The Thousand Cities

VIII

If you were going to be in the land of the Thousand Cities, the very beginning of spring was the time to do it. The weather hadn't yet grown unbearably hot, the flies and mosquitoes weren't too bad, and a steady breeze from the northwest helped blow smoke away from the cities instead of letting it accumulate in foglike drifts, as could happen in the still air of summer.

Beroshesh, the city governor of Nashvar, did a magnificent job of concealing his delight at Abivard's return. «Are you going to flood us out again?» he demanded, and then, remembering his manners, added, «Lord?»

«I'll do whatever needs doing to drive the Videssians from the domain of Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase,» Abivard answered. Casually, he asked, «Have you heard the news? Sharbaraz' principal wife is with child, and the wizards believe it will be a boy.»

«Congratulations are due her, I'm sure, but why do you-?» Beroshesh stopped the rather offhanded question as he remembered who Sharbaraz' principal wife was and what relation she held to Abivard. When he spoke again, his tone was more conciliatory: «Of course, lord, I shall endeavor to conform to any requirements you may have of me.»

«I knew you would,» Abivard lied politely. Then, finding a truth he could tell, he went on, «Turan and Tzikas both tell me you have done well in keeping the army supplied through the winter.»

«Even with the ravages of the Videssians, the land of the Thousand Cities remains rich and fertile,» Beroshesh said. «We had no trouble supplying the army's wants.»

«So I heard, and as I say, I'm glad of it,» Abivard told him. The floodplain was indeed rich and fertile if, even after all the damage it had suffered through the previous year, it still yielded surplus enough to feed the army on top of the peasantry.

«What do you expect Maniakes to do this season?» Beroshesh asked. «Will he come here at all? Will he come from north or south or straight out of the east?»

«Good question,» Abivard said enthusiastically, making as if to applaud. «If you should have a good answer for it, please let me know. Whichever way he comes, though, I'll fight him. Of that I'm sure.» He hesitated. «Fairly sure.» He couldn't know for certain the scrying Bogorz had shown him would come to pass in this campaigning season, but that did seem to be the way to bet.

Beroshesh said, «Lord, you have been fighting this Maniakes for many years. Do you not know in your mind what will be in bis?»

That was a legitimate question. In fact, it was better than a legitimate question; it was a downright clever question. Abivard gave it the careful thought it deserved before answering, «My best guess is that he'll do whatever he doesn't think we'll expect him to do. Whether that means setting out from Lyssaion again or picking a new way to get at us, I can't really tell, I fear. Trying to fathom the way Videssians think is like looking into several mirrors reflecting one from another, so that after a while what's reflection and what's real blur together.»

«If the God be kind, the barbarians who infest his-southern-frontier, is it?» Beroshesh hesitated.

«Northern frontier,» Abivard said, not unkindly. There was no reason for a city governor to have any clear notion of Videssian geography, especially for the lands on the far side of the imperial capital.

«Yes, the northern frontier. Thank you, lord. If they were to attack Maniakes, he could hardly assail us here and defend against them at the same time, could he?»

«It's not something I'd want to try, I'll tell you that,» Abivard said. «Yes, the God would be kind if he turned the Kubratoi-that's what the barbarians call themselves-loose on Videssos again. The only trouble is, Maniakes beat them badly enough to make them thoughtful about having another go at him.»

«Pity,» Beroshesh murmured. He clapped his hands loudly. «How much you know about these distant peoples! Surely you and they must have worked together closely when you forced your way to the very end of the Videssian westlands.»

«I wish we would have,» Abivard said. No, Beroshesh didn't know much about how the Empire of Videssos was made and how it operated. «But Videssos the city, you see, kept the Kubratoi from crossing over to join us, and the Videssian navy not only kept us from going over the Cattle Crossing to lay siege to the city, it also kept the Kubratoi from going over to the westlands in the boats they make. Together, we might have crushed Videssos, but Maniakes and his forces and fortress held us apart.»

«Pity,» Beroshesh said again. He pointed to a silver flagon. «More wine?»

It was date wine. «No, thank you,» Abivard said. He would drink a cup for politeness' sake but had never been fond of the cloying stuff.

Quite seriously Beroshesh asked, «Could you not put your soldiers on barges and in skin boats and cross this Cattle Crossing without the Videssians' being the wiser till you appeared on the far shore?»

Beroshesh had never seen the sea, never seen a Videssian war galley. Abivard remembered that as he visualized a fleet of those swift, maneuverable, deadly galleys descending on rafts and round skin boats trying to make their way over the Cattle Crossing. He saw in his mind's eye rams sending some of them to the bottom and dart-throwers and fire-throwers wrecking many more. He might get a few men across alive, but even fewer in any condition to fight; he was all too sure of that.

Out of respect for Beroshesh's naivete, he didn't laugh in the city governor's face. All he said was, «That has been discussed, but no one seems to think it would turn out well.»

«Ah,» Beroshesh said «Well, I didn't want to take the chance that you'd overlooked something important.» Abivard sighed.

«Lord!» A member of the city garrison of Nashvar came running up to Abivard. «Lord, a messenger comes with news of the Videssians.»

«Thank you,» Abivard said. «Bring him to me at once.» The guardsman bowed and hurried away.

Waiting for his return, Abivard paced back and forth in the room Beroshesh had returned to him when he had come back to Nashvar. Soon, instead of having to guess, he would know how Maniakes intended to play the game this year and how he would have to respond.

The soldier came back more slowly than he'd hoped, leading the messenger's horse. The messenger probably would have gotten there sooner without the escort, but after so long a wait, a few minutes mattered little, and the member of the garrison got to enjoy his moment in the light.

Bowing low to Abivard, the messenger cried, «Lord, the Videssians come down from the north, from the land of Erzerum, where treacherous local nobles let them land and guided them through the mountains so they could descend on the land of the Thousand Cities!»

«Down from the north,» Abivard breathed. Had he bet on which course Maniakes would take, he would have expected the Avtokrator to land in the south and move up from Lyssaion once more. He knew nothing but relief that he'd committed no troops to backing his hunch. He wouldn't have to double back against his foe's move.

«I have only one order for the city governors in the north,» he told the messenger, who poised himself to hear and remember it. «That order is, Stand fast! We will drive the invaders from our soil.»

«Aye, lord!» the messenger said, and dashed off, his face glowing with inspiration at Abivard's ringing declaration. Behind him Abivard stood scratching his head, wondering how he was going to turn that declaration into reality. Words were easy. Deeds mattered more but were harder to produce on the spur of the moment.

The first thing that needed doing was reassembling the army. He sent messengers to the nearby cities where he'd billeted portions of his infantry. The move would undoubtedly delight the governors of those cities and just as undoubtedly dismay Beroshesh, for it would mean Nashvar would have to feed all his forces till they moved against Maniakes.

