"Three, now," Maniakes corrected absently. "May I see her?" When it came to matters of the Red Room, even the Avtokrator of the Videssians asked the midwife's leave.

  Zoile nodded. "Go ahead. She'll be hungry, you know, and tired. I think Kameas has already gone to get her something." She pointed toward the baby Maniakes was still holding. "What will you name her, your Majesty?"

  "Savellia," Maniakes said; he and Lysia had chosen the name not far into her pregnancy.

  "That's pretty," Zoile said, as quick and sharp in approval as in everything else. "It's the Videssian form of a Vaspurakaner name, isn't it?"

  "That's right." The elder Maniakes spoke for his son, whose command of the language of his ancestors was sketchy. "The original is Zabel."

  "Forgive me, your highness, but I like it better in Videssian disguise," Zoile said—no, she wasn't one to hide her opinions about anything.

  Maniakes carried Savellia down the hall to the Red Room. The baby wiggled in the surprisingly strong, purposeless way newborns have. If he stepped too hard, it would startle his daughter, and she would try to throw her arms and legs wide, though the blanket in which she was wrapped kept her from managing it. Frustrated, she started to cry, a high, thin, piercing wail designed to make new parents do whatever they could to stop it.

  She was still crying when Maniakes walked into the Red Room with her. "Here, give her to me," Lysia said indignantly, stretching out her arms but not rising from the bed on which she lay. She looked as exhausted as if she'd just fought in a great battle, as indeed she had. She didn't sound altogether rational, and probably wasn't. Maniakes had seen that before, and knew it would last only a couple of days.

  He handed her Savellia. She set the baby on her breast, steadying the little head with her hand. Savellia didn't know much about the way the world worked yet, but she knew what the breast was for. She sucked greedily.

  A serving woman wiped Lysia's face with a wet cloth. Lysia closed her eyes and sighed, enjoying that. Other maidservants cleaned up the birthing chamber. They'd already begun that before Maniakes got there. Even so, the place still had an odor to it that, like Lysia's worn features, put him in mind of the aftermath of a battle. It smelled of sweat and dung, with a faint iron undertone of blood he tasted as much as he smelled it.

  Being here, smelling those smells—especially the odor of blood— also made him remember Niphone, and how she had died here. To put his fears to rest, he asked, "How do you feel?"

  "Tired," Lysia answered at once. "Sore. When I walk, I'm going to walk all bowlegged, as if I've been riding a horse for thirty years like a Khamorth nomad. And I'm hungry. I could eat a horse, too, if anyone would catch me one and serve it up with some onions and bread. And some wine. Zoile wouldn't let me have any wine while I was in labor."

  "You'd have puked it up," the midwife said from the doorway, "and you'd have liked giving it back a lot less than you liked drinking it down."

  She stood aside then, for Kameas came gliding into the Red Room, carrying a tray whose delicious aromas helped cover the ones that had formerly lurked in the birthing chamber. "Tunny in leeks, your Majesty," he said to Lysia, "and artichokes marinated in olive oil and garlic. And, of course, wine. Congratulations. Savellia—did I hear the name rightly?"

  "Yes, that's right," Lysia said. The eunuch set the tray down beside her on the wide bed. She smiled at him. "Good. Now I won't have to eat the horse, after all." He looked confused. Maniakes hid a smile. Lysia went on, "Oh, and you've gone and cut everything up into little bite-sized bits for me. Thank you so much." She sounded on the edge of tears with gratitude. Maybe she was. For the next little while, her emotions would gust wildly.

  "I am glad your Majesty is pleased," Kameas said. The Avtokrator wondered how he felt about being in the presence of new life when he could never engender it himself.

  "Here." Maniakes sat down on the bed, carefully, so as not to jar Lysia. "Let me do that." He picked up the spoon and started feeding his wife.

  "Well!" she said after he'd given her a few bites. "You're the one who's supposed to have beautiful slaves dropping grapes into your mouth whenever you deign to open it, not me."

  "I'm afraid beautiful is rather past my reach," Maniakes said, "and it's too late in the year for fresh grapes, but if Kameas will bring me some raisins, I'll see what I can do for you."

