, he felt his lucky goldpiece bounce on its chain. Soon enough, he thought, he'd find out whether the coin held true prophecy or only delusion. He remembered the last time he'd really looked at the goldpiece, and remembered thinking he would never try to get rid of Anthimos. But if the Avtokrator was trying to get rid of him ... Waiting quietly to be killed was for sheep, not men.
All that ran through his head before he got to his own doorway. Mavros raised his cup in salute when he came in, then stared when, instead of sitting down, he started buckling on his sword belt. "What in the world—" Mavros began.
"Treason," Krispos answered, which shut his foster brother's mouth with a snap. "Or it'll be treason if I fail. Anthimos is planning to kill me by sorcery tonight. I don't intend to let him. Are you with me, or will you denounce me to the Halogai?"
Mavros gaped at him. "I'm with you, of course. But by the good god, how did you find out? You told me he was going carousing tonight, not magicking."
"The Empress warned me just now," Krispos said in a flat voice.
"Did she?" Mavros looked at Krispos as if he'd never seen him before, then started to laugh. "You haven't told me everything you've been up to, have you?"
Krispos felt his cheeks grow hot. "No. I never told anyone. It's not the sort of secret to spread around, you know, not if—"
"Not if you want to live to go on keeping it," Mavros finished for him. "No, you're right."
"Come on then," Krispos said. "We've no time to lose."
The Halogai guarding the doorway to the imperial residence chuckled when Krispos came out wearing his sword. "You drink a little wine, you go into the city looking for somet'ing to fight, eh?" one of them said. "You should have been born a northern man."
Krispos chuckled, too, but his heart sank within him. As soon as he and Mavros were far enough away from the entrance for the guards not to hear, he said, "We have gone looking for something to fight. How many Halogai will the Emperor have with him?"
The night was dark. He could not see Mavros' expression change, but he heard his breath catch. "If it's more than one, we're in trouble. Armored, swinging those axes of theirs—"
"I know." Krispos shook his head, but continued, "I'm going on anyway. Maybe I can talk my way past 'em, however many there are. I'm his Majesty's vestiarios, after all. And if I can't, I'd sooner die fighting than whichever nasty way Anthimos has worked out for me. If you don't want to come along, the good god knows I can't blame you."
"I am your brother," Mavros said, stiffening with offended dignity.
Krispos clasped his shoulder. "You are indeed."
They hurried on, making and discarding plans. Before long, the gloomy grove of cypresses surrounding the Emperor's sanctum loomed before them. The path wound through it. The dark trees' spicy odor filled Krispos' nostrils.
As they were about to emerge from the cypresses, a red-orange flash of light, bright as lightning, burst from the windows and open doorways of the building ahead. Krispos staggered, sure his moment was here. His eyes, long used to blackness, filled with tears. How bitter, he thought, to have come just too late.
But nothing further happened, not right then. He heard Anthimos' voice begin a new chant. Whatever magic the Avtokrator was devising, he'd not yet finished it.
Beside Krispos, Mavros also rubbed his eyes. In that moment of fire, though, he'd seen something Krispos had missed. "Only the one guard," he murmured.
Squinting, wary against a new levinbolt, Krispos peered toward Anthimos' house of magics. Sure enough, lit by the glow of a couple of ordinary torches, a single Haloga stood in front of the door.
The northerner was rubbing at his eyes, too, but came to alertness when he heard footfalls on the path. "Who calls?" he said, swinging up his axe.
"Hello, Geirrod." Krispos did his best to sound casual in spite of the nervous sweat trickling down the small of his back. If Anthimos had told the guard why he was incanting here tonight ...
But he had not. Geirrod lowered his bright-bladed weapon. "A good evening to you, Krispos, and to your friend." Then the Haloga frowned and half raised the axe again. "Why do you come here with brand belted to your body?" Even when he used Videssian, his speech carried the slow, strong rhythms of his cold and distant homeland.
"I've come to deliver a message to his Majesty," Krispos answered. "As for why I'm wearing my sword, well, only a fool goes out at night without one." He unbuckled the belt and held it out to Geirrod. "Here, keep it if you feel the need, and give it back when I come out."
The big blond guard smiled. "That is well done, friend Krispos. You know what duty means. I shall set your sword aside against your return." As he turned to lean the blade against the wall, Mavros sprang forward, sheathed dagger reversed in his hand. The round lead pommel thudded against the side of Geirrod's head, just in front of his ear. The Haloga groaned and toppled, his mail shirt clinking musically as he fell.
Krispos' fingers dug into the side of Geirrod's thick neck. "He has a pulse. Good," he said, grabbing the sword belt and drawing his blade. If he survived the night, the Halogai would be his guards. Slaying one of them would mean he could never trust his own protectors, not with the northern penchant for blood vengeance.
"Come on," Mavros said. He snatched up the Haloga's axe. "No, wait. Tie and gag him first," Krispos said. Mavros dropped the axe, took off his scarf, and tore it in half. He quickly tied the guardsman's hands behind him, knotting the other piece of silk over his mouth and around his head. Krispos nodded. Together, he and Mavros stepped over Geirrod into the Avtokrator's sorcerous secretum.
The scuffle with the guard had been neither loud nor long. With luck, Anthimos would have been caught up in the intricacies of some elaborate spell and would never have noticed the small disturbance outside. With luck. As it was, he poked his head out into the hallway and called, "What was that, Geirrod?" When he saw Krispos, his eyes widened and his lips skinned back from his teeth. "You!"
"Aye, your Majesty," Krispos said. "Me." He dashed toward the Emperor.
Fast as he was, he was not fast enough. Anthimos ducked back into his chamber and slammed the door. The bar crashed into place just as Krispos' shoulder smote the door. The bar was stout; he bounced away.