The winter before, Abivard had passed his time in chilly exile at Serrhes in the Empire of Videssos. The winter before that had been filled with excitement and frantic preparations for revolt, with Sharbaraz a fugitive and Smerdis holding most of Makuran in the hollow of his hand.
This winter was different. It wasn't the near hibernation Abivard had known in his younger days. He was dihqan now, not Godarz, and on his shoulders rested responsibility for solving the squabbles in his domain and for making sure supplies would stretch till spring. But the harvest had been goodbetter than he had expectedand the storehouses held enough wheat and nuts and fruit to ensure that the domain would not go hungry before warmth returned.
He got the chance to relax a little, the first time he'd had that chance for two and a half years. He made the most of it, sleeping through long winter nights, drinking hot spiced wine to fight the chill of snowstorms and icy breezes, taking advantage of the good harvest to eat until he had to fasten his sword belt one notch closer to the end than he had before.
Some crops grew despite the beastly weather. Roshnani's belly swelled, which she regarded with a mixture of pride and wry amusement. As her pregnancy advanced, her ankles also swelled when she was on her feet for any length of time. That limited her trips outside the women's quarters, much to her annoyance.
Abivard kept calling her to his bed even after she had grown quite round. That irked his other wives; one of them complained, "Why don't you summon me more often? Aren't I prettier than she is?"
"If you have to ask the question, the answer is always no," Abivard answered, "because just letting it cross your lips makes you ugly."
The woman stared at him in bafflement. "I don't understand," she said.
"I know," he answered, sighing. "That's part of the problem."
Little by little, he began to let his other wives make excursions outside the women's quarters. He remained unconvinced that was a good idea but found no way around it. Before he let any of his wives out to explore the rest of the stronghold, he offered such freedom to his mother. Burzoe rejected it, as she had before. He had expected as much, but it still saddened him. Others were moving in new directions, but her path through life remained fixed.
"What are we going to do with her?" he asked Roshnani one chilly night when the two of them huddled together in the bed in the dihqan's bedchamber as much for warmth as from affection. "If those others go out and see things and do things she doesn't, how will she keep the lead in the women's quarters?"
"She probably won't," Roshnani answered. "It will pass to someone else." Since she was the present dihqan's principal wife, when she said "someone else" she undoubtedly meant herself, but she was characteristically self-effacing.
She was also sure to be right. Abivard realized that change would have to come anyway, sooner or later: Burzoe was, after all, only the widow of the former dihqan. But she had been undisputed mistress of the feminine side of the stronghold for longer than he had been alive; the idea of that power slipping out of her hands was as upsetting as an earthquake. He shook his head in bemusement.
Roshnani felt the motion and asked, "What is it?"
He explained, then said, "I was thinking of all the changes that have happened lately, but here's one I hadn't looked for: maybe that's what makes it so upsetting."
"As you said, though, it's a change that's coming because she refuses to change," Roshnani reminded him. "And more changes are yet to come." She took his hand and set it on her belly. The skin there was stretched tight over her growing womb.
The baby inside her kicked and squirmed, then pushed something hard and round against Abivard's palm. "That's the head," he said in delight. "That has to be his head."
Her hand joined his. "I think you're right," she said, just before, like some magical island that could rise out of the water and then vanish once more, it sank away from them as the baby shifted position.
Abivard hugged Roshnani to him. As he did so, the baby kicked vigorously. They both laughed. "Someone's doing his best to come between us," he said.
Roshnani turned serious. "That will happen for a while, you know," she said. "I'll need some time to recover after the baby's born, and he'll need me for a while, too, in spite of servants and wet nurses."
"I do know that," Abivard said. "I expect it will be all right. I'm just waiting to see which of us he favors. If he looks like your brother Okhos, he'll have all the maidens sighing for him."
"I've no reason to complain of the looks on your side of the family," Roshnani said, which made Abivard hug her again and also made the baby wiggle in her bellyor perhaps the baby would have wiggled anyhow. Roshnani went on, "And what shall we call him, once he comes out?"
"I'd like to name him Varaz, after my brother who perished up on the Pardrayan plain," Abivard answered. "Do you mind? You lost your father and brothers on the steppe, as well."
"He'll be of Vek Rud domain, and heir to it, so he should have a name that goes with it," Roshnani said after a little thought. "We'll have others to remember my kinand your father, too. I'd thought you might want to name the boy Godarz, in fact. Why don't you?"
"Because my father's memory will stay green for years to come in the hearts and minds of everyone who knew him," Abivard said; he had thought about that, too. "He was dihqan, and a good one; he touched people's lives. That's a better monument than a baby's name. But Varaz was cut down before he had the chance to show everything he could do in life. He deserves to be remembered, too, and for him I think this is a good way."
"Ah." Roshnani nodded against his chest. "Every so often, you've accused me of being sensible. Husband of mine, I have to say I'm not the only one here with that affliction."
"Accused? Affliction?" Abivard snorted. "You make it sound as if something's wrong with common sense. The only thing wrong with it I can think of is that not enough people have any of it . . . Some of my former wives spring to mind," he added with a touch of malice.
Roshnani refused to let the last gibe distract her. "What could be more wrong with it than that?" she asked, and, as she had a way of doing, left Abivard groping for an answer.
Winter solstice came and went. The year before, in Serrhes, the Videssians had celebrated the day with raucous, sometimes rowdy rites. Here it passed quietly, almost unnoticed. In a way, that felt good and normal. In another way, Abivard missed the excitement of the Videssian festival.
Snowstorms rolled down from the north one after another: invaders from the steppe as dangerous as the Khamorth and, unlike the nomads, impossible to repel. The storms killed beasts and occasionally herdsmen; like everyone in the stronghold and the village below, Abivard worried that the fuel carefully gathered during the warm season would not last through the cold. Every icy blast that shook the shutters on the window to his bedchamber made him fret more.
Then, one day when the year's reckoning said the equinox was approaching but the snow-covered ground seemed certain winter would last forever, such mere pragmatic concerns as fuel vanished from his mind, for a maidservant came out of the women's quarters and, wrapped in thick sheepskins, hurried down to the village. She soon returned with the midwife, a gray-haired woman named Farigis.
Abivard met the midwife in the courtyard, just inside the main gate. She bowed politely, then said, "Your pardon, lord, but I would sooner not stand about here making polite chitchat. Your wife has more need of me than you do right now."
"Of course," Abivard said, stepping aside to let her pass. She swept by him without a backward glance, her long coat trailing in the snow. Far from being offended, Abivard was relieved: to his way of thinking, anyone who put business ahead of conversation was likely to know that business.
