The Stolen Throne tot-1

by Harry Turtledove

The corners of her mouth turned upward in what would have looked more like a smile had it come with less obvious effort. She said, "If I could sleep for the next week, I might be well enough after that, but I doubt Varaz here will give me the chance." She shifted the blanket-covered bundle she held in the crook of her left elbow.

  "Let me see him," Abivard said, and Roshnani lifted the soft lamb's wool from his son's face.

  Again he was shocked, and again did his best not to show it. Varaz looked like nothing so much as a wizened little red monkey with an absurd fringe of hair like a bald old man's. His eyes were shut tight enough to pull his whole face into a grimace. He breathed in little snorting grunts and occasionally twitched for no reason at all.

  "He's a handsome boy," Abivard declared, the most sincere lie he had ever told.

  "Isn't he?" Roshnani said proudly. Either she was lying, too, or mother love-or possibly the rigors of childbirth-had left her blind.

  Abivard would have bet on the latter-the longer he stared at Varaz, the better the baby looked. "May I hold him?" he asked, gulping a little. He knew how to hold newborn pups, but babies-especially this baby, his own baby-were something else again.

  "Here." Roshnani held the wrapped bundle out to him. "Keep one hand under his head, mind you-he can't hold it up for himself."

  "I don't blame him, poor chap," Abivard answered. "It's much the biggest part of him." Varaz squirmed as the transfer was made and threw out his arms and legs without waking up. Abivard carefully supported his head. "Once I was this small, with my father holding me. Could it be possible?"

  "If you'd been born the size you are now, your poor mother would have been..

  upset is hardly the word," Roshnani returned. "Bringing forth even a baby is quite hard enough, thank you."

  Abivard blinked, then laughed. "If you can joke, you'll get over it sooner than you think."

  "May you be right." Roshnani yawned and said, "Set him in the cradle, would you? I'd like to sleep as long as he'll let me."

  As if Varaz were made of parchment-thin glass, Abivard laid him down. When the corner of the baby's mouth brushed the blanket that lined the cradle, he made little sucking noises. Abivard kissed Roshnani and said, "Do rest. I hope he gives you plenty of chances."

  "So do I," Roshnani said, "but that's in his hands, not mine." She yawned again. "Whatever chances he gives me, I'll take."

  When Abivard had walked to his bedchamber the night he had come back to Vek Rud stronghold, too much wine had made him feel his feet were floating above the ground. He had drunk some wine waiting nervously while Roshnani delivered Varaz, but was for all practical purposes sober. Nevertheless, he floated much higher now than he had then.

  * * *

  Winter yielded to spring in its usual grudging, curmudgeonly way. Varaz thrived as if he were an early spring flower himself. Everyone exclaimed at his size, at his looks, at how enthusiastically he nursed. He quickly learned to smile. He had had Abivard's heart before, but with that he captured his father all over again.

  The first crops were beginning to sprout when a dusty, muddy horseman made his way up the knob to Vek Rud stronghold, asking after Abivard. Men hurried to fetch the dihqan, for the rider bore word from Sharbaraz King of Kings.

  He bowed when Abivard came before him and said, "Lord, I am bidden to deliver two messages to you. First is that your sister, the lady Denak, was before I departed for this domain delivered of a daughter, the princess Jarireh. She and the little one were both well when I left Mashiz."

  "This for your good news," Abivard said, giving him a couple of arkets. He hoped Denak hadn't apologized to Sharbaraz for bearing a girl. He would have reckoned the news better still if she had had a boy, but as long as she had come through birth all right, she would have more chances for that later. He asked the horseman, "What is the King of Kings' other message?"

  "Lord, it may not please you." The rider nervously licked his lips. "Sharbaraz King of Kings orders you to come to Mashiz as fast as you may."

  "What?" Abivard said. "Does he say why?"

  "He does not," the messenger said. "But there you are bidden. Would you presume to disobey the King of Kings?"

