And when morning came, he did know it. Knowing it felt good, too. He went downstairs to breakfast in a distinctly happy mood.
He got happier when no one else spooning up barley porridge and drinking the day's first cup of wine complained of going blind for a little while the night before. He hadn't thought the miscast spell went beyond his own room, but being proved right came as a relief.
The stable boys had groomed his Khamorth ponies till they looked as fine as they could—which wasn't very. No, they weren't much to see when set alongside the horses Videssos bred. But looks didn't matter so much to Rhavas. He'd seen that the steppe ponies could keep going long after bigger, handsomer horses would have foundered.
When he rode out the south gate, the guards there asked his blessing. He gave it, and wondered whether it would do them the good they'd hoped or turn on them the way his spell had turned on him when he substituted the dark god's name for that of the lord with the great and good mind. He shrugged. Again, he would be gone before he could find out.
Farmers and herdsmen waved to him as he rode by. He waved back—why not? Every so often, he would turn and look northeast over his shoulder. No, no sign of anyone coming after him. He smiled. Either they hadn't found Himerios and the wizards yet or they hadn't figured out he had anything to do with their untimely demises. The same also seemed to hold true for the man he'd felled in the tavern brawl.
It was funny, in a way. He represented a greater threat to long-established Videssian customs than even the civil war between his cousin and Stylianos. No one but himself knew it, though, or cared.
Threats . . .
For a long moment, he paid no attention to the horsemen letting their mounts graze in the middle of a broad meadow. He was looking ahead toward the Long Walls. He couldn't see them yet, but he knew they couldn't be far. And after the Long Walls, Videssos the city.
But those horsemen . . . They weren't Videssians. They were Khamorth, in the nomads' usual furs and leathers. They rode the same sort of shaggy ponies as Rhavas did himself. They made no move toward him. It didn't look as if they were there to murder or to plunder. They were just . . . there, as wild animals might have been . . . there. But they were no wolves or ravens. They were men.
And they'd got through and behind all the imperial defenses as if those defenses not only didn't matter but didn't exist. Rhavas had heard people say the nomads roamed close to the capital. He hadn't believed it, not till now—any more than he'd believed Skotos was more powerful than Phos till now. In both cases, though, what he saw made him change his mind.
He thought about cursing the plainsmen, but what was the point? More he couldn't see would be close by. If these stayed where they were, sooner or later soldiers or even assembled peasants would drive them off. Shaking his head at the sorry state of the Empire, he kept riding.
For that matter, the Khamorth saw that evil was more powerful than good. Maybe that made them closer to him than he'd thought. Maybe it made them closer to him than most of his own countrymen were. There was a truly dispiriting thought.
"I can show Videssos the truth," he said, as if someone had denied it. "I can show the temples the truth."
Before too long, a troop of horsemen in jingling mailshirts under blue surcoats trotted up the road past him. He wondered if the Khamorth still rested in the field. If they did, the imperial cavalry would make them sorry. But the nomads had already made the Empire much sorrier. And Rhavas didn't think that would end any time soon.
When Rhavas rode up to a gateway in the Long Walls, his heart hammered in apprehension. If his name and description had got there ahead of him, the guards might try to seize him. They might even have a sorcerer with them, a man strong enough to help them lay hands on him.
If he was going to get to Videssos the city, though, he would have to run this gauntlet sooner or later. Sooner, he judged, was better. The longer he waited, the longer word about him could spread.
A sentry sketched the sun-sign over his heart. "Good morning, holy sir," he said as Rhavas rode up. "Where are you from, and where are you bound?"
"Phos' blessings upon you," Rhavas said, savoring his own hypocrisy as he too drew the sun-circle. "I was lucky enough to escape from the far northeast, and plan on returning to Videssos the city."
"You've been on the road a long time, then," the guard remarked.
"Oh, by the good god, haven't I just!" Rhavas answered.
Not only was that true, it made the gate guard laugh, as Rhavas had hoped it would. The fellow said, "You were lucky to come through all the trouble along your way, too."
"Yes, I know I was," Rhavas said, more soberly this time. "The lord with the great and good mind let me do it, though. I shall thank him as he deserves when I get to the capital." Just as he deserves, Rhavas thought.
"I have a question for you first." The sentry swung his pike horizontally across his body to block the way. "Who is the rightful Avtokrator of the Videssians?"
"Why, the Avtokrator Maleinos, of course," Rhavas said without a moment's hesitation. He also believed that to be true.
So, plainly, did the guard at the gate. With a broad grin, he swung up the pike once more. "Pass on, holy sir!"
"My thanks." Rhavas made sure the words didn't sound as if they ought to have you chucklehead attached to them. A man of sardonic temperament even before the disasters of the past six months, he didn't find that easy, but he managed.
The country inside the Long Walls—and, indeed, some of the country just on the other side of the Cattle-Crossing as well—counted as suburbs for Videssos the city. Villages and towns clustered thickly. Many on the farms raised fancy fruits and vegetables for the city trade. Here and there stood villas where grandees from the capital maintained country households. Maleinos owned several. Rhavas' family had had one, too, but it lay by the sea and wasn't on his way to Videssos the city. He remembered it fondly.
He remembered everything that had to do with Videssos the city fondly—sometimes a little too fondly. He remembered how hot it got in and around the capital in summertime. In Skopentzana, cool at best and frequently frigid, he'd warmed his hands over those memories more times than he could count.
What he hadn't remembered was that it got muggy when it got hot, and doing anything—or even nothing—on a hot, sticky day quickly turned unpleasant. Sweat streamed off him. The sun beat down on his shaven head with savage force. Now that he thought about it, he remembered a sunburned scalp, too. He wished he could have forgotten.
He'd also remembered how big the capital was, and how many people it held. Skopentzana was a large city, for one out in the provinces, but you could have dropped it into the city without making many people notice. And the countryside around Skopentzana was much more thinly populated than that inside the Long Walls.
Now, on his return, Rhavas saw again that there were mixed blessings in what he remembered. Even before he got to the capital, the surrounding suburbs started seeming unpleasantly crowded. People were everywhere. What were they doing? How could it matter, even to them?
One of the things he hadn't recalled was how mercenary they were. He asked a man standing by a fork in the road which was the shorter way to Videssos the city. The man didn't say a word. He just held out his hand, palm up. He didn't know how close a brush with death he had just then. Fuming, Rhavas gave him a copper—and got his directions.