Makuran than he'd imagined before he had left Vek Rud domain. Plainly, though, not all his countrymen had drawn the same lesson.
Maybe that gloomy thought was what brought on the next spell of gloomy weather. However that was, a new blizzard howled in the next afternoon. Had Abivard scheduled the rapist's chastisement for that day, the fellow might have frozen to death while taking his lashes. Abivard wouldn't have missed him a bit.
With storms like that, you could only stay inside whatever shelter you had, try to keep warm—or not too cold—and wait till the sun came out again. Even then, you wouldn't be comfortable, but at least you could emerge from your lair and move about in a world gone white.
The fall and spring rains stopped all traffic on the roads for weeks at a time. While it was raining, a road was just a stretch of mud that ran in a straight line. You could move about in winter provided that you had the sense to find a house or a caravansaray while the blizzard raged.
During a lull a courier rode into Shahapivan valley from out of the west. He found Abivard's wagon and announced himself, saying, «I bring a dispatch from Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase.» He held out a message tube stamped with the lion of Makuran.
Abivard took it with something less than enthusiasm. After undoing the stopper, he drew out the rolled parchment inside and used his thumbnail to break the red wax seal, also impressed with a lion from Sharbaraz' signet, that held the letter closed. Then, having no better choice, he opened it and began to read.
He skipped quickly through the grandiloquent titles with which the King of Kings bedizened the document: he was after meat. He also skipped over several lines' worth of reproaches; he'd heard plenty of those already. At last he came to the sentence giving him his orders: «You are to come before us at once in Mashiz to explain and suffer the consequences for your deliberate defiance of our will in Vaspurakan.» He sighed. He'd feared as much.
IV
Mikhran marzban put a hand on Abivard's shoulder. «I should be going with you. You came to my rescue, you promulgated this policy for my benefit, and you, it seems, will have to suffer the consequences alone.»
«No, don't be a fool—stay here,» Abivard told him. «Not only that: keep on doing as we've been doing till Sharbaraz directly orders you to stop. Keep on then, too, if you dare. If the princes rise up against us, we aren't going to be able to conquer Videssos.»
«What—?» Mikhran hesitated but finished the question: «What do you suppose the King of Kings will do to you?»
«That's what I'm going to find out,» Abivard answered. «With luck, he'll shout and fuss and then calm down and let me tell him what we've been doing and why. Without luck—well, I hope I'll have reason to be glad he's married to my sister.»
The marzban nodded, then asked, «Whom will you leave in command of the army here?»
«It has to be Romezan,» Abivard answered regretfully. «He's senior, and he has the prestige among our men from killing Gazrik. I'd give the job to Kardarigan if I could, but I can't.»
«He may have more prestige among us, but the princes won't be happy to see him in charge of our warriors,» Mikhran said.
«I can't do anything about that, either,» Abivard said. «You're in overall command here, remember: over Romezan, over everyone now that I'm not going to be around for a while. Use that power well and the Vaspurakaners won't notice that Romezan leads the army.»
«I'll try,» Mikhran said. «But I wasn't part of this army, so there's no guarantee they'll heed me as they would one of their own.»
«Act so natural about it that they never think to do anything else,» Abivard advised him. «One of the secrets to command is never giving the men you're leading any chance to doubt you have the right. That's not a magic Bogorz knows, or Panteles either, but it's nonetheless real even so.»
«Vshnasp spoke of that kind of magic, too,» Mikhran said, «save that he said that so long as you never seemed to doubt a woman would come to your bed, in the end she would not doubt it, either. I'd sooner not emulate his fate.»
«I don't expect you to seduce Romezan—for which I hope you're relieved,» Abivard said, drawing a wry chuckle from the marzban. «I only want you to keep him under some sort of rein till I return. Is that asking too much?»
«Time will tell,» Mikhran replied in tones that did not drip optimism.
Roshnani, understanding why Abivard had been recalled to Mashiz, shared his worries. Like him, she had no idea whether they would be returning to Vaspurakan. Their children, however, went wild with excitement at the news, and Abivard could hardly blame them. Now, at last, they were going back to Makuran, a land that had assumed all but legendary proportions in their minds. Any why not? They'd heard of it but had hardly any memories of seeing it.
When the King of Kings ordered his general to attend him immediately, he got what he desired. The day after his command reached Shahapivan, Pashang got the wagon in which Abivard and his family traveled rattling westward. With them rode an escort of fourscore heavy cavalry, partly to help clear the road at need and partly to persuade bandits that attacking the wagon would not be the best idea they'd ever had. Past Maragha, the mountains of Vaspurakan began dwindling down toward hills once more and then to a rolling steppe country that was dry and bleak and cool in the winter, dry and bleak and blazing hot in summertime.
«I don't like this land,» Abivard said when they stopped at one of the infrequent streams to water the horses.
«Nor I,» Roshnani agreed. «The first time we went through it, after all—oh, south of here, but the same kind of country—was when we were fleeing the Thousand Cities and hoping the Videssians would give us shelter.»
«You're right,» he exclaimed. «That must be it, for this doesn't look much different from the badlands west of the Dilbat Mountains, the sort of country you'd find between strongholds. And yet the hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I didn't know why.»
After a few days of crossing the badlands, days in which the only life they saw outside their own company was a handful of rabbits, a fox, and, high in the sky, a hawk endlessly circling, green glowed on the western horizon, almost as if the sea lay ahead. But Abivard, these past months, had turned his back on the sea. He pointed ahead, asking his children if they knew what the green meant.
Varaz obviously did but looked down on the question as being too easy for him to deign to answer. After a small hesitation Shahin said, «That's the start of the Thousand Cities, isn't it? The land between the rivers, I mean, the, the—» He scowled. He'd forgotten their names.
«The Tutub and the Tib,» Varaz said importantly. Then, all at once, he lost some of that importance. «I'm sorry, Papa, but I've forgotten which one is which.»
«That's the Tutub just ahead,» Abivard answered. «The Tib marks the western boundary of the Thousand Cities.»
Actually, the two rivers were not quite the boundaries of the rich, settled country. The canals that ran out from them were. A couple of the Thousand Cities lay to the east of the Tutub. Where the canals brought their life- giving waters, everything was green and growing, with farmers tending their onions and cucumbers and cress and lettuces and date-palm trees. A few yards beyond the canals the ground lay sere and brown and useless.
Roshnani peered out of the wagon. «Canals always seem so– wasteful,» she said. «All that water on top of the ground and open to the thirsty air. Qanats would be better.»
«You can drive a qanat through rock and carry water underground,» Abivard said. Then he waved a hand. «Not much rock here. When you get right down to it, the Thousand Cities don't have much but mud and water and people—lots of people.»
The wagon and its escort skirted some of the canals on dikes running in the right direction and crossed others on flat, narrow bridges of palm wood. Those were adequate for getting across the irrigation ditches; when
