asked Broios, «Well, sir, how may I help you today? Not more clipped arkets, I hope.»
«No, your Majesty,» Broios said. «I don't fancy another week with a sore fundament, thank you very kindly all the same.»
«Good,» Maniakes said. «What can I do for you, then?»
«Your Majesty, I beg your pardon if I give you great offense, but I hear from a lot of people that you've set men and women to asking questions about me and my family,» Broios said. «You can say whatever you like about me, Emperor; Phos knows you have the right. But if you're going to say I have treason in mind, it isn't so, and that's all there is to it. All the men and women you sent out won't find it when it's not there. Remember, your Majesty, Vetranios is the one who took a shine to that Tzikas item, not me.»
Maniakes turned to Rhegorios. «Well, cousin of mine, you had the right of it after all: this one wasn't for you to judge.» He gave his attention back to Broios. «I wasn't trying to find out about you because I think you're a traitor. I'm trying to make certain you aren't.»
«I don't understand, your Majesty,» Broios said.
Sighing, Maniakes found himself explaining what he would rather have kept dark a while longer. «My cousin here, his highness the Sevastos Rhegorios, has… conceived an interest in your daughter, Phosia. I need to know if there are any scandals in your family that would keep it from being joined to mine.»
Broios wobbled on his feet. For a moment, Maniakes feared he would faint. The merchant coughed a couple of times, then found words: «Your Majesty. I crave your pardon in a different way. I know his Highness has seen my daughter, but—» His voice broke like that of a youth whose beard was beginning to sprout. What he was probably thinking was something like, I knew Rhegorios wanted to dally with her, but… «—I had no idea that—that—» He ran down again.
«Since you are here, since you have come to me,» Maniakes said, «I want you to tell me anything that might be an impediment to this union. If you tell me here and now, no penalty and no blame will come to you, even if we decide not to make the match. But if you conceal anything and I learn of it for myself, not only is the match forfeit, you will regret the day you were born for having lied to me. Do you understand, Broios?»
«Yes, your Majesty.» Broios drew himself to his full unimpressive height. «Your Majesty, to the ice with me if I can think of any reason—except the late kick in the arse, of course—for you not to take my tender chick under your wing.» His voice rang with sincerity.
His voice had also rung with sincerity when he denied having mixed in some arkets Vetranios hadn't given him before taking the coins to the Avtokrator. He'd been lying then. Was he lying now? Maniakes couldn't tell. A successful merchant got to the point where he could dissemble well enough to deceive anyone who didn't have a sorcerer at his side.
The Avtokrator wondered if he should summon Bagdasares. For the moment, he decided against it. He'd given Broios the warning. «Remember what I said,» he told the merchant. «If you don't speak now—»
«I have nothing to say,» Broios answered, a statement normally so improbable that Maniakes thought it stood some chance of being true.
He dismissed the merchant and then asked Rhegorios, «And what do you think of your prospective father- in-law?»
«Not bloody much,» his cousin replied at once. «But I'm not interested in marrying him, the lord with the great and good mind be praised. He's Zosime's problem, which suits me down to the ground.»
«Only shows you've never been married,» Maniakes said. «Your wife's family is your problem.» He grinned at Rhegorios. «Take my brother-in-law, for instance.»
«Who, him? He's a prince among men,» Rhegorios said, laughing. «Why, he's even a prince among princes.» The reference to the Vaspurakaner blood the two of them shared made Maniakes laugh, too.
But he did not laugh long. He said, «Do we really want Broios in the family with us?»
«No, that's not the question,» Rhegorios said. «The question is, is Broios so revolting, we can't stand to have him in the family no matter how much I want Phosia in it?»
As far as Maniakes could tell, the question wasn't how much Rhegorios wanted Phosia in it, the question was how much he wanted it in Phosia, the it being different in the two cases. He didn't say that, for fear of angering his cousin instead of amusing him. Taken on its own terms, what Rhegorios asked was reasonable. Recognizing that, Maniakes said, «We shall see, cousin of mine. We shall see.»
