«You remember rightly, lord,» Tzikas said. «The Sailors' Sea turns stormy in the fall and stays stormy through the winter. No captain would want to risk taking his Avtokrator and the best soldiers Videssos has back to the capital by sea, not in a few weeks, not when he'd know he was only too likely to lose them all. And that would mean—»
«That would mean Maniakes would have to try to cross the westlands to get home,» Abivard said, interrupting not from irritation but from excitement. «He'd have to capture each town along the way if he wanted to encamp in it, and the winter there is hard enough that he'd have to try—he couldn't very well live under canvas till spring came. So if we can get between him and Lyssaion, we don't even have to win a battle—»
«A good thing, too, with these odds and sods under your command,» Tzikas broke in. Now he was being rude but not inaccurate.
«And whose fault is it that Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase, wouldn't trust me with better?» Abivard retorted. The prospect of discomfiting Maniakes made him better able to tolerate Tzikas, so that came out as badinage, not rage. He went on, «If you think they're bad now, you should have seen them when I first got them. Eminent sir, they're brave enough, and they are starting to learn their trade.»
«I'd cheerfully trade them for a like number of real soldiers nonetheless,» Tzikas said, again impolite but again correct.
Abivard said, «It's settled, then. We advance against Maniakes and demonstrate in front of him, with luck making him abandon his base here. And as he moves south, we have a force waiting to engage him. We don't have to win; we simply have to keep him in play till it's too late for him to sail out of Lyssaion.»
«That's it,» Tzikas said. He bowed to Abivard. «A plan worthy of Stavrakios the Great.» The Videssian renegade suddenly suffered a coughing fit; Stavrakios was the Avtokrator who'd smashed every Makuraner army he had faced and had occupied Mashiz. When Tzikas could speak again, he went on: «Worthy of the great heroes of Makuran, I should have said.»
«It's all right,» Abivard said magnanimously. In a way he was relieved Tzikas had slipped. The cavalry officer did do an alarmingly good job of aping the Makuraners with whom he'd had to cast his lot. It was just as well he'd proved he remained a Videssian at heart.
Abivard wasted no time sending a good part of his army south along the Tutub. Had he seriously intended to defeat Maniakes as the Avtokrator headed for Lyssaion, he would have gone with that force. As things were, he sent it out under the reliable Turan. He commanded the rest of the Makuraner army, the part demonstrating against Maniakes in his lair.
His force included almost all of Tzikas' cavalry regiment. That left him nervous in spite of the accord he seemed to have reached with the Videssian renegade. Having betrayed Maniakes and Abivard both, was he now liable to betray one of them to the other? Abivard didn't want to find out.
But Tzikas stayed in line. His cavalry fought hard against the Videssian horsemen who battled to hold them away from Maniakes' base. He reveled in fighting for his adopted country against the men of his native land and worshiped the God more ostentatiously than did any Makuraner.
Maniakes once more took to breaking canals to keep Abivard's men at bay. Flooding was indeed a two-edged sword. Wearily, Abivard's soldiers and the local peasants worked side by side to repair the damage so the soldiers could go on and the peasants could save something of their crops.
And then, from the northeast, the smoke from a great burning rose into the sky, as it so often had in the land of the Thousand Cities that summer. More wrecked canals kept Abivard's men from reaching the site of that burning for another couple of days, but Abivard knew what it meant: Maniakes was gone.
VII
Abivard glared at the peasant in some exasperation. «You saw the Videssian army leave?» he demanded. The peasant nodded. «And which way did they go? Tell me again,» Abivard said.
«That way, lord.» The peasant pointed east, as he had before.
Everyone with whom Abivard had spoken had said the same thing. Yes, the Videssians were gone. Yes, the locals were glad– although they seemed less glad to see a Makuraner army arrive to take the invaders' place. And yes, Maniakes and his men had gone east. No one had seen them turn south.
