High Temple in Videssos the city and to see the expression on the patriarch's face when I do.»
When he'd spent a couple of years in Across, staring over the Cattle Crossing at the Videssian capital, that dream had seemed almost within his grasp. Now here he was with his back against the Tib, doing his best to keep Maniakes Avtokrator from storming Mashiz. War was a business full of reversals, but going from the capital of the Empire of Videssos to that of Makuran in the space of a couple of years felt more like an upheaval.
«Ships,» he said, turning the word into a vile curse. Had he had some, he would long since have ridden in triumph into Videssos the city. Had Makuran had any, Maniakes would not have been able to leap the length of the Videssian westlands and bring the war home to the land of the Thousand Cities. And after a moment's reflection, he found yet another reason to regret Makuran's lack of a navy: «If I had a ship, I could put Tzikas on it and order it sunk.»
That bit of whimsy kept him happy for an hour, until Gyanarspar came into his tent with a parchment in his hand and a worried expression on his face. «Lord, you need to see this and decide what to do with it,» he said.
«Do I?» If Abivard felt any enthusiasm for the proposition, he concealed it even from himself. But he held out his hand, and Gyanarspar put the parchment into it. He read Tzikas' latest missive to the King of Kings with incredulity that grew from one sentence to the next. «By the God!» he exclaimed when he was through. «About the only thing he doesn't accuse me of is buggering the sheep in the flock of the King of Kings.»
«Aye, lord,» Gyanarspar said unhappily.
After a bit of reflection Abivard said, «I think I know what brought this on. Before, his letters to Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, got action—action against me. This year, though, the letters haven't been getting through to Sharbaraz. Tzikas must think that they have—and that the King of Kings is ignoring them. And so he decided to come up with something a little stronger.» He held his nose. This letter, as far as he was concerned, was strong in the sense of stale fish.
«What shall we do about it, lord?» Gyanarspar asked. «Make it disappear, by all means,» Abivard said. «Now, if we could only make Tzikas disappear, too.»
Gyanarspar bowed and left. Abivard plucked at his beard. Maybe he could sink Tzikas even without a ship. He hadn't wanted to before, when the idea had been proposed to him. Now– Now he sent a servant to summon Turan.
When his lieutenant stepped into the tent, he greeted him with, «How would you like to help make the eminent Tzikas a hero of Makuran?»
Turan was not the swiftest man in the world, but he was a long way from the slowest. After a couple of heartbeats of blank surprise his eyes lit up. «I'd love to, lord. What have you got in mind?»
«That scheme you had a while ago still strikes me as better than most: finding a way to send him out with a troop of horsemen against a Videssian regiment. When it's over, I'll be very embarrassed I used such poor military judgment.»
Turan's predatory smile said all that needed saying there. But then the officer asked, «What changed your mind, lord? When I suggested this before, you wouldn't hear me. Now you like the idea.»
«Let's just say Tzikas has been making a little too free with his opinions,» Abivard answered, at which Turan nodded in grim amusement. Abivard turned practical: «We'll need to set this up with the Videssians. When we need to, we can get a message to them, isn't that right?»
«Aye, lord, it is,» Turan said. «If we want to exchange captives, things like that, we can get them to hear us.» He smiled again. «For the chance of getting their hands on Tzikas, after what he tried to do to Maniakes, I think they'll hear us, as a matter of fact.»
«Good,» Abivard said. «So do I. Oh, yes, very good indeed. You will know and I will know and our messenger will know, and a few Videssians, too.»
«I don't think they'd give us away, lord,» Turan said. «If things were a little different, they might, but I think they hate Tzikas worse than you do. If they can get their hands on him, they'll keep quiet about hows and whys.»
«I think so, too,» Abivard said. «But there is one other person I'd want to know before the end.»
«Who's that?» Turan sounded worried. «The more people who know about a plot like this, the better the chance it'll go wrong.»
« 'Before the end,' I said,» Abivard replied. «Don't you think it would be fitting if Tzikas figured out how he'd ended up in his predicament?»
Turan smiled.
After swinging away from the Tib to rampage through the floodplain, Maniakes' army turned back toward the west, as if deciding it would attack Mashiz after all. Abivard spread his own force out along the river to make sure the Videssians could not force a crossing without his knowing about it.
He spread his cavalry particularly wide, sending the horsemen out not only to scout against the Videssians but also to nip at them with raids. Tzikas was like a whirlwind, now here, now there, always striking stinging blows against the countrymen he'd abandoned
«He can fight,» Abivard said grudgingly one evening after the Videssian had come in with a couple of dozen of Maniakes' men as prisoners. «I wonder if I really should—»
Roshnani interrupted him, her voice very firm: «Of course you should. Yes, he can fight. Think of all the other delightful things he can do, too.»
His resolve thus stiffened, Abivard went on setting up the trap that would give Tzikas back to the Videssians. Turan had been right: once his messenger met Maniakes', the Avtokrator proved eager for the chance to get his hands on the man who had nearly toppled him from his throne.
When the arrangements were complete, Abivard sent most of Tzikas' cavalry force under a lieutenant against a large, ostentatious Videssian demonstration to the northeast. «That should have been my mission to command,» Tzikas said angrily. «After all this time and all this war against the Videssians, you still don't trust me not to betray you.»
«On the contrary, eminent sir,» Abivard replied. «I trust you completely.»
Against a Makuraner that would have been a safe reply. Tzikas, schooled in Videssian irony, gave Abivard a sharp look. Abivard was still kicking himself when, as if on cue in a Videssian Midwinter's Day mime show, a messenger rushed up, calling, «Lords, the imperials are breaking canals less than a farsang from here!» He pointed southeast, though a low rise obscured the Videssians from sight.
«By the God,» Tzikas declared, «I shall attend to this.» Without paying Abivard any more attention, he hurried away. A few minutes later, leading the couple of hundred heavy horsemen left in camp, he rode off, the red- lion banner of Makuran fluttering at the head of his force.
Abivard watched him go with mingled hope and guilt. He still wasn't altogether pleased at the idea of getting rid of Tzikas this way, no matter how necessary he found it. And he knew Makuraners would suffer in the trap Maniakes was setting. He hoped they would make the Videssians pay dearly for every one of them they brought down.
But most of all he hoped the scheme would work. Only a remnant of the cavalry troop came back later that afternoon. A good many of the warriors who did return were wounded. One of the troopers, seeing Abivard, cried out, «We were ambushed, lord! As we engaged the Videssians who were wrecking the waterway, a great host of them burst out of the ruins of a village nearby. They cut us off and, I fear, had their way with us.»
«I don't see Tzikas,» Abivard said after a quick glance up and down the battered column. «What happened to him? Does he live?»
«The Videssian? I don't know for certain, lord,» the soldier answered. «He led a handful of men on a charge straight into the heart of the foe's force. I didn't see him after that, but I fear the worst.»
«May the God have given him a fate he deserved,» Abivard said, a double-edged wish if ever there was one. He wondered if Tzikas had attacked the Videssians so fiercely to try to make them kill him instead of taking him captive. Had he done to Maniakes what Tzikas had done, he wouldn't have wanted the Avtokrator to capture him.
The next day Tzikas' Makuraner lieutenant, a hot-blooded young hellion named Sanatruq, returned with most of the cavalry regiment after having beaten back the large Videssian movement. He was very proud of himself. Abivard was proud of him, too, but rather less so: he knew Maniakes had made the movement to draw out most of the Makuraner cavalry so that, when Tzikas led out the rest, he would face overwhelming odds.
