"If we're going to be part of his plans, we ought to have some idea of what those plans are," Abivard said, and found Tzikas nodding along with him. Accusingly, he went on, "You've known for some time. Why haven't we gained the same knowledge?"

  "Until the return of the ambassadors, the King of Kings judged the time unripe," Yeliif answered. Abivard found the hand that wasn't on his sword tightening into a fist. Yeliif knew the answers, while he didn't even know the questions. Until moments before he hadn't known there were any questions. It all struck him as most unfair.

  "Now that the ambassadors are back, will the King of Kings let us know what they were doing while they were away?" Tzikas sounded as if he didn't care for having been left in the dark, either.

  Not that that mattered to Yeliif. "In his own good time the King of Kings will inform you," he said. "It is, then, your task—and I speak to each of you in this instance—to be here to be informed at the time of the King of Kings' choosing and not to eliminate each other before that time. Do you understand?"

  He sought to shame them, to make them feel like brawling boys. In no small measure he succeeded. Nevertheless, Abivard new a stir of anger at being considered only insofar as he fit into Sharbaraz' plans. He said, "I do hope the King of Kings will let us know what he intends us to do before we have to do it, not afterward."

  "He will do as he chooses, not as you seek to impose upon—"

  The perfect apologist for the King of Kings, Yeliif started to defend him before hearing everything Abivard had had to say. When he realized he'd made himself look foolish, the eunuch bared small, white, even teeth in something closer to a snarl than to a smile. "I don't know why you want to kill this Videssian," he said, pointing at Tzikas. "Living among his folk for so long has taught you to play meaningless games with words, just as they do."

  "You insult me," Abivard said.

  "No, you insult me," Tzikas insisted. "Twice, in fact. First you call me a Videssian when I am one no longer, and second you call him—" He pointed at Abivard."—one when he manifestly is not. Were I a Videssian yet, I'd not want him as one."

  "He didn't call me a Videssian," Abivard said, "and if he had, he would have insulted me, not you, by doing so."

  Tzikas started to raise his sword. The palace guards made ready to pincushion him and Abivard both if they started fighting again. Coldly, Yeliif said, "Do not be more stupid than you can help. I have told you that you and Abivard are required in the future plans of the King of Kings. When those plans are accomplished, you may fight if you so desire. Until then you are his. Remember it and comport yourselves accordingly." He swept away, the hem of his caftan brushing the floor.

  "Put up your swords," the guards' leader said as he had before. Abivard and Tzikas reluctantly obeyed. The guard went on, "Now, I'm gonna do like I said before, split my men in half and take you noble gentlemen back where you belong."

  "You wouldn't know about these ambassadors, would you?" Abivard asked him as they walked down the hallway.

  "Who, me?" The fellow shook his head. "I don't know anything. That's not what I'm here for, knowing things. What I'm here for is to keep people from killing other people they're not supposed to kill. You know what I mean?"

  "I suppose so," Abivard said, wondering where Sharbaraz had found such a magnificently phlegmatic man. A court officer who did not want to know things surely ranked as a freak of nature.

  When Abivard walked into the suite of rooms, the soldiers stayed out in the hallway, presumably to make certain he did not go out hunting Tzikas. Roshnani stared at them till he shut the door after himself; too often in the past couple of years soldiers had stood in the hallways outside their rooms. She pointed past Abivard to the guards and asked, "What are they in aid of?"

  "Nothing of any great consequence," he answered airily. "Tzikas and I had a go at settling our differences, that's all."

  "Settling your—" Roshnani scrambled to her feet and took great care in inspecting him from all sides. At last, having satisfied herself almost against her will, she said, "You're not bleeding anywhere."

  "No, I'm not. Neither is Tzikas, worse luck," Abivard said. "And if we go after each other again, we face the displeasure of the King of Kings—so I've been told, at any rate." He lowered his voice. "That and a silver arket will make me care an arket's worth."

  Roshnani nodded. "Sharbaraz would have done better to take Tzikas' head himself." She tossed her own head in long-standing exasperation. "No plan of his could possibly be clever enough to justify keeping the renegade alive."

  "If you expect me to argue with you, you'll be disappointed," Abivard said, to which they both laughed. He grew thoughtful. "Do you know anything about ambassadors returning?"

  "I didn't know any ambassadors were out," his principal wife answered, "so I could hardly know they've come back." That was logical enough to satisfy the most exacting, finicky Videssian. Roshnani went on, "Where did you hear about them?"

  "From Yeliif, after the guardsmen kept me from giving Tzikas everything he deserved. Whoever they are, wherever they went, however they came back here, they have something to do with Sharbaraz' precious plan."

  "Whatever that may be," Roshnani said.