He's being sneaky, Abivard thought. He'll go out into the scrub country between the Tutub and Videssos and stay there as long as he can, maybe even travel south a long way before he comes back to the river for water. You could travel a fair distance through that semidesert, especially when the fall rains—the same rains that would be storms on the Sailors' Sea—brought the grass and leaves to brief new life.
But you could not travel all the way down to Lyssaion without returning to the Tutub. Even lush scrub wouldn't support an army's horses indefinitely, and there weren't enough water holes to keep an army of men from perishing of thirst. And when Maniakes came back to the Tutub, Abivard would know exactly where he was.
True, Maniakes' army could move faster than his. But that army, burdened by a baggage train, could not outrun the scouting detachments Abivard sent galloping southward to check me likely halting places along the Tutub. If the scouts came back, they would bring news of where the Videssians were. And if one detachment did not come back, that would also tell Abivard where the Videssians were.
All the detachments came back. None of them had found Maniakes and his men. Abivard was left scratching his head. «He hasn't vanished into the Void, however much we wish he would,» he said. «Can he be mad enough to try crossing the Videssian westlands on horseback?»
«I don't know anything about that, lord,» answered the scout to whom he'd put the question. «All I know is I haven't seen him.» Snarling, Abivard dismissed him. The scout hadn't done anything wrong; he'd carried out the orders Abivard had given him, just as his fellows had. Abivard's job was to make what the scouts had seen—and what they hadn't seen—mean something. But what?
«He hasn't gone south,» he said to Roshnani that evening. «I don't want to believe that, but I haven't any choice. He can't have chosen to fight his way across the westlands. I won't believe that; even if he made it, he'd throw away most of his army in the doing, and he hasn't got enough trained men to use them up so foolishly.»
«Maybe he headed into Vaspurakan to try to rouse the princes against our field force again,» Roshnani suggested.
«Maybe,» Abivard said, unconvinced. «But that would tie him down in long, hard fighting and make him winter in Vaspurakan. I have trouble thinking he'd risk so much with such a distance and so many foes between him and country he controls.»
«I'm no general—the God knows that's so—but I can see that what you say makes sense,» Roshnani said. «But if he hasn't gone south and he hasn't gone into the Videssian westlands and he hasn't gone to Vaspurakan, where is he? He hasn't gone west, has he?»
Abivard snorted. «No, and that's not his army camped around us, either.» He plucked at his beard. «I wonder if he could have gone north, up into the mountains and valleys of Erzerum. He might find friends up there no matter how isolated he was.»
«From what the tales say, you can find anything up in Erzerum,» Roshnani said.
«The tales speak true,» Abivard told her. «Erzerum is the rubbish heap of the world.» The mountains that ran from the Mylasa Sea east to the Videssian Sea and the valleys set among them were as perfectly defensible a terrain as had ever sprung from the mind and hand of the God. Because of that, almost every valley there had its own people, its own language, its own religion. Some were native, some survivors whose cause had been lost in the outer world but who had managed to carve out a shelter for themselves and hold it against all comers.
«The folk in some of those valleys worship Phos, don't they?» Roshnani asked.
«So they do,» Abivard said. «What I'd like to see is Videssos pushed back into one of those valleys and forgotten about for the rest of time.» He laughed. «It won't happen any time soon. And the Videssians would like to see us penned b
ack there for good. That won't happen, either.»
«No, of course not,» Roshnani said. «The God would never allow such a thing; the very idea would appall her.» But she didn't let Abivard distract her, instead continuing with her own train of thought: «Because some of them worship Phos, wouldn't they be likely to help Maniakes?»
«Yes, I suppose so,» Abivard agreed. «He might winter up there. I have to say, though, I don't see why he would. He couldn't keep it a secret the winter long, and we'd be waiting for him to try to come back down into the low country when spring came.»
«That's so,» Roshnani admitted. «I can't argue with a word of it. But if he hasn't gone north, south, east, or west, where is he?»
«Underground,» Abivard said. But that was too much to hope for.
He made his own arrangements for the winter, billeting his troops in several nearby cities and overcoming the city governors' remarkable lack of enthusiasm for keeping them in supplies.