Excitement on his face, a Videssian trooper led one of Abivard's boiler boys before Maniakes. «He's got news for you, your Majesty,» the imperial exclaimed as the Makuraner went down on his belly in a proskynesis.
«Rise, sir, rise,» Maniakes said. «Whatever you tell me, I am certain it will be more interesting than the endless arguments I've been hearing here in Serrhes.»
«I think this is small praise, not great,» the Makuraner said, his dark eyes sparkling with amusement above the chain-mail veil he wore. «But yes, Majesty, I have news indeed. Know that Abivard son of Godarz, the new sun of Makuran, now holds Mashiz in the hollow of his hand, and know further that he also holds in the hollow of his hand Sharbaraz Pimp of Pimps, and awaits only the decree of the Mobedhan-Mobhed concerning the said Sharbaraz's infamous and impious practices in regard to religion before ending his life and consigning him to the Void forevermore.» The Mobedhan-Mobhed, the leading servant of the God, held a place in the Makuraner hierarchy close to that of the ecumenical patriarch in Videssos.
Maniakes clapped his hands together. «He has the capital and he has his foe, eh?» The Makuraner messenger nodded. Maniakes went on, «That's very wise, getting your chief cleric to condemn him. Taking his head won't seem so much like murder then: more as if he's getting his desserts.»
«Majesty, he is,» the Makuraner said angrily. «To start so great a war and then to lose it, to leave us with nothing to show for so much blood and treasure spent—how can a man who fails so greatly deserve to live?»
Again, none of the Makuraners blamed Sharbaraz for starting the war against Videssos. They blamed him for losing it. Had Videssos the city fallen, no one would have lifted a finger against the victorious, all-conquering figure Sharbaraz would have become. He would have ruled out his span of years with unending praise from his subjects, who might even have come to think he deserved deification as much as he did. He probably would have found some convenient excuse to get rid of Abivard so no one shared the praise. Success would have concealed a multitude of sins; failure made even virtues vanish.
«It's over, then,» Maniakes said in wondering tones. He would still have to see if and how he could live at peace with Abivard. But even if they did fight, they wouldn't go to war right away. The struggle that had begun when Sharbaraz used Genesios' overthrow of Likinios as an excuse to invade and seek to conquer Videssos was done at last.
Abivard's messenger construed Maniakes' three words in the sense in which he'd meant them. «Majesty, it is,» he said solemnly, giving back three words of his own.
«I presume your master is tying up loose ends now,» Maniakes said, and the messenger nodded. The Avtokrator asked, «What of Abivard's sister—Denak, was that her name? She was Sharbaraz's wife, not so?»
«His principal wife, yes,» the messenger answered, making a distinction about which the monogamous Videssians did not need to bother.
«What does she think of the changes in Mashiz?» Maniakes chose his words with care, not wanting to offend either the messenger or Abivard, to whom what he said would surely get back.
The Makuraner boiler boy replied with equal caution: «Majesty, as pledges have been given that no harm shall come to her children, and as these past years she had not always been on the best of terms with him who was King of Kings, she is said to be well enough pleased by those changes.»
Maniakes nodded. Abivard, then, was not inclined simply to dispose of his little nephew. Maniakes liked him better for that.
Still, he wondered how happy Denak would be when she fully realized the child of her flesh would not succeed to the throne. But that was Abivard's worry, not his own. He had plenty that were his, and chose to air one: «Any sign of Tzikas in Mashiz?»
«The Videssian traitor?» The Makuraner spoke with unconscious contempt that would have wounded Tzikas had he been there to hear it. «No. I am told he was in Mashiz at some earlier time, but Abivard the new sun of Makuran—'Abivard the man with a new fancy title, Maniakes thought wryly.'—finds no trace of him there at present, despite diligent searching.»
«What a pity.» Maniakes sighed. «It can't be helped, I suppose. For the good news you do bring—and it's
