The rider took from his belt a tube of leather boiled in wax to make it impregnable to rain and river water. With a flourish, he undid the stopper and handed Abivard the rolled-up parchment inside. "Here you are, lord."
"Thank you." Abivard gave the fellow half a silver arket; people often cut coins to make change. The horseman bowed in the saddle, dug heels into his mount's sides, and rode away from Vek Rud stronghold.
Abivard unrolled the parchment. He had been sure the letter was from Denak; not only had he recognized the courier from his own trip to Nalgis Crag domain, but no one save his sister was likely to write him in any case. Still, seeing her carefully formed script always made him smile.
"'To the dihqan Abivard his loving sister Denak sends greetings,'" he read, murmuring the words aloud as if to call up her voice. "'I am gladder than I can say that you came home safe from the fight with the Khamorth. We have not seen any of the barbarians in this domain, and hope we do not. And, as you can see, Pradtak my husband has no objection to your writing to me or to my replying. I think he was surprised to learn I have my letters; I may be the only one in the women's quarters here who does.'"
Abivard frowned when he read that. Being singled out as different wouldn't make life in the women's quarters any easier for Denak. He read on: "'While caring greatly that his domain should prosper, Pradtak also enjoys the pleasures of the hunt. He still cannot ride, and pines for the day when he will again be able to pursue the wild ass and the gazelle.'"
When he can stop worrying about the domain and go off and have fun, Abivard read between the lines. His father had occasionally had some pointed things to say about dihqans who put their own pleasures first. Denak would have heard them, too. Abivard wondered if she was trying to make her new husband see sense.
He looked down at the letter again. "'Because I read and write, he entrusts me day by day with more of the administration of the domain. Everything here is new to me, and I have more responsibilities than I am used to shouldering, but I try to decide what our father would have done in any given case. So far this seems to work well; the God grant it continue so. I pray to her to keep you well, and eagerly await next word from you.'"
So Father now runs two domains, even if not in the flesh. The thought made Abivard smile. He suspected it would have made Godarz smile, too. From Denak's letter, she was well on the way to becoming Pradtak's right hand, and probably three fingers of the left, as well.
He rolled up the letter again and put it back in its tube. Later he would read it to Burzoe, who no doubt would be proud of what her daughter was accomplishing. He wondered if he should read it to Roshnani. Maybe she would think it obligated her to try to run Vek Rud domain as Denak was taking over at Nalgis Crag. But Abivard was no Pradtak: he had his own ideas about how things should go.
For now, he would put guards out with his herdsmen, to protect them and their flocks from small Khamorth raiding parties. If a whole clan decided to try to settle on his grazing lands, guard detachments wouldn't be enough to hold them at bay, but he kept hoping that wouldn't happen. Of course, none of his hopes had come to much since he crossed into Pardraya.
"Well," he said to no one in particular, "everything that possibly could go wrong has already gone and done it. Things have to get better from here on out."
The cry from the battlements brought Abivard up the stairs at a dead run: "Soldiers! Soldiers under the lion banner of the King of Kings!"
Following a sentry's pointing finger, Abivard saw for himself the approaching detachment. It was bigger than he had expected, a couple of hundred men in bright surcoats over iron armor. If they hit the Khamorth, they could hit them hard. Abivard's heart leaped to see the sign of returning Makuraner might. "Open the gates," he shouted. "Let us make these heroes welcome."
While the gates swung slowly open, Abivard descended to greet the newcomers in person. All the doubts he had had about Smerdis King of Kings vanished like a brief rain shower into the soil of the desert. The new ruler was stretching forth his hand to protect his distant provinces.
Not all the riders could enter the courtyard together. Abivard ordered bread and wine sent to those who had to wait outside the walls. "You are blessed by the God for coming to the frontier in our hour of need," he told the commander of Smerdis' force, a tough-looking veteran with gray mustachios waxed into stiff spikes.
Even from a man who was nothing more than a soldier, he had expected a courteous reply; the folk of Makuran could swap compliments from morning till night. But the commander, instead of praising Abivard's hospitality or the site of his stronghold, suffered an untimely coughing fit. When at last he could speak again, he said, "You would be better advised, magnificent dihqan, to address your remarks to my colleague here, the famous Murghab."
Abivard had taken the famous Murghab to be the commander's scribe. He was a desiccated little man in a plain gray-brown caftan who looked uncomfortable on his horse. But if the soldier said he was a person of consequence, Abivard would greet him properly. Bowing low, he said, "How may I serve the splendid servant of Smerdis King of Kings, may his years be many and his lands increase?"
"Your attitude does you credit," Murghab said in a voice like rustling leaves. "I shall speak frankly: Smerdis King of Kings finds himself in need of silver and is levying a special assessment on each domain. We require from you payment of—" He pulled out a sheet of parchment and ran his finger down till he found the line he needed. "—eight thousand five hundred silver arkets, or their equivalent in kind. The assessment is due and payable forthwith."
Now Abivard coughed, or rather choked. He also felt like an idiot. He could not possibly say no, not now, not after he had let so many of the King of Kings' warriors into Vek Rud stronghold. A dozen of them sat their horses between him and the doorway to the living quarters. They watched him with polite but careful attention, too—they were readier for trouble than he had been.
He gathered himself. He had that much silver in his treasury. If Smerdis was going to use it to defend the kingdom, it might even prove money well spent, however much he regretted parting with it. He said, "I hope Smerdis King of Kings is using my silver and what he gets from other dihqans to enroll new soldiers in his lists and to hire smiths to make armor and weapons for them."
The famous Murghab said not a word. Puzzled, Abivard looked to the military commander. The officer fidgeted in the saddle, waiting for Murghab to reply, but when he remained mute, the fellow said, "Smerdis King of Kings orders this silver collected so as to pay an enormous sum of tribute to the Khamorth, that they may withdraw over the Degird and stay on their side of the river henceforward."
"What?" Abivard howled, forgetting the disadvantage at which Smerdis' soldiers had him. "That's crazy!"
"So Smerdis King of Kings has ordained; so shall it be," Murghab intoned. "Who are you to question the will of the King of Kings?"
Put that way, Abivard was nobody, and he knew it. Instead of answering Murghab, he turned to the commander. "But don't you see, bold captain, that paying tribute when we're too weak to defend ourselves only invites the plainsmen back to collect a new pile of silver next year, and the year after that?"
"So Smerdis King of Kings has ordained; so shall it be," the officer said tonelessly. Though his words echoed Murghab's, his expression and manner argued he was less than delighted at the policy he had been ordered to uphold.
