He and his family saw only the servants who brought them food, hot water for bathing, and clothes once they had been laundered. He tried to bribe them to carry a note to Turan, the commander of the guard company that had escorted him to Mashiz. They took his money, but he never heard back from the officer. Their apologies sounded sincere but not sincere enough for him to believe them.
But having nothing better to do with his time and no better place to spend his money, he eventually tried getting a note to Denak. His sister never wrote back, either, at least not with a letter that reached his hands. He wondered whether his note or hers had disappeared. His, he suspected. If she knew what Sharbaraz was doing to him, she would make the King of Kings change his ways.
If she could- «Does she still have the influence she did in the early days of her marriage?» Roshnani asked after the Void had swallowed Abivard's letter. «Sharbaraz will have seen-not to put too fine a point on it, will have had-a lot of women in the years between.»
«I know,» Abivard said glumly. «As I knew him-» The past tense hurt but was true. «-as I knew him, I say, he always acknowledged his debts. But after a while any man could grow resentful, I suppose.»
Varaz said, «Why not petition the King of Kings yourself, Father? Any man of Makuran has the right to be heard.»
So, no doubt, his pedagogue had taught him. «What you learned and what is real aren't always the same thing, worse luck,» Abivard answered. «The King of Kings is angry at me. That's why he would not hear my petition.»
«Oh,» Varaz said. «You mean me way Shahin won't listen to me after we've had a fight?»
«You're the one who won't listen to me,» Shahin put in. Having the advantage in age, Varaz took the lofty privilege of ignoring his younger brother. «Is that what you mean, Papa?» he asked.
«Yes, pretty much,» Abivard answered. When you got down to it, the way Sharbaraz was treating him was childish. The idea of the all-powerful King of Kings in the guise of a bad-tempered small boy made him smile. Again, though, he fought shy of mentioning it out loud. You never could tell whose ear might be pressed to a small hole behind one of the tapestries hanging on the wall. If the King of Kings was angry at him, there was no point making things worse by speaking plain and simple truths in the hearing of his servants.
«I don't like this place,» Zarmidukh declared. She was too young to worry about what other people thought when she spoke her mind. She said what she thought, whatever that happened to be. «It's boring.»
«It's not the most exciting place I've ever been,» Abivard said, «but there are worse things than being bored.»
«I don't know of any,» Zarmidukh said darkly. «You're lucky,» Abivard told her. «I do.»
Someone rapped on the door. Abivard looked at Roshnani. It wasn't any of the times the palace servitors usually made an appearance. The knock came again, imperiously-or perhaps he was reading too much into it. «Who can it be?» he said.
With her usual practicality Roshnani answered, «The only way to find out is to open the door.»
«Thank you so much for your help,» he said. She made a face at him. He got up and went over to the door, his feet sinking deep into the thick carpet as he walked. He took hold of the handle and pulled the door open.
A eunuch with hard, suspicious eyes in a face of almost unearthly beauty looked him up and down as if to say he'd taken much too long getting there. «You are Abivard son of Godarz?» The voice was unearthly, too: very pure and clear but not in a register commonly used by either men or women. When Abivard admitted who he was, the eunuch said, «You will come with me at once,» and started down the halls without waiting to see if he followed.
The guards who stood to either side of the doorway did not acknowledge his passing. Not even their eyes shifted as he walked by. Roshnani closed the door. Had she come after him unbidden, the guards would not have seemed as if they were carved from stone.
He did not ask the eunuch where they were going. He didn't think the fellow would tell him and declined to give him the pleasure of refusing. They walked in silence through close to half a farsang's worth of corridors. At last the eunuch stopped. «Go through this doorway,» he said imperiously. «I await you here.»
«Have a pleasant wait,» Abivard said, earning a fresh glare. Pretending he didn't notice it, he opened the door and went in.
«Welcome to Mashiz, brother of mine,» Denak said. She nodded when Abivard closed the door after himself. «That is wise. The fewer people who hear what we say, the better.» Abivard pointed to the maidservant who sat against the wall, idly painting her nails one by one from a pot of red dye and examining them with attention more careful than that she seemed to be giving Denak. «And yet you brought another pair of ears here?» he asked.
Denak assumed an exasperated expression, which brought lines to her face. Abivard hadn't seen much of her after Sharbaraz had taken Mashiz. He knew he'd aged in the intervening decade, but realizing that his sister had also aged came hard. She said, «I am principal wife to the King of Kings. It would be most unseemly for any man to see me alone. Most unseemly.»
«By the God, I'm your brother!» Abivard said angrily.
«And that is how I managed to arrange to see you at all,» Denak answered. «I think it will be all right, or not too bad. Ksorane is about as likely to tell me what Sharbaraz says as the other way around, or so I've found. Isn't that right, dear?» She waved to the girl.
«How could the principal wife to Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, be wrong?» Ksorane said. She put another layer of paint on the middle finger of her left hand.
Denak's laugh was as sour as vinegar. «Easily enough, by the God. I've found that out many a time and oft.» If she'd said one word more, Abivard would have bet any amount any man cared to name that the maidservant, trusted or not, would have taken her remark straight to Sharbaraz. Even as things were, he worried. But Denak seemed oblivious, continuing, «As you have now found for yourself-is it not so, brother of mine?»
In spite of Denak's assurances, Abivard found it hard to speak his mind before someone he did not know. Cautiously, he answered, «Sometimes a man far from the field of action does not have everything he needs to judge whether his best interests are being followed.»
Denak laughed again, a little less edgily this time. «You shouldn't be a general, brother of mine; the King of Kings should send you to Videssos the city as ambassador. You'd win from Maniakes with your honeyed words everything our armies haven't managed to take.»
«I've spoken with Maniakes, when he came close to Across in one of the Videssians' cursed dromons,» Abivard said. «I wish the God would drop all of those into the Void. We found no agreement. Nor, it seems, does Sharbaraz King of Kings find agreement with what I did in Vaspurakan. I wish he would summon me and say as much himself, so I might answer.»
«People don't get everything they wish,» Denak answered. «I know all about that, too.» Her hopeless anger tore at Abivard. But then she went on, «This once, though, I got at least part of what I want. When the King of Kings heard you'd ignored his orders about Vaspurakan, he didn't only want to take your head from your shoulders-he wanted to give you over to the torturers.»
As Abivard had learned after he had taken the Videssian westlands for Sharbaraz, the parents and nursemaids of the Empire used the ferocious talents of Makuraner torturers to frighten naughty children into obeying. He bowed very low. «Sister of mine, I am in your debt. My children are young to be fatherless. I should not complain about being unable to see the King of Kings.»
«Of course you should,» Denak said. «After him, you are the most powerful man in Makuran. He has no business to treat you so, no right-»