«I wonder how much gold we've spent on the fleet over the years—over the centuries, by Phos,» the Avtokrator said musingly. «So much of it must have looked like nothing but waste. However much we spent, though, what we did here today made every copper of it worthwhile.»
«That's right, your Majesty. That's exactly right,» Thrax said.
«And so next year, when I ask for gold for new ships and for keeping the old ones in the shape they should be, you'll give me all I ask for, won't you?»
Scratch a drungarios, find a courtier. In a mock-fierce voice, Maniakes growled, «If you ask me for so much as one Makuraner silver arket, Thrax, I will beat you with a club studded with nails. Is that plain?»
«Yes, your Majesty.» Not even Thrax, naive and stolid as he was, could take the threat seriously.
Rhegorios said, «Etzilios' plans have gone down the latrine, and so have those of Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his arse covered in boils. What about Abivard's plans?» The Sevastos pointed over toward Across, where Makuraner soldiers still waited near the shore for boats that would never come.
«I don't know,» Maniakes said. «We'll have to find out. He can't do anything to the capital now. That, I think, is certain. He can still do quite a lot to the westlands—or he may pull back to the Land of the Thousand Cities against a move from us. No way to tell till it happens.»
«I suppose not,» Rhegorios said. «I wish we could pry him loose from Sharbaraz, the way he pried Tzikas loose from you.»
«He didn't pry Tzikas loose from me. Tzikas pried himself loose from me,» Maniakes answered. «When he didn't manage to kill me, taking refuge with the Makuraners looked like the best way to keep me from prying his head loose from his shoulders.» He made a sour face. «It worked too bloody well.»
«Abivard seems loyal.» Rhegorios made it sound like a disease. Maniakes felt the same way, at least where Abivard was concerned. A disloyal Makuraner marshal would have been a great boon to the Empire of Videssos. Thinking of loyalty in such disparaging terms made Maniakes realize how completely a Videssian he'd become in spite of his Vaspurakaner heritage. His great-grandparents surely would have praised loyalty even in a foe. He shrugged. His great-grandparents hadn't known everything there was to know, either.
«What now, your Majesty?» Thrax asked. Having thought himself a true Videssian, Maniakes had an idea of truly Videssian duplicity. «Let's go over to the shore near the Kubrati camp,» he answered. «I want to deliver a message to Etzilios.»
As he'd guessed, the sight of the Renewal cruising not far away brought a crowd of Kubratoi to the seaside to see why he was there. «What youse am wantings?» one of them shouted in Videssian so mangled that he recognized the speaker at once.
«Moundioukh, take my words to your khagan, the magnifolent Etzilios.» Full of triumph, Maniakes used the contorted epithet without hesitation. «Tell him that, since my fleet has disposed of those poor, sorry toys he called boats, nothing now prevents me from shipping a force to the coast north of Videssos the city, landing it there, and making sure he never escapes from the Empire of Videssos. «
«Youse am bluffing,» Moundioukh shouted across the water. He did not sound confident, though. He sounded frightened.
«You'll see. So will Etzilios,» Maniakes said, and then, to Thrax, «Move us out of bowshot now, if you'd be so kind.»
«Aye, your Majesty,» the drungarios replied. For a wonder, he understood exactly what Maniakes had meant, and said «Back oars!» loud enough to let the oarmaster know what was required but not so loud as to alert the Kubratoi on the shore.
«That's—demonic, cousin of mine,» Rhegorios said admiringly. «By the good god, we really could do it, too.»
«I know we could,» the Avtokrator said. «Etzilios has to know it, too. We did it once, three years ago, and we almost put paid to him. He has to think we'd try it again. I'm not going to ship an army out of Videssos the city, on the off chance that he'd try using his siege towers again instead of retreating, and get inside because we'd weakened the garrison. But he won't know that, and I'm going to make it look as much as if we are moving troops as I can.»
«What now, your Majesty?» Thrax asked again.
«Now we go back to Videssos the city,» Maniakes answered. «We've sown the seed. We have to see what kind of crop we get from it.»
