The Stolen Throne tot-1

by Harry Turtledove

  Hosios inclined his head; evidently he knew not only the Makuraner language but also the flowery rhetoric that flourished in Sharbaraz's realm. He said, "In the name of Likinios, Avtokrator of the Videssians, viceregent of Phos on earth, I, Hosios Avtokrator, greet you, Sharbaraz by right of birth King of Kings, my brother."

  He held out his hand. Sharbaraz urged his horse forward a pace or two and clasped it, without hesitation but also without joy. Abivard understood that. The Videssians had flowery ceremonial language of their own, but he had caught the implications of by right of birth King of Kings. It sounded well, but promised nothing. If at some future time Likinios saw wisdom in recognizing Smerdis, he could do so with a clear conscience, for having the birthright of a King of Kings was not the same as actually being one.

  Sharbaraz released Hosios' hand and introduced Abivard to him. Abivard bowed in the saddle, saying, "Your Majesty-"

  "I am styled 'young Majesty, to distinguish me from my father," Hosios broke in.

  "Your pardon, young Majesty. I was about to say, I never expected to have the honor of meeting a Videssian Avtokrator, save perhaps on the battlefield-and then the introduction would have been edged with iron, not words."

  "Aye-sharper than the one of us or the other would have liked, that's certain." Hosios sized up Abivard with the knowing eyes that, along with his scar, said he had been on a few battlefields in his time: perhaps against the Kubratoi, whoever they were: to Abivard, at any rate, no more than a name.

  Sharbaraz said, "You will understand, Hosios-" With his rank, he was entitled to use the junior Avtokrator's name unadorned. "-I would sooner meet you as foe and outright enemy myself. You would know I was lying if I said otherwise. But since fate compels me to come before you as a beggar, I own that is what I am." He bowed his proud head to Hosios.

  The junior Avtokrator reached out to set a hand on his shoulder. "No harm will come to you and yours in Videssos, Sharbaraz: may Phos the lord with the great and good mind damn me to the eternal ice if I lie. Whatever else befalls, I promise you a mansion in Videssos the city and estates in the countryside, with appropriate lodging throughout the Empire for the men who have followed you here."

  "You are generous," Sharbaraz said, again with something less than a whole heart. Again, Abivard had no trouble figuring out why: Hosios proposed to dissolve the Makuraner army like a small spoonful of salt poured into a great tun of water. After a moment's pause to show he also grasped that point, Sharbaraz resumed: "But I did not come here seeking a new home for me and mine. I came to beseech your aid that I might return to Makuran, where I already have a home."

  "I know that," Hosios answered calmly. "Were it in my power, you would have what you ask for on the instant. But my power, though large, does not reach so far. You will have to wait on my father's will."

  Sharbaraz inclined his head once more. "Your father is well served in you. The God grant he realize it."

  "In such ways as you can in your distress, you are generous to me," Hosios said, smiling. "One would have to be a very bold man indeed to contemplate going against my father's will. As with my power, my boldness is large, but does not extend so far."

  Beside him, Kalamos the epoptes nodded vigorously. He had a good and healthy respect for the Avtokrator's power. Abivard approved of that. He wished a certain mintmaster back in Mashiz had shown similar respect for the power of the King of Kings.

  "May I ask a question, Majesty?" he murmured to Sharbaraz. When his sovereign nodded, he turned to Hosios and said, "If Likinios has such power and boldness as you describe, young Majesty, what could keep him from coming to our aid?"

  He didn't know what sort of answer he had expected, but it was not the blunt reply Hosios gave him: "Two things spring to mind, eminent sir. One, your principal there may not offer concessions substantial enough to make it worth our while to restore him to the throne. And two, related to one, the war against the Kubratoi has caused a hemorrhage in the treasury. Videssos may simply lack the funds to do as you desire, however much we might want to."

  "We in Makuran speak of Videssos as a nation of merchants," Sharbaraz said. "I regret to say it seems to be so."

  Hosios had his own kind of pride, not the haughty arrogance a Makuraner noble would have displayed, but a certainty all the more impressive for being understated. "If we were but a nation of merchants, Makuran would have conquered us long since. I would be impolite to remind you who seeks whose aid, and so I would never presume to do such a thing."

