Before Phostis could do more than gape at that or ask any of the myriad questions that suggested themselves, Krispos came in. "I'm glad you're all right," he said, folding Phostis into a bear hug. When he let Phostis go, he stood back and eyed him quizzically. "Someone didn't care for you there, son."
"No, he didn't," Phostis agreed. "He helped kidnap me—" He watched Krispos, but the Avtokrator's eyes never moved toward Olyvria: discipline and style. "—and he was my, I guess you'd say keeper, in Etchmiadzin. He couldn't have been very happy when I escaped."
"Your keeper, eh? So that was Syagrios?" Krispos asked.
Phostis nodded, impressed at his memory for detail. He said, "He was a bad man, but not of the worst. He played the board game well, and he drew the arrow from my shoulder when I got shot while I was along with the Thanasiot raiding party."
"A slim enough eulogy, but the best he'll get, and likely better than he deserves, too," Krispos said. "If you think I'll say I'm sorry he's gone, you can think again: good riddance, say I. I just praise the good god that you weren't hurt." He embraced Phostis again.
"I'm glad you're not ventilated, too," Katakolon said. "It's good having you back, especially in one piece." He ducked to get out of the tent. Krispos followed a moment later.
"What was that your brother said about getting caught with his clothes off?" Olyvria kept her voice low so no one but Phostis would hear, but she couldn't stop the giggle that welled up from deep inside.
"I don't know," Phostis said. "As a matter of fact, I don't think I want to know. Knowing Katakolon, it was probably something spectacular. Sometimes I think he takes after Anthimos, even if—" He'd been about to say something like even if I'm the one Anthimos might have fathered. That was just what he didn't want to say to Olyvria.
"Even if what?" she asked.
"Even if Anthimos was four years dead before Katakolon was born," Phostis finished, more smoothly than he would have thought possible.
"Oh." Olyvria sounded disappointed, which meant his answer had convinced her. He nodded to himself. Krispos would have approved. And he'd lived through a completely unexpected attack. He approved of that himself.
Krispos studied the gloomy stone pile of Etchmiadzin. It had been built to hold off men at arms, but the ones its designers had in mind came from Makuran. The stone, however, knew nothing of that. It would—and did—defy Videssians as readily as any others.
The fanatics on those grim stone walls still screamed defiance at the imperial army below. Most of the territory the Thanasioi had once held was back in Krispos' hands again. Dozens of villages were empty; he'd given the orders to send streams of orthodox peasants on the way to replace those uprooted from the area. Pityos and its hinterland had fallen to Noetos' cavalry, advancing west along the coast from Nakoleia.
But if Etchmiadzin held until the advancing season made Krispos withdraw, much of what he'd accomplished was likely to unravel. The Thanasioi would still have a base from which to grow once more. He'd already seen the consequences of their growth. He didn't care for them.
Storming the fortress, though, was easier to talk about than to do. Videssian engineers had labored mightily to make it as near impregnable as they could. So far as Krispos knew, it had never fallen to the Makuraners, despite several sieges. It didn't look likely to fall to his army, either.
"If they won't fall, maybe I can trip them," Krispos muttered.
"How's that, your Majesty?"
Krispos jumped. There beside him stood Sarkis. "I'm sorry—I didn't notice you'd come up. I was trying to work out some way to inveigle the cursed Thanasioi into coming out of Etchmiadzin without storming the place."
"Good luck to you," Sarkis said skeptically. "Hard enough to trick a foe in the confusion of the battlefield. Why should the heretics come out from their citadel for anything you do short of leaving? Even if they stand and fight and die, they think they go up their gleaming path to heaven. Next to that, any promise you can make is a small loaf."
"Aye, they're solidly against me, stiff-necked as they are." Krispos' voice was gloomy—but only for a moment. He turned to Sarkis. "They're solidly against me—for now. But tell me, eminent sir, what do you have if you put three Videssians together and tell them to talk about their faith for a day?"
"Six heresies," Sarkis answered at once. "Each one's view of his two comrades. Also a big brawl, probably a knifing or two, a couple of slit purses. Begging your pardon. Majesty, but that's how it looks to a poor stolid prince from Vaspurakan, anyhow."
"That's how it looks to me, too," Krispos said, smiling, "even if I have only a touch of princes' blood in me. I think like a Videssian, no matter whose blood I have, and I know full well that if you give Videssians a chance to argue about religion, they're sure to take it."
"I don't hold your breeding against you, your Majesty," Sarkis said generously, "but how do you propose to get the Thanasioi squabbling among themselves when to them you're the impious heretic they've all joined together to fight?"
"It's not even my idea," Krispos said. "Phostis thought of it and gave it to Evripos."
"To Evripos?" Sarkis scratched his head. "But he's back in Videssos the city. How could anything there have to do with the Thanasioi here? Did Evripos write you a letter and—" The cavalry commander stopped. His black, black eyes sparkled. Just for a moment, through the sheath of heavy flesh, Krispos saw the eager young scout with whom he'd ridden like a madman back to the imperial capital in the days when his reign was new. He said, "Wait a minute. You're not going to—"
"Oh, yes, I am," Krispos said. "Right out there where they can all watch from the walls. If it wouldn't brew more scandal than it was worth, I'd have them consummate it out there, too, not that it hasn't been consummated already."
"You're a demon, you are—but then, you used to revel with Anthimos. now that I think of it." Sarkis let out a theatrical sigh. "Too bad you couldn't get by with that. She's a fine-looking young woman. I wouldn't mind watching that marriage consummated, not one bit I wouldn't."
"Shameless old stallion." Krispos lowered his voice. "I wouldn't, either." They both laughed.
For a day, the imperial army besieging Etchmiadzin had sent no darts, no arrows, no stones against those frowning gray walls. Instead, heralds bearing white-painted shields of truce had approached the walls, bidding the Thanasioi also desist from battle "so that you may join us in observing a celebration at noon."
The choice of words must have intrigued the heretics; they had gone along with the heralds' suggestion, at least thus far. Phostis wondered how long they would remain calm when they observed what was about to happen. Not long, he thought.
He'd suggested to Evripos that he marry Olyvria to help calm the rampaging Thanasioi of the city. Trust Krispos to take his suggestion and turn it into a weapon of war against the belligerent heretics here at Etchmiadzin.
"Noon" was an approximation; the only sundial in the imperial army was a little brass one that belonged to Zaidas. But men accustomed to gauging the apex of the sun's path when they were working in the fields had no trouble doing the same while on campaign. Imperial soldiers gathered to protect the wooden platform that had been built safely out of bowshot of Etchmiadzin's walls. On those walls, the Thanasioi also gathered.
A herald with a shield of truce strode from the imperial lines toward the rebel-held fortress. In a huge bass voice, he called to the Thanasioi: "His imperial Majesty the Avtokrator Krispos bids you welcome to the marriage of his son Phostis to the lady Olyvria, daughter of the late Livanios."