Videssos Besieged ttot-4

by Harry Turtledove

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  From his new altitude, the Avtokrator said, «Rise.»

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  «Majesty, the God judges him now, not mortal men,» Yeliif answered. «Not long before I set out for this city, his successor had his head stricken from his body.» Was that regret? Yeliif had presumably been at court throughout Sharbaraz's reign. However little use most Makuraners might have had for Sharbaraz at the end, he might have been sorry to see his sovereign overthrown.

  Well, Maniakes thought, that's not my worry. Aloud, he said, «I have gifts for you to take to Abivard King of Kings on your return to Makuran.» That, too, was ritual.

  But then affairs in Makuran became Maniakes' worry, for Yeliif broke with ritual by prostrating himself again. «Majesty, may it please you, I cannot return to Makuran, save only that my head should answer for it, as Sharbaraz's did for him,» the beautiful eunuch said. «Abivard King of Kings sent me here not only as embassy but also as exile.» He sighed, a wintry sound. «He was, in his way, merciful, having had it in his power to slay me out of hand.»

  «I won't slay you out of hand,» Maniakes promised. «I'm sure I'll be able to learn a great deal about Makuran from you.» I'll squeeze you dry, was what he meant. Yeliif nodded to show he understood and assented—not that he had much choice. Maniakes went on, «For now, esteemed sir, you may reckon yourself enrolled among the eunuchs of the palaces.»

  «Majesty, you are gracious to an exile,» Yeliif said. «I shall have a great deal to say about everyone I know, I assure you.»

  «I'm sure you will,» Maniakes said. «I'm sure you will.» Betrayal was the coin with which the beautiful eunuch would buy his welcome in Videssos the
city. Abivard must have known as much and exiled him anyhow, which was… interesting. And Yeliif did not have to have it spelled out for him. Maniakes studied the limpid dark eyes, the elegant cheekbones, the sculptured line of jaw. Though a man only for women himself, he recognized the danger in that loveliness. Yes, Yeliif would know about betrayal. And, of course, someone in Yeliif's early days had given him over to be castrated. What worse betrayal than that?

  The Avtokrator bowed his head, signifying the audience was ended. Yeliif prostrated himself, rose, and backed away from the throne till he could turn around without showing disrespect. A great many eyes followed him as he withdrew from the Grand Courtroom.

  «Yes,» Yeliif said, «of course, the lady Denak was furious when Abivard chose to rule as King of Kings rather than as regent for Peroz, her son by Sharbaraz. Before that, she was furious with him for overthrowing Sharbaraz just when she'd finally gained influence over the then-King of Kings by bearing a son. Before that, she was furious with Sharbaraz for not giving her the influence she reckoned her due as principal wife.» The eunuch sipped wine and nodded first to Maniakes and then to the secretary who was taking down his words for further study.

  «And what of Sharbaraz?» Maniakes asked. «How did he take it when he learned Abivard was moving against him?»

  «He bellowed like a bull.» Yeliif's lip curled in scorn. «And, like a bull, he raged this way and that, neither knowing nor caring how he might best meet the threat before him, so long as he could bellow and paw the ground.»

  With a faint scrape-scrape, the secretary's stylus raced over the waxed surface of his three-leaved wooden tablet. Maniakes slowly nodded. He hoped Yeliif would take that for agreement and understanding. Both were there, but so was something else, something that grew with every conversation he had with the beautiful eunuch: wariness. The next complimentary word Yeliif said about anyone at the Makuraner court would be the first. What was in a way worse was that the eunuch didn't seem to notice he was casually savaging everyone he mentioned. His view was so jaundiced, Maniakes had trouble deciding how much reliance he could place in it.

  Experimentally, the Avtokrator said, «And what of Romezan? He's a noble of the Seven Clans. How does he feel about serving a sovereign born a mere dihqan?»

  «It's no great difficulty.» Yeliif's gesture was elegant, scornful, dismissive. «Give Romezan something to kill and he's happy. It could be Videssians, it could be wild asses, it could be those who followed Sharbaraz. So long as he welters in gore, he cares not what gore it is.» Scrape-scrape went the stylus.

  «He fights well,» Maniakes observed.

  «He should. He's had practice enough. He'd fight himself, I daresay, till the bruises got too painful even for him to bear.» Somehow, malice was all the more malicious when expressed in that sweet, sexless voice. If Romezan had practice fighting, Yeliif had the same in backbiting—but he'd never wounded himself. «And Abivard?» Maniakes said.

  «I warned Sharbaraz of him long ago,» the beautiful eunuch said. «I told him Abivard had his eye on the throne. Did he heed me? No. Did anyone heed me? No. Should he have heeded me? Majesty, I leave that to you.»

  «Suppose Sharbaraz had got rid of him,» Maniakes said– actually, he said Sarbaraz; here in the city, he didn't care if his accent was imperfect. «Who would have led Makuran's armies against us this past spring?»

  Yeliif returned a perfect shrug. «Romezan. Why not? He might have done better, and could hardly have done worse—worse for Makuran, I mean, as he made quite a good thing for himself out of failure.» Such cynicism took the breath away, even for an Avtokrator of the Videssians. Coughing a little, Maniakes said, «I begin to see why Abivard doesn't want you coming back to Mashiz.»

  «Oh, indeed,» Yeliif agreed. «I remind him of the time when the world did not turn at his bidding, when he was small and weak and impotent.»

  For a eunuch to use that particular word, and to use it with such obvious deliberation, was breathtaking in its own way. Maniakes got the idea Yeliif had done it to throw him off balance. If so, he'd certainly succeeded. «Er—yes,» the Avtokrator said, and dismissed the exiled ambassador from Makuran.

