«I wasn't worried, not really,» he said, and set his hand on the smooth curve of her hip. «We'll have to make up for things after the baby's born, that's all. We've done that before, too.»
«Yes, I know,» Lysia answered. «That's probably why I keep getting pregnant so fast.»
«I've heard the one does have something to do with the other, yes,» Maniakes said solemnly. Lysia snorted and poked him in the ribs. They both laughed. He didn't think about Tzikas at all. Better yet, he didn't notice he wasn't thinking about Tzikas at all.
XII
Having settled affairs in Serrhes, Maniakes rode west with about half his army, so as to be in a position to do something quickly if the civil war in Makuran required. He sent small parties even farther west, to seize the few sources of good water that lay in the desert between Videssos' restored western frontier and the Land of the Thousand Cities.
«See, here you are, invading Makuran the proper way, the way it should be done, instead of sneaking up from the sea,» Rhegorios said.
«If we didn't have control of the sea, we wouldn't be here on land now,» Maniakes said. «Besides, what could be better than coming up from an unexpected direction?»
«The last time I asked a question like that, the girl I asked it of slapped my face,» his cousin said.
Maniakes snorted. «I daresay you deserved it, too. When we go back to Videssos the city, I'm going to have to marry you off, let one woman worry about you, and put all the others in the Empire out of their fear.»
«If I'm as fearsome as that, brother-in-law of mine, do you think being married will make any difference to me?» Rhegorios asked.
«I don't know if it will make any difference to you,» Maniakes said. «I expect it will make a good deal of difference to Lysia, though. If you tomcat around while you're single, you get one kind of name for yourself. If you keep on tomcatting around after you're married, you get a name for yourself, too, but not one you'd want to have.»
«You know how to hit below the belt,» Rhegorios said. «Considering what we're talking about, that's the best way to put things, isn't it? And you're right, worse luck: I wouldn't want Lysia angry at me.»
«I can understand that.» Maniakes looked around. «I wonder if we could put a town anywhere around here, to help seal the border.»
«Aye, why not?» Rhegorios said. «We can call it Frontier, if you like.» He waved a hand, as if he were a mage casting a spell. «There! Can't you just see it? Walls and towers and a grand temple to Phos across the square from the hypasteos' residence, with barracks close by.»
And Maniakes could see the town in his mind's eye. For a moment, it seemed as real as any of the cities in the westlands he'd liberated from the Makuraners. It was, in fact, as if he had liberated the hypothetical town of Frontier from the Makuraners, and spent a couple of days in that hypasteos' residence digging through the usual sordid tales of treason, collaboration, and heresy.
But then Rhegorios waved again, and said, «Can't you see the dust-herders bringing their flocks into the market for coughing– I mean, shearing? Can't you see the rock farmers selling their crops to the innkeepers to make soup with? Can't you see the priests of Phos, out there blessing the scorpions and the tarantulas? Can't you see the vultures circling overhead, laughing at the men who set a town three weeks away from anything that looked like water?»
Maniakes stared at him, stared at the desert through which they were traveling, and then started to laugh. «Well, all right,» he said. «I think I take your point. Maybe I could put a town not too far from here, somewhere closer to water—though we're less than a day from it, not three weeks—to help seal the border. Does that meet with your approval, your exalted Sevastosship, sir?»
Rhegorios was laughing, too. «That suits me fine. But if I'm going to be difficult, wouldn't you rather I had fun being difficult, instead of looking as if I'd just had a poker rammed up my arse?» He suddenly assumed an expression serious to the point of being doomful.
«Do you know what you look like?» Maniakes looked around to make sure no one could overhear him and his cousin, then went on, «You look like Immodios, that's what.»
«I've been called a lot of hard names in my time, cousin of mine, but that's—» Rhegorios donned the stern expression again, and then, in lieu of a mirror, felt of his own face. As he did so, his expression melted into one of comically exaggerated horror and dismay. «By the good god, you're right!»
He and Maniakes laughed again. «That feels so good,» Maniakes said. «We spent a good many years there where nothing was funny at all.»