As the soldiers from the city garrisons whom Abivard had hastily gathered together the spring before began returning to Nashvar, they found ways to let him know they were glad he was back to command them. It wasn't that they obeyed him without grumbling; the next army to do that for its leader would be the first. But whether they grumbled or not, they did everything he asked of them and did it promptly and well.

And they kept bringing tidbits here and tidbits there to the cook who made the meals for him and Roshnani and their children, so that they ended up eating better than they had at the palace in Mashiz. «It's almost embarrassing when they do things like this,» Abivard said, using a slender dagger to spear from its shell a snail the cook had delicately seasoned with garlic and ginger.

«They're fond of you,» Roshnani said indignantly. «They ought to be fond of you. Before you got hold of them, they were just a bunch of tavern toughs-hardly anything better. You made an army out of them. They know it, and so do you.»

«Well, put that way, maybe,» Abivard said. A general whom his men hated wouldn't be able to accomplish anything. That much was plain. A general whom his men loved… was liable to draw the watchful attention of the King of Kings. Abivard supposed that was less an impediment for him than it might have been for some other marshals of Makuran. He already enjoyed-if that was the word-Sharbaraz' watchful attention.

Seeing how much better at their tasks the soldiers were than they had been the spring before gratified Abivard as much as their affection did. He'd done his job and given mem the idea that they could go out and risk maiming and death for the good of a cause they didn't really think about. He sometimes wondered whether to be proud or ashamed of that.

Sooner than he'd hoped, he judged the army ready to use against Maniakes. Sharbaraz King of Kings had been right in thinking the officers Abivard had left behind could keep the men in reasonably good fighting trim. That pleased Abivard and irked him at the same time: was he really necessary?

Turan and Tzikas were getting along well, too. Again, Abivard didn't know what to make of that. Had the Makuraner succumbed to Tzikas' charm? Abivard would have been the last to deny that the Videssian renegade had his full share of that-and then some.

«He's a fine cavalry officer,» Turan said enthusiastically after he, Tzikas, and Abivard planned the move they'd be making in a couple of days. «Having commanded a cavalry company myself, I was always keeping an eye on the officers above me, seeing how they did things. Do you know what I mean, lord?» He waited for Abivard to nod, then went on, «And Tzikas, he does everything the way it's supposed to be done.»

«Oh, that he does.» Abivard's voice was solemn. «He's a wonderful officer to have for a superior. It's only when you're his superior that you have to start watching your back.»

«Well, yes, there is that,» Turan agreed. «I hadn't forgotten about it. Just like you, I made sure I had his secretary in my belt pouch, so a couple of letters never did travel to Mashiz.»

«Good,» Abivard said. «And good for you, too.»

However much Abivard loathed him, Tzikas had done a fine job making the cavalry under his command work alongside the infantry. That wasn't how the men of Makuran usually fought Light cavalry and heavy horse worked side by side, but infantry was at best a scavenger on the battlefields where it appeared. Those were few and far between; in most fights cavalry faced cavalry.

«I didn't think Videssian practice so different from our own, Abivard remarked after watching the horsemen practice a sweep from the flank of the foot soldiers. «Or to put it another way, you didn't fight against us like this when you were on the other side in the westlands »

«By the God, I am a Makuraner now,» Tzikas insisted. But then his pique, if it had been such, faded. «No, Videssians did not fight that way. Cavalry rules their formations no less than ours.» He was playing the role of countryman to the hilt, Abivard thought. Thoughtfully, the renegade went on, «I've just been wondering how best to use the two arms together now that you and Turan have made these infantrymen into real soldiers. This is the best answer I found.»

Abivard nodded-warily. He heard the flattery there: not laid on as thickly as was the usual Videssian style but perhaps more effective on account of that. Or it would have been more effective had he not suspected everything Tzikas said. Didn't Tzikas understand that? If he did, he concealed it well.

And he had other things on his mind, too, saying, «This year we'll teach Maniakes not to come into Makuran again.»

«I hope so,» Abivard said; that had the twin virtues of being true and of not committing him to anything.

He moved the army out of Nashvar a few days later. Beroshesh had assembled the artisans and merchants of the town to cheer the soldiers on their way. How many of those were cheers of good luck and how many were cheers of good riddance, Abivard preferred not to try to guess.

Along with the chorus of what might have been support came another, shriller, altogether unofficial chorus of the women and girls of the town, many with visibly bulging bellies. That sort of thing, Abivard thought with a mental sigh, was bound to happen when you quartered soldiers in a town over a winter. Some lemans were accompanying the soldiers as they moved, but others preferred to stay with their families and scream abuse at the men who had helped make those families larger.

Scouts reported that Maniakes and the Videssians were moving southwest from Erzerum toward the Tib River and leaving behind them the same trail of destruction they'd worked the year before. Scouts also reported that Maniakes had more men with him than he'd brought on his first invasion of Makuran.

«I have to act as if they're right and hope they're wrong,» Abivard said to Roshnani when the army camped for the night. «They often are-wrong, I mean. Take a quick look at an army from a distance and you'll almost always guess it's bigger than it is.»

«What do you suppose he plans?» Roshnani asked. «Fighting his way down the Tib till he can strike at Mashiz?»

«If I had to guess, I'd say yes,» Abivard answered, «but guessing what he has in mind gets harder every year. Still, though, that would be about the second worst thing I can think of for him to do.»

«Ah?» His principal wife raised an eyebrow. «And what would be worse?»

«If he struck down the Tib and at the same time sent envoys across the Pardrayan steppe to stir up the Khamorth tribes against us and send them over the Degird River into the northwest of the realm.» Abivard looked grim at the mere prospect. So did Roshnani. Both of them had grown up in the Northwest, not far from the frontier with the steppe. Abivard went on, «Likinios played that game, remember-Videssian gold was what made Peroz King of Kings move into Pardraya, what made him meet his end, what touched off our civil war. Couple that with the Videssian invasion of the land of the Thousand Cities and-»

«Yes, that would be deadly dangerous,» Roshnani said. «I see it. We'd have to divide our forces, and we might not have enough to be able to do it.»

«Just so,» Abivard agreed. «Maniakes doesn't seem to have thought of that ploy, the God be praised. When Likinios used it, he didn't think to invade us himself at the same time. From what I remember of Likinios, he was always happiest when money and other people's soldiers were doing his fighting for him.»

«Maniakes isn't like that,» Roshnani said.

«No, he'll fight,» Abivard said, nodding. «He's not as underhanded as Likinios was, but he's learning there, too. As I say, I'm just glad he hasn't yet learned everything there is to know.»

Hurrying west across the floodplain from the Tutub to the Tib brought Abivard's army across the track of devastation Maniakes had left the summer before. In more than one place he found peasants repairing open-air shrines dedicated to the God and the Prophets Four that the Videssians had made a point of wrecking.

