"I don't understand, your Majesty," Broios said.

  Sighing, Maniakes found himself explaining what he would rather have kept dark a while longer. "My cousin here, his highness the Sevastos Rhegorios, has... conceived an interest in your daughter, Phosia. I need to know if there are any scandals in your family that would keep it from being joined to mine."

  Broios wobbled on his feet. For a moment, Maniakes feared he would faint. The merchant coughed a couple of times, then found words: "Your Majesty. I crave your pardon in a different way. I know his Highness has seen my daughter, but—" His voice broke like that of a youth whose beard was beginning to sprout. What he was probably thinking was something like, I knew Rhegorios wanted to dally with her, but... "—I had no idea that—that—" He ran down again.

  "Since you are here, since you have come to me," Maniakes said, "I want you to tell me anything that might be an impediment to this union. If you tell me here and now, no penalty and no blame will come to you, even if we decide not to make the match. But if you conceal anything and I learn of it for myself, not only is the match forfeit, you will regret the day you were born for having lied to me. Do you understand, Broios?"

  "Yes, your Majesty." Broios drew himself to his full unimpressive height. "Your Majesty, to the ice with me if I can think of any reason—except the late kick in the arse, of course—for you not to take my tender chick under your wing." His voice rang with sincerity.

  His voice had also rung with sincerity when he denied having mixed in some arkets Vetranios hadn't given him before taking the coins to the Avtokrator. He'd been lying then. Was he lying now? Maniakes couldn't tell. A successful merchant got to the point where he could dissemble well enough to deceive anyone who didn't have a sorcerer at his side.

  The Avtokrator wondered if he should summon Bagdasares. For the moment, he decided against it. He'd given Broios the warning. "Remember what I said," he told the merchant. "If you don't speak now—"

  "I have nothing to say," Broios answered, a statement normally so improbable that Maniakes thought it stood some chance of being true.

  He dismissed the merchant and then asked Rhegorios, "And what do you think of your prospective father-in-law?"

  "Not bloody much," his cousin replied at once. "But I'm not interested in marrying him, the lord with the great and good mind be praised. He's Zosime's problem, which suits me down to the ground."

  "Only shows you've never been married," Maniakes said. "Your wife's family is your problem." He grinned at Rhegorios. "Take my brother-in-law, for instance."

  "Who, him? He's a prince among men," Rhegorios said, laughing. "Why, he's even a prince among princes." The reference to the Vaspurakaner blood the two of them shared made Maniakes laugh, too.

  But he did not laugh long. He said, "Do we really want Broios in the family with us?"

  "No, that's not the question," Rhegorios said. "The question is, is Broios so revolting, we can't stand to have him in the family no matter how much I want Phosia in it?"

  As far as Maniakes could tell, the question wasn't how much Rhegorios wanted Phosia in it, the question was how much he wanted it in Phosia, the it being different in the two cases. He didn't say that, for fear of angering his cousin instead of amusing him. Taken on its own terms, what Rhegorios asked was reasonable. Recognizing that, Maniakes said, "We shall see, cousin of mine. We shall see."

  Excitement on his face, a Videssian trooper led one of Abivard's boiler boys before Maniakes. "He's got news for you, your Majesty," the imperial exclaimed as the Makuraner went down on his belly in a proskynesis.

  "Rise, sir, rise," Maniakes said. "Whatever you tell me, I am certain it will be more interesting than the endless arguments I've been hearing here in Serrhes."

  "I think this is small praise, not great," the Makuraner said, his dark eyes sparkling with amusement above the chain-mail veil he wore. "But yes, Majesty, I have news indeed. Know that Abivard son of Godarz, the new sun of Makuran, now holds Mashiz in the hollow of his hand, and know further that he also holds in the hollow of his hand Sharbaraz Pimp of Pimps, and awaits only the decree of the Mobedhan-Mobhed concerning the said Sharbaraz's infamous and impious practices in regard to religion before ending his life and consigning him to the Void forevermore." The Mobedhan-Mobhed, the leading servant of the God, held a place in the Makuraner hierarchy close to that of the ecumenical patriarch in Videssos.

