Mikhran marzban put a hand on Abivard's shoulder. «I should be going with you. You came to my rescue, you promulgated this policy for my benefit, and you, it seems, will have to suffer the consequences alone.»

«No, don't be a fool—stay here,» Abivard told him. «Not only that: keep on doing as we've been doing till Sharbaraz directly orders you to stop. Keep on then, too, if you dare. If the princes rise up against us, we aren't going to be able to conquer Videssos.»

«What—?» Mikhran hesitated but finished the question: «What do you suppose the King of Kings will do to you?»

«That's what I'm going to find out,» Abivard answered. «With luck, he'll shout and fuss and then calm down and let me tell him what we've been doing and why. Without luck—well, I hope I'll have reason to be glad he's married to my sister.»

The marzban nodded, then asked, «Whom will you leave in command of the army here?»

«It has to be Romezan,» Abivard answered regretfully. «He's senior, and he has the prestige among our men from killing Gazrik. I'd give the job to Kardarigan if I could, but I can't.»

«He may have more prestige among us, but the princes won't be happy to see him in charge of our warriors,» Mikhran said.

«I can't do anything about that, either,» Abivard said. «You're in overall command here, remember: over Romezan, over everyone now that I'm not going to be around for a while. Use that power well and the Vaspurakaners won't notice that Romezan leads the army.»

«I'll try,» Mikhran said. «But I wasn't part of this army, so there's no guarantee they'll heed me as they would one of their own.»

«Act so natural about it that they never think to do anything else,» Abivard advised him. «One of the secrets to command is never giving the men you're leading any chance to doubt you have the right. That's not a magic Bogorz knows, or Panteles either, but it's nonetheless real even so.»

«Vshnasp spoke of that kind of magic, too,» Mikhran said, «save that he said that so long as you never seemed to doubt a woman would come to your bed, in the end she would not doubt it, either. I'd sooner not emulate his fate.»

«I don't expect you to seduce Romezan—for which I hope you're relieved,» Abivard said, drawing a wry chuckle from the marzban. «I only want you to keep him under some sort of rein till I return. Is that asking too much?»

«Time will tell,» Mikhran replied in tones that did not drip optimism.

Roshnani, understanding why Abivard had been recalled to Mashiz, shared his worries. Like him, she had no idea whether they would be returning to Vaspurakan. Their children, however, went wild with excitement at the news, and Abivard could hardly blame them. Now, at last, they were going back to Makuran, a land that had assumed all but legendary proportions in their minds. Any why not? They'd heard of it but had hardly any memories of seeing it.

When the King of Kings ordered his general to attend him immediately, he got what he desired. The day after his command reached Shahapivan, Pashang got the wagon in which Abivard and his family traveled rattling westward. With them rode an escort of fourscore heavy cavalry, partly to help clear the road at need and partly to persuade bandits that attacking the wagon would not be the best idea they'd ever had. Past Maragha, the mountains of Vaspurakan began dwindling down toward hills once more and then to a rolling steppe country that was dry and bleak and cool in the winter, dry and bleak and blazing hot in summertime.

«I don't like this land,» Abivard said when they stopped at one of the infrequent streams to water the horses.

«Nor I,» Roshnani agreed. «The first time we went through it, after all—oh, south of here, but the same kind of country—was when we were fleeing the Thousand Cities and hoping the Videssians would give us shelter.»

«You're right,» he exclaimed. «That must be it, for this doesn't look much different from the badlands west of the Dilbat Mountains, the sort of country you'd find between strongholds. And yet the hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I didn't know why.»

After a few days of crossing the badlands, days in which the only life they saw outside their own company was a handful of rabbits, a fox, and, high in the sky, a hawk endlessly circling, green glowed on the western horizon, almost as if the sea lay ahead. But Abivard, these past months, had turned his back on the sea. He pointed ahead, asking his children if they knew what the green meant.

Varaz obviously did but looked down on the question as being too easy for him to deign to answer. After a small hesitation Shahin said, «That's the start of the Thousand Cities, isn't it? The land between the rivers, I mean, the, the—» He scowled. He'd forgotten their names.

«The Tutub and the Tib,» Varaz said importantly. Then, all at once, he lost some of that importance. «I'm sorry, Papa, but I've forgotten which one is which.»

«That's the Tutub just ahead,» Abivard answered. «The Tib marks the western boundary of the Thousand Cities.»

Actually, the two rivers were not quite the boundaries of the rich, settled country. The canals that ran out from them were. A couple of the Thousand Cities lay to the east of the Tutub. Where the canals brought their life-giving waters, everything was green and growing, with farmers tending their onions and cucumbers and cress and lettuces and date-palm trees. A few yards beyond the canals the ground lay sere and brown and useless.

Roshnani peered out of the wagon. «Canals always seem so– wasteful,» she said. «All that water on top of the ground and open to the thirsty air. Qanats would be better.»

«You can drive a qanat through rock and carry water underground,» Abivard said. Then he waved a hand. «Not much rock here. When you get right down to it, the Thousand Cities don't have much but mud and water and people—lots of people.»

The wagon and its escort skirted some of the canals on dikes running in the right direction and crossed others on flat, narrow bridges of palm wood. Those were adequate for getting across the irrigation ditches; when they got to the Tutub, something more was needed, for even months away from its spring rising, it remained a formidable river.

It was spanned by a bridge of boats with timbers—real timbers from trees other than date palms—laid across them. Men in row-boats brought the bridge across from the western bank of the Tutub so that Abivard and his companions could cross over it. He knew there were other, similar bridges north and south along the Tutub and along the Tib and on some of their tributaries and some of the chief canals between them. Such crossings were quick to make and easy to maintain.

They were also useful in time of war: if you did not want your foes to cross a stretch of water, all you had to do was make sure the bridge of boats did not extend to the side of the river or canal he held. In the civil war against Smerdis the usurper's henchmen, who controlled most of the Thousand Cities, had greatly hampered Sharbaraz' movements by such means.

The folk who dwelt between the Tutub and the Tib were not of Makuraner blood, though the King of Kings had ruled the Thousand Cities from Mashiz for centuries. The peasants were small and swarthy, with hair so black that it held blue highlights. They wore linen tunics, the women's ankle-length, those of the men reaching down halfway between hip and knee. They would stare at the wagon and its escort of grim-faced fighting men, then shrug and get back to work.

When the wagon stopped at one of the Thousand Cities for the night, Pashang would invariably have to urge the team up a short but steep hill to reach the gate. That puzzled Varaz, who asked, «Why are the towns here always on top of hills? They aren't like that in Videssos. And why aren't there any hills without towns on them? This doesn't look like country where there should be hills. They stick up like warts.»