  "Whatever that may be," Abivard echoed.

  "Whatever it is, when will you find out about it?' Roshnani asked.

  "Whenever Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, finds a day long enough for him to have the time to give to me," Abivard answered. "Maybe tomorrow, maybe next spring." On that cheerful note conversation flagged.

  Nine days after Abivard and Tzikas tried to kill each other, Yeliif knocked on the door to Abivard's suite. When Abivard opened the door to let him in, he stuck his head out and looked up and down the hall. The guardsmen had been gone for a couple of days. "How may I help you?" Abivard asked warily; Yeliif as anything other than inimical still struck him as curious.

  The beautiful eunuch said, "You are bidden to an audience with Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase. You shall come with me this moment."

  "I'm ready," Abivard said, though he wasn't, not really. It was, he thought sadly, typical of the King of Kings to leave him on a shelf, as it were, for weeks at a time and then, when wanting him, to want him on the instant.

  "I am also bidden to tell you that Tzikas shall be there," Yeliif said. When Abivard did nothing more than nod, the eunuch also nodded thoughtfully, as if he'd passed a test. He said, "I can tell you—" Not I am bidden to tell you, Abivard noted. "—that Tus and Piran are attending the King of Kings."

  "I'm sorry, but I don't know those names nor the men attached to them," Abivard said.

  "They are the ambassadors whose recent return has provoked this audience," Yeliif answered.

  "Are they?" Abivard said, interest quickening in his voice. Now, at last, he would get to find out just how harebrained Sharbaraz' grandiose plan, whatever it was, would turn out to be. He had no great expectations for it, only the small one of having his curiosity satisfied. In aid of which... "Ambassadors to whom?" he asked. "I didn't know we'd sent an embassy to Maniakes, even if he has been closer to Mashiz lately than he usually gets." He also remembered the Videssian ambassador Sharbaraz had imprisoned and let die but did not find mentioning him politic.

  If Yeliif hadn't been born smiling that knowing, superior smile, he'd spent a lot of time practicing it, perhaps in front of a mirror of polished silver. "All will be made clear to you in due course," he said, and would say no more. Abivard felt like booting him in the backside as they walked down the corridor.

  Tzikas had indeed been bidden to the audience: he stood waiting at the rear of the throne room. Someone—very likely Yeliif—had taken the sensible precaution of posting some palace guards back there. Their dour expressions were as well schooled as Yeliif's smile.

  Abivard glared at Tzikas but, with the guards there, did no more. Tzikas glared back. Yeliif said, "The two of you shall accompany me to the throne together and prostrate yourselves before the King of Kings at the same time. No lapses shall be tolerated, if I make myself clear."

  Without waiting to find out whether he did, he started down the aisle on the long walk toward the throne on which Sharbaraz sat. Abivard stayed by his right side; Tzikas quickly found a place on his left. It was as if each of them was using the eunuch to shield himself from the other. Under different circumstances the idea might have been funny.

  A pair of men stood to one side of the throne of the King of Kings. Abivard presumed they were the mysterious Tus and Piran. Yeliif explained nothing. Abivard had expected no more. Then, at the appropriate moment, the beautiful eunuch stepped away, leaving Abivard and Tzikas side by side before the King of Kings.

  They prostrated themselves, acknowledging their insignificance in comparison to their sovereign. Out of the corner of his eye Abivard watched Tzikas, but he had already known that the ritual was almost the same among Videssians as among the folk of Makuran. The two men waited together, foreheads touching the polished marble floor, for Sharbaraz to give them leave to rise.

  At last he did. "We are not pleased with the two of you," he said when Abivard and Tzikas had regained their feet. Abivard already knew that from the length of time the King of Kings had required them to stay on their bellies. Sharbaraz went on, "By persisting in your headstrong feud, you have endangered the plan we have long been maturing, a plan which, to work to its fullest extent, requires the service of both of you."

  "Majesty, if we knew what this plan was, we would be able to serve you better," Abivard answered. He was sick to death of Sharbaraz' notorious plan. Sharbaraz was full of big talk that usually ended up amounting to nothing—except trouble for Abivard.

  When Sharbaraz spoke again, his words did not seem immediately to the point: "Abivard son of Godarz, brother-in-law of mine, you will remember how our father, Peroz King of Kings, departed this world for the company of the God?"

  He hadn't publicly acknowledged Abivard as his brother-in-law for a long time. Abivard noted that as he answered, "Aye, Majesty I do: battling bravely against the Khamorth out on the Pardrayan' steppe." Only the blind chance of his own horse's stepping in a hole and breaking a leg at the start of its charge had kept him out of the overwhelming disaster that had befallen the Makuraner army moments afterward.

  "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.