  Kameas started to leave the Red Room, no doubt on a quest for raisins. "Wait!" Lysia called to him. "Never mind. I don't want any." She laughed, which made her wince. "Aii!" she said. "I'm still very sore down there." Her eyes traveled to Savellia, who had fallen asleep. "And why do you suppose that is?"

  Rhegorios, Symvatios, and the elder Maniakes made themselves visible in the hall outside the open door to the Red Room. Maniakes waved for them to come in. "Ha!" Rhegorios said when he saw his cousin feeding Lysia. "We've finally gone and run out of servants, have we?"

  "You be quiet," Lysia told him. "He's being very sweet, which is more than you can say most of the time." Maniakes knew Rhegorios would give him a hard time about that in due course, but he couldn't do anything about it now.

  "Are you all right?" Symvatios asked his daughter.

  "Right now? No," Lysia answered. "Right now I feel trampled in every tender place I own, and every time I have a baby, I seem to discover a couple of tender places I never knew I did own before. But if everything goes the way it should, I will be all right in a few weeks. I don't feel any different from the way I did the first two times I went through this."

  "Good. That's good," Symvatios said.

  " 'Went through this,' eh?" the elder Maniakes rumbled. He nodded to his son. "Your own mother talked that way, right after she had you. It didn't keep her from having your brothers, mind you, but for a while there I wondered if it would."

  Maniakes did his best to make his chuckle sound light and unforced. Even what was meant for family banter could take on a bitter edge, with one of his brothers in exile and the other likely dead. He went back to feeding Lysia. Rhegorios' teasing him about that would not bite so close to the bone.

  Lysia finished every morsel of tunny and every chunk of artichoke heart. She also drank down all the wine. Maniakes wondered if she would ask Kameas for raisins, after all. Instead, she yawned and pulled Savellia off her breast and said, "Will someone please put the baby in a cradle for a while? I'd like to try to sleep till she wakes up hungry again. It's been a busy day."

  Both grandfathers, her husband, and her brother reached for Savellia. She gave the new baby to Symvatios, who smiled as he held his granddaughter, then laid her in the cradle so gently, she did not wake.

  "You could have a wet nurse deal with her," Maniakes said.

  "I will, soon," Lysia answered. "The healer-priests and physicians say mother's milk is better for the first week or so, though. Babies are funny. They're tough and fragile, both at the same time. So many of them don't live to grow up, no matter what we do. I want to give mine the best chance they can have."

  "All right," Maniakes said. She was right, too. But mothers were also tough and fragile, both at the same time. He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. "Get what rest you can, then, and I hope she gives you some."

  "She will," Lysia said. "She's a good baby." Maniakes wondered how she could tell. He wondered if she could tell. One way or the other, they'd find out soon enough.

  Savellia was a good baby. She slept for long stretches and wasn't fussy when she woke. That helped Lysia mend sooner than she might have. The new princess' brothers and half brother and half sister stared at her with curiosity ranging from grave to giggly. When they realized she was too little to do anything much, they lost interest. "She doesn't even have any hair to pull," Likarios remarked, like a judge passing sentence.

  "She will," Maniakes promised. "Pretty soon, she'll be able to pull yours, too." His son by Niphone—his heir, as things stood— looked horrified that anyone could presume to inflict such an indignity on him. Maniakes said, "She's already done it to me," which surprised Likarios all over again. "So did you, for that matter," the Avtokrator added. When a baby got a handful of beard... His cheeks hurt, just thinking about it.

  Likarios went off. Maniakes watched him go. He plucked at his own beard. He'd wondered how Abivard would handle the problem of Denak's son by Sharbaraz. But Abivard was not the only one with family problems relating to the throne. Maniakes wondered what he'd do if Lysia ever suggested moving her sons ahead of Likarios in the succession. She never had, not yet. Maybe she never would. Succession by the eldest son born of the Avtokrator was a strong custom.

  But strong custom was not the same as law. What if he saw young Symvatios, or even little Tatoules, shaping better than Likarios? He sighed. The answer suggested itself: in that case, when he hoped above all else for simplicity, his life would get complicated once more, in new and incalculable ways.

