«Cold-blooded way of looking at things,» Maniakes remarked.
«I'm a cold-blooded sort of fellow,» his father replied. «So are you, come to that. If you don't know what the odds are, how can you bet?»
«It's been worth the trouble. It's been more than worth the trouble.» The Avtokrator sighed. «I had hoped, though, that things would die down over the years. That hasn't happened. That hasn't come close to happening. Every time anything goes wrong, the city mob throws my marriage in my face.»
«They'll be doing the same thing twenty years from now, too,» the elder Maniakes said. «I thought you understood that by now.»
«Oh, I do,» Maniakes said. «The only way I know to make all of them—well, to make most of them—shut up is to drive away the Makuraners and the Kubratoi both.» He pointed out toward the siege towers. «You can see what a fine job I've done of that.»
«Not your fault.» The elder Maniakes held up a forefinger. «Oh, one piece of it is—you beat Etzilios so badly, you made him wild for revenge. But that's nothing to blame yourself about. We were trying to hit Sharbaraz where he lives, and now he's trying to return the favor. That makes him clever. It doesn't make you stupid.»
«I should have worried more about why Abivard and the boiler boys had disappeared,» Maniakes said. Self-reproach came easy; he had been practicing all the way from the outskirts of Mashiz.
«And what would you have done if you'd known he'd left the Land of the Thousand Cities?» his father asked. «My guess is, you'd have headed straight for Mashiz and tried to take it because you knew he couldn't stop you. Since that's what you did anyway, why are you still beating yourself because of it?» Maniakes stared at him. He'd found no way to forgive himself for failing to grasp at once what Abivard and Sharbaraz had plotted. Now, in three sentences, his father had shown him how.
As if sensing his relief, the elder Maniakes slapped him on the back. «You couldn't have counted on this, son. That's what I'm saying. But now that it's here, you still have to beat it. That hasn't changed, not one single, solitary, miserable bit it hasn't.» Off in the distance, the Kubratoi were still hauling their siege towers back and forth, trying to learn how to use them and what to do with them. On another tower, one that wasn't moving, a crew of workmen nailed hides ever higher on the frame. Before long, that tower would be finished, too.
«I know, Father,» Maniakes said. «Believe me, I know.»
Splendid—perhaps even magnifolent, Maniakes thought wryly– in his silk vestments shot through with gold and silver thread and encrusted with pearls and other gems, Agathios the ecumenical patriarch paraded up Middle Street from the procession's starting Point close by the Silver Gate and the embattled land walls of Videssos the city. Behind him marched lesser priests, some swinging censers so the sweet-smelling smoke would waft the prayers of toe people up to the heavens and to the awareness of the lord with the great and good mind, others lifting trained voices in songs of Praise to Phos.
Behind the priests came Maniakes, riding Antelope. Almost everyone cheered Agathios. Everyone without exception cheered the more junior priests. Though all of them had been chosen at least in part because they vigorously supported the dispensation Agathios had granted Maniakes for his marriage to Lysia, that was not obvious to the city mob. Priests who entertained them—anyone who entertained them—deserved praise, and got it.
The parade would not have come off at all had Maniakes not instigated it. The city mob paid no attention to that. Some people booed and heckled him because the Kubratoi and Makuraners had laid siege to Videssos the city. Those were the ones who remembered nothing earlier than the day before yesterday. Others booed and heckled him because they reckoned his union with his cousin Lysia to be incestuous. They were the ones, almost as common as the other group, who remembered everything and forgave nothing.
And a few people cheered him. «You beat the Kubratoi,» someone shouted as he rode by, «and you beat the Makuraners. Now you get to beat them both together.» More cheers followed, at least a few.
Maniakes turned to Rhegorios, who rode behind him and to his left. «Now I get to beat them both together. Doesn't that make me a lucky fellow?»
«If you're a lucky fellow, you will beat them both together,» his cousin returned. «It's what happens if you aren't lucky that worries me.»
«You're always reassuring,» Maniakes said, to which Rhegorios laughed.
When the chorus wasn't chanting hymns to the crowd, Agathios called an invitation to the people on the colonnaded sidewalks who stood and stared at the procession as they would have stood and stared at any entertainment: «Come join us in the plaza of Palamas! Come join us in praying for the Empire's salvation!»
«Maybe we should have done this at the High Temple, after all,» Maniakes said. «It would have given the ceremony a more solemn air.»
«You want solemn air, find a polecat,» Rhegorios said, holding his nose. «Only the nobles and a handful of ordinary people can get into the High Temple. Everyone else has to find out secondhand what happened in there. This way, all the people will know.»
«That's so,» Maniakes said. «If everything goes well, I'll say you were right. But if things go wrong, all the people will know about that, too.»
As far as he was concerned, the ecumenical patriarch was doing his best to make things go wrong. «Come pray for the salvation of the Empire!» Agathios cried again. «Come beg the good god to forgive our sins and make us pure again.»
«I'll purify him,» Maniakes muttered. «I'll bake him for two weeks, till all the grease runs out of him.» When the patriarch spoke of forgiving sins, to what were the minds of the people likely to turn? To their own failings? Maniakes let out a snort of laughter. Not likely. They would think of him and Lysia. He would have suspected anyone else of deliberately inciting the people against him. He did suspect Agathios, in fact, but only briefly. He'd seen that the ecumenical patriarch was as a sucking babe when it came to matters political.
He wondered what sort of crowd they would draw to the plaza of Palamas, which was not commonly made the scene of religious gatherings. While wondering, he looked back over his shoulder. Behind the Imperial Guards, behind a couple of regiments that had distinguished themselves in the Land of the Thousand Cities, came a swelling tide of ordinary Videssians intent on hearing what the patriarch and the Avtokrator had to say. The plaza would be full.
The plaza, in fact, was packed. Agathios had trouble making his way to the platform that had been set up for him, a platform more often used by emperors to address the city mob. Maniakes looked back over his shoulder again. This time he waved. The guardsmen came trotting up through the ranks of the priests. Efficiently using elbows, spear shafts, and sheathed swords to clear a path, they got the patriarch to the platform in minimum time while also leaving people minimally angry—no small feat in Videssos the city, where everyone was touchy even when not under siege.
«We bless thee, Phos, lord with the great and good mind,» Agathios intoned, «by thy grace our protector, watchful beforehand that the great test of life may be decided in our favor.» Reciting the good god's creed was the blandest thing the patriarch could possibly have done. Picking the blandest thing to do was altogether in character for him.
As he must have known they would, the crowd joined him in the creed; many of them sketched Phos' sun-circle above their hearts as they prayed. Sometimes the blandest choice was also the wisest. Agathios had his audience as receptive as he could have hoped to get them for whatever else he planned to say.