A servant in Zautzes' residence lit lamps. Sunset was coming soon, and twilight wouldn't last long. Lamplight made a sorry substitute for daylight, but on Midwinter's Day daylight would not serve. Rhavas was glad he hadn't decided to soak himself in the sweet blood of the grape. With this news, he needed to be able to think straight.
Zautzes stared at the courier like a frog in a street puddle staring at a wagon bearing down on it. He plainly had been less moderate than Rhavas. He blinked and blinked, trying to make his wits work. Another servant brought wine for the courier and the prelate and more wine for the eparch. Zautzes gulped thirstily. Rhavas left his own goblet untouched. He asked, "Where have the nomads crossed the border?"
Before answered, the courier sipped from his winecup. Unlike Zautzes, he'd earned the right to drink. "Where have they crossed, very holy sir?" he echoed. "Ask me where they haven't—that'll be a shorter list. From what I've heard, they're over it all the way from the Astris—not far from Videssos the city—up here to the northeast. They're over, and their cursed wheeled carts are over, and their flocks are over. They've come to stay, unless we can throw 'em out."
"Phos!" Rhavas muttered. He felt like drinking now, though he still refrained. This was every Avtokrator's nightmare, come to life before his eyes.
"Throwing them back won't be easy," Zautzes said, "not with things, uh, being in the mess they're in." He still had his wits sufficiently about him to watch what he said and how he said it.
"Not with Maleinos and Stylianos at each other's throats, you mean." Rhavas had no compunction about telling the truth as he saw it. He seldom did. "This is a time when they need to set the needs of the Empire above their own ambitions."
"Good luck!" Zautzes said with a fine sardonic relish that wouldn't have been out of place even in the capital.
Rhavas scowled back at him. Zautzes gave back a stare more owlish than froggy. He might have said, Go ahead. Tell me I'm wrong. Rhavas couldn't, and he knew it, and he hated the knowledge. To a man with his eye on the throne, his imperial rival would loom larger than any foreign invaders.
The courier looked from the eparch to the prelate and back again. "Most honorable sir, very holy sir, what are we going to do?" he asked, showing a touching confidence that the two high officials would be able to tell him what he wanted to know.
Prelate and eparch looked at each other. Both men shrugged at the same time. Zautzes was never shy about talking, and the wine had done nothing to make him quieter. Where Rhavas kept quiet, he spoke up: "We'll just have to wait and see where the barbarians go and what they do. Then we'll be able to judge how best to deal with them."
That sounded good. The courier nodded, impressed by Zautzes' wisdom. Rhavas' orderly, logical mind noted that the eparch could just as well have said, I don't know. That would have meant exactly the same thing. Rhavas was willing to admit it wouldn't have sounded nearly so impressive.
The courier emptied his winecup, set it down on the table next to his stool, and yawned enormously. How long and how far had he ridden to bring his bad news to Skopentzana? Zautzes called for a servant. No one came. The eparch looked astonished. Rhavas said, "It is Midwinter's Day, most honorable sir. You're lucky you got anyone to come back and give us wine. Your men are probably out reveling again."
"Bah!" Zautzes said, and then, to the courier, "Here, come along. I'll give you a bed for the night." A long night it would be, too.
"May the good god shine his light on you for your kindness," the courier said, sounding like a well-raised young man. He lurched to his feet. Half leaning on Zautzes, he left the eparch's study.
When Zautzes came back a few minutes later, he looked thoroughly grim. The wine he'd drunk might have made him mouthy, but it hadn't fuddled him. "What are we going to do, very holy sir?" he asked. "All the nomads have to do is follow the course of the Anazarbos. If nothing stops them, the river will lead them straight here."
"What could stop them?" Rhavas asked. "You watched the garrison leave, the same as I did. Nothing but villages and scattered farmers between the border and Skopentzana."
That made Zautzes look grimmer yet. "We have to keep them out," he said. "We have to. Can you imagine what they'd do if they got loose in the city?"
"I suppose I can imagine some of the things they'd do," Rhavas said judiciously. "I would really rather not discover how good my imagination is."
"A point," the eparch admitted. "Yes, unfortunately a distinct point. What I wonder most right now is, how am I supposed to enjoy the rest of Midwinter's Day? Anything can happen, they say, yes, but that doesn't usually include getting overrun by nomads who never bathe and who'd herd—and slaughter—people in place of cattle and sheep if they got half a chance. The Khamorth aren't my idea of fun, I fear."
"Nor mine." Rhavas looked west, as if he could see through all the miles of space between Skopentzana and the wandering clans of plainsmen. Not enough miles between them, not now. His formidable brow furrowed in thought. "We can't turn them back with soldiers, can we?"
"Not unless you've got some soldiers stashed in your basement along with the turnips and the beans and the barley," Zautzes said.
Rhavas didn't dignify that with a direct answer. Instead, he went on with his own train of thought: "Can we turn them back with magecraft, then?"
Zautzes' big, bulging eyes narrowed. "Well, I'm not the one to ask, very holy sir—you should talk with a real live wizard instead. But I have to tell you something: I've heard ideas I like a whole lot less. How strong can the nomads' shamans be?"
"Not strong at all," Rhavas said firmly. "They reverence demons and devils, and come close to worshiping Skotos outright. Sorcerers who favor Phos must prevail against them them."
"All right, then." The eparch spoke as if everything were all settled. "We'll go out and give them what for. We've got plenty of sorcerers in this town. Let them earn their keep for something better than finding a little old lady's lost bracelet." He made it sound very simple.
Since Rhavas had never done any campaigning, it seemed simple to him, too. "Most honorable sir, this is a fine plan," he said.
"Glad you think so." Complacence at his own cleverness filled Zautzes' voice, even though the idea had been Rhavas'. Zautzes pointed at the prelate. "You should go with them, you know. Wizards are only men—sinners like anybody else. You, though, very holy sir, you really are a link between this sordid world and the good god."
"Me?" Rhavas said in surprise. Zautzes nodded. Rhavas thought it over. He'd never tried to travel in the northern part of the Empire of Videssos during winter, either. People did; he knew that. The courier now drifting toward sleep in Zautzes' guest room was living proof of it. Rhavas dipped his head in assent. "I'll do it. It's the least I can do for the Empire."
"Good man!" Zautzes exclaimed—by which he no doubt meant that Rhavas was doing what he wanted. He went on, "It will be something out of the ordinary for you."
Whatever else it would be, it would surely be that. Rhavas wondered what he'd just got himself into. Before long, he would find out. He took his leave of Zautzes and walked out of the eparch's residence. The sun, by then, had long since disappeared after its brief midday visit. The stars and the northern lights ruled the sky again, as they did for all but a little stretch of time at this season of the year.
The people of Skopentzana didn't seem to care. Midwinter's Day was Midwinter's Day. They intended to celebrate it. Not even the news of the irruption of the Khamorth could slow the revels. The nomads might have broken into the Empire, but they were nowhere near Skopentzana.
Yet, Rhavas thought. They're nowhere near here yet.