«He had some men who spoke Makuraner,» one of the rural artisans told Abivard. «He had them tell us he did this because of what Makuran does to the shrines of his stupid, false, senseless god. He pays us back, he says.»

«Thank you, Majesty,» Abivard murmured under his breath. Once again Sharbaraz' order enforcing worship of the God in Vaspurakan was coming back to haunt Makuran. The peasant stared at Abivard, not following what he meant. If the fellow hoped for an explanation, he was doomed to disappointment

Tzikas' horsemen rode ahead of the main force, trying to let Abivard know where the Videssians were at any given time. Every so often the cavalry troopers would skirmish with Maniakes' scouts, who were trying to pass to the Avtokrator the same information about Abivard's force.

And then, before too long, smoke on the northern horizon said the Videssians were drawing close. Tzikas' scouts confirmed that they were on the eastern bank of the Tib; they'd been either unwilling or unable to cross the river. Abivard took that as good news. He would, however, have liked it better had he had it from men who owed their allegiance to anyone but Tzikas.

Because Maniakes was staying on the eastern side of the Tib, Abivard sent urgent orders to the men in charge of the bridges of boats across the river to withdraw those bridges to the western bank. He hoped that would help him but did not place sure trust in the success of the ploy: being skilled artificers, the Videssians might not need boats to cross the river.

But Maniakes, who had not gone out of his way to look for a fight the summer before, seemed more aggressive now, out not just to destroy any town in the land of the Thousand Cities but also to collide with the Makuraner army opposing him.

«I think the scouts are right-they do have more men than they did last year,» Turan said unhappily. «They wouldn't be pushing so hard if they didn't»

«Whereas we still have what we started last year with-minus casualties, whom I miss, and plus Tzikas' regiment of horse whom I wouldn't miss if they fell into the Void this minute,» Abivard said, Tzikas not being in earshot to overhear. «Now we get to find out whether that will be enough.»

«Oh, we can block the Videssians,» Turan said, «provided they don't get across to the far side of the river. If they do-»

«They complicate our lives,» Abivard finished for him. «Maniakes has been complicating my life for years, so I have no reason to think he'll stop now.» He paused thoughtfully. «Come to that, I've been complicating his life for a good many years now, too. But I intend to be the one who comes out on top in the end.» After another pause he went on. «The question is, does he intend to do any serious fighting this year, or is he just raiding to keep us off balance, the way he was last summer? I think he really wants to fight, but I can't be certain-not yet.»

«How will we know?» Turan asked.

«If he gets across the river somehow-and he may, because the Videssians have fine engineers-he's out to harass us like last year,» Abivard answered. «But if he comes straight at us, he thinks he can beat us with the new army he's put together, and it'll be up to us to show him he's wrong.»

Turan glanced at the long files of foot soldiers marching toward the Tib. They were lean, swarthy men, some in helmets, some in baggy cloth caps, a few with mail shirts, most wearing leather vests or quilted tunics to ward off weapons, almost all of them with wicker shields slung over their shoulders, armed with spears or swords or bows or, occasionally, slings. «He's not the only one who's put a new army together,» Abivard's lieutenant said quietly.

«Mm, that's so.» Abivard studied the soldiers, too. They seemed confident enough, and thinking you could hold off a foe was halfway to doing it. «They've come a long way this past year, haven't they?»

«Aye, lord, they have,» Turan said. He looked down at his hands before going on. «They've done well learning to work with cavalry, too.»

«Learning to work with Tzikas' cavalry, you mean,» Abivard said, and Turan, looking uncomfortable, nodded. Abivard sighed. «It's for the best. If they didn't know what to do, we'd be in a worse position than we are now. If only Tzikas weren't commanding that regiment of horse, I'd be happy.»

«He was-harmless enough this past winter,» Turan said, giving what praise he could.

«For which the God be praised,» Abivard said. «But he's wronged me badly, and he knows it, which might tempt him to betray me to the Videssians. On the other hand, he tried to kill Maniakes, so he wouldn't be welcomed back with open arms, not unless the Avtokrator of the Videssians is stupider than I know he is. How badly would Tzikas have to betray me, do you suppose, to put himself back into Maniakes' good graces?»

«It would have to be something spectacular,» Turan said. «I don't think betraying you would be coin enough to do the job, truth to tell. I think he'd have to betray Sharbaraz King of Kings himself, may his years be many and his realm increase, to buy Maniakes' favor once more.»

«How would Tzikas betray the King of Kings?» Abivard said, gesturing with his right hand to turn aside the evil omen. Then he held up that hand. «No, don't tell me if you know of a way. I don't want to think about it.» He stopped. «No, if you know of a way, you'd better say you do. If you can think of one, without a doubt Tzikas can, too.»

«I can't, the God be praised,» Turan said. «But that doesn't mean Tzikas can't.»

Abivard positioned his men along the Tib, a little north of one of the boat bridges drawn up on the far side of the river. If the Videssians did seek to cross to the other side, he hoped he could either get across himself in time to block them or at least pursue and harass them on the western side.

But Maniakes showed no intention of either crossing to the west bank or swinging east and using the superior speed with which his army could move to get around Abivard's force. His scouts came riding down to look over the position Abivard had established and then, after skirmishing once more with Tzikas' horsemen, went galloping back to give the Videssian Avtokrator the news.

Two days later the whole Videssian army came into sight just after the first light of day. With trumpets and drums urging them to ever greater speed, Abivard's troops formed their battle line. Abivard had Tzikas' horsemen on his right flank and split the infantry in which he had the most confidence in two, stationing half his best foot soldiers in the center and the other half closest to the Tib to anchor the line's left.

For some time the two armies stood watching each other from beyond bowshot Then, without Abivard's order, one of the warriors from Tzikas' regiment rode out into the space between them. He made his horse rear, then brandished his lance at the Videssians as he shouted something Abivard couldn't quite make out.

But he didn't need to understand the words to know what the warrior was saying. «He's challenging them to single combat!» Abivard exclaimed. «He must have watched that Vaspurakaner who challenged Romezan the winter before last.»

«If none of them dares come out or if this fellow wins, we gain,» Turan said. «But if he loses-»

«I wish Tzikas hadn't let him go forth,» Abivard said. «I-» He got no further than that, for a great shout arose from the Videssian ranks. A mounted man came galloping toward the Makuraner, who couched his lance and charged in return. The Videssian's mail shirt glittered with gilding. So did his helm, which also, Abivard saw, had a golden circlet set on it.

«That's Maniakes!» he exclaimed in a hoarse voice. «Has he gone mad to risk so much on a throw of the dice?»

