He should have done it anyhow,» Rhegorios said. «Getting the enemy inside the city would have been a dagger stabbing at our heart.»
«When it comes to scheming, there's nobody to match Tzikas,»
Maniakes answered. «But when it comes to fighting, he's always been on the cautious side. We've seen that before. Me, now, I think you're right, cousin of mine. If that had been me out there, I'd have tried to break in no matter what kind of losses I took doing it. But I'm Tzikas' opposite. I can't plot the way he does, but I'll stick my neck out when mere's a battle going on.»
«Yes, and you've almost had a sword come down on it a time or two, too,» Rhegorios said, which would have made Maniakes angry had he not known it was true. In musing tones, the Sevastos went on, «I wonder why Likinios never got to use the hole he made for himself.»
«I wonder if we'll ever know,» Maniakes said. «I have my doubts about that. We were just saying how most of the people who served Likinios are dead. Genesios made sure they were dead after he took over.» He blinked. «Kameas was around, though, and he's still here.» He snapped his fingers. «By the good god, I wonder if he's known about this tunnel all along. Have to ask him when we get back to the palaces.»
«What do we do about it in the meantime?» Rhegorios asked, pointing down into the black mouth of the tunnel.
«Fill it up,» Maniakes said at once. «It's more dangerous to us than it's ever likely to be useful.»
Rhegorios plucked at his beard while he thought that over. After a few seconds, he nodded. «Good,» he said.
«A tunnel, your Majesty?» Kameas' eyes grew round. The soft flesh under his beardless chin wobbled as he drew back in surprise. «No.» He sketched Phos' sun-sign above his heart. «I never heard of such a thing. But then, you must remember, Likinios Avtokrator was always one to hold what he knew as close as he could.»
«That's so,» Maniakes said. Rhegorios looked to him for the agreement: the Sevastos had never known Likinios himself. The Avtokrator continued, «If the secret was so good even you didn't know it, esteemed sir, why didn't Likinios use it when he saw Genesios was going to overthrow him?»
«That, your Majesty, I may perhaps be able to answer,» Kameas replied. «Throughout Genesios' rebellion, Likinios never took him seriously enough. He would call him 'commander of a hundred,' as if to say no one with such small responsibility could hope to cast down the Avtokrator of the Videssians.»
«He must not have realized how much the army on the Astris hated him, there at the end,» Maniakes said. «And everyone else, there at the end,» the vestiarios agreed. «The guards at the Silver Gate opened it to let Genesios' soldiers into Videssos the city. Nothing, they said, could be worse than Likinios.» His eyes were far away, looking back across the years. «Soon enough, Genesios let them—let all of us—know they were mistaken.»
«Likinios was clever,» Maniakes said. «He had to have been clever, or he wouldn't have ruled the Empire for twenty years, he wouldn't have convinced a man as able as my father that he had no chance for the throne, and he wouldn't have used the war to restore Sharbaraz to the Makuraner throne to gain so much. But he was clever about things, about ideas, not so much about people and feelings. In the end, that cost him.»
«We used to say, your Majesty—we of his court, I mean—that he thought like a eunuch,» Kameas said. «It was neither compliment nor condemnation. But he seemed somewhat separated from most of mankind, as we are, and divorced from the passions roiling mankind as well.»
«I suspect my father would agree with you,» Maniakes answered. «I doubt he ever would have said so while Likinios was alive, though.»
«The trouble with what Likinios did was that it needed him on the throne to keep it working,» Rhegorios observed. «Once we had Genesios instead, it fell apart faster and worse than it would have if it were simpler.» He turned toward Maniakes with that impudent look on his face. «I'm glad you're nice and simple, cousin of mine your Majesty.»
«I'll simple you,» Maniakes said. He and his cousin both laughed. The Avtokrator suddenly sobered. «Do you know, all at once I think I begin to understand Tzikas.»
«I'm so sorry for you!» Rhegorios exclaimed. «Here, sit down and stay quiet, you poor fellow. I'll send for Philetos from the Sorcerers' Collegium and for Agathios the patriarch, too. Between the two of them, they ought to be able to exorcise whatever evil spirit's got its claws in you.»
