Videssos Besieged

XI

Abivard bowed in the saddle to Maniakes. "if the God is kind," the Makuraner marshal said, "the next message you have from me will be that Mashiz has fallen into my hands."

"May it be so," Maniakes said. "Then we shall be equals: two jumped-up generals sitting on the thrones of our lands."

"Yes," Abivard said. "I suppose so." He still had his little nephew with whom to concern himself. Denak's son had a more nearly legitimate claim to the Makuraner throne than he did. Had the boy been Sharbaraz's get by another woman, the answer would have been easy. Disposing of his sister's child, though…

Judging it wiser to shift the subject a bit, Maniakes said, "So you have the men you need out of Vaspurakan?"

"Oh, yes," Abivard answered. "And I have three regiments of Vaspurakaners, all of them eager to cast down Sharbaraz."

"You'll take their help, but you won't take me?" Maniakes jabbed.

"Of course," Abivard said easily. "They are our subjects. If you were a Makuraner subject now, Sharbaraz would be well pleased with me, and I'd have had no need to rebel against him. The Vaspurakaners weren't invading the Land of the Thousand Cities earlier this year, either."

"A point," Maniakes said. "Two points, as a matter of fact. Good luck go with you. Cast down Sharbaraz; give him everything he deserves for all the sorrows he's brought to Videssos and Makuran both. And then, by the good god, let's see how long we can live in peace."

"Long enough to rebuild everything that's been destroyed, here and in Makuran," Abivard said. "That should take a few years, or more than a few-you weren't gentle between the Tutub and the Tib."

"I can't even say I'm sorry," Maniakes said. "The only way I could find to get you out of my land-where you weren't always gentle, either-was to ravage yours."

"I understand," Abivard said. "It worked, too. Maybe, if the God is kind, we'll have got out of the habit of fighting each other once we have everything patched. And the two of us, we know what this war was like, and why we don't want another one."

"Maybe we can even make our sons understand," Maniakes said hopefully. Abivard's nod was tighter and more constrained than the Avtokrator would have liked to see. The hesitation worried him till he remembered that Abivard was still pondering whether to rule as King of Kings or as regent for his nephew.

Maniakes drew the sun-circle, lest his thinking past Abivard's victory prove a bad omen for winning that victory. He rode forward, holding out his hand. The Makuraner marshal clasped it Then Abivard surprised him, saying, "I want you to tell your father something for me."

"What's that?" the Avtokrator said.

"Tell him that if the Khamorth nomads hadn't killed Godarz- my father-I think the two of them would have got on famously together."

"I'll remember." Maniakes promised. "They might even have fought against each other, back when we were small or before we were born."

"That's so." Abivard looked bemused. "They might have. I hadn't thought of it, but you're right. And we certainly have. If the God is kind, our sons won't." He gave what might have been a sketched Videssian salute or might as easily have been a jerky wave, then used his knees and the reins to turn his horse and ride back toward his own army. His guards, who, like Maniakes', had halted out of earshot of their masters, fell in around him.

After watching him for most of a minute, Maniakes turned Antelope in the direction of the Videssian army. He heaved a long sigh as he trotted up to Rhegorios, who had ridden out a little way to meet him.

"It's over," Maniakes said in wondering tones. "It's really over. After all these years, the Makuraners really are leaving the westlands. We're at peace with them-unless Sharbaraz beats Abivard, of course. But even then, the King of Kings would have to think three times before he dared a new war with us. The Kubratoi aren't going to fight us any time soon, either. We're at peace, and we have the whole Empire back."

"Well, don't let it worry you too long," his cousin said. "The Khatrishers may decide to get bold, or the Halogai might gather a fleet together and attack Kalavria, or, for that matter, some people none of us has ever heard of might appear out of nowhere, for no better reason than to cause Videssos trouble."

"You do so relieve my mind," Maniakes said.

Rhegorios laughed. "Happy to please, your Majesty. You were looking so bereft there without anybody to fight, I thought I'd give you someone."

"People appearing out of nowhere? In the middle of the Empire, I presume? No, thank you," Maniakes said with feeling. "If you're going to wish for something absurd, wish for the Halogai to invade Kubrat instead of Kalavria. That would actually do us some good."

"You've won the war," Rhegorios said. "What will you do now?"

"What I'd like to do," Maniakes answered, "is go back to Videssos the city, enjoy my children and the rest of my family for a while, and have the people in the city not throw curses at me when I go out among 'em. Too much to ask for, I suppose."

"Now you're feeling sorry for yourself," Rhegorios said. "I'm not going to let you get away with that. I need to remind you that you just drove the invincible Makuraner army out of the westlands, and you didn't lose a man doing it. Go ahead and blubber after that."

Maniakes chuckled. "There you have me. Only goes to show, I suppose, that forgery beats fighting."

Rhegorios whipped his head around in sudden anxiety, or an excellent simulation thereof. "You'd better not let any Makuraners hear you say that."

"Of course not," Maniakes said. "If Romezan ever finds out all those other names weren't on the order Sharbaraz sent him, the whole civil war over there-" He pointed in the direction of the withdrawing army. "-might still unravel."

"That isn't what I mean," his cousin said. "You were talking like one of the sneaky Videssians they always complain about."

"Oh," the Avtokrator said. "I am a sneaky Videssian, but I don't suppose they have to know about that. They can think of me however they like-as long as they do it from a great distance."

"Do you plan on going back to the capital right away?"

"No." Maniakes shook his head. "Once I'm sure the boiler boys are gone for good-or at least for this campaigning season-I'll send back half, maybe even two thirds, of the army. Until I find out how the fight between Abivard and Sharbaraz goes, though, I'm going to stay in the westlands myself. If you can't stand being away from the fleshpots of the city, I'll send you back with the part of the army I release."

"What, and let you find out who wins the Makuraner civil war a couple of weeks before I do?" Rhegorios exclaimed. "Not likely. Send Immodios. If he's not killing Makuraners himself, he hasn't got the imagination to worry about what happens to 'em."

"All right, I'll do that," Maniakes said with a laugh. "My father and yours will be jealous of both of us, because we'll know when they don't."

"So they will." Rhegorios' eyes twinkled. "And they'll both say it's the first time in the history of the world we ever knew anything they don't already, even for a little while. That's what fathers are for."

"So it is," Maniakes said. "And pretty soon I'll be able to treat my boys the same way. See how life goes on?"

As Rhegorios had predicted, Immodios made not the tiniest protest when Maniakes ordered him to take half the imperial army back toward Videssos the city. The Avtokrator had decided not to give him more than half, on the off chance that he might take whatever he had into rebellion with him. Maniakes trusted him further than anyone not of his own immediate family; but someone inside his own immediate family had conspired against him, so that said little.