«Didn't we, though?» Rhegorios said. «Amazing how getting half your country back again can improve your outlook on life.»
«Isn't it?» Instead of examining the ground from which the town of Frontier would never sprout, Maniakes looked west toward Makuran. «Haven't heard from Abivard in a while,» he said. «I wonder how he's doing in the fight against Sharbaraz.»
«I'm not worrying about it,» Rhegorios said. «As far as I'm concerned, they can hammer away at each other till they're both worn out. Abivard's a good fellow—I don't deny that for a moment– and Sharbaraz is a right bastard, but they're both Makuraners, if you know what I mean. If they're fighting among themselves, they'll be too busy to give us any grief.»
«Which is, I agree, not the worst thing in the world,» Maniakes said.
«No, not for us, it's not.» Rhegorios' grin was predatory. «About time, don't you think, some bad things happen to the Makuraners? Things ought to even out in this world, where we can see them happen, not just in the next, where Phos triumphs at the end of days.»
«That would be fine, wouldn't it?» Maniakes' tone was wistful. «For a long time, I wondered if we'd ever see things even out with the boiler boys.»
Rhegorios pursued his own thought: «For instance, we might even be able to cast down that villain of an Etzilios and do something about the Kubratoi. The good god knows what they've been doing to us all these years.»
«Oh, wouldn't that be sweet?» Maniakes breathed. «Wouldn't that be fine, to get our own back from that liar and cheat?»
The memory of the way Etzilios had deceived him, almost captured him, and routed his army came flooding back, as if the years between that disaster and the present were transparent as glass. The Makuraners had done Videssos more harm, but they'd never inflicted on him a humiliation to match that one.
«We did give him some,» the Avtokrator said. «After our fleet crushed the monoxyla, the way he fled from the city was sweet as honey to watch. But he's still on his throne, and his nomads are still dangerous.» He sighed. «Getting the westlands back in one piece counts for more, I suppose. I rather wish it didn't, if you know what I mean.»
«Oh, yes,» Rhegorios said. «The pleasure of doing what you want to do—especially of paying back somebody who's done you wrong—can be more delicious than just doing what needs doing.»
«That's it exactly.» Maniakes nodded. «But I'm going to do what needs doing.» His grin was wry. «I'd better be careful. I'm in danger of growing up.»
The Makuraner heavy cavalryman dismounted, walked toward Maniakes in a jingle of armor, prostrated himself before the Avtokrator, and then, with a considerable display of strength, rose smoothly despite the weight of iron he wore. «What news?'» Maniakes demanded. «Is Sharbaraz overthrown?» He would have paid a pound of gold to hear that, but didn't tell the boiler boy in front of him. If the word was there, that would be time enough for rewards.
Regretfully, Abivard's messenger shook his head. «Majesty, he is not, though we drive his forces back toward Mashiz and though more and more men from the garrisons in the Land of the Thousand Cities declare for us each day. That is not why the new sun of Makuran sent me to you.»
«Well, why did he send you, then?» Maniakes said, trying to hide his disappointment. «What news besides victory was worth the journey?»
«Majesty, I shall tell you,» the Makuraner replied. «In the Land of the Thousand Cities, in a barre
n tract far from any canal, we found another of the blasphemous shrines such as the one you described to my master.» The man's eyes were fierce behind the chain-mail veil that hid the lower part of his face. «I saw this abomination for myself. Sharbaraz may act as if he is the God in this life, but the God shall surely drop him into the Void in the next.»
«I burned the one my men came across,» Maniakes said. «What did Abivard do with this 6ne?»
«The first thing he did was send every squadron, every regiment of his army through the place, so all his men could see with their own eyes what kind of foe they were facing,» the messenger said.
«That was a good idea,» Maniakes said. «I used the one we discovered to rally my men's spirits, too.»
«If a blasphemy is so plain that even a Videssian can see it, how did it escape the notice of the King of Kings?» the messenger asked rhetorically. He failed to notice the casual contempt for Videssians that informed his words. Instead of getting angry, Maniakes wondered how often he'd offended Makuraners without ever knowing it. The messenger finished, «Once everyone had seen that the Pimp of Pimps reckoned himself the God of Gods, the shrine was indeed put to the torch.»
