The Thousand Cities

XIII

Abivard scratched his head. He hadn't known of any embassies going out, let alone any coming back. «What ambassadors?» he asked. «Ambassadors to Videssos? Do we have peace with the Empire, then?» That made no sense. If Sharbaraz had made peace with Videssos, what need had he for either a marshal or a Videssian traitor?

Yeliif rolled his eyes in theatrical scorn. «Since you seem intent on making a display of your ignorance, I shall merely confirm it, noting that you do not in fact know everything there is to know and noting further that the glorious vision of Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase, vastly outranges your own.»

«To the ice-uh, to the Void-with me if I know what you're talking about,» Tzikas told the eunuch.

«Nor does that surprise me.» Yeliif looked at the renegade as if he were something pallid and slimy that lived in the mud under flat stones by the bank of a creek that did not run clean. Abivard loathed Tzikas with a loathing both pure and hot, but that stare made him feel a moment's sympathy for the Videssian. «Your function is solely to serve the King of Kings, not to be privy to his plans.»

«If we're going to be part of his plans, we ought to have some idea of what those plans are,» Abivard said, and found Tzikas nodding along with him. Accusingly, he went on, «You've known for some time. Why haven't we gained the same knowledge?»

«Until the return of the ambassadors, the King of Kings judged the time unripe,» Yeliif answered. Abivard found the hand that wasn't on his sword tightening into a fist. Yeliif knew the answers, while he didn't even know the questions. Until moments before he hadn't known there were any questions. It all struck him as most unfair.

«Now that the ambassadors are back, will the King of Kings let us know what they were doing while they were away?» Tzikas sounded as if he didn't care for having been left in the dark, either.

Not that that mattered to Yeliif. «In his own good time the King of Kings will inform you,» he said. «It is, then, your task-and I speak to each of you in this instance-to be here to be informed at the time of the King of Kings' choosing and not to eliminate each other before that time. Do you understand?»

He sought to shame them, to make them feel like brawling boys. In no small measure he succeeded. Nevertheless, Abivard new a stir of anger at being considered only insofar as he fit into Sharbaraz' plans. He said, «I do hope the King of Kings will let us know what he intends us to do before we have to do it, not afterward.»

«He will do as he chooses, not as you seek to impose upon-»

The perfect apologist for the King of Kings, Yeliif started to defend him before hearing everything Abivard had had to say. When he realized he'd made himself look foolish, the eunuch bared small, white, even teeth in something closer to a snarl than to a smile. «I don't know why you want to kill this Videssian,» he said, pointing at Tzikas. «Living among his folk for so long has taught you to play meaningless games with words, just as they do.»

«You insult me,» Abivard said.

«No, you insult me,» Tzikas insisted. «Twice, in fact. First you call me a Videssian when I am one no longer, and second you call him-» He pointed at Abivard."-one when he manifestly is not. Were I a Videssian yet, I'd not want him as one.»

«He didn't call me a Videssian,» Abivard said, «and if he had, he would have insulted me, not you, by doing so.»

Tzikas started to raise his sword. The palace guards made ready to pincushion him and Abivard both if they started fighting again. Coldly, Yeliif said, «Do not be more stupid than you can help. I have told you that you and Abivard are required in the future plans of the King of Kings. When those plans are accomplished, you may fight if you so desire. Until then you are his. Remember it and comport yourselves accordingly.» He swept away, the hem of his caftan brushing the floor.

«Put up your swords,» the guards' leader said as he had before. Abivard and Tzikas reluctantly obeyed. The guard went on, «Now, I'm gonna do like I said before, split my men in half and take you noble gentlemen back where you belong.»

«You wouldn't know about these ambassadors, would you?» Abivard asked him as they walked down the hallway.

«Who, me?» The fellow shook his head. «I don't know anything. That's not what I'm here for, knowing things. What I'm here for is to keep people from killing other people they're not supposed to kill. You know what I mean?»

«I suppose so,» Abivard said, wondering where Sharbaraz had found such a magnificently phlegmatic man. A court officer who did not want to know things surely ranked as a freak of nature.

When Abivard walked into the suite of rooms, the soldiers stayed out in the hallway, presumably to make certain he did not go out hunting Tzikas. Roshnani stared at them till he shut the door after himself; too often in the past couple of years soldiers had stood in the hallways outside their rooms. She pointed past Abivard to the guards and asked, «What are they in aid of?»

«Nothing of any great consequence,» he answered airily. «Tzikas and I had a go at settling our differences, that's all.»

«Settling your-» Roshnani scrambled to her feet and took great care in inspecting him from all sides. At last, having satisfied herself almost against her will, she said, «You're not bleeding anywhere.»

«No, I'm not. Neither is Tzikas, worse luck,» Abivard said. «And if we go after each other again, we face the displeasure of the King of Kings-so I've been told, at any rate.» He lowered his voice. «That and a silver arket will make me care an arket's worth.»

Roshnani nodded. «Sharbaraz would have done better to take Tzikas' head himself.» She tossed her own head in long-standing exasperation. «No plan of his could possibly be clever enough to justify keeping the renegade alive.»

«If you expect me to argue with you, you'll be disappointed,» Abivard said, to which they both laughed. He grew thoughtful. «Do you know anything about ambassadors returning?»

«I didn't know any ambassadors were out,» his principal wife answered, «so I could hardly know they've come back.» That was logical enough to satisfy the most exacting, finicky Videssian. Roshnani went on, «Where did you hear about them?»

«From Yeliif, after the guardsmen kept me from giving Tzikas everything he deserved. Whoever they are, wherever they went, however they came back here, they have something to do with Sharbaraz' precious plan.»

«Whatever that may be,» Roshnani said.

«Whatever that may be,» Abivard echoed.

«Whatever it is, when will you find out about it? Roshnani asked.

«Whenever Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, finds a day long enough for him to have the time to give to me,» Abivard answered. «Maybe tomorrow, maybe next spring.» On that cheerful note conversation flagged.

Nine days after Abivard and Tzikas tried to kill each other, Yeliif knocked on the door to Abivard's suite. When Abivard opened the door to let him in, he stuck his head out and looked up and down the hall. The guardsmen had been gone for a couple of days. «How may I help you?» Abivard asked warily; Yeliif as anything other than inimical still struck him as curious.

The beautiful eunuch said, «You are bidden to an audience with Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase. You shall come with me this moment.»

«I'm ready,» Abivard said, though he wasn't, not really. It was, he thought sadly, typical of the King of Kings to leave him on a shelf, as it were, for weeks at a time and then, when wanting him, to want him on the instant.

