«Who comes?» called a sentry from above the gates. Oh, he knew, but the forms had to be observed.
«Abivard son of Godarz, returned to Mashiz from Videssos and Vaspurakan at the order of Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase.»
«Enter, Abivard son of Godarz, obedient to the command of Sharbaraz King of Kings,» the sentry said. He called to the gate crew. With squeaks from hinges that needed oiling, the gates swung open. Abivard entered the palace.
Almost at once an army of servitors swarmed upon and overwhelmed his little army of warriors. Stablemen and grooms vanquished the riders. They waited impatiently for the cavalrymen to dismount so they could lead the horses off to the stables. Their armored riders accompanied them, reduced to near impotence by having to use their own legs to move from one place to another.
Higher-ranking servants saw to Abivard and Roshnani. A plump eunuch said, «If you will please to come with me, brother-in-law to the King of Kings, yes, with your excellent family, of course. Oh, yes,» he went on, answering a question Abivard had been on the point of asking, «your conveyance and your driver will be attended to: you have the word of Sekandar upon it.» He preened slightly so they would know he was Sekandar.
«How soon will we be able to see the King of Kings?» Abivard asked as the chamberlain led them into the palace itself.
«That is for the puissant Sharbaraz, may his years be many and his realm increase, to judge,» Sekandar answered.
Abivard nodded and kept on following the eunuch but worried down where—he hoped—it did not show. If the King of Kings seldom left the palace and listened to the advice of Sekandar and others like him, how could he have any notion of what was true? Once, Sharbaraz had been a fighting man who led fighting men and took pleasure in their company. Now… Would he even acknowledge who Abivard was?
The apartment in which the eunuch installed Abivard and his family was luxurious past anything he had known in Videssos, and it was luxury of a familiar sort, not the icons and hard furniture of the Empire. Carpets into which his feet sank deep lay on the floor; thick, fat cushions were scattered in the corners of the rooms to support one's back while sitting. They had other uses, too; Varaz grabbed one and clouted Shahin with it. Shahin picked up his own, using it first for defense, then for offense.
«They're used to chairs,» Abivard said. «They won't know how comfortable this can be till they try it for a while.»
Roshnani was speaking to her sons in standard tones of exasperation. «Try not to tear the palace down around our ears quite yet, if you please.» She seamlessly made a shift in subject to reply to her husband: «No, they won't.» As if making a shameful confession, she added, «Nor will I, as a matter of fact. I got to like chairs a good deal. My knee clicks and my back crackles whenever I have to get up from the floor.»
«So Videssos corrupted you, too?» Abivard asked, not quite joking.
«Life in the Empire could be very pleasant,» his wife answered as if defying him to deny it. «Our food is better, but they do more with the rest of life than we do.»
«Hmm,» Abivard said. «My backside starts turning to stone if I sit in a chair too long. I don't know; I think their towns are madhouses myself, far worse than Mashiz or any of the Thousand Cities. They're too fast, too busy, too set on getting ahead even if they have to cheat to do it. Those are all the complaints we've had about Videssians for hundreds of years, and if you ask me, they're all true.»
Roshnani didn't seem to feel like arguing the point. She looked at the chambers in which the palace servitors had established them. «We are going nowhere, fast or slow; the God knows we shan't be busy, and the only way we can get ahead is if the King of Kings should will it.»
«As is true of anyone in Makuran,» Abivard said loudly for the benefit of anyone in Makuran who might be listening. Without seeming to, though, his wife had not only won the argument but pointed out that, palace though this might be for Sharbaraz, for Abivard and his kin it was a prison.
Winter dragged on, one storm following another till it looked as if the world would stay cold and icy forever. With each passing day Abivard came more and more to realize how right Roshnani had been.
He and his family saw only the servants who brought them food, hot water for bathing, and clothes once they had been laundered. He tried to bribe them to carry a note to Turan, the commander of the guard company that had escorted him to Mashiz. They took his money, but he never heard back from the officer. Their apologies sounded sincere but not sincere enough for him to believe them.
