"Phos be praised for that." Rhavas wanted to gulp his own wine, but made himself go through the usual ritual beforehand. He shivered, though Zautzes' study was warm enough. Had Maleinos been trapped away from the capital, Stylianos would be Avtokrator of the Videssians now, with no one to challenge him. The prelate said, "So Maleinos is safely inside Videssos the city?"
"He is, very holy sir, yes," the courier answered, and yawned an enormous yawn. "Excuse me. Like I say, he's back there now, but his army took a beating in the battle, and then took a worse one in the pursuit. He'll have to do some serious recruiting and mustering before he can face Stylianos in the open field again."
"The westlands . . ." Rhavas and Zautzes said the same thing at the same time. The lands on the far side of the strait called the Cattle-Crossing were rich in men, and rich in horses, too.
But the courier, instead of encouraging the two leaders of Skopentzana, only shrugged. "There's word Stylianos has lieutenants in the westlands himself. This fight fills the whole Empire."
It hadn't yet filled the far northeast. Indeed, it had already emptied Skopentzana of soldiers. Rhavas said, "If the Avtokrator can't recruit in the westlands, where will he draw more men?"
Another shrug from the courier, one that showed even raising and lowering his shoulders took effort. He said, "It's a good question, very holy sir. Too bad I haven't got a good answer for you."
"You're from the city, aren't you?" Rhavas asked. The man nodded, also effortfully. Rhavas wasn't sure what made him think so. Not the courier's accent—that intonation had spread from Videssos the city for miles around on both sides of the Cattle-Crossing. But the cheeky way he'd finished his reply: yes, that sort of attitude belonged to the capital alone.
"Where do we go from here?" Zautzes asked.
The courier yawned again. "Me, I'd like to go to bed," he said.
Zautzes called for a servant. The man took the courier off to a guest room. The eparch went out and spoke to the guards. They took charge of the rider's hard-used horse; Rhavas watched them lead the poor beast past the study window toward the stables. Zautzes came back shaking his head. He stared down into his winecup, as if the answer to the mystery of life might lurk inside. People uncounted had sought it in wine, but nobody had found it there. Plaintively, he repeated, "Where do we go from here?"
"By the good god, most honorable sir, I don't know what to tell you now," Rhavas replied. "Stylianos has proved stronger than I thought. All we can do is wait to see who wins. I still pray my cousin does. If he doesn't . . ." The prelate shrugged. "If he doesn't, the usurper will do with me as he wills. Since you aren't connected to Maleinos by blood, you should be safe enough either way."
"His Majesty appointed me. I am known to be loyal to him. I am loyal to him," Zautzes said. "If we were in the westlands, we could flee to Makuran if things didn't turn out the way we hoped."
Rhavas nodded. Videssians fleeing political convulsions often took refuge in the other great civilized empire. Makuraner Kings of Kings sometimes used them as cat's-paws and stalking horses against Videssos. In the same way, Makuraner grandees were known to flee to Videssos, and Avtokrators happily used them against their old homeland.
"If things go badly wrong, you could run off to Halogaland," Rhavas said.
By the face Zautzes made, he might have smelled stale fish. "All things considered, very holy sir, I do believe I'd sooner face the headsman's sword."
Rhavas nodded once more. He felt the same way. Videssians in dire straits had gone to live among the blond barbarians, but a man would have to be truly desperate to do such a thing. Rhavas tried to imagine himself living in a smoke-filled longhouse; learning the slow, sonorous tongue of the Halogai; forgetting books, wine, good talk, and everything else that made life worth living. The picture refused to form in his mind.
If a fugitive fell in love with a blue-eyed woman, she might help him forget all he'd left behind. Rhavas tried to imagine that for himself: one more picture that wouldn't form. For him, falling in love with a Haloga woman—indeed, with any woman—would mean abandoning his priestly vows, in effect abandoning his god.
"You're right," he said to Zautzes. "Death is better than some ways of holding on to life."
Before the eparch could answer, his servant slipped into the study with a carafe of wine. Smooth and silent as a ghost, the man refilled the eparch's cup and, when Rhavas nodded, the prelate's as well. Then he disappeared again. Zautzes sipped and sighed. "Maybe it won't come to that. I hope it won't come to that. I pray it won't come to that."
"Yes." Rhavas intended to spend more time prostrated before Phos' holy altar in the temple, and in his bedchamber before images of the good god and the holy men who'd served him. But prayer went only so far. Maleinos needed action, too. "Where will his Majesty come by more soldiers if he can't get many from the westlands?"
"I wish I could tell you," Zautzes said. "If he ordered the garrison out of a distant city like Skopentzana, he will have summoned men from closer towns, too. That leaves . . . I don't know what that leaves."
"The men from the frontier posts," Rhavas said. Now he was the one to look as if he smelled something nasty.
"It's possible that Stylianos has already summoned them. Many of them will have served under him and will be well-disposed toward him. Maybe they gave him the help he needed to beat his Majesty in this latest battle."
"Yes, you could be right." Rhavas' face didn't lose that expression. "I am sad to think even a rebel would strip the frontier bare." He'd thought about it for Maleinos. He hadn't liked it, but he'd thought about it. Why was he surprised Stylianos might have thought about it, too, and might have done something about it?
Because Maleinos is the Avtokrator, and is blood of my blood. He answered his own question almost at once. Stylianos is a man who would murder his way to the throne. His own grandmother's brother had murdered his way to the throne. He knew that, but once more chose not to think about it.
Zautzes said, "Any man will worry first about the enemy closest to him. Once he beats that one, he will think he can take care of any other troubles he may have."
"You could be right there, too. I—" Rhavas broke off.
"What?" the eparch asked.
"Nothing. Nothing that matters." Rhavas seldom lied, and didn't do it as well as a lot of Videssians. Zautzes raised an eyebrow, sure the prelate wasn't telling the truth. Rhavas' ears got hot. With his tonsure, Zautzes might have been able to watch his blush rise all the way to the top of his head. Rhavas kept quiet even so. He'd started to talk about the soothsayer, and about the question he'd asked the luckless man. But no. Zautzes didn't need to know that.
Rhavas had thought about summoning another soothsayer and asking him the same thing. He didn't have the nerve. If one man died while trying to see whether he would be patriarch, it was happenstance, coincidence, chance. But Rhavas couldn't forget the terror on Eladas' face and in his icy grip as he died. If another soothsayer tried to see the same thing and also died trying . . . Rhavas didn't want that to happen, and didn't want to have to worry about it if it did.
Zautzes visibly thought about pressing him on it, and just as visibly decided not to. "Well, very holy sir, we'll just have to wait and see what happens down in the south, as you said yourself. Once we know that, we'll have a better notion of what we ought to do." The eparch's laugh held a hollow undertone. "Who knows? Maybe Halogaland won't look so bad after all."