the off chance that he might take whatever he had into rebellion with him. Maniakes trusted him further than anyone not of his own immediate family; but someone inside his own immediate family had conspired against him, so that said little.
And no sooner had Immodios led the detachment back toward Videssos the city than Maniakes wished the army reunited. That, though, had nothing to do with fears about Immodios' loyalty or lack of same. It had to do with news a messenger brought up from the south.
«I'm sorry to have to tell you this, your Majesty,» the fellow said, «but the Makuraner garrison in Serrhes hasn't pulled out of the town. They keep insisting they're loyal to Sharbaraz.»
«Oh, they do, do they?» Maniakes sounded half-angry, half-resigned. «Well, I suppose I should have expected that would happen somewhere. I wish it hadn't happened at Serrhes, though.»
The garrison town's main reason for existing was to plug that stretch of frontier between Makuran and the Empire of Videssos. He and his father had set out from Serrhes along with Abivard and Sharbaraz to return the latter to the Makuraner throne. That seemed a lot longer before than twelve or thirteen years.
«What will you do, your Majesty?» the messenger asked.
«What can I do?» Maniakes returned. «I'll go down to Serrhes and pry the Makuraners out of it.» He paused. «How big a Makuraner garrison does the place have in it?»
«About a thousand men, or so I hear,» the messenger said.
«I still have four times that many with me,» the Avtokrator mused aloud. Having sent Immodios' detachment back toward the capital, he did not want to recall those troops. «Maybe I can get away with just using what I've got.»
Intending to fry it, he moved south with his half of the army. They hadn't had to march quickly since they'd left the Land of the Thousand Cities; the journey through the westlands had been a parade. The roads down toward Serrhes weren't good, and had been little traveled during the Makuraner occupation. The Videssians pressed rapidly along them nonetheless.
Before they got to Serrhes, the corrugated central plateau of the westlands began to give way to the scrubby semidesert lying between Videssos' western border and the Tutub River. Back in the long-ago days of his reign, Likinios Avtokrator had complained about almost every expense he ever had to meet. Trying not to meet one, finally, had cost him his throne and his life. So far as Maniakes knew, he'd never complained about keeping Serrhes supplied.
Approaching the town, Maniakes wondered how—or if—the Makuraners had managed that. Had they fed Serrhes off the countryside? The countryside yielded little. A few cattle grazed it, but not enough grew nearby to support more than a few. Over the dry country from the Land of the Thousand Cities? If so, the supply line was either already broken or easily breakable.
Looking at Serrhes' thick walls, looking at the citadel on the high ground in the center of town, Maniakes quickly decided he did not want to try storming the place. He rode forward behind a shield of truce to parley with the garrison commander.
Tegin son of Gamash came to Serrhes' western gate and looked down at the Avtokrator of the Videssians. He was a solidly built man with a gray beard and an impressive nose. «You're wasting your time,» he called to Maniakes. «We won't yield to you.»
«If you don't, you'll be sorry after I break into Serrhes,» Maniakes said, threatening to do what he least wanted to do. «We outnumber you at least six to one. We'll show no mercy.» Assuming we're lucky enough to get onto or through those works, he thought. Serrhes had been built with admirable skill to hold the Makuraners at bay. Now it threatened to do the same to the folk who had built it in the first place.
«Come do your worst,» Tegin retorted. «We're ready for you.»
Maniakes concluded he was not the only one running a noisy bluff. «What do you propose to eat in there?» he demanded.
«Oh, I don't know,» Tegin said airily. «We have a deal of this and that. What do you propose to eat out there?»
It was, Maniakes had to admit, a good question. Supplying an army surrounding Serrhes had all the drawbacks of supplying the town itself. He wasn't about to let the Makuraner know he'd scored a hit, though. «We have all the westlands to draw on,» he said. «Yours is the last Makuraner garrison hereabouts.»
«All the more reason to hold it, then, wouldn't you say?» Tegin sounded as if he was enjoying himself. Maniakes wished he could say the same.
What he did say was, «By staying here, you violate the terms of the truce Abivard made with us.»
«Abivard is not King of Kings,» Tegin said. «My ruler is Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase.»
«All the Makuraners in the westlands have renounced Sharbaraz,» Maniakes said.
Tegin shook his head. «Not all of them. This one hasn't, for instance.»
«A pestilence,» Maniakes muttered under his breath. He should have expected he'd come across a holdout or two. Things could have been worse; Romezan could have stayed resolutely loyal to Sharbaraz. But things could also have been better. The Avtokrator had no intention of letting Serrhes stay in Makuraner hands. He said, «You know Sharbaraz ordered Abivard and most of his generals slain when they failed to take Videssos the city.»
«I've heard it said,» the garrison commander answered. «I don't know it for a fact.»
«I have seen the captured dispatch with my own eyes.» Maniakes said. He had also seen the document transformed into one more useful for Videssian purposes, but forbore to mention that, such forbearance also being more useful for Videssian purposes.
Tegin remained difficult. «Majesty, begging your pardon, I don't much care what you've seen and what you haven't seen. You're the enemy. I expect you'd lie to me if you saw any profit in it. Videssians are like that.»
Since Maniakes not only would lie but to a certain degree was lying, he changed the subject: «I point out to you once more, excellent sir, that you are at the moment commanding the only Makuraner garrison left in the westlands.»
«So you say,» Tegin replied, still unimpressed.
«If there are others all around, how have I fought my way past them to come to you?» Maniakes asked.
«If they've all gone over to Abivard, you don't need to have done any fighting,» Tegin said.
«That's true, I suppose,» Maniakes said. «And what it means is, I can concentrate my entire army—» He did not think Tegin needed to know that Immodios was leading half of it back to Videssos the city. «—against you holdouts in Serrhes.» He waved back toward his encampment. It was as big as… an army. He did not think Tegin was in a position to estimate with any accuracy how many men were in it.
And, indeed, the garrison commander wavered for the first time. «I am surrounded by traitors,» he complained.
«No, you're surrounded by Videssians,» Maniakes answered. «This is part of the Empire, and we are taking it back. You've probably heard stories about what we've done to the walls of the Thousand Cities. Do you think we won't do the same to you?»
He knew perfectly well they couldn't do the same to Serrhes. The walls of the towns between the Tutub and the Tib were made of brick, and not the strongest brick, either. Serrhes was fortified in stone. Breaking in wouldn't be so easy. If Tegin had time to think, he would realize that, too. Best not give him time to think, then.
Maniakes said, «Excellent sir, I don't care how brave you are. Your garrison is small. If we once get in among 'em, I'm afraid I can't answer for the consequences. You'll have made warnings of that sort yourself, I expect; you know how soldiers are.»
«Yes, I know how soldiers are,» Tegin said somberly. «If I had more men, Majesty. I would beat you.'»
«If I had feathers, I'd be a tall rooster,» Maniakes replied. «I don't. I'm not. You don't, either. You'd better remember it.» He started to turn away, then stopped. «I'll ask you again at this hour tomorrow. If you say yes, you may depart safely, with your weapons, like any other Makuraner soldiers during the truce. But if you say no, excellent sir, I wash my hands of you.» He did not give Tegin the last word, but walked off instead.
At his command, Videssian engineers began assembling siege engines from the timbers and ropes and specialized metal fittings they carried in the baggage train, as if they were intending to assault one of the hilltop