The Avtokrator had neither lance nor javelin, being armed instead with bow and arrows and a sword that swung from his belt He shot at the Makuraner, reached over his shoulder for another arrow, set it in his bow, let fly, and grabbed for yet another shaft. He'd shot four times before his foe came close.

At least two, maybe three, of the shafts went home, piercing the Makuraner champion's armor. The fellow was swaying in the saddle when he tried to spear Maniakes off his horse. The lance stroke missed. The Avtokrator of the Videssians drew his sword and slashed once, twice, three times. His foe slipped off his horse and lay limp on the ground.

Maniakes rode after the Makuraner's mount, caught it by the reins, and began to lead it back toward his own line. Then, almost as an afterthought, he waved toward the Makuraner cavalry and toward the fallen champion. Pick him up if you like, he said with gestures.

He spoke the Makuraner tongue. He might have said that to his opponents with words, but his own men were cheering so loudly, no words would have been heard. As he rejoined his soldiers, a couple of Makuraners rode out toward the man who had challenged the Videssian army. The imperials did not attack them. They heaved the beaten man up onto one of their horses and rode slowly back to their position on the right.

«If Maniakes didn't kill that fellow, we ought to take care of the job,» Turan said.

«Isn't that the sad and sorry truth?» Abivard agreed. «All right-he was brave. But he couldn't have done us more harm than by challenging and losing, not if he tried to murder you and me both in the middle of the battle. It disheartened us-and listen to the Videssians! If they were still wondering whether they could beat us, they aren't anymore.»

He wondered whether Tzikas hadn't set up the whole thing. Could the Videssian renegade, despite his fervent protestations of loyalty and his worship of the God, have urged a warrior forward while sure he would lose, in the hope of regaining favor back in Videssos? The answer was simple: of course he could. But the next question-would he? — required more thought.

He had everything he could want in Makuran-high rank, even the approval of Sharbaraz King of Kings. Why would he throw that away? The only answer that occurred to Abivard was the thrill that had to go with treason successfully brought off. He shook his head. Videssians were connoisseurs of all sorts of subtle refinements, but could one become a connoisseur of treason? He didn't think so. He hoped not.

Abivard got no more time to think about it, for as soon as the cavalrymen had returned with their would-be champion, horns sounded up and down the Videssian line. The imperials rode forward in loose order and began plying the Makuraners with arrows, as they had at the battle by the canal the summer before.

As before, Abivard's men shot back. He waved. Horns rang out on his army's right wing. He had cavalry now. Were they loyal? They were: Tzikas' men thundered at the Videssians.

Maniakes must have been expecting that. After the fact, Abivard realized he'd advertised it in his deployment-but given the position he had had to protect, he'd found himself with little choice.

A regiment of Videssians, armed with their usual bows and javelins, peeled off from the left wing of Maniakes' army and rode to meet the Makuraners. Being less heavily armed and armored than Tzikas' horsemen, the Videssians could not stop their charge in its tracks as a countercharge by a like number of Makuraners might well have done. But they did blunt it, slow it, and keep it from smashing into their comrades on the flank. That let the rest of the Videssians assail Abivard's foot soldiers.

Maniakes' men did not hold back as they had in the battle by the canal. Then they'd wanted to keep the Makuraners in play till their fellows could circle around and hit Abivard's force from an unexpected direction. Now they were coming straight at Abivard and the assembled city garrison troops, plainly confident that no such army could long stand in their way.

Because they wore mail shirts and their foes mostly did not, their archery was more effective than that of Abivard's men. They drew close enough to ply the front ranks of the Makuraners with javelins and hurt them doing it.

«Shall we rush at them, lord?» Turan shouted above the screams and war cries of the fight.

Abivard shook his head. «If we do that, we're liable to open up holes in our line, and if they once pour into holes like that, we're done for. We just have to hope we can stand the pounding.»

He wished Maniakes hadn't overthrown the Makuraner champion. That had to have left his own men glum and the Videssians elated. But when you were fighting for your life, weren't you too busy to worry about what had happened a while ago? Abivard hoped so.

When arrows and javelins failed to make the Makuraners break and run, the Videssians drew swords and rode straight into the line Abivard had established. They slashed down at their enemies on foot; some of them tried to use their javelins as the Makuraner heavy horse used lances.

The Makuraners fought back hard not only against Maniakes' men but also against the horses they rode. Those poor beasts were not armored like the ones atop which Tzikas' men sat; they were easy to slash and club and shoot. Their blood splashed on the ground with that of their riders; their screams rose to the sky with those of wounded men on both sides.

Abivard rushed reserves to a dangerously thin point in the line. He had tremendous pride in his troops. This was not a duty they'd expected to have a year before. They were standing up to the Videssians like veterans. Some of them were veterans now; by the end of the battle they'd all be veterans.

«Don't let them through!» Abivard shouted. «Stand your ground!»

Rather to Abivard's surprise, they stood their ground and kept standing it. Maniakes did have more men with him than he'd brought the year before, but Tzikas' cavalry regiment neutralized a good part of his increased numbers. The rest were not enough to force a breakthrough in Abivard's line.

The stalemate left Abivard tempted to attack in turn, allowing openings to develop in his position in the hope of trapping a lot of Videssians. He had little trouble fighting down the temptation. He found it too easy to imagine himself on the other side of the battlefield, looking for an opportunity. If Maniakes spotted one, he'd take full advantage of it. Abivard knew that Most important, then, was not giving the Avtokrator the chance.

As fights had a way of doing, this one seemed to go on forever. Had the sun not shown him it was but midafternoon, Abivard would have guessed the battle had lasted three or four days. Then, little by little, Videssian pressure eased. Instead of attacking. Maniakes' men broke contact and rode back toward the north, back the way they had come. Tzikas' men made as if to pursue- the foot soldiers could hardly do so against cavalry-but a shower of arrows and a fierce countercharge said the Videssians remained in good order. The pursuit quickly stalled.

«By the God, we threw them back,» Turan said in tones of wonder.

«By the God, so we did.» Abivard knew he sounded as surprised as his lieutenant. He couldn't help that. He was surprised.

Maybe his soldiers were surprised, and maybe they weren't. Surprised or not, they knew what they'd accomplished. Above and through the moans of the wounded and the shriller shrieks of hurt horses rose a buzz that swelled to a great cheer. The cheer had but one word: «Abivard!»

«Why are they shouting my name?» he demanded of Turan. «They're the ones who did it»

His lieutenant looked at him. «Sometimes, lord, you can be too modest.»

The soldiers evidently thought so. They swarmed around Abivard, still calling his name. Then they tried to pull him down from his horse, as if he were a Videssian to be overcome. Turan's expression warned him he had better yield to the inevitable. He let his feet slide out of the stirrups. As Turan leaned over and grabbed hold of his horse's reins, he let himself slide down into the mass of celebrating soldiers.