He did not follow Farigis into the women's quarters. For one thing, he suspected she would have thrown him out, and in such matters her word, not his, was law. And for another, childbirth was a women's mystery that frightened him worse than any of the armored lancers he had faced during the civil war: this was a battlefield on which he could not contend.
As he paced the hall outside his bedchamber, he murmured, "Lady Shivini, if you'll hear the prayer of a mere man, help bring my lady through her ordeal." That done, he went back to pacing. He wanted to send the prayer up again and again but refrained, fearing he would anger the prophet if he seemed to nag.
After a while Frada took him by the arm, led him into the kitchens, sat him down, and set a mug of wine in front of him. He drank mechanically, hardly aware of what he was doing.
"This is taking a very long time," he said presently.
"It can do that, you know," Frada answered, although he knew less about the matter than Abivard did, which, given the level of Abivard's ignorance, was not easy. He picked up Abivard's empty mug and carried it away, returning a moment later with it full and a matching one for himself in his other hand.
Every time a serving woman came into the kitchens, Abivard jumped, thinking either that she was Farigis or that she brought word from the midwife. But the sun had set and darkness settled over the stronghold like a cloak before Farigis came forth. Abivard sprang to his feet. The smile on the midwife's face told him everything he needed to know, but he stammered out his questions anyhow. "Is she . . . ? Is the baby . . . ?"
"Both well, and you have a son, as I gather Tanshar told you that you would," Farigis answered. "A good-size lad, and he cries as loud as any I've heard, which is good, though your lady won't think so when he wakes up howling a few weeks from now. She says you'll name him for your brother. The God grant him a long and healthy life."
"May I see her?" Abivard asked, and then, correcting himself, "May I see them?"
"Aye, though she's very tired," the midwife said. "I don't know how long she'll want to see you, and this once, lord, you'd do well to let your wife's wishes prevail, not your own."
"My wife's wishes prevail more often than you think," Abivard told her. She didn't seem much impressed; Abivard got the feeling she was anything but easy to impress. The sweet jingle of the silver arkets with which he paid her fee, though, definitely gained her complete, undivided, and approving attention.
"Congratulations, lord!" The call followed Abivard through the stronghold to the door of his bedchamber, then picked up again, higher-pitched, in the women's quarters.
Roshnani looked up when he came into her room. Farigis had warned him she was weary, but the exhaustion she showed shocked him. Beneath her naturally swarthy cast of skin, she was dead pale. The room smelled of stale sweat, as if she had labored in the fields rather than in childbed.
"Are you all right?" he asked, alarmed.
The corners of her mouth turned upward in what would have looked more like a smile had it come with less obvious effort. She said, "If I could sleep for the next week, I might be well enough after that, but I doubt Varaz here will give me the chance." She shifted the blanket-covered bundle she held in the crook of her left elbow.
"Let me see him," Abivard said, and Roshnani lifted the soft lamb's wool from his son's face.
Again he was shocked, and again did his best not to show it. Varaz looked like nothing so much as a wizened little red monkey with an absurd fringe of hair like a bald old man's. His eyes were shut tight enough to pull his whole face into a grimace. He breathed in little snorting grunts and occasionally twitched for no reason at all.
"He's a handsome boy," Abivard declared, the most sincere lie he had ever told.
"Isn't he?" Roshnani said proudly. Either she was lying, too, or mother loveor possibly the rigors of childbirthhad left her blind.
Abivard would have bet on the latterthe longer he stared at Varaz, the better the baby looked. "May I hold him?" he asked, gulping a little. He knew how to hold newborn pups, but babiesespecially this baby, his own babywere something else again.
"Here." Roshnani held the wrapped bundle out to him. "Keep one hand under his head, mind youhe can't hold it up for himself."
"I don't blame him, poor chap," Abivard answered. "It's much the biggest part of him." Varaz squirmed as the transfer was made and threw out his arms and legs without waking up. Abivard carefully supported his head. "Once I was this small, with my father holding me. Could it be possible?"
"If you'd been born the size you are now, your poor mother would have been . . . upset is hardly the word," Roshnani returned. "Bringing forth even a baby is quite hard enough, thank you."
Abivard blinked, then laughed. "If you can joke, you'll get over it sooner than you think."
"May you be right." Roshnani yawned and said, "Set him in the cradle, would you? I'd like to sleep as long as he'll let me."
As if Varaz were made of parchment-thin glass, Abivard laid him down. When the corner of the baby's mouth brushed the blanket that lined the cradle, he made little sucking noises. Abivard kissed Roshnani and said, "Do rest. I hope he gives you plenty of chances."
"So do I," Roshnani said, "but that's in his hands, not mine." She yawned again. "Whatever chances he gives me, I'll take."
When Abivard had walked to his bedchamber the night he had come back to Vek Rud stronghold, too much wine had made him feel his feet were floating above the ground. He had drunk some wine waiting nervously while Roshnani delivered Varaz, but was for all practical purposes sober. Nevertheless, he floated much higher now than he had then.
Winter yielded to spring in its usual grudging, curmudgeonly way. Varaz thrived as if he were an early spring flower himself. Everyone exclaimed at his size, at his looks, at how enthusiastically he nursed. He quickly learned to smile. He had had Abivard's heart before, but with that he captured his father all over again.
The first crops were beginning to sprout when a dusty, muddy horseman made his way up the knob to Vek Rud stronghold, asking after Abivard. Men hurried to fetch the dihqan, for the rider bore word from Sharbaraz King of Kings.
He bowed when Abivard came before him and said, "Lord, I am bidden to deliver two messages to you. First is that your sister, the lady Denak, was before I departed for this domain delivered of a daughter, the princess Jarireh. She and the little one were both well when I left Mashiz."
"This for your good news," Abivard said, giving him a couple of arkets. He hoped Denak hadn't apologized to Sharbaraz for bearing a girl. He would have reckoned the news better still if she had had a boy, but as long as she had come through birth all right, she would have more chances for that later. He asked the horseman, "What is the King of Kings' other message?"
"Lord, it may not please you." The rider nervously licked his lips. "Sharbaraz King of Kings orders you to come to Mashiz as fast as you may."
"What?" Abivard said. "Does he say why?"
"He does not," the messenger said. "But there you are bidden. Would you presume to disobey the King of Kings?"
"Of course not," Abivard replied at once. He suddenly realized that being Sharbaraz's brother-in-law could bring him danger as well as privilege. If he didn't obey the King of Kings, even in the smallest particular, he ran the risk of being suspected of treachery or undue ambitionnot that the two would look much different from Sharbaraz's point of view. If an obscure cousin could aspire to the throne, what of a less obscure brother-in-law?
