The Thousand Cities ttot-3 Read online

  Clang! Gazrik chopped at the shaft of the lance below the head, hoping to cut off that head as if it belonged to a convicted robber. But the lance had a strip of iron bolted to the wood to thwart any such blow.

  Poke, poke. Like a cat toying with a mouse, Romezan forced Gazrik down the cleared strip where they fought, not giving him the chance to strike a telling blow of his own—until, with a loud cry, the Vaspurakaner used his shield to beat aside the questing lance head and rushed at his foe.

  Romezan could not backpedal as fast as Gazrik bore down on him. He whacked Gazrik in the ribs with the shaft of the lance, trying to knock his foe off balance. That was a mistake. Gazrik chopped at the shaft again and this time hit it below the protective strip of iron. The shaft splintered. Cursing, Romezan threw it down and yanked out his sword.

  All at once both men seemed tentative. They were used to fighting with swords from horseback, not afoot like a couple of infantrymen. Instead of going at each other full force, they would trade strokes, each draw back a step as if to gauge the other's strength and speed, and then approach for another short clash.

  «Fight!» somebody yelled from the crowd, and in an instant a hundred throats were baying the word.

  Romezan was the one who pressed the attack. Gazrik seemed content to defend himself and wait for a mistake. Abivard thought Romezan fought the same way he led his men: straight ahead, more than bravely enough, and with utter disregard for anything but what lay before him. Tzikas had used flank attacks to maul bis troopers a couple of times.

  Facing only one enemy, Romezan did not need to worry about an attack from the side. Iron belled on iron as he hacked away at Gazrik. Sparks flew as they did when a smith sharpened a sword on a grinding wheel. And then, with a sharp snap, Gazrik's blade broke in two.

  Romezan brought up bis own sword for the killing stroke. Gazrik, who had self-possession to spare, threw the stub and hilt of his ruined weapon at the Makuraner's head. Then he sprang at Romezan, both hands grabbing for his right wrist

  Romezan tried to kick his feet out from under him and did, but Gazrik dragged him down, too. They fell together, and their armor clattered about them. Gazrik pulled out a dagger and stabbed at Romezan, trying to slip the point between the lamellae of his corselet. Abivard thought he'd succeeded, but Romezan did not cry out and kept fighting.

  Gazrik had let go of Romezan's sword arm to free his own knife. Romezan had no room to swing the sword or cut with it. He used it instead as a knuckle-duster, smashing Gazrik in the face with the jeweled and weighted pommel. The Vaspurakaner groaned, and so did his countrymen.

  Romezan hit him again. Now Gazrik wailed. Romezan managed to reverse the blade and thrust it home point first, just above the chain mail veiling that warded most but not all of Gazrik's face. Gazrik's body convulsed, and his feet drummed against the dirt. Then he lay still.

  Very slowly, into vast silence, Romezan struggled to his feet. He took off his helmet. His face was bloody. He bowed to Gazrik's corpse, then to the grim-featured Vaspurakaners in the crowd. «That was a brave man,» he said, first in his own language, then in theirs.

  Abivard hoped that would keep the Vaspurakaners in the crowd calm. No swords came out, but a man said, «If you call him brave now, why did you name him a dog before?»

  Before Romezan answered, he shed his gauntlets. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, mixing sweat and grime and blood but not doing much more. At last he said, «For the same reason any man insults his foe during war. What have you princes called us? But when the war was over, I was willing to let it rest. Gazrik came seeking me; I did not go looking for him.»

  Though you certainly did on the battlefield, and though you were glad to fight him when he came to you, Abivard thought. But Romezan had given as good an answer as he could. Abivard said, «The general of Makuran is right. The war is over. Let us remember that, and let this be the last blood shed between us.»

  Along with his countrymen, he waited to see if that would be reply enough or if the Vaspurakaners, in spite of his words and Romezan's, would make blood pay for blood. He kept his own hand away from the hilt of his sword but was ready to snatch it out in an instant.

  For a few heartbeats the issue hung in the balance. Then, from the back of the crowd, a few Vaspurakaners turned and trudged back toward the frowning gray walls of Shahapivan, their heads down, their shoulders bent, the very picture of dejection. Had Abivard had any idea who they were, he would have paid them a handsome sum of silver arkets or even of Videssian goldpieces. Peaceful, disappointed withdrawal gave their countrymen both the excuse and the impetus to leave the site of the duel without trying to amend the result.