Murghab said, "The sum heretofore cited is due and payable now. Do not waste time even to scratch your head. Surely you would not wish to be construed as resisting the King of Kings?"
Had Abivard not let the foxes into the henhouse, he would have thought hard about resisting—as well throw his silver down a qanat as convey it to the Khamorth. As things were . . . Tasting gall, he said, "Bide here, O famous Murghab." He could not resist putting a sardonic twist on the man's honorific. "I shall bring you what you require, and may Smerdis King of Kings—and the Khamorth—have joy of it."
Godarz had been a methodical man. The silver in the stronghold's treasure room was stored in leather sacks, a thousand arkets to each. Abivard picked up two sacks, one in each hand, and, grunting a little, carried them through the halls and out of the living quarters to the courtyard, where he set them in front of Murghab's horse. He made the same trip three more times.
"Bide here a moment more, famous sir," he said when he had brought out eight thousand arkets. He went back into the treasury. Only three sacks of coins remained there, as well as some empty ones neatly piled to await filling. Abivard took one of those and dumped jingling silver coins into it till it weighed about as much as the sack from which he was taking the money. He sighed; this wasn't how Godarz had intended the sack to be used. He had wanted silver coming in, not going out. But Abivard could do nothing about that, not now. He carried out the half-filled sack and set it with the rest. "This may be twenty or thirty arkets too light, or it may be so much too heavy. Will you be satisfied, or must you have an exact count?"
Murghab pursed his lips. "The order of the King of Kings, may his years be long, calls for eight thousand five hundred, no more, certainly no less. Therefore I am of the opinion that—"
"It suffices, lord," the officer who led the detachment of royal soldiers broke in. "You have cooperated most graciously with our request."
What am I supposed to do, when you're already inside my stronghold? Abivard thought. Nonetheless, the soldier at least adhered to the courtesies Makuraners held dear. Abivard put the best face on extortion he could, saying with a bow, "It is a privilege for any subject to serve the King of Kings in any manner he requires. May I have your name, that I may commend you to him for the manner in which you perform your duties?"
"You honor me beyond my deserts," the soldier replied. Abivard shook his head. He wished he didn't know the famous Murghab's name. He couldn't say that aloud, but had the feeling the officer knew it. The fellow added, "Since you ask, lord, I am Zal."
"Zal," Abivard repeated, locking the name in his memory. He would not forget it. Nor would he forget Murghab, however much he tried. He asked, "May I serve you in any other way?"
"I think we are quits here." Zal sketched a salute to Abivard. At his order, a couple of men dismounted and loaded the silver from Vek Rud domain onto the patient back of a packhorse. Without apparent irony, Zal said, "May the God grant you continued prosperity."
Why? So you can come back and shear me again? Probably for that very reason, Abivard judged. But he could not afford such an outrageous payment again . . . and now he knew better than to open his gates to Smerdis' men. The next time they wanted silver for tribute, the would have to get it from him the hard way.
The dihqan's bedchamber had a window that faced east, giving its occupant the chance to look out over the domain. That window also let in early-morning sunbeams, to ensure that its occupant did not sleep too far into the day. Had the chamber not belonged to dihqans long before Godarz's time, Abivard would have guessed that was his father's scheme. Whosever idea it had been, back in the dim days when the stronghold was raised, it still worked.
One of those sunbeams pried his eyelids open. He sat up in bed and stretched. Roshnani was lying with her back to the sun, and so remained asleep. He smiled and set a gentle hand on the curve of her bare hip. His skin, toasted over years by the sun, was several shades darker than hers.
A dihqan's wife should be pale, he thought. It shows she doesn't have to leave the women's quarters and work like some village woman. Even after Smerdis' depredations, the domain was not so far gone as that.
Roshnani shifted on the down of the mattress. Abivard jerked his hand away; he hadn't wanted to waken her. But her squirming brought her face into the path of the sunbeam. She tried to twist away, but too late: her eyes came open.
She smiled when she saw Abivard. "Good morning, sun in my window," she said. "Maybe that last one started a boy in me." She set a hand on her belly, just above the midnight triangle between her legs.
"Maybe it did," he answered. "And if it didn't, we could always try again." He made as if to leap at her then and there. It was only play; he'd learned she wasn't in the mood for such things at daybreak. He did let his lips brush across hers. "Who would have thought a marriage where neither of us saw the other till after we were pledged could bring so much happiness with it?"
"I saw you," she corrected him. "Dimly and through the veil, but I did."
"And?" he prompted, probing for a compliment.
"I didn't flee," she answered. He poked her in the ribs. She squeaked and poked him back. He was ticklish, a weakness his father and brothers had exploited without mercy. He grabbed Roshnani to keep her from doing anything so perfidious again. One thing led to another, and presently he discovered she could be in the mood for an early-morning frolic after all.
Afterward, he said, "I'm greedy for you. I want to call you here again tonight."
"I'd like that, too," she said, running a fingertip down the middle of his chest, "but you might be wiser to choose another."
"Why?" He suspected his frown was closer to a pout. Having a great many lovely women at his disposal was a young man's fantasy. Reality, Abivard had discovered, was less than imagination had led him to believe. Oh, variety every once in a while was enjoyable, but he preferred Roshnani over the wives he had inherited from Godarz.
When he told her as much, she glowed like a freshly lighted lamp. All the same, she said, "You still might be better advised to choose someone else tonight. If you call only for me, I will be hated in the women's quarters—and so shall you."
"Has it come to that?" Abivard asked, alarmed.
"I don't believe so, not yet, but I've heard mutters around corners and from behind closed doors that make me fear such a thing is not far away," Roshnani answered. "Your lady mother might perhaps tell you more. But this I say: better to give up a little happiness now if in the giving you save a great deal later."
The words had the ring of sense Abivard was used to hearing from Burzoe, which to his mind meant Roshnani had the makings of as fine a principal wife as any dihqan could hope for.
"Do you know what you are?" he asked her. She shook her head. "A woman in ten thousand," he said. "No, by the God, in a hundred thousand."
That earned him a kiss, but when he tried for more this time, Roshnani pulled away. "You must be able to give your best to whomever you call tonight," she said.
He glowered in mock indignation. "Now you presume to question my manhood?" But since he had a pretty good notion of what he could do in that regard, he made no more than that mild protest—Roshnani was too likely to be right.
When evening came, he summoned Ardini instead of Roshnani. She came to his bedchamber in a silken gown so transparent he could see the two tiny moles she had just below her navel. That excited him, but she had drenched herself in rose water till she smelled stronger than a perfumer's. He almost sent her back to the women's quarters to scrub it off, but desisted: no point in embarrassing her. He regretted that later, for the bedchamber was redolent of roses for the next several days.
