Godarz had taught Abivard many things: how to ride, how to rule a domain, how to think of next year instead of tomorrow. One thing he had not taught him was how to be a rebel. Abivard didn't think Godarz had ever dreamed—or had nightmares—of opposing Vek Rud domain to the power of the King of Kings in Mashiz.
Whatever he did, then, he had to do on his own, without his father's advice and warnings echoing in the back of his mind. He missed them. He had grown used to the idea that Godarz had an answer for everything and, could he but find it, all would be well. In the game he played now, that was not so.
Nor could he simply sit idle and let Sharbaraz bear the whole burden of the war against Smerdis. Not only would that have been unseemly for the King of Kings' brother-in-law—for Sharbaraz had kept his promise and wed Denak as soon as he came into Vek Rud stronghold—but Abivard knew most of the frontier dihqans better than his sovereign did.
"Old news," Sharbaraz complained one evening, munching bulgur wheat with pine nuts and mutton drenched in a sauce of yogurt and crushed mint leaves. "I know the domains, and I know of the lords they had before our army went into Pardraya, but how many of those lords still live? One here, one there. Mostly, though, it's their sons and grandsons and nephews who carry on for them, men whose ways I never studied. Whereas you—"
"Aye, I've hunted with some of them and played mallet and ball against others at festivals and the like, but I can't claim to know them well. Most of my dealings with them have been after I made my way back from Pardraya."
"Those are the important dealings, now," Sharbaraz said. "If we cannot bring the northwest to my banner, you might as well have left me mured up in Nalgis Crag stronghold, for that would prove Smerdis, curse him through the Void, will be the sure winner in our struggle."
Abivard rose from the bench in the kitchen and paced back and forth. "If we wrote out the lists of opposing forces on parchment, ours would be much smaller and weaker than Smerdis' even if all the northwestern dihqans went over to you," he said. "How do we go about overcoming that advantage?"
"If all the forces loyal to Smerdis today stay loyal to him, we're doomed," Sharbaraz answered. "I don't believe they will. I think most of them are with him because they believe I gave up the throne of my own free will. When they learn that isn't so, they'll flock to my banner."
They had better, Abivard thought. Otherwise we'll see how bitter a death Smerdis can devise for us. That, however, was not the sort of notion he could share with the man he reckoned his sovereign.
Sharbaraz looked up at him. Nothing about his dress proclaimed him King of Kings: he wore one of Abivard's woolen caftans, a good enough garment but hardly a royal robe. A bit of yogurt was stuck in his beard, just below one corner of his mouth. But when he spoke, confidence rang in his voice like a horn call: "When you rescued me from Pradtak's stronghold, you didn't stop to reckon up the cost or what would come afterward—you simply did what was right. We'll go on that way, and the God will surely smile on us."
"May it be so, your Majesty," Abivard answered.
"It shall be so," Sharbaraz said fiercely, slamming a fist down on the stone table in front of him. As they had before, his words set Abivard afire inside, made him want to leap onto his horse and charge down on Mashiz, sweeping everything before him by sheer force of will.
But however much he wanted to do that, the part of him that was Godarz's heritage warned him it would not be so easy. Peroz had charged down on the Khamorth—and look what it got him.
Frada came in then. One of the cooks handed him a pocket bread filled with the same mutton-and-bulgur mixture Abivard and Sharbaraz were eating. "Your Majesty," he murmured as he sat down beside Sharbaraz. His tone lay somewhere between admiration and hero worship; he had never expected to sit at meat with the King of Kings.
When he glanced toward Abivard, though, resentment congealed on his face. Abivard hadn't told him of the plan to rescue Sharbaraz; Abivard hadn't told anyone who did not absolutely have to know. He could see Frada wishing he had been along, too.
Sharbaraz also saw that. He said to Frada, "Secrets must be kept. You shall yet have the chance to show off your courage before me."
Frada preened like a peacock. Had he had tail feathers, he would have fanned them out in dazzling display. As things were, he had to be content with puffing out his chest, throwing back his head, and, in Abivard's opinion, looking very foolish.
But perhaps Frada wasn't so foolish after all. No less than Abivard, he was now brother-in-law to the rightful King of Kings. When Sharbaraz regained his capital, both Godarz's sons—and their younger half brothers, too—would be great men in Makuran. That hadn't fully occurred to Abivard till then.
For the moment, though, Frada was just his little brother. "Get out of here," he said, "before you stroll into the oven from not looking where you're going." The gesture Frada returned was emphatically not one of benediction, but he departed, chewing noisily.
Sharbaraz chuckled. "The two of you get on well," he said. His voice was wistful. "I grew up distrusting all my brothers, and they me."
"That happens in a fair number of domains, I've heard," Abivard said. "I can see how it would be worse in Mashiz, with the whole realm as a prize for the one who manages to inherit."
"Just so," Sharbaraz said. "When word came of my father's fall, I looked for one of my brothers to try to cast me down from the throne." He laughed a laugh full of self-mockery. "And so I paid no heed to my doddering cousin the mintmaster—and paid the price for that. I'd be paying it yet, without your sister and you."
Abivard dipped his head. Songs said a monarch's gratitude was like lowlands snow on a warm spring day, but he didn't think Sharbaraz typical of the breed. With luck, the rightful King of Kings would remain a man among men even after he gained the throne.
"How do you and your brothers keep from quarreling?" Sharbaraz asked.
"Oh, we quarrel—like pups in a litter," Abivard answered. "But Father never let us turn it to feuds and knives in the back. 'The domain is bigger than any one of you, and big enough for all of you,' he'd say, and clout us now and again to make sure the lesson got through."
"My father used to say much the same thing." Sharbaraz shook his head. "He couldn't quite make us believe it. I wish he had."
"What do you suppose Smerdis will do when he learns of your escape?" Abivard thought it a good time to change the subject. "What would you do, were you in Mashiz and he a rebel in the provinces?"
"Were I on my throne, I would attack any rebel with as strong a force as I could mount, to make sure his men won no battles against forces too weak to do a proper job of rooting them out. That would only give them courage, the last thing I'd want rebel troops to have."
"Our thoughts travel the same track," Abivard said, nodding. "The next question is, does Smerdis think the same way we do?"
Sharbaraz stopped with a bite halfway to his mouth. "By the God, Abivard, I have more reason to bless the day I met you than that it was also the day I gained my freedom and claimed your sister as my bride. Do you know, that notion never occurred to me. I assumed Smerdis would set out from Mashiz with his whole host directly he heard I'd escaped, because I would have done as much in his place. But it may not be so."
"You must have known him at your father's court." Abivard thanked his father for drilling into him that there was commonly more than one way to look at a situation. "What feel do you have for the way he'll act? I've only met him, so to speak, when his men took my money to pay it to the Khamorth. From that, he doesn't strike me as a world-bestriding hero."