«Fine,» he told one such official when the man flatly refused to aid the soldiers. «When the Videssians come back next spring, if they do, we'll stand aside and let them burn your town without even chasing them afterward.»
«You couldn't do anything so heartless,» the city governor exclaimed.
Abivard looked down his nose at him. «Who says I can't? If you don't help feed the soldiers, sirrah, why should they help protect you?»
The soldiers got all the wheat and vegetables and poultry they needed.
Only a couple of days after Abivard had won that battle a messenger reached him with a letter from Romezan. After the usual greetings the commander of the field forces came straight to the point: «I regret to tell you that the cursed Videssians, may they and their Avtokrator fall into the Void and be lost forever, slipped past my army, which was out hunting them. Following the line of the Rhamnos River, they reached Pityos, on the Videssian Sea, and took it by surprise. With the port in their hands, ships came and carried them away; my guess is that they have returned to Videssos the city by now, having also succeeded in embarrassing us no end. By the God, lord, I shall have my revenge on them.»
«Is there a reply, lord?» the messenger asked when Abivard rolled up the message parchment once more.
«No, no reply,» Abivard answered. «Now I know where the Videssians disappeared to, and I rather wish I didn't.»
Winter in the land of the Thousand Cities meant mild days, cool nights, and occasional rain—no snow to speak of, though there were a couple of days of sleet that made it all but impossible to go outside without falling down. Abivard found that a nuisance, but his children enjoyed it immensely.
Although Maniakes would not be back till the following spring, if then, Abivard did not let his army rest idle. He drilled the foot soldiers every day the ground was dry enough to let them maneuver. The more he worked with them, the happier he grew. They would make decent fighting men once they had enough practice marching and got used to the idea that the enemy could not easily crush them so long as they stood firm.
And then, as the winter solstice approached, Abivard got the message he'd been waiting for and dreading since Sharbaraz had ordered him into the field against Maniakes with a force he knew to be inadequate: a summons to return to Mashiz at once.
He looked west across the floodplain toward the distant Dilbat Mountains. News of the order had spread very fast. Turan, who had rejoined him after Maniakes had escaped, came up beside him and said, «I'm sorry, lord. I don't know what else you could have done to hold the Videssians away from Mashiz.»
«Neither do I,» Abivard said wearily. «Nothing would have satisfied the King of Kings, I think.»
Turan nodded. He couldn't say anything to that. No, there was one thing he could say. But the question, Why don't you go into rebellion against Sharbaraz? was not one a person could ask his commander unless that person was sure his answer would be something like, Yes, why don't I? Abivard had never let—had been careful never to let—anyone get that impression.
Every now and then he wondered why. These past years he'd generally been happiest when farthest away from Sharbaraz. But he'd helped Sharbaraz cast down one usurper simply because Smerdis had been a usurper. Having done that, how could he think of casting the legitimate King of Kings from a throne rightfully his? The brief answer was that he couldn't, not if he wanted to be able to go on looking at himself in the mirror.
And so, without hope and without fear, he left the army in Turan's hands—better his than Tzikas', Abivard judged—and obeyed Sharbaraz' order. He wanted to leave Roshnani and his children behind, but his principal wife would not hear of it. «Your brother and mine can avenge us if we fall,» she said. «Our place is at your side.» Glad of her company, Abivard stopped arguing perhaps sooner than he should have.
The journey across the land of the Thousand Cities showed the scars the Videssian incursion had left behind. Several hills were topped by charred ruins, not living towns. Soon, Abivard vowed, those towns would live again. If he had anything to say about it, money and artisans from the Videssian westlands would help make sure they lived again—that appealed to his sense of justice.
Whether he would have anything to say about it remained to be seen. The letter summoning him to Mashiz hadn't been so petulant as some of the missives he'd gotten from Sharbaraz. That might mean the King of Kings was grateful he'd kept Maniakes from sacking the capital. On the other hand, it might also mean Sharbaraz was dissembling and wanted him back in Mashiz before doing whatever dreadful things he would do.