  Maniakes clapped his hands together. "He has the capital and he has his foe, eh?" The Makuraner messenger nodded. Maniakes went on, "That's very wise, getting your chief cleric to condemn him. Taking his head won't seem so much like murder then: more as if he's getting his desserts."

  "Majesty, he is," the Makuraner said angrily. "To start so great a war and then to lose it, to leave us with nothing to show for so much blood and treasure spent—how can a man who fails so greatly deserve to live?"

  Again, none of the Makuraners blamed Sharbaraz for starting the war against Videssos. They blamed him for losing it. Had Videssos the city fallen, no one would have lifted a finger against the victorious, all-conquering figure Sharbaraz would have become. He would have ruled out his span of years with unending praise from his subjects, who might even have come to think he deserved deification as much as he did. He probably would have found some convenient excuse to get rid of Abivard so no one shared the praise. Success would have concealed a multitude of sins; failure made even virtues vanish.

  "It's over, then," Maniakes said in wondering tones. He would still have to see if and how he could live at peace with Abivard. But even if they did fight, they wouldn't go to war right away. The struggle that had begun when Sharbaraz used Genesios' overthrow of Likinios as an excuse to invade and seek to conquer Videssos was done at last.

  Abivard's messenger construed Maniakes' three words in the sense in which he'd meant them. "Majesty, it is," he said solemnly, giving back three words of his own.

  "I presume your master is tying up loose ends now," Maniakes said, and the messenger nodded. The Avtokrator asked, "What of Abivard's sister—Denak, was that her name? She was Sharbaraz's wife, not so?"

  "His principal wife, yes," the messenger answered, making a distinction about which the monogamous Videssians did not need to bother.

  "What does she think of the changes in Mashiz?" Maniakes chose his words with care, not wanting to offend either the messenger or Abivard, to whom what he said would surely get back.

  The Makuraner boiler boy replied with equal caution: "Majesty, as pledges have been given that no harm shall come to her children, and as these past years she had not always been on the best of terms with him who was King of Kings, she is said to be well enough pleased by those changes."

  Maniakes nodded. Abivard, then, was not inclined simply to dispose of his little nephew. Maniakes liked him better for that.

  Still, he wondered how happy Denak would be when she fully realized the child of her flesh would not succeed to the throne. But that was Abivard's worry, not his own. He had plenty that were his, and chose to air one: "Any sign of Tzikas in Mashiz?"

  "The Videssian traitor?" The Makuraner spoke with unconscious contempt that would have wounded Tzikas had he been there to hear it. "No. I am told he was in Mashiz at some earlier time, but Abivard the new sun of Makuran—"Abivard the man with a new fancy title, Maniakes thought wryly."—finds no trace of him there at present, despite diligent searching."

  "What a pity." Maniakes sighed. "It can't be helped, I suppose. For the good news you do bring—and it's very good news indeed— I'll give you a pound of gold."

  "May the God and the Prophets Four bless you, Majesty!" the Makuraner exclaimed. Coming from a nation that coined mostly in silver, he, like most of his countrymen, held Videssian gold in great esteem.

  When Maniakes went to tell Rhegorios that Sharbaraz had been cast down, he discovered his cousin already knew. He was flabbergasted for a moment, but then remembered the grinning Videssian soldier who had brought the messenger into his presence. That grin said the Videssian had already heard the news—and what one Videssian knew, a hundred would know an hour later, given the imperials' unabashed love for gossip. By sunset tomorrow, all of Serrhes would have all the details of Abivard's entry into Mashiz. Some of the people might even have the right details.

  "It doesn't matter that I heard it from other lips than yours," Rhegorios said soothingly. "What matters is that it's so. Now we can start putting the pieces back together again."

  "True," Maniakes said. With more than a little reluctance, he added, "I still haven't heard anything out-of-the-way about Phosia."

  "Neither have I," Rhegorios said. "I don't expect to hear anything bad about her, either. What I do worry about is hearing something so bad about Broios that I wouldn't want him in the family if he had ten pretty daughters."

  "Ten pretty daughters!" Maniakes exclaimed. "What would you do with ten pretty daughters? No, wait, don't tell me—I see the gleam in your eye. Remember, cousin of mine, the Makuraners are trying to get away from the custom of the women's quarters.