Abivard had no more desire to become King of Kings than he did to climb up on the stronghold wall and jump off. He also had the feeling that the more he tried to convince Sharbaraz of that, the less Sharbaraz would believe him. He asked the messenger, "Does his Majesty want me to leave for Mashiz today?"
"Indeed he does, lord," the fellow answered. "I am to accompany you on the journey, and to make it as quick as may be." He pulled a pair of parchments from a message tube on his belt. "Here is his written order, which I have just delivered. And here is a command enabling us to draw on the stables of all the domains on the way back to the capital, thus speeding us on our way."
"He's in earnest, then," Abivard said, nodding. Only half in jest he added, "Have I your leave to make farewells before we set out?"
"Lord, I am your servant," the messenger said. "But we are both servants of Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase."
"Well said," Abivard answered. "Here, come to the kitchens, take food and drink. I shall attend you as soon as I can." He called to one of his men to take the rider into the living quarters of the stronghold, then went looking for Frada.
His brother's eyes snapped with excitement when Abivard gave him the news. "What do you suppose it means?" Frada asked. "Do you think we're at war with Videssos already?"
"I don't see how we could be," Abivard said. "Sharbaraz wouldn't attack Likinios without good reason, and Likinios went to too much trouble too recently to put Sharbaraz on the throne to give him a good reason so soon."
Frada made a clucking noise. "I'd argue with you, but I don't see how I can. But off you go again, and leave me behind to watch over the stronghold. It hardly seems fair." He laughed at Abivard's expression. "No, no, don't look like that. I'm just giving you a rough time. Whatever Sharbaraz wants, I expect I'll find out if there's a place in it for me. Maybe it's something to do with Denak."
"There's a thought," Abivard agreed. "You could be rightthat might account for his not telling the messenger much." Now he knew he looked worried. "I hope it's nothing bad. But no, it could hardly be, not with the other word the fellow brought."
"You'll know fairly soon," Frada said. "Mashiz is a long way from here, but you won't have to fight any battles to get there, not this year."
"I'd better not!" Abivard exclaimed, laughing. He quickly grew serious once more. "That leaves you in charge of the domain again, brother of mine. I know you can run ityou've had more chance to show that than I have. Only one place where I'll tell you anything at all"
"The women's quarters, I hope," Frada said.
"Why did I guess you were going to say that?" Abivard's chuckle was rueful. "As a matter of fact, though, you're right. Let my wives keep the privileges I've given them, but grant no new ones. If you need advice, you could do far worse than going to either Mother or Roshnani, or to both of them. If they agree, they're almost sure to be right. If they don't, you'll have to use your own judgment. Myself, I'm more inclined to think along with Roshnani."
Frada nodded. "I'll bear all that in mind. But it's not what I'm really worried about. That's simple: what do I do if one of your wives has a belly that starts to bulge?"
"I'll take care of that, by the God," Abivard said grimly. He hunted in the dirt of the courtyard till he found three black pebbles, then rounded up three witnesses. He chose men of unquestioned probity, among them Ganzak the smith, whom no one would have thought of doubting. With the witnesses watching, Abivard passed Frada the pebbles, saying, "To my brother I commit these, and give him my proxy to use them to divorce any wife of mine who adulterously gets herself with child while I am gone from the stronghold."
"I shall keep these pebbles safe against a day I hope never comes," Frada said, his voice solemn.
"We have seen your purpose, lord, and will speak of it should there be need," Ganzak said. "I also hope that day does not come." The heads of the other witnesses bobbed up and down.
"So do I," Abivard said. "But what I hope and what will be . . ." He let that hang. His brother and the witnesses all knew whereof he spoke.
By the time he went into the women's quarters, the messenger's news had already got there. He did not warn his wives he had left the pebbles with Frada; he doubted threats of that sort would keep them on the straight and narrow path if they were inclined to stray. And if they could not figure out that he might do such a thing, they were too foolish to belong in the women's quarters even as ornaments.
Roshnani said, "You won't have me nagging you to come along this time, husband of mine, not with Varaz still so small. I'll pray to the God that she bring you home quick and safe."
"I'll offer him the same prayer," Abivard answered.
Roshnani started to say something, closed her mouth on it, then cautiously tried again: "Will your other wives and I be confined to the women's quarters while you're away from the stronghold?"
"No," Abivard answered. "I've told Frada that your privileges are to remain the same."
That got him a hug fervent enough to squeeze the breath from him and to make him wish Sharbaraz's messenger wasn't waiting impatiently in the kitchens. Roshnani said, "Truly the God has been kind enough to grant me the most generous, most forbearing husband in all the world. I bless her for it and love him for it."
Abivard had intended to go on with something commonplace and fatuous about not abusing the privileges that would continue. Instead he stopped and stared. He and Roshnani had been man and wife for close to three years now; in all that time, he didn't think either of them had mentioned love. Marriages were made to bind families together. If you were lucky, you got on well with your wife, you could rely on her, and she gave good adviceto say nothing of an heir. All those things he had had with Roshnani. Anything more . . .
She was watching him warily, perhaps wondering if she had said too much. After a moment, he observed thoughtfully, "Do you know, wife of mine, until you named the name I didn't realize we had the thing it describes. That's a magic worthy of Tanshar at his best. And do you know what else? I'm angry at you because of it."
"You are? Why?" Roshnani asked, puzzled.
"Because now I'll be even sorrier to go away from you, and even more begrudging of every day till I'm home again." He squeezed her as hard as she had him.
"Those days will be empty for me, too," Roshnani said. But then, because she was a practical person, she laughed at her poetic pretension and said, "Well, not quite empty, not with Varaz filling them so. But I'll miss you more than I know how to say."
"I understand, because I feel the same way," he said, and then, cautiously: "I love you, too." He hugged her again. "And now I have to leave." He kissed her, then made his way quickly toward the door to the women's quarters. Because those steps were so hard to take, he made himself hurry them, lest he find he could not.
Sharbaraz's man was finishing his wine when Abivard walked into the kitchens. He got up from the bench on which he sat. "Let us be off, lord," he said. "If you will be so kind as to show me to the stables"
"Certainly, although I would like the chance to ready a pack-horse before we set out," Abivard answered. "Strongholds, even villages, are few and far between up here in the northwest, and the land from one to the next often bad. If anything should go wrong, which the God prevent, I'd sooner not be stuck in the desert without any supplies at all. That's how vultures grow fat."
The messenger muttered under his breath but had to nod. Servants carried sacks of pocket bread and lamb sausage rich with garlic and mint and cardamom and skins of rough-edged red wine out to the stables, where grooms lashed them aboard a big gelding with good endurance.
