Abivard wrote a letter to Sharbaraz, announcing his victory over Maniakes. Romezan also wrote one with Abivard looking over his shoulder as he drafted it and offering helpful suggestions. It apologized for disobeying the orders he'd gotten from the King of Kings and promised that if forgiven, he'd never again make such a heinous blunder. After reading it, Abivard felt as if he'd eaten too much fruit that had been too sweet to begin with and then had been candied in honey.
Romezan shook his head as he stamped his signet-a wild boar with great tushes-into the hot wax holding the letter closed. «If someone sent me a letter like this, I'd throw up.»
«So would I,» Abivard said. «But it's the sort of thing Sharbaraz likes to get. We've both seen that: tell the truth straight out and you're in trouble, load up your letter with this nonsense and you get what you want.»
The same courier carried both letters off toward the west, toward a Mashiz no longer in danger from the Videssian army, toward a King of Kings who was likely to care less about that than about his orders, no matter how foolish, being obeyed. Abivard wondered what sort of letter would come out of the west, out of the shadows of the Dilbat Mountains, out of the shadows of a court life only distantly connected to the real world.
He also wondered when he would hear that Tzikas had been put to death. When he did not hear of the renegade's premature- though not, to his way of thinking, untimely-demise, he wondered when he would hear of Tzikas' leading the rear guard against his own men.
That did not happen, either. The longer either of those things took to come about, the more unhappy he got. He'd handed Tzikas over to Maniakes in the confident expectation-which Maniakes had fostered-that the Avtokrator would put him to death. Now Maniakes was instead holding on to him: to Abivard it seemed unfair.
But he knew better than to complain. If the Avtokrator had managed to trick him, that was his own fault, no one else's. Maybe he'd get the chance to pay Maniakes back one day soon. And maybe he wouldn't have to rely on trickery. Maybe he'd run the Videssians to earth as if they were a herd of wild asses and ride them down. Amazing, the thoughts to which the arrival of a real cavalry force could give rise.
Sharbaraz King of Kings did not delay in replying to the letters he'd gotten from Abivard and Romezan. When Abivard received a messenger from the King of Kings, he did so with all the enthusiasm he would have shown going off to get a rotting tooth pulled from his head.
By the same token, the leather message tube the fellow handed him might as well have been a venomous serpent. He opened it, broke the seal on the parchment, and unrolled it with no small trepidation. As usual, Sharbaraz had made his scribe waste several lines with his titles, his accomplishments, and his hopes. He seemed to take forever to get to the gist…
«We are, as we have said, angered that you should presume to summon to your aid the army commanded by Romezan son of Bizhan, which we had purposed using for other tasks during this campaigning season. We are further vexed with the aforesaid Romezan son of Bizhan for hearkening to your summons rather than ignoring it, as was our command, the aforesaid Romezan being separately admonished in a letter directed specifically to him.
Only one possible circumstance can mitigate the disobedience the two of you have demonstrated both individually and collectively, the aforementioned circumstance being complete and overwhelming victory against the Videssians violating the land of the Thousand Cities. We own ourselves delighted one such victory has been gained and look forward either to Maniakes' extermination or to his ignominious retreat. The God grant that you soon have the opportunity to inform me of one or the other of these happy results.»
As messengers did, this one asked Abivard, «Is there a reply, lord?»
«Wait a bit,» Abivard answered. He read the letter again from top to bottom. It was no more vituperative in the second reading than it had been in the first. Abivard stepped out of the tent and spotted Pashang coming by, swigging on a jug of date wine. «Go find Romezan and fetch him to me,» he told the driver.
«Aye, lord,» Pashang said, and went off for Romezan. His pace was slower than Abivard would have desired; Abivard wondered how much of the wine he'd had.
But he did find Romezan and bring him back. The Makuraner general was waving a parchment as he approached; Abivard assumed that that was because he'd just gotten his letter from the King of Kings, too. And so it proved. Romezan called, «There, you see? I told you that you worry too much.»
«So you did,» Abivard admitted. By the way Romezan was acting, his letter wasn't actively painful, either. Turning to the messenger, Abivard said, «Please tell Sharbaraz King of Kings we'll do everything we can to obey him.» Romezan nodded vigorously.
The messenger bowed. «It shall be as you say, lords.» To him Abivard and Romezan were figures almost as mighty as Sharbaraz himself: the one brother-in-law to the King of Kings, the other a great noble of the Seven Clans. Abivard clicked his tongue between his teeth. It all depended on how, and from what station, you looked at life.
When the fellow was gone, Abivard turned to Romezan in some bemusement. «I had expected the King of Kings to be angry at us,» he said.
«I told you,» Romezan answered. «Victory atones for any number of sins.»
«It's not that simple,» Abivard insisted to Roshnani over stewed kid that night. «The more victories I won in the Videssian westlands, the more suspicious of me Sharbaraz got. And then here, in the land of the Thousand Cities, I couldn't satisfy him no matter what I did. If I lost, I was a bungling idiot. But if I won, I was setting myself up to rebel against him. And if I begged for some help to give me a chance to win, why then I was obviously plotting to raise up an army against him.»
«Until now,» his principal wife said.
«Until now,» Abivard echoed. «He didn't fall on Romezan like an avalanche, either, and Romezan flat disobeyed his orders. Till now he's screamed at me even though I've done everything he told me to do. I don't understand this. What's wrong with him?» The incongruity of the question made him laugh as soon as it had passed his lips, but he'd meant it, too.
Roshnani said, «Maybe he's finally come to see you really do want to do what's best for him and for Makuran. The years pile up on him the same as they do on everyone else; maybe they're getting through.»
«I wish I could believe that-that's he's grown up at last, I mean,» Abivard said. «But if he has, it's very sudden. I think something else is going on, but for the life of me I have no idea what.»
«Well, let's see if we can figure it out,» Roshnani said, logical as a Videssian. «Why is he ignoring things that would have made him angry if he were acting the way he usually does?»
«The first thing I thought of is that he's trying to lull Romezan and me into feeling all calm and easy when he really does intend to fall on us like an avalanche,» Abivard said. «But if that's so, we'll have to look out for people trying to separate us from the army in the next few days, either that or people trying to murder us right in the middle of it. That could be, I suppose. We'll have to keep an eye out.»
«Yes, that certainly is possible,» Roshnani agreed. «But again, it's not the way he's been in the habit of behaving. Maybe he really is pleased with you.»
«That would be even more out of character,» Abivard said, his voice bitter. «He hasn't been, not for years.»
«He was… better this past winter than the one before,» Roshnani said. Odd for her to be defending the King of Kings and for Abivard to be assailing him. «Maybe he's warming up to you again. And then-» She paused before going on thoughtfully. «And then, your sister is drawing nearer to her time every day. Maybe he remembers the family connection.»