of the High Temple in the capital, but a poor man's copy. Despoiled by the invaders, it was, as Domnos had claimed, poorer still.
Maniakes glanced upward toward the dome in the central altar. The mosaic image of Phos in the dome was not perfectly stern in judgment, as it was in Videssos the city; here, he looked more nearly petulant. And the gold tesserae that had surrounded his image were gone, survived only by the rough gray cement in which they had been mounted. That made Phos' image seem even more lifeless than it would have otherwise.
«Aye, they even stripped the dome,» Domnos said, following Maniakes' gaze. With a certain somber satisfaction, he added, «And three of their workmen died in the doing, too; may Skotos freeze their souls forevermore.» He spat on the marble floor in rejection of the dark god.
So did Maniakes. He asked, «How much money do you think you'll need to restore the temple to the way it was?»
Domnos clapped his hand. A less senior priest in a plainer blue robe came running. «The accounts list,» the prelate snapped. His subordinate hurried off, returning shortly with three leaves of parchment held together at one corner by a small iron ring. Domnos took it from him, then presented it to Maniakes with a flourish. «Here you are, your Majesty.»
«Er—thank you,» Maniakes said. He flipped through the document. His alarm grew with every line he read. Domnos had the cost of full repairs calculated down to the last copper, in materials and labor both. The sum at which he'd finally arrived looked reasonable in light of the damage done to the temple—and altogether appalling in light of the damage done to the Empire's finances.
«Well, your Majesty?» Domnos said when Maniakes gave no sign of pulling goldpieces out of his ears.
«Well, holy sir, all I can say right now is that yours isn't the only temple to have suffered, and I'll have to see what other needs we have before I can think of paying you this entire sum.» Maniakes knew he sounded weak. He didn't know what else to say, though. Tzikas hadn't been lurking inside the temple, no, but he'd been ambushed just the same.
Domnos' acquisitive instincts aside, reestablishing Videssian control over Amorion proved easier than Maniakes had expected. Most of the locals who had collaborated with the Makuraner occupiers had fled with them. The ones who were left were loudly repentant. As he had elsewhere, Maniakes forgave more than he punished.
Being a good-sized town, Amorion had had its own small Vaspurakaner community before it fell to the Makuraners, a community with its own discreetly sited temple. That let the Avtokrator send the Videssian locals who had converted to Vaspurakaner usages during the occupation and now refused to abandon them to a place where they could continue to worship in the fashion they had come to find fitting.
«But, your Majesty,» Domnos protested, «the goal is to return them to orthodoxy, as you said, not to confirm them in their error. One Empire, one true faith: it is a law of nature.»
«So it is,» Maniakes said. «As time goes by, holy sir, I think almost all of them will return to orthodoxy. We make that the easier path, the preferred path, just as the Makuraners made the dogma of Vaspur the Firstborn the way to move ahead. You lay under the Makuraner yoke for years; you've been free a few days. Not everything happens at once.»
«I certainly see that, your Majesty,» Domnos said, and stalked off, robe swirling about him.
Rhegorios eyed his retreat with amusement. «Do you know, cousin of mine, I don't think you're one of his favorite people right now.»
«I noticed that, thanks.» Maniakes made a sad clucking sound. «I wouldn't empty the treasury to repair the temple here this instant, and I wouldn't burn heretics without giving them a decent chance to come back to orthodoxy, either. See what a wicked fellow that makes me?»
«Sounds bloody wicked to me,» Rhegorios agreed. «Not giving someone all the money he wants the instant he wants it—why, if that doesn't rank right up there for wickedness with ordering your best general executed, I don't know what does.» He paused, looking thoughtful. «But since you're your own best general, that would complicate the whole business a bit, wouldn't it?»
