Some nobles kept little enclosures where they hand-raised deer and boar until the animals grew tame as pets. Then they'd shoot them. Phostis had never seen the sport in that, or in bedding girls who either didn't dare say no or else turned sleeping with him into as cold-blooded a calculation as any Krispos made in the age-long struggle between Videssos and Makuran.

He'd tried explaining that to his brothers once, not long after Katakolon, then fourteen, seduced—or was seduced by—one of the women who did the palace laundry. Exalted by his own youthful prowess, he'd paid no heed whatever to Phostis. As for Evripos, he'd said only. "Do you want to don the blue robe and live out your life as a monk? Suit yourself, big brother, but it's not the life for me."

Had he wanted a monastic life, it would have been easy to arrange. But the sole reason he'd ever considered it was to get away from his father. He lacked both a monkish vocation and a monkish temperament. It wasn't that he sought to mortify his flesh, but rather that he—usually—found loveless or mercenary coupling more mortifying than none.

He often wondered how he would do when Krispos decided to marry him off. He was just glad that day had not yet arrived. When it did, he was sure his father would pick him a bride with more of an eye toward advantage for the imperial house than toward his happiness. Sometimes marriages of that sort worked as well as any others. Sometimes—

He turned to Vatatzes. "My friend, you know not how fortunate you are. coming from a family of but middling rank. All too often, I feel my birth more as a cage or a curse than as something in which to rejoice."