«I prefer to believe I'll fall into the Void and be—nothing– forevermore.» Tzikas still had a smile left in him. «I worshiped the God of the Makuraners as fervently as ever I prayed to Phos.»
«I believe that.» Maniakes held up one hand, palm out flat, then the other. «Nothing here—and nothing here, either. It's not almost that's the story of your life, Tzikas, it's nothing. You were always good at seeming to be whatever you liked, because it was all seeming and nothing real, nothing at the bottom of you to make you truly any one particular kind of person.»
«Oh, I don't know,» Rhegorios put in. «He's always been a particular kind of bastard, if anyone cares about what I think.»
«Make your jokes. Take the last word,» Tzikas said. «You can. You're the Avtokrator and the Sevastos. You've won. You even got away with swiving your cousin, Maniakes. Aren't you proud? My dying curse on you.»
«As a matter of fact, I am proud,» Maniakes said. «I've done what I've done, and I've never tried to hide it, which is more than you could say if you lived another thousand years—which you won't.» He raised his voice: «Askbrand!»
The Haloga's axe rose and fell. Blood gushed from the great gash that split Tzikas' head almost in two. Almost, Maniakes thought. The renegade's feet drummed a brief tattoo and then were still.
Rhegorios sketched the sun-circle. «Don't fear his curse, cousin of mine,» he said. «You had the right of it, and that curse won't stick, because it has nothing behind it.»
«Nothing now.» Blood flooded down through Tzikas' gray beard. Maniakes shook his head. «I feared him alive—feared him as much as anyone, because I never knew what he would do. He was quicksilver come to life: bright, shiny, able to roll any which way, and poisonous. And now he's gone, and I'm not, and I'm bloody glad that's the way things turned out.»
«Now you can go through doors without checking behind them first to make sure he's not lurking there,» Rhegorios said.
«Now I can do all sorts of things,» Maniakes said. «I would have done them anyway, I think, but slower, always looking over my shoulder. Now I can live my life a free man.» Or as free from custom and danger as the Avtokrator ever gets, which isn't very far.
The first thing he did to celebrate his new freedom was order Tzikas' head, already badly the worse for wear, hewn from his body and mounted on a spear for the edification of the people of Serrhes. At least he didn't have to do the hewing himself, as he had with Genesios when his vicious predecessor was captured. Askbrand and his axe took care of the business with a couple of strokes. Tzikas wasn't moving or fighting any more, which made things easier, or in any case neater.
The next thing Maniakes did was give Askbrand a pound of gold. The Haloga tried to decline, saying, «You already pay me to guard you. You do not need to pay me more because I guard you.»
«Call it a reward for doing a very good job,» Maniakes said. Askbrand's fellow guardsmen who happened to be Videssians urgently nodded, whispered in the northerner's ears, and seemed on the point of setting fire to his shoes. No imperial in his right mind—and bloody few out of it—turned down money for no reason, and the Videssians feared that, if one bonus was turned down, no more would be forthcoming. At last, reluctantly, Askbrand agreed to let himself be rewarded.
Drawn by the commotion in the square, Lysia came out then. She listened to the excited accounts, took a long look at Tzikas' still-dripping and very mortal remains, said, «Good. About time,» and went back into the city governor's residence. At times, Maniakes thought, his wife was so sensible, she was unnerving.
A moment later, he sent one of the guardsmen into the residence, after not Lysia but a secretary. The fellow with whom the guard emerged did not take a headless corpse, an impaled head, and a great pool of blood on the cobbles in stride. He gulped, turned fishbelly pale, and passed out.
Gleefully, the guards threw a bucket of water over him. That brought him back to himself, but ruined the sheet of parchment on which he'd been about to write. When at last both the scribe and his implements were ready. Maniakes dictated a letter: «Maniakes Avtokrator to Abivard King of Kings, his brother: Greetings. I am pleased to tell you that—»
«Excuse me, your Majesty, but is 'King of Kings' Abivard's proper style?» the secretary asked.
