Roshnani went back into the chamber. So did Abivard, shutting the door behind him. He did his best to imitate the fanfare horn players blew to salute a general who had won a battle. Roshnani laughed out loud. From the other side of the closed door, so did one of the guardsmen.
«You ground him for flour in the millstones,» Abivard said.
«Yes, I did—for today.» Roshnani was still laughing, but she also sounded worn. «Will he stay ground, though? What will he do tomorrow? Will I have to go out looking for the King of Kings and humiliate myself if I find him?»
Taking her in his arms, Abivard said, «I don't think so. If you show you're willing to do whatever you have to, very often you end up not needing to do it.»
«I hope this is one of those times,» Roshnani said. «If the God is kind, she'll grant it be so.»
«May he do that,» Abivard agreed. «And if not, Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase, will at least have learned that one of his principal servants is a liar and a cheat.»
By what Yeliif had said, he'd learned that he and Roshnani did indeed have listeners. With any luck at all, some of them would report straight to the King of Kings.
Abivard had guessed that Yeliif would break his promise, but he didn't. Not long after breakfast the next day he came to the suite of rooms where Abivard and his family were staying and, as warmly as if he and Roshnani had not quarreled the day before, bade her accompany him to see her sister-in-law, «who,» he said, «is in her turn anxious to see you.»
«Nice to know that,» Roshnani said. «If you'd delivered my requests sooner, we might have found out before.»
Yeliif stiffened and straightened up, as if a wasp had stung him at the base of the spine. «I thought we might agree to forget yesterday's unpleasantness,» he said.
«I may not choose to do anything about it,» Roshnani told him, «but I never, ever forget.» She smiled sweetly.
The beautiful eunuch grimaced, then shook himself as if using a counterspell against a dangerous sorcery. Maybe that was what he thought he was doing. His manner, which had been warm, froze solid. «If you will come with me, then?» he said.
Roshnani came with condescension that, if it wasn't queenly, would have made a good imitation.
Abivard stayed in the suite and kept his children from injuring themselves and one another. For no visible reason Varaz seemed to have decided Shahin was good for nothing but being punched. Shahin fought back as well as he could, but that often wasn't well enough. Abivard did his best to keep them apart, which wasn't easy. At last he asked Varaz, «How would you like it if I walloped you for no reason at all whenever I felt like it?»
«I don't know what you're talking about,» Varaz said. Abivard had heard that tone of voice before. His son meant every word of the indignant proclamation, no matter how unlikely it sounded to Abivard. Varaz wasn't old enough—and was too irked—to be able to put himself in his brother's shoes. But he also knew Abivard would wallop him if he disobeyed, and so desisted.
Worry over Roshnani also made Abivard more likely to wallop Varaz than he would have been were he calm. Abivard, knowing that, tried to hold his temper in check. It wasn't easy, not when he trusted Yeliif not at all. But he could no more have kept Roshnani from going to see Denak than he could have held some impetuous young man out of battle. He sighed, wishing relations between husband and wife could be managed by orders given and received as they were on the battlefield.
Then he wished he hadn't thought of the battlefield. Time seemed elastic now, as it did in the middle of a hot fight An hour or two seemed to go by; then he looked at a shadow on the floor and realized that only a few minutes had passed. A little later an hour did slide past without his even noticing. Servants startled him when they brought in smoked meats and saffron rice for his luncheon; he'd thought it still midmorning. Roshnani came back not long after the servitors had cleared away the dishes. «I wouldn't have minded eating more, though they fed me there,» she said, and then, «Ah, they left the wine. Good. Pour me a cup, would you, while I use the pot. Not something you do in the company of the principal wife of the King of Kings, even if she is your sister-in-law.» She undid the buckles on her sandals and kicked the shoes across the room, then sighed with pleasure as her toes dug into the rug.
Abivard poured the wine and waited patiently till she got a chance to drink it. Along with wanting to ease herself, she also had to prove to her children that she hadn't fallen off the edge of the world while she had been gone. But finally, wine in hand, she sat down on the floor pillows and got the chance to talk with her husband.
«She looks well,» she said at once. «In fact, she looks better than well. She looks smug. The wizards have made the same test with her that Tanshar did with me. They think she'll bear a boy.»
«By the God,» Abivard said softly, and then, «May it be so.»
«May it be so, indeed,» Roshnani agreed, «though there are some here at court who would sing a different song. I name no names, mind you.»
«Names?» Abivard's voice was the definition of innocence. «I have no idea who you could mean.» Off in a corner of the room the children were quarreling again. Instead of shouting for them to keep quiet as he usually would have, Abivard was grateful. He used their racket to cover his own quiet question: «So her bitterness is salved, is it?»
«Some,» Roshnani answered. «Not all. She wishes—and who could blame her?—this moment had come years before.» She spoke so softly, Abivard had to bend so his head was close to hers.
«No one could blame her,» he said as softly. But he had a harder time than usual blaming Sharbaraz here. The King of Kings could pick and choose among the most beautiful women of Makuran. Given that chance, should anyone have been surprised he took advantage of it?
Roshnani might have been thinking along with him, for she said, «The King of Kings needs to get an heir for the realm on his principal wife if he can, just as a dihqan needs to get an heir for his domain. Failing in this is neglecting your plain duty.»
«It's more enjoyable carrying out some duties than others,» Abivard observed, which won him a snort from Roshnani. He went on, «What news besides that of the coming boy?» The wizards' predictions weren't always right, but maybe speaking as if they were would help persuade the God to let this one be.
«Denak notes she will have more influence over the King of Kings for the next few months than she has enjoyed lately,» Roshnani said; in her voice Abivard could hear echoes of his sister's weary, disappointed tones. «How long this lasts afterward will depend on how wise the wizards prove to be. May the lady Shivini prove them so.»
Now Abivard echoed her: «Aye, may that be so.» Then he remembered the six squabbling sorcerers he'd assembled in Nashvar. If he'd needed a curative for the notion that mages were always preternaturally wise and patient, they'd given him one.
Roshnani said, «Your sister thinks Sharbaraz will soon give you leave to go back to your command in the land of the Thousand Cities.»
«It's not really the command I want,» Abivard said. «I want to be back at the head of the field force and take it into the Videssian westlands again. If we're on the move there, maybe we can keep Maniakes from attacking the Thousand Cities this year.» He paused and laughed at himself. «I'm trying to spin moonshine into thread, aren't I? I'll be lucky to have any command at all; getting the one I particularly want is too much to ask.»
«You deserve it,» Roshnani said, her voice suddenly fierce.
«I know I do,» he answered without false modesty. «But that has only so much to do with the price of wine. What does Tzikas deserve? To have his mouth pried open and molten lead poured down his gullet by us and the Videssians both. What will he get? The way to bet is that he'll get to die old and happy and rich, even if nobody on whichever side of the border on which he ends up trusts him as far as I could throw him. Where's the justice there?»
«He will drop into the Void and be gone forever while you spend eternity in the bosom of the God,» Roshnani said.
«That's so—or I hope that's so,» Abivard said. It did give him some satisfaction, too; the God was as real to him as the pillow on which he sat. But– «I won't see him drop into the Void, and where's the justice there, after what he's done to me?»
«That I can't answer,» his principal wife said with a smile. She held up a forefinger. «But Denak said to tell you to remember your prophecy whenever you feel too downhearted.»
