She shook her head. "There should not have been these two. The blame for them is mine; I failed to keep proper watch on the women's quarters. But the fate of these two sluts and their worthless brats lies in your hands."
"Oh, dear," Abivard said again. If he felt like slaughtering the women and the babies, he would have been within his rights. Many a dihqan would have whipped out his sword without a second thought. Many a dihqan wouldn't have waited to hear what the miscreant wives had to say; he would have slain them as soon as he saw the babes in their arms.
"What will you do with those who have brought cuckoo's eggs into your nest?" Burzoe demanded. Her eyes expected blood.
Roshnani stood silent. This choice was Abivard's, not hers. All the same, he looked at her. He could not read her face. He sighed. "I make a decent soldier," he said wearily, "but I find I haven't it in me to be a butcher. I shall find black pebbles and divorce them and send them far away. Too many in Makuran have died this past year. Four more will not help."
"It is not enough!" Burzoe cried, and Abivard was reminded overwhelmingly of Denak's dismay at anything that smacked of half measures. Father and son, mother and daughter, he thought.
Kishmar and Onnophre babbled out thanks and blessings. Onnophre took a step forward, as if to embrace him, then checked herself, which was one of the wiser things she had done. Abivard said, "If I didn't put Ardini to the sword, how can I kill these two? They weren't so much wicked as foolish. They can sew; they can spin. They'll make their way in the world."
"Cast them out at once then," Burzoe said. "Every day they stay in the women's quarters adds to their shame-and to my own."
Abivard suspected the latter concern weighed more heavily in his mother's mind than the former. He said, "Since the scandal has been here for months, one more day to settle it won't matter. I've been away for more than a year. Today I aim to enjoy my return."
Burzoe's upraised eyebrows spoke eloquently of disagreement, but all she said was, "You are the dihqan of Vek Rud domain and the master of the women's quarters. It shall be as you ordain."
Abivard's soon-to-be-former wives showered him with benedictions. They could have faced the sword like Smerdis, with their babes left out on the hillside for dogs and ravens, and well they knew it. No doubt it hadn't seemed real to them while he was away on campaign. He might not have come back at all, in which case their adulteries stood a chance of going unpunished. Having him before them suddenly put matters in a different light.
"Be still," he said, in a voice he might have used to order his lancers to charge. Onnophre and Kishmar stared at him. No one, plainly, had ever spoken to them so. If someone had, perhaps they might not have found themselves in their present predicament. He went on, "I do not forgive you. I merely spare you. If the God grant that you find other husbands, use them better than you did me." The women started to talk. He overrode them: "You've said too much, you've done too much already. Take your bastard babes and get out of my sight. Tomorrow I will find the black pebbles and send you forth."
They fled out of Burzoe's chamber. Burzoe looked at him with a small, grudging hint of approval. "That was well done," she said.
"Was it?" Abivard felt weak and sick inside, as if he had just been through a battle in which he almost died. "Tomorrow it will be over. They can go off and be stupid at someone else's expense, not mine."
"It won't be easy for them, even so," Roshnani said. "Yes, they can earn their bread, but they'll have hard lessons in living outside the women's quarters. How to deal with butchers and merchants, how to speak to men-"
"That they know already," Burzoe said savagely.
"What would you have had me do?" Abivard asked Roshnani.
She sighed. "What you could do, you did. As you said, this should be a day of joy. I'm glad you chose not to stain your hands with blood here."
Burzoe shook her head. "He was soft. Mercy now will only encourage others to act as those sluts did."
"Mother of my husband, we do not agree." Roshnani's voice was quiet. She did not offer Burzoe argument, but she did not back away from her own view, either.
Burzoe did not seem to know what to make of that. Roshnani had been properly deferential, as a daughter-in-law should have, but had not yielded, as most daughters-in-law would have. The combination was disconcerting. She took refuge in a common complaint: "You young people have no respect for the way things should be done. If I'd gone gallivanting off to the ends of the world the way you and Denak did, I don't know-and I don't want to think about-what would have happened to my reputation."
"Nothing happened to Denak's reputation," Roshnani said with the same quiet determination to get her point across that she had shown before, "save that she got to bear a child who, with luck, will be King of Kings far earlier than she could have if she'd stayed behind here till the war was won."
"If Roshnani hadn't come with us, the war likely would have been lost, not won," Abivard told his mother, and explained how it had been his principal wife who had the idea to take refuge in Videssos. He added, "If they'd stayed, you probably never would have had a grandchild with a chance to be King of Kings."
"Custom-" Burzoe said, but she let it go as that. The prospect of a King of Kings or royal princess as a grandchild did have considerable allure.
Abivard said, "Nor will the world end if Roshnani, who after all has already traveled far, sometimes comes out of the women's quarters to see the rest of the stronghold. Sharbaraz King of Kings has promised to allow Denak the same liberty in the palace at Mashiz, and how can following what the King of Kings does be wrong?"
"I don't know the answer to that-you'd have to ask Smerdis," his mother replied tartly. Abivard felt his ears heat. Roshnani sucked in her breath with a sudden sharp sound-Burzoe could still be formidable. But she went on, "You will do as you will do and take no special notice of me in the doing. So life goes, however the old try to make it otherwise. But if you think you will make me love the changes you work, please think again."
Greatly daring, Abivard went over to her and put an arm around her shoulder. She had always been the one to console him, never the other way round-till now. He said, "By the God, Mother, I shall let no dishonor come to Vek Rud stronghold, nor to any who dwell here."
"I thought the same," Burzoe said, "and look what came of it."
"It will be all right," Abivard said with the confidence of youth. Roshnani nodded vigorously.
Now it was Burzoe who did not agree but forbore to argue. She said, "It will be as it is, however that may prove. But I know, son, that you would sooner be feasting than dealing with the troubles of the women's quarters-or with me. Go on, then. Perhaps the lady your wife will spend a little while here and regale us with tales of the far-off lands she's seen."
"Of course I will," Roshnani said at once. Abivard could read her thoughts: the more women heard of the outside world, the less content they would be with separation from it.
Maybe Burzoe saw that, maybe she didn't. In either case, having made the invitation, she could scarcely withdraw it. Abivard took leave of them both. He locked the door to the women's quarters behind him-not that that had mattered much to Onnophre and Kishmar. He wondered who had fathered their children. If he ever found out, Vek Rud stronghold would have a couple of more folk leaving it.
Frada still waited in the hallway not far from the dihqan's bedchamber. "You heard?" he demanded. Abivard nodded. His brother went on, "What will you do?"
"I'll divorce them both tomorrow and send them out of here," Abivard answered.
"That will do. I've seen too much blood spilled this past year to want more on my hands."
His brother's shoulders slumped with relief. "I told Mother your answer would be something like that. She was all for taking their heads the minute their bellies started bulging." He rolled his eyes. "We went round and round on that one like peasant women in a ring dance. Finally I got her to wait for your word."