The farmers and herders who lived in the hills from which the Tutub sprang fled into the roughest country they could find when the Videssian army made its way through their land for the second time in a relatively short interval. No doubt they stared down at the imperials with helpless resentment from their craggy refuges, wondering what had prompted Maniakes to revisit them on such short notice.

They might have been surprised to hear he was at least as unhappy about the necessity as were they. He would much sooner have been fighting outside their capital than rushing back to try to save his own.

«Next interesting question,» Rhegorios observed as the army came out of the hills and into the valley of the Xeremos, «is whether any ships will be waiting for us once we get to Lyssaion.»

Maniakes had entertained that same worry—had entertained it and now rejected it. «There will be ships,» he said, as if he had seen them himself: and so, in a manner of speaking, he had. «Bagdasares showed them to me.» Of the tempest Bagdasares had also shown him, he said nothing.

«I'd hate to have him wrong, that's all,» the Sevastos murmured.

«He's not wrong,» Maniakes said. «Think it through—do you think my father would send word the city was in trouble without giving us a way to get back there? I don't need magic to see that.»

«Uncle Maniakes?» Rhegorios shook his head, visibly taking the point. «No, he'd never make that kind of mistake. My father calls him the most careful man he ever heard of.» He pointed at the Avtokrator. «How did he ever get a son like you?»

«He was born luckier than I was, into a time where you didn't need to take so many chances,» Maniakes answered. «By the time I got the crown, I had to do all sorts of desperate things to make sure I kept having an empire to rule. The trouble with desperate things is, a lot of them don't work.» He sighed. «We've found out more than we ever wanted to know about that, haven't we?»

«So we have,» Rhegorios said, adding, «Well, now we and the Makuraners are even.» When Maniakes looked puzzled, his cousin condescended to explain: «Wouldn't you say throwing everything they have into an attack on Videssos the city is about as desperate as our throwing everything we have into an attack on Mashiz? Maybe they're more desperate still, because the city is harder to take than Mashiz.»

«Ah, now I understand,» Maniakes said. «Put that way, you're right, of course.» Some of the desperate things he'd done had been disasters. Some of them, against the Kubratoi and Makuraners both, had succeeded better than he'd dared hope. Now he had to do everything he could to ensure that Abivard and Sharbaraz's desperate attack—if that was what it was—didn't fall into the second category.

One of the things he did, as soon as he was sure no substantial Makuraner force lurked ahead of him, was to send riders through the hill country and down the valley of the Xeremos to make sure that the fleet he confidently expected to find waiting for him was in fact there. He got less confident by the day till the first rider returned. If the fleet wasn't there, he didn't know what he'd do. Travel through the westlands by land? Go up to Erzerum and hope to find a fleet there? Leap off a tall promontory into the sea? With the third choice, at least, the agony would be over in a hurry.

But, by the way the returning horseman was waving at him, he didn't have to worry about that—one down, hundreds left. «They're there, your Majesty,» the fellow shouted when he got close enough for the Avtokrator to hear him. «A whole great forest of masts in the harbor, waiting for us to come aboard.»

«The lord with the great and good mind be praised,» Maniakes breathed. He turned to the trumpeters who were usually nearby. «Blow the quick trot. The sooner we get to Lyssaion, the sooner we sail.»

The sooner the storm strikes us, he thought. He wondered if he should hold back his pace in the hope the bad weather would go by before the fleet did. He didn't think that would help. If he held back, somehow or other the storm would manage to do the same. And, if he held back, who could say what might happen in Videssos the city while he was delaying?

His soldiers rode down the valley of the Xeremos as fast as they could without foundering their horses. Blue banners with gold sunbursts on them snapped in the breeze. Brisk as ever, the horns called out the commands that held the army together. As the horsemen rode by, the peasants who farmed the valley looked up from their endless labor. Did they know the soldiers were coming back too soon, too soon?

What they knew mattered little, not here, not now. Maniakes knew. Knowledge gnawed at him like a toothache. Then, faster than he'd expected, more slowly than he would have liked, Lyssaion lay before him, baked golden under the sun.

Beyond the town splashed the water. He saw, at first, only a narrow strip of that deep, implausible blue. But where there was a strip, there was a sea.

It would take him where he wanted to go. Like a mad and jealous lover, it would try to kill him. It might succeed. Bagdasares' magic hadn't shown him anything about that, not one way or the other. He rushed forward to embrace the sea just the same.

In Lyssaion waited the hypasteos and the garrison commander. They knew what was happening in Videssos the city. They had known longer than he; messengers who reached him went past them first.

In Lyssaion also waited Thrax. The drungarios' silver hair seemed out of place amidst all the golden stonework. Maniakes realized he should not have been surprised to see the commander of the fleet there, but somehow he was. The idea of Thrax's doing anything unexpected was itself unexpected.

«Aye, your father sent me and the Renewal here,» Thrax said, which made Maniakes feel better: the drungarios hadn't done anything so strange as thinking on his own, then. «You're needed back home, that you are.»

«I was needed where I was, too,» Maniakes answered. But saying that gained nothing. The past two campaigning seasons, he'd moved according to his own plan. This year, the will directing him belonged to Abivard and Sharbaraz. They'd outwitted him. It was that revoltingly simple. He asked the question that had to be asked: «How bad is it back there?»

«Well, Videssos the city's still standing, or was when I left,» Thrax said. Maniakes wished he hadn't added that qualifier. Thrax went on, «We've spied a Makuraner or two on the eastern side of the Cattle Crossing, looking at the city the way a cat looks at a bird in a cage: it looks tasty, but they have to figure out how to get inside.»

«Makuraner soldiers on our side of the Cattle Crossing,» Maniakes murmured, and hung his head. A series of humiliations from Makuran and Kubrat had punctuated his reign, but this was the worst of all. For all the centuries of Videssian history, the strait had shielded the capital—till now.

«No siege gear on our side,» Thrax said, as if in consolation– and it was consolation of a sort. «Those monoxyla the Kubratoi use, they can sneak men across easily enough, but only a few at a time, on account of our dromons still catch and sink a good many. Some of the tackle is right bulky, though.»

«Less than you'd think,» Maniakes said worriedly. The more he thought about it, the more worried he got, too. Ropes and metal fittings and a few special pieces of gear were all the Makuraners needed to bring over with them. They could make the rest out of green timbers, using the Kubratoi for labor… «Aye, we have to get back to the city as fast as we can.»

«That's what I'm here for, your Majesty,» Thrax said. The elder Maniakes had told him why he was here. Maniakes had a well-founded suspicion the drungarios would have had trouble figuring it out without advance instruction.

With advance instruction, he was capable enough. Wanting to use him to best advantage, Maniakes said, «You should know to expect stormy weather on the way back to Videssos the city. Bagdasares' magic warned me of it when he cast a spell to make sure we would come safe from the city to Lyssaion.»