"As may be, but here I am jealous of you again," Frada said. "You get all the glory, and I stay behind."
"I told you two years ago, there's less glory to war than you think," Abivard answered. "Whatever there is, though, you'll get your share. With Sharbaraz on the throne, may his years be many and his realm increase, there's not doubt of that."
"May you be right," Frada said. "I'm glad you're home, too, though." His face clouded. As if continuing the same sentence, he went on, "Mother wants to see you as soon as you can spare even a moment."
"I want to see her too, of course," Abivard said.
"I really think you should do it as soon as you can," Frada said, still sounding unhappy. "Maybe even now-what with the feasting, no one will particularly notice if you're away from the middle of things for a bit."
Roshnani caught what Abivard was missing. "Something's gone wrong in the women's quarters, hasn't it?"
Frada seemed uneasy at the prospect of speaking to his brother's wife, but he nodded. Abivard clapped a hand to his forehead. Battle was clean and simple; you could tell at a glance who had won and who had lost, and often have a good idea about why. None of that held true for disputes in the women's quarters. Having but one wife with him, he had been free of such tangles the past year and more, an advantage of monogamy he hadn't considered till now. He said, "All right, I'll see her this instant,"
Relief blossomed on Frada's face. "Come with me, then." He gestured to include Roshnani in the invitation but still did not say anything directly to her.
As Abivard walked toward the doorway into the inhabited part of the stronghold, eyes watched from the windows of the women's quarters. What were his wives, or perhaps his half sisters, thinking in there? What had gone wrong past the power of his mother and brother to fix?
Inside the entranceway, the savory smells of fresh pocket bread and roasting mutton, the bouquet of sweet wine, made his nose twitch and his stomach rumble. No less than anyone else, he wanted to feast and drink and rejoice.
But he turned away from the kitchens and went with Frada and Roshnani down the hall that led to the dihqan's bedchamber. Frada stopped at the door. "I've gone into this room, brother, to meet with our mother. By the God, I swear I have not gone past it and into the women's quarters proper since you set out with Sharbaraz to reclaim his throne."
"Just telling me would suffice," Abivard said. "You needn't take on about such a matter as that. If I didn't trust you, would I have left you in charge of the stronghold?"
Frada didn't answer, nor did he seem eager even to enter the bedchamber now that Abivard was back at Vek Rud stronghold. His scruples seemed excessive, but Abivard shrugged and went into the chamber with Roshnani alone. As he closed and barred the door, Frada's footfalls rapidly receded down the corridor. Abivard shrugged again.
He had carried a key to the door of the women's quarters all the way to Videssos and back. Now he used it to open that door. He was anything but surprised to find his mother waiting for him on the other side. He took her in his arms, kissing her cheek. "It's so good to be back," he told her, as he had Frada.
Burzoe accepted his affection as her due, as she did Roshnani's more formal greeting. To Roshnani she said, "If you think I approve of your breaking our ancient customs, you are mistaken. If you think I am not delighted to learn you are carrying a son and heir, you are even more mistaken. I welcome you back to the domain and your proper place in it, principal wife of my son."
"I may not always stay in what you think my proper place, mother of my husband," Roshnani answered. Abivard would have had trouble imagining her impolite, but that did not mean she would abandon the greater freedom she sought.
"We shall speak of this again," Burzoe said, retreating not a barleycorn's width from her position, "but now is not the proper moment." She turned to Abivard. "Come with me to my chamber-the two of you may as well come, now that I think on it. The decision here, though, must be yours, my son."
"What is this in aid of, Mother?" Abivard asked as they walked down the hall.
"Frada told me something was amiss, but would say no more than that."
"He acted properly," Burzoe said. She stood aside to let Abivard precede her into the chamber, then went in ahead of Roshnani. A serving woman appeared at the doorway, as if conjured up by magic. Burzoe fixed her with a baleful glare. "Bring Kishmar and Onnophre here. They know what they need to bring."
"Yes, mistress." The woman hurried away. Her face was pale and frightened. Wives, not half sisters, at any rate, Abivard thought. In a way, that was a relief. He had bedded both the women a few times for form's sake, but that was about all. They were pretty enough, but no great spark had flared in him, nor, he thought, in either of them.
The serving woman returned. Behind her came Kishmar and Onnophre. Their appearance startled Abivard: both were heavier, softer, than he remembered, and both had dark, tired circles under their eyes. The reason for that was easy enough to understand, though-each of them carried a baby wrapped in a soft wool blanket. Abivard did not know a great deal about babies, but someone who knew much less than he would have known these two were far too small to have been conceived while he was at Vek Rud stronghold.
He stared at his mother. She nodded grimly. "Oh, dear," he said.
She rounded on his junior wives, her voice fierce. "The dihqan has returned to his domain. What have you to say for yourselves, whores?"
Onnophre and Kishmar both began to wail, producing a hideous discord that grated on Abivard's ears. "Forgive!" Onnophre cried, a heartbeat before Kishmar bawled out the same word. They started telling their stories at the same time, too, so he sometimes had trouble figuring out which one he was listening to. It didn't matter. Both stories were about the same. They had been bored, they had been lonely, they had feared he was never coming back from wherever he had gone-neither woman seemed quite clear on that-and so they had managed to find a way to amuse themselves… and paid an all too common price for that amusement.