A couple of hours before sunset, Sharbaraz's man swung up onto his horse with very visible relief. Abivard mounted, too, and put the packhorse on a long leather lead. With the messenger, he rode out of Vek Rud stronghold, down the knob on which it sat, and away toward the southeast.
As Abivard had predicted, the journey to Mashiz went far more smoothly than it had when he had set out for the capital with Sharbaraz two years before. Not only did no one take up arms against him as he traveled, but lesser nobles went out of their way to offer hospitality as extravagant as they could afford. Being brother-in-law to the King of Kings had its advantages.
So did the warrant Sharbaraz's man flourished whenever occasion arose. Not only did it entitle him and Abivard to fresh horses at their stops, but to victuals on demand. The bread and meat and wine Abivard had packed back at Vek Rud stronghold stayed all but untouched.
"I don't care," he said when the messenger remarked on that. "Who knows what might have happened if we didn't have them with us?"
"Something to that," the fellow admitted. "Things you get ready for have a way of not going wrong. It's the ones you don't look for that give you trouble."
Sharbaraz's rebellious army had swung south around the Dilbat Mountains and then up through the desert toward Mashiz. Because the realm was at peace and the season approaching summer, Abivard and Sharbaraz's man traversed the passes through the mountains instead.
Abivard had thought he was used to high country. He had grown up atop a knob, after all, and he had scaled Nalgis Crag, which was a most impressive piece of stone all by itself. But looking up to steep mountains on either side of him reminded him of his insignificance in the grand scheme of things more forcefully even than the immense emptiness of the Pardrayan plain.
Fortresses in the passes could have held up an army indefinitely, both by their own strength and with the avalanches they could have unleashed against hostile troops. Seeing the gray stone piles and the heaped boulders, Abivard understood why Sharbaraz had never once considered forcing his way through the shorter route. He would not have reached Mashiz.
As things were, though, the officers who commanded the forts vied with one another to honor the brother-in-law of the King of Kings. The men struck him as being as much courtiers as soldiers, but the garrisons they commanded looked like good troops.
And then, early one morning, he and the messenger came round a last bend in the road and there, laid out before them as if through some great artist's brush, sat Mashiz, with the river valleys of the land of the Thousand Cities serving as distant backdrop. Abivard studied the scene for a long time. He had seen and even entered Mashiz from the east, but the capital of the realm took on a whole new aspect when viewed from the other direction.
"This is how it must have looked to our ancestors the God only knows how many years ago, when they first came off the high plateau of Makuran and saw the land they would make their own," he said.
The messenger shrugged. "I don't know anything about that, lord. I'm glad to see Mashiz again because I'm coming home to my wife and son."
"You took me away from mine," Abivard said, although not in real reproof: the man was but obeying the command of Sharbaraz King of Kings. "Lead me to the palace now, so I can learn the King of Kings' wishes and go back to my home once more."
In many ways, this was the first good look he had had at Mashiz. When he had entered it with Sharbaraz, he had been too busy fighting for his life to pay much attention to his surroundings, and then, just as he reached the palace, sorcerous darkness had swallowed the city. Now he took it all in: merchants and whores, servants of the God and horse traders, drunkards and servitors, farmers selling lettuces, farmers buying copper trinkets, singers, dancers, beggars, two men with picks stolidly knocking down a mud-brick wall, women hawking caged songbirds, and a thousand more besides. The noise was overwhelming, both in volume and variety.
Without the messenger to guide him, he would soon have been hopelessly lost. Streets writhed and twisted and doubled back on themselves, but Sharbaraz's man unerringly picked his way through the maze and toward the palace. At the gates, he turned Abivard over to a plump, beardless flunky and rode away.
At first Abivard thought the functionary was a man, although he had never seen a man without a beard. Then he thought the person was a woman, for the voice with which he was addressed seemed too high and smooth to belong to a man. But he had trouble imagining a woman in such a prominent position at the court of the King of Kings.
Then he realized he was dealing with a eunuch. He felt like a country bumpkin, unused to the sophisticated ways of the capital. As the courtier guided him to the throne room, though, he wondered what the fellow thought of his own state. Sophistication had its prices, too.
"Great and magnificent lord, I shall be beside you as you are presented to Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase," the eunuch said. "At my signal, thus" He touched Abivard on the arm. "you are to prostrate yourself before him."
"As you say," Abivard agreed. Being brother-in-law to the King of Kings did not excuse him from any of the formalities of court ceremonial. If anything, it made his punctiliousness in observing those formalities more important than it would have been for someone of less exalted rank.
His feet glided soundlessly over thick wool carpets beautifully dyed and elaborately woven: carpets too fine to be walked upon anywhere save in the palace of the King of Kings. The torches that lit the hallways were of sandalwood; their sweet smoke filled the air. He had put on his best caftan to enter Mashiz, but felt woefully underdressed all the same.
"We approach the throne room," the eunuch murmured in his strange, sexually ambiguous voice. "Walk beside me, as I told you, and be ready for my signal."
Courtiers, ministers, generals, and high nobles from the Seven Clans filled the throne room. Abivard felt their eyes on him and did his best to bear up under the scrutiny. He looked straight ahead and tried not to notice the grandees staring at him, studying him, taking his measure. They had to be wondering, What is this backwoods noble like?
Holding his own eyes on the throne helped him keep his composure. It was not, he saw, a single seat, but two. There sat Sharbaraz, unmistakable in his gorgeous robes and crown, but who was that beside him? The throne room was very long. Abivard had advanced halfway toward the high seats when he suddenly grinned an enormous grin and felt all his nervousness fall awayDenak sat next to her husband.
Now he looked around at the important personages who packed the throne room, to see how they liked the idea of having a womanand not just any woman, but his sister!in the company of the King of Kings. If they didn't like it, they didn't let on. That was as he had expected.
No one but Sharbaraz's guards stood closer than about five paces from the throne. The eunuch halted there. Like a well-trained horse, Abivard halted, too. The eunuch unobtrusively tapped him on the arm. He prostrated himself before the monarch of Makuran.
The carpet had stopped a few paces before. The stone to which Abivard pressed his forehead was worn smooth and shiny. He wondered how many prostrations had been performed just there over the centuries. He also noticed a thin, tiny seam that separated the stone on which he crouched from the one just ahead, and tried without any luck to figure out what it might mean.
"Rise, brother-in-law of mine, and advance to receive my favor," Sharbaraz said.