  Abivard permitted himself the luxury of a long sigh of relief. Things could hardly have gone better: Not only had Romezan beaten his challenger, he'd managed to do it in a way that didn't reignite the princes' rebellion.

  He walked up to his general. «Well, my great boar of Makuran, we got by with it.»

  «Aye, so we did,» Romezan answered, «and I stretched the dog dead in the dirt, as he deserved.» He laughed at Abivard's flabbergasted expression. «Oh, I spoke him fair for his own folks, lord. I'm no fool: I know what needed doing. But a dog he was, and a dead dog he is, and I enjoyed every moment of killing him.» Just for a moment his facade of bravado cracked, for he added, «Except for a couple of spots where I thought he was going to kill me.»

  «How did you live, there when he was stabbing at you through your suit?» Abivard asked. «I thought he pierced it a couple of times, but you kept on.»

  Romezan laughed. «Aye, I did, and do you know why? Under it I wore an iron heart guard, the kind foot soldiers put on when they can't afford any other armor. You never know, thought I, when such will come in handy, and by the God I was right. So he didn't kill me, and I did kill him, and that's all that matters.»

  «Spoken like a warrior,» Abivard said. Romezan, as best he could tell, had no great quantity of wit, but sometimes, as now, the willingness to take extra pains and a large helping of straightforward courage sufficed.

  Fall drew on. Abivard thought hard about moving back into the Videssian westlands before the rains finished turning the roads to mud but in the end decided to hold his mobile force in Vaspurakan. If the princes broke their fragile accord with Makuran, he didn't want to give them the winter in which to consolidate themselves.

  Also weighting his judgment was how quiet Maniakes had been. Instead of plunging ahead regardless of whether he had the strength to plunge, as he had before, the Videssian Avtokrator was playing a cautious game. In a way that worried Abivard, for he wasn't sure what Maniakes was up to. In another way, though, it relieved him: even if he kept the mobile force here in Vaspurakan, he could be fairly sure the Avtokrator would not leap upon the westlands.

  Keeping the mobile force in Vaspurakan also let him present to Sharbaraz the settlement he'd made with the princes as a reconquest and occupation of their land. He made full use of that aspect of the situation when at last he wrote a letter explaining to the King of Kings all he'd done. If one didn't read that letter with the greatest of care, one would never notice that the Vaspurakaners still worshiped at their old temples to Phos and that Abivard had agreed not to try to keep them from doing so.

  «The King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, is a very busy man,» he said when he gave the carefully crafted letter to Mikhran marzban for his signature. «With any luck at all, he'll skim through this without even noticing the fine points of the arrangement.» He hoped that was true, considering what Panteles had told him about how Sharbaraz was likely to react if he did notice. He didn't mention that to the marzban.

  «It would be fine, wouldn't it?» Mikhran said, scrawling his name below Abivard's. «It would be very fine indeed, and I think you have a chance of pulling it off.»

  «Whatever he does, he'll have to do it quickly,» Abivard said. «This letter should reach him before the roads get too gloppy to carry traffic, but not long befo
re. He'll need to hurry if he's going to give any kind of response before winter or maybe even before spring. I'm hoping that by the time he gets around to answering me, so many other things will have happened that he'll have forgotten all about my letter.»

  «That would be fine,» Mikhran repeated. «In fact, maybe you should even arrange for your messenger to take so long that he gets stuck in the mud and makes your letter later still.»

  «I thought about that,» Abivard said. «I've decided I dare not take the risk. I don't know who else has written to the King of Kings and what he or they may have said, but I have to think some of my officers will have complained about the settlement we've made. Sharbaraz needs to have our side of it before him, or he's liable to condemn us out of hand.»

  The marzban considered that, then reluctantly nodded. «I suppose you're right, lord, but I fear this letter will be enough to convict us of disobedience by itself. The Vaspurakaners are not worshiping the God.»

  «They aren't assassinating marzbans and waylaying soldiers, either,» Abivard returned. «Sharbaraz will have to decide which carries the greater weight.»

