Videssos Besieged ttot-4

by Harry Turtledove

  Bagdasares did not reply. Maniakes was not sure Bagdasares even heard. The mage had begun the chanting invocation he would use for the spell and the passes that would accompany it. If a wizard did not fix his mind on the essential, his magic would surely fail.

  It might fail even if he did everything perfectly. Bagdasares' frown made him look older. «Wards,» he said to Maniakes in a moment when his hands were busy but he did not need to incant orally. «I am resisted.» His forehead corrugated in thought. When he began to chant again, the rhythm was subtly different from what it had been.

  Different, perhaps, but not better. Frown darkened into scowl. «They have a Videssian mage with them,» he said, releasing the words as if from a mouth full of rotting fish. «He has forereadied charms against many things I might try. Many, aye, but not all.»

  Once more, the rhythm of the chant shifted. This time, so did the language: from archaic Videssian, he turned to the Vaspurakaner tongue. Now his eyes brightened, his voice firmed—progress, Maniakes judged.

  A moment later, he was able to judge progress for himself. He began to feel… something pass between silver coin and iron sword. He did not think he was feeling it with any of the five ordinary senses. It was more akin, or so he judged, to the current that passed from a healer-priest to the person he was helping: as indescribable as that, and as real.

  «We have to do this together,» a voice said from out of the air in front of him. «The delay hurts my men, too—half of them want to go north tomorrow.»

  «Get enough of my soldiers over the Cattle Crossing and we'll lead the way up the towers and onto the wall,» another voice replied, apparently from that same empty place.

  Maniakes started in surprise. It was not so much at hearing Etzilios and Abivard: he'd required that Bagdasares make him able to hear them. Having the mage succeed though he'd doubted whether success was possible gratified the Avtokrator without astonishing him. What he had not expected, though, was that both the khagan of Kubrat and the marshal of Makuran would be speaking Videssian. What did it say when the Empire's two greatest foes had only its language in common?

  «And while they're busy fighting the towers—» Maniakes was surprised again, not having expected to hear a third voice there. But, whether Bagdasares had given him anything to mark it or not, he had an affinity for Tzikas, an affinity of longtime common cause soured into near-murder and endless betrayal. Oh, yes, the two of them were connected.

  But what did Tzikas know? What had he been trying to show the Kubratoi when Maniakes almost put a dart through him?

  The Avtokrator did not find out. Abivard said, «Get the monoxyla over to us. You know the signal to use to let us know when they're coming?»

  «I know the one you gave me,» Etzilios answered. «Why that in particular?»

  «Because it—» Abivard undoubtedly went on talking, but Maniakes heard no more. The arket and the hilt of the sword he was holding went hot in his hands. Weapon and coin both fell to the floor, the one with a clatter, the other chiming sweetly from the stone.

  Bagdasares staggered slightly, then caught himself. «I crave pardon, your Majesty,» he said. «The wizards warding them became aware that I had threaded my way through their defense, and cut off the thread after me.»

  «I wish they hadn't done it right then,» Maniakes said. «If we'd learned what the Kubratoi signal is, our dromons would be waiting to pounce on their one-trunk boats. We'd slaughter them.»

  «No doubt you are right,» Bagdasares said. «I promise you. I shall do everything I can to learn what this signal may be. But I cannot do it now; the enemy's wizards almost made me lose a good-sized piece of my soul in the escape.»

  «Go rest, then,» Maniakes said. «You look like you need it.» What Bagdasares looked as if he needed was something more than rest. Maniakes said nothing of that, in the hope rest would also restore what else was missing from the Vaspurakaner mage. And, on leaving, Bagdasares did indeed yawn enormously, as if his body, not his spirit, had put in a hard day.

  Maniakes waited till Bagdasares was well clear of the room in which he'd worked before muttering a ripe oath. That might not have done him any good, if Bagdasares was listening with senses beyond those mundane five. The Avtokrator cursed again, more ripely yet.

  «So close!» Maniakes said, slamming a fist down on a tabletop. Another sentence, two at the most, would have told him what he so desperately wanted—so desperately needed—to learn. Now all be knew was that the Kubratoi would in fact swallow their pride and get help from the men of Makuran, who were more experienced when it came to sieges.