  His mouth twisted. Parsmanios hadn't cared anything for the strong custom of rule by the eldest. That made a disaster for Parsmanios, and nearly one for the whole clan. It was liable to be as nothing, though, next to what could happen if his sons got to squabbling among themselves.

  Later that day, he wondered if his thinking of Parsmanios was what made Kameas come up to him and say, "Your Majesty, the lady Zenonis requests an audience with you, at your convenience." The eunuch's voice held nothing whatsoever: not approval, not its reverse. Maybe Kameas hadn't made up his mind about Parsmanios' wife. Maybe he had and wasn't letting on, perhaps not even to himself.

  "I'll see her, of course," Maniakes said.

  Formal as an ambassador, Zenonis prostrated herself before him. He let her do it, where for other members of the family he would have waved it aside as unnecessary. Maybe he hadn't made up his mind about Zenonis, either. Maybe she was just tarred with Parsmanios' brush.

  "What can I do for you, sister-in-law of mine?" he asked when she'd risen.

  She was nervous. Seeing that was something of a relief. Had she been sure of herself, he would have been sure, too: sure he needed to watch his back. "May it please your Majesty," she said, "I have a favor to beg of you." She licked her lips, realized she'd done it, and visibly wished she hadn't.

  "You are of my family," Maniakes answered. "If a favor is in my power to grant, you must know I will."

  "I am of your family, yes." Zenonis licked her lips again. "Considering the branch of it I'm in, how you must wish I weren't."

  Speaking carefully, Maniakes answered, "I have never put my brother's crimes on your page of the account book, nor on your son's. That would be foolish. You did not know—you could not have known—what he was doing."

  "You've been gracious, your Majesty; you've been kind and more than kind," Zenonis said. "But every time you see me, every time you see little Maniakes, you think of Parsmanios. I see it in your face. How can I blame you? But the thing is there, whether you wish it or not."

  Maniakes sighed. "Maybe it is. I wish it weren't, but maybe it is. Even if it is, it won't keep me from granting you whatever favor you ask."

  "Your Majesty is also just." Zenonis studied him. "You work hard at being just." The way she said it, it was not altogether a compliment: mostly, but not altogether. She took a deep breath, then brought out her next words in a rush: "When spring comes and ships can cross the Videssian Sea without fearing storms, I want you to send my son and me to Prista."

  "Are you sure?" Maniakes asked. Regret warred in him with something else he needed a moment to recognize: relief. That he felt it shamed him, but did not make it go away. Fighting against it, he said, "Think three times before you ask this of me, sister-in-law of mine. Prista is a bleak place, and—"

  To his surprise, Zenonis laughed. "It's a provincial town, your Majesty, not so? All I've ever known my whole life long is a provincial town." She held up a hand. "You're going to tell me that, if I go, I can't come back. I don't care. I never set foot outside Vryetion till I came to Videssos the city. If I'm in Prista with my husband, that will be company enough."

  Maniakes spoke even more carefully than he had before: "Parsmanios will have been in exile some little while by the time you arrive, sister-in-law of mine."

  "He'll be the gladder to see me, then, and to see his son," Zenonis replied.

  She didn't see what Maniakes was aiming at. Having been several years in Prista, Parsmanios was liable to have found another partner. Why not? He could hardly have expected his wife to join nun, not when, up till this past summer, Vryetion had been in Makuraner hands. Maniakes got reports on his banished brother's doings, but those had to do with politics, not with whom Parsmanios was taking to bed. Maniakes expected he could find out whom, if anyone, Parsmanios was taking to bed, but that would have to wait till spring, too.

  He said, "Don't burn your boats yet. If, when sailing season comes, you still want to do this, we can talk about it then. Meanwhile, you and your son are welcome here, whether you believe me or not."

  "Thank you, your Majesty," Zenonis said, "but I do not think my mind will change."

  "All right," he answered, though it wasn't all right. He was settled into being Avtokrator, too, and taken aback when anyone met his will with steady resistance. "Only remember, you truly can't decide now. If, come spring, you want to go to Prista, I will give you and your son a ship, and to Prista you shall go, and to... to my brother. But you and little Maniakes and Parsmanios will never come back here again. I tell you this once more, to make certain you understand it."

