«Nobody said anything about killing you, holy sir,» Maniakes replied, which seemed to surprise and disappoint the priest—not the first time the Avtokrator had seen that, either. He went on, «I have another question for you: if you're so bloody eager to martyr yourself for faith in Vaspur the Firstborn, why didn't you let the boiler boys slaughter you when they made you change, from orthodoxy?» Then I wouldn't have had to deal with you, he added to himself.
Salivas opened his mouth and closed it without saying anything. As far as Maniakes was concerned, that was a triumph almost as satisfying as holding the Kubratoi and Makuraners out of Videssos the city. Then, dashing it, Salivas tried again to speak, and succeeded. What he said, though, made the Avtokrator feel victorious after alclass="underline" «Your Majesty, I don't know.»
«May I offer a suggestion?» asked Maniakes, who had observed this phenomenon a couple of times before, too. Since Salivas could hardly refuse his sovereign, the Avtokrator continued, «You were orthodox all your life. You took orthodoxy for granted, didn't you?» He waited for Salivas to nod, then pressed ahead: «The Vaspurakaner doctrines are new to you. They're exciting on account of that, I think, as a man will find a new mistress exciting even though there's nothing whatever wrong with his wife except that she's not new to him any more.»
Salivas flushed to the shaven crown of his head. «That is not a comparison I would have chosen to use,» he said stiffly. Reminding Videssian priests of the celibacy required of them was bad manners.
Maniakes didn't care about bad manners, except insofar as he preferred them to religious rioting and other civil strife. «Use whatever comparison you like, holy sir. But think hard on it. Remember that you'd been perfectly content while you were orthodox. Remember that the other priests here—» Most of them, anyhow, he qualified mentally, and the couple of others who still inclined to Vaspurakaner views were wavering. «—have gone back to orthodoxy now that the Makuraners have left.»
«But the Vaspurakaner views are—» Salivas began.
He was probably going to be stubborn. Maniakes didn't give him the chance. «Are imposed on you by foreigners who wanted to ruin Videssos,» he said firmly. «Do you want to help Sharbaraz King of Kings win this fight even after his soldiers have left the Empire?»
«No,» Salivas admitted, «but neither do I want to spend eternity in Skotos' ice for having misbelieved.»
What Maniakes wanted to do was punch the stubborn priest, or possibly hit him over the head with a large stone in the hope of creating an opening through which sense might enter. With more patience than he'd thought he owned, he asked, «Didn't you believe you would be bathed in Phos' holy light before the Makuraners made you change your preaching?»
«Yes, but I have changed my mind since then,» Salivas answered.
«If you changed it once, do you think you might change it again?» the Avtokrator said.
«I doubt that,» Salivas told him. «I doubt that very much.»
«Before the boiler boys made you reject orthodoxy, did you ever think you would change your mind about that?» Maniakes asked.
«No,» the cleric said.
«Well, then—» Maniakes waited for Salivas to make the connection. He waited, and waited, and waited some more. The connection remained unmade. Salivas remained convinced that what he believed now, he would believe forever. Maniakes became convinced the priest was a perfect blockhead, but the only thing he could do about that was hope the people of Vryetion would notice it, too.
Seeing his discontent without fully recognizing its source, Salivas said, «I shall pray for you, your Majesty.»
«For that much I thank you,» Maniakes said wearily. Vryetion was going to be a town with Vaspurakaner-style heretics in it for some time to come. There were a lot of towns like that in the westlands. The ecumenical patriarch wouldn't be happy about it. Maniakes wasn't happy about it himself; it disturbed his sense of order. But plunging the westlands back into strife just after getting them back from the Makuraners disturbed his sense of order even more. He dismissed Salivas, who departed with the air of a man who, having nerved himself for the worst, was more angry than relieved at not having suffered it. The next case that came before the Avtokrator was a complicated stew of forgery, where property bounds lay, and whether Makuraner officials had been bribed to make them lie there. It involved no theology, just skulduggery. Maniakes attacked it with great relish.
XI
Abivard bowed in the saddle to Maniakes. «if the God is kind,» the Makuraner marshal said, «the next message you have from me will be that Mashiz has fallen into my hands.»
«May it be so,» Maniakes said. «Then we shall be equals: two jumped-up generals sitting on the thrones of our lands.»
«Yes,» Abivard said. «I suppose so.» He still had his little nephew with whom to concern himself. Denak's son had a more nearly legitimate claim to the Makuraner throne than he did. Had the boy been Sharbaraz's get by another woman, the answer would have been easy. Disposing of his sister's child, though…
Judging it wiser to shift the subject a bit, Maniakes said, «So you have the men you need out of Vaspurakan?»
«Oh, yes,» Abivard answered. «And I have three regiments of Vaspurakaners, all of them eager to cast down Sharbaraz.»
«You'll take their help, but you won't take me?» Maniakes jabbed.
«Of course,» Abivard said easily. «They are our subjects. If you were a Makuraner subject now, Sharbaraz would be well pleased with me, and I'd have had no need to rebel against him. The Vaspurakaners weren't invading the Land of the Thousand Cities earlier this year, either.»
«A point,» Maniakes said. «Two points, as a matter of fact. Good luck go with you. Cast down Sharbaraz; give him everything he deserves for all the sorrows he's brought to Videssos and Makuran both. And then, by the good god, let's see how long we can live in peace.»
«Long enough to rebuild everything that's been destroyed, here and in Makuran,» Abivard said. «That should take a few years, or more than a few—you weren't gentle between the Tutub and the Tib.»
«I can't even say I'm sorry,» Maniakes said. «The only way I could find to get you out of my land—where you weren't always gentle, either—was to ravage yours.»
«I understand,» Abivard said. «It worked, too. Maybe, if the God is kind, we'll have got out of the habit of fighting each other once we have everything patched. And the two of us, we know what this war was like, and why we don't want another one.»
«Maybe we can even make our sons understand,» Maniakes said hopefully. Abivard's nod was tighter and more constrained than the Avtokrator would have liked to see. The hesitation worried him till he remembered that Abivard was still pondering whether to rule as King of Kings or as regent for his nephew.
Maniakes drew the sun-circle, lest his thinking past Abivard's victory prove a bad omen for winning that victory. He rode forward, holding out his hand. The Makuraner marshal clasped it. Then Abivard surprised him, saying, «I want you to tell your father something for me.»
«What's that?» the Avtokrator said.
«Tell him that if the Khamorth nomads hadn't killed Godarz– my father—I think the two of them would have got on famously together.»
«I'll remember.» Maniakes promised. «They might even have fought against each other, back when we were small or before we were born.»
«That's so.» Abivard looked bemused. «They might have. I hadn't thought of it, but you're right. And we certainly have. If the God is kind, our sons won't.» He gave what might have been a sketched Videssian salute or might as easily have been a jerky wave, then used his knees and the reins to turn his horse and ride back toward his own army. His guards, who, like Maniakes', had halted out of earshot of their masters, fell in around him.