And no sooner had Immodios led the detachment back toward Videssos the city than Maniakes wished the army reunited. That, though, had nothing to do with fears about Immodios' loyalty or lack of same. It had to do with news a messenger brought up from the south.

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this, your Majesty," the fellow said, "but the Makuraner garrison in Serrhes hasn't pulled out of the town. They keep insisting they're loyal to Sharbaraz."

"Oh, they do, do they?" Maniakes sounded half-angry, half-resigned. "Well, I suppose I should have expected that would happen somewhere. I wish it hadn't happened at Serrhes, though."

The garrison town's main reason for existing was to plug that stretch of frontier between Makuran and the Empire of Videssos. He and his father had set out from Serrhes along with Abivard and Sharbaraz to return the latter to the Makuraner throne. That seemed a lot longer before than twelve or thirteen years.

"What will you do, your Majesty?" the messenger asked.

"What can I do?" Maniakes returned. "I'll go down to Serrhes and pry the Makuraners out of it." He paused. "How big a Makuraner garrison does the place have in it?"

"About a thousand men, or so I hear," the messenger said.

"I still have four times that many with me," the Avtokrator mused aloud. Having sent Immodios' detachment back toward the capital, he did not want to recall those troops. "Maybe I can get away with just using what I've got."

Intending to fry it, he moved south with his half of the army. They hadn't had to march quickly since they'd left the Land of the Thousand Cities; the journey through the westlands had been a parade. The roads down toward Serrhes weren't good, and had been little traveled during the Makuraner occupation. The Videssians pressed rapidly along them nonetheless.

Before they got to Serrhes, the corrugated central plateau of the westlands began to give way to the scrubby semidesert lying between Videssos' western border and the Tutub River. Back in the long-ago days of his reign, Likinios Avtokrator had complained about almost every expense he ever had to meet. Trying not to meet one, finally, had cost him his throne and his life. So far as Maniakes knew, he'd never complained about keeping Serrhes supplied.

Approaching the town, Maniakes wondered how-or if-the Makuraners had managed that. Had they fed Serrhes off the countryside? The countryside yielded little. A few cattle grazed it, but not enough grew nearby to support more than a few. Over the dry country from the Land of the Thousand Cities? If so, the supply line was either already broken or easily breakable.

Looking at Serrhes' thick walls, looking at the citadel on the high ground in the center of town, Maniakes quickly decided he did not want to try storming the place. He rode forward behind a shield of truce to parley with the garrison commander.

Tegin son of Gamash came to Serrhes' western gate and looked down at the Avtokrator of the Videssians. He was a solidly built man with a gray beard and an impressive nose. "You're wasting your time," he called to Maniakes. "We won't yield to you."

"If you don't, you'll be sorry after I break into Serrhes," Maniakes said, threatening to do what he least wanted to do. "We outnumber you at least six to one. We'll show no mercy." Assuming we're lucky enough to get onto or through those works, he thought. Serrhes had been built with admirable skill to hold the Makuraners at bay. Now it threatened to do the same to the folk who had built it in the first place.

"Come do your worst," Tegin retorted. "We're ready for you."

Maniakes concluded he was not the only one running a noisy bluff. "What do you propose to eat in there?" he demanded.

"Oh, I don't know," Tegin said airily. "We have a deal of this and that. What do you propose to eat out there?"

It was, Maniakes had to admit, a good question. Supplying an army surrounding Serrhes had all the drawbacks of supplying the town itself. He wasn't about to let the Makuraner know he'd scored a hit, though. "We have all the westlands to draw on," he said. "Yours is the last Makuraner garrison hereabouts."

"All the more reason to hold it, then, wouldn't you say?" Tegin sounded as if he was enjoying himself. Maniakes wished he could say the same.

What he did say was, "By staying here, you violate the terms of the truce Abivard made with us."

"Abivard is not King of Kings," Tegin said. "My ruler is Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase."

"All the Makuraners in the westlands have renounced Sharbaraz," Maniakes said.

Tegin shook his head. "Not all of them. This one hasn't, for instance."

"A pestilence," Maniakes muttered under his breath. He should have expected he'd come across a holdout or two. Things could have been worse; Romezan could have stayed resolutely loyal to Sharbaraz. But things could also have been better. The Avtokrator had no intention of letting Serrhes stay in Makuraner hands. He said, "You know Sharbaraz ordered Abivard and most of his generals slain when they failed to take Videssos the city."

"I've heard it said," the garrison commander answered. "I don't know it for a fact."

"I have seen the captured dispatch with my own eyes." Maniakes said. He had also seen the document transformed into one more useful for Videssian purposes, but forbore to mention that, such forbearance also being more useful for Videssian purposes.

Tegin remained difficult. "Majesty, begging your pardon, I don't much care what you've seen and what you haven't seen. You're the enemy. I expect you'd lie to me if you saw any profit in it. Videssians are like that."

Since Maniakes not only would lie but to a certain degree was lying, he changed the subject: "I point out to you once more, excellent sir, that you are at the moment commanding the only Makuraner garrison left in the westlands."

"So you say," Tegin replied, still unimpressed.

"If there are others all around, how have I fought my way past them to come to you?" Maniakes asked.

"If they've all gone over to Abivard, you don't need to have done any fighting," Tegin said.

"That's true, I suppose," Maniakes said. "And what it means is, I can concentrate my entire army-" He did not think Tegin needed to know that Immodios was leading half of it back to Videssos the city. "-against you holdouts in Serrhes." He waved back toward his encampment. It was as big as… an army. He did not think Tegin was in a position to estimate with any accuracy how many men were in it.

And, indeed, the garrison commander wavered for the first time. "I am surrounded by traitors," he complained.

"No, you're surrounded by Videssians," Maniakes answered. "This is part of the Empire, and we are taking it back. You've probably heard stories about what we've done to the walls of the Thousand Cities. Do you think we won't do the same to you?"

He knew perfectly well they couldn't do the same to Serrhes. The walls of the towns between the Tutub and the Tib were made of brick, and not the strongest brick, either. Serrhes was fortified in stone. Breaking in wouldn't be so easy. If Tegin had time to think, he would realize that, too. Best not give him time to think, then.

Maniakes said, "Excellent sir, I don't care how brave you are. Your garrison is small. If we once get in among 'em, I'm afraid I can't answer for the consequences. You'll have made warnings of that sort yourself, I expect; you know how soldiers are."

"Yes, I know how soldiers are," Tegin said somberly. "If I had more men, Majesty. I would beat you. "

"If I had feathers, I'd be a tall rooster," Maniakes replied. "I don't. I'm not. You don't, either. You'd better remember it." He started to turn away, then stopped. "I'll ask you again at this hour tomorrow. If you say yes, you may depart safely, with your weapons, like any other Makuraner soldiers during the truce. But if you say no, excellent sir, I wash my hands of you." He did not give Tegin the last word, but walked off instead.