  He wished—how he wished!—Etzilios had been too headstrong to share what he hoped would be his triumph with his allies. But Etzilios was too practical for that, worse luck. Trim his beard and take him out of his furs and he would have made a pretty fair Videssian. On that depressing note, Maniakes also left the chamber where Bagdasares had worked his successful spell. If only it had been a little more successful, the Avtokrator thought.

  Thrax rose from his prostration, eyeing Maniakes warily. «How may I serve your Majesty?» he asked. The ceremonial of the Grand Courtroom weighed on him, as it was meant to do.

  «I summoned you here to make certain you have the fleet at the highest pitch of readiness over the next few days,» Maniakes said from the throne, staring down at the drungarios of the fleet with no expression whatever on his face. The only way he could have sounded more imposing would have been to use the royal we, as Sharbaraz did—probably even when he goes in unto his wives, Maniakes thought, which amused him enough to make him have trouble holding his face still.

  «The fleet is always at the highest pitch of readiness, your Majesty,» Thrax said. «If the cockroaches come away from the wall, we'll step on 'em.»

  «I know you're ready to fight,» Maniakes said. «That isn't quite what I meant.»

  «Well, what did you mean, then?» the drungarios of the fleet asked. A couple of courtiers muttered to one another at the imperfectly respectful way in which he framed the question.

  Maniakes felt like muttering, too, but held onto his patience by main force. He knew how Thrax was. Knowing how Thrax was had made him convoke this ceremony. If the drungarios knew ahead of time exactly what he was supposed to do, he would do it, and do it well enough. If taken by surprise, he still might do well– but he also might do anything at all, with no way to guess beforehand whether for good or ill.

  «I summoned you here to explain just that,» the Avtokrator answered. «I expect that the Kubratoi will try to send a good many monoxyla over to the west side of the Cattle Crossing to bring back enough Makuraners to man the siege towers against us. Are you with me so far?»

  «Aye, your Majesty,» Thrax said confidently. Under that shock of shining silver hair, his bronzed, lined face was a mask of concentration.

  «Good.» Maniakes did his best to sound encouraging. Since he hadn't found anyone better than Thrax, he had to work as best he could within the man's limitations. He went on, «Before they sail, they'll signal, to let the Makuraners know they're coming. If we can spot that signal, too, we'll be able to get a running start on them, you might say. Wherever the main body of the fleet is, whether tied up at the piers or on patrol a little way off from the city, you have to be ready to get it out and covering the Cattle Crossing on the instant. Now do you understand what I'm saying?»

  «I think so,» the drungarios said. «You're saying you don't only want us ready to fight at a moment's notice, you want us ready to move at a moment's notice, too.»

  «That's it! That's perfect!» Maniakes felt like leaping down from the throne and planting a kiss on Thrax's cheek. Only the suspicion that that would fluster the drungarios more than it pleased him kept the Avtokrator in his seat. «Can you do it?»

  «Oh, aye, I can, no doubt about that,» Thrax said. «I'm still not sure I see the need, but I can.»

  «Seeing the need is my job,» Maniakes said.

  «Oh, aye,» Thrax repeated. Unlike a lot of officers,
he had no secret ambition to set his fundament on the throne Maniakes occupied. He might well have lacked the imagination to picture himself enjoying the power that would accrue to him on the seat. Cocking his head to one side, he asked, «How will you know what signal the Kubratoi are using?»

  That was a good question. It was, in fact, the question of the moment. It wouldn't have been, had Etzilios' wizards—or perhaps Abivard's—not discovered Bagdasares' sorcery till another few moments had gone by. But they had discovered it, and now Maniakes had to live with—or perhaps die from—the consequences.

  He said, «Our wizards are working on that,» which had the twin virtues of being true and of satisfying Thrax. Also true was that the wizards had not had any luck whatever, but Maniakes did not tell the drungarios that.

