Abivard's sword cleared the scabbard at about the same instant The clash of metal on metal brought shouts from around corners—people knew what that sound was even if they couldn't tell whence it came. Abivard knew what it was, too: the answer to his prayers. Tzikas had drawn on him first. He could kill the renegade and truthfully claim self-defense.
He was bigger and younger than Tzikas. All he had to do, he thought, was cut the Videssian down. He soon discovered it wouldn't be so easy. For one thing, Tzikas was smooth and strong and quick. For another, the corridor was narrow and the ceiling low, cutting into his size advantage: He had no room to make the full-armed cuts that might have beaten their way through Tzikas' guard. And for a third, neither he nor the renegade was used to fighting on foot in any surroundings, let alone such cramped ones. They were both horsemen by choice and by experience.
Tzikas had a strong wrist and tried to twist the sword out of Abivard's hand. Abivard held on to his blade and cut at his foe's head. Tzikas got his sword up in time to block the blow. As they had been on horseback, they were well matched here.
«Stop this at once!» someone shouted from behind Abivard. He took no notice; had he taken any notice, he would have been spitted the next instant. Nor did Tzikas show any signs of trusting him to show restraint—and the renegade had reason, for once two enemies began to fight, getting them to stop before one was bleeding or dead was among the hardest things for individuals and empires both.
A servant behind Tzikas shouted for him to give over. He kept slashing away at Abivard nonetheless, his fencing style afoot taking on more and more of the manner in which he would have fought while horsed as he went on battling his foe. Abivard found himself making more thrusts than cuts, doing his best to adapt to the different circumstances in which he now found himself. But whatever he did, Tzikas kept beating aside his blade. Whatever else anyone said about the Videssian, he could fight.
None of the palace servitors was so unwise as to try to break up the fight by grabbing one of the contestants. If someone did try tackling Tzikas, Abivard was ready to run the renegade through, however unsporting that was. He had no doubt Tzikas would give him the same treatment if he got the chance.
One thing that would stop two parties from fighting each other was overwhelming outside force directed at them both. A shout of «Drop your sword or neither one of you comes out alive!» got Abivard's undivided attention. A squadron of palace guards, bows drawn, were rushing up behind Tzikas.
Abivard sprang back from Tzikas and lowered his sword, though he did not drop it. He hoped Tzikas might pursue the fight without checking and thus get himself pincushioned. To his disappointment, the Videssian looked over his shoulder instead. He also let his arm drop but still kept hold of his sword. «I'll kill you yet,» he told Abivard.
«Only in your dreams,» Abivard retorted, and started to raise his blade again.
By then, though, the guardsmen had gotten between them. «That will be enough of that,» the squadron leader said as if talking to a couple of fractious boys rather than a pair of men far outranking him.
Very much like a fractious boy, Tzikas said, «He started it.»
«Liar!» Abivard snapped.
The squadron leader held up a hand. «I don't care who started it. All I know is that Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, doesn't want the two of you brawling, no matter what. I'm going to split my men in two. Half of them will take one of you back to his lodging; the other half will take the other noble gentleman back to his. That way nothing can go wrong.»
«Hold!» That ringing voice could have belonged to only one man—or, rather, not quite man—in the palace. Yeliif strode through the guards, disgust manifest not only on his face but in every line of his body. He looked from Abivard to Tzikas. His eyes flashed contempt. «You fools,» he said, making it sound like a revelation from the God.
«But—» Abivard and Tzikas said in the same breath. They glared at each other, angry at agreeing even in protest.
«Fools,» Yeliif repeated. He shook his head. «How the King of Kings expects to accomplish anything working through such tools as you is beyond me, but he does, so long as you do not break each other before he can take you in hand.»
Abivard pointed at Tzikas. «That tool will cut his hand if he tries to wield it.»
«You know not whereof you speak,» the beautiful eunuch snapped. «Now more than ever the King of Kings prepares to gather the fruits of what his wisdom long ago set in motion, and you seek in your ignorance to trifle with his design? You do not understand, either one of you. All is changed now. The ambassadors have returned.»
