"Yes," she whispered. The smile flickered.
"I'm sorry to speak so plain to you, but I want to leave you in no doubt about these matters," Krispos said. "Here is the second thing: if you have a swarm of relatives who descend on me looking for jobs with no work for high pay, they'll go home to wherever they came from with stripes on their backs. I already told you I won't stint on what I give you, and of course you may share that with whomever you like. But the fisc is not a toy and it does have a bottom. All right?"
"Your Majesty, how can the likes of me argue with whatever you choose to do?" Drina sounded frightened again.
The plain answer was that she couldn't. Krispos didn't say that; it would just have alarmed her further. What he did say was: "Go and tell Barsymes what you've just told me. Tell him I said you're to be treated with every consideration, too."
"I will, your Majesty. Thank you. Uh, your Majesty—"
"What now?" Krispos asked when she showed no sign of saying anything more than uh.
"Will you still want me?" she said, and then stood there as if she wished the mosaic floor would open and swallow her up. Like most Videssians, she was olive-skinned; Krispos thought he saw her blush anyhow.
He got up, came around the desk, and put an arm around her. "I expect so, now and again," he said. "But if you have some young man waiting under the Amphitheater for the next race, so to speak, don't be shy about saying so. I wouldn't have you do anything you don't care to." He'd watched Anthimos take advantage of so many women that moderation came easy to him: anything Anthimos did was a good bet to have been wrong.
"It's not that," Drina said quickly. "I just—worry that you'll forget about me."
"I already said I wouldn't. I do keep my word." Thinking she needed more reassurance than words, he patted her on the backside. She sighed and snuggled against him. He let her stay for a bit, then said, "Go on, go see Barsymes. He'll take care of you."
Snuffling a little, Drina went. Krispos stood in the study, listening to her footsteps fade as she walked down the hall. When he couldn't hear them any more, he returned to his seat and to the customs reports he'd been reviewing. But he soon found he had to shove aside the parchments: he couldn't concentrate on what was in them.
"An imperial bastard," he said quietly. "My bastard. Well, well, what am I going to do about that?"
He was a man who believed in making plans as implicitly as he believed in Phos. Fathering a child at his age wasn't in any of those he'd made so far. No help for it, he told himself. I'll have to come up with some new ones.
He knew he might not need them; so many children never lived to grow up. As in so many things, though, better to have and not need than to need and not have. Besides, you always hoped your children lived unless you were a fanatical Thanasiot who thought all life ought to vanish from the earth and be quick about it, too.
If he had a daughter, things would stay simple. When she grew up, he'd do his best to make sure she married someone well disposed to him. That was what marriages were for, after alclass="underline" joining together families that could be useful to each other.
If he had a son, now ... He clicked his tongue between his teeth. That would complicate matters. Some Avtokrators had their bastards made into eunuchs; some had risen to high rank in the temples or at the palace. It was certainly one way of guaranteeing the boy would never challenge his legitimate sons for the throne: being physically imperfect, eunuchs could not claim imperial rank in Videssos or Makuran or any other country he knew of.
Krispos made that clicking noise again. He wasn't sure he had the stomach for that, no matter how expedient it might be.
He stared down at the delicately veined marble desktop, wondering what to do. He was so lost in his thoughts, the tap on the door frame made him jump. He looked up. This time it was Barsymes.
"I am given to understand congratulations are in order, your Majesty?" the vestiarios said carefully.
"Thank you, esteemed sir. I'm given to understand the same thing myself." Krispos managed a rueful laugh. "Life has a way of going off on its own path, not the one you'd choose for it."
"Very true. As you have requested, every care will be given to the mother-to-be. As part of that care, I gather you will want to ensure, so far as is feasible, that she does not acquire an exaggerated notion either of her own station or that of her offspring."
"You've hit in the center of the target, Barsymes. Can you imagine me, say, disinheriting the sons I have for the sake of a by-blow? Not a cook could find a better recipe for civil war after I'm gone."
"What you say is true, your Majesty. And yet—" Barsymes stepped out into the hallway, looked right and left. Even after he was sure no one save Krispos could hear him, he lowered his voice. "And yet, your Majesty, one of your sons may be lost to you, and you've not expressed entire satisfaction with any of them."
"But why should I expect the next one to be any better?" Krispos said. "Besides, I'd have to wait twenty years to have any idea what sort of man he is, and who says I have twenty years left? I might, aye, but the odds aren't the best. So I'd sooner discommode the one young bastard than the three older legitimate boys."
"I would not think of faulting the logic; I merely wondered if your Majesty had fully considered the situation. I see you have: well and good." The vestiarios ran pale tongue across paler lips. "I also wondered if you were, ah, besotted with the mother of the child-to-be."
"So I'd do stupid things to keep her happy, you mean?" Krispos said. Barsymes nodded. Krispos started to laugh, but restrained himself—that would have been cruel. "No, esteemed sir. Drina's very pleasant, but I've not lost my head."
"Ah," Barsymes said again. He seldom showed muchemotion, and this moment was no exception to the rule; nonetheless, Krispos thought he heard relief in that single syllable.
I've not lost my head. That might have been the watchword for his reign, and for his life. If it had left him on the coldblooded side, it had also given the Empire of Videssos more than two decades of steady, sensible rule. There were worse exchanges.
He remembered the thought he'd had before. "Esteemed sir, may I ask a question that might perturb you? Please understand my aim is not to cause you pain, but to learn."
"Ask, your Majesty," Barsymes replied at once. "You are the Avtokrator; you have the right."
"Very well, then. To make sure dynastic problems don't come up, Avtokrators have been known to make eunuchs of their bastard offspring. You know your life as only one who lives it can. What have you to say of it?"
The vestiarios gave the question his usual grave consideration. "The pain of the gelding does not last forever, of course. I have never known desire, so I do not particularly pine for it, though that is not true of all my kind. But being set aside forever from the general run of mankind—there is the true curse of the eunuch, your Majesty. So far as any of us knows, it has no balm."
"Thank you, esteemed sir." Krispos put the thought in the place where bad ideas belong. He felt an urgent need to change the subject. "By the good god!" he exclaimed, as heartily as he could. Barsymes raised an interrogative eyebrow. He explained: "No matter how smoothly things go, I'll never hear the end of teasing about this from my sons. I've given them a hard time about their affairs, but now I'm the one who's gone and put a loaf in a serving maid's oven."
"I pray your Majesty to forgive me, but you've forgotten something," Barsymes said. Now it was Krispos' turn to look puzzled. The vestiarios went on, "Think what the eminent Iakovitzes will say."
Krispos thought. After a moment, he pushed back his seat and hid under the desk. He'd seldom made Barsymes laugh, but he added one to the short list. He laughed, too, as he re-emerged, but he still dreaded what would happen the next time he saw his special envoy.