  What would your sister say if she found out you'd started that custom on Videssian soil?"

  "Something I'd rather not hear, I'm sure," Rhegorios answered, laughing. "But you needn't worry. Having a whole raft of wives may sound like great fun, but how is any man above the age of eighteen— twenty-one at the outside—supposed to keep them all happy? And if he doesn't keep them all happy, they'll be unhappy, and whom will they be unhappy about? Him, that's whom. No, thank you."

  The grammar in there was shaky. The logic, Maniakes thought, was excellent. Idly, he said, "I wonder what will happen to all of Sharbaraz's wives now that he isn't King of Kings anymore. For that matter, if I remember rightly, Abivard has a women's quarters of his own, up at Vek Rud domain, somewhere off in the far northwest of Makuran."

  "Yes, he does, doesn't he?" Rhegorios said. "He never talks about his other wives back there, though. He and Roshnani might as well be married the way any two Videssians are."

  "Which is all very well for the two of them, no doubt," Maniakes said. "But Abivard has spent most of his time the past ten years and more here in Videssos, and none of it, so far as I know, up in Vek Rud domain. I wonder what the other wives have to say about him, yes, I do."

  "That could be intriguing." Rhegorios got a faraway look in his eyes. "He's not in Videssos any more. He's not going to come back here, either, not if Phos is kind. Now that he's the new lead horse in Makuran, wouldn't you say he's likely to be going through the plateau country, to make himself known to the dihqans and such up there? Wouldn't you guess he'll probably find his way back to his own domain one day?"

  "I wouldn't mind being a fly on the wall when he did." Maniakes wondered if Bagdasares could make magic stretch that far. After a moment, he realized it didn't matter: he would have no way of knowing exactly when Abivard returned to his old domain. Too bad, he thought. Too bad.

  Fat and sweating with nervousness as well as heat, Vetranios prostrated himself before Maniakes. "I pray that you hear me out," he said to the Avtokrator after he had risen. "It is true, your Majesty, isn't it, that you've been trying to find out what sort of games Broios has been playing with his daughter?"

  "Yes, that is true," Maniakes said, "and what's also true is that I'll land on you like an avalanche if you're lying to score points off your rival. If you know something I should hear, why didn't I hear it two weeks ago?"

  "I got back into Serrhes only day before yesterday," Vetranios answered with some dignity. "I went over to Amorion to see if I could collect on a debt owed me since before the Makuraners took the town."

  "Any luck?" Maniakes asked, genuinely curious.

  "Alas, no. The merchant who owed me the payment walked the narrow bridge of the separator during the years of the Makuraner occupation, and is now settling up accounts with either Phos or Skotos." Vetranios sounded sad, not so much because his debtor had died but because he'd died without paying him back. As if to prove that, the merchant went on, "I was unable to locate any of his heirs or assigns, either. Most distressing, and a most slipshod way of doing business, too."

  "War does have a habit of making people's lives difficult," Maniakes said. Vetranios nodded; the Avtokrator's irony sailed right past him. Reflecting that he should have known better, Maniakes returned to the matter at hand: "Very well. You haven't been in Serrhes for a bit. I thought the town seemed quieter than usual. What do you know about Broios and Phosia that I haven't already heard?"

  "Since I don't know what you've already heard, your Majesty, how can I tell you that?" Vetranios asked. Given his past record, the question struck Maniakes as altogether too reasonable to have come from his lips. Vetranios went on, "I can tell you, though, that Broios betrothed Phosia to Kaykaus, Tegin's second-in-command, while the Makuraners were occupying Serrhes."

  "What?" Maniakes stared. "By the good god, sir, you'd better give me a good answer as to how you know that when no one else in this city has breathed a word of it to me. If you're lying, the Halogai may be kicking your head through the city square, not your arse."

  "I am not lying." Vetranios sketched the sun-circle above his heart. Of course, he'd done the same thing during his earlier dispute with Broios. He'd been lying then. So had Broios, who had sworn just as hard he was telling the truth. "As for how I know... Your Majesty, I have a daughter, too. Her name is Sisinnia. Kaykaus and I were dickering over an engagement when all at once he broke off the talks, saying he preferred Phosia—by which I take it he meant her dowry. So news of this will not have got round the town."

