"Majesty, I thank you," Abivard said.

"Go on home, tend to your business-and, in a while, it will be time to tend to mine," Sharbaraz said.

The last time Abivard had traveled from Nalgis Crag stronghold back to Vek Rud domain, he had made the trip as fast as he could without killing the horses he, Sharbaraz, Tanshar, and Denak were riding. Till he got back onto his own land, he had feared Pradtak's warriors were one ridge behind him, riding hard to recapture the fugitive King of Kings.

Now he could make the journey at an easier pace. Not only did he no longer fear enemies at his back, he had enough men with him to overawe almost any band of Khamorth. Turning to Tanshar, who rode beside him, he said, "The nomads missed their chance to take big chunks of the northwest and turn them into an extension of the Pardrayan steppe."

"So they did," the fortune-teller said, nodding. "They all joined together against us when Peroz King of Kings crossed the Degird in arms, but they're clans, not a nation. If they started squabbling among themselves once their victory was won, they wouldn't have had the chance to do as you said. I don't know that's what happened, mind you, but it could have been."

Abivard laughed. "Odd to hear a fortune-teller say he doesn't know what happened. You're supposed to know such things."

"Lord, when as many years pile onto you as weigh my shoulders down, you'll find out that one of the biggest things you know is just how little you know," Tanshar answered. "Oh, if I was ordered and if I could get past the tribal shamans' magic, I might be able to learn why the Khamorth didn't swarm over the Degird as we feared, but who cares about the why after the fact? That they didn't is what matters."

"Mmm." Abivard chewed on that; he found a hard core of sense there. "I see what you're saying. But don't go parading your own ignorance. You accomplished more on that campaign than-than-" He stopped, not sure how to go on without insulting Tanshar, which was the last thing he wanted to do.

"More than you'd expected from a village fortune-teller, do you mean?" Tanshar asked gently. Abivard felt his ears heat but had to nod. Smiling, Tanshar went on, "I've lived in the village under Vek Rud stronghold all my days, and what came to me were village-size concerns. I do not complain, mind; I was as content as a man without a good wife can be. There must be many men like me, in all walks of life, through the whole of Makuran. Most of them stay in their villages their whole lives long and never have the chance to show what they might do on a larger stage. Thanks to you, I had that chance, and I took it."

The fortune-teller's quiet words gave Abivard a good deal to think about. Was what Tanshar said true? Could any man, if opportunity came his way, do more than he had ever dreamed of? If so, how many common folk were wasting lives of potential excellence just in the round of making a daily living on farms and in villages throughout the realm? If Tanshar was right, would it pay the King of Kings to seek them out? How would he find them, without some crisis in which they could display their talents? Abivard didn't know the answers, but thought the questions worth sending on to Sharbaraz.

He also found another question to put to Tanshar: "When darkness came on Mashiz, the Videssian priests were the ones who raised it. What happened to you and the rest of the Makuraner wizards Sharbaraz King of Kings had with him?"

"What happened to us, lord?" The fortune-teller's laugh was full of self-deprecation. "What happened shows the limits of what I said before, for against that magic we were all helpless as children; we had neither the training nor the skill to raise it. Till this past year I never heard anything good about Videssos, but I thank the God the Videssians were there. Without them, Mashiz might be dark yet."

"Now there's a thought-a nasty one," Abivard said. The idea of blundering through the streets trying to escape the spell, of being essentially blind, sent cold chills through him even though the possibility had evaporated weeks before.

The party rattled on toward Vek Rud domain. High summer lay heavy on the land, burning spring greenery yellow-brown and the ground itself gray. Without the fodder and the jars of water in the supply wagons, Abivard wouldn't have cared to make the trip through the desert at that season.

Little spiral winds kicked up dust and danced across the flat, baked ground. Abivard took them for granted. Some of the soldiers in the company Sharbaraz had given him, though, claimed the little whirlwinds were the outward manifestation of mischievous demons. One of the men shot an arrow through a whirlwind, which promptly collapsed. He turned in triumph to Abivard. "You see, lord?"

"Hmm," was all Abivard said, though he wondered if the fellow might not have been right.

The next day, strong winds threw sand and grit at the travelers from sunup to sundown. It wasn't one of the disastrous sandstorms that could change the whole look of the landscape and bury a caravan in blowing dust, but it was quite bad enough. When, toward evening, the wind eased at last, Abivard issued a stern decree: "No more shooting at whirlwinds." He didn't know whether the archery could have had anything to do with the storm, and he didn't care to repeat the experiment.

That evening, when he went into the wagon to see Roshnani, he found her green around the gills. "Morning sickness," the serving woman said. "I wish lemons were in season; sucking on one would help ease it."

"Given the choice between those two, I think I'd sooner have morning sickness," Abivard said.

Roshnani wanly shook her head. "You don't know what you're talking about," she said. Since that was literally true, he spread his hands and yielded the point. She said, "At my father's stronghold, some of the women would be sick all the way through their time, while others would have no trouble at all. I seem to be in the middle. Some days I'm fine, but others-" She made a horrible gagging noise. "Today was one of those."

"I hope tomorrow will be a good day for you." Abivard patted her hand. "Just a few days more and we'll be home again at last."

From outside Roshnani's cubicle, the serving woman asked, "My lady, would you care for some mutton broth and flatbread? That should sit well in your stomach."

"Maybe later," Roshnani said, gulping.

"You should eat," Abivard said reprovingly.

"I know I should," she answered. "But if I ate anything now, I'd just give it back, and that wouldn't do me any good." She hugged herself, carefully. "My insides are sore enough as is."

"Very well," Abivard said. Since he knew next to nothing about how pregnancy worked-not that a man could know much anyhow-he was willing to trust his wife's estimate of the state of her stomach. From what he had seen of Roshnani these past couple of years, her estimates of most matters deserved trust.

She laughed a little. He raised a questioning eyebrow. She said, "Forgive me, but I still have trouble thinking of Vek Rud stronghold as 'home. I've spent more time in this wagon than I did in your women's quarters, and we've been gone for more than a year, so it hardly seems real to me."

"I can understand that," Abivard said. "I've seen more of the world since we set out on campaign than I ever imagined I would."

"You!" Roshnani exclaimed. "What of me? I don't have quite the same fear Denak did of being caged forever, but staying in one place, seeing only rooms and walls and always the same landscape out the windows, will seem very strange."

She stopped there, but sent Abivard an anxious look. He knew what it meant: now that he was coming home in triumph, would he forget the promise he had made to let her out of the women's quarters now and again? He said, "Don't worry. You'll be able to go round the stronghold and see things from all sides."