At his command, Videssian engineers began assembling siege engines from the timbers and ropes and specialized metal fittings they carried in the baggage train, as if they were intending to assault one of the hilltop towns in the Land of the Thousand Cities.

"We'd be able to run up more, your Majesty," Ypsilantes said, "if the countryside had trees we could cut down and use. We can only carry so much lumber."

"Do the best you can with what you have," Maniakes told the chief engineer, who saluted and went back to his work.

From the walls of Serrhes, Makuraner soldiers watched dart-and stone-throwers spring up as if by magic, though Bagdasares had nothing whatever to do with them. They watched the Videssian engineers line up row upon row of jars near the catapults. They no doubt had their own store of incendiary liquid, but could not have been delighted at the prospect of having so much of it rained down on their heads.

Seeing all those jars, Maniakes summoned Ypsilantes again. "I didn't know we were that well supplied with the stuff," he said, pointing.

Ypsilantes coughed modestly. "If you must know, your Majesty, most of those jars used to hold the wine we've served out to the troops when we weren't drawing supplies from a town. They're empty now. We know that. The Makuraners don't."

"Isn't that interesting?" Maniakes said with a grin. "They fooled me, so I expect they'll fool Tegin, too."

Ypsilantes also put ordinary soldiers to work dragging stones into piles. Those were perfectly genuine, though Maniakes wouldn't have put it past the chief engineer to have a few deceptive extras made of-what? stale bread, perhaps-lying around in case he needed them to befuddle an opponent.

A little before the appointed hour the next day, Tegin threw wide the gates of Serrhes. He came out and prostrated himself before Maniakes. "I would have fought you, Majesty. I wanted to fight you," he said. "But when I looked at all the siege gear you have with you, my heart failed me. I knew we could not withstand your army."

"You showed good sense." Maniakes made a point of not glancing toward Ypsilantes. The veteran engineer had served him better in not fighting this siege than he had in fighting a good many others. "As I told you, you may depart in peace."

Out filed the Makuraner garrison. Seeing it, Maniakes started to laugh. He wasn't the only one who'd done a good job of bluffing. If Tegin had even three hundred soldiers in Serrhes, he would have been astonished. He'd thought the garrison commander led three times that many, maybe more. Tegin might have fought an assault, but not for long.

Seriously, respecting the foe who had tricked him, Maniakes said, "If I were you, excellent sir, I'd keep my men out of the fight between Sharbaraz and Abivard. You can declare for whoever wins after he's won. Till then, find some little town or hilltop you can defend and stay there. That will keep you safe."

"Did you find 'some little town or hilltop' during Videssos' civil wars?" Tegin's voice dripped scorn.

But Maniakes answered, "As a matter of fact, yes." Tegin's jaw dropped. The Avtokrator went on, "My father was governor of the island of Kalavria, which is as far east as you can go without sailing out into the sea and never coming back. He sat tight there for six years. He would have thrown himself and his force away if he'd done anything else."

"You and your father took the course you judged wise," Tegin said tonelessly. "You will, I hope, forgive me if I say that this course goes straight against every Makuraner noble's notion of honor."

"Makuraner notions of honor didn't stop you people from kicking Videssos when we were down," Maniakes said.

"Of course not," Tegin replied. "You are only Videssians. But I cannot sit idly by in a fight among my countrymen. The God would judge me a faintheart without the will to choose, and would surely drop my soul into the Void after I die."

"There are times," Maniakes said slowly, "when I have no trouble at all dealing with Makuraners. And there are other times when I think we and you don't speak the same language even if we do use the same words."

"How interesting you should remark on that. Majesty," Tegin said. "I have often had the same feeling when treating with you Videssians. At times, you seem sensible enough. At others-" He rolled his eyes. "You are not to be relied upon." That sounded as if he were passing judgment.

"No, eh?" Maniakes knew his smile was not altogether pleasant. "I suppose that means nothing would stop me from ignoring the truce we agreed to and scooping up your men now that they're out from behind the walls of Serrhes." Tegin looked appalled. Maniakes held up his hand. "Never mind, I think I have honor, whether you do or not."

"Good," Tegin said. "As I told you, sometimes Videssians are sensible folk. I am glad this is one of those times."

At the head of his little army, the garrison commander rode off to the west. He had a jauntiness to him that Maniakes didn't usually associate with Makuraners. Maniakes hoped he wouldn't have to throw his small force into the fight between the King of Kings and his marshal.

Like many other provincial towns, Serrhes centered on a square with the city governor's residence and the chief temple to Phos on opposite sides. Maniakes settled down in the residence and, as he had in so many other towns, began sorting through the arguments left behind after Tegin and his troopers were gone.

Some of those quarrels were impressively complicated. "He cheated me, your Majesty!" one plump merchant exclaimed, pointing a finger at another. "By Phos, he diddled me prime, he did, and now he stands there smooth-faced as a eunuch and denies every word of it."

"Liar," the second merchant said. "They were going to make you a eunuch, but they cut off your brain instead, because it was smaller."

"Ahem, gentlemen," Maniakes said, giving both the benefit of a doubt neither seemed likely to deserve. "Suppose, instead of insulting each other, you tell me what the trouble is."

"Actually," Rhegorios murmured from beside him, "I wouldn't mind hearing them insult each other a while longer. It has to be more interesting than the case, don't you think?"

"Hush," Maniakes said, and then, to the first merchant, "Go ahead. You say this other chap here cheated you. Tell me how." The second merchant started to howl a protest before the first could begin to speak. Maniakes held up a hand. "You keep quiet. I promise, you'll have your turn."

The first merchant said, "I sold this whipworthy wretch three hundred pounds of smoked mutton, and he promised to pay me ten and a half goldpieces for it But when it came time for him to cough up the money, the son of a whore dumped a pile of trashy Makuraner arkets on me and said I could either take 'em or stick 'em up my arse, because they were all I'd ever see from him."

Maniakes' head started to ache. He'd run into cases like this before. With many parts of the westlands in Makuraner hands for more than a decade, it was no wonder that silver coins stamped with the image of the King of Kings were in wide circulation thereabouts. The methodical Makuraners had even made some of the provincial mints turn out copies of their coins rather than those of Videssos.

"May I speak now, your Majesty?" the second merchant asked.

"Go ahead," Maniakes said.

"Thank you," the merchant said. "The first thing I want to tell you is that Broios here can give himself piles when he sneezes, his head is so far up his back passage. By the lord with the great and good mind, your Majesty, you must understand what money of account is. Am I right, or am I right?"

"Oh, yes," Maniakes answered.

"Thank you," the merchant said again. "When I told this chamberpot-sniffing jackal I'd give him ten and a half goldpieces, that was money of account. What else could it be? When was the last time anybody in Serrhes saw real goldpieces? Whoever has 'em, has 'em buried where the boiler boys couldn't find 'em. We all buy and sell with silver these days. We coin our silver at twenty-four to the goldpiece, so if I'd given Broios two hundred and fifty-two pieces of silver-Videssian silver, mind you-for his smoked mutton, that would have been right and proper. You see as much, don't you, your Majesty?"