Agathios the ecumenical patriarch called for a service of thanksgiving in the High Temple. He sent the call through Videssos the city without the least urging from Maniakes, who was almost as surprised as he was pleased. Agathios displayed initiative only a little more often than Thrax did.
Maniakes was also surprised at the fervor of the Videssians who flocked to the Temple to worship and to give thanks to the good god. A fair number of them also seemed willing to give him some credit for having smashed the Kubratoi at sea. They knew how desperate their situation had been, and knew also that, while the Kubratoi still besieged them, the risk of the Makuraners' joining the assault was gone.
And then, with timing Maniakes could not have hoped to emu-late, a messenger rushed into the High Temple just as the service was ending and before more than a handful of people had filed out «Your Majesty!» the fellow cried out in a great voice. «Your Majesty, the Kubratoi are withdrawing! They're burning their towers and engines and riding away!»
«We bless thee, Phos, lord with the great and good mind!» Agathios exclaimed, and his voice came echoing back from the dome wherein the great mosaic image of Phos stern in judgment looked down on his congregation. Even Phos' majestic face seemed less harsh at that moment, the Avtokrator thought.
«This I will see for myself,» Maniakes declared. For the first time since marrying Lysia, he left the High Temple accompanied by cheers. Though judging those cheers aimed less at himself than at the news the messenger brought, Maniakes was glad of them all the same.
He saw long before reaching the city wall that the messenger had spoken the truth. Black clouds of smoke rose into the sky to the east. Maniakes had seen such clouds before, when the Kubratoi came down to raid as far as the wall. Then they had been Videssian fields and farmlands going up in flames.
This time, the Kubratoi had not merely come up to the wall. They had set foot on it, which no invaders in all the history of the Empire of Videssos had done before them. But, though they had done so much, they had done no more; the defenders and the great strength of the walls themselves had made sure of that. What they burned now was of their own substance, which they could not take with them lest it slow them in their retreat, and which they did not care to leave lest the Videssians take it and use it against them.
When Maniakes went up onto the wall, the picture became sweeter still. The siege towers the Videssians had not been able to set afire burned now. So did the stone-throwers the Makuraner engineers had taught the Kubratoi to build. «We would have saved those, had this been our campaign,» a Videssian officer said, pointing out toward them.
«Aye, so we would,» Maniakes answered. He'd carried a baggage train full of the parts needed for siege engines throughout the Land of the Thousand Cities. «They're nomads, though. They didn't bring supply wagons along with them, and they've been living off the countryside.»
«They won't be back soon, not after this,» the officer said. «They've failed against us twice running now, and they can't be happy about it. With any luck, they'll have a nice little civil war over what went wrong and who was to blame.»
«From your mouth to Phos' ear,» Maniakes said fervently. It didn't look as if any stone-throwers at all were going back north with the Kubratoi. He wondered if their artisans would be able to make new ones without models before them. They probably would, he thought with no small regret. Underestimating how clever his foes were did no good.
«Are we going to pursue, your Majesty?» the officer asked, avid as any Videssian to pick up news that was really none of his business.
«Right now, I think I'm willing to let them go,» the Avtokrator said. The officer's di
sappointed look would have drawn applause had he been a mime in a Midwinter's Day show. So would the way he brightened with excitement when Maniakes added, «And I'll tell you why.» He went on, «I don't want my soldiers chasing the Kubratoi away from what has to be the main center of action. The most important thing we can do is get the westlands back from the Makuraners. Chasing the Kubratoi, however delightful it might be, distracts us from what needs doing more.»
«Ah.» The captain saluted. «This I can understand.» Videssians could be, and often were, ruthlessly pragmatic when it came to war.
Maniakes watched the Kubratoi engines smolder. The wind shifted, blowing harsh smoke into his face. His eyes stung. He coughed several times. And then he started to laugh. The officer stared at him for a moment. He started laughing, too. The sweet sound spread up and down the wall, till every soldier in the garrison seemed to be letting out his relief in one long burst of hilarity. Maniakes hoped the Kubratoi had not fled too far to hear that laughter. It would have wounded them almost as badly as the Videssians' stalwart defense had done. Take that, magnifolent Etzilios the Avtokrator thought.