XIII
Abivard scratched his head. He hadn't known of any embassies going out, let alone any coming back. «What ambassadors?» he asked. «Ambassadors to Videssos? Do we have peace with the Empire, then?» That made no sense. If Sharbaraz had made peace with Videssos, what need had he for either a marshal or a Videssian traitor?
Yeliif rolled his eyes in theatrical scorn. «Since you seem intent on making a display of your ignorance, I shall merely confirm it, noting that you do not in fact know everything there is to know and noting further that the glorious vision of Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase, vastly outranges your own.»
«To the ice—uh, to the Void—with me if I know what you're talking about,» Tzikas told the eunuch.
«Nor does that surprise me.» Yeliif looked at the renegade as if he were something pallid and slimy that lived in the mud under flat stones by the bank of a creek that did not run clean. Abivard loathed Tzikas with a loathing both pure and hot, but that stare made him feel a moment's sympathy for the Videssian. «Your function is solely to serve the King of Kings, not to be privy to his plans.»
«If we're going to be part of his plans, we ought to have some idea of what those plans are,» Abivard said, and found Tzikas nodding along with him. Accusingly, he went on, «You've known for some time. Why haven't we gained the same knowledge?»
«Until the return of the ambassadors, the King of Kings judged the time unripe,» Yeliif answered. Abivard found the hand that wasn't on his sword tightening into a fist. Yeliif knew the answers, while he didn't even know the questions. Until moments before he hadn't known there were any questions. It all struck him as most unfair.
«Now that the ambassadors are back, will the King of Kings let us know what they were doing while they were away?» Tzikas sounded as if he didn't care for having been left in the dark, either.
Not that that mattered to Yeliif. «In his own good time the King of Kings will inform you,» he said. «It is, then, your task—and I speak to each of you in this instance—to be here to be informed at the time of the King of Kings' choosing and not to eliminate each other before that time. Do you understand?»
He sought to shame them, to make them feel like brawling boys. In no small measure he succeeded. Nevertheless, Abivard new a stir of anger at being considered only insofar as he fit into Sharbaraz' plans. He said, «I do hope the King of Kings will let us know what he intends us to do before we have to do it, not afterward.»
«He will do as he chooses, not as you seek to impose upon—»
The perfect apologist for the King of Kings, Yeliif started to defend him before hearing everything Abivard had had to say. When he realized he'd made himself look foolish, the eunuch bared small, white, even teeth in something closer to a snarl than to a smile. «I don't know why you want to kill this Videssian,» he said, pointing at Tzikas. «Living among his folk for so long has taught you to play meaningless games with words, just as they do.»
«You insult me,» Abivard said.
«No, you insult me,» Tzikas insisted. «Twice, in fact. First you call me a Videssian when I am one no longer, and second you call him—» He pointed at Abivard."—one when he manifestly is not. Were I a Videssian yet, I'd not want him as one.»
«He didn't call me a Videssian,» Abivard said, «and if he had, he would have insulted
me, not you, by doing so.»
Tzikas started to raise his sword. The palace guards made ready to pincushion him and Abivard both if they started fighting again. Coldly, Yeliif said, «Do not be more stupid than you can help. I have told you that you and Abivard are required in the future plans of the King of Kings. When those plans are accomplished, you may fight if you so desire. Until then you are his. Remember it and comport yourselves accordingly.» He swept away, the hem of his caftan brushing the floor.
«Put up your swords,» the guards' leader said as he had before. Abivard and Tzikas reluctantly obeyed. The guard went on, «Now, I'm gonna do like I said before, split my men in half and take you noble gentlemen back where you belong.»
«You wouldn't know about these ambassadors, would you?» Abivard asked him as they walked down the hallway.
«Who, me?» The fellow shook his head. «I don't know anything. That's not what I'm here for, knowing things. What I'm here for is to keep people from killing other people they're not supposed to kill. You know what I mean?»
«I suppose so,» Abivard said, wondering where Sharbaraz had found such a magnificently phlegmatic man. A court officer who did not want to know things surely ranked as a freak of nature.