  "Of course," Sharbaraz said sourly. Hosios' not-reminder could scarcely have hit any harder had the junior Avtokrator held up a sign.

  "We are friends here, or at least not enemies," Hosios said. "I bid you to a feast this evening, to be held in the residence of the noble epoptes here. Bring a score of your chiefest captains with you, or even half again as many. And, since I am told you and your brother-in-law have your wives accompanying you, bring them, as well. Many of the leading citizens of Serrhes will have their ladies with them. My own wife is back in Videssos the city, or I would do the same."

  "This is not our custom." Sharbaraz's voice was stiff. Abivard nodded.

  Hosios ignored both of them. He said, "We have a proverb: 'When in Videssos the city, eat fish. If you come to the Videssian Empire, should you not accommodate yourselves to our usages?"

  Sharbaraz hesitated. As soon as he did, Abivard knew another fight was lost. This time, he resolved to get ahead of the rightful King of Kings. "Thank you for the invitation, young Majesty," he said to Hosios. "Roshnani will be honored to attend, especially since it's you who command it."

  Hosios beamed and turned to Sharbaraz. The rightful King of Kings gave Abivard a so-you've-had-your-revenge look, then yielded with as much grace as he could muster: "Where Abivard's wife may go, how can his sister be left behind?

  Denak, too, will conform to your customs this evening."

  "Excellent!" The junior Avtokrator carefully refrained from sounding smug or triumphant. "I shall see you at sunset this evening, then."

  "At sunset." Sharbaraz carefully refrained from sounding enthusiastic.

  * * *

  "I'm so excited!" Roshnani squeaked as she walked through the streets of Serrhes toward the epoptes' residence. She stared at the golden dome atop a temple to Phos. "I never imagined I would see a Videssian city from the inside."

  "I hoped I would, after taking it in war," Abivard said, "but not this way-never as guest to the Avtokrator's son."

  A couple of paces ahead, Denak strode along beside Sharbaraz. By the casual glances she cast this way and that, she might have been born in Serrhes and come back to it after a few months' absence: she appeared interested but a long way from fascinated. Unlike her sister-in-law, she took the invitation to Hosios' supper as no more than her due.

  The officers who trailed after Sharbaraz and Abivard imitated Denak in one respect: just as she did her best to seem unimpressed with the Videssian city, so they tried to pretend that she and Roshnani were not with their party.

  Their idea of society was rigidly masculine, and they aimed to keep it that way.

  Kalamos' residence and Serrhes' main temple to Phos looked at each across the market square below the hillock in which the citadel stood. The temple was impressive, with a large dome surmounting on pendentives walls thick enough to make another citadel in time of need. By contrast, the epoptes' residence was severely plain: whitewashed walls, slit windows, a red tile roof. If such a meager home was a perquisite of office, Abivard wondered how the Videssians managed to lure anyone into the job.

  His perspective changed when he went inside. Videssians confined the loveliness of their homes to the interior, where only those so bidden could observe it. Mosaics of herding and hunting scenes brightened the floors, while tapestries made the walls seem to come alive. The residence was built around a courtyard. A fountain splashed there, in the middle of a formal garden.

  Torches did their brave best to turn evening to noontime.
r />   Hosios and Kalamos greeted the Makuraner leaders as they arrived. Beside the epoptes stood his wife, a plump, pleasant-faced woman who seemed pleased to greet Roshnani and Denak and a trifle puzzled-though politeness masked most of that-the rest of the guests had no women with them. Other officials, as Hosios had said, also had their wives-and sometimes, along with their sons, their young and pretty daughters-at the supper. They all took that utterly for granted, which bemused even Abivard, who thought of himself as a liberal in such matters.

  "It's what you're used to, I suppose," Sharbaraz said after accepting greetings from yet another highborn Videssian lady. "But, by the God, I'll need a while to get used to this."

  Not all the Videssians spoke Makuraner, nor did all the Makuraners know Videssian. Those who had both languages interpreted for those who did not. Some from each group hung back, resolutely unsociable, suspicious of their longtime foes, or both.