Abivard conscientiously summoned each of his wives from the women's quarters in turn. A couple of times, he had to pretend to himself that he was really making love with Roshnani, though he took special pains to make sure those partners never noticed. Thinking of what he did as a duty helped him get through it. He suspected that would have amused Godarz.
The duty done, though, he went back to spending most of his nights with Roshnani. Most of the times he summoned other women were at her urging. Some principal wives, he knew, would have grown arrogant if shown such favor. Roshnani did her best to act as if she were just one of many. That only inclined Abivard to favor her more.
One morning after sleeping alone—he had been drinking wine with Frada and some of his older half brothers, and came to bed too drunk to be much interested in female companionship—he woke with a headache so splitting, he didn't even feel like sitting up. Still flat on his belly, he reached down and blindly groped for his sandals. All he managed to do, though, was push them farther under the bed, beyond the reach of his sweeping arm.
"If I have to call a servant to bend down to get my shoes, everyone will know how bad I feel," he said aloud. Just hearing his own voice hurt, too. But even hung over, Abivard was dutiful. He got out of bed—actually, he came close to falling out of bed—and pulled out first one sandal, then the other.
Suffused in a warm glow of virtue that almost masked his crapulence, he was about to don the captured footgear when his bloodshot gaze fell on something else under the bed, something he didn't remember seeing there before—not that he spent a lot of time looking under the bed: a small, dark-gray, rectangular tablet.
Before he thought much about what he was doing, his hand snaked out and seized the tablet. His eyebrows rose as he pulled it out to where he could get a good look at it: it was heavier than he had expected. "Has to be lead," he said.
The upper side of the tablet was blank and smooth, but his fingers had felt marks on the thing, so he turned it over. Sure enough, the other side had words cut into the soft metal, perhaps with an iron needle. They were, at the moment, upside down.
Abivard turned it over. The words became clear. As he read them, his blood ran cold. May this tablet and the image I make bind Abivard to me in cords of love. May he waste away from wanting me; may desire cling to him like a leech from the swamps. If he wants me not, may he bum with such pain that he would wish for the Void. But if he should die of desire for me, let him never look on the face of the God. So may it be.
Moving as if in a bad dream, Abivard broke the curse tablet in two and spat on the pieces. Now his heart pounded as hard as his head. He had heard of women using magic to bind a man to them, but he had never imagined such a thing happening in the women's quarters of Vek Rud stronghold.
"Who?" he whispered. Roshnani? He couldn't believe that—but if she had ensorceled him, he wouldn't believe it, would he? Did she make him so happy because she had magically compelled him to fall in love with her?
It was possible. With cold rationality, he recognized that. He wondered how he would ever trust another woman if it proved to be so. But he also knew it didn't have to be so, not when he had had every one of his wives out of the women's quarters and into his bedchamber in the recent past.
He started to call for Burzoe, but then shook his head. He did not want even his mother to know of the curse tablet. If she let slip an unfortunate word, as even the wisest person, man or woman, might do, chaos would rule the women's quarters, with everyone suspecting everyone else. If he could find any way to prevent that, he would.
Whistling tunelessly between his teeth, he tossed the broken pieces of the tablet onto the down-filled mattress. When he had thrown on a caftan and buckled the sandals whose escape under the bed had led him to find the tablet, he put on his belt and stuck the two chunks of lead in one of the pouches that hung from it.
He was out the door and walking down the hall before he realized he had stopped noticing his headache. Amazing what fear will do, he thought. It was not a hangover cure he hoped to use again any time soon.
The normally savory cooking smells wafting through the living quarters only made his stomach churn: terror hadn't cured him after all. He hurried out into the courtyard and then down into the village that lay below the stronghold on its knob.
He knocked at the door of Tanshar the fortune-teller. The old man was as close to being a proper wizard as anyone in the domain—and that thought made Abivard wonder if Tanshar had prepared the curse tablet and whatever image went with it. But he could more easily imagine the sky turning brown and the land blue than Tanshar involving himself in something like this.
Tanshar awkwardly held a crust of bread and a cup of wine in one hand to free the other so he could open the door. His eyes, one clouded, the other clear, widened in surprise when he saw who had disturbed his breakfast. "Lord Abivard," he exclaimed. "Come in, of course; you honor my home. But what brings you to me so early in the day?" Tanshar made it sound more like curiosity than reproach.
Abivard waited till the old man had closed and barred the door behind him before he fished out the broken pieces of the tablet and held them in the palm of his hand so Tanshar could see them. "I found this curse under my bed when I arose this morning," he said in a flat voice.
The fortune-teller reached for them. "May I?" he asked. At Abivard's nod, he took the two flat pieces of lead, put them together, and held them out at arm's length so he could read them. When he was done muttering the words to himself, he clicked his tongue between his teeth several times. "Am I to infer one of your wives left it there, lord?"
"I can't see anyone else wanting to. Can you?"
"It seems unlikely," Tanshar admitted. "What would you now of me, lord? Have you felt yourself under the influence of this spell? Love magic, like that of the battlefield, is often chancy, because passion reduces the effectiveness of sorcery."
"I honestly don't know whether the magic has hold of me or not," Abivard said. "I won't be able to decide that until I learn who put the tablet there." If it was Roshnani, he didn't know what he would do . . . No, he did know, but didn't want to think about it. He forced himself to steadiness. "I know you're a scryer. Can you see who did set that thing under my bed?"
"Lord, I believe I could, but is that truly what you'd have of me?" Tanshar asked. "If I were to look into your bedchamber for the moment in which the tablet was placed there, I would likely find you and the woman who left it in, ah, an intimate moment. Is that your desire?"
"No," Abivard said at once; he was wary of his own privacy, and even more wary of that of the denizens of the women's quarters. He scowled as he thought, then raised a finger. "The tablet speaks of an image. Can you scry out where that image is hidden? That will help tell me who made it."
"The domain is lucky to have a man of your wit at its head," the fortune-teller said. "I shall do as you command."
He set the pieces of the curse tablet down on a stool, then went off into the back room of the little house. He returned a moment later with a water jug and a small, glittering bowl of almost transparent black obsidian. He put the bowl on top of the two pieces of lead and poured it half full of water.
"We must wait until the water grows altogether still," he told Abivard. "Then, without roiling its surface with our breath, we shall look into it together and, unless the God should will otherwise, we shall see what you seek to learn. When the time comes, remember to think on the image whose whereabouts you'd find."
"As you say." Abivard waited as patiently as he could. He glanced down into the bowl. The water there looked calm to him. But scrying was not his business. Tanshar did not presume to tell him how to run the domain, so he would not joggle the fortune-teller's elbow.