«I am also bidden to tell you that Tzikas shall be there,» Yeliif said. When Abivard did nothing more than nod, the eunuch also nodded thoughtfully, as if he'd passed a test. He said, «I can tell you-» Not I am bidden to tell you, Abivard noted. «-that Tus and Piran are attending the King of Kings.»

«I'm sorry, but I don't know those names nor the men attached to them,» Abivard said.

«They are the ambassadors whose recent return has provoked this audience,» Yeliif answered.

«Are they?» Abivard said, interest quickening in his voice. Now, at last, he would get to find out just how harebrained Sharbaraz' grandiose plan, whatever it was, would turn out to be. He had no great expectations for it, only the small one of having his curiosity satisfied. In aid of which… «Ambassadors to whom?» he asked. «I didn't know we'd sent an embassy to Maniakes, even if he has been closer to Mashiz lately than he usually gets.» He also remembered the Videssian ambassador Sharbaraz had imprisoned and let die but did not find mentioning him politic.

If Yeliif hadn't been born smiling that knowing, superior smile, he'd spent a lot of time practicing it, perhaps in front of a mirror of polished silver. «All will be made clear to you in due course,» he said, and would say no more. Abivard felt like booting him in the backside as they walked down the corridor.

Tzikas had indeed been bidden to the audience: he stood waiting at the rear of the throne room. Someone-very likely Yeliif-had taken the sensible precaution of posting some palace guards back there. Their dour expressions were as well schooled as Yeliif's smile.

Abivard glared at Tzikas but, with the guards there, did no more. Tzikas glared back. Yeliif said, «The two of you shall accompany me to the throne together and prostrate yourselves before the King of Kings at the same time. No lapses shall be tolerated, if I make myself clear.»

Without waiting to find out whether he did, he started down the aisle on the long walk toward the throne on which Sharbaraz sat. Abivard stayed by his right side; Tzikas quickly found a place on his left. It was as if each of them was using the eunuch to shield himself from the other. Under different circumstances the idea might have been funny.

A pair of men stood to one side of the throne of the King of Kings. Abivard presumed they were the mysterious Tus and Piran. Yeliif explained nothing. Abivard had expected no more. Then, at the appropriate moment, the beautiful eunuch stepped away, leaving Abivard and Tzikas side by side before the King of Kings.

They prostrated themselves, acknowledging their insignificance in comparison to their sovereign. Out of the corner of his eye Abivard watched Tzikas, but he had already known that the ritual was almost the same among Videssians as among the folk of Makuran. The two men waited together, foreheads touching the polished marble floor, for Sharbaraz to give them leave to rise.

At last he did. «We are not pleased with the two of you,» he said when Abivard and Tzikas had regained their feet. Abivard already knew that from the length of time the King of Kings had required them to stay on their bellies. Sharbaraz went on, «By persisting in your headstrong feud, you have endangered the plan we have long been maturing, a plan which, to work to its fullest extent, requires the service of both of you.»

«Majesty, if we knew what this plan was, we would be able to serve you better,» Abivard answered. He was sick to death of Sharbaraz' notorious plan. Sharbaraz was full of big talk that usually ended up amounting to nothing-except trouble for Abivard.

When Sharbaraz spoke again, his words did not seem immediately to the point: «Abivard son of Godarz, brother-in-law of mine, you will remember how our father, Peroz King of Kings, departed this world for the company of the God?»

He hadn't publicly acknowledged Abivard as his brother-in-law for a long time. Abivard noted that as he answered, «Aye, Majesty I do: battling bravely against the Khamorth out on the Pardrayan' steppe.» Only the blind chance of his own horse's stepping in a hole and breaking a leg at the start of its charge had kept him out of the overwhelming disaster that had befallen the Makuraner army moments afterward.

«What you say is true but incomplete,» Sharbaraz told him. «How did it happen that our father, Peroz King of Kings, saw the need to campaign against the Khamorth out on the steppe?»

«They were raiding us, Majesty, as you will no doubt remember,» Abivard said. «Your father wanted to punish them as they deserved.» He would not speak ill of the dead. Had Peroz flung out his net of scouts more widely, the plainsmen might not have trapped him and his host.

Sharbaraz nodded. «And why were they raiding us at that particular time?» he asked with the air of a schoolmaster leading a student through a difficult lesson step by step. Abivard had trouble figuring out what to make of that.

The answer, though, was plain enough: «Because the Videssians paid them gold to raid us.» He glared at Tzikas.

«Not my idea.» The Videssian renegade held up a hand, denying any responsibility. «Likinios Avtokrator sent the gold out where he thought it would do the most good.»

«Likinios Avtokrator, whom we knew, was devious enough to have devised such a scheme for harming his foes without risking his own men or the land then held by the Empire of Videssos,» Sharbaraz said. Abivard nodded; Likinios had lived up to all the Makuraner tales about calculating, cold-blooded Videssians. The King of Kings went on, «We have endeavored to learn even from our foes. Thus the ambassadors we sent forth two years ago just now returned to us: Tus and Piran.»

«Ambassadors to whom, Majesty?» Abivard asked. At last he could put the question to someone who might answer it.

But Sharbaraz did not answer it directly. Instead, he turned to the men now back from their two-year embassy and said, «Whose agreement did you bring back with you?»

Tus and Piran spoke together, denying Abivard the chance to figure out who was who: «Majesty, we brought back the agreement of Etzilios, khagan of Kubrat, Videssos' northern neighbor.»

«By the God,» Abivard murmured. He'd had that notion years before but hadn't thought it really could be done. If Sharbaraz had done it…

Tzikas' right hand started to shape Phos' sun-sign, then checked itself. The renegade murmured, «By the God,» too. Abivard for once was not disgusted at his hypocrisy. He was too busy staring at Sharbaraz King of Kings. For once he'd been wrong about his sovereign.

Sharbaraz said, «Aye, two years ago I sent them forth. They had to traverse the mountains and valleys of Erzerum without revealing their mission to the petty princes there who might have betrayed us to Videssos. They had to travel over the Pardrayan steppe all around the Videssian Sea, giving the Videssian outpost on the northern shore there a wide berth. They could not sail over the Videssian Sea to Kubrat, for we have no ships capable of such a journey.» He nodded to Abivard. «We now more fully appreciate your remarks on the subject.»

One of the ambassadors-the taller and older of the two-said, «We shall have ships. The Kubratoi hollow out great tree trunks and mount masts and sails on them. With these single-trunk ships they have raided the Videssian coast again and again, doing no small damage to our common foe.»

