«I think you're right.» Roshnani hesitated, then asked the question that had to be asked: «What will Sharbaraz think, though?»

Abivard grimaced. «I'll have to find out, won't I? I don't intend to ask him for permission to recall Romezan; I'm going to do that on my own. But I will write him and let him know what I've done.

If he wants to badly enough, he can countermand my order. I know just what I'll do if he does that.»

«What?» Roshnani asked.

«I'll lay down my command and go back to Vek Rud domain, by the God,» Abivard declared. «If the King of Kings isn't satisfied with the way I defend him, let him choose someone who does satisfy him: Tzikas, maybe, or Yeliif. I'll go back to the Northwest and live out my days as a rustic dihqan. No matter how far Maniakes goes into Makuran, he'll never, ever reach the Vek Rud River.»

He waited with some anxiety to see how Roshnani would take that. To his surprise and relief, she shoved aside the plates off which they'd eaten supper so she could lean over on the carpet they shared and give him a kiss. «Good for you!» she exclaimed. «I wish you would have done that years ago, when we were in the Videssian westlands and he kept carping because you couldn't cross to attack Videssos the city.»

«I felt as bad about that as he did,» Abivard said. «But it's only gotten worse since then. Sooner or later everyone has a breaking point, and I've found mine.»

«Good,» Roshnani said again. «It would be fine to get back to the Northwest, wouldn't it? And even finer to get out from under a master who's abused you too long.»

«He'd still be my sovereign,» Abivard said. But that wasn't what Roshnani had meant, and he knew it. He wondered how well his resolve would hold up if Sharbaraz put it to the test.

The letters went out the next day. Abivard thought about delaying the one to Sharbaraz, to present the King of Kings with troop movements too far along for him to prevent when he learned of them. In the end Abivard decided not to take that chance. It would give Yeliif and everyone else at court who was not well inclined toward him a chance to say he was secretly gathering forces for a move of his own against Mashiz. If Sharbaraz thought that and tried to recall him, it might force him to move against Mashiz, which he did not want to do. As far as he was concerned, beating Videssos was more important. «All I want,» he murmured, «is to ride my horse into the High Temple in Videssos the city and to see the expression on the patriarch's face when I do.»

When he'd spent a couple of years in Across, staring over the Cattle Crossing at the Videssian capital, that dream had seemed almost within his grasp. Now here he was with his back against the Tib, doing his best to keep Maniakes Avtokrator from storming Mashiz. War was a business full of reversals, but going from the capital of the Empire of Videssos to that of Makuran in the space of a couple of years felt more like an upheaval.

«Ships,» he said, turning the word into a vile curse. Had he had some, he would long since have ridden in triumph into Videssos the city. Had Makuran had any, Maniakes would not have been able to leap the length of the Videssian westlands and bring the war home to the land of the Thousand Cities. And after a moment's reflection, he found yet another reason to regret Makuran's lack of a navy: «If I had a ship, I could put Tzikas on it and order it sunk.»

That bit of whimsy kept him happy for an hour, until Gyanarspar came into his tent with a parchment in his hand and a worried expression on his face. «Lord, you need to see this and decide what to do with it,» he said.

«Do I?» If Abivard felt any enthusiasm for the proposition, he concealed it even from himself. But he held out his hand, and Gyanarspar put the parchment into it. He read Tzikas' latest missive to the King of Kings with incredulity that grew from one sentence to the next. «By the God!» he exclaimed when he was through. «About the only thing he doesn't accuse me of is buggering the sheep in the flock of the King of Kings.»

«Aye, lord,» Gyanarspar said unhappily.

After a bit of reflection Abivard said, «I think I know what brought this on. Before, his letters to Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, got action—action against me. This year, though, the letters haven't been getting through to Sharbaraz. Tzikas must think that they have—and that the King of Kings is ignoring them. And so he decided to come up with something a little stronger.» He held his nose. This letter, as far as he was concerned, was strong in the sense of stale fish.

«What shall we do about it, lord?» Gyanarspar asked. «Make it disappear, by all means,» Abivard said. «Now, if we could only make Tzikas disappear, too.»

Gyanarspar bowed and left. Abivard plucked at his beard. Maybe he could sink Tzikas even without a ship. He hadn't wanted to before, when the idea had been proposed to him. Now– Now he sent a servant to summon Turan.

When his lieutenant stepped into the tent, he greeted him with, «How would you like to help make the eminent Tzikas a hero of Makuran?»

Turan was not the swiftest man in the world, but he was a long way from the slowest. After a couple of heartbeats of blank surprise his eyes lit up. «I'd love to, lord. What have you got in mind?»

«That scheme you had a while ago still strikes me as better than most: finding a way to send him out with a troop of horsemen against a Videssian regiment. When it's over, I'll be very embarrassed I used such poor military judgment.»

Turan's predatory smile said all that needed saying there. But then the officer asked, «What changed your mind, lord? When I suggested this before, you wouldn't hear me. Now you like the idea.»

«Let's just say Tzikas has been making a little too free with his opinions,» Abivard answered, at which Turan nodded in grim amusement. Abivard turned practical: «We'll need to set this up with the Videssians. When we need to, we can get a message to them, isn't that right?»

«Aye, lord, it is,» Turan said. «If we want to exchange captives, things like that, we can get them to hear us.» He smiled again. «For the chance of getting their hands on Tzikas, after what he tried to do to Maniakes, I think they'll hear us, as a matter of fact.»

«Good,» Abivard said. «So do I. Oh, yes, very good indeed. You will know and I will know and our messenger will know, and a few Videssians, too.»

«I don't think they'd give us away, lord,» Turan said. «If things were a little different, they might, but I think they hate Tzikas worse than you do. If they can get their hands on him, they'll keep quiet about hows and whys.»

«I think so, too,» Abivard said. «But there is one other person I'd want to know before the end.»

«Who's that?» Turan sounded worried. «The more people who know about a plot like this, the better the chance it'll go wrong.»

« 'Before the end,' I said,» Abivard replied. «Don't you think it would be fitting if Tzikas figured out how he'd ended up in his predicament?»

Turan smiled.

After swinging away from the Tib to rampage through the floodplain, Maniakes' army turned back toward the west, as if deciding it would attack Mashiz after all. Abivard spread his own force out along the river to make sure the Videssians could not force a crossing without his knowing about it.

He spread his cavalry particularly wide, sending the horsemen out not only to scout against the Videssians but also to nip at them with raids. Tzikas was like a whirlwind, now here, now there, always striking stinging blows against the countrymen he'd abandoned

«He can fight,» Abivard said grudgingly one evening after the Videssian had come in with a couple of dozen of Maniakes' men as prisoners. «I wonder if I really should—»

Roshnani interrupted him, her voice very firm: «Of course you should. Yes, he can fight. Think of all the other delightful things he can do, too.»