Videssos Besieged ttot-4 Read online

  Maniakes could not leave Videssos the city, however, without his guardsmen or without his full complement of twelve parasol-bearers. He might have vanquished Etzilios, he might have kept the Makuraners on the west side of the Cattle Crossing, but against entrenched ceremonial he struggled in vain.

  Rhegorios said, «Don't worry about it, cousin your Majesty brother-in-law of mine.» That he was using his whimsical mix of titles for Maniakes again said he thought the crisis was over for the time being. He went on, «They won't get in your way very much.»

  «Ha!» Maniakes said darkly. But, even with the demands of ceremony oppressing him, he could not hold on to his foul mood. Being able to leave the imperial city, even with his escort, felt monstrous good.

  Seeing the wreckage of Etzilios' hopes up close felt even better. Videssian scavengers were still going over the engines and towers for scraps of timber and metal they could use or sell. Before long, nothing would be left.

  «On this side of the Cattle Crossing, we're our own masters again,» Rhegorios said, thinking along with him. The Sevastos' grin, always ready, got wider now. «And from where we are, the wall keeps us from looking over the Cattle Crossing at the Makuraners on the other side. We'll worry about them next, of course, but we don't have to do it now.»

  For once, Maniakes didn't try to peer around the wall to glare at Abivard's forces. He wasn't worrying about them now, but not for the reason Rhegorios had put forward. His worries, for the moment, were closer to him. Pointing toward the base of the wall, he said, «It was right around here somewhere.»

  «What was right around here?» asked Rhegorios, who hadn't asked why the Avtokrator was leaving Videssos the city before coming along with him. «That's right,» Maniakes said, reminding himself. «You weren't up on the wall then. Immodios and I were the ones who served the dart-thrower.»

  «What dart-thrower?» Rhegorios sounded like a man doing his best to stay reasonable but one unlikely to stay that way indefinitely.

  «The one we used to shoot at Tzikas,» the Avtokrator answered; he hadn't intended to thwart his cousin. «The renegade, may the ice take him, was showing the Kubratoi something—probably something he wanted them to know so they could hurt us with it. Whatever it is, I want to find it so we won't have to worry about it again.»

  «How could it be anything?» Rhegorios sounded calm, logical, reasonable—more like his sister than the way he usually sounded. «If something were here, wouldn't we know about it?»

  «Who can say?» Maniakes replied. «We spent years in exile, our whole clan. Good thing Likinios sent us away, too, as it worked out; if we had been anywhere Genesios could have reached us, our heads would have gone up on the Milestone. But Tzikas was here in the city at least part of the time, before he went off to the westlands to fight the Makuraners and play his own games.»

  «Well, maybe,» Rhegorios said grudgingly. «But if you're right, wouldn't somebody here besides Tzikas know about this whatever-it-is?»

  «Well, maybe,» Maniakes said, as grudgingly. «But maybe not, too. A lot of heads went up on the Milestone when Genesios held the throne. A lot of men died other ways, too, murdered or in battle or even in bed. And this thing would have been very secret. Not many people would have known about it in the first place, or we would have heard of it years ago.»

  «There's another explanation, you know,» Rhegorios said: «How can you know about something that's not there?»

  The guards and the parasol-bearers and Maniakes and even Rhegorios kept on going over the area again and again. Maniakes began to think his cousin was right. He shrugged. If that was so, it was so. Knowing it rather than merely hoping it would be a relief-One of the guards, a big blond Haloga who wore his hair in a braid halfway down his back, called to Maniakes: «Lord, here the ground feels funny under my feet.»

  «Funny, Hafgrim?» The Avtokrator came over and stomped where the guardsman was standing. «It doesn't feel funny to me.» Hafgrim snorted. «One of me would make two of you, lord.»

  That wasn't true, but it wasn't so far wrong, either. The Haloga went on, «I say it feels funny. I know what I know.» He folded his arms across his broad chest, defying Maniakes to disbelieve him. With nothing better found—with nothing else found at all– Maniakes was willing to grasp at straws. «All right, to you it feels funny,» he said agreeably. «Let's break out the spades and mattocks and find out why.»

