«What you say is true but incomplete,» Sharbaraz told him. «How did it happen that our father, Peroz King of Kings, saw the need to campaign against the Khamorth out on the steppe?»
«They were raiding us, Majesty, as you will no doubt remember,» Abivard said. «Your father wanted to punish them as they deserved.» He would not speak ill of the dead. Had Peroz flung out his net of scouts more widely, the plainsmen might not have trapped him and his host.
Sharbaraz nodded. «And why were they raiding us at that particular time?» he asked with the air of a schoolmaster leading a student through a difficult lesson step by step. Abivard had trouble figuring out what to make of that.
The answer, though, was plain enough: «Because the Videssians paid them gold to raid us.» He glared at Tzikas.
«Not my idea.» The Videssian renegade held up a hand, denying any responsibility. «Likinios Avtokrator sent the gold out where he thought it would do the most good.»
«Likinios Avtokrator, whom we knew, was devious enough to have devised such a scheme for harming his foes without risking his own men or the land then held by the Empire of Videssos,» Sharbaraz said. Abivard nodded; Likinios had lived up to all the Makuraner tales about calculating, cold-blooded Videssians. The King of Kings went on, «We have endeavored to learn even from our foes. Thus the ambassadors we sent forth two years ago just now returned to us: Tus and Piran.»
«Ambassadors to whom, Majesty?» Abivard asked. At last he could put the question to someone who might answer it.
But Sharbaraz did not answer it directly. Instead, he turned to the men now back from their two-year embassy and said, «Whose agreement did you bring back with you?»
Tus and Piran spoke together, denying Abivard the chance to figure out who was who: «Majesty, we brought back the agreement of Etzilios, khagan of Kubrat, Videssos' northern neighbor.»
«By the God,» Abivard murmured. He'd had that notion years before but hadn't thought it really could be done. If Sharbaraz had done it…
Tzikas' right hand started to shape Phos' sun-sign, then checked itself. The renegade murmured, «By the God,» too. Abivard for once was not disgusted at his hypocrisy. He was too busy staring at Sharbaraz King of Kings. For once he'd been wrong about his sovereign.
Sharbaraz said, «Aye, two years ago I sent them forth. They had to traverse the mountains and valleys of Erzerum without revealing their mission to the petty princes there who might have betrayed us to Videssos. They had to travel over the Pardrayan steppe all around the Videssian Sea, giving the Videssian outpost on the northern shore there a wide berth. They could not sail over the Videssian Sea to Kubrat, for we have no ships capable of such a journey.» He nodded to Abivard. «We now more fully appreciate your remarks on the subject.»
One of the ambassadors—the taller and older of the two—said, «We shall have ships. The Kubratoi hollow out great tree trunks and mount masts and sails on them. With these single-trunk ships they have raided the Videssian coast again and again, doing no small damage to our common foe.»
«Piran has the right of it,» Sharbaraz said, letting Abivard learn who was who. «Brother-in-law of mine, when the campaigning season begins this coming spring, you shall lead a great host of the men of Makuran through the Videssian westlands to Across, where all our previous efforts were halted. Under Etzilios, the Kubratoi shall come down and besiege the city by land. And—»
«And—» Abivard committed the enormity of interrupting the King of Kings, «—and their one-trunk ships will ferry over our men and the siege gear to force a breach in the wall and capture the enemy's capital.»
«Just so.» Sharbaraz was so pleased with himself, he overlooked the interruption.
Abivard bowed low. «Majesty,» he said with more sincerity in his voice than he had used in complimenting the King of Kings for some years, «this is a splendid conception. You honor me by letting me help bring it to reality.»
«Just so,» Sharbaraz said again. Abivard let out a small mental sigh. That the King of Kings had come up with a good idea did not keep him from remaining as full of himself as he'd grown in his years on the throne, even if it did give him better reason than usual for his pride.
«You have given me my role to play, Majesty, and I am proud to play it, as I told you,» Abivard said. He turned toward Tzikas. «You have not said what the Videssian's role is to be or why he should have one.» If the God was kind, he might yet be rid of Tzikas.
All Sharbaraz said was, «He will be useful to you.» That left Tzikas to speak for himself, which he did in his lisping Videssian accent: «I tell you, Abivard son of Godarz, as I long ago told Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, that I know a secret way into Videssos the city once your men get over the Cattle Crossing and reach the wall. I did not think what I knew was worth much, because I did not think you could cross to the city. The King of Kings remembered, though, for which I thank him.» He, too, bowed to Sharbaraz. «What is this secret way into Videssos the city?» Abivard asked. Tzikas smiled. «I will tell you—when it is time for you to send men through it into the city.»
«All right,» Abivard said, his voice mild. He saw a hint of surprise, almost of disappointment, on the Videssian renegade's face. Expecting me to threaten and bluster, were you? Abivard thought Maybe the torturers could find a way to pull what Tzikas knew out of him. But maybe not; the renegade was nothing if not resourceful and might well contrive to kill himself without yielding his secret.
In the end, though, it wouldn't matter. Before Tus and Piran had returned to Mashiz, Sharbaraz had shown every sign of being willing, if not downright eager, to be rid of Tzikas, secret or no secret. Now, with the King of Kings' plan unfolding, what Tzikas knew—or what Tzikas said he knew, which might not be the same thing—took on new value.
But suppose everything went exactly as Tzikas hoped. Suppose, thanks to his knowledge of the wall and whatever weak points it had, the Makuraners got into Videssos the city. Suppose he was the hero of the moment.
Abivard smiled at the renegade. Suppose all that came true. It would not profit Tzikas for long. Abivard was as sure of that as he was of light at noon, dark at midnight. Once Tzikas' usefulness was over, he would disappear. Sharbaraz would never name him puppet Avtokrator of the Videssians, not when he couldn't be counted on to stay a puppet.
So let him have his moment now. Why not? It wouldn't last. Sharbaraz said, «Now you see why we could permit no unseemly brawling between the two of you. Both of you are vital to our plans, and we should have been most aggrieved at having to go forward with only one. Until Videssos the city should fall, you are indispensable to us.»
«I will do my best to live up to the trust you've placed in me,» Tzikas answered, bowing once more to the King of Kings. Yes, Abivard judged, the renegade made a formidable courtier, and his command of the Makuraner language was excellent. It was not, however, perfect. Sharbaraz had said that Tzikas—and Abivard, too, for that matter—was indispensable until Videssos the city fell. He had not said a word about anyone's indispensability after Videssos the city fell. Abivard had noticed that. Tzikas, by all appearances, had not.
Yeliif reappeared between Abivard and Tzikas. One moment he was not there, the next he was. He was no mean courtier in his own right, arriving at the instant when Sharbaraz dismissed them. As protocol required, Abivard and Tzikas prostrated themselves once more. For the first time in some years Abivard felt he was giving the prostration to a man who deserved such an honor.
After he and Tzikas rose, they backed away from the King of Kings till they could with propriety turn and walk away from his presence. The beautiful eunuch stayed between them. Abivard wondered if that was to ensure that the two of them didn't start fighting again no matter what instructions they'd had from Sharbaraz.