"I never reckoned him one, that's certain," Sharbaraz said, "but then, I hardly had him in my mind at all till he stole my throne from me. He was just a gray man with a gray beard, hardly worth noticing even when he spoke, and he didn't speak much. Who would have guessed such ambition hid behind that blank mask?"
"Maybe he didn't know it was there himself till he got the chance to let it out," Abivard said.
"That could be so." With the dainty manners of the royal court, Sharbaraz dabbed at his mouth with a square of cloth—a towel rather than a proper napkin, but as close as Vek Rud domain could come. When Abivard wiped his mouth, he used his sleeve. Setting the towel aside, Sharbaraz went on, "One thing is sure, though: he'll soon learn I'm loose, and then we'll find out what sort of man he is."
The rider from Nalgis Crag domain looked nervous as he waited for Abivard to approach. "Lord," he said, sooner than he should have, "I beg you to remember I am but a messenger here, bearing the words and intentions of Pradtak my dihqan. They are not my words or intentions, and I would not have you blame me for them."
"However it pleases you," Abivard said. The rider let out a long, smoky breath of relief, then gave Abivard a sharp look. Abivard carefully kept his own face innocent. He twisted his left hand in a gesture of benediction. "I pledge by the God that no harm will come to you because of the message you bring."
"You are gracious, lord. Pradtak bade me deliver these first of all." The rider unsealed a message tube. Instead of a letter, he let three black pebbles fall into the palm of his other hand. "These are the very pebbles he dropped before witnesses to pronounce divorcement from his former wife the lady Denak, your sister."
Abivard burst out laughing. Pradtak's messenger went from apprehensive to shocked in the space of a heartbeat. Whatever reaction he had expected—fury, most likely, or perhaps dismay—that wasn't it. Abivard said, "You may return the pebbles to your lord with my compliments. Tell him he's too late, that divorcement's already been pronounced."
"Lord, I do not understand," the messenger said carefully. "By custom and law both, you have not the power to end the marriage of your sister to my lord Pradtak."
"True," Abivard admitted. "But the King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase, does have that power."
"Smerdis King of Kings has not—" the rider began.
Abivard broke in. "Ah, but Sharbaraz King of Kings, son of Peroz and true ruler of Makuran, has."
"Sharbaraz King of Kings?" Pradtak's rider stared like a sturgeon netted out of the Vek Rud River. "Every man knows Sharbaraz renounced the throne."
"Evidently not everyone knows the renunciation was forced from him at knifepoint, and that he was locked away in Nalgis Crag stronghold for safekeeping," Abivard said. The rider's eyes got even wider. With relish, Abivard went on, "And not everyone knows my sister and I rescued him out of Nalgis Crag stronghold, and set your precious lord in the cell that had been his. How long did Pradtak take to get his own face back, anyhow?"
The messenger sputtered for close to a minute before he finally managed, "Lord, I know nothing of this. I am but a small man, and it is dangerous for such to meddle in the affairs of those stronger than they. I have here also a letter from my lord Pradtak for you." He handed Abivard another leather tube.
As Abivard opened it, he said, "You may not be powerful, but you must know whether your lord looked like himself or someone else for a while, eh?"
"I am not required to speak of this to you," the man said.
"So you're not." Abivard took out the scrap of parchment and unrolled it. The message was, if nothing else, to the point: War to the knife. Abivard showed it to the messenger. "You can tell Pradtak for me that the knife cuts both ways. If he chooses to support a usurper in place of the proper King of Kings, he'll find himself on the wrong end of it."
"I shall deliver your words, just as you say them," the rider answered.
"Do that. Think about them on the way back to Nalgis Crag stronghold, too. When you get there, tell your friends what's happened—and why. Some of them, I'd wager, will know what befell Pradtak when we rescued Sharbaraz. Before you go, though, take bread and wine and sit by the fire. Whatever Pradtak says, I'm not at war with you."
But the messenger shook his head. "No, lord, that wouldn't be right; I'm loyal to my own dihqan, I am, and I wouldn't make myself the guest of a man I'm liable to be fighting before long. I do thank you, though; you're generous to offer." He made small smacking noises, as if chewing on what Abivard had told him. His face was thoughtful.
"I wish your dihqan had shown the same loyalty to his rightful lord as you do to him," Abivard said. "Go in peace, if you feel you must. Maybe when you hear the whole story you'll change your mind. Maybe some of your friends will, too, when they learn it all."
Pradtak's rider did not answer. But as he turned his horse to start the journey back to Nalgis Crag domain, he sketched a salute. Abivard returned it. He had hopes that Pradtak had done his own cause more harm than good with those three pebbles and the accompanying letter of defiancé. Let his men learn how he had betrayed Peroz's son, and Nalgis Crag stronghold, no matter how invulnerable to outside assault, might yet quake beneath his fundament.
The smithy was dark and sooty, lit mostly by the leaping red-gold flames of the furnace. It smelled of woodsmoke and hot iron and sweat. Ganzak the smith was the mightiest wrestler of Vek Rud domain; he had a chest and shoulders like a bull's, and his arms, worked constantly with blows of the heavy hammer, were thick as some men's legs.
"Lord, Majesty, you honor my hearth by your visit," he said when Abivard and Sharbaraz came in one wintry morning.
"Your fire's as welcome as your company," Abivard answered with a grin to show he was joking. Yet, as with many jests, his held a grain of truth. While snow lay in the stronghold's courtyard, Ganzak labored bare-chested, and heat as well as exertion left his skin wet and gleaming, almost as if oiled, in the firelight.
"How fares my armor?" Sharbaraz asked him. The rightful King of Kings was not one to waste time on anything when his vital interests were concerned. He went on, "The sooner I have it, the sooner I feel myself fully a man and a warrior again—and I aim to take the field as soon as I may."
"Majesty, I've told you before I do all I can, but armor, especially chain, is slow work," Ganzak said. "Splints are simple—just long, thin plates hammered out and punched at each end for attachment. But ring mail—"
Abivard had played through this discussion with the smith before. But Sharbaraz, being a scion of the royal family, had not learned much about how armor was made; perhaps his study of the domains and their leaders had kept him from paying much attention to such seemingly smaller matters. He said, "What's the trouble? You make the rings, you fit them together into mail, you fasten the mail to the leather backing, and there's your suit."
Ganzak exhaled through his nose. Had someone of less than Sharbaraz's exalted status spoken to him so, he might have given a more vehement reply, probably capped by chasing the luckless fellow out of the smithy with hammer upraised. As it was, he used what Abivard thought commendable restraint: "Your Majesty, it's not so simple. What are the rings made of?"
"Wire, of course," Sharbaraz said. "Iron wire, if that's what you mean."
"Iron wire it is," Ganzak agreed. "The best iron I can make, too. But wire doesn't grow on trees like pistachio nuts. By the God, I wish it did, but since it doesn't, I have to make it, too. That means I have to cut thin strips from a plate of iron, which is what I was doing when you and my lord the dihqan came in."