  The guards set to work with a will. The parasol-bearers stood around watching. Maniakes didn't say anything about that, but he suspected several of those parasol-bearers would suffer accidents– accidents not too disabling, he hoped—around the palace in the near future.

  He also suspected the diggers would find nothing more than that Hafgrim's weight had made damp ground shift under his feet. That made him all the more surprised when, after penetrating no deeper than a foot and a half, the diggers' tools thumped against wood. «What did I say, lord?» Hafgrim said triumphantly.

  «What did I say, cousin of mine?» Maniakes said triumphantly.

  Rhegorios, for once, said nothing.

  «It is a trapdoor, lord,» the Haloga guardsman said after he and his companions had cleared more of it. «It is a trapdoor—and what would a trapdoor have under it?»

  «A tunnel,» Maniakes breathed, even before one of the guards dug the tip of a spade under the door and levered it up. «By the good god, a tunnel.»

  «Now, who would have wanted to dig a tunnel under the wall?» Rhegorios said. No possible doubt where the tunnel went: it sloped almost straight down, to dive beneath the ditch around the outer wall, and was heavily shored with timbers on all four sides.

  An answer leapt into Maniakes' mind: «Likinios. It has to be Likinios. It would have been just like him to build a bolt-hole– the man could see around corners on a straight line. And Tzikas could easily have known about it.» Maniakes shivered. «Good thing it came up so near the wall, where all our weapons would bear on it. Otherwise, Tzikas would have had the Kubratoi dig it open right away.»

  He should have done it anyhow,» Rhegorios said. «Getting the enemy inside the city would have been a dagger stabbing at our heart.»

  «When it comes to scheming, there's nobody to match Tzikas,»

  Maniakes answered. «But when it comes to fighting, he's always been on the cautious side. We've seen that before. Me, now, I think you're right, cousin of mine. If that had been me out there, I'd have tried to break in no matter what kind of losses I took doing it. But I'm Tzikas' opposite. I can't plot the way he does, but I'll stick my neck out when mere's a battle going on.»

  «Yes, and you've almost had a sword come down on it a time or two, too,» Rhegorios said, which would have made Maniakes angry had he not known it was true. In musing tones, the Sevastos went on, «I wonder why Likinios never got to use the hole he made for himself.»

  «I wonder if we'll ever know,» Maniakes said. «I have my doubts about that. We were just saying how most of the people who served Likinios are dead. Genesios made sure they were dead after he took over.» He blinked. «Kameas was around, though, and he's still here.» He snapped his fingers. «By the good god, I wonder if he's known about this tunnel all along. Have to ask him when we get back to the palaces.»

  «What do we do about it in the meantime?» Rhegorios asked, pointing down into the black mouth of the tunnel.

  «Fill it up,» Maniakes said at once. «It's more dangerous to us than it's ever likely to be useful.»

  Rhegorios plucked at his beard while he thought that over. After a few seconds, he nodded. «Good,» he said.

  «A tunnel, your Majesty?» Kameas' eyes grew round. The soft flesh under his beardless chin wobbled as he drew back in surprise. «No.» He sketched Phos' sun-sign above his heart. «I never heard of such a thing. But then, you must remember, Likinios Avtokrator was always one to hold what he knew as close as he could.»

  «That's so,» Maniakes said. Rhegorios looked to him for the agreement: the Sevastos had never known Likinios himself. The Avtokrator conti
nued, «If the secret was so good even you didn't know it, esteemed sir, why didn't Likinios use it when he saw Genesios was going to overthrow him?»

  «That, your Majesty, I may perhaps be able to answer,» Kameas replied. «Throughout Genesios' rebellion, Likinios never took him seriously enough. He would call him 'commander of a hundred,' as if to say no one with such small responsibility could hope to cast down the Avtokrator of the Videssians.»

  «He must not have realized how much the army on the Astris hated him, there at the end,» Maniakes said. «And everyone else, there at the end,» the vestiarios agreed. «The guards at the Silver Gate opened it to let Genesios' soldiers into Videssos the city. Nothing, they said, could be worse than Likinios.» His eyes were far away, looking back across the years. «Soon enough, Genesios let them—let all of us—know they were mistaken.»

