The Thousand Cities

VII

Abivard glared at the peasant in some exasperation. «You saw the Videssian army leave?» he demanded. The peasant nodded. «And which way did they go? Tell me again,» Abivard said.

«That way, lord.» The peasant pointed east, as he had before.

Everyone with whom Abivard had spoken had said the same thing. Yes, the Videssians were gone. Yes, the locals were glad- although they seemed less glad to see a Makuraner army arrive to take the invaders' place. And yes, Maniakes and his men had gone east. No one had seen them turn south.

He's being sneaky, Abivard thought. He'll go out into the scrub country between the Tutub and Videssos and stay there as long as he can, maybe even travel south a long way before he comes back to the river for water. You could travel a fair distance through that semidesert, especially when the fall rains-the same rains that would be storms on the Sailors' Sea-brought the grass and leaves to brief new life.

But you could not travel all the way down to Lyssaion without returning to the Tutub. Even lush scrub wouldn't support an army's horses indefinitely, and there weren't enough water holes to keep an army of men from perishing of thirst. And when Maniakes came back to the Tutub, Abivard would know exactly where he was.

True, Maniakes' army could move faster than his. But that army, burdened by a baggage train, could not outrun the scouting detachments Abivard sent galloping southward to check me likely halting places along the Tutub. If the scouts came back, they would bring news of where the Videssians were. And if one detachment did not come back, that would also tell Abivard where the Videssians were.

All the detachments came back. None of them had found Maniakes and his men. Abivard was left scratching his head. «He hasn't vanished into the Void, however much we wish he would,» he said. «Can he be mad enough to try crossing the Videssian westlands on horseback?»

«I don't know anything about that, lord,» answered the scout to whom he'd put the question. «All I know is I haven't seen him.» Snarling, Abivard dismissed him. The scout hadn't done anything wrong; he'd carried out the orders Abivard had given him, just as his fellows had. Abivard's job was to make what the scouts had seen-and what they hadn't seen-mean something. But what?

«He hasn't gone south,» he said to Roshnani that evening. «I don't want to believe that, but I haven't any choice. He can't have chosen to fight his way across the westlands. I won't believe that; even if he made it, he'd throw away most of his army in the doing, and he hasn't got enough trained men to use them up so foolishly.»

«Maybe he headed into Vaspurakan to try to rouse the princes against our field force again,» Roshnani suggested.

«Maybe,» Abivard said, unconvinced. «But that would tie him down in long, hard fighting and make him winter in Vaspurakan. I have trouble thinking he'd risk so much with such a distance and so many foes between him and country he controls.»

«I'm no general-the God knows that's so-but I can see that what you say makes sense,» Roshnani said. «But if he hasn't gone south and he hasn't gone into the Videssian westlands and he hasn't gone to Vaspurakan, where is he? He hasn't gone west, has he?»

Abivard snorted. «No, and that's not his army camped around us, either.» He plucked at his beard. «I wonder if he could have gone north, up into the mountains and valleys of Erzerum. He might find friends up there no matter how isolated he was.»

«From what the tales say, you can find anything up in Erzerum,» Roshnani said.

«The tales speak true,» Abivard told her. «Erzerum is the rubbish heap of the world.» The mountains that ran from the Mylasa Sea east to the Videssian Sea and the valleys set among them were as perfectly defensible a terrain as had ever sprung from the mind and hand of the God. Because of that, almost every valley there had its own people, its own language, its own religion. Some were native, some survivors whose cause had been lost in the outer world but who had managed to carve out a shelter for themselves and hold it against all comers.

«The folk in some of those valleys worship Phos, don't they?» Roshnani asked.

«So they do,» Abivard said. «What I'd like to see is Videssos pushed back into one of those valleys and forgotten about for the rest of time.» He laughed. «It won't happen any time soon. And the Videssians would like to see us penned back there for good. That won't happen, either.»

«No, of course not,» Roshnani said. «The God would never allow such a thing; the very idea would appall her.» But she didn't let Abivard distract her, instead continuing with her own train of thought: «Because some of them worship Phos, wouldn't they be likely to help Maniakes?»

«Yes, I suppose so,» Abivard agreed. «He might winter up there. I have to say, though, I don't see why he would. He couldn't keep it a secret the winter long, and we'd be waiting for him to try to come back down into the low country when spring came.»

«That's so,» Roshnani admitted. «I can't argue with a word of it. But if he hasn't gone north, south, east, or west, where is he?»

«Underground,» Abivard said. But that was too much to hope for.

He made his own arrangements for the winter, billeting his troops in several nearby cities and overcoming the city governors' remarkable lack of enthusiasm for keeping them in supplies.

«Fine,» he told one such official when the man flatly refused to aid the soldiers. «When the Videssians come back next spring, if they do, we'll stand aside and let them burn your town without even chasing them afterward.»

«You couldn't do anything so heartless,» the city governor exclaimed.

Abivard looked down his nose at him. «Who says I can't? If you don't help feed the soldiers, sirrah, why should they help protect you?»

The soldiers got all the wheat and vegetables and poultry they needed.

Only a couple of days after Abivard had won that battle a messenger reached him with a letter from Romezan. After the usual greetings the commander of the field forces came straight to the point: «I regret to tell you that the cursed Videssians, may they and their Avtokrator fall into the Void and be lost forever, slipped past my army, which was out hunting them. Following the line of the Rhamnos River, they reached Pityos, on the Videssian Sea, and took it by surprise. With the port in their hands, ships came and carried them away; my guess is that they have returned to Videssos the city by now, having also succeeded in embarrassing us no end. By the God, lord, I shall have my revenge on them.»

«Is there a reply, lord?» the messenger asked when Abivard rolled up the message parchment once more.

«No, no reply,» Abivard answered. «Now I know where the Videssians disappeared to, and I rather wish I didn't.»

Winter in the land of the Thousand Cities meant mild days, cool nights, and occasional rain-no snow to speak of, though there were a couple of days of sleet that made it all but impossible to go outside without falling down. Abivard found that a nuisance, but his children enjoyed it immensely.

Although Maniakes would not be back till the following spring, if then, Abivard did not let his army rest idle. He drilled the foot soldiers every day the ground was dry enough to let them maneuver. The more he worked with them, the happier he grew. They would make decent fighting men once they had enough practice marching and got used to the idea that the enemy could not easily crush them so long as they stood firm.

And then, as the winter solstice approached, Abivard got the message he'd been waiting for and dreading since Sharbaraz had ordered him into the field against Maniakes with a force he knew to be inadequate: a summons to return to Mashiz at once.