  "Of course not," Abivard replied at once. He suddenly realized that being Sharbaraz's brother-in-law could bring him danger as well as privilege. If he didn't obey the King of Kings, even in the smallest particular, he ran the risk of being suspected of treachery or undue ambition-not that the two would look much different from Sharbaraz's point of view. If an obscure cousin could aspire to the throne, what of a less obscure brother-in-law?

  Abivard had no more desire to become King of Kings than he did to climb up on the stronghold wall and jump off. He also had the feeling that the more he tried to convince Sharbaraz of that, the less Sharbaraz would believe him. He asked the messenger, "Does his Majesty want me to leave for Mashiz today?"

  "Indeed he does, lord," the fellow answered. "I am to accompany you on the journey, and to make it as quick as may be." He pulled a pair of parchments from a message tube on his belt. "Here is his written order, which I have just delivered. And here is a command enabling us to draw on the stables of all the domains on the way back to the capital, thus speeding us on our way."

  "He's in earnest, then," Abivard said, nodding. Only half in jest he added, "Have I your leave to make farewells before we set out?"

  "Lord, I am your servant," the messenger said. "But we are both servants of Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase."

  "Well said," Abivard answered. "Here, come to the kitchens, take food and drink. I shall attend you as soon as I can." He called to one of his men to take the rider into the living quarters of the stronghold, then went looking for Frada.

  His brother's eyes snapped with excitement when Abivard gave him the news.

  "What do you suppose it means?" Frada asked. "Do you think we're at war with Videssos already?"

  "I don't see how we could be," Abivard said. "Sharbaraz wouldn't attack Likinios without good reason, and Likinios went to too much trouble too recently to put Sharbaraz on the throne to give him a good reason so soon." Frada made a clucking noise. "I'd argue with you, but I don't see how I can. But off you go again, and leave me behind to watch over the stronghold. It hardly seems fair." He laughed at Abivard's expression. "No, no, don't look like that. I'm just giving you a rough time. Whatever Sharbaraz wants, I expect I'll find out if there's a place in it for me. Maybe it's something to do with Denak."

  "There's a thought," Abivard agreed. "You could be right-that might account for his not telling the messenger much." Now he knew he looked worried. "I hope it's nothing bad. But no, it could hardly be, not with the other word the fellow brought."

  "You'll know fairly soon," Frada said. "Mashiz is a long way from here, but you won't have to fight any battles to get there, not this year."

  "I'd better not!" Abivard exclaimed, laughing. He quickly grew serious once more. "That leaves you in charge of the domain again, brother of mine. I know you can run it-you've had more chance to show that than I have. Only one place where I'll tell you anything at all-"

  "The women's quarters, I hope," Frada said.

  "Why did I guess you were going to say that?" Abivard's chuckle was rueful.

  "As a matter of fact, though, you're right. Let my wives keep the privileges I've given them, but grant no new ones. If you need advice, you could do far worse than going to either Mother or Roshnani, or to both of them. If they agree, they're almost sure to be right. If they don't, you'll have to use your own judgment. Myself, I'm more inclined to think along with Roshnani."

  Frada nodded. "I'll bear all that in mind. But it's not what I'm really worried about. That's simple: what do I do if one of your wives has a belly that starts to bulge?"

  "I'll take care of that, by the God," Abivard said grimly. He hunted in the dirt of the courtyard till he found three black pebbles, then rounded up three witnesses. He chose men of unquestioned probity, among them Ga
nzak the smith, whom no one would have thought of doubting. With the witnesses watching, Abivard passed Frada the pebbles, saying, "To my brother I commit these, and give him my proxy to use them to divorce any wife of mine who adulterously gets herself with child while I am gone from the stronghold."

  "I shall keep these pebbles safe against a day I hope never comes," Frada said, his voice solemn.

  "We have seen your purpose, lord, and will speak of it should there be need," Ganzak said. "I also hope that day does not come." The heads of the other witnesses bobbed up and down.

  "So do I," Abivard said. "But what I hope and what will be…" He let that hang. His brother and the witnesses all knew whereof he spoke.