  The wizards' failure ate at the Avtokrator. So did the feeling they shouldn't have failed, or rather that their failure shouldn't have mattered. But matter it did. The Kubratoi, curse them, were not fools. Their wizards knew he'd been eavesdropping on Etzilios and Abivard. They knew he knew they intended to signal Abivard before their one-trunk boats dashed over the Cattle Crossing to ferry the Makuraners back to the eastern side of the strait to attack the walls of Videssos the city.

  They also knew, or perhaps hoped, Maniakes did not know what the signal was supposed to be. And so they gave him every kind of signal under the sun. Fires sent columns of dense black smoke into the air by day. Fires crackled on the beach near the city by night. Kubratoi on horseback carried enormous banners of different colors back and forth. In among that welter of decoys the nomads might almost have hung out a sign—here we come, say, in letters fifty feet high—and had it pass with no special notice.

  For the Videssians, in the frustrating absence of any sure knowledge of what the true signal would be, had to react to each and every one of them as if it was the real thing. Time after time, dromons would charge out into the Cattle Crossing, oars whipping the waves to foam, only to find no sign of the monoxyla they'd hoped to trap.

  Inevitably, the false alarms began corroding the fleet's readiness. Maniakes had expected that to be a worse problem than it was. After a while, he realized why it wasn't so bad. He'd told Thrax he wanted the dromons ready to move at a moment's notice, no matter what. No matter what turned out to be more complicated and difficult than he'd expected. But he'd given Thrax an order, and the drungarios of the fleet was going to make sure that order got obeyed—period. Every once in a while, dogged mediocrity had its advantages.

  Had Rhegorios suggested a sally now, Maniakes might have been more inclined to listen to him. The notion did not tempt him enough to order one on his own. He had more patience than his cousin—or so he kept telling himself, at any rate, though his record of moving too soon made it a dubious proposition.

  The Kubratoi kept Videssos the city under blockade by land, and, away from it, their monoxyla picked off some of the merchantmen bringing supplies to the defenders. Grain did not grow scarce, but looked as if it would soon, which drove up the price in the markets.

  Maniakes summoned a couple of the leading grain merchants. One of them, Boraides, was short and plump and smiled all the time. The other, Provhos, was tall and thin and doleful. Their looks and temperaments might have been different, but they thought alike.

  Boraides said, «Not right to keep a man from turning an honest profit, heh heh.»

  «We are in a risky business, your Majesty,» Provhos agreed. He cracked his knuckles with careful attention, one after another, his two thumbs last of all. The popping noises were startlingly loud in the small audience chamber of the imperial residence.

  «I called you here to ask you to keep your prices down of your own free will,» Maniakes said, «and to ask you to ask your colleagues to do likewise.»

  Boraides' eyes flicked left to Provhos, whose eyes were flicking right to him. Both men coughed at the same time. «Can't be done, your Majesty,» Provhos said.

  «Wish it could, but it can't,» Boraides agreed. «Us grain sellers, we don't trust anybody. Why, I don't trust myself half the time, heh heh. I tell the other boys what you've just told me, they're liable to bump up prices on account of what you said, no better reason than that.»

  «They would be well advised not to do anything so foolish, Maniakes said.

  Boraides started another breezy story. Provhos held up a hand. His fingers were long and, except at the joints, thin. Maniakes wondered whether that was because he cracked his knuckles. The lean grain merchant asked, «Why is that, your Majesty?»

  «Because if they try to make an unfair profit off the people during this time of trouble—which is something the two of you would never even think of doing, of course—I would decide I had no choice but to open the imperial granaries to bring prices down again.»

  «You wouldn't do such a thing, your Majesty,» Boraides said. «Why, it'd cost the grain merchants' goodwill for years to come.»

  Maniakes angrily exhaled through his nose. Some people's self-importance never failed to amaze him. He said, «Shall I have the soldiers take you out to the wall, distinguished sir? Do you want to go up there and see the Kubratoi and Makuraners with your own eyes? If that will convince you they're really there, I'll be happy to arrange it.»

  «I know they're there, your Majesty, heh heh,» Boraides said. «It's only that—»

  «If you know they're there, why don't you act like it?» Maniakes interrupted. «I don't want people going hungry while we're besieged, and I don't want people hating the men who sell them grain, either. Both those things are liable to make them fight worse than they would otherwise, and that's all I'm worried about. If the city falls, we're dead—for true, not metaphorically. Next to that, gentlemen, having the grain merchants angry at me is something I don't mind risking.»