He looked west across the floodplain toward the distant Dilbat Mountains. News of the order had spread very fast. Turan, who had rejoined him after Maniakes had escaped, came up beside him and said, «I'm sorry, lord. I don't know what else you could have done to hold the Videssians away from Mashiz.»

«Neither do I,» Abivard said wearily. «Nothing would have satisfied the King of Kings, I think.»

Turan nodded. He couldn't say anything to that. No, there was one thing he could say. But the question, Why don't you go into rebellion against Sharbaraz? was not one a person could ask his commander unless that person was sure his answer would be something like, Yes, why don't I? Abivard had never let-had been careful never to let-anyone get that impression.

Every now and then he wondered why. These past years he'd generally been happiest when farthest away from Sharbaraz. But he'd helped Sharbaraz cast down one usurper simply because Smerdis had been a usurper. Having done that, how could he think of casting the legitimate King of Kings from a throne rightfully his? The brief answer was that he couldn't, not if he wanted to be able to go on looking at himself in the mirror.

And so, without hope and without fear, he left the army in Turan's hands-better his than Tzikas', Abivard judged-and obeyed Sharbaraz' order. He wanted to leave Roshnani and his children behind, but his principal wife would not hear of it. «Your brother and mine can avenge us if we fall,» she said. «Our place is at your side.» Glad of her company, Abivard stopped arguing perhaps sooner than he should have.

The journey across the land of the Thousand Cities showed the scars the Videssian incursion had left behind. Several hills were topped by charred ruins, not living towns. Soon, Abivard vowed, those towns would live again. If he had anything to say about it, money and artisans from the Videssian westlands would help make sure they lived again-that appealed to his sense of justice.

Whether he would have anything to say about it remained to be seen. The letter summoning him to Mashiz hadn't been so petulant as some of the missives he'd gotten from Sharbaraz. That might mean the King of Kings was grateful he'd kept Maniakes from sacking the capital. On the other hand, it might also mean Sharbaraz was dissembling and wanted him back in Mashiz before doing whatever dreadful things he would do.

As usual, Roshnani thought along with him. When she asked what he thought awaited them in Mashiz, he shrugged and answered, «No way to judge till we get there.» She nodded, if not satisfied, then at least knowing that she knew as much as her husband.

They crossed the Tib on a bridge of boats that the operator dragged back to the western bank of the river after they went over it. That sort of measure was intended to make life difficult for invaders. Abivard doubted it would have thwarted Maniakes long.

After they left the land of the Thousand Cities, they went up into the foothills of the Dilbat Mountains toward Mashiz. Varaz said, «They're not going to lock us up in one suite of rooms through the whole winter again, are they, Father?»

«I hope not,» Abivard answered truthfully, «but I don't know for certain.»

«They'd better not,» Varaz declared, and Shahin nodded.

«I wish they wouldn't, too,» Abivard said, «but if they do, what can you do about it-aside from driving everyone crazy, I mean?»

«What we should do,» Varaz said, with almost the force of someone having a religious revelation, «is drive the palace servants and the guards crazy, not you and Mother and-» He spoke with the air of one yielding a great concession."-our sisters.»

«If I told you I thought that an excellent plan, I would probably be guilty of lese majesty in some obscure way, and I don't want that,» Abivard said, «so of course I won't tell you any such thing.» He set a finger alongside his nose and winked. Both his sons laughed conspiratorial laughs.

There ahead stood the great shrine dedicated to the God. Abivard had seen the High Temple in Videssos the city at a shorter remove, though here no water screened him from reaching the shrine if he so desired. Again, whether Sharbaraz' minions would keep him from the shrine was a different matter.

Away from the army, Abivard was just another traveler entering Mashiz. No one paid any special attention to his wagon, which was but one of many clogging the narrow streets of the city. Drivers whose progress he impeded cursed him with great gusto.

Abivard had studied from afar the palaces in Videssos the city. They sprawled over an entire district, buildings set among trees and lawns and gardens. But then, as he knew all too well, Videssos the city was a fortress, the mightiest fortress in the world. Mashiz was not so lucky, and the palace of the King of Kings had to double as a citadel.

The wheels of the wagon rattled and clattered off the cobbles of the open square surrounding the wall around the palace. As he had the winter before, Abivard identified himself to the guards at the gate. As before, the valves of the gate swung wide to let him and his family come in, then closed with a thud that struck him as ominous.

And as before, and even more ominously, grooms led the horses away from the stables, while a fat eunuch in a caftan shot through with silver threads took charge of Pashang. The wagon driver sent Abivard a look of piteous appeal. «Where are you taking him?» Abivard demanded.

«Where he belongs,» the eunuch answered, sexless voice chillier than the cutting breeze that blew dead brown leaves over the cobbles.

«Swear by the God you are not taking him to the dungeon,» Abivard said.

«It is no business of yours where he goes,» the eunuch told him.

«I choose to make it my business.» Abivard set a hand on the hilt of his sword. Even as he made the gesture, he knew how foolish it was. If the eunuch so much as lifted a finger, the palace guards would kill him. Sharbaraz would probably reward them for doing it

The finger remained unlifted. The eunuch licked his lips; his tongue was very pink against the pale, unweathered flesh of his face. He looked from Abivard to Pashang and back again. At last he said, «Very well. He shall dwell in the stables with your horses. By the God, I swear that to be true; may it drop me into the Void if I lie. There. Are you satisfied?»

«I am satisfied,» Abivard answered formally. Men used masculine pronouns when speaking of the God, women feminine; it had never occurred to Abivard that eunuchs would refer to him-for so Abivard conceived of his deity-in the neuter gender. He turned to Pashang. «Make sure they feed you something better than oats.»

«The God go with you and keep you safe, lord,» Pashang said, and started to prostrate himself as if Abivard were King of Kings. With a snort of disgust the eunuch hauled him to his feet and led him away. Pashang waved clumsily, like a bear trained to do as much in hopes of winning a copper or two.

Another eunuch emerged from the stone fastness of the palace. «You will come with me,» he announced to Abivard.

«Will I?» Abivard murmured. But that question had only one possible answer. His family trailing behind him, he did follow the servitor into the beating heart of the kingdom of Makuran.

He knew-knew only too well-every turn and passageway that would lead him to the suite where he and his family had been politely confined the winter before. As soon as the eunuch turned left instead of right, he breathed a long if silent sigh of relief. He glanced over to Roshnani. She was doing the same thing.