Maniakes hid a smile. If the fellow could worry about such minutiae, he was indeed on the mend. «I don't know. It will do,» the Avtokrator said, as much to see the scribe wince as for any other reason. «I resume: Greetings. I am pleased to tell you that Tzikas will trouble our counsels no more. He tried to murder me while in the guise of one of your messengers, and suffered what failed assassins commonly suffer. If you like, I will send you his head, so you can see it for yourself. I assure you, he looks better without it.» He held up a hand to show he was done dictating. «Give me a fair copy of that for my signature before sunset. This is news Abivard will be glad to have.»
«I shall do as you require, your Majesty,» the scribe said, and went back indoors—where he belongs, Maniakes thought—in a hurry.
«By the good god,» the Avtokrator said, taking another long look at what was left of Tzikas, «here's another step toward making me really believe the war is over, the westlands are ours again, and that they're liable to stay that way.»
«If that's what you think, why don't we head back toward Videssos the city?» Rhegorios said. «The fall rains aren't going to hold off forever, you know, and I'd much sooner not have to slog through mud on the road.»
«So would I,» Maniakes said. «So would Lysia, no doubt.» He didn't want her giving birth on the road. He knew she didn't want to give birth on the road, either. Having done that before, she did not approve of it.
«And besides,» Rhegorios went on, «by now the people of Videssos the city are probably itching for you to get back so they can praise you to the skies. Phos!» The Sevastos sketched the sun-circle. «If they don't praise you to the skies after this, I don't know when they ever will.»
«If they do not praise the Avtokrator to the skies after this—» Askbrand began. He didn't finish the sentence, not in words. Instead, he swung through the air the axe he'd used to take Tzikas' head. The suggestion was unmistakable.
«I'll believe it when I see it.» Maniakes' laugh held less bitterness than he'd expected. «As long as they don't riot in the streets when I ride by, I'll settle for that.»
«You may be surprised,» his cousin said. «They were starting to give you your due back there before you went into the westlands.»
«You may be surprised,» Maniakes retorted. «That was just because they were glad they had me in the city instead of Etzilios and Abivard. If a goatherd saves a pretty girl who's fallen down a well, she might go to bed with him once to say thanks, but that doesn't mean she'd want to marry him. And the city mob in the capital is more fickle than any pretty girl ever born.»
«Which only goes to show, you don't know as much about pretty girls as you think you do,» Rhegorios said.
«I'm sure there are a great many things you can teach me, O sage of the age,» Maniakes said. «I'm sure there are a great many things you can teach most billy goats, for that matter.» Rhegorios made a face at him. He ignored it, continuing, «But one thing you can't teach me about, by the good god, is the mob in Videssos the city.»
«We'll see,» was all his cousin said. «If I'm wrong, I may ask to borrow Askbrand's axe.»
«Honh!» the guardsman said. «An these stupid city people give not the Avtokrator his due, maybe he will turn all the Halogai loose on them. They would remember that a long time, I bet you.»
He swung the axe again. His pale, intent eyes lit up, perhaps in anticipation.
«I don't think so,» Maniakes said hastily. «There are ways to be remembered, yes, but that's not one I care for. We'll go home and see what happens, that's all. Whatever it is, I can live with it.»
XIII
It rained on Maniakes' parade. it had rained the day before, and the day before that, too. It was liable to keep on raining for
the next week.
He didn't care. He'd returned to Videssos the city before the fall rains began, which meant traveling had been easy. He'd ordered the parade more because he thought the city mob expected one than because he had anything spectacular to display. The sole disadvantage of having peacefully reacquired the westlands was the absence of captured siege gear, dejected prisoners in chains, and most of the other elements that made a procession dramatic and worth watching.
Without prisoners and booty, Maniakes paraded his own soldiers. Without those soldiers, he never would have been able to take the war to Makuran or to defend Videssos the city against the Makuraners and Kubratoi. They deserved the credit for the victories that would go down in the chronicles as his.
He'd thought the rain and the relatively mundane nature of the parade—which he'd taken pains to announce beforehand—would hold down the crowd. He didn't mind that. If only dedicated parade-goers came out, he'd reasoned, fewer of the people lining Middle Street would be of the sort who amused themselves by hissing him and shouting obscenities at Lysia.
Looking at the way men and women packed the capital's chief thoroughfare, though, he turned to Rhegorios and remarked, «More folk came out than I expected. Must be the colonnades—I'd forgotten how they let people stay dry even in wet weather.»