  No one hung back from the wine. Servants circulated with trays of already-filled cups. Some of the wine had a strong taste of resin. A Makuraner-speaking Videssian explained to Abivard, "We use pitch to seal the wine jars and to keep the precious stuff inside from turning to vinegar. I hadn't noticed the flavor for years, till you reminded me of it."

  "It's what you're used to," Abivard said, echoing his sovereign.

  The main course for the banquet was a pair of roasted kids. As the second highest-ranking Makuraner, Abivard was seated by Kalamos. He turned to the epoptes and said, "I recognize garlic and cloves and the flavoring, but not the rest of the sauce."

  "The oil is from the olive," Kalamos answered, "which I know is not common in Makuran. And the rest is garum, brought hither all the way from Videssos the city."

  "Garum?" That was not a word Abivard knew. "What goes into it? It has a tang not quite like anything I've tasted." He smacked his lips, unsure whether he liked it or not.

  "It's made from fish," the epoptes explained. If he had stopped there, everything would have been fine, but he went on, "They make it by salting down fish innards in pots open to the air. When the fish are fully ripe, a liquid forms above them, which is then drawn off and bottled. A great delicacy, don't you agree?"

  Abivard needed a moment to realize that, when the helpful Videssian said ripe, he meant putrid. His stomach got the message before his head did. He gulped wine, hoping to quell the internal revolt before it was well begun. Then he shoved his plate away. "I find I'm full," he said.

  "What was he saying about fish in the sauce?" asked Roshnani, who had been talking in very simple Makuraner with the epoptes' wife.

  "Never mind," Abivard answered. "You don't want to know." He watched the Videssians downing their young goat with gusto, sauce and all. They really thought they were giving their guests the best they had. And in fact, the meal, while strange to his palate, hadn't tasted bad-but after he found out what garum was, he couldn't bring himself to eat another bite of kid.

  Fruit candied in honey and cheese made safer choices. Minstrels played pipes and pandouras and sang songs that struck the ear pleasantly, even if Abivard couldn't understand the words. The sweets and wine helped drown the memory of fermented fish sauce.

  Sharbaraz and Hosios had spent the banquet in earnest conversation, sometimes in the language of one, sometimes in that of the other. They seemed to get on well, which Abivard thought an advantage. It would have been a bigger one, though, had Hosios had authority to do anything much without Likinios' leave.

  Sharbaraz bowed to his host as he stood to go. Abivard and the rest of the Makuraners imitated their sovereign. As they headed out of the epoptes' residence, a Videssian woman let out a short shriek and then exclaimed volubly in her own language.

  "Oh, by the God!" Sharbaraz clapped a hand to his forehead. "She says Bardiya stuck his hand between her-well, felt of her where he shouldn't have. Get that fool out of here, the rest of you."

  As some of the Makuraner officers manhandled Bardiya out into the night, he howled, "What is she complaining about? She must be a whore, or she wouldn't show herself to other men like that. She-" Somebody clapped a hand over his mouth, muffling whatever else he had to say.

  "Forgive him, I beg you, kind lady, and you also, my generous hosts," Sharbaraz said rapidly. "He must have drunk too much wine, or he would not have been so rude and foolish." To Abivard, he muttered under his breath, "This is what comes of banquets run by customs other than our own."

  Hosios said, "Perhaps it would be wiser if that man did not come into Serrhes again. One lapse is fairly easily forgiven. More than one-"

  Sharbaraz bowed. "It shall be as you say, of course. Thank you for your gracious understanding."

  Torchbearers lighted the Makuraners' way back to their encampment. Once they were out of earshot of the epoptes' residence, Abivard said, "That idiot might have ruined everything."

  "Don't I know it," Sharbaraz answered. "Lucky Bardiya didn't try to drag her back among the flowers. That would have been a pretty picture, wouldn't it-a rape at a feast given us by our benefactors?"

  "If he'd done that, he should have answered for it with his head," Denak said.

  "As it is, he ought to suffer more than just being hustled away in disgrace." Her voice had a brittle edge; Abivard remembered what she had endured from Sharbaraz's guards back at Nalgis Crag stronghold.

  "What do you suggest?" Sharbaraz asked, though his tone gave no assurance he would heed what she said.

  "Stripes, well laid on," Denak answered at once. "Use him to teach the lesson and it won't have to be taught again."

