"Rise, sir, rise," Maniakes said. "Whatever you tell me, I am certain it will be more interesting than the endless arguments I've been hearing here in Serrhes."
"I think this is small praise, not great," the Makuraner said, his dark eyes sparkling with amusement above the chain-mail veil he wore. "But yes, Majesty, I have news indeed. Know that Abivard son of Godarz, the new sun of Makuran, now holds Mashiz in the hollow of his hand, and know further that he also holds in the hollow of his hand Sharbaraz Pimp of Pimps, and awaits only the decree of the Mobedhan-Mobhed concerning the said Sharbaraz's infamous and impious practices in regard to religion before ending his life and consigning him to the Void forevermore." The Mobedhan-Mobhed, the leading servant of the God, held a place in the Makuraner hierarchy close to that of the ecumenical patriarch in Videssos.
Maniakes clapped his hands together. "He has the capital and he has his foe, eh?" The Makuraner messenger nodded. Maniakes went on, "That's very wise, getting your chief cleric to condemn him. Taking his head won't seem so much like murder then: more as if he's getting his desserts."
"Majesty, he is," the Makuraner said angrily. "To start so great a war and then to lose it, to leave us with nothing to show for so much blood and treasure spent-how can a man who fails so greatly deserve to live?"
Again, none of the Makuraners blamed Sharbaraz for starting the war against Videssos. They blamed him for losing it. Had Videssos the city fallen, no one would have lifted a finger against the victorious, all-conquering figure Sharbaraz would have become. He would have ruled out his span of years with unending praise from his subjects, who might even have come to think he deserved deification as much as he did. He probably would have found some convenient excuse to get rid of Abivard so no one shared the praise. Success would have concealed a multitude of sins; failure made even virtues vanish.
"It's over, then," Maniakes said in wondering tones. He would still have to see if and how he could live at peace with Abivard. But even if they did fight, they wouldn't go to war right away. The struggle that had begun when Sharbaraz used Genesios' overthrow of Likinios as an excuse to invade and seek to conquer Videssos was done at last.
Abivard's messenger construed Maniakes' three words in the sense in which he'd meant them. "Majesty, it is," he said solemnly, giving back three words of his own.
"I presume your master is tying up loose ends now," Maniakes said, and the messenger nodded. The Avtokrator asked, "What of Abivard's sister-Denak, was that her name? She was Sharbaraz's wife, not so?"
"His principal wife, yes," the messenger answered, making a distinction about which the monogamous Videssians did not need to bother.
"What does she think of the changes in Mashiz?" Maniakes chose his words with care, not wanting to offend either the messenger or Abivard, to whom what he said would surely get back.
The Makuraner boiler boy replied with equal caution: "Majesty, as pledges have been given that no harm shall come to her children, and as these past years she had not always been on the best of terms with him who was King of Kings, she is said to be well enough pleased by those changes."
Maniakes nodded. Abivard, then, was not inclined simply to dispose of his little nephew. Maniakes liked him better for that.
Still, he wondered how happy Denak would be when she fully realized the child of her flesh would not succeed to the throne. But that was Abivard's worry, not his own. He had plenty that were his, and chose to air one: "Any sign of Tzikas in Mashiz?"
"The Videssian traitor?" The Makuraner spoke with unconscious contempt that would have wounded Tzikas had he been there to hear it. "No. I am told he was in Mashiz at some earlier time, but Abivard the new sun of Makuran-"Abivard the man with a new fancy title, Maniakes thought wryly."-finds no trace of him there at present, despite diligent searching."
"What a pity." Maniakes sighed. "It can't be helped, I suppose. For the good news you do bring-and it's very good news indeed- I'll give you a pound of gold."
"May the God and the Prophets Four bless you, Majesty!" the Makuraner exclaimed. Coming from a nation that coined mostly in silver, he, like most of his countrymen, held Videssian gold in great esteem.
When Maniakes went to tell Rhegorios that Sharbaraz had been cast down, he discovered his cousin already knew. He was flabbergasted for a moment, but then remembered the grinning Videssian soldier who had brought the messenger into his presence. That grin said the Videssian had already heard the news-and what one Videssian knew, a hundred would know an hour later, given the imperials' unabashed love for gossip. By sunset tomorrow, all of Serrhes would have all the details of Abivard's entry into Mashiz. Some of the people might even have the right details.
"It doesn't matter that I heard it from other lips than yours," Rhegorios said soothingly. "What matters is that it's so. Now we can start putting the pieces back together again."
"True," Maniakes said. With more than a little reluctance, he added, "I still haven't heard anything out-of-the-way about Phosia."
"Neither have I," Rhegorios said. "I don't expect to hear anything bad about her, either. What I do worry about is hearing something so bad about Broios that I wouldn't want him in the family if he had ten pretty daughters."
"Ten pretty daughters!" Maniakes exclaimed. "What would you do with ten pretty daughters? No, wait, don't tell me-I see the gleam in your eye. Remember, cousin of mine, the Makuraners are trying to get away from the custom of the women's quarters.
What would your sister say if she found out you'd started that custom on Videssian soil?"
"Something I'd rather not hear, I'm sure," Rhegorios answered, laughing. "But you needn't worry. Having a whole raft of wives may sound like great fun, but how is any man above the age of eighteen- twenty-one at the outside-supposed to keep them all happy? And if he doesn't keep them all happy, they'll be unhappy, and whom will they be unhappy about? Him, that's whom. No, thank you."
The grammar in there was shaky. The logic, Maniakes thought, was excellent. Idly, he said, "I wonder what will happen to all of Sharbaraz's wives now that he isn't King of Kings anymore. For that matter, if I remember rightly, Abivard has a women's quarters of his own, up at Vek Rud domain, somewhere off in the far northwest of Makuran."
"Yes, he does, doesn't he?" Rhegorios said. "He never talks about his other wives back there, though. He and Roshnani might as well be married the way any two Videssians are."
"Which is all very well for the two of them, no doubt," Maniakes said. "But Abivard has spent most of his time the past ten years and more here in Videssos, and none of it, so far as I know, up in Vek Rud domain. I wonder what the other wives have to say about him, yes, I do."
"That could be intriguing." Rhegorios got a faraway look in his eyes. "He's not in Videssos any more. He's not going to come back here, either, not if Phos is kind. Now that he's the new lead horse in Makuran, wouldn't you say he's likely to be going through the plateau country, to make himself known to the dihqans and such up there? Wouldn't you guess he'll probably find his way back to his own domain one day?"
"I wouldn't mind being a fly on the wall when he did." Maniakes wondered if Bagdasares could make magic stretch that far. After a moment, he realized it didn't matter: he would have no way of knowing exactly when Abivard returned to his old domain. Too bad, he thought. Too bad.
Fat and sweating with nervousness as well as heat, Vetranios prostrated himself before Maniakes. "I pray that you hear me out," he said to the Avtokrator after he had risen. "It is true, your Majesty, isn't it, that you've been trying to find out what sort of games Broios has been playing with his daughter?"