They did not let him fall. Instead, they bore him up so he rode above them on a stormy, choppy sea of hands. He waved and shouted praise the foot soldiers didn't hear because they were all shouting and because they were passing him back and forth so everyone could carry him and have a go at dropping him.

At last he did slip down through the sea of hands. His feet touched solid ground. «Enough!» he cried; being upright somehow put fresh authority in his voice. Still shouting his praises, the soldiers decided to let him keep standing on his own.

«Command us, lord!» they shouted. A man standing near Abivard asked, «Will we go after the Videssians tomorrow?» Somewhere in the fighting a sword had lopped off the fleshy bottom part of his left ear; blood dried black streaked that side of his face. He didn't seem to notice.

Abivard suffered a timely coughing fit. When he did answer, he said, «We have to see what they do. The trouble is, we can't move as fast as they do, so we have to figure out where they're going and get there first.»

«You'll do that, lord!» the soldier missing half an ear exclaimed. «You've done it already, lots of times.»

Twice, to Abivard's way of thinking, didn't constitute lots of times. But the garrison troops were cheering again and shouting for him to lead them wherever they were supposed to go. Since he'd been trying to figure out how to bring about exactly that effect, he didn't contradict the wounded man. Instead he said, «Maniakes wants Mashiz. Mashiz is what he's wanted all along. Are we going to let him have it?»

«No!» the soldiers yelled in one great voice.

«Then tomorrow we'll move south and cut him off from his goal,» Abivard said. The soldiers shouted louder than ever. If he'd told them to march on Mashiz instead of defending it, he thought they would have done just that

He shoved the idea down into some deep part of his mind where he wouldn't have to think about it. That wasn't hard. The aftermath of battle had given him plenty to think about. They'd fought, the Videssians had retreated, and now his men were going to retreat, too. He wondered if there had ever been a battlefield before where both sides had abandoned it as soon as they could.

The secretary was a plump, fastidious little man named Gyanarspar. More than a bit nervously, he held out a sheet of parchment to Abivard. «This is the latest the regimental commander Tzikas has ordered me to write, lord,» he said.

Abivard quickly read through the letter Tzikas had addressed to Sharbaraz King of Kings. It was about what he might have thought Tzikas would say but not what he'd hoped. The Videssian renegade accused him of cowardice for not going after Maniakes' army in the aftermath of the battle by the Tib and suggested that a different leader-coyly unnamed-might have done more.

«Thank you, Gyanarspar,» Abivard said. «Draft something innocuous to take the place of this tripe and send it on its way to the King of Kings.»

«Of course, lord-as we have been doing.» The secretary bowed and hurried out of Abivard's tent.

Behind him Abivard kicked at the dirt. Tzikas made a fine combat soldier. If only he'd been content with that! But no, not Tzikas. Whether in Videssos or in Makuran, he wanted to go straight to the top, and to get there he'd give whoever was ahead of him a good boot in the crotch.

Well, his spiteful bile wasn't going to get to Sharbaraz. Abivard had taken care of that. The silver arkets he lavished on Gyanarspar were money well spent as far as he was concerned. The King of Kings hadn't tried joggling his elbow nearly so much or nearly so hard since Abivard had started making sure the scurrilous things Tzikas said never reached his ear.

Gyanarspar, the God bless him, didn't aspire to reach the top of anything. Some silver on top of his regular pay sufficed to keep him sweet. Abivard suddenly frowned. How was he to know whether Tzikas was also bribing the secretary to let his letters go out as he wrote them? Gyanarspar might think it clever to collect silver from both sides at once.

«If he does, he'll find he's made a mistake,» Abivard told the wool wall of the tent. If Sharbaraz all at once started sending him more letters full of caustic complaint, Gyanarspar would have some serious explaining to do.

At the moment, though, Abivard had more things to worry about than the hypothetical treachery of Tzikas' secretary. Maniakes' presence in the land of the Thousand Cities was anything but hypothetical. The Avtokrator hadn't tried circling around Abivard's forces and striking straight for Mashiz, as had been Abivard's greatest worry. Instead, Maniakes had gone back to his tactics of the summer before and was wandering through the land between the Tutub and the Tib, destroying everything he could.

Abivard kicked at the dirt yet again. He couldn't chase Maniakes over the floodplain any more than he could have pursued him after the battle by the Tib. He didn't know what he was supposed to do. Was he to travel back to Nashvar and have the contentious local wizards break the banks of the canals again? He was less convinced than he had been the year before that that would accomplish everything he wanted. He also knew Sharbaraz would not thank him for any diminution in revenue from the land of the Thousand Cities. And two years of flooding in a row were liable to put the peasants in an impossible predicament. They weren't highest on his list of worries, but they were there.

Sitting there and doing nothing did not appeal to him, either. He might be protecting Mashiz where he was, but that didn't do the rest of the realm any good. While he kept Maniakes from fairing on the capital with fire and sword, the Avtokrator visited them upon other cities instead. Sharbaraz' realm was being diminished, not increasing, while that happened.

«I can keep Maniakes from breaking past me and driving into Mashiz,» Abivard said to Roshnani that night. «I think I can do that, at any rate. But keep him from tearing up the land of the Thousand Cities? How? If I venture out against him, he will break around me, and then I'll have to chase his dust back to the capital.»

For a moment he was tempted to do just that. If Maniakes put paid to Sharbaraz, the King of Kings wouldn't be able to harass him anymore. Rationally, he knew that wasn't a good enough reason to let the realm fall into the Void, but he was tempted to be irrational.

Roshnani said, «If you can't beat the Videssians with what you have here, can you get what you need to beat them somewhere else?»

«I'm going to have to try to do that, I think,» Abivard replied. If his principal wife saw the same possible answer to his question that he saw himself, the chance that answer was right went up a good deal. He went on, «I'm going to send a letter to Romezan, asking him to move the field force out of Videssos and Vaspurakan and to bring it back here so we can drive Maniakes away. I hate to do that-I know it's what Maniakes wants me to do-but I don't see that I have any choice.»

«I think you're right.» Roshnani hesitated, then asked the question that had to be asked: «What will Sharbaraz think, though?»

Abivard grimaced. «I'll have to find out, won't I? I don't intend to ask him for permission to recall Romezan; I'm going to do that on my own. But I will write him and let him know what I've done.

If he wants to badly enough, he can countermand my order. I know just what I'll do if he does that.»

«What?» Roshnani asked.

«I'll lay down my command and go back to Vek Rud domain, by the God,» Abivard declared. «If the King of Kings isn't satisfied with the way I defend him, let him choose someone who does satisfy him: Tzikas, maybe, or Yeliif. I'll go back to the Northwest and live out my days as a rustic dihqan. No matter how far Maniakes goes into Makuran, he'll never, ever reach the Vek Rud River.»