When Tanshar was satisfied, he said quietly, "Lay your hand on the edge of the bowl—gently, mind, so as to stir the water as little as you may—and set your thoughts on the God and the Four and what you would learn."
Abivard wondered how he was supposed to keep two different sets of thoughts in his head. He did his best. The obsidian was glassy smooth under his fingertips, but his touch disturbed the glassy smoothness of the water in the bowl. He glanced over at Tanshar. The fortune-teller nodded back; this, evidently, was expected.
When the water settled to stillness again, it showed not the reflection of the ceiling, or of Abivard and Tanshar peering down into it, but a little doll of wool and clay, almost hidden in shadows. Four strings were wrapped around it, at head, neck, heart, and loins. Each was made of four threads of different colors.
"That is a perversion of the reverence due the Four." Tanshar's voice was still low, but full of anger.
Abivard hissed in frustration. He could see the image, yes, but hardly anything else, so he had no idea where in the stronghold—if it was in the stronghold—it rested. But the thought itself was enough to give him a wider view. He saw the image lay enshadowed because it rested behind a chest of drawers in a chamber he recognized as Roshnani's.
He jerked his hand away from the bowl as if it burned his fingers. Instantly the scrying picture vanished from the water, which now gave back the reflections it should have. His own face, he saw without surprise, was twisted into a grimace of anguish.
"The news is bad?" Tanshar asked.
"The news could not be worse," Abivard answered. To think that what he had imagined to be joy was just sorcery! He still could not believe Roshnani capable of defiling him so. But what else was he to think? There lay the doll in her room of the women's quarters. Who else would have hidden it so?
When he said that aloud, Tanshar answered, "Would you not sooner learn than guess? The bowl and the water still await your view, if that be your will."
Almost, Abivard said no. Seeing Roshnani conceal the magic image, he thought, would cost him more pain than he could bear. But he had borne a great deal of pain lately, so down deep he knew that was only cowardice talking. "That is my will," he said harshly. "Let the thing be certain."
"Wait once more for the water to settle," Tanshar said. Abivard waited in grim silence. The fortune-teller nodded at last. Abivard brought his hand to the bowl again, then had to wait for the water to grow calm after his touch.
This time he expected to have to wait before a picture formed. When it did, it showed Roshnani's chamber once more, and Roshnani herself sitting on a stool close by the chest behind which hid the image intended to bind Abivard in the ties of sorcerously induced love. She was bent over some embroidery, her pleasant face intent on the delicate needlework.
Abivard's glance flicked over to Tanshar. The fortune-teller's eyes were closed; he had the delicacy not to gaze upon his dihqan's woman. At the moment, Abivard did not care about that. He peered down into the quiet water, waiting for Roshnani to get up from the stool and conceal the image.
She looked up from the needlework and rose. Abivard forced himself to absolute stillness, lest he disturb the scrying medium. He stared at the simulacrum of his wife, wondering how far into the past Tanshar's magic reached.
Whenever it was, Roshnani did not go over to the chest, though it was but a couple of paces away. Instead, she smilingly greeted another woman who walked into the chamber. The newcomer pointed to the embroidery and said something. To Abivard, of course, her lips moved silently. Whatever her words were, they pleased Roshnani, for her smile got wider.
The other woman spoke again. Roshnani picked up the embroidery from the stool and sat back down. She started to work again, perhaps demonstrating the stitch she had been using. The other woman watched intently for a little while—Abivard wasn't sure time ran at the same rate in the scrying bowl as in the real world—then leaned back against the chest of drawers.
There! Her hand snaked to the rear edge of the chest, opened for an instant, and then was back at her side. Intent on the needlework, Roshnani never noticed.
"By the God," Abivard said softly. He took his hand away from the polished obsidian bowl. The scrying picture vanished as if it had never been.
Tanshar felt the motion of withdrawal and opened his eyes. "Lord, have you that which you require?" he asked.
"I do." Abivard opened the pouch at his belt, took out five silver arkets, and pressed them into Tanshar's hand. The fortuneteller tried to protest, but Abivard overrode him: "For some things I would not spend silver so, not after the way the famous Murghab robbed the domain in the name of the King of Kings. But for this, I reckon the price small, believe me."
"Are you then ensorceled, lord?" Tanshar asked. "If it be so, I don't know if I am strong enough to free you from such a perverse enchantment."
But Abivard laughed and said, "No, I find I am not." He wondered why. Maybe his naturally conceived passion had been too strong for the artificial one to overcome; Tanshar had said love magic was a chancy business.
"I'm pleased to hear it," the fortune-teller said.
"I'm even more pleased to say it." Abivard bowed to Tanshar, then took the broken pieces of the lead tablet and headed up the dusty road to the stronghold. He stopped and stooped every few paces until he had picked up three black pebbles.
Roshnani looked up from her embroidery when Abivard stepped into the doorway. The smile she gave him reminded him of the one he had seen in the scrying bowl not long before. "What brings you here at this hour of the day?" she asked. Her smile grew mischievous as she thought of the obvious answer, then faded when she got a better look at his face. "Not that, surely."
"No, not that." Abivard turned to the serving woman who hovered behind him. "Fetch my lady mother and all my wives to this chamber at once. I know the hour is yet early, but I will have no excuses. Tell them as much."
"Just as you say, lord." The serving woman bobbed her head and hurried away. She knew something was wrong, but not what.
The same held for Roshnani. "What is it, husband of mine?" she asked. Now her voice held worry.
"Just wait," Abivard answered. "I'll tell the tale once for everyone."
Roshnani's chamber quickly grew crowded. Burzoe looked a question at her son as she came in, but he said nothing to her, either. Some of his wives grumbled at being so abruptly summoned from whatever they were doing, others because they had had no chance to gown themselves and apply their cosmetics. Most, though, simply sounded curious. A couple of Avibard's half sisters peered in from the corridor, also wondering what was going on.
Abivard brought the flat of his hand down onto the chest of drawers. The bang cut through the women's chatter and brought all eyes to him. He pulled out the two pieces of the curse tablet, held them high so everyone could see them. Quietly he asked, "Do you know what this is?"
Utter silence answered him, but the women's eyes spoke for them. Yes, they knew. Abivard dropped the pieces of lead onto the chest. They did not ring sweetly when they hit, as silver would have. The sound was flat, sullen.
He pushed a corner of the chest of drawers away from the wall and bent down to scoop up the image that went with the tablet. It was no longer than the last two joints of his middle finger, easy to conceal in the palm of a hand. He held it up, too. Someone—he didn't see who—gasped. Abivard removed the four cords that bound the image. Then he let it fall to the top of the chest. It broke in pieces.
