A servant came in with a platter of pears, apricots, and strawberries candied in honey. He looked around in some surprise. «The lady left before the sweet?» he said in faintly scandalized tones.

«So she did.» Maniakes' imperturbability defied the servitor to make something of it. After a moment, the Avtokrator went on, «Why don't you set that tray down? We'll get around to it sooner or later. Meanwhile, bring us a fresh jar of wine.»

«Meanwhile, bring us two or three fresh jars of wine,» Rhegorios broke in.

«Yes, by the good god, bring us two or three fresh jars of wine,» Maniakes exclaimed. «I hadn't planned to get drunk tonight, but then, things can change. Till this afternoon, I hadn't planned on entertaining the wife of my traitorous brother tonight, either.»

Lysia yawned. «I've had enough wine already,» she said. «I'm going upstairs to bed. I'll see what's left of the two of you in the morning.»

«She's smarter than either one of us,» Maniakes said. That judgment didn't keep him from using a small knife to scrape the pitch out from around the stopper of one of the wine jars with which the servant had presented him. Once the stopper was out, the fellow took the jar from him and poured his cup and his cousin's full.

Rhegorios lifted the goblet, spat on the floor in rejection of Skotos, and drank. «Ahh,» he said. «That's good.» He took another pull. «You forget, your magnifolent Majesty—» He and Maniakes both laughed at that. «—I grew up with Lysia. I've known for a long time that she's smarter than I am. And while I wouldn't commit lese majesty for anything…»

«I get your drift.» Maniakes drank, too, and ate a candied strawberry. Then he shook his head. «What a night. You know how the laundresses batter clothes against rocks to get the dirt out? That's how I feel now.»

«Life is full of surprises,» Rhegorios observed. «Isn't it, though?» Maniakes drained his cup and filled it again before the servant could. «I'd thought the Kubratoi and the Makuraners—to say nothing of Tzikas, which is generally a good idea—had long since taught me all I needed to know of that lesson. I was wrong.»

«I don't think Zenonis is out to kill you or overthrow the Empire—or to kill you and overthrow the Empire,» Rhegorios said.

«I don't think so, either,» Maniakes agreed. «But when you've been wrong before, you can't help wondering. I've given her a powerful reason to dislike me.»

«That's so,» his cousin admitted. «Times like this, you almost begin to understand how Genesios' ugly little mind worked.»

«I had that same thought not very long ago,» Maniakes said. «Frightening, isn't it?» He looked down into his goblet. It was empty. How did that happen? he wondered. Since no drunken mice staggered across the floor, he must have done it himself. He filled the cup again. «If I'd had some warning, I would have handled it better.»

«You did fine, cousin of mine,» Rhegorios said. «If you won't listen to Lysia, listen to me. I don't see what else you could have done. You explained what Parsmanios did, you explained what you did afterward, and you explained why. You didn't get angry during any of it I would have, I think.»

«I doubt it,» Maniakes said. «You probably would have pardoned Parsmanios, too. I'm sterner than you are.»

«Not for things like that,» Rhegorios declared. «I would have advised you to take his head—but it wasn't my place to advise you of anything, not with him wanting my job and being blood of my blood both. I thought you'd do right on your own, and you did.»

«Poor Zenonis, though,» the Avtokrator said. «If her being here took me by surprise, what I told her must have hit like a—like a—» He began to feel the wine, which made groping for a simile hard. He found one anyhow: «Like a jar of wine in a tavern brawl. Life shouldn't work that way.»

«A lot of things that shouldn't happen, happen to happen.» Rhegorios stared reproachfully at the winecup he was holding, as if shocked that the ruby liquid it contained had betrayed him into saying something so absurd. Then he giggled. So did Maniakes. They both let loose gales of laughter. With enough wine, the world looked pretty funny.

When Maniakes woke up the next morning, nothing was funny any more. He felt as if a thunderstorm were rattling his poor abused brains. Every sound was a crash, every sunbeam a bolt of lightning.

Lysia, who'd had a full night's sleep and only a little wine, was less than properly sympathetic. «You look like you're going to bleed to death through your eyes,» she said. «And you ought to comb your beard, or maybe iron it—it's pointing off to one side.»

«Oh, shut up,» he mumbled, not very loud.

His wife, heartless creature that she was suddenly revealed to be, laughed at him. «Remember, you've got another full day ahead of you, sorting through who was doing what to whom here and why, all the way through the Makuraner occupation.»

He groaned and sat up in bed. That prompted another groan, more theatrical than the first. Then he groaned yet again, this time in good earnest. «Phos, Zenonis is going to be back here this morning, telling me what she wants to do.»

«If she sees you like this—» Lysia hesitated. «No, come to think of it, maybe she went home and got drunk after dinner last night, too. You could hardly blame her if she did.»

«No, but she'll blame me,» Maniakes said. «I'm the Avtokrator. That's what I'm for—getting blamed, I mean.»

He breakfasted on a little bread and honey and a cautious cup of wine. Splashing cool water on his face helped. So did combing the tangles out of his beard. Lysia studied him, then delivered her verdict: «Amazingly lifelike.» Maniakes felt vindicated. He also felt human, in a glum sort of way.

Sure enough, by the time he came downstairs, petitioners were lined up in front of the city governor's residence. He dealt with them as best he could. Approving some and denying others made some people glad and others angry, but no one seemed to think the decisions he made especially idiotic.

Rhegorios bravely stuck his head into the chamber where Maniakes was passing his judgments. «I wondered if you could use some help,» he said, his voice a rasping croak.

«I'm managing,» Maniakes answered.

«I see you are,» his cousin said. «In that case—» He withdrew. Whatever he'd done to fight his hangover, the hangover had won the battle.

Zenonis and little Maniakes came into the chamber about halfway through the morning. They both prostrated themselves before the Avtokrator, even though he waved for them not to bother. In a way, that relieved his mind, as a sign that Zenonis took his sovereignty seriously… unless, of course, she was dissembling. Life, he decided with the mournful clarity the morning after a drunken night could bring, was never simple.

«Have you decided what you would like to do?» he asked after his sister-in-law and nephew had risen.

«Yes, your Majesty,» Zenonis said. «By your leave, we—» She put her arm around little Maniakes' shoulder. «—will travel to Videssos the city.» She hesitated. «Maybe, later on, we will sail across the sea to Prista. I still have to think on that.»

«Good enough,» Maniakes said. «I think you are wise not to go to Prista at once, but I wouldn't have stood in your way if that was what you wanted to do. I'll give you an escort to go to the city, and I'll send a courier ahead to let my father know you're coming and to ask him to show you every kindness. He would anyway, for your husband's sake.»

He watched Zenonis' eyes when he spoke of Parsmanios. As best he could tell, she looked sad, not angry. All the same, he'd also quietly ask his father to keep an eye on her while she was in the capital.

Zenonis said, «Your father is also Maniakes, not so?»

Maniakes nodded. «Yes. I suppose he's the one for whom your son is named, not me.»

«No,» Zenonis said, «or not altogether. When Maniakes—or little Maniakes, I should say—was born, my husband named him for the two of you. Now he's met one of his namesakes, and soon he'll meet the other.»