When Abivard walked into the suite of rooms, the soldiers stayed out in the hallway, presumably to make certain he did not go out hunting Tzikas. Roshnani stared at them till he shut the door after himself; too often in the past couple of years soldiers had stood in the hallways outside their rooms. She pointed past Abivard to the guards and asked, «What are they in aid of?»
«Nothing of any great consequence,» he answered airily. «Tzikas and I had a go at settling our differences, that's all.»
«Settling your—» Roshnani scrambled to her feet and took great care in inspecting him from all sides. At last, having satisfied herself almost against her will, she said, «You're not bleeding anywhere.»
«No, I'm not. Neither is Tzikas, worse luck,» Abivard said. «And if we go after each other again, we face the displeasure of the King of Kings—so I've been told, at any rate.» He lowered his voice. «That and a silver arket will make me care an arket's worth.»
Roshnani nodded. «Sharbaraz would have done better to take Tzikas' head himself.» She tossed her own head in long-standing exasperation. «No plan of his could possibly be clever enough to justify keeping the renegade alive.»
«If you expect me to argue with you, you'll be disappointed,» Abivard said, to which they both laughed. He grew thoughtful. «Do you know anything about ambassadors returning?»
«I didn't know any ambassadors were out,» his principal wife answered, «so I could hardly know they've come back.» That was logical enough to satisfy the most exacting, finicky Videssian. Roshnani went on, «Where did you hear about them?»
«From Yeliif, after the guardsmen kept me from giving Tzikas everything he deserved. Whoever they are, wherever they went, however they came back here, they have something to do with Sharbaraz' precious plan.»
«Whatever that may be,» Roshnani said.
«Whatever that may be,» Abivard echoed.
«Whatever it is, when will you find out about it?' Roshnani asked.
«Whenever Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, finds a day long enough for him to have the time to give to me,» Abivard answered. «Maybe tomorrow, maybe next spring.» On that cheerful note conversation flagged.
Nine days after Abivard and Tzikas tried to kill each other, Yeliif knocked on the door to Abivard's suite. When Abivard opened the door to let him in, he stuck his head out and looked up and down the hall. The guardsmen had been gone for a couple of days. «How may I help you?» Abivard asked warily; Yeliif as anything other than inimical still struck him as curious.
The beautiful eunuch said, «You are bidden to an audience with Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase. You shall come with me this moment.»
«I'm ready,» Abivard said, though he wasn't, not really. It was, he thought sadly, typical of the King of Kings to leave him on a shelf, as it were, for weeks at a time and then, when wanting him, to want him on the instant.
«I am also bidden to tell you that Tzikas shall be there,» Yeliif said. When Abivard did nothing more than nod, the eunuch also nodded thoughtfully, as if he'd passed a test. He said, «I can tell you—» Not I am bidden to tell you, Abivard noted. «—that Tus and Piran are attending the King of Kings.»
«I'm sorry, but I don't know those names nor the men attached to them,» Abivard said.
«They are the ambassadors whose recent return has provoked this audience,» Yeliif answered.
«Are they?» Abivard said, interest quickening in his voice. Now, at last, he would get to find out just how harebrained Sharbaraz' grandiose plan, whatever it was, would turn out to be. He had no great expectations for it, only the small one of having his curiosity satisfied. In aid of which… «Ambassadors to whom?» he asked. «I didn't know we'd sent an embassy to Maniakes, even if he has been closer to Mashiz lately than he usually gets.» He also remembered the Videssian ambassador Sharbaraz had imprisoned and let die but did not find mentioning him politic.
If Yeliif hadn't been born smiling that knowing, superior smile, he'd spent a lot of time practicing it, perhaps in front of a mirror of polished silver. «All will be made clear to you in due course,» he said, and would say no more. Abivard felt like booting him in the backside as they walked down the corridor.
Tzikas had indeed been bidden to the audience: he stood waiting at the rear of the throne room. Someone—very likely Yeliif—had taken the sensible precaution of posting some palace guards back there. Their dour expressions were as well schooled as Yeliif's smile.
