"They symbolize what is and what shall be," he said, "and this chunk of hematite-" He held it up. "-is by the law of similarity attuned to the piece of the same mineral in the amulet that protected you and allowed you to reach me. Now-"

He dipped a glass rod into the cup that held the mixed wine and vinegar, then dabbed several drops of the mixture onto the parchment. The letters and numbers there smeared as they got wet. Chanting, Bagdasares touched the wet places with the lump of hematite. "If the eminent Kourikos was involved with the magic, your Majesty, we should see those areas begin to glow as my sorcery exposes the connection."

Maniakes waited. Nothing happened. After a couple of minutes, he asked, "Has it done everything it's going to do?"

"Er-yes, your Majesty," Bagdasares answered. "It would appear that the eminent Kourikos was in fact not one of those who so wickedly plotted against you." Pointing out to an Avtokrator that he was wrong could be a risky business. Maniakes, however, greeted the wizard's words with a shrug, and Bagdasares relaxed. Maniakes was just as well pleased not to have the logothete of the treasury under suspicion, for his innocence made Parsmanios' more likely. Maniakes wished he could have been positive it was Kourikos he had seen with his brother, but he couldn't, and no help for it.

Doing his best to make life difficult, Bagdasares said, "We do, of course, still have to test the script of the logothete's wife."

"I'm sure you'll attend to that in due course," Maniakes said. He supposed Kourikos could have been a go-between for Phevronia and Parsmanios without directly doing business with the mage who had tried to kill him, but it didn't strike him as probable. He rubbed his chin. "I don't think I have a handwriting specimen from the eminent Tzikas here. I'll send him a note and get one back in return."

As if on cue, Kameas stuck his head into Bagdasares' makeshift thaumaturgical laboratory and said, "Your Majesty, a clerk has fetched writings hither from the government offices." The vestiarios had discretion and to spare; he never mentioned Parsmanios' name.

"Let him come in, eminent sir," Maniakes said. The clerk, a weedy little man in a robe of wool homespun, prostrated himself and then gave the Avtokrator a sheet of parchment tied into a cylinder with a ribbon. When Maniakes slid off the ribbon, he saw it was indeed one of Parsmanios' orders of the day for the vanguard of an army now long defeated.

The clerk disappeared, presumably to return to the hordes of pigeonholes where such documents slept against the unlikely chance that they, like this one, might eventually need to be revived. Maniakes forgot about him the moment he was gone. His attention swung back to Bagdasares, who was preparing the document for the same treatment he had given the one written by Kourikos.

The mage sprinkled the marching order with his mix of wine and vinegar. He began his chant once more and touched the piece of hematite to the parchment. Immediately it was suffused in a soft nimbus of blue-violet light. "The test has found an affirmative, your Majesty," Bagdasares said. Like Kameas, he did not speak Parsmanios' name.

A crushing weight of sorrow descended on Maniakes. "Are you certain, sorcerous sir?" he asked. "No doubt or possible misinterpretation?"

"No, your Majesty," Bagdasares said sadly but without hesitation. "I regret being the agent who-"

"It's not your fault," Maniakes said. "It's my brother's fault." He walked down the hall to the room where he had left his father. He looked in.

"Parsmanios," he said. The elder Maniakes grimaced but nodded. The Avtokrator walked out to the guards who stood on the steps. He divided them in two and told one group, "Go find Parsmanios. He'll probably be in one of the wings of the Grand Courtroom at this time of day. Whatever he's doing, fetch him here at once."

The guards asked no questions, but hurried off to do his bidding. When he went back into the imperial residence, he found his father standing near the entrance. "What will you do with him? To him, I should say?" the elder Maniakes asked.

"Hear him out," Maniakes answered wearily. "Then have him tonsured and send him into exile in the monastery at Prista, up on the northern shore of the Videssian Sea. It's either that or take his head."

"I know." The elder Maniakes clapped the younger on the back. "It's a good choice." He scowled. "No. It's the best choice you could make. I never dreamed I'd have to thank you for sparing your brother's life, but I do."

Maniakes did not feel magnanimous. He felt empty, betrayed. A messenger arrived with Tzikas' reply to his note. He didn't even look at it, but sent the fellow straight on to Bagdasares. Then he went out and stared east through the cherry trees toward the Grand Courtroom.

Before long, the guards headed back to the residence, Parsmanios in their midst. He was complaining volubly: "This is an outrage, I tell you! When the Avtokrator hears of how you high-handedly jerked me out of that meeting with the eminent Themistios, logothete of petitions, and how he stared as you did so, his Majesty will-"

"Commend his men for carrying out his orders," Maniakes interrupted. He spoke to the guards: "Make sure he has no weapons." Despite Parsmanios' protests, the soldiers removed his belt knife and, after some searching, a slim holdout dagger he wore in his left boot. That done, they escorted him to the chamber to which his father had returned.

"Why, son?" the elder Maniakes asked, beating the Avtokrator to the question.

"Why what?" Parsmanios began. Then he looked from his father to his brother and saw that wouldn't get him anywhere. From assumed innocence sprang fury.

"Why do you think, the ice take you? You shut me away from everything you did, you gave Rhegorios the spot that should have been mine-"

"I didn't know you were alive when Rhegorios got the Sevastos' spot," Maniakes said. "How many times must I tell you?"

Parsmanios went on as if he hadn't spoken. "And as if that wasn't enough, you started swiving his sister. Why didn't you just take him to bed? Incest with one wouldn't be any worse than incest with the other."

"Son, you would be wiser to have a care in what you say," the elder Maniakes said. "You would have been wiser to have a care in what you did, too."

"Better you should tell that to him," Parsmanios said, pointing to his brother. "But no, you don't care what he does. You never cared what he did. He was your eldest, so it had to be right."

"My backside says you're a liar," Maniakes said, "not that you haven't shown that already."

"Say whatever you want," Parsmanios said. "It doesn't matter now. I failed, and you'll take my head, and that will be the end of it."

"I had in mind taking your hair, not your head," Maniakes said, "but listening to the swill you spew tempts me to give you what most traitors get." He shook his head. "Exile to Prista will do." He paused, wondering how best to put his next question. At last, he said, "Shall we send anyone into exile with you?"

Parsmanios stood mute. Maniakes thought of turning him over to the torturers to see what they could wring out of him, but couldn't make himself do it. He called the guards, saying "My brother is a proved traitor. I want him kept in a constantly guarded chamber here in the residence for the time being. Later, until he is sent off into exile, we'll move him to a cell under the government office building." Some of the guardsmen looked astonished, but they saluted to show they understood before leading Parsmanios away.

Maniakes looked up toward the ceiling. "Every time I think it can't possibly get any worse, can't possibly get any harder, it does."

"You did that as well as you could, son," the elder Maniakes told him. "Better than I would have managed it, and that's a fact."