  There the matter rested. Once the letter was properly signed and sealed, a courier rode off to the west with it. It would pass through the western regions of Vaspurakan and the Thousand Cities before it came to Mashiz—and to Sharbaraz' notice. As far as Abivard could see, he was obviously doing the right thing. But Panteles' magic made him doubt the King of Kings would agree.

  Several days after the letter left his hands he wished he had it back again so he could change it—or so he could change his mind and not send it at all. He even started to summon Panteles to try to blank the parchment by sorcery from far away but ended up refraining. If Sharbaraz got a letter with no words from him, he'd wonder why and would keep digging till he found out. Better to give, him something tangible on which to center his anger.

  Abivard slowly concluded that he would have to give Tzikas something tangible, too. The Videssian turncoat had fought very well in Vaspurakan; how in justice could Abivard deny him a command commensurate with his talent? The plain truth was, he couldn't.

  «But oh, how I wish I could,» he told Roshnani one morning before a meeting with Tzikas he'd tried but failed to avoid. «He's so—polite.» He made a gesture redolent of distaste.

  «Sometimes all you can do is make the best of things,» Roshnani said. She spoke manifest truth, but that did not make Abivard feel any better about the way Tzikas smiled.

  Tzikas bowed low when Abivard approached his pavilion. «I greet you, brother-in-law to the King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase. May he and his kingdom both prosper.»

  «I greet you, eminent sir,» Abivard answered in Videssian far more ragged than it had been a few months before. Don't use a language and you will forget it, he'd discovered.

  Tzikas responded in Makuraner, whether just for politeness' sake or to emphasize how much he was himself a man of Makuran, Abivard couldn't guess. Probably both, he thought, and wondered whether Tzikas himself knew the proportions of the mix. «Brother-in-law to the King of Kings, have I in some way made myself odious to you? Tell me what my sin is and I shall expiate it, if that be in my power. If not, I can do no more than beg forgiveness.»

  «You have done nothing to offend me, eminent sir.» Abivard stubbornly stuck to Videssian. His motives were mixed, too: not only did he need the practice, but by using the language of the Empire he reminded Tzikas that he remained an outsider no matter what services he'd rendered to Makuran.

  The Videssian general caught that signal: Tzikas was sometimes so subtle, he imagined signals that weren't there, but not today. He hesitated, then said, «Brother-in-law to the King of Kings, would I make myself more acceptable in your eyes if I cast off the worship of Phos and publicly accepted the God and the Prophets Four?»

  Abivard stared at him. «You would do such a thing?»

  «I would,» Tzikas answered. «I have put Videssos behind me; I have wiped her dust from the soles of my sandals.» As if to emphasize his words, he scraped first one foot and then the other against the soil of Vaspurakan. «I shall also turn aside from Phos; the lord with the great and good mind has proved himself no match for the power of the God.»

  «You are a—» Abivard had to hunt for the word he wanted but found it—"a flexible man, eminent sir.» He didn't altogether mean it as a compliment; Tzikas' flexibility, his willingness to adhere to any cause that looked advantageous, was what worried Abivard most about him.

  But the Videssian renegade nodded. «I am,» he declared. «How could I not be when unswerving loyalty to Videssos did not win me the rewards I had earned?»

  What Tzikas had was unswerving loyalty to Tzikas. But if that could be transmuted into unswerving loyalty to Makuran… it would be a miracle worthy of Fraortish eldest of all. Abivard chided himself for letting the nearly blasphemous thought cross his mind. Tzikas was a tool, like a sharp knife, and, like a sharp knife, he would cut your hand if you weren't careful.

  Abivard had no trouble seeing that much. What lay beyond it was harder to calculate. One thing did seem likely, though: «Having accepted the God, you dare not let the Videssians lay hands on you again. What do they do to those who leave their faith?»

  «Nothing pretty, I assure you,» Tzikas answered, «but no worse than what they'd do to a man who tried to slay the Avtokrator but failed.»

  «Mm, there is that,» Abivard said. «Very well, eminent sir. If you accept the God, we shall make of that what we can.»