Abivard glared at Tzikas but, with the guards there, did no more. Tzikas glared back. Yeliif said, «The two of you shall accompany me to the throne together and prostrate yourselves before the King of Kings at the same time. No lapses shall be tolerated, if I make myself clear.»
Without waiting to find out whether he did, he started down the aisle on the long walk toward the throne on which Sharbaraz sat. Abivard stayed by his right side; Tzikas quickly found a place on his left. It was as if each of them was using the eunuch to shield himself from the other. Under different circumstances the idea might have been funny.
A pair of men stood to one side of the throne of the King of Kings. Abivard presumed they were the mysterious Tus and Piran. Yeliif explained nothing. Abivard had expected no more. Then, at the appropriate moment, the beautiful eunuch stepped away, leaving Abivard and Tzikas side by side before the King of Kings.
They prostrated themselves, acknowledging their insignificance in comparison to their sovereign. Out of the corner of his eye Abivard watched Tzikas, but he had already known that the ritual was almost the same among Videssians as among the folk of Makuran. The two men waited together, foreheads touching the polished marble floor, for Sharbaraz to give them leave to rise.
At last he did. «We are not pleased with the two of you,» he said when Abivard and Tzikas had regained their feet. Abivard already knew that from the length of time the King of Kings had required them to stay on their bellies. Sharbaraz went on, «By persisting in your headstrong feud, you have endangered the plan we have long been maturing, a plan which, to work to its fullest extent, requires the service of both of you.»
«Majesty, if we knew what this plan was, we would be able to serve you better,» Abivard answered. He was sick to death of Sharbaraz' notorious plan. Sharbaraz was full of big talk that usually ended up amounting to nothing—except trouble for Abivard.
When Sharbaraz spoke again, his words did not seem immediately to the point: «Abivard son of Godarz, brother-in-law of mine, you will remember how our father, Peroz King of Kings, departed this world for the company of the God?»
He hadn't publicly acknowledged Abivard as his brother-in-law for a long time. Abivard noted that as he answered, «Aye, Majesty I do: battling bravely against the Khamorth ou
t on the Pardrayan' steppe.» Only the blind chance of his own horse's stepping in a hole and breaking a leg at the start of its charge had kept him out of the overwhelming disaster that had befallen the Makuraner army moments afterward.
«What you say is true but incomplete,» Sharbaraz told him. «How did it happen that our father, Peroz King of Kings, saw the need to campaign against the Khamorth out on the steppe?»
«They were raiding us, Majesty, as you will no doubt remember,» Abivard said. «Your father wanted to punish them as they deserved.» He would not speak ill of the dead. Had Peroz flung out his net of scouts more widely, the plainsmen might not have trapped him and his host.
Sharbaraz nodded. «And why were they raiding us at that particular time?» he asked with the air of a schoolmaster leading a student through a difficult lesson step by step. Abivard had trouble figuring out what to make of that.
The answer, though, was plain enough: «Because the Videssians paid them gold to raid us.» He glared at Tzikas.
«Not my idea.» The Videssian renegade held up a hand, denying any responsibility. «Likinios Avtokrator sent the gold out where he thought it would do the most good.»
«Likinios Avtokrator, whom we knew, was devious enough to have devised such a scheme for harming his foes without risking his own men or the land then held by the Empire of Videssos,» Sharbaraz said. Abivard nodded; Likinios had lived up to all the Makuraner tales about calculating, cold-blooded Videssians. The King of Kings went on, «We have endeavored to learn even from our foes. Thus the ambassadors we sent forth two years ago just now returned to us: Tus and Piran.»
«Ambassadors to whom, Majesty?» Abivard asked. At last he could put the question to someone who might answer it.
But Sharbaraz did not answer it directly. Instead, he turned to the men now back from their two-year embassy and said, «Whose agreement did you bring back with you?»
Tus and Piran spoke together, denying Abivard the chance to figure out who was who: «Majesty, we brought back the agreement of Etzilios, khagan of Kubrat, Videssos' northern neighbor.»
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