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"It's not really the command I want," Abivard said. "I want to be back at the head of the field force and take it into the Videssian westlands again. If we're on the move there, maybe we can keep Maniakes from attacking the Thousand Cities this year." He paused and laughed at himself. "I'm trying to spin moonshine into thread, aren't I? I'll be lucky to have any command at all; getting the one I particularly want is too much to ask." "You deserve it," Roshnani said, her voice suddenly fierce. "I know I do," he answered without false modesty. "But that has only so much to do with the price of wine. What does Tzikas deserve? To have his mouth pried open and molten lead poured down his gullet by us and the Videssians both. What will he get? The way to bet is that he'll get to die old and happy and rich, even if nobody on whichever side of the border on which he ends up trusts him as far as I could throw him. Where's the justice there?" "He will drop into the Void and be gone forever while you spend eternity in the bosom of the God," Roshnani said. "That's so or I hope that's so," Abivard said. It did give him some satisfaction, too; the God was as real to him as the pillow on which he sat. But "I won't see him drop into the Void, and where's the justice there, after what he's done to me?" "That I can't answer," his principal wife said with a smile. She held up a forefinger. "But Denak said to tell you to remember your prophecy whenever you feel too downhearted." Abivard bowed low as he sat, bending almost double. He would never see a silver shield shining across a narrow sea if he remained commander in the land of the Thousand Cities. "I may have been wrong," he said humbly. "There may be some use to foretelling, after all. Knowing I will see what was foretold lets me bear up under insults meanwhile." "Under some insults, for some time, certainly," Roshnani replied. "But Tanshar didn't say when you would see these things. You're a young man still; it might be thirty years from now." "It might be," Abivard agreed. "I don't think it is, though. I think it's connected to the war between Makuran and Videssos. That's what everything about it has seemed to mean. When it comes, whatever it ends up meaning, it will decide the war, one way or the other." He held up a hand, palm out "I don't know that for a fact, but I think it's true even so." "All right," Roshnani said. "You should also know you're going back to the land of the Thousand Cities for a while, because you didn't see the battle Page 122 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html Bogorz' scrying showed you." "That's true; I didn't," Abivard admitted. "Or I don't think I did, anyhow. I don't remember seeing it" The frown gave way to a sheepish laugh. "Is it a true prophecy if it happens but no one notices?" "Take that one to the Videssians," Roshnani said. "They'll spend so much time arguing over it, they won't be ready to invade us when the campaigning season starts." By her tone of voice, she was only half joking. From his time spent among the Videssians, Abivard thoroughly understood that If a problem admitted of two points of view, some Videssians would take the one and some the other, as far as he could tell for the sake of disputation. And if a problem admitted of only one point of view, some Videssians would take that and some the other, again for the sake of disputation. Roshnani said, "If we understand the prophecies rightly, you'll beat Maniakes in the land of the Thousand Cities. If you don't beat him there, you won't have the chance to go back into the Videssian westlands and draw near Videssos the city, now, will you?" "I don't see how I would, anyhow," Abivard said. "But then, I don't see everything there is to see, either." "Do you see that for once you worry too much?" Roshnani said. "Do you see that?" Abivard held up his hand again, and she stopped. Genuine curiosity in his voice, he said, "Could Sharbaraz have ordered me slain last winter? Could I have died with the prophecies unfulfilled? What would have happened if he'd given the order? Could the headsman have carried it out?" "There's another question the Videssians would exercise themselves over for years," Roshnani answered. "All I can tell you is that I not only don't know, I'm glad we didn't have to find out. If you have to hope for a miracle to save yourself, you may not get it." "That's true enough," Abivard said. The children's game broke down in a multisided squabble raucous enough to make him get up and restore order. He kept on wondering, though, all the rest of the day. VIII If you were going to be in the land of the Thousand Cities, the very beginning [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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