«Piran has the right of it,» Sharbaraz said, letting Abivard learn who was who. «Brother-in-law of mine, when the campaigning season begins this coming spring, you shall lead a great host of the men of Makuran through the Videssian westlands to Across, where all our previous efforts were halted. Under Etzilios, the Kubratoi shall come down and besiege the city by land. And-»

«And-» Abivard committed the enormity of interrupting the King of Kings, «-and their one-trunk ships will ferry over our men and the siege gear to force a breach in the wall and capture the enemy's capital.»

«Just so.» Sharbaraz was so pleased with himself, he overlooked the interruption.

Abivard bowed low. «Majesty,» he said with more sincerity in his voice than he had used in complimenting the King of Kings for some years, «this is a splendid conception. You honor me by letting me help bring it to reality.»

«Just so,» Sharbaraz said again. Abivard let out a small mental sigh. That the King of Kings had come up with a good idea did not keep him from remaining as full of himself as he'd grown in his years on the throne, even if it did give him better reason than usual for his pride.

«You have given me my role to play, Majesty, and I am proud to play it, as I told you,» Abivard said. He turned toward Tzikas. «You have not said what the Videssian's role is to be or why he should have one.» If the God was kind, he might yet be rid of Tzikas.

All Sharbaraz said was, «He will be useful to you.» That left Tzikas to speak for himself, which he did in his lisping Videssian accent: «I tell you, Abivard son of Godarz, as I long ago told Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, that I know a secret way into Videssos the city once your men get over the Cattle Crossing and reach the wall. I did not think what I knew was worth much, because I did not think you could cross to the city. The King of Kings remembered, though, for which I thank him.» He, too, bowed to Sharbaraz. «What is this secret way into Videssos the city?» Abivard asked. Tzikas smiled. «I will tell you-when it is time for you to send men through it into the city.»

«All right,» Abivard said, his voice mild. He saw a hint of surprise, almost of disappointment, on the Videssian renegade's face. Expecting me to threaten and bluster, were you? Abivard thought Maybe the torturers could find a way to pull what Tzikas knew out of him. But maybe not; the renegade was nothing if not resourceful and might well contrive to kill himself without yielding his secret.

In the end, though, it wouldn't matter. Before Tus and Piran had returned to Mashiz, Sharbaraz had shown every sign of being willing, if not downright eager, to be rid of Tzikas, secret or no secret. Now, with the King of Kings' plan unfolding, what Tzikas knew-or what Tzikas said he knew, which might not be the same thing-took on new value.

But suppose everything went exactly as Tzikas hoped. Suppose, thanks to his knowledge of the wall and whatever weak points it had, the Makuraners got into Videssos the city. Suppose he was the hero of the moment.

Abivard smiled at the renegade. Suppose all that came true. It would not profit Tzikas for long. Abivard was as sure of that as he was of light at noon, dark at midnight. Once Tzikas' usefulness was over, he would disappear. Sharbaraz would never name him puppet Avtokrator of the Videssians, not when he couldn't be counted on to stay a puppet.

So let him have his moment now. Why not? It wouldn't last. Sharbaraz said, «Now you see why we could permit no unseemly brawling between the two of you. Both of you are vital to our plans, and we should have been most aggrieved at having to go forward with only one. Until Videssos the city should fall, you are indispensable to us.»

«I will do my best to live up to the trust you've placed in me,» Tzikas answered, bowing once more to the King of Kings. Yes, Abivard judged, the renegade made a formidable courtier, and his command of the Makuraner language was excellent. It was not, however, perfect. Sharbaraz had said that Tzikas-and Abivard, too, for that matter-was indispensable until Videssos the city fell. He had not said a word about anyone's indispensability after Videssos the city fell. Abivard had noticed that. Tzikas, by all appearances, had not.

Yeliif reappeared between Abivard and Tzikas. One moment he was not there, the next he was. He was no mean courtier in his own right, arriving at the instant when Sharbaraz dismissed them. As protocol required, Abivard and Tzikas prostrated themselves once more. For the first time in some years Abivard felt he was giving the prostration to a man who deserved such an honor.

After he and Tzikas rose, they backed away from the King of Kings till they could with propriety turn and walk away from his presence. The beautiful eunuch stayed between them. Abivard wondered if that was to ensure that the two of them didn't start fighting again no matter what instructions they'd had from Sharbaraz.

At the entrance to the throne room another eunuch took charge of Tzikas and led him away, presumably toward whatever chambers he had been allotted. Yeliif accompanied Abivard back to his own suite of rooms. «Now perhaps you understand and admit the King of Kings has a grander notion of things as they are and things as they should be than your limited imagination can encompass,» Yeliif said.

«He certainly had one splendid idea there,» Abivard said, which sounded like agreement but wasn't quite. He suppressed a sigh. With all the courtiers telling Sharbaraz how clever he was, the King of Kings would get-indeed, no doubt had long since gotten-the idea that all his thoughts were brilliant merely because he was the one who'd had them. That might help Sharbaraz follow through on a genuinely good notion like the one he'd had here but would make him pursue his follies with equal vigor.

«His wisdom approaches that of the God,» the beautiful eunuch declared. Abivard didn't say anything to that. Sharbaraz was liable to have himself worshiped in place of the God if he kept hearing flattery like that Abivard wondered what Dhegmussa would have to say about such a claim. He wondered if the Mobedhan Mobedh would have the spine to say anything at all.

When he got back to the rooms where he and his family were staying, he found Roshnani, as he'd expected, waiting impatiently to hear what news he'd brought. He gave that news to her, crediting the King of Kings for the scheme he'd developed. Roshnani listened with her usual sharp attention and asked several equally sharp questions. After Abivard had answered them all, she paid Sharbaraz the highest compliment Abivard had heard from her in years: «I wouldn't have believed he had it in him.»

Abivard greeted Romezan with a handclasp. «Good to see you,» he said. «Good to see anyone who's ever gone out into the field and has some idea of what fighting is all about.»

«Not many like that around the court, as I know better than I'd like,» Romezan answered. He paced up and down the central room of Abivard's suite like a trapped animal. «That's why I'd rather be out in the field if I had any choice about it.»

«Turan won't let the army fall into the Void while you're away from it,» Abivard answered, «and I need your help working out exactly how to put the King of Kings' plan into effect.»

«What exactly is the King of Kings' plan?» Romezan asked. «I've heard there is such a thing, but that's about all.»

