Abivard came up to him and held out his hand for a clasp. That was symmetry of another sort: the greeting of one equal to another. The only equals in all the world the Avtokrators of the Videssians acknowledged were the King of Kings of Makuran.

Maniakes clasped Abivard's hands, acknowledging that equality. As he did so, he asked, «What was your herald talking about—the new sun of Makuran? What's that supposed to mean?»

«It means I still haven't decided whether I'm going to overthrow Sharbaraz on my own account or in the name of my nephew,» Abivard answered. «If I call myself King of Kings now, I've taken the choice away from myself. This way, I keep it.»

«Ah,» Maniakes said. «Fair enough. The more choices you have, the better off you are.» He inclined his head to Abivard. «Over the years, you've given me too bloody few of them.»

«As you well know, I am not excessively burdened with choices myself at the moment,» Abivard answered tartly.

«Shall we get on with the ceremony, your Majesty, your—uh– Sunship?» Rhegorios said with a grin. «The sooner we have it out of the way, the sooner we can find someplace quiet and shady and drink some wine.»

«A splendid notion,» Abivard agreed. Till then, he, the Avtokrator, and the Sevastos had been speaking quietly among themselves while the Imperial Guards and the Makuraner warriors peered in at them and tried to make out what they were saying. Now Abivard raised his voice, as he might have on the battlefield: «Soldiers of Makuran, here is the Videssian Avtokrator, who has dealt honestly and honorably with us. Who is a better friend for us, Maniakes or that mother of all assassins, Sharbaraz Pimp of Pimps?»

«Maniakes!» the soldiers shouted. Again, the Avtokrator had the bewildering sensation of hearing himself acclaimed by men who, up till a few days before, had bent all their efforts toward slaying him and sacking his city.

«If Sharbaraz Pimp of Pimps wants to slaughter half our officers, what do we tell him?» Abivard asked.

A majority of the men in the field force shouted, «No!» That was the one word Maniakes could make out clearly. The other answers to Abivard's question were far more various, and blurred together into a great din. But, although Maniakes could make little sense of them, he did not think they would have delighted the heart of Sharbaraz back in Mashiz.

Abivard asked the next question: «Shall we make peace with Videssos, then, and go home and settle the man who's tried to ruin all Makuran with this war?»

«Aye!» some of the warriors shouted. Others cried, «Peace!» Other shouts mixed in with those, but Maniakes did not think any of them were cries of dissent.

«On going home,» Abivard continued, «is it agreed that we empty out our garrisons to secure the peace and do no more harm to this country than we must to keep ourselves fed?»

«Aye!» the Makuraners shouted again, not with the heartfelt enthusiasm they'd put into the first couple of questions, but, again, without any complaints Maniakes could hear.

«There you have it,» Abivard said to the Avtokrator. «What you and I agreed to in Videssos the city, the army agrees to as well. Peace lies between us, and we shall evacuate the westlands to seal it.»

«Good enough,» Maniakes said, «or rather, almost good enough. Can you give me one present?—an advance payment on the peace, you might say.»

Abivard might have styled himself the new sun of Makuran, but his face clouded over. «I have carried out our bargain in every particular,» he said stiffly. «If you are going to add new terms to it now—»

«Hear me out,» Maniakes broke in. «I don't think you'll object.»

«Say on.» Every line in Abivard's face expressed doubt.

Smiling, Maniakes made his request: «Give me Tzikas. You have no need to withhold him from me now. Since he's Sharbaraz's creature, you ought to be all the gladder to yield him up, in fact.»

«Ah.» Abivard relaxed. «Yes, I could do that in good conscience.»

He said no more. He had already shown he spoke Videssian well, and could get across subtle shades of meaning in the language of the Empire. Taking note of that, Maniakes said, «You could yield him up, eh? Not, you can yield him up?»

«Just so.» Abivard spread his hands in angry regret. «As soon as I learned Sharbaraz had betrayed me, I realized his protection over the traitor mattered no more—the reverse, as you say. One of the first things I did, even before I announced to the assembled soldiers what Sharbaraz had done, was to send two men to seize him. I would have dealt with him myself, you understand. The two men did not come back. I have not seen Tzikas since that day.»

«Did he slay them?» Rhegorios asked.

«Not so far as I know,» Abivard answered. «I meant exactly what I said—the two men did not come back. Neither did Tzikas. The only thing I have thought of is that he and they escaped together.»

«That is not good,» Maniakes said, one of his better understatements since assuming the imperial throne. «If he's escaped with them—»

«Very likely he's on his way to Sharbaraz, to let him know I'm on my way, too,» Abivard broke in. Maniakes started to glare: how dared this fellow interrupt him? But if Abivard was a sovereign, too, he was not interrupting a superior, only an equal, which might have been rude but wasn't lese majesty. Abivard went on, «I've sent riders after the three of them. The God willing, they'll pull them down.»

«And if they don't?» Maniakes asked. «Tzikas, may Skotos torment him in the ice forevermore, has got out of more trouble than anyone in his right mind would ever get into.»

Abivard shrugged. He waved in the direction of the bearded men in caftans staring in at him from beyond the thin cordon of Maniakes' Imperial Guards. «This is the field force of Makuran. It is, I think, the finest army we have ever put in the field. Do you deny it, Maniakes Avtokrator?»

«I'd be a fool if I did,» Maniakes answered. «It's taken me my whole reign to build my army up to the point where it can stand against your cursed boiler boys.» He finally had troops who could do that, too, but not so many of them as Abivard had gathered here.

«Just so,» Abivard said, waving again. «These are the best warriors of all Makuran. Since that is so, where will Sharbaraz Pimp of Pimps come up with their like? We may start the fight against him a little farther east than otherwise, but what of it?» «Something to that,» Maniakes admitted.

«Something,» Rhegorios said, «but not enough. If you're not worried about what Tzikas is doing or where he's going, why did you send men after him?»

«Because I wanted him dead,» Abivard snapped, sounding very much like a man who would be King of Kings. «And,» he added grudgingly, «because with Tzikas and Sharbaraz, you never know, not for certain, not till too late.»

«I certainly found that out about Sharbaraz,» Maniakes said with feeling.

«He was a good man, or as good a man as a pampered prince could be, when he got his throne back a dozen or so years ago. Abivard sighed. «The court and the eunuchs and the women's quarters all worked together to ruin him.»

«He had something to do with it, too—what he is, I mean.» Maniakes said. «My court is as stifling as the one in Mashiz; you've seen my eunuch chamberlains, and how many women you can choose from doesn't matter all that much, I don't think.»

«You give me hope,» Abivard said.

«Take it where you find it,» Maniakes said. «Plenty of times when I've had to look for it under flat stones myself, so to speak. But Tzikas, now… whatever Tzikas does, it will be for himself first. As long as you understand that, you have a portrait of the man.»

«This I have seen with my own eyes, I assure you,» Abivard answered. For the second time, he waved out to the men of the Makuraner field army. «Do you want to say something to them? They'd like to hear you, I think. The times we've met before haven't been times for talk.»