Maniakes had a good education-for a soldier. He would sooner have given himself over to a torturer than multiplied twenty-four by ten and a half in his head. But, since Broios wasn't hopping up and down like a man who needed to visit the jakes, the Avtokrator supposed the other merchant-whose name he still didn't know- had made the calculation correctly.

"If Vetranios had given me two hundred and fifty-two of our silverpieces, I wouldn't be fussing now," Broios said, thereby giving Maniakes the missing piece.

"I couldn't give you that many of our silver pieces, because I didn't have them, you ugly twit," Vetranios said. "I gave you as many as I had, and paid the rest of the scot in Makuraner arkets- I had plenty of those."

"Of course you did," Broios shouted. "All the time the boiler boys were here, you did nothing but lick their backsides."

"Me? What about you?" Vetranios swung at the other merchant, awkwardly but with great feeling. Broios swung back, with rather greater effect. A couple of Haloga guards grabbed them and pulled them away from each other.

"Gently, gentlemen, gently," Maniakes said. "Did you come before me to fight or to get this dispute settled?" The question was rhetorical, but neither of the merchants quite had the nerve to say he would sooner have fought the other. Maniakes took their silence as acquiescence. "Let us continue, then. You, Vetranios, how many Videssian silver pieces did you pay to Broios here?"

"Forty," Vetranios answered at once. "That was all the Videssian silver I had. I made up the other two hundred and twelve with arkets. They're silver, too."

"You only gave me seventy-seven of them," Broios howled.

"That's how many I was supposed to give you, you boil on the scrotum of stupidity," Vetranios retorted. The Haloga who was holding him let go to clap his hands together to applaud the originality of the insult. The merchant ignored that, saying, "It takes eleven Videssian silver pieces to make four arkets, weight for weight, so I gave you the proper payment; you're just too stupid to see it."

Maniakes would have needed pen and parchment and infinite patience to be sure whether Vetranios had done his calculations right. He decided for the time being that they were when Broios didn't protest. "This was the correct pay, then?" he asked the merchant who claimed he'd been defrauded.

"No, your Majesty," Broios answered. "This would have been the right pay, if this dung beetle who walked like a man hadn't cheated me. All the arkets he gave me were so badly clipped, there wasn't sixty arkets' worth of silver in the seventy-seven."

"Why, you lying sack of moldy tripes!" Vetranios said.

"To the ice with me if I am," Broios said, "and to the ice with you if I'm not." He handed Maniakes a jingling sack of silver. "Judge for yourself, your Majesty. The cursed cheat's clipped the coins, and kept for himself the silver that was round the rim."

Opening the sack, Maniakes examined the silver arkets it held. They were indeed badly clipped, one and all. "May I see those, your Majesty?" Vetranios asked. When Maniakes showed them to him, his face darkened in anger-or, perhaps, in a convincing facsimile thereof; Maniakes could not for the life of him tell which. The merchant said, "These aren't the coins I gave to Broios. I gave him perfectly good silver, by Phos. If anybody clipped them, he did it himself."

Now Broios turned purple, as convincingly as Vetranios had done a moment before. "By the lord with the great and good mind, your Majesty, hear how this sack of manure farts through his mouth." Vetranios tried to punch him again; the Haloga guards kept them apart.

"Each of you says the other is a liar, eh?" Maniakes said. Both merchants nodded vehemently. Maniakes continued, "Each of you says the other clipped these coins, eh?" Both men nodded again. The Avtokrator's face went stern. "Both of you no doubt know mat clipping coins comes under the same law as counterfeiting and carries the same unpleasant penalties. If I have to get all the way to the bottom of this, I fear that one of you will regret it very much."

Both merchants nodded again, as vigorously as before. That surprised Maniakes. He'd expected one of them-he didn't know which-to show some sign of alarm. They had nerve, these two.

He said, "If whichever of you is lying makes a clean breast of it now, I swear by the lord with the great and good mind to make the penalty no greater than a fine of seventeen Makuraner arkets and an oath binding you never to clip coins again on penalty of further punishment."

He waited. Vetranios and Broios both shook their heads. Each glared at the other. Maniakes didn't know whether to be annoyed or intrigued at their stubbornness. He would sooner have had no trouble from the newly reoccupied westlands. That hadn't happened. He hadn't thought it would. Here, at least, was a dispute more interesting than the common sort, where truth was easy to find.

"Very well, gentlemen," he said. "For the time being, I shall keep these arkets, since they are evidence-of what sort remains to be seen-in the case between you. Come back here tomorrow at the start of the eighth hour, after the midday meal. We shall see what my sorcerer makes of this whole strange business."

Before the merchants returned the next day, Rhegorios came up to Maniakes and said, "I've done some of my own investigating in this case, cousin of mine."

"Ah?" Maniakes said. "And what did you find?" "That Broios has a very tasty daughter-not shaped anything like him, Phos be praised." Rhegorios' hands described curves in the air. "Her name's Phosia. I think I'm in love." He let out a sigh. "What you're in, cousin of mine," Maniakes retorted, "is heat. I'll pour a bucket of water on you, and you'll feel better."

"No, wetter," Rhegorios said. He ran his tongue across his lips. "She really is beautiful. If her father weren't a thief… Maybe even if her father is a thief…" Since Rhegorios had made similar noises in almost every town the Videssian army visited, Maniakes took no special notice of these.

Broios and Vetranios returned to the city governor's residence within a couple of minutes of each other at the eighth hour. Maniakes had looked for that; to merchants, punctuality was hardly a lesser god than Phos. What the Avtokrator had not looked for was that each of the men from Serrhes brought his own wizard with him. Broios' champion, a certain Sozomenos, was as portly as his principal, and resembled him enough to be his cousin. Phosteinos, who represented Vetranios' interests, was by contrast thin to the point of emaciation, as if whoever had invented food had forgotten to tell him about it.

Bagdasares looked down his long nose at both of them. "Have you gentlemen-" As Maniakes had with the merchants, he sounded like a man graciously conferring the undeserved benefit of the doubt. "-been involved in this matter from the outset?"

"Of course, we have," Phosteinos said in a thin, rasping voice. "Vetranios hired me to keep Broios from cheating him, and the wretch countered by paying this charlatan here to help him go on bilking my client."

"Why don't you blow away for good?" Sozomenos demanded. Phosteinos responded with a skeletal smile. Sozomenos ignored it, turning to Maniakes and saying, "See how they misrepresent me and my principal both?" He shrugged his plump shoulders, as if to say, What can you do? The Avtokrator was suddenly certain each merchant had spent a great deal more on this case than the seventeen arkets' worth of silver allegedly at issue.