When Abivard told him, Romezan stopped pacing and listened intently. When Abivard was through, the noble from the Seven Clans whistled once, a low, prolonged note. Abivard nodded. «That's how I felt the first time I heard it, too,» he said.

Romezan stared at him. «Do you mean to tell me you had nothing to do with this plan?» Abivard, truthfully enough, denied everything; even if he had once had the same idea, Sharbaraz was the one who'd made it real, or as real as it was thus far. Romezan whistled again. «Well, if he really did think of it all by his lonesome, more power to him. Splendid notion. Kills any number of birds with one stone.»

«I was thinking the same thing,» Abivard said. "What worries me is timing the attack and coordinating it with the Kubratoi to make sure they're doing their part when we come calling. They can't take Videssos the city by themselves; I'm sure of that. And we can't take it if we can't get to it. Working together, though-»

«Oh, aye, I see what you're saying,» Romezan told him. «These are all the little things the King of Kings won't have bothered worrying about. They're also the sorts of things that make a plan go wrong if nobody bothers to think of them. And if that happens, it's not the fault of the King of Kings. It's the fault of whoever was in charge of the campaign.»

«Something like that, yes.» Abivard pointed to the walls and ceiling to remind Romezan that privacy was an illusion in the palace. Romezan tossed his head imperiously as if to answer that he did not care. Abivard went on, «We also want to make sure Maniakes is away from Videssos the city when we attack it preferably bogged down fighting in the land of the Thousand Cities the way he has been the last couple of years.»

«Aye, that would be good,» Romezan agreed. «But if we don't move for Videssos the city till he's moved against us, that cuts down the time we'll have to try to take the place.»

«I know,» Abivard said unhappily. «Anything that makes one thing better has a way of making something else worse.»

«True enough, true enough,» Romezan said. «Well, that's life. And you're right that we'd be better off waiting for Maniakes to be out of Videssos the city and far away before we try to take it; if he's leading the defense, it's the same as giving the Videssians an extra few thousand men. I've fought him often enough now that I don't want to do it again.»

«He is troublesome,» Abivard said, knowing what an understatement that was. He laughed nervously. «I wonder if he has a secret plan of his own, too, one that will let him take Mashiz. If he holds our capital while we capture his, can we trade them back when the war is over?»

«You're full of jolly notions today, aren't you?» Romezan said, but then he added, «I do see what you're saying, so don't get me wrong about that. If we figure out everything we're going to do but nothing of what Maniakes is liable to try, we end up in trouble.»

«Maniakes is liable to try almost anything, worse luck for us,» Abivard answered. «We thought we had him penned away from the westlands for good till he ran around us by sea.»

«Still doesn't seem right,» Romezan grumbled. Like most other Makuraner officers, he had trouble taking the sea seriously, even though, had it not been there, every elaborate scheme to capture Videssos the city would have been unnecessary. Then, thoughtfully, he went on, «What are they like? The Kubratoi, I mean.»

«How should I know?» Abivard answered almost indignantly. «I've never dealt with them, either. If we're going to ally with them, though, we probably could do worse than asking the ambassadors who made the arrangements in the first place.»

«That's sensible,» Romezan said, approval in his voice. He set a finger by the side of his nose. «Or, of course, we could always ask Tzikas.»

«Ho, ho!» Abivard said. «You are a funny fellow.» Both men laughed. Neither seemed much amused.

«We shall tell you whatever we can,» Piran said. Beside him Tus nodded. Both men sipped wine and ate roasted pistachios from a silver bowl a servant had brought them.

«The most important question is, What are they worth in a brawl?» Romezan said. «You've seen 'em; we haven't. By the God, I can't tell you three things about 'em.»

Romezan's mind reached no farther than the battlefield, but Abivard had longer mental vision: «What are they like? If they make a bargain, will they keep it?»

Piran snorted «They're just one band of cows in the huge Khamorth herd that stretches from the Degird River across the great Pardrayan plain to the Astris River and beyond-which means any one of 'em would sell his own grandmother to the village butcher if he thought her carcass would fetch two arkets.»

«Sounds like all the Khamorth I've ever known,» Romezan agreed.

Tus held up a finger like a village schoolmaster. «But,» he said, «against Videssos they will keep a bargain.»

«If they're of the Khamorth strain, they're liable to betray anyone for any reason or for no reason at all,» Abivard said.

«Were they fighting another clan of Khamorth, you would be right,» Tus said. «But Etzilios hates Maniakes for having beaten him and fears he will beat him again. With a choice between Videssos and Makuran, he will be a faithful ally for us.»

«Nothing like fear to keep an alliance healthy,» Romezan observed.

«If I were khagan of Kubrat-and the God be praised I'm not, nor likely to be-I'd look for allies against Videssos, too,» Abivard said. «The Videssians have long memories, and their neighbors had better remember it.»

«You sound as if you might mean us, not just the Kubratoi and the other barbarous nations of the farthermost east,» Piran said.

«Of course I mean us,» Abivard exploded. «Maniakes has spent the past two years trying to tear down the land of the Thousand Cities one mud brick at a time. He hasn't been doing that for his own amusement; he's been doing it to pay us back for having taken the westlands away from Videssos. If we can cut off the head by taking Videssos the city, the body-the Empire of Videssos-will die. If we can't, our grandchildren will be trying to figure out how to keep the Videssians from taking back everything Sharbaraz has won in his wars.»

«That is why the King of Kings sent us on our long, hard journey,» Tus said. «He agrees with you, lord, that we must uproot the Empire to keep it from growing back and troubling us again in later days.»

«Will the Kubratoi horsemen and single-trunk ships be enough toward helping us get done what needs doing?» Abivard asked.

Piran said, «Their soldiers are much like Khamorth anywhere. They have a lot of warriors because the grazing is good south of the Astris. A few of their fighting men wear mail shirts in place of boiled leather. Some are loot from the Videssians; some are made by smiths there.»

«What about the ships?» Romezan asked, beating Abivard to the question.

«I'm no sailor-» Piran began.

Abivard broke in: «What Makuraner is?»

«— but they looked to me as if they'd be dangerous. They carry a mast and a leather sail to mount on it, and they can hold a lot of warriors.»

«That sounds like what we need to do the job, right enough,» Romezan said, eyes kindling with excitement.

Abivard hoped he was right. Along with catapults and siege towers, ships were a projection of the mechanical arts into the art of war. In all such things the Videssians were uncommonly good.

How he had resented those spider-striding galleys that had held him away from Videssos the city! He hadn't thought he could hate ships more than he'd hated those galleys. Now, though, after ships had let Maniakes bypass the Makuraner-held Videssian westlands and bring the war to the land of the Thousand Cities, he wondered where his greater antipathy lay.