The chambers to which the fellow did lead them were in a wing far closer to the throne room than the place they had been before. Abivard would have taken that as a better sign had not two tall, muscular men in mail shirts and plume-crested helms stood in front of the doorway.

«Are we prisoners here?» he demanded of the eunuch.

«No,» that worthy replied. «These men are but your guard of honor.»

Abivard plucked a hair from his beard as he thought that over. The winter before no one in the palace had pretended he was anything but a prisoner. That had had the virtue of honesty, if no other. Would Sharbaraz lie, though, if he thought it served his purpose? The answer seemed obvious enough.

«Supposed we go in there,» Abivard said. «Then suppose we want to come out and walk through the halls of the palace here. What would the guards do? On your oath by the God.»

Before answering, the eunuch held a brief, low-voiced colloquy with the soldiers. «They tell me,» he said carefully, «that if you came out for a stroll, as you say, one of them would accompany you while the other remained on guard in front of your door. By the God, lord, that is what they say.»

The guardsmen nodded and gestured with their left hands to confirm his words. «We have no choice,» Roshnani said. She had picked up Gulshahr, who was tired from all the walking she'd done.

«You're right,» Abivard said, though there had been that unspoken choice: rebelling rather than coming to Mashiz a second time after what had happened before. But rebellion was no longer possible, not here, not now. Lion trainers, to thrill a crowd, would stick their heads into the mouths of their beasts day after day. But the lions they worked with were tame. One could form a pretty good notion of what they would do from day to day. With Sharbaraz-

«Does it suit you, lord?» the eunuch asked.

«For now it suits me,» Abivard said, «but I want an audience with the King of Kings as soon as may be.»

Bowing, the eunuch said, «I shall convey your request to those better able than I to make certain it is granted.»

Abivard had no trouble translating that for himself. He might gain an audience with Sharbaraz tomorrow, or he might have to wait till next spring. No way to guess which-not yet.

«Please let me or another of the servitors know whatever you may be lacking or what may conduce toward your pleasure,» the eunuch said. «Rest assured that if it be within our power, it shall be yours.»

Abivard paused thoughtfully. No one had spoken to him like that last winter. Maybe he hadn't been summoned back here in disgrace, after all. Then again, maybe he had. He did his best to find out: «I would like to see my sister Denak, principal wife to the King of Kings as soon as I can, to thank her for her help.» Let the eunuch make of that what he would.

Whatever he made of it he concealed, saying as he had before, «I shall take your words to those better able to deal with them than I.»

One of the guardsmen in front of the door opened it and gestured for Abivard and his family to go through and enter the suite of rooms set aside for them. Full of misgivings, he went in. The door closed. The rooms had carpets and pillows different from the ones that had been in the suite of the winter before. Other than that, was there any difference from that year to this?

The latch clicked. Abivard opened the door. He stepped out into the corridor. The guards who'd been standing watch when he had gone into the chamber were gone, but the ones who'd taken their place looked enough like them to be their cousins.

He took a couple of steps down the hall. One of the guards came after him; the fellow's mail shirt jingled as he walked. Abivard kept on going. The soldier came after him but did not call him back or try to stop him. It was exactly as the eunuch had said it would be. That left Abivard disconcerted; he wasn't used to having promises from Sharbaraz or his servitors kept.

After a while he turned and asked the guard, «Why are you following me?»

«Because I have orders to follow you,» the fellow answered at once. «Don't want you winding up in any mischief, lord, and I don't want you getting lost here, either.»

«I can see how I might get lost,» Abivard admitted; one palace hallway looked much like another one. «But what sort of mischief am I liable to get into?»

«Don't ask me, lord-I've no idea,» the guardsman said with a grin. «I figure anybody can if he tries, though.»

«You sound like a man with children,» Abivard said, and the guard laughed and nodded. Seeing the people set to keep an eye on him as ordinary human beings was strange for Abivard.

And then, around a corner, came one who would never have children but who had assuredly gotten Abivard into mischief: the beautiful eunuch who'd escorted him first to his sister and then to Sharbaraz.

He gave Abivard a look of cold indifference. That was one of the friendlier looks Abivard had received from him. Abivard said, «You might thank me.»

«Thank you?» The eunuch's voice put Abivard in mind of silver bells. «Whatever for?»

«Because the Videssians didn't burn Mashiz down around your perfect, shell-like ears, for starters,» Abivard said.

The beautiful eunuch's skin was swarthy, like that of most Makuraners, but translucent even so; Abivard could watch the tips of those ears turn red. «Had you brought Maniakes' head hither or even sent it on pickled in salt, you might have done something worthy of gratitude,» the eunuch said. «As things are, however, I give you-this-as token of my esteem.» He turned his back and walked away.

Staring after him, the guard let out a soft whistle. «You put Yeliif's back up-literally, looks like.»

«Yeliif?» But Abivard realized who the fellow had to mean. «Is that what his name is? I never knew till now.»

«You never knew?» Now the guardsman stared at him. «You made an enemy of Yeliif without knowing what you were doing? Well, the God only knows what you could have managed if you'd really set your mind to it.»

«I didn't make him an enemy,» Abivard protested. «He made himself an enemy. I never laid eyes on him till the King of Kings summoned me here last winter. If I never lay eyes on him again, I won't be sorry.»

«Can't blame you there,» the guardsman said, but he dropped his voice as he did it. «Not a drop of human kindness in dear Yeliif, from all I've seen. They say losing their balls makes eunuchs mean. I don't know if that's what bothers him, but mean he is. And it might not matter whether you set eyes on him again or not. Sooner or later you're going to have to eat some of the food that goes into your room there.»

«What?» Abivard said, his wits working more slowly than they should, and then, a moment later, «Oh. Now, that's a cheerful thought.»

He didn't think the beautiful eunuch would poison him. Had Yeliif wanted to do that, he could have managed it easily the winter before. Then Sharbaraz probably would have given him anything this side of his stones back for doing the job. Abivard didn't think he was as deeply disgraced now as he had been then. Now the King of Kings might be annoyed rather than relieved at his sudden and untimely demise.

Or, on the other hand, Sharbaraz might not. You never could tell with the King of Kings. Sometimes he was brilliant, sometimes foolish, sometimes both at once-and sorting the one out from the other was never easy. That made living under him… interesting.

Someone knocked on the door to the suite in which Abivard and his family were quartered. The winter before that would have produced surprise and alarm, for it was not time for the servants to bring in a meal, being about halfway between luncheon and dinner. Now, though, people visited at odd hours; sometimes Abivard almost managed to convince himself he was a guest, not a prisoner.