Bagdasares took Maniakes aside and whispered, "Your Majesty, getting to the bottom of this will be harder than we thought. These two bunglers will have muddied the waters till no one can hope to tell where the truth lies and where the lies start."

"Just go ahead," the Avtokrator answered."Make it as impressive as you can." He looked from merchant to merchant. "Makes you wonder if we shouldn't have let the Makuraners keep this place, doesn't it?"

Bagdasares let out a loud sniff, perhaps at the notion of having to associate with wizards who, in Videssos the city, would surely have starved for lack of trade; Phosteinos looked to be on the point of starving anyhow, but Maniakes blamed that on personal asceticism rather than want of business: his robe looked expensive.

"Very well," Bagdasares said, that sniff having failed to make his sorcerous colleagues vanish. "We have to determine two things today: whether the coins Broios presented to his Majesty-" He had them in a bowl. "-are in fact those Vetranios paid to him, and, if so, who was responsible for clipping the aforesaid coins."

"We know that," Broios and Vetranios said in the same breath with the identical intonation. They glared at each other.

"First," Bagdasares went on as if they had not spoken, "we shall use the law of similarity to determine whether Broios is honestly representing these arkets to be the ones he received from Vetranios."

"Now see here," Sozomenos said, "how can we trust you not to have it in for Broios? When the Makuraners were here, by the good god, a little coin in the right places would make magic turn out any way the chap who was paying had in mind."

Bagdasares started to answer. Maniakes cut him off, saying, "I will deal with this." He glowered at the mage. "Do you think either of your clients is important enough in the scheme of things to buy off the Avtokrator of the Videssians and his chief sorcerer?"

Before Sozomenos could say anything, Phosteinos broke in with a loud, startled cackle of laughter. Sozomenos glowered at his thin colleague, then coughed a couple of times. "Put that way, probably not, your Majesty," he said.

"Good. See that you remember it." Maniakes nodded to Bagdasares. "Proceed, eminent sir. These fellows here are welcome to watch you to make sure you do nothing to favor Broios or Vetranios-not that you would-but they are not to interfere with your magic in any way." He gave Phosteinos and Sozomenos a severe look. "Is that understood, sorcerous sirs?"

Neither of the mages from Serrhes said no. Maniakes nodded again to Bagdasares. The Vaspurakaner wizard said, "The first thing I intend to do, as I said a little while ago, is to find out whether Broios presented to his Majesty coins he actually received from Vetranios. Vetranios, if you have an arket in that pouch on your belt, please hand it to Broios. Broios, you will then hand it to me."

"I just might have an arket or two," Vetranios said, chuckling. "Yes, sir, I just might." He opened the pouch and took out a shiny silver coin. "Not clipped at all, you'll note," he remarked as he handed it to Broios.

The other merchant took it from him as if it smelled bad. He handed it to Sozomenos, who in turn passed it to Bagdasares.

Bagdasares looked pained. "We'll do that again, with a new arket," he said, tossing the first one aside. Vetranios' eyes hungrily followed it. So did Broios'. So did those of both local wizards. "No more foolishness," Bagdasares told them. "Anyone who fails to follow my instructions will be deemed to have forfeited his case."

Under Bagdasares' watchful eye, Vetranios got out another arket. This one was also undipped, but he didn't boast about it. He gave it to Broios. Broios gave it to Bagdasares without presuming to let another wizard handle it in between.

"That's better," Bagdasares said Maniakes hid a smile; the mage spoke with the authority of a provincial governor. The Avtokrator was suddenly thoughtful. He would need new governors for the provinces of the westlands-he would need to repair the whole system of provincial administration here, in fact. He could do much worse than Bagdasares.

Muttering to himself, the Vaspurakaner mage dropped Vetranios' arket in among the coins Broios claimed to have received from the other merchant. It clinked sweetly; the Makuraners coined little gold, but their silver was as pure as anything from a Videssian mint. Bagdasares began to chant. Phosteinos and Sozomenos both pricked up their ears. They evidently knew the spell he was using. Maniakes watched as the mage made several swift passes over the coins. Phosteinos nodded what looked like approval of Bagdasares' technical skill.

After one final pass, Bagdasares cried out in a commanding voice. Some of the coins in the bowl began glowing with a soft, bluish radiance. Others remained simply-coins. "Your Majesty," Bagdasares said, "as you may judge for yourself, some of this money has indeed passed from Vetranios to Broios, as we see by the aid of the law of similarity. Some of the coins, however, did not take this route."

"Isn't that interesting?" Maniakes studied Broios, who seemed to be doing his best to disappear while remaining in plain sight. Gloating glee filled Vetranios' chuckle. The Avtokrator turned a mild and speculative eye on the merchant who'd brought the charges against his fellow in the first place. "Well, Broios, what have you got to say for yourself?"

"Y-y-your M-majesty, maybe I–I mixed in a few arkets that weren't from Vetranios by-by mistake." Broios' voice firmed. "Yes, that's it. I must have done it by mistake."

Vetranios walked over to look at the arkets more closely. "Likely tell," he jeered. "You can see that all of these 'mistaken' coins are clipped." He struck a pose so overblown, Maniakes wondered if he'd gotten it from some mime in a Midwinter's Day troupe.

Broios said, "They're not the only ones that are clipped, though, by Phos!" He came up to the bowl and pointed to some of the shining coins. "Look at that arket there, and that one-and that one. That one's cut so bad, you can hardly see the King of Kings' face at all. They were like that when I got 'em, too."

"Liar!" Vetranios shouted. He turned to Maniakes. "You hear with your own ears, you see with your own eyes, what a liar he is. I don't think there's any bigger liar in the whole Empire than Broios."

"Liar yourself," Broios retorted. "You have your wizard here, your Majesty. He can show you who stuck the silver from the rims of these arkets into his pouch."

"Yes, why don't you go ahead and show me that, Bagdasares?" Maniakes said. "I confess, by now I'm curious. And nothing about this case would surprise me any more, except perhaps finding an honest man anywhere in it."

Phosteinos stirred. "Your Majesty, I resent the imputation. You have proved nothing illicit about my actions."

"That's true," Maniakes admitted, and the scrawny wizard Preened. Then the Avtokrator brought him down to earth: "I haven't proved anything yet." That got a laugh from Sozomenos, a laugh that cut off very sharply when Maniakes glanced over at the sorcerer who'd been helping Broios.

At a nod from Maniakes, Bagdasares handed Vetranios a small sharp knife and said, "I presume you have in your pouch yet another undipped arket." Most unhappily, the merchant nodded. "Excellent," Bagdasares declared. "Be so good as to trim the silver from the edges, then, that we may have a comparison against which to set these arkets in the bowl."