He took out one of the black pebbles. He dropped it not onto the chest but onto the floor: the forms here had to be observed precisely. In a voice with no expression whatever in it, he said, "Ardini, I divorce you."
A sigh ran through the women, like wind through the branches of an almond grove. Ardini jerked as if he had stuck a sword in her. "Me!" she screeched. "I didn't do anything. This is Roshnani's room, not mine. If anyone's been in your bedchamber enough to try bewitching you, lord, she's the one, not me. You never want the rest of us, women who've been here for years. It's not right, it's not natural—"
"In a scrying bowl, I saw you hide the image here," he said, and dropped the second pebble. "Ardini, I divorce you."
"No, it wasn't me. It was somebody else. By the God I swear it. She—"
"Don't make your troubles in the next world worse by swearing a false oath." Formal and emotionless as a soldier making his report, Abivard told exactly what he had seen in the still water.
The women sighed again, all but Ardini. Roshnani said, "Yes, I remember that day. I was working on a bird with the bronze-brown thread."
"No, it's a lie. I didn't do it." Ardini's head twisted back and forth. Like so many people, she had figured out what her scheme's success would bring, but she had never stopped to think what would happen if she failed. Her voice sank to a whisper: "I didn't mean any harm." It might even have been true.
Abivard dropped the third pebble. "Ardini, I divorce you." It was done. With the fall of the third pebble, with the third repetition before witnesses of the formula of divorce, his marriage to her was dissolved. Ardini began to wail. Abivard clenched his jaw tight. Casting loose even a wife who had betrayed him was wrenchingly hard. So far as he knew, Godarz had never had to divorce one of his women, and so had left him no good advice on how to do it. He didn't think there could be any easy way.
"Please—" Ardini cried. She stood alone; all the other women had invisibly contrived to take a step away from her.
"I would be within my rights if I sent you forth from the women's quarters, from this stronghold, from this domain, naked and barefoot," Abivard said. "I will not do that. Take what you wear, take from your chamber whatever you can carry in your two hands, and be gone from here. The God grant we never see each other again."
Burzoe said, "If you let her go back into her chamber, son, send someone with her, to make sure she tries no more magic against you."
"Yes, that would be wise, wouldn't it?" Abivard bowed to his mother. "Would you please do that for me?" Burzoe nodded.
Ardini began screaming curses. Tears ran down her face, cutting through paint like streams of rainwater over dusty ground. "You cast me out at your peril," she cried.
"I keep you here at my peril," Abivard answered. "Go now and take what you would, or I will send you away as law and custom allow."
He thought that would shut Ardini up, and it did. She cared more for herself than anything else. Still weeping, she left Roshnani's room, Burzoe with her to keep her from working mischief.
Roshnani waited until the other wives, several of them loudly proclaiming undying loyalty to Abivard, had left her chamber. While they, Abivard's half sisters, and the serving women exclaimed in the hallway over the scandal, she told him, "Husband, I thank you for not thinking I set that image when you saw it. I know something of scrying; sometimes I can even make it work myself—"
"Can you?" Abivard said, interested. So much he still did not know about this young woman who had become his wife . . .
"Yes, though far from always. In any case, I know you would first have looked to find the image. When you saw it behind that chest, it would have been easy for you to look no farther and cast me out with the three black pebbles."
Abivard did not tell her how close he had come to doing just that. She thought better of him because he hadn't, and that was what he wanted. He said, "Tanshar—the town fortune-teller and scryer—said love magic was never sure to work, because it depended on passion. And my passion seems to have turned long since away from Ardini."
Roshnani cast down her eyes at that, but her face glowed. "I'm very glad it has," she said quietly.
"So am I." Abivard sighed. "And by now, I think Ardini has had enough time to gather whatever she would, so I shall have the delightful task of escorting her out of the women's quarters and the stronghold and ordering her out of the domain. By the God, I wish she could have been content here."
"Beware lest she try to stab you or some such," Roshnani said.
"She wouldn't—" Abivard stopped. He would never have done anything so foolish. But Ardini might indeed think that, with her life ruined, she had nothing to lose. "I'll be careful," he promised Roshnani.
The women parted before him as he strode down the hall to Ardini's chamber. She looked up from the bulging knapsack she had filled. She wasn't crying any more; such hatred filled her face that Abivard almost made a sign to avert the evil eye. He covered his brief alarm with brusqueness, jerking a thumb toward the doorway that led out of the women's quarters.
Muttering under her breath, Ardini walked up the hall toward the bedchamber where she had left the lead tablet. Abivard thanked the God it was the last time she would ever go there. He did his best not to listen to whatever she was saying, for fear he would have to take formal notice of it.
All the same, he watched her while he relocked the door, letting his fingers do the work without help from his eyes: he wanted to make sure she placed no other curses in the chamber. She stood in the middle of the room for a moment, then spat at the bed. "You're not a quarter the man your father was," she hissed.
That stung. He wanted to hit her. Only the thought that she was deliberately baiting him made him hold back—he didn't care to do anything she wanted him to. As mildly as he could, he answered, "Praising my father will not gain you my forgiveness." The deliberate misunderstanding made Ardini snarl. Even so, it didn't satisfy Abivard; when he flung open the outer door to the bedchamber, he let it slam against the wall with a loud crash.
A servant in the hallway spun round in startlement. "Lord, you frightened me there," he said, smiling. "You—" He broke off when he saw Ardini beside Abivard. That was a bigger surprise, and one that could not be met with a few glib words. "Is all well, lord?"
"No," Abivard said. "I have pronounced divorcement against this woman, for she used sorcery to try to bind me to her. I cast her forth from the women's quarters, from the stronghold, from the domain."
The servant stared. He nodded jerkily, then retreated almost at a dead run. He'll have gossip to drink wine on for the next fortnight, Abivard thought. He turned to Ardini. "Come along, you."
Out to the doorway of the living quarters they went, and out through the courtyard. People stopped and gaped, then tried to pretend they had done no such thing. At the gateway, Ardini fell to her knees and clasped Abivard around the thighs. "Let me stay!" she wailed. "By the God, I swear to love you forever."
He shook his head and freed himself as gently as he could. "You are already forsworn, thanks to your magic," he said. "Get up; go. May you find a life of peace somewhere far from here."
She hissed a filthy curse at him as she rose, then stalked off down the steeply sloping road. He made a mental note to send word to all the villages in the domain that she had been divorced and expelled. He wondered where she would go; back to her family's stronghold, he supposed. He realized he did not even know who her father was. Have to ask my mother, he thought. What Burzoe did not know about the dihqan's women wasn't worth knowing.
