«We bless thee, Phos, lord with the great and good mind!» Agathios exclaimed, and his voice came echoing back from the dome wherein the great mosaic image of Phos stern in judgment looked down on his congregation. Even Phos' majestic face seemed less harsh at that moment, the Avtokrator thought.

«This I will see for myself,» Maniakes declared. For the first time since marrying Lysia, he left the High Temple accompanied by cheers. Though judging those cheers aimed less at himself than at the news the messenger brought, Maniakes was glad of them all the same.

He saw long before reaching the city wall that the messenger had spoken the truth. Black clouds of smoke rose into the sky to the east. Maniakes had seen such clouds before, when the Kubratoi came down to raid as far as the wall. Then they had been Videssian fields and farmlands going up in flames.

This time, the Kubratoi had not merely come up to the wall. They had set foot on it, which no invaders in all the history of the Empire of Videssos had done before them. But, though they had done so much, they had done no more; the defenders and the great strength of the walls themselves had made sure of that. What they burned now was of their own substance, which they could not take with them lest it slow them in their retreat, and which they did not care to leave lest the Videssians take it and use it against them.

When Maniakes went up onto the wall, the picture became sweeter still. The siege towers the Videssians had not been able to set afire burned now. So did the stone-throwers the Makuraner engineers had taught the Kubratoi to build. «We would have saved those, had this been our campaign,» a Videssian officer said, pointing out toward them.

«Aye, so we would,» Maniakes answered. He'd carried a baggage train full of the parts needed for siege engines throughout the Land of the Thousand Cities. «They're nomads, though. They didn't bring supply wagons along with them, and they've been living off the countryside.»

«They won't be back soon, not after this,» the officer said. «They've failed against us twice running now, and they can't be happy about it. With any luck, they'll have a nice little civil war over what went wrong and who was to blame.»

«From your mouth to Phos' ear,» Maniakes said fervently. It didn't look as if any stone-throwers at all were going back north with the Kubratoi. He wondered if their artisans would be able to make new ones without models before them. They probably would, he thought with no small regret. Underestimating how clever his foes were did no good.

«Are we going to pursue, your Majesty?» the officer asked, avid as any Videssian to pick up news that was really none of his business.

«Right now, I think I'm willing to let them go,» the Avtokrator said. The officer's disappointed look would have drawn applause had he been a mime in a Midwinter's Day show. So would the way he brightened with excitement when Maniakes added, «And I'll tell you why.» He went on, «I don't want my soldiers chasing the Kubratoi away from what has to be the main center of action. The most important thing we can do is get the westlands back from the Makuraners. Chasing the Kubratoi, however delightful it might be, distracts us from what needs doing more.»

«Ah.» The captain saluted. «This I can understand.» Videssians could be, and often were, ruthlessly pragmatic when it came to war.

Maniakes watched the Kubratoi engines smolder. The wind shifted, blowing harsh smoke into his face. His eyes stung. He coughed several times. And then he started to laugh. The officer stared at him for a moment. He started laughing, too. The sweet sound spread up and down the wall, till every soldier in the garrison seemed to be letting out his relief in one long burst of hilarity. Maniakes hoped the Kubratoi had not fled too far to hear that laughter. It would have wounded them almost as badly as the Videssians' stalwart defense had done. Take that, magnifolent Etzilios the Avtokrator thought.

The elder Maniakes raised a silver winecup high. «Here's to half the battle won!» he said, and drained the cup.

Maniakes drank that toast without hesitation. It was exactly how he viewed the situation himself. Lysia, however, spoke with gome asperity: «It's more than half the battle, I'd say. The Kubratoi and the Makuraners had the one chance to work together, and we've ruined it. They'll never put that alliance back together again, because we'll never let them.»

«You're right, lass, you're right,» the elder Maniakes said, making a placating gesture. «Every word you say is true—and far be it from me to argue with my daughter-in-law. My son would probably put my head up on the Milestone for that, with a big placard saving what a naughty fellow I'd been.» He made as if to shrink from the Avtokrator.

«It would need to be a very big placard, to get all that on,» Maniakes said with a snort. But even his father's drollery had calculation in it. Lysia had been the elder Maniakes' niece all her life. He did not mention that family tie now, as Rhegorios often did. He would not speak out against the marriage Maniakes had made, but he did not speak for it, either.

«You're right, Lysia—and you're wrong,» Symvatios said. «Yes, we've forced the Kubratoi and the Makuraners apart again, and that's a very great triumph again. I don't say it isn't. But—» He pointed west. «—there's Abivard still, practically close enough to spit on. Till we drive him back where he belongs, we're missing a good piece from a whole victory.»

«Will we sail back to Lyssaion, or through the Videssian Sea to Erzerum?» Rhegorios asked. «Getting late in the year to do either, worse luck.»

«I'd like to,» Maniakes said. «Now that we don't have to worry about the Kubratoi any more—or don't have to worry about them sacking the city, anyhow—we could.»

He looked from his father to his uncle to his cousin to his wife. None of them seemed to think much of the idea. After a brief pause, the elder Maniakes said, «It's late in the year to hope to accomplish much unless you intend to winter in the Land of the Thousand Cities.»

«I could,» Maniakes said. «They bring in crops the year around. The army would eat well enough.»

«Late in the year for a fleet to be setting out, too,» Rhegorios observed. «We've been through one bad storm already this campaigning season. That's plenty for me.»

«If I order Thrax to sail west, he will sail,» Maniakes said.

«You can order Thrax to do whatever you please, and he will do it,» the elder Maniakes put in. «That doesn't make him smart. It only makes him obedient.»

«The Avtokrator of the Videssians can command his subjects as he pleases,» Symvatios added, «but I've never heard that even the Avtokrator can order wind and wave to obey his will.»

Maniakes didn't have such an inflated view of his own place in the world as to disagree with that. Had he had such an inflated view, the storm he and his cousin and the entire fleet barely survived would have made him revise it. He said, «I'll have Bagdasares check what sort of weather we'll have if we sail. He warned me of this storm coming home, and we couldn't get away from it no matter what we did. If he says the sailing will be good, we'll go. If not, not. Does it please you?»

Everyone beamed at him.

Bagdasares prostrated himself when Maniakes came into his sorcerous study. Having risen, the Vaspurakaner wizard said, «How may I serve you, your Majesty?»

If he did not know what Maniakes had in mind, the Avtokrator would have been astonished. Bagdasares would have needed no divination to know; palace gossip was surely plenty. But the forms had to be observed. Formally, Maniakes said, «I want to know if the fleet will enjoy good weather sailing west to Lyssaion later this campaigning season.»

«Of course, your Majesty,» Bagdasares said, bowing low. «You have seen how this spell is performed. If you will be good enough to bear with me while I assemble the necessary ingredients—»