Roshnani's face lit up like the summer sun at noon. "Thank you," she said quietly. "A chance at seeing the world tempts me to do something most publicly indecorous to show how grateful I am."
"You and Denak have already been indecorous enough for any three dozen women I could think of," Abivard growled in his severest tones. His principal wife and sister hung their heads and looked abashed. Why not? They had won what they wanted.
Abivard started to scold them some more, but then got to wondering whether something publicly indecorous might not be privately enjoyable. That distracted him enough that the scolding never got delivered.
In the saddle and southbound… Abivard rode joyfully toward civil war. The rightful King of Kings rode at his side, on a horse from his stables. A good copy of the lion banner of Makuran floated at the fore of Sharbaraz's host.
Warriors rode by clan, each man most comfortable with comrades from the same domain. Abivard worried about how well they would fight as a unit, but reflected that Peroz's army, which had ridden forth against the Khamorth, was no more tightly organized, which meant Smerdis' troops weren't likely to be, either.
When he remarked on that, Sharbaraz said, "No, I don't expect them to be. If we were riding against Videssians, I'd worry about how loose-jointed our arrangements are, but they won't hurt us against our own countrymen."
"How are the Videssians different?" Abivard asked. "I've heard endless tales of them, but no two the same."
"My guess is that that's because of how different they are," Sharbaraz answered seriously. "They care nothing for clans when they fight, but go here and there in big blocks to the sound of their officers' horns and drums. They might as well be so many cups on the rim of a water wheel or some other piece of machinery. They take discipline better than our men, that's certain."
"Why don't they sweep everything before them, then?" Abivard asked; the picture Sharbaraz had painted was an intimidating one.
"Two main reasons," the rightful King of Kings answered. "First, they prefer the bow to the lance, which means a strong charge into their midst will often scatter 'em. And second and more important, they may have discipline, but they don't have our fire. They fight as if to win points in a game, not for the sake of it, and often they'll yield or flee where we might go on and win." Abivard filed the lore away in his mind. He was building himself a picture of the foes he had never seen, against the day when Makuran's internal strife ended and Sharbaraz would begin to settle scores. Much of the Empire of Videssos bordered the sea. Abivard wondered if he would meet the third part of Tanshar's prophecy there.
No way to know that but to await the day. He glanced back toward the baggage train, where Tanshar rode with several other fortune-tellers and wizards their lords had brought with the warriors. Abivard wondered if the men could ward the army against the more polished magicians Smerdis might gather from Mashiz. He was glad to have Tanshar along; every familiar face was welcome.
Also traveling with the baggage train was a wagon that carried not wheat or smoked mutton or hay for the horses or arrows neatly tied in sheaves of twenty to fit into quivers and bowcases but his sister, his principal wife, and a couple of serving women from Vek Rud stronghold. He had nothing but misgivings about the venture, but hoped it would turn out well-or not too disastrously.
For the time being, the horses were not eating much of the fodder the army had brought along for them. In spring, even the dun land between oases and rivers took on a coat of green. Soon the sun would bake it dry again, but the animals could graze and nibble while it lasted.
That was as well, for Sharbaraz's host swelled with every new domain it approached. Horsemen flocked to his banner, calling down curses on Smerdis' usurping gray head. When yet another such contingent rode in, Abivard exclaimed to Sharbaraz, "Majesty, this is no campaign, just a triumphal procession."
"Good," Sharbaraz answered. "We threw away too many lives against the plainsmen last summer; we can't afford to squander more in civil war, lest winning prove near as costly as losing. We still need to protect ourselves from our foes and take vengeance on them. In fact, I've even sent a rider on ahead to Smerdis to tell him I'll spare his worthless life if he gives up the throne without a fight."
Abivard weighed that, nodding. "I think you did well. He never showed ambition till the once, and you'd watch him so close, he'd never get another chance."
"Wouldn't I?" Sharbaraz said. "He couldn't sit his arse down in the backhouse without an eye on him."
But before Sharbaraz formally heard from his rival for the throne, he got his answer another way. Off to the east, the snowcapped peaks of the Dilbat Mountains showed the way southward; the army would have to skirt them and then come back up on the far side of the range to approach Mashiz. Already the weather was noticeably hotter than Abivard would have expected so early in the season.
A scout came galloping back toward the main body of Sharbaraz's host, shouting "There's troopers up ahead looking for a fight. They shot enough arrows at me to make a good-size tree; the God's own mercy I wasn't pincushioned."
"Looking for a fight, are they?" Sharbaraz said grimly. "I think we shall oblige them."
Horns blared; drums thudded. From what Sharbaraz had said to Abivard, that would have been plenty to move units of a Videssian army as if they were pieces going from square to square on a gameboard. Abivard wished his countrymen were as smooth. Zal and his squadron of ironclad professionals came forward front and center, to form the spearhead of the force. Despite martial music and endless shouts both from their own dihqans and from the officers Sharbaraz had appointed, most of the rest of the warriors, at least to Abivard's jaundiced eye, did more milling about than forming.
But by the time he saw dust ahead, the host had shaken itself out into a battle line of sorts. Zal shouted frantically at anyone who would listen. The only trouble was, next to nobody listened. A raw army with raw officers wouldn't win battles by discipline and maneuver. Courage and fury and numbers would have to do instead.
Okhos rode by, his fuzz-bearded face alight with excitement. He drew his sword and flourished it to Abivard; he almost cut off the ear of the man next to him, but never noticed. Roshnani's younger brother said, "We'll slaughter them all and wade in their blood!"
Minstrels sang such verses when they wandered from stronghold to stronghold, hoping to cadge a night's supper on the strength of their songs. Grown men who knew war smiled at them and enjoyed the poetry without taking it seriously. Trouble was, Okhos wasn't a grown man; he had fewer summers behind him than Frada. Minstrels' verses were all he knew of the battlefield, or had been until the Khamorth started raiding his domain.
Then Abivard stopped worrying about how his brother-in-law would fare and started worrying about himself. On across the flat ground came Smerdis' army, growing closer faster than Abivard would have thought possible. At their fore flew the lion banner of Makuran. Beside Abivard, Sharbaraz murmured, "The curse of civil war: both sides bearing the same emblem."
"Aye," Abivard said, though that was more philosophical than he felt like being with battle fast approaching. "Well, if they don't see for themselves that they picked the wrong man to follow, we'll have to show them." The oncoming troops seemed resolute enough. Abivard filled his lungs and shouted defiance at them: "Sharbaraaaz!"
In an instant, the whole host took up the cry. It drowned in a cacophony of hatred whatever signals officers and musicians were trying to give. At last the nobles of the northwest and their retainers had a chance to come to grips with the man who had not only stolen the throne but stolen their money and given it to the barbarians who had killed their kin-without keeping those barbarians off their lands afterward as promised.