That was, however, also the least subtle course. Against the odds and sods Sarkis had mentioned, he'd have been confident of success. But Livanios had shown himself to be rather better at the game of war than that. Krispos wondered what he had in mind to counter it, and how well the ploy would work.
"One more thing I'll have to find out the hard way," he murmured. Sarkis, Katakolon, and even Evripos looked curiously at him. He didn't explain. His sons wouldn't have understood, not fully, while the cavalry commander probably followed him only too well.
Camp that night was soaked and miserable. The cooks had trouble starting their fires, which meant the army was reduced to bread, cheese, and onions. Evripos scowled in distaste at the hard, dark little loaf a fellow handed him out of a greased leather sack. After one bite, he threw it down in the mud.
"No more for you this evening," Krispos ordered. "Maybe hunger'll give you a better appetite for breakfast."
Evripos started worse than the rain that beat down on him. Long used to ignoring importunate men pleading their cases at the top of their lungs, Krispos ignored him. The Avtokrator saw nothing particularly wrong with the army bread. Phos had granted him good teeth, so he had no trouble eating it He didn't like it as well as the white bread he ate in the palaces, but he wasn't in the palaces now. In the field, you made the best of what you had. Evripos hadn't figured that out yet.
Whether from his own good sense or, more likely, fear of igniting his father, Katakolon ate up his ration without complaint. Young face unwontedly thoughtful, he said, "I wonder what Phostis is eating tonight."
"I wonder if he's eating anything tonight," Krispos said. With the evening's orders given, with the morrow's line of march planned, he had nothing to keep him from brooding over the fate of his eldest. He couldn't stand that sort of helplessnes. Trying to hold it at bay, he went over to Zaidas' tent to see what the mage had learned.
When he stuck his head into the tent, he found Zaidas scraping mud off his boots. Chuckling to catch his friend at such untrammeled mundanity, he asked, "Couldn't you do that by magic instead?"
"Oh, hello, your Majesty. Aye, belike I could," the wizard answered. "Likely it would take three times as long and leave me drained for two days afterward, but I could. One of the things you have to learn if you go into magic is when to leave well enough alone."
"That's a hard lesson for any man to learn, let alone a mage," Krispos said. Zaidas got up and unfolded a canvas chair for him; he sank into it. "Perhaps I've not learned it myself in fullness. If I had, I might not come here to tax you on what you've found out about Phostis."
"No one could think ill of you for that, your Majesty." Zaidas spread his hands. "I only wish I had more news—or, indeed, any news—to give you. Your eldest son remains hidden from me."
Krispos wondered whether that showed Phostis was in fact a cuckoo's egg in his nest. But no: the magic Zaidas worked sought Phostis for himself, not on account of his relation—if any—to the Avtokrator. Krispos said, "Have you progressed toward learning what sort of sorcery conceals his whereabouts?"
Zaidas bit his lip; not even a friend casually tells his Avtokrator he has failed to accomplish something. The wizard said, "Your Majesty, I must confess I have continued to devote most of my efforts toward locating Phostis rather than on analyzing why I cannot locate him."
"And what sort of luck have you had in those efforts?" The question was rhetorical; had Zaidas had any luck other than bad, he would have proclaimed it with trumpet and drum. Krispos went on, "Eminent and sorcerous sir, I strongly urge you to give over your direct efforts, exactly because they've not succeeded. Learn what you can about the mage who opposes you. If you have any better fortune there, you can go back to seeking out Phostis."
"It shall of course be as your Majesty suggests," Zaidas said, understanding that an imperial recommendation was tantamount to a command. The wizard hesitated, then continued, "You must be aware I would still have no guarantee of success, especially here in the field. For this delicate work, the tomes and substances accumulated within the Sorcerers' Collegium are priceless assets."
"So you've said," Krispos answered. "Do your best. I can ask no more of any man."
"I shall," Zaidas promised, and reached for a codex as if
about to start incanting on the spot. Before he could demonstrate such diligence, Krispos left the tent and headed back to his own pavilion. He was disappointed in his chief mage, but not enough to say anything more to Zaidas than he'd already said: Zaidas had been doing the best he could, by his own judgment. An emperor who castigated the men he'd chosen for their expert judgment would not long retain such experts around him.
Rain drummed on the oiled silk; mud squelched underfoot. The tent was a joyless place. Krispos felt the weight of every one of his years. Even with the luxuries his rank afforded him—enough room to stand and walk around, a cot rather than just a bed roll—campaigning was hard on a man as old as him. The only trouble was, not campaigning would in the long run prove harder still.
So he told himself, at any rate, as he blew out the lamps, lay down, and tried to sleep. So men always told themselves when they went off to war. So, no doubt, Livanios was telling himself somewhere not far enough away. Only by looking backward through the years could anyone judge who had been right, who wrong.
Outside the entrance to the tent, the Haloga guards chatted back and forth in their own slow, sonorous speech. Krispos wondered if they ever had doubts when they lay down at night. They were less simple than many Videssians made them out to be. But they did actively like to fight, where Krispos avoided battle when he could.
He was still wishing life could be less complicated when at last he surrendered to exhaustion. When he woke up the next morning, his mind bit down on that as if he'd never slept. He dressed and went out to share a breakfast as dank and miserable as the supper the night before.
Getting the army moving helped kick him out of his own gloom, or at least left him too busy to dwell on it. By now the soldiers were more efficient than they had been when they set out from Nakoleia. Knocking down tents, then loading them onto horses and mules and into wagons, took only about half as long as it had earlier. But, as if to make sure no blessing went unmixed, the rain made travel slower and tougher than Krispos had counted on. He'd planned to reach Pityos six or seven days after he set out from Aptos. That would stretch now.
The army rode through a village. But for a couple of dogs splashing through the mud between houses, the place was deserted. The peasants and herders who called it home had fled into the hills. That was what peasants and herders did when a hostile army approached. Krispos bit his lip in frustrated anger and sorrow that his subjects should reckon forces he led hostile.
"They're most of them Thanasioi, is my guess," Evripos answered when he said that aloud. "They know what they have to look forward to when we stamp out this heresy of theirs."
"What would you do with them after we win?" Krispos asked, interested to learn how the youth would handle a problem whose solution he did not clearly see himself.
Evripos was confident, if nothing else: "Once we beat the rebel army in the field, we peel this land like a man stripping the rind off an orange. We find out who the worst of the traitors are and give them fates that will make the rest remember for always what opposing the Empire costs." He shook his fist at the empty houses, as if he blamed them for putting him here on horseback in the cold rain.
"It may come to that," Krispos said, nodding slowly. Evripos' answer was one a straightforward soldier might give—was, in fact, not very different from what Sarkis had proposed. The lad could have done worse, Krispos thought.