He could, for instance, bar the door on the inside. He'd done so the first several days after he'd arrived in Mashiz. After that, though, he gave it up. If Sharbaraz wanted to kill him badly enough to send assassins in after him, he'd presumably send assassins with both the wit and the tools to break down the door. And so, of late, Abivard had left it unbarred. As yet, he also remained unmurdered.

He doubted Sharbaraz would send out a particularly polite assassin, and so he opened the door at the knock with no special qualms. When he discovered Yeliif standing in the hallway, he wondered if he'd made a mistake. But the eunuch was armed with nothing but his tongue-which, while poisonous, was not deadly in and of itself. «For reasons beyond my comprehension and far beyond your desserts,» he told Abivard, «you are summoned before Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase.»

«I'm coming,» Abivard answered, turning to wave quickly to Roshnani. As he closed the door after himself, he asked, «So what are these reasons far beyond your desserts or my comprehension?»

The beautiful eunuch started to answer, stopped, and favored him with a glare every bit as toxic as his usual speech. Without a word, he led Abivard through the maze of hallways toward the throne room.

This time, Abivard not being isolated as if suffering from a deadly and infectious disease, the journey took far less time than it had when he'd finally been summoned into Sharbaraz' presence the winter before. At the entrance to the throne room Yeliif broke his silence, saying, «Dare I hope you remember the required procedure from your last appearance here?»

«Yes, thank you very much, Mother, you may dare,» Abivard answered sweetly. If Yeliif was going to hate him no matter what he did, he had no great incentive to stay civil.

Yeliif turned and, back quiveringly straight, stalked down the aisle toward the distant throne on which Sharbaraz sat. Not many nobles attended the King of Kings this day. Those who were there, as best Abivard could guess from their faces, were not anticipating the spectacle of a bloodbath, as the courtiers and nobles emphatically had been the last time Abivard had come before his sovereign.

Yeliif stepped to one side, out of the direct line of approach. Abivard advanced to the paving slab prescribed for prostration and went to his knees and then to his belly to honor Sharbaraz King of Kings. «Majesty,» he murmured, his breath fogging the shiny marble of the slab.

«Rise, Abivard son of Godarz,» Sharbaraz said. He did not keep Abivard down in a prostration any longer than was customary, as he had in the previous audience. When he spoke again, though, he sounded far from delighted to see his brother-in-law: «We are deeply saddened that you permitted Maniakes and his Videssian bandits not only to inflict grievous damage upon the land of the Thousand Cities but also, having done so, to escape unharmed, seize one of the towns in the Videssian westlands now under our control, and thence flee by sea to Videssos the city.»

He was saddened, was he? Abivard almost said something frank and therefore unforgivable. But Sharbaraz was not going to trap him like that, if such was his aim. Or was he simply blind to mistakes he'd helped make? Would the likes of Yeliif tell him about them? Not likely!

«Majesty, I am also saddened, and I regret my failure,» Abivard said. «I rejoice, however, that through the campaigning season Mashiz had no part of danger and remained altogether safe and secure.»

Sharbaraz squirmed on the throne. He was vain, but he wasn't stupid. He understood what Abivard didn't say; those unspoken words seemed to echo in the throne room. You sent me out to find my own ragtag army. You wanted to hold my family hostage while I did it. And now you complain because I didn't bring you Maniakes weighted down with chains? Be thankful he didn't visit you in spite of everything I did.

Behind Abivard a faint, almost inaudible hum rose. The courtiers and nobles in the audience could catch those inaudible echoes, too, then.

Sharbaraz said, «When we send a commander out against the foe, we expect him to meet our requirements and expectations in every particular.»

«I regret my failure,» Abivard repeated. «Your Majesty may of course visit any punishment he pleases upon me to requite that failure.»

Go ahead. Are you so blind to honor that you'll torment me for failing to do the impossible? More murmurs said the courtiers had again heard what he had meant along with what he had said. The trouble was, the King of Kings might not have. The only subtleties Sharbaraz was liable to look for were those involving danger to him, which he was apt to see regardless of whether it was real. Kings of Kings often died young, but they always aged quickly.

«We shall on this occasion be clement, given the difficulties with which you were confronted on the campaign,» Sharbaraz said. It was as close as he was ever likely to come to admitting he'd been at fault.

«Thank you, Majesty,» Abivard said without the cynicism he'd expected to use. Deciding to take advantage of what seemed to be Sharbaraz' good humor, he went on, «Majesty, will you permit me to ask a question?»

«Ask,» the King of Kings said. «We are your sovereign; we are not obliged to answer.»

«I understand this, Majesty,» Abivard said, bowing. «What I would ask is why, if you were not dissatisfied-not too dissatisfied, perhaps I should say-with the way I carried out the campaign in the land of the Thousand Cities this past summer, did you recall me from my army to Mashiz?»

For a moment Sharbaraz did not look like a ruler who used the royal we as automatically as he breathed but like an ordinary man taken aback by a question he hadn't looked for. At last he said, «This course was urged upon us by those here at court, that we might examine the reasons behind your failure.»

«The chief reason is easy to see,» Abivard answered. «We saw it, you and I, when you sent me out against Maniakes last spring: Videssos has a fleet, and we have not. That gives the Avtokrator a great advantage in choosing when and where to strike and in how he can escape. Had we not already known as much, the year's campaign would have shown it.»

«Had we had a fleet-» Sharbaraz said longingly.

«Had we had a fleet, Majesty,» Abivard interrupted, «I think I should have laid Videssos the city at your feet. Had we had a fleet, I-or Mikhran marzban-could have chased Maniakes after he swooped down on Pityos. Had we had a fleet, he might never have made for Pityos, knowing our warships lay between Pityos and the capital. Had we had a fleet-»

«The folk of Makuran are not sailors, though,» Sharbaraz said-an obvious truth. «Getting them into a ship is as hard as getting the Videssians out of one, as you no doubt will know better than we.»

Abivard's nod was mournful. «Nor do the Videssians leave any ships behind for their fisherfolk to crew for us. They are not fools, the imperials, for they know we would use any ships and sailors against them. Could we but once get soldiers over the Cattle Crossing-» He broke off. He'd sung that song too many times to too many people.

«We have no ships. We are not sailors. Not even our command can make the men of Makuran into what they are not,» Sharbaraz said. Abivard dipped his head in agreement The King of Kings went on. «Somewhere we must find ships.» He spoke as if certain his will could conjure them up, all difficulties notwithstanding.