He pointed to several he had set aside. "Here they are. They're still not wire yet, you see—they're just strips of iron. To turn 'em into wire, I have to hammer 'em out thin and round."
Sharbaraz said, "I believe I may have spoken too soon."
But Ganzak, by then, was in full spate and not to be headed off by mere apology. "Then once I have the wire, I have to turn it into rings. They're all supposed to be the same size, right? So what I do is, I wrap the wire around this dowel here—" He showed Sharbaraz the wooden cylinder. "—and then cut 'em, one at a time. Then I have to pound the ends of each one flat and rivet 'em together to make rings, one at a time again. 'Course, they have to be linked to each other before I put the rivets in, on account of you can't put 'em together after they're finished rings. None of this stuff is quick, begging your pardon, Majesty."
"No, I see it wouldn't be. Forgive me, Ganzak; I spoke out of turn." Sharbaraz sounded humbler than a King of Kings usually had occasion to be. "Another lesson learned: know what something involves before you criticize."
Abivard said, "I've seen mail with every other row of rings punched from plate rather than turned out the way you describe. Wouldn't that be faster to make?"
"Aye, it is." Ganzak spat into the fire. "But that's what I give you for it. You can't link those punched rings one to another, only to the proper ones in the rows above and below 'em. That means the mail isn't near as strong for the same weight of metal. You want his Majesty to go to war in cheap, shoddy armor, find yourself another smith." He folded massive arms across even more massive chest.
Defeated, Abivard said, "When do you think this next armor will be finished?"
The smith considered. "Three weeks, lord, give or take a little."
"It will have to do," Sharbaraz said with a sigh. "In truth, I don't expect to be attacked before then, but I grudge every day without mail. I feel naked as a newborn babe."
"It's not so bad as that, your Majesty," Abivard said. "Hosts of warriors go and fight in leather. The Khamorth make a habit of it, their horses being smaller and less able to bear weight than ours, and I fought against them so while Ganzak was still at work on my suit of iron."
"No doubt," Sharbaraz said. "Necessity knows few laws, as you among others showed in freeing me from Nalgis Crag stronghold. But did you not reckon yourself a hero once more, not just a warrior, when the ring mail jingled sweetly on your shoulders?"
"I don't know about that," Abivard said. "I did reckon myself less likely to get killed, which is plenty to hearten a man in a fight."
"Lord, when I hear you talk plain sense, I can see your father standing there in your place," Ganzak said.
"I wish he were," Abivard answered quietly. Even so, he glowed with pride at the compliment.
Sharbaraz said, "At my father's court, I learned as much of war from minstrels as from soldiers. Good to have close by me someone who has seen it and speaks plainly of what it requires. Doing one's duty and staying alive through it, though not something to inspire songs, also has its place. Another lesson." He nodded, as if to impress it on his memory.
Abivard nodded, too. Sharbaraz was always learning. Abivard thought well of that: the very nature of his office was liable to make the King of Kings sure he already knew everything, for who dared tell him he did not?
Something else occurred to Abivard. Suppose one day Sharbaraz went wrong? As the King of Kings had said, he stood close by now. But how was he to tell Sharbaraz he was mistaken? He had no idea.
In the stronghold, Sharbaraz took for his own the chamber Abivard had used while Godarz still lived; Frada relinquished it with good grace. It lay down the hall from the dihqan's bedchamber; that convenience was a point in its favor.
Denak had returned to the women's quarters of Vek Rud stronghold when she, Abivard, Sharbaraz, and Tanshar came back to the domain. True to his vow, Sharbaraz had wed her as soon as a servant of the God could be brought to the stronghold. But though she was his wife, the women's quarters were not his. Had he gone in there to claim her whenever he sought her company, he would have created great scandal even though he was King of Kings.
The way round the seeming impasse created scandal, too, but not great scandal. The outer door to the dihqan's bedchamber became the effective boundary to the women's quarters—just as it had at Nalgis Crag stronghold, Abivard thought, and kept the thought to himself. Sharbaraz did not go inside. Abivard brought Denak to him there, and he escorted her to the room he was using. For her, that room was also part of the women's quarters.
So far, well and good. The trouble lay in the stretch of hall between the dihqan's bedchamber and Sharbaraz' room. No one in the stronghold was willing to consider a hallway part of the women's quarters, but nobody could see how Denak was supposed to join her husband without traversing it, either. Tongues wagged.
"Maybe Tanshar could magic me from my room to Sharbaraz's," Denak said one evening as Abivard walked her toward the controversial hall.
"I don't think so," he said doubtfully. "I just thank the God his strength sufficed for the uses to which we put it."
"Brother of mine, I meant that for a joke." Denak poked him in the ribs, which made him hop in the air. "It was the only answer I could think of that might stop the gossip about how we have to do things."
"Oh." Abivard tried it on for size. He decided to laugh. "It's good to have you back here."
"It's good to be back," she answered, turning serious again. "After what happened in Pradtak's women's quarters—" Her face twisted. "I wish I could have killed that guard. I wish I could have killed all three of them, a finger's breadth at a time. Escaping that place is not enough, but it will have to do."
He started to put an arm around her, but stopped with the gesture barely begun. She didn't want anyone but Sharbaraz touching her these days. Abivard wished she had killed the guard—all the guards—too, as slowly as she liked. He would have helped, and smiled as he did it.
She said, "In truth, it's just as well Tanshar can't sorcerously flick me about from chamber to chamber. No matter what others may say, walking down that stretch of hall makes me feel free, as if I had the run of the whole stronghold the way I did when I was a girl. Funny what twenty or thirty feet of stone floor and blank walls can do, isn't it?"
"I was thinking the same thing," Abivard said. "Do you know, Roshnani and some of my other wives are jealous of you?"
"I'm not surprised," Denak said as Abivard opened the inner door to the bedchamber for her to pass through. "To those with no freedom, even a tiny bit must look like a lot."
"Hmm." Abivard closed the door that led into the women's quarters, locked it, and walked with Denak to the outer door of the bedchamber. Sharbaraz stood waiting just outside. Abivard bowed to him. "Your Majesty, I bring you your wife."
Sharbaraz bowed in turn, first to Abivard and then to Denak. He held out his arm to her. "My lady, if you will come with me?" She crossed the threshold. Abivard turned away so that, formally speaking, he had not seen her walking down that much-too-public hall. Then he laughed at himself, and at the way he did his best to pretend custom hadn't been violated when he knew full well it had. He wondered whether custom wasn't more nearly the ruler of Makuran than the King of Kings was.
That evening, he brought Roshnani to the bedchamber. She looked wistfully toward the outer door. "I wish I could go through there, too," she said. "The women's quarters are bearable when you know everyone stays in them alike. When one can go farther—" She paused, perhaps swallowing some of what she had intended to say. "It's hard," she finished.
"I am sorry it troubles you," Abivard said. "I don't know what to do about it, though. I can't throw away untold years of tradition on a whim. Tradition didn't count on a King of Kings' having to take refuge in a back-country stronghold, or on his marrying the dihqan's sister."