  By the time he went into the women's quarters, the messenger's news had already got there. He did not warn his wives he had left the pebbles with Frada; he doubted threats of that sort would keep them on the straight and narrow path if they were inclined to stray. And if they could not figure out that he might do such a thing, they were too foolish to belong in the women's quarters even as ornaments.

  Roshnani said, "You won't have me nagging you to come along this time, husband of mine, not with Varaz still so small. I'll pray to the God that she bring you home quick and safe."

  "I'll offer him the same prayer," Abivard answered.

  Roshnani started to say something, closed her mouth on it, then cautiously tried again: "Will your other wives and I be confined to the women's quarters while you're away from the stronghold?"

  "No," Abivard answered. "I've told Frada that your privileges are to remain the same."

  That got him a hug fervent enough to squeeze the breath from him and to make him wish Sharbaraz's messenger wasn't waiting impatiently in the kitchens. Roshnani said, "Truly the God has been kind enough to grant me the most generous, most forbearing husband in all the world. I bless her for it and love him for it."

  Abivard had intended to go on with something commonplace and fatuous about not abusing the privileges that would continue. Instead he stopped and stared. He and Roshnani had been man and wife for close to three years now; in all that time, he didn't think either of them had mentioned love. Marriages were made to bind families together. If you were lucky, you got on well with your wife, you could rely on her, and she gave good advice-to say nothing of an heir. All those things he had had with Roshnani. Anything more…

  She was watching him warily, perhaps wondering if she had said too much. After a moment, he observed thoughtfully, "Do you know, wife of mine, until you named the name I didn't realize we had the thing it describes. That's a magic worthy of Tanshar at his best. And do you know what else? I'm angry at you because of it."

  "You are? Why?" Roshnani asked, puzzled.

  "Because now I'll be even sorrier to go away from you, and even more begrudging of every day till I'm home again." He squeezed her as hard as she had him.

  "Those days will be empty for me, too," Roshnani said. But then, because she was a practical person, she laughed at her poetic pretension and said, "Well, not quite empty, not with Varaz filling them so. But I'll miss you more than I know how to say."

  "I understand, because I feel the same way," he said, and then, cautiously: "I love you, too." He hugged her again. "And now I have to leave." He kissed her, then made his way quickly toward the door to the women's quarters. Because those steps were so hard to take, he made himself hurry them, lest he find he could not.

  Sharbaraz's man was finishing his wine when Abivard walked into the kitchens. He got up from the bench on which he sat. "Let us be off, lord," he said. "If you will be so kind as to show me to the stables-"

  "Certainly, although I would like the chance to ready a pack-horse before we set out," Abivard answered. "Strongholds, even villages, are few and far between up here in the northwest, and the land from one to the next often bad. If anything should go wrong, which the God prevent, I'd sooner not be stuck in the desert without any supplies at all. That's how vultures grow fat."

  The messenger muttered under his breath but had to nod. Servants carried sacks of pocket bread and lamb sausage rich with garlic and mint and cardamom and skins of rough-edged red wine out to the stables, where grooms lashed them aboard a big gelding with good endurance.

  A couple of hours before sunset, Sharbaraz's man swung up onto his horse with very visible relief. Abivard mounted, too, and put the packhorse on a long leather lead. With the messenger, he rode out of Vek Rud stronghold, down the knob on which it sat, and away toward the southeast.

  * * *

  As Abivard had predicted, the journey to Mashiz went far more smoothly than it had when he had set out for the capital with Sharbaraz two years before. Not only did no one take up arms against him as he traveled, but lesser nobles went out of their way to offer hospitality as extravagant as they could afford. Being brother-in-law to the King of Kings had its advantages.

  So did the warrant Sharbaraz's man flourished whenever occasion arose. Not only did it entitle him and Abivard to fresh horses at their stops, but to victuals on demand. The bread and meat and wine Abivard had packed back at Vek Rud stronghold stayed all but untouched.

  "I don't care," he said when the messenger remarked on that. "Who knows what might have happened if we didn't have them with us?"

  "Something to that," the fellow admitted. "Things you get ready for have a way of not going wrong. It's the ones you don't look for that give you trouble."

