In early spring even the parched country between Mashiz and the westernmost tributaries of the Tib bore a thin carpet of green that put Abivard in mind of the hair on top of a balding man's head: you could see the bare land beneath, as you could see the bald man's scalp, and you knew it would soon prevail over the temporary covering.

For the first few farsangs out of the capital, though, such fine distinctions were the last thing on Abivard's mind, or his principal wife's, or those of their children. Breaming fresh air, seeing the horizon farther than a wall away—those were treasures beside which the riches in the storerooms of the King of Kings were pebbles and lumps of brass by comparison.

And happy as they were to escape their confinement, Pashang, their driver, was more joyful yet. They had been confined in genteel captivity: mewed up, certainly, but in comfort and with plenty to eat. Pashang had gone straight to the dungeons under the palace.

«The God only knows how far they go, lord,» he told Abivard as the wagon rattled along. «They're getting bigger all the time, too, for Sharbaraz has gangs of Videssian prisoners driving new tunnels through the rock. He uses 'em hard; when one dies, he just throws in another one. I was lucky they didn't put me in one of those gangs, or somebody else would be driving you now.»

«We took a lot of Videssian prisoners,» Abivard said in a troubled voice. «I'd hoped they were put to better use than that.»

Pashang shook his head. «Didn't look so to me, lord. Some of those poor buggers, they'd been down underground so long, they were pale as ghosts, and even the torchlight hurt their eyes. Some of 'em, they didn't even know Maniakes was Avtokrator in Videssos; they were trying to figure out what year of Genesios' reign they were in.»

«That's… alarming to think about,» Abivard said. «I'm glad you're all right, Pashang; I'm sorry I couldn't protect you as I would have liked.»

«What could you do, when you were in trouble yourself?» the driver answered. «It could have been worse for me, too. I know that. They just held me in a cell and didn't try to work me to death, till they finally let me out.» He glanced down at his hands. «First time in more years'n I can remember I don't have calluses from the reins. I'll blister, I suppose, then get 'em back.»

Abivard set a hand on his shoulder. «I'm glad you'll have the chance.»

The soldiers who had accompanied him to the capital now accompanied him away from it. Their fate had been milder than his and far milder than Pashang's. They'd been quartered apart from the rest of the troops in Mashiz, as if they carried some loath-some and contagious illness, and they'd been subjected to endless interrogations designed to prove that either they or Abivard was disloyal to the King of Kings. After that failed, they'd been left almost as severely alone as Abivard had.

One of them rode up to him as he was walking back to the wagon from a call of nature. The trooper said, «Lord, if we weren't angry at Sharbaraz before we got into Mashiz, we are now, by the God.»

He pretended he hadn't heard. For all he knew, the trooper was an agent of the King of Kings, trying to entrap him into a statement Sharbaraz could construe as treasonous. Abivard hated to think that way, but everything that had happened to him since he had been recalled from Vaspurakan warned him that he'd better.

When he came to Erekhatti, one of the westernmost of the Thousand Cities, he got his next jolt the sort of men Sharbaraz expected him to forge into an army with which to vanquish Maniakes. The city governor assembled the garrison for his inspection. «They are bold men,» the fellow declared. «They will fight like lions.»

What they looked like to Abivard was a crowd of tavern toughs or, at best, tavern bouncers: men who would probably be fierce enough facing foes smaller, weaker, and worse armed than themselves but who could be relied on to panic and flee under any serious attack. Though almost all of them wore iron pots on their heads, a good quarter were armed with nothing more lethal than stout truncheons.

Abivard pointed those men out to the city governor. «They may be fine for keeping order here inside the walls, but they won't be enough if we're fighting real soldiers—and we will be.»

«We have spears stored somewhere, I think,» the governor said doubtfully. After a moment he added, «Lord, garrison troops were never intended to go into battle outside the city walls, you know.»

So much for fighting like lions, Abivard thought. «If you know where those spears are, dig them up,» he commanded. «These soldiers will do better with them than without.»

«Aye, lord, just as you desire, so shall it be done,» the governor of Erekhatti promised. When Abivard was ready to move out the next morning with the garrison in tow, the spears had not appeared. He decided to wait till afternoon. There was still no sign of the spears. Angrily, he marched out of Erekhatti. The governor said, «I pray to the God I did not distress you.»

«As far as I'm concerned, Maniakes is welcome to this place,» Abivard snarled. That got him a hurt look by way of reply.

The next town to which he came was called Iskanshin. Its garrison was no more prepossessing than the one in Erekhatti—less so, in fact, for the city governor of Iskanshin had no idea where to lay his hands on the spears that might have turned his men from bravos into something at least arguably resembling soldiers.

«What am I going to do?» Abivard raved as he left Iskanshin.

«I've seen two cities now, and I have exactly as many men as I started out with, though three of those are down with a flux of the bowels and useless in a fight»

«It can't all be this bad,» Roshnani said.

«Why not?» he retorted.

«Two reasons,» she said. «For one, when we were forced through the Thousand Cities in the war against Smerdis, they defended themselves well enough to hold us out. And second, if they were all as weak as Erekhatti and Iskanshin, Videssos would have taken the land between the Tutub and the Tib away from us hundreds of years ago.»

Abivard chewed on that. It made some of his rage go away– some, but not all. «Then why aren't these towns in any condition to meet an attack now?» he demanded not so much of Roshnani as of the world at large.

The world didn't answer. The world, he'd found, never answered. His wife did: «Because Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase, decided the Thousand Cities couldn't possibly be in any danger and so scanted them. And one of the reasons he decided the Thousand Cities were safe for all time was that a certain Abivard son of Godarz had won him a whole great string of victories against Videssos. How could the Videssians hope to trouble us after they'd been beaten again and again?»

«Do you know,» Abivard said thoughtfully, «that's not me answerless question it seems to be when you ask it that way. Maniakes has started playing the game by new rules. He's written off the westlands for the time being, which is something I never thought I'd see from an Avtokrator of the Videssians. But the way he's doing it makes a crazy kind of sense. If he can strike a blow at our heart and drive it home, whether we hold the westlands won't matter in the long run, because we'll have to give them up to defend ourselves.»

«He's never been foolish,» Roshnani said. «We've seen that over the years. If this is how he's fighting the war, it's because he thinks he can win.»

«Far be it from me to argue,» Abivard exclaimed. «By all I've seen here, I think he can win, too.»

But his pessimism was somewhat tempered by his reception at Harpar, just east of the Tib. The city governor there did not seem to regard his position as an invitation to indolence. On the contrary: Tovorg's garrison soldiers, while not the most fearsome men Abivard had ever seen, all carried swords and bows and looked to have some idea what to do with them. If they ever got near horsemen or in among them, they might do some damage, and they might not run in blind panic if enemy troopers moved toward them.