«No, of course not,» Roshnani said. «The God would never allow such a thing; the very idea would appall her.» But she didn't let Abivard distract her, instead continuing with her own train of thought: «Because some of them worship Phos, wouldn't they be likely to help Maniakes?»

«Yes, I suppose so,» Abivard agreed. «He might winter up there. I have to say, though, I don't see why he would. He couldn't keep it a secret the winter long, and we'd be waiting for him to try to come back down into the low country when spring came.»

«That's so,» Roshnani admitted. «I can't argue with a word of it. But if he hasn't gone north, south, east, or west, where is he?»

«Underground,» Abivard said. But that was too much to hope for.

He made his own arrangements for the winter, billeting his troops in several nearby cities and overcoming the city governors' remarkable lack of enthusiasm for keeping them in supplies.

«Fine,» he told one such official when the man flatly refused to aid the soldiers. «When the Videssians come back next spring, if they do, we'll stand aside and let them burn your town without even chasing them afterward.»

«You couldn't do anything so heartless,» the city governor exclaimed.

Abivard looked down his nose at him. «Who says I can't? If you don't help feed the soldiers, sirrah, why should they help protect you?»

The soldiers got all the wheat and vegetables and poultry they needed.

Only a couple of days after Abivard had won that battle a messenger reached him with a letter from Romezan. After the usual greetings the commander of the field forces came straight to the point: «I regret to tell you that the cursed Videssians, may they and their Avtokrator fall into the Void and be lost forever, slipped past my army, which was out hunting them. Following the line of the Rhamnos River, they reached Pityos, on the Videssian Sea, and took it by surprise. With the port in their hands, ships came and carried them away; my guess is that they have returned to Videssos the city by now, having also succeeded in embarrassing us no end. By the God, lord, I shall have my revenge on them.»

«Is there a reply, lord?» the messenger asked when Abivard rolled up the message parchment once more.

«No, no reply,» Abivard answered. «Now I know where the Videssians disappeared to, and I rather wish I didn't.»

Winter in the land of the Thousand Cities meant mild days, cool nights, and occasional rain—no snow to speak of, though there were a couple of days of sleet that made it all but impossible to go outside without falling down. Abivard found that a nuisance, but his children enjoyed it immensely.

Although Maniakes would not be back till the following spring, if then, Abivard did not let his army rest idle. He drilled the foot soldiers every day the ground was dry enough to let them maneuver. The more he worked with them, the happier he grew. They would make decent fighting men once they had enough practice marching and got used to the idea that the enemy could not easily crush them so long as they stood firm.

And then, as the winter solstice approached, Abivard got the message he'd been waiting for and dreading since Sharbaraz had ordered him into the field against Maniakes with a force he knew to be inadequate: a summons to return to Mashiz at once.

He looked west across the floodplain toward the distant Dilbat Mountains. News of the order had spread very fast. Turan, who had rejoined him after Maniakes had escaped, came up beside him and said, «I'm sorry, lord. I don't know what else you could have done to hold the Videssians away from Mashiz.»

«Neither do I,» Abivard said wearily. «Nothing would have satisfied the King of Kings, I think.»

Turan nodded. He couldn't say anything to that. No, there was one thing he could say. But the question, Why don't you go into rebellion against Sharbaraz? was not one a person could ask his commander unless that person was sure his answer would be something like, Yes, why don't I? Abivard had never let—had been careful never to let—anyone get that impression.

Every now and then he wondered why. These past years he'd generally been happiest when farthest away from Sharbaraz. But he'd helped Sharbaraz cast down one usurper simply because Smerdis had been a usurper. Having done that, how could he think of casting the legitimate King of Kings from a throne rightfully his? The brief answer was that he couldn't, not if he wanted to be able to go on looking at himself in the mirror.

And so, without hope and without fear, he left the army in Turan's hands—better his than Tzikas', Abivard judged—and obeyed Sharbaraz' order. He wanted to leave Roshnani and his children behind, but his principal wife would not hear of it. «Your brother and mine can avenge us if we fall,» she said. «Our place is at your side.» Glad of her company, Abivard stopped arguing perhaps sooner than he should have.

The journey across the land of the Thousand Cities showed the scars the Videssian incursion had left behind. Several hills were topped by charred ruins, not living towns. Soon, Abivard vowed, those towns would live again. If he had anything to say about it, money and artisans from the Videssian westlands would help make sure they lived again—that appealed to his sense of justice.

Whether he would have anything to say about it remained to be seen. The letter summoning him to Mashiz hadn't been so petulant as some of the missives he'd gotten from Sharbaraz. That might mean the King of Kings was grateful he'd kept Maniakes from sacking the capital. On the other hand, it might also mean Sharbaraz was dissembling and wanted him back in Mashiz before doing whatever dreadful things he would do.

As usual, Roshnani thought along with him. When she asked what he thought awaited them in Mashiz, he shrugged and answered, «No way to judge till we get there.» She nodded, if not satisfied, then at least knowing that she knew as much as her husband.

They crossed the Tib on a bridge of boats that the operator dragged back to the western bank of the river after they went over it. That sort of measure was intended to make life difficult for invaders. Abivard doubted it would have thwarted Maniakes long.

After they left the land of the Thousand Cities, they went up into the foothills of the Dilbat Mountains toward Mashiz. Varaz said, «They're not going to lock us up in one suite of rooms through the whole winter again, are they, Father?»

«I hope not,» Abivard answered truthfully, «but I don't know for certain.»

«They'd better not,» Varaz declared, and Shahin nodded.

«I wish they wouldn't, too,» Abivard said, «but if they do, what can you do about it—aside from driving everyone crazy, I mean?»

«What we should do,» Varaz said, with almost the force of someone having a religious revelation, «is drive the palace servants and the guards crazy, not you and Mother and—» He spoke with the air of one yielding a great concession."—our sisters.»

«If I told you I thought that an excellent plan, I would probably be guilty of lese majesty in some obscure way, and I don't want that,» Abivard said, «so of course I won't tell you any such thing.» He set a finger alongside his nose and winked. Both his sons laughed conspiratorial laughs.

There ahead stood the great shrine dedicated to the God. Abivard had seen the High Temple in Videssos the city at a shorter remove, though here no water screened him from reaching the shrine if he so desired. Again, whether Sharbaraz' minions would keep him from the shrine was a different matter.

Away from the army, Abivard was just another traveler entering Mashiz. No one paid any special attention to his wagon, which was but one of many clogging the narrow streets of the city. Drivers whose progress he impeded cursed him with great gusto.

Abivard had studied from afar the palaces in Videssos the city. They sprawled over an entire district, buildings set among trees and lawns and gardens. But then, as he knew all too well, Videssos the city was a fortress, the mightiest fortress in the world. Mashiz was not so lucky, and the palace of the King of Kings had to double as a citadel.