  "I understand it," she said. "It gave me pause for a while, but no more. I am going to be with my husband. Little Maniakes is going to be with his father."

  "If that is what you want, that is what you shall have," Maniakes answered formally. "I do not think you are making the wisest choice, but I will not rob you of making it."

  "Thank you, your Majesty," Zenonis told him, and prostrated herself once more, and went away. Maniakes stared at her back. He sighed. He thought—he was as near sure as made no difference— she was making a bad mistake. Did he have the right to save his subjects from themselves, even when they wouldn't thank him for it? That was one of the more intriguing questions he'd asked himself since he took the throne. He couldn't come up with a good answer for it. Well, as Zenonis had time to think on her choice, so did he.

  Courtiers, functionaries, bureaucrats, soldiers, and, for all Maniakes knew, utter nonentities who chanced to look good in fancy robes packed the Grand Courtroom. The Avtokrator sat on the throne and stared down the long colonnaded hall to the entranceway through which the ambassador from Makuran would come and make obeisance before him.

  When Makuran and Videssos changed sovereigns, they went through a ritual, as set as the figures in a dance, of notifying each other. In the scheme of things, that was necessary, as each recognized only the other as an equal. What the barbarians around them did was one thing. What they did with each other was something else again, and could—and had—set the civilized world on its ear.

  No hum of anticipation ran through the assembled Videssian dignitaries when the ambassador appeared in the doorway. On the contrary: the courtiers grew still and silent. They looked straight ahead. No—their heads pointed straight ahead. But their eyes all slid toward that small, slim figure silhouetted against the cool winter sunshine outside.

  The ambassador came gliding toward Maniakes, moving almost as smoothly—no, a miracle: moving as smoothly—as Kameas. At the proper spot in front of the throne, he prostrated himself. While he lay with his forehead pressed against the polished marble, the throne rose with a squeal of gearing till it was several feet higher off the ground than it had been. The effect sometimes greatly impressed embassies from among the barbarians. Maniakes did not expect the Makuraner to be overawed, but custom was custom.

  From his new altitude, the Avtokrator said, "Rise."

  "I obey," Abivard's envoy said, coming to his feet in one smooth motion. His face was beardless, and beautiful as a woman's. When he spoke, in good Videssian, his voice was silver bells. He must have been gelded early in life, for it never to have cracked and changed.

  "Name yourself," Maniakes said, continuing the ritual, though the ambassador had already been introduced to him in private.

  "Majesty, I am called Yeliif," the beautiful eunuch answered. "I am come to announce to Maniakes Avtokrator, his brother in might, the accession of Abivard King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase: divine, good, peaceful, to whom the God has given great fortune and great empire, the giant of giants, who is formed in the image of the God."

  "We, Maniakes, Avtokrator of the Videssians, vicegerent of Phos on earth, greet with joy and hope the accession of Abivard King of Kings, our brother," Maniakes said, granting Abivard the recognition Sharbaraz—who had claimed the Makuraner God was formed in his image—had consistently refused to grant him. "Many years to Abivard King of Kings."

  "Many years to Abivard King of Kings!" the assembled courtiers echoed.

  "Majesty, you are gracious to grant Abivard King of Kings the boon of your shining countenance," Yeliif said. However lovely and well modulated his voice, it held no great warmth. He spoke, not with Kameas' impassivity, but with what struck Maniakes as well-concealed bitterness. He was, of course, a eunuch, which certainly entitled any man—or half man—to be bitter. And his features, however beautiful, had the cold perfection of statuary, not the warmth of flesh.

  "May we live in peace, Abivard King of Kings and I." That was also part of the ritual, but Maniakes spoke the words with great sincerity. Videssos and Makuran both needed peace. He dared hope they might find some small space of it.

  Abivard King of Kings, he thought. The man who was, or could have been, his friend, the warrior who had made such a deadly foe, and now the ruler who had in the end chosen to reign in his own name, not that of his nephew, his sister's son by Sharbaraz.

  That brought to mind another question: "What has befallen Sharbaraz the former King of Kings, esteemed sir?" the Avtokrator asked, giving Yeliif the title a high-ranking eunuch in Videssos would have had.