People said the Khamorth were born in the saddle and spent their whole lives aboard their steppe ponies. People said they walked with a bowlegged waddle because they used their legs more for clutching the barrel of a horse than for getting around on the ground. People said all sorts of things about them, some of which might have been true and a lot of which were bound to be nonsense.
Rhavas wondered what people would have said about the expedition setting forth from Skopentzana on a bitterly cold winter's day. People could have said that he was one of the better horsemen in the expedition. That would have been true—and it also would have alarmed anyone who knew what sort of rider Rhavas was.
Most of Skopentzana's wizards, though, did make him look as if he'd been born in the saddle himself. Several of them were on horseback for the first time in their lives, having been in the habit of riding donkeys or mules when they rode at all. They kept complaining about how far off the ground they were.
"Don't worry," one of Zautzes' guards said cheerfully—he was a man who could ride. "If you fall into a snowdrift, you'll see it's nice and soft."
Even that wasn't quite true. The snow had a hard crust on it, one thick enough in spots for a man to walk on it without leaving tracks. Falling on that would be no bargain. Rhavas kept the hood of his robe up over his ears and his tonsured scalp. None of this was any bargain, not so far as he could see.
Ptarmigan took off with a whir of white wings. He'd never noticed them till they flew. In summer, the birds were mostly brown. In spring and fall, their plumage was brown and white. Now, in the wintertime, they were white but for eyes and wingtips. Hares and ferrets and foxes went through the same color changes.
How do they know? Rhavas wondered. They had no calendars. They didn't pray and then roister on Midwinter's Day. But their changes were as reliable as the seasons themselves. The prelate shrugged, there in the saddle. He had no idea how the animals guessed the turning of the year.
"What is it, very holy sir?" A wizard named Koubatzes rode close by Rhavas. He had the highest reputation of any mage in Skopentzana. Many wizards went out of their way to impress those who saw them, wearing gaudy robes and long, elaborately curled beards and letting their hair grow long. Koubatzes didn't bother with any of that. He put Rhavas in mind of a clerk or a secretary. He was thin, middle-aged, and nondescript. His gray-streaked beard was closely trimmed; his robe, if of finer wool than most clerks could afford, was of an ordinary cut and dyed an unremarkable dark green.
Rhavas told him, finishing, "No theologian I know of has ever pondered this. Do sorcerers know more of it than priests?"
Koubatzes' eyes narrowed. His features sharpened. When he thought hard, his face was no longer ordinary. Wit shone from it like light from a lamp. More ptarmigan, frightened by the horsemen, rose into the air. Koubatzes' gaze followed the snowy birds till they came to earth again and disappeared.
"Well, well," the sorcerer said thoughtfully. His gaze swung back to Rhavas. "Isn't that interesting? No, very holy sir, I can't tell you how or why animals turn the color of snow when winter comes."
"Not all of them do." Rhavas pointed to the Anazarbos River, near whose southern bank the Videssians rode. The river hadn't yet frozen from bank to bank, as it would later in the winter. Some ducks floated on the icy water. Their plumage was duller than it would have been in summertime, but they hadn't gone white. Squirrels that gnawed on fir cones through the winter stayed red. Badgers and bears kept their color, too.
"Isn't that interesting?" Koubatzes said again, giving the ducks the same close attention he'd lavished on the ptarmigan. "The ducks are out on the water, mind you, while the ptarmigan live in the snow. A brown bird on a snowdrift wouldn't last long. That seems plain enough."
"What of ravens?" Rhavas asked, and the wizard winced. Rhavas went on, "Besides, you and I can see that changing color would might be to a bird's advantage, but how does the bird itself know that?"
"Beats me," Koubatzes admitted. "About the most I can tell you is that birds that turn white might—and I say it again: might—be likelier to live to breed. If the darker ones got eaten before they laid eggs . . ." He shrugged. "Take it for what you think it's worth, if you think it's worth anything."
"I don't know," Rhavas said. "Wouldn't turning white do a raven or a squirrel as much good as a ptarmigan? But ravens stay black and squirrels stay red."
"I told you I didn't have the answer," Koubatzes said, his breath smoking with every exhalation. "I just threw out an idea to see what you made of it. It's not likely to be true."
The horses plodded on. Their breath smoked, too. The day was bright and clear, but far below freezing. Even so far north, mild winter days were known, but this wasn't one of them. Birches and poplars and maples stood bare-branched and skeletal. Fir and pine and spruce stayed green the year around, but carried so much snow that they looked as if they were trying to turn white like the ptarmigan. Pleased with the conceit, Rhavas mentioned it to Koubatzes.
"Ah? Intriguing." The mage raised an eyebrow. "Now if you could get the trees to go white in winter without snow on them, very holy sir, you'd really have something."
"Mmp." Rhavas felt obscurely punctured.
He slept that night in a felt tent heated only by a charcoal-burning brazier. He wrapped himself in blankets and a fur robe and slept in all of his clothes, but remained cold and uncomfortable. He'd slept on the deck of the ship that brought him to Skopentzana—it was sleep on the deck or do without sleep. Since then, though, he'd lain in a bed every night. He would have complained more about the arrangements if the wizards and the guards weren't sleeping on the ground bundled in whatever they had, too.
Hot barley porridge sweetened with honey helped resign him to being out in the wilderness the next morning. So did hot mulled wine. Off in the distance, smoke rose from a peasant's hut. In this part of the Empire, peasants who couldn't keep a fire burning through the winter often didn't live to see spring.
Rhavas' thighs let out an unhappy twinge as he clambered up onto his horse. Some of the wizards groaned, too. Again, that made the prelate feel better. Yes, misery did love company.
"How long before we come across the nomads?" Rhavas asked the chief guardsman, a dour man named Ingeros whose gray eyes and light brown hair said he carried a good deal of Haloga blood.
Ingeros had grown up in Skopentzana, though, and was wholly Videssian in everything but looks. His shrug was a small masterpiece of its kind. It would have drawn admiration in Videssos the city. Here in this frozen wilderness, it struck Rhavas as being beyond praise. "We'll come across them when we do, very holy sir," he answered. "Or, if no band is making for Skopentzana, we won't. In that case, we go home."
That no band of Khamorth might head for Skopentzana hadn't occurred to Rhavas. The mere idea made him angry. How dare they ignore my city? went through his mind. He laughed at himself. He hadn't realized he'd become such a part of Skopentzana, or it of him. I'm not just an exile from the capital, not anymore.
A snowy owl slid silently across the sky. The big white birds flew mostly by daylight. Rhavas had had to get used to that on coming to the north country; down in Videssos the city and most of the Empire, seeing an owl by daylight was reckoned the worst of bad luck. It wasn't daylight here, not yet, but morning twilight said the sun was nearing the southeastern horizon.
Koubatzes saw the owl, too. Pointing, he said, "It's white all the time. What do you make of that?"
"We wouldn't call it a snowy owl if it were the color of mud," Rhavas answered gravely.
"Well—no." The wizard asked no more questions about animals after that, which suited Rhavas: he'd got more for his idle comment than he'd expected.
