[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

didn't see the whole picture. Rhavas had no idea how Videssos would reconquer
any of the land north of the mountains. The far northeast, up where
Skopentzana lay, was only a small part of that.
Maleinos gulped the wine. He filled the goblet yet again, then gulped that,
too. Shaking his head, he said, "You will doubtless think me a horrible
sinner, cousin, but I tell you straight out there are times when I
wonder if Phos hasn't gone to sleep and let Skotos loose in the world." He
spat in rejection of the dark got, then let out an embarrassed and
drunken chuckle. "Now go ahead and scream
Heresy!
at me.
It's not like I haven't earned it."
Instead of screaming, Rhavas stared at the man who'd ruled the Empire of
Videssos for the past twenty years. "You are not the first man I have heard
say such a thing," Rhavas said slowly.
"No, eh?" Maleinos chuckled again. "My bet is, I wouldn't envy the last poor
bugger who was dumb enough to open his mouth like that where you could hear.
He's probably still sorry he did."
"Your Majesty . . ." Rhavas hesitated. He wished he hadn't poured down so much
wine himself; he wanted clear wits for this. The Avtokrator might
might
 be able to get away with joking about
theology. A prelate would have a much harder time of it. Yet if Maleinos could
be won over to his cause
. . . "Your Majesty, I have wondered about this myself."
There. He'd said it. He waited for the sky to fall, or for Maleinos to shout
for the guards and have him thrown out of the imperial residence on his ear.
That didn't happen. What did happen was that his cousin the Avtokrator stared
at him in turn. "
You have had this thought, very holy sir?" Maleinos echoed.
"So I have, your Majesty," Rhavas replied.
"I can hardly believe it," Maleinos told him. "Everyone knows you're a pillar
of orthodoxy."
"I am not a blind man. I can see what goes on around me. I have to think about
what it means," Rhavas said. "If evil prevails, if good falls back . . . What
can that possibly mean?"
"It can mean trouble. It will mean trouble. The ecumenical patriarch has
declared that it means the lord with the great and good mind is testing our
resolve," Maleinos said. "I must tell you, I incline this way myself in
public. To say the other, to maintain it openly, is to invite madness into the
Empire."
"Madness is here, whether we invited it or not," Rhavas said. "Shall we
pretend nothing has gone wrong in Videssos and everything is the same as it
was a couple of years ago?"
"Videssos is already upside down in too many other ways," Maleinos said. "I
don't want priests getting unruly and throwing things at each other, too.
Stylianos would start screaming that was a heretic, and I
Page 170
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
I
can't stand that. I can't afford it, either. Do you understand me?"
"Your Majesty, are we not right to follow the truth wherever it leads?" Rhavas
asked stiffly.
The Avtokrator glared at him. "You are trying to cause a scandal." He might
have been a father laying down the law to a scapegrace son. Rhavas wouldn't
have cared for that tone even from an older man. It really rankled from
someone his own age. Oblivious or maybe just indifferent to his anger,
Maleinos went on, "There will be no theological scandals while I rule here.
There most especially will be no theological scandals started by a kinsman of
mine while I rule here. Whatever else happens, that had better not. Do I make
myself plain enough, cousin?" His voice was heavy with menace.
"You are unmistakably plain, your Majesty," Rhavas answered.
"Good. We'll say no more about it, then." Maleinos was confident he could have
his way when and as he chose. Such confidence was part of what being
Avtokrator of the Videssians was all about.
And Rhavas did say no more about it . . . then.
* * *
Coming back to Videssos the city meant coming back to the High Temple. To
Rhavas, that was much more important than coming back to his cousin, though he
had the good sense to make sure Maleinos knew nothing of his opinion.
The High Temple's beauty was only part of its appeal. Every time Rhavas saw
its grand even grandiose shape shouldering its way over other buildings to
dominate the skyline, he sneered at the temple in Skopentzana where he'd
served so long. A ridiculous, provincial structure, and one surely downfallen
now, to the Khamorth and to the earthquake that had finished the ruination the
barbarians had begun.
Just as the temple in Skopentzana had been at the center of Rhavas' life in
the far northeast, so the High
Temple lay at the center of the ecumenical patriarch's life and at the center
of theological life for the whole Empire. Maleinos granted Rhavas quarters in
the imperial residence. He would go that far for a cousin. After their first
meeting, though, the Avtokrator had little to do with him. Maleinos had more
urgent things to worry about. Like a spider at the center of its web, he kept
all his senses alert for the slightest touch of Stylianos.
Left to his own devices, Rhavas became a theologian again. As prelate, he
hadn't had the time to do as much serious theological work as he would have
liked. The book he'd written up in Skopentzana was as dead as the murdered
city and, probably, the scribe who'd put the fair copy down on parchment. He
missed it less than he'd expected to. His thoughts had gone in
different radically different directions since.
Before long, Kameniates summoned him to the High Temple and the patriarchal
residence. He was not too surprised; his name would have been bandied about as [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]