Suddenly, everyone in the room was staring at Vetranios. «So you know Tzikas, do you?» Maniakes said in a soft voice. «Tell me about Tzikas, Vetranios. When did you see him last, for starters?» Vetranios knew something was wrong, but not what, nor how much. Serrhes was far from Videssos the city, and had been in Makuraner hands since the earliest days of Genesios' disastrous reign. The merchant answered, «Why, it must have been about three weeks before you came, your Majesty. He's been through the town now and again, these past few years. I've sold him this and that, and we've drunk wine together every now and then. That's about the size of it, I'd say.»

Maniakes studied not him but Broios. If Vetranios' enemy accepted that tale, it was likely to be true. If, on the other hand, Broios found more to say… But Broios did not find more to say. Maniakes didn't know whether to be glad or disappointed. «I can understand why you wouldn't like having a Videssian working for the boiler boys,» Vetranios said, sympathy oozing from him like sticky sap from a cut spruce. «He's not the only one, though.»

«He's the only one who's tried to overthrow me,» Maniakes said. «He's the only one who's tried to murder me. He's the only one who's betrayed both sides in this war more tunes than I can count. He's the only one who's—» He made a disgusted gesture. «Why go on?»

Broios and Vetranios were both staring at him. He could see exactly what was going on behind Broios' eyes as the merchant realized he should have done a more thorough job of slandering Vetranios. He could also see Broios realizing that now was too late, and growing furious at his own lapse.

«Why did Tzikas come here?» Maniakes asked Vetranios.

«I don't know for certain,» the merchant answered. «He spent a lot of time closeted with Tegin, I know that much. It had something to do with the squabbles the Makuraners are having, didn't it? They both favored Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase.» He spoke the honorific formula without noticing he'd done so. Serrhes had been in Makuraner hands a long time.

Letting that ride, Maniakes said, «So you know about whom Tzikas favored, do you?» Vetranios gave a tiny nod, as if expecting hot pincers and thumbscrews to follow upon the admission. Maniakes asked the next question: «What exactly did he say to you when the two of you talked?»

«Let's see.» Vetranios was ready to cooperate freely, if for no better reason than to keep himself from having to cooperate any other way. «He bought ten pounds of the smoked mutton I had of this wretch here.» He pointed to Broios. «Then he said something about how hard life had been lately, and how nobody appreciated his true worth. I told him I did. For some reason, he thought that was funny.»

Maniakes thought it was funny, though he didn't say so. If a cheat of a merchant was the only one who appreciated Tzikas, what did that say about the overversatile Videssian officer? Idly, the Avtokrator asked, «When you sold him the ten pounds of mutton, how badly did you bilk him?»

«Not a barleycorn's worth,» Vetranios answered, wide-eyed. «He killed a man here who gave him short weight last year.»

«I remember that!» Broios exclaimed: such a calamity had obviously created a lasting impression on the merchants of Serrhes. «I didn't know the name of the fellow who did it.»

Thoughtfully, Bagdasares said, «Ten pounds of smoked mutton? That's traveler's food, something somebody would want if he was going on a long journey.»

«So it is.» Maniakes was thoughtful, too. «The timing strikes me odd, though. You're sure he was here only three weeks before I came to Serrhes, Vetranios? It wasn't longer ago than that?»

«By the lord with the great and good mind I swear it, your Majesty.» To emphasize his words, Vetranios sketched Phos' sun-circle over his heart.

«I wish you'd said longer.» Maniakes wondered if Vetranios, like a lot of merchants, would change his story to suit his customer better. But the plump trader shook his head and drew the sun-sign again. Maniakes drummed the fingers of one hand on a tabletop. «It doesn't fit. He wouldn't have dawdled here in the westlands so long, not if he was all hotfoot to warn Sharbaraz. Phos, he could have gone to Mashiz and come back here in that time. But why on earth would he do that?»

It was a rhetorical question. He hoped Bagdasares, one of the mages from Serrhes, or one of the merchants would answer it nonetheless. No one did. Instead, Bagdasares added more questions of his own: «And if he did do it, what need would he have for smoked mutton? He could have stayed here with Tegin and gone west with the Makuraner garrison. We'd be none the wiser.»

«I didn't see him here after he bought the mutton from me,» Vetranios said. «If he'd stayed with the garrison, I might not have seen him, but I think I would.»

Phosteinos coughed to draw attention to himself and then said, «I also know this man somewhat. I agree with my principal in this matter: the visit to Serrhes was but a brief one.»

Maniakes' glance toward the local wizard was anything but mild and friendly. «You know Tzikas, eh?» he asked. Phosteinos nodded. The Avtokrator interrogated him as he had with Vetranios: «Did you ever perform any magical service for him?» Phosteinos nodded again. Maniakes pounced: «And what sort of service was that, sirrah?»

«Why, to use the laws of similarity and contagion to help him find one of a pair of fancy spurs early this year, your Majesty,» Phosteinos answered.

«Nothing else?» Maniakes' voice was cold.

«Why, no,» Phosteinos said. «I don't understand why—»

«Because when the son of a whore tried to murder me, he did it with a wizard's help,» the Avtokrator interrupted. Phosteinos' eyes went big in his pinched face. Maniakes pressed on: «Now, are you sure this was the only sorcerous service he ever had of you?»

Phosteinos was as eager to swear by Phos as Vetranios had been. Maniakes reckoned both those oaths as being worth only so much: a man might easily prefer risking Skotos' ice in the world to come to the Avtokrator's wrath in the world that was here. But then Sozomenos spoke up: «May it please your Majesty, I have no great love for my scrawny colleague here, but in all our years of acquaintance I have never known him to work magic to harm a man's health, let alone seek his death.»

To Bagdasares, Maniakes said, «I'd sooner have your word on that than the word of someone I don't know if I can trust.»

Sozomenos looked affronted. Maniakes didn't care. Bagdasares looked troubled. That worried the Avtokrator. Bagdasares said, «Judging a wizard's truthfulness by sorcerous means is different from gauging that of an ordinary man. Mages have too many subtle ways to confuse the results of such examinations.»

«I was afraid you were going to say something like that,» Maniakes said unhappily. He studied Phosteinos and Sozomenos. Both of them fairly radiated candor; had they been lamps, he would have had to shield his eyes against their glow. What Bagdasares told him meant he would have to gauge whether they were telling the truth by his usual, mundane complement of senses—either that or try to drag truth out of them by torture. He wasn't fond of torture; under the lash or more ingenious means of interrogation, people were too apt to say whatever they thought likeliest to make the pain stop.

Reluctantly, he decided he believed the two sorcerers from Serrhes. That left one last thing to do. Turning to Broios and Vetranios, he said, «And now to deal with the two of you.»

Both merchants started. Both, Maniakes guessed, had hoped he'd forgotten about them. «What—what will you do with us, your Majesty?» Broios asked, his voice trembling.

«I don't know which of you is worse,» Maniakes said. «You're both liars and cheats.» He stroked his beard while he thought, then suddenly smiled. Broios and Vetranios quailed under that smile. Maniakes took an ignoble but very real pleasure in passing sentence: «First, you are fined fifty goldpieces each—or their weight in perfect silver—for tampering with the currency. The money is due tomorrow. And second, both of you shall be sent out to the center of the square here between the city governor's residence and Phos' holy temple. There in the square, a Haloga will give each of you a sturdy kick in the arse. If you can't get honesty through your heads, maybe we can send it up from the other direction.»