remember how you were after Varaz was born, for instance.»
«Oh?» Abivard said in a tone that might have sounded ominous to anyone who didn't know him and Roshnani well. «And how was I?»
«Dazed and pleased,» she answered; looking back on it, he decided she was probably right. Pointing to the parchment, she went on, «The man who wrote that letter is about as dazed and pleased as Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, ever lets himself get.»
«You're right,» Abivard said in some surprise; he hadn't looked at it like that. Poor bastard, he thought. He would have said that to Roshnani, but he didn't want Pashang to hear it, so he kept quiet.
Peasants in loincloths labored in the fields around the Thousand Cities, some of them bringing in the crops, others busy repairing the canals the Videssians had wrecked. Abivard wondered, with a curiosity slightly greater than idle, how the peasants would have gone about repairing the half twist Maniakes' mages had given that one canal.
No one in the land of the Thousand Cities came rushing out from the cities or in from the fields to clasp his hand and congratulate him for what he had done. He hadn't expected anyone to do that, so he wasn't disappointed. Annies got no credit from the people in whose land they fought.
Khimillu, city governor of Qostabash, the leading town the Videssians had not sacked in the area, turned red under his swarthy skin when Abivard proposed garrisoning troops there for the winter. «This is an outrage!» he thundered in a fine, deep voice. «What with the war, we are poor. How are we to support these men gobbling our food and fondling our women?»
However impressive Khimillu's voice, he was a short, plump man, a native of the Thousand Cities. That let Abivard look down his nose at him. «If you don't want to feed them, I suppose they'll just have to go away,» he said, using a ploy that had proved effective in the land of the Thousand Cities. «Then, next winter, you can explain to Maniakes why you don't feel like feeding his troopers—if he hasn't burned this town down around your ears by then.»
But Khimillu, unlike some other city governors, was made of stern stuff despite his unprepossessing appearance. «You will not do such a thing. You cannot do such a thing,» he declared. Again unlike other city governors, he sounded unbluffably certain.
That being so, Abivard did not try to bluff him. Instead he said, «Maybe not. Here is what I can do, though: I can write to my brother-in-law, Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase, and tell him exactly how you are obstructing my purpose here. Have one of your scribes bring me pen and ink and parchment; the letter can be on its way inside the hour. Does that suit you better, Khimillu?»
If the city governor had gone red before, he went white now. Abivard would not have had the stomach to endanger all of Qostabash because of his obstinacy. Getting rid of an obstreperous official, though, wouldn't affect the rest of the town at all. «Very well, lord,» Khimillu said, suddenly remembering—or at least acknowledging— Abivard outranked him. «It shall be as you say, of course. I merely wanted to be certain you understood the predicament you face here.»
«Of course you did,» Abivard said. In another tone of voice that would have been polite agreement. As things were, he had all but called Khimillu a liar to his face. With some thousands of men at his back, he did not need to appease a city governor who cared nothing for those men once they had done him the services he had expected of them.
Blood rose once more to Khimillu's face. Red, white, red—he might have done for the colors of Makuran. Abivard wondered whether he should hire a taster to check his meals for as long as he stayed in Qostabash. In a tight voice the city governor said, «You could spread your men around through more cities hereabouts if the Videssians hadn't burned so many.»
«We don't work miracles,» Abivard answered. «All we do is the best we can. Your town is intact, and the Videssians have been driven away.»
«Small thanks to you,» Khimillu said. «For a very long time the Videssians were near, and you far away. Had they stretched out their hands toward Qostabash, it would have fallen like a date from a tree.»
«It may yet fall like a date from a tree,» Abivard said. The city governor's complaint had just enough truth in it to sting. Abivard had done his best to be everywhere at once between the Tutub and the Tib, but his best had not always been good enough. Still– «We are going to garrison soldiers here this winter, the better to carry on the war against Videssos when spring comes. If you try to keep us from doing that, I promise: you and this city will have cause to regret it.»
«That is an outrage!» Khimillu said, which was probably true I shall write to Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, and inform him of what…»
His voice faded. Complaining to the King of Kings about what one of his generals was doing stood some chance of getting a city governor relief. Complaining to the King of Kings about what his brother-in-law was doing stood an excellent chance of getting a city governor transferred to some tiny village on the far side of the Sea of Salt, to the sort of place where no one cared if the taxes were five years in arrears because five years worth of taxes from it wouldn't have bought three mugs of wine at a decent tavern.
With the poorest of poor graces, Khimillu said, «Very well. Since I have no choice in the matter, let it be as you say.»
«The troops do have to stay somewhere,» Abivard said reasonably, «and Qostabash is the city that's suffered least in these parts.»
«And thus we shall suffer on account of your troops,» the governor returned. «I have trouble seeing the justice in that.» He threw his hands in the air, defeated. «But you are too strong for me. Aye, it shall be as you desire in all things, lord.»
Abivard rapidly discovered what he meant by that: not the wholehearted cooperation the words implied nor, really, cooperation of any sort. What Khimillu and the officials loyal to him did was stand aside and refrain from actively interfering with Abivard. Beyond that they did their best to pretend that neither he nor the soldiers existed. If that was how they viewed granting his desires in all things, he shuddered to think what would have happened had they opposed him.
«We should have loosed Khimillu against the Videssians,» Abivard told Roshnani after they and their children had been installed in some small, not very comfortable rooms a good distance from the city governor's palatial residence. «He would have made them flee by irking them too much for them to stay.» He chuckled at his own conceit.
«They've been irksome themselves lately,» she said, thumping at a lumpy cushion to try to beat it into some semblance of comfort. When she leaned back against it, she frowned and punched it some more. At last satisfied, she went on, «And speaking of irksome, what do you aim to do about Tzikas?»
«Drop me into the Void if I know what to do with him,» Abivard said, adding, «Or what to do to him,» a moment later. «That last letter from the King of Kings seems to give me free rein, but if the traitor hadn't escaped from Maniakes and come to us, who knows how long we might have been entangled with the Videssians' magic? I do need to remember that, I suppose.»
«But the Videssians' magic was only that screen, with nothing behind it,» Roshnani said.
«Tzikas couldn't have known that… I don't think.» Abivard drummed his fingers on his thigh. «The trouble is, if I leave Tzikas to his own devices, in two weeks' time he'll be writing to Sharbaraz, telling him what a wretch I am. Khimillu has a sense of restraint; Tzikas has never heard of one.»
«I can't say you're wrong about that, and I wouldn't try,» his principal wife said. «You still haven't answered my question: what are you going to do about him?»
«I don't know,» Abivard admitted. «On the one hand, I'd like to be rid of him once for all so I wouldn't have to worry about him anymore. But I keep thinking he might be useful against Maniakes, and so I hold off from killing him.»
«Maniakes evidently thought the same thing in reverse, or he would have killed Tzikas after you arranged to give him to the Avtokrator,» Roshnani said.
«Maniakes got some use out of the traitor,» Abivard said resentfully. «If it hadn't been for Tzikas, we would have crushed the Videssians in the battle on the ridge.» He checked himself. «But to be honest, we got a couple of years of decent use out of him before he decided to try to convince the King of Kings he could do everything better than I can.»
«And the Videssians got good use from him before that, when he sat at Amorion and held us away from
