"Of course I will," Roshnani said at once. Abivard could read her thoughts: the more women heard of the outside world, the less content they would be with separation from it.

Maybe Burzoe saw that, maybe she didn't. In either case, having made the invitation, she could scarcely withdraw it. Abivard took leave of them both. He locked the door to the women's quarters behind him-not that that had mattered much to Onnophre and Kishmar. He wondered who had fathered their children. If he ever found out, Vek Rud stronghold would have a couple of more folk leaving it.

Frada still waited in the hallway not far from the dihqan's bedchamber. "You heard?" he demanded. Abivard nodded. His brother went on, "What will you do?"

"I'll divorce them both tomorrow and send them out of here," Abivard answered.

"That will do. I've seen too much blood spilled this past year to want more on my hands."

His brother's shoulders slumped with relief. "I told Mother your answer would be something like that. She was all for taking their heads the minute their bellies started bulging." He rolled his eyes. "We went round and round on that one like peasant women in a ring dance. Finally I got her to wait for your word."

"What was it Father would say? 'Easier to do something now than undo it later if it happens to be wrong. Something like that, anyhow. I'd have been upset if I got home to find two of my wives had gone on the chopping block like a couple of pullets."

"That's what I thought," Frada answered. "You're more tenderhearted than Father was, or you put up with more nonsense, anyway. Women promenading all over the landscape-" His snort showed what he thought of that. "But you're the dihqan now, and the stronghold runs by how you think we ought to do things."

"Am I?" Abivard said. "More tenderhearted, I mean." He wondered what Godarz would have done had a wife of his borne a child he could not have sired. Something interesting and memorable, he had no doubt. "Well, maybe I am. Every now and then, the world does change."

"Maybe so." Almost like Roshnani, Frada acknowledged without necessarily agreeing. Then he clapped his brother on the back. "However that may be, there's a feast waiting for us down the hall. If you'd stayed closeted much longer, my nose and my belly would have dragged me off to it."

"I expect I'd have forgiven you," Abivard said. "Let's go."

Somehow, word of what he had decided in the women's quarters got out to the rest of the stronghold faster than he did. Some people praised his mercy; others plainly thought he had been too soft. But everyone knew what the verdict had been. He drank two quick cups of wine to try to dull the edge of his bemusement.s In the kitchen, a cook gave him a plate of lamb and herbs and chickpeas all mashed together, and a bowl of lamb broth with toasted chunks of pocket bread floating in it as an accompaniment. He dug in with a silver spoon. "That's good," he said blissfully. "Now in truth I start to feel at home."

"Didn't they make it at Mashiz?" Frada asked, "They did, yes, but with different spices-too much garlic and not enough mint, if you ask me," Abivard answered. "This is the way it's supposed to taste, the way it's tasted ever since I was a boy."

"The way it's tasted as long as Abalish has commanded in the kitchens, you mean," Frada said, and Abivard nodded. His brother went on, "And what did they eat in Videssos? That must have been interesting."

"They generally bake their bread in loaves, not in pockets," Abivard said, thinking back. "They eat lamb and kid and beef, much as we do; they're even more fond of garlic than the folk around Mashiz. And-" He broke off suddenly, remembering the fermented fish sauce.

"What is it?" Frada asked eagerly. Abivard told him. He looked revolted, though not as revolted as Abivard had felt. "You're making that up." Abivard shook his head. Frada said, "I hope you didn't eat any of the horrible stuff."

"I did till they told me what it was." Abivard spooned up some broth to drive away the memory. When that didn't work, he drank some wine.

"What… did it taste like?" Frada asked, like one small boy querying another who had just swallowed a bug.

Abivard had trouble recalling. After he had learned the sauce was made from rotten fish, horror overwhelmed whatever flavor it might have had. At last he said, "It wasn't as bad as it might have been-more cheesy than anything else."

"Better you than me, brother of mine, that's all I have to say." Frada waved to a halt a woman with a tray of boiled mutton tongues, sweetbreads, and eyes. He filled the plate he had emptied of mashed lamb. "Now here's proper fare."

"You're right, of course," Abivard said. "Here, Mandane, let me have some of those, too." When his plate was full, he took out his belt knife and attacked the savory spread with gusto.

Presently, full to the point of bursting and drunk to the point where he seemed to float a hand's breadth above the stones of the floor, he made his way back toward the bedchamber. Only then did it occur to him that he ought to summon one of his wives to bed with him, and one other than Roshnani. She had had him all to herself for a year and more, which had to have stirred up savage jealousy in the women's quarters. He hoped that jealousy wouldn't manifest itself as it had with Ardini.

But whom should he choose? Whichever wife he first bedded on his return would also be an object of jealousy. The other relevant issue was that he was so laden with food and drink that he did not want a woman and had doubts he could do one justice. Such fine points spun slowly through his mind as he went into the bedchamber and, after a couple of fumbles, let down the bar.

He took off his sandals. Trying to work the buckles was harder than barring the door had been. At last he managed. With a sigh of relief, he lay down to think about which wife he should call. The next thing he knew, it was morning.

For the first time since he had become dihqan, Abivard had the chance to run his domain in something approaching peace. From time to time, small bands of Khamorth would cross the Degird and trickle south to his lands, sometimes with their flocks, sometimes as mere raiders, but he and his horsemen always managed to drive them off. The great eruption of plainsmen into Makuran everyone had feared after the disaster on the Pardrayan steppe did not come.

"Much as I hate to say it, maybe the tribute Smerdis paid the nomads did some good," Abivard remarked.

Frada spat on the walkway of the stronghold wall they paced together. "That for Smerdis and his tribute both. Stinking usurper. How could you speak any good of a man against whom you spent most of two years at war? If it weren't for you, he'd likely still be King of Kings. Aren't you glad he's gone?"

"That I am. As you say, I went through too much getting rid of him to wish he were still here." A little voice inside Abivard, though, asked how much difference having Sharbaraz on the throne rather than Smerdis would mean for Makuran in the long run. Was changing the ruler worth all the blood and treasure spilled to accomplish the job?

Fiercely, he told the little voice to shut up. In any case, whatever the civil war had done for Makuran as a whole, it had surely made his fortune-and his clan's. Without it, he would never have become brother-in-law to the King of Kings, nor possibly uncle to Sharbaraz's successor. He would have stayed just a frontier dihqan, rarely worrying about what happened outside his domain.

Would that have been so bad? the little voice asked. He ignored it.

Roshnani came out of the door to the living quarters and strolled across the courtyard. She saw him up on the wall and waved to him. He waved back. The stablemen and smith's helpers and serving women in the courtyard took no special notice of her, which Abivard reckoned progress. The first few times she had ventured out of the women's quarters, people had either stared popeyed or turned their backs and pretended she wasn't there, which struck Abivard as even worse.