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"I don't want them to be glad to see us," Maniakes said. "I want them to hate
us so much I want all of Makuran to hate us so much, aye, and to fear us so
much, too
that they give over their war, give back our land, and settle down inside
their own proper borders. If Sharbaraz offers to do that, as far as I'm
concerned he's bloody well welcome to however many of the Thousand Cities that
are left standing by then."
He looked back over his shoulder. A good many of the wagons in the baggage
train carried not fodder for the beasts or food for the men but stout ropes,
fittings of iron and brass, and a large number of timbers sawn to specific
lengths. The
paraphernalia looked innocuous till the engineers assembled the catapults from
their component parts, which they could do much faster than most Makuraner
garrison commanders realized.
The timbers that went into the siege engines were also useful in another way.
Canals crisscrossed the flat floodplain between the Tutub and the Tib. To slow
the
Videssians, the Makuraners were not averse to opening the banks of the canals
in their path and letting water flow out to turn roads and fields alike to
mud. Plopped down into that mud, the timbers could make a passable way out of
one that was not.
In a thoughtful voice, Rhegorios said, "I wonder what Abivard will try to do
against us this year, now (hat he has some of the Makuraner boiler boys "
Videssian slang so named the fearsome Makuraner heavy cavalry, whose members
did indeed swelter to the boiling point in the full armor that encased not
only them but their horses, as well." to go with the infantry levies from the
city garrisons."
"I don't know." Maniakes suspected he looked unhappy. He was certain he felt
unhappy. "We would have done better the past two years if Sharbaraz had sent a
worse general against us. I first got to know Abivard more than ten years ago
now, and he was good then maybe better than he knew, since he was just
starting to lead campaigns. He's got better since." His chuckle had a wry edge
to it. "I hardly need say that, do I, since he's the one who conquered the
westlands from us?"
"This army isn't so good as the one he used to do that," Rhegorios said. "He
hasn't got all the heavy horse with him, only a chunk of it, with the rest in
the westlands or up in Vaspurakan. And do you know what? I don't miss the ones
I won't see, not one bit I don't."
"Nor I," Maniakes agreed. They rode on in silence for a little while. Then he
went on, "I wonder what Abivard thinks of me how he plans his campaigns
against me, I
mean."
"What you do what you do that most people don't, I mean is that you learn
from your mistakes," his cousin answered.
"Is that so?" Maniakes said. "Then why do I keep putting up with you?"
Rhegorios mimed being wounded to the quick, so well that his horse snorted and
sidestepped under him. He brought it back under control, then said, "No doubt
because you recognize quality when you see it." That wasn't bragging, as it
might
have been from another man; Rhegorios, in fact, did not sound altogether
serious. But the Sevastos continued in a more sober vein: "You do learn.
Things that worked against you two years ago won't work now, because you've
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seen them before."
"I hope so," Maniakes said. "I know I used to rush ahead too eagerly, without
looking to see what was waiting for me. The Kubratoi almost killed me on
account of that, not long after I took the throne."
"But you don't do that anymore," Rhegorios said. "A lot of people keep on
making the same mistakes over and over again. Take me, for instance: whenever
I see a pretty girl, I fall in love."
"No, you don't," Maniakes said. "You just want to get your hands, or
something, up under her tunic. It's not the same thing."
"Without a doubt, you're right, O paragon of wisdom," Rhegorios said with a
comical leer. "And how many men ever learn that?"
He was laughing as he asked the question, which did not mean it wasn't a good
one. "Eventually you get too old to care, or else your eyes get too bad to
tell the pretty ones from the rest," Maniakes replied.
"Ha! I'm going to tell my sister you said that."
"Threatening your sovereign, are you?" Maniakes said. "That's lese majesty,
you know. I could have your tongue clapped in irons." This time, he leered at
his cousin.
"And if I do, the girls won't like you so well."
Rhegorios stuck out the organ in question. It was easy to laugh now. The
campaign was young, and nothing had yet gone wrong.
The Xeremos sprang from hilly country north and west of Lyssaion. Those same
hills gave rise to the Tutub, which, with the Tib, framed the Land of the
Thousand
Cities. Instead of flowing south-east to the Sailors' Sea, the Tutub ran north
through the floodplain till it emptied itself in the landlocked Mylasa Sea.
Having traveled quickly up the length of the Xeremos, Maniakes' army slowed in
the rougher country that gave birth to the river. The soldiers had to string [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]