"If it doesn't work out, you can always go back to the old ways," she said encouragingly.
"That's rubbish, and you know it," he said. "Just as easy to put together the pieces of a butchered mutton carcass and say it's a live sheep again."
"Yes, I do know it," Roshnani admitted. "I was hoping you didn't."
"Devious wench."
"Of course," she said. "Caged away in the women's quarters as I am, what can I be but devious?" She stuck out her tongue at him, but quickly grew serious again. "Even knowing that you'll change the old way, you'd still let me-let us-out now and again?"
Abivard felt Godarz looking over his shoulder. He almost turned around to see what expression his father wore. His best guess was sardonic amusement at the predicament in which his son had landed himself. Break custom or make Roshnani-and his other wives when she was through with them-furious at him? Sighing, he said, "Yes, I suppose we can see how it goes."
Roshnani squeaked, jumped in the air, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him. He would have called what happened next a molestation if he hadn't enjoyed it so much. Later, the watchful, thoughtful part of him wondered if he had been bribed. One of the nice things about Roshnani was that he could tease her with such without angering her.
"No," she answered. "You just made me very happy, that's all."
He looked at her. "I should make you happy more often."
"Well, why don't you?" she asked mischievously.
He flopped on the bed like a dead fish. "If I did it too often, I'm not sure I'd live through it." When she reached out to tickle him, he quickly added, "On the other hand, it might be interesting to find out."
"Royal soldiers!" a rider bawled as he drove his worn horse up the steep streets of the town toward Vek Rud stronghold. "Royal soldiers, riding this way!"
Ice that had nothing to do with winter ran up Abivard's back when he heard that cry. In one way, he had been expecting it since the moment he managed to get Sharbaraz out of Nalgis Crag stronghold. In another, though, as with battle or with women, all the anticipation in the world wasn't worth a copper when set against reality.
As soon as the horseman rode into the courtyard, Abivard shouted, "Shut the gates!" The men in charge of them hurried to obey. The iron-fronted timbers clanged as they closed. A great bar, thick as a man's leg, thudded down behind them. "How many?" Abivard asked the rider.
"Twenty or thirty, maybe, lord," the fellow answered. "Wasn't any huge host, that much I'll say."
"Do you think a huge host follows?" Abivard persisted.
The rider gave him an exasperated glare. "Lord, begging your pardon, but how should I know? If I'd been fool enough to hang around to try and find out, odds are the buggers would have spotted me."
Abivard sighed. "You're right, of course. Go into the kitchens and grab yourself some bread and wine. Then get your bow out of its case and take your place on the wall with the rest of us."
"Aye, lord." The horseman hurried away. Abivard went up the stairs two at a time as he climbed to the walkway atop the wall and peered south. The day was cloudy and gloomy, with enough snow pattering down to ruin visibility. He muttered under his breath. Smerdis' men weren't coming quickly. After the news his retainer had shouted, he craved action.
Sharbaraz came up on the wall beside him. "I heard the alarm raised," the rightful King of Kings said. "What's toward?"
"We're about to have visitors," Abivard answered. "Just when or how many I can't say, but they're not the welcome sort."
"We knew this would happen," Sharbaraz said, biting his lip. "But Smerdis is moving faster than we thought, curse him. I hadn't looked to be penned in this stronghold before I had an army of my own strong enough to oppose the usurper."
"Yes." Abivard's voice was distracted. He pointed. "Do you think that's them, or is it only a flock?"
Sharbaraz squinted as he looked down along Abivard's outstretched arm. "Your eyes must be better than mine. No, wait, I see what you're pointing at. Those aren't cattle or sheep, I fear. Those are horsemen."
"I think so, too." Abivard would have been surer on a sunny day, with light sparking off lanceheads and horse trappings and chainmail. But the purposeful way the distant specks kept moving north told him all he needed to know.
"There aren't that many of them," Sharbaraz said after a bit.
"No. The rider who brought word said it was a small band," Abivard said.
"Seems he was right." He looked toward the approaching troop. "I don't see any more behind them, either."
"Nor I." Sharbaraz sounded indignant, as if he thought Smerdis wasn't playing the game by the rules. "What can he hope to do by sending a boy-no, an unweaned babe-in place of a man?"
"If I knew, I would tell you," Abivard answered. "We'll find out within the half hour, though, I expect."
The royal soldier reined in at the base of the knob atop which Vek Rud stronghold perched. Some of the folk who lived in the town on the knob had fled up to the stronghold before Abivard ordered the gates closed. The rest did their best to pretend they were invisible.
One warrior rode up toward the stronghold with a whitewashed shield upraised as a sign of truce. He called in a loud voice, "Is it true Sharbaraz son of Peroz has taken up residence here?"
Abivard recognized the voice a moment before he recognized the face. "None of your affair, Zal," he called back. "Whether the answer is yea or nay, d'you think I'd let you in here again after the way you used me the last time you saw the courtyard?"
Zal's grin was wide and unashamed. "I just followed the orders I was given. But I think I have a token that will buy my way in."
"Do you? I'll believe that when I see it."
"Good thing the weather is so cold," Zal remarked as he reached back to open a saddlebag. "Otherwise this would stink a lot worse than it does." The comment made no sense to Abivard until the royal officer held up by the hair a severed head that, as he had said, was less than perfectly fresh but that had until recently without a doubt adorned the shoulders of the famous Murghab.
Gulping a little, Abivard said, "You're trying to convince me you're for Sharbaraz, not against him?"
Beside him, Sharbaraz whispered, "Whose head is that?"
"It belonged to Smerdis' tax collector, the one who extorted eighty-five hundred arkets from me as tribute for the Khamorth," Abivard whispered back. He raised his voice and called to Zal, "How say you?"
"Of course I'm for his Majesty," Zal cried. "I served Smerdis just as you did, thinking Sharbaraz had truly given up the throne. Then my men and I ran into a courier who had word from Nalgis Crag that his Majesty-his genuine Majesty, I mean-had escaped from imprisonment. That put a whole new light on things. I got rid of the courier and then I got rid of this thing-" He held Murghab's head a little higher. "-but I saved enough to maybe convince you I'm no assassin in the night."
"You ran into a courier, you say?" Abivard answered. "If that's so, you've taken your own sweet time getting here."
Zal shook his graying head. "Not so, youngster. I was a long way south, heading back toward Mashiz myself, when the fellow caught up with me. My best guess is that Smerdis Pimp of Pimps still hasn't heard the real King of Kings is loose."
Abivard and Sharbaraz looked at each other. If that was so… "It can't last forever," Abivard said.
"No," Sharbaraz agreed. "But the God would turn his back on us in disgust if we didn't make the best use of it we could."
"Are you two going to spend the whole day blathering up there?" Zal demanded impatiently. "Or will you open up so I can come in and we can talk without lowing at one another like cattle on the plains?"