He waited with some anxiety to see how Roshnani would take that. To his surprise and relief, she shoved aside the plates off which they'd eaten supper so she could lean over on the carpet they shared and give him a kiss. «Good for you!» she exclaimed. «I wish you would have done that years ago, when we were in the Videssian westlands and he kept carping because you couldn't cross to attack Videssos the city.»

«I felt as bad about that as he did,» Abivard said. «But it's only gotten worse since then. Sooner or later everyone has a breaking point, and I've found mine.»

«Good,» Roshnani said again. «It would be fine to get back to the Northwest, wouldn't it? And even finer to get out from under a master who's abused you too long.»

«He'd still be my sovereign,» Abivard said. But that wasn't what Roshnani had meant, and he knew it. He wondered how well his resolve would hold up if Sharbaraz put it to the test.

The letters went out the next day. Abivard thought about delaying the one to Sharbaraz, to present the King of Kings with troop movements too far along for him to prevent when he learned of them. In the end Abivard decided not to take that chance. It would give Yeliif and everyone else at court who was not well inclined toward him a chance to say he was secretly gathering forces for a move of his own against Mashiz. If Sharbaraz thought that and tried to recall him, it might force him to move against Mashiz, which he did not want to do. As far as he was concerned, beating Videssos was more important. «All I want,» he murmured, «is to ride my horse into the High Temple in Videssos the city and to see the expression on the patriarch's face when I do.»

When he'd spent a couple of years in Across, staring over the Cattle Crossing at the Videssian capital, that dream had seemed almost within his grasp. Now here he was with his back against the Tib, doing his best to keep Maniakes Avtokrator from storming Mashiz. War was a business full of reversals, but going from the capital of the Empire of Videssos to that of Makuran in the space of a couple of years felt more like an upheaval.

«Ships,» he said, turning the word into a vile curse. Had he had some, he would long since have ridden in triumph into Videssos the city. Had Makuran had any, Maniakes would not have been able to leap the length of the Videssian westlands and bring the war home to the land of the Thousand Cities. And after a moment's reflection, he found yet another reason to regret Makuran's lack of a navy: «If I had a ship, I could put Tzikas on it and order it sunk.»

That bit of whimsy kept him happy for an hour, until Gyanarspar came into his tent with a parchment in his hand and a worried expression on his face. «Lord, you need to see this and decide what to do with it,» he said.

«Do I?» If Abivard felt any enthusiasm for the proposition, he concealed it even from himself. But he held out his hand, and Gyanarspar put the parchment into it. He read Tzikas' latest missive to the King of Kings with incredulity that grew from one sentence to the next. «By the God!» he exclaimed when he was through. «About the only thing he doesn't accuse me of is buggering the sheep in the flock of the King of Kings.»

«Aye, lord,» Gyanarspar said unhappily.

After a bit of reflection Abivard said, «I think I know what brought this on. Before, his letters to Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, got action-action against me. This year, though, the letters haven't been getting through to Sharbaraz. Tzikas must think that they have-and that the King of Kings is ignoring them. And so he decided to come up with something a little stronger.» He held his nose. This letter, as far as he was concerned, was strong in the sense of stale fish.

«What shall we do about it, lord?» Gyanarspar asked. «Make it disappear, by all means,» Abivard said. «Now, if we could only make Tzikas disappear, too.»

Gyanarspar bowed and left. Abivard plucked at his beard. Maybe he could sink Tzikas even without a ship. He hadn't wanted to before, when the idea had been proposed to him. Now- Now he sent a servant to summon Turan.

When his lieutenant stepped into the tent, he greeted him with, «How would you like to help make the eminent Tzikas a hero of Makuran?»

Turan was not the swiftest man in the world, but he was a long way from the slowest. After a couple of heartbeats of blank surprise his eyes lit up. «I'd love to, lord. What have you got in mind?»

«That scheme you had a while ago still strikes me as better than most: finding a way to send him out with a troop of horsemen against a Videssian regiment. When it's over, I'll be very embarrassed I used such poor military judgment.»

Turan's predatory smile said all that needed saying there. But then the officer asked, «What changed your mind, lord? When I suggested this before, you wouldn't hear me. Now you like the idea.»

«Let's just say Tzikas has been making a little too free with his opinions,» Abivard answered, at which Turan nodded in grim amusement. Abivard turned practical: «We'll need to set this up with the Videssians. When we need to, we can get a message to them, isn't that right?»

«Aye, lord, it is,» Turan said. «If we want to exchange captives, things like that, we can get them to hear us.» He smiled again. «For the chance of getting their hands on Tzikas, after what he tried to do to Maniakes, I think they'll hear us, as a matter of fact.»

«Good,» Abivard said. «So do I. Oh, yes, very good indeed. You will know and I will know and our messenger will know, and a few Videssians, too.»

«I don't think they'd give us away, lord,» Turan said. «If things were a little different, they might, but I think they hate Tzikas worse than you do. If they can get their hands on him, they'll keep quiet about hows and whys.»

«I think so, too,» Abivard said. «But there is one other person I'd want to know before the end.»

«Who's that?» Turan sounded worried. «The more people who know about a plot like this, the better the chance it'll go wrong.»

«'Before the end, I said,» Abivard replied. «Don't you think it would be fitting if Tzikas figured out how he'd ended up in his predicament?»

Turan smiled.

After swinging away from the Tib to rampage through the floodplain, Maniakes' army turned back toward the west, as if deciding it would attack Mashiz after all. Abivard spread his own force out along the river to make sure the Videssians could not force a crossing without his knowing about it.

He spread his cavalry particularly wide, sending the horsemen out not only to scout against the Videssians but also to nip at them with raids. Tzikas was like a whirlwind, now here, now there, always striking stinging blows against the countrymen he'd abandoned

«He can fight,» Abivard said grudgingly one evening after the Videssian had come in with a couple of dozen of Maniakes' men as prisoners. «I wonder if I really should-»

Roshnani interrupted him, her voice very firm: «Of course you should. Yes, he can fight. Think of all the other delightful things he can do, too.»

His resolve thus stiffened, Abivard went on setting up the trap that would give Tzikas back to the Videssians. Turan had been right: once his messenger met Maniakes', the Avtokrator proved eager for the chance to get his hands on the man who had nearly toppled him from his throne.

When the arrangements were complete, Abivard sent most of Tzikas' cavalry force under a lieutenant against a large, ostentatious Videssian demonstration to the northeast. «That should have been my mission to command,» Tzikas said angrily. «After all this time and all this war against the Videssians, you still don't trust me not to betray you.»

«On the contrary, eminent sir,» Abivard replied. «I trust you completely.»

Against a Makuraner that would have been a safe reply. Tzikas, schooled in Videssian irony, gave Abivard a sharp look. Abivard was still kicking himself when, as if on cue in a Videssian Midwinter's Day mime show, a messenger rushed up, calling, «Lords, the imperials are breaking canals less than a farsang from here!» He pointed southeast, though a low rise obscured the Videssians from sight.