As usual, Roshnani thought along with him. When she asked what he thought awaited them in Mashiz, he shrugged and answered, «No way to judge till we get there.» She nodded, if not satisfied, then at least knowing that she knew as much as her husband.
They crossed the Tib on a bridge of boats that the operator dragged back to the western bank of the river after they went over it. That sort of measure was intended to make life difficult for invaders. Abivard doubted it would have thwarted Maniakes long.
After they left the land of the Thousand Cities, they went up into the foothills of the Dilbat Mountains toward Mashiz. Varaz said, «They're not going to lock us up in one suite of rooms through the whole winter again, are they, Father?»
«I hope not,» Abivard answered truthfully, «but I don't know for certain.»
«They'd better not,» Varaz declared, and Shahin nodded.
«I wish they wouldn't, too,» Abivard said, «but if they do, what can you do about it—aside from driving everyone crazy, I mean?»
«What we should do,» Varaz said, with almost the force of someone having a religious revelation, «is drive the palace servants and the guards crazy, not you and Mother and—» He spoke with the air of one yielding a great concession."—our sisters.»
«If I told you I thought that an excellent plan, I would probably be guilty of lese majesty in some obscure way, and I don't want that,» Abivard said, «so of course I won't tell you any such thing.» He set a finger alongside his nose and winked. Both his sons laughed conspiratorial laughs.
There ahead stood the great shrine dedicated to the God. Abivard had seen the High Temple in Videssos the city at a shorter remove, though here no water screened him from reaching the shrine if he so desired. Again, whether Sharbaraz' minions would keep him from the shrine was a different matter.
Away from the army, Abivard was just another traveler entering Mashiz. No one paid any special attention to his wagon, which was but one of many clogging the narrow streets of the city. Drivers whose progress he impeded cursed him with great gusto.
Abivard had studied from afar the palaces in Videssos the city. They sprawled over an entire district, buildings set among trees and lawns and gardens. But then, as he knew all too well, Videssos the city was a fortress, the mightiest fortress in the world. Mashiz was not so lucky, and the palace of the King of Kings had to double as a citadel.
The wheels of the wagon rattled and clattered off the cobbles of the open square surrounding the
wall around the palace. As he had the winter before, Abivard identified himself to the guards at the gate. As before, the valves of the gate swung wide to let him and his family come in, then closed with a thud that struck him as ominous.
And as before, and even more ominously, grooms led the horses away from the stables, while a fat eunuch in a caftan shot through with silver threads took charge of Pashang. The wagon driver sent Abivard a look of piteous appeal. «Where are you taking him?» Abivard demanded.
«Where he belongs,» the eunuch answered, sexless voice chillier than the cutting breeze that blew dead brown leaves over the cobbles.
«Swear by the God you are not taking him to the dungeon,» Abivard said.
«It is no business of yours where he goes,» the eunuch told him.
«I choose to make it my business.» Abivard set a hand on the hilt of his sword. Even as he made the gesture, he knew how foolish it was. If the eunuch so much as lifted a finger, the palace guards would kill him. Sharbaraz would probably reward them for doing it
The finger remained unlifted. The eunuch licked his lips; his tongue was very pink against the pale, unweathered flesh of his face. He looked from Abivard to Pashang and back again. At last he said, «Very well. He shall dwell in the stables with your horses. By the God, I swear that to be true; may it drop me into the Void if I lie. There. Are you satisfied?»
«I am satisfied,» Abivard answered formally. Men used masculine pronouns when speaking of the God, women feminine; it had never occurred to Abivard that eunuchs would refer to him—for so Abivard conceived of his deity—in the neuter gender. He turned to Pashang. «Make sure they feed you something better than oats.»
«The God go with you and keep you safe, lord,» Pashang said, and started to prostrate himself as if Abivard were King of Kings. With a snort of disgust the eunuch hauled him to his feet and led him away. Pashang waved clumsily, like a bear trained to do as much in hopes of winning a copper or two.
Another eunuch emerged from the stone fastness of the palace. «You will come with me,» he announced to Abivard.
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