The Thousand Cities

«I suppose so,» Romezan said unwillingly. «But if we fight like the Videssians, we'll end up acting like them in other ways, too. And they know no caste.»

He spoke with great abhorrence. Abivard knew he should have felt that same abhorrence. Try as he would, he couldn't find it inside himself. He wondered why. After a few seconds' thought he said, «I've lived so long in Videssos and here in the Thousand Cities, I don't mind that nearly so much as I used to. Up on the Plateau breaking people into tight groups—the King of Kings, the Seven Clans and the servants of the God, the dihqans, artisans and merchants, and peasants down at the bottom—seemed a natural thing to do. Now I've seen other ways of doing things, and I realize ours isn't the only one.»

«That's no sort of thing for a proper Makuraner to say.» Romezan sounded almost as dismayed as if Abivard had blasphemed the God.

But Abivard refused to let himself be cowed. «No, eh? Why is it you kiss my cheek, then, instead of the other way around? You outrank me. I'm just a dihqan, and a frontier dihqan at that.»

«I started giving you that courtesy because you're brother-in-law to the King of Kings,» the noble from the Seven Clans answered. If he'd kept quiet after that, he would have won the argument. Instead, though, he went on, «Now I see you've earned it because—»

Abivard stuck a triumphant finger in the air. «If you grant me the courtesy because I've earned it and not because of my blood, what has that got to do with caste?»

Romezan started to answer, looked confused, stopped, and tried again: «It's—that is—» He came to another stop, then burst out, «You have lived among the Videssians too long. All you want to do is chop logic all day. Now I'm going to be thinking for the next half dozen farsangs.» He made the prospect sound most unpleasant. Abivard had seen that before in many different men. It always left him sad.

Tzikas, on the other hand, actively enjoyed thinking. That wasn't necessarily a recommendation, either. The older Abivard got, the more it looked as if nothing was necessarily a recommendation for anything.

Outside Qostabash men from the field army were playing mallet and ball, galloping their horses up and down a grassy stretch of ground with great abandon. Every so often a loincloth-clad peasant, his blue-black hair bound in a bun at the nape of his neck, would look up from his labor with hoe and mattock and watch the sport for a little while before bending back down to weed or prune or dig. Abivard wondered what the peasants thought of the shouting warriors whose game was not far from combat itself. Whatever it was, they kept it to themselves.

He had sent a rider out ahead of his company to let Turan know he was near. Two years before Turan had been only a company commander himself. He'd risen fast, since Abivard had access to so few veteran Makuraner officers on whom he could rely. Now Turan had shown himself able to command an army. Very soon he'd have the chance to do just that

Now he came riding out of Qostabash to greet Abivard and his companions—he must have had men up on the walls of the city keeping an eye out for them. The first thing he did after pulling his horse alongside Abivard's was to point over at Tzikas and say, «Isn't he supposed to be dead, lord?»

«It all depends on whom you ask,» Abivard answered. «I certainly think so, but the King of Kings disagrees. As in any contest of that sort, his will prevails.»

«Of course it does,» Turan said, as any loyal Makuraner would have done. Then, as anyone who had made the acquaintance of Tzikas would have done, he asked, «Why on earth does he want him alive?»

«For a reason even I find… fairly good,» Abivard answered. He spent the next little while explaining the plan Sharbaraz King of Kings had devised and the places his sovereign had designated for him and for the Videssian renegade.

When he was through, Turan glanced over at Tzikas and said, «He had better make keeping him alive worth everyone's while or else he won't last, orders from the King of Kings or no orders from the King of Kings.»

«Far be it from me to argue with you,» Abivard said. Lowering his voice, he went on, «But I've decided I'm not going to do anything about it till after Videssos the city falls, if it does. Either way, the problem takes care of itself then.» He explained his reasoning to Turan.

The officer nodded. «Aye, lord, that's very good. If we fail, which the God forbid, he gets the blame, and if we succeed, we don't need him anymore after that. Very neat. Anyone would think you were the Videssian, not his unpleasantness over there.»

«Too many people have said the same thing to me lately,» Abivard grumbled. «I thank the God and the Prophets Four that I'm not»

«Aye, I believe that,» Turan agreed, «the same as I thank the God—» He broke off. He'd probably been about to say something like for making me a man, not a woman. Considering how much freedom Roshnani had and how well she used it, that wasn't the wisest thing to say around Abivard. Turan changed the subject: «How will you know, lord, when to leave the Thousand Cities behind and strike out for Videssos?»

«As soon as we get word Maniakes has landed, whether north or south, we go,» Abivard said. «At this season of the year the badlands between the Thousand Cities and Videssos will have some greenery on them, too, which means we won't have to carry quite so much grain and hay for the horses and mules.»

«Every little bit helps,» Turan said. «And you'll want me to keep Maniakes in play for as long as I can, isn't that right?»

«The busier he is with you, the more time I'll have to do all I can against Videssos the city,» Abivard said, and Turan nodded. Abivard added, «You may even beat him—who knows?»

«With an all-infantry army?» Turan rolled his eyes. «If I can slow him down and make his life difficult, I'll be happy.»

Since Abivard had been saying the same thing to Sharbaraz over the course of the previous two campaigning seasons, he found no way to blame Turan for words like those. He said, «The two things you have to remember are not to let Maniakes get behind you and make a run for Mashiz and to make him fight as many long sieges as you can.»

«He hasn't fought many long ones the past couple of years,» Turan said unhappily. «Brick walls like the ones hereabouts don't stand up well to siege engines, and the Videssians are good engineers.»

«I know.» Abivard remembered the capable crew of artisans the elder Maniakes, the Avtokrator's father, had brought with his army when the Videssians had helped put Sharbaraz back on the throne of the King of Kings. He dared not assume that the men the younger Maniakes would have with him would turn out to be any less competent

Romezan said, «I hope Maniakes comes soon. Every day I sit here in Qostabash doing nothing is another debt the Avtokrator owes to me. I intend to collect every one of those debts, and in good Videssian gold.»

«We won't be idle here,» Abivard answered. «Getting an army ready to move at a moment's notice is an art of its own and one where the Videssians are liable to be better man we are.»

Romezan only grunted by way of reply. He was a good man in a fight, none better, but cared less than he might have for the other side of generalship, the side that involved getting men ready for fighting and keeping them that way. He seemed to think that sort of thing happened by itself. Abivard had needed to worry about supplies from his earliest days as a soldier, when he'd fed the dihqans of the Northwest as they looked Sharbaraz over at the outset of his rebellion against Smerdis the usurper. If he hadn't learned then, keeping an eye on the way the Videssians did things would have taught him.

Turan said, «When you go east, I wish I were going with you. I know the job I have to do back here is important, but—»