«By the God,» Tzikas declared, «I shall attend to this.» Without paying Abivard any more attention, he hurried away. A few minutes later, leading the couple of hundred heavy horsemen left in camp, he rode off, the red-lion banner of Makuran fluttering at the head of his force.

Abivard watched him go with mingled hope and guilt. He still wasn't altogether pleased at the idea of getting rid of Tzikas this way, no matter how necessary he found it. And he knew Makuraners would suffer in the trap Maniakes was setting. He hoped they would make the Videssians pay dearly for every one of them they brought down.

But most of all he hoped the scheme would work. Only a remnant of the cavalry troop came back later that afternoon. A good many of the warriors who did return were wounded. One of the troopers, seeing Abivard, cried out, «We were ambushed, lord! As we engaged the Videssians who were wrecking the waterway, a great host of them burst out of the ruins of a village nearby. They cut us off and, I fear, had their way with us.»

«I don't see Tzikas,» Abivard said after a quick glance up and down the battered column. «What happened to him? Does he live?»

«The Videssian? I don't know for certain, lord,» the soldier answered. «He led a handful of men on a charge straight into the heart of the foe's force. I didn't see him after that, but I fear the worst.»

«May the God have given him a fate he deserved,» Abivard said, a double-edged wish if ever there was one. He wondered if Tzikas had attacked the Videssians so fiercely to try to make them kill him instead of taking him captive. Had he done to Maniakes what Tzikas had done, he wouldn't have wanted the Avtokrator to capture him.

The next day Tzikas' Makuraner lieutenant, a hot-blooded young hellion named Sanatruq, returned with most of the cavalry regiment after having beaten back the large Videssian movement. He was very proud of himself. Abivard was proud of him, too, but rather less so: he knew Maniakes had made the movement to draw out most of the Makuraner cavalry so that, when Tzikas led out the rest, he would face overwhelming odds.

«He was overwhelmed?» Sanatruq said in dismay. «Our lord? It is sad-no, it is tragic! How shall we carry on without him?» He reached down to the ground, pinched up some dust, and rubbed it on his face in mourning.

«I give the regiment to you for now,» Abivard said. «Should the God grant that Tzikas return, you'll have to turn it over to him, but I fear that's not likely.»

«I shall avenge his loss!» Sanatruq cried. «He was a brave leader, a bold leader, a man who fought always at the fore, in the days when he was against us and even more after he was with us.»

«True enough,» Abivard said; it was likely to be the best memorial Tzikas got. Abivard wondered what Maniakes was having to say to the man who'd tried to murder him with magic. He suspected it was something Tzikas would remember for the rest of his life, however long-or short-that turned out to be.

Whatever Maniakes was saying to Tzikas, he wasn't staying around the Tib to do it. He went back into the central region of the land of the Thousand Cities, doing his best to make Abivard's life miserable in the process. Abivard had had a vague hope that the cooperation between the Avtokrator and himself over Tzikas might make a broader truce come about, but that didn't happen. Both he and the Avtokrator had wanted to be rid of the Videssian renegade, and that had let them work together in ways they couldn't anywhere else.

Sanatruq proved to have all the energy Tzikas had had as a cavalry commander but less luck. The Videssians beat back his raids several times in a row, till Abivard almost wished he had Tzikas back again.

«Don't say that!» Roshnani exclaimed one day when he was irked enough to complain out loud. Her hand moved in a gesture designed to turn aside evil omens. «You know you'd go for his throat if he chanced to walk in here right now.»

«Well, so I would,» Abivard said. «All right, then, I don't wish Tzikas to come walking into the tent right now.»

That was true enough. He did want to find out what had happened to the Videssian renegade, though. Had he fallen in the fight where he'd unexpectedly been so outnumbered, or had he fallen into Maniakes' hands instead? If he was a captive, what was Maniakes doing with-or to-him now?

When the Videssians had invaded the land of the Thousand Cities, they hadn't brought all the laborers and servants they'd needed. Instead, as armies will, they'd taken men from the cities to do their work for them and rewarded those men with not enough food and even less money. They'd also ended up with the usual number of camp followers.

Laborers and camp followers were not permanent parts of an army, though. They came and went-or sometimes they stayed behind as the army came and went. Abivard ordered his men to bring in some of them so he could try to learn Tzikas' fate.

And so, a few days later, he found himself questioning a small, swarthy woman in a small, thin shift that clung to her wherever she would sweat-and in summer in the land of the Thousand Cities, there were very few places a woman or even a man would not sweat.

«You say you saw them bring him into the Videssian camp?» Abivard asked. He put the question in Videssian first and only afterward in Makuraner. The woman, whose name was Eshkinni, had learned a fair amount of the language of the Empire (and who could say what else?) in her time in the invaders' camp but used the tongue of the floodplain, of which Abivard knew a bare handful of words, in preference to Makuraner. Eshkinni tossed her head, making the fancy bronze earrings she wore clatter softly. She had a necklace of gaudy glass beads and more bronze bangles on her arms. «I to see him, that right,» she said. «They to drag him, they to curse him with their god, they to say Avtokrator to do to him something bad.»

«You are sure this was Tzikas?» Abivard persisted. «Did you hear them say the name?»

She frowned, trying to remember. «I to think maybe,» she said. She wiggled a little and stuck out her backside, perhaps hoping to distract him from her imperfect memory. By the knowing look in her eye, some time as a camp follower probably hadn't taught her much she hadn't already known.

Abivard, however, cared nothing for the charms she so calculatingly flaunted. «Did Maniakes come out and see this captive, whatever his name was?»

«Avtokrator? Yes, he to see him,» Eshkinni said. «Avtokrator, I to think Avtokrator old man. But he not old… not too old. Old like you, maybe.»

«Thank you so much,» Abivard said. Eshkinni nodded as if his gratitude had been genuine. He couldn't be properly sardonic in a language not his own, even if Videssian was made for shades of irony. And he thought she had seen Maniakes; the Avtokrator and Abivard really were about of an age. He tried another question: «What did Maniakes say to the captive?»

«He to say he to give him what he have to come to him,» Eshkinni answered. Abivard frowned, struggling through the freshet of pronouns and infinitives, and then nodded. Had he had Tzikas in front of him, he would have said very much the same thing, though he probably would have elaborated on it a good deal. For that matter, Maniakes might well have elaborated on it; Abivard realized that Eshkinni wasn't giving him a literal translation.

He asked, «Did Maniakes say what he thought Tzikas had coming to him?» He itched to know, an itch partly gleeful, partly guilty

But Eshkinni shook her head. Her earrings clinked again. Her lip curled; she was plainly bored with this whole proceeding. She tugged at her shift not to get rid of the places where it clung to her but to emphasize them. «You to want?» she asked, twitching her hip to leave no possible doubt about what she was offering.