They rode west along the riverbank. In due course, the sun did come up behind them and pushed long shadows out ahead. Those shadows did not grow a great deal shorter as the brief daylight wore along. At this season of the year, the sun never rose high enough to cast short shadows.
More ducks bobbed in the Anazarbos. Rhavas also wondered how they could sit there all day without freezing: he wouldn't have lasted long in that frigid water. This time, though, he kept quiet about his curiosity.
The wizards and the guards and the prelate rode up to the top of a low rise. Ingeros was in the lead. He suddenly reined in and threw up a hand to halt the others. "What is it?" a sorcerer called.
"Sheep," Ingeros answered.
Never had Rhavas heard such an innocent word sound so sinister. "Khamorth sheep?" he asked.
"Sure looks that way to me," Ingeros said, and then, "Ha! Yes, there's one of the whoresons on his cursed pony."
Rhavas sketched the sun-circle over his heart. The plainsmen had traveled better than half as fast as the news of their coming. Their mobility had always plagued the Videssians, who'd had to defend a long frontier against them. Two or three times, imperial armies had come to grief going out onto the steppe in pursuit of the elusive Khamorth. From the time of Stavrakios to that of Stylianos, no Videssian army had tried it. But the rebellious general had won victories. Not enough of them, Rhavas thought.
Now Videssos' painfully perfect border bastions lay abandoned. The barbarians were inside the Empire—inside it on a vast front, in fact. Would they prove as hard to drive back as they had to contain on the plains? Rhavas spat in the snow, as if rejecting Skotos, in hopes of turning aside the evil omen.
Ingeros rode back to the men he shepherded. "Stay here," he told them. "Don't go over the rise and show yourself to the stinking nomads. Have you got that, sorcerous sirs?"
Koubatzes and the other mages nodded. Rhavas decided he had better do the same. One of the wizards asked, "What's to keep the Khamorth from coming over the rise themselves and finding us?"
"Well, it could happen, but I don't look for it right away," Ingeros replied. "Seems like the sheep have scraped off some of the snow there and found pretty decent grazing underneath. The Khamorth go where their flocks take them half the time—more than half, by the good god. If the sheep are happy, the plainsmen are happy, too. And so, sorcerous sirs, right now I'd say it's up to you."
"We'll do what we can," Koubatzes said. None of the other wizards disagreed or tried to take pride of place from him. They recognized that he was the best they had. When they weren't complaining about how high they were on horseback or how cold it was, they'd talked shop on the way out from Skopentzana. Rhavas knew something about sorcery. Few well-educated priests didn't; one order of monks, in fact, specialized in weather-working wizardry. That also involved astrology, or perhaps astronomy, in ways Rhavas didn't fully understand. He followed these mages well enough when they went on about the laws of similarity and contagion. As they got more technical, though, they might as well have started using the Haloga language.
Ingeros slid down from his horse. One of the other guards took the animal's reins. Ingeros reached into a saddlebag. He pulled out a white robe with a hood, which he draped over the clothes he already had on. He walked through the snow toward the top of the rise. As he neared it, he pulled the hood up over his head and crawled on his belly. The hood and robe did for him what white feathers did for ptarmigan and white fur for hare and ferret and fox: they made him disappear against the snowy background. He could spy on the Khamorth without their seeing him.
Koubatzes also dismounted. Before doing anything else, he paused to rub his hindquarters. Rhavas fundamentally approved of the gesture. "Methodios!" Koubatzes said, and pointed to a younger wizard.
"What do you need?" Methodios asked.
"You have a good deal of skill sniffing out wards," Koubatzes said. "Suppose you see what sort of protections the plainsmen are using."
"Right." Methodios took what looked like a stone with a stout needle through it from his saddlebag. "A lodestone," he remarked to his fellows. Along with the piercing for the needle, it had another for a fine silver chain. Methodios swung it by the chain, first this way, then that. He murmured a charm and made passes with his free hand.
Suddenly it seemed to Rhavas that the lodestone was swinging on its own, not through Methodios' agency. It described a complex pattern in the air. Methodios and the mages near him watched that path with careful—indeed, fascinated—attention. "How interesting," one of the wizards said, at the same time as another was remarking, "How unusual." The independent motion was interesting to Rhavas, too, but he could not have said if it was unusual.
"Well?" Koubatzes asked a minute or so later.
"Well, I would say there are some wards," Methodios replied, and the other mages who'd eyed the lodestone nodded. He went on, "How strong they are . . . I'm not quite sure, I'm afraid. I'd have an easier time gauging it if this were Videssian wizardry." He looked down at the lodestone again. "My feeling is that the sorcery we planned before we set out from Skopentzana should do the job."
"Excellent!" Koubatzes breathed out a small fog bank with the word. "This is also my belief. How can the Skotos-loving barbarians hope to stand against us when we have not only the lord with the great and good mind but also our hard-won learning, lore, and wisdom in the other pan of the balance?"
"That is well said!" Rhavas clapped his mittened hands together. His applause yielded only a muffled thump. A moment later, he realized that was just as well. Real clapping might have carried to the Khamorth shepherds on the far side of the rise.
"I thank you, very holy sir." Koubatzes bowed to him. "We will proceed as we planned and as we've discussed, then. I have the amulet here."
He drew it out from under the thick wool tunic he wore beneath a wolfskin coat that gave him something of the look of a nomad himself. Gold gleamed in the shape of the sun-circle. So did two of the three stones set into the golden disk: an emerald of a green to make meadows despair and a rainbow-shimmering opal. The third stone, by contrast, seemed no more than a small, glassy pebble. Pointing to it, Rhavas asked, "What is that stone, and why do you set so much store by it?"
"This, very holy sir?" Koubatzes set his finger on the nondescript stone. The prelate nodded. Koubatzes said, "This is an authentic diamond. I know it doesn't look like much, but the reason for that is simple: it is so hard, it cannot be polished or shaped. No other stone will so much as scratch it; only another diamond can do that. There are no more than three or four in all of Skopentzana, I believe."
Rhavas was ready to believe it, too. Even in Videssos the city, diamonds were surpassingly rare—and prized for their rarity more than for their beauty. The prelate understood that; this stone was nothing out of the ordinary to look at. He asked, "What is its special virtue? Come to that, what are the magical virtues of the other two stones?"
Koubatzes gave him a crooked smile. "So you'd be a sorcerer, would you?"
"Not I." Rhavas shook his head. "By your courtesy, tell me what someone not initiated into your mysteries may know."
"I'll do that, and gladly," the wizard said. "The diamond, which as you see is fixed to the left side of the amulet, is good against enemies, madness, wild beasts, and cruel men. The emerald drives away enemies and makes them weak. The opal conduces to making one victorious over his adversaries."
"These are all good choices, then," Rhavas agreed. "May Phos grant success to the spells you make from your stones."
"My thanks," Koubatzes said. "Pray for us."
Rhavas did. Surely Phos would favor those who reverenced him against the savages from the steppe. "We bless thee, Phos, lord with the great and good mind, by thy grace our protector, watchful beforehand that the great test of life may be decided in our favor." He repeated the creed over and over again, bearing down on we and our. He saw no harm in reminding the good god who his true followers were. Phos already knew, of course—but still, why leave such things to chance?