«If we have ships to put their ships out of action-» He frowned. «Have the Kubratoi met the Videssians on the sea in these single-trunk ships?»

«We saw no such fights,» Piran said. «Etzilios was at peace with Videssos while we were in Kubrat, you understand, not wanting to make Maniakes worry about him.»

«I do understand.» Abivard nodded. «Maniakes needs to think all's quiet behind him. He needs to invade the land of the Thousand Cities again, in fact. The farther he is from the capital when we launch our attack, the better off we'll be. If the God is kind, we'll be in Videssos the city before he can get back.» He smiled wolfishly. «I wonder what he'll do then.»

Harking back to his original question, Tus said, «Etzilios assured us, boasting and vaunting about what his people have done, that their ships had stood up against the Videssians in times past.»

«I know they were raiding the Videssian coast when we were in Across,» Romezan said. «They could hardly have done that if their ships didn't measure up, now, could they?»

«I suppose not,» Abivard said. The wolfish smile remained «The Videssians did have some other things to worry about then, though.»

«Aye, so they did.» Romezan's smile was more nearly reminiscent than lupine. «We scared them then. When we come back, we'll do more than scare them. Scaring people is for children. Winning wars is a man's proper sport.»

«Well said!» Piran exclaimed. «The Kubratoi, like most nomads, would phrase that a little differently: they would say fighting wars is a man's proper sport. They will make allies worth having.»

Allies worth betraying, Abivard thought. If all went well, if the Kubratoi and the Makuraners together took Videssos the city and extinguished the ancient Empire of Videssos, how long before they started quarreling over the bones of the carcass? Not long, Abivard was sure: Makuran had always had nomads on the frontier and never had had any use for them.

Something else occurred to him. To Romezan he said, «We'll be taking the part of the field army you brought out of Videssos to the land of the Thousand Cities, not so?»

«We'd better,» Romezan declared. «If we're going to try to break into Videssos the city, we'll need everything we have. Kardarigan's chunk won't be enough by itself. Tell me you think otherwise and I'll be very surprised.»

«I don't,» Abivard assured him. «But while we're in Videssos, Maniakes is going to be in the land of the Thousand Cities. And do you know who will have to keep him busy there and make sure he doesn't sack our capital while we're busy sacking his?»

«Somebody had better do that,» Romezan said. His eyes sparkled. «I know who-those foot soldiers you're so proud of, the city militiamen you trained into soldiers almost worth having.»

«They are worth having,» Abivard insisted. He started to get angry before he noticed that Romezan was grinning at him. «The proof of which is they'll be able to keep the Videssians busy here long enough for us to do what needs doing there.»

«They'd better, or Sharbaraz will want both our heads and likely Turan's, too: he'll be commanding them, I suppose, so he won't be able to escape his share of the blame,» Romezan said. He whistled a merry little tune he'd picked up in Videssos. «Of course, if your fancied-up city guards don't do their job, the King of Kings may not be able to take anybody's head, because Maniakes may not have left him with his. One way or another, the war ends next summer.»

«Not 'one way or another, » Abivard said. «The war ends next summer: our way.»

Romezan, Tus, and Piran lifted their silver goblets of wine in a salute.

Prince Peroz stared up at Abivard, who in turn looked down at the little fellow who would one day rule him if he outlived Sharbaraz King of Kings. Peroz reached up and tried to grab hold of his beard. He hadn't taken that from bis own children; he wouldn't take it from his future sovereign, either.

«He's starting to discover that he has hands,» Abivard said to Denak, and then, «They change so fast when they're this small.»

«They certainly do.» His sister sighed. «I'd almost forgotten. It's been a while now since Jarireh was tiny. She's almost Varaz's age, you know.»

«Is she well? Is she happy?» Abivard asked. His sister hardly ever mentioned his eldest niece. He wondered if Denak thought of Jarireh and her sisters as failures because they had not been boys and thus had not cemented their mother's place among the women of the palace.

«She is well,» Denak said. «Happy? Who could be happy here at court?» She spoke without so much as glancing over at Ksorane, who sat in a corner of the room painting her eyelids with kohl and examining her appearance in a small mirror of polished bronze. Maybe, by now, Sharbaraz had heard all of Denak's complaints.

«If we take Videssos the city-» Abivard stopped. For the first time in a long while he let himself think about all the things that might happen if Makuran took Videssos the city. «If we take the city, Dhegmussa will offer up praise to the God from the High Temple and Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, will quarter himself in Maniakes' palaces. He should bring you with him, for without you he never would have had the chance.»

«I've given up thinking that what he should do and what he will do are one and the same,» Denak answered. «He'll go to Videssos the city, no doubt, to see what you've done for him and, as you say, to vaunt himself by taking over the Avtokrator's dwelling. But I'll stay here in Mashiz, sure as sure. He'll take women who… amuse him, or else he'll amuse himself with frightened little Videssians.» She sounded very sure, very knowing, very bitter.

«But-» Abivard began.

His sister waved him to silence. «Sharbaraz dreams large,» she said. «He always has-I give him that much. Now he's dreamed large enough to catch you up in his webs again, the way he did when the crown of the King of Kings was new on his head. But I'm not part of his dreams anymore, not in any real way.» She pointed to Peroz, who was beginning to yawn in Abivard's arms. «Sometimes I think he's a dream and, if I go to bed and then wake up, he'll be gone.» She shrugged. «I don't even know why Sharbaraz summoned me that one night.»

Ksorane set down the mirror and said, «Lady, he feared your brother and wanted a better bond with him if he could forge one.» Denak and Abivard both stared at her in surprise. The only previous time she'd spoken without being spoken to had been to keep them from touching each other. As if to pretend she hadn't done anything at all, she went back to ornamenting her eyelids.

Denak shrugged again. «Maybe she's right,» she told Abivard, still as if Ksorane weren't there listening. «But whether she is or isn't, it doesn't matter as far as my going to Videssos the city. Peroz is part of Sharbaraz' dreams, but I'm not. I'll stay here in Mashiz.» She was utterly matter-of-fact about it, as if foretelling the yield from a plot of land near Vek Rud stronghold. Somehow that made the prediction worse, not better.

Abivard rocked his nephew in his arms. The baby's eyes slid shut. His mouth made little sucking noises. Ksorane came up to take him and return him to his mother. «Wait a bit,» Abivard told her. «Let him get a little more deeply asleep so he won't start howling when I hand him to you.»

