The Stolen Throne tot-1

by Harry Turtledove

  Roshnani laughed. "Here we are, reckoning up the good points and the bad to this move when we have not the power to order it."

  Abivard took a deep breath. "Here I am, to say that having women along on this campaign may prove its salvation. I tell you now, I never would have thought of using Videssos for refuge if I lived to be a thousand. If it succeeds, the credit goes to Roshnani."

  "Thank you, my husband," Roshnani said quietly, and cast down her eyes to the carpeted floor of the wagon as if she were an ordinary, deferential Makuraner wife who had never imagined setting foot outside the women's quarters of her stronghold.

  "Thank you, Abivard," Denak said, "for being open enough to see that and honest enough to say it."

  He shrugged. "Father always relied on Mother's wisdom-oh, not out in the open, but he made no great secret of it, either. And wasn't it you who said that if a woman's counsel was worth something back at the stronghold, it would be worth something on campaign, too?"

  "I said it, yes," Denak answered. "Whether anyone listened to me is another matter. One of the things I found with Pradtak is that men often don't."

  "Judging all men by Pradtak, I suspect, is like judging all women by Ardini," Abivard said, which made Denak frown angrily and Roshnani, after a moment's hesitation, nod. He went on, "Do you expect Sharbaraz to, ah, attend you this evening?"

  Still frowning, Denak said, "No, not really. He's come here less often since things went wrong. He'd sooner brood than try to make himself feel better."

  "You're probably right." Abivard got to his feet; the top of his head brushed the canvas canopy of the wagon. "I'll go and take the idea to him, then. If he says no and I can't get him to change his mind, I'll send him hither. I hope you won't think less of me for saying wives have ways to persuade a man that brothers-in-law can't use."

  "Think less of you? No," Denak said. "But I wish you'd not reminded me of things I did that I'd sooner forget."

  "I'm sorry," Abivard said, and left in a hurry.

  Sharbaraz's tent had guards round it now, and one of the army's sorcerers stood watch outside. Abivard doubted the need for that; now that Smerdis was winning the war by ordinary means, why would he bother with sorcery? The sentries saluted as he came up to the tent.

  Inside, Sharbaraz sat on his camp bed, his head in his hands. "What word, brother-in-law of mine?" he asked dully. By his demeanor, he cared nothing for the answer.

  But Abivard gave him a word he had not looked for: "Videssos."

  "What of Videssos?" Now Sharbaraz showed interest, if no enthusiasm. "Has Likinios decided to cast his lot with Smerdis and join in crushing me? He would be wise if he did; Smerdis won't trouble Videssos for as long as he lives."

  "You misunderstand, Majesty," Abivard said, and went on to explain Roshnani's idea. The longer he talked, the more animated Sharbaraz's features became; by the time he was through, the rightful King of Kings seemed more nearly himself than he had at any time since his army was forced across the Tutub.

  "It might work; by the God, it just might," he said at last. "As you say, it will cost us men who refuse to follow. It will cost more than that, too; without a doubt, any aid we get from Likinios will have a price attached to it. But even so-"

  "Aye, even so," Abivard said. Then he added, "I barely knew the Avtokrator's name before we set out on this campaign. I still know next to nothing about him. Has he sons of his own? If he wants to make sure the throne passes to one of them, he may be more inclined to take your side."

  "He has four," Sharbaraz answered. "For a Videssian, that's a good number-they take but one wife apiece. He's been fighting a war with Kubrat, up north and east of Videssos the city. I daresay that's why he tried to set the Khamorth against us: to keep us from invading his western provinces while he was busy on the other frontier."

  "It worked," Abivard said sorrowfully.

  The rightful King of Kings snorted. "Yes, didn't it just?" He bowed very low to Abivard. "I would violate custom if I told the lady Roshnani how much in her debt I am. Therefore I rely on you to pass on to her my gratitude. I shall also convey the same message to your sister." He headed toward the tent flap, plainly intending to go out.

  "You mean to visit her now?" Abivard asked.

  "Indeed I do," Sharbaraz said, and vanished into the night. Abivard left the royal tent a moment later. He did not head back toward the wagon from which he had just come. But if Sharbaraz was going to call on Denak when he had stayed away since things began going wrong, that was a powerful argument that hope-among other things-had revived in him.