Abivard got to his feet and walked up to the throne. The guards stood aside to let him pass, but did not leave off watching him. Sharbaraz also rose, took two steps toward him, embraced him, and offered him a cheek to kiss, suggesting the two of them differed only slightly in rank. Tiny murmurs ran through the throne room as the courtiers, used to reading such subtle signs, drew their own conclusions. Denak beamed proudly.
"I have come to Mashiz in obedience to your command, Majesty," Abivard said, hoping Sharbaraz would give him some clue as to why he had been summoned.
But the King of Kings merely said, "That is as it should be. We have much to discuss, you and I, of great import to the realm." Again Abivard's ear caught those little ripples of whispering, this time, he thought, with an excited undertone to them. The assembled grandees knew what Sharbaraz was talking about, even if Abivard didn't. But, he thought proudly, the King of Kings wanted to confer with him, not with them.
After that formal greeting, Sharbaraz gave him back into the keeping of the eunuch, who led him into a little chamber of such perfect elegance that he guessed it had to be a waiting room for the King of Kings. A servant brought in roasted pistachios, little cakes savory with almond paste, and a wine sweet as honey, smooth as silk, and warming as the sun on a fine spring day.
Abivard refreshed himself, then piled some cushions high and leaned back against them to await his sovereign. Sure enough, Sharbaraz came in after a little while, Denak a pace behind him. When Abivard rose and began another prostration, Sharbaraz waved him to a halt. "You've finished the ceremony," he said. "Now we do business."
"May I see my niece first, Majesty?" Abivard asked.
"I'll go fetch her," Denak said, and hurried away.
"I have someone else I want you to meet, but I'll introduce him to you presently," Sharbaraz said. He took a pistachio, cracked the thin shell between thumb and forefinger, and popped the nut into his mouth.
Denak came back. She pressed a tiny bundle into Abivard's arms and smiled when he automatically held the baby so as to support her head. "That's right, you have a son of your own," she said, as if reminding herself. Was that jealousy in her voice? Maybe a little, he judged. She went on, "Hard to remember I'm an aunt, just as you're an uncle."
"She's a pretty baby," he said, looking down at Jarireh. Not only was she pretty, she was, for the moment, being quiet; that, as he had learned, was a virtue of considerable magnitude. "I'm trying to decide which of you she favors."
"She looks like a baby," Denak said, as if that explained everything.
Sharbaraz impatiently shifted from foot to foot. "I thought you were eager to hear why I summoned you across the length and breadth of the realm."
"I am, Majesty. It's only" Abivard held up Jarireh. "May I use your daughter as my excuse?"
"You'd have trouble finding a better one," Sharbaraz said with a laugh. "But hear me all the same: Likinios Avtokrator is dead."
Ice ran through Abivard. "How did it happen?" he whispered. "Are you on decent terms with Hosios his son, or does the war begin now?"
"Hosios is dead, too, as Tanshar foretold," Sharbaraz said. Abivard could only gape at the King of Kings, who went on, "Hear the tale, as it came to me with the beginning of spring. You know Likinios Avtokrator was a pinchpenny; we saw that when we were in Serrhes. And you know also that the Empire of Videssos was at war with the nomads of Kubrat, up north and east of Videssos the city."
Abivard held his niece out to the King of Kings to show how confused he was. "What you say is true, Majesty, but what has one of these things to do with the other?"
"As it turns out, everything," Sharbaraz answered. "Likinios won a string of victories against the Kubratoi last year and hoped to ruin them for good and all, maybe even conquer them altogether. He didn't care to pull his army back into his own country and have to start over again this spring, so he ordered them to winter north of the Istros River, out on the edge of the steppe, and to support themselves by foraging. That way he wouldn't have to pay for feeding them through the winter, you see. He was already behind with their silver; no, I take it back, Videssians payor, in his case, don't payin gold."
"By the God," Abivard said softly. He tried to imagine a Makuraner army ordered to winter north of the Degird. Troops would, to put it mildly, not be happy about that. He had to ask the next question: "What happened then?"
"Just what you'd expect," Sharbaraz answered. "I can see that in your eyes. Aye, they mutinied, killed a couple of generals"
"Not the Maniakai, I hope," Abivard exclaimed, and then remembered whom he had interrupted. "Forgive me, Majesty."
"It's all right," the King of Kings said. "This news is enough to make anyone jumpy. No, the Maniakai, father and son, had nothing to do with it. When they got back to Videssos, Likinios named the elder one governor of some island on the edge of nowhere and sent the younger there, too, to command the garrison. It was supposed to be a reward for a job well done, but I think the Avtokrator was just putting someone who might be a rival out of the way. Now, where was I with the main story?"
"The mutiny," Abivard and Denak said together.
"Ah, that's right. Likinios' army rebelled, as I say, killed some high-ranking officers, and named a fellow called Genesios as Avtokrator. The God only knows why; he was nothing more than a cavalry captain, a commander of a hundred. But they made some red boots, put 'em on him, and marched for Videssos the city."
"With that kind of leader against him, you'd think Likinios would have won easily," Abivard said.
"If they fought wars on parchment, you'd be right," Sharbaraz said, "but as soon as Likinios had a rival, any sort of rival, everyone stopped paying attention to him. This wasn't the first time he'd fallen behind with soldiers' pay, and everybody just got sick of him. He ordered troops out against Genesios. They left Videssos the city, sure enough, but then they went over to the rebel. That city could stand siege forever, I think, but the men at the gates opened them for Genesios' soldiers."
"Likinios should have fled," Abivard said. "He must have known you'd have received him well here, just for what he did for us in Serrhes."
"None of the sailors would take him and his sons across the little strait to the westlands," Sharbaraz said; the words tolled like doom through the little private chamber. Abivard picked up a pistachio, then put it back in its silver bowlhe had lost his appetite. The King of Kings went on, "In the end, he tried to get across in a boat he and his sons would row themselves. Too late: Genesios' men were already in the city. They caught him."
"And killed him, and Hosios, as you already told me," Abivard said.
"They did worse than that," Denak said; she had heard this tale of horror before. "They slew each of Likinios' sons before his eyes, Hosios his eldest last of all, and then they slew Likinios, too, a little bit at a time." She shuddered. "Filthy." Maybe because she had just had a baby herself, she seemed to find the idea of slaying anyone's child, particularly in front of him, especially dreadful.
"And that is how Genesios Avtokrator took the throne in Videssos," Sharbaraz said. "Part of it I've pieced together through the tales of travelers and merchants, and the rest from the embassy Genesios sent me to announce his accession as Avtokrator of the Videssians. Once he'd murdered his way into the palace, he decided he would start observing the forms, you see."
"What did you tell the envoys?" Abivard asked.