«You know something about children,» Ksorane said.

«I'd be a poor excuse for a father if I didn't,» he answered. Then he wondered how much Sharbaraz King of Kings knew about children. Not much, he suspected, and that saddened him Some things, he thought, should not be left to servants.

After a while he did hand the baby to Ksorane, who returned it to Denak. Neither transfer disturbed little Peroz in the least. Looking down at him, Denak said, «I wonder what dreams he'll have, many years from now, up there on the throne of the King of Kings, and who will follow them and try to make them real for him.»

«Yes,» Abivard said. But what he was wondering was whether Peroz would ever sit on the throne of the King of Kings. So many babies died no matter how hard their parents struggled to keep them alive. And even if Peroz lived to grow up, his father had for a time lost the throne through disaster and treachery. Who could say now that the same would not befall the babe? No one, as Abivard knew only too well. One thing he had seen was that life did not come with a promise that it would run smoothly.

By the standards with which Abivard had become familiar while living in Vek Rud domain, Mashiz enjoyed a mild winter. It was chilly, but even the winds off the Dilbat Mountains were nothing like the ones that blew around Vek Rud stronghold. Those seemed to take a running start on the Pardrayan steppe and to blow right through a man because going around him was too much trouble.

They got mild days in Mashiz, as opposed to the endless, bone-numbing chill of the far Northwest. Every so often the wind would shift and blow off the land of the Thousand Cities. Whenever it did that for two days running, Abivard began to think spring had arrived at last. He could taste how eager he was for good weather that wasn't just a tease of the sort a dancing girl would give to a soldier who lusted after her but whom she wanted to annoy rather than bed.

As the sun swung northward from its low point in the sky, the mild days gradually came more often. But every time Abivard's hopes began to rise with the sap in the trees, a new storm would claw its way over the mountains and freeze those hopes once more.

Abivard did send messages both to the field army, ordering it to ready to move out when the weather permitted, and to Turan, ordering him to prepare to defend the land of the Thousand Cities with foot soldiers from the city garrisons alone. He did not go into more detail than that in his message. In peacetime the Thousand Cities had a flourishing trade with Videssos. That news of what he intended might reach the Avtokrator struck him as far from impossible.

Varaz knew what Sharbaraz intended. He had even less patience than Abivard, being wild to leave the foothills for the flatlands to the east, the flatlands that were the gateway to Videssos. «You need to wait,» his father told him. «Leaving too soon doesn't get us anywhere-or not soon enough, anyhow.»

«I'm sick of waiting!» Varaz burst out, a sentiment with which Abivard had more than a little sympathy. «I've spent the last three winters waiting here in the palace. I want to get out, to get away. I want to go to the places where things will happen.»

Pretty soon, Abivard thought, Varaz would be old enough to make things happen rather than just watching them happen. He was taller than his mother now. Before long, his beard would begin to grow and he would make the discovery every generation finds astounding: that mankind includes womankind and is much more interesting on account of it.

Abivard hadn't cared for being cooped up three winters running, either, even if conditions had improved from one winter to the next. He had borne it more easily than had his son, though. But Varaz was going to escape from Mashiz, to return first to the land of the Thousand Cities, then to Across, and then, if the God was willing, to enter Videssos the city.

«Count yourself lucky,» Abivard told his elder son. «Your cousin Jarireh may never leave the palace till the day she marries.»

«She's a girl, though,» Varaz said. Had Roshnani heard the tone in which he said it, she probably would have boxed his ears. He went on, «Besides, her baby brother's going to be King of Kings.»

«That won't help her get out and see the world-or at least I don't think it will,» Abivard said. «It will make picking someone for her to marry harder than it would be, though.»

«Marriage-so what?» Varaz said, nothing but scorn in his voice-he remained on the childish side of the great divide. «Your family picks someone for you, the two of you go before the servant of the God, and that's it. That's how it works most of the time, anyhow.»

«Are you making an exception for your mother and me?» Abivard asked dryly.

«Well, yes, but the two of you are different,» Varaz said. «Mother goes out and does things, almost as if she were a man; she doesn't stay in the women's quarters all the time. And you let her.»

«No,» Abivard said. «I don't 'let' her. I'm glad she does. In a number of ways she's more clever than I am. I'm only lucky in that I'm clever enough to see she is more clever.»

«I don't follow that,» Varaz said. He quickly held up a hand. «I probably wouldn't follow it in Videssian, either, no matter how logical it's supposed to be, so don't bother trying.»

Thus forestalled, Abivard threw his hands in the air. Varaz escaped from his presence and went dashing down a palace hallway. Watching him, Abivard sighed. No, waiting was never easy.

But even Sharbaraz had been forced to wait for his ambassadors to return. In another sense he'd had to wait more than a dozen years after the Empire of Videssos had fallen into civil strife to be able to assail its capital with any hope of success. In still another sense Makuran as a whole had been waiting centuries for this opportunity to come around.

Abivard snapped his fingers. Lands didn't wait-people did. And, like his son, he was very tired of waiting.

Pashang clucked to the horses and flicked the reins. The wagon rattled away from Mashiz. Abivard rode beside it on a fine black gelding, the gift of Sharbaraz King of Kings. Romezan rode another that might have been a different foal of the same mare.

Around them, almost as splendidly mounted, trotted a company of heavy cavalry, their armor and that of their horses stowed in carts or on packhorses since they were traveling through friendly territory and were not expecting to fight. One proud young horseman carried the red war banner.

Off to one side, with the group but not of it, rode Tzikas.

Abivard had been warned of all the horrid things that would happen to him if anything at all happened to Tzikas. He was still trying to work out whether those horrid things were deterrent enough. For the moment they probably were. Once Videssos the city fell, Tzikas would be expendable. And if by some misfortune Videssos the city failed to fall, Sharbaraz would be looking for a scapegoat.

Tzikas no doubt was thinking along similar lines. Abivard glanced over toward him and wasn't surprised to find the Videssian renegade's eyes already on him. He stared at Tzikas for a little while, nothing but challenge in his gaze. Tzikas looked back steadily. Abivard let out a silent sigh. Enemies were so much easier to despise when they were cowards. Yet even though Tzikas was no coward, Abivard despised him anyhow.

He turned in the saddle and said to Romezan, «We're riding in the right direction now.»

«How do you mean that?» Romezan returned. «Away from the palace? Out into the field? Toward the war?»

