Harry Turtledove - The Stolen Throne

"Much as I hate to say it, maybe the tribute Smerdis paid the nomads did some good," Abivard remarked.

Frada spat on the walkway of the stronghold wall they paced together. "That for Smerdis and his tribute both. Stinking usurper. How could you speak any good of a man against whom you spent most of two years at war? If it weren't for you, he'd likely still be King of Kings. Aren't you glad he's gone?"

"That I am. As you say, I went through too much getting rid of him to wish he were still here." A little voice inside Abivard, though, asked how much difference having Sharbaraz on the throne rather than Smerdis would mean for Makuran in the long run. Was changing the ruler worth all the blood and treasure spilled to accomplish the job?

Fiercely, he told the little voice to shut up. In any case, whatever the civil war had done for Makuran as a whole, it had surely made his fortune-and his clan's. Without it, he would never have become brother-in-law to the King of Kings, nor possibly uncle to Sharbaraz's successor. He would have stayed just a frontier dihqan, rarely worrying about what happened outside his domain.

Would that have been so bad? the little voice asked. He ignored it.

Roshnani came out of the door to the living quarters and strolled across the courtyard. She saw him up on the wall and waved to him. He waved back. The stablemen and smith's helpers and serving women in the courtyard took no special notice of her, which Abivard reckoned progress. The first few times she had ventured out of the women's quarters, people had either stared popeyed or turned their backs and pretended she wasn't there, which struck Abivard as even worse.

From the women's quarters, eyes avidly followed Roshnani as she walked about. Because of what Kishmar and Onnophre had done, Abivard hesitated to give his other wives and half sisters the freedom Roshnani enjoyed. He would willingly have granted it to his mother, but Burzoe did not want it. If one of the faces behind the narrow windows was hers, he was sure her mouth was set in a thin line of disapproval.

Frada nodded down to Roshnani and said, "That hasn't worked out as badly as I expected."

"There's the most praise I've yet heard from you about the idea," Abivard said.

"It's not meant as praise," Frada answered. "It's meant as something less than complete hatred of the notion, which is the place from which I began."

"Anything less than complete hatred is the most praise I've heard from you," Abivard insisted.

Frada made a horrible face at him and mimed throwing a punch in his direction. Then, hesitantly, he said, "I hope you don't mind my telling you that I've talked to the lady Roshnani a few times."

Abivard understood his hesitation; if by Makuraner custom a noble was the only man who with propriety could look at his wife, he was even more emphatically the only man who could with propriety speak to her. Abivard said, "Don't fret yourself about it. I knew such things would happen when I gave her leave to come out of the women's quarters. I didn't see how it could be otherwise: if she came out and no one would speak to her, that might be even worse in her mind than staying confined in there."

"Doesn't it bother you?" Frada demanded. "You've stood more customs on their heads-"

"I'm not the only one," Abivard reminded him. "Sharbaraz King of Kings is doing with our sister what I'm doing with my wife. And a lot of customs got overthrown summer before last, along with our army. I've tried to keep the changes small and sensible. Really, I don't think Father would have disapproved."

Frada pondered that. At last, he gave a grudging nod. "You may be right.

Father… I won't say he often broke custom, but he never seemed to take it as seriously as, say, Mother does."

"Well put." Abivard nodded in turn. "He'd work within custom whenever he could, but I don't think he'd let it bind him if he needed to accomplish something."

"Hmm. If you put it that way, brother of mine, what do you accomplish by letting Roshnani out of the women's quarters?" Frada looked smug, as if sure he had come up with a question Abivard couldn't answer.

But Abivard did answer: "I get the benefit of her advice more readily, which served me-and Makuran-well on campaign. And her advice is apt to be better if she sees things for herself than if she hears about them secondhand. And, on top of all that, I make her happy, which, as you'll discover when you marry, is not the least important thing in the world." He sent Frada a challenging stare.

His brother said, "If it's not the least important thing in the world, why did you set it at the foot of your list of arguments, not at their head? No, don't answer. I know why: to make the others seem bigger."

"Well, what if I did?" Abivard said, laughing. He set a hand on his brother's shoulder. "You've grown up, this past year. When I went off to war, you'd never have noticed the way an argument was made."

"I've heard enough of them since, wearing your sandals while you were away." Frada rolled his eyes. "By the God, I've had more people try to sneak lies past me than I ever imagined. Some folk have no shame whatever; they'll say anything if they think they see an arket in it."

"I won't say you're wrong, because I don't think you are. What made Smerdis do what he did, except that he thought he saw an arket in it?"

"Rather more than one," Frada said.

"Well, yes," Abivard said. "But the idea behind his greed and everyone else's is the same." He gave Frada a sidelong look. "And how many lies got past you?"

"Drop me in the Void if I know-I couldn't very well notice the ones that got past me, now could I?" Frada answered. He paused for a moment, then resumed.

"Fewer and few as the months went by, I do hope."

"Yes, that's something worth aiming at," Abivard agreed.

He looked out over the battlements toward the Vek Rud River to the north. Ripening crops watered by qanats made the land close to the river a carpet of gold and green; herds grazed on the scrub farther away. He let out a long sigh.

"What is it?" Frada asked.

"I was standing just here, near enough, and peering out toward the river two years ago, when Father came up on the wall and told me the Videssians had been spreading gold around among the Khamorth to make them want to fight us," Abivard said. "Everything that followed sprang from that."

"It's a different world now," Frada said.

"It certainly is. I didn't expect to be dihqan for another twenty years-the same for Okhos and for Pradtak, too, I suppose," Abivard said. "Sharbaraz didn't expect to be King of Kings for a long time, either-and Smerdis, I daresay, never expected to be King of Kings at all."

Frada looked out at the domain, too. "Lords come and lords go," he said. "The land goes on forever."

"Truth again," Abivard said. "I give thanks to the God that the nomads contented themselves with going after our flocks and herds and didn't seriously try to wreck our croplands. Repairing qanats once they're broken isn't a matter for a season; it takes years."

"We fought a couple of skirmishes with them last year near the edge of the irrigated land; they wanted to pasture their flocks in the wheat and the beans," Frada said. "But when they found out we had enough warriors left to keep that from being an easy job, they gave it up-the God and the Four be praised." He wiped his forehead. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried; for a while, I feared you'd hardly have a domain to come home to."

"That's all right," Abivard said. "For a while, I didn't think I was coming home, anyway. Smerdis had us by the neck-pushed out across the Tutub, away from the land of the Thousand Cities, with the desert at our backs… If it hadn't been for Roshnani, I expect we'd have perished there."

Frada glanced down at Roshnani, who was talking with a leatherworker. He still hesitated to look directly at her for more than a moment, but let his eyes slide across her and then back. Even so he said, "Well, considering what she did, maybe she does deserve to be out and about."