afraid. He'd sent his best troops, his most mobile troops, into Videssos and Vaspurakan and had left himself little with which to resist a counterthrust he hadn't thought Maniakes would be able to make.
«Using the canals between the Tutub and the Tib will also let you delay the enemy and perhaps turn him back altogether,» Sharbaraz said. «We remember well how the usurper whom we will not name put them to good use against us in the struggle for the throne.»
«That is so, Majesty,» Abivard agreed. It was also the first thing the King of Kings had said that made sense. If he could take up the garrisons from the cities between the rivers and put them to work wrecking canals and flooding the countryside, he might get more use from them than he would if he tried to make them fight the Videssians. It still might not net everything Sharbaraz hoped for; the Videssians were skilled engineers and expert at corduroying roads through unspeakable muck. But it would slow them down, and slowing them was worth doing.
«Also,» Sharbaraz said, «for cavalry to match the horsemen Maniakes brings against us, we give you leave to recall Tzikas from Vaspurakan. His familiarity with the foe will win many Videssians to our side. Further, you may take Hosios Avtokrator with you when you go forth to confront the foe.»
Abivard opened his mouth, then closed it again. Sharbaraz was living in a dream world if he thought any Videssian would abandon Maniakes for his pretender. But then, insulated by the court from reality, in many ways Sharbaraz was living in a dream world.
Tzikas was a different matter. Unlike Sharbaraz' puppet, he did have solid connections within the Videssian army. If he got down to the land of the Thousand Cities soon enough, he might help solidify whatever force Abivard had managed to piece together from the local garrisons. Abivard suspected that Sharbaraz didn't know he knew what Tzikas had been saying about him; that meant Denak's maidservant was more reliable than Abivard had thought
«Speak!» the King of Kings exclaimed. «What say you?»
«May it please you, Majesty, but I would sooner not have the eminent Tzikas—» Abivard gave the title in Videssian to emphasize the turncoat's foreignness. «—under my command.» About the only thing I'd like less would be the God dropping all Makuran into the Void.
For a wonder, Sharbaraz took the hint. «Perhaps another commander, then,» he said. Abivard had feared he'd insist; he didn't know what he would have done then. Arranged for Tzikas to have an accident, maybe. If any man ever deserved an accident, Tzikas was the one.
«Perhaps so, Majesty,» Abivard answered. Curse it, how did you tell the King of Kings he'd made a harebrained suggestion? You couldn't, not if you wanted to keep your head on your shoulders. From what he'd seen, the Avtokrator of the Videssians had a similar problem, perhaps in less acute form.
Sharbaraz said, «We are confident you will hold the enemy far away from us and far away from Mashiz, preserving our complete security.»
«The God grant it be so,» Abivard said. «The men of Makuran have beaten the Videssians many times during your glorious reign.» He had led Sharbaraz' troops to a lot of those victories, too. Now the King of Kings suddenly recalled that: he needed one more victory, or maybe more than one. Abivard went on, «I shall do all I can for you and for Makuran. The Videssians, though, I must say, fight with more spirit for Maniakes than they ever did for Genesios.»
«We are confident,» the King of Kings repeated. «Go forth, Abivard son of Godarz: go forth and defeat the foe. Then return in triumph to the bosom of your wife and family.»
Almost, Abivard missed the meaning lurking there. That made the surge of fury all the more ferocious when it came. Sharbaraz was going to hold Roshnani and his children hostage to guarantee he would neither rebel once he had an army under his command again nor go over to the Videssians.
He thinks he is. Abivard said, «Majesty, my wife and children have always taken the field with me, ever since the days when you guested at Vek Rud stronghold.»
The days when you were first a prisoner whom I helped rescue and then a rebel against the King of Kings ruling in Mashiz, he meant. From behind him came the faintest of murmurs: Sharbaraz' courtiers took the point. By the way the countenance of the King of Kings darkened, so did he. He tried to put the best face on it that he could: «We think only for their safety. Here in Mashiz all their needs will be met, and they will be in no danger from vicious marauding Videssians.»
Abivard looked Sharbaraz in the face. That was not quite a discourtesy, or did not have to be, but the way he held Sharbaraz' eyes certainly was. «If you rely on me to protect you and your capital, Majesty, surely you can rely on me to protect my kin.»
The murmur behind him got louder. He wondered how long it had been since someone had defied the King of Kings, no matter how politely, in his own throne room. Generations, probably. By the dazed expression on Sharbaraz' face, it had never happened to him before.
He tried to rally, saying, «Surely we know better than you the proper course in this affair, that which would be most expedient for all Makuran.»
Abivard shrugged. «I have enjoyed the company of my wife and children all through the winter. May it please you, Majesty, I would just as soon return to them in the chambers you so generously granted us.» If I don't take them with me, I won't go out.
«It does not please us,» Sharbaraz answered in a hard voice. «We place the good of the realm ahead of that of any one man.»
«The good of the realm will not be harmed if I take my family with me.» Abivard gave the King of Kings a sidelong look. «I will have one more reason to repel the Videssians if my wife and children are at my side.»
«That is not our view of the matter,» Sharbaraz said.
The murmurs behind Abivard were almost loud enough now for him to make out individual voices and words. People would speak of this scandal for years. «Perhaps, Majesty, you would be better served with a different general in command of these garrison troops,» he said.
«Had we wanted a different general, be sure we should have selected one,» the King of Kings replied. «We are aware we have a great many from among whom we may choose. Rest assured you were not picked at random.»
You're the one who's done best. That was what he meant. Abivard felt like laughing in his face. If he wanted Abivard and no one else, that limited his choices. He couldn't do anything dreadful to Roshnani or the children, not if he expected Abivard to serve him. What better way to get Abivard to do what he said he would not do and go over to Videssos?
How long had it been since the King of Kings had wanted someone to do something but had not gotten his way? By the frustrated glare on Sharbaraz' face, a long time. «Do you presume to disobey our will?» he demanded.
«No, Majesty,» Abivard said. Yes, Majesty—again. «Loose me against the Videssians and I will do everything I can to drive them from the realm. So the King of Kings has ordered; so shall it be. My family will watch as I oppose Maniakes with every fiber of my being.»
And if my family isn't there to watch—well, it doesn't matter then, anyhow, for I won't be there doing the fighting. Abivard smiled at his brother-in-law. No, Sharbaraz was not giving the orders here. How long would he need to realize as much?
He was not stupid. Arrogant, certainly, and stubborn, and long accustomed to having others leap to fulfill his every wish, but not stupid. «It shall be as you say,» he replied at length. «You and your family shall go forth against Maniakes. But as you have set the terms under which you deign to fight, so you have also set for yourself the terms of the fight. We shall look for victory from you, nothing less.»
«If you send forth a general expecting him to fail, you've sent forth the wrong general,» Abivard answered. A nasty chill of worry ran down his back. Again he wondered if Sharbaraz was setting him up to fail so he could justify eliminating him.
No. Abivard could not believe it. The King of Kings needed no such elaborate justifications. Once Abivard was away from his army and in Mashiz, Sharbaraz could have eliminated him whenever he chose.
The King of Kings gestured brusquely. «We dismiss you, Abivard son of Godarz.» It was as abrupt an end to an audience as could be imagined. The hum of talk behind Abivard made him think the courtiers never had imagined anything like it.
He prostrated himself once more, symbolizing the submission he'd subverted. Then he rose and backed
