Videssos Besieged

Symvatios growled something in mock high dudgeon. Maniakes, his own worries forgotten for a moment, gri

As if picking the thought from his son's mind, the elder Maniakes said, «Your nephew, the little fellow who's named for the two of us, seems a likely lad.»

«I hope so, for his sake,» Maniakes said. «Zenonis and her boy have been here a good deal longer than I have, so you'll have seen more of them than I have. They don't seek me out, either.» The corners of his mouth turned down. «You're her father-in-law, but in her mind—and I suppose in the boy's mind, too—I'm the chap who sent her husband into exile across the sea.»

«Couldn't be helped, son,» the elder Maniakes said heavily. «After he did what he undoubtedly did to you, I don't see that you had any choice. I've never held it against you—you know that.»

His heavy features got a little heavier. He'd had three sons. One, his namesake, was a great success. But one was a proved traitor, and one long years missing and surely dead. A great weight of sorrow had to lurk there, though he spoke of it but seldom.

Symvatios said, «Sometimes there isn't any help for the things that happen, and that's all there is to it. You do the best you can with what you've got and you go on.»

One of the things that had happened, of course, was Lysia and Maniakes falling in love with each other. Symvatios tolerated Maniakes as son-in-law as well as nephew, as the elder Maniakes was resigned to having Lysia as daughter-in-law. The marriage had been one of the things—though jealousy of Rhegorios played a bigger role—pushing Parsmanios away from the rest of the family and toward Tzikas' plot. Neither Maniakes' father nor his uncle had ever blamed him for that, not out loud. He was grateful to them for so much.

With a sigh, he said, «We always were a tight-knit clan. Now we're knitted tighter than ever.» That was his doing, his and Lysia's. But the world, as far as he was concerned, wasn't worth living in without her.

Kameas came in. «Wine, your Majesty, your Highnesses?» he said.

«Yes, wine,» Maniakes said. Wine would not take away the worry. Nothing would take away the worry. But, after three or four cups, it got blurry around the edges. That would do.

The vestiarios glided away, looking as he always did as if he propelled his vast bulk without moving his feet up and down when he walked. He returned a few moments later with that same ponderous grace. «I have an extra cup here, if his Highness the Sevastos should join you,» he said.

«You think of everything,» Maniakes said. Kameas nodded slightly, as if to say that was part of his job. Suddenly Maniakes wished this were his fourth cup of wine, not his first. He forced out a question: «Have you seen to Philetos?»

«Oh, yes, your Majesty. One of the prominent sirs—» He used the palace term for a lower-ranking eunuch. «—is attending to him, down by the Red Room.» Kameas sketched Phos' sun-circle above his breast. «We all pray, of course, that the holy sir's presence shall prove u

«Aye, we do, don't we?» Maniakes said harshly. That Philetos was a priest was not why, or not precisely why, he'd been summoned to the imperial residence when Lysia's pangs began. He was also a healer-priest, the finest in Videssos the city. If anything went wrong… If anything went wrong, he might be able to help, and then again he might not. He hadn't been able to help when Niphone died giving birth to Likarios.

With a distinct effort of will, the Avtokrator forced his thoughts away from that track. He spat on the floor in rejection of Skotos, at the same time raising his cup toward Phos and his holy light. The elder Maniakes and Symvatios did as he did. Then Maniakes drank. The wine, golden in a silver cup, slid down his throat smooth as if it were sunlight itself.

«Well,» Rhegorios said indignantly, walking into the little dining hall where his kinsfolk waited. «Shows the importance I have around here, when people start drinking without me.»

Maniakes pointed to the extra cup Kameas had left behind. «We don't have a long start on you, cousin of mine—not like the one Abivard got on us when he moved against the city while we were sailing to Lyssaion. If you apply yourself, I expect you can catch up.»

«Apply myself to wine?» Rhegorios raised an eyebrow. «Now there's a shocking notion.» He used the dipper to fill the cup.

«I'm not shocked at it.» Symvatios said. Rhegorios winced, rhetorically betrayed by his own father. After a perfectly timed pause, Symvatios went on, «I daresay you get it from me.»

The elder Maniakes said, «It's a gift that runs in the family, I expect. Father certainly had it.» Symvatios nodded at that. The elder Maniakes went on, «He had so much of it, sometimes he needed two or three tries before he could make it through a door.»

«He was right when it mattered, though,» Symvatios said. «When he did his drinking, it was when he didn't have to do anything else.» He paused again. «Well, most of the time, anyhow.»

«You're scandalizing your children, you know, the two of you,» Rhegorios told his father and uncle. «Maniakes and I don't remember Grandfather all that well, so if you tell us he was an old soak, we'll believe you.»

«What else will you believe if we tell it to you?» Symvatios asked. «Will you believe we're as wise and clever as we say?»

«Of course not,» Rhegorios replied at once. «We do know you.»

Both Maniakai, father and son, laughed. So did Symvatios. Kameas brought in a tray full of little squid sauteed in olive oil, vinegar, and garlic. They went well with the wine. Before too long, the jar was empty. The vestiarios fetched in another of the same vintage. For a little while, Maniakes managed to enjoy the company of his kin enough to take his mind off what Lysia was going through in the Red Room.

But time stretched. If Maniakes didn't intend to emulate his grandfather—or the account of his grandfather his father and uncle gave—he had to keep from drinking himself blind. And if he slowed his drinking so as to keep his wits about him, those wits kept returning to his wife.

Lysia had begun her labor around midmorning. The sun was sinking toward late autumn's early setting when Zoile strode into the little dining hall and thrust a blanket-wrapped bundle at Maniakes. «Your Majesty, you have a daughter,» the midwife a

Maniakes stared down at the baby, who was staring up at him. Their eyes met for a moment before those of the tiny girl wandered away. She was a dusky red color, and her head wasn't quite me right shape. Maniakes had learned all that was normal enough. He asked the question uppermost in his mind: «Is Lysia all right?»

«She seems very well.» If Zoile disapproved of his having married his cousin, she didn't show it. Since Maniakes had the strong impressions she was as frank as a Haloga, he took that for a good omen. The midwife went on, «She has been through this business a time or two, you know.»

«Three, now,» Maniakes corrected absently. «May I see her?» When it came to matters of the Red Room, even the Avtokrator of the Videssians asked the midwife's leave.

Zoile nodded. «Go ahead. She'll be hungry, you know, and tired. I think Kameas has already gone to get her something.» She pointed toward the baby Maniakes was still holding. «What will you name her, your Majesty?»

«Savellia,» Maniakes said; he and Lysia had chosen the name not far into her pregnancy.

«That's pretty,» Zoile said, as quick and sharp in approval as in everything else. «It's the Videssian form of a Vaspurakaner name, isn't it?»