"I know that," Roshnani said. "And please understand I do not hold Denak's luck against her. We get on famously; we might have been born sisters. I just wish my stretch of the world were wider, too. All I've seen of the world since I became a woman is two women's quarters and the land between the stronghold where I grew up and this one. It's not enough."
"You might have been born sisters with Denak," he agreed. "She's been saying much the same thing for as long as I can remember. I hadn't heard it from you till now."
"I didn't have any reason to think about it till now," she said, which made Abivard remember what Denak had said about a little freedom seeming a lot. Roshnani went on, "Does it anger you that I speak so? Few men, from what little I know, give their wives even so much rein." She looked anxiously at Abivard.
"It's all right," he said. "Smerdis, I'm sure, would have locked up Sharbaraz's thoughts along with—or ahead of—his body, if only he could. I don't see the sense in that. If you don't say what you think, how am I supposed to find out? I may not always think you're right—and even if I do, I may not be able to do anything about it—but I want to know."
Like the sun emerging and then going back behind the clouds, Roshnani's frown chased a quick smile off her face. She said, "If you think I'm right, why can't you do anything about it?"
He spread his hands. "We'll have nobles aplenty coming here to Vek Rud stronghold, sounding out Sharbaraz to see whether they should side with him or with Smerdis. Do you think he'd do his cause much good if he said he wanted all their wives and daughters out of the women's quarters? I don't think he does want that, but even if he did, saying so would cost him half his support, likely more."
"Not among the women," Roshnani said stubbornly.
"But the women aren't lancers."
Roshnani bit her lip. "Dreadful when a question of what's right and wrong collides with a question of what works well in the world."
"My father would have said that if it doesn't work well in the world, whether it's right or wrong doesn't matter. When Tanshar and I went to Pradtak's, I kept from having to talk too much too soon just by claiming hospitality. Pradtak had to serve me food and wine then, whether he wanted to or not. The women's quarters are the same way: because they're part of the way things have always been done, they won't disappear tomorrow even if Sharbaraz orders that they should."
Abivard watched Roshnani chew on that. By her expression, she didn't care for the flavor. "Maybe not," she admitted reluctantly. "But what about this, then: will you begin to ease the rules of the women's quarters after Sharbaraz wins the war and the assembled nobles of Makuran aren't all peering straight at your—our—stronghold?"
He started to answer, but stopped before any words crossed his lips. He had expected his logic to convince Roshnani—and so it had. But instead of convincing her he was right, it had just convinced her to accept delay in getting what she still wanted. It was, he thought uncomfortably, a very womanly way of arguing—she had conceded his point and turned it against him in the same breath.
So how was he supposed to reply? Every heartbeat he hesitated gave her more hope—and made his dashing that hope harder. At last he said, "I suppose we can try it; that probably won't make the world come to an end."
"If it doesn't work out, you can always go back to the old ways," she said encouragingly.
"That's rubbish, and you know it," he said. "Just as easy to put together the pieces of a butchered mutton carcass and say it's a live sheep again."
"Yes, I do know it," Roshnani admitted. "I was hoping you didn't."
"Devious wench."
"Of course," she said. "Caged away in the women's quarters as I am, what can I be but devious?" She stuck out her tongue at him, but quickly grew serious again. "Even knowing that you'll change the old way, you'd still let me—let us—out now and again?"
Abivard felt Godarz looking over his shoulder. He almost turned around to see what expression his father wore. His best guess was sardonic amusement at the predicament in which his son had landed himself. Break custom or make Roshnani—and his other wives when she was through with them—furious at him? Sighing, he said, "Yes, I suppose we can see how it goes."
Roshnani squeaked, jumped in the air, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him. He would have called what happened next a molestation if he hadn't enjoyed it so much. Later, the watchful, thoughtful part of him wondered if he had been bribed. One of the nice things about Roshnani was that he could tease her with such without angering her.
"No," she answered. "You just made me very happy, that's all."
He looked at her. "I should make you happy more often."
"Well, why don't you?" she asked mischievously.
He flopped on the bed like a dead fish. "If I did it too often, I'm not sure I'd live through it." When she reached out to tickle him, he quickly added, "On the other hand, it might be interesting to find out."
"Royal soldiers!" a rider bawled as he drove his worn horse up the steep streets of the town toward Vek Rud stronghold. "Royal soldiers, riding this way!"
Ice that had nothing to do with winter ran up Abivard's back when he heard that cry. In one way, he had been expecting it since the moment he managed to get Sharbaraz out of Nalgis Crag stronghold. In another, though, as with battle or with women, all the anticipation in the world wasn't worth a copper when set against reality.
As soon as the horseman rode into the courtyard, Abivard shouted, "Shut the gates!" The men in charge of them hurried to obey. The iron-fronted timbers clanged as they closed. A great bar, thick as a man's leg, thudded down behind them. "How many?" Abivard asked the rider.
"Twenty or thirty, maybe, lord," the fellow answered. "Wasn't any huge host, that much I'll say."
"Do you think a huge host follows?" Abivard persisted.
The rider gave him an exasperated glare. "Lord, begging your pardon, but how should I know? If I'd been fool enough to hang around to try and find out, odds are the buggers would have spotted me."
Abivard sighed. "You're right, of course. Go into the kitchens and grab yourself some bread and wine. Then get your bow out of its case and take your place on the wall with the rest of us."
"Aye, lord." The horseman hurried away. Abivard went up the stairs two at a time as he climbed to the walkway atop the wall and peered south. The day was cloudy and gloomy, with enough snow pattering down to ruin visibility. He muttered under his breath. Smerdis' men weren't coming quickly. After the news his retainer had shouted, he craved action.
Sharbaraz came up on the wall beside him. "I heard the alarm raised," the rightful King of Kings said. "What's toward?"
"We're about to have visitors," Abivard answered. "Just when or how many I can't say, but they're not the welcome sort."
"We knew this would happen," Sharbaraz said, biting his lip. "But Smerdis is moving faster than we thought, curse him. I hadn't looked to be penned in this stronghold before I had an army of my own strong enough to oppose the usurper."
"Yes." Abivard's voice was distracted. He pointed. "Do you think that's them, or is it only a flock?"
Sharbaraz squinted as he looked down along Abivard's outstretched arm. "Your eyes must be better than mine. No, wait, I see what you're pointing at. Those aren't cattle or sheep, I fear. Those are horsemen."
"I think so, too." Abivard would have been surer on a sunny day, with light sparking off lanceheads and horse trappings and chainmail. But the purposeful way the distant specks kept moving north told him all he needed to know.
"There aren't that many of them," Sharbaraz said after a bit.
"No. The rider who brought word said it was a small band," Abivard said. "Seems he was right." He looked toward the approaching troop. "I don't see any more behind them, either."