Vetranios looked as if he would sooner have stuck the knife into Bagdasares. He shot Phosteinos a hunted glance. Almost imperceptibly, the emaciated mage shook his head: he could do nothing- or, more likely, nothing Bagdasares wouldn't detect. Vetranios deflated like a popped pig's bladder. "Never mind," he mumbled. "You don't need to go through the rigmarole. I clipped some of those arkets-just like every other merchant around." Now he might have wanted to stab Broios.

Broios took no notice of his hate-filled glare. "Who's the biggest liar in the Empire now!" he said, for all the world like one small boy scoring a point against another.

"You're both wrong," Maniakes said "Neither one of you knows the biggest liar in the Empire. His name is Tzikas."

Broios pointed at Vetranios. "He knows this Tzikas. I've heard him talk about the fellow, plenty of times."

Suddenly, everyone in the room was staring at Vetranios. "So you know Tzikas, do you?" Maniakes said in a soft voice. "Tell me about Tzikas, Vetranios. When did you see him last, for starters?" Vetranios knew something was wrong, but not what, nor how much. Serrhes was far from Videssos the city, and had been in Makuraner hands since the earliest days of Genesios' disastrous reign. The merchant answered, "Why, it must have been about three weeks before you came, your Majesty. He's been through the town now and again, these past few years. I've sold him this and that, and we've drunk wine together every now and then. That's about the size of it, I'd say."

Maniakes studied not him but Broios. If Vetranios' enemy accepted that tale, it was likely to be true. If, on the other hand, Broios found more to say… But Broios did not find more to say. Maniakes didn't know whether to be glad or disappointed. "I can understand why you wouldn't like having a Videssian working for the boiler boys," Vetranios said, sympathy oozing from him like sticky sap from a cut spruce. "He's not the only one, though."

"He's the only one who's tried to overthrow me," Maniakes said. "He's the only one who's tried to murder me. He's the only one who's betrayed both sides in this war more tunes than I can count. He's the only one who's-" He made a disgusted gesture. "Why go on?"

Broios and Vetranios were both staring at him. He could see exactly what was going on behind Broios' eyes as the merchant realized he should have done a more thorough job of slandering Vetranios. He could also see Broios realizing that now was too late, and growing furious at his own lapse.

"Why did Tzikas come here?" Maniakes asked Vetranios.

"I don't know for certain," the merchant answered. "He spent a lot of time closeted with Tegin, I know that much. It had something to do with the squabbles the Makuraners are having, didn't it? They both favored Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase." He spoke the honorific formula without noticing he'd done so. Serrhes had been in Makuraner hands a long time.

Letting that ride, Maniakes said, "So you know about whom Tzikas favored, do you?" Vetranios gave a tiny nod, as if expecting hot pincers and thumbscrews to follow upon the admission. Maniakes asked the next question: "What exactly did he say to you when the two of you talked?"

"Let's see." Vetranios was ready to cooperate freely, if for no better reason than to keep himself from having to cooperate any other way. "He bought ten pounds of the smoked mutton I had of this wretch here." He pointed to Broios. "Then he said something about how hard life had been lately, and how nobody appreciated his true worth. I told him I did. For some reason, he thought that was funny."

Maniakes thought it was funny, though he didn't say so. If a cheat of a merchant was the only one who appreciated Tzikas, what did that say about the overversatile Videssian officer? Idly, the Avtokrator asked, "When you sold him the ten pounds of mutton, how badly did you bilk him?"

"Not a barleycorn's worth," Vetranios answered, wide-eyed. "He killed a man here who gave him short weight last year."

"I remember that!" Broios exclaimed: such a calamity had obviously created a lasting impression on the merchants of Serrhes. "I didn't know the name of the fellow who did it."

Thoughtfully, Bagdasares said, "Ten pounds of smoked mutton? That's traveler's food, something somebody would want if he was going on a long journey."

"So it is." Maniakes was thoughtful, too. "The timing strikes me odd, though. You're sure he was here only three weeks before I came to Serrhes, Vetranios? It wasn't longer ago than that?"

"By the lord with the great and good mind I swear it, your Majesty." To emphasize his words, Vetranios sketched Phos' sun-circle over his heart.

"I wish you'd said longer." Maniakes wondered if Vetranios, like a lot of merchants, would change his story to suit his customer better. But the plump trader shook his head and drew the sun-sign again. Maniakes drummed the fingers of one hand on a tabletop. "It doesn't fit. He wouldn't have dawdled here in the westlands so long, not if he was all hotfoot to warn Sharbaraz. Phos, he could have gone to Mashiz and come back here in that time. But why on earth would he do that?"

It was a rhetorical question. He hoped Bagdasares, one of the mages from Serrhes, or one of the merchants would answer it nonetheless. No one did. Instead, Bagdasares added more questions of his own: "And if he did do it, what need would he have for smoked mutton? He could have stayed here with Tegin and gone west with the Makuraner garrison. We'd be none the wiser."

"I didn't see him here after he bought the mutton from me," Vetranios said. "If he'd stayed with the garrison, I might not have seen him, but I think I would."

Phosteinos coughed to draw attention to himself and then said, "I also know this man somewhat. I agree with my principal in this matter: the visit to Serrhes was but a brief one."

Maniakes' glance toward the local wizard was anything but mil" and friendly. "You know Tzikas, eh?" he asked. Phosteinos nodded. The Avtokrator interrogated him as he had with Vetranios: "Did you ever perform any magical service for him?" Phosteinos nodded again. Maniakes pounced: "And what sort of service was that, sirrah?"

"Why, to use the laws of similarity and contagion to help him find one of a pair of fancy spurs early this year, your Majesty," Phosteinos answered.

"Nothing else?" Maniakes' voice was cold.

"Why, no," Phosteinos said. "I don't understand why-"

"Because when the son of a whore tried to murder me, he did it with a wizard's help," the Avtokrator interrupted. Phosteinos' eyes went big in his pinched face. Maniakes pressed on: "Now, are you sure this was the only sorcerous service he ever had of you?"

Phosteinos was as eager to swear by Phos as Vetranios had been. Maniakes reckoned both those oaths as being worth only so much: a man might easily prefer risking Skotos' ice in the world to come to the Avtokrator's wrath in the world that was here. But then Sozomenos spoke up: "May it please your Majesty, I have no great love for my scrawny colleague here, but in all our years of acquaintance I have never known him to work magic to harm a man's health, let alone seek his death."

To Bagdasares, Maniakes said, "I'd sooner have your word on that than the word of someone I don't know if I can trust."

Sozomenos looked affronted. Maniakes didn't care. Bagdasares looked troubled. That worried the Avtokrator. Bagdasares said, "Judging a wizard's truthfulness by sorcerous means is different from gauging that of an ordinary man. Mages have too many subtle ways to confuse the results of such examinations."