  Sharbaraz's rebellious army had swung south around the Dilbat Mountains and then up through the desert toward Mashiz. Because the realm was at peace and the season approaching summer, Abivard and Sharbaraz's man traversed the passes through the mountains instead.

  Abivard had thought he was used to high country. He had grown up atop a knob, after all, and he had scaled Nalgis Crag, which was a most impressive piece of stone all by itself. But looking up to steep mountains on either side of him reminded him of his insignificance in the grand scheme of things more forcefully even than the immense emptiness of the Pardrayan plain.

  Fortresses in the passes could have held up an army indefinitely, both by their own strength and with the avalanches they could have unleashed against hostile troops. Seeing the gray stone piles and the heaped boulders, Abivard understood why Sharbaraz had never once considered forcing his way through the shorter route. He would not have reached Mashiz.

  As things were, though, the officers who commanded the forts vied with one another to honor the brother-in-law of the King of Kings. The men struck him as being as much courtiers as soldiers, but the garrisons they commanded looked like good troops.

  And then, early one morning, he and the messenger came round a last bend in the road and there, laid out before them as if through some great artist's brush, sat Mashiz, with the river valleys of the land of the Thousand Cities serving as distant backdrop. Abivard studied the scene for a long time. He had seen and even entered Mashiz from the east, but the capital of the realm took on a whole new aspect when viewed from the other direction.

  "This is how it must have looked to our ancestors the God only knows how many years ago, when they first came off the high plateau of Makuran and saw the land they would make their own," he said.

  The messenger shrugged. "I don't know anything about that, lord. I'm glad to see Mashiz again because I'm coming home to my wife and son."

  "You took me away from mine," Abivard said, although not in real reproof: the man was but obeying the command of Sharbaraz King of Kings. "Lead me to the palace now, so I can learn the King of Kings' wishes and go back to my home once more."

  In many ways, this was the first good look he had had at Mashiz. When he had entered it with Sharbaraz, he had been too busy fighting for his life to pay much attention to his surroundings, and then, just as he reached the palace, sorcerous darkness had swallowed the city. Now he took it all in: merchants and whores, servants of the God and horse traders, drunkards and servitors, farmers selling lettuces, farmers buying copper trinkets, singers, dancers, beg
gars, two men with picks stolidly knocking down a mud-brick wall, women hawking caged songbirds, and a thousand more besides. The noise was overwhelming, both in volume and variety.

  Without the messenger to guide him, he would soon have been hopelessly lost. Streets writhed and twisted and doubled back on themselves, but Sharbaraz's man unerringly picked his way through the maze and toward the palace. At the gates, he turned Abivard over to a plump, beardless flunky and rode away.

  At first Abivard thought the functionary was a man, although he had never seen a man without a beard. Then he thought the person was a woman, for the voice with which he was addressed seemed too high and smooth to belong to a man. But he had trouble imagining a woman in such a prominent position at the court of the King of Kings.

  Then he realized he was dealing with a eunuch. He felt like a country bumpkin, unused to the sophisticated ways of the capital. As the courtier guided him to the throne room, though, he wondered what the fellow thought of his own state. Sophistication had its prices, too.

  "Great and magnificent lord, I shall be beside you as you are presented to Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase," the eunuch said. "At my signal, thus-" He touched Abivard on the arm. "-you are to prostrate yourself before him."

  "As you say," Abivard agreed. Being brother-in-law to the King of Kings did not excuse him from any of the formalities of court ceremonial. If anything, it made his punctiliousness in observing those formalities more important than it would have been for someone of less exalted rank.

  His feet glided soundlessly over thick wool carpets beautifully dyed and elaborately woven: carpets too fine to be walked upon anywhere save in the palace of the King of Kings. The torches that lit the hallways were of sandalwood; their sweet smoke filled the air. He had put on his best caftan to enter Mashiz, but felt woefully underdressed all the same.

  "We approach the throne room," the eunuch murmured in his strange, sexually ambiguous voice. "Walk beside me, as I told you, and be ready for my signal."