«Have a pleasant wait,» Abivard said, earning a fresh glare. Pretending he didn't notice it, he opened the door and went in.

«Welcome to Mashiz, brother of mine,» Denak said. She nodded when Abivard closed the door after himself. «That is wise. The fewer people who hear what we say, the better.» Abivard pointed to the maidservant who sat against the wall, idly painting her nails one by one from a pot of red dye and examining them with attention more careful than that she seemed to be giving Denak. «And yet you brought another pair of ears here?» he asked.

Denak assumed an exasperated expression, which brought lines to her face. Abivard hadn't seen much of her after Sharbaraz had taken Mashiz. He knew he'd aged in the intervening decade, but realizing that his sister had also aged came hard. She said, «I am principal wife to the King of Kings. It would be most unseemly for any man to see me alone. Most unseemly.»

«By the God, I'm your brother!» Abivard said angrily.

«And that is how I managed to arrange to see you at all,» Denak answered. «I think it will be all right, or not too bad. Ksorane is about as likely to tell me what Sharbaraz says as the other way around, or so I've found. Isn't that right, dear?» She waved to the girl.

«How could the principal wife to Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, be wrong?» Ksorane said. She put another layer of paint on the middle finger of her left hand.

Denak's laugh was as sour as vinegar. «Easily enough, by the God. I've found that out many a time and oft.» If she'd said one word more, Abivard would have bet any amount any man cared to name that the maidservant, trusted or not, would have taken her remark straight to Sharbaraz. Even as things were, he worried. But Denak seemed oblivious, continuing, «As you have now found for yourself—is it not so, brother of mine?»

In spite of Denak's assurances, Abivard found it hard to speak his mind before someone he did not know. Cautiously, he answered, «Sometimes a man far from the field of action does not have everything he needs to judge whether his best interests are being followed.»

Denak laughed again, a little less edgily this time. «You shouldn't be a general, brother of mine; the King of Kings should send you to Videssos the city as ambassador. You'd win from Maniakes with your honeyed words everything our armies haven't managed to take.»

«I've spoken with Maniakes, when he came close to Across in one of the Videssians' cursed dromons,» Abivard said. «I wish the God would drop all of those into the Void. We found no agreement. Nor, it seems, does Sharbaraz King of Kings find agreement with what I did in Vaspurakan. I wish he would summon me and say as much himself, so I might answer.»

«People don't get everything they wish,» Denak answered. «I know all about that, too.» Her hopeless anger tore at Abivard. But then she went on, «This once, though, I got at least part of what I want. When the King of Kings heard you'd ignored his orders about Vaspurakan, he didn't only want to take your head from your shoulders—he wanted to give you over to the torturers.»

As Abivard had learned after he had taken the Videssian westlands for Sharbaraz, the parents and nursemaids of the Empire used the ferocious talents of Makuraner torturers to frighten naughty children into obeying. He bowed very low. «Sister of mine, I am in your debt. My children are young to be fatherless. I should not complain about being unable to see the King of Kings.»

«Of course you should,» Denak said. «After him, you are the most powerful man in Makuran. He has no business to treat you so, no right—»

«He has the right: he is the King of Kings,» Abivard said. «After the King of Kings, no man in Makuran is powerful. I was the most powerful Makuraner outside Makuran, perhaps.» Now his grin came wry. «Once back within it, though… he may do with me as he will.»

«In your mind you have no power next to Sharbaraz,» Denak answered. «Every day courtiers whisper into his ear that you have too much. I can go only so far in making him not listen. He might pay me more heed if—»

If I had a son. Abivard filled in the words his sister would not say. Sharbaraz had several sons by lesser wives, but Denak had given him only girls. If she had a boy, he would become the heir, for she remained Sharbaraz' principal wife. But what were the odds of that? Did he still call her to his bed? Abivard could not ask, but his sister did not sound as if she expected to bear more children.

As if picking that thought from his mind, Denak said, «He treats me with all due honor. As he promised, I am not mewed up in the women's quarters like a hawk dozing with a hood over its eyes. He does remember—everything. But honor alone is not enough for a man and a wife.»

She did speak as if Ksorane weren't there. At last Abivard imitated her, saying, «If Sharbaraz remembers all you did for him—and if he does, I credit him—why, by the God, doesn't he remember what I've done and trust my judgment?»

«I'd think that would be easy for you to see,» Denak told him. «Come what may, I can't steal the throne from him. You can.»

«I helped put him on the throne,» Abivard protested indignantly. «I risked everything I had—I risked everything Vek Rud domain had—to put him on the throne. I don't want it. Till you spoke of it just now, the idea that I would want it never once entered my mind. If it entered his—»

He started to say, He's mad. He didn't, and fear of the maidservant's taking his words to Sharbaraz wasn't what stopped him. For the King of Kings was not mad to fear usurpation. After all, he'd been usurped once already.

«He's wrong.» That was better. Abivard reminded himself that he was speaking with Sharbaraz' wife as well as his own sister. But Denak was his sister, and how much he'd missed her over the years suddenly rose up in him like a choking cloud. «You know me, sister of mine. You know I would never do such a thing.»

Her face crumpled. Tears made her eyes bright. «I knew you,» she said. «I know the brother I knew would be loyal to the rightful King of Kings through… anything.» She held her hands wide apart to show how all-encompassing anything was. But then she went on. «I knew you. It's been so long… Time changes people, brother of mine. I know that, too. I should.»

«It's been so long,» Abivard echoed sadly. «I can't make Sharbaraz' years many; only the God grants years. But since the days of Razmara the Magnificent, who has increased the realm of the King of Kings more than I?»

«No one.» Denak's voice was sad. One of the tears ran down her cheek. «And don't you see, brother of mine, every victory you won, every city you brought under the lion of Makuran, gave him one more reason to distrust you.»

Abivard hadn't seen that, not with such brutal clarity. But it was clear enough—all too clear—when Denak pointed it out to him. He chewed on the inside of his lower lip. «And when I disobeyed him in Vaspurakan—»

Denak nodded. «Now you understand. When you disobeyed him, he thought it the first step of your rebellion.»

«If it was, why did I come here with all my family at his order?» Abivard asked. «Once I did that, shouldn't he have realized he was wrong?»

«So I told him, though not in those words.» One corner of his sister's mouth bent up in a rueful, knowing smile. «So many people tell the King of Kings he is right every moment of every waking hour of every day that when he was already inclined to think so himself, he became… quite convinced of it.»

«I suppose so.» Abivard had noted that trait in Sharbaraz even when he was a hunted rebel against Smerdis. After a decade and more on the throne at Mashiz he might well have come to think of himself as infallible. What Abivard wanted to say was, He's only a man, after all. But of all the things Ksorane could take back to Sharbaraz from his lips, that one might do the most damage.