Harry Turtledove: The Thousand Cities

Whenever he stopped at one of the surviving Thousand Cities, Abivard examined how well the city governor had kept up the local garrison. He was pleased to find most of those garrisons in better shape than they had been two years earlier, when the Videssians had first entered the floodplain. Before then both city governorships and slots in the city garrison had been the nearest thing to sinecures: but for flood or drought, what ever went wrong among the Thousand Cities? Invasion was not an answer that seemed to have occurred beforehand to many people.

Romezan paid the revived city garrisons what might have been the ultimate compliment when he said, «You know, I wouldn't mind taking a few thousand of these foot soldiers along with us when we go into the Videssian westlands. They really can fight. Who would have thought it?»

«That's not what you said when you came to my aid last summer,» Abivard reminded him.

«I know,» Romezan answered. «I hadn't seen them in action then. I was wrong. I admit it You deserve a lot of credit for turning them into soldiers.»

Abivard shook his head. «Do you know who deserves the credit for turning them into soldiers?»

«Turan?» Romezan snorted dismissively. «He's done well with them, aye, but he's still only a jumped-up captain learning how to be a general.»

«He's done very well, as a matter of fact, but I wasn't thinking of him,» Abivard answered. «The one who deserves the credit for turning them into soldiers is Maniakes. Without him they'd just be the same swaggering bullies they've been for the God only knows how many years. But that doesn't work, not against the Videssians. The ones who are still alive know better now.»

«Something to that, I expect,» Romezan said after a reflective pause.

«It's also one reason why we're not going to take any of those foot soldiers into Videssos,» Abivard said. Romezan's dark, bushy brows pulled down and together in confusion. Abivard explained: «Remember, we want the Videssians heavily engaged here in the land of the Thousand Cities. That means we're going to have to leave behind a good-sized army to fight them, an army with good fighting men in it. Either we leave behind a piece of the field army-»

«No, by the God!» Romezan broke in.

Abivard held up a placatory hand. «I agree. The field army is the best Makuran has. That's what we send against Videssos the city, which will need the best we have. But the next best we have has to stay here to keep Maniakes in play while we move against the city.»

Again Romezan paused for thought before answering. «This is a tricky business, gauging all the separate strengths to make sure each is in the proper place. Me, I'd sooner point my mass of troops at the foe, charge him straight on, and smash him down into the dirt.»

«I know,» Abivard said, which was true. He added, «So would I,» which was less true. «But Maniakes fights like a Videssian, so stealth makes do for a lot of his strength. If we're going to beat the Empire so it stays beaten, we have to do it his way.»

«I suppose so,» Romezan said unwillingly. «But if we fight like the Videssians, we'll end up acting like them in other ways, too. And they know no caste.»

He spoke with great abhorrence. Abivard knew he should have felt that same abhorrence. Try as he would, he couldn't find it inside himself. He wondered why. After a few seconds' thought he said, «I've lived so long in Videssos and here in the Thousand Cities, I don't mind that nearly so much as I used to. Up on the Plateau breaking people into tight groups-the King of Kings, the Seven Clans and the servants of the God, the dihqans, artisans and merchants, and peasants down at the bottom-seemed a natural thing to do. Now I've seen other ways of doing things, and I realize ours isn't the only one.»

«That's no sort of thing for a proper Makuraner to say.» Romezan sounded almost as dismayed as if Abivard had blasphemed the God.

But Abivard refused to let himself be cowed. «No, eh? Why is it you kiss my cheek, then, instead of the other way around? You outrank me. I'm just a dihqan, and a frontier dihqan at that.»

«I started giving you that courtesy because you're brother-in-law to the King of Kings,» the noble from the Seven Clans answered. If he'd kept quiet after that, he would have won the argument. Instead, though, he went on, «Now I see you've earned it because-»

Abivard stuck a triumphant finger in the air. «If you grant me the courtesy because I've earned it and not because of my blood, what has that got to do with caste?»

Romezan started to answer, looked confused, stopped, and tried again: «It's-that is-» He came to another stop, then burst out, «You have lived among the Videssians too long. All you want to do is chop logic all day. Now I'm going to be thinking for the next half dozen farsangs.» He made the prospect sound most unpleasant. Abivard had seen that before in many different men. It always left him sad.

Tzikas, on the other hand, actively enjoyed thinking. That wasn't necessarily a recommendation, either. The older Abivard got, the more it looked as if nothing was necessarily a recommendation for anything.

Outside Qostabash men from the field army were playing mallet and ball, galloping their horses up and down a grassy stretch of ground with great abandon. Every so often a loincloth-clad peasant, his blue-black hair bound in a bun at the nape of his neck, would look up from his labor with hoe and mattock and watch the sport for a little while before bending back down to weed or prune or dig. Abivard wondered what the peasants thought of the shouting warriors whose game was not far from combat itself. Whatever it was, they kept it to themselves.

He had sent a rider out ahead of his company to let Turan know he was near. Two years before Turan had been only a company commander himself. He'd risen fast, since Abivard had access to so few veteran Makuraner officers on whom he could rely. Now Turan had shown himself able to command an army. Very soon he'd have the chance to do just that

Now he came riding out of Qostabash to greet Abivard and his companions-he must have had men up on the walls of the city keeping an eye out for them. The first thing he did after pulling his horse alongside Abivard's was to point over at Tzikas and say, «Isn't he supposed to be dead, lord?»

«It all depends on whom you ask,» Abivard answered. «I certainly think so, but the King of Kings disagrees. As in any contest of that sort, his will prevails.»

«Of course it does,» Turan said, as any loyal Makuraner would have done. Then, as anyone who had made the acquaintance of Tzikas would have done, he asked, «Why on earth does he want him alive?»

«For a reason even I find… fairly good,» Abivard answered. He spent the next little while explaining the plan Sharbaraz King of Kings had devised and the places his sovereign had designated for him and for the Videssian renegade.

When he was through, Turan glanced over at Tzikas and said, «He had better make keeping him alive worth everyone's while or else he won't last, orders from the King of Kings or no orders from the King of Kings.»

«Far be it from me to argue with you,» Abivard said. Lowering his voice, he went on, «But I've decided I'm not going to do anything about it till after Videssos the city falls, if it does. Either way, the problem takes care of itself then.» He explained his reasoning to Turan.

The officer nodded. «Aye, lord, that's very good. If we fail, which the God forbid, he gets the blame, and if we succeed, we don't need him anymore after that. Very neat. Anyone would think you were the Videssian, not his unpleasantness over there.»

«Too many people have said the same thing to me lately,» Abivard grumbled. «I thank the God and the Prophets Four that I'm not»