Abivard sighed, wondering how much trouble the lying tales Ardini was sure to tell would cause him. He resolved to save the tablet, the fragments of the image, and the multicolored cords that had been tied around it, to prove he had indeed been sorcerously beset. Then he sighed again. Nothing ever seemed simple. He wished for once it was.
"'To the dihqan Abivard his loving sister Denak sends greetings.'" Abivard smiled as he began the latest letter from Denak. Though he read it with his own voice, he could hear hers, too, and see the way her face would screw up in concentration as she dipped pen into jar of ink before committing words to parchment.
The letter went on, "'I rejoice that you escaped the wicked magic aimed your way, and grieve for the scandal to your women's quarters. When you wrote of it to me, I confess I guessed Ardini's name before I saw it on the parchment. I know she expected to be named your principal wife—though as far as I know she had no reason save her pride and ambition for that expectation—and did not take well to the affection that flowered between you and Roshnani even in the brief time I was there after your wedding.'"
Abivard nodded slowly to himself. Ardini was young and lovely and, as Denak had said, ambitious. She had thought that was plenty of reason for him to make her his chief wife. Unfortunately for her, he had had other things in mind.
"'I am well, and entrusted with ever greater management of this domain's affairs,'" Denak wrote. "'Pradtak says he reckons me as useful as a Videssian steward, and by the work he gives me, I believe it. Yet our lady mother could do as much, even without the advantage of her letters. Parni, one of the women in the quarters, is with child. I hope I may soon be, as well.'"
"I hope you are, too, sister of mine," Abivard murmured. Indignation grew in him—how could Pradtak prefer this Parni, whoever she was, to Denak? Abivard laughed at himself, knowing he was being foolish. Starting a child was as much a matter of luck as anything else. Roshnani, for instance, was not pregnant, either, though not from lack of enthusiastic effort on his part.
All the same, he worried. If Parni gave Pradtak a son, presumably his first since becoming dihqan, she was liable to rise in his estimation and Denak to fall. That would not be good.
He read on: "'My lord husband continues to recover from the bones he broke this summer. He no longer wears his arm in a sling, and can use it for most things, though it still lacks the strength of the other. He walks now with but a single stick, and can make several paces at a time without any aid whatever. He is also eager to return to horseback; he is in the habit of complaining how much he misses his games of mallet and ball, even if without them he would never have been hurt.'
"'Meanwhile,'" Denak wrote, "'aside from the pleasures of the women's quarters, he consoles himself with some scheme or other that he has not yet seen fit to impart to me—or to anyone, for if he had, word of it would surely have reached me through the serving women or his other wives. As I daresay you will have seen for yourself, the women's quarters hear gossip sometimes even before it is spoken.'"
"Isn't that the truth?" Abivard said aloud. He wondered what Pradtak was up to that even his principal wife couldn't know. Something foolish, was his guess: if it hadn't been, Pradtak would have let Denak in on it. Abivard hid nothing from Roshnani. How could he, if she was to give him all her aid in administering Vek Rud domain? Maybe Pradtak didn't see things that way; maybe Pradtak really was a fool.
Denak finished, "'I look forward to your next letter; the God grant it may hold better news than Khamorth raiders and a wife who could not be trusted. Every time I see your familiar hand, I return to the stronghold where I grew up. I am well enough here, but the place and its people are not those I knew so long and so well. I rely on you to keep them green in my heart. Remember always your loving sister.'"
Down in the village, a carpenter was making Abivard a frame of pigeonholes, twenty by twenty, so it would have in all four hundred openings. After he had stored that many letters from Denak, he supposed he could have the man turn out another frame. He rolled up the letter, retied it with the ribbon that had held it closed, and went off to set it in the drawer that served for such things until the pigeonhole frame was done.
No sooner had he taken care of that than a shout from the wall brought him out of the living quarters in a hurry: "A band of riders off in the distance, making for the flocks northwest of us!"
He sprinted for the stables. So did every other warrior who had heard the lookout's cry. He had taken to leaving his helmet and shield there. No time for more armor, not now. He clapped the helm on his head, snatched up his lance, and hurried for the stall where stable boys were saddling his horse. As soon as they had cinched the last strap tight, he set a foot in the stirrup and swung up into the saddle.
In the next stall over, Frada mounted at almost the same instant. Abivard grinned at him and said, "We have it easy. From what Father used to say, his grandsire remembered the days before we learned from the nomads to use stirrups."
"How'd great-grandfather stay on his horse, then?" Frada asked.
"Not very well, is my guess." Abivard looked round the stables. More and more men were horsed, enough to make bandits or nomads or whoever the riders proved to be think twice about running off his sheep and cattle. He raised his voice to cut through the din: "Let's go get back what's ours. The shout will be 'Godarz!'"
"Godarz!" the Makuraners yelled, loud enough to make his head ring. He used the pressure of his knees and the reins to urge his gelding out of the stall, out of the stable, and out of the stronghold.
Going down the knob atop which sat Vek Rud domain, he had to keep the pace slow, lest his horse stumble on the slope. But when he got to the flatlands, he urged the animal ahead at a trot he could kick up into a gallop whenever he found the need.
Behind him, someone shouted, "There they are, the cursed carrion eaters!"
There they were indeed, not far from the Vek Rud River, cutting out half a flock of sheep. "They're Khamorth—'ware archery," Abivard called as he got close enough to recognize the robbers. He wondered what had happened to the shepherd and the men guarding the flock with him. Nothing good, he feared.
"Godaaarz!" The war cry rang out again. This time the Khamorth heard it. All at once they stopped being thieves and turned back into warriors. To Abivard, their moves had an eerie familiarity. After a moment, he realized they were fighting like the band that had attacked the wedding party on the way back from Nalgis Crag domain.
Instead of making him afraid, that sparked a sudden burst of confidence. "We beat the plainsmen once before," he yelled. "We can beat them again." Only when the words had passed his lips did he remember that the nomads had beaten his countrymen, too, and far more disastrously than his retainers had hurt them.
The horsemen who galloped alongside him seemed to have forgotten that, too. They screamed like men possessed by demons. He had a decent number of archers with him today, too; he wouldn't have to come to close quarters to hurt the Khamorth.
The nomads started shooting at very long range. Abivard managed a scorn-filled laugh when an arrow kicked up dust a few yards away from his horse's hooves. "They think they can frighten us off with their bows," he said. "Will we let them?"
"No!" his men cried. Bowstrings thrummed to either side of him. One nomad's steppe pony slewed sideways and crashed to the ground. The Makuraners' shouts redoubled.