Koubatzes set the amulet not on the snow but on a square of blue silk he carefully laid out so its corners pointed toward the cardinal directions. Rhavas didn't need to ask what the square represented. What could it be but the sky through which the sun traveled? Koubatzes stood south of the square. Other wizards took their places to the north and east and west. They began to chant.
Power thrummed in the air as the incantation built. Rhavas could feel it, as he could feel lightning build up in the air during a thunderstorm before the stroke fell. The wizards' hands moved in quick, intricate passes, sometimes in unison, sometimes with each sorcerer playing his own role to help form a larger and more potent whole.
The mages not directly involved in the conjuration watched avidly. Perhaps the four casting the spell drew on their strength in some way Rhavas could not see, or perhaps they were pupils learning from the performances of masters. Methodios' eyes in particular were wide and staring. Next to this, the magic he'd worked was as a boy's playhouse measured against the imperial palaces in Videssos the city.
Quite visibly, Koubatzes gathered himself. "Now!" he said, and hurled the power toward the west. Then he and all three of the mages who'd helped him staggered; one crumpled to the snow. Wizards had great power, but did not wield it without a price.
"What magic can do, magic has done," Rhavas said. "May the lord with the great and good mind bless our endeavor and crown it with success."
"So may it be." Koubatzes sounded even more drained than he looked; his voice might have been that of an old, old man. Despite the cold, sweat stood out on his face. "Food. Wine. Something to restore myself somewhat."
"Sleep," said the wizard who'd fallen in the snow as he struggled to his feet. Koubatzes and the other two nodded.
The wizards carried honey cakes and wine in their saddlebags along with their sorcerous impedimenta. They knew the men who made magics of this sort would need quick reviving. Koubatzes and the other three crammed their mouths with the sweets and gulped the strong wine as if afraid it would be outlawed tomorrow.
Ingeros drew back from the top of the low rise before calling to the wizards, "Well done, by the good god! The shepherd rode off like he had demons on his tail. Come to that, the sheep ran away, too."
Methodios, who had worked a smaller sorcery than the others, kept more of his strength. And, since he had been the mage concerned with what the Khamorth had in the way of wards, perhaps his sorcerous senses were already attuned to the nomads. Not half a minute after Ingeros spoke, the young wizard's eyes widened again, now in disbelief and alarm. "Counterspell!" he gasped.
"You're mad," another wizard said. "They couldn't possib—" He broke off. His face bore the same expression as Methodios'. "Phaos!" he gasped. "They could."
"We have to hold them." Koubatzes could barely hold himself up. Determination rang in his voice even so. "I don't know how they're doing this, but we can stop it. We must stop it. We—"
He got no further. He staggered as if someone had struck him a heavy blow. That wasn't because of his weakness from the spell he'd just cast. It came from a spell aimed at him—aimed at all the Videssian wizards, the guards accompanying them . . . and Rhavas himself.
Fear filled him. He might have been a winecup for all he could do to hold it out. He shivered. His teeth chattered. Ice ran up his back. All of that went on and on. It did not end, as it would have had the fear sprung from any natural cause. Some small part of him knew the terror was artificial, was sorcerously induced. Knowing mattered not at all.
The wizards who were on horseback dug heels into their mounts' sides. The horses bucketed off in all directions—most toward Skopentzana, but not all. Some of the horses screamed in surprise and pain. Some of the wizards were screaming, too.
For all his weakened state, Koubatzes was better able to resist the Khamorth sorcery. Still staggering, he snatched up the amulet through which he'd launched the Videssian spell at the nomads. He clutched it as a drowning man might clutch a spar. But a spar would support a shipwreck victim. The amulet seemed to help Koubatzes not in the least.
"How are they doing this?" the sorcerer cried. "How, in the name of the good god?" His desperate eyes met Rhavas'. "In the name of the good god, very holy sir, make them stop!"
Rhavas thought it miracle enough that he hadn't fled with most of the mages and guards. Just staying where he was took every ounce of strength he had. He sent up another anguished prayer to Phos. It did no good that he could find. The fear the Khamorth shamans sent forth went right on lashing him.
With a low, terrified moan, Koubatzes jumped on his horse and fled. He was the last of the wizards to hold his place. The guards were gone, too. Ingeros had lasted a little longer than the others, but only a little. There sat Rhavas on the back of his horse, all alone.
Anger poured over him for a moment, anger almost hot enough to make him forget his sorcerously spawned panic. How dared the Khamorth strike back in defiance not just of the Empire of Videssos but also of the lord with the great and good mind? How dared they? It was an outrage!
That it was an outrage made it no less true. Rhavas' anger faded, as normal emotions will. The fear remained. If anything, it grew worse. Rhavas had no idea how the Khamorth were doing what they did. For that matter, even Koubatzes had had no idea how they were doing it, or how to stop them.
The prelate's courage—or rather, his resistance to the shamans' counterspell—at last collapsed. He booted his horse into motion. Had the animal chosen to run west, it would have carried him straight to the nomads, and that would have been the end of him. But it ran east, back toward Skopentzana, and so, though broken, he escaped the final disaster.
Koubatzes' horse had galloped east, too. Rhavas' caught up with the wizard after a while. "Why are we so afraid?" Rhavas asked through teeth that still chattered as if he'd been dumped naked in the snow.
"Because they have made us so." Koubatzes' face was a mask of terror. "I had not thought the wizard born who could put me in fear. I had not thought it, but I was wrong."
"How do we escape the sorcery?" Rhavas asked him.
"If I knew, I would tell you. No—if I knew, I would do it."
Little by little, as they bucketed on toward Skopentzana, the panic eased. Rhavas made what he could of that: "They cannot afflict us forever."
"No, but for long enough." Koubatzes reined in. As well he did; his horse would have foundered soon if he hadn't.
So would Rhavas'. The prelate let his mount blow out great gusts of steaming breath through distended, blood-red—almost fire-red—nostrils. "How?" Rhavas said in something close to physical torment. "How could the nomads, the barbarians, do this to us?"
"I do not know." Horror and rage filled Koubatzes' voice. They were aimed not at Rhavas but at himself. "Everything we did went as it should have gone. Their wards seemed nothing out of the ordinary. Our spell . . . Our spell, very holy sir, was a perfect specimen of its kind. We made no error in preparing the amulet. We made no error in the conjuration. I can tell you where we made the mistake."
"Where?" Rhavas asked.
"We thought the spell would be strong enough to rout the Khamorth, strong enough so they couldn't possibly reply. We seem to have been slightly in error there." The mage's laugh rode the high, ragged edge of hysteria. "Yes, just slightly, by the good god."
"But the good god should have watched over us, should have kept any such mischance from befalling us," Rhavas faltered.
Koubatzes laughed again, even more shakily than before. "What should have happened isn't what happened, very holy sir. Perhaps you noticed that. Aye, perhaps you did. If you would like to take that up with Phaos the next time you talk to him, I hope you'll be good enough to let me know what he has to say."
