«Mm, something to that,» Rhegorios admitted. «For so long, though, we've got less than our due that I don't think the good god will be angry with me if I hope for more than our due for a change.» He shifted from theology to politics, all in one breath: «I wish I knew which side the dead man was on, and which the three who killed him.»
Maniakes could not grant that wish, but the three Makuraners did, almost as soon as it was uttered. They waved to the Renewal, and bowed, and did everything they could to show they were well inclined to Videssos. One of them pointed to the body of the man they had killed. «He would not spit on the name of Sharbaraz Pimp of Pimps!» he shouted, his voice thin across the water of the Cattle Crossing.
«Sharbaraz Pimp of Pimps.» Now Maniakes, echoing the Makuraners, sounded dreamy, his mind far away across the years. «When Sharbaraz was fighting Smerdis, that's what his men called the usurper: Smerdis Pimp of Pimps. Now it comes full circle.» He sketched Phos' sun-sign, a circle itself, above his heart.
«We have the rebellion,» Rhegorios said. Solemnly, he and Maniakes and Thrax clasped hands. As Rhegorios had said, success seemed strange after so many disappointments.
The Makuraners on the beach were still shouting, now in bad Videssian instead of their own language: «You Avtokrator, you come here, we make friends. No more enemies no more.» «Not yet,» Maniakes shouted back. «Not yet. Soon.»
A little breeze flirted with the scarlet capes of the Halogai and Videssians of the Imperial Guard as they formed three sides of a square on the beach near Across. The sun mirrored off their gilded mail shirts. Almost to a man, they looked wary, ready to fight: all around them, drawn up in far greater numbers, stood the warriors of the Makuraner field force.
The waters of the Cattle Crossing formed the fourth side of the square. Sailors decked out in scarlet tunics for the occasion rowed Maniakes and Rhegorios from the Renewal to the shore. One of them said, «Begging your pardon, your Majesty, but I'd sooner jump in a crate full of spiders than go over there.»
«They won't do anything to me or the Sevastos.» Maniakes kept his voice relaxed, even amused. «If they do, they'll have our fathers to deal with, and they know it.» That was true. It was, however, the sort of truth that would do him no good if it came to pass. Sand grated under the planks of the boat. Maniakes and Rhegorios stepped out. As they did so, the Makuraner army burst into cheers. Rhegorios' grin was wide enough to threaten to split his face in two. «Did you ever imagine you'd hear that?» he asked.
«Never once,» Maniakes replied. The Imperial Guards, without moving, seemed to stand easier. They might yet have needed to defend the Avtokrator against being trampled by well-wishers, but not against the murderous onslaught they'd dreaded, knowing they were too few to withstand it if it came.
Out among the Makuraners, deep drums thudded and horns howled. The axe-bearing Halogai and the Videssians with swords and spears tensed anew: that sort of music commonly presaged an attack. But then an iron-lunged Makuraner herald cried: «Forth comes Abivard son of Godarz, Makuran's new sun now rising in the east!»
«Abivard!» the warriors of the field army shouted over and over again, ever louder, till the marshal's name made Maniakes' head ring.
Only a handful of his own soldiers understood what the outcry meant. Not wanting fighting to start from panic or simple error, the Avtokrator called to them: «They're just announcing the marshal.»
Slowly, Abivard made his way through the crush of Makuraners till he stood before the Imperial Guards. «May I greet the Avtokrator of the Videssians?» he asked a massive Haloga axeman.
«Let him by, Hrafnkel,» Maniakes called.
Without a word, the Haloga stood aside. So did the file of guardsmen behind him. Abivard strode past them into the midst of the open space their number defined. As the Makuraner field force could have overwhelmed the Imperial Guards and slain Maniakes before help could reach him, so the guards could have slain Abivard before his men could save him. Maniakes nodded, appreciating the symmetry.
Abivard came up to him and held out his hand for a clasp. That was symmetry of another sort: the greeting of one equal to another. The only equals in all the world the Avtokrators of the Videssians acknowledged were the King of Kings of Makuran.
Maniakes clasped Abivard's hands, acknowledging that equality. As he did so, he asked, «What was your herald talking about—the new sun of Makuran? What's that supposed to mean?»
«It means I still haven't decided whether I'm going to overthrow Sharbaraz on my own account or in the name of my nephew,» Abivard answered. «If I call myself King of Kings now, I've taken the choice away from myself. This way, I keep it.»
«Ah,» Maniakes said. «Fair enough. The more choices you have, the better off you are.» He inclined his head to Abivard. «Over the years, you've given me too bloody few of them.»
«As you well know, I am not excessively burdened with choices myself at the moment,» Abivard answered tartly.
«Shall we get on with the ceremony, your Majesty, your—uh– Sunship?» Rhegorios said with a grin. «The sooner we have it out of the way, the sooner we can find someplace quiet and shady and drink some wine.»
«A splendid notion,» Abivard agreed. Till then, he, the Avtokrator, and the Sevastos had been speaking quietly among themselves while the Imperial Guards and the Makuraner warriors peered in at them and tried to make out what they were saying. Now Abivard raised his voice, as he might have on the battlefield: «Soldiers of Makuran, here is the Videssian Avtokrator, who has dealt honestly and honorably with us. Who is a better friend for us, Maniakes or that mother of all assassins, Sharbaraz Pimp of Pimps?»
«Maniakes!» the soldiers shouted. Again, the Avtokrator had the bewildering sensation of hearing himself acclaimed by men who, up till a few days before, had bent all their efforts toward slaying him and sacking his city.
«If Sharbaraz Pimp of Pimps wants to slaughter half our officers, what do we tell him?» Abivard asked.
A majority of the men in the field force shouted, «No!» That was the one word Maniakes could make out clearly. The other answers to Abivard's question were far more various, and blurred together into a great din. But, although Maniakes could make little sense of them, he did not think they would have delighted the heart of Sharbaraz back in Mashiz.
Abivard asked the next question: «Shall we make peace with Videssos, then, and go home and settle the man who's tried to ruin all Makuran with this war?»
«Aye!» some of the warriors shouted. Others cried, «Peace!» Other shouts mixed in with those, but Maniakes did not think any of them were cries of dissent.
«On going home,» Abivard continued, «is it agreed that we empty out our garrisons to secure the peace and do no more harm to this country than we must to keep ourselves fed?»
«Aye!» the Makuraners shouted again, not with the heartfelt enthusiasm they'd put into the first couple of questions, but, again, without any complaints Maniakes could hear.
«There you have it,» Abivard said to the Avtokrator. «What you and I agreed to in Videssos the city, the army agrees to as well. Peace lies between us, and we shall evacuate the westlands to seal it.»
«Good enough,» Maniakes said, «or rather, almost good enough. Can you give me one present?—an advance payment on the peace, you might say.»
Abivard might have styled himself the new sun of Makuran, but his face clouded over. «I have carried out our bargain in every particular,» he said stiffly. «If you are going to add new terms to it now—»
«Hear me out,» Maniakes broke in. «I don't think you'll object.»
«Say on.» Every line in Abivard's face expressed doubt.