  * * *

  Sharbaraz's army, or the two thirds or so of it that was left, descended on the oasis like a pack of wolves tearing to bits a single chicken. With water, a small ring of fields, and a grove of date palms, the place was ideal for caravans crossing the badlands between Makuran and Videssos. Sharbaraz's men ate everything in sight, and he had to post armed guards around the water hole to keep them from fouling it.

  When they rode out again two days later, men and beasts refreshed and water skins all filled, Abivard said, "We'd war with the Videssians more often, I think, if we could get at them more easily."

  "Most armies, theirs and ours both, go by way of Vaspurakan," Sharbaraz answered. "The passes through the mountains there are the best invasion routes. But with things going against us, we couldn't hope to get there and get through and still have an army left when we were done."

  "I wonder what the Videssians will think when we show up on their border," Abivard said. "Maybe that we've started our own invasion." His smile held no humor. "One day-but not yet."

  Abivard looked around. Even battered as it was from desertion and defeat, Sharbaraz's army numbered several thousand. If they threw themselves headlong against the Videssians and took mem by surprise, they could do a good deal of damage before they were overwhelmed. But, as he had said, that was not the plan… for now. If they were to regain Makuran, they needed Videssos' help.

  Sharbaraz peered eastward. "If the charts and the guides don't lie, one more oasis, two days' ride from here, then a couple of more days of scrub, and then Serrhes-a different Empire, a different world."

  "Do you speak Videssian, Majesty?" Abivard asked. He could follow the Khamorth dialects after a fashion, but they were cousins to his own language. Of Videssian he knew nothing.

  But Sharbaraz rattled off several sentences in a smooth, purring tongue that rather reminded Abivard of wine gurgling out of a jar: glug, glug, glug. To his relief, the rightful King of Kings dropped back into Makuraner. "I was tutored in it, aye; my father thought it something I needed to know. A fair number of nobles and merchants speak it, especially in the east and south of the realm. Some of the Videssian grandees know Makuraner, too."

  "That's a relief," Abivard said. "I was afraid I'd be the same as a deaf-mute all the time we were there."

  "No, you'll manage," Sharbaraz told him. "And Videssian isn't that hard to pick up, though some of the sounds are hard for us to pronounce." He lisped and hissed to show what he meant, then went on, "But Videssians can't say sh, so it evens out. The language is very good for putting across delicate shades of meaning. I don't know whether that's because they use it so much to quarrel about the exact nature of their god Phos, or whether they quarrel the way they do because Videssian lets them. Which came first, the sheep or the lamb?"

  "I don't know," Abivard answered. "I wasn't cut out to be a wise man; whenever I start thinking about complicated things, my wits seize up like a water wheel clogged with mud."

  Sharbaraz laughed. "Most of the time, simple is better," he agreed. "If things were simple, I'd have taken my father's throne and that would have been that. But things aren't simple that way, and so we have to face the complications of Videssos."

  Abivard pointed to a cloud of dust ahead, just at the edge of visibility. "We may have to face them sooner than we expected. What's that?"

  "I don't know," Sharbaraz said in a hollow voice, "but it looks like an army
to me." He slammed a fist down on his armored thigh. "How could they have learned we were coming? We can't put up much of a fight against a foe that's ready for us, not now."

  Scouts were already riding forward to take the measure of the new threat. After a few minutes, one of them came galloping back toward the main body of the army. Abivard was shocked to see him laughing fit to burst.

  Sharbaraz saw that, too, and purpled in fury. "Have you gone mad?" he shouted at the scout. "They're going to beat us like carpets, and you laugh?"

  "Majesty, I crave your pardon," the scout said, but he didn't stop laughing. Tears of mirth cut clean tracks through the dust and grime on his cheeks.

  "That's no army up ahead, Majesty, just a big herd of wild asses raising a cloud, same as if they were cavalry."

  Sharbaraz gaped, then laughed himself, a high, shrill cackle that seemed made up of concentrated essence of relief. "Asses, you say? By the God, they made asses out of us."

