Some of the Vaspurakaners made for the castles in the valleys, which kept their gates open wide till the Makuraners got too close for comfort. Other princes rode up into the foothills that led to the ranges separating one valley from another. Some made stands up there, while others simply tried to hide from the victorious Makuraners.
Abivard was not interested in besieging the Vaspurakaner castles. He was not even interested in scouring the valley of Hanzith clean of foes. For years, for centuries, Vaspurakan had been full of men with no great love for Makuran. The King of Kings had derived great profit from it even so. Sharbaraz could derive great profit again-once his marzban was freed to control the countryside. Getting Mikhran out of the castle of Poskh came first
The valley of Poskh ran southwest from Hanzith. Abivard pushed his way through the pass a little before sunset. He saw the fortress, gray and massive in the distance, with the Vaspurakaners' lines around it. They hadn't sealed it off tightly from the outside world, but supply wagons would have had a rugged time getting into the place. «Tomorrow we attack,» Romezan said, sharpening the point of his lance on a whetstone. «The God grant I meet that churlish Vaspurakaner envoy. I shall have somewhat to say to him of manners.»
«I'm just glad we hurt the Vaspurakaners worse than they hurt us,» Abivard said. «It could have gone the other way about as easily-and even if we free Mikhran, will that do all we want?»
«How not?» Romezan said. «We'll get him out of the fortress, join forces with his men, thump the Vaspurakaners a few times, and remind them they'd better fear the God.» He slammed his thick chest with one fist; the sound was almost like stone on wood.
«They may fear the God, but are they going to worship him?» Abivard asked. «We ruled them for a long time without demanding that. Now that we have demanded it, can we make them obey?»
«Either they obey or they go into the Void, which would prove to 'em the truth of our religion if only they could come back whence none returneth.» Romezan was a typical man of the Seven Clans: he took his boyhood learning and beliefs as a given and expected everyone also to take them the same way. Within his limits he was solid.
«We should be trying to keep the princes quiet so we can fight Videssos, not antagonizing them, too,» Abivard said. «We should-» He shook his head. «What's the use? We have our orders, so we follow them.» He wasn't so different from Romezan, after all.
If Gazrik was in the fight the next day, Abivard didn't know it. With his force attacking the Vaspurakaners who besieged the fortress of Poskh, with Mikhran and his fellow Makuraners sallying from the fortress to grind the princes between two stones, the battle was easier than the previous fighting had been. Had he commanded the Vaspurakaners, he would have withdrawn in the night rather than accept combat on such terms. Sometimes headlong courage was its own punishment.
By noon his soldiers were gathering in the mounts of unhorsed Vaspurakaners and plundering bodies of weapons and armor, rings and bracelets, and whatever else a man might think of some value. One soldier carefully removed the red-dyed plumes from a prince's helm and replaced the crest of his own headgear with them. Abivard had seen and heard and smelled the aftermath of battle too often for it to astonish or horrify him. It was what happened. He rode over the field till he found Mikhran marzban. He did not know the new Makuraner governor of Vaspurakan by sight, but like him, Mikhran had a standard-bearer nearby displaying the banner of their country.
«Well met, lord,» Mikhran said, realizing who he must be. The marzban was a few years younger than he, with a long, thin face made to hold worried wrinkles. That face had already acquired a good many and probably would gain more as the years went by. «Thank you for your aid; without it, I should have come to know the inside of that castle a great deal better than I wanted.»
«Happy to have helped,» Abivard answered. «I might have been doing other things with my force, I admit, but this was one that needed doing.»
Mikhran nodded vigorously. «Aye, lord, it was. And now that you have freed me from Poskh valley and Poskh fortress, our chances of regaining rule over all of Vaspurakan are-» Abivard waited for him to say something like assured or very good indeed. Instead, he went on, «-not much different from what they were while I was holed up in there.»
Abivard looked at him with sudden liking. «You are an honest man.»
«No more than I have to be,» the marzban answered with a wintry smile. «But whatever else I may be, I am not a blind man, and only a blind man could fail to see how the princes hate us for making them worship the God.»
«That is the stated will of Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase,» Abivard said. «The King of Kings feels that as he is the sole ruler of Makuran and as this land has come under Makuraner sway, it should be brought into religious conformity with the rest of the realm: one realm, one faith, one loyalty.» He looked around at the scattered bodies and the spilled blood now turning black. «That one loyalty seems, um, a trifle hard to discover at the moment.»
Mikhran's mournful features, which had corrugated even further as Abivard set forth the reasoning of the King of Kings, eased a bit when he admitted that the reasoning might not be perfect. «The one loyalty the princes have is to their own version of Phos' faith. It got them to murder Vshnasp marzban for trying to change it» He paused meditatively. «I don't think, though, that was what made them cut off his privates and stuff them into his mouth before they flung his body out into the gutter.»
«They did that?» Abivard said. When Mikhran nodded, his gorge tried to rise. None of the marzban's dispatches had gone into detail about how Vshnasp had met his untimely demise. Picking his words with care, Abivard observed, «I've heard Vshnasp marzban was of… somewhat lustful temperament»
«He'd swive anything that moved,» Mikhran said, «and if it didn't move, he'd shake it. Our nobles would have served him the same way had he outraged their womenfolk as he did those of the nakharars here.»
«No doubt you're right Gazrik said as much,» Abivard answered, thinking what he'd do if anyone tried outraging Roshnani. Of course, anyone who tried outraging Roshnani might end up dead at her hands; she was nobody to take lightly nor one who shrank from danger.
«I warned him.» Mikhran's words tolled like a sad bell. «He told me to go suck lemons; he'd go get something else sucked himself.» He started to say something more, then visibly held his tongue. He got that, all right, and just as he deserved, was what ran through Abivard's mind. No, Mikhran marzban couldn't say that no matter how loudly he thought it
Abivard sighed. «You proved yourself wiser than the man who was your master. So what do we do now? Must I spend the rest of this year going from valley to valley and thrashing the princes? I will if I must, I suppose, but it will lead to untold mischief in the Videssian westlands. I wish I knew what Maniakes was doing even now.»
«Part of the problem solved itself when Vshnasp's genitals ceased to trouble the wives and daughters of the Vaspurakaner nobles,» Mikhran said. «The nakharars would willingly return to obedience, save that…»
Save that we have to obey Sharbaraz King of Kings. Again Abivard supplied a sentence Mikhran marzban didn't care to speak aloud. Disobeying the King of Kings was not something to be contemplated casually by any of his servants. In spite of the God's conveyance of preternatural wisdom to the King of Kings, Sharbaraz wasn't always right But he always thought he was.