"Nor I." Sharbaraz sounded indignant, as if he thought Smerdis wasn't playing the game by the rules. "What can he hope to do by sending a boy—no, an unweaned babe—in place of a man?"
"If I knew, I would tell you," Abivard answered. "We'll find out within the half hour, though, I expect."
The royal soldier reined in at the base of the knob atop which Vek Rud stronghold perched. Some of the folk who lived in the town on the knob had fled up to the stronghold before Abivard ordered the gates closed. The rest did their best to pretend they were invisible.
One warrior rode up toward the stronghold with a whitewashed shield upraised as a sign of truce. He called in a loud voice, "Is it true Sharbaraz son of Peroz has taken up residence here?"
Abivard recognized the voice a moment before he recognized the face. "None of your affair, Zal," he called back. "Whether the answer is yea or nay, d'you think I'd let you in here again after the way you used me the last time you saw the courtyard?"
Zal's grin was wide and unashamed. "I just followed the orders I was given. But I think I have a token that will buy my way in."
"Do you? I'll believe that when I see it."
"Good thing the weather is so cold," Zal remarked as he reached back to open a saddlebag. "Otherwise this would stink a lot worse than it does." The comment made no sense to Abivard until the royal officer held up by the hair a severed head that, as he had said, was less than perfectly fresh but that had until recently without a doubt adorned the shoulders of the famous Murghab.
Gulping a little, Abivard said, "You're trying to convince me you're for Sharbaraz, not against him?"
Beside him, Sharbaraz whispered, "Whose head is that?"
"It belonged to Smerdis' tax collector, the one who extorted eighty-five hundred arkets from me as tribute for the Khamorth," Abivard whispered back. He raised his voice and called to Zal, "How say you?"
"Of course I'm for his Majesty," Zal cried. "I served Smerdis just as you did, thinking Sharbaraz had truly given up the throne. Then my men and I ran into a courier who had word from Nalgis Crag that his Majesty—his genuine Majesty, I mean—had escaped from imprisonment. That put a whole new light on things. I got rid of the courier and then I got rid of this thing—" He held Murghab's head a little higher. "—but I saved enough to maybe convince you I'm no assassin in the night."
"You ran into a courier, you say?" Abivard answered. "If that's so, you've taken your own sweet time getting here."
Zal shook his graying head. "Not so, youngster. I was a long way south, heading back toward Mashiz myself, when the fellow caught up with me. My best guess is that Smerdis Pimp of Pimps still hasn't heard the real King of Kings is loose."
Abivard and Sharbaraz looked at each other. If that was so . . . "It can't last forever," Abivard said.
"No," Sharbaraz agreed. "But the God would turn his back on us in disgust if we didn't make the best use of it we could."
"Are you two going to spend the whole day blathering up there?" Zal demanded impatiently. "Or will you open up so I can come in and we can talk without lowing at one another like cattle on the plains?"
"Open the gates," Abivard called to the men who served them. To Zal he said, "Come ahead—but you alone, for the time being. I still remember what happened the last time you got men in my stronghold."
"I wish I could give you back your silver, but this thing—" Zal raised Murghab's head. "—had already sent it on to the treasury. Only way for you to get repaid now is to fight and win that treasury for yourself."
He rode through the gates as they opened. Archers on the wall and in the courtyard covered him. Abivard shifted nervously from foot to foot. The soldiers down at the bottom of the knob were all cased in iron, and so were their horses; the King of Kings—even if he was now Pimp of Pimps, as Zal had called him—could afford to keep a great host of smiths busy turning iron strips into wire and wire into rings. If they galloped up for all they were worth, they might get in before the gates slammed, and if they got in, no telling how much damage they would do.
"Your Majesty, it were wiser for you to stay on the wall or on the stairs higher than a lance can reach," Abivard said.
"Wiser some ways, maybe, but not others." Without another word, Sharbaraz hurried down the stairway. He had said—and Abivard had seen, to his and Makuran's dismay—that his father Peroz had tended to strike first and ask questions later. By that standard, Sharbaraz was very much his father's son.
Zal swung down from his horse; though far from young, he was still smooth and limber. Careless of the slush in the courtyard, and of his coat and the armor under it, he went down onto his belly before Sharbaraz, knocking his forehead against the cobblestones.
"Get up, man," Sharbaraz told him. "You're Zal son of Sintrawk, one of the senior guard captains out of Mashiz?"
"Aye, that's me, Majesty." Zal sounded impressed and surprised that Sharbaraz should know of him. Abivard was also impressed, but less surprised. He had already seen Sharbaraz's mastery of detail.
Sharbaraz said, "When word I live does get out, how many other officers will also rally to my call?"
"A good number, Majesty, a good number." Zal went on, "The God willing, enough so all you'll have to do about Smerdis is hunt him down and lop off his head as I did with the famous Murghab. Only trouble is, I don't know whether the God will be that willing."
"Always an interesting question, isn't it?' Sharbaraz turned to Abivard. "This is your stronghold, lord dihqan; I would not presume to order you in its administration. But do you judge that Zal's men may safely be admitted here?"
The turn had offered Sharbaraz's back to Zal. At first, that alarmed Abivard: it struck him as a foolish chance to take. Then he realized Sharbaraz had done it on purpose. That left him no less alarmed, but he admired the nerve of the rightful King of Kings. Zal made no move to snatch out the sword or dagger that hung from his belt.
Seeing him pass that test, Abivard said, "Very well, Majesty." He asked Zal, "Would you sooner summon them yourself, or shall I do it?"
"Let me," Zal said. "They're less likely to think it's some kind of trap that way. In fact, given how far off they are, why don't I just ride back to them and let them know all's well?"
Abivard felt a whole new set of qualms: what was to keep Zal and his heavily armored fighters from heading back to Mashiz? Hunting them down would not be easy. He shook his head—if he had to reach that far for worries, they weren't worth the reach. He nodded to Zal. The guard captain got back onto his horse and headed down the knob.
Abivard glanced over to Sharbaraz. The rightful King of Kings was not as calm as he looked; he fidgeted most unregally. That made Abivard nervous again, too. He wanted to say something like This was your idea, but he couldn't, not to his sovereign.
Zal was too far away for anyone in the stronghold to hear what he said to his men. The cheer the squadron raised, though, rang sweet in Abivard's ears. He felt himself grinning like a fool. A broad, relieved smile stretched over Sharbaraz's face, too. "We got away with it," he said.
"Looks that way," Abivard agreed, doing his best to sound casual.
The horsemen rode up through the town, singing loudly and discordantly. Abivard needed a little while to recognize the tune: a song in praise of the King of Kings. Sharbaraz pumped an excited fist in the air. "The truth brings men to my side," he exclaimed, and Abivard nodded.
"Here comes someone else," Frada said, pointing out toward the southwest.
"I see him," Abivard answered. "If Smerdis chose to hit us now, he'd bag most of the dihqans from the northwestern part of the realm."
