«Far as I'm concerned, it means we don't torture him-just hew off his head and have done,» Romezan said.
«Your generosity is remarkable,» Tzikas told him.
«What do you think we should do with you? Abivard asked, curious to hear what the renegade would say.
Without hesitation Tzikas replied, «Give me back my cavalry command. I did nothing to give anyone the idea I don't deserve it.»
«Nothing except slander me to Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase,» Abivard said. «Nothing except offer to slay me in single combat. Nothing except blunt my troops in battle and keep Maniakes from being wrecked. Nothing except-»
«I did what I had to do,» Tzikas said.
How slandering Abivard to Sharbaraz counted as something he had had to do, he did not explain. Abivard wondered if he knew. The most likely explanation was that aggrandizing Tzikas was indeed something Tzikas had to do. Whatever the explanation, though, it was beside the point at the moment. «You will not lead cavalry in my army,» Abivard said. «Until such time as I know you can be trusted, you are a prisoner, and you may thank the God or Phos or whomever you're worshiping on any particular day that I don't take Romezan's suggestion, which would without a doubt make my life easier.»
«I find no justice anywhere,» Tzikas said, melodrama throbbing in his voice.
«If you found justice, you would be short a head,» Abivard retorted. «If you're going to whine because you don't find as much mercy as you think you deserve, too bad.» He turned to some of his soldiers. «Seize him. Strip him and take away whatever weapons you find. Search carefully, search thoroughly, to make sure you find them all. Hold him. Do him no harm unless he tries to escape. If he tries, kill him.»
«Aye, lord,» the warriors said enthusiastically, and proceeded to give the command the most literal obedience imaginable, stripping Tzikas not only of his mail shirt but also, their pattings not satisfying them, of his undertunic and drawers as well, so that he stood before them clad in nothing more than irate dignity. Abivard groped for a word to describe his expression and finally found one in Videssian, for the imperials did more reveling in suffering for the sake of their faith than did Makuraners. Tzikas, now-Tzikas looked martyred.
For all their enthusiasm, the searchers found nothing out of the ordinary and suffered him to dress once more. Seeing that Tzikas was not immediately dangerous-save with his tongue, a weapon Abivard would have loved to cut out of him-the bulk of the army rode off in pursuit of Maniakes' force.
The Videssians, though, had used well the time their sorcerous smoke screen had bought them. «We aren't going to catch them,» Abivard said, bringing his horse up to trot beside Romezan's. «They're going to make their way down to Lyssaion and get away to fight next spring.»
He hoped Romezan would disagree with him. The noble from the Seven Clans was relentlessly optimistic, often believing something could be done long after a more staid man would have given up hope-and often being right, too. But now the wild boar of Makuran nodded. «I fear you're right, lord,» he said. «These cursed Videssians are getting to be harder to step on for good and all than so many cockroaches. They'll be back to bother us again.»
«We have driven them clean out of the land of the Thousand Cities,» Abivard said, as he had before. «That's something. Even the King of Kings will have to admit that's something.»
«The King of Kings won't have to do any such thing, and you know it as well as I do,» Romezan retorted, tossing his head so that his waxed mustaches flipped back and slapped against his cheeks. «He may, if his mood is good and the wind blows from the proper quarter, but to have to? Don't be stupid… lord.»
That came uncomfortably close to Abivard's own thoughts, so close that he took no offense at Romezan's blunt suggestion. It also sparked another thought in him: «My sister should long since have had her baby by now, and I should have had word, whatever the word was.»
Now Romezan sounded reassuring: «Had anything bad happened, lord, which the God forbid, rest assured you would have heard of that.»
«I won't say you're wrong,» Abivard answered. «Sharbaraz by now probably would be glad to get shut of any family ties to me. But if Denak had another girl-» If, despite the wizards' predictions, she'd had another girl, she would not get another chance for a boy.
Romezan's hand twisted in a gesture intended to turn aside an evil omen. That touched Abivard. The noble of the Seven Clans might well have resented his low birth and Denak's and not wanted the heir of the King of Kings to spring from their line. Abivard was glad none of that seemed to bother him.
«All right, if we can't catch up to the Videssians, what do we do? Romezan asked.
«Return in triumph to Mashiz, of course,» Abivard said, and laughed at the expression on Romezan's face. «What we really need to do is pull back out of this rough country into the flood-plain, where we'll have plenty of supplies. Not much to be gathered here.»
«That's so,» Romezan agreed. «Won't be so much down on the flat as there usually is, either, thanks to Maniakes. But you're right: more than here. One more question and then I shut up: have we won enough of a victory to satisfy the King of Kings?»
Sharbaraz had said that nothing less than complete and overwhelming defeat of the Videssians would be acceptable. Together, Abivard and Romezan had given him… something less than that. On the other hand, giving him the complete and overwhelming defeat of Maniakes probably would have frightened him. A general who could completely and overwhelmingly defeat a foreign foe might also, should the matter ever cross his mind, contemplate completely and overwhelmingly defeating the King of Kings. Maniakes had abandoned the land of the Thousand Cities under pressure from Abivard and Romezan. Would that satisfy Sharbaraz?
«We'll find out,» Abivard said without hope and without fear.
The messenger from Mashiz reached the army as it was coming down from the high ground in which the Tutub originated. Abivard was still marching as to war, with scouts well out ahead of his force. There was no telling for certain that Maniakes hadn't tried circling around through the semidesert scrub country for another go at the land of the Thousand Cities. Abivard didn't think the Avtokrator would attempt anything so foolhardy, but one thing he'd become sure of was that you never could tell with Maniakes.
Instead of a horde of Phos-worshiping Videssians, though, the scouts brought back the messenger, a skinny little pockmarked man mounted on a gelding much more handsome than he was. «Lord, I give you the words of Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase,» he said.
«For which I thank you,» Abivard replied, not wanting to say in public that the words of Sharbaraz King of Kings were nothing he looked forward to receiving.
With a flourish the messenger handed him the waterproof leather message tube. He popped it open. The sheet of parchment within was sealed with the lion of Makuran stamped into blood-red wax: Sharbaraz' insigne, sure enough. Abivard broke the seal with his thumbnail, let the fragments of wax fall to the ground, and unrolled the parchment.
As usual, Sharbaraz' titulature used up a good part of the sheet The scribe who had taken down the words of the King of Kings had a large, round hand that made the titles seem all the more impressive. Abivard skipped over them just the same, running a finger down the lines of fine calligraphy till he came to words that actually said something instead of serving no other function than advertising the magnificence of the King of Kings.
«Know that we have received your letter detailing the joint action you and Romezan son of Bizhan fought against the Videssian usurper Maniakes in the land of the Thousand Cities, the aforesaid Romezan having joined you in defiance of our orders,» Sharbaraz wrote. Abivard sighed. Once Sharbaraz got an idea, he never let go of it. Thus, Maniakes was still a usurper even though he was still solidly on the Videssian throne. Thus, too, the King of Kings was never going to forget-or let anyone else forget-that Romezan had disobeyed him.