But having nothing better to do with his time and no better place to spend his money, he eventually tried getting a note to Denak. His sister never wrote back, either, at least not with a letter that reached his hands. He wondered whether his note or hers had disappeared. His, he suspected. If she knew what Sharbaraz was doing to him, she would make the King of Kings change his ways.
If she could– «Does she still have the influence she did in the early days of her marriage?» Roshnani asked after the Void had swallowed Abivard's letter. «Sharbaraz will have seen—not to put too fine a point on it, will have had—a lot of women in the years between.»
«I know,» Abivard said glumly. «As I knew him—» The past tense hurt but was true. «—as I knew him, I say, he always acknowledged his debts. But after a while any man could grow resentful, I suppose.»
Varaz said, «Why not petition the King of Kings yourself, Father? Any man of Makuran has the right to be heard.»
So, no doubt, his pedagogue had taught him. «What you learned and what is real aren't always the same thing, worse luck,» Abivard answered. «The King of Kings is angry at me. That's why he would not hear my petition.»
«Oh,» Varaz said. «You mean me way Shahin won't listen to me after we've had a fight?»
«You're the one who won't listen to me,» Shahin put in. Having the advantage in age, Varaz took the lofty privilege of ignoring his younger brother. «Is that what you mean, Papa?» he asked.
«Yes, pretty much,» Abivard answered. When you got down to it, the way Sharbaraz was treating him was childish. The idea of the all-powerful King of Kings in the guise of a bad-tempered small boy made him smile. Again, though, he fought shy of mentioning it out loud. You never could tell whose ear might be pressed to a small hole behind one of the tapestries hanging on the wall. If the King of Kings was angry at him, there was no point making things worse by speaking plain and simple truths in the hearing of his servants.
«I don't like this place,» Zarmidukh declared. She was too young to worry about what other people thought when she spoke her mind. She said what she thought, whatever that happened to be. «It's boring.»
«It's not the most exciting place I've ever been,» Abivard said, «but there are worse things than being bored.»
«I don't know of any,» Zarmidukh said darkly. «You're lucky,» Abivard told her. «I do.»
Someone rapped on the door. Abivard looked at Roshnani. It wasn't any of the times the palace servitors usually made an appearance. The knock came again, imperiously—or perhaps he was reading too much into it. «Who can it be?» he said.
With her usual practicality Roshnani answered, «The only way to find out is to open the door.»
«Thank you so much for your help,» he said. She made a face at him. He got up and went over to the door, his feet sinking deep into the thick carpet as he walked. He took hold of the handle and pulled the door open.
A eunuch with hard, suspicious eyes in a face of almost unearthly beauty looked him up and down as if to say he'd taken much too long getting there. «You are Abivard son of Godarz?» The voice was unearthly, too: very pure and clear but not in a register commonly used by either men or women. When Abivard admitted who he was, the eunuch said, «You will come with me at once,» and started down the halls without waiting to see if he followed.
The guards who stood to either side of the doorway did not acknowledge his passing. Not even their eyes shifted as he walk
ed by. Roshnani closed the door. Had she come after him unbidden, the guards would not have seemed as if they were carved from stone.
He did not ask the eunuch where they were going. He didn't think the fellow would tell him and declined to give him the pleasure of refusing. They walked in silence through close to half a farsang's worth of corridors. At last the eunuch stopped. «Go through this doorway,» he said imperiously. «I await you here.»
«Have a pleasant wait,» Abivard said, earning a fresh glare. Pretending he didn't notice it, he opened the door and went in.
«Welcome to Mashiz, brother of mine,» Denak said. She nodded when Abivard closed the door after himself. «That is wise. The fewer people who hear what we say, the better.» Abivard pointed to the maidservant who sat against the wall, idly painting her nails one by one from a pot of red dye and examining them with attention more careful than that she seemed to be giving Denak. «And yet you brought another pair of ears here?» he asked.
Denak assumed an exasperated expression, which brought lines to her face. Abivard hadn't seen much of her after Sharbaraz had taken Mashiz. He knew he'd aged in the intervening decade, but realizing that his sister had also aged came hard. She said, «I am principal wife to the King of Kings. It would be most unseemly for any man to see me alone. Most unseemly.»
