In the space of a few minutes, Sharbaraz had gone from gloom about the way Smerdis' backers declined to go over to him to excitement at the prospect of starving his rival into submission. Abivard wished he could lose his depressions as readily. But he, like Godarz before him, seemed a man who went through life without sinking deep into the valleys or climbing high on the peaks.
He said, "First things first, Majesty. Once we have Mashiz, assuming we don't bag Smerdis with it, then we can worry about hunting him down. Otherwise we're riding our horses before we bridle and saddle them." He laughed ruefully. "I have to say I'm just as well pleased we're not storming the capital tomorrow. I'd not be much use to you, even on a horse already bridled and saddled."
"You let yourself mend," Sharbaraz said, as if giving an order to some recalcitrant underling. "Thank the God we won't be doing much in the way of fighting till you're ready to play your proper part once more. You set me straight very smartly there when I let enthusiasm push me like a leaf on the breeze."
"Your Majesty is kind." Abivard was pleased with Sharbaraz. As long as the rightful King of Kings could recognize when he was letting his passion of the moment-whatever it might be-run away with him, he would do well. The question was, how long would that last after he won his civil war?
Sharbaraz reached out and touched him on the shoulder-gently, so as not to jostle his poor battered head. "I have to go off and see to the army. I expect I'll be back this evening, to visit you and Denak both. Rest easy till then."
"Your Majesty, what choice have I?" Abivard said. "Even if I wanted to be out and doing, Roshnani would flatten me should I try to get up without her leave. Men usually keep their wives shut up in women's quarters, but here she has me trapped."
Sharbaraz laughed loud and long at that, as if it hadn't been true. He ducked out of the cubicle; Abivard listened to him getting onto his horse and riding away. He was already shouting orders, as if he had forgotten all about the man he had just visited. Rationally, Abivard knew that wasn't so, but it irked him anyhow.
As a proper Makuraner wife should, Roshnani had stayed out of sight while another man visited her husband. She returned to the cubicle as soon as Sharbaraz was gone. "So I've trapped you here, have I?" she said.
"You were listening."
"How could I help it, when only curtains separate one part of the wagon from the next?" Looking innocent and mischievous at the same time, she pulled shut the curtain that opened onto the cubicle. "So you're trapped here, are you?" she repeated, and knelt beside him. "Trapped and flat on your back, are you?"
"What are you doing?" Abivard squawked as she hiked up his caftan. She didn't answer, not in words; her long black hair spilled over his belly and thighs. He did his best to rise to the occasion, and his best proved quite good enough.
Where southern Makuran was a desert, it was barer than the wasteland around Vek Rud domain. Where it was fertile, it was far richer. "We tax the land here at twice the rate we use in the northwest," Sharbaraz said to Abivard, "and even then, some of the ministers think we are too lenient."
"Crops are very fine here," Abivard admitted. "What are the winters like?"
"You've driven the nail home," Sharbaraz said, nodding. "I'd read of winters on the steppe and close to it, but never lived through one till I was sent to Nalgis Crag stronghold and then went on to yours even closer to the frontier. Here they grow things the year around; they get snow only about one winter in two."
Remembering blizzards and snowdrifts and hail and ice three months of every year and sometimes four or five, Abivard laughed at that. He couldn't make up his mind whether to find it unnatural or one of the most wonderful things he had ever heard.
Before he decided, a scout rode back toward Sharbaraz. Saluting, the fellow said, "Majesty, a party of riders is approaching under shield of truce."
"Let them come to me," Sharbaraz said at once. "Tell them that if they're conveying Smerdis' surrender, I'll be happy to accept it." The scout laughed, wheeled his horse, and booted the animal up to a gallop as he went off to escort the newcomers to the rightful King of Kings. Sharbaraz turned back to Abivard and chuckled ruefully. "I'd be happy to accept Smerdis' surrender, aye, but I don't think I'm going to get it."
A few minutes later, a whole squadron of scouts came back with Smerdis' delegation. Without being ordered to do so, they placed themselves between Sharbaraz and Smerdis' men-no assassinations here. The scout who had announced the coming of the truce party said, "Majesty, here are the usurper's dogs." Scorn harshened his voice.
A couple of Smerdis' followers stirred restlessly on their horses, but none of them spoke. Sharbaraz did. Pointing to one of their number, he said, "Ah, Inshushinak, so you've taken the old man's silver, have you?"
Inshushinak was hardly in the first bloom of youth himself; he was fat and gray-bearded and sat his horse as if he hadn't ridden one in a long time. He nodded to Sharbaraz and said, "Son of Peroz, his Majesty Smerdis King of Kings-"
He got no farther than that. Some of Sharbaraz's scouts reached for their swords, while others swung down lances. One of them growled, "Show proper respect for the King of Kings, curse you."
Sharbaraz raised a hand. "Let him speak as he will. He comes under shield of truce; the God hates those who violate it. I shall remember, but then I already remember he has chosen to follow the man who stole my throne. Say on, Inshushinak."
That did not make Inshushinak look much happier, but he rallied and resumed: "Son of Peroz, his Majesty Smerdis King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase, bade me come with these my followers-" He waved to the half-dozen men who rode with him: three soldiers, a couple of bureaucrats, and a skinny little fellow who could have been anything at all, "-to seek to compose the differences that lie between you and him."
"Inshushinak was my father's treasury minister," Sharbaraz murmured to Abivard. "Once Smerdis' superior; now, it seems, his servant." He raised his voice and addressed the delegation from Mashiz. "You may go back to the capital and tell my cousin that if he casts aside the throne and recovers all the arkets he squandered on the Khamorth and agrees to be confined for the rest of his days as he confined me, I may perhaps consider granting him his worthless life. Otherwise-"
"Son of Peroz, Smerdis King of Kings did not send me to you in token of surrender." Inshushinak looked as if he wished Smerdis had not sent him to Sharbaraz at all, but went on, "Would you care to hear the terms he proposes?"
"Not very much." But Sharbaraz relented: "Since you came to deliver them, you may as well."
"You are gracious." Even Inshushinak's years at court could not make that sound sincere. "In the interest of sparing the realm the torment of civil war, Smerdis King of Kings will confer upon you the title of King of the Northwest and will concede you autonomous rule there, subject to your paying him an annual sum to be determined by negotiation."
"Smerdis is generous," Sharbaraz said, and for a moment Inshushinak brightened. But Peroz's son continued, "How kind of him to concede to me a small piece of what I already hold, and to be willing to negotiate the sum I pay for the privilege. Since I can take all the realm, though, I shall not rest content to be given a part."
One of the soldierly men with Inshushinak said, "Be not so sure, son of Peroz. In most wars, unlike the one that overthrew your father last year, a single battle does not decide a campaign."