«Majesty, that would be excellent,» Abivard said. He'd been saying the same thing since the Makuraner armies had reached the coasts of the Videssian westlands. He'd been saying it loudly since the Makuraner armies had reached the Cattle Crossing, with Videssos the city so temptingly displayed what would have been an easy walk away… if men could walk on water, which they couldn't, save in ships. Wanting ships and having them, though, were two different things.

Thinking of ships seemed to make Sharbaraz think of water in other contexts, although he didn't suggest walking on it He said, «We wish you had not loosed the waters of the canals that cross the land of the Thousand Cities, for the damage the flooding did has reduced the tax revenues we shall be able to gather in this year.»

«I regret my failure,» Abivard said for the third time. But that wooden repetition of blame stuck in his craw, and he added, «Had I not arranged to open the canals, Maniakes Avtokrator might now be enjoying those extra tax revenues.»

Behind him one of the assembled courtiers, against all etiquette, laughed for a moment. In the deep, almost smothering quiet of the throne room that brief burst of mirth was all the more startling. Abivard would not have cared to be the man who had so forgotten himself. Everyone near him would know who he was, and Yeliif would soon learn-his job was to learn of such things, and Abivard had no doubt he was very good at it. When he did… Abivard had found out what being out of favor at court was like. He would not have recommended it to his friends.

Sharbaraz' expression was hooded, opaque. «Even if this be true, you should not say it,» he replied at last, and then fell silent again.

Abivard wondered how to take that nearly oracular pronouncement. Did the King of Kings mean he shouldn't publicly acknowledge Videssos' strength? Or did he mean he thought Maniakes would keep whatever Makuraner revenue he got his hands on? Or was he saying that it wasn't true, and even if it was, it wasn't? Abivard couldn't tell.

«I did what I thought best at the time,» he said. «I think it did help Maniakes decide he couldn't spend the winter between the Tutub and the Tib. We have till spring to prepare the land of the Thousand Cities against his return, which the God prevent.»

«So may it be,» Sharbaraz agreed. «My concern is, will he do the same thing twice running?»

«Always a good question, Majesty,» Abivard said. «Maniakes has a way of learning from his mistakes that many have said to be unusual.»

«So I have heard,» Sharbaraz said.

He said nothing about learning from his own mistakes. Was that because he was sure he learned or because he assumed he made no mistakes? Abivard suspected the latter, but some questions not even he had the nerve to put to the King of Kings.

He did press Sharbaraz a little, asking, «Majesty, will you grant me leave to return to the land of the Thousand Cities so I can go back to training the army I raised from the troops you had me gather together last year? I must say I am also anxious at being so far from them when one of my commanders does not enjoy my full confidence.»

«What?» Sharbaraz demanded. «Who is that?»

«Tzikas, Majesty-the Videssian,» Yeliif answered before Abivard could speak. «The one who helped alert you to unreliability before.» To Abivard's unreliability, he meant.

Sharbaraz said, «Ah, the Videssian. Yes, I remember now. No, he needs to remain in his place. He is one general who cannot plot against me.»

Abivard had had that same thought himself. «As you say, Majesty,» he replied. «I do not ask that he be removed. I want only to go and join him and make sure that the cavalry he leads is working well with the infantry from the city garrisons. And just as he keeps an eye on me, I want to keep an eye on him.»

«What you want is not my chiefest concern,» the King of Kings answered. «I think more of my safety and of the good of Makuran.»

In that order, Abivard noted. It wasn't anything he hadn't already understood. In a way, having Sharbaraz come right out and own up to it made things better rather than worse-no pretending now. Abivard said, «Letting the army go soft and its pieces grow apart from each other serves neither of those purposes, Majesty.»

Sharbaraz hadn't expected his army to amount to anything. The King of Kings had thrown him and the garrison soldiers at the Videssians in the way a man throws a handful of dirt on a fire when he has no water: in the hope it would do some good, knowing he'd lose little if it didn't. He hadn't expected them to turn into an army, and he hadn't expected the army to seem so important for the battles of the coming campaigning season.

What you expected, though, wasn't always what you got. With Videssian mastery of the sea, Maniakes was liable to land his armies anywhere when spring brought good weather. If he did strike again for the land of the Thousand Cities, that makeshift army Abivard had patched together would be the only force between the Videssians and Mashiz. At that, Sharbaraz would be better off than he had been, for he'd had no shield the year before.

When the King of Kings did not answer right away, Abivard grasped his dilemma. An army worth something as a shield was also worth something as a sword. Sharbaraz did not merely fear Maniakes and the Videssians; he also feared any army Abivard was able to make effective enough to confront the invaders. An army effective enough to do that could threaten Mashiz in its own right.

At last Sharbaraz King of Kings said, «I believe you have officers who know their business. If you did not, you could not have done what you did against the Videssians. They will hold your army together for you until spring comes and the general is needed in the field. So shall it be.»

«So shall it be,» Abivard echoed, bowing, acquiescing. Sharbaraz still did not trust him as far as he should have, but he did trust him more than he had the winter before. Abivard chose to look on that as progress-not least because looking on it any other way would have made him scream in frustration or despair or rage or maybe all three at once.

He expected the King of Kings to dismiss him after rendering his decision. Instead, after yet another hesitation Sharbaraz said, «Brother-in-law of mine, I am asked by Denak my principal wife-your sister-to tell you that she is with child. Her confinement should come in the spring.»

Abivard bowed again, this time in surprise and delight. From what Denak had said, Sharbaraz seldom summoned her to his bedchamber these days. One of those summonses, though, seemed to have borne fruit.

«May she give you a son, Majesty,» Abivard said-the usual thing, the polite thing, the customary thing to say.

But nothing was simple, not when he was dealing with Sharbaraz. The King of Kings sent him a hooded look, though what he said-"May the God grant your prayer"-was the appropriate response. Here, for once, Abivard needed no time to figure out how he had erred. The answer was simple: he hadn't.

But Denak's pregnancy complicated Sharbaraz' life. If his principal wife did bear a son, the boy automatically became the heir presumptive. And if Denak bore a boy, Abivard became uncle to the heir presumptive. Should Sharbaraz die, that would make Abivard uncle to the new King of Kings and a very important man, indeed. The prospect of becoming uncle to the new King of Kings might even-probably would in the eyes of the present King of Kings-give Abivard an incentive for wanting Sharbaraz dead.

