Krispos the Emperor by Harry Turtledove

pure white beard and silky ryebrows he surely combed. When he wore the patriarchal vestments, he seemed to the eye the very image of holiness. But his words rang hollow in Phostis' heart.
    Most of the worshipers filed out of the High Temple after the liturgy was over. A few, though, went up to the ecumenical patriarch to congratulate him on his sermon. Phostis shook his head, bemused. Were they deaf and blind, or merely out to curry favor? Either way, Phos would judge them in due course.
    As he walked down the steps from the Temple to the surrounding courtyard, Phostis turned to one of his guardsmen and said, "Tell me, Nokkvi, do you Halogai house your gods no richly in your own country?"
    Nokkvi's ice-blue eyes went wide. He threw back his head and boomed laughter; the long blond braid he wore bounced up and down as his shoulders shook. When he could speak again, he answered, "Young Majesty, in Halogaland we have not so much for ourselves that we can give our gods such spoils as you fashion for your Phos. In any case, our gods care more for blood than for gold. There we feed them well."
    Phostis knew of the northern gods' thirst for gore. The holy Kveldulf, a Haloga who came to revere Phos, was reckoned a martyr in Videssos: his own countrymen had slaughtered him when he tried to convert them to worshiping the lord with the great and good mind. Indeed, the Halogai would have been far more dangerous foes to the Empire did they not incessantly shed one another's blood.
    Nokkvi stepped down on the flat flagstones of the courtyard. When he turned to look back at the High Temple, his gaze went wolfish. He said, "I tell you this, too, young Majesty: let hut a few shiploads full of my folk free to reive in Videssos the city, and your god, too, will know less of gold and more of blood. Maybe that savor will better satisfy him."
    Phostis gestured to turn aside the northerner's words. The Empire was still rebuilding and repeopling towns that Harvas' Halogai had sacked around the time he was born. But even having such a store of riches here in the imperial capital was a temptation not just to the fierce barbarians from the north, hut also to avaricious men within the Empire. Any store of riches was such, in fact.
    He stopped, his mouth falling open. All at once, he began to understand how the Thanasioi came by their doctrines.
    The great bronze valves of the doorway to the Grand Courtroom slowly swung open. Seated on the imperial throne, Krispos got a sudden small glimpse of the outside world. He smiled; the outside world seemed only most distantly connected to what went on here.
    He sometimes wondered whether the Grand Courtroom wasn't even more splendid than the High Temple. Its ornaments were less florid, true, but to them was added the everchanging spectacle of the rich robes worn by the nobles and bureaucrats who lined either side of the colonnade leading from the bronze doors to Krispos' throne. The way between the two columns was a hundred yards of emptiness that let any petitioner think on his own insignificance and the awesome might of the Avtokrator.
    In front of the throne stood half a dozen Haloga guardsmen in full battle gear. Krispos had read in the histories of previous reigns that one Emperor had been assassinated on the throne and three others wounded. He did not aim to provide similarly edifying reading for any distant successor.
    A herald, distinguished by a white-painted staff, had his place beside the northerners. He took one step forward. The courtiers left off their own chattering. Into the silence, the herald said, "Tribo, the envoy from Nobad, son of Gumush, the khagan of Khatrish, begs leave to approach the Avtokrator of the Videssians." His trained voice was easily audible from one end of the Grand Courtroom to the Other.
    "Let Tribo of Khatrish approach," Krispos said.
    "Let Tribo of Khatrish approach!" Sprung from the herald's thick chest, the words might have been a command straight from the mouth of