  «Likinios was clever,» Maniakes said. «He had to have been clever, or he wouldn't have ruled the Empire for twenty years, he wouldn't have convinced a man as able as my father that he had no chance for the throne, and he wouldn't have used the war to restore Sharbaraz to the Makuraner throne to gain so much. But he was clever about things, about ideas, not so much about people and feelings. In the end, that cost him.»

  «We used to say, your Majesty—we of his court, I mean—that he thought like a eunuch,» Kameas said. «It was neither compliment nor condemnation. But he seemed somewhat separated from most of mankind, as we are, and divorced from the passions roiling mankind as well.»

  «I suspect my father would agree with you,» Maniakes answered. «I doubt he ever would have said so while Likinios was alive, though.»

  «The trouble with what Likinios did was that it needed him on the throne to keep it working,» Rhegorios observed. «Once we had Genesios instead, it fell apart faster and worse than it would have if it were simpler.» He turned toward Maniakes with that impudent look on his face. «I'm glad you're nice and simple, cousin of mine your Majesty.»

  «I'll simple you,» Maniakes said. He and his cousin both laughed. The Avtokrator suddenly sobered. «Do you know, all at once I think I begin to understand Tzikas.»

  «I'm so sorry for you!» Rhegorios exclaimed. «Here, sit down and stay quiet, you poor fellow. I'll send for Philetos from the Sorcerers' Collegium and for Agathios the patriarch, too. Between the two of them, they ought to be able to exorcise whatever evil spirit's got its claws in you.»

  Maniakes laughed again, but persisted: «By the good god, I mean it. Tzikas must have learned a lot, serving under Likinios. He couldn't have helped it, sly as he was—still is, worse luck. I don't know whether he decided to be just like Likinios the way sons decide to be like their fathers, but I'd bet it was something like that. And he is just like Likinios—or rather, he's just what Likinios would have been without integrity.»

  «Your Majesty, I believe you are correct,» Kameas said. «I admit, however, that my experience with Tzikas is limited.»

  «I wish mine were.» But Maniakes refused to let himself get downhearted. «He's not my worry now, Phos be praised. He's Abivard's worry, there on the far side of the Cattle Crossing. Abivard's welcome to him, as far as I'm concerned.»

  The mention of Abivard brought silence in its wake, as it often did. «Why is he still sitting in Across?» Rhegorios said at last. «What will he do now that he knows he can't get over the strait and attack us?»

  He and Maniakes and their kin had been asking one another the same question since they'd crushed the Kubratoi on the sea. «We still don't know, curse it,» Maniakes said. «I've been trying to figure it out, these past few days. Maybe he thinks Etzilios will be able to bring the Kubratoi south again and start up the siege once more.»

  «He cannot be so foolish, can he, your Majesty?» Kameas said, at the same times as Rhegorios was vehemently shaking his head. Maniakes spread his hands. «All right. I didn't really believe that myself. Etzilios is going to be lucky if someone doesn't take his head for leading the nomads into disaster.» He spoke with the somber satisfaction any man can feel on contemplating his enemy's discomfiture. «But if that's not the answer, what is?»

  Rhegorios said, «As long as he's over there—» He nodded west, toward the suburb of Videssos the city. «—he blocks our easiest way into the westlands.»

  «That's true,» Maniakes said. «Still, with us having a fleet and him not, we can bring our men in wherever we want, whenever we want—if the weather lets us, of course. But even in the dark days, before we had any kind of army worth mentioning, we were using ships to put raiders into the westlands and get them out again.»

  «Not that we've stopped since,» Rhegorios said.

  «Hardly,» Maniakes agreed. «We've had rather bigger things going on beside that, though.» Rhegorios and Kameas both nodded. Maniakes went on, «Cousin of mine, you hold a piece of the truth, but I don't think you have all of it. As I say, I've been thinking about this ever since we saw that Abivard wasn't going anywhere.»

  «We all have,» Rhegorios said. He grinned. «But do enlighten us, then, O sage of the age.»

  «I'll try, cousin of mine, though after that buildup whatever I say won't sound like much,» Maniakes answered. He and Rhegorios both laughed. The corners of Kameas' mouth slid upward, loo, slowly, as if the vestiarios didn't want that to happen but discovered he couldn't help himself. Maniakes continued, «The frightening thing about this siege is how close it came to working. The other frightening thing is that we didn't see it coming till it was here. Sharbaraz King of Kings—may the ice take him—prepared his ground ever so well.»