Almost, Abivard wished Denak would present the King of Kings with another girl. Almost.

Now Sharbaraz dismissed Abivard from the audience. Abivard prostrated himself once more, then withdrew, Yeliif appearing at his side as if by magic as he did so. The beautiful eunuch stayed silent till they left the throne room, and that suited Abivard fine.

Afterward, in the hallway, Yeliif hissed, «You are luckier than you deserve, brother-in-law to the King of Kings.» He made Abivard's title, in most men's mouths one of respect, into a reproach.

Abivard had expected nothing better. Bowing politely, he said, «Yeliif, you may blame me for a great many things, and in some of them you will assuredly be right, but that my sister is with child is not my fault.»

By the way Yeliif glared at him, everything was his fault. The eunuch said, «It will cause Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, to forgive too readily your efforts to subvert his position on the throne.»

«What efforts?» Abivard demanded. «We went through this last winter, and no one, try as everybody here in Mashiz would, was able to show I've been anything but loyal to the King of Kings, the reason being that I am loyal.»

«So you say,» Yeliif answered venomously. «So you claim.»

Abivard wanted to pick him up and smash him against the stone of the wall as if he were an insect to crush underfoot. «Now you listen to me,» he snapped, as he might have at a soldier who hesitated to obey orders. «The way you have it set up in your mind is that, if I win victories for the King of Kings, I'm a traitor because I'm too successful and you think the victories are aggrandizing me instead of Sharbaraz, whereas if I lose, I'm a traitor because I've thrown victory away to the enemies of the King of Kings.»

«Exactly,» Yeliif said. «Precisely.»

«Drop me into the Void, then!» Abivard exclaimed. «How am I supposed to do anything right if everything I can possibly do is wrong before I try it?»

«You cannot,» the beautiful eunuch said. «The greatest service you could render Sharbaraz King of Kings would be, as you say, to drop into the Void and trouble the realm no more.»

«As far as I can tell, the next time I trouble the realm will be the first,» Abivard said stubbornly. «And if you ask me, there can be a difference between serving the King of Kings and serving the realm.»

«No one asked you,» Yeliif said. «That is as well, for you lie.»

«Do I?» Such an insult from a whole man would have made Abivard challenge him. Instead, he stopped walking and studied Yeliif. Eunuchs' ages were generally hard to judge, and Yeliif powdered his face, making matters harder yet, but Abivard thought he might be older than he seemed at first glance. Doing his best to sound innocent, he said, «Tell me, were you here in the palace to serve Peroz King of Kings?»

«Yes, I was.» Pride rang in Yeliif's voice.

«Ah. How lucky for you.» Abivard bowed again. «And tell me, when Smerdis usurped the throne after Peroz died, did you serve him, too, while he held Mashiz and kept Sharbaraz prisoner?»

Yeliif's eyes blazed hatred. He did not reply, which Abivard took to mean he had won the argument. As he realized a moment later, that might have done him more harm than good.

«It's not as bad as it could be,» Roshnani said one day about a week after Abivard's audience with the King of Kings.

«No, it's not,» Abivard agreed, «although I don't think our children would say that you're right.» Even though they could go though the corridors of the palace, the children still felt very much confined. Most of the time that would have been Abivard's chief concern. Now, though, he burst out, «What drives me mad is that it's so useless. Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase-» He generally used the full honorific formula, for the benefit of any unseen listeners. «-has declared his trust in me and admits I did little wrong and much right during the campaigning season just past I wish he would let me go back to me army I built.»

«He trusts you-but he doesn't trust you,» Roshnani said with a rueful smile. «That's better than it was, too, but it's not good enough.» She raised her voice slightly. «You've shown your loyalty every way a man can.» Yes, she, too, was mindful of people who might not even be there but who were noting her words for the King of Kings if they were.

«The only good thing I can see about having to stay here,» Abivard said, also pitching his voice to an audience wider than one person, «is that, if the God is kind, I'll get the chance to see my sister and give her my hope for a safe confinement.»

«I'd like to see her, too,» Roshnani said. «It's been too long, and I didn't get the chance when we were here last winter.»

They smiled at each other, absurdly pleased with the game they were playing. It put Abivard in mind of the skits the Videssians performed during their Midwinter's Day festivals, when the players performed not only for themselves but also for the people watching them. Here, though, everything he and his principal wife said was true, only the intonation changing for added effect.

Roshnani went on, «It's not as if I couldn't go through the corridors to see her, either, in the women's quarters or outside them. Thanks to Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase-» No, Roshnani didn't miss a trick, not one."- women are no longer confined as straitly as they used to be.»

Take that, Abivard thought loudly at whatever listeners he and Roshnani had. If there were listeners, they probably would not take it gladly. From all he'd seen, people at the court of the King of Kings hated change of any sort more than anyone else in the world did. Abivard was not enthusiastic about change; what sensible man was? But he recognized that change for the better was possible. Sharbaraz' courtiers rejected that notion out of hand.

«To the Void with them,» he muttered, this time so quietly that Roshnani had to lean forward to catch his words. She nodded but said nothing; the unseen audience did not have to know everything that went on between the two principal players.

A couple of days later Yeliif came to the door. To Abivard's surprise, the beautiful eunuch wanted to speak not to him but to Roshnani. As always, Yeliif's manners were flawless, and that made the message he delivered all the more stinging. «Lady,» he said, bowing to Roshnani, «for you to be honored by an audience with Denak, principal wife to Sharbaraz King of Kings, is not, cannot be, and shall not be possible, for which reason such requests, being totally useless, should in future be dispensed with.»

«And why is that?» Roshnani asked, her voice dangerously calm. «Is it that my sister-in-law does not wish to see me? If she will tell me how I offended her, I will apologize or make any other compensation she requires. I will say, though, that she was not ashamed to stay with me in the women's quarters of Vek Rud domain after Sharbaraz King of Kings made her his principal wife.»

That shot went home; Yeliif's jaw tightened. The slight shift of muscle and bone was easily visible beneath his fine, beardless skin. The eunuch answered, «So far as I know, lady, you have not given offense. But we of the court do not deem it fitting for a lady of your quality to expose herself to the stares of the vulgar multitude in her traversal of the peopled corridors of the palace.»

Abivard started to explode-he thought Denak and Roshnani had put paid to that attitude, or at least its public expression, years before. But Roshnani's raised hand stopped him before he began. She said, «Am I to understand, then, that my requests to see Denak do not reach her?»