Such sarcasm stopped just short of blasphemy—if, indeed, it stopped short at all. Another day, Rhavas would have called Koubatzes on it. After the dolorous overthrow he'd just escaped, he barely noticed. He said, "I saw no sign the lord with the great and good mind rejected my prayers."
"No, eh?" The wizard raised an ironic eyebrow. "Our sorcery was routed. We were routed. If we hadn't got far away, I think I would have died of that fright. Might such things give you a hint?"
Even in Rhavas' present unhappy state, that was too much for him to stomach. "If you say Phos' power does not rule the world, sorcerous sir, you say Skotos' power does. Do you say that? I see no other choice."
"No, I do not say that." Koubatzes hastily backtracked. "Maybe the good god was punishing us for our sins. Whatever his reasons, though, he let the Khamorth triumph over us."
"Whatever his reasons . . ." Rhavas echoed. The civil war loomed large in his mind. Had the general with dreams of glory not risen against his cousin, none of this would have happened. The Empire of Videssos' armies would not have hurled themselves at one another. The frontier forts would not have been stripped of men to fling into the fight. The nomads never would have had the chance to swarm off the steppe.
"No help for it," Koubatzes said gloomily. "The cursed nomads can do as they please in these parts. Who can stop them? Who can even slow them down?"
"Despair is the one sin Phos will never forgive." Rhavas tried to use that to buck up his spirits as well as the wizard's. Had the Empire truly been sinful enough to deserve a barbarian invasion in this scale? Had the nomads been virtuous enough to deserve all the plunder and rapine they would take in Videssos? He had trouble believing it.
But Phos would do as he pleased, not as mere mortals wished him to do. Rhavas had to remind himself of that. The thought was chastening. He cared for being chastened no more than any other man would have.
Koubatzes eyed him now as if he had never seen him before. "You truly believe that, don't you?"
"What sort of priest would I be if I didn't?" Rhavas returned. "A sorry one indeed, I assure you. Shall we go back to Skopentzana and do what we can to get the city ready to defend itself?"
"I suppose we'd better," the mage said. "I don't think it will do much good, though."
"Do you say that as a man or as a foreteller?" Rhavas asked.
"As a man. I have not tried to look into the future. Sometimes one is better off not knowing." Koubatzes gave Rhavas a different kind of glance now, this one speculative. "What did you ask poor Eladas when he fell over dead trying to answer your question?"
"Whatever it was, I dare hope he crossed over the Bridge of the Separator and now enjoys eternal bliss with Phos." Rhavas sketched the sun-circle. The look of terror that had filled Eladas' face in his last living moments outdid even the fright the Khamorth shamans had just inflicted on his comrades and him.
Koubatzes grunted. "Did it have to do with the civil war?"
"Of course not." Rhavas did his best to sound offended at the very question. "Anyone who seeks foreknowledge about the Avtokrator stands to lose his head—a good law, I think, and a just one. I would not break it."
"All right, very holy sir. Don't get in a temper at me, please." Koubatzes made a placating gesture. His eyes, though, his eyes remained sharp and shrewd. He had no great physical potency, but lived by his wits—and they were formidable. "So you didn't aim to go against the law? Did you aim to go around it?"
Rhavas didn't answer right away. By not answering right away, he learned the truth of a proverb. He who hesitated was lost. "What I asked—whatever it was—is my business and not yours, sorcerous sir," he said, too late.
"Uh-huh," Koubatzes said. Rhavas had never heard such a disagreeable agreement. The mage added, "You made it Eladas' business, too, didn't you? Except Eladas took one look, and that was the last look he ever took."
"You don't know that. I don't know that, either." Rhavas was trying to convince himself more than Koubatzes. "Anything could have happened to him, anything at all. It didn't have to have anything to do with . . . with whatever I asked."
"Uh-huh," Koubatzes repeated, even more devastatingly than before. "Eladas was healthy as a horse. I happen to know."
"Horses die, too," Rhavas said. "Ours almost did, just now."
"So did we," the wizard pointed out. "But it didn't just happen to us. Somebody made it happen—those accursed Khamorth shamans. Are you telling me you don't believe something made it happen to Eladas?"
Not for the first time, Rhavas wished he were a better liar. He would have loved to tell Koubatzes he didn't think the one had anything to do with the other. He would have loved to—but he couldn't.
"What did you ask him, then?" Koubatzes rapped out.
"Whether I would become ecumenical patriarch." The answer flew from Rhavas' lips. He wondered whether the wizard had used some small spell to suck it out of him.
By the way Koubatzes blinked, that wasn't the question he'd looked for. He asked, "And did he answer it before he died?"
"No." Rhavas shook his head. "He may have seen the answer, but he did not give it."
Koubatzes grunted. "Too bad."
"Yes, I think so, too," Rhavas said. The question had eaten at him ever since Eladas expired in his study. What had the soothsayer seen? Would he be patriarch? Would he not? What disaster would spring from whatever the answer was?
He'd thought about giving gold to another soothsayer. Maybe Eladas' death was nothing but a coincidence. Maybe. Try as Rhavas would, he couldn't make himself believe it. The folk of Skopentzana assumed Eladas' passing had been a coincidence. They wouldn't think so if a second man died on the same errand.
With a worn, weary sigh, Rhavas urged his horse ahead. Koubatzes rode on after him. Neither of them said much after that till they came to Skopentzana.
Tears stung Rhavas' eyes. No, it wasn't Videssos the city. No other place in the world came close to Videssos the city, not even Mashiz, the capital of Makuran. Rhavas doubted even the Makuraner King of Kings would have quarreled with that. But, even if it wasn't what he had left, it was an outpost of civilization.
Men in helmets with spears on their shoulders tramped the walls. They weren't soldiers, not in any real sense of the word. They were artisans taking one morning or afternoon a week off from their regular work to keep up the illusion that Skopentzana was garrisoned. From a distance, they resembled the warriors who'd gone off to fight in Videssos' civil war. Maybe the Khamorth would take one look at them, decide Skopentzana was ready to fend off any attack, and go away to bother the nearby farms and villages. In that case, the local militia would more than have done its duty.
But what if the barbarians didn't?
Would the militiamen fight? Probably. Would they fight bravely? Some would, no doubt. Would they fight well enough to keep the Khamorth out of Skopentzana? How could anyone tell before they were tested?
Rhavas murmured Phos' creed, bearing down slightly on watchful beforehand and the great test of life. He'd spoken the creed when Koubatzes and the other mages aimed their spell against the Khamorth, too. Much good it had done him—or them—then. He prayed now that the good god would spare Skopentzana, which had had small part, if any, in the sins of those farther south.
The gates were closed. That relieved Rhavas' mind. Someone—probably Zautzes—was taking all this seriously. The great valves swung open wide enough to admit the prelate and the mage. Then, grunting with effort, the amateur gate crew swung them closed again and awkwardly lowered the heavy bars that secured them.
"How did it go, sorcerous sir?" one of the militiamen called cheerfully to Koubatzes. Rhavas knew the man, at least by sight. He made dishes and clay pots. He was very good at that. What sort of soldier he made . . . was all too likely to be a different sort of question.