  He did not promise Tzikas his regiment. He waited for the renegade to beg for it or demand it or try to wheedle it out of him, all ploys Tzikas had tried before. But Tzikas, for once, did not push. He answered only, «As you say, brother-in-law to the King of Kings, Videssos shall reject me as I have rejected her. And so I accept the God in the hope that Makuran will accept me in return.» He bowed and ducked back inside his pavilion.

  Abivard stared thoughtfully after him. Tzikas had to know that, no matter how fervently and publicly he worshiped the God, the grandees of Makuran would never stop looking on him as a foreigner. They might one day come to look on him as a foreigner who made a powerful ally, perhaps even as a foreigner to whom one might be wise to marry a daughter. From Tzikas' point of view that would probably constitute acceptance.

  Sharbaraz already thought well of Tzikas because of his support for the latest «Hosios Avtokrator.» Add the support of the King of Kings to the turncoat's religious conversion and he might even win a daughter of a noble of the Seven Clans as a principal wife. Abivard chuckled. Infusing some Videssian slyness into those bloodlines would undoubtedly improve the stock. As a man who knew a good deal about breeding horses, he approved.

  Roshnani laughed when he told her the conceit later that day, but she did not try to convince him he was wrong.

  The first blizzard roared into Vaspurakan from out of the norm-west without warning. One day the air still smelled sweet with memories of fruit just plucked from trees and vines; the next, the sky turned yellow-gray, the wind howled, and snow poured down. Abivard had thought he knew everything about winter worth knowing, but that sudden onslaught reminded him that he'd never gone through a hard season in mountain country.

  «Oh, aye, we lose men, women, families, flocks to avalanches every year,» Tatul said when he asked. «The snow gets too thick on the hillsides, and down it comes.»

  «Can't you do anything to stop that?» Abivard inquired.

  The Vaspurakaner shrugged, as Abivard might have had he been asked what he could do about Vek Rud domain's summer heat «We might pray for less snow,» Tatul answered, «but if the lord with the great and good mind chooses to answer that prayer, the rivers will run low the next spring, and crops well away from them will fail for lack of water.»

  «Nothing is ever simple,» Abivard murmured, as much to himself as to the nakharar. Tatul nodded; he took the notion for granted.

  Abivard made sure all his men had adequate shelter against the co
ld. He wished he could imitate a bear and curl up in a cave till spring came. It would have made life easier and more pleasant. As things were, though, he remained busy through the winter. Part of that was routine: he drilled the soldiers when weather permitted and staged inspections of their quarters and their horses' stalls when it did not

  And part was anything but routine. Several of his warriors– most of them light cavalry with no family connections, but one a second son of a dihqan—fell so deep in love with Vaspurakaner women that nothing less than marriage would satisfy them. Each of those cases required complicated dickering between the servants of the God and the Vaspurakaner priests of Phos to determine which holy men would perform the marriage ceremony.

  Some of the soldiers were satisfied with much less than marriage. A fair number of Vaspurakaner women brought claims of rape against his men. Those were hard for him to decide, as they so often came down to conflicting claims about what had really happened. Some of his troopers said the women had consented and were now changing their minds; others denied association of any sort with them.

  In the end he dismissed about half the cases. In the other half he sent the women back to their homes with silver—more if their attackers had gotten them with child—and put stripes on the backs of the men who, he was convinced, had violated them.

  The nakharar Tatul came out from the frowning walls of Shahapivan to watch one of the rapists take his strokes. Encountering Abivard there for the same reason, he bowed and said, «You administer honest justice, brother-in-law to the King of Kings. After Vshnasp's wicked tenure here, this is something we princes note with wonder and joy.»

  Craack! The lash scored the back of the miscreant. He howled. No doubt about his guilt: he'd choked his victim and left her for dead, but she had not died. Abivard said, «It's a filthy crime. My sister, principal wife to the King of Kings, would not let me look her in the face if I ignored it.» Craack!

  Tatul bowed again. «Your sister is a great lady.»

  «That she is.» Abivard said no more than that. He did not tell Tatul how Denak had let herself be ravished by one of Sharbaraz' guards when the usurper Smerdis had imprisoned the rightful King of Kings in Nalgis Crag stronghold, thereby becoming able to pass messages to and from the prisoner and greatly aiding in his eventual escape. His sister would have had special reason to spurn him had he gone soft here. Craack!