The elder Maniakes raised a silver winecup high. «Here's to half the battle won!» he said, and drained the cup.
Maniakes drank that toast without hesitation. It was exactly how he viewed the situation himself. Lysia, however, spoke with gome asperity: «It's more than half the battle, I'd say. The Kubratoi and the Makuraners had the one chance to work together, and we've ruined it. They'll never put that alliance back together again, because we'll never let them.»
«You're right, lass, you're right,» the elder Maniakes said, making a placating gesture. «Every word you say is true—and far be it from me to argue with my daughter-in-law. My son would probably put my head up on the Milestone for that, with a big placard saving what a naughty fellow I'd been.» He made as if to shrink from the Avtokrator.
«It would need to be a very big placard, to get all that on,» Maniakes said with a snort. But even his father's drollery had calculation in it. Lysia had been the elder Maniakes' niece all her life. He did not mention that family tie now, as Rhegorios often did. He would not speak out against the marriage Maniakes had made, but he did not speak for it, either.
«You're right, Lysia—and you're wrong,» Symvatios said. «Yes, we've forced the Kubratoi and the Makuraners apart again, and that's a very great triumph again. I don't say it isn't. But—» He pointed west. «—there's Abivard still, practically close enough to spit on. Till we drive him back where he belongs, we're missing a good piece from a whole victory.»
«Will we sail back to Lyssaion, or through the Videssian Sea to Erzerum?» Rhegorios asked. «Getting late in the year to do either, worse luck.»
«I'd like to,» Maniakes said. «Now that we don't have to worry about the Kubratoi any more—or don't have to worry about them sacking the city, anyhow—we could.»
He looked from his father to his uncle to his cousin to his wife. None of them seemed to think much of the idea. After a brief pause, the elder Maniakes said, «It's late in the year to hope to accomplish much unless you intend to winter in the Land of the Thousand Cities.»
«I could,» Maniakes said. «They bring in crops the year around. The army would eat well enough.»
«Late in the year for a fleet to be setting out, too,» Rhegorios observed. «We've been through one bad storm already this campaigning season. That's plenty for me.»
«If I order Thrax to sail west, he will sail,» Maniakes said.
«You can order Thrax to do whatever you please, and he will do it,» the elder Maniakes put in. «That doesn't make him smart. It only makes him obedient.»
«The Avtokrator of the Videssians can command his subjects as he pleases,» Symvatios added, «but I've never heard that even the Avtokrator can order wind and wave to obey his will.»
Maniakes didn't have such an inflated view of his own place in the world as to disagree with that. Had he had such an inflated view, the storm he and his cousin and the entire fleet barely survived would have made him revise it. He said, «I'll have Bagdasares check what sort of weather we'll have if we sail. He warned me of this storm coming home, and we couldn't get away from it no matter what we did. If he says the sailing will be good, we'll go. If not, not. Does it please you?»
Everyone beamed at him.
Bagdasares prostrated himself when Maniakes came into his sorcerous study. Having risen, the Vaspurakaner wizard said, «How may I serve you, your Majesty?»
If he did not know what Maniakes had in mind, the Avtokrator would have been astonished. Bagdasares would have needed no divination to know; palace gossip was surely plenty. But the forms had to be observed. Formally, Maniakes said, «I want to know if the fleet will enjoy good weather sailing west to Lyssaion later this campaigning season.»
«Of course, your Majesty,» Bagdasares said, bowing low. «You have seen how this spell is performed. If you will be good enough to bear with me while I assemble the necessary ingredients—»
He did that with such quick efficiency as to remove all doubt from Maniakes' mind as to whether he'd known this visit was coming. He even had several little wooden ships already made to symbolize the vessels of the fleet. Maniakes hid his smile. Had everyone served him as well as Bagdasares, he would have been the most fortunate Avtokrator in Videssian history.
Into the bowl went the ships carved from chips of wood. They rode the ripples there, as real ships would ride over the waves of the Sailors' Sea. Bagdasares began to chant; his hands moved in swift passes above the bowl.