"I was afraid you were going to say something like that," Maniakes said unhappily. He studied Phosteinos and Sozomenos. Both of them fairly radiated candor; had they been lamps, he would have had to shield his eyes against their glow. What Bagdasares told him meant he would have to gauge whether they were telling the truth by his usual, mundane complement of senses-either that or try to drag truth out of them by torture. He wasn't fond of torture; under the lash or more ingenious means of interrogation, people were too apt to say whatever they thought likeliest to make the pain stop.

Reluctantly, he decided he believed the two sorcerers from Serrhes. That left one last thing to do. Turning to Broios and Vetranios, he said, "And now to deal with the two of you."

Both merchants started. Both, Maniakes guessed, had hoped he'd forgotten about them. "What-what will you do with us, your Majesty?" Broios asked, his voice trembling.

"I don't know which of you is worse," Maniakes said. "You're both liars and cheats." He stroked his beard while he thought, then suddenly smiled. Broios and Vetranios quailed under that smile. Maniakes took an ignoble but very real pleasure in passing sentence: "First, you are fined fifty goldpieces each-or their weight in perfect silver-for tampering with the currency. The money is due tomorrow. And second, both of you shall be sent out to the center of the square here between the city governor's residence and Phos' holy temple. There in the square, a Haloga will give each of you a sturdy kick in the arse. If you can't get honesty through your heads, maybe we can send it up from the other direction."

"But, your Majesty, publicly humiliating us will make us laughing-stocks in the city," Vetranios protested. "Good," Maniakes said. "Don't you think you deserve to be?" Neither merchant answered that. If they agreed, they humiliated themselves. If they disagreed, they contradicted the Avtokrator of the Videssians. Given those choices, silence was better.

Maniakes escorted them out of the room where Bagdasares had performed his sorcery. When he told the guardsmen outside about the sentence, they shouted approval and almost came to blows in their eagerness to be the two who would deliver the kicks.

The Avtokrator came back into the chamber. He found Bagdasares talking shop with Phosteinos and Sozomenos. That convinced him the wizards shared his view of the two merchants from Serrhes. To those two, he said, "I presume you were doing nothing to threaten me. Because of that, you may go."

They thanked him and left in a hurry, giving him no chance to change his mind. "What was Tzikas doing here so recently?" Bagdasares asked again as soon as they were out of earshot.

"To the ice with me if I know," Maniakes answered. "It makes no more sense to me now than it did when we first found out about it." He scowled at Bagdasares even more fiercely than he had at Vetranios and Broios. "But I'm sure of one thing." "What's that?" Bagdasares asked. "It makes sense to Tzikas."

For as long as Maniakes stayed in Serrhes, he heard no more from his squabbling merchants. That suited him fine; it meant they were on their best behavior. The other alternative was that it meant they were cheating so well, no one was catching them and complaining. Maniakes supposed that was possible, but he didn't believe it: neither Broios nor Vetranios was likely to be that good a thief.

Rhegorios did keep sighing over Phosia. Maniakes kept threatening him with cold water. After a while, his cousin fell silent.

As long as Abivard had stayed in the Videssian westlands, he'd sent streams of messengers to Maniakes. Once he crossed back into territory long Makuraner, though, the stream shrank to a trickle. Maniakes worried that something had gone wrong.

"What's likely wrong," Rhegorios said, one day when the Avtokrator had been fretting more than usual, "is that Tegin has got between us and Abivard. The little garrison force couldn't do anything much against Abivard, mind you, but it's big enough to pick off a courier or two."

"You're right about that, of course," Maniakes said. "And you're probably right that that's what's causing the trouble. I should have thought of it for myself." Thinking of everything was part of what went with the Avtokrator's job. That it was impossible didn't make it any less necessary. Every time Maniakes missed a point, he felt bad for days.

He cheered up when a rider did come from out of the west. The fellow wore the full panoply of a Makuraner boiler boy; either he'd worried about running into Tegin's men or about running into Maniakes'. His armor clattered about him as he prostrated himself before the Avtokrator of the Videssians.

"Majesty," he said, rising with noisy grace, "know that the forces led by Abivard the new sun of Makuran have encountered those foolishly loyal to Sharbaraz Pimp of Pimps in the Land of the Thousand Cities. Know further that Abivard's forces have the victory."

"Good news!" Maniakes exclaimed. "I'm always glad to hear good news."

The messenger nodded. His chain-mail veil rattled. Above that veil, all Maniakes could see of the man himself were his eyes. They snapped with excitement. "We have Sharbaraz on the run now, Majesty," he said. "A good part of his army came over to ours, which made him flee back to Mashiz."

"That's better than good news," Maniakes said. "Press hard and he's yours. Once his forces start crumbling, they'll go like mud brick in the rain."

"Even so, or so we hope," the messenger said. "When I was detached to come east to you, the field force was making ready to follow Sharbaraz's fugitives to the capital."

"Press hard," Maniakes repeated. "If you don't, you give Sharbaraz a chance to recover." From behind the messenger's veil came an unmistakable chuckle. "What's funny?" the Avtokrator asked. "Majesty, you speak my language well," the messenger answered. Maniakes knew he was politely stretching a point, but let him do it. The fellow went on, "No one, though, would ever take you for a Makuraner, not by the way you say the name of the man Abivard will overthrow."

Maniakes proved his command of the Makuraner tongue left something to be desired by needing a moment to sort through that and figure out what the messenger meant. "Did I say Sarbaraz again?" he demanded, and the man nodded. Maniakes snapped his fingers in chagrin. "Oh, a pestilence! I've spent a lot of time learning how to pronounce that strange sound you use. His name is… is… Sarbaraz." He started to raise a hand in triumph, then realized he'd failed again. Really angry now, he concentrated hard. "Sar… Sar… Sharbaraz! There."

"Well done!" the messenger said. "Most of you hissing, squeaking Videssians never do manage to get that one right, try as you will."

"You can tell a Makuraner by the way he speaks Videssian, too," Maniakes said, to which the messenger nodded. Maniakes went on, "You haven't-or Abivard hasn't-by any chance got word of where Tzikas is lurking these days?"

"The traitor? No, indeed, Majesty. I wish I did know, though I'd tell Abivard before I told you. He's offering a good-sized reward for word of him and a bigger one for his head." "So am I," Maniakes said.

"Are you?" The Makuraner's eyes widened. "How much?" His people claimed to scorn Videssians as a race of merchants and shopkeepers. Maniakes' experience was that the men of Makuran were no more immune to the lure of gold and silver than anyone else. And when Maniakes told him how much he might earn for finding Tzikas, he whistled softly. "If I hear anything, I'll tell you and not Abivard."

"Tell whichever of us has the best chance of catching the renegade," Maniakes said. "If he is caught thanks to you, get word to me and I'll make good the difference between Abivard's reward and mine, I promise. Tell all your friends, too, and tell them to tell their friends."