Maniakes laughed again, but persisted: «By the good god, I mean it. Tzikas must have learned a lot, serving under Likinios. He couldn't have helped it, sly as he was—still is, worse luck. I don't know whether he decided to be just like Likinios the way sons decide to be like their fathers, but I'd bet it was something like that. And he is just like Likinios—or rather, he's just what Likinios would have been without integrity.»
«Your Majesty, I believe you are correct,» Kameas said. «I admit, however, that my experience with Tzikas is limited.»
«I wish mine were.» But Maniakes refused to let himself get downhearted. «He's not my worry now, Phos be praised. He's Abivard's worry, there on the far side of the Cattle Crossing. Abivard's welcome to him, as far as I'm concerned.»
The mention of Abivard brought silence in its wake, as it often did. «Why is he still sitting in Across?» Rhegorios said at last. «What will he do now that he knows he can't get over the strait and attack us?»
He and Maniakes and their kin had been asking one another the same question since they'd crushed the Kubratoi on the sea. «We still don't know, curse it,» Maniakes said. «I've been trying to figure it out, these past few days. Maybe he thinks Etzilios will be able to bring the Kubratoi south again and start up the siege once more.»
«He cannot be so foolish, can he, your Majesty?» Kameas said, at the same times as Rhegorios was vehemently shaking his head. Maniakes spread his hands. «All right. I didn't really believe that myself. Etzilios is going to be lucky if someone doesn't take his head for leading the nomads into disaster.» He spoke with the somber satisfaction any man can feel on contemplating his enemy's discomfiture. «But if that's not the answer, what is?»
Rhegorios said, «As long as he's over there—» He nodded west, toward the suburb of Videssos the city. «—he blocks our easiest way into the westlands.»
«That's true,» Maniakes said. «Still, with us having a fleet and him not, we can bring our men in wherever we want, whenever we want—if the weather lets us, of course. But even in the dark days, before we had any kind of army worth mentioning, we were using ships to put raiders into the westlands and get them out again.»
«Not that we've stopped since,» Rhegorios said.
«Hardly,» Maniakes agreed. «We've had rather bigger things going on beside that, though.» Rhegorios and Kameas both nodded. Maniakes went on, «Cousin of mine, you hold a piece of the truth, but I don't think you have all of it. As I say, I've been thinking about this ever since we saw that Abivard wasn't going anywhere.»
«We all have,» Rhegorios said. He grinned. «But do enlighten us, then, O sage of the age.»
«I'll try, cousin of mine, though after that buildup whatever I say won't sound like much,» Maniakes answered. He and Rhegorios both laughed. The corners of Kameas' mouth slid upward, loo, slowly, as if the vestiarios didn't want that to happen but discovered he couldn't help himself. Maniakes continued, «The frightening thing about this siege is how close it came to working. The other frightening thing is that we didn't see it coming till it was here. Sharbaraz King of Kings—may the ice take him—prepared his ground ever so well.»
«All true,» Rhegorios said. «The lord with the great and good mind knows it's all true. If that messenger hadn't made it through the Land of the Thousand Cities—» He shivered. «It was a good plan.»
«Aye,» Maniakes said. «And Abivard did everything he could to make it work, too. He got engineers over the Cattle Crossing. He got Tzikas over the Cattle Crossing. By the good god, he crossed over himself. The only thing he couldn't do was get a good-sized chunk of his army across, and that wasn't his fault. He had to depend on the Kubrati fleet, and we smashed it»
«All true,» Rhegorios said. «And so?»
«The planning was splendid. We all agree about that,» Maniakes said. The Sevastos and the vestiarios both nodded. «Abivard did everything possible to get it to work.» More nods. «But it didn't.» Still more nods. Maniakes smiled, once more enjoying a foe's predicament. «When Sharbaraz King of Kings, being who he is, being what he is, finds out it didn't work, what will he do?»
«Phos,» Rhegorios whispered.
«Not exactly,» Maniakes said. «But he is the fellow who had a shrine for the God made over in his own image, remember. Anyone who'd do that isn't the sort of fellow who's likely to stay calm when things go wrong, is