  «I thought you'd want to go on longer, your Majesty,» the secretary said after Yeliif had gone.

  «So did I,» Maniakes said, «but I'd had about as much spite as I could stomach of an afternoon, thank you very much.»

  «Ah.» The scribe nodded understanding. «You listen to him for a while and it does kind of make you want to go home and slit your own wrists, doesn't it?»

  «Either your own or your neighbor's, depending on whom he's been telling tales about,» Maniakes answered. He glanced over to the scribe in some relief. «You thought so, too, did you? Good. I'm glad I'm not the only one.»

  «Oh, no, your Majesty. Any milk of human kindness that one ever had, it curdled a long time ago.» The secretary sounded very sure. But then, in meditative tones, he added, «Of course, losing your stones, now, that's not the sort of thing to make you jolly and ready for a mug of wine after work with the rest of the lads, is it?»

  «I shouldn't think so,» Maniakes said. «Still, I haven't known any of the eunuchs here to be quite so—» At a loss for words to describe Yeliif's manner, he gestured. The secretary nodded once more. Having heard the beautiful eunuch, he did not need to hear him described.

  Maybe his beauty had something to do with the way he was, Maniakes thought. He would surely have been pursued at the court of Mashiz, very likely by men and women both, his loveliness being of a sort to draw and hold the eye of either sex. What had being the object of desire while unable to know desire himself done to his soul?

  When the Avtokrator wondered about that aloud, the scribe nodded yet again. But then he said, «The other chance is, your Majesty, you don't mind my saying so, he might be a right bastard even if he had his balls and a beard down to here and a voice deeper than your father's. Some people just are, you know.»

  «Yes, I had noticed that,» the Avtokrator said sadly. He dismissed the scribe: «Go have yourself a cup of wine, or maybe even two.» The man left with fresh spring in his step. Watching him go, Maniakes decided to have a cup of wine himself, or maybe even two.

  When Kameas started to prostrate himself before Maniakes, the Avtokrator waved for him not to bother. To his surprise, the eunuch went through the full proskynesis anyhow. To his greater surprise, he saw a bruise on the side of Kameas' face when the vestiarios rose. «What happened?» Maniakes asked. «Did you walk into a door, esteemed sir?»

  «Your Majesty,» Kameas began, and then shook his head, dissatisfied with himself. He took a deep breath and tried again: «Your Majesty, may I speak frankly?»

  «Why, yes. Of course, esteemed sir,» Maniakes answered, thinking that might have been the most unusual request he'd ever had from a court eunuch. He wondered whether Kameas could speak frankly, however much he might wish to do so.

  By all appearances, such unwonted effort wasn't easy for the vestiarios. But then, after touching his bruised cheek, Kameas seemed to steady on the purpose for which he had approached the Avtokrator. He drew in another deep breath and said, «No, your Majesty, I did not walk into a door. I received this… gift at the hands of another of your prominent servitors.»

  At the hands of another eunuch, he meant, prominent being the next step below esteemed in their hierarchy of honorifics. Maniakes stared. Eunuchs' squabbles were commonly fought with slander, occasionally with poison, but… «Fisticuffs, esteemed sir? I'm astonished.»

  «So was I, your Majesty. I must say, though,» Kameas added with a certain amount of pride, «I gave as good as I got.»

  «I'm glad to hear it,» Maniakes said. «But by the good god, esteemed sir, what on earth set you and your colleagues to boxing one another's ears?» That sort of display of bad temper was a vice of normal men upon which eunuchs usually looked with amused contempt.

  «Not what, your Majesty, who,» Kameas replied, his voice going surprisingly grim. «The reason I have come before you
, the reason I am violating propriety and decorum, is to request that you—no, to beg that you—find some way of removing this serpent of a Yeliif from the palaces, before it comes to knives rather than fists. There. I have said it.» It couldn't have been easy for him, either; his breath came in little gasps, as if he'd forced his fat frame to run a long way.

  «What on earth has he done, esteemed sir, to make you ask something like that only a couple of weeks after he got to the city?»

  «Your Majesty, that Makuraner eunuch is a snake with a skin of honey, so that, his bite being at first sweet, one does not feel the venom till too late. He has, in the little space of time you named, set all who dealt with him in any way at odds with one another, playing with the imperial eunuchs as cat plays with mouse, making some hate the rest—» Kameas touched his cheek again. «—and every one of us suspect everyone else. Had Skotos risen from the eternal ice—» Kameas and Maniakes both spat. «—he could have worked no greater mischief among those who serve.»

  «What is he up to?» Maniakes asked. «Does he think that, by sowing discord, he'll make me want to supplant you as vestiarios? If he does, esteemed sir, believe me, he's mistaken.»

  «Your Majesty is gracious.» Kameas bowed. «In point of fact, though, I would doubt that. As best I can see, Yeliif stirs up hatreds for no better reason than that he enjoys stirring up hatreds. It being winter, there are no flies whose wings he can pull off like a small, nasty boy, so he torments the servitors around him instead.»

  That was franker speech than Maniakes had ever imagined from Kameas. «We'll get to the bottom of this,» he assured the vestiarios. «Summon the esteemed Yeliif. I will not condemn him without hearing what he says in his own behalf.»

  «Guard your ears well against his deceits, your Majesty,» Kameas said, but he went off happier than he had approached the Avtokrator.

  As they had been whenever Maniakes saw him, Yeliif's manners were impeccable. After prostrating himself with liquid grace, he inquired, «In what manner may I serve you, Majesty?»