Funny reports out of the north? Rhavas wondered. Ingegerd? Kaboutzes? The priest who'd fallen over dead in that town?—Rhavas couldn't even remember his name. Himerios and the mages? Rhavas knew the trail he'd left behind him. Fortunately, his cousin didn't connect Kameniates' sudden death with any of the others.
"We have given all the time we can spare," Maleinos said. When an Avtokrator started using the imperial we, that was a sure sign he didn't want to listen any more. Maleinos didn't have Rhavas escorted from the imperial residence this time, but that was the only sign of greater warmth he showed.
As Rhavas left, the Vaspurakaner steward led a sun-darkened man with a scarred face toward the audience chamber. The officer—for such he obviously was—dipped his head and made the sun-sign as he walked past Rhavas. Ironic that a man whose trade was slaughter should have more faith than a prelate.
Rhavas laughed, appreciating the joke. He doubted whether the scarred and leathery general would. And he was sure the Avtokrator wouldn't.
As Maleinos had said he would, he rode off to war a few days later. He sent Rhavas no special invitation to watch him go. But criers went through the imperial city, calling on the people to come to the parade that would see him off. Videssians in general—and those who dwelt in Videssos the city in particular—went wild for spectacles of any sort.
Although Rhavas got to Middle Street before sunup, he had to elbow his way to somewhere near the front of the crowd so he could see the street itself. If he hadn't been taller than average, even the place he won wouldn't have helped him.
"Wine! Anybody want some wine?" "Sweet cakes!" "Get your chickpeas here! Hot off the grill!" "Fried squiiid!" Vendors made their way through the crowd. When the fellow selling fried squid came near Rhavas, he spent a couple of coins for the morsels. He hadn't eaten squid in all those years in Skopentzana. They were as chewy as he remembered, and as nearly tasteless.
Roofed colonnades helped shield Middle Street from the sun. People scurried about up on the roofs, jostling one another for a better view. It sometimes happened that people—usually young men—fell off and landed on their heads on the cobblestones below. Rhavas heard no shrieks today. People were being careful.
The adventurous ones atop the colonnade got the first glimpse of the approaching procession. "Here they come!" they called, and jostled even more. "They're on the way!" A blast of bugles and flutes and drums from the direction of the palace confirmed that.
A herald came first, to tell the people what they'd see—as if they didn't know. "Forth comes Maleinos, Avtokrator of the Videssians!" the leather-lunged man roared. "Forth comes the Avtokrator, to punish the wicked rebel and usurper!"
Men and women near Rhavas burst into applause. Did that mean they favored Maleinos, or just that they wanted to be seen favoring Maleinos? Rhavas wondered how many of them even knew, and how many of them cared.
Standard-bearers carried the Videssian banner: gold sunburst on blue. Behind them marched the royal bodyguards. Some of those men were Videssian archers and pikemen. Others were Haloga soldiers of fortune. The big blond men carried long-handled war axes. They wore their hair in long blond braids bobbing behind them. Ever since Stavrakios' day, the guards had had a Haloga contingent. From the imperial point of view, that made good sense. The barbarians were personally loyal to the ruler, who was also their paymaster. Other ambitious Videssians were less likely to seduce them away from their allegiance to the Avtokrator.
Their pale eyes, pale hair, pale or sunburned skins, and blunt features set them apart from the Videssians among whom they dwelt. So did their inches and the scowling suspicion with which they eyed the crowd. To them, everyone was a potential assassin. In a time of civil war, they might well have been right. They watched their Videssian counterparts, too, and the Videssians watched them.
"Maleinos! Maleinos! Maleinos!" The rhythmic chant had every sign of being started by a claque to impress the larger crowd. "Many years to the Avtokrator! Dig up Stylianos' bones!"
Some of the ordinary people around Maleinos joined the chanting, but more didn't, though some of the ones who didn't chant did clap for the Avtokrator. Maleinos wore gilded mail and a gilded helm with a gold coronet soldered to it. A scarlet cape shimmered out behind him. His red boots were very red indeed, and showed up all the better because he rode a white horse.
Beside him and half a pace to the rear rode the scarred general. He looked tough and capable. Past that, Rhavas didn't know who he was. Back when Rhavas was last in Videssos the city, he hadn't been anybody in particular. Rhavas wondered how he liked going up against Stylianos, who had been somebody for a very long time. No way to ask him, of course, not without risking arrest for treason.
More horsemen in blue surcoats rode after the Avtokrator and his general. The horses' hooves clattered on the cobbles. At an officer's signal, the men all shouted, "Maleinos!" together.
And if Stylianos won the war, would they shout his name just as enthusiastically? Most of them probably would. Pikemen on foot followed. The foot soldiers also roared out the Avtokrator's name. Were they also likely to roar out any Avtokrator's name with equal zeal? Again, it looked that way to Rhavas.
Then they were gone, heading off toward the Silver Gate, off toward Stylianos' army, off toward civil war. What had they left behind? A memory of loud shouts and a lingering aroma of horse manure—not that that wasn't a strong motif in Videssos the city at any season of the year.
If they cut down Stylianos' men . . . Videssos suffered. If the rebel's men slaughtered them instead . . . Videssos suffered anyway. Civil war was a nasty business. Whichever side won, the Empire lost.
Somewhere off beyond the Paristrian Mountains, would Khamorth khagans laugh when they heard the Avtokrator and the rebellious general were going at each other again? Without the civil war, the barbarians couldn't have got into Videssos in the first place. Rhavas had no doubt they were all for it.
They warred against one another, too. Back in happier days, Videssos had used bribes and gifts of weapons and trade to keep the nomads squabbling among themselves, and to keep them too busy and embroiled to cause the Empire trouble. Now the Khamorth would play the same game with Videssos.
Beside Rhavas, somebody said, "Well, you can call that a parade if you want to, but I've seen plenty better."
That seemed to be the general mood. Maleinos wouldn't have been very happy had he heard what his subjects were saying. Odds were he would hear, sooner or later. If he didn't have agents in the crowd listening to what ordinary people said, he was missing a trick. Rhavas didn't think his cousin missed many tricks of that sort.
The crowd slowly dispersed. The vendors headed back to the several squares in the city, where they could always find crowds of people who might want to buy. Pickpockets and cutpurses probably did the same.
"Holy sir?" a nondescript little man said to Rhavas.
"Yes?"
"Holy sir, are you a healer, by any chance? I've got this nasty ulcer on my shin, and I was wondering—"
"I'm not a healer. Sorry."
"Could you try?" the little man whined.
"I wouldn't do you any good," Rhavas told him. "Go look for a priest who really is a healer, if you want help."
"Oh, come on. You can do it." The man had found a priest. Finding another priest must have seemed like too much trouble to him—this in a city where you could hardly walk a block along Middle Street without running into one.