Avtokrator in place of someone more deserving—someone, for instance, like Tzikas.
Abivard chuckled mirthlessly. «What amuses you, lord?» Tzikas asked, the picture of polite interest.
«Only that one person, at least, is safe from your machinations,» Abivard said. One of Tzikas' disconcertingly mobile eyebrows rose in silent question. With malicious relish Abivard explained: «You may want my post, and you may want Maniakes' post, but Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase, is beyond your reach.»
«Oh, indeed,» Tzikas said. «The prospect of overthrowing him never once entered my mind.» By the way he said it and by his actions, the same did not apply to Abivard or Maniakes.
Abivard watched glumly as, off in the distance, another of the Thousand Cities went up in flames. «This is madness,» he exclaimed. «When we took Videssian towns, we took them with a view to keeping them intact so they could yield revenue to the King of Kings. A burned city yields no one revenue.»
«When we went into Videssos, we went as conquerors,» Turan said. «Maniakes isn't out for conquest. He's out for revenge, and that changes the way he fights his war.»
«Well put,» Abivard said. «I hadn't thought of it in just that way, but you're right, of course. How do we stop him?»
«Beat him and drive him away,» his lieutenant answered. «No other way to do it that I can think of.»
That was easy to say, but it had proved harder to do. Being uninterested in conquest, Maniakes didn't bother garrisoning the towns he took: he just burned them and moved on. That meant he kept his army intact instead of breaking it up into small packets that Abivard could have hoped to defeat individually.
Because the Videssian force was all mounted, Maniakes moved through the plain between the Tutub and the Tib faster than Abivard could pursue him with an army still largely made up of infantry. Not only that, he seemed to move through the land of the Thousand Cities faster than Abivard's order to open the canals and flood the plain reached the city governors. Such inundations as did take place were small, hindered Maniakes but little, and were repaired far sooner that they should have been.
Abivard, coming upon the peasants of the town of Nashvar doing everything they could to make a broken canal whole once more, angrily confronted the city governor, a plump little man named Beroshesh. «Am I to have my people starve?» the governor wailed, making as if to rend his garment. His accented speech proclaimed him a local man, not a true Makuraner down from the high plateau to the west.
«Are you to let all the Thousand Cities suffer because you do not do all you can to drive the enemy from our land?» Abivard returned.
Beroshesh stuck out his lower lip, much as Abivard's children did when they were feeling petulant. «I do as much as any of my neighbors, and you cannot deny this, lord. For you to single me out—where is the justice there? Eh? Can you answer?'
«Where is the justice in not rallying to the cause of the King of Kings?» Abivard answered. «Where is the justice in your ignoring the orders that come from me, his servant?»
«In the same place as the justice of the order to do ourselves such great harm,» Beroshesh retorted, not retreating by so much as the width of a digit. «If you could by some great magic make all my fellow officials obey to the same degree, this would be another matter. All would bear the harm together, and all equally. But you ask me to take it all on my own head, for the other city governors are lazy and cowardly and will not do any such thing, not unless you stand over them with whips.»
«And what would they say of you?» Abivard asked in a mild voice. Beroshesh, obviously convinced he was the soul of virtue, donned an expression that might better have belonged on the face of a bride whose virginity was questioned. Abivard wanted to laugh. «Never mind. You needn't answer that.»
Beroshesh did answer, at considerable length. After a while Abivard stopped listening. He wished he had a magic that could make all the city governors in the Thousand Cities obey his commands. If there were such a magic, though, Kings of Kings would have been using it for hundreds of years, and rebellions against them would have been far fewer.
Then he had another thought. He sat up straighter in his chair and took a long pull at the goblet of date wine a serving girl had set before him. The stuff was as revoltingly sweet as it always had been. Abivard hardly noticed. He set down the goblet and pointed a finger at Beroshesh, who reluctantly stopped talking. Quietly, thoughtfully, Abivard said, «Tell me, do your mages do much with the canals?»
«Not mine, no,» the city governor answered, disappointing him. Beroshesh went on, «My mages, lord, are like you: they are men of the high country and so do not know much about the way of this land. Some of the wizards of the town, though, do repair work on the banks now and again. Sometimes one of them can do at once what it would take a large crew of men with mattocks and spades days to accomplish. And sometimes, magic being what it is, not. Why do you ask?»
«Because I was wondering whether—» Abivard began.
Beroshesh held up his right hand, palm out. Bombastic he might have been, but he was not stupid. «You want to work a magic to open the canals all at once. Tell me if I am not correct, lord.»
«You are right,» Abivard answered. «If we gathered wizards from several cities here, all of them, as you say, from the land of the Thousand Cities so they knew the waters and the mud and what to do with them…» His voice trailed away. Knowing what one wanted to do and being able to do it were not necessarily identical.
Beroshesh looked thoughtful. «I do not know whether such a thing has ever been essayed. Shall I try to find out, lord?»
«Yes, I think you should,» Abivard told him. «If we have here a weapon against the Videssians, don't you think we ought to learn whether we can use it?»
«I shall look into it,» Beroshesh said.
«So shall I,» Abivard assured him. He'd heard that tone in functionaries' voices before, whenever they made promises they didn't intend to keep. «I will talk to the mages here in town. You find out who the ones in nearby cities are and invite them here. Don't say too much about why or spies will take the word to Maniakes, who may try to foil us.»
«I understand, lord,» Beroshesh said in a solemn whisper. He looked around nervously. «Even the floors have ears.»
Considering how much of the past of any town hereabouts lay right under one's feet, that might have been literally true. Abivard wondered whether those dead ears had ever heard of a scheme like his. Then, more to the point, he wondered whether Maniakes had. The Avtokrator had surprised Makuran and had surprised Abivard himself. Now, maybe, Abivard would return the favor.
Abivard had never before walked into a room that held half a dozen mages. He found the prospect daunting. In his world, with the mundane tools of war, he was a man to be reckoned with. In their world, which was anything but mundane, he held less power to control events than did the humblest foot soldier of his army.
Even so, the wizards reckoned him a man of importance. When he nerved himself and went in to them, they sprang to their feet and bowed very low, showing that they acknowledged he was far higher in rank than they. «We shall serve you, lord,» they said, almost in chorus.
«We shall all serve the King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase,» Abivard said. He waved to the roasted quails, bread and honey, and jars of date wine on the sideboard. «Eat. Drink. Refresh yourselves.» By the cups some of the mages were holding, by the gaps in the little loaves of bread, by the bird bones scattered on the floor, they hadn't needed his invitation to take refreshment.
They introduced themselves, sometimes between mouthfuls. Falasham was fat and jolly. Glathpilesh was also fat but looked as if he hated the world and everyone in it. Mefyesh was bald and had the shiniest scalp Abivard had ever seen. His brother, Yeshmef, was almost as bald and almost as shiny but wore his beard in braids tied with yellow ribbons, which gave him the look of a swarthy sunflower. Utpanisht, to whom everyone, even Glathpilesh, deferred, was ancient and wizened; his grandson, Kidinnu, was in the prime of life.
«Why have you summoned us, lord?» Glathpilesh demanded of Abivard in a voice that suggested he had better things to do elsewhere.
«Couldn't you have found that out by magic?» Abivard said, thinking, If you can't, what are you doing here?
«I could have, aye, but why waste time and labor?» the wizard returned. «Magic is hard work. Talk is always easy.»
«Listening is easier yet,» Falasham said so good-naturedly that even dour Glathpilesh could not take