"I told them to leave the realm and be thankful I didn't clap them into the dungeons under the palace here," Sharbaraz answered. "I said I would not treat with men who served a ruler who had murdered my benefactor." His eyes flashed; thinking of Likinios' terrible end infuriated him. But he shook his head before going on, "I might have served my purpose better if I'd kept my temper and given them a soft answer. As things stand, Genesios knows I am his foe and can prepare accordingly."
"Do the Videssians all recognize him as Avtokrator?"
Sharbaraz shook his head again. "Videssos writhes like a snake with a broken back, seethes like a soup pot left too long over the fire. Some in the Empire support the usurper, some proclaim they are still loyal to the house of Likinios even though that house has been destroyed to the foundations, and I've heard rumors that another general, or maybe other generals, have proclaimed themselves Avtokrator in opposition to Genesios." He rubbed his hands together. "It is indeed a lovely mess."
"Aye, it is," Abivard breathed. "We had our civil war over these past years. Now it's the Videssians' turn, and from what you say, they have the disease worse than we did. What will you do, Majesty?"
"Let them stew in their own juice this year, I think, unless they fall altogether to pieces," Sharbaraz replied. "But I will take back all the stretch of Vaspurakan Likinios made me cede to him, and I will do it in the name of avenging him." He rubbed his hands again, plainly savoring the irony there. His voice turned dreamy. "But I want more than that, much more. And I have a key to open the lock. I'll show it to you." He hurried out of the chamber.
"What does he mean?" Abivard asked Denak.
She smiled. "I know, but I won't tell you, not when you'll see in a moment. That would spoil the surprise."
The King of Kings returned then, in the company of a young man gorgeous in Videssian imperial robes and shod with scarlet boots. He had a Videssian cast of feature, too, narrow and more delicate through the lower part of the face than most Makuraners. To Abivard he said, "It is good to see you again, eminent sir." He spoke with a strong Videssian accent.
"Forgive me, sir, but I do not believe we've met," Abivard told him. Then he turned to the King of Kings. "Majesty, who is this fellow? I've never set eyes on him in my life."
"What?" Sharbaraz played startled confusion too melodramatically to be quite convincing. "Can you tell me you've been so quick to forget the face of Hosios son of Likinios, legitimate Avtokrator of the Videssians?"
"He's not Hosios," Abivard blurted. "I've seen Hosios and talked with him. I know what he looks like, and he . . ." His voice trailed away. He stared from Sharbaraz to the man who was not Hosios and back again. "I know what Hosios looks like, and you, Majesty, you know what Hosios looks like, but how many Videssians really know what Hosios looks like?"
"You see my thought perfectly," Sharbaraz said in a tone of voice that suggested anything less would have disappointed him. "As our armies move into Videssos, how better than if we come to restore the murdered rightful Avtokrator's son and heir? If the God grant that we reach Videssos the city than to install Hosios here" He spoke the name with a perfectly straight face, "in the imperial palace there?"
"No better way," Abivard said. He looked over to the fellow in the Videssian imperial costume. "Who are you really?"
The man glanced nervously at Sharbaraz. "Eminent sir, I am only and have always been Hosios son of Likinios. If I am not he, who that walks the earth is?"
Abivard thought it over, then slowly nodded. "When you put it that way, I suppose no one has a better claim to the name than you do."
"Just so." With justice, Sharbaraz sounded proud of his own cleverness. "Here we'll have the King of Kings and the Avtokrator leagued together against the vile usurper, just as we did against Smerdis. How can anyone hope to stand against us?"
"I see no way," Abivard said loyally. He knew, though, that ways he did not see might exist. That was why you went to war: to find out how well the plans you had made meshed with the real world.
He let his eyes slip to "Hosios" once more. Whoever he wasmost likely a trader who happened to have been in Mashiz when Sharbaraz learned of Likinios' murder, or perhaps a renegade Videssian soldierhe had to be anxious, though he hid it fairly well. He was disposable, and was a fool to boot if he didn't know it. The first time he made Sharbaraz unhappy with him, he was only too likely to suffer a tragic accident . . . or maybe he would just disappear, and someone else styled "Hosios" would end up wearing the imperial raiment.
Sharbaraz said, "We understand each other well, Hosios and I."
"That's as it should be, Majesty," Abivard said. He glanced at the man who was now the only Hosios there was. Taking Videssos the city would be splendid; no King of Kings had ever done it, not in all the years of warfare between Makuran and the Empire of Videssos. But if Sharbaraz succeeded in capturing the imperial capital and put "Hosios" here on the throne, how long before the fellow forgot he was a puppet and remembered he was a Videssian? Not long enough was Abivard's guess.
"It was a pleasure to renew my acquaintance with the eminent sir, Majesty, but now" "Hosios" paused.
"I know you have urgent business of your own," Sharbaraz said, again without obvious irony. "I shan't keep you here any longer."
"Hosios" bowed to him as equal to equal, though that rang as false as the King of Kings' ostentatious politeness toward him. The pretender nodded to Abivard, one sovereign to another's close companion, then left the small private chamber. Sharbaraz poured himself another cup of wine and looked a question to Abivard, who nodded. Sharbaraz poured one for him, too, and one for Denak.
Abivard raised his cupnot plain clay, as it would have been back at Vek Rud stronghold, but milky alabaster, bored out so thin he could see the wine through it. "I salute you, Majesty," he said. "I can't think of a better way for us to take vengeance on Videssos." He drank.
So did Sharbaraz and Denak. The King of Kings said, "And do you know what the best of it is, brother-in-law of mine? Not only are the Videssians themselves up in arms against this Genesios, but, from the word that filters through Vaspurakan and across the wasteland, the man would make the late unlamented Smerdis seem a paragon of statesmanship beside him."
"Have a care, there," Abivard said. "You almost made me choke on my wine. How could anyone make Smerdis look like a statesman?"
"Genesios manages, or so it's said," Sharbaraz answered. "Smerdis had some notion of keeping his enemies quiet: the tribute he paid to the Khamorth, for instance. The only thing Genesios seems to know how to do is murder. Killing Likinios and his sons made sense enough"
"Not the way he did it," Denak broke in. "That was brutal and cruel."
"By all accounts, Genesios is brutal and cruel," Sharbaraz said, "and terror the only tool he turns to in ruling. He's meted out torture, blindings, and mutilation to all of Likinios' cronies he could catch, and each new tale that comes in is more revolting than the last. Part of that may spring from the nature of tales, but when you smell something bad, you're probably riding past a dung heap."
