Sharbaraz said, «Our one weakness is in ships. We have come to realize how serious a weakness it is.» Abivard had realized that the instant he had seen how Videssian dromons kept his army from getting over the Cattle Crossing; he was glad Sharbaraz had been given a similar revelation, no matter how long delayed it was. The King of Kings went on. «Taking a sizable fleet, Maniakes has sailed with it to Lyssaion in the Videssian westlands and there disembarked an expeditionary force.»

«Lyssaion, Majesty?» Abivard frowned, trying to place the town on his mental map of the westlands. At first he had no luck, for he was thinking of the northern coastline, the one on the Videssian Sea and closest to Vaspurakan. Then he said, «Oh, on the southern coast, the one by the Sailor's Sea—the far southwest of the westlands.»

He stiffened. He should have realized that at once—after all, hadn't Bozorg shown him Videssians coming ashore somewhere very like there and then heading up through the mountains? He'd had knowledge of Maniakes' plan for most of a year—and much good that had done him.

«Yes,» Sharbaraz was saying, his words running parallel to Abivard's thoughts. «They landed there, as I told you. And they have been pushing northwest ever since—pushing toward the land of the Thousand Cities.» He paused, then said what was probably the worst thing he could think of: «Pushing toward Mashiz.»

Abivard took that in and blended it with the insight he now had—too late—from Bogorz' scrying. «After Maniakes beat the Kubratoi last year, he was too quiet by half,» he said at last. «I kept expecting him to do something against us, especially when I pulled the field force out of the Videssian westlands to fight in Vaspurakan.» I wouldn't have had to do that but for your order to suppress the worship of Phos—another thing he couldn't tell the King of Kings. «But he never moved. I wondered what he was up to. Now we know.»

«Now we know,» Sharbaraz agreed. «We never took Videssos the city in war, but the Videssians have sacked Mashiz. We do not intend this to happen again.»

Undoubtedly, the King of Kings intended to sound fierce and martial. Undoubtedly, his courtiers would assure him he sounded very fierce and martial, indeed. He's afraid, Abivard realized, and a chill ran through him. He did well enough when the war was far away, but now it's coming here, almost close enough to touch. He's been comfortable too long. He's lost the stomach for that land of fight. He had it once, but it's gone.

Aloud, he repeated, «How may I serve you, Majesty?»

«Take up an army.» Sharbaraz' words were quick and harsh. «Take it up, I say, and rid the realm of the invader. Makuran's honor demands it. The Videssians must be repulsed.» Does Maniakes know he's putting him in fear? Abivard wondered. Or is he striking at our vitals tit for tat, as we have struck at his? Command of the sea lets him pick his spots. «What force have you for me to use against the imperials, Majesty?» he asked—a highly relevant question. Was Sharbaraz sending him forth in the hope he would be defeated and killed? «Take up the garrisons from as many of the Thousand Cities as suits you,» Sharbaraz answered. «With them to hand, you will far outnumber the foe.»

«Yes, Majesty, but—» Contradicting the King of Kings before the whole court would not improve Abivard's standing here. True, if he took up all the garrisons from the Thousand Cities, he would have far more men in the field than Maniakes did. Being able to do anything useful with them was something else again. Almost all of them were foot soldiers. Simply mustering them would take time. Getting them in front of Maniakes' fast-moving horsemen and bringing him to battle would take not only time but great skill– and even greater luck.

Did Sharbaraz understand that? Studying him, Abivard decided he did. It was one of the reasons he was afraid. He'd sent his best troops, his most mobile troops, into Videssos and Vaspurakan and had left himself little with which to resist a counterthrust he hadn't thought Maniakes would be able to make.

«Using the canals between the Tutub and the Tib will also let you delay the enemy and perhaps turn him back altogether,» Sharbaraz said. «We remember well how the usurper whom we will not name put them to good use against us in the struggle for the throne.»

«That is so, Majesty,» Abivard agreed. It was also the first thing the King of Kings had said that made sense. If he could take up the garrisons from the cities between the rivers and put them to work wrecking canals and flooding the countryside, he might get more use from them than he would if he tried to make them fight the Videssians. It still might not net everything Sharbaraz hoped for; the Videssians were skilled engineers and expert at corduroying roads through unspeakable muck. But it would slow them down, and slowing them was worth doing.

«Also,» Sharbaraz said, «for cavalry to match the horsemen Maniakes brings against us, we give you leave to recall Tzikas from Vaspurakan. His familiarity with the foe will win many Videssians to our side. Further, you may take Hosios Avtokrator with you when you go forth to confront the foe.»

Abivard opened his mouth, then closed it again. Sharbaraz was living in a dream world if he thought any Videssian would abandon Maniakes for his pretender. But then, insulated by the court from reality, in many ways Sharbaraz was living in a dream world.

Tzikas was a different matter. Unlike Sharbaraz' puppet, he did have solid connections within the Videssian army. If he got down to the land of the Thousand Cities soon enough, he might help solidify whatever force Abivard had managed to piece together from the local garrisons. Abivard suspected that Sharbaraz didn't know he knew what Tzikas had been saying about him; that meant Denak's maidservant was more reliable than Abivard had thought

«Speak!» the King of Kings exclaimed. «What say you?»

«May it please you, Majesty, but I would sooner not have the eminent Tzikas—» Abivard gave the title in Videssian to emphasize the turncoat's foreignness. «—under my command.» About the only thing I'd like less would be the God dropping all Makuran into the Void.

For a wonder, Sharbaraz took the hint. «Perhaps another commander, then,» he said. Abivard had feared he'd insist; he didn't know what he would have done then. Arranged for Tzikas to have an accident, maybe. If any man ever deserved an accident, Tzikas was the one.

«Perhaps so, Majesty,» Abivard answered. Curse it, how did you tell the King of Kings he'd made a harebrained suggestion? You couldn't, not if you wanted to keep your head on your shoulders. From what he'd seen, the Avtokrator of the Videssians had a similar problem, perhaps in less acute form.

Sharbaraz said, «We are confident you will hold the enemy far away from us and far away from Mashiz, preserving our complete security.»

«The God grant it be so,» Abivard said. «The men of Makuran have beaten the Videssians many times during your glorious reign.» He had led Sharbaraz' troops to a lot of those victories, too. Now the King of Kings suddenly recalled that: he needed one more victory, or maybe more than one. Abivard went on, «I shall do all I can for you and for Makuran. The Videssians, though, I must say, fight with more spirit for Maniakes than they ever did for Genesios.»

«We are confident,» the King of Kings repeated. «Go forth, Abivard son of Godarz: go forth and defeat the foe. Then return in triumph to the bosom of your wife and family.»

Almost, Abivard missed the meaning lurking there. That made the surge of fury all the more ferocious when it came. Sharbaraz was going to hold Roshnani and his children hostage to guarantee he would neither rebel once he had an army under his command again nor go over to the Videssians.

He thinks he is. Abivard said, «Majesty, my wife and children have always taken the field with me, ever since the days when you guested at Vek Rud stronghold.»