Then a shriek of pain cut through the war cries. Just to Abivard's left, a man slid off his galloping horse. He hit the ground limp as a sack of meal and did not move again. Now the plainsmen yelled in triumph.
With a deliberate effort of will, Abivard made himself not think about that. The Khamorth ahead grew from dots to dolls to men in what felt like a single heartbeat. He picked out a nomad, couched his lance, and bored in for the kill.
The Khamorth did not stick around to be stuck. In a fine bit of horsemanship, he made his animal wheel through a turn tighter than any Abivard would have imagined possible. As he galloped away, he shot back over his shoulder.
Abivard flung up his shield. The arrow ticked off its bronze-faced rim and tumbled away harmlessly. He knew a moment's relief, but only a moment's: the Khamorth shot again and again. He was not the finest archer the God had ever made, and shooting from a pounding horse at a moving target was anything but easy, anyhow. On the other hand, though, Abivard's horse was faster than his, which meant the range kept shortening.
"Aii!" Fire kissed the edge of Abivard's right leg. He looked down and saw he was bleeding. The shaft wasn't stuck in his leg; it had sliced his outer calf and flown on. Had he been wearing the lamellar armor the smiths were just now finishing, he might have escaped unwounded. No such luck, though.
Seeing he was about to be ridden down, the Khamorth drew his shamshir and slashed at Abivard's lance in the hope of chopping off its head. That did the nomad no good; the lancehead was joined to the shaft by a long iron ferrule. Abivard felt the blow in his shoulder but pressed on regardless.
At the last moment, the plainsman hacked at the lancehead again. He turned it enough to keep it from his own flesh, but it drove deep into the barrel of his horse. Appalled, Abivard yanked it back. The horse screamed louder and more piercingly—and with better reason—than Ardini ever had.
The Khamorth snarled a curse. His face, twisted in a grimace of hate, would stay in Abivard's memory forever: unkempt beard with threads of gray running through it, wide mouth shouting something perhaps a quarter comprehensible—two front teeth missing, a third black—beaky nose with a scar on the bridge, red-tracked eyes, lines on the forehead accented by ground-in smoke. The two men were close enough together that Abivard found himself trapped in the reek of ancient stale sweat and sour milk that hovered round the plainsman like a stinking cloud.
The steppe pony galloped wildly for perhaps a hundred yards, blood splashing the dry, dusty ground from the wound Abivard had made. Then, like a waterlogged ship at last slipping beneath the waves, it went down, slowly and gently enough for its rider to slip off and try to run.
The plainsman was slow and clumsy—his boots were not made for hard use on the ground. He had hung onto his bow; he had just wheeled around and was reaching for an arrow when Abivard's lance took him in the middle of the chest. The nomad grunted. The cry his horse let out had been much worse. A new stench joined the rest as the fellow folded up on himself.
Abivard jerked the lance free. He had to twist the head to clear it; it grated against the Khamorth's ribs as it came out. On the shaft, the plainsman's blood mingled with that of his horse. The new stains almost completely covered the older marks, now browned, where Abivard had first blooded the lance a few weeks before.
As in that first clash, he found that when he was engaged he could pay no attention to how the fight as a whole was going. When he looked around to get his bearings, he saw that most of the Khamorth had broken away and were galloping north for all they were worth.
Abivard and his men pounded after the nomads. The steppe ponies' hooves drummed on the timbers of the new bridge that spanned the Vek Rud. Three or four nomads reined in on the far side of the river and waited with nocked arrows for the Makuraners to try to force a passage.
"Hold!" Abivard flung up his hand. Shooting down the bridge at men and horses who had to come straight toward them, the Khamorth could have taken a fearful toll, maybe even turned defeat into triumph.
"But they were running away," Frada protested.
"They're not running now," Abivard said. "Take a good look at them, brother. What do they want us to do? If you were a Khamorth chieftain on the other side of that river, what would you hope those stupid Makuraners on your tail would do?"
Frada was also Godarz's son: Confront him with an idea and he would worry it like a dog shaking a rat. "I expect I'd hope they threw themselves at me," he said.
"I expect the same thing," Abivard answered. "That's why we're going to stay right here until the plainsmen ride away. Then—" He scowled, but saw no help for it. "Then I'm going to burn that bridge."
Frada stared at him. "But it's stood since our greatgrandfather's day, maybe longer."
"I know. Losing it will cost us commerce, too. But with the Khamorth loose in the realm, if I leave it whole I might as well paint 'ROB ME' in big letters on the outside of the stronghold wall." Abivard's laugh rang bitter. "See how the great tribute Smerdis King of Kings paid to the Khamorth is keeping them on their own side of the Degird."
"Aye, that thought had already crossed my mind. How much did the famous Murghab squeeze from us?"
"Eighty-five hundred mortal arkets," Abivard answered. "Years of patient saving gone in a day. And for what? For the nomads to fatten their coffers at the same time as they batten on our lands."
Frada pointed back to the downed ponies and plainsmen dotting the plain to the south. "They paid a price, too."
"They should," Abivard said. "They were trying to take what's ours. But we paid our heavy price at Smerdis' command and got nothing in return for it. Smerdis' messenger said Sharbaraz renounced the throne because he didn't have the experience he needed to rule. If this is what experience bought us, then I wouldn't mind a raw hand on the reins, by the God."
The farther he went there, the softer his voice got: he realized he was speaking treason, or at least lese majesty. But Frada nodded vigorously. "How could we do worse?"
Instead of cheering Abivard, that made him thoughtful. "The hurtful part is, we likely could do worse: every tribe on the steppe swarming down over the Degird, for instance, to try to take this land put of the realm forever. That was everyone's worst nightmare after Peroz King of Kings fell." The proud lion banner crashing into the trench—that dreadful image would stay with Abivard if he lived to be a hundred.
"Maybe we could at that," Frada said. "But the way things are is plenty bad enough. These little fights will drain us of men, too."
"Yes," Abivard said. Along with the plainsmen, three of his own followers were down, one lying still, the other two thrashing and crying their pain to the unheeding sky. Maybe they'll heal, he thought, and then, Yes, but maybe they won't. He made a fist and brought it down on his thigh. "You know, brother of mine, I wonder how bad things are elsewhere in the realm. What would Okhos say, for instance, if I wrote him and asked?"
"Does he have his letters?" Frada said.
"I don't know," Abivard admitted. He brightened. "Roshnani can tell me. Come to that, she's been after me to teach her to read and write. I think my getting letters from Denak showed her I didn't mind women learning such things."