Thoughtfully Abivard said, "He'll frighten some folk into following him with ways like those, but most of them will be men who would have favored him anyway. He won't cow the ones he really aims to terrify, the ones with true spirit. They'll just hate him more than they do already."
"Just so," Sharbaraz agreed. "The more he tries to break their spirits, the more they'll do battle against him. But he holds Videssos the city, and if ever there was one, it's Videssos' Nalgis Crag, all but impossible to take without treachery." His grin was quite broad. "Our best course, I think, is to let it be known we have 'Hosios' here, wait while Videssos falls farther into chaosand, by all appearances, it willand then move in. If Genesios is as bad as latest rumors paint him, we truly will be welcomed as liberators."
"Isn't that a lovely thought?" Abivard said dreamily. "You said the two Maniakai were sent off to some distant island?"
"Aye. Likinios did that, not Genesios," Sharbaraz said.
"Either way, it's just as well. They'll be safe off at the edge of the world, where Genesios' eye can't fall on them. They're good men, the father and the son, and they did quite a lot for us. I don't want to see them come to harm."
"No?" Sharbaraz said. "I'd send up a loud, long prayer of thanks to the God and the Prophets Four if I heard Genesios had ordered both their heads to go up on the Milestone in Videssos the city. They'd be in good company, by all accounts; the Milestone's supposed to be a crowded place these days."
"Majesty!" Abivard said, as reproachfully as one could speak to the King of Kings. Denak nodded, agreeing with her brother rather than her husband.
Sharbaraz refused to apologize. "I meant what I said. Brother-in-law of mine, you said the Maniakai were good men, and you were right. But that's not the pointno, it is, but only a small part of it. The true rub is that the father and son are both of them able men. The more like that Genesios murders, the weaker Videssos will be when we move against her."
Abivard pondered his sovereign's words. At last, he bowed. "Spoken like a King of Kings."
Sharbaraz preened, ever so slightly. But Abivard hadn't altogether meant it as a compliment. A King of Kings had to do things for reasons of state and to look at them from his realm's viewpoint rather than his own. Thus far, well and good. When you began to forget your viewpoint as a man, though, and were willing, even eager, to celebrate the deaths of loyal friends, you became something rather frightening. That, to Abivard's way of thinking, was different from, and much worse than, recognizing that those deaths would be to your advantage while mourning them nonetheless.
He opened his mouth to try to explain that to Sharbaraz, then shut it again with the words unspoken. As he had discovered, what even a brother-in-law could tell the King of Kings had limits. The office Sharbaraz held, the robes he wore, worked toward stifling criticism of any sort. Oh, Abivard's head wouldn't answer for such an indiscretion; Sharbaraz would even listen politelyhe owed Abivard that much, and did not think him a potential enemy . . . or Abivard hoped he didn't, at any rate. But while he would listen, he would not hear.
Sharbaraz said, "Your brother or his designee will be running Vek Rud domain for some time to come, brother-in-law of mine. I'll want you here at my right hand, readying our forces for the move against Videssos. We'll begin next year, I expect, and not just as raiders. What I take, I intend to keep."
"May it be so, Majesty," Abivard said. "I think I'll have to write to Frada to give him leave to appoint a designee and join the campaign himself. Otherwise, my guess is that he'd appoint one without my leave and come just the same. He's missed two chances already; he won't stand it a third time. Sometimes you need to know when to yield."
"A point," Sharbaraz said, though the only time he had yielded, so far as Abivard knew, was when Smerdis' minions held a knife to his throat. Abivard shook his head No, the King of Kings had also given in when Likinios demanded territory in exchange for aid. In the face of necessity that dire, he could retreat.
"A good point," Denak said, and Abivard remembered that Sharbaraz had also yielded to her in a variety of ways, from letting her accompany him on campaign to allowing her to show herself in public here in the palace. No, he had done more than merely allow that: he had adjusted court ceremonial to accommodate it. Abivard revised his previous opinionSharbaraz could make concessions, after all.
Turning to his sister, Abivard asked, "How does it feel, living in the palace here at the capital instead of back at our domain?"
She considered that with almost the care Roshnani might have given it before answering. "There are good things here I could never have had in the stronghold." She glanced down at the sleeping Jarirehremembering Kishmar and Onnophre, Abivard knew Denak could have had a baby in the women's quarters, but he kept quietthen over to Sharbaraz. The King of Kings smiled as his eyes met hers; the two of them seemed well enough content with each other.
Denak went on, "But, at times, it's harder here. I often feel very much a stranger, which of course would never have happened back home. Some of the women in the women's quarters openly resent me for being principal wife when my blood's not of the highest."
"I've told them they'd better not," Sharbaraz said sharply. "When they've rendered a hundredth part of the service you have, then they may begin to complain."
"Oh, I don't much mind that," Denak said. "If I were in their slippers, I should probably resent me, too. The ones who frighten me, though, are those who spread on sweetness as if it were mutton fat on a chunk of pocket bread, when in their eyes I see them wishing I'd tread on a viper. You'd not see that sort of dissembling back at Vek Rud stronghold."
"No?" Abivard said. "You were already at Nalgis Crag when Ardini tried to bespell me, but you must have heard about it when you came home again."
"That's true; I did," Denak said in a small voice. "I'd forgotten." She laughed, perhaps in embarrassment, perhaps nervously. "Memory always makes the things you've left behind seem better than they really were, doesn't it?"
"Sometimes it can make bad things seem better than they were," Sharbaraz said. "Then it's a blessing from the God."
"And other times, when you sit and brood . . ." Denak didn't go on. She shook her head, angry at herself. "I try to forget, I truly do. But sometimes things swim up, all unbidden. It doesn't happen as often now as it did before."
"Good," Sharbaraz said. "If the God is kind, we have many years ahead of us in this world. Before the time your span is done, my principal wife, I pray your troubles will have vanished altogether from your mind."
"May it be so," Denak said. Abivard echoed her.
Sharbaraz turned to him. "Now you know part of why I summoned you here. As I told you, I'll want you to stay in Mashiz. You showed in the battles of the past two years that you're fit to be one of my great captains. You've hoped to lead an army against Videssos; now that hope comes true."
Abivard bowed. "Majesty, you could do me no greater honor."
Sharbaraz laughed. "That's not honor, brother-in-law of mine: That's because I need you. The other part of the reason I ordered you here to Mashiz was to do you honor. I shall lay on a great feast tonight, and summon courtiers and soldiers to see what sort of man has a sister fit for the King of Kings."
Now Abivard laughed nervously. "One with a northwestern accent and rustic ways, one from the lesser nobility rather than the Seven Clans"
"One who makes too little of himself," Sharbaraz interrupted. "Remember, the purpose of the feast is to honor you, and I delight in doing so. Everyone there, no matter how high his blood, will be hoping you offer him a cheek to kiss; and for all of them, the choice will be yours."