«Complicate? That's one way to put it, anyhow.» Maniakes sighed. «Here's Amorion back under Videssian rule. I didn't have to fight to get it back, so the town isn't burned or wrecked any worse than it was before I got here. The Makuraners didn't take anybody with them who didn't want to go. And what thanks do I get? I haven't made everything perfect right away, so of course I'm nothing but a tyrant.»
Rhegorios plucked at his beard. «If it's any consolation, cousin your Majesty brother-in-law of mine, I'll bet the people here were grumbling about the Makuraners the same way till the day the boiler boys pulled out.» His voice rose to a high, mocking falsetto: « 'The nerve of that cursed Abivard. To the ice with him, anyway! He has gall, he does, going off to try and conquer Videssos the city when his supply wagons have left such big potholes in our streets.' « He looked and sounded like an indignant chicken.
Maniakes opened his mouth to say something, but he'd already started laughing by then, and almost choked to death. When he could speak, he pointed an accusing forefinger at his cousin: «You, sirrah, are a demon from a plane of being the Sorcerers' Collegium hasn't yet stumbled onto, the reason being that it's too absurd for such calm, careful men to contemplate.»
«Why, thank you, your Majesty!» Rhegorios exclaimed, as if the Avtokrator had just conferred a great compliment upon him. From his point of view, maybe Maniakes had done just that.
«It's a good thing Uncle Symvatios passed all the silliness in his line of the family down to you and not to Lysia,» Maniakes said.
«Oh, I don't know about that.» Rhegorios studied him. «My sister puts up with you, doesn't she?»
Maniakes considered. «You may have something there,» he said at last, and flung his arm over his cousin's shoulder. They walked back to the epoptes' residence together.
While Maniakes settled affairs in Amorion to his satisfaction, if not always to that of the town's inhabitants, Abivard kept marching steadily to the west, and took a good-sized lead on the Videssian force that had been following him. On the day when Maniakes was finally ready to head west from Amorion himself, a courier from Abivard brought a message to the Avtokrator.
«Majesty,» the fellow said, «the general has decided to swing up a bit to the northwest, to pick up some detachments on garrison duty in Vaspurakan. It won't cost but a couple of days of time, and will add some good soldiers to his army.»
«Whatever he thinks best,» Maniakes said, though he would not have been diverted from the shortest road to Mashiz. «I hope the soldiers turn out to be worth the delay.»
«Through the Prophets Four, we pray the God they so prove,» the messenger replied, and rode back toward Abivard's army. Maniakes stared after him.
So did Rhegorios, who said, «I wouldn't have done that. I'd have gone for Sharbaraz's throat with what I have here.»
«I was thinking the same thing,» Maniakes agreed. «That's what I'd have done. So would my father. I have no more doubt of that than I do of the truth of Phos' holy creed. And yet—» He laughed ruefully. «When Abivard and I have met each other on the battlefield, he's come off the winner as often as I have, so who's to judge which of us is wiser?»
«Something to that—I hope,» his cousin said. «The other side of the goldpiece is, if Abivard has swung to the northwest, we're going to have to swing farther northwest than we thought we would, or else we'll be feeding ourselves from the crumbs the Makuraners leave behind.»
«That's so,» Maniakes said. «You've thought of it sooner than I did, for which I thank you. I'll change the marching orders. You're right; we'd get hungry in a hurry if we came straight down the path the Makuraners had just used.»
The first settlement of decent size northwest of Amorion was Aptos, which, like Patrodoton farther east, lay on the border between town and village. Unlike Patrodoton, Aptos knew it wanted to be a town: when Maniakes and the Videssian army arrived, the folk of the area had started running up a rammed-earth core for what would be a wall around it.
The headman, a baker named Phorkos, was proud of the initiative his town was showing. «Your Majesty, we never imagined the Makuraners would come so far or stay so long,» he said. «If that ever happens again—which Phos prevent—they won't find us so ripe for going into their oven.»
«Good,» Maniakes said. «Excellent, in fact. I have to tell you, I don't have a lot of money right now. I'll do