  "Let's make them pay for their presumption," Abivard exclaimed. "They're fresh meat, after all, and we haven't seen much of that for a while. Hunting them would be fitting punishment for frightening us out of our wits."

  "So ordered!" Sharbaraz said. Archers pounded after the animals, which fled across the scrubby ground. Watching the asses gallop away in terror made Abivard wish all foes could be so easily overcome.

  * * *

  Abivard was never quite sure just when the army crossed into Videssian territory, one stretch of arid landscape looked much like another. When the soldiers came to a village, though, all possible doubt disappeared: along with the scattered stone houses stood a larger building with a wooden spire topped by a gilded dome-a temple to Phos, the Videssian god of good.

  The people had disappeared along with the doubt; dust trails in the distance showed the direction in which they had fled. "Nice to know we still look like a conquering army to someone," Abivard remarked.

  Zal, who was riding close by, clicked his tongue between his teeth a couple of times. "This from the trusting young lord who let the tax collector into his stronghold without even checking how sharp his fangs were? Going off to war has coarsened you, lad." He grinned to show he meant no harm by the words.

  "You're probably right," Abivard answered. "Once you watch your hopes bounce up and down a few times, you're not as sure things will all turn out for the best as you used to be."

  "Isn't that the truth?" Zal said. "It's too cursed bad, but it's so."

  From then on, Sharbaraz ordered the scouts to carry shields of truce so the Videssians would learn as quickly as might be that he had come as a supplicant, not an invader. That forethought soon proved its worth. Early the next morning, a scout came back not with the report of a herd of wild asses, but with a Videssian officer in tow.

  Like a lot of Sharbaraz's men, Abivard stared curiously at the first Videssian he had ever seen. The fellow was mounted on a medium-good horse, with a medium-good mailshirt worn above leather trousers. He had a bow ready to grab, a quiver on his back, and a curved sword at his belt.

  His helmet was halfway between the standard Makuraner cone pattern and a smooth round dome. No veil or iron links descended from it, so Abivard got a good look at his features. His skin was slightly paler than that of most Makuraners, his nose on the thin side, and his face nearly triangular, sloping down from a wide forehead to a chin of almost feminine delicacy. A fringe of beard outlined that chin and his jaw.

  "Do you speak my language?" Sharbaraz asked in Makuraner.

  "Aye, a bit," the Videssian answered. "Few on this frontier don't." He used Makuraner well enough, though his accent sometimes made him hard to understand. One of his eyebrows-so thin and smoothly curved that Abivard wondered if he plucked it into shape-rose. "But I ought to be the one asking the questions. For starters, who are you and what are you doing in my country with an army tagging along?" His quick, scornful glance up and down the line of riders said he saw better-looking armies every day of the week, and sometimes twice a day. He added, "Which side of your civil war were you on?"

  "I am Sharbaraz, rightful King of Kings of Makuran, and I was on my own side," Sharbaraz proclaimed. Abivard had the satisfaction of watching the Videssian's mouth drop open like a toad's when it snapped at a fly. Sharbaraz went on, "I have come to Videssos to seek the Avtokrator Likinios' aid in restoring me to the throne that is properly mine. Surely he will understand the importance of preserving unbroken the legitimate line of succession."

  The Videssian stayed silent for most of a minute before he replied. Later, when Abivard came to understand that Videssians rarely kept quiet for any reason, he would have a deeper appreciation of the depth of shock that conveyed. At last the fellow managed to put words together: "Uh, Lord Sarbaraz-"

  As Sharbaraz had said, Videssians couldn't make the sh sound. But the officer's accent was not what offended Abivard. "Say 'your Majesty, as you would for your own Emperor," he growled.

  "Your Majesty," the Videssian said at once. "Your Majesty, I'm not the man to treat with you; the lord with the great and good mind knows that's so." His laugh came rueful. "I'm not the man to stop you, either. When the villagers rode into Serrhes screaming that all the soldiers in the world were heading that way, the epoptes-the city governor, you'd say-figured a pack of desert bandits had got bold; he sent me out to deal with them. I have fifty men back there, no more."