"Are you teaching her?" Frada sounded as if Abivard had been talking not about letters but of some exotic, not quite reputable vice.
Abivard nodded anyhow. "Yes, and she seems to have the head for it. Father would have done the same, I'm certain; he let Denak learn, after all."
"So he did," Frada said thoughtfully. He, too, nodded. Even more than was true for Abivard, he used what Godarz would have done as a touchstone for right behavior.
Seeing that their foes would not obligingly impale themselves, the Khamorth rode north. The Makuraners moved over the field, finishing off wounded Khamorth, capturing steppe ponies, and doing their best to round up the scattered flock. That done and the wounded men hastily bandaged and splinted and tied onto horses, they headed back toward the stronghold. The skirmish with the plainsmen was, by every conventional sense of the word, a victory. But it had cost Abivard at least one man and maybe as many as three, and he doubted it had done anything to keep the Khamorth from raiding his lands again. He let his men cheer, but he didn't feel victorious.
"Aye, my brother has his letters, or he learned them, at any rate," Roshnani said. "How much use he has given them since the tutor left the stronghold, I could not say."
"Only one way to find out," Abivard said. "I'll write him and see what sort of answer I get. Just to be on the safe side, though, I'll have my rider memorize the message, too, to make sure it's understood. And I'll write to Pradtak, as well. I know he reads, for Denak remarked he was surprised to find out she could do likewise."
"Will you write the letters here in your bedchamber?" Roshnani said. "I want to watch you shape each word and see if I can figure out what it says."
"I know I have pen and ink here. Let's see if I can find a couple of scraps of parchment, too." Abivard kept a pot of ink and a reed pen in a drawer in a little chest by the bed, along with knives, a few coins, little strips of leather, and other oddments. He found himself rummaging through that drawer at least once a day; you never could tell when some piece of what looked like junk would come in handy.
He grunted in satisfaction when he came across a sheet of parchment as big as his hand. He used one of the knives to cut it neatly in half; each of the two pieces he made was plenty big enough for the notes he wanted to send.
He pulled the stopper from the ink pot and set it on the bedside chest. He put the first scrap of parchment on top of the chest, too, then inked his pen, leaned forward, and began to write. Roshnani sat beside him on the bed, so close that her breast brushed against his side. He ignored the pleasant distraction as best he could. Plenty of time for sport later, he told himself sternly. Business now.
Because he was not sure how well Okhos read, and because Roshnani was just learning letters herself, he took special pains to make his writing neater than the scrawl he usually turned out. "Okhos!" Roshnani exclaimed. "That's my brother's name you just wrote." A moment later she added, "And there's yours!" She almost bounced with excitement.
"You're right both times," he said, slipping his free arm around her waist. She leaned even closer, the scent of her hair filled his nostrils. He needed all his will to keep his mind on the letter. When he was done, he waited for the ink to dry, then handed it to her. "Can you read it?"
She did, one word at a time, more slowly than he had written it. When at last she had finished, she was sweating with effort but proud. "I understood it all," she said. "You want to know how much Smerdis took from Okhos to pay off the Khamorth and how badly they've raided his domain since."
"That's exactly right. You're doing very well," Abivard said. "I'm proud of you." To show how proud he was, he put both arms around her and kissed her. Whether by chance or by design—whose? he wondered later—she overbalanced and lay back on the bed. The letter to Pradtak got written rather later than he had planned.
Roshnani read that one aloud, too. Abivard paid less attention to her reading than he might have; neither of them had bothered dressing again, and this afternoon he was thinking about a second round. Roshnani, though, concentrated on what she was doing despite being bare. She said, "Except for the names, you used just the same words in this letter as in the one to Okhos. Why did you do that?"
"Hmm?" he said. Roshnani let out an irritated sniff and repeated herself. He thought about it for a moment, then answered, "Writing's not the easiest thing in the world for me, either. If the same words would serve me twice, I don't have to trouble myself thinking up new ones the second time around."
She considered that in her usual deliberate way. "Fair enough, I suppose," she said at last. "Okhos and Pradtak aren't likely to compare letters and discover you haven't been perfectly original."
"Original?" Abivard rolled his eyes. "If I'd known you'd turn critic when I taught you your letters, I might not have done it." She snorted. He said, "And I know something else that's just as good the second time as the first, even if done just the same way."
Roshnani still cast down her eyes as she had the day she first came to Vek Rud stronghold, but now more in play than in earnest. "Whatever might that be?" she asked, as if they were not naked together on the big bed.
Eventually the letters were sealed and dispatched. Okhos' reply came back in a bit more than a week. "'To the dihqan Abivard the dihqan Okhos his brother-in-law sends greetings,'" Abivard read, first with Frada peering over his shoulder and then, later, in the bedchamber with Roshnani. To Roshnani, he added, "See? He writes well enough after all." Okhos' hand was square and careful, perhaps not practiced but clear enough.
"Go on. What does he say?" Roshnani asked.
"'Yes, my brother-in-law, we have also been beset, both by Smerdis' men and the nomads. We lost five thousand arkets to the one, and sheep and cattle, horses and men to the other. We have hurt the nomads, too, but what good does it do to bat away one grain of sand when the wind lifts up the whole desert? We go on fighting as best we can. The God give you victory in your war, too.'"
"Is that all?" Roshnani asked when he paused to take a breath.
"No, there's one thing more," he said. "'Say to my sister who is your wife that her brother thinks of her often.'"
Roshnani smiled. "I shall write him a letter in return. Don't you think that will surprise him?"
"I'm sure it will," Abivard said. He wondered whether Okhos would be merely surprised or scandalized to boot. Well, if he was scandalized, that would be his own hard luck. It wasn't as if Abivard let his women wander around out of their quarters like a Videssian or allowed them something else that truly merited condemnation.
He had to wait longer for his reply from Pradtak. Not only did his letter to Denak's husband have a longer journey than the one to Okhos, but Pradtak also took his time before replying. Most of a month went by before a rider from Nalgis Crag domain rode up to the stronghold.
Abivard tipped the man half an arket for his travels. He might not have done so before the battle on the steppes, but any trip by a lone man was dangerous these days. Abivard knew that only too well—travel by large armed bands wasn't necessarily safe, either.
He opened the leather message tube and unrolled the parchment on which Pradtak had written his reply. After the polite formula of greeting, his brother-in-law's letter was but one sentence long: I am loyal in all ways to Smerdis King of Kings.
"Well, who ever said you weren't?" Abivard asked aloud, as if Pradtak were there to answer him.
"Lord?" the rider asked.
"Never mind." Abivard scratched his head, wondering why on earth his brother-in-law thought he suspected him.