Lost in his own thoughts, he missed Livanios' last few sentences. They brought loud cheers from the assembled soldiers. Phostis cheered, too, as he had all through the heresiarch's speech.
Then one of the fighters who knew who he was turned round and slapped him on the back. "So you're going to fight with us for the gleaming path, are you, friend?" the fellow boomed. His grin had almost as many gaps as Syagrios'.
"I'm going to what?" Phostis said foolishly. It wasn't that he didn't believe his ears: more that he didn't want to.
"Sure—like Livanios said just now." The soldier wrinkled his brow, trying to recall his chief's exact words. "Take up the blade against maternalism—something like that, anyways."
"Materialism," Phostis corrected before he wondered why he bothered.
"Yeah, that's it," the soldier said happily. "Thank you, friend. By the good god, I'm right glad the Emperor's son's taken up with righteousness."
Moving as if in a daze, Phostis made his way toward the citadel. Fighters who recognized him kept coming up and congratulating him on taking up arms for the Thanasiot cause. By the time he got inside, he was sore and bruised, while his wits had taken a worse pummeling than his back.
Livanios was using his name to raise the spirits of the Thanasiot warriors: so much was clear. But life in the palace, while it left Phostis ignorant of love, made him look beneath the surface of machinations with as little effort as he used to breathe.
Not only would his name spur on the followers of the gleaming path, it would also dismay those who clove to his father. And if he fought alongside the Thanasioi, he might never be reconciled with Krispos.
Further, Livanios might arrange a hero's death for him. That would embarrass the Avtokrator as much as having him alive and fighting, and would hurt Krispos a good deal more. And it would serve Livanios' ends very well indeed.
Syagrios found Phostis. Phostis might have guessed the ruffian would come looking for him. From the nasty grin on Syagrios' face, he'd known about Livanios' scheme before the heresiarch announced it to his men. In fact, Phostis thought with the taut nerves of a man who genuinely has been persecuted, Syagrios might well have come up with it himself.
"So you're going to be a man before your mother, are you, stripling?" he said, making cut-and-thrust motions right in front of Phostis' face. "Go out there and make the gleaming path proud of you, boy."
"I'll do what I can." Phostis was aware of the ambiguity, but let it lay. He did not want to hear Syagrios speak of his mother. He wanted to smash the ruffian for presuming to speak of her. Only a well-founded apprehension that Syagrios would smash him instead kept him from trying it
That was yet another thing the romances didn't talk about. Their heroes always beat the villains just because they were heroes. No writer of romances, Phostis was certain, had ever met Syagrios. For that matter, both sides here thought they were heroes and their foes villains. I swear by the good god I'll never read another romance again as long as I live, Phostis thought.
Syagrios said, "I don't know what you know about weapons, but whatever it is, you better practice it. Whoever you fight ain't gonna care that you're the Avtokrator's brat."
"I suppose not," Phostis said in a hollow voice that set Syagrios laughing anew. He'd actually had some training; his father had thought he'd find it useful. He didn't mention it. The more hopeless a dub everyone took him for, the less attention people would pay him.
He went up the black spiral stairway to his little chamber. When he opened the door, his mouth fell open in astonishment: Olyvria waited inside. He was not too surprised, however, to shut the door behind him as fast as he could. "What are you doing here?" he demanded. "Do you want to get us both caught?"
She grinned at him. "What could be safer?" she whispered back. "Everyone in the keep was down in the courtyard listening to my father."
Phostis wanted to rush to her and take her in his arms, but that brought him up short. "Yes, and do you know what your father said?" he whispered, and went on to explain exactly what Livanios had announced.
"Oh, no," Olyvria said, still in a tiny voice. "He wants you dead, then. I prayed he wouldn't."
"That's what I think, too," Phostis agreed bitterly. "But what can I do about it?"
"I don't know." Olyvria reached out to him. He hurried over to her. Her touch made him, if not forget everything else, then at least reckon it unimportant for as long as he held her. But he remembered how careful they had to be even while her thighs clasped his flanks; what should have been sighs of delight came from both of them as tiny hisses.
As they'd grown used to doing, they set their clothes to rights as fast as they could when they were through. Not for them the pleasure of lying lazily by each other afterward. "How will we get you out of here?" Phostis whispered. Before Olyvria could say anything, he found the answer for himself: "I'll go downstairs. Whoever's out there—probably Syagrios— will follow me. Once we're gone, you can come down, too."
Olyvria nodded. "Yes, that's very good. It should work: few of the rooms in this hallway have people in them, so I'm not likely to be seen till I'm safely down." She looked at him with some of her old calculation. He liked the soft looks he usually got from her these days better. But she said, "You wouldn't have found a plan so fast when we first brought you here."
"Maybe not," he admitted. "I've had to take care of a good many things I wasn't in the habit of doing for myself." He touched the very tip of her breast through her tunic, just for a moment. "Some of them I like better than others."
"You don't mean I'm your first?" That thought almost startled her into raising her voice; he made an alarmed gesture. But she was already shaking her head. "No, I couldn't have been."
"No, of course not," he said. "You're the first who matters, though."
She leaned forward and brushed her lips against his. "That's a sweet thing to say. It must not have been easy for you, growing up as you did."
He shrugged. He supposed the problem was that he just thought too much. Evripos and especially Katakolon seemed to have had no trouble enjoying themselves immensely. But all that was by the way. He got to his feet. "I'll leave you now. Listen to make sure everything's quiet before you come out." He took a step toward the door, stopped, then turned back to Olyvria. "I love you."
Her arched eyebrows lifted. "You hadn't said that before. I love you—but then you know I must, or I wouldn't be here in spite of my father."
"Yes." Phostis thought he knew that, but he'd been raised to see plots, so sometimes he found them even when they weren't there. Here, though, he had to—and wanted to—take the chance.
He stepped into the hallway. Sure enough, there sat Syagrios. The ruffian leered at him. "So you found out you can't hide in there, did you? Now what are you going to do, head down and celebrate that you got turned into a soldier?"
"As a matter of fact, yes," Phostis answered. He had the somber satisfaction of seeing Syagrios' jaw sag. After lighting a taper to keep from killing himself on the dark stairway, he headed down toward the ground floor of the keep. Syagrios muttered under his breath but followed. Phostis had all he could do to keep from whistling on the stairs: letting Syagrios know he'd put one over on him wouldn't do.
Outside the southern end of the great double wall that warded the landward side of Videssos the city lay a broad stretch of meadow on which the Empire's cavalry practiced their maneuvers. Fresh new grass poked through the mud and the dead grayish remains of last year's growth as Krispos came out to watch his soldiers exercise.
"Don't be too hard on them too soon, your Majesty," Sarkis urged. "They're still ragged from being cooped up through the winter."