Abivard walked over to her and put his arms around her. "It's gone," he said.
"You're you, no one else, just as you should be."
She shuddered under his touch, then twisted away. "I'll never be just as I should be, don't you understand?" she cried. "I left what I should be behind forever at Nalgis Crag stronghold."
"What, being Pradtak's wife?" Abivard said scornfully. "The cursed traitor doesn't deserve you."
"That's so," Sharbaraz agreed.
He started to say something more, but Denak cut him off with a sharp chopping motion of her right hand. "What you say of Pradtak is true, but not to the point. I left more than marriage behind in that stronghold. I lost my honor there, as well."
"Aiding the King of Kings against those who wrongfully imprisoned him is no dishonor," Abivard said. "You…" His voice trailed away as at last he found a reason why Denak might have kicked Sharbaraz's guard while he was unconscious, why donning his image was almost more than she could bear. He stared at her. "Did he…? Did they…?" He couldn't go on.
"He did. They all did," she answered bleakly. "It was the price they took from me for letting me in to serve the rightful King of Kings. They cared nothing that I had Pradtak's permission; they were Smerdis' men, they said. And if I spoke a word of it to anyone, Sharbaraz would be dead in his cell one day. I knew, as you did, that he was Makuran's only hope, and so-I yielded myself to them."
"It's done. It's over." The words came flat and empty from Abivard's mouth. It might be done, but it would never be over. He felt sick inside. No matter why Denak had done what she did, how was he supposed to look at her after knowing of it?
She understood that, too. Shaking her head, she said, "All the way along the track down Nalgis Crag, I kept wishing I had the courage to throw myself over a cliff. Without my honor, what am I?"
Abivard found no answer. Nor did Tanshar, who sat by the fire, slumped and numb with fatigue. Nor did Sharbaraz, not at first; he got down on hands and knees and scratched in the dirt for several minutes. At last, with a grunt of triumph, he rose once more and showed what he held in his hands: three black pebbles.
"As rightful King of Kings, I have certain powers beyond those of ordinary men," he declared. He threw one of the black pebbles down onto the ground from which he'd grubbed it. "Denak, I divorce you from Pradtak." He repeated the formula twice more, making the divorce complete.
Denak remained disheartened. "I know you mean that kindly, your Majesty, but it does nothing for me. No doubt Pradtak, too, will cast the pebbles against me when he eventually gets free of your shape and your cell. But what good does it do me?"
"Lady, not even the King of Kings has the power-though some have claimed it-to ask the hand of a woman wed to another man," Sharbaraz said. "Thus I needed to free you from that union."
"But… your Majesty!" Denak's words stumbled out one and two at a time.
"You-of all people-know how I… threw away my honor in the hall in front of your cell."
Sharbaraz shook his head. "I know you won great honor there, giving without concern for yourself that I, that Makuran, might go on. If you know nothing else of me, know I always aid those who aid me and punish those who do me wrong. When I sit on the throne in Mashiz once more, you shall sit beside me as my principal wife. By the God and the Four I swear it."
Abivard was never sure whether he or Denak first went down into a prostration before Sharbaraz. His sister was sobbing still, but with a different note now, as if, against all expectation, the sacrifice and humiliation she had endured might have been of some worth after all.
"Honor lost is honor won," Sharbaraz said. "Rise, Denak, and you, Abivard. We have much to do before I return to my proper place in Mashiz."
"Aye, your Majesty." As Abivard got back to his feet, he glanced over at Tanshar, who was taking bread and dates from the saddlebag of a packhorse. The fortune-teller's second prophecy echoed within him: honor won and honor lost in a tall tower. He had seen that, sure enough, and more of each than Abivard had imagined.
Where, he wondered, would he find that flash of light across a narrow sea? And what would it bring with it?
Godarz had taught Abivard many things: how to ride, how to rule a domain, how to think of next year instead of tomorrow. One thing he had not taught him was how to be a rebel. Abivard didn't think Godarz had ever dreamed-or had nightmares-of opposing Vek Rud domain to the power of the King of Kings in Mashiz.
Whatever he did, then, he had to do on his own, without his father's advice and warnings echoing in the back of his mind. He missed them. He had grown used to the idea that Godarz had an answer for everything and, could he but find it, all would be well. In the game he played now, that was not so.
Nor could he simply sit idle and let Sharbaraz bear the whole burden of the war against Smerdis. Not only would that have been unseemly for the King of Kings' brother-in-law-for Sharbaraz had kept his promise and wed Denak as soon as he came into Vek Rud stronghold-but Abivard knew most of the frontier dihqans better than his sovereign did.
"Old news," Sharbaraz complained one evening, munching bulgur wheat with pine nuts and mutton drenched in a sauce of yogurt and crushed mint leaves. "I know the domains, and I know of the lords they had before our army went into Pardraya, but how many of those lords still live? One here, one there. Mostly, though, it's their sons and grandsons and nephews who carry on for them, men whose ways I never studied. Whereas you-"
"Aye, I've hunted with some of them and played mallet and ball against others at festivals and the like, but I can't claim to know them well. Most of my dealings with them have been after I made my way back from Pardraya."
"Those are the important dealings, now," Sharbaraz said. "If we cannot bring the northwest to my banner, you might as well have left me mured up in Nalgis Crag stronghold, for that would prove Smerdis, curse him through the Void, will be the sure winner in our struggle."
Abivard rose from the bench in the kitchen and paced back and forth. "If we wrote out the lists of opposing forces on parchment, ours would be much smaller and weaker than Smerdis' even if all the northwestern dihqans went over to you," he said. "How do we go about overcoming that advantage?"
"If all the forces loyal to Smerdis today stay loyal to him, we're doomed," Sharbaraz answered. "I don't believe they will. I think most of them are with him because they believe I gave up the throne of my own free will. When they learn that isn't so, they'll flock to my banner."
They had better, Abivard thought. Otherwise we'll see how bitter a death Smerdis can devise for us. That, however, was not the sort of notion he could share with the man he reckoned his sovereign.
Sharbaraz looked up at him. Nothing about his dress proclaimed him King of Kings: he wore one of Abivard's woolen caftans, a good enough garment but hardly a royal robe. A bit of yogurt was stuck in his beard, just below one corner of his mouth. But when he spoke, confidence rang in his voice like a horn calclass="underline" "When you rescued me from Pradtak's stronghold, you didn't stop to reckon up the cost or what would come afterward-you simply did what was right. We'll go on that way, and the God will surely smile on us."
"May it be so, your Majesty," Abivard answered.
"It shall be so," Sharbaraz said fiercely, slamming a fist down on the stone table in front of him. As they had before, his words set Abivard afire inside, made him want to leap onto his horse and charge down on Mashiz, sweeping everything before him by sheer force of will.