kept fighting.
Gazrik had let go of Romezan's sword arm to free his own knife. Romezan had no room to swing the sword or cut with it. He used it instead as a knuckle-duster, smashing Gazrik in the face with the jeweled and weighted pommel. The Vaspurakaner groaned, and so did his countrymen.
Romezan hit him again. Now Gazrik wailed. Romezan managed to reverse the blade and thrust it home point first, just above the chain mail veiling that warded most but not all of Gazrik's face. Gazrik's body convulsed, and his feet drummed against the dirt. Then he lay still.
Very slowly, into vast silence, Romezan struggled to his feet. He took off his helmet. His face was bloody. He bowed to Gazrik's corpse, then to the grim-featured Vaspurakaners in the crowd. «That was a brave man,» he said, first in his own language, then in theirs.
Abivard hoped that would keep the Vaspurakaners in the crowd calm. No swords came out, but a man said, «If you call him brave now, why did you name him a dog before?»
Before Romezan answered, he shed his gauntlets. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, mixing sweat and grime and blood but not doing much more. At last he said, «For the same reason any man insults his foe during war. What have you princes called us? But when the war was over, I was willing to let it rest. Gazrik came seeking me; I did not go looking for him.»
Though you certainly did on the battlefield, and though you were glad to fight him when he came to you, Abivard thought. But Romezan had given as good an answer as he could. Abivard said, «The general of Makuran is right. The war is over. Let us remember that, and let this be the last blood shed between us.»
Along with his countrymen, he waited to see if that would be reply enough or if the Vaspurakaners, in spite of his words and Romezan's, would make blood pay for blood. He kept his own hand away from the hilt of his sword but was ready to snatch it out in an instant.
For a few heartbeats the issue hung in the balance. Then, from the back of the crowd, a few Vaspurakaners turned and trudged back toward the frowning gray walls of Shahapivan, their heads down, their shoulders bent, the very picture of dejection. Had Abivard had any idea who they were, he would have paid them a handsome sum of silver arkets or even of Videssian goldpieces. Peaceful, disappointed withdrawal gave their countrymen both the excuse and the impetus to leave the site of the duel without trying to amend the result.
Abivard permitted himself the luxury of a long sigh of relief. Things could hardly have gone better: Not only had Romezan beaten his challenger, he'd managed to do it in a way that didn't reignite the princes' rebellion.
He walked up to his general. «Well, my great boar of Makuran, we got by with it.»
«Aye, so we did,» Romezan answered, «and I stretched the dog dead in the dirt, as he deserved.» He laughed at Abivard's flabbergasted expression. «Oh, I spoke him fair for his own folks, lord. I'm no fool: I know what needed doing. But a dog he was, and a dead dog he is, and I enjoyed every moment of killing him.» Just for a moment his facade of bravado cracked, for he added, «Except for a couple of spots where I thought he was going to kill me.»
«How did you live, there when he was stabbing at you through your suit?» Abivard asked. «I thought he pierced it a couple of times, but you kept on.»
Romezan laughed. «Aye, I did, and do you know why? Under it I wore an iron heart guard, the kind foot soldiers put on when they can't afford any other armor. You never know, thought I, when such will come in handy, and by the God I was right. So he didn't kill me, and I did kill him, and that's all that matters.»
«Spoken like a warrior,» Abivard said. Romezan, as best he could tell, had no great quantity of wit, but sometimes, as now, the willingness to take extra pains and a large helping of straightforward courage sufficed.
Fall drew on. Abivard thought hard about moving back into the Videssian westlands before the rains finished turning the roads to mud but in the end decided to hold his mobile force in Vaspurakan. If the princes broke their fragile accord with Makuran, he didn't want to give them the winter in which to consolidate themselves.
Also weighting his judgment was how quiet Maniakes had been. Instead of plunging ahead regardless of whether he had the strength to plunge, as he had before, the Videssian Avtokrator was playing a cautious game. In a way that worried Abivard, for he wasn't sure what Maniakes was up to. In another way, though, it relieved him: even if he kept the mobile force here in Vaspurakan, he could be fairly sure the Avtokrator would not leap upon the westlands.