"If Smerdis chose to hit us now, his army would desert," his younger brother said confidently. "How could it be otherwise? Now that everyone knows he's but a usurper—and now that the rightful King of Kings is free—who could want to fight for him? He'll be cowering in the palace at Mashiz, waiting for Sharbaraz to come and put him out of his misery."
"The God grant that you're right." Though he didn't want to detail them before Frada, Abivard had his doubts. The last time he had been sure something would work perfectly, he had been riding north with Peroz to settle the Khamorth once and for all. That had indeed worked . . . but not the way Peroz intended.
"Who comes?" one of the men at the gate called to the approaching noble and his retinue.
"Digor son of Nadina, dihqan of Azarmidukht Hills domain," came the reply.
"Welcome to Vek Rud domain, Digor of the Azarmidukht Hills," the guard replied. "Know that Sharbaraz King of Kings has declared Vek Rud stronghold a truce ground. No matter that you be at feud with your neighbor; if you meet him here, you meet him as a friend. So Sharbaraz has ordered; so shall it be."
"So shall it be," Digor echoed. Abivard couldn't tell whether the order angered him; he kept his voice quiet and his face composed. Unlike a lot of the nobles gathering here, he was neither unusually young nor unusually old. Either he hadn't gone onto the Pardrayan steppe or he had come away safe again.
Abivard took out a scrap of parchment, a jar of ink, and a reed pen. He inked the pen, lined through Digor's name, and replaced the writing paraphernalia. Frada smiled. "Our father would have approved," he said.
"What, that I'm keeping a list?" Abivard smiled, too, then pointed down to the mass of men who milled about in the courtyard. "I'd never manage to have all of them straight without it."
"It took Sharbaraz's summons to bring them all here," Frada said, "and it's taking Sharbaraz's truce call to keep 'em from yanking out swords and going at one another. Some of the feuds here go back to the days of the Prophets Four."
"I know," Abivard said. "I'd hoped, with so many new men heading domains, some of them could have been forgotten, but it doesn't look that way. As long as they hate Smerdis worse than their neighbors, we should do well enough."
"I hope you're right," Frada said. "How many more nobles do we expect to come?"
"Three, I think." Abivard consulted his parchment. "Yes, three, that's right."
"I don't think his Majesty is in the mood to wait for them much longer." Frada pointed back to the living quarters, where Sharbaraz stared from a window. He had been pacing restlessly for the past three days, ever since the northwestern dihqans started flooding into Vek Rud domain in response to his summons.
"Just as well, too," Abivard answered. "They're eating us out of house and home, and who knows how long they'll keep honoring the truce here? One knife comes out and everyone will remember all the blood feuds—and drag us into them. Our line has mostly stayed clear of such, but a murder or two on the grounds of Vek Rud stronghold would be plenty to keep our great-grandchildren watching their neighbors out of the corner of the eye."
"You're right about that," Frada said. "Getting into a feud is easy. Getting out of one again—" He shook his head.
Sharbaraz evidently chose that moment to decide he would wait no more for the few remaining sluggards. He came out of the living quarters and strode through the crowd in the courtyard toward the speaking platform Abivard's carpenters had built for him. He had on no gorgeous robe like the one Peroz had worn even on campaign, just a plain caftan of heavy wool and a conical helm with a spray of feathers for a crest. Even so, he drew men's notice as a lodestone draws chunks of iron. The aimless milling in the courtyard became purposeful as the assembled nobles turned toward the platform to hear what he would say.
Abivard and Frada hurried down from their place atop the wall. By the time they began jockeying for a place from which to listen to the rightful King of Kings, they would have had to commit an assault, or rather several, to get a good one. Abivard did not bother. Unlike the rest of the dihqans, he had had the pleasure of Sharbaraz's company for some weeks, so he already had a good notion of what the rightful King of Kings was likely to say.
Sharbaraz drew his sword and waved it overhead. "My friends!" he cried. "Are we going to stay enslaved to the Khamorth on the one hand and on the other to the bloodsucking worm in Mashiz who drains us dry to make the nomads fat? Are we?"
"No!" The roar from the crowd echoed and reechoed off the stronghold's stone walls, filling the courtyard with tumult. Abivard felt his ears assailed from every direction.
"Are we going to let some wizened clerk defile with his stinking backside the seat that properly belongs to true men?" Sharbaraz shouted. "Or shall we take back what's ours and teach a lesson that will leave would-be traitors and usurpers shivering and sniveling a thousand years from now?"
"Aye!" This time the roar was louder.
Sharbaraz said, "By now you've no doubt heard how the usurper stole the throne—drugs in my supper. And you've likely had him rob you, saying he'd pay the Khamorth to stay on their own side of the Degird. Tell me, lords, have the cursed plainsmen stayed on their side of the Degird?"
"No!" Now it wasn't a roar, but a harsh cry of anger. Few along the border had not suffered from the nomads' raids.
Warming to his theme now that he had stirred his listeners, Sharbaraz went on, "So, lords, my friends, will you leave on the throne this wretch who stole it by treachery and who lies with every breath he takes, whose own officers began to desert him the moment his lies became clear?"
"No!" the crowd cried once more.
Before Sharbaraz could go on, Zal shouted to everybody, "And I'm not the only one who'll flee him as if he were the plague, now that the truth comes out. What honest man could wish to serve a liar?"
"None!" the assembled dihqans yelled, again with that note of fury baying in their voices. When a noble of Makuran gave his word, a man was supposed to be able to rely on it. How much more did that apply to the King of Kings?
"So what say you, lords?" Sharbaraz asked. "Do we ride south when the weather turns fine? We'll sweep all before us, ride into Mashiz in triumph, and set Makuran back on its proper course. I'll not deny, we shan't be able to deal at once with the Khamorth as they deserve, but we can keep them out of our land. And, by the God, once I'm on the throne we can settle scores with Videssos. If the easterners, may the God pitch them into the Void, hadn't incited the nomads against us, our brave warriors, my bold father, would yet live. Are you with me, then, in taking vengeance against the Empire and its false god?"
"Aye!" Abivard yelled as loudly as he could. Settling Videssos' arrogance had ranked high with his father. If Sharbaraz chose to lead that way, he would follow.
By the cries that rose around him, most of the dihqans felt as he did. The Khamorth were close, but to any man of Makuran, Videssos was the enemy. The nomads' confederacies scattered like pomegranate seeds when the fruit was stamped underfoot, now dangerous, now harmless. Videssos endured.
Sharbaraz plunged into the crowd. Men swarmed toward him, to pound him on the back, clasp his hand, pledge loyalty forever, and boast of the mincemeat they would make of any of Smerdis' men misguided enough to stand against them.
Caught up in the moment, Abivard and Frada pushed through the nobles toward the rightful King of Kings along with everyone else. Working as a team, they made good progress. "You know, we're foolish to be doing this," Frada said after an exchange of elbows with some noble from a hundred farsangs west of Vek Rud domain. "The King of Kings has been here a long time, and he'll stay longer still."
