Together, Kubratoi and Makuraners shoved into the sea once more one of the boats that had made the crossing. Before Maniakes could order the Renewal to the attack, two other Videssian dromons raced toward the eastbound monoxylon. Abivard's men, being armored in iron, went to the bottom faster than Etzilios'. Otnerwise, there was not much difference between them.

«It's a slaughter!» Rhegorios shouted, slapping Maniakes on the back. «By the good god, it is,» Maniakes said in some astonishment.

Few uncapsized monoxyla still floated. Some of those that did, having managed to escape the righting, were paddling back toward the shore from which they had come. Kubratoi bobbed in the water, a few still swimming or clinging to wreckage but most of them dead.

«Haven't I said all along, your Majesty,» Thrax boomed proudly, «that if we ever got the chance to fight a big sea battle, dromons against monoxyla, I mean, we'd smash them to flinders? Haven't I said that?»

«So you have,» Maniakes said. «It seems you were right.» That Thrax had also said a fair number of things that had turned out to be wrong, he did not mention. The drungarios had redeemed himself today.

«I didn't think it would be this easy,» Rhegorios said. He was looking at bobbing bodies, too.

«I did,» Thrax said, which was also true. «These one-trunk boats, they're good enough to carry raiders, but they've always taken lumps when they went up against real war galleys. The Kubratoi know it, too; they aren't in the habit of getting into stand-up fights with us. They tried it here this once, and they've paid for it.»

«That they have,» Maniakes said. «If they haven't thrown away more men here on the sea than they did trying to storm the city's walls, I'll be astonished.»

A ripple showed near one of the corpses floating in the Cattle Crossing. A moment later, it floated no more. Land battles quickly drew ravens and buzzards and foxes. Sea fights had their scavengers, too.

«Remind me not to eat seafood for a while,» Rhegorios said.

Maniakes gulped. «I'll do that. And I won't do that for a while myself.» His cousin nodded, having no trouble sorting through the clumsy phrasing.

The Avtokrator gauged the sun. It wasn't that far past noon, and it hadn't been long before noon when he and Rhegorios boarded the Renewal. In the space of a couple of hours, Etzilios' hopes, and those of Sharbaraz, too, had gone to ruin in the narrow sea between Videssos the city and Across.

«I wonder how much gold we've spent on the fleet over the years—over the centuries, by Phos,» the Avtokrator said musingly. «So much of it must have looked like nothing but waste. However much we spent, though, what we did here today made every copper of it worthwhile.»

«That's right, your Majesty. That's exactly right,» Thrax said.

«And so next year, when I ask for gold for new ships and for keeping the old ones in the shape they should be, you'll give me all I ask for, won't you?»

Scratch a drungarios, find a courtier. In a mock-fierce voice, Maniakes growled, «If you ask me for so much as one Makuraner silver arket, Thrax, I will beat you with a club studded with nails. Is that plain?»

«Yes, your Majesty.» Not even Thrax, naive and stolid as he was, could take the threat seriously.

Rhegorios said, «Etzilios' plans have gone down the latrine, and so have those of Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his arse covered in boils. What about Abivard's plans?» The Sevastos pointed over toward Across, where Makuraner soldiers still waited near the shore for boats that would never come.

«I don't know,» Maniakes said. «We'll have to find out. He can't do anything to the capital now. That, I think, is certain. He can still do quite a lot to the westlands—or he may pull back to the Land of the Thousand Cities against a move from us. No way to tell till it happens.»

«I suppose not,» Rhegorios said. «I wish we could pry him loose from Sharbaraz, the way he pried Tzikas loose from you.»

«He didn't pry Tzikas loose from me. Tzikas pried himself loose from me,» Maniakes answered. «When he didn't manage to kill me, taking refuge with the Makuraners looked like the best way to keep me from prying his head loose from his shoulders.» He made a sour face. «It worked too bloody well.»

«Abivard seems loyal.» Rhegorios made it sound like a disease. Maniakes felt the same way, at least where Abivard was concerned. A disloyal Makuraner marshal would have been a great boon to the Empire of Videssos. Thinking of loyalty in such disparaging terms made Maniakes realize how completely a Videssian he'd become in spite of his Vaspurakaner heritage. His great-grandparents surely would have praised loyalty even in a foe. He shrugged. His great-grandparents hadn't known everything there was to know, either.

«What now, your Majesty?» Thrax asked. Having thought himself a true Videssian, Maniakes had an idea of truly Videssian duplicity. «Let's go over to the shore near the Kubrati camp,» he answered. «I want to deliver a message to Etzilios.»

As he'd guessed, the sight of the Renewal cruising not far away brought a crowd of Kubratoi to the seaside to see why he was there. «What youse am wantings?» one of them shouted in Videssian so mangled that he recognized the speaker at once.

«Moundioukh, take my words to your khagan, the magnifolent Etzilios.» Full of triumph, Maniakes used the contorted epithet without hesitation. «Tell him that, since my fleet has disposed of those poor, sorry toys he called boats, nothing now prevents me from shipping a force to the coast north of Videssos the city, landing it there, and making sure he never escapes from the Empire of Videssos. «

«Youse am bluffing,» Moundioukh shouted across the water. He did not sound confident, though. He sounded frightened.

«You'll see. So will Etzilios,» Maniakes said, and then, to Thrax, «Move us out of bowshot now, if you'd be so kind.»

«Aye, your Majesty,» the drungarios replied. For a wonder, he understood exactly what Maniakes had meant, and said «Back oars!» loud enough to let the oarmaster know what was required but not so loud as to alert the Kubratoi on the shore.

«That's—demonic, cousin of mine,» Rhegorios said admiringly. «By the good god, we really could do it, too.»

«I know we could,» the Avtokrator said. «Etzilios has to know it, too. We did it once, three years ago, and we almost put paid to him. He has to think we'd try it again. I'm not going to ship an army out of Videssos the city, on the off chance that he'd try using his siege towers again instead of retreating, and get inside because we'd weakened the garrison. But he won't know that, and I'm going to make it look as much as if we are moving troops as I can.»

«What now, your Majesty?» Thrax asked again.

«Now we go back to Videssos the city,» Maniakes answered. «We've sown the seed. We have to see what kind of crop we get from it.»

Agathios the ecumenical patriarch called for a service of thanksgiving in the High Temple. He sent the call through Videssos the city without the least urging from Maniakes, who was almost as surprised as he was pleased. Agathios displayed initiative only a little more often than Thrax did.

Maniakes was also surprised at the fervor of the Videssians who flocked to the Temple to worship and to give thanks to the good god. A fair number of them also seemed willing to give him some credit for having smashed the Kubratoi at sea. They knew how desperate their situation had been, and knew also that, while the Kubratoi still besieged them, the risk of the Makuraners' joining the assault was gone.

And then, with timing Maniakes could not have hoped to emu-late, a messenger rushed into the High Temple just as the service was ending and before more than a handful of people had filed out «Your Majesty!» the fellow cried out in a great voice. «Your Majesty, the Kubratoi are withdrawing! They're burning their towers and engines and riding away!»