Rhegorios didn't answer right away. Like Maniakes, he was busy waving to the people as he rode along. Unlike Maniakes', most of his waves seemed aimed at the pretty girls in the crowd; he hadn't let his disappointment over Phosia dishearten him for long. At last, he said, «Cousin of mine, you may as well get used to it: they've decided they like you after all.»
«What? Nonsense!» Maniakes exclaimed. He'd grown so used to being an object of derision in Videssos the city that any other role seemed unnatural.
«All right, don't listen to me,» Rhegorios said equably. «You're the Avtokrator; you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. But if you don't pay attention to what's going on around you, you're in a pretty sorry state, wouldn't you say?»
Stung by that, Maniakes did listen harder. A few shouts of «Incest!» and «Vaspurakaner heretic!"—this despite his orthodoxy—did come out of the crowd. He always listened for shouts like that. Because he always listened for them, he always heard them.
Now, though, along with them and, to his amazement, nearly drowning them out, came others: «Maniakes!» «Huzzah for the restorer of the westlands!» «Maniakes, conqueror of Kubrat and Makuran!» «Thou conquerest, Maniakes!» He hadn't heard that last one since his acclamation as Avtokrator. It was shouted during acclamations as a pious hope. Now he'd earned it in truth.
«Maybe I really have convinced them,» he said, as much to himself as to Rhegorios. He'd hoped victory would do that for him—hoped and hoped and hoped. Up till this past campaigning season, he hadn't won enough victories to put the theory to a proper test.
«You're a hero,» Rhegorios said with a grin. «Get used to it.» The grin got wider. «So am I. I like it.»
«There could be worse fates,» Maniakes admitted. «We almost found out about a good many of them, these past few months.»
«Didn't we, though?» Rhegorios said. «But it came right in the end. Why, the mime troupes may even leave you alone this Midwinter's Day.»
Maniakes considered that. He didn't need long. «I don't believe it for a minute,» he said. «The mime troupes don't ever leave anybody alone: that's what they're for. And if you're the Avtokrator, you have to sit on the spine of the Amphitheater and pretend it's funny. On Midwinter's Day, that's what the Avtokrator's for.» After a moment, he added in a wistful, almost hopeful voice, «Maybe they won't bite quite so hard this year, though.» He didn't even believe that, not down deep. Midwinter's Day was still a couple of months away. By then, renewed familiarity would surely have blunted the respect the city mob felt for him now.
Rhegorios said, «Enjoy this while it lasts, anyhow.» By the way he spoke, he didn't think it would last indefinitely, either.
In the crowd, a man held up a little baby in one hand, pointed to it with the other, and shouted, «Maniakes!"—he'd named the boy for the Avtokrator.
«Take him home and get him out of the rain, before he comes down with the croup,» Maniakes called. Several nearby women– including, by the look of things, the infant Maniakes' mother– expressed loud and emphatic agreement with that sentiment.
Agathios the patriarch, who was riding a mule just behind Maniakes and Rhegorios, said, «Today, everyone delights in honoring you, your Majesty.»
«Yes. Today,» Maniakes said. But being honored was better man being despised; he couldn't deny that. Having experienced both, he could compare them.
And he was still despised, here and there. From the margins of the crowd, a priest cried, «Skotos' ice still awaits you for your lewdness and the travesty you have made of the marriage vow.»
Maniakes looked back over his shoulder toward Agathios. «Do you know, most holy sir,» he said in thoughtful tones, «just how badly we need priests to preach against the Vaspurakaner heresy in the towns and villages of the westlands? A passionate fellow like that is really wasted in Videssos the city, wouldn't you say? He would do so much better in a place like, oh, Patrodoton, for instance.»
Agathios was not an astute politician, but he knew what Maniakes had in mind when making a suggestion like that. «I shall do my utmost to find out who that, ah, intrepid spirit is, your Majesty, and to translate him to a sphere where, as you rightly remark, his zeal might be put to good use.»
«Speaking of good use, you'll get that out of the westlands,» Rhegorios murmured to his cousin. «Now that we have them back, you've got a whole raft of new places to dump blue-robes who get on your nerves.»
