held up a hand. «I'm not saying a word against Sharbaraz.»
«I'll say a word. I'll say several words,» Roshnani replied.
He shook his head. «Don't. As much as I've complained about it, that's not his fault… well, not altogether his fault. It comes with being King of Kings. If someone besides the ruler gets too much credit, too much applause, the man on the throne feels he'll be thrown off it It's been like that in Makuran for a long, long time, and it's like that in Videssos, too, though maybe not so bad.»
«It isn't right,» Roshnani insisted.
«I didn't say it was right. I said it was real. There's a difference,» Abivard said. Because Roshnani still looked mutinous, he added, «I expect you'll agree with me that it's not right to lock up noblemen's wives in the women's quarters of a stronghold. But the custom of doing that is real. You can't pretend it's not there and expect all those wives to come out at once, can you?»
«No,» Roshnani said unwillingly. «But it's so much easier and more enjoyable to dislike Sharbaraz the man doing as he pleases than Sharbaraz the King of Kings acting like a King of Kings.»
«So it is,» Abivard said. «Don't get me wrong: I'm not happy with him. But I'm not as angry as I was, either. The God approves of giving those who wrong you the benefit of the doubt.»
«Like Tzikas?» Roshnani asked, and Abivard winced. She went on, «The God also approves of revenge when those who wrong you won't change their ways. She understands there will be times when you have to protect yourself.»
«He'd better understand that,» Abivard answered. They both smiled, as Makuraners often did when crossing genders of the God.
With the wind coming off the Dilbat Mountains from the west, Mashiz announced itself to the nose as well as to the eye. Abivard had grown thoroughly familiar with the city stink of latrines, moke, horses, and unwashed humanity. It was the same coming from the capital of Makuran as it was in the land of the Thousand Cities and the same there as in Videssos.
For that matter, it was the same in Vek Rud stronghold and the town at the base of the high ground atop which the stronghold sat. Whenever people gathered together, other people downwind knew about it.
Once the wagon got into Mashiz, Pashang drove it through the city market on the way to the palace of the King of Kings. The going was slow in the market district. Hawkers and customers clogged the square, shouting and arguing and calling one another names. They cursed Pashang with great panache for driving past without buying anything.
«Madness,» Abivard said to Roshnani. «So many strangers, all packed together and trying to cheat other strangers. I wonder how many of them have ever before seen the people from whom they buy and how many will ever see them again.» His principal wife nodded. «There are advantages to living in a stronghold,» she said. «You know everyone around you. It can get poisonous sometimes—the God knows that's so—but it's for the good, too. A lot of people who would cheat a stranger in a heartbeat will go out of their way to do something nice for someone they know.»
They rode through the open square surrounding the walls of the palace of the King of Kings. The courtiers within those walls led lives as ingrown in their own way as those of the inhabitants of the most isolated stronghold of Makuran. And very few of them, Abivard thought, were likely to go out of their way to do anything nice for anyone they knew.
The guards at the gate saluted Abivard and threw wide the valves to let him and his family come inside. Servitors took charge of the wagon—and of Pashang. The driver went with them with less fear and hesitation that he'd shown the winter before. Abivard was glad to see that, though he still wondered what sort of reception he himself was likely to get.
His heart sank when Yeliif came out to greet him; the only people he would have been less glad to see in the palace were, for different reasons, Tzikas and Maniakes. But the beautiful eunuch remained so civil, Abivard wondered whether something was wrong with him, saying only, «Welcome, Abivard son of Godarz, in the name of Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase. Come with me and I shall show you to the quarters you have been assigned. If they prove unsatisfactory in any way, by all means tell me, that I may arrange a replacement.»
He'd never said anything like that the past couple of years. Then Abivard's stays in the palace had been in essence house arrest. Now, as he and his family walked through the hallways of the palace, servants bowed low before them. So did most nobles he saw, acknowledging his rank as being far higher than theirs. A few high nobles from the Seven Clans kissed him on the cheek, claiming status only a little lower than his. He accepted that. Had he not done what he'd done, he would have been the one bowing before them.
No. Had he not done what he'd done, the nobles from the Seven Clans would either have fled up into the plateau country west of the Dilbat Mountains or would be trying to figure out what rank they had among Maniakes' courtiers. He'd earned their respect.
The suite of rooms to which Yeliif led him had two great advantages over those in which he'd stayed in the past two years. First was their size and luxury. Second, and better by far, was the complete absence of sentries, guards, keepers, what have you in front of the door.
«Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, will allow us to come and go as we please and to receive visitors likewise?» Abivard asked. Only after he'd spoken did he realize how great a capacity for irony he'd acquired in his years in Videssos.
Yeliif had never been to Videssos but was formidably armored against irony. «Of course,» he replied, his limpid black eyes as wide and candid as if Abivard had enjoyed those privileges on his previous visits to the palace… and as if he had never urged drastic punishment for the disloyalty of which Sharbaraz so often suspected Abivard.
Abivard's tone swung from sardonic to bland: «Perhaps you could help me arrange a meeting with my sister Denak and even arrange for me to see my nephew, Peroz son of Sharbaraz.»
«I shall bend every effort toward achieving your desire in that regard,» the beautiful eunuch said, sounding as if he meant it. Abivard studied him in some bemusement; cooperation from Yeliif was so new and strange, he had trouble taking the idea seriously. And then, as politely as ever but with a certain amount of relish nonetheless, the eunuch asked, «And would you also like me to arrange for you a meeting with Tzikas?»
Abivard stared at him. So did Roshnani. So even did Varaz. Yeliif's small smile exposed white, even, sharply pointed teeth. «Tzikas is here—in the palace?» Abivard asked.
«Indeed he is. He arrived a fortnight before you,» Yeliif answered. «Would you like me to arrange a meeting?»
«Not right now, thank you,» Abivard said. If Tzikas had been there two weeks and had still kept his head on his shoulders, he was liable to keep it a good deal longer. Somehow or other he'd managed to talk Sharbaraz out of giving him over to the torturers.
That meant he'd be getting ready to give Abivard another riding boot between the legs the first chance he saw.
Yeliif said, «The King of Kings was inclined toward severity in the matter of Tzikas until the Videssian enlightened him as to how, after a daring escape from Maniakes' forces, he saved your entire army from destruction at the hands of vicious Videssian sorcery.»
«Did he?» Abivard said, unsure whether he meant Tzikas' «enlightenment» of Sharbaraz or his alleged salvation of the Makuraner force. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered whether Maniakes hadn't known perfectly well that Tzikas would flee back to the Makuraners and thus had given him something juicy with which to flee. Maybe the magical preparations had looked worse than they were, to impress the renegade, just as the sorcerous «fog bank» had impressed Abivard's wizards till they had discovered that nothing lay behind it.
And maybe, too, Tzikas had known perfectly well that the Videssians' magecraft was harmless and had gone back with the specific intention of delaying Abivard's army as long as he could and giving Maniakes a chance to get away. He'd certainly done that whether he had intended to or not. And Tzikas, from what Abivard had seen, seldom did things inadvertently.
«These quarters care satisfactory?» Yeliif asked.
«Satisfactory in every way,» Abivard told him, that being the closest he could come to applauding the lack of keepers. Roshnani nodded. So did their children, who would have more room now than they had enjoyed in some time. Of course, after slow travel in the wagon, any chamber larger than belt-pouch size felt commodious to