Before replying, Koubatzes flicked a questioning glance toward Rhavas. The prelate nodded—not a showy nod, but a firm one. If Koubatzes didn't tell the truth now, it would come home to roost soon enough anyhow.
Perhaps seeing the same thing, Koubatzes sighed and said, "It went not well at all, I fear. The barbarians not only repelled our sorcery but struck back at us with strength we could not match. It was an evil day, and the nomads even now move toward the city."
The potter stared at him. "How could that happen?"
"It was easier than any of us dreamt it might be," Rhavas answered. "Easier for them, I should say." Ruefully, Koubatzes nodded agreement.
All the gate crew murmured. Another man—this one a woodworker famous not only for fine furniture but also for oars—said, "But what do we do now, if this be so?"
Wizard and prelate looked at each other. "Pray," Koubatzes said before Rhavas could speak. "Pray, and hope even prayer suffices."
"If prayer does not suffice, nothing ever will," Rhavas declared.
Koubatzes refused to back down. In light of the disaster that had befallen the sorcerers and their companions, that was perhaps less startling than it might have been otherwise. "So I said, very holy sir," he replied. "By what we have seen, it may be that nothing suffices."
"What prayer can do, prayer shall do," Rhavas said. "I, and this whole city, will pray as we have never prayed before."
Rhavas had many reasons to complain about Skopentzana. Winter there was a horror the likes of which he had never known before coming to the far north. The town was years behind the times. Even the local accent was old-fashioned. What most of the complaints boiled down to was that Skopentzana wasn't Videssos the city. The prelate had never complained of the Skopentzanans' impiety.
Nor could he complain of it now. Though days had begun to grow longer after the solstice, they still remained short and cold, so cold. Nevertheless, people began coming to the chief temple (and to the other temples in the city) well before the sun rose. Rhavas could complain about the architecture of the main temple—compared to what they were doing in the imperial capital, it was both provincial and archaic—but not about his congregation's size or enthusiasm.
People bowed to him and made Phos' sun-sign as he strode up the center aisle toward the altar. His robes were the most splendid he owned, almost wholly of cloth of gold and richly encrusted with rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and pearls. They were robes probably finer than any provincial prelate deserved to wear; they were robes fit for an ecumenical patriarch.
(He would not think of Eladas. He would not . . . except when, willy-nilly, he did.)
When he took his place at the center of things—as he had been at the center of things in Skopentzana for so many years—he raised his hands and his eyes to the heavens. The whole congregation imitated his gesture. Along with everyone else in the temple, he recited the creed: "We bless thee, Phos, lord with the great and good mind, by thy grace our protector, watchful beforehand that the great test of life may be decided in our favor."
Because Videssians spoke the creed so often, they sometimes spoke it in a perfunctory way, saying the words but not really feeling or caring what they meant. Not here. Not now. Every syllable burst from every throat achingly informed with meaning. Everyone in the city knew what had happened to the wizards who went out against the Khamorth. A few more came back to Skopentzana after Rhavas and Koubatzes. The rest did not come back at all. That carried its own message.
Rhavas lowered his hands, and the congregants sank back into their seats. He said, "Lord with the great and good mind, we know we are not a perfect people. We are men and women, and so Skotos afflicts us and makes us less than we ought to be." He turned his head and spat. His hearers carefully spat between their feet, so as not to foul their fellows.
"But we also know, O Phos, that we are ever mindful of thee, and that thy goodness is written on the doorposts of our hearts," Rhavas continued. "And we know that the savage barbarians who now afflict our lands acknowledge neither thy name nor the goodness that flows so bountifully from thy heart. They work evil for the sake of working evil, and they torment us both for sport and for the sake of evil. Therefore, if it please thee, keep them far from us. Turn them back toward the borders of our land, back toward the trackless steppe that is their natural home. So may it be, O lord with the great and good mind, if thou shouldst hear our prayer."
"So may it be," the congregation echoed.
Rhavas prayed on, with a sincerity and a passionate intensity he had never reached before. He knew what fueled that intensity: fear. Part of the fear looked ahead to what might happen if the Khamorth broke into Skopentzana, the rest looked back to the memory of what the plainsmen's shamans had inflicted on him and the other Videssians who'd ridden out to meet them.
Except for Koubatzes, Methodios, Ingeros, and a tiny handful of others, the Skopentzanans did not—could not—share the latter fear. They are the lucky ones, the prelate thought. But everyone in the temple could and did share the fear of a sack. Skopentzana had had no share in destruction for many years. The fear of enemies swarming over the walls and through the gates, though, was deeply ingrained in every city-dwelling Videssian.
That being so, Rhavas continued, "And we beseech thee, O lord with the great and good mind, to strengthen our right arms, that we may defend ourselves against the Khamorth and drive them back howling in defeat should they have the temerity to assail us. So may it be, O Phos."
"So may it be," his audience echoed once more, and signed themselves with the good god's sun-circle.
"In thy kindness and mercy, send us aid in our affliction," Rhavas said. "Let there be a swift end to strife internecine within the boundaries of the Empire of Videssos. Let the Avtokrator of the Videssians, thy vicegerent on earth, speedily send soldiers to deliver us from the barbarians and to protect us against all evil. O good god, O light of the universe, so may it be!"
"So may it be!" the congregation cried. Along with him, they raised their eyes and hands to the heavens in the hope that Phos would heed them.
When the service was over, Rhavas stood in the narthex to talk with the congregants who wanted to speak to him. Koubatzes gave him a grave bow. "What prayer may do, very holy sir, prayer has assuredly done," the mage said.
"I thank you," Rhavas replied.
"Whether you should is perhaps another question, for who knows what prayer may do?" With that cryptic utterance, Koubatzes bowed again and went out into the cold.
Zautzes waddled up to the prelate. Amusement—perhaps even admiration—sparked in the eparch's eyes. "You are a clever fellow, very holy sir, a most clever fellow," he said.
"I thank you for your kindness, most honorable sir," Rhavas said.
Zautzes chuckled as if he'd just caught a fat fly wafted along on a merry little breeze. "'Let the Avtokrator of the Videssians speedily send soldiers,'" he quoted. "Aye, let him indeed! And you managed to pray that he would without ever naming him. Well done! Very well done indeed!"
"As a cousin to Maleinos, I care a great deal about who rules the Empire," Rhavas said. "As prelate of threatened Skopentzana, I care not a fig. Whoever rules, let him send soldiers soon."
"That is well said." Zautzes bowed. As with most plump men, he needed some effort to do it. Straightening, he added, "You are an example to us all."
"I wish I were an example for the Avtokrator and the rebel," Rhavas said sadly. "They fight for the throne and forget the Empire they rule."
The eparch bowed again. "That is also well said." He paused for a moment, considering. "You being who you are, very holy sir, have you thought to write to his Majesty explaining your views?"
"Have I thought of it, being who I am? I have certainly thought of it, yes," Rhavas replied. "And I have decided not to do it. This has nothing to do with the difficulties of posting a letter in such unsettled times, either. It has to do with the difficulty of being who I am. One of the things a man in my position learns is that my cousin who is Avtokrator will brook more interference from a near-stranger than from me. He will presume the near-stranger knows no better, where he will presume I do know better and am seeking advantage in spite of what I know."