  «All true,» Rhegorios said. «The lord with the great and good mind knows it's all true. If that messenger hadn't made it through the Land of the Thousand Cities—» He shivered. «It was a good plan.»

  «Aye,» Maniakes said. «And Abivard did everything he could to make it work, too. He got engineers over the Cattle Crossing. He got Tzikas over the Cattle Crossing. By the good god, he crossed over himself. The only thing he couldn't do was get a good-sized chunk of his army across, and that wasn't his fault. He had to depend on the Kubrati fleet, and we smashed it»

  «All true,» Rhegorios said. «And so?»

  «The planning was splendid. We all agree about that,» Maniakes said. The Sevastos and the vestiarios both nodded. «Abivard did everything possible to get it to work.» More nods. «But it didn't.» Still more nods. Maniakes smiled, once more enjoying a foe's predicament. «When Sharbaraz King of Kings, being who he is, being what he is, finds out it didn't work, what will he do?»

  «Phos,» Rhegorios whispered.

  «Not exactly,» Maniakes said. «But he is the fellow who had a shrine for the God made over in his own image, remember. Anyone who'd do that isn't the sort of fellow who's likely to stay calm when things go wrong, is he? And who knows Sharbaraz King of Kings better than Abivard?»

  «Phos,» Rhegorios said again, this time most reverently. «He doesn't dare go home, does he?»

  «I don't know whether I'd go that far,» Maniakes answered. «But he has to be thinking about it. We would be, if that were us over there. The Makuraners may play the game a little more politely than we do, but it's the same game. Sharbaraz will be looking for someone to blame.»

  «He could blame Etzilios, your Majesty,» Kameas said. «The fault, as you pointed out, lay in the Kubrati fleet.»

  «Yes, he could do that,» Maniakes agreed. «He probably even does do that, or will when the news reaches him, if it hasn't got there yet. But how much good will that do him? Even if he blames Etzilios, he can't punish him. He was lucky to get an embassy to Kubrat. He'd never get an army there.»

  Rhegorios said, «Half the fun of blaming someone is punishing him for whatever he did wrong.»

  Maniakes hadn't thought of it as fun. He'd worried about what was practical and what wasn't. But his freewheeling cousin had a point. When you were King of Kings of Makuran—or, for that matter, Avtokrator of the Videssians—you could, if you wanted, do exactly as you wanted. Punishing those who failed you was one of t
he perquisites—sometimes one of the enjoyable perquisites—of the position.

  Musingly, Kameas said, «I wonder how we could best exploit whatever disaffection may exist between Sharbaraz and Abivard, or create such disaffection if none exists at present.»

  Maniakes clapped the vestiarios on the back. «The Makuraners are always complaining about how devious and underhanded we Videssians are. Esteemed sir, if they heard that, it would prove their point. And do you know what else? You're exactly right. That's what we have to do.»

  «Send a messenger—secret but not too secret—to Abivard,» Rhegorios said. «One of two things will happen. He may go along with us, which is what we have in mind. Or he may say no, in which case Sharbaraz will still get word he's been treating with Videssians. I don't think Sharbaraz would like that.»

  «I don't, either,» Maniakes said. «I'll do it.»

  The messenger sailed out of Videssos the city the next day. He went behind a shield of truce. Abivard was better about honoring such shields than most officers on either side. Maniakes had reason to expect the messenger, a certain Isokasios, would return intact, if not necessarily successful.

  Return Isokasios did, by noon that day. He was tall and lean, with a close-trimmed gray beard fringing a face thin to gauntness. After prostrating himself, he said, «Your Majesty, I failed. Abivard would not see me, would not hear my words, would have nothing to do with me whatever. He did send one message to you: that, since the westlands are, in his words, rightfully Makuraner territory, any Videssian warriors caught there will be treated as spies henceforth. Fair warning, he called it.»

  «Killed out of hand instead of slowly, you mean,» Maniakes said. «They work their war captives to death, a digit at a time.» He wondered if that had happened to his brother Tatoules, who had vanished in the Makuraner invasion of the westlands and not been seen since.