«Any of those will do,» Abivard said. «They'll all do.» If he had to pick one, away from the palace probably would fit his thought best. In the palace he was slave to the King of Kings, for all his achievements hardly higher in status than sweepers or captive Videssian pedagogues. Away from the palace, away from the King of Kings, he was a marshal of Makuran, a great power in his own right. He had grown very used to that, all those years he'd spent extending the power of Makuran through the Videssian westlands till it reached the Cattle Crossing. Being yanked back under Sharbaraz' control would have been hard on him even had the King of Kings not seen treason lurking under every pillow and behind every door.

Romezan did not dwell on the past. He looked ahead to the cast. Dreamily, he said, «Do you suppose we'll lay Videssos low? How many hundred years have they and we warred? Come this fall, will the fight be over at last?»

«If the God is kind,» Abivard answered. They rode on a while in silence. Then Abivard said, «We'll muster as far forward as we can. As soon as we have word that Maniakes has landed, whether down in Lyssaion or in Erzerum, we move.»

«What if he doesn't land?» Romezan said, looking eastward gain, as if he could span the farsangs and see into the palaces in distant Videssos the city. «What if he decides to stay home for a year? Maniakes never ends up doing what we think he will.»

That was true. Even so, Abivard shook his head. «He'll come,» be said. «I'm sure of it, and Sharbaraz was dead right to assume it.» Hearing him agree so emphatically with the King of Kings was enough to make Romezan dig a finger into his ear as if to make sure it was working as it should. Chuckling, Abivard went on. «What's Maniakes' chief advantage over us?» He answered his own question: «He commands the sea. What has he been doing with that command? He's been using it to take the war out of Videssos and into the realm of the King of Kings. How can he possibly afford not to keep on doing what he's done the past two years?»

«Put that way, I don't suppose he can,» Romezan admitted.

«The real beauty of Sharbaraz' scheme-» Abivard stopped. Now he wondered if he was really talking about the King of Kings that way. He was, and in fact he repeated himself: «The real beauty of Sharbaraz' plan is that it uses Maniakes' strengths against him and Videssos. He takes his ships, uses them to bring his army back to the land of the Thousand Cities, and gets embroiled in fighting well away from the sea. And while he's doing all that, we steal a march and take his capital away from him.»

Romezan thought for a while before nodding. «I like it.»

«So do I,» Abivard said.

«He liked it better by the day. He and his escort made their way through the land of the Thousand Cities toward Qostabash. Peasants were busy in the fields, bringing in the spring harvest. Here and there, though, they were busy at other things, most notably the repair of canals wrecked in the previous fall's fighting and soon to be needed to cope with the sudden rush of water from the spring floods of the Tutub and the Tib and their tributaries. And here and there, across the green quilt of the floodplain, fields went untended, unharvested. Some of the cities that had perched on mounds of their own rubble were now nothing but rubble themselves. Maniakes had made the land of the Thousand Cities pay a terrible price for the many victories Makuran had won in Videssos over the past decade.

Whenever he stopped at one of the surviving Thousand Cities, Abivard examined how well the city governor had kept up the local garrison. He was pleased to find most of those garrisons in better shape than they had been two years earlier, when the Videssians had first entered the floodplain. Before then both city governorships and slots in the city garrison had been the nearest thing to sinecures: but for flood or drought, what ever went wrong among the Thousand Cities? Invasion was not an answer that seemed to have occurred beforehand to many people.

Romezan paid the revived city garrisons what might have been the ultimate compliment when he said, «You know, I wouldn't mind taking a few thousand of these foot soldiers along with us when we go into the Videssian westlands. They really can fight. Who would have thought it?»

«That's not what you said when you came to my aid last summer,» Abivard reminded him.

«I know,» Romezan answered. «I hadn't seen them in action then. I was wrong. I admit it You deserve a lot of credit for turning them into soldiers.»

Abivard shook his head. «Do you know who deserves the credit for turning them into soldiers?»

«Turan?» Romezan snorted dismissively. «He's done well with them, aye, but he's still only a jumped-up captain learning how to be a general.»

«He's done very well, as a matter of fact, but I wasn't thinking of him,» Abivard answered. «The one who deserves the credit for turning them into soldiers is Maniakes. Without him they'd just be the same swaggering bullies they've been for the God only knows how many years. But that doesn't work, not against the Videssians. The ones who are still alive know better now.»

«Something to that, I expect,» Romezan said after a reflective pause.

«It's also one reason why we're not going to take any of those foot soldiers into Videssos,» Abivard said. Romezan's dark, bushy brows pulled down and together in confusion. Abivard explained: «Remember, we want the Videssians heavily engaged here in the land of the Thousand Cities. That means we're going to have to leave behind a good-sized army to fight them, an army with good fighting men in it. Either we leave behind a piece of the field army-»

«No, by the God!» Romezan broke in.

Abivard held up a placatory hand. «I agree. The field army is the best Makuran has. That's what we send against Videssos the city, which will need the best we have. But the next best we have has to stay here to keep Maniakes in play while we move against the city.»

Again Romezan paused for thought before answering. «This is a tricky business, gauging all the separate strengths to make sure each is in the proper place. Me, I'd sooner point my mass of troops at the foe, charge him straight on, and smash him down into the dirt.»

«I know,» Abivard said, which was true. He added, «So would I,» which was less true. «But Maniakes fights like a Videssian, so stealth makes do for a lot of his strength. If we're going to beat the Empire so it stays beaten, we have to do it his way.»

«I suppose so,» Romezan said unwillingly. «But if we fight like the Videssians, we'll end up acting like them in other ways, too. And they know no caste.»

He spoke with great abhorrence. Abivard knew he should have felt that same abhorrence. Try as he would, he couldn't find it inside himself. He wondered why. After a few seconds' thought he said, «I've lived so long in Videssos and here in the Thousand Cities, I don't mind that nearly so much as I used to. Up on the Plateau breaking people into tight groups-the King of Kings, the Seven Clans and the servants of the God, the dihqans, artisans and merchants, and peasants down at the bottom-seemed a natural thing to do. Now I've seen other ways of doing things, and I realize ours isn't the only one.»

«That's no sort of thing for a proper Makuraner to say.» Romezan sounded almost as dismayed as if Abivard had blasphemed the God.

But Abivard refused to let himself be cowed. «No, eh? Why is it you kiss my cheek, then, instead of the other way around? You outrank me. I'm just a dihqan, and a frontier dihqan at that.»

«I started giving you that courtesy because you're brother-in-law to the King of Kings,» the noble from the Seven Clans answered. If he'd kept quiet after that, he would have won the argument. Instead, though, he went on, «Now I see you've earned it because-»

Abivard stuck a triumphant finger in the air. «If you grant me the courtesy because I've earned it and not because of my blood, what has that got to do with caste?»