"I'll do that," the messenger promised.

"Good," Maniakes said. "If I had to guess, I'd say he's somewhere not far from here, but I know that could be wildly wrong." He explained what he'd learned from Vetranios and Phosteinos.

"He is more likely to be here than he is in the Land of the Thousand Cities or in Mashiz, I think," the messenger said. "Here, at least, he can open his mouth without betraying himself every time he does it."

"When Tzikas opens his mouth, he betrays other people, not himself," Maniakes said, which made the messenger laugh. "You think I'm joking," the Avtokrator told him. He was, but only to a degree. And the Makuraner's comments made him thoughtful. If Tzikas wanted to disappear in the westlands, he could. Maniakes had found it impossible to imagine a Tzikas who wanted to disappear. He admitted to himself he might have been wrong.

He gave the messenger a goldpiece, warned him about Tegin's small force of men still loyal to Sharbaraz, and sent him back to Abivard with congratulations. That done, he went outside the city governor's residence instead of getting on to the next order of business in Serrhes.

Everything looked normal. A few peasants from the surrounding countryside were selling sheep and pigs and ducks. Some other peasants, having made their sales, were buying pots and hatchets and other things they couldn't get on their farms. One of them was showing a harlot some money. The two went off together. If the peasant's wife ever found out about that, Maniakes could think of at least one thing the fellow wasn't likely to get on the farm.

So many people: tall, short, bald, hairy, young, old. And, if Tzikas had decided to disappear instead of trying to get his revenge, he might have been about one out of three of the men. The thought was disquieting, freighted as it was with a heavy burden of anticlimax.

Maniakes had needed to hold off the Kubratoi and Makuraners. He'd done that. He'd needed to find a way to get the Makuraners out of the westlands. Thanks to some unwitting help from Sharbaraz, he'd done that, too. And now, either Abivard would beat Sharbaraz or the other way round in the Makuraner civil war he'd helped create. Whichever happened, he'd know, and handle what came next accordingly.

Sharp, decisive answers-like anyone, he was fond of those. He already had ambiguity in his life: he'd never found out, and doubted he ever would find out, what had happened to his brother Tatoules. He knew what was most likely to have happened to him, but that wasn't the same.

Getting rid of Tzikas would be a sharp, decisive answer. Even knowing what had happened to Tzikas, regardless of whether he'd had anything to do with it, would be a sharp, decisive answer. Never learning for certain whether Tzikas was alive or dead, or where he was or what he was doing if he was alive… Maniakes didn't care for that notion at all.

He understood only too well how dangerous ambiguity could be when connected to Tzikas. He might be riding down a street in Videssos the city ten years from now, having seen or heard nothing of the renegade in all that time, having nearly forgotten him, only to be pierced by an arrow from a patient enemy who had not forgotten him. Or he might spend those ten years worrying about Tzikas every day when the wretch was long since dead.

"No way to know," he muttered. A writer of romances would not have approved. Everything in romances always came out neat and tidy. Avtokrators in romances were never foolish-unless they were wicked rulers being overthrown by someone who would do the job right. Maniakes snorted. He'd done exactly that, but, somehow, it hadn't kept him from remaining a human being.

"No matter how much I want the son of a whore dead, I may never live to see it." That was another matter, and made him as discontented as the first. If Tzikas chose obscurity, he could cheat the headsman. Would obscurity be punishment enough? It might have to be, no matter how little Maniakes cared for the notion.

He kicked at the dirt, angry at himself and Tzikas both. This should have been the greatest triumph of his career, the greatest triumph any Avtokrator had enjoyed since the civil wars the Empire had suffered a century and a half before cost it most of its eastern provinces. Instead of being able to enjoy the triumph, he was still spending far too much of his time and energy fretting over the loose end Tzikas had become.

He knew one certain cure for that. As fast as he could, he went back to the city governor's residence. "The Empress, your Majesty?" a servant said. "I believe she's upstairs in the sewing room."

Lysia wasn't sewing when Maniakes got up there. She and some of the serving women of the household were spinning flax into thread and, by the laughter that came from the sewing room as Maniakes walked down the hall toward it, using the work as an excuse for chat and gossip.

"Is something wrong?" Lysia asked when she saw him. She set the spindle down on the projecting shelf of her belly. The serving women exclaimed in alarm: he wasn't supposed to be there at this time of day.

"No," he answered, which was on the whole true, his worries notwithstanding. He amplified that: "And even if it were, I know how to make it better."

He walked over to her and helped her rise from the stool on which she sat: the baby wouldn't wait much longer. Then, standing slightly to one side of her so he wouldn't have to lean so far over that great belly, he did a careful and thorough job of kissing her.

A couple of the serving women giggled. Several more murmured back and forth to one another. He noticed all that only distantly. Some men, he'd heard, lost desire for their wives when those wives were great with child. Some of the serving women had made eyes at him, wondering if he felt like-and perhaps trying to provoke him into feeling like-amusing himself elsewhere while Lysia neared the end of her pregnancy. He'd noticed-he'd never lost his eye for pretty women-but he hadn't done anything about it.

"Well!" Lysia said when the kiss finally ended. She rubbed at her upper lip, where his mustache must have tickled her. "What was that in aid of?"

"Because I felt like doing it," Maniakes answered. "I've seen how many layers the bureaucracy in the Empire has, but I've never yet seen anything that says I have to submit a requisition before I draw a kiss from my wife."

"I wouldn't be surprised if there was such a form," Lysia answered, "but you can probably get away without using it even if there is. Being Avtokrator has to count for something, don't you think?"

If that wasn't a hint, it would do till a real one came along. Maniakes kissed her again, even more thoroughly than he had before. He was so involved in what he was doing, in fact, that he was taken by surprise when he looked up at the end of the kiss and discovered the serving women had left the room. "Where did they go?" he said foolishly.

"It doesn't matter," Lysia said, "as long as they're gone." This time, she kissed him.

A little later, they went back to their bedchamber. With her so very pregnant, making love was an awkward business. When they joined, she lay on her right side facing away from him. Not only was that a position in which she was more comfortable than most others, it was also one of the relatively few where they could join without her belly getting in the way.

The baby inside her kicked as enthusiastically then as at any other time, and managed to be distracting enough to keep her from enjoying things as much as she might have done. "Don't worry about it," she told Maniakes afterward. "This happened before, remember?"

"I wasn't worried, not really," he said, and set his hand on the smooth curve of her hip. "We'll have to make up for things after the baby's born, that's all. We've done that before, too."

"Yes, I know," Lysia answered. "That's probably why I keep getting pregnant so fast."

"I've heard the one does have something to do with the other, yes," Maniakes said solemnly. Lysia snorted and poked him in the ribs. They both laughed. He didn't think about Tzikas at all. Better yet, he didn't notice he wasn't thinking about Tzikas at all.