The Tale of Krispos by Harry Turtledove Read Free Book Online Page A

me a chance to stay indoors and heal up till spring.”
    All the veterans talked like that, and all of them were in better shape than any farmer their age—or ten years younger, too. Just when someone started to believe them, they’d do something like what Idalkos had done the first time they wrestled.
    So Krispos only snorted. “I suppose that means you’ll be too battered to come out with the rest of us on Midwinter’s Day,” he said, voice full of syrupy regret.
    “Think you’re smart, don’t you?” Idalkos made as if to grab Krispos. He sprang back—one of the things he’d learned was to take nothing for granted. The veteran went on, “The first year I don’t celebrate Midwinter’s Day, sonny, you go out to my grave and make the sun-sign over it, ’cause that’s where I’ll be.”
             
    S NOW STARTED FALLING SIX WEEKS BEFORE MIDWINTER’S DAY , the day of the winter solstice. Most of the veterans had served in the far west against Makuran. They complained about what a hard winter it was going to be. No one who had spent time in Kubrat paid any attention to them. The farmers went about their business, mending fences, repairing plows and other tools, doing woodwork…and getting ready for the chief festival of their year.
    Midwinter’s Day dawned freezing but clear. Low in the south, the sun hurried across the sky. The villagers’ prayers went with it, to keep Skotos from snatching it out of the heavens altogether and plunging the world into eternal darkness.
    As if to add to the light, bonfires burned in the village square. Krispos ran at one, his hide boots kicking up snow. He leaped over the blaze. “Burn, ill-luck!” he shouted when he was right above it. A moment later, more snow flew as he thudded down.
    Evdokia came right behind him. Her wish against bad luck came out more as a scream—this was the first year she was big enough to leap fires. Krispos steadied her when she landed clumsily. She grinned up at him. Her cheeks glowed with cold and excitement.
    “Who’s that?” she said, peering back through the shimmering air above the flames to see who came next. “Oh, it’s Zoranne. Come on, let’s get out of her way.”
    Pushed by his sister, Krispos walked away from the fire. His eyes were not the only ones in the village that followed Zoranne as she flew through the air over it. She landed almost as heavily as Evdokia had. If Evdokia hadn’t made him move, he thought, he could have been the one to help Zoranne back up.
    “Younger sisters really are a nuisance,” he declared loftily.
    Evdokia showed him he was right: she scooped up a handful of snow and pressed it against the side of his neck, then ran away while he was still writhing. Bellowing mingled outrage and laughter, he chased her, pausing a couple of times to make a snowball and fling it at her.
    One snowball missed Evdokia but caught Varades in the shoulder. “So you want to play that way, do you?” the veteran roared. He threw one back at Krispos. Krispos ducked. The snowball hit someone behind him. Soon everyone was throwing them—at friends, foes, and whoever happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. People’s hats and sheepskin coats were so splashed with white that the village began to look as if it had been taken over by snowmen.
    Out came several men, Phostis among them, wearing dresses they must have borrowed from a couple of the biggest, heaviest women in the village. They put on a wicked burlesque of what they imagined their wives and daughters did while they were out working in the fields. It consisted of gossiping, pointing fingers while they gossiped, eating, and drinking wine, lots of wine. Krispos’ father did a fine turn as a tipsy lady who was talking so furiously she never noticed falling off her stool but lay on the ground, still chattering away.
    The male spectators chortled. The women pelted the actors with more snowballs. Krispos ducked back into his house for a cup of wine