"I . . . see." Zautzes plucked at his beard. He let out a long sigh. "I must tell you, that makes more sense than I wish it did. You show yourself to be not unacquainted with the way the mind of a powerful man is likely to work." He turned as if to go, then paused and looked back at the prelate. "But it is a great pity all the same, is it not?" He didn't wait for an answer, but sorrowfully waddled away.
Balked of the chance to say anything, Rhavas found himself nodding. Zautzes told nothing but the truth there. Had Rhavas thought the Avtokrator would pay any attention to his pleas, he would not have hesitated an instant in making them. Only being sure they were pointless held him back.
For that matter, he had no idea whether Maleinos even had any men he could send to Skopentzana if he wanted to. Surely the Khamorth also menaced other towns closer to Videssos the city. How much of the Empire of Videssos were the barbarians overrunning? How much would still be in Videssian hands by the time this suicidal civil war was done? Would the Empire belonging to whoever finally won be worth having?
Maleinos and Stylianos think so, Rhavas thought gloomily. As long as they do, no one else's opinion mattered.
Women came down from their gallery. Some of them visited the temple to be seen going in and out of it, even if custom kept them from being seen while they worshiped. Some of the younger men were every bit as much on display. But some of the women were as serious about what went on in the wider world as any of the men. And some were at least as shrewd as any of their male counterparts.
"Can we buy off the barbarians?" one matron asked Rhavas. "Can we send them gold to leave this city alone?"
"Perhaps," Rhavas said. "It is the weaker party's ploy in diplomacy, and usually a bad precedent, but perhaps. But what is to keep the Khamorth from taking our money and then attacking even so?"
"Why, the hope of getting more money from us later, of course," she answered.
"It is to be considered," Rhavas admitted. She gave him a brisk nod and strode out of the temple, wrapping her ermine stole around her neck as she went.
Ingegerd's bright hair made Rhavas imagine the noonday sun lit the narthex. She walked up to him with a grave nod of approval. "You spoke well, very holy sir," she said.
"For which I thank you," Rhavas said. "I wish I did not need to beseech the good god to aid us in such troubled times."
"We do what we must do," the Haloga woman said. "We beg the good god to help us, and we do all we can to help ourselves."
"You are a sensible woman." Rhavas shook his head. He did not want to patronize her. It suddenly seemed important that he not patronize her. "You are a sensible person. Himerios is fortunate in you."
With its granite underpinnings, the way her face softened was startling. "If you have room left in your heart after praying for Skopentzana, please pray for Himerios. Every time the Avtokrator and the rebel fight, I die a little more inside. And now Maleinos will have to face the barbarians, too."
Stylianos would also have to face them. Ingegerd said nothing about him, for her husband served the Avtokrator. Trying to console her as best he could, Rhavas said, "I do not think the Khamorth will attack the imperial army any time soon. They will do what is easy before they try anything hard."
"That puts off the evil day. It does not mean the evil day will not come," Ingegerd replied. Her cold, clear intelligence saw through to the heart of things. What she saw now with it made her own heart break. Struggling to hold the iron self-control Rhavas had always known in her, she went on, "I fear it will be long and long before Himerios comes home to Skopentzana once more."
"What will you do?" Rhavas asked.
Ingegerd hesitated. The prelate had not realized how he was hanging on her answer till he noticed he did not breathe while he waited. At least, she said, "I shall do the best I can, very holy sir. What else can I possibly do?"
And what is that? Rhavas thought it, but did not ask it. Being as sensible as she was, she would have told him she did not know now, but would have to find out as time went by. Why ask the question when you already know the answer? Instead, he said, "You are as wise as—" He broke off.
"As what, very holy sir?" Ingegerd asked, direct as usual.
As you are beautiful. But Himerios had asked him to keep an eye on her not for his own sake but for the officer's. And he had his own vows, his own knowledge of what he must not do, of what he had taken solemn oath he would not do, hedging him round. "As you are sensible," he said, hardly half a heartbeat later than he should have.
"My sense seems senseless. My wisdom, such as it is, fails me. He is not here; because he is not here, Midwinter's Day might as well not have come." Ingegerd gathered herself. "In your kindness, you might pray for me as well, but only after you pray for Skopentzana and for Himerios. They are more important." She dipped her head to him, then left the narthex, her back straight, looking only ahead, never behind.
Someone else came up to Rhavas after she had gone. The prelate must have said the sorts of things that needed saying. The man or woman must have been satisfied with whatever he did say. He had no memory of any of it. His thoughts were only on Ingegerd. I will pray for you, he thought. Oh, yes. And if Himerios was hacked to pieces by barbarian blades, if Skopentzana fell in fire and ruin, he would have prayed for what was important to him.
He realized that was wrong. Realizing it and being able to do anything about it were two different things. As long as he was praying, he would have to add some prayer for himself.
Not long after the prayer service, peasants began fleeing into Skopentzana from their outlying farms. Some told tales of horror, having barely escaped with their lives after the Khamorth plundered them and their neighbors. Others, wiser or simply more afraid of what might happen, ran off before disaster came down on them.
Zautzes began by putting the refugees in the barracks halls the garrison had occupied till recently. Before long, they filled those halls to overflowing. Skopentzana's temples housed some. The eparch quartered others on people who volunteered to help them. People stopped volunteering when one of the peasant fugitives got caught trying to sell his host's silver candlesticks.
That delightful news sent Zautzes to Rhavas' study. "What am I supposed to do now, very holy sir?" the eparch demanded in tones not far from despair. "I have people shouting at me to shut the gates against any more peasants. By the good god, I have people shouting at me to throw all the peasants in Skopentzana already out in the snow."
"Would you punish those who have done no wrong along with the guilty?" Rhavas asked. "Where is the justice in that?"
"The fellow who heads the militia we're using in place of real soldiers says they're eating up our food and not giving us anything in return," Zautzes replied. "He says they'll make it harder for us to stand siege if we have to, and so we ought to run 'em out."
"Can the Khamorth besiege us? Can we do anything at all about it if they do except pray and hope for the best? If they can and we can, can we last long enough for what these peasants eat to matter?" Rhavas was full of questions.
Zautzes only shrugged—once, twice, three times. "Very holy sir, I don't know the answer to any of those. I don't suppose anybody in Skopentzana does. I'll tell you this, though: I don't want trouble inside the city, especially now. I don't want these raggedy peasants stealing from people who are trying to do them good. And I don't want a mob going peasant hunting and murdering and raping for the fun of it, either."
"A point," the prelate admitted. "All right, then. Tell the head of the militia to come here before me. Maybe we can see eye to eye."
"I'll do it," Zautzes said at once. "I hope you can get him to see straight. Phaos knows I haven't had any luck."
The man who led Skopentzana's militia—the man who apparently had had the idea to form it—was a mason named Toxaras. He had a thick black beard with the first few streaks of gray in it, a face handsome in a rough sort of way, and the scarred, callused hands typical of his trade. Rhavas barely knew him; the man was not in the habit of worshiping at the chief temple.