  "I—see," Maniakes said slowly. "Don't leave Serrhes again without getting my consent first, Vetranios. I may have to use magic to find out whether you're telling the truth."

  "Your Majesty!" The merchant assumed an expression of injured innocence. "How could you possibly doubt me?"

  "Somehow or other, I manage," Maniakes said, another shot that sailed over Vetranios' head. "Never mind. Go home. Stay there. If I need you again, I'll summon you."

  After the merchant left the city governor's residence, Maniakes hunted up Rhegorios and gave him the news. "That doesn't sound good, does it?" Rhegorios said with a scowl. "Not that he wanted to make the marriage—that would be easy enough to forgive. But trying to make it and then not telling us about it... Master Broios has some explaining to do, I fear."

  "So he does. And unless he's got a bloody good explanation..." Maniakes strode over and set his hand on Rhegorios' shoulder. "I know you're sweet on this girl, cousin of mine, but unless her father has a bloody good explanation, I don't want to be connected with him."

  "I'm not arguing with you," Rhegorios said. "I wish I could argue, but I can't." He laughed in self-mockery. "If I were fifteen years younger, I'd be sure as sure I couldn't possibly live without her, and my life would be ruined forever. And I'd probably yank out my sword and try and make you change your mind—either that or I'd run off with her the way I was thinking of doing anyhow, get a priest to say the words over us, and leave you to make the best of it. But do you know what, cousin your Majesty brother-in-law of mine? If what Vetranios says is true, I'm not dead keen on having an old reprobate like Broios in the family."

  "Don't despair," Maniakes said. "There may be a perfectly innocent explanation for this."

  "So there may," Rhegorios said. "To the ice with me if I can think of one, though." Maniakes thumped him on the shoulder again. He couldn't think of an innocent explanation, either.

  Broios' proskynesis was so smooth, he must have been practicing back at his own home. The robes he wore were of a cut, and of a quality of silk, above those to which even a prosperous merchant might normally aspire. Maniakes didn't know where he'd gotten them, but he looked to be ready for his role as father-in-law to the Sevastos of the Empire of Videssos.

  "Good evening, your Majesty," he wheezed to Maniakes as he rose. "A pleasure to be in your company, as always."

  Maniakes raised an eyebrow. "As always. As I recall, you weren't so glad to see me the second time we met."

  "Only a misunderstanding," Broios said easily. The impression he gave was that Maniakes had done the misunderstanding, but that he was generously willing to overlook the Avtokrator's error. He let a little petulance creep into his voice as he went on, "I had hoped, your Majesty, that you might have chosen to honor my wife and daughter with an invitation to this supper tonight. After all—" He gave Maniakes a coy, sidelong glance. "—you'll be seeing a lot of them in times to come."

  "No need to hurry, then, wouldn't you say?" Maniakes replied.

  Broios looked to Rhegorios for support. Finding none, he said, "Well, however you like, of course." Again, he managed to make it sound as if the Avtokrator was obviously in the wrong, but he, out of his splendid magnanimity, was willing to overlook the breach in decorum.

  One of the servants at the city governor's residence came in and announced that supper was ready. Maniakes found himself unenthusiastic about breaking bread with Broios, but he knew he would have to endure it. "Do try the wine," the servant urged.

  Everyone did. Broios' eyes widened. "That's potent stuff," he said, and tossed back his cup. "Good, mind you, but potent. Are you planning on serving supper under the table tonight, eh, your Majesty?" He laughed loudly at his own joke.

  "I hope not," Maniakes answered, although he would not have minded seeing Broios drunk so his tongue would wag freer. To further that end, he'd ordered the cooks to do up a salty casserole of mutton and cabbage, the better to encourage thirst.

  Broios was not shy about drinking wine. Broios, as well as Maniakes could tell, was not shy about anything, whether that meant making deals or telling lies. But the merchant, while refilling his cup several times, gave no sign the wine was doing anything to him water would not have done.

  "It is a pity, your Majesty, that Phosia couldn't taste this vintage," he said. "I don't know where in town you found it, but it's very fine."