Keeping the mobile force in Vaspurakan also let him present to Sharbaraz the settlement he'd made with the princes as a reconquest and occupation of their land. He made full use of that aspect of the situation when at last he wrote a letter explaining to the King of Kings all he'd done. If one didn't read that letter with the greatest of care, one would never notice that the Vaspurakaners still worshiped at their old temples to Phos and that Abivard had agreed not to try to keep them from doing so.
«The King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, is a very busy man,» he said when he gave the carefully crafted letter to Mikhran marzban for his signature. «With any luck at all, he'll skim through this without even noticing the fine points of the arrangement.» He hoped that was true, considering what Panteles had told him about how Sharbaraz was likely to react if he did notice. He didn't mention that to the marzban.
«It would be fine, wouldn't it?» Mikhran said, scrawling his name below Abivard's. «It would be very fine indeed, and I think you have a chance of pulling it off.»
«Whatever he does, he'll have to do it quickly,» Abivard said. «This letter should reach him before the roads get too gloppy to carry traffic, but not long before. He'll need to hurry if he's going to give any kind of response before winter or maybe even before spring. I'm hoping that by the time he gets around to answering me, so many other things will have happened that he'll have forgotten all about my letter.»
«That would be fine,» Mikhran repeated. «In fact, maybe you should even arrange for your messenger to take so long that he gets stuck in the mud and makes your letter later still.»
«I thought about that,» Abivard said. «I've decided I dare not take the risk. I don't know who else has written to the King of Kings and what he or they may have said, but I have to think some of my officers will have complained about the settlement we've made. Sharbaraz needs to have our side of it before him, or he's liable to condemn us out of hand.»
The marzban considered that, then reluctantly nodded. «I suppose you're right, lord, but I fear this letter will be enough to convict us of disobedience by itself. The Vaspurakaners are not worshiping the God.»
«They aren't assassinating marzbans and waylaying soldiers, either,» Abivard returned. «Sharbaraz will have to decide which carries the greater weight.»
There the matter rested. Once the letter was properly signed and sealed, a courier rode off to the west with it. It would pass through the western regions of Vaspurakan and the Thousand Cities before it came to Mashiz—and to Sharbaraz' notice. As far as Abivard could see, he was obviously doing the right thing. But Panteles' magic made him doubt the King of Kings would agree.
Several days after the letter left his hands he wished he had it back again so he could change it—or so he could change his mind and not send it at all. He even started to summon Panteles to try to blank the parchment by sorcery from far away but ended up refraining. If Sharbaraz got a letter with no words from him, he'd wonder why and would keep digging till he found out. Better to give, him something tangible on which to center his anger.
Abivard slowly concluded that he would have to give Tzikas something tangible, too. The Videssian turncoat had fought very well in Vaspurakan; how in justice could Abivard deny him a command commensurate with his talent? The plain truth was, he couldn't.
«But oh, how I wish I could,» he told Roshnani one morning before a meeting with Tzikas he'd tried but failed to avoid. «He's so—polite.» He made a gesture redolent of distaste.
«Sometimes all you can do is make the best of things,» Roshnani said. She spoke manifest truth, but that did not make Abivard feel any better about the way Tzikas smiled.
Tzikas bowed low when Abivard approached his pavilion. «I greet you, brother-in-law to the King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase. May he and his kingdom both prosper.»
«I greet you, eminent sir,» Abivard answered in Videssian far more ragged than it had been a few months before. Don't use a language and you will forget it, he'd discovered.
Tzikas responded in Makuraner, whether just for politeness' sake or to emphasize how much he was himself a man of Makuran, Abivard couldn't guess. Probably both, he thought, and wondered whether Tzikas himself knew the proportions of the mix. «Brother-in-law to the King of Kings, have I in some way made myself odious to you? Tell me what my sin is and I shall expiate it, if that be in my power. If not, I can do no more than beg
