Maniakes exhaled through his nose. "First of all, you weren't 'ready to hand' when I needed a Sevastos. You were off in your piddlepot little town. You hadn't been my right arm all the way through the war with Genesios, and Rhegorios had. And ever since I gave him the post, he's done a first-rate job with it. We've been over this ground before, brother of mine. Why do you want to walk down the track again?"
"Because I didn't think you'd be stupid enough to commit in-" Parsmanios stopped, not quite soon enough.
"You are dismissed from our presence." Maniakes' voice went cold as a winter storm. "You have incurred our displeasure. We do not care to speak with you again until you have expiated your offense against us. Go." He hadn't used the imperial we half a dozen times since he had become Avtokrator, and now twice inside a few days. It seemed a better way to show his anger than shouting for the guards to fling Parsmanios in the gaol that lay under the government office building on Middle Street.
Parsmanios stalked away. Not two minutes later, Rhegorios rapped on the door jamb. "My cousin your brother looked imperfectly delighted with the world when he walked out of the residence here," he remarked.
"Your cousin my brother will look even less delighted if he tries to set foot in the residence any time soon," Maniakes answered, still fuming.
"Let me guess," Rhegorios said. "If it takes more than one, go get yourself someone with a working set of wits and put him in my place."
"You're in no danger there." Maniakes kicked at the floor. If he did it often enough, he might tear loose a couple of tiles from the mosaic there. That would give him the feeling he had accomplished something and vex Kameas when he noticed, which he would in a matter of hours. Kicking again, Maniakes went on, "When even my own brother shouts incest at me-"
"I wouldn't lose any sleep over it, my cousin your Majesty brother-in-law of mine." Rhegorios grinned at the clumsy collection of titles he had used to label Maniakes. "Forgive my bluntness, but I have trouble seeing Parsmanios leading rioters baying for your head."
"Now that you mention it, so do I." Maniakes came over to slap Rhegorios on the shoulder. "If you were leading the rioters, now-"
"They'd be laughing, not baying," Rhegorios said. "Most of the time, I just amuse people." Despite that claim, his face was serious. "But I might have been out there trying to make the mob howl, you know."
Maniakes gave him a pained look. "Not you, too? You never let on… and if you had, I don't see how Lysia and I could have gone on."
"I might have been out there, I said. Before I did anything, though, I went and talked with my sister. For some reason or other, marrying you was what she wanted to do, and I've come to have a great deal of respect for Lysia's good sense. If you have any sense of your own, you'll pay attention to her, too."
"I intend to," Maniakes answered. "If I didn't think I wanted to listen to her when she told me something, this would have happened differently."
"Yes, I can see how it might have." Rhegorios thought for a moment. "Better this way." He nodded judiciously. So did the Avtokrator.
Maniakes looked forward to Midwinter's Day with the same eager anticipation a little unwalled town in the westlands felt on the approach of Abivard's army. He could not hold back the passing days, though, and avoiding the Amphitheater would have been an unthinkable confession of weakness. When the festival came, he and Lysia went out across the plaza of Palamas to the great stone bowl where, he confidently expected, they would be mocked without mercy.
A few of the people in the plaza made a point of turning away from the Avtokrator and his new bride. More, though, treated them with the casual equality that was everyone's due on Midwinter's Day. The two of them leapt over a fire hand in hand, shouting, "Burn, ill-luck!"
Inside the Amphitheater, some catcalls and hisses greeted Maniakes and Lysia. He pretended not to hear them and squeezed Lysia's hand. She squeezed back, hard; she was not used to public abuse.
The elder Maniakes and her own father and brother greeted her warmly when she and the Avtokrator ascended to the spine of the Amphitheater. So did Tzikas, who looked splendid in a gilded chain-mail coat. Parsmanios tried to make his nods to her and Maniakes civil, but did not succeed well. The elder Maniakes scowled at him. Afterward, Parsmanios worked harder at acting friendly, but managed only to pour honey on top of vinegar.
Agathios the patriarch made no effort to be friendly. As far as he was concerned, Maniakes and Lysia might as well not have existed. He did recite the creed to begin the day's events, but even that felt perfunctory.
After the patriarch sat down once more, Maniakes took his place at the spot from which he could speak to the whole Amphitheater. "People of Videssos the city," he said, "people of the Empire of Videssos, we have all of us had another hard year. The lord with the great and good mind willing, when we gather here for the next Midwinter's Day, we shall have passed through sorrow into happiness. So may it be."
"So may it be," the people echoed, the acoustics of the Amphitheater making their voices din in his ears.
"Now let the revelry begin!" Maniakes shouted, and sat down to make as if he enjoyed the lampoons the mimes were going to aim at him. Anything can happen on Midwinter's Day: so the saying went. Usually that meant something like finding an unexpected love affair. But it could have other, more sinister meanings as well.
To the Avtokrator's relief, the first mime troupe mocked only his failure to regain the westlands. He had seen himself portrayed as running away from anything in Makuraner armor-even if it was an old man on a swaybacked mule-and as fouling his robes while he ran: mimes had been making those jokes about him since he took the throne. If he had managed to smile for them before, he could do it again without straining himself unduly.
When the troupe trooped off, he glanced over to Lysia. She smiled back and mouthed, "So far, so good." He nodded; he had been thinking the same thing.
It didn't stay good for long. The very next troupe of mimes had a fellow dressed in gaudy robes and wearing a crown of gilded parchment sniffing lasciviously after a band of pretty little girls played by pretty little boys in wigs and dresses. When he found one who wore a dress much like his robe and a scarf much like his crown, he slung her over his shoulder and carried her away with a lecherous smirk on his face.
The crowd roared laughter. It dinned in Maniakes' ears. He had to sit there and pretend to be amused. As he had warned her to do, Lysia also feigned a smile. But, through that false expression, she said, "What a filthy lie! I'm not that far from your own age, and anyone who knows anything about us knows it."
But most of the people in the city didn't really know anything about Maniakes and Lysia. That was the point. The city mob formed its opinions from things like mime shows and seventh-hand gossip.
Some people who did know Maniakes and Lysia were laughing, too. Parsmanios, for instance, was on the far side of a polite show of mirth. So was Kourikos, who sat farther down the spine among the high-ranking bureaucrats. Not far away from him, Tzikas, glittering in that mail shirt, sat quiet, sedate, and discreet. So did Agathios. The ecumenical patriarch continued to walk his fine line, disapproving of the Avtokrator's conduct but not seeking to inflame the city by his own.
Maybe I should have sent him as envoy to Sharbaraz, Maniakes thought, wondering what had happened to poor Triphylles.
Another troupe came out. This one lampooned Niphone's funeral, with people throwing up all along the route. It was in extremely bad taste, which meant the crowd ate it up. Maniakes bared his teeth, curled the corners of his mouth upward, and endured.