"The prospect is . . . dizzying, Majesty," Abivard said. "That grandees from all over Makuran will be noting what I do, what I say . . . almost I wouldn't mind going back to obscurity, just for the sake of escaping that."
"If you hadn't said 'almost,' I would be angry with you," Sharbaraz answered. "I know you traveled here quickly, I know you're worn, and I know you'll want to be properly decked out to meet the court: clothes are armor of a sort. Sleep for a bit, if you care to; when you wake, or when we wake you, we'll see to it that you're properly bathed and groomed and dressed."
Sharbaraz and Denak left the little room. Abivard stretched out among the pillows on the floor and did fall asleep. A eunuch presently woke him and led him to a steaming chamber where he soaked in deliciously warm water, then rubbed scented oil on himself and scraped it off with a strigil, Videssian-style. A barber curled his hair and beard with hot irons, then waxed the tip of that beard and his mustachios to disciplined stiffness. He had to admire the image he made in a polished bronze mirror the barber handed him.
The caftan the eunuch brought him was of saffron silk shot through with silver threads. He knew it must have come from the closet of the King of Kings and tried to protest, but the eunuch was gently implacable. Along with the caftan came a bucket-shaped pilos, also covered in saffron silk, for Abivard's head and a pair of sandals with heavy silver buckles. The sandals fit perfectly, which impressed him all over again, for his feet were smaller than Sharbaraz's.
When he was properly turned out, the eunuch conducted him to the dining hall. He hoped a servitor would conduct him back when the feast was done; he had doubts about finding his way around the immense palace without help.
A man with a big, deep voice called out his name when he entered the dining hall. Immediately he found himself under siege, for the courtiers and generals of Makuran converged on him to introduce themselves, to put forward their schemes, and to take his measure.
From what they said, every word that fell from his lips was a perfect pearl of wisdom. Until that evening, he had thought he knew what flattery meant. Listening to such fulsome praise was seductive, like having a sloe-eyed dancer sway before you while the tambours and pandouras poured forth a passionate tune. But, just as the dancer might take you to bed more in hope of a gold bracelet than for yourself, so the courtiers' fulsome words were also plainly self-seeking.
At last Abivard said, "Gentlemen, were I as wise as you make me out to be, which for a mortal man not of the Four seems scarcely possible, would I not see that you are interested in me as brother-in-law to Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase, rather than as Abivard son of Godarz, who otherwise would scarcely draw your notice?"
That produced a sudden, thoughtful silence. The crush around him drew back a little. He hoped he hadn't offended the grandees of Makuranbut if he had, he would bear up under it.
Sharbaraz came in just then, with Denak on his arm. The arrival of the King of Kings cast all lesser luminaries, Abivard included, into the shade. The eunuchs presently began moving people to their proper places. Abivard was surprised to note that a couple of men had, like Sharbaraz, brought their wives with them to the feast. There as in other matters, the royal pleasure counted for a great deal.
Abivard took his place at Sharbaraz's right hand. Servitors fetched in wine, a sherbet of quinces and lemon juice, and another of rhubarb sweetened with honey. For the opening toast, everyone filled his cup with wine. Sharbaraz proclaimed, "Let us drink to Abivard, whom the King of Kings delights to honor!"
In return, Abivard rose and said, "Let us drink to the King of Kings, to the Makuran he rules, and to vengeance for Likinios Avtokrator!"
A storm of applause washed over him. "Hosios," who sat at the same table, clapped loud and long. Abivard wondered if his ambitions were for Sharbaraz and Makuran or for himself.
Then the waiters brought in tureens of soup, and Abivard stopped worrying about anything but his appetite. The soup was a simple oneyogurt thinned with water, finely chopped cucumber, and ground onions, with raisins sprinkled over the top. Salt was the only spice Abivard could taste. A peasant might have served the dish's like. Of its kind, though, it was as good as any Abivard had ever had.
After the soup came bowls of buttered rice topped with slices of mutton spiced with cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, and ground rosebuds. More yogurt and raw eggs accompanied the dish. Abivard spooned yogurt into his bowl, then broke two raw eggs and stirred them into the rice, too.
He didn't remember eating raw eggs in Videssos, and glanced over at "Hosios." The man who would take the place of Likinios' murdered son mixed eggs into his rice without a qualm. Abivard caught his eye and said, "You have a taste for Makuraner food, I see."
"So I do, eminent sir," "Hosios" answered. "I've eaten it a great many times, and find it tasty." Maybe he had been a merchant, then, and in the habit of going back and forth between Videssos and Makuran.
The servants cleared away the bowls after the feasters had emptied them. This time they set plates before the grandees: gleaming copper for those tables farthest from the King of Kings, silver for those closer, and gold for his table. Abivard stared at his platter. With such wealth as this at his command, Smerdis had chosen to squeeze his nobles to find money to pay the Khamorth! Truly the man had been a fool.
On the plates the servitors set pieces of braised duck cooked in a sweet-and-sour sauce of onions fired in sesame oil, pomegranate syrup, lemon juice, honey, pepper, and pistachios ground to powder. More pistachios, these chopped coarsely, were sprinkled over the duck. Abivard worried meat from the bones with knife and fingers, then dipped his hands into a bowl of rose-scented water and dried them on a square of pure white linen.
Talk and wine and sherbets occupied the meal. By the time he got down the last bite of fat-rich duck, Abivard was convinced, as he had been on the day he returned to Vek Rud stronghold, he would never need to eat again. He had been wrong then; he supposed he might be wrong now.
He soon found he was. From the kitchen came goblets filled with a compote of melon balls and peach slices in a syrup of honey, lime juice, and rose water. As a special treat, they were topped with snow brought down from the peaks of the Dilbat Mountains.
Abivard got to his feet. "Behold the power of the King of Kings, who brings snow to Mashiz in summer!" he called.
Again the nobles cheeredthis time, he reckoned, for him and Sharbaraz both. Sharbaraz beamed. Abivard sat quickly down to enjoy the wonder; not all the power of the King of Kings could long keep snow from melting here at this season.
The snow glittered in the light of lamps and torches. That gleam called to mind Tanshar's last prophecy: a silver shield shining across a narrow sea. The sea, Abivard was suddenly certain, would be the strip of salt water that separated the Videssian westlands from Videssos the city, the great imperial capital. But who would make the shield shine, and why?
Abivard dug his spoon into the compote. When Sharbaraz moved against Videssos, he would find out.