"True, but what of afterward?" Abivard said. "When the war is won, he'll go live in Mashiz and never leave save to go on campaign, and we'll likely end up back here."
"That doesn't have to be so, not when he's wed to our sister," Frada said. "We have his ear on account of that; we could make our own place at the capital."
Abivard grunted dubiously. "What would become of the domain, then? The king's favor—any king's favor, be he ever so good—waxes and wanes like the moon. Land goes on forever, and this land is ours."
Frada laughed out loud. "I listen to you, and it's as if Father were still here to sound like a sage."
"Ha!" Abivard said, pleased at the compliment and worried he couldn't live up to it. Whatever other reply he might have made turned into a hissed exclamation of pain when a dihqan with a beard braided into three strands stomped on his foot and shoved him aside. Frada caught the fellow with an elbow in the belly that folded him up like a fan. The two brothers grinned at each other.
Only a few nobles stood between them and Sharbaraz. Around the rightful King of Kings, moving at all was hard, for those who had already spoken with him were trying to get away, while those who still wanted to gain his ear pushed in at them. A couple of dihqans squeezed out between Abivard and Frada—and incidentally almost knocked over the fellow who had trampled Abivard's instep—letting them gain another couple of steps toward their sovereign.
Men came at Sharbaraz from all directions. Just standing before him did not mean you could speak with him, for dihqans also shouted at him from behind and both sides. He kept turning his head and twisting about like a man playing mallet and ball—wary lest an opponent clout him, not the ball, with his mallet.
When Abivard caught his eye at last, Sharbaraz threw his arms wide, as if to encompass the whole packed courtyard. "They're mine!" he cried. "We'll sweep Smerdis Pimp of Pimps—" He had zestfully stolen Zal's mocking title for his rival. "—out of Mashiz like a servant woman getting the dust from a storeroom. Once that's done, we'll turn on Videssos and—"
"Duck, your Majesty!" Abivard and Frada cried together. Sharbaraz might not have seen battle, but he had a warrior's reflexes. Without gaping or asking questions, he started to throw himself flat. That saved his life. The knife the man behind him wielded cut his robe and scored a bleeding line across his shoulder, but did not slide between his ribs to find his heart.
"The God curse you, curse your house, straight to the Void," the dihqan cried, drawing back his arm for another stab. The fellow beside him, horror on his face, seized it before he could bring it forward again. Abivard and Frada both leapt on the would-be assassin and wrestled him to the ground.
He fought like a man possessed, even after the nobles forced the knife from his hand. Only the weight of men on top of him finally made him quit by crushing the air from his lungs. Since most of those men were on top of Abivard, too, he struggled for every breath he took.
"Haul him up," Sharbaraz said when the dihqan was subdued. One at a time, the nobles who had piled onto him got off. Abivard and Frada clutched him and yanked him to his feet. When he started to try to break free, someone hit him in the pit of the stomach. That made him double up and cost him the wind he had just regained.
Sharbaraz had his right hand clapped to his left shoulder. Blood stained his robe and trickled out between his fingers. But the wound was at the top of the shoulder, and his left arm and hand worked; he had that hand clenched into a tight fist against the pain. Abivard dared hope the wound less than serious.
The rightful King of Kings stared at his attacker. "What did I do to you, Prypat, to deserve your knife in my back?" Even after narrowly escaping death, he remembered his assailant's name.
Prypat's face twisted. "Why shouldn't I kill you?" he said in hitching gasps. "Thanks to your cursed sire, my own father, my grandfather, all my elder brothers are ravens' fodder and wolves' meat, their gear plunder for the plainsmen. Every man here holds blood debt against you, did he but have the wit to see it."
Sharbaraz shook his head, then grimaced; the motion must have hurt. "Not so," he replied, as if arguing in court rather than passing judgment on the man who had tried to murder him. "My father acted as he thought best for Makuran. No man is perfect; the God holds that for himself. But the campaign did not fail through malice, nor did the King of Kings murder your kin. I grieve that they fell; I grieve that so many from all the realm fell. But my house incurred no blood debt on account of it."
"Lie all you like—my kin still lie dead," Prypat said.
"And you'll join them," someone cried to him. The dihqans snarled like angry dogs. Fear wasn't the least part of that, Abivard judged. Here they had come to Vek Rud stronghold to join Sharbaraz against Smerdis. Had Prypat killed Sharbaraz, the revolt against Mashiz would have died with him; none of the northwestern men had the force of character to make a King of Kings. But when Smerdis learned they had assembled here, he would have taken vengeance just the same. No wonder they were so ready to condemn Prypat out of hand.
Sharbaraz asked him, "Have you any reason I shouldn't order your head stricken off?" That in itself was a mercy. Anyone who tried to slay the King of Kings was liable to death with as much pain and ingenuity as his torturers could devise. But here as everywhere else, Sharbaraz was straightforward, direct, averse to wasting time.
Prypat tried to spit on him, then knelt and bent his head. "I die proud, for I sought to restore my clan's pride."
"Knifing a man in the back is nothing to be proud of." Blood still welled between Sharbaraz's fingers. He raised his voice to call to the nobles: "Who carries a heavy sword?"
Abivard did, but he hesitated, not eager to speak up. Killing a man in battle was one thing, killing him in cold blood—even if he was passionately eager to die—another. While Abivard tried to nerve himself, Zal beat him to it. "I do, your Majesty, and practice using it for justice, as well."
"Strike, then," Sharbaraz said. So did Prypat, at the same time. That seemed to nonplus the rightful King of Kings, but he took his right hand off his wound for a moment to beckon Zal forward. Prypat waited without moving as the officer came up, drew the sword, swung it up with both hands on the hilt, and brought it down. The stroke was clean; Prypat's head sprang from his shoulders. His body convulsed. Blood fountained over the cobbles for the few seconds his heart needed to realize he was dead.
"Dispose of the carrion, if you please," Sharbaraz said to Abivard. He swayed where he stood.
Abivard rushed to support him. "Here, come with me, Majesty," he said, guiding Sharbaraz back toward the living quarters. "We'd best learn how badly you're hurt."
Servants exclaimed in dismay when they saw what had happened. At Abivard's barked orders, they arranged pillows in the hallway just inside the entrance. "Let's lay you down, Majesty," Abivard said to Sharbaraz, who half squatted, half toppled down onto the cushions.
Without Abivard's asking for them, a serving woman fetched him a bowl of water and some rags. He made the tear in Sharbaraz's robe bigger so he could get a good look at the wound. Sharbaraz tried to twist his neck and look down the side of his face so he could see it, too. He succeeded only in making himself hurt worse. "How is it?" he asked Abivard, his voice shaky now that he didn't have to keep up a front for the assembled dihqans.
"Not as bad as I thought," Abivard answered. "It's long, aye, but not deep. And it's bled freely, so it's less likely to fester." He turned and, as he had hoped, found the serving woman hovering behind him. He told her, "Fetch me the wound paint—you know the one I mean." She nodded and hurried away.
