"He didn't know how lucky he was, either," Maleinos said bitterly.
"No doubt you're right, your Majesty," Rhavas said. "If only you could have defeated the rebel quickly—"
Maleinos rounded on him. "Not you, too!" the Avtokrator snarled. "You weren't anywhere close by when his men and mine fought, and you still have the nerve to tell me what I should have done? You were raised in this city, all right. You're as fickle as everybody else who comes from here, too."
Rhavas did the only thing he could: he ate crow. Bowing, he said, "I beg your pardon, your Majesty. I meant no offense; I swear it." He bowed again, ready to go through a second prostration if he had to.
But his cousin, after scowling for a moment, shook his head and sighed. "Let it go, Rhavas; let it go. I've had too many people playing general around me—that's all. It's always easier to brag afterward about what you would have done than it is to make sure beforehand that everything works just so."
"I understand." Rhavas understood that pushing it would be a mistake. He also understood that the Avtokrator, while less successful against Stylianos than he wished he were, was also more successful than he might have been. People said Stylianos was the best soldier Videssos had known since Stavrakios' day. Even staying in the field against him was no small achievement. Maleinos, of course, was unlikely to see things from that point of view.
"Here." The Avtokrator waved Rhavas into a small dining chamber that looked out on a courtyard full of flowers. A servant brought a jar of wine and a pair of golden cups. The man poured for Maleinos and Rhavas, then bowed and silently withdrew.
Both men raised their hands to the heavens. They spat in ritualized rejection of Skotos. Like the chameleon—a lizard common here but unknown in Skopentzana—Rhavas took his color from his surroundings. He raised his goblet and drank. The golden vintage sliding down his throat startled him out of his hypocrisy. "Thank you, your Majesty!" he exclaimed. "I'd forgotten there were grapes like this. They don't come up to the north, believe me. It's like sipping sweet sunshine."
"I like that. You always did know how to turn a phrase." Maleinos drank, too, and smiled. "You make me enjoy it more on account of the thoughts you put in my mind. Sweet sunshine—a pretty conceit." He took another sip and savored it, then leaned across the small, marble-topped table and got down to business. "Tell me how Skopentzana fell. Tell me how you escaped. Tell me what you saw on the way south. You passed through lands the rebel held, eh?"
"Yes," Rhavas admitted cautiously. Would the Avtokrator blame him for that?
"Tell me about what you saw there, too," Maleinos said. "Tell me all about that. What are his soldiers like? Is their discipline good? What about their morale? Do the people seem contented, or would they rise against him if they saw an excuse?"
"You may or may not know by now that he is minting his own coins, with the claim that he is Avtokrator," Rhavas said.
"I did know that, as a matter of fact," his cousin said grimly. "Well, a son of a whore is still a bastard no matter what he claims to be. But you did well to tell me. For now, on with your tale."
"It will take some time," Rhavas said. And some selection, he added, but only to himself.
"I have the time," Maleinos said. "Go on."
Rhavas did. He left out anything that had to do with his curses, and especially with what they might mean. He emphasized the way the Khamorth were spreading over the countryside, adding, "Some of the towns still in Videssian hands when I passed through them likely belong to the barbarians now."
Maleinos growled, down deep in his chest. The noise reminded Rhavas of the sound an angry bear might make. "One day, the lord with the great and good mind willing, I'll find a way to set this right," the Avtokrator ground out.
"I hope you do, your Majesty. North of the mountains, though, Videssian authority has for the most part simply collapsed," Rhavas said. His cousin growled again; Rhavas wasn't sure Maleinos knew he was doing it. He also wasn't sure the Avtokrator understood how complete the collapse was, and how little chance he might have of doing anything about it. Rhavas gave a small mental shrug. Till the civil war ended—if it ever did—neither Maleinos nor Stylianos could do much about the plainsmen's incursions.
When Rhavas got to his journey through the territory Maleinos' imperial rival held, his cousin questioned him sharply about every tiny detail he had seen. Despite his anger at what the Khamorth had done north of the Paristrian Mountains, Maleinos was more interested in Stylianos and his backers. They were closer—and they were Videssians.
At last—not least after mentioning the Khamorth he'd seen in the meadow just outside the Long Walls—Rhavas fell silent. He'd drunk enough wine to lubricate his throat, enough that it also left his head on the edge of spinning.
Maleinos poured his own goblet full. He nodded across the table to Rhavas. "You have a good eye, very holy sir. I remember you always did note the telling detail. The gift, plainly, has grown and not receded since you went north. You are the better for it."
"I thank you, your Majesty. These are hard times for the Empire, as I said before."
"Hard times? Phos!" Maleinos muttered. "We haven't known times like these since . . ." He shook his head. "To the ice with me if we've ever known times like these before. If a quarter of what you say is true, we'll have Skotos' own time reclaiming the far northeast."
"Yes, that may well be so," Rhavas answered cautiously. No, the Avtokrator didn't see the whole picture. Rhavas had no idea how Videssos would reconquer any of the land north of the mountains. The far northeast, up where Skopentzana lay, was only a small part of that.
Maleinos gulped the wine. He filled the goblet yet again, then gulped that, too. Shaking his head, he said, "You will doubtless think me a horrible sinner, cousin, but I tell you straight out there are times when I wonder if Phos hasn't gone to sleep and let Skotos loose in the world." He spat in rejection of the dark got, then let out an embarrassed—and drunken—chuckle. "Now go ahead and scream Heresy! at me. It's not like I haven't earned it."
Instead of screaming, Rhavas stared at the man who'd ruled the Empire of Videssos for the past twenty years. "You are not the first man I have heard say such a thing," Rhavas said slowly.
"No, eh?" Maleinos chuckled again. "My bet is, I wouldn't envy the last poor bugger who was dumb enough to open his mouth like that where you could hear. He's probably still sorry he did."
"Your Majesty . . ." Rhavas hesitated. He wished he hadn't poured down so much wine himself; he wanted clear wits for this. The Avtokrator might—might—be able to get away with joking about theology. A prelate would have a much harder time of it. Yet if Maleinos could be won over to his cause . . . "Your Majesty, I have wondered about this myself."
There. He'd said it. He waited for the sky to fall, or for Maleinos to shout for the guards and have him thrown out of the imperial residence on his ear. That didn't happen. What did happen was that his cousin the Avtokrator stared at him in turn. "You have had this thought, very holy sir?" Maleinos echoed.
"So I have, your Majesty," Rhavas replied.
"I can hardly believe it," Maleinos told him. "Everyone knows you're a pillar of orthodoxy."
"I am not a blind man. I can see what goes on around me. I have to think about what it means," Rhavas said. "If evil prevails, if good falls back . . . What can that possibly mean?"
"It can mean trouble. It will mean trouble. The ecumenical patriarch has declared that it means the lord with the great and good mind is testing our resolve," Maleinos said. "I must tell you, I incline this way myself—in public. To say the other, to maintain it openly, is to invite madness into the Empire."