«If you think that's a joke, cousin of mine, you're wrong,» Maniakes said. «If priests don't care to deal with sinful me in this sinful city, they can—and they will—go off somewhere quiet and out of the way and see how they like that.»
A certain bloodthirsty gleam—or maybe it was just the rain– came into Rhegorios' eyes. «You ought to send the really zealous ones up to Kubrat, to see if they can convert Etzilios and the rest of the nomads. If they do, well and good. If they don't, the lord with the great and good mind will have some new martyrs, and you'll be rid of some old nuisances.»
He'd intended only Maniakes to hear that. But he spoke a little too loudly, so that it also reached Agathios' ears. In tones of reproof, the ecumenical patriarch said, «Your Highness, mock not martyrdom. Think on the tale of the holy Kveldoulphios the Haloga, who laid down his life in the hope that his brave and glorious ending would inspire his people to the worship of the good god.»
«I crave your pardon, most holy sir,» Rhegorios said. Like any other Videssian, he was at bottom pious. Like any other Videssian high in the government, he also thought of the faith as an instrument of policy, holding both views at the same time without either confusion or separation.
Maniakes turned back and said to Agathios, «But the Halogai follow their own gods to this day, and the holy Kveldoulphios lived—what?—several hundred years ago, anyhow. Long before the civil wars that tore us to pieces.»
«Your Majesty is, of course, correct.» The patriarch let out a sigh so mournful, Maniakes wondered if he shed a tear or two along with it. In the rain, he could not tell. Agathios went on, «But he went gloriously to martyrdom of his own free will, rather than being hounded into it by the machinations of others.»
«Very well, most holy sir. I do take the point,» Maniakes said. Patriarchs were, in their way, government functionaries, too. Each one of them, though, had a point beyond which his obligations to Phos took precedence over his obligations to the Avtokrator. Maniakes realized the talk of deliberately creating martyrs had pushed Agathios close to that point.
«Thou conquerest, Maniakes!» «Maniakes, savior of the city!» «Maniakes, savior of the Empire!» Those shouts, and more like them, kept coming from the crowd. They didn't quite swallow up all the other shouts, the ones tha
t had been hurled at Maniakes since the day he married his first cousin, but there were more of them and fewer of the others. If he hadn't won any great love, the Avtokrator had gained respect.
Pacing the floor, Maniakes said, «I hate this.» In the Red Room, Zoile the midwife was with Lysia, and custom binding as manacles kept him from being there. Having lost his first wife in childbed, he knew only too well the dangers Lysia faced.
His father set a hand on his shoulder. «Hard for us men at a time like this,» the elder Maniakes said. «Just don't let your wife ever hear you say so, or you won't hear the last of it. It's the difference between watching a battle and going through one yourself, I suppose.»
«That's probably about right,» Maniakes said. «How many people here were watching from the seawall when our fleet beat the Kubratoi? They could drink wine and point to this and that and say how exciting it all was, but they weren't in any danger.» He paused. «Of course, they would have been if we'd lost the sea fight instead of winning it.»
«Nobody's going to lose any fights, by the good god,» Symvatios said. «Lysia's going to give you another brat to howl around this place so a man can't get a decent night's sleep here.»
«Ha!» The elder Maniakes raised an eyebrow at his brother. «You're more likely to be looking for an indecent night's sleep, anyhow.»
Symvatios growled something in mock high dudgeon. Maniakes, his own worries forgotten for a moment, grinned at his father and uncle. They'd been bickering like that since they were boys, and enjoying it, too. Maniakes and Rhegorios bickered and bantered like that. Maniakes had done the same with Parsmanios… when they were boys. But between the two of them, the jealousy that had grown up was real.
As if picking the thought from his son's mind, the elder Maniakes said, «Your nephew, the little fellow who's named for the two of us, seems a likely lad.»
«I hope so, for his sake,» Maniakes said. «Zenonis and her boy have been here a good deal longer than I have, so you'll have seen more of them than I have. They don't seek me out, either.» The corners of his mouth turned down. «You're her father-in-law, but in her mind—and I suppose in the boy's mind, too—I'm the chap who sent her husband into exile across the sea.»
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