  "Who will treat with me, then?" Sharbaraz asked. "Is this epoptes of yours a man of sufficient rank to discuss matters of state?"

  "No," the Videssian said, then added, "your Majesty. But I hear tell Likinios' eldest son is traveling through the westlands, keeping things on an even keel here while the Avtokrator, Phos bless him, campaigns against the heathens of Kubrat. Hosios will be able to deal with you."

  "Indeed." Sharbaraz regally inclined his head. "Will he come to the town of Serrhes? If so, when?"

  "Drop me in the ice if I know," the officer said, apparently an oath but not one Abivard recognized. "If he wasn't planning to come there in his progress, though, I expect he'll change his mind when old Kalamos-sorry, your Majesty, that's the city governor-sends a letter off to wherever he is now, telling him you've come into the Empire."

  "I suspect you may be right," Sharbaraz said. He and the Videssian soldier both laughed at the understatement.

  * * *

  Serrhes struck Abivard as being halfway between a stronghold town and a real city. The whole perimeter was fortified, with a wall higher and thicker than Vek Rud stronghold boasted. Inside, on the highest ground in the place, stood a massive citadel where warriors could retreat in case the outer wall was breached.

  "Pretty strong fortress to stick out in the middle of nowhere," he remarked to Sharbaraz.

  The rightful King of Kings chuckled. "The only reason the Videssians would site a fortress here is to protect their land from us." Abivard thought about that, then nodded. Belonging to a people who could inspire such precautions made him proud.

  By the smooth way in which the epoptes took over the provisioning of Sharbaraz's men, he might have had Makuraner armies dropping in for a visit every other month. Some of the grain came from the storerooms in the cellar of the citadel; soon pack animals were fetching more from farther east. The spring that made the town possible at all was barely adequate for the sudden influx. Videssian guards made sure no one took more than his fair share. They were stern but, Abivard had to admit, just.

  Hosios arrived a bit more than two weeks after Sharbaraz's shrunken host came to Serrhes. The epoptes, a plump little man, went about his town in a transport of nervousness: if the protocol for the meeting between the Avtokrator's eldest son and the claimant to the title of King of Kings of Makuran broke down, the blame would all land on him, for both primary parties to the meeting were of rank too exalted for any to stick to them. Had Abivard been wearing Kalamos' boots, he would have been nervous, too.

  As a matter of fact, he was nervous, and for reasons related to those of the city governor. Comin
g to Videssos had been Roshnani's idea, which he had sold to Sharbaraz; if it did not bring the results for which he had hoped, Sharbaraz would remember. Of course, if it didn't bring those results, Sharbaraz would not be powerful enough to make his displeasure felt.

  The ceremony the epoptes devised was as elaborately formal as a wedding. Hosios rode out from the city, accompanied by Kalamos and a ceremonial guard of twenty men. At the same time, Sharbaraz advanced from the tent city that had sprung up outside Serrhes, along with Abivard and twenty men of his own.

  "Ah," Sharbaraz murmured as the Avtokrator's eldest son drew near, "he wears the red boots. Do you see, Abivard?"

  "I see they are red," Abivard answered. "Does that mean something special?"

  Sharbaraz nodded. "The Videssians have ceremonial usages of their own, as complicated as ours. Only an Avtokrator may wear boots all of red, without black stripes or something of the sort. Hosios is junior Emperor in his own right, in other words. I am treating with an equal, at least in theory."

  Abivard didn't need that explained to him. In practice, Likinios made the decisions. Abivard said, "I'm glad Hosios speaks Makuraner. Otherwise I'd be as useful here as a fifth leg on a horse."

  Sharbaraz waved him to silence; Hosios was drawing close enough to hear. He was about Abivard's age, with a narrow-chinned Videssian face made distinctive by a sword scar on one cheek and by eyes that gave the strong impression of having seen everything at least once. He wore a golden circlet that did not quite hide the fact that his hairline had begun to recede.

  Because Sharbaraz had entered Videssos, he spoke first. "I, Sharbaraz, King of Kings, good and pacific, fortunate and pious, to whom the God has given great fortune and a great realm, a man formed in the image of the God, greet you, Hosios Avtokrator, my brother."