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And when morning came, he did know it. Knowing it felt good, too. He went
downstairs to breakfast in a distinctly happy mood.
He got happier when no one else spooning up barley porridge and drinking the
day's first cup of wine complained of going blind for a little while the night
before. He hadn't thought the miscast spell went beyond his own room, but
being proved right came as a relief.
The stable boys had groomed his Khamorth ponies till they looked as fine as
they could which wasn't very. No, they weren't much to see when set alongside
the horses Videssos bred. But looks didn't matter so much to Rhavas. He'd seen
that the steppe ponies could keep going long after bigger, handsomer horses
would have foundered.
When he rode out the south gate, the guards there asked his blessing. He gave
it, and wondered whether
it would do them the good they'd hoped or turn on them the way his spell had
turned on him when he substituted the dark god's name for that of the lord
with the great and good mind. He shrugged. Again, he would be gone before he
could find out.
Farmers and herdsmen waved to him as he rode by. He waved back why not? Every
so often, he would turn and look northeast over his shoulder. No, no sign of
anyone coming after him. He smiled.
Either they hadn't found Himerios and the wizards yet or they hadn't figured
out he had anything to do with their untimely demises. The same also seemed to
hold true for the man he'd felled in the tavern brawl.
It was funny, in a way. He represented a greater threat to long-established
Videssian customs than even the civil war between his cousin and Stylianos. No
one but himself knew it, though, or cared.
Threats . . .
For a long moment, he paid no attention to the horsemen letting their mounts
graze in the middle of a broad meadow. He was looking ahead toward the Long
Walls. He couldn't see them yet, but he knew they couldn't be far. And after
the Long Walls, Videssos the city.
But those horsemen . . . They weren't Videssians. They were Khamorth, in the
nomads' usual furs and leathers. They rode the same sort of shaggy ponies as
Rhavas did himself. They made no move toward him. It didn't look as if they
were there to murder or to plunder. They were just . . . there, as wild
animals might have been . . . there. But they were no wolves or ravens. They
were men.
And they'd got through and behind all the imperial defenses as if those
defenses not only didn't matter but didn't exist. Rhavas had heard people say
the nomads roamed close to the capital. He hadn't believed it, not till
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now any more than he'd believed Skotos was more powerful than Phos till now.
In both cases, though, what he saw made him change his mind.
He thought about cursing the plainsmen, but what was the point? More he
couldn't see would be close by. If these stayed where they were, sooner or
later soldiers or even assembled peasants would drive them off. Shaking his
head at the sorry state of the Empire, he kept riding.
For that matter, the Khamorth saw that evil was more powerful than good. Maybe
that made them closer to him than he'd thought. Maybe it made them closer to
him than most of his own countrymen were. There was a truly dispiriting
thought.
"I can show Videssos the truth," he said, as if someone had denied it. "I can
show the temples the truth."
Before too long, a troop of horsemen in jingling mailshirts under blue
surcoats trotted up the road past him. He wondered if the Khamorth still
rested in the field. If they did, the imperial cavalry would make them sorry.
But the nomads had already made the Empire much sorrier. And Rhavas didn't
think that would end any time soon.
* * *
When Rhavas rode up to a gateway in the Long Walls, his heart hammered in
apprehension. If his name and description had got there ahead of him, the
guards might try to seize him. They might even have a sorcerer with them, a
man strong enough to help them lay hands on him.
If he was going to get to Videssos the city, though, he would have to run this
gauntlet sooner or later.
Sooner, he judged, was better. The longer he waited, the longer word about him
could spread.
A sentry sketched the sun-sign over his heart. "Good morning, holy sir," he
said as Rhavas rode up.
"Where are you from, and where are you bound?"
"Phos' blessings upon you," Rhavas said, savoring his own hypocrisy as he too
drew the sun-circle. "I
was lucky enough to escape from the far northeast, and plan on returning to
Videssos the city."
"You've been on the road a long time, then," the guard remarked.
"Oh, by the good god, haven't I just!" Rhavas answered.
Not only was that true, it made the gate guard laugh, as Rhavas had hoped it
would. The fellow said, "You were lucky to come through all the trouble along
your way, too."
"Yes, I know I was," Rhavas said, more soberly this time. "The lord with the
great and good mind let me do it, though. I shall thank him as he deserves
when I get to the capital."
Just as he deserves
, Rhavas thought.
"I have a question for you first." The sentry swung his pike horizontally
across his body to block the way.
"Who is the rightful Avtokrator of the Videssians?"
"Why, the Avtokrator Maleinos, of course," Rhavas said without a moment's
hesitation. He also believed that to be true.
So, plainly, did the guard at the gate. With a broad grin, he swung up the
pike once more. "Pass on, holy sir!"
"My thanks." Rhavas made sure the words didn't sound as if they ought to have
you chucklehead attached to them. A man of sardonic temperament even before [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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