«For one thing, he hid the doubt very well,» Maniakes replied. «For another, I can hardly blame him for keeping some, because I had trouble believing in a place like that even after I saw it.»

«I understand, Majesty,» the messenger said. «If the God be gracious, the next you hear from us will be when the wretch has been ousted from the capital and the cleansing begun.»

«I hope that news comes soon,» Maniakes said, whereupon the messenger saluted him and rode back toward the west. Maniakes smiled at the Makuraner's armored back. So Abivard intended to cleanse Mashiz, or perhaps only the court at Mashiz, did he? That struck Maniakes as a project liable to go on for years. He liked the idea. As long as the Makuraners were concentrating on their internal affairs, they would have a hard time endangering Videssos.

When he told Rhegorios of the message from Abivard, his cousin's smile might almost have been that of a priest granted a beatific vision of Phos. «The boiler boys can cleanse, and then counter-cleanse, and then countercountercleanse, for all of me,» the Sevastos said. «They're welcome to it. Meanwhile, I expect we'll head back to Serrhes.»

«Yes, I suppose so.» Maniakes gave Rhegorios a sharp look. «You're not usually one who wants to go backward.»

His cousin coughed. «Well—er—that is—» he began, and went no further.

Seeing Rhegorios tongue-tied astonished Maniakes—but not for long. He thought back to the conversation he'd had with his cousin not long before. «Have you found a woman there?»

Knowing his cousin's attitude, he hadn't intended the question as more than a probe. But then Rhegorios said, «I may have.»

Maniakes had all he could do not to double over with laughter. When someone like Rhegorios said he might have found a woman, and especially when he said it in a tone of voice suggesting he didn't want to admit it, even to himself, it was likely he'd fallen hard. Maybe Maniakes wouldn't have to worry about his tomcatting through the Empire, after all. «Who is she?»

Rhegorios looked as if he wished he'd kept his mouth shut. «If you must know,» he said, «she's that Phosia I was telling you about, Broios' daughter.»

«The larcenous merchant?» Now Maniakes did laugh. «If it hadn't been for you, I'd never have known he had a daughter.»

«I make a point of investigating these things.» Rhegorios did his best to sound dignified. His best was none too good. «The lord with the great and good mind be praised, she takes after her mother in almost everything—certainly in looks.»

«Well, all right. All I can say is, she'd better.» Thinking of Broios still irked Maniakes. «She doesn't want to slide a knife between your ribs because I had her father's backside kicked in public?»

«Hasn't shown any signs of it,» Rhegorios said.

«Well, good enough, then.» Maniakes reached out and gave his cousin an indulgent poke in the shoulder. «Enjoy yourself while we're in Serrhes, and you can find yourself another friend, or another cartload of friends, when we get back to Videssos the city.»

By everything Maniakes knew of his cousin, that should have made Rhegorios laugh and come back with a gibe of his own. Instead, the Sevastos said, «I may have my father talk with Broios when we get back to the city.»

If Maniakes had been startled before, he gaped now. «What?» he said again. «I've never heard you talk like that before.» He wondered if his cousin had taken their earlier conversation to heart and resolved to marry. Then he wondered if this Phosia, or maybe Broios himself, had prevailed upon their wizard to work love magic on—or maybe against—Rhegorios. He would have found that easier to believe had such sorcery been easier to use. Passion made magic unreliable.

«Maybe it's time, that's all,» Rhegorios said. His wry grin was very much his own. «And maybe, too, it's just that I'm fascinated by the idea of a girl who says no. I don't see that every day, I'll tell you.»

«Mm, I believe you,» Maniakes said. His cousin was handsome, good-natured, and the man of second-highest rank in the Empire of Videssos. The first two would have been plenty by themselves to find him lots of female friends. The prospect of the riches and power his position added didn't hurt his persuasiveness, either.

«I think she's what I want,» Rhegorios said.

Maniakes wondered if she was what he wanted precisely because she hadn't let him have her. Was her reluctance altogether her own? The Avtokrator doubted Broios was clever enough to come up with such a scheme. He knew nothing about the merchant's wife, though. Not trusting his own judgment, he asked, «Have you told Lysia about this?»

«Some if it,» Rhegorios answered. «Not the whole.»

«I think you should do that,» Maniakes said. «She will have a clearer view about Phosia and her family than either one of us. She's not assotted with the girl, as you are.» He ignored his cousin's indignant look. «And she's—not quite—so worried about the Empire as a whole as I am.»

«By the good god, though, she's my sister,» Rhegorios said. «How can I talk about matters between man and woman with my sister? It wouldn't be decent.»

«For one thing, I daresay she has more sense than either one of us,» Maniakes replied. «And, for another, if you can't talk about these things with her, with whom can you talk of them? I know what you were thinking of doing, I'll wager, and never mind this yattering about having Uncle Symvatios talk with Broios: go ahead and marry this girl and then tell me about it afterward, when I couldn't do anything. Am I right or am I wrong?»

Rhegorios tried for dignified silence. Since he wasn't long on dignity under most circumstances, nor, for that matter, on silence, Maniakes concluded he'd read his cousin rightly.

«We'll be heading back to Serrhes soon—as you guessed, cousin of mine,» the Avtokrator said. «It'll have to do as our frontier outpost for now. And while we're waiting there to hear from Abivard, we won't have anything better to do than sort through this whole business. Doesn't that put your mind at ease?»

«No,» Rhegorios snarled. «You're taking all the fun out of it. The way you're treating it, it's a piece of imperial business first and a romance afterward.»

Maniakes stared again. «Cousin of mine, everything we do is imperial business first and whatever else it is afterward.»

«Oh, really?» Rhegorios at his most polite was Rhegorios at his most dangerous. «Then how, cousin of mine your Majesty brother-in-law of mine, did you happen to end up wed to your own first cousin? If you tell me that was good imperial business, by Phos, I'll eat my helmet. And if you get to have what you want for no better reason than that you want it, why don't I?»

Maniakes opened his mouth, then shut it again in a hurry on realizing he had no good answer. After a bit of thought, he tried again: «The one thing I can always be sure of with Lysia is that she'll never betray me. Can you say the same about this woman here?»

«No,» Rhegorios admitted. «But can you say you wouldn't have fallen in love with Lysia if you weren't so sure of that?»

«Right now, I can't say anything about might-have-beens,» Maniakes answered. «All I can say is that when we get back to Serrhes, we'll see what we have there, I expect.»

After a while out in the semidesert that marked the Empire's western frontier, Serrhes seemed almost as great a metropolis as Videssos the city, a telling measure of how barren that western country really was. Maniakes did not invite Broios and Phosia and her mother to dine with him right away. Instead, he did some quiet poking around.

So did Lysia, who said, «What your men don't hear, my serving women will, in the marketplace or from a shopkeeper or from a shopkeeper's wife.»

«That's fine,» Maniakes said. «You're right, of course; women do hear any number of things men miss.» He grinned. «Some of those things, some of the time, might even be true.»