«So shall it be,» Abivard echoed, bowing, acquiescing. Sharbaraz still did not trust him as far as he should have, but he did trust him more than he had the winter before. Abivard chose to look on that as progress—not least because looking on it any other way would have made him scream in frustration or despair or rage or maybe all three at once.

He expected the King of Kings to dismiss him after rendering his decision. Instead, after yet another hesitation Sharbaraz said, «Brother-in-law of mine, I am asked by Denak my principal wife—your sister—to tell you that she is with child. Her confinement should come in the spring.»

Abivard bowed again, this time in surprise and delight. From what Denak had said, Sharbaraz seldom summoned her to his bedchamber these days. One of those summonses, though, seemed to have borne fruit.

«May she give you a son, Majesty,» Abivard said—the usual thing, the polite thing, the customary thing to say.

But nothing was simple, not when he was dealing with Sharbaraz. The King of Kings sent him a hooded look, though what he said—"May the God grant your prayer"—was the appropriate response. Here, for once, Abivard needed no time to figure out how he had erred. The answer was simple: he hadn't.

But Denak's pregnancy complicated Sharbaraz' life. If his principal wife did bear a son, the boy automatically became the heir presumptive. And if Denak bore a boy, Abivard became uncle to the heir presumptive. Should Sharbaraz die, that would make Abivard uncle to the new King of Kings and a very important man, indeed. The prospect of becoming uncle to the new King of Kings might even—probably would in the eyes of the present King of Kings—give Abivard an incentive for wanting Sharbaraz dead.

Almost, Abivard wished Denak would present the King of Kings with another girl. Almost.

Now Sharbaraz dismissed Abivard from the audience. Abivard prostrated himself once more, then withdrew, Yeliif appearing at his side as if by magic as he did so. The beautiful eunuch stayed silent till they left the throne room, and that suited Abivard fine.

Afterward, in the hallway, Yeliif hissed, «You are luckier than you deserve, brother-in-law to the King of Kings.» He made Abivard's title, in most men's mouths one of respect, into a reproach.

Abivard had expected nothing better. Bowing politely, he said, «Yeliif, you may blame me for a great many things, and in some of them you will assuredly be right, but that my sister is with child is not my fault.»

By the way Yeliif glared at him, everything was his fault. The eunuch said, «It will cause Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, to forgive too readily your efforts to subvert his position on the throne.»

«What efforts?» Abivard demanded. «We went through this last winter, and no one, try as everybody here in Mashiz would, was able to show I've been anything but loyal to the King of Kings, the reason being that I am loyal.»

«So you say,» Yeliif answered venomously. «So you claim.»

Abivard wanted to pick him up and smash him against the stone of the wall as if he were an insect to crush underfoot. «Now you listen to me,» he snapped, as he might have at a soldier who hesitated to obey orders. «The way you have it set up in your mind is that, if I win victories for the King of Kings, I'm a traitor because I'm too successful and you think the victories are aggrandizing me instead of Sharbaraz, whereas if I lose, I'm a traitor because I've thrown victory away to the enemies of the King of Kings.»

«Exactly,» Yeliif said. «Precisely.»

«Drop me into the Void, then!» Abivard exclaimed. «How am I supposed to do anything right if everything I can possibly do is wrong before I try it?»

«You cannot,» the beautiful eunuch said. «The greatest service you could render Sharbaraz King of Kings would be, as you say, to drop into the Void and trouble the realm no more.»

«As far as I can tell, the next time I trouble the realm will be the first,» Abivard said stubbornly. «And if you ask me, there can be a difference between serving the King of Kings and serving the realm.»

«No one asked you,» Yeliif said. «That is as well, for you lie.»

«Do I?» Such an insult from a whole man would have made Abivard challenge him. Instead, he stopped walking and studied Yeliif. Eunuchs' ages were generally hard to judge, and Yeliif powdered his face, making matters harder yet, but Abivard thought he might be older than he seemed at first glance. Doing his best to sound innocent, he said, «Tell me, were you here in the palace to serve Peroz King of Kings?»

«Yes, I was.» Pride rang in Yeliif's voice.

«Ah. How lucky for you.» Abivard bowed again. «And tell me, when Smerdis usurped the throne after Peroz died, did you serve him, too, while he held Mashiz and kept Sharbaraz prisoner?»

Yeliif's eyes blazed hatred. He did not reply, which Abivard took to mean he had won the argument. As he realized a moment later, that might have done him more harm than good.

«It's not as bad as it could be,» Roshnani said one day about a week after Abivard's audience with the King of Kings.

«No, it's not,» Abivard agreed, «although I don't think our children would say that you're right.» Even though they could go though the corridors of the palace, the children still felt very much confined. Most of the time that would have been Abivard's chief concern. Now, though, he burst out, «What drives me mad is that it's so useless. Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase—» He generally used the full honorific formula, for the benefit of any unseen listeners. «—has declared his trust in me and admits I did little wrong and much right during the campaigning season just past I wish he would let me go back to me army I built.»

«He trusts you—but he doesn't trust you,» Roshnani said with a rueful smile. «That's better than it was, too, but it's not good enough.» She raised her voice slightly. «You've shown your loyalty every way a man can.» Yes, she, too, was mindful of people who might not even be there but who were noting her words for the King of Kings if they were.

«The only good thing I can see about having to stay here,» Abivard said, also pitching his voice to an audience wider than one person, «is that, if the God is kind, I'll get the chance to see my sister and give her my hope for a safe confinement.»

«I'd like to see her, too,» Roshnani said. «It's been too long, and I didn't get the chance when we were here last winter.»

They smiled at each other, absurdly pleased with the game they were playing. It put Abivard in mind of the skits the Videssians performed during their Midwinter's Day festivals, when the players performed not only for themselves but also for the people watching them. Here, though, everything he and his principal wife said was true, only the intonation changing for added effect.

Roshnani went on, «It's not as if I couldn't go through the corridors to see her, either, in the women's quarters or outside them. Thanks to Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase—» No, Roshnani didn't miss a trick, not one."– women are no longer confined as straitly as they used to be.»

Take that, Abivard thought loudly at whatever listeners he and Roshnani had. If there were listeners, they probably would not take it gladly. From all he'd seen, people at the court of the King of Kings hated change of any sort more than anyone else in the world did. Abivard was not enthusiastic about change; what sensible man was? But he recognized that change for the better was possible. Sharbaraz' courtiers rejected that notion out of hand.

«To the Void with them,» he muttered, this time so quietly that Roshnani had to lean forward to catch his words. She nodded but said nothing; the unseen audience did not have to know everything that went on between the two principal players.