  "Too harsh." Sharbaraz sounded like a man dickering over figs in the market square. "Here's what I'll do: come morning, I'll have him apologize to that lady as if she were Likinios' wife, right down to knocking his head on the floor. That may even humiliate him worse than a flogging, and it won't cost me as much goodwill in the army."

  "It's not enough," Denak said darkly.

  "It's better than nothing, and more than I expected you'd get," Roshnani said. Having her sister-in-law speak up for what Sharbaraz had proposed made Denak nod, too, a sharp, abrupt motion that showed consent without enthusiasm.

  "We think of the Videssians as devious double-dealers," Sharbaraz said. "Like a coin that has two sides. In their poems and chronicles, they look on us as fierce and bloodthirsty. Most times, that's a good reputation for us to have. Now, though, we have to seem civilized enough by their standards to be worth helping. A formal apology should do the job."

  "It's not enough," Denak repeated, but then she let the argument go.

  * * *

  Hosios conveyed his recommendations, whatever they were, to a courier to take to his father in the distant northeast of the Empire of Videssos. Not long after he did so, he, too, departed from Serrhes: he had other things to do besides attending to a ragtag band of Makuraners. After he was gone, the town seemed to shrink in on Abivard, as if the world outside had altogether forgotten him and his companions.

  Summer turned to fall. The local farmers harvested their meager crops. Without the wagonloads of grain that came into Serrhes every day, its Makuraner guests would have starved.

  Fall brought rain. Herders-much like their Makuraner counterparts-drove their cattle and sheep to the fields that showed the most new green. Soon the winds from out of the west-from Makuran-would bring snow instead of rain. The climate might be somewhere close to as harsh as that round Vek Rud stronghold

  … and tents were worse suited than castles to riding out winter blizzards. Rain turned roads to mud. Even had Sharbaraz and his host wished to pull up stakes and go somewhere new, they would have been hard-pressed to move far or fast through the gluey, clinging ooze. Only when the first freeze turned the mud hard did travel cautiously begin again.

  About a month after that first freeze, a courier came into Serrhes to report that the Avtokrator Likinios was little more than a day outside of town. The epoptes went into a cleaning fit, like a village woman who sees from her window her fussy mother-in-law approa
ching. As if by sorcery-and Abivard wasn't altogether sure Kalamos hadn't resorted to magecraft-wreaths and bunting appeared on the streets that led from the gates to the square below the citadel: just the streets Likinios was likeliest to travel.

  Sharbaraz also did his best to bring order and cleanliness to his camp outside the wall. Even after that best was done, the camp still struck Abivard as a sad, ragged place: as if a broken dream had been badly animated and brought halfway to life. But he held his peace, for Likinios, should he choose, had the power to revitalize Sharbaraz's cause in full. Anything that might prompt him to do so was worth trying.

  When Likinios did reach Serrhes, the ceremonial ordained for his meeting with Sharbaraz was similar to that which Hosios had employed. With Abivard and his honor guard, Sharbaraz rode out from his camp to greet the Avtokrator, who came forth from the city walls.

  Abivard had looked for an older version of Hosios, just as Peroz, in both looks and style, had been an older version of Sharbaraz. But Likinios, although by his face he had plainly sired his eldest son, as plainly came from a different mold.

  His features were individually like those of Hosios, but taken as a whole gave Abivard the impression that the Avtokrator was totting up how much the ceremony cost-and not caring for the answer he got. Likinios wore gilded armor, but on him it seemed more a costume than something he would don naturally.

  "I welcome you to Videssos, your Majesty," he said in fair Makuraner. His voice was tightly controlled, not, Abivard thought, because he was using a language foreign to him but because that was the sort of man he was. The word that ran through Abivard's mind was calculator.

  "I thank you for your kindness and generosity to me and my people, your Majesty," Sharbaraz replied.

  "You have already dealt with the epoptes here, so I need not introduce him to you." Likinios sounded relieved at not having to spend any unnecessary words.

  "Your Majesty, I have the honor to present to you my brother-in-law the lord Abivard, dihqan of Vek Rud domain," Sharbaraz said. Abivard bowed in the saddle to the Avtokrator.