  «But—» Boraides was ready to go on arguing.

  Provhos seemed to have a better grip on reality. «It's no good, Bor,» he said sadly. «He can do more things to us than we can do to him, and that's all there is to it.» He bowed to Maniakes. «We'll keep prices down as low as we can, your Majesty. If you open the imperial granaries, you can always knock them down lower. That's what being Avtokrator is all about.»

  «That's right,» Maniakes said. «I'm glad one of you has the wit to realize it, anyhow.»

  «Bah,» Boraides said. «If we put enough people on the streets—»

  «A lot of them will end up dead,» Maniakes promised. «So will you. You may perhaps have noticed that we have an army's worth of soldiers in the city. If merchants protest now because they can't gouge, they will be sorry, as I said earlier. How long do you think they'll be able to go before soldiers start looting the shops of merchants who've been… troublesome, especially if they didn't think anyone would punish them afterward?»

  Boraides still didn't seem ready to keep his mouth shut. Provhos hissed at him. They put their heads together. Maniakes let them mutter for as long as they liked. When they finished, he had trouble deciding which of them looked less happy. Provhos' long face had probably seemed mournful on the most joyous day of his life, and he wasn't joyous now. Boraides usually looked jolly even when he wasn't. He didn't look jolly at the moment.

  «You're doing a terrible thing to us, your Majesty, keeping us from earning an honest return on our work,» he said. «You can make us do it—Provhos is right about that—but you can't make us like it.»

  «I've never said you can't make your usual profit. I've said you can't gouge,» Maniakes answered. «Think back. Pay attention to my words. I don't like the idea of food riots. I have enough trouble and to spare outside the city. If I can stop trouble inside the city before it starts, you'd best believe I'm going to do that.»

  Both grain merchants shook their heads. He'd overawed them. He hadn't convinced them. He was willing to settle for that. He was not the lord with the great and good mind, to reach inside a man's head and change the way he thought. If he could make his subjects act as he wished them to act, he'd be content.

  He scow
led. Up till now, he hadn't had much luck making the Makuraners and Kubratoi act as he wished them to act.

  Provhos and Boraides took his frown as dismissal. He hadn't intended it that way, but it would do. As they rose, Kameas appeared in the doorway to escort them out of the imperial residence.

  «How do you do that?» Maniakes asked when the vestiarios returned to see if he needed anything else.

  «How do I do what, your Majesty?» Kameas asked in return.

  «Know exactly when to show up,» the Avtokrator said. «I've never caught you snooping, and neither has anyone else, but you're always in the right place at the right time. How do you manage?»

  «I have a good notion of how long any particular individual is likely to require your attention,» the eunuch said, which was not really an answer.

  «If your sense of timing is as good as that, esteemed sir, maybe you belong on the battlefield, not in the palace quarter.»

  Maniakes hadn't meant it seriously, but Kameas sounded serious as he replied, «A couple of chamberlains with my disability have served their sovereigns as soldiers, your Majesty. I am given to understand that they did not disgrace themselves, perhaps for the very reason you cited.»

  «I didn't know that,» Maniakes said, bemused. Eunuch generals would have to gain respect from their men by different means from entire men, that was certain. It wouldn't be easy, either; he could see as much. «I must say I admire them.»

  «Oh, so do we, your Majesty,» Kameas replied. «Their memory is yet green within the palaces.» Maniakes pictured old chamberlains telling young ones of the great deeds of their warlike predecessors, and then those young eunuchs growing old in turn and passing on the tales to those who came after them. Then Kameas rather spoiled his vision by adding, «And several historians and chroniclers also note their martial accomplishments.»

  «Do they?» Maniakes' reading, aside from endless parchments from the bureaucrats and soldiers who made the Empire of Videssos keep running even in the face of the dislocations of the Makuraner and Kubrati invasions, ran more to military manuals than to histories. And soldiers like Kalokyres, in explaining how a general Was to go about doing the things he needed to do, never bothered mentioning whether testicles were essential for the job.