"Forgive him, I beg you, kind lady, and you also, my generous hosts," Sharbaraz said rapidly. "He must have drunk too much wine, or he would not have been so rude and foolish." To Abivard, he muttered under his breath, "This is what comes of banquets run by customs other than our own."
Hosios said, "Perhaps it would be wiser if that man did not come into Serrhes again. One lapse is fairly easily forgiven. More than one-"
Sharbaraz bowed. "It shall be as you say, of course. Thank you for your gracious understanding."
Torchbearers lighted the Makuraners' way back to their encampment. Once they were out of earshot of the epoptes' residence, Abivard said, "That idiot might have ruined everything."
"Don't I know it," Sharbaraz answered. "Lucky Bardiya didn't try to drag her back among the flowers. That would have been a pretty picture, wouldn't it-a rape at a feast given us by our benefactors?"
"If he'd done that, he should have answered for it with his head," Denak said.
"As it is, he ought to suffer more than just being hustled away in disgrace." Her voice had a brittle edge; Abivard remembered what she had endured from Sharbaraz's guards back at Nalgis Crag stronghold.
"What do you suggest?" Sharbaraz asked, though his tone gave no assurance he would heed what she said.
"Stripes, well laid on," Denak answered at once. "Use him to teach the lesson and it won't have to be taught again."
"Too harsh." Sharbaraz sounded like a man dickering over figs in the market square. "Here's what I'll do: come morning, I'll have him apologize to that lady as if she were Likinios' wife, right down to knocking his head on the floor. That may even humiliate him worse than a flogging, and it won't cost me as much goodwill in the army."
"It's not enough," Denak said darkly.
"It's better than nothing, and more than I expected you'd get," Roshnani said. Having her sister-in-law speak up for what Sharbaraz had proposed made Denak nod, too, a sharp, abrupt motion that showed consent without enthusiasm.
"We think of the Videssians as devious double-dealers," Sharbaraz said. "Like a coin that has two sides. In their poems and chronicles, they look on us as fierce and bloodthirsty. Most times, that's a good reputation for us to have. Now, though, we have to seem civilized enough by their standards to be worth helping. A formal apology should do the job."
"It's not enough," Denak repeated, but then she let the argument go.
Hosios conveyed his recommendations, whatever they were, to a courier to take to his father in the distant northeast of the Empire of Videssos. Not long after he did so, he, too, departed from Serrhes: he had other things to do besides attending to a ragtag band of Makuraners. After he was gone, the town seemed to shrink in on Abivard, as if the world outside had altogether forgotten him and his companions.
Summer turned to fall. The local farmers harvested their meager crops. Without the wagonloads of grain that came into Serrhes every day, its Makuraner guests would have starved.
Fall brought rain. Herders-much like their Makuraner counterparts-drove their cattle and sheep to the fields that showed the most new green. Soon the winds from out of the west-from Makuran-would bring snow instead of rain. The climate might be somewhere close to as harsh as that round Vek Rud stronghold
… and tents were worse suited than castles to riding out winter blizzards. Rain turned roads to mud. Even had Sharbaraz and his host wished to pull up stakes and go somewhere new, they would have been hard-pressed to move far or fast through the gluey, clinging ooze. Only when the first freeze turned the mud hard did travel cautiously begin again.
About a month after that first freeze, a courier came into Serrhes to report that the Avtokrator Likinios was little more than a day outside of town. The epoptes went into a cleaning fit, like a village woman who sees from her window her fussy mother-in-law approaching. As if by sorcery-and Abivard wasn't altogether sure Kalamos hadn't resorted to magecraft-wreaths and bunting appeared on the streets that led from the gates to the square below the citadeclass="underline" just the streets Likinios was likeliest to travel.
Sharbaraz also did his best to bring order and cleanliness to his camp outside the wall. Even after that best was done, the camp still struck Abivard as a sad, ragged place: as if a broken dream had been badly animated and brought halfway to life. But he held his peace, for Likinios, should he choose, had the power to revitalize Sharbaraz's cause in full. Anything that might prompt him to do so was worth trying.
When Likinios did reach Serrhes, the ceremonial ordained for his meeting with Sharbaraz was similar to that which Hosios had employed. With Abivard and his honor guard, Sharbaraz rode out from his camp to greet the Avtokrator, who came forth from the city walls.
Abivard had looked for an older version of Hosios, just as Peroz, in both looks and style, had been an older version of Sharbaraz. But Likinios, although by his face he had plainly sired his eldest son, as plainly came from a different mold.
His features were individually like those of Hosios, but taken as a whole gave Abivard the impression that the Avtokrator was totting up how much the ceremony cost-and not caring for the answer he got. Likinios wore gilded armor, but on him it seemed more a costume than something he would don naturally.
"I welcome you to Videssos, your Majesty," he said in fair Makuraner. His voice was tightly controlled, not, Abivard thought, because he was using a language foreign to him but because that was the sort of man he was. The word that ran through Abivard's mind was calculator.
"I thank you for your kindness and generosity to me and my people, your Majesty," Sharbaraz replied.
"You have already dealt with the epoptes here, so I need not introduce him to you." Likinios sounded relieved at not having to spend any unnecessary words.
"Your Majesty, I have the honor to present to you my brother-in-law the lord Abivard, dihqan of Vek Rud domain," Sharbaraz said. Abivard bowed in the saddle to the Avtokrator.
Likinios grudged him a nod in return. "You're a long way from home, sir," he observed. Abivard stared at him. Could he know where in Makuran Vek Rud domain lay? Abivard would not have bet against it.
Sharbaraz said, "All my men in this your realm are a long way from home, your Majesty. With your gracious assistance, we shall return there one day in the not too distant future."
The Avtokrator studied him for a while before replying. Likinios' eyes didn't see just surfaces; Abivard had the feeling they measured like a cloth merchant checking the exact length of a bolt-and reckoned up cost with the same impersonal precision. At last Likinios said, "If you can show me how helping you is worth my while, I'll do it. Otherwise-" He let the word hang in the air.
"Your son was more forthcoming on this, your Majesty," Sharbaraz said. He did not presume to call Likinios by name, as he had Hosios.
"My son, as yet, is young." The Avtokrator made a sharp chopping gesture with his right hand. "He has no trouble deciding what he wants, but he has not yet learned that everything has its price."
"Surely having a King of Kings in Mashiz who was grateful for your generosity would be worth a pretty price," Sharbaraz said.
"Gratitude is worth its weight in gold," Likinios said. Abivard thought the Videssian ruler was agreeing with Sharbaraz until he realized words had no weight.
Sharbaraz also needed a moment to catch that. When he did, he frowned and said, "Surely honor and justice are not words without meaning to a man who has held the imperial throne for more than twenty years."