"Will it hurt?" Sharbaraz asked, anxious as a boy with a barked shin.
"Not too much, Majesty, I hope," Abivard answered. "It's wine and honey and fine-ground myrrh. After I put it on, I'll cover the wound with grease and bandage you up. You should be all right if you don't try to do too much with that arm for the next few days." I hope, he added to himself. In spite of medicines, you never could tell what would happen when a man got hurt.
The serving woman returned, handing Abivard a small pot. As he worked the stopper free, she said, "Lord, the lady your sister—your Majesty's wife," she added, working up the nerve to speak to Sharbaraz, "wants to know what befell and how the King of Kings fares."
"Tell her I'm fine," Sharbaraz said at once.
"Word travels fast. Tell her he got cut but I think he'll be fine," Abivard said, a qualified endorsement. He upended the pot above Sharbaraz' shoulder. The medicine slowly poured out. Sharbaraz hissed when it touched the wound. "Bring me some lard before you go speak with Denak," Abivard told the serving woman. Again, she rushed to obey.
When Abivard had treated the cut to his satisfaction, he put a bandage pad on top of it and tied the pad in place with a rag that went around Sharbaraz' shoulder and armpit. The rightful King of Kings sighed to have the ordeal done, then said, "I find myself in your debt yet again."
"Nonsense, your Majesty." Abivard poured a cupful of red wine. "Drink this. The magicians say it builds blood, being like blood itself."
"I've heard that myself. I don't know whether it's true, but I'll gladly drink the wine any which way." Sharbaraz fit action to word. "By the God, that's better going down my throat than splashed on my shoulder." He thrust the cup back at Abivard. "I think I may have lost enough to need more building."
As Abivard poured again, the serving woman returned once more and said, "Your Majesty, lord, may it please the both of you, the lady Denak says she wants to see you as soon as may be—and if that's not soonest, she'll come out to do it."
Sharbaraz looked at Abivard. They both knew Denak was capable of doing just that, and both knew the scandal it would create among the dihqans would not help the rightful King of Kings' cause. Sharbaraz said, "Lady, tell my wife I shall see her directly in my chamber."
The serving woman beamed at being treated as if of noble blood. She trotted out of the kitchens yet again. Sharbaraz set his jaw and got to his feet. "Here, your Majesty, lean on me," Abivard said. "You don't want to start yourself bleeding hard again by trying to do too much."
"I suppose not," Sharbaraz said, although he didn't sound quite sure. But he put his right arm on Abivard's shoulder and let the dihqan take a good deal of his weight as they made their way down the halls of the living quarters to the chamber he was using as his own.
"Wait here," Abivard said when they reached it. "I'll be back with Denak fast as I can." Sharbaraz nodded and sank onto the bed with a groan he did his best to stifle. In spite of the fortifying wine, he looked very pale.
Denak stood impatiently tapping her foot at the door between Abivard's bedchamber and the women's quarters. "Took you long enough," she said when Abivard opened that door. "No talking around it now—how is he?"
"Wounded," Abivard answered. "He can still use the arm. If he heals properly, he should be fine but for the scar."
Denak searched his face. "You wouldn't lie to me? No, you wouldn't, not when I'll see for myself as fast as we can walk there—and would you walk a little faster, please?" In spite of her brittle tone, something eased in her step, in the set of her shoulders, with every step she took. As much to herself as to Abivard, she went on, "Life wouldn't be worth living without him."
Abivard didn't answer. Again, he wanted to take his sister in his arms and hold her to try to make her feel better, but Denak went hard as stone if anyone save Sharbaraz, man or woman, tried to embrace her. Without Sharbaraz's quick thinking, she would have reckoned her honor altogether lost and, without her honor, Abivard didn't think she cared to live. He thanked the God that she had been able to piece together as much of her life as she had.
When she saw Sharbaraz flat on the bed, his face the color of parchment, she gasped and swayed before visibly gathering herself. "What happened?" she demanded of him. "I've already heard three different tales."
"I don't doubt that." Sharbaraz managed a smile that was less than half grimace. "One of the dihqans decided I was to blame for what his clan suffered out on the steppe and reckoned to avenge himself on me. He had courage; I've never seen nor heard of a man's dying better after he failed."
His detached attitude won him no points from Denak. "He might have murdered you, and you're talking about how brave he was? It's a good thing he's dead. If he'd done what he set out to do—" Her voice all but broke. "I don't know what I would have done."
Sharbaraz sat up on the bed. Abivard would have pushed him back down, but Denak beat him to it. The ease with which he flattened out again told of the wound he had suffered. Still, his second attempt at a smile came closer to the genuine article than the first one had. He said, "I can afford to be generous, since I'm alive. If I were dead and he still lived, I'd be less forgiving."
Denak stared at him, then let out a strangled snort. "Now I begin to believe you'll get better. No dying man could make such foolish jokes."
"Thank you, my dear." Sharbaraz sounded a bit stronger, but he didn't try to rise again. He went on, "Your brother here put me in his debt three more times: by shouting a warning, by helping to wrestle the knifeman to the ground, and for his excellent doctoring. If I do pull through, it will be because of him."
"Your Majesty is too kind," Abivard murmured.
"No, he's not," Denak said. "If you acted the proper hero, the world should know of it. The dihqans will take word back to their domains, but we ought to put a minstrel to singing your praises, too."
"Do you know what Father would say if he heard you talking of such things?" Abivard said, flushing. "First he'd laugh till he cried, then he'd paddle your backside for having the crust to even think of paying a minstrel to praise me for something it was my duty to do."
Invoking Godarz usually ended an argument as effectively as slamming a door. This time, though, Denak shook her head. "Father was a fine dihqan, Abivard, none better, but he never involved himself in the affairs of the realm as a whole. You've gone from being an ordinary dihqan like him to a man close to the throne. You rescued Sharbaraz and you became his brother-in-law, all in the space of a day. When he takes back his throne, you think some dihqans and most marzbans won't resent you for an upstart? The more you show you deserve your place at his right hand, the likelier you are to keep it. Nothing wrong with praising the courage you really did show to help you build your fame."
Denak set hands on hips and looked defiancé at Abivard. Before he could reply, Sharbaraz said, "She's right. The court works like the women's quarters, though it may be worse. What you are is not nearly so important as what people think you are, and what people think the King of Kings thinks you are."
Godarz had said things like that, most often with a sardonic gleam in his eye. Abivard had never expected to have to worry about them. Now he was hearing them from his sister, and in a position where he had to pay attention to her even if—and partly because—she was a woman. He remembered the talk he'd had with Frada not long before Prypat tried to knife Sharbaraz. He might want to ignore the intrigues of Mashiz, but they would not ignore him.
Sharbaraz said, "Brother-in-law of mine, one thing has to happen before you start worrying about such things."
"What's that?" Abivard asked.
"We have to win."