Tatul muttered under his breath. Then he rounded on Abivard again. «Will the King of Kings agree to the arrangement you propose?»

If he has a drop of sense in his head or concealed anywhere else about his person. But Abivard could not say that. «If I make the arrangement, he will agree to it,» he said, and hoped he was not lying.

«Let it be as he says,» Hmayeak told Tatul. «Vshnasp excepted, the Makuraners seldom lie, and he has made a good name for himself in the wars against Videssos. I do not think he is deceiving us.» He spoke in Videssian so that Abivard could understand.

«I shall do as I say,» Abivard declared. «May the Prophets Four turn their backs on me and may the God drop me into the Void if I lie.»

«I believe you will do as you say,» Tatul answered. «I do not need the marvelously holy Hmayeak to tell me you are honorable; by your words today you have convinced me. Would Vshnasp have misted himself among us? It is to laugh. No, you have honor, brother-in-law to the King of Kings. But has Sharbaraz honor?»

«He is the King of Kings,» Abivard declared. «He is the font of honor.»

«Phos grant it be so,» Tatul said, and sketched his god's sun-sign above his heart.

Roshnani stood, hands on hips, outside the wagon in which she had traveled so many farsangs through the Videssian westlands and Vaspurakan. Facing her might have been harder than entering Shahapivan. «Husband of mine,» she said sweetly, «you are a fool.»

«Suppose I say something like No doubt you're right, but I got away with it?» Abivard answered. «If I do that, can we take the argument as already over? If I tell you I won't take such chances again—»

«You'll be lying,» Roshnani interrupted. «You've come back, so we can argue. That takes a lot of cattle away from the stampede, if you know what I mean. But if you hadn't come back, we would have had a furious fight, let me tell you that.»

«If I hadn't come back—» Abivard was tired. He got a quarter of the way through that before realizing it made no logical sense.

«Never mind,» Roshnani said. «I gather the Vaspurakaners agreed. If they hadn't, they would have started sending you out in chunks.» When Abivard didn't deny it, his principal wife asked the same question the nakharar Tatul had: «Will Sharbaraz King of Kings agree?» Abivard could be more direct with her than he had been with the Vaspurakaner. «Drop me into the Void if I know,» he said. «If the God is kind, he'll be so happy to hear we've brought the Vaspurakaner revolt under control without getting tied down in endless fighting here that he won't care how we did it If the God isn't kind—» He shrugged.

«May she be so,» Roshnani said. «I shall pray to the lady Shivini to intercede with her and ensure that she will grant your request»

«It will be as it is, and when we find out how that is, we shall deal with it as best we can,» Abivard said, a sentence dismissing all fortune-telling if ever there was one. «Right now I wouldn't mind dealing with a cup of wine.»

Roshnani played along with the joke. «I predict one lies in your future.»

Sure enough, the wine appeared, and the world looked better for it. Roast mutton with parsnips and leeks improved Abivard's attitude, too. Then Varaz asked, «What would you have done if they'd tried to keep you in Shahapivan, Father?»

«What would I have done?» Abivard echoed. «I would have fought, I think. I wouldn't have wanted them to throw me into some cell in the citadel and do what they wanted with me for as long as they wanted. But after that your mother would have been even more upset with me than she really was.»

Varaz thought that through and then nodded without saying anything more; he understood what his father meant. But Gulshahr, who was too young to follow conversations as closely as Varaz could, said, «Why would Mama have been upset, Papa?»

Abivard wanted to speak no words of evil omen, so he answered, «Because I would have done something foolish—like this.» He tickled her ribs till she squealed and kicked her feet and forgot about the question she'd asked.

He drank more wine. One by one the children got sleepy and went off to their cramped little compartments in the wagon. Abivard got sleepy, too. Yawning, he walked with neck bent—to keep from bumping the roof—down to the little curtain-screened chamber he shared with Roshnani. Several carpets and sheepskins on the floor made sleeping soft; when winter came, he and Roshnani would sleep under several of them rather than on top.

There was no need now. Vaspurakan did not get summer heat to match that of Vek Rud domain, where Abivard had grown to manhood. When you stepped out into the sunshine on a hot day there, within moments you felt your eyeballs start to dry out. It was warm here in the valley of Shahapivan, but not so warm as to make you wonder if you had walked into a bake oven by mistake. Abivard would have rolled over and gone to sleep—or even gone to sleep without rolling over first—but Roshnani all but molested him after she pulled the entry curtain shut behind her. Afterward he peered through the darkness at her and said, «Not that I'm complaining, mind you, but what was that in aid of?»

Like his, her voice was a thread of whisper: «Sometimes you can be very stupid. Do you know that I spent this whole day wondering whether I would ever see you again? That is what that was in aid of.»

«Oh.» After a moment Abivard said, «You're giving me the wrong idea, you know. Now, whenever I see a hostile city, I'll have an overpowering urge to go into it and talk things over with whoever is in command»

She poked him in the ribs. «Don't be more absurd than you can help,» she said, her voice sharper than it usually got.

«I obey you as I would obey Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase,» Abivard said with an extravagant gesture that was wasted in the darkness. He paused again, then added, «As a matter of fact, I'd sooner obey you. You have better sense.»

«I should hope so,» Roshnani said.

Panteles went to one knee before Abivard, one step short of the full prostration the Videssian wizard would have granted to Maniakes. «How may I serve you, most eminent sir?» he asked, his dark eyes eager and curious.

«I have a question I'd like answered by magical means,» Abivard said.

Panteles coughed and brought a hand up to cover his mouth. Like his face, his hands were thin and fine-boned: quick hands, clever hands. «What a surprise!» he exclaimed now. «And here I'd thought you'd summoned me to cook you up a stew of lentils and river fish.»

«One of the reasons I don't summon you more often is that viper you keep in your mouth and call a tongue,» Abivard said. Far from abashing Panteles, that made him preen like a peacock. Abivard sighed. Videssians were sometimes sadly deficient in notions of servility and subordination. «I presume you can answer such a question.»

«Oh, I can assuredly answer it, most eminent sir,» Panteles replied. He didn't lack confidence: Abivard sometimes thought that if Videssians were half as smart as they thought they were, they would rule the whole world, not just the Empire. «Whether knowing the answer will do you any good is another question altogether.»

«Yes, I've started to see that prophecy is about as much trouble as it's worth,» Abivard said «I'm not asking for divination, only for a clue. Will Sharbaraz King of Kings approve of the arrangement I've made here in Vaspurakan?»

«I can tell you this,» Panteles said. By the way he flicked an imaginary speck of lint from the sleeve of his robe, he'd expected something more difficult and complicated. But then he leaned forward like a hunting dog taking a scent «Why do you not ask your own mages for this service, rather than me?»

«Because news that I've put the question is less likely to get from you to Sharbaraz than it would be from a Makuraner wizard,» Abivard answered.