«Now I can do all sorts of things,» Maniakes said. «I would have done them anyway, I think, but slower, always looking over my shoulder. Now I can live my life a free man.» Or as free from custom and danger as the Avtokrator ever gets, which isn't very far.
The first thing he did to celebrate his new freedom was order Tzikas' head, already badly the worse for wear, hewn from his body and mounted on a spear for the edification of the people of Serrhes. At least he didn't have to do the hewing himself, as he had with Genesios when his vicious predecessor was captured. Askbrand and his axe took care of the business with a couple of strokes. Tzikas wasn't moving or fighting any more, which made things easier, or in any case neater.
The next thing Maniakes did was give Askbrand a pound of gold. The Haloga tried to decline, saying, «You already pay me to guard you. You do not need to pay me more because I guard you.»
«Call it a reward for doing a very good job,» Maniakes said. Askbrand's fellow guardsmen who happened to be Videssians urgently nodded, whispered in the northerner's ears, and seemed on the point of setting fire to his shoes. No imperial in his right mind—and bloody few out of it—turned down money for no reason, and the Videssians feared that, if one bonus was turned down, no more would be forthcoming. At last, reluctantly, Askbrand agreed to let himself be rewarded.
Drawn by the commotion in the square, Lysia came out then. She listened to the excited accounts, took a long look at Tzikas' still-dripping and very mortal remains, said, «Good. About time,» and went back into the city governor's residence. At times, Maniakes thought, his wife was so sensible, she was unnerving.
A moment later, he sent one of the guardsmen into the residence, after not Lysia but a secretary. The fellow with whom the guard emerged did not take a headless corpse, an impaled head, and a great pool of blood on the cobbles in stride. He gulped, turned fishbelly pale, and passed out.
Gleefully, the guards threw a bucket of water over him. That brought him back to himself, but ruined the sheet of parchment on which he'd been about to write. When at last both the scribe and his implements were ready. Maniakes dictated a letter: «Maniakes Avtokrator to Abivard King of Kings, his brother: Greetings. I am pleased to tell you that—»
«Excuse me, your Majesty, but is 'King of Kings' Abivard's proper style?» the secretary asked.
Maniakes hid a smile. If the fellow could worry about such minutiae, he was indeed on the mend. «I don't know. It will do,» the Avtokrator said, as much to see the scribe wince as for any other reason. «I resume: Greetings. I am pleased to tell you that Tzikas will trouble our counsels no more. He tried to murder me while in the guise of one of your messengers, and suffered what failed assassins commonly suffer. If you like, I will send you his head, so you can see it for yourself. I assure you, he looks better without it.» He held up a hand to show he was done dictating. «Give me a fair copy of that for my signature before sunset. This is news Abivard will be glad to have.»
«I shall do as you require, your Majesty,» the scribe said, and went back indoors—where he belongs, Maniakes thought—in a hurry.
«By the good god,» the Avtokrator said, taking another long look at what was left of Tzikas, «here's another step toward making me really believe the war is over, the westlands are ours again, and that they're liable to stay that way.»
«If that's what you think, why don't we head back toward Videssos the city?» Rhegorios said. «The fall rains aren't going to hold off forever, you know, and I'd much sooner not have to slog through mud on the road.»
«So would I,» Maniakes said. «So would Lysia, no doubt.» He didn't want her giving birth on the road. He knew she didn't want to give birth on the road, either. Having done that before, she did not approve of it.
«And besides,» Rhegorios went on, «by now the people of Videssos the city are probably itching for you to get back so they can praise you to the skies. Phos!» The Sevastos sketched the sun-circle. «If they don't praise you to the skies after this, I don't know when they ever will.»
«If they do not praise the Avtokrator to the skies after this—» Askbrand began. He didn't finish the sentence, not in words. Instead, he swung through the air the axe he'd used to take Tzikas' head. The suggestion was unmistakable.
«I'll believe it when I see it.» Maniakes' laugh held less bitterness than he'd expected. «As long as they don't riot in the streets when I ride by, I'll settle for that.»
«You may be surprised,» his cousin said. «They were starting to give you your due back there before you went into the westlands.»
«You may be surprised,» Maniakes retorted. «That was just because they were glad they had me in the city instead of Etzilios and Abivard. If a goatherd saves a pretty girl who's fallen down a well, she might go to bed with him once to say thanks, but that doesn't mean she'd want to marry him. And the city mob in the capital is more fickle than any pretty girl ever born.»
«Which only goes to show, you don't know as much about pretty girls as you think you do,» Rhegorios said.
«I'm sure there are a great many things you can teach me, O sage of the age,» Maniakes said. «I'm sure there are a great many things you can teach most billy goats, for that matter.» Rhegorios made a face at him. He ignored it, continuing, «But one thing you can't teach me about, by the good god, is the mob in Videssos the city.»
«We'll see,» was all his cousin said. «If I'm wrong, I may ask to borrow Askbrand's axe.»
«Honh!» the guardsman said. «An these stupid city people give not the Avtokrator his due, maybe he will turn all the Halogai loose on them. They would remember that a long time, I bet you.»
He swung the axe again. His pale, intent eyes lit up, perhaps in anticipation.
«I don't think so,» Maniakes said hastily. «There are ways to be remembered, yes, but that's not one I care for. We'll go home and see what happens, that's all. Whatever it is, I can live with it.»
XIII
It rained on Maniakes' parade. it had rained the day before, and the day before that, too. It was liable to keep on raining for the next week.
He didn't care. He'd returned to Videssos the city before the fall rains began, which meant traveling had been easy. He'd ordered the parade more because he thought the city mob expected one than because he had anything spectacular to display. The sole disadvantage of having peacefully reacquired the westlands was the absence of captured siege gear, dejected prisoners in chains, and most of the other elements that made a procession dramatic and worth watching.
Without prisoners and booty, Maniakes paraded his own soldiers. Without those soldiers, he never would have been able to take the war to Makuran or to defend Videssos the city against the Makuraners and Kubratoi. They deserved the credit for the victories that would go down in the chronicles as his.
He'd thought the rain and the relatively mundane nature of the parade—which he'd taken pains to announce beforehand—would hold down the crowd. He didn't mind that. If only dedicated parade-goers came out, he'd reasoned, fewer of the people lining Middle Street would be of the sort who amused themselves by hissing him and shouting obscenities at Lysia.
Looking at the way men and women packed the capital's chief thoroughfare, though, he turned to Rhegorios and remarked, «More folk came out than I expected. Must be the colonnades—I'd forgotten how they let people stay dry even in wet weather.»
Rhegorios didn't answer right away. Like Maniakes, he was busy waving to the people as he rode along. Unlike Maniakes', most of his waves seemed aimed at the pretty girls in the crowd; he hadn't let his disappointment over Phosia dishearten him for long. At last, he said, «Cousin of mine, you may as well get used to it: they've decided they like you after all.»