Developments were not long in coming. Maniakes vividly remembered the storm the mage's spell had predicted for the return Journey from Lyssaion. The miniature tempest Bagdasares raised this time was worse, with lightning like sparks and thunder like a small drum. One of the little lightning bolts smote a sorcerous ship, which burned to the waterline.
«Your Majesty, I cannot in good conscience recommend that you undertake this course,» Bagdasares said with what struck Maniakes as commendable understatement.
«A pestilence!» Maniakes muttered under his breath. «All right– suppose we sail the Videssian Sea to Erzerum, then?» He didn't want to do that. It made for a longer journey to Mashiz, and one in which the Makuraners would have plenty of chances to slow and perhaps even stop him before he ever brought his army down into the Land of the Thousand Cities.
«I shall attempt to see what may be seen, your Majesty,» the wizard replied. Like most in his art, he had a sober countenance, but now his eyes twinkled for a moment. «As this route would bring you close to Vaspurakan, so will the sorcery become more precise, more accurate.»
«Really?» Maniakes asked, intrigued in spite of his annoyance at the earlier prediction; Bagdasares had never claimed anything like that before.
The Vaspurakaner mage sighed. «I wish it were true. Logically, it should be true, Vaspur the Firstborn and his descendants being the primary focus of Phos' activity here on earth. But if you order me to prove to you it is true, I fear I cannot.»
«Ah, well,» Maniakes said. «If you could, you'd have a lot of mages in the Sorcerers' Collegium—and in Mashiz, too, I shouldn't wonder—hopping mad at you. All right, you can't be more accurate about what happens on the Videssian Sea. If you can be as accurate, I'll take that.»
What he meant was, If you can show me how to do what I want to do, even if I have to do it in this inconvenient way, I'll take that. Bagdasares spent some little while incanting over the bowl and the water and the little ships he had made—except for the one that had burned—sorcerously persuading them they now represented a fleet on the Videssian Sea, not one on the Sailors' Sea.
When he was satisfied the components of his magic understood their new role, he began the spell proper. It was almost identical to the one that had gone before, name and description of the new sea and new landing place being substituted for those he had previously used.
And, to Maniakes' dismay, the results of the incantation were almost i
dentical to those that had gone before. Again, the Avtokrator watched a miniature storm play havoc with the miniature fleet. None of the little chip ships caught fire this time, but more of them capsized than had been true in the previous conjuration.
He asked the only question he could think to ask: «Are you certain you took off all the influence from the earlier spell?»
«As certain as may be, yes,» Bagdasares answered. «But if it pleases you, your Majesty, I can begin again from the beginning. Preparing everything from scratch will take a bit more time, you understand, but—» «Do it,» Maniakes said.
Do it, Bagdasares did. He chose a new bowl, he prepared fresh– or rather, new—symbolic seawater, and he made a new fleet of toy ships. It did seem to take quite a while, though Maniakes reflected that his wizard was much swifter than his shipwrights. «I shall also use a different incantation this time,» Bagdasares said, «to reduce any possible lingering effects from my previous spells.» The Avtokrator nodded approval.
Bagdasares went about the new spell as methodically as he had with the preparations for it. The incantation was indeed different from the one he'd used before. The results, however, were the same: a tiny storm that sank and scattered most of the symbolic fleet.
«I am very sorry, your Majesty.» Bagdasares' voice dragged with weariness when the spell was done. «I cannot in good conscience recommend sending a fleet to the west by way of the Videssian Sea, either.» He yawned. «Your pardon, I crave. Three conjurations of an afternoon will wear a man down to a nub.» He yawned again.
«Rest, then,» Maniakes said. «I know better than to blame the messenger for the news he brings.» Bagdasares bowed, and almost fell over. Wobbling as if drunk, he took his leave. Maniakes stood alone in the sorcerous workroom. «I know better than to blame the messenger for his news,» he repeated, «but, by the good god, I wish I didn't.»
With a screech of rusty hinges, the postern gate opened. It was not the gate through which Moundioukh had come when Maniakes tried to detach the Kubratoi from their alliance to Makuran. That one had been made quiet. Now silence and stealth no longer mattered. Maniakes could leave Videssos the city without fear, without worry; no enemy stood nearby.
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