«You may understand whatever you like,» Yeliif replied.

«And so may you. Stand aside now, if you please.» Roshnani advanced on the beautiful eunuch. Yeliif did stand aside; had he not done so, she would have stamped on his feet and walked over or through him-that was quite plain. She opened the door and started out through it.

«Where are you going?» Yeliif demanded. «What are you doing?» For the first time his voice was less than perfectly controlled.

Roshnani took a step out into the hall, as if she'd decided not to answer. Then, at the last minute, she seemed to change her mind-or maybe, Abivard thought admiringly, she'd planned that hesitation beforehand. She said, «I am going to find Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase, wherever he is, and I am going to put in his ear the tale of how his courtiers seek to play havoc with the new customs for noblewomen he himself, in his wisdom, chose to institute.»

«You can't do that!» Now Yeliif sounded not just imperfectly controlled but appalled.

«No? Why can't I? I abide by the customs the King of Kings began; don't you think he'd be interested to learn that you don't?»

«You cannot interrupt him! It is not permitted.»

«You cannot keep my messages from reaching Denak, but you do,» Roshnani said sweetly. «Why, then, can't I do what cannot be done?»

Yeliif gaped. Abivard felt like snickering. Roshnani's years of living among the Videssians had made her a dab hand at chopping logic into fine bits, as if it were mutton or beef to be made into sausage. The beautiful eunuch wasn't used to argument of that style and plainly had no idea how to respond.

Roshnani gave him little chance, in any case. When she said she would do something, she would do it She started into the hallway. Yeliif dashed out after her. «Stop her!» he shouted to the guards who were always posted outside the suite of rooms.

Abivard went out into the hall, too. The guards were armored and had spears to his knife. Even so, the only way he would let them lay hands on Roshnani was over his dead body.

But he needn't have worried. One of the soldiers said to Yeliif, «Sir, our orders say she is allowed to go out» He did his best to sound regretful-the eunuch was a powerful figure at court-but couldn't keep amusement from his voice.

Yeliif made as if to grab Roshnani himself but seemed to think better of it at the last minute. That was probably wise on his part; Roshnani made a habit of carrying a small, thin dagger somewhere about her person and might well have taken it into her head to use the knife on him.

He said, «Can we not reach agreement on this, thereby preventing an unseemly display bound to upset the King of Kings?»

Abivard had no trouble reading between the lines there: an unseemly display would leave Yeliif in trouble with Sharbaraz because the eunuch had permitted it to happen. Roshnani saw that, too. She said, «If I am allowed to see Denak today, then very well. If not, I go out searching for the King of Kings tomorrow.»

«I accept,» Yeliif said at once.

«Don't think to cheat by delaying and getting the guards' orders changed,» Roshnani told him, rubbing in her victory. «Do you know what will happen if you try? One way or another I'll manage to get out and go anyway, and when I do, you'll pay double.»

The threat was probably idle. The palace was Yeliif's domain, not Roshnani's. Nevertheless, the beautiful eunuch said, «I have made a bargain, and I shall abide by it,» and beat a hasty retreat.

Roshnani went back into the chamber. So did Abivard, shutting the door behind him. He did his best to imitate the fanfare horn players blew to salute a general who had won a battle. Roshnani laughed out loud. From the other side of the closed door, so did one of the guardsmen.

«You ground him for flour in the millstones,» Abivard said.

«Yes, I did-for today.» Roshnani was still laughing, but she also sounded worn. «Will he stay ground, though? What will he do tomorrow? Will I have to go out looking for the King of Kings and humiliate myself if I find him?»

Taking her in his arms, Abivard said, «I don't think so. If you show you're willing to do whatever you have to, very often you end up not needing to do it.»

«I hope this is one of those times,» Roshnani said. «If the God is kind, she'll grant it be so.»

«May he do that,» Abivard agreed. «And if not, Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase, will at least have learned that one of his principal servants is a liar and a cheat.»

By what Yeliif had said, he'd learned that he and Roshnani did indeed have listeners. With any luck at all, some of them would report straight to the King of Kings.

Abivard had guessed that Yeliif would break his promise, but he didn't. Not long after breakfast the next day he came to the suite of rooms where Abivard and his family were staying and, as warmly as if he and Roshnani had not quarreled the day before, bade her accompany him to see her sister-in-law, «who,» he said, «is in her turn anxious to see you.»

«Nice to know that,» Roshnani said. «If you'd delivered my requests sooner, we might have found out before.»

Yeliif stiffened and straightened up, as if a wasp had stung him at the base of the spine. «I thought we might agree to forget yesterday's unpleasantness,» he said.

«I may not choose to do anything about it,» Roshnani told him, «but I never, ever forget.» She smiled sweetly.

The beautiful eunuch grimaced, then shook himself as if using a counterspell against a dangerous sorcery. Maybe that was what he thought he was doing. His manner, which had been warm, froze solid. «If you will come with me, then?» he said.

Roshnani came with condescension that, if it wasn't queenly, would have made a good imitation.

Abivard stayed in the suite and kept his children from injuring themselves and one another. For no visible reason Varaz seemed to have decided Shahin was good for nothing but being punched. Shahin fought back as well as he could, but that often wasn't well enough. Abivard did his best to keep them apart, which wasn't easy. At last he asked Varaz, «How would you like it if I walloped you for no reason at all whenever I felt like it?»

«I don't know what you're talking about,» Varaz said. Abivard had heard that tone of voice before. His son meant every word of the indignant proclamation, no matter how unlikely it sounded to Abivard. Varaz wasn't old enough-and was too irked-to be able to put himself in his brother's shoes. But he also knew Abivard would wallop him if he disobeyed, and so desisted.

Worry over Roshnani also made Abivard more likely to wallop Varaz than he would have been were he calm. Abivard, knowing that, tried to hold his temper in check. It wasn't easy, not when he trusted Yeliif not at all. But he could no more have kept Roshnani from going to see Denak than he could have held some impetuous young man out of battle. He sighed, wishing relations between husband and wife could be managed by orders given and received as they were on the battlefield.

Then he wished he hadn't thought of the battlefield. Time seemed elastic now, as it did in the middle of a hot fight An hour or two seemed to go by; then he looked at a shadow on the floor and realized that only a few minutes had passed. A little later an hour did slide past without his even noticing. Servants startled him when they brought in smoked meats and saffron rice for his luncheon; he'd thought it still midmorning. Roshnani came back not long after the servitors had cleared away the dishes. «I wouldn't have minded eating more, though they fed me there,» she said, and then, «Ah, they left the wine. Good. Pour me a cup, would you, while I use the pot. Not something you do in the company of the principal wife of the King of Kings, even if she is your sister-in-law.» She undid the buckles on her sandals and kicked the shoes across the room, then sighed with pleasure as her toes dug into the rug.