Romezan started to answer, looked confused, stopped, and tried again: «It's-that is-» He came to another stop, then burst out, «You have lived among the Videssians too long. All you want to do is chop logic all day. Now I'm going to be thinking for the next half dozen farsangs.» He made the prospect sound most unpleasant. Abivard had seen that before in many different men. It always left him sad.

Tzikas, on the other hand, actively enjoyed thinking. That wasn't necessarily a recommendation, either. The older Abivard got, the more it looked as if nothing was necessarily a recommendation for anything.

Outside Qostabash men from the field army were playing mallet and ball, galloping their horses up and down a grassy stretch of ground with great abandon. Every so often a loincloth-clad peasant, his blue-black hair bound in a bun at the nape of his neck, would look up from his labor with hoe and mattock and watch the sport for a little while before bending back down to weed or prune or dig. Abivard wondered what the peasants thought of the shouting warriors whose game was not far from combat itself. Whatever it was, they kept it to themselves.

He had sent a rider out ahead of his company to let Turan know he was near. Two years before Turan had been only a company commander himself. He'd risen fast, since Abivard had access to so few veteran Makuraner officers on whom he could rely. Now Turan had shown himself able to command an army. Very soon he'd have the chance to do just that

Now he came riding out of Qostabash to greet Abivard and his companions-he must have had men up on the walls of the city keeping an eye out for them. The first thing he did after pulling his horse alongside Abivard's was to point over at Tzikas and say, «Isn't he supposed to be dead, lord?»

«It all depends on whom you ask,» Abivard answered. «I certainly think so, but the King of Kings disagrees. As in any contest of that sort, his will prevails.»

«Of course it does,» Turan said, as any loyal Makuraner would have done. Then, as anyone who had made the acquaintance of Tzikas would have done, he asked, «Why on earth does he want him alive?»

«For a reason even I find… fairly good,» Abivard answered. He spent the next little while explaining the plan Sharbaraz King of Kings had devised and the places his sovereign had designated for him and for the Videssian renegade.

When he was through, Turan glanced over at Tzikas and said, «He had better make keeping him alive worth everyone's while or else he won't last, orders from the King of Kings or no orders from the King of Kings.»

«Far be it from me to argue with you,» Abivard said. Lowering his voice, he went on, «But I've decided I'm not going to do anything about it till after Videssos the city falls, if it does. Either way, the problem takes care of itself then.» He explained his reasoning to Turan.

The officer nodded. «Aye, lord, that's very good. If we fail, which the God forbid, he gets the blame, and if we succeed, we don't need him anymore after that. Very neat. Anyone would think you were the Videssian, not his unpleasantness over there.»

«Too many people have said the same thing to me lately,» Abivard grumbled. «I thank the God and the Prophets Four that I'm not»

«Aye, I believe that,» Turan agreed, «the same as I thank the God-» He broke off. He'd probably been about to say something like for making me a man, not a woman. Considering how much freedom Roshnani had and how well she used it, that wasn't the wisest thing to say around Abivard. Turan changed the subject: «How will you know, lord, when to leave the Thousand Cities behind and strike out for Videssos?»

«As soon as we get word Maniakes has landed, whether north or south, we go,» Abivard said. «At this season of the year the badlands between the Thousand Cities and Videssos will have some greenery on them, too, which means we won't have to carry quite so much grain and hay for the horses and mules.»

«Every little bit helps,» Turan said. «And you'll want me to keep Maniakes in play for as long as I can, isn't that right?»

«The busier he is with you, the more time I'll have to do all I can against Videssos the city,» Abivard said, and Turan nodded. Abivard added, «You may even beat him-who knows?»

«With an all-infantry army?» Turan rolled his eyes. «If I can slow him down and make his life difficult, I'll be happy.»

Since Abivard had been saying the same thing to Sharbaraz over the course of the previous two campaigning seasons, he found no way to blame Turan for words like those. He said, «The two things you have to remember are not to let Maniakes get behind you and make a run for Mashiz and to make him fight as many long sieges as you can.»

«He hasn't fought many long ones the past couple of years,» Turan said unhappily. «Brick walls like the ones hereabouts don't stand up well to siege engines, and the Videssians are good engineers.»

«I know.» Abivard remembered the capable crew of artisans the elder Maniakes, the Avtokrator's father, had brought with his army when the Videssians had helped put Sharbaraz back on the throne of the King of Kings. He dared not assume that the men the younger Maniakes would have with him would turn out to be any less competent

Romezan said, «I hope Maniakes comes soon. Every day I sit here in Qostabash doing nothing is another debt the Avtokrator owes to me. I intend to collect every one of those debts, and in good Videssian gold.»

«We won't be idle here,» Abivard answered. «Getting an army ready to move at a moment's notice is an art of its own and one where the Videssians are liable to be better man we are.»

Romezan only grunted by way of reply. He was a good man in a fight, none better, but cared less than he might have for the other side of generalship, the side that involved getting men ready for fighting and keeping them that way. He seemed to think that sort of thing happened by itself. Abivard had needed to worry about supplies from his earliest days as a soldier, when he'd fed the dihqans of the Northwest as they looked Sharbaraz over at the outset of his rebellion against Smerdis the usurper. If he hadn't learned then, keeping an eye on the way the Videssians did things would have taught him.

Turan said, «When you go east, I wish I were going with you. I know the job I have to do back here is important, but-»

«You'll do it, which is what counts. That's why you're staying behind,» Abivard told him. Turan nodded but still looked dissatisfied. Abivard understood that and sympathized with it, but only to a certain degree. The Videssians weren't so apt to tack but on after important. If something was important, they did it and then went on to the next important thing.

With a small start, he realized that all the people who'd been calling him Videssian-minded lately had a point. Having spent so much time in the Empire and among imperials, he was-always with exceptions such as Tzikas-as comfortable around them as with his own people. Was feeling that way treason of a sort or simply making the best of what life had proffered? He scratched his head. He'd have to ponder that.

A sentry brought into Abivard's presence a sweat-soaked scout who smelled strongly of horse. Abivard stiffened. Was this the man for whom he'd been waiting? Before he could speak, the scout gasped out, «The Videssians have come! They-»

Abivard waited to hear no more. All the waiting was over at last. He sprang to his feet. No matter how comfortable he had grown among the Videssians, they remained the foe. He thought he could beat them. Soon he would know. He took a deep breath and shouted out the news: «We march on Videssos!»