The Thousand Cities ttot-3

by Harry Turtledove

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  «Exactly,» Yeliif said. «Precisely.»

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  «I accept,» Yeliif said at once.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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