Matzoukes showed him into Rhavas' study. Toxaras stared at the swarm of books in some surprise. The lesser priest had to cough to get him to bow to Rhavas. "Very holy sir," he murmured, his voice deep and rough. His wave encompassed the scrolls and codices. "Have you read all of these?"
Rhavas wished he had a copper for every time he'd heard that question. By now, the coppers would have added up to several goldpieces—for charity, of course, he thought. "They aren't much good to anyone if he doesn't read them, are they?" he returned.
"Are they any good to anyone if he does read them?" Toxaras asked.
Before Rhavas could get angry, he realized the mason was serious. "I think so," he said. By the way Toxaras' mouth twisted, he wasn't convinced. The prelate continued, "I fear you are stirring up unrest in the city."
"Not me, very holy sir." Toxaras shook his head. "No, not me, by the good god. It's these cursed thieving peasants. They're the trouble. I just want to be rid of 'em."
"You want to leave them at the mercy of the Khamorth, you mean," Rhavas said, "the only trouble being that the Khamorth know no mercy."
Toxaras' bushy eyebrows drew down and together in a frown. "You make me out to be a villain, and a heartless man. I am no Skotos-lover." He spat on the floor. So did Rhavas. Frowning still, Toxaras said, "I am no villain. I am a man of Skopentzana. I want the best for my city. When I see these people eating up our food and stealing from the ones who took them in, when I see none of them in the militia, I think they put us all in danger. I don't see how anyone else could think any different, either." He glared defiance at the prelate.
In a struggle of good against evil, figuring out what to do was child's play. Not so when two conflicting visions of good collided. What did count for more, sheltering those peasants in Skopentzana or protecting the city against both them and the plainsmen? It was less clear-cut than Rhavas wished it were.
Sighing, he said, "If a man steals, no one can quarrel with forcing him out of the city. But how can you say the like when you speak of men who have done no wrong, of women who will have to suffer the nomads' lusts, of children who will be murdered while the nomads laugh? Where is the justice in expelling them?"
"They eat, very holy sir," Toxaras said patiently. "If Skopentzana holds twice as many people as usual, its food will last only half as long. That puts all of us in twice the danger we'd know otherwise."
"No." Rhavas' voice was sharp. "That would put us in twice the danger. But the peasants have not doubled our numbers, nor anything close to it. And since they have not, the danger has not come close to doubling, either." If Toxaras tried to chop logic with him, the mason would be sorry. Rhavas had been a prize student at the Collegium in Videssos the city.
But Toxaras didn't try. Shrugging broad shoulders, he said, "Have it your way. There's more people in Skopentzana right now than there ought to be. That means we're in more danger than we ought to be. And that means we ought to run those peasants out."
Rhavas folded his arms across the chest. "I say the risk is acceptable."
"Maybe it would be, if we had the garrison here," Toxaras said. "Now? I know the militia. I'd cursed well better, eh? We'll do our best, and that's the truth. But we aren't real soldiers, as much as I wish we were. We haven't got the weapons, we haven't got the armor, we haven't got the drilling regular soldiers get. We'll do the best we can, yes, not that those peasants will thank us for it. But I have to tell you, I don't know how good it will be."
"This also would be true regardless of whether we had refugees in the city," Rhavas replied. "Here is what I say to you as prelate of Skopentzana: if you expel people who have done nothing to deserve it, I shall anathematize you in the temple for all to hear. No one will treat with you after that, and Skotos' ice will await you on your death. You say you do not love the dark god. Now is your chance to prove it."
The mason's glare looked hot enough to melt all the snow for miles around. "All right. All right," he said heavily. "Have your way, very holy sir." He turned Rhavas' title into one of contempt, even of hatred. "Yes, have your way. But here is what I have to say to you: if Skopentzana falls, on your head be it. If the Khamorth sack this town, on your head be it. If they rape my wife and kill my kids, on your head be it. And if they slaughter all your precious peasants, too, on your head be it. I've done what I can for Skopentzana. You're doing what you can to Skopentzana." He sprang to his feet and stormed from the study. A moment later, the outer door to Rhavas' residence slammed thunderously.
Rhavas looked up past the ceiling to the heavens. Slowly, he nodded, as if at a bargain in the market square. "Lord with the great and good mind, I have done that which is right in my eyes," he said. "Grant the benefit of our salvation to this, the city I serve. And if Skopentzana should fall to the barbarians because I prove to be in error, let the blame be on my head. Let others be free of it. So may it be."
He waited, his head cocked a bit to the side, one eyebrow quizzically raised, as if expecting some answer from the good god. None came, of course. Phos was not in the habit of answering prayers in so many words. The play of events showed which were answered, which denied.
Not for me, the prelate thought. Not for me, but for the city. That part of the prayer stayed silent, but the good god surely heard it as well as he heard the part Rhavas had offered aloud.
Matzoukes poked his head into the study. "Am I right in guessing Toxaras was less than happy at what you told him?"
"I fear you are," Rhavas replied. "He disagrees with me down to his very bones, but he will do as I have asked him. The peasants will stay in Skopentzana. No one will be cast out of this our city without good cause. No one, do you hear me?"
"I certainly do, very holy sir." The young priest sketched the sun-circle over his heart. "May everything come to pass as you desire."
"Yes. May it indeed." Rhavas got to his feet. Weariness—not just of body but of spirit—shrouded him. He felt as if he'd been in a physical brawl with Toxaras, not just a battle of wills. He wasn't altogether sure he'd won it, either, even if the head of the militia had yielded to him. He was bruised inside, if not on his arms and shoulders and face.
Rhavas was used to getting his way in all things, partly because of who his ancestors were but more because of who he was. He'd got his way here, too, even if he'd had to threaten to hurl anathemas at Toxaras to do it. He'd got his way, but he hadn't mastered the other man's will. Toxaras remained as convinced of his own righteousness as Rhavas was of his.
The prelate sighed and stretched and sat down again. He said, "Would you be kind enough to fetch me a cup of wine? I have a bad taste I should like to wash out of my mouth."
"Of course, very holy, sir. I'll be right back." Matzoukes hurried away.
When Rhavas took the wine, he relied as much on the ritual accompanying it as on the drink itself to calm his nerves. Raising his hands to the heavens, rejecting Skotos with his spittle . . . How many times had he done that before drinking? More than he could count. That very familiarity—was it like what husband and wife enjoyed after years together? He could not truly judge that. He did know the ritual was the one thing he might have known better than his own name.
Today, though, neither it nor the sweet wine soothed him as he had hoped. Toxaras' defiance still roiled his spirit. I am not wrong, Rhavas told himself again and again. I am not wrong.
Unable to sit still, he strode out of the study, draped himself in his warmest robe, and left the residence. A man in ragged, threadbare clothes was staring at the great bronze of Stavrakios as if he'd never seen such a marvel. He probably hadn't—he had to be one of the peasants Toxaras so despised.
You will stay here and you will be safe, Rhavas vowed to himself. You will, or on my head be it.