«Best thing that could have happened,» Maniakes agreed. «Pity Abivard couldn't have taken Sharbaraz's soldiers through the place instead of his own. I wonder how many would have fought for Sharbaraz after they saw that. Not many, I'd wager.»
«Aye, that would have been most marvelous.» The Makuraner sighed in regret. «In any case, Majesty, the balance of this message is that, while Abivard the new sun of Makuran did not reckon you a liar when you told him of a shrine of this sort, he did reserve judgment until he saw such with his own eyes. Now he knows you were correct in every particular, and apologizes for having doubted you.»
«For one thing, he hid the doubt very well,» Maniakes replied. «For another, I can hardly blame him for keeping some, because I had trouble believing in a place like that even after I saw it.»
«I understand, Majesty,» the messenger said. «If the God be gracious, the next you hear from us will be when the wretch has been ousted from the capital and the cleansing begun.»
«I hope that news comes soon,» Maniakes said, whereupon the messenger saluted him and rode back toward the west. Maniakes smiled at the Makuraner's armored back. So Abivard intended to cleanse Mashiz, or perhaps only the court at Mashiz, did he? That struck Maniakes as a project liable to go on for years. He liked the idea. As long as the Makuraners were concentrating on their internal affairs, they would have a hard time endangering Videssos.
When he told Rhegorios of the message from Abivard, his cousin's smile might almost have been that of a priest granted a beatific vision of Phos. «The boiler boys can cleanse, and then counter-cleanse, and then countercountercleanse, for all of me,» the Sevastos said. «They're welcome to it. Meanwhile, I expect we'll head back to Serrhes.»
«Yes, I suppose so.» Maniakes gave Rhegorios a sharp look. «You're not usually one who wants to go backward.»
His cousin coughed. «Well—er—that is—» he began, and went no further.
Seeing Rhegorios tongue-tied astonished Maniakes—but not for long. He thought back to the conversation he'd had with his cousin not long before. «Have you found a woman there?»
Knowing his cousin's attitude, he hadn't intended the question as more than a probe. But then Rhegorios said, «I may have.»
Maniakes had all he could do not to double over with laughter. When someone like Rhegorios said he might have found a woman, and especially when he said it in a tone of voice suggesting he didn't want to admit it, even to himself, it was likely he'd fallen hard. Maybe Maniakes wouldn't have to worry about his tomcatting through the Empire, after all. «Who is she?»
Rhegorios looked as if he wished he'd kept his mouth shut. «If you must know,» he said, «she's that Phosia I was telling you about, Broios' daughter.»
«The larcenous merchant?» Now Maniakes did laugh. «If it hadn't been for you, I'd never have known he had a daughter.»
«I make a point of investigating these things.» Rhegorios did his best to sound dignified. His best was none too good. «The lord with the great and good mind be praised, she takes after her mother in almost everything—certainly in looks.»
«Well, all right. All I can say is, she'd better.» Thinking of Broios still irked Maniakes. «She doesn't want to slide a knife between your ribs because I had her father's backside kicked in public?»
«Hasn't shown any signs of it,» Rhegorios said.
«Well, good enough, then.» Maniakes reached out and gave his cousin an indulgent poke in the shoulder. «Enjoy yourself while we're in Serrhes, and you can find yourself another friend, or another cartload of friends, when we get back to Videssos the city.»
By everything Maniakes knew of his cousin, that should have made Rhegorios laugh and come back with a gibe of his own. Instead, the Sevastos said, «I may have my father talk with Broios when we get back to the city.»
If Maniakes had been startled before, he gaped now. «What?» he said again. «I've never heard you talk like that before.» He wondered if his cousin had taken their earlier conversation to heart and resolved to marry. Then he wondered if this Phosia, or maybe Broios himself, had prevailed upon their wizard to work love magic on—or maybe against—Rhegorios. He would have found that easier to believe had such sorcery been easier to use. Passion made magic unreliable.
