«We're not too bad off,» Symvatios answered. «The granaries were fairly full when the siege started, and we've been bringing in more from further south and east, where the Kubratoi haven't reached. We can last… a while.»
«Other question is, how long can the Kubratoi last out there?» The elder Maniakes pointed toward Etzilios' encampment. «What do they do for food once they've eaten the countryside empty?» «Starve or go home,» Rhegorios said. «Those are the choices they have.»
«Those are two of the choices they have,» Maniakes said, which made his cousin look puzzled. Wishing he didn't have to, the Avtokrator explained: «They can also try breaking into the city. If they do that, it doesn't matter how much grain we have left or how little food they have. If they break in, they win.»
Rhegorios nodded, now unwontedly serious. «Do you know, cousin of mine—» He didn't string titles together now, either. «—that never crossed my mind. In spite of everything they've gathered out there, I have trouble making myself believe they might break in.»
«We all have trouble believing it,» the elder Maniakes said. «That may be good or bad. It's good if the Kubratoi have doubts in the same proportion as we have confidence. But if we're slack because we know Videssos the city has never fallen and they're all eager and zealous to make a first time, we're in trouble.»
«That's so,» Maniakes said: «They haven't tried storming the walls?»
His father shook his head. «No. Some days they aren't quiet like this, though. They'll come up into archery range and shoot at our people on the walls. They haven't done that so much lately. It's as if they're—waiting.»
«And we know what they're waiting for, too,» the Avtokrator said unhappily. «They're waiting to see what the Makuraners can show them and how much help it will be. The boiler boys are good at what they do, too. I wish they weren't, but they know as much about siege warfare as any Videssian.»
«Abivard will probably want to get more of his people over to this side of the Cattle Crossing before any serious attack on the walls,» Symvatios said. «He won't fancy the Kubratoi taking all the spoils if we fall.»
«And they won't want him taking any—Etzilios sucked in treachery at his mother's breast.» Maniakes grew thoughtful. «I wonder if we can make the allies distrust each other more than they hate us.»
«That is an interesting notion,» the elder Maniakes said. He, too, stared out toward the Kubrati camp. «I have to say I'd guess the odds are against it. We might as well try, though. The worst they can tell us is no.»
«The world doesn't end if you get your face slapped,» Rhegorios remarked. «You just ask another girl the same question. Or sometimes you ask the same girl the same question a little later on, and you get a different answer.»
«Hear the voice of experience,» Maniakes said dryly. His cousin coughed and spluttered. His father and uncle both laughed. The world looked a little brighter, giving him three, maybe even four, heartbeats' worth of relief—till he thought about the Kubratoi again.
A postern gate swung open. Despite all the grease the soldiers had poured onto the hinges, they still squeaked. Maniakes wondered when anyone had last oiled them. Had it been a year ago, or five, or ten? Till this year, no one had expected Videssos the city to be besieged, and a siege was the only time when a postern gate was useful.
«Curse it, we don't want to let all the Kubratoi and Makuraners know we're doing this,» the Avtokrator hissed. «The idea is to keep it secret—otherwise we wouldn't have chosen midnight.»
«Sorry, your Majesty,» the officer in charge of the gate answered, also in a low voice. «That's as quiet as we could manage.» He peered out into the darkness. «Here comes the fellow, so he is on time. I wouldn't have thought it, not with a barbarian.»
No shouts from the wall above warned of any other Kubratoi moving forward with the single emissary Maniakes had suggested to Etzilios. The khagan was keeping his end of the bargain, most likely because he didn't think he could wring any great advantage from betraying it now. At Maniakes' command, the soldiers at the postern gate ran a long plank out over the far side of the ditch.
«Mind you don't fall off,» one of the men called softly to the newcomer. «It's a goodish way down.»
«I shall beens very carefuls, thank youse,» the Kubrati answered in Videssian fractured but fluent. His footfalls thudded confidently on the gangway. When he came into Videssos the city, the guardsmen pulled back the plank and shut the postern gate once more.
«Moundioukh, isn't it?» Maniakes said. No torches burned nearby—that would have given away the parley. But the Avtokrator had heard only one man capable of mangling Videssian as this fellow did.
And, sure enough, the Kubrati nodded in the darkness and said, «Whose else would the magnifolent Etzilios sends to treat against youse?» Maniakes wondered whether that against was more slipshod grammar or a slip of the tongue. He'd find out.
With the gate closed, a couple of torchbearers came hurrying up. Yes, that was Moundioukh, in the flesh as well as in the voice. His scraggly beard had more gray in it than Maniakes remembered. «Your master is a treacherous man,» the Avtokrator said severely.
To his surprise, Moundioukh burst out laughing. «Of courses him are,» the Kubrati answered. «Otherwisely him never talkings at youse.»
«I daresay,» Maniakes said. «All right—what does he want from me for him to give over his alliance with the Makuraners? I presume there must be something I can give him, or he wouldn't have sent you to me.»
Moundioukh's large, square teeth flashed in the torchlight as he laughed again. «The magnifolent Etzilios tell me, 'Go to this Maniakes. See him crawl. See him slithither'—is word, yes, slithithering? 'Then youse tells he what me tells youse.' «
«And what did the magnifolent Etzilios tell you?» Maniakes knew a certain amount of pride at bringing the epithet out with a straight face.
«Not seen enough of slithitherings yettish times,» the Kubratoi replied pointedly.
Maniakes exhaled through his nose in exasperation. «To the ice with him, and to the ice with you, too. I don't know what else I can do but tell you I'll do whatever you and the khagan want.» He couldn't say magnifolent again, no matter how hard he tried.
«You prostitute yourselves for I, like youse always having I prostitute myselves to youse?» Moundioukh said.
The guards growled. «He means 'prostrate,' « Maniakes said quickly. He wondered if that made the demand any more bearable. He was vicegerent of Phos on earth; who was this nasty barbarian envoy to demand that he go down on his belly before him? The man with the whip hand—the answer was painfully plain. «I said anything, and I was not lying.» Maniakes did the deed. He'd seen it performed before him countless times, but hadn't done it himself since Likinios Avtokrator sat on the Videssian throne. His body, he discovered, still remembered how.
«Youse really doing this things.» Moundioukh sounded amazed.
«Yes, I really did it. Have I slithithered enough for you now?» After performing a proskynesis, desecrating the Videssian language came easy.
«Is enoughly, yeses,» Moundioukh admitted. «Now we tells youse what the magnifolent khagan tell we. He tell, nothing in all these world youse does—» He made it sound like yooz dooz."—am enoughs to make he go buggering Makuraners. Us, theys see chance to slaughterize you, and usses takes it.»
«You and the Makuraners would quarrel afterward, even if you won,» Maniakes said. «We have a saying—'thieves fall out.' «