«No, thank you,» Abivard said politely, though he felt like exclaiming, By the God, no! Polite still, he offered an explanation: «My wife is traveling with me.»

«So?» Eshkinni stared at him as if that had nothing to do with anything. In her eyes and in her experience, it probably didn't. She went on. «Why for big fancy man to have only one wife?» She sniffed as an answer occurred to her. «To be same reason you no to want me, I to bet. You no to have beard, I to wonder if you a-» She couldn't come up with the Videssian word for eunuch but made crotch-level cutting motions to show what she meant.

«No,» Abivard said, sharply now. But she had done him a service, so he reached into a pouch he wore on his belt and drew from it twenty silver arkets, which he gave her. Her mood improved on the instant; it was far more than she would have hoped to realize by opening her legs for him.

«You to need to know any more things,» she declared, «you to ask me. I to find out for you, you to best believe I to do.» When she saw Abivard had nothing more to ask her then, she walked off, rolling her haunches. Abivard remained unstirred by the charms thus advertised, but several of his troopers appreciatively followed Eshkinni with their eyes. He suspected she might enlarge upon her earnings.

Later that day he asked Turan, «What would you do if you had Tzikas in your clutches?»

His lieutenant gave a pragmatic answer: «Cast him in irons so he couldn't escape, then get drunk to celebrate.»

Abivard snorted. «Aside from that, I mean.»

«If I found a pretty girl, I might want to get laid, too,» Turan said, and then, grudgingly, seeing the warning on Abivard's face, «I suppose you mean after that. If I were Maniakes, the next thing I'd do would be to squeeze him dry about whatever he'd done while he was here. After that I'd get rid of him, fast if he'd done a good job of singing, slow if he hadn't-or maybe slow on general principles.»

«Yes, that sounds reasonable,» Abivard agreed. «I suspect I'd do much the same myself. Tzikas has it coming, by the God.» He thought for a minute or so. «Now we have to tell Sharbaraz what happened without letting him know we made it happen. Life is never dull.»

He learned how true that was a few days later, when one of his cavalry patrols came across a westbound rider dressed in the light tunic of a man from the land of the Thousand Cities. «He didn't sit his horse quite the way most of the other folk here do, so we thought we'd look him over,» the soldier in charge of the patrol said. «And we found-this.» He held out a leather message tube.

«Did you?» Abivard turned to the captured courier, asking in Videssian, «And what is-this?»

«I don't know,» the courier answered in the same language; he was one of Maniakes' men, sure enough. «All I know is that I was supposed to get through your lines and carry it to Mashiz, then bring back Sharbaraz' answer if he had one.»

«Were you?» Abivard opened the tube. Save for being stamped with the sunburst of Videssos rather than Makuran's lion, it seemed ordinary enough. The rolled-up parchment inside was sealed with scarlet wax, an imperial prerogative. Abivard broke the seal with his thumbnail.

He read Videssian, but haltingly; he moved his lips, sounding out every word. «Maniakes Avtokrator to Sharbaraz King of Kings: Greetings,» the letter began. A string of florid salutations and boasts followed, showing that the Videssians could match the men of Makuran in such excess as well as in war.

After that, though, Maniakes got down to cases faster than most Makuraners would have. In his own hand-which Abivard recognized-he wrote, «I have the honor to inform you that I am holding as a captive and condemned criminal a certain Tzikas, a renegade formerly in your service, whom I had previously condemned. For the capture of this wretch I am indebted to your general Abivard son of Godarz, who, being as vexed by Tzikas' treacheries as I have been myself, arranged to have me capture him and dispose of him. He shall not be missed when he goes, I assure you. He-»

Maniakes went on at some length to explain Tzikas' iniquities.

Abivard didn't read all of them; he knew them too well. He crumpled up the parchment and threw it on the ground, then stared at it in genuine, if grudging, admiration. Maniakes had more gall than even he'd expected. The Avtokrator had used him to help get rid of Tzikas and now was using Sharbaraz to help get rid of him because of Tzikas! If that wasn't effrontery, Abivard didn't know what was.

And only luck had kept the plan from working or at least had delayed it. If the Videssian courier had ridden more like a local-

Abivard picked up the sheet of parchment, unfolded it as well as he could, and summoned Turan. He translated the Videssian for his lieutenant, who did not read the language. When he was through, Turan scowled and said, «May he fall into the Void! What a sneaky thing to do! He-»

«Is Avtokrator of the Videssians,» Abivard interrupted. «If he weren't sneaky, he wouldn't have the job. My father could go on for hours at a time about how devious and underhanded the Videssians were, and he-» He stopped and began to laugh. «Do you know, I can't say whether he ever had anything more to do with them than skirmishing against them. But however he knew or heard, he was right. You can't trust the Videssians when your eye's not on them, nor sometimes when it is.»

«You're too right there.» Now Turan laughed, though hardly in a way that showed much mirth. «I wish Maniakes were out of the land of the Thousand Cities. Then my eye wouldn't be on him.»

Later that evening Roshnani found a new question to ask: «Did Maniakes' letter to the King of Kings actually come out and say he was going to put Tzikas to death?»

«It said he wouldn't be missed when he went,» Abivard answered after a little thought. «If that doesn't mean the Avtokrator is going to kill him, I don't know what it does mean.»

«You're right about that,» Roshnani admitted, sounding for all the world like Turan. «The only trouble is, I keep remembering the Videssian board game.»

«What has that got to do with-?» Abivard stopped. While he'd liked that game well enough during the time he had lived in Across, he'd hardly thought of it since leaving Videssian soil. One salient feature-a feature that made the game far more complex and difficult than it would have been otherwise-was that captured pieces could return to the board, fighting under the banner of the player who had taken them.

Abivard had used Tzikas exactly as if he were a board-game piece. For as long as the Videssian renegade had been useful to Makuran after failing to assassinate Maniakes, Abivard had hurled him against the Empire he'd once served. Once Tzikas was no longer useful, Abivard had not only acquiesced in but arranged his capture. But that didn't necessarily mean he was gone for good, only that Videssos had recaptured him.

«You don't suppose,» Abivard said uneasily, «Maniakes would give him a chance to redeem himself, do you? He'd have to be crazy, not just foolish, to take a chance like that.»

«So he would,» Roshnani said. «Which doesn't mean he wouldn't try it if he thought he could put sand in the axles of our wagon.»

«If Tzikas does fight us, he'll fight as if he thinks the Void is a short step behind him-and he'll be right,» Abivard said. «If he's not useful to Maniakes, he's dead.» He rubbed his chin. «I'm still more worried about Sharbaraz.»