Abivard poured the wine and waited patiently till she got a chance to drink it. Along with wanting to ease herself, she also had to prove to her children that she hadn't fallen off the edge of the world while she had been gone. But finally, wine in hand, she sat down on the floor pillows and got the chance to talk with her husband.

«She looks well,» she said at once. «In fact, she looks better than well. She looks smug. The wizards have made the same test with her that Tanshar did with me. They think she'll bear a boy.»

«By the God,» Abivard said softly, and then, «May it be so.»

«May it be so, indeed,» Roshnani agreed, «though there are some here at court who would sing a different song. I name no names, mind you.»

«Names?» Abivard's voice was the definition of innocence. «I have no idea who you could mean.» Off in a corner of the room the children were quarreling again. Instead of shouting for them to keep quiet as he usually would have, Abivard was grateful. He used their racket to cover his own quiet question: «So her bitterness is salved, is it?»

«Some,» Roshnani answered. «Not all. She wishes-and who could blame her? — this moment had come years before.» She spoke so softly, Abivard had to bend so his head was close to hers.

«No one could blame her,» he said as softly. But he had a harder time than usual blaming Sharbaraz here. The King of Kings could pick and choose among the most beautiful women of Makuran. Given that chance, should anyone have been surprised he took advantage of it?

Roshnani might have been thinking along with him, for she said, «The King of Kings needs to get an heir for the realm on his principal wife if he can, just as a dihqan needs to get an heir for his domain. Failing in this is neglecting your plain duty.»

«It's more enjoyable carrying out some duties than others,» Abivard observed, which won him a snort from Roshnani. He went on, «What news besides that of the coming boy?» The wizards' predictions weren't always right, but maybe speaking as if they were would help persuade the God to let this one be.

«Denak notes she will have more influence over the King of Kings for the next few months than she has enjoyed lately,» Roshnani said; in her voice Abivard could hear echoes of his sister's weary, disappointed tones. «How long this lasts afterward will depend on how wise the wizards prove to be. May the lady Shivini prove them so.»

Now Abivard echoed her: «Aye, may that be so.» Then he remembered the six squabbling sorcerers he'd assembled in Nashvar. If he'd needed a curative for the notion that mages were always preternaturally wise and patient, they'd given him one.

Roshnani said, «Your sister thinks Sharbaraz will soon give you leave to go back to your command in the land of the Thousand Cities.»

«It's not really the command I want,» Abivard said. «I want to be back at the head of the field force and take it into the Videssian westlands again. If we're on the move there, maybe we can keep Maniakes from attacking the Thousand Cities this year.» He paused and laughed at himself. «I'm trying to spin moonshine into thread, aren't I? I'll be lucky to have any command at all; getting the one I particularly want is too much to ask.»

«You deserve it,» Roshnani said, her voice suddenly fierce.

«I know I do,» he answered without false modesty. «But that has only so much to do with the price of wine. What does Tzikas deserve? To have his mouth pried open and molten lead poured down his gullet by us and the Videssians both. What will he get? The way to bet is that he'll get to die old and happy and rich, even if nobody on whichever side of the border on which he ends up trusts him as far as I could throw him. Where's the justice there?»

«He will drop into the Void and be gone forever while you spend eternity in the bosom of the God,» Roshnani said.

«That's so-or I hope that's so,» Abivard said. It did give him some satisfaction, too; the God was as real to him as the pillow on which he sat. But- «I won't see him drop into the Void, and where's the justice there, after what he's done to me?»

«That I can't answer,» his principal wife said with a smile. She held up a forefinger. «But Denak said to tell you to remember your prophecy whenever you feel too downhearted.»

Abivard bowed low as he sat, bending almost double. He would never see a silver shield shining across a narrow sea if he remained commander in the land of the Thousand Cities. «I may have been wrong,» he said humbly. «There may be some use to foretelling, after all. Knowing I will see what was foretold lets me bear up under insults meanwhile.»

«Under some insults, for some time, certainly,» Roshnani replied. «But Tanshar didn't say when you would see these things. You're a young man still; it might be thirty years from now.»

«It might be,» Abivard agreed. «I don't think it is, though. I think it's connected to the war between Makuran and Videssos. That's what everything about it has seemed to mean. When it comes, whatever it ends up meaning, it will decide the war, one way or the other.» He held up a hand, palm out «I don't know that for a fact, but I think it's true even so.»

«All right,» Roshnani said. «You should also know you're going back to the land of the Thousand Cities for a while, because you didn't see the battle Bogorz' scrying showed you.»

«That's true; I didn't,» Abivard admitted. «Or I don't think I did, anyhow. I don't remember seeing it» The frown gave way to a sheepish laugh. «Is it a true prophecy if it happens but no one notices?»

«Take that one to the Videssians,» Roshnani said. «They'll spend so much time arguing over it, they won't be ready to invade us when the campaigning season starts.»

By her tone of voice, she was only half joking. From his time spent among the Videssians, Abivard thoroughly understood that If a problem admitted of two points of view, some Videssians would take the one and some the other, as far as he could tell for the sake of disputation. And if a problem admitted of only one point of view, some Videssians would take that and some the other, again for the sake of disputation.

Roshnani said, «If we understand the prophecies rightly, you'll beat Maniakes in the land of the Thousand Cities. If you don't beat him there, you won't have the chance to go back into the Videssian westlands and draw near Videssos the city, now, will you?»

«I don't see how I would, anyhow,» Abivard said. «But then, I don't see everything there is to see, either.»

«Do you see that for once you worry too much?» Roshnani said. «Do you see that?»

Abivard held up his hand again, and she stopped. Genuine curiosity in his voice, he said, «Could Sharbaraz have ordered me slain last winter? Could I have died with the prophecies unfulfilled? What would have happened if he'd given the order? Could the headsman have carried it out?»

«There's another question the Videssians would exercise themselves over for years,» Roshnani answered. «All I can tell you is that I not only don't know, I'm glad we didn't have to find out. If you have to hope for a miracle to save yourself, you may not get it.»

«That's true enough,» Abivard said. The children's game broke down in a multisided squabble raucous enough to make him get up and restore order. He kept on wondering, though, all the rest of the day.