«Come do your worst,» Tegin retorted. «We're ready for you.»
Maniakes concluded he was not the only one running a noisy bluff. «What do you propose to eat in there?» he demanded.
«Oh, I don't know,» Tegin said airily. «We have a deal of this and that. What do you propose to eat out there?»
It was, Maniakes had to admit, a good question. Supplying an army surrounding Serrhes had all the drawbacks of supplying the town itself. He wasn't about to let the Makuraner know he'd scored a hit, though. «We have all the westlands to draw on,» he said. «Yours is the last Makuraner garrison hereabouts.»
«All the more reason to hold it, then, wouldn't you say?» Tegin sounded as if he was enjoying himself. Maniakes wished he could say the same.
What he did say was, «By staying here, you violate the terms of the truce Abivard made with us.»
«Abivard is not King of Kings,» Tegin said. «My ruler is Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase.»
«All the Makuraners in the westlands have renounced Sharbaraz,» Maniakes said.
Tegin shook his head. «Not all of them. This one hasn't, for instance.»
«A pestilence,» Maniakes muttered under his breath. He should have expected he'd come across a holdout or two. Things could have been worse; Romezan could have stayed resolutely loyal to Sharbaraz. But things could also have been better. The Avtokrator had no intention of letting Serrhes stay in Makuraner hands. He said, «You know Sharbaraz ordered Abivard and most of his generals slain when they failed to take Videssos the city.»
«I've heard it said,» the garrison commander answered. «I don't know it for a fact.»
«I have seen the captured dispatch with my own eyes.» Maniakes said. He had also seen the document transformed into one more useful for Videssian purposes, but forbore to mention that, such forbearance also being more useful for Videssian purposes.
Tegin remained difficult. «Majesty, begging your pardon, I don't much care what you've seen and what you haven't seen. You're the enemy. I expect you'd lie to me if you saw any profit in it. Videssians are like that.»
Since Maniakes not only would lie but to a certain degree was lying, he changed the subject: «I point out to you once more, excellent sir, that you are at the moment commanding the only Makuraner garrison left in the westlands.»
«So you say,» Tegin replied, still unimpressed.
«If there are others all around, how have I fought my way past them to come to you?» Maniakes asked.
«If they've all gone over to Abivard, you don't need to have done any fighting,» Tegin said.
«That's true, I suppose,» Maniakes said. «And what it means is, I can concentrate my entire army—» He did not think Tegin needed to know that Immodios was leading half of it back to Videssos the city. «—against you holdouts in Serrhes.» He waved back toward his encampment. It was as big as… an army. He did not think Tegin was in a position to estimate with any accuracy how many men were in it.
And, indeed, the garrison commander wavered for the first time. «I am surrounded by traitors,» he complained.
«No, you're surrounded by Videssians,» Maniakes answered. «This is part of the Empire, and we are taking it back. You've probably heard stories about what we've done to the walls of the Thousand Cities. Do you think we won't do the same to you?»
He knew perfectly well they couldn't do the same to Serrhes. The walls of the towns between the Tutub and the Tib were made of brick, and not the strongest brick, either. Serrhes was fortified in stone. Breaking in wouldn't be so easy. If Tegin had time to think, he would realize that, too. Best not give him time to think, then.
Maniakes said, «Excellent sir, I don't care how brave you are. Your garrison is small. If we once get in among 'em, I'm afraid I can't answer for the consequences. You'll have made warnings of that sort yourself, I expect; you know how soldiers are.»
«Yes, I know how soldiers are,» Tegin said somberly. «If I had more men, Majesty. I would beat you.'»
«If I had feathers, I'd be a tall rooster,» Maniakes replied. «I don't. I'm not. You don't, either. You'd better remember it.» He started to turn away, then stopped. «I'll ask you again at this hour tomorrow. If you say yes, you may depart safely, with your weapons, like any other Makuraner soldiers during the truce. But if you say no, excellent sir, I wash my hands of you.» He did not give Tegin the last word, but walked off instead.
At his command, Videssian engineers began assembling siege engines from the timbers and ropes and specialized metal fittings they carried in the baggage train, as if they were intending to assault one of the hilltop towns in the Land of the Thousand Cities.
«We'd be able to run up more, your Majesty,» Ypsilantes said, «if the countryside had trees we could cut down and use. We can only carry so much lumber.»
«Do the best you can with what you have,» Maniakes told the chief engineer, who saluted and went back to his work.
From the walls of Serrhes, Makuraner soldiers watched dart-and stone-throwers spring up as if by magic, though Bagdasares had nothing whatever to do with them. They watched the Videssian engineers line up row upon row of jars near the catapults. They no doubt had their own store of incendiary liquid, but could not have been delighted at the prospect of having so much of it rained down on their heads.
Seeing all those jars, Maniakes summoned Ypsilantes again. «I didn't know we were that well supplied with the stuff,» he said, pointing.
Ypsilantes coughed modestly. «If you must know, your Majesty, most of those jars used to hold the wine we've served out to the troops when we weren't drawing supplies from a town. They're empty now. We know that. The Makuraners don't.»
«Isn't that interesting?» Maniakes said with a grin. «They fooled me, so I expect they'll fool Tegin, too.»
Ypsilantes also put ordinary soldiers to work dragging stones into piles. Those were perfectly genuine, though Maniakes wouldn't have put it past the chief engineer to have a few deceptive extras made of—what? stale bread, perhaps—lying around in case he needed them to befuddle an opponent.
A little before the appointed hour the next day, Tegin threw wide the gates of Serrhes. He came out and prostrated himself before Maniakes. «I would have fought you, Majesty. I wanted to fight you,» he said. «But when I looked at all the siege gear you have with you, my heart failed me. I knew we could not withstand your army.»
«You showed good sense.» Maniakes made a point of not glancing toward Ypsilantes. The veteran engineer had served him better in not fighting this siege than he had in fighting a good many others. «As I told you, you may depart in peace.»
Out filed the Makuraner garrison. Seeing it, Maniakes started to laugh. He wasn't the only one who'd done a good job of bluffing. If Tegin had even three hundred soldiers in Serrhes, he would have been astonished. He'd thought the garrison commander led three times that many, maybe more. Tegin might have fought an assault, but not for long.
Seriously, respecting the foe who had tricked him, Maniakes said, «If I were you, excellent sir, I'd keep my men out of the fight between Sharbaraz and Abivard. You can declare for whoever wins after he's won. Till then, find some little town or hilltop you can defend and stay there. That will keep you safe.»
«Did you find 'some little town or hilltop' during Videssos' civil wars?» Tegin's voice dripped scorn.
But Maniakes answered, «As a matter of fact, yes.» Tegin's jaw dropped. The Avtokrator went on, «My father was governor of the island of Kalavria, which is as far east as you can go without sailing out into the sea and never coming back. He sat tight there for six years. He would have thrown himself and his force away if he'd done anything else.»