«I will hear as much from them,» Romezan said.
Maniakes nodded to Kameas. Bowing to Romezan, the vestiarios glided out of the audience chamber. He returned in short order with Panteles and Bozorg. Bowing again, he said, «Here they are, eminent sir.»
To Abivard, Romezan said, «That's right, you brought your tame Videssian along, didn't you?» He dismissed Panteles with a wave of his hand. «Go on, sirrah; what you have to say interests me not at all, for you'll say whatever your master wants you to say.»
«That is not so,» the Videssian mage replied with dignity.
Since Maniakes knew perfectly well it was so, he was not surprised to discover Romezan did, too. The Makuraner general said, «Go on, I tell you,» and Panteles perforce went. Romezan turned his attention to Bozorg. «Do you really mean to tell me Sharbaraz was this stupid?»
The Makuraner mage nodded. «Can you reckon wise any man who would treacherously seek to compass the death of his finest marshal?» He did not say anything about the deaths of all the other officers whose names had been transferred to the King of Kings' letter. Maniakes noted the omission. He had to hope Romezan would not.
«He truly did send that order?» Romezan sounded thoughtful and, unless Maniakes read him wrong, sad.
Bozorg nodded. «He did. My magic—and also that of Panteles– confirmed it.» What the wizard said was the truth, as he had promised it would be. What he did not say, and would not say unless specifically asked…
No doubt intending to keep Romezan from asking the questions Bozorg was liable to answer truthfully, Abivard said, «You still haven't answered the question I put to you when I first showed you this. What do you plan to do about it?»
«If I do as the King of Kings commanded me, this whole army goes straight into the Void,» Romezan observed, and Abivard nodded. «But if I don't do as the King of Kings commanded me,» Romezan went on, «that by itself makes me into a traitor, and means some other officer—»
«Tzikas,» Abivard interrupted. By the way he said it, he didn't expect Romezan to like Tzikas. Maniakes wondered whether anyone in the civilized world besides Tzikas liked Tzikas.
«Some other officer will get a letter like this one,» Romezan finished, as if Abivard had not spoken. «But he won't have orders to get rid of you. He'll have orders to get rid of me.» Romezan sighed. Those broad shoulders sagged. «I never thought I would have to turn away from Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his—» He broke off the honorific formula in the middle. «And to the Void with that, too. May his fundament be removed from the seat of the chair he occupies in Mashiz.» He went down on his belly before Abivard. «Majesty,» he said. «There. Now my rebellion is official.»
«I hadn't planned to—» Abivard broke off. The logical consequences of being in the situation came crashing down on him. If he stayed loyal to Sharbaraz, he offered his neck to the chopping block. Beside that, rebellion became the more attractive choice.
Maniakes offered the alternative he'd suggested before: «If you don't care to be King of Kings in your own name, there's still your baby nephew to protect.»
Still down on hands and knees, Romezan laughed wolfishly, an effect enhanced by his posture. «I've heard a lot of stories about men who rebel in the name of babies,» he said. «Maybe I've heard one where the baby lived and got to rule when he grew up. Maybe I haven't, too.»
«I don't have to decide that right away,» Abivard answered. «What matters is that I'm in rebellion against Sharbaraz King of Kings—and so are you.» He bent down and tapped Romezan on the shoulder. «Get up.»
Romezan rose, that wolfish look still in his eye. «By this time tomorrow, the whole field army will be in arms against Sharbaraz. We'll march back to Mashiz, throw him out, get rid of him, put you on the throne, and—» His vision of the future ran out at that point. «And everything will be fine then,» he finished.
Abivard did indeed look farther ahead than the noble from the Seven Clans. He glanced toward Maniakes. «It's… not going to be quite that simple, I don't think,» he said.
«No, it's not,» Maniakes agreed. He had been hoping for, and been planning for, a moment like this ever since he became Avtokrator of the Videssians. He had also spent a large stretch of time wondering if it would ever come. He spoke not to Abivard but to Romezan: «What do you propose to do with your garrisons in the westlands while the field army goes up against Sharbaraz?»
«Leave them there,» Romezan answered at once. «Why not? We'll be back next year, and—» The difficulty Abivard had seen at once now became apparent to him, too. He looked at Maniakes with no great warmth. «Oh. If we leave, you'll start taking those cities back.»
The Avtokrator shook his head. «No, I won't do anything of the sort,» he answered. Romezan stared at him, angrily suspicious. Even Abivard looked surprised. He didn't blame them. Liberating the cities in the westlands after the Makuraner field force pulled out had been his first plan. Instead of using it, though, he said, «If you leave the garrisons behind, I'll burn everything in front of the field army and I'll attack it the first chance I get.»
«Why would you want to do a stupid thing like that?» Romezan burst out. «If you do, our campaign against Sharbaraz goes into the latrine.»
«He knows that,» Abivard said, as if to a child. «He doesn't care– or he doesn't care much. What he wants is to get the westlands back under Videssian rule.»
«That's right,» Maniakes said. «Agree to put the border back where it was before Likinios Avtokrator got murdered, and I'll help you every way I can. Try to fight your civil war and hold on to the westlands, too, and I'll hurt you every way I can—and I can hurt you badly now.»
«Suppose we don't march on Mashiz?» Romezan said. «Suppose we just stay where we are? What then?»
«Then Sharbaraz finds out you didn't execute Abivard,» Maniakes said, a touch of wolf in his own smile. «Then somebody– Kardarigan, maybe, or Tzikas—gets the order to execute you, not for failure, but for rebellion. You said as much yourself.»
Already swarthy, Romezan darkened further with anger. «You dare to take advantage of our squabbles among ourselves and use them to steal from as?»
Maniakes threw back his head and laughed in Romezan's face. The noble from the Seven Clans could not have looked more astonished had Maniakes dashed a bucket of cold water over him. The Avtokrator said, «By the good god, Romezan, how do you think you got the westlands in the first place? You marched into them when Videssos looked more like a catfight than an empire, after Genesios murdered Likinios and every general thought he could steal the throne for himself, or at least keep his neighbor from having it. Taking back what was mine is not stealing, not here it isn't.»
«He's right,» Abivard said, and Maniakes inclined his head to him, respecting his honesty. «I don't like him getting the westlands back, and if I can find any way to keep him from getting them back, I will use it. But trying to get them back doesn't make him a thief.»
«I don't think you can find such a way,» Maniakes said. «I don't think you have very long to spend looking for one, either of you. You can bargain with me or you can try to bargain with Sharbaraz. If you have any choices past those two, I don't see them.»
«You are enjoying this,» Romezan said, as if he were accusing the Avtokrator of lapping soup from a bowl like a dog.
Again, Maniakes met the challenge straight on. «Every minute of it,» he agreed. «You Makuraners have spent my whole reign, and the one before mine, humiliating Videssos. Now I get a chance to get my own back—literally. You can either give it up and go back to your own land to deal with the King of Kings who put you in this predicament, or you can try to keep it, try to go back, and get chewed up along the way. The choice is yours.»