He looked at them. "By the way things seem, you didn't wait any too long before you found yourselves, ah, friends." That set his wives wailing again. Ignoring the racket, he turned back to Burzoe. "Are there any others with bulging bellies?"
She shook her head. "There should not have been these two. The blame for them is mine; I failed to keep proper watch on the women's quarters. But the fate of these two sluts and their worthless brats lies in your hands."
"Oh, dear," Abivard said again. If he felt like slaughtering the women and the babies, he would have been within his rights. Many a dihqan would have whipped out his sword without a second thought. Many a dihqan wouldn't have waited to hear what the miscreant wives had to say; he would have slain them as soon as he saw the babes in their arms.
"What will you do with those who have brought cuckoo's eggs into your nest?" Burzoe demanded. Her eyes expected blood.
Roshnani stood silent. This choice was Abivard's, not hers. All the same, he looked at her. He could not read her face. He sighed. "I make a decent soldier," he said wearily, "but I find I haven't it in me to be a butcher. I shall find black pebbles and divorce them and send them far away. Too many in Makuran have died this past year. Four more will not help."
"It is not enough!" Burzoe cried, and Abivard was reminded overwhelmingly of Denak's dismay at anything that smacked of half measures. Father and son, mother and daughter, he thought.
Kishmar and Onnophre babbled out thanks and blessings. Onnophre took a step forward, as if to embrace him, then checked herself, which was one of the wiser things she had done. Abivard said, "If I didn't put Ardini to the sword, how can I kill these two? They weren't so much wicked as foolish. They can sew; they can spin. They'll make their way in the world."
"Cast them out at once then," Burzoe said. "Every day they stay in the women's quarters adds to their shame-and to my own."
Abivard suspected the latter concern weighed more heavily in his mother's mind than the former. He said, "Since the scandal has been here for months, one more day to settle it won't matter. I've been away for more than a year. Today I aim to enjoy my return."
Burzoe's upraised eyebrows spoke eloquently of disagreement, but all she said was, "You are the dihqan of Vek Rud domain and the master of the women's quarters. It shall be as you ordain."
Abivard's soon-to-be-former wives showered him with benedictions. They could have faced the sword like Smerdis, with their babes left out on the hillside for dogs and ravens, and well they knew it. No doubt it hadn't seemed real to them while he was away on campaign. He might not have come back at all, in which case their adulteries stood a chance of going unpunished. Having him before them suddenly put matters in a different light.
"Be still," he said, in a voice he might have used to order his lancers to charge. Onnophre and Kishmar stared at him. No one, plainly, had ever spoken to them so. If someone had, perhaps they might not have found themselves in their present predicament. He went on, "I do not forgive you. I merely spare you. If the God grant that you find other husbands, use them better than you did me." The women started to talk. He overrode them: "You've said too much, you've done too much already. Take your bastard babes and get out of my sight. Tomorrow I will find the black pebbles and send you forth."
They fled out of Burzoe's chamber. Burzoe looked at him with a small, grudging hint of approval. "That was well done," she said.
"Was it?" Abivard felt weak and sick inside, as if he had just been through a battle in which he almost died. "Tomorrow it will be over. They can go off and be stupid at someone else's expense, not mine."
"It won't be easy for them, even so," Roshnani said. "Yes, they can earn their bread, but they'll have hard lessons in living outside the women's quarters. How to deal with butchers and merchants, how to speak to men-"
"That they know already," Burzoe said savagely.
"What would you have had me do?" Abivard asked Roshnani.
She sighed. "What you could do, you did. As you said, this should be a day of joy. I'm glad you chose not to stain your hands with blood here."
Burzoe shook her head. "He was soft. Mercy now will only encourage others to act as those sluts did."
"Mother of my husband, we do not agree." Roshnani's voice was quiet. She did not offer Burzoe argument, but she did not back away from her own view, either.
Burzoe did not seem to know what to make of that. Roshnani had been properly deferential, as a daughter-in-law should have, but had not yielded, as most daughters-in-law would have. The combination was disconcerting. She took refuge in a common complaint: "You young people have no respect for the way things should be done. If I'd gone gallivanting off to the ends of the world the way you and Denak did, I don't know-and I don't want to think about-what would have happened to my reputation."
"Nothing happened to Denak's reputation," Roshnani said with the same quiet determination to get her point across that she had shown before, "save that she got to bear a child who, with luck, will be King of Kings far earlier than she could have if she'd stayed behind here till the war was won."
"If Roshnani hadn't come with us, the war likely would have been lost, not won," Abivard told his mother, and explained how it had been his principal wife who had the idea to take refuge in Videssos. He added, "If they'd stayed, you probably never would have had a grandchild with a chance to be King of Kings."
"Custom-" Burzoe said, but she let it go as that. The prospect of a King of Kings or royal princess as a grandchild did have considerable allure.