«Maybe it's time, that's all,» Rhegorios said. His wry grin was very much his own. «And maybe, too, it's just that I'm fascinated by the idea of a girl who says no. I don't see that every day, I'll tell you.»
«Mm, I believe you,» Maniakes said. His cousin was handsome, good-natured, and the man of second-highest rank in the Empire of Videssos. The first two would have been plenty by themselves to find him lots of female friends. The prospect of the riches and power his position added didn't hurt his persuasiveness, either.
«I think she's what I want,» Rhegorios said.
Maniakes wondered if she was what he wanted precisely because she hadn't let him have her. Was her reluctance altogether her own? The Avtokrator doubted Broios was clever enough to come up with such a scheme. He knew nothing about the merchant's wife, though. Not trusting his own judgment, he asked, «Have you told Lysia about this?»
«Some if it,» Rhegorios answered. «Not the whole.»
«I think you should do that,» Maniakes said. «She will have a clearer view about Phosia and her family than either one of us. She's not assotted with the girl, as you are.» He ignored his cousin's indignant look. «And she's—not quite—so worried about the Empire as a whole as I am.»
«By the good god, though, she's my sister,» Rhegorios said. «How can I talk about matters between man and woman with my sister? It wouldn't be decent.»
«For one thing, I daresay she has more sense than either one of us,» Maniakes replied. «And, for another, if you can't talk about these things with her, with whom can you talk of them? I know what you were thinking of doing, I'll wager, and never mind this yattering about having Uncle Symvatios talk with Broios: go ahead and marry this girl and then tell me about it afterward, when I couldn't do anything. Am I right or am I wrong?»
Rhegorios tried for dignified silence. Since he wasn't long on dignity under most circumstances, nor, for that matter, on silence, Maniakes concluded he'd read his cousin rightly.
«We'll be heading back to Serrhes soon—as you guessed, cousin of mine,» the Avtokrator said. «It'll have to do as our frontier outpost for now. And while we're waiting there to hear from Abivard, we won't have anything better to do than sort through this whole business. Doesn't that put your mind at ease?»
«No,» Rhegorios snarled. «You're taking all the fun out of it. The way you're treating it, it's a piece of imperial business first and a romance afterward.»
Maniakes stared again. «Cousin of mine, everything we do is imperial business first and whatever else it is afterward.»
«Oh, really?
» Rhegorios at his most polite was Rhegorios at his most dangerous. «Then how, cousin of mine your Majesty brother-in-law of mine, did you happen to end up wed to your own first cousin? If you tell me that was good imperial business, by Phos, I'll eat my helmet. And if you get to have what you want for no better reason than that you want it, why don't I?»
Maniakes opened his mouth, then shut it again in a hurry on realizing he had no good answer. After a bit of thought, he tried again: «The one thing I can always be sure of with Lysia is that she'll never betray me. Can you say the same about this woman here?»
«No,» Rhegorios admitted. «But can you say you wouldn't have fallen in love with Lysia if you weren't so sure of that?»
«Right now, I can't say anything about might-have-beens,» Maniakes answered. «All I can say is that when we get back to Serrhes, we'll see what we have there, I expect.»
After a while out in the semidesert that marked the Empire's western frontier, Serrhes seemed almost as great a metropolis as Videssos the city, a telling measure of how barren that western country really was. Maniakes did not invite Broios and Phosia and her mother to dine with him right away. Instead, he did some quiet poking around.
So did Lysia, who said, «What your men don't hear, my serving women will, in the marketplace or from a shopkeeper or from a shopkeeper's wife.»
«That's fine,» Maniakes said. «You're right, of course; women do hear any number of things men miss.» He grinned. «Some of those things, some of the time, might even be true.»
Lysia glared at him, showing more anger than she probably felt.
«You know I'll remember that,» she said. «You know I'll make you pay for it one of these days, too. So why did you say it?»
«If I give you something you can sharpen your knives on,» he said, as innocently as he could, «you won't have to go out looking for something on your own.» The dirty look he got for that was more sincere than the earlier one. He went on, «You never have said much about what you think of your brother's choice. Does that mean what I'm afraid it means?»
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