«By the God, I'm your brother!» Abivard said angrily.
«And that is how I managed to arrange to see you at all,» Denak answered. «I think it will be all right, or not too bad. Ksorane is about as likely to tell me what Sharbaraz says as the other way around, or so I've found. Isn't that right, dear?» She waved to the girl.
«How could the principal wife to Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, be wrong?» Ksorane said. She put another layer of paint on the middle finger of her left hand.
Denak's laugh was as sour as vinegar. «Easily enough, by the God. I've found that out many a time and oft.» If she'd said one word more, Abivard would have bet any amount any man cared to name that the maidservant, trusted or not, would have taken her remark straight to Sharbaraz. Even as things were, he worried. But Denak seemed oblivious, continuing, «As you have now found for yourself—is it not so, brother of mine?»
In spite of Denak's assurances, Abivard found it hard to speak his mind before someone he did not know. Cautiously, he answered, «Sometimes a man far from the field of action does not have everything he needs to judge whether his best interests are being followed.»
Denak laughed again, a little less edgily this time. «You shouldn't be a general, brother of mine; the King of Kings should send you to Videssos the city as ambassador. You'd win from Maniakes with your honeyed words everything our armies haven't managed to take.»
«I've spoken with Maniakes, when he came close to Across in one of the Videssians' cursed dromons,» Abivard said. «I wish the God would drop all of those into the Void. We found no agreement. Nor, it seems, does Sharbaraz King of Kings find agreement with what I did in Vaspurakan. I wish he would summon me and say as much himself, so I might answer.»
«People don't get everything they wish,» Denak answered. «I know all about that, too.» Her hopeless anger tore at Abivard. But then she went on, «This once, though, I got at least part of what I want. When the King of Kings heard you'd ignored his orders about Vaspurakan, he didn't only want to take your head from your shoulders—he wanted to give you over to the torturers.»
As Abivard had learned after he had taken the Videssian westlands for Sharbaraz, the parents and nursemaids of the Empire used the ferocious talents of Makuraner torturers to frighten naughty children into obeying. He bowed very low. «Sister of mine, I am in your debt. My children are young to be fatherless. I should not complain about being unable to see the King of Kings.»
«Of course you should,» Denak said. «After him, you are the most powerful man in Makuran. He has no business to treat you so, no right—»
«He has the right: he is the King of Kings,» Abivard said. «After the King of Kings, no man in Makuran is powerful. I was the most powerful Makuraner outside Makuran, perhaps.» Now his grin came wry. «Once back within it, though… he may do with me as he will.»
«In your mind you have no power next to Sharbaraz,» Denak answered. «Every day courtiers whisper into his ear that you have too much. I can go only so far in making him not listen. He might pay me more heed if—»
If I had a son. Abivard filled in the words his sister would not say. Sharbaraz had several sons by lesser wives, but Denak had given him only girls. If she had a boy, he would become the heir, for she remained Sharbaraz' principal wife. But what were the odds of that? Did he still call her to his bed? Abivard could not ask, but his sister did not sound as if she expected to bear more children.
As if picking that thought from his mind, Denak said, «He treats me with all due honor. As he promised, I am not mewed up in the women's quarters like a hawk dozing with a hood over its eyes. He does remember—everything. But honor alone is not enough for a man and a wife.»
She did speak as if Ksorane weren't there. At last Abivard imitated her, saying, «If Sharbaraz remembers all you did for him—and if he does, I credit him—why, by the God, doesn't he remember what I've done and trust my judgment?»
«I'd think that would be easy for you to see,» Denak told him. «Come what may, I can't steal the throne from him. You can.»
«I helped put him on the throne,» Abivard protested indignantly. «I risked everything I had—I risked everything Vek Rud domain had—to put him on the throne. I don't want it. Till you spoke of it just now, the idea that I would want it never once entered my mind. If it entered his—»
He started to say, He's mad. He didn't, and fear of the maidservant's taking his words to Sharbaraz wasn't what stopped him. For the King of Kings was not mad to fear usurpation. After all, he'd been usurped once already.
«He's wrong.» That was better. Abivard reminded himself that he was speaking with Sharbaraz' wife as well as his own sister. But Denak was his sister, and how much he'd missed her over the years suddenly rose up in him like a choking cloud. «You know me, sister of mine. You know I would never do such a thing.»
Her face crumpled. Tears made her eyes bright. «I knew you,» she said. «I know the brother I knew would be loyal to the rightful King of Kings through… anything.» She held her hands wide apart to show how all-encompassing anything was. But then she went on. «I knew you. It's been so long… Time changes people, brother of mine. I know that, too. I should.»
«It's been so long,» Abivard echoed sadly. «I can't make Sharbaraz' years many; only the God grants years. But since the days of Razmara the Magnificent, who has increased the realm of the King of Kings more than I?»
«No one.» Denak's voice was sad. One of the tears ran down her cheek. «And don't you see, brother of mine, every victory you won, every city you brought under the lion of Makuran, gave him one more reason to distrust you.»
Abivard hadn't seen that, not with such brutal clarity. But it was clear enough—all too clear—when Denak pointed it out to him. He chewed on the inside of his lower lip. «And when I disobeyed him in Vaspurakan—»
Denak nodded. «Now you understand. When you disobeyed him, he thought it the first step of your rebellion.»
«If it was, why did I come here with all my family at his order?» Abivard asked. «Once I did that, shouldn't he have realized he was wrong?»
«So I told him, though not in those words.» One corner of his sister's mouth bent up in a rueful, knowing smile. «So many people tell the King of Kings he is right every moment of every waking hour of every day that when he was already inclined to think so himself, he became… quite convinced of it.»
«I suppose so.» Abivard had noted that trait in Sharbaraz even when he was a hunted rebel against Smerdis. After a decade and more on the throne at Mashiz he might well have come to think of himself as infallible. What Abivard wanted to say was, He's only a man, after all. But of all the things Ksorane co
uld take back to Sharbaraz from his lips, that one might do the most damage.
Denak said, «I have been trying to get him to see you, brother of mine. So far…» She spread her hands again. He knew how much luck she'd had. But he also knew he still kept his head on his shoulder and all his members attached to his body. That was probably his sister's doing.
«Tell the King of Kings I did not mean to anger him,» he said wearily. «Tell him I am loyal—why would I be here otherwise? Tell him in Vaspurakan I was doing what I thought best for the realm, for I was closer to the trouble than he. Tell him—» Tell him to drop into the Void if he's too vain and puffed up with himself to see that on his own. «Tell him once more what you've already told him. The God willing, he will hear.»
«I shall tell him,» Denak said. «I have been telling him. But when everyone else tells him the opposite, when Farrokh-Zad and Tzikas write from Vaspurakan complaining of how mild you were to the priests of Phos—»
«Tzikas wrote from Vaspurakan?» Abivard broke in. «Tzikas wrote that from Vaspurakan? If I see the renegade, the traitor, the wretch again, he is a dead man.» His lips curled in what looked like a smile. «I know just what I'll do if I see him again, the cursed Videssian schemer. I'll send him as a present for Maniakes behind a shield of truce. We'll see how he likes that.» Merely contemplating the idea gave him great satisfaction. Whether he'd ever get the chance to do anything about it was, worse luck, another question altogether.
«I'll pray to the God. May she grant your wish,» Denak said. She got to her feet Abivard rose, too. His sister took him in her arms.
Ksorane, about whom Abivard had almost entirely forgotten, let out a startled squeak. «Highness, to touch a man other than the King of Kings is not permitted.»
«He is my brother, Ksorane,» Denak answered in exasperated tones.
Abivard did not know whether to laugh or cry. He and Denak had criticized Sharbaraz King of Kings almost to, maybe even beyond, the point of lese majesty, and the serving woman had spoken not a word